The other option is to let the players with the money set up their own
banking system in the same way that things used to work in the Old West,
with couriers carrying money from place to place and individuals setting
their own banking practices.
The difficulty with this, is that every bank MUST be privately protected
with its own guard force and so everyone who wants to get into the business
needs a LOT of small platoons.
The part that makes it hardest, however, is when the inevitable robbery
occurs. As Olympia does not have any way to track a unit, as long as the
robbers grab and then run to a nearby province, there is very little way of
catching them, short of ambushing them somewhere as they come through.
Look at other bandits we have had, Dr Pain, Zyzak. Neither of these were
caught by pursuers, both were killed when they entered a region which had
a stronger force ALREADY waiting. This means the banking enterprise needs
ambushing teams waiting in every region within 1 months ride of the bank,
so as to be able to kill the robbers as they pass through. If they have
horses (as all decent bank robbers will), then this can be a large area to
guard.
So, I'll be happy to start a few banking branches as soon as there is a
suitable way to track and follow a unit as it moves around during a turn.
e.g. a command "FOLLOW unit_name (days)".
(days) is optional and implies that the chase will be called off if it
continues for longer than (days). If omitted, it means continue until both
units are in the same region or until the trail is lost.
This could work using an observation skill compared to the number of the
group being followed and their stealth skill. If the observation skill is
better than the stealth of the unit being followed, then the following unit
tracks the other unit to each regiuon they travel to. The skills are
compared each day with modifiers of the duration apart the units are, so
that if the following unit is getting closer and catching up (travelling
faster), their chances increase. If they are slower, their chances drop
until finally they loose the trail.
Get this going, and banking might be possible. I just don't know if it
would be profitable but that is a minor problem to be worked on.
Kaspar [581]
Aka Rob McNeur
Rob@ccc.govt.nz