Node mandates

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Alpha-2 Node mandates.[1][2]

The more citizens like what a mayor is doing, the more power they're going to get to do more things; and the less citizens like what they're doing, the less power they're going to get to do things.[2] – Chris Justo

Node mandates are an energy system that enables Mayors to take actions within a node.[3][1][2] Mandates are designed to limit the ability for Mayors to "grief" their node.[3][2][4]

  • A newly elected mayor may begin their term with "a couple" of default mandates.[5]
  • Unused mandates at the end of a mayor's term will be lost.[5]
We're concerned about limiting how much damage a bad faith mayor can do; and this is definitely one of those systems that if you're doing good things that the citizens are agreeing with- and this is part of your power as a citizen even if even if you think you don't have any power- this is one of your main things is agreeing with what the mayor is doing makes them able to do more actions; and that are hopefully are favorable for you.[2] – John Collins
Q: Is there a cap on the energy for mandates?
A: There is not currently a cap that's designed for mandates. However, mandates are an accrued energy through action and actions have cooldowns associated with them that you can do them over certain periods of time; and they also have certain weights that are applied by design. So naturally within a given period of time a mayor will only have the ability to do so many things that generate mandates; and as a result that is the soft cap. However, the system is built- or is being built- in such a way where that is a variable we can define through testing when we see if there should be, or should not be, we can add that at a later time.[6] – Steven Sharif

Mayors

Depiction of a mayor.[7]

Mayors have a unique ability to elicit change within the node proper, either through the destruction of certain buildings that have been constructed previously, because there's a limited number of slots that buildings can be constructed within, or the kickoff of additional projects, or the certain types of policies that can be enacted, like... the changing of a tax rate. They all have a unified source of energy requirement and the energy requirement is a mandate.[2] – Steven Sharif

Mayors are chosen through different election methods according to the node's type.[8][9][10]

  • Previous mayors won't have any special system driven bonuses to help them get reelected.[16]
Q: What stops a player from renouncing their node citizenship of an enemy node then bidding on your economic node mayoral election just to grief it after they get elected?
A: That sounds like a strategy! There are obviously going to be certain mechanics that when a mayor engages with its node, requires buy-in from the citizenship. So, the mayor is going to have a certain amount of mandate energy and that mandate energy can be spent on promoting certain policies, electing certain buildings to be constructed, choosing, certain trade agreements and alliances; and many of those things require the citizenship to buy in, through either voting or engaging with those systems to determine whether or not the mayor can successfully do those things. So there's a bit of a relationship between what the citizenship wants and what the mayor wants.[3] – Steven Sharif
  • Players will be able to view a historical listing of mayors of a node.[17]

Mayoral commissions

Alpha-2 Mayoral commissions board outside City hall in the Miraleth node.[18]

Mayoral commissions serve as a strategic decision base for the mayor. What issues am I facing? What issues do I believe I will face? How is this aligning with my strategy? And then how will my citizens help me help participate in accomplishing these goals so that I'm best set strategically for what I intend to do with those commissions?[19] – Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 Mayoral commissions UI panel.[20]

These are much like regular commissions that I think we've shown off in the past. The difference here is the Mayor is picking which ones are going to be available to players and when enough players complete them, the node gets a reward.[21] – Chris Justo

Mayoral commissions are simple types of quests with singular objectives that are able to be initiated by mayors.[21][1][22][23]

  • There are a limited number of commission slots available to be set by the mayor at any one time.[21][24][22]
    • The list of commissions available to the Mayor resets daily. Completed commissions will go on cooldown and won't be able to be selected again until the cooldown period has ended.[25]
    • More mayoral commissions will become available as the node progresses; and the commissions that are available will change based on how the node is built.[21]
  • Important commissions, such as War Preparations, will require large numbers of dedicated players to successfully complete.[26]
    • It has not yet been confirmed by the developers if these will be restricted to node citizens.[27]
My inclination is that for certain types of node actions that grant the mayor certain node powers that we will expect only citizen participation at a certain threshold, but it's something that obviously we're going to be testing in A2.[27] – Steven Sharif
  • Mayoral commissions can be conducted by both citizens and non-citizens, but only citizen contribution will generate mandates for the node.[24][22]
Q: Is participation always going to be greater for larger nodes by default, or can a small node with close to 100 participation still greatly benefit from them?
A: That's gonna come down to what commissions the mayor is initiating. Level three nodes aren't going to be initiating mayoral commissions that require thousands of players to participate, because they don't have access to those; where Metropolises that have a huge citizenship base will get access to those kinds of commissions. So the rewards will be proportionate to the node level and the expected amount of citizens.[29] – Chris Justo

Node policies

Node policies.[1][30]

Nodes have a number of slots that they get to employ as Government policies that are enacted and chosen by the mayor and voted on by the people; and certain policies get unlocked by certain happiness states of the factions within the node; and those happiness states are predicated across different achievements that can happen in the world story arcs that get finished; bosses that get killed around you; new buildings that get constructed: Lots of different things can contribute to that happiness value: Number of citizens; number of citizens you've had leave; number of houses that might have been foreclosed upon. There's lots of different things that influence it, but when the happiness is met at a certain point- and even without that happiness you can still have policies that you get to enact regardless. You may choose policies that do certain things for the node; and this is a big strategic decision that the node has to almost agree on because it's voted on by the citizens within a short time period, but elected by the outstanding mayor; and when you deploy a policy it confers benefits to the citizens, or to the area, or to specific buildings, or to the mayor.[31] – Steven Sharif

Example node policy.[31]

Node policies affect a variety of node functions, such as taxes and fees, building and zone buffs, and node-to-node reputation activities, such as trade agreements, and node wars.[32][1][30]

The intent is that there are varying degrees of influence that are very powerful depending on the policy that we're talking about, depending on the mandates that the Mayors exert in order to utilize those policies.[32] – Steven Sharif
  • Mayors propose node policies that are voted on by citizens within a 24-hour or shorter time period.[1][30][31][33]
    • Policies are voted in if the majority of voters approve of them.[34]
    • Mayors can utilize their available mandates to bypass policy votes.[1][30][2]
    • Mayors may also be able to take emergency actions depending on certain predicates that get met. This might allow them to reduce the voting threshold or voting time for policies.[34][31]
  • There are a limited number of policy slots available to be proposed.[1][30] Some policies occupy multiple slots.[31]
  • Node policies that are deployed will provide benefits to various aspects of the node, its citizens, its ZOI, its vassals (in some cases), specific buildings, and to its mayor.[34][31]
    • Certain policies may affect the visual appearance of the node.[35]
Some of the benefits you can receive by being a vassal of a certain parent is access to a policy that your node not might not normally have access to; and in fact you can also unlock an additional policy slot based on certain conditions that the parent or Sovereign node may have access to in their reliquary, or in their achievement systems, or in policies that they've elected. Some policies occupy multiple slots and it's almost like a card structure. You have each of these policies that live on a card and you get to select that card- throw it into the slot it goes out to the citizens to vote on within the 24-hour or sometimes shorter period. The mayor has emergency actions they can take right depending on certain predicates that get met and if an emergency action occurs they may be able to spend their influence as mayor within their term to set up a policy for a vote within an hour's period of time; and citizens in that way they can sneak it through a bit.[31] – Steven Sharif

Policies are unlocked by various conditions within a node.[1][30][31][33]

There's a lot of different things that policies can influence; and policies exist within certain denominations. You have some policies that might be reflective of the culture that the node is representing; and you get access to those cultural policies. You have some policies that might become available because you've constructed a certain building type and now you've attracted a guild of NPCs that are weapons smiths. You might have some policies that are social organizations representative- you only get to build one social organization or Temple: which religion does the node follow. All of these are customization points that the city gets to choose and now you as a citizen get to identify the city that best aligns with your progression within the game and your game style and gameplay.[31] – Steven Sharif

Node-to-node reputation

Example Ren'Kai node policy affecting node-to-node reputation.[31]
Q: If two nodes are friendly towards each other but a new mayor wants to unilaterally start a war, how many mayoral cycles would it take for the new mayor to degrade node relations to the point that a war commission would become available?
A: That's a very very good question. So, that includes a system that hasn't yet fully been implemented, which is our mandate power system; and mandates are essentially powers that the mayor will have available to them in order to enact certain policies; and some policies might make it possible for the mayor to degrade node relationships faster than would normally be available, but cost him more mandate power in order to enact those policies. Now this requires some level of buy-in from the citizenship: Not just the fact that he got elected, but these policies that get enabled will require some opt-in participation from the broader citizenship. And if then he is granted some of those emergency power acts that the policies provide. he could skip the standard degradation period or time in order to enact either a war event or some other type of adverse relationship type action with the node.[40]
Q: There seems to be many ways nodes can hurt each other through PvP means. Are there ways to hurt rival nodes without a direct PvP system or component?
A: There are less straightforward ways to affect a node than PvP. Some of those ways can be through commissions that might help to degrade the reputation between nodes that have alliances or trade partnerships with each other. Some means might be through [the] land management system, where you can sap the resources of the surrounding area for the node, driving population away from that. [Some] might be through policy choices that certain nodes can take, which help to isolate some of the actions that your neighboring nodes can take. It can be through vassalship- There's a lot of different systems that are secondary and not necessarily PvP Centric that we intend to provide nodes the ability to interact with.[38] – Steven Sharif

Trade agreements

Trade agreements are established by Mayors to trade node commodities between nodes via mayoral caravans.[43][44][45][46][47][48][42]

info-orange.png
Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.
Mercenary guilds will be a viable way forward for different organizations. I think there will be a lot of business to be had with that; and one of the systems in our trade agreements is creating an escrow for those particular type of arrangements that we're looking into.[50] – Steven Sharif

Node wars

Miraleth channelling the Godspike in an Alpha-2 Territory control node war.[51]
God Spike Scholar PvE objective during the Harness the Godspike node war event.[52]

Scholars are going to spawn across the POI. They'll be marked on our map and they're going to increase the time it's required for the enemy to channel; and drop a hefty amount of the materials we need to turn in to be able to channel ourselves.[53] – Chris Justo

Node war map icons
Miraleth Node Icon.png Friendly node
Winestead Node Icon.png Enemy node
Node War Objective Icon.png Node war objective
POI Blue Node Controlled.png Controlled POI

Mayors may declare war on another node and rally citizens to the cause.[54][33][42]

We don't want mayors running around in Ashes of Creation just perma flagging the whole world into a state of PvP, well it's going to cost you some resources to do that.[54] – Chris Justo
  • Node wars are structured into phases, and each phase consists of events. Winning phases and events offer long-term and short-term rewards.[63]
A war contains phases and phases contain events. So, there are conditions to win a phase and then there are conditions to win a war. Winning a phase gets you some amount of in-the-moment rewards and some more long-term rewards. Winning events gets you some amount of in-the-moment rewards and long-term rewards. And then the war is the massive objective that you're competing to towards.[63] – Chris Justo
We have conditions that you can set between nodes with regards to either nodes being friendly with each other and acting trade alliances, or they can declare war on nodes similar to how guild wars may function in different games, where those citizens become hostile to each other based on the player government that's elected in the particular node. So those systems all cater to allowing a conflict that's meaningful and that also provides a non-imbalanced relationship between stronger guilds and not as strong guilds.[64] – Steven Sharif
Q: Are there any plans to have upkeep cost to war in addition to the initiation costs? It would be incredibly compelling to know that crafters and gatherers would have to work double time to ensure that the war can go on, or even stop supporting the war if they find it unnecessary.
A: Not necessarily within the war context, however I think the crux of that question is, how do we include material resource requirements, active artisanship, engagement, all of these other gameplay systems: How are they interconnected with a political event like war? And the way we achieve that is obviously there are things that can enhance your war preparedness or your war efficacy through the use of unique weapons during war. Unique upgrades to your guards by supplying resources to the barracks so that you have stronger guards at your headquarters, or weapons and shields and armors that can be utilized through the barracks system. In addition, vehicle support for sieges. There's a lot of different ways where crafting and artisanship plays a role as enhancing, not necessarily maintaining, a particular war or feature.[65] – Steven Sharif
Q: Will there be a scoreboard detailing the most active participants achievements during the node war. Things like: players KDA, damage, healing done, objectives, etc.
A: You'll be able to see yours for sure and you may be able to see others if they opt-in.[67] – Steven Sharif
info-orange.png
Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Visuals

  • 2023-09-02

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 Blog: Development Update with Village Node.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 Livestream, August 31, 2023 (31:44).
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Livestream, April 30, 2024 (1:06:36).
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Livestream, November 17, 2017 (9:49).
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Livestream, August 31, 2023 (38:00).
  6. ↑ Livestream, August 31, 2023 (34:09).
  7. ↑ mayor-tweet.png
  8. ↑ Interview, November 10, 2024 (29:18).
  9. ↑ Node series part II – the Metropolis.
  10. ↑ Blog - Know Your Nodes - The Basics.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 steven-kings-and-mayors.png
  12. ↑ Interview, May 11, 2018 (50:05).
  13. ↑ Interview, January 19, 2025 (1:17:48).
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:50:04).
  15. ↑ Livestream, September 29, 2023 (1:07:01).
  16. ↑ Livestream, August 31, 2023 (37:35).
  17. ↑ Livestream, September 29, 2023 (1:05:44).
  18. ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (10:02).
  19. ↑ Livestream, August 31, 2023 (43:07).
  20. ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (0:46).
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 Video, May 31, 2024 (5:42).
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 22.3 22.4 22.5 22.6 22.7 Livestream, August 31, 2023 (39:17).
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Interview, July 8, 2020 (1:04:05).
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 24.3 Livestream, August 31, 2023 (42:05).
  25. ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (12:16).
  26. ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (11:13).
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Livestream, July 3, 2024 (1:57:57).
  28. ↑ roshen-commissions.png
  29. ↑ Livestream, August 31, 2023 (43:27).
  30. ↑ 30.00 30.01 30.02 30.03 30.04 30.05 30.06 30.07 30.08 30.09 30.10 30.11 30.12 30.13 30.14 30.15 Livestream, August 31, 2023 (44:21).
  31. ↑ 31.00 31.01 31.02 31.03 31.04 31.05 31.06 31.07 31.08 31.09 31.10 31.11 31.12 31.13 31.14 31.15 31.16 Livestream, August 26, 2022 (1:12:40).
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Podcast, October 12, 2024 (19:59).
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 33.2 Livestream, April 29, 2022 (27:42).
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 34.2 34.3 Livestream, August 31, 2023 (47:43).
  35. ↑ Livestream, August 31, 2023 (49:13).
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 Livestream, April 7, 2023 (1:19:41).
  37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 Livestream, August 26, 2022 (1:17:04).
  38. ↑ 38.0 38.1 Livestream, August 30, 2024 (1:14:52).
  39. ↑ 39.0 39.1 Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:40:25).
  40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 Livestream, September 27, 2024 (1:58:16).
  41. ↑ Livestream, May 31, 2024 (2:20:34).
  42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 42.2 City hall.
  43. ↑ Interview, January 19, 2025 (43:43).
  44. ↑ Video, September 29, 2023 (2:59).
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 45.2 Livestream, August 31, 2023 (2:10:23).
  46. ↑ Podcast, September 29, 2021 (8:38).
  47. ↑ 47.0 47.1 Video, July 15, 2019 (2:12).
  48. ↑ Livestream, June 30, 2017 (53:57).
  49. ↑ Livestream, January 11, 2019 (1:04:32).
  50. ↑ Livestream, 2018-04-8 (AM) (18:59).
  51. ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (57:56).
  52. ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (53:55).
  53. ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (50:16).
  54. ↑ 54.0 54.1 54.2 Video, May 31, 2024 (4:24).
  55. ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (21:14).
  56. ↑ 56.0 56.1 Video, May 31, 2024 (17:03).
  57. ↑ Livestream, May 31, 2024 (2:19:06).
  58. ↑ 58.0 58.1 Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:48:21).
  59. ↑ 59.0 59.1 steven-wars-prime-time.png
  60. ↑ Livestream, May 31, 2024 (2:10:48).
  61. ↑ Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:52:02).
  62. ↑ 62.0 62.1 Interview, July 19, 2020 (24:34).
  63. ↑ 63.0 63.1 Video, May 31, 2024 (1:04:30).
  64. ↑ Video, April 5, 2018 (41:48).
  65. ↑ Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:44:55).
  66. ↑ 2025-03-27 Alpha-2 Update Notes.
  67. ↑ Livestream, May 31, 2024 (2:12:38).
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