In my game these player nobles would functionally act as kings/queens, governors, generals, admirals, or travelling mooches, depending on their goals and how well they are doing. The map would be broken into cites and towns arranged into territories, nothing super granular. I wanted to feature politics, where players would normally need to interact with each other, with shifting alliances, etc. A general might decide not to obey their king, perhaps planning a coup with some governors for example. Kind of like the board game Diplomacy. A king would need to coordinate tax incomes from governors, dispatch generals and admirals, expand alliances, and be wary of threats. Governors could influence trade and improve their territories, cities and towns. Generals could perhaps take on mercenary jobs, or raid. An ambitious admiral might want to take a city and move up in the world, or be happy enriching themselves in trade or pirating, etc. There would be gold and various other resources, population morale, seasons, spies, etc.
I was going to have this game be turned based, with each turn being a month of game time, and players only being able to take one turn per day of real time. The world would be one month in diameter - so that a fleet or army or inter-player message could be dispatched to anywhere in the game in a single turn. I figured that this would avoid the possible problem of players gaining an advantage by being able to coordinate outside the game, and to keep the programming as simple as possible. A minor character might not have a lot to do on any given turn. A king or queen could be a very busy person. Players might be on autopilot for some number of days if they don't log in. News in the game would travel also, so any player could hear about most of what was going on in the world. I shared your sentiment on graphics, figuring I would leave room to add those later.
I like your ideas for your in-game economy, and what you described about the effects of morale, and true believers, which I'm sure dovetails with there being priests. And it's cool you have a place for anarchists. They get a bad rap.
Be sure to do a Show HN when it's ready!