The role of motivation and a possible solution

[Radigand]

Throughout the history of Battlemaster the wars broke out for the purpose of conquering more gold, more power (personal and military), due to personal grudges, and the outright need for war in a game named BATTLEmaster. This game should not be only about war. The recent attempts to implement treaty system and economy system hope us players to turn this social simulator into a multidimensional, highly sophisticated game. Adding layers should bring more motivation for declaring wars, annexing regions for their economic value, punishing a realm with embargoes, etc. But to what end? There is little motivation for a person to do something cool once you reach to the top of your Monarchy, Democracy or Theocracy ladder. Most of the decisions are made at the top, most of the important communication is done through the ruler channel, and for the most part it is used for declaring wars and petty insults, or complaining for unfair ganking. There is very little contribution from a regular Noble except being a carrier of appropriate CS value on a battlefield, and a Lord's puppet to keep his region happy for the modest compensation in gold.

As complex as Battlemaster is, the game provides little motivation because there is no winning condition in this game. What is the purpose to playing this game if Cagilan Empire is always dictating their will? What is the purpose to Fontan existence with 1 Duchy? What is the purpose of humans on Belluaterra when inhumans wipe them during one of their infamous invasions etc.? The game keeps rolling year after year, and established rules stay established, ie. the strongest power with strongest alliances wins all wars, and small so-called rebellious fires are put out before they grow into a threat.

What I propose is introducing a rating system with victory conditions into the world of Battlemsater. Here's a good link to an example from Galactic Civilization II game that inspired me to start this discussion (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/161570/blog/galciv-2-war-report-final-entry/?page=1). The reasons to everything happening in that game are given in the end.

What if we were to introduce certain conditions when a realm earns positive rating points (eg. winning a war, making an alliance, establishing a trade route, hosting the strongest military, producing most of the food, etc.) which would be tallied real time. To live in the highest rating realm would provide motivation from the top of hierarchy rulers and ministers, to a simple Noble wanting to contribute, not to mention bragging rights to be on the top of the score board.

Here are some examples why it might work in Battlemaster. Let's start with 2 extremes:

1) Say, your realm wants to conquer everyone, to hold the most territory and thus gain the highest territory rating. This will piss off most of the realms around you, and they might win this war by getting into an alliance to gank on you (which is how battlemaster works right now). So the troublesome realm is eliminated, what now? Well, it's out of the picture, and no longer on a score board, players go to other realms. Every other realm that won gets the same amount of winning points,  everyone is at the same position.

2) All the realms on a continent refuse to declare wars on each other in fear of being ganked and eliminated. It is easier to keep peace with everyone, and make alliances and federations. But let me tell you, there is no a team of realms winning, there is only one single realm that scores most of the rating points for the decision it makes. So what do realms do now? They want achieve a diplomatic victory by making the most of the alliances with their neighbours. Would a neighbour agree to sign alliance and grant you a victory? Maybe, but if you are both even on points, that wouldn't happen. So your choice is to beat your neighbour into signing an alliance by declaring war and forcing them to surrender, or otherwise be removed from the score board.

3a) Now consider a middle ground, where a fair share of wars happen, and alliances are made and broken. What chance does a small realm like Fontan has of winning the race? Well, you'd think none, because it is a 1 Duchy realm, and if the realms around Fontan decide to gank up on it, Fontan just gets removed from the score board. But simple elimination should not be a simple decision, because ganking would be penalized. Say, Sirion, a realm with 6 Duchies attacks a smaller realm with 1 Duchy will actually be penalized for ganking by losing 5 rating points (RP). Sure, Fontan after elimination is no longer a threat, but overall Sirion has lost 5 RPs compared to other realms that let Fontan survive. So, that's how small realms survives, by discouraging bigger realms to attack them, with RP penalties.

3b) So how does Fontan win in the race on a score board? Simple, by taking advantage of treaty system, trading and religion. Exporting food and other resources may create a great if not militarily, but economic empire that will gain RPs from diplomatic and economic conditions. Religion influence would also play a great role into scoring the most of rating points. In the end, the realm survives and has other non violent means of achieving victory.

The introduction of victory conditions would result in earning rating points and putting your realm on top of the score board. If one part of the gameplay becomes too powerful, an amount of rating points gained for achieving winning conditions could be conducted real time by the developers for balance issues, and if meta game shifts too much, changing class mechanic should provide the means of changing your role within a realm, but in the end the system encourages participation of every Noble.

So, to sum up, currently there is little motivation to start wars unless you have half of continent backing you, and there is little motivation to stay in a defeated realm because you cannot win without military. I hope I have made it clear that by introducing Rating Points and winning conditions realms can compete with each other realm time for the top spot on the scoreboards of a continent.

[Tom]

There will never be a way to win BM. Not ever. The other side of having a victor is that you also need losers. And that you can never really lose BM is one of the most important design points.

[Radigand]

I'm not suggesting to introduce a way to win a game, I'm suggesting to motivate people in making your own realm more prestigious, by earning rating points, and losing them for certain decisions. This is all aimed to eliminate ganking and motivating people to stay in small realms.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Hoho, now that is where the plans to win Battlemaster come in. It has been a...over 4-year plan to become the grand champion of Battlemaster and win the Ultimate Championship Series Cup Bowl League Trophy.

[Chenier]

I'm not suggesting to introduce a way to win a game, I'm suggesting to motivate people in making your own realm more prestigious, by earning rating points, and losing them for certain decisions. This is all aimed to eliminate ganking and motivating people to stay in small realms.

I don't need points to seek to impose my leadership upon my neighbors. Objectives should be self-set.

[Zakilevo]

Galactic Civ 2. What a great game. Can't get enough of that game :) Maybe adding how many battles an army won or lost might make things interesting? Like ex) The Army of X won 30 battles and lost 22? Won against Y 15, Z 15 and lost to Y 12, Z 10?

[Indirik]

I don't care for this idea. Leaderboards channel player behavior in certain directions. And that directions is almost always "How to game the systems to get a high score on the leaderboard." Leaderboards are great for certain types of games. BattleMaster just isn't one of those games.

[JPierreD]

I think this sparks an interesting idea on the problem of realms stagnating.

My two favorite continents are Dwilight and Beluaterra by far. Why? Because in Dwilight, for the size of the continent and the existence of rogue cities, there is always a new possibility for growth and entrepreneurship, while in Beluaterra you have invasions which pretty much turn everything upside-down, raze regions, destroy realms, and leave opportunities open for newcomers. This is not taking into account the thrill of Dwilight's hostile wild environment, and Beluaterra's scarier invasions.

It is great that BattleMaster cannot be won, but it is sometimes bad, IMO, when things get /too/ civilized. Usually the path to reach the goal is much more satisfactory than the goal itself.

Summing it up: do it rough, it's good. :P

[Bedwyr]

I agree with the spirit, and disagree completely with the methods presented.

If Lady Luck loves me, then in a month or two you'll see an IC attempt to do this.

[STiAle]

I think this sparks an interesting idea on the problem of realms stagnating.

I agree with the spirit, and disagree completely with the methods presented.

Same here,

Personally, I feel that most experienced BM-ers are more worried about attracting a specific kind of players rather than retaining such players or maximizing different types of players for our mutual enjoyment.

Example: A group of players may prefer to develop their regions, little desire for war. Another may prefer the war aspect of the game. It is reasonable for type A players to try and attract type B players to join their realm when war is unavoidable, but we all know how most players (myself included) feel about 'mercenaries', don't we?

It may help if we will consider utilizing all players. Insisting only on multi-dimensional players will limit our experience.

[vonGenf]

I share the sentiment that actual winning conditions are unwanted.

However, I often find myself looking at the statistics page as a kind of "score". It's not a simple linear scale of course, there are many factors and some will be more important than others depending on your self-assigned aims.

However, the statistics can hardly fullfil this purpose since the memory is so short.

Would it be possible to make the statistics page extend one year or more in the past? Then you could really see it as a historical record, and not just the current status and comparison with what it was with two weeks ago.

(Yes, I am thinking of Civ-like graphs here.)

[JPierreD]

Expanding statistics would be really good, not only in time, but also in amount of variables (population would be very interesting too), and maybe having a small graphical improvement.

[Tom]

I share the sentiment that actual winning conditions are unwanted.

However, I often find myself looking at the statistics page as a kind of "score". It's not a simple linear scale of course, there are many factors and some will be more important than others depending on your self-assigned aims.

However, the statistics can hardly fullfil this purpose since the memory is so short.

Would it be possible to make the statistics page extend one year or more in the past? Then you could really see it as a historical record, and not just the current status and comparison with what it was with two weeks ago.

(Yes, I am thinking of Civ-like graphs here.)

Using RR-like stats would be a really cool, I agree. In fact, I've long been unhappy with the stats providing so current, accurate information you may not want your enemy to have.
But if we had them only as weekly averages... hm... That would solve several problems at once.

[Perth]

I, too, like the spirit of this proposal, but of course BM shouldn't have victory conditions.


That said, I DO think that this idea has some merit. No one would ever "win," because there is no end to BM, nor would there be under something like this. Merely, people would sit at the top of the board and it would maybe provide incentive to do something about it. We complain about power blocs, we complain about the lack of team play since the old days, we complain about established power groups, we complain that some people don't talk much and aren't the RP kinda folks, and we complain about retention problems.


Seems to me that, if done right and tastefully and in the perfect BM flavor and style, this could be something that appeals to a wide-variety of people but maintains BM as what it is supposed to be. Perhaps I am singular in this opinion, but I can certainly see the merits of this kind of thinking. Not victory conditions, but incentives and something to play for.

*shrugs*

[vonGenf]

Is it a fair summary of the proposal to call it "Fame points for realms"?