So TMP is gone. Are you enjoying all the new wars?

[Indirik]

Advantages:
Discourages gangbangs

Not really. It discourages traveling through allied or friendly lands. (Or, really, the lands of anyone you don't want to piss off.) This is not a requirement for "gangbanging". For example: Caligus and Perdan could both easily wail on Ibladesh without penalty with this proposed "discouragement" simply because one was on the Ibladeshian northern border, and one on the eastern border. They can both individually attack at will without passing through allied land.

Discourages blob armies

That depends. If the amount of damage is a linear figure based on number of troops, then spreading out the troops only spreads out the damage, which could be desirable or not, depending on the circumstances. Now, if the damage was non-linear, for example Troops^2, that would discourage blobbing while in your own or friendly realms.
However, this would also encourage blobbing once you cross into enemy territory. You would want to concentrate damage into one region at a time, so as to maximize the impact. Would you rather do 3 damage each to region A and B for two turns (for a total damage of 12), or 9 damage to A this turn and 9 damage to B next turn (for a total damage of 18)? Also, this would really screw over the defender. You are encouraging the attacker to blob in order to maximize the damage, but penalizing the defender for blobbing up to concentrate troops to combat the attacking enemy blob.

Encourages attacking realms closer to your own (well, you're not marching through allied territory if they're your enemy, right?)

Not directly. It encourages you to not march through allied lands. Thus you keep to enemy or rogue lands, which are likely to have crappy roads, slowing down your progress, making coordination difficult with mutli-turn moves, and generally slowing down the pace of the war to a crawl.

[egamma]

Now, if the damage was non-linear, for example Troops^2, that would discourage blobbing while in your own or friendly realms.

I imagine that there should be a tolerance level for each region, probably dependent on population, for how many troops can be in-region before there start to be problems. Also, I suspect commanders wouldn't let their troops loot their own or allied regions, which would mean even less damage caused by friendly troops, although there should be some level (like you said, exponential) where problems start.

However, this would also encourage blobbing once you cross into enemy territory. You would want to concentrate damage into one region at a time, so as to maximize the impact. Would you rather do 3 damage each to region A and B for two turns (for a total damage of 12), or 9 damage to A this turn and 9 damage to B next turn (for a total damage of 18)?

Well...there's only so much gold to be had in a given region, especially with 'foraging'. Your men will be able to stay in the field longer if they are spread out a little.

[Peri]

I think surrender may be the missing piece. There's no easy way of providing reparations, for one.

I think this is a very valid point. Lately too many wars are fought to the death because either the winners just see no point in keeping the enemy alive or the defeated just don't even try to negotiate, or that's at least my impression. This way grudges and other potential reasons for successive wars are often absent.

[Shizzle]

I think this is a very valid point. Lately too many wars are fought to the death because either the winners just see no point in keeping the enemy alive or the defeated just don't even try to negotiate, or that's at least my impression. This way grudges and other potential reasons for successive wars are often absent.

True. Also, it keeps people from going to war because it means you're going 'all-in'. With surrender being a more valid option, you could attack your neighbour simply to seize a few regions in their absence, without risking to be destroyed yourself...

[Indirik]

With surrender being a more valid option

Surrender takes both parties to agree to a common set of terms. The reason that wars are fought "to the death" is because there's no common set of terms that both realms can agree on. For example, Caerwyn refused to accept the loss of the Godlen Farrow duchy, and chose to die instead. Astrum didn't truly kill Caerwyn. All the Caerwynians said "FU, Astrum!" and switched allegiance to Asylon. We even offered to help them retake Itau, and they snubbed their noses at us anyway.

Look at EC, with Ibladesh. The Caligus/Perdan "peace" terms were absolutely outrageous.

So, yes, some realms want to kill their enemies. But how many realms are willing to actually surrender and give up meaningful things, like significant amounts of land, in order to end the war?

[egamma]

. But how many realms are willing to actually surrender and give up meaningful things, like significant amounts of land, in order to end the war?

Wouldn't you like to find out?

[Tom]

That's why the new treaty system has these declarations of conquest, etc. - so a war can end when one side has reached its objective.

[Peri]

So, yes, some realms want to kill their enemies. But how many realms are willing to actually surrender and give up meaningful things, like significant amounts of land, in order to end the war?

Well that is true, but maybe if there was a way to make reparations something more reliable and long-standing, the winners may sometimes think it would be a better deal to leave the defeated live and take their gold instead of burning everything to the ground and leaving only rogue devastated land behind. At least you would have a decent tradeoff for leaving a snake's nest alive in your backyard.

That's already possible, I know, but how often have you seen agreements such as "x gold must be delivered every month by a noble coming to our capital and sending it to the king" accepted and really happening for more than a short time?

Clearly it's not that productive to make critics without solutions, and certainly this is merely a side issue to the overall lack of interesting wars, but it's anyway a good remark I believe.

[Sypher]

A couple ideas I had:

1. Make it easier to fight further abroad. Change the Mercenary setting to be cheaper, such as instead of 50% have it at 25%. And/or make Mercenary units completely immune to distance from realm morale penalties. If they aren't already, I forget but the last time I had a unit set to Mercenary(years ago) I thought they still were affected by distance from the realm if not to the same degree as a regular unit.

2. Make it easier to protest your leaders out of office so new leadership can take power and change things when the realm has been at peace for a long time.

[Vellos]

The reason for this, in my opinion, is that many realms are, in fact, often at war. Therefore the ressources a realm has during wartime are defined as the "normal level", whether you want to call them bonuses or not.

The problem with TMP was not so much starting wars, it was what happened when they stopped. A realm that had been at war for a long time would get used to its war status. At some point, a realm could (*gasp*!) win the war. At that point it would be at peace. However TMP made winning look like a punishment. Moreover, because the realm had been at war prior and was used to it, it feels like it cannot go to war anymore because it is now not as strong as it was.

I think the idea of a war footing/peace footing as presented shows great promise to solve that problem. I think it is absolutely fine to give a bonus to a realm when it declares war - this would indeed incite realms to start wars. However, if this bonus diminishes with time, then actually winning the war will not feel like a punishment because nothing will be changing at that point. Moreover, starting a new war will not look impossible, it will look easier as intended.

Indeed.

Look at EC, with Ibladesh. The Caligus/Perdan "peace" terms were absolutely outrageous.

So, yes, some realms want to kill their enemies. But how many realms are willing to actually surrender and give up meaningful things, like significant amounts of land, in order to end the war?

Actually, that's a neat example.

Caligus and Perdan have, at least once or twice in each of their histories, accepted major punitive treaties very nearly forced upon them resulting in significant losses.

I remember the brief moment when Irombrozia was strong, with Enweil, and Rio was really threatened, and we were offering peace. As I remember, the peace treaty had strong support on the Riombaran side, despite being effectively punitive as our land grab was obviously unsustainable--- but the treaty was rejected by all the multis in Irombrozia that Twinblade (I have blocked out his actual name from my memory apparently) was running.

I think many realms actually would accept punitive treaties if they were offered more often, and if a return to peace looked likely to actually revitalize their realm, rather than bring on TMP penalties.

[Bedwyr]

I think many realms actually would accept punitive treaties if they were offered more often, and if a return to peace looked likely to actually revitalize their realm, rather than bring on TMP penalties.

Not in my experience on the Far East and Atamara.  I've seen two kinds of peace treaties: 1. Everything goes back to pre-war, with minor changes allowed (one side pays one time reparations, for instance).  2. The losing side is so badly battered they cannot continue resisting in any way shape or form, but the winning side doesn't have the nobles to hold all the land, and some peace treaty is worked out based on then-current borders.

I am aware there are exceptions, but those exceptions, from everything I've seen, only exist in realms that have exceedingly long histories and older players running them, where the realm is still considered everything.

I think this is a very valid point. Lately too many wars are fought to the death because either the winners just see no point in keeping the enemy alive or the defeated just don't even try to negotiate, or that's at least my impression. This way grudges and other potential reasons for successive wars are often absent.

Speaking as someone who's been on both sides...The problem is more that the losing side tends to want the winning side to surrender.  It's a bizarre phenomenon I've discussed with several players, and Tim quite a bit from a dev/design perspective.  As a for instance, the last peace discussions between Arcaea and Arcachon fell apart because while Arcachon had mostly wrecked itself and then suffered a more or less unopposed campaign from Arcaea which looted a lot of what was left, lost half their nobles, and most importantly lost the chokepoint fortifications that had allowed them to stalemate things up to that point, their Ruler demanded three regions from Arcaea and higher food prices than the last treaty.

I saw the same thing happen with Ethiala, Soliferum, Abington, and various other realms over the years, and I've heard about many more.

[Glaumring the Fox]

Surrender takes both parties to agree to a common set of terms. The reason that wars are fought "to the death" is because there's no common set of terms that both realms can agree on. For example, Caerwyn refused to accept the loss of the Godlen Farrow duchy, and chose to die instead. Astrum didn't truly kill Caerwyn. All the Caerwynians said "FU, Astrum!" and switched allegiance to Asylon. We even offered to help them retake Itau, and they snubbed their noses at us anyway.

Look at EC, with Ibladesh. The Caligus/Perdan "peace" terms were absolutely outrageous.

So, yes, some realms want to kill their enemies. But how many realms are willing to actually surrender and give up meaningful things, like significant amounts of land, in order to end the war?

They switched sides to Asylon and then the majority left to Madina, leaving us with about 4 Newbie Caerwynians and 1 ex-leader of Nisuler... The FU-army headed south.

[Gustav Kuriga]

Add in a unit setting? "Allow auto-looting?" If turned on, your units would use a few hours every turn to find their own wages, no matter where they are. If turned off, all the costs would be added to their pay check.

It would even let Lords loot their own peasants if they'd want to.

Ummm... just thought I'd quote this very well thought out idea. Because everyone missed it, and this makes the issue of looting your allies a choice and not a matter of fact. It would also add some interesting rp elements if a Marshal ordered the army to do this in a realm currently at peace with his own.

[Shizzle]

Ummm... just thought I'd quote this very well thought out idea. Because everyone missed it, and this makes the issue of looting your allies a choice and not a matter of fact. It would also add some interesting rp elements if a Marshal ordered the army to do this in a realm currently at peace with his own.

It would also add a dynamic to mercenary armies. "No need to pay us, we'll just collect our own wagers. From your lands."

[Vellos]

Ummm... just thought I'd quote this very well thought out idea. Because everyone missed it, and this makes the issue of looting your allies a choice and not a matter of fact. It would also add some interesting rp elements if a Marshal ordered the army to do this in a realm currently at peace with his own.

Indeed, having it as an option could be interesting.