Recent Change to Generals

[Indirik]

Thanks for proving my point. Opinions like this is EXACTLY why people won't take a military role as well as being complete rubbish. If you don't get orders out early you risk SOME people not following them, depending on the realm and people play time.

That's what he said: If you don't issue orders quickly enough, people won't move. OK, he stated it a bit more strongly. But the point is still valid. If you don't issue orders close enough to the turn change, then you will see people not move because the orders weren't available when they logged in.

This is proven fact. You're not a bad player, or a mean person, or a powergamer if you admit this. In fact, everyone should admit that this condition exists. Once we do, we can get around to spreading ideas that help people lead armies in a more effective manner, without requiring that a single person play 24/7. Things like advance conditional orders, councils that all participate in giving orders, clearly defined chains of command that show who is allowed to give orders, etc.

Besides which this assumption of required times for orders skirts dangerously close to a IA violation in my opinion.

Telling people they need to issue orders within one hour of the turn change = IR violation.

Acknowledging that sending orders later in the turn means that less people will move = Not an IR violation.

[Pike]

What am I missing here.  From my experience as marshall giving last minute orders in is in fact harmful because there is a good chance that not everyone will get the orders and people will get left behind.   I think the most important thing you need to do is learn what your army is capable of.  If you know you have a group of people that are responsive enough to march an hour before turn change great.  If not then plan accordingly. 

[Tom]

Funny.

I added Standing Orders precisely so marshals can plan ahead and issue orders for next turn that will show up on top instead of being buried in old messages. And I see them used that way. "everyone, gather in X" is probably the most common content of them.

I do agree that we need a few changes. But we need to get our code updated first, because the new code makes changes a lot easier.

[Zakilevo]

Standing Order... most of them time, it displays generic stuff. But usually outdated.

[vonGenf]

Standing Order... most of them time, it displays generic stuff. But usually outdated.

That's the marshal's fault, not the code's fault.

[Zakilevo]

That's the marshal's fault, not the code's fault.

I know.

[Geronus]

This is a perception problem. If people were willing to accept an army that didn't react every turn, that didn't have orders out with 2 hours of the turn etc then many more people would be willing to be marshals. Our constant drive to have "exceptional" armies has created the problem with finding people to take the roles. As it currently stands there is nothing even CLOSE to being light weight about taking on a military role.

No, you mean 'if people were willing to accept getting their asses kicked in every war they fought in'. It's not a perception problem, my friend. It's a cold, hard truth of Battlemaster. The game *severely* punishes realms and armies that don't react every turn and that don't get their orders issued in a timely manner when they go up against realms that do do these things. So if you're willing to accept mediocrity and losing a lot, you can accept these things, but most people aren't interested in playing for team mediocre and losing all the time as a result.

Honestly, I do not see an easy way to change this paradigm. The best approach to mitigating the workload on individual Marshals and Generals is indeed to issue conditional orders/instructions in advance and empower everyone in your MC to issue orders at need, on their own discretion. This is not always possible, though. Some realms with smaller player bases may only have a single player who is active enough and interested enough to manage the realm's military. If so, he's going to be on his own no matter what.

[Pike]

It seams like to me you are blaming the system for a person problem.  IF realm A has people who work together and no how to follow conditional orders then yes they are probably going to beat realm b who needs to rely on one person to tell them what to do.

With this game you must remember that people play at different times.  Some may only play once a day or less often.  If you have people like this in your army you need to adjust your strategy.  Saying the game is broke and punishing realms because they people who are less active will not do anything.   

[Indirik]

No, the game is not "broken", and I don't think that anyone is saying that it is. It just works in a very specific way, and to be successful you need to understand that way, and the player behavior it encourages.

But rather than sit here and argue about it, I'd really like to see more discussion aimed at helping people cope with this. How do you ensure that your orders are delivered in a timely manner? Whether timely means "within an hour of the turn" or "give the orders in advance/the turn before", or some other scheme, how do you do it?

[Zakilevo]

Do we really need to code it? Why do we have VMs? Get a VM who lives in a different time zone. If you can't then let others in MC know what order you want to send out. I am sure at least one of people in MC lives in a different time zone. Or send orders ahead of time.

[Pike]

First you need to know the habits of the people you are working with.  I will use my recent trip to hunt some monsters my marshal went on recently.(I know it may be slightly different with a large scale war but for the purpose of getting orders out I think it is the same).  I knew that If I expected the whole group to move  from one region to another as a group it was best to give the order 1 turn in advance.  That way chances are  no matter when the person logged in during the day they would be able to move and respond with the group.  Now I know it might be a bit different when you are dealing with people but I am sure that in some cases this is what you will need to do.  Another suggestion that might be worth while. Divide your armies by activities of the players.  Have army a built up of people who can respond to orders when they are given at the last minute(less then 3 hours before turn change).  The first group would react to the enemy and hopefully be enough to take out moving armies. These are the ones who will do the bulk of you work where you need to react quickly.  The other army is just for power and support.  The second armies order would be simple stuf like go to this realm and loot or do civil work or go smash yourselves against the walls of this city.

[Dante Silverfire]

No, you mean 'if people were willing to accept getting their asses kicked in every war they fought in'. It's not a perception problem, my friend. It's a cold, hard truth of Battlemaster. The game *severely* punishes realms and armies that don't react every turn and that don't get their orders issued in a timely manner when they go up against realms that do do these things.

No, the game is not "broken", and I don't think that anyone is saying that it is. It just works in a very specific way, and to be successful you need to understand that way, and the player behavior it encourages.

The whole point I'm trying to make is essentially summed up in the above. *I* don't have the personal attitude that this how things should be done, but it simply the way things are done. And, unless there is a clear established method in which to do things in another way without damaging their ability to win wars, (or simply survive) then I don't think it will change.

Many good suggestions have been brought up as to how to mitigate this issue:

1. Issue orders the turn before indicating follow-up movements based upon certain conditions.
2. Empower multiple people throughout the military command to send out orders to increase reactivity.
3. Split armies up based upon activities to help with this problem.

However, these are all just methods to help and try and fix the issue. They won't actually fix anything though because nothing is broken. It simply has to be understood that right now things operate in a simple manner and that is:

If realm A has a military which always has orders sent out within the first 30 mins to an hour, they are more likely to have a more effective military than realm B which does not.

This is simply fact. I'm not saying its a good or a bad thing, but that is the way things currently are. I mean, I love reminisching about the game, how 4-5 years ago, any military command I was in, we could dependably have orders sent out within the first 30 mins of the turn change after having the entire military council online after each turn change to rapidly discuss what to do. That was great, but it also required enormous time investment. We had a very effective military at that time. (CE of a few years back). Should we expect this to be required now-a-days? Absolutely not. Should we be surprised at a realm winning all their wars, because they are able to do this? Absolutely not.

The IR's allow everyone to play at their own pace. However, it doesn't ensure that you won't have an advantage by putting more time into the game. Tom has said this himself. If you dedicate more time, you'll likely do better/have more influence/etc... This isn't a flaw in the system, it just means that those who have more time are better suited to be military leaders.

[De-Legro]

No, you mean 'if people were willing to accept getting their asses kicked in every war they fought in'. It's not a perception problem, my friend. It's a cold, hard truth of Battlemaster. The game *severely* punishes realms and armies that don't react every turn and that don't get their orders issued in a timely manner when they go up against realms that do do these things. So if you're willing to accept mediocrity and losing a lot, you can accept these things, but most people aren't interested in playing for team mediocre and losing all the time as a result.

Honestly, I do not see an easy way to change this paradigm. The best approach to mitigating the workload on individual Marshals and Generals is indeed to issue conditional orders/instructions in advance and empower everyone in your MC to issue orders at need, on their own discretion. This is not always possible, though. Some realms with smaller player bases may only have a single player who is active enough and interested enough to manage the realm's military. If so, he's going to be on his own no matter what.

No, it IS a perception problem. Having a super active general that can issue order fast is just the simplest way to increase the efficiency of your military, since it relies on a single player. There are MANY other ways to create an effective military just as there are many ways to attempt to hinder the efficiency of the enemy force. My problem is that people adamantly believe having a super active general is the be all and end all of military conflict, there are other options but they since they generally require relying on more people and a lot of cooperation they don't seem to appeal nearly so much.

[Tom]

Hm.

If I were the enemy of such a realm, I'd send an infiltrator to take that general out. Boom, instant worthless enemy army, because they don't know how to operate without their hyperactive general.

[De-Legro]

Hm.

If I were the enemy of such a realm, I'd send an infiltrator to take that general out. Boom, instant worthless enemy army, because they don't know how to operate without their hyperactive general.

Done that before. Gave us some breathing room but the infils were never able to make a successful second hit. War tend to go longer then wounding time :)