Recent Change to Generals

[Foundation]

I would attribute it to Atamaran characters getting to that status before code changes nerfed some skill gaining. :P

[Revan]

I'm rather bemused at some of this discussion. I remember the bad old days before the present army system was introduced. I would humbly urge every budding commander that wishes to wallow in every little detail on the ground to simply get themselves appointed as Marshal and let someone else become General. Let's not go back to before or kid ourselves things are/were better with a hyperactive General pulling everyone's strings.

I remember what it was like to be a hands-on, control-everything General and it was bloody awful. It took up shedloads of my time and I'd be getting up earlier or staying up later to keep things all square. To be successful as a General you simply had to be a control freak ready to burn a lot of time on BM (and it's a shame to hear that some of us still do that!) Gone were any RPs or general letters. I was just sending orders, haranguing, breathing in reports. The needs of relentless communication was the one and only reason I ever got involved on IRC. Being General was good at building your profile, but it was a pig of a job. You were basically doing volunteer work in addition to whatever else you do in your real life!

I really appreciate the current system because, although the General still sets over-arching strategy and takes a keen interest in martial matters, much of the fine detail is spread across the shoulders of a handful of marshals. You don't have to micromanage dozens of nobles personally (though back in the day, scores was probably more realistic!) And it can work, I've managed to get along with the present situation fine. I've given Marshals more independence, been an independent Marshal and I have not obsessed so much, haven't needed to obsess so much. Some people apparently still do, but at least these days it's optional, not simply a requirement.

There is definitely a shortage of decent Marshal material around like. Part of Carelia's problem that. And then, if you have old characters you either don't have enough hours to really lead an army in war or you know better than to put your name forward ;-) Older players should definitely force their way onto military councils whenever and wherever they can though. I was on Carelia's for a good bit and it's really, really surprising what newer players don't know about certain aspects of war that you've probably picked up simply by long exposure. Some of these young marshals might be good at logging in early each turn, but they can definitely do with older wizened heads advising them from above!

[Geronus]

I do that a lot these days. I no longer have time to actively Marshal. Even General is a bit of a stretch for me. I much prefer to chime in with my two cents from time to time during strategy debates.

[Zakilevo]

And I am a fool for retaking the general position of Sirion. I totally forgot why I resigned in the first place LOL.

[Foundation]

Remember, it's never too late to resign and live off of illegal profits. ;)

[Zakilevo]

Remember, it's never too late to resign and live off of illegal profits. ;)

I like the sound of illegal profits. Sadly only illegal profits I know of is through black markets. :(

[De-Legro]

I like the sound of illegal profits. Sadly only illegal profits I know of is through black markets. :(

Be like the ex-General in Fissoa and insist that you are an employee of the ruler and deserved to be paid a wage. Everyone needs a good laugh at watching a noble actually insult them self.

[Chenier]

You can keep making these claims, Tom, but the reality in the game simply does not match up to them.

The realms with small armies are dead or dying. The realms with big armies are thriving. The realms that empower their Marshals are dead. The realms with micro-managing, megalomania-cal, charismatic, cult-of-personality Generals are winning and conquering, or at least surviving. This is why real wars are fought with centralized command structures instead of by committee. This is why Sun Tzu and Napolean end up in history books instead of war planning committee #532. War planning by centralized authority is simply a superior system. And when your realm only has 40 players in it, you don't need four helpers to decide where to send them.

If that's not true, then I suspect that you would not be trying to handicap the General position. But like the players in this thread are telling you, all you will accomplish is forcing every realm to consolidate into fewer armies.

Maybe all these realms ought to die. Maybe. But unless you start lightning bolting the realms that fail to follow your "vision", they'll keep on living. The realms that tried to obey your vision are mostly already dead. I know, because I helped kill one of them.

I have to agree.

Imo, the main problem is not that generals take all the power from the marshals, but that it is so damn difficult to find people willing to be marshals and actually bother giving orders once appointed.

It's not a system problem. It's a playerbase problem.

And it's difficult enough to find just one person in a whole realm willing to actually run for the title of general, in most realms...

I've been general of Enweil for a long time while it was large and strong, and I did split up the forces to great effect into three distinct armies. But most of the time, I had to give the orders to everyone myself, because the marshals just wouldn't do it no matter how I nagged them. And most of the time, at least one of these armies was just sitting in a region where a ton of militia had been dumped just to dissuade counter-attacks while others looted more exposed fronts.

In Fheuv'n, I'm not general, but I may as well be. I'm the realm's only marshal, so I call all the shots.

[Zakilevo]

Be like the ex-General in Fissoa and insist that you are an employee of the ruler and deserved to be paid a wage. Everyone needs a good laugh at watching a noble actually insult them self.

lol that sounds wonderful. Hopefully I can convince people to increase my wage!

[Foundation]

It's all good to chat and laugh, I enjoy it too, but could someone summarize what we've established in this thread?

We need concise, to the point, conclusions in order for us to act on them.  This thread is growing unreadable (by those new to the discussion), so starting a new fresh thread with these conclusions and a focused goal of proposing solutions to the problem would be welcomed.

[Tom]

I've added a little more text that people receive when they are announced as marshal, that should help inform the players of what the marshal actually is.

[egamma]

One idea I got from reading, feel free to make it a new thread:

Delayed Standing Orders.

I think many marshals would like to avoid saying "next turn" in the standing orders, because when the next turn rolls around, well, it still says "next turn.". Some sort of "rolling" standing orders would be nice. I see it like this:

Current orders: Move to Region A
Next turns orders: Wait for stragglers and misdirect to region B
Next: Move to region C
Next: Wait for stragglers and misdirect to region D
Next: Move to region D

Each turn, the orders move up one slot, so that everyone knows what they should be doing at that time, and what they should do the next turn.

To keep this from becoming useless in actual combat, marshals should be able to delete one or all of the orders.

And yes, there is a risk from planning 4 days in advance: if your marshal gets stabbed, then players may follow the wrong orders.

[Velax]

What would really help is having named days in-game. Ie, at the top of the screen, displayed prominently, it says "SUNRISE TURN, FIFTH DAY" or whatever. Currently you can't tell people to move on sunrise turn Wednesday, because Wednesday to some people is Tuesday to others. Being able to tell people to move (particularly in Standing Orders) on a specific turn on a specific, in-game day that is the same for everyone would help immensely.

[Anaris]

What would really help is having named days in-game. Ie, at the top of the screen, displayed prominently, it says "SUNRISE TURN, FIFTH DAY" or whatever. Currently you can't tell people to move on sunrise turn Wednesday, because Wednesday to some people is Tuesday to others. Being able to tell people to move (particularly in Standing Orders) on a specific turn on a specific, in-game day that is the same for everyone would help immensely.

Server time is displayed prominently on several pages, and has been for years now.

And yes, it includes the day.

Just because it's Tuesday in one place and Wednesday in another doesn't mean that talking about the Wednesday sunrise turn as the Tuesday sunrise turn in the areas where it actually occurs on Tuesday would make any sense at all. If you tried to talk about it like that, you'd frequently end up talking about the Tuesday sunrise turn, and the turn after it, the Wednesday sunset turn—and then the Wednesday sunrise turn.

Which is obviously silly, and I doubt there are many people who would actually try to operate under those conditions.

[vonGenf]

What would really help is having named days in-game. Ie, at the top of the screen, displayed prominently, it says "SUNRISE TURN, FIFTH DAY" or whatever. Currently you can't tell people to move on sunrise turn Wednesday, because Wednesday to some people is Tuesday to others. Being able to tell people to move (particularly in Standing Orders) on a specific turn on a specific, in-game day that is the same for everyone would help immensely.

On top of playchar.php you can see: It is currently Day. Sunset is in 1 hours, 20 minutes (server time: 16:40 Friday)

You can see the same on play-status.php

For some reason, however, you don't see the same on top of play-news.php. I have a hunch that this was simply forgotten.