Clan in Fontan and Aurvandil

[Tom]

Summary:	Clan activity detrimental to the game
Violation:	We expect you to play the game as you would play a board game with good friends, and to value fair play above any victory or power.
World:	East Island and Dwilight
Complainer:	Tom
About:	multiple people, see below

Full Complaint Text:

The source of two recent forum topics as well as a Titan investigation, I've decided to bring this case to the Magistrates as discussed here. While the anti-clan policy mentioned there does not yet exist and would not be applied retro-actively, the activities mentioned do violate the Social Contract, namely §3:

§2 Fair Play You can not win BattleMaster. Therefore, playing together is more important to us than playing against each other. We expect you to play the game as you would play a board game with good friends, and to value fair play above any victory or power.

The activities in both Fontan and Aurvandil are considered by several players as unfair in this sense. A close-knit group of apparent friends is cooperating extremely close with the intent of victory and power over fun, especially that of others. Investigations in Aurvandil and, to a lesser extend in Fontan, revealed that the military as well as the economy of those realms is working like clockwork with almost no in-game communication. Just one example: There is a clear and (to the dev team with a direct view on in-game transactions) obvious system of gold distribution at work that is consistently and reliably employed by these players with almost no communication. Gold is constantly sent between characters without requests or orders. This makes no sense unless one assumes that the entire system is managed through out-of-game communication.

In the interest of full disclosure, we also found that the alleged clan is not acting aggressively exclusive. We have seen characters join the realm and be welcome. However, to the best of our knowledge, they are not integrated into the alledged clan and receive none of the suspected OOG communications.


I recently sent an announcement to the players of Fontan asking for their feedback on the clan "takeover" that was mentioned here on the forum. The feedback has been mixed, with some saying that everything is fine while others explained in detail what happens and why they are unhappy. As I promised these players confidentiality, their mails will be shared with the Magistrates, but not in public. I have not yet cross-referenced the e-mails with the list of players alledged to be members of the alledged clan.


My concern is that this activity, while not necessarily intended to do so, is causing players who face the clan as enemies, either within the realms they take control of or as war-enemies of those realms, so much frustration, that they are leaving the game. I believe we all agree that "playing a board game with friends" also includes keeping everyone at the gaming table. There is a difference between playing a game of chess at a competitive tournament and playing some board game with friends, and the mindset appropriate for one is not appropriate for the other.


I propose to break up the clan by deporting a randomly selected half of their members from both realms to randomly selected other islands, where they can then join realms of their own choice. I also propose to prohibit them from re-forming within the same realm at a size of more than one third of the number of characters in those realms for the period of one year.
If these players care about the game itself, this punishment would suck a bit, but it allows them to continue playing and lose only very little in stats. If they are still playing after the year, we can be sure of and point out to their haters, that they play even when they can't gang up on others. If, on the other hand, the haters are right and they care more about winning and power-gaming, we will see them leave and know it's a good riddance.

[NoblesseChevaleresque]

I don't see what the problem is here.

As you yourself say, no one is excluded, everyone is welcomed to play the game, everyone is involved, perhaps more so in Aurvandil than most realms due to the way the government works, and the vast wealth of current potential titles at the moment. So what is the problem? Some might not be included to out of game communication? Count me into that, I never post on the forum, and I don't intend to play the game by the forum, or find my gameplay subject to the hearsay of a few players on the forum. Have you even identified who is in this clan? Or if there even is a Clan? I've pointed this out before, if there is a clan, I don't know about them, if there is a clan, they aren't running Aurvandil, if there is a clan, they they don't override any In character processes.

If the problem is "but some players are losing, blaming it on a clan and then leaving the game" well tough, losers are losers, but if you start randomly deporting and placing arbitrary restrictions on players for what is hearsay on the forum, well then you'll lose players who aren't just upset because they lost the war. Why should I play Battlemaster, if some moaning on the forum is sufficient to see my characters deported, the realm I built from scratch dissolved and permanent restrictions placed upon me, and to what, mollycoddle some one? I won't play Battlemaster as a forum game, I won't play Battlemaster as an Out of Character game, and I won't accept a trial by forum, I sent you a long email and thoroughly explained the Aurvandil situation, I invited other players of my realm to do the same, if you can't even substantiate claims that there is a clan, and the most you can say is some players are frustrated that a realm is winning, and declare it a clan, well then it should be pretty obvious how this game is devolving in thanks to the forum enabling this.

Aurvandil isn't a clan, never has been, never will be, if there is a clan in Aurvandil, good for them but I still rule Aurvandil on my own, and I still ensure that everything is run in character and through the necessary channels, and that everyone is included, everyone is given fair opportunity and the out of game takes no precedence, and if there is any breach of that, I have the Out of character ban, sadly you can't ban the forum for trying to circumvent all in character events, happenings and its attempt to override gameplay.

[Geronus]

Because it may be relevant, this thread discusses Aurvandil's unusually efficient economy, with input from players in Aurvandil:

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,1938.0.html

This thread discusses recent happenings in Fontan, though beware, there is a significant amount of flaming, particularly at the end:

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,2228.0.html

[Blint]

I too do not see what the issue is. It seems to me that Aurvandil has been deemed a clan because it is a fairly new realm to Dwilight and was declared an enemy of Madina, they went to war and Madina is losing badly.

It has been said that their military works like clock-work with almost no in game communication. That is untrue in my opinion, For weeks before we went to war those in the higher up positions of the military were asking those that reported to them for constant updates on unit sizes and strengths, training cohesion, Mobile CS numbers, the whole nine yards. That gave our military leaders an idea of how we were put together as an army so that when the time came to move out against our enemy (i.e Madina) they did not have to give direct and specific orders all the time. Not everyone can log in all the time at every turn change and that is just a fact of life, but the fact that Aurvandil was so well put together and communicated before going to war IN-GAME and IN-CHARACTER. Our leaders and military personal could give orders a turn or two in advance so that most people would be where they needed to be when they needed to be there.

I also think it is highly dishonest and frankly pathetic that players in Madina have grown so fussy and upset that their realm is being taken apart piece by piece by a stronger and more functional realm that they claim a completely untrue and inaccurate "OOC Cheating" claim and take an In game conflict to the forums. Not everyone is on the forums and so not everyone will be able to see and reply to these claims and accusations but I feel as though it is unfair to those that win a war that they should be deemed as cheaters simply for winning the war.

There has been some claims that we are hoarding gold from other continents, I have not partaken in that I earn an income as a knight of Candiels and it is more than enough to keep a rather large sized unit afloat for a few weeks before the next tax day comes in. We share our wealth if a player needs gold for their character they ask In character and we as a realm help them in character. We are brothers and sisters in character as friends should be when playing a game, you have allies and you help those allies. If someone needs gold and I have extra gold that I wont need to keep my unit alive then sure I will send them some bonds to help them out. Does that mean i sit on my other characters and hoard gold to send to my family so that my character in Aurvandil can hand out gold to other players? No. In fact my other characters are much poorer than my character in Aurvandil. I do not have a high family wealth as I have not been playing this game for more than a few years.

It seems to me that those that play this game well and with others have a more enjoyable time than those that sit back and claim those playing the game with friends are cheating. Why should we be forced to endure this trial by forum when all we have done is play the game in character as it is meant to be played, why should we be forced to suffer these punishments and consequences when nothing has been substantiated. It seems to me that as soon as someone claims a clan exists there is little to no investigation and immediately judgement and punishment are bestowed.

Lastly I would like to rebute the "these are the same guys that played in Thulsoma" I played in Thulsoma, I joined the realm because I had a friend in that realm that I met in a different realm on a different continent. I wanted to make a new character and he sent me an OOC message that said, "Hey we have fun roleplaying together and a good time playing together I am in Thulsoma on Dwilight if you want to join us, if not thats fine to. Just thought I would mention it."
So i decided to send my new character to Thusloma to play with a friend of mine. Was I given anything special? No. I had to work for everything I gained there. I wanted my character to be judge so I had to endure months of campaigning and trying to gather loyal supporters to vote for me. I had to spend months serving as a knight before I was even considered for a lordship. I was unaware of any cheating that went on in the hierarchy of that realm.

I joined Aurvanidl because my character in Thulsoma was executed for treason. I made a new character and sent him to Dwilight because I enjoyed the serious mid-evil atmosphere. I decided however to send him to the south of the continent because the north was overrun by the realms that destroyed Thulsoma. I wanted nothing to do with that and it seems that as soon as a realm starts winning on Dwilight they are claimed to be cheating in some way or another. Aurvandil is not cheating.

Aurvandil is not a clan, it has never been a clan and it never will be a clan.

[Anaris]

I too do not see what the issue is. It seems to me that Aurvandil has been deemed a clan because it is a fairly new realm to Dwilight and was declared an enemy of Madina, they went to war and Madina is losing badly.

No. It was deemed that there is a clan in Aurvandil because there was a large influx of players from Averoth and Thulsoma, and after that happened, their military and economic performance changed from pretty average to hyper-efficient.

[NoblesseChevaleresque]

Because it may be relevant, this thread discusses Aurvandil's unusually efficient economy, with input from players in Aurvandil:

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,1938.0.html

This thread discusses recent happenings in Fontan, though beware, there is a significant amount of flaming, particularly at the end:

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,2228.0.html

What unusually efficient economy?

We just don't waste our gold, and we hand out what gold we have, it is that simple. That, and we maximise estate efficiency in every region we have , and supplement anyone who doesn't have enough gold, like Silent Wrath said, with treasury from the crown. I've already explained the Aurvandilan economic principle in full to Tom and he didn't seem to see anything wrong with it, it's genuinely a case of not wasting money, having the occasional investment and being generous with your treasury. Every realm can do it, it's not rocket science, it just takes a bit more time and micromanagement.

[Ketchum]

I do not understand something. There is noone from Fontan "whining"  on the forum when they lost Krimml city to Westmoor hand. We even need borrow Sirion strength to get back our own city. This can be confirmed by Zakilevo.

Is it because 13K CS Westmoor lost to Fontan 19K CS, which is when the first forum post appear to ask how come Fontan is so stronger? This is where I believe Westmoor feel they do not have a chance and thus branded Fontan as clan. If I receive some correct tips, even Nivemus realm has recently been branded as clan. There is apparently some heated exchanges on Rulers channels, somebody share to my character realm, Fontan.

The war between Fontan and Westmoor, are as Iltaran started a forum topic in link below are about 2 middle level strength army fighting against each other. I am not playing for a win, I cannot say for other. Maybe I do not see what the messages going on between individuals in Fontan, of which I stand corrected.

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,2183.0.html

As I posted before on why Fontan grow stronger, some messages to prove what I said, sadly not archived. I believe I have shown enough evidence to prove how Fontan gain gold during wars, people asking my Banker character for gold, how my men unpaid for 9 days and so on. This is in response to a good question raised by 1 of the Westmoor people in forum.

Random select half of the realm members and teleport them to other island?

This suggestion is not sensible in my humble opinion in case you found there is clannie activity going on in Fontan. It will happen again elsewhere, on other realms, on other islands. This would be postponing the problem without exactly fixing the issue root cause :(

[Geronus]

What unusually efficient economy?

We just don't waste our gold, and we hand out what gold we have, it is that simple. That, and we maximise estate efficiency in every region we have , and supplement anyone who doesn't have enough gold, like Silent Wrath said, with treasury from the crown. I've already explained the Aurvandilan economic principle in full to Tom and he didn't seem to see anything wrong with it, it's genuinely a case of not wasting money, having the occasional investment and being generous with your treasury. Every realm can do it, it's not rocket science, it just takes a bit more time and micromanagement.

I didn't mean to imply that there was cheating. It's simply a fact that if you look at Aurvandil's performance, it's a major outlier. I'm sure everything is handled through existing game mechanics, however your average realm (even your above-average realm) would be very hard pressed to reach the kind of numbers and averages observed in Aurvandil. Incidentally, that is why this group of players keeps getting singled out. From Thulsoma through Averoth to Aurvandil and Fontan, the realms that are populated by these families enjoy eyebrow-raising levels of coordination and economic efficiency that are simply beyond the grasp of most realms in the game, if not all of them. This is why suspicion and accusations tend to follow them wherever they go. There is all sorts of evidence that the realm, as a whole, is min-maxing, which is really just another word for power gaming even if it's all comfortably within the designed mechanics of the game.

[NoblesseChevaleresque]

No. It was deemed that there is a clan in Aurvandil because there was a large influx of players from Averoth and Thulsoma, and after that happened, their military and economic performance changed from pretty average to hyper-efficient.

I think what you will find is that, once the nobles from the north were arriving, was the same time Aurvandil had beat the massive infestations, ended the starvation in our lands and removed the Madinian occupation of Candiels, obviously our economy exploded after that point, as well as the number of regions we controlled.

Besides, how is that clan activity? They came in small amounts over the period of a year, in fact, one came from Caerwyn specifically to hand Mendicant several unique times after gaining an audience to see if we would accept refugees from the north. I notice you don't call Caerwyn joining Madina as Clan activity, but apparently it's the reverse when some members of Averoth, a small number of nobles from Thulsoma, and a tiny fraction from Caerwyn come over to Aurvandil, slowly, over the period of a year, back when Aurvandil was the only realm at war, and the only realm with any prospects or anything interesting going on.

These accusations are so ... faltering and near baseless.

[NoblesseChevaleresque]

I didn't mean to imply that there was cheating. It's simply a fact that if you look at Aurvandil's performance, it's a major outlier. I'm sure everything is handled through existing game mechanics, however your average realm (even your above-average realm) would be very hard pressed to reach the kind of numbers and averages observed in Aurvandil. Incidentally, that is why this group of players keeps getting singled out. From Thulsoma through Averoth to Aurvandil and Fontan, the realms that are populated by these families enjoy eyebrow-raising levels of coordination and economic efficiency that are simply beyond the grasp of most realms in the game, if not all of them. This is why suspicion and accusations tend to follow them wherever they go. There is all sorts of evidence that the realm, as a whole, is min-maxing, which is really just another word for power gaming even if it's all comfortably within the designed mechanics of the game.

It's really not that difficult to achieve.

Firstly, your nobles all buy out units to the maximum and never keep gold to pay their men, and pay them by a week by week basis, as well as enlarging them each time. It's cheaper to maintain soldiers, than it is to buy them, so it comes down to fairly cheap overall expenses, enabling a fairly consistent growth in the unit size. As for the nobles who don't have enough gold, you supplement them with treasury gold, and as the expenses are fairly low for the size and strength, this is something that can be easily maintained. Another thing, fighting wars gives yours unit very high cohesion and training, which sends your combat strength into overdrive when you consistently win battles.

As for high levels of coordination, this is a joke, we don't have that, we don't have high movement rates either, there is a reason why we give our nobles days of warning in advance, then make most moves two, or three turn moves, and it's always why whenever we don't do that, a lot don't move, Madina have sniped us considerably on this multiple times. The most we have for coordination, is some one sends me a request for gold, I sent them gold, and I look through the army lists to see who has the smallest units, and ask them if they need more gold. It's a case of the wealthiest taking a proactive role in seeing who needs gold and providing them with it.

This is nothing other realms cannot do, it just takes a bit of forethought and effort, and I seceded from Madina exactly because they never made the effort, they never had any forethought or coordination, they were the opposites of how Aurvandil runs, and I made Aurvandil the opposite of how Madina manages itself, so it's no wonder a realm like Madina, where every noble is only out for himself, can't compete with a realm like Aurvandil, where every noble is tied by oath and duty to serve the Monarch first and foremost.

[Velax]

My thoughts on clans were well established in one of those threads linked earlier. I would like to challenge, however, all these players coming out of the woodwork to say how awesome Fontan and Aurvandil are, how there's no clan, how people are only complaining because they're losing, blah, blah, predictable blah, to link to their family pages in their profile. So we can get an idea of just how "objective" some of this support is.

[Ketchum]

My thoughts on clans were well established in one of those threads linked earlier. I would like to challenge, however, all these players coming out of the woodwork to say how awesome Fontan and Aurvandil are, how there's no clan, how people are only complaining because they're losing, blah, blah, predictable blah, to link to their family pages in their profile. So we can get an idea of just how "objective" some of this support is.

As you can see, I am no Aurvandil, or those clannie you accuse me of.

I have shown mine 8)

http://www.battlemaster.org/UserDetails.php?ID=27742

[Kellaine]

As you can see, I am no Aurvandil, or those clannie you accuse me of.

I have shown mine 8)

http://www.battlemaster.org/UserDetails.php?ID=27742

I have to agree with you. You are not a clanner.  But what about the 16 characters/11 players that are.

[Vellos]

I would like to note that the Magistrates are more-or-less bound to treat any claims that the economy of Aurvandil is naturally managed as false, given that Tom stated the results of a Dev investigation that effectively precluded purely IC management of the economy. That issue shouldn't be debated at all. To quote: "This makes no sense unless one assumes that the entire system is managed through out-of-game communication." QED.

Another interesting Dev investigation would be: is there chatter between nobles in EC's south before they migrate to Fontan? Do they ICly coordinate the move, or does it just "happen"?

The real debate, however, is not about whether clanning is occurring. The dev investigation seems pretty conclusive: it is. The question is whether that clanning is destructive to the game environment. Continued attempts by players who are accused of being in the clan to vehemently argue that there is no clan are not going to help your case very much. Tell us why what you've been found to be doing isn't a bad thing. For myself at least, I would listen. I have no strong incentive to support or oppose either Aurvandil or Fontan.

[Kellaine]

So then what you are looking for is examples of how it is effecting the game as a whole.  more specifically how it is effecting Fontan and its politics and game play?

Let me use the election of Greatbridge as an example:

The two that ran for the position were myself (Sasha) and Sangah.  I announced that I was running and gave a short speech of my qualifications an my desire to run for the position. Sangah simply put her name on the ballot and would not debate publicly or privately.  counting on her "friends" or "clans " votes entirely to win the election.  Fontan is a democracy that thrives on open debate.  I do not mind losing a fair election, It is part of the game. But when a clan simply chooses who will win behind closed doors and there is no debate or open challenge it is suspicious to say the least.

the fact that she won is not my complaint, it how it was done.

Is that the sort of thing that the magistrates are looking for?

I can give other examples of the same as well, but this one is still fresh in my memory.

Like the General refusing (until toms letter to the realm) to use fontans established military council and sending out orders directly to the realm instead of letting the marshals do their job in relaying those orders. keeping our military command in the dark as to our objectives.

Like clan members that seem to get separate orders to loot and plunder while everyone else is expected to follow the orders of the general over those of their marshals. and when a marshal tried to exert his authority, he was threatened with treason. by our previous Judge (also a clanner). and now that we have a new judge and that judge issued a fine for not following the orders of their marshal and their Liege the previous judge and other clanners stepped up and defended the perpetrator publicly saying that the current Judge had no right to issue that fine. (after all they all supposedly had seperate orders than the rest of the realm but no one in the military council was ever made aware of them before the fine was issued.

Things like that. I could keep going but will stop here for now.