Kabrinskia, Astrum, and other such stuff of the North Western Astroist states.

[Anaris]

Fun means different things to different people, I flip over a table draw my swords and start spinning like a mad man killing everyone in the room... Only afterwards do I stop and see who died. Then I jump through a window with a bottle of whiskey, tuck and roll onto the street and grab a horse running by, pull the guy riding it off it and punch his face, now im on a horse with two swords and im smashing through the town jail saving my friends, its awesome, I toss them swords and we fight our way out of the building, its chaos, so many dudes are dying, we make it out of the town. We're at the club house, some chicks are there, whoaaa we get laid, its an awesome time...

I call plagiarism. That's one of Stabbity's classic roleplays.

[Indirik]

We will see what several thousand gold and a handful of courtiers/priests/diplomats can do for Aurvandil.

I can see it now... Allison auto da fe's all of Aurvandil's lords and defects with all of their land to Terran, effectively destroying Aurvandil.

[vonGenf]

I can see it now... Allison auto da fe's all of Aurvandil's lords and defects with all of their land to Terran, effectively destroying Aurvandil.

...and Terran by the same stroke.

[Glaumring the Fox]

... The Astroist plot all along!

[Chenier]

We will see what several thousand gold and a handful of courtiers/priests/diplomats can do for Aurvandil.   The gold should help replenish their army and we should be able to maintain their regions for a high tax rate once again.

Why would you want to do this...?

People complain about CE on EC...

Pax Aurvandilia would be just GREAT for Dwilight, right? I can already imagine it. Aurvandil can take on the rest of the continent and it's a pretty even battle, despite the fact that it has a sole !@#$ty city. And you want to give them tons of gold, more nobles...

Aurvandil's strength is unnatural. And you want to give it the means to its aspirations. I feel like deleting my Dwilight character already.

[Glaumring the Fox]

Oh come on Chenier...

[DamnTaffer]

He mad

[Daycryn]

I'm not worried about it.

[Kwanstein]

It's not that Aurvandil has unnatural strength... it's that everyone else is so bad.

I was surprised to hear that tax rates of ~20 percent were considered abnormal, since that's what I've been running my region at for probably half a year now and it's never dropped below perfect stats, even during a war and without me holding court or anything. Apparently Aurvandil is the only realm where other people have the good sense to do this. So Terran, D'Hara, etc. are essentially all playing with handicap mode on since they aren't utilizing their regions to full potential.

If everyone else increased their tax rates to intelligent levels, they could probably double or even triple their strength. Instead they set their tax rates at like 6% for no reason.

Also remember that the Aurvandil army currently marching around Terran uncontested was only 20,000 CS strong to begin with... so really it was relatively small compared to the armies other realms field. I think the army that attacked the Paisly realm a month or so ago was about 35,000 CS in comparison. If Terran garrisoned Paisland (I have no idea why they didn't) they could've easily held it off.

[NoblesseChevaleresque]

Why would you want to do this...?

People complain about CE on EC...

Pax Aurvandilia would be just GREAT for Dwilight, right? I can already imagine it. Aurvandil can take on the rest of the continent and it's a pretty even battle, despite the fact that it has a sole !@#$ty city. And you want to give them tons of gold, more nobles...

Aurvandil's strength is unnatural. And you want to give it the means to its aspirations. I feel like deleting my Dwilight character already.

Oh get of it.

Aurvandi's strength is unnatural? Indeed, it is entirely artificial, man made. A good warrior knows his limitations, a great warrior finds a way around them. Our strength is derived from efficient government and efficient tax rates and gold distribution, something you are perfectly capable of choosing to do in D'Hara but don't, which makes you quite the abnormal one when you willingly forgo a proper realm administration for a shambles if you really think there is anything so strange about Aurvandil, as you keep touting. Candiels isn't a !@#$ city, sure it's not in league with the ridiculous wealth of say Port Raviel or Port Nebel, but it is by no means !@#$. Again, I outright state you're so used to expecting literally thousands of gold in tax surplus to piss away doing nothing that you don't even know the value of gold or how to use it.

I do like how you've already given up on the war before its really begun, you've declared an Aurvandilan victory before I can even see the path towards it, but then I'm only the High Sovereign.

And it's Pax Aurvandalica (Going of what you said you may as well get used to it, as it's apparently going to stick around) and it would be beneficial for Dwilight, Cagilan Empire chokes the politics and wars of Atamara, Aurvandil will do the opposite. Cagilan Empire forms a huge federated power bloc (Kind of like the Moot, but actually relevant on continental diplomacy) Aurvandil will do the opposite. I could go on, but if Aurvandil is ever in a position of power, that'll mean more realms, more wars, more diversity and more nobles being empowered to do something.

You honestly seem to think you've got it hard, for some reason.

It's not that Aurvandil has unnatural strength... it's that everyone else is so bad.

I was surprised to hear that tax rates of ~20 percent were considered abnormal, since that's what I've been running my region at for probably half a year now and it's never dropped below perfect stats, even during a war and without me holding court or anything. Apparently Aurvandil is the only realm where other people have the good sense to do this. So Terran, D'Hara, etc. are essentially all playing with handicap mode on since they aren't utilizing their regions to full potential.

If everyone else increased their tax rates to intelligent levels, they could probably double or even triple their strength. Instead they set their tax rates at like 6% for no reason.

Also remember that the Aurvandil army currently marching around Terran uncontested was only 20,000 CS strong to begin with... so really it was relatively small compared to the armies other realms field. I think the army that attacked the Paisly realm a month or so ago was about 35,000 CS in comparison. If Terran garrisoned Paisland (I have no idea why they didn't) they could've easily held it off.

Finally, some common sense.

We used to run tax rates of 24% before the estate switchover, then we were forced to drop them to eighteen percent, which upon much experimentation was the highest we could "comfortably" run in our regions without any loss of production/morale/loyalty.

The combined army a month ago was 40,000 Combat Strength, and Aurvandil could only send forth 20,000 Combat Strength this campaign, when our first campaign we lead 35,000, which makes it rather clear that Aurvandil is struggling to maintain any real sort of military power when we've lost nearly half of it, not to mention our second most wealthy region and several others.

[dustole]

I used to run 25% tax rate in Golden Farrow quite easily.  I had to stay in the city or near it most of the time.  If I left on long trips I would have to drop the taxes to 22 or 23%. 

[Glaumring the Fox]

Hmm the federated Astroists...

Astrum 47
Corsanctum 13
Libero 11
Morek 43
Iashular 15

=129 nobles

The Moot...

Terran 30
D'Hara 25
Barca 14

= 69 nobles

TOTAL: 198

Aurvandiil 54


ummmm... Yeah the Aurvandiilian threat...

[Anaris]

It's not that Aurvandil has unnatural strength... it's that everyone else is so bad.

Sorry, no.

When literally everyone else on the continent (and pretty much everyone else in the entire game) is playing a particular way, and achieving a particular level of military efficiency, you don't get to come in with a realm formed around a group of OOC friends with absurdly high levels of activity and realm-focused self-sacrifice and claim that everyone else is just doing it wrong.

There was a time when all of BattleMaster played in the way that Aurvandil plays today. I remember it, and I played as both a leader and a regular knight in realms that were like that. Being a leader was wonderful fun, because you got to move around all these other chesspieces and watch as they did your will.

Being a regular knight sucked, hard.

BattleMaster isn't meant to be played like that. It's true that we've moved a bit too far in the opposite direction, and we need to regain some of that realm-as-team ethos, but in today's BattleMaster, Aurvandil just takes it too far.

[Zakilevo]

Sorry, no.

When literally everyone else on the continent (and pretty much everyone else in the entire game) is playing a particular way, and achieving a particular level of military efficiency, you don't get to come in with a realm formed around a group of OOC friends with absurdly high levels of activity and realm-focused self-sacrifice and claim that everyone else is just doing it wrong.

There was a time when all of BattleMaster played in the way that Aurvandil plays today. I remember it, and I played as both a leader and a regular knight in realms that were like that. Being a leader was wonderful fun, because you got to move around all these other chesspieces and watch as they did your will.

Being a regular knight sucked, hard.

BattleMaster isn't meant to be played like that. It's true that we've moved a bit too far in the opposite direction, and we need to regain some of that realm-as-team ethos, but in today's BattleMaster, Aurvandil just takes it too far.

Good old days  :'(

[Lanyon]

Sorry, no.

When literally everyone else on the continent (and pretty much everyone else in the entire game) is playing a particular way, and achieving a particular level of military efficiency, you don't get to come in with a realm formed around a group of OOC friends with absurdly high levels of activity and realm-focused self-sacrifice and claim that everyone else is just doing it wrong.

There was a time when all of BattleMaster played in the way that Aurvandil plays today. I remember it, and I played as both a leader and a regular knight in realms that were like that. Being a leader was wonderful fun, because you got to move around all these other chesspieces and watch as they did your will.

Being a regular knight sucked, hard.

BattleMaster isn't meant to be played like that. It's true that we've moved a bit too far in the opposite direction, and we need to regain some of that realm-as-team ethos, but in today's BattleMaster, Aurvandil just takes it too far.

I don't see how you, as a developer, a representative of this game mind you, can go and say that and entire group of players is playing WRONG because they have high levels of activity and are play efficiently. We are playing how WE want to play. we aren't breaking SMA. Also, I have been a regular knight, in fact I'm little more than that now and Aurvandil is STILL a fun place to play. If anyone else doesn't think so they can move to a different realm where they find themselves more comfortable.

Anaris I like you. I just don't like that you said because I'm not playing how you might run your realm I'm playing wrong, and not only wrong but not having any fun while doing it. I think you should have more poise than that as a representative of this awesome game, volunteer or not.