Limited Wars

[Jaden]

On that note, I think rogues regions need to be more dangerous in general. Currently they are not really living up to their name.
Population also die off too easily, its not that hard to reduce a region to 0 pop.

[Anaris]

Unfortunately, in the middle ages almost everything was way easier to destroy then to construct. If it can burn, you can destroy it with a torch and 30 seconds of your time. And most things were made of wood.

Entire villages being burnt to the ground was way too common for comfort.

Then screw realism; it's that attitude that's led to this game not being fun far too often.

[Jaden]

And regions are much bigger than a single village, its like burning and killing of an entire county (or more) which i dont think happen often even in the real world.

[Sacha]

Well, perhaps a start could be to remove the feature that triggers hundreds of peasants to stupidly take up arms every turn and get slaughtered. That would at least stop the rapid depopulation of regions which then need RL months to even start to recover. It's highly unrealistic that one morning, 700+ peasants get massacred while inflicting only half a dozen casualties, and 12 hours later another 500+ think "Well those guys may have gotten absolutely slaughtered for nothing this morning, but by the gods, we'll do better!"

[Indirik]

That is true, Sacha. The new combat code, which works great for normal mobile units and militia, complete breaks with peasant mobs. They are a horrible joke. Most people refer to them as target practice or training dummies. A single unit of about ~50 or soldiers soldiers can slaughter hundreds and hundreds of peasants and only lose a couple men in the process. The only practical use for them is raising the attacking soldier's cohesion/training, or as meat shields for the real defending soldiers. I'm not saying that they need to be as good as real soldiers, but they need to be more than a joke. As it it, popping militia is a quick and risk-free way of depopulating the region.

[Tom]

And regions are much bigger than a single village, its like burning and killing of an entire county (or more) which i dont think happen often even in the real world.

Yes, I think that is a good approach. It should be easy to do SOME damage, and it should be very hard to inflict total carnage.

[Chenier]

Unfortunately, in the middle ages almost everything was way easier to destroy then to construct. If it can burn, you can destroy it with a torch and 30 seconds of your time. And most things were made of wood.

Entire villages being burnt to the ground was way too common for comfort.

I completely agree that we need to put a stop to the "loot rogue" abuse.

"loot rogue" is a direct product of lowered noble density combined with the period of harsh region maintenance for regions without knights that we lived through. Most wars are done for destruction, not conquest. They are done to harm the enemy more than to increase oneself. The military leaders then have to choose which method will help them achieve this better: looting or TOs? When there are many excess nobles, the realm will choose the latter. In most cases, though, the nobles:lord ratio is close to 1:1, so the former is more worthwhile.

[Geronus]

"loot rogue" is a direct product of lowered noble density combined with the period of harsh region maintenance for regions without knights that we lived through. Most wars are done for destruction, not conquest. They are done to harm the enemy more than to increase oneself. The military leaders then have to choose which method will help them achieve this better: looting or TOs? When there are many excess nobles, the realm will choose the latter. In most cases, though, the nobles:lord ratio is close to 1:1, so the former is more worthwhile.

That's only true in some places. On Atamara it's often true because some realms are so large and/or alliance-locked that they cannot effectively expand (and neither can their regions be taken from them, hence the reliance on looting to harm them). On Dwilight it's often true because few realms have enough nobles to meaningfully expand. On Beluaterra it doesn't appear to be true at all, as Thalmarkin just fought a war of expansion, as is Riombara, as will Melhed I think.

[Chenier]

That's only true in some places. On Atamara it's often true because some realms are so large and/or alliance-locked that they cannot effectively expand (and neither can their regions be taken from them, hence the reliance on looting to harm them). On Dwilight it's often true because few realms have enough nobles to meaningfully expand. On Beluaterra it doesn't appear to be true at all, as Thalmarkin just fought a war of expansion, as is Riombara, as will Melhed I think.

Thalmarkin didn't loot rogue, because it had the nobles to spare. Thus, that does not contradict what I said. What Melhed will do, I don't know, but considering it lost half of its territories, it likely has the nobles to spare for expansion, and thus will likely not loot rogue. Riombara has not made significant conquests, and it remains to be seen how effectively they will conquer. Where TOs were more effective, they did so. But they also did not show any serious desire to expand and take on more regions: they are already pretty large as it is.

My statement did not target continents as wholes, but realms. Realms with surplus nobles and manageable realm sizes will favor TOs over looting in most cases, realms with 1:1 noble:region ratios or oversized realms will favor looting.

There's nothing "overpowered" about looting. It's the same as always. It does not need nerfing or fixing. If the balance of takeovers/looting change in favor of the latter over the years, it is purely a result of lower noble density and harder realm maintenance. Though realm maintenance isn't as bad since the last estate system overhaul, we lived with that system for quite a while, where the acquisition of new regions often meant that the realm was poorer instead of richer. It can still be the case, though, when knights of rich regions with high tax efficiency estates become the lords of newly-acquired poor fringe regions. The realm's overall wealth does not increase, not for some time. If anything, takeovers were nerfed over the years. Looting really isn't the problem.

[Poliorketes]

The thing about RC seems good, but they are too 'fast' right now. They need to be greater in number of recruits, but slower in the time for recruit them.

To make a 'better' war?... A good beginning would be to forget the 'loot a region rogue'... if you kill peasants, they will flee, not rise in arms against their realm... and the moment the aggressor left, they will come back to their lands. To eliminate the peasant militia could be good, too.

I think it's good to let the 'profitable looting', but make the regions not affected by it (or very little)... or make them really good in recuperation. In short, looting would take the enemy gold, not destroy the region.

...And an idea to make war not -realm destructive-... T.O.s ONLY OCCUPY REGIONS during war! To 'own' them, some kind of agreement must be made to 'legally' pass the region from a realm to other... War can't change the ownership of a region, this must be made by a peace treaty. If you totally destroy a realm, why would the enemy ruler give you 'his' regions?.

[Anaris]

There's nothing "overpowered" about looting. It's the same as always. It does not need nerfing or fixing.

Looting will be changed. It will be made significantly more effective in the short term, so that economic warfare becomes truly viable as an alternative to conquest. However, it will lost much of its long-term effectiveness, because the form that effectiveness takes is swaths of wasteland that no one wants, that take months or years to recover.

Right now, if you want to force a realm to surrender, you most generally have to do one of two things: Either take or loot rogue enough of their regions that they are utterly unable to produce an army, or serve them defeats for so long that they are utterly demoralized and no longer wish to fight.

Imagine, instead, a BattleMaster where you can win wars by actually winning battles in the field, combined with sabotaging your opponents' production, so that you can successfully march your army across their realm to their capital, where you can camp and, again, destroy their production to prevent them from recruiting. Their regions, while unproductive during the war, would recover relatively quickly once peace came, whether they held them or you did. This would allow the next war—for both realms—to start again sooner.

[Anaris]

...And an idea to make war not -realm destructive-... T.O.s ONLY OCCUPY REGIONS during war! To 'own' them, some kind of agreement must be made to 'legally' pass the region from a realm to other... War can't change the ownership of a region, this must be made by a peace treaty. If you totally destroy a realm, why would the enemy ruler give you 'his' regions?.

Much as I like the idea of this, we did try it, and it was totally unworkable. The problem is that a realm that is losing a war has very little incentive to grant you the legal claim to the regions you have taken. All it leads to, sadly, is a lot of griefing.

[Chenier]

Looting will be changed. It will be made significantly more effective in the short term, so that economic warfare becomes truly viable as an alternative to conquest. However, it will lost much of its long-term effectiveness, because the form that effectiveness takes is swaths of wasteland that no one wants, that take months or years to recover.

Right now, if you want to force a realm to surrender, you most generally have to do one of two things: Either take or loot rogue enough of their regions that they are utterly unable to produce an army, or serve them defeats for so long that they are utterly demoralized and no longer wish to fight.

Imagine, instead, a BattleMaster where you can win wars by actually winning battles in the field, combined with sabotaging your opponents' production, so that you can successfully march your army across their realm to their capital, where you can camp and, again, destroy their production to prevent them from recruiting. Their regions, while unproductive during the war, would recover relatively quickly once peace came, whether they held them or you did. This would allow the next war—for both realms—to start again sooner.

Are you saying that regions will recover from starvation a lot quicker? Because that's one of the biggest reasons looting hurts so much.

And you can... already march your army across their realm, to their capital. Heck, in most cases, you can sail it there. What's the big change here?

As for quicker peace-time rebuilding... I hope you don't mean the game would check diplomatic status, which would be way too easy to abuse.

[Anaris]

Are you saying that regions will recover from starvation a lot quicker? Because that's one of the biggest reasons looting hurts so much.

That's part of the plan, yes. Starvation should be much less of a cliff than it is.

And you can... already march your army across their realm, to their capital. Heck, in most cases, you can sail it there. What's the big change here?

It becomes more practical? I mean, yes, it's possible now, but it's a very rare thing to attack a capital that's got more than a few regions between you and it.

That part is meant as an illustration of what a common situation might look like after the changes. To be honest, I don't know for certain what all the outcomes will be, but that's the general sort of thing I'll be aiming for.

As for quicker peace-time rebuilding... I hope you don't mean the game would check diplomatic status, which would be way too easy to abuse.

Heh, no, I'm not that thick. Again, I'm not sure exactly what the methods would be, nor even if there's going to be an explicit check for peacetime in any form (though the devs have been examining things of that nature for a while now).

[Chenier]

It becomes more practical? I mean, yes, it's possible now, but it's a very rare thing to attack a capital that's got more than a few regions between you and it.

I just can't see how any changes to looting would make attacks on capitals any easier or even different than they are nowadays.