Limited Wars

[Lorgan]

You can make anything look good on paper but all this results in is more tentativeness and less precise tactics. As it stands it just makes the game more punishing because you reduce information given to the player without giving him tools or options (i.e. gameplay) to get it back.

There's enough tools available. Knowledge of RC quality in neighbouring realms is something that comes overtime, just as it does for enemy realms. All you really have to do is fight them. You don't even have to, you could easily send in someone to scout their regions, or just send an army. A sample of a couple of regions will do, then compare their RCs to your RCs and you have an idea of how to compare your men to their men. But again, you could always just fight blind that first battle or two and depend on your own troops. And the only way that's going to happen anyway is if you're fighting against someone far away, any neighbour shows you that sample every minute of every day.

[Indirik]

This whole line of thought reminds me of the "delayed messages" idea. Sure, it makes some sense from an IC perspective, and if it were accepted by the playerbase, it would add an interesting dimension that would require rethinking a lot of strategy.

But it would make people leave the game in droves, because it's not fun. Indeed, it's the opposite of fun.

Remember the delayed scout reports experiment?

[Anaris]

Remember the delayed scout reports experiment?

Yep. That was a fiasco and a half—even when they weren't bugged all to hell

[Geronus]

I don't look at it from a realism perspective. I look at it from a gameplay perspective: everyone should have access to all the information of their own army, and the general should have access to that information for all armies. Battles would still need to show actual CS and I do believe you should be aware of the CS in your current region as well. However, showing a certain randomness in scout reports (you can still tell the strength of an army by looking at it's numbers, just compare it to your own, that's how everyone, everywhere does it), which is actually already something that's going on to a lesser extent today, does add gameplay. Not only does it give more worth to training and to RC quality but also actual tactical advantages to those who have put time, effort and gold into it (as is with everything in this game).

Just imagine: a realm invades you. They send 1,000 men. You have 1,400 men of medium quality troops who have 16,000 CS. You estimate their CS based on what you know of their RCs, the time they've had (you've given them) and/or previous encounters and then you decide whether to engage them or not.
You'd think that you should be able to beat them at those odds, but maybe those are 1,000 killer troops, diligently trained and recruited from RCs that have taken tens of thousands of gold to perfect. Or maybe it's simply all your enemy could muster.

The point is, you're not just mindlessly comparing CS to see whether you can or can't win a battle, adding or subtracting for fortifications. You're thinking about it and learning from your enemy. For the first time ever, to fight a war you would have to find out AND take into account the quality of your enemy's forces when devising a strategy. Strategy would be more than just getting the biggest number in the right place at the right time.
It would tie military operations in nicely with everything  on which you also spend thousands upon thousands of gold just for the purpose of those same operations.

This was the point.

Anaris, you're effectively railing against the blob vs. blob nature of BM combat, and yet you don't recognize that the fact that nearly exact CS numbers being available to both sides just encourages this type of behavior, not to mention enables risk aversion. As a General I assess the CS of the enemy force, take into account the (comparatively minor) considerations of unit type distribution and total number of men, and then I know if I can win or not. This guides almost all my decisions.

Removing CS numbers would not in any way reduce the value of scouts. After all, you still need to know where the enemy is and what he's doing, as much or more than needing to know his combat capabilities down to a T. My suggestion wouldn't change that. What it would do is make battles more unpredictable, but that's a good thing. As it is right now, people just avoid fighting at a CS disadvantage unless they feel they have no choice. It is something that enables risk aversion.

[Penchant]

This was the point.

Anaris, you're effectively railing against the blob vs. blob nature of BM combat, and yet you don't recognize that the fact that nearly exact CS numbers being available to both sides just encourages this type of behavior, not to mention enables risk aversion. As a General I assess the CS of the enemy force, take into account the (comparatively minor) considerations of unit type distribution and total number of men, and then I know if I can win or not. This guides almost all my decisions.

Removing CS numbers would not in any way reduce the value of scouts. After all, you still need to know where the enemy is and what he's doing, as much or more than needing to know his combat capabilities down to a T. My suggestion wouldn't change that. What it would do is make battles more unpredictable, but that's a good thing. As it is right now, people just avoid fighting at a CS disadvantage unless they feel they have no choice. It is something that enables risk aversion.

I don't like the idea of completely removing any kind of way of knowing the quality of the enemy army when scouting although I see your point on people waiting until they know they have a CS advantage.

[Kai]

More unpredictable -> more defensive -> more boring

Your goal should be interesting strategy, not boring "overtime".

"I don't know how much CS they have unless I pour hours into the game, then when I know I'll do the same thing I did before"

[Penchant]

More unpredictable -> more defensive -> more boring

Your goal should be interesting strategy, not boring "overtime".

"I don't know how much CS they have unless I pour hours into the game, then when I know I'll do the same thing I did before"

Allowing defense to generally be stronger than offence is good. The issue is its the latter. By that I mean, if being defensive was generally stronger, say a CS bonus for knowing the landscape of the region you are in because it belongs to your realm allows defense to be stronger. Its good because people can declare wars and be less certain of winning but more certain they can at least hold off the other realm.

I would bet it would awefully hard to find a war declaration where the realm declaring it or its group of allies who participated in the war weren't stronger than the realm being declared war on, or at least appeared so before the war began. People who start wars are people who believe they can win them because not winning means losing right now, almost never a draw or inconclusive war ending. Both sides having defensive advantages, allows more draws/inconclusive, which means more limited wars, the point of this thread.

If you think limited wars are boring and you want to talk about it here, then leave the thread, because thats not the purpose nor discussion of this thread.

[Kai]

Favouring defensive strategy is not the same as a defenders advantage. Do you even know the primary source of defenders advantage?

[Kwanstein]

Defenders advantage is the advantage of having your enemies come to you. They expend time, you don't.

I would bet it would awefully hard to find a war declaration where the realm declaring it or its group of allies who participated in the war weren't stronger than the realm being declared war on, or at least appeared so before the war began. People who start wars are people who believe they can win them because not winning means losing right now, almost never a draw or inconclusive war ending. Both sides having defensive advantages, allows more draws/inconclusive, which means more limited wars, the point of this thread.

Neither World War was started by people who expected to win. Austria merely saw a chance, a slim one, at reversing her fortune, while Hitler was role playing as if he were in a Wagner production. Those were both the kinds of wars that would be exciting to play in, if translated into Battlemaster.

The reason BM mostly just has gang bang wars, wars started with 100% odds of victory, is because the people in power suck and are anti-fun. They just aren't very creative. That is the problem with electing people democratically; the safe, bland candidates have the broadest appeal, while the extremists, those who are interesting, do not.

[Poliorketes]

About Generals:

Its ridiculous easy to make big armies to be hardest to control than smalls ones. Your General with 50% leadership will manage a small army perfectly and give it a big bonus, while you enemy General with a 50% too, but with a big army will not, and would give no bonus. 

Problem solved!

More unpredictable -> more defensive -> more boring

Your goal should be interesting strategy, not boring "overtime".

"I don't know how much CS they have unless I pour hours into the game, then when I know I'll do the same thing I did before"

Yes but:

More predictable->more boring

To know ALL about you enemy not create 'interesting strategy', but boring strategy.

They have 4345CS, I have 3243CS. It's they turn to loot my regions, and my turn to wait in a city... Tax day! Now I got 5543CS and they only 4013!!! It's they turn to withdraw and wait in a city and my turn to burn their regions... With some luck I will destroy some left-behind unit!... Not very trilling!

...

Yes, with more limited information, bad Generals will do NOTHING if they don't now ALL about the enemy, they will not take any risk (the same way they play now)... and they will lost wars.

And good Generals will know when to take risks and will win wars...


Honestly, right now, the wars are a bit booooring. The only 'variable' is, for the attacking army, how many nobles will not move, and will miss the battle.

If unpredictability is not good for the game, Then We must eliminate the battles. The army with more CS win, and lost a 10%, the army with less CS loss and loss 50%... You think this will make wars better?

THIS IS A GAME, AND GAMES NEEDS UNPREDICTABILITY... If not, we would be playing chess!!!

[Sacha]

Removing CS values won't do anything to reduce blob armies. Instead of comparing CS, they'll compare raw numbers, but they'll treat the numbers just the same. In fact I'd wager it would only increase trench warfare since both sides will just recruit as many men as possible to improve their odds, but at the same time they will be hesitant to attack since they don't know exactly how strong their enemy is, and you'll just end up with huge armies staring at each other and not moving. 

[Poliorketes]

Removing CS values won't do anything to reduce blob armies. Instead of comparing CS, they'll compare raw numbers, but they'll treat the numbers just the same. In fact I'd wager it would only increase trench warfare since both sides will just recruit as many men as possible to improve their odds, but at the same time they will be hesitant to attack since they don't know exactly how strong their enemy is, and you'll just end up with huge armies staring at each other and not moving. 

Not, it will not make anything to reduce blob. For this, it would be good to make some General/Marshal rule as I proposed before... and give more strength to the nobles, specially to the heroes! This is a role play game! Give more power to the nobles!

And it's a bit risky to suppose it will be the way you said. I could be equally this way:
-Some General recruit a big army of cheap almost useless infantry, and the other realm don't attack him afraid of the the size. The General wins the war easily...
-Or a big army attack a smaller army thinking is an easy prey, and is destroyed because they were all elite...
-Or a big army see a smaller army enter in their region, and decide to withdraw, thinking the other army must be all elite. Maybe, or maybe not...

Right now, there a almost no risk in wars because we know too much about the enemy army and there is so little variables.

And I agree... Delay Scouts is make the game slower... is a bad idea. But this is not the same!

[Zakilevo]

Terrain Modifiers: http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,5043.0.html

[Indirik]

About Generals:

Its ridiculous easy to make big armies to be hardest to control than smalls ones. Your General with 50% leadership will manage a small army perfectly and give it a big bonus, while you enemy General with a 50% too, but with a big army will not, and would give no bonus. 

Problem solved!

I have in the past proposed a few different changes to add this kind of thing. It's not the general that should determine single-army performance, though, it's the Marshal. The is the one in charge of the army.
Rather, the generals should help with coordinating the actions of multiple armies. Especially when the armies of multiple realms work together. The presence of a general should give a bonus when multiple armies try to work together. And if you have multiple realms, you should have the generals of all involved realms. Getting more generals onto the battlefield is also a good thing, as it allows for them tog et wounded, and knocked out for a while. Or to help increase some turnover.

You do have to be careful with stuff, though. Adding a bonus in some situations is almost the same thing as as giving a penalty in the situation where the bonus does not apply. When some realms get a general-is-there bonus, then it will eventually be interpreted as a general-not-present penalty. This is especially true if the bonus is large.

To know ALL about you enemy not create 'interesting strategy', but boring strategy.

....

Honestly, right now, the wars are a bit booooring. The only 'variable' is, for the attacking army, how many nobles will not move, and will miss the battle.

This just simply isn't true. We had loads of wars, and loads of fun, for years. And we had even more accurate information than we do now. We used to know the exact CS and soldier count for all units on every scout report. And we still had plenty of wars, and plenty of fun. Adding the variability to scout reports didn't have much effect at all.

This all goes back to lack of nobles. When you have more nobles you can have more armies, and those armies can be doing more things. You can have looting armies, and flanking maneuvers, and fast-reaction cavalry forces, etc. But when you only have 20 nobles, and your enemy has 30, neither side can really afford to break 7 or 8 nobles loose to run special missions. When you have 100 noble,s you can cut 10-15 loose to do special stuff, and it won't cripple your main army.