As a new player that joined BM 4 months ago, my answer to the density problem is to deal more with new player retention, and Dev team should put more weight on attracting new players.
It is at least equally important as old player retention. While on this forum I guess most of you are long time players, please don't underestimate how important it is about new player retention.
Let's face it: the game is boring for most of new players. There aren't a lot of people talking every day. There aren't many options left for newbies. The dev team should spend more time thinking for new players.
Eventually after I got promoted, I said "wow": there are so many things a marshal can do, and there are so many things a region lord can do! But most new players will drop before they even know those features.. Why does a new player stay for several months, just following all the orders without quitting? He has little to say regarding the strategy side of the game, because he has no/little in-game channel to get involved in all the discussions. I just realized there is a "Local" forum when I started to have a look at this forum 2 days ago!
1) why can't a new player try different classes from day 1? I understand some requires high prestige, but can we just assume new players are from noble families that can meet these requirements?
2) why some information is hide from new characters? For example, dose market price of food in a region need to be hide from new characters? Can we show those "advanced" buttons even if newbies can't use them?
3) more aggressively, why a knight can't have any option regarding to his estate? If a province is owned by a baron, for example, maybe a town is assigned to a knight. Adding more features to new players can open up a lot of fun for the newbies.
4) what's the fun about following orders and is there anything else to do other than line settings?
If there is no discussion you can join because of either lack of knowledge/experience or lack of authority, basically all you can do is to follow orders. Is there any possibility that BM can give more things that a troop leader can do besides following orders? (I know this is a strategic game, not a slash/loot rpg. But please..)
5) What's the char limit on adventurers for? New players spend significant portion of their time on the adventurers part
Adventurers are playing RPG games. They will not break any balance. Lifting this limit will only give players that have more time chances to enjoy more of the game. People may think that adventurer part is just an add-on, but to a new player that can't do any decision-making but follow orders, an adventurer is free from those orders and can enjoy a lot of fun. There are so many popular trading card games out there that have little player interaction, but attract huge player base! Just introduce some fun features to the adventurer part, and potentially the density problem may be solved as a by-product! I believe BM has more potential than people think. The overall goal is to make this game more fun with more players, and is not just to limit it as a "pure-strategic" game.
The above discussion about new players may seem a little bit off from the current topic (local forum, and reduce # of islands). But I take the opinion that short term solutions cannot solve long term problems. Only by adding more fun features can BM solve the density and retention problem in the long run.
