Was spying really that bad, I know off a few situations in Atamara, though never thought that it decreased the number of messages in realm.
At times, yes. I remember one incident on EC quite clearly. We watched the enemy moving out of one of our regions, and all of their nobles in the regions around it heading back home to refit. So we called an attack to get the stragglers. We clearly outnumbered the invaders in the specific region, but not if you included all the enemies in the surrounding regions.
Almost immediately after we ordered the attack, the enemy began reacting. Nearly instantly. All their nobles in the region stopped traveling. All the nobles in the regions around it (Who came from two or three different invading realms) turned back from their refit, and rushed back to the region we were attacking.
It was blatantly obvious that the enemy knew exactly what we were doing, and had received copies of our orders. Not only were we crushed in the battle, but one of our popular heroes was killed in the battle.
Events like this can greatly impact the amount of information that is shared in a realm. When things like that happen, people instantly pull back and stop sharing information with the realm. Conversations go back to closed groups. Information is closely guarded. New players, who are least likely to be included in privileged groups, are the ones most likely to suffer as a result.
