Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?

[Zakilevo]

Also there is no such thing as a perfect plan. You just deal with your problems as you go. Sometimes you just pray to Tom and start your plan. Because people have never done this before they seem to all tried to make it perfect.

[CyberGenesis]

You gave too much time to Luria. At least enough to let them mobilize their armies.

Our armies were always mobilized, we were busy purging hordes - same as everyone else. We just happened to be in the same area doing so when Barca arrived. To be fair, we also knew about it some time beforehand. D'Hara is rife with silent nobility providing that information.

[Chenier]

Our armies were always mobilized, we were busy purging hordes - same as everyone else. We just happened to be in the same area doing so when Barca arrived. To be fair, we also knew about it some time beforehand. D'Hara is rife with silent nobility providing that information.

I really hate this kind of behavior. This is the kind of thing that gets people to mistrust their peers, and limit trust, cooperation, and sharing. Many things that used to be discussed openly and had everyone invited to contribute shift towards secrecy, with smaller discussion groups and many actions taken without consulting anyone at all. And who pays for it? In the end, it's the newbies in particular, but everyone in general. It promotes silence and stagnation.

Just another symptom of the realm-as-a-team spirit being gone and replaced with an utterly destructive self-serving mentality. I don't recall spies ever being a significant concern when I joined the game, but now it's safe to assume that every realm and religion probably has at least 10% of its nobles that are just there to see it fail.

[Anaris]

Just another symptom of the realm-as-a-team spirit being gone and replaced with an utterly destructive self-serving mentality. I don't recall spies ever being a significant concern when I joined the game, but now it's safe to assume that every realm and religion probably has at least 10% of its nobles that are just there to see it fail.

Then either you weren't paying attention, or you got quite lucky in your realms, because I saw this kind of paranoia everywhere in 2004.

I agree that it's a serious problem, but it's a long way from being a new problem.

[Lychaon]

When a TO is running, the realm running the TO is always the defender.
Only a region owner fighting as the Defender, can use the walls. Therefore, when an active TO is running, no one gets the walls.

One question regarding this matter of TO's and walls: is there any possible way to enter a region guarded by a garrison and start a TO (avoiding to engage in combat with the defenders), in order to refrain them from using the walls?

[Penchant]

I really hate this kind of behavior. This is the kind of thing that gets people to mistrust their peers, and limit trust, cooperation, and sharing. Many things that used to be discussed openly and had everyone invited to contribute shift towards secrecy, with smaller discussion groups and many actions taken without consulting anyone at all. And who pays for it? In the end, it's the newbies in particular, but everyone in general. It promotes silence and stagnation.

Just another symptom of the realm-as-a-team spirit being gone and replaced with an utterly destructive self-serving mentality. I don't recall spies ever being a significant concern when I joined the game, but now it's safe to assume that every realm and religion probably has at least 10% of its nobles that are just there to see it fail.

Settle down, he was probably just referencing Lucius which shouldn't have been that hard to guess would give Luria Nova what ever information he had when joined.

One question regarding this matter of TO's and walls: is there any possible way to enter a region guarded by a garrison and start a TO (avoiding to engage in combat with the defenders), in order to refrain them from using the walls?

Sending a large enough unit with evasive settings and getting lucky that they are actually able to evade. Otherwise I don't think so.

[Anaris]

One question regarding this matter of TO's and walls: is there any possible way to enter a region guarded by a garrison and start a TO (avoiding to engage in combat with the defenders), in order to refrain them from using the walls?

No. If you do not control the battlefield, you cannot start a takeover.

(That actually may not be not strictly true, as there may be some odd edge cases involving having a third party present to confuse the troops into not fighting...but any deliberate use of such tactics would be considered abusive, and I'm hoping to be able to do away with them soon anyway.)

[Lychaon]

No. If you do not control the battlefield, you cannot start a takeover.

It makes sense. Thanks for the replies.

[Indirik]

I agree that it's a serious problem, but it's a long way from being a new problem.

Yeah, spying sucks. Horribly destructive for the game as a whole. There may be logically RP'd reasons for some characters to spy. But it still sucks, from an OOC perspective. When you know that every message you send to your realm is going to be handed over to your enemies, or perspective enemies, you hesitate to involve more than a trusted few in your discussions. This drives conversations into small, closed councils. You don't involve other players in your decision making process. This makes the realms quieter, and the players bored/dissatisfied. I've seen it happen quite often.

[Deytheur]

Yup I agree.

It's just too easy to spy and there's little that can be done against it while it provides huge benefits to those who use them.

[CyberGenesis]

Silence and stagnation was part of the issue to begin with. Anyone who was in D'Hara just before the monsters/glaciers struck would have known the situation that spawned the dissent in the ranks - and none of them should have been surprised given the way things escalated.

A pissing contest over land from long before i ever started playing spawned something like the 3rd or 4th war over the Isles. About a day after I took office as ruler, i made the attempt to start diplomatic discussions over an arrangement for the isles. Almost the next day the event started, which made -everyone- paranoid as hell. Those that were sympathetic to the attempts of peace were immediately shushed, or in the case of the Prime Minister - removed from office citing rather ridiculous reasoning.

Since then, from what i've seen of the shared letters, every effort has been made to basically dictate a "Do as we say" mentality about the war. Leading to more than a few pissed players who had completely valid reasons to seek external support for internal issues. I'm lost as to how a sudden regime change and 'do-or-die' order structure is less damaging to the game than people trying to maintain sanity in what has amounted to one HELL of a cluster!@#$ on the continent.

Indrik, i would agree more with the sentiment about 'close circles only' but that was basically what spawned the 'spying' issues all by itself. The discussions that were made public had their usual political spin to make everyone but them and their allies look like !@#$%^&s. The letters i've seen were twisted into knots, if not straight up lies, about everything I'd said or worked for since taking my seat as ruler. The history of Luria hasn't helped in that regard (not that anyone can deny Luria has a history of backstabbing) but to essentially lump inter-game espionage of any kind with something like OOC Metagaming is ridiculous.

The game doesn't provide a lot of opportunity to remove a leader or council member, let alone get support from the realm. I've seen a fair number of people who simply follow every order given because apparently free thought in a game based around RP and interaction is too much to ask. These are the kinds of people 'crazy rulers' rely on to follow through with plans. You get a couple of well-known people in a realm to agree with you, group-think sets in for the sheep. I got to where i was because i questioned the order from above. Questioning in the Southern League has lead to letters of political manslaughter, or simply direct death threats.

It's simply part of the game, and for that matter - a part of life.

Anyone that is part of this continental mess in Dwilight can see exactly what events took place to cause the sentiment of the players on both sides. No one is innocent in the matter, and those that tried to do something about it without spying were basically run out of town for trying. I'll never denounce IC spying, I expect it and act accordingly for the most part. The only issue i'll raise is the use of IRC to arrange IC situations that have simply no basis or reason to happen. Some of us had friends within the league prior to the war - were we supposed to stop our IC discussion simply because the new sheriff in town said so? That sort of thought will murder the game faster than anything


EDIT: I should clarify that I'm not defending the people who spy essentially just to cheat the game - screw them as well. I'm referring to those that have entirely logical reasons for what they're doing within the scope of the game and the events happening.

[Indirik]

Silence and stagnation was part of the issue to begin with. Anyone who was in D'Hara just before the monsters/glaciers struck would have known the situation that spawned the dissent in the ranks - and none of them should have been surprised given the way things escalated.

I don't currently play on Dwilight, so I can't really talk about the situation in D'Hara. But yeah, there are a lot of silent, stagnant realms in the game.

The game doesn't provide a lot of opportunity to remove a leader or council member, let alone get support from the realm.

Rebellion, protests, region/duchy allegiance change, civil disobedience, etc. You just have to find the right people. And if you can't get that support, then perhaps it's not the game that's at fault, but that your realm really doesn't want the kind of change you're trying to force.

It's simply part of the game, and for that matter - a part of life.

Sure, it is indeed part of life. But people in life who do these kinds of things run a very real risk of imprisonment and death. There are risks involved, and opportunities to catch them. You have none of that IG. (Unless they're complete idiots. But that's another story.)

IMHO, the damage that spying can do to the game far outweighs any minor increase in enjoyment it can provide to a very small number of players.

[OFaolain]

If you really want to get rid of spying (or at least put big bright lights above the spies' heads), why not remove the ability to directly contact foreign nobles from people who are not diplomats or Council members?  Then the only way spying could happen is if someone changes class to diplomat, gets elected to a government position, is a member of a guild or religion, or actually enters a region that contains a member of the realm they are spying for (thus introducing that opportunity to catch them). (also leaves a great many ways to contact people from other realms, most of which are traceable)

And let's say you have some Evilists in your realm and you're at war with Evilstan; maybe the Evilstanis predict your army's movement one too many times and *bam*, suddenly all the Evilists in your realm are suspect.

[CyberGenesis]

Civil Disobedience? Banishment/exile as a result

Protests aren't nearly as effective as they should be because they require fellow nobles to support you. Silent protest doesn't change anything and public protests usually result in the same as civil disobedience.

In the case of a duchy change - That happened in the war, the duke was marked a coward (and also disappeared from the game nearly the same day as the change)  and was shat upon within the realm for doing so without making an attempt to any of the above instead

You bring up rebellion, but such an action requires support - usually from the outside. Outside support requires something in terms of payment. Future promises are meaningless when you're currently locked into a war with the same people they want to rebel against. Information pays off now

While it's an irritating course of action, spies serve their purpose. They're faster and usually more effective than the above. Had we been able to completely block the Barcan army without significant losses, this war would have likely ended where it started. In the time i've been playing, i've only seen the occurrence of straight up treason like the Duke once, and shared military information twice. At this point the only information I receive is letters from nobles voicing their discontent and the wish to leave the war zone unmolested.

[Wolfang]

Our armies were always mobilized, we were busy purging hordes - same as everyone else. We just happened to be in the same area doing so when Barca arrived. To be fair, we also knew about it some time beforehand. D'Hara is rife with silent nobility providing that information.

That's a shame.