No peace time Generals

[Chamberlain]

You need a general because it is a council position at the end of the day, he or she has a range of facts at their fingertips that no other character within the realm has and that administrative role is as important in peacetime as in a time of war.  That said i don't see why a general should feel it necessary to pull a noble into line simply for making public an announcement that they wish to go and hunt trolls.  i certainly don't wait to be told or not to challenge a monster infiltration or undead rising from their graves.  Your excursion to the North is little different to this for me.

[Buffalkill]

It's not so outlandish. Most countries didn't have standing armies in medieval times. Of course, not to !@#$ on your idea, but it might be unenforceable. If a declaration of war is all that's required then we just see rulers declaring "cold wars", or at least maintaining a nominal state of war even after fighting has stopped. That said, in the example you described, I think it could be reasonably argued that a general has no authority over a noble in peace time.

[Stabbity]

To be fair though, this does have some historical precedent. There were no standing armies, just levies. Often times there were no "Generals" either, they were appointed when war broke out, and the position lasted until the war ended.

[Buffalkill]

That was my point.

[Indirik]

Two things:

1) Not having a general doesn't mean that you don't have a standing army. You still have the same nobles, leading the same troops, in the same armies, being led by the same marshals. All you've done is get rid of the general, under the mistaken belief that somehow not having a general means that no one can give you orders, and therefore you have no responsibilities and can do whatever you want. The fact of the matter is that you are still a vassal with a liege lord. You have to do whatever your liege lord tells you to do. If that means that you have to ride across the countryside pretending that the windmills are giants, then that's what you do. If you want to do something else, then you have to get permission from your liege lord. Try talking to them. It usually works wonders. If not, find another liege who *is* willing to support you in doing whatever you want.

2) If you don't want to be under the general's authority, or you don't want your knights under the generals authority, then remove them from the army. You end up with a general with no army to command. And *that* accomplishes the entire purpose of your request, both in fact and intent. And you can do it right now, all on your own, with not a single change required.

And for those two reasons, this feature request will never be approved or implemented.

[trying]

You're forgetting how there is this military force known as the police and they are under the command of a police chief aka 'general'.

[Dishman]

Generals really only have power to move militia about. Other than that, do they have any power other than what is agreed upon in the realm? If you strip the General of IC power during peace-time, you can keep the ready-made armies and command structure. Is there any need to change mechanics?

[Jens Namtrah]

Two things:

1) Not having a general doesn't mean that you don't have a standing army. You still have the same nobles, leading the same troops, in the same armies, being led by the same marshals. All you've done is get rid of the general, under the mistaken belief that somehow not having a general means that no one can give you orders, and therefore you have no responsibilities and can do whatever you want. The fact of the matter is that you are still a vassal with a liege lord. You have to do whatever your liege lord tells you to do. If that means that you have to ride across the countryside pretending that the windmills are giants, then that's what you do. If you want to do something else, then you have to get permission from your liege lord. Try talking to them. It usually works wonders. If not, find another liege who *is* willing to support you in doing whatever you want.

2) If you don't want to be under the general's authority, or you don't want your knights under the generals authority, then remove them from the army. You end up with a general with no army to command. And *that* accomplishes the entire purpose of your request, both in fact and intent. And you can do it right now, all on your own, with not a single change required.

And for those two reasons, this feature request will never be approved or implemented.

You make some assumptions that are not (completely) correct.

1) As I said in the original post:

"YES - you can have armies
YES - you can have Marshals
NO - you cannot force a noble to be in an army (but his Lord can)"

The discussion of no standing armies was merely discussion among others. Abolishing peace time armies would be a terrible idea, and is not a part of my request.

2) "If you want to do something else, then you have to get permission from your liege lord."

This is the bull!@#$ that has to leave the game. It's - in part - what this request is about.

I don't have to sit around waiting for orders from someone all the time. If my liege has no need from me, I'm free to do as I like. Mechanics support this as well - I can drop my liege with a 2hr click of a button and find an estate with someone I know never actively plays.

Lieges rarely pay that much attention to their knights, and frankly, the idea "I stuck you under the command of a Marshal" is further bull!@#$. If you want players who are actively engaged in the game, you have to stop treating them like little children.

3) The other issue that I posted is the "Military State" - places where  you don't have to be in a army to be forced under the General's command. It's wrong, but we've tried only allowing Generals to send red letters to their Marshals and it didn't work.



Looking through some of the responses, I don't think many of you  read carefully and then sat back and considered for a while before typing. I meant take a day or two, not 15 seconds. Spend an hour thinking about it as if it were something you wanted, and then look for issues from that POV.

Game's retention problems aren't going to be fixed by just adding a bunch of shiny buttons

[Jens Namtrah]

"And for those two reasons, this feature request will never be approved or implemented."

You absolutely MUST stop making statements like that.

Your game is dying a slow death. If people are faced with the idea that some person they don't even play with can simply slap down any idea they come up with, they'll stop bothering.

Even if you didn't mean you were personally vetoing it, you need to be careful how you word things.

"For those reasons, I don't like the idea and would argue against it when we (the dev team)  make a decision" would go over much better.

[Anaris]

"And for those two reasons, this feature request will never be approved or implemented."

You absolutely MUST stop making statements like that.

Your game is dying a slow death. If people are faced with the idea that some person they don't even play with can simply slap down any idea they come up with, they'll stop bothering.

Even if you didn't mean you were personally vetoing it, you need to be careful how you word things.

"For those reasons, I don't like the idea and would argue against it when we (the dev team)  make a decision" would go over much better.

So...you just want him to lie to you? Sugarcoat it so that the rejection goes down better?

Sorry, but that's not the nature of this dev team. If we're not going to ever do something, we're going to come right out and tell you.  And Indirik knows Tom's and my thought process (y'know, the ones in charge of actually approving and implementing new features) regarding feature requests pretty well by now, so it's going to be pretty darn rare that he says, "That's never going to happen," and one of us comes out and contradicts him.

The game isn't suffering because we don't approve every single feature request that comes our way. If we did, it would probably already be dead by now.

The game is suffering, in part, because people in positions of power feel it's their job to say "no" to most things their knights/vassals/army members want to try that's not already approved. But that's not a problem that can be solved by new features. It's a problem that can only be solved by enough people deciding they're fed up with it and telling those people in positions of power to shove it. Rocking the boat is hard—trust me, I know. I've been trying to work toward that goal with some of my characters for many years now. But it's not impossible, and it won't be helped by features like this.

If the realm feels like it needs a General to exert centralized authority over some unruly knights, you know what it'll do? It'll just declare a war that it never intends to fight, appoint a General, and have him start handing out orders left and right. This is true of every feature that restricts what a realm can do when it has no declared war. Want the benefit of being at war? Declare a war! You can do it almost any time you want if you're ruler, and as long as you've got a favorable diplomatic situation to begin with, it can be totally consequence-free. (It's not always, but very often it is.)

It sounds like what you really want is to abolish the idea that a knight is officially bound to obey his liege lord in all things. Unfortunately, I doubt you'll get much traction there, for a couple of main reasons: first, because that is the way the relationship worked in the Medieval period (at least in theory), and second, because if you don't like the way your current liege is doing something, especially with density the way it is at present, it's rarely a problem to find at least some other Lord willing to take you in.

That's not to say it'll be easy to find a Lord who will happily let you gallivant all over the continent doing whatever you please. That's going to be Hard, no matter the situation. It's not the way the game works, in general. You're a member of a team—your realm—and the team has to work together, not just all go off and do their own thing.

In the end, I believe the solutions to BattleMaster's malaise do lie partly with new code: that's why I'm working on the War Improvements Package. But just picking something that you want, that we say you can't have, and declaring, "This is why your game is dying!"? Sorry, Miskel; that's just not good argumentation, good logic, or a good way to interact with the devs.

[Jens Namtrah]

No, I want him to remember he is the Public Relations arm of Battlemaster, and the affect of how he says things to players, many of whom are new.

It's all about wording

[Jens Namtrah]

So, in case you think I'm making this all up:

This guy isn't even my Duke:

"Earl Miskel there will be no expedition that is not sanctioned and authorized by the warlord."

We are at peace, I've just explained my "Expedition" is me & anyone who wants to tag along, for the  purpose of killing monsters, the realm is Talerium that isn't and won't be at war with anyone anytime soon.

This guy has hardly said two words to anyone the whole time I've been in realm, but the moment someone decides to go be a little independent, he pipes up with the Old Guard, "FOLLOW ORDERS" bull crap.

Yes, this IS real in the game. I don't really feel like have a word war with him, so I'll prolly just go & ignore him - and then we can have another big word war if the Judge decides to fine me or something.

[Buffalkill]

"And for those two reasons, this feature request will never be approved or implemented."

You absolutely MUST stop making statements like that.

Your game is dying a slow death. If people are faced with the idea that some person they don't even play with can simply slap down any idea they come up with, they'll stop bothering.

Even if you didn't mean you were personally vetoing it, you need to be careful how you word things.

"For those reasons, I don't like the idea and would argue against it when we (the dev team)  make a decision" would go over much better.

1000% agree with this.

Sorry, but that's not the nature of this dev team.

Thanks, Captain Obvious.   

And Indirik knows Tom's and my thought process (y'know, the ones in charge of actually approving and implementing new features) regarding feature requests pretty well by now, so it's going to be pretty darn rare that he says, "That's never going to happen," and one of us comes out and contradicts him.

Management consultants have a word for this: "Groupthink"


I remember not too long ago when there was a discussion about freezing an island and I suggested how about freezing just part of an island. I got the automated "Never going to happen" response. Or maybe it was "Over my dead body." One of the two. Subsequently hell must've frozen over because the thing that was "never going to happen" happened.

The game isn't suffering because we don't approve every single feature request that comes our way. If we did, it would probably already be dead by now.

I think if you guys knew why the game was suffering then it wouldn't be suffering. A good first step would be to listen to the people playing the game more and argue less. BM may not be a business, but it still needs its "customers" to thrive.

The game is suffering, in part, because people in positions of power feel it's their job to say "no" to most things their knights/vassals/army members want to try that's not already approved. But that's not a problem that can be solved by new features. It's a problem that can only be solved by enough people deciding they're fed up with it and telling those people in positions of power to shove it.

Ironic as it is prophetic 

In the end, I believe the solutions to BattleMaster's malaise do lie partly with new code: that's why I'm working on the War Improvements Package. But just picking something that you want, that we say you can't have, and declaring, "This is why your game is dying!"? Sorry, Miskel; that's just not good argumentation, good logic, or a good way to interact with the devs.

I think it's a gamble and a mistake to invest all your time on big sweeping changes at the expense of small improvements. You spend months working on things like this war improvements package, but there's always the possibility that people will hate it, and then you'll have alienated more of your users and wasted months of your time in the process. On the other hand, you could spend an hour or two making small changes and see if people like them. If it flops, you lose nothing, if it's well-received, you make the game better.

[Penchant]

So, in case you think I'm making this all up:

This guy isn't even my Duke:

"Earl Miskel there will be no expedition that is not sanctioned and authorized by the warlord."

We are at peace, I've just explained my "Expedition" is me & anyone who wants to tag along, for the  purpose of killing monsters, the realm is Talerium that isn't and won't be at war with anyone anytime soon.

This guy has hardly said two words to anyone the whole time I've been in realm, but the moment someone decides to go be a little independent, he pipes up with the Old Guard, "FOLLOW ORDERS" bull crap.

Yes, this IS real in the game. I don't really feel like have a word war with him, so I'll prolly just go & ignore him - and then we can have another big word war if the Judge decides to fine me or something.

All I am hearing here is you don't want to play the game. When I read this I hear "I don't want to talk to anyone, I just want to go off on my own and do whatever I want". What's wrong with creating some unrest in your realm when it's probably not that interesting right now?

If you want to go on an expedition, go on an expedition, no is stopping you. Some people are telling you not to, but they can't stop you. I doubt the judge would do anything, maybe fine you, but if you have had peace for years I feel like gold is not an issue. If you get banned, then go join a realm where you don't have the general telling you what to do constantly during peace.

My opinion on this is its a character problem that you are trying to solve by changing the game mechanics.

I do not see leadership saying "they are the leaders and you are supposed to do what we say" as some problem with how players play. If you don't like what your leaders are telling you you have to do, argue with them so you get your way, just do it if you can, or go where you can do what you want.

[Anaris]

Management consultants have a word for this: "Groupthink"

I think you may have misunderstood the nature of our roles on the dev team.

At present, there is pretty much one person who actually writes any code: me. That means that unless Tom explicitly tells me to write some particular piece of code, if I don't want to write it, it's not getting written. So Indirik telling you "it's not going to happen" because he knows that I'm not going to approve it isn't groupthink: it's him knowing the way I think, and being straight with you.

However, there's also another side to it. Everyone on the dev team is working from Tom's playbook. He created this game, and even though every single thing that happens is no longer personally overseen or vetted by him, we're definitely working to carry out his vision as we understand it. Which, y'know, is why he lets us stick around and keep doing that. Thus, Indirik telling you "it's not going to happen" is also him working from his years of knowledge of how Tom does things, and wants us to do things.

That is at least not the way I understand groupthink.

I remember not too long ago when there was a discussion about freezing an island and I suggested how about freezing just part of an island. I got the automated "Never going to happen" response. Or maybe it was "Over my dead body." One of the two. Subsequently hell must've frozen over because the thing that was "never going to happen" happened.

Was that the case? It's possible; I don't exactly remember all the discussions that went on surrounding the sinking of an island. But we do change our minds sometimes. Hell, the fact that we're able to talk here at all is a big change, 'cause Tom was very adamant for many years that forums were the work of the devil, and he'd never have one for BattleMaster. (He hasn't changed his mind on the first part, by the way, though that's an opinion I definitely don't share )

I think if you guys knew why the game was suffering then it wouldn't be suffering. A good first step would be to listen to the people playing the game more and argue less. BM may not be a business, but it still needs its "customers" to thrive.

It certainly does. But neither customers nor players always know what's actually the best way to run the business (or game).

The reason the game is doing so badly, IMO, is because it hit a feedback loop of people getting annoyed at the mistakes we made then and leaving, thus reducing density and causing other people to feel like the game was less fun, at the same time that the whole genre of games was declining, and the look of it was becoming seriously outdated.

The mistakes we made then, we have mostly reversed. (The specific ones that were the worst offenders were the old estate system—that caused region stats to go into a death spiral if you didn't have enough knights to support the region, thus removing all incentive to expand the realm—and Too Much Peace, which imposed penalties for not going to war that...prevented you from going to war.)

Ironic as it is prophetic 

If you mean that we're the people in power you're planning to tell to shove it, that's always an option you have. However, unlike in a realm in-game, you can't actually rebel and take control away from us. All you can do is take your ball and go home.

I think it's a gamble and a mistake to invest all your time on big sweeping changes at the expense of small improvements. You spend months working on things like this war improvements package, but there's always the possibility that people will hate it, and then you'll have alienated more of your users and wasted months of your time in the process. On the other hand, you could spend an hour or two making small changes and see if people like them. If it flops, you lose nothing, if it's well-received, you make the game better.

The War Improvements Package is made up of small improvements—and some large ones.

There's almost nothing I could spend an hour or two on that I think would have a meaningful enough impact on the game that I could get immediate feedback on. The kinds of things that would currently help besides the WIP are along the lines of "completely rework the (currently defunct) Mentor class," "make all the Wiki documentation on the way the game works up-to-date and easily accessible," and "make the Adventurer game more fun." (And yes, there are a number of much smaller things than these that would help; these are just some examples of big, important ones.)

If, however, you can come up with a collection of small tweaks you think would help, you are most encouraged to post them in the Development forum.

Also, if you want to help tackle the Wiki part, you are not only encouraged but strongly urged to do so. Anyone who can help with that in a meaningful fashion will receive my most sincere appreciation. (And maybe I can get Tom to approve some free donation goodies for you, too.)