Future of Dwilight

[Disturbedyang]

Uh-uh. You're the one who complained that it was a problem. That means you don't get to insist that other people make suggestions until you've made some decent ones yourself, or come straight out and admitted that you don't have a clue what would improve things.

I don't have a clue what would improve things. There you go. That is the point of this thread. Instead, i was flamed while some insisted it is non-existent.

[Constantine]

I don't think your problem is with players and their reactions. It's rather how game mechanics work.
My personal concern is that once realms get really big they enter stagnation which in real world is broken by realm's fracturing but in BM this stagnation probably might just go on for years.
If there was some incentive to run smaller realms or if huge realms were really hard to manage and not feasible, we'd probably see more dynamic conflict.
Dwilight actually seems very dynamic and fun right now because of all the land grabs, shifting alliances and lots of rogue land to conquer. On the other hand, my second character is on Atamara and that place is boring as hell.

[Indirik]

I still have my hopes for AT. Big things may be in the making.

As for Dwilight, I don't have a character there right now. If I did have a character in an SA state, I would advocate for militant expansion. Aggressive, militant expansion. Forced change of all realms to theocratic government. Wipe out any realm that harbored a Dishman.

For a character in another realm, I really don't know. I am somewhat stale on current politics.

[Disturbedyang]

I don't think your problem is with players and their reactions. It's rather how game mechanics work.
My personal concern is that once realms get really big they enter stagnation which in real world is broken by realm's fracturing but in BM this stagnation probably might just go on for years.
If there was some incentive to run smaller realms or if huge realms were really hard to manage and not feasible, we'd probably see more dynamic conflict.
Dwilight actually seems very dynamic and fun right now because of all the land grabs, shifting alliances and lots of rogue land to conquer. On the other hand, my second character is on Atamara and that place is boring as hell.

That sounds about right. Big realms have to do the extra to make things happen because of that. Can this be implemented somehow though? The distance from the capital helps to a certain extend but it is not good enough. What about making most of the regions needing someone to tend to its estates to 'maintain' it? Otherwise the control will go down? That will encourage a more dense realm perhaps? Though, that applies more for other continent instead of Dwillight.

I still have my hopes for AT. Big things may be in the making.

As for Dwilight, I don't have a character there right now. If I did have a character in an SA state, I would advocate for militant expansion. Aggressive, militant expansion. Forced change of all realms to theocratic government. Wipe out any realm that harbored a Dishman.

For a character in another realm, I really don't know. I am somewhat stale on current politics.

I just started a character in AT, so i am not sure how it is over there. But if you are in Dwilight, that sounds like a plan. The problem is, most will just give in and convert. Unlike the oppose people have on the Thal rules in Beluaterra. I think it's the will to oppose on a dominant rule that is the key here. The southern war is good because they try to dislodge Luria. The north however.....we all know what happen.

[sharkattack]

It gonna be same old peacelight after the war is over and probably a lot of people gonna quit the game. I am looking forward to that. 

[Penchant]

It gonna be same old peacelight after the war is over and probably a lot of people gonna quit the game. I am looking forward to that. 

Why are you happy for people to quit the game? It seems quite a bad thing to me.

[Zakilevo]

There used to be a system which made it very difficult to maintain anything above 20. People still stretched it to 25 but outer regions required a bit of work. This however didn't really encourage any new realms people are thinking about. It only forced big realms to create more puppets which eventually grew quite large.

Many things have been tried but none of them really made people want to create more smaller realms. The main problem is people don't want to suddenly give up everything they've built over the years so others can have fun. It just doesn't happen. If you want this to happen, you need to climb there yourself.

[Wolfsong]

Fissoa, at least, won't have any trouble with a long, prosperous peace. We've got monsters knocking on our western borders who need civilizing. I imagine it'll be bloody and hopeless for a long time yet.

[Gustav Kuriga]

Why are you happy for people to quit the game? It seems quite a bad thing to me.

It's called sarcasm. Give it a try.

[Buffalkill]

Until there's some benefit to having lots of knights, realms will always strive to spread their nobles across as many regions as possible. The more lords and fewer knights you have, the more gold there is for everyone on tax day, and since a region can achieve maximum everything with one noble just as easily as with 3, there's absolutely no reason for a realm not to spread their nobles as thinly as possible.


The most stable realms, and typically most powerful, have just above 1:1 nobles-per-region. Morek Empire had exactly 1:1 on March 1 (the beginning of the monster invasion) and has maintained an average of 1.2 nobles per region since then.


Currently the 4 lowest density realms are: Morek (0.9); Astrum (1.3); Fissoa (1.5); and Swordfell (1.6). All 4 of them have about the same number of regions today as they did on March 1, give or take 3 regions. The 4 highest density realms are Asylon (4.7); Barca (4.0); Luria (3.6); and D'Hara (3.2).

[Anaris]

Until there's some benefit to having lots of knights, realms will always strive to spread their nobles across as many regions as possible.

Which is why I do still have plans to make some tweaks to the estate system to make having more knights beneficial.

I just haven't quite figured out the details yet

[Indirik]

The most stable realms, and typically most powerful, have just above 1:1 nobles-per-region.

This shouldn't surprise anyone. The realms with the least spare nobles are the ones that can least afford to take actions. This is the root of the whole character density issue we've been pushing for the past many months. Higher noble densities provide options for realms to take action.

As an anecdotal case: On Atamara back when the coalition war against CE started, Darka considered running a CTO against one of CE's cities. (Eaglin, maybe? I don't remember, it was years ago.) We decided against it because we didn't have enough nobles to make it work. (Maybe we should have tried anyway...    )

[Buffalkill]

Which is why I do still have plans to make some tweaks to the estate system to make having more knights beneficial.

I just haven't quite figured out the details yet

I have a few ideas about this, but one pretty simple one that could have a major impact would be to change the current practice in which lords get 50% of the total tax gold collected from vacant estates, and instead have them either (a) get nothing from vacant estates (because there's nobody there to collect the taxes), or (b) 50% of the lord's share. So if the lord's share for an occupied estate is 10% of the total yield, he would only get 5% of half the yield from a vacant estate.


Wild lands should probably yield more than empty estates, but less than occupied estates. The reasoning being that wildlands wouldn't produce much, if anything, but they also don't require any upkeep, while maintaining an empty estate would be a drain on the coffers. This way it would only be beneficial to have wild lands if to mitigate the implied cost of maintaining empty estates, but it would always be better to have occupied estates.

[Constantine]

One problem I see with this idea is that it incentifies lords to not give there knights land. But it does not incentify knights to stay in estates and not crave for lands of their own. This dynamic might actually make things worse.
Realistically we have to find a way to give estate knights something cool to do so they wouldn't be bitter they're missing out on a huge chunk of fun which lordship is.

[Buffalkill]

One problem I see with this idea is that it incentifies lords to not give there knights land. But it does not incentify knights to stay in estates and not crave for lands of their own. This dynamic might actually make things worse.
Realistically we have to find a way to give estate knights something cool to do so they wouldn't be bitter they're missing out on a huge chunk of fun which lordship is.

No. Maybe I didn't explain it very well, but basically occupied estates should = more gold for knights and lords. Under the current system, lords receive more gold if estates are vacant, so there is no incentive to give land to knights currently, and realms are incentivized to strive for something close to a 1:1 ratio. That's the entire problem in a nutshell. The problem isn't too many regions, the problem is that the fundamental laws of "nature" need to be tweaked.