Wow.
so you're just going to keep on pretending that we aren't telling you over and over and over that the monster battles are more than sufficient to keep TMP away, because you've found a nice juicy argument and you just want to argue, regardless of any sort of reality going on around you?
I'm sure that someone with imagination enough to come up with the Blood Cult can figure out how to put together a small fighting force looking for glory who will wander off to help their neighbors with THEIR monster problem.
This is BATTLEmaster. If Tom took such drastic measures in East Island and Atamara to put BATTLE back into their games, do you think he intended to make a special exception for Dwilight?
Do you think the Rulers on East Island and Atamara didn't have their own special brand of excuses?
After some thought, I decided it wasn't all that bad. After all, the new code seems to be exactly what I suggested a while back, without the realm-crippling effects anymore. I minor tweak for the tax tolerance to take into consideration other forms of struggle, such as starvation, would make me more than happy. It would remain realistic and fair.
Your arguments that "monsters are enough" is obviously invalid, as I keep getting these TMP reports. If you were correct, then I wouldn't be having the reports. The mere fact of having them proves you wrong.
We also don't have enough of an army to send them away without careful consideration. I bought over 550 golds worth of bushels this week, and I think this is purely through automatic purchases in my city, which excludes the many hundreds I spent on sending out caravans myself. The other cities are often starved, so they don't have much population nor production, so they don't produce much for the army. So would it really be reasonable that I spend the rest of my income just to go hunt monsters in foreign lands? My serfs have enough worries at home, they don't have the luxury of getting bored about lack of warfare, and they know that if they don't work extra-hard, they will face starvation.
Also, the "battle"master argument is poor. This is generally agreed upon. If BM was only about battle, then you wouldn't have traders, religions, ambassadors, and a whole bunch of other stuff. The game is about more than just battle. And if intense battle was really what was desired with Dwilight, then travel times would have to be reduced, seasons removed, and rogues turned off. Because Dwilight's geography is nothing like the others.
And truth be told, I always was bitter that everyone had to pay because of the lame players of EC and AT. None of these "problems" had ever existed on Beluaterra, where wars were purely player-driven (between and despite the invasions, who really reduced human conflicts instead of igniting them) and readily available. Nor the other continents at the time either. The problem was therefore with the people, and not the system.