Wow, this exploded...
As I see it, there was nothing wrong with Hammarsett's decision to attack Coria. We have the luxury of being the winners who can forget and have been able to repair, but we really were hurting for a time. In the same situation that the North was in and with the known restrictions of treaties not being broken, it was definitely one of the better possibilities, especially considering that at the time, the North regarded Coria as an extension of the CE. (We're still seen that way now to some degree, but at least they know that the words in our mouths are our own.) Hammarsett honestly did have the potential to win it, but they just kept pressing on and looting instead of holding down regions at a time. When our side pushed in, we rarely had the strength to capture more than one region for quite some time. Darka, Hammarsett and MI all just kept walking through and trying to drive our regions rogue. Honestly, if I knew that the diplomatic status of "Hated" was reversible sooner, I might've conceded to the North under light terms, which they would've likely used to fight Tara directly.
Trying to isolate why the North lost from the perspective of the South doesn't really make so much sense. Saying that someone's reason for war was weak also has little to do with the actual capability to win said war. (I could say I'm waging war on Tara for that huge list of reasons we'd been throwing around, but realistically, we couldn't have won without some form of backup. Similarly, we could probably win a war against, say, Caergoth right now... but... why would we bother?) From having characters on both sides, I'd personally say the more likely reasons are tied to military mismanagement, huge refit times and the glaring problems with the South's withdraw. I know for a fact that the North just isn't as good at coordinating their armies. We lost that huge fight in Eston because Darka's army was using completely different settings than either BoM or Eston. This kind of thing happened several times throughout the entire war. In fact, it's always seemed to be an issue plaguing the Barony's already small forces (though it's been rekindled recently)... Even back when it was Norland and BoM vs. MI, Norland would often cancel orders late and let the Barony march in solo. I made the opposite mistake when I tried to help MI vs. ML... I sent orders too soon after misreading a message. Honestly, it can't be that surprising that forces marching in a cohesive group should win over a mix of armies that trip on their own shoelaces. Add to that the fact that any time someone messed up a battle, at least two armies would take a full week to return to the front and you've got an obvious winner.
In my opinion, the North needed the South so they could overcome their propensity for mistakes... that is, the North needed insurance against themselves.
As far as the roleplaying debate, wouldn't that be worth making a new topic? Maybe in the General Discussion area. I know it would get heated, but it's a serious topic and if it is partially responsible for why BM's growth is slow (if it is growing at all), it should certainly be addressed.
In my mind, part of the allure of BM has always been that the role-playing is what makes it fun. The battles and medieval content are the primary tools of bringing about that RP, but it makes your heart beat when you know OOC that what you are about to do is absolutely stupid or evil and yet it makes total sense IC.
Not to be overly poetic, but we're all authors contributing to an epic story that nobody has full control over. In fact, just about all we can agree upon is that the story should be set in a medieval world and should be violent. Hell, if you were able to compile all of the work on this game (letters, the wiki, battles, maps... everything IC) and do some formatting to put it in book format, we might have one of the most impressive fantasy works of all time. We might not have invented a language like Tolkien, but we've created a multitude of religions.
Why do you partake in a story (a move, a book, what have you) if you know that the characters within have other, probably better, options for them? Because sometimes it's fun to not have control. Because it's fun to see how a situation would play out if you didn't know better. Of course, fun is also subjective and you may not agree in every situation. (For example, some people like Twilight, perhaps because they find "teenage love under unusual circumstances" interesting [and by extension, fun]... I can't even pretend to care [I tried once].)
I think it would be a little far off to say high-ranking characters more often stick to their character concept than do something that breaks character to provide a wider opportunity for fun, but I don't doubt it happens. Instead, think of this: Every character in a story has a purpose, small or large, whether you like them or not. Many people hated Snape in Harry Potter and questioned why he wasn't killed until the series of reveals... now you'd have a hard time arguing someone should've just dealt with him earlier. If Dumbledore had broken character and let Snape get killed just so JK Rowling could appease readers early on, the books would have been entirely different.
The cool thing about our game is that we can give those characters a hard time with our own characters. It's those interactions that should be making this game fun. If everyone simply abandoned their character's style for "the sake of fun", I would expect less and less emphasis on providing some form of RP or rationale to fight someone... and then the point of fighting is lost as well. It's not like BM is fast-paced or uses superior graphics that make battles interesting in and of themselves; I would argue, at least, that the strategy and conditions around those battles are what really matter. As a result, those with the power to provide options for fun are challenged to do so both through RP and wars.
