Strategic secession of Iato

[Anaris]

Where is it "explicitly" permitted, exactly?

Word of Tom.

And this secession does allow precisely that: recruitment on the enemy capital's doorstep.

By one guy. With practically no income, and a city that can barely support any infrastructure. Yeah, that's unbalancing.

[mbeal44]

Sorry my reply took so long...I didnt even think for one second that this thing would spill over into RL.  Are you guys SERIOUS????  This has been IG for many, many months!  Marec was a part of IVF from the start.  IG his character and G Chenier both fought for control of the realm and throughout the last x amount of months that has been the IG storyline.  The battle has gone back and forth and IG Marec should have waited for a more diplomatic opportunity but chose to leave when he did.

if the dev team feel I am taking advantage of some obscure rule then fine, lets play another route.  I am not here to corrupt the rules and I am not here to spoil your game

IG damn right he is going to wage war against Enweil...look at the history.  Damn right he is going to defend his regions from Nothoi, they have refused his legitimacy and burned/raped through his lands.  OOC strategy?  Bollocks!  IG common sense? ABSOLUTELY!

Moderator note: edited out insults, they are not relevant to the case.

[Geronus]

By one guy. With practically no income, and a city that can barely support any infrastructure. Yeah, that's unbalancing.

Did you secede an entire city just to create a realm for one single noble? Or are others going to be joining him? I find it next to impossible to believe that it's going to remain one guy for the rest of the war, that no other noble in Riombara has any plans to join, so this argument can really be dropped unless that is in fact the case.

Frankly, what I see here is a circumstance where the action, whatever its intent, does in fact create a strategic advantage. It might be small now, but it's not the degree of advantage that concerns me. If we get into questions of degree we'll be arguing from now until next year. The fact is, it does benefit Riombara at Enweil's expense. Having been in Riombara as recently as a year ago, I am well aware that there has been a plan in the works to recreate IVF for a long time now, but nothing says that couldn't be done after the war with Enweil was concluded. To me intent is less important than the result. Riombara has created a client state that vastly shortens the supply line to the front lines for any and all nobles that eventually join the new realm. Whether that's a horde or a handful and whether they have decent infrastructure at first or not doesn't really matter much to me; I'm more concerned that it happened at all, particularly since both noble population and infrastructure are subject to improvement as time goes on. The advantage now exists and it can only grow larger unless Enweil is able to reconquer the city relatively quickly.

I don't like the idea of judging on intent in this case because it's too easy to manipulate. If you know what the parameters are, you simply invent an intent to disguise the objective of gaining a strategic advantage. I know for a fact that's not what happened here, but a ruling to the effect that the intent absolves the perpetrator of any infraction simply opens the door to future abuse, as Chenier has pointed out. Riombara could easily have waited to take this step, and I believe that they should have.

[De-Legro]

Anaris, you seem to forget that this one guy won't be alone for long. After all the realm is being created for a few nobles.

Even if only 4 more nobles join now, Riombara has 7 other cities and a lot of gold and food they can provide for the 5 nobles.

They can fund 2-3 RCs on the city of Iato, and these nobles for the war.

These nobles can make an attack on Enweill and Nothoi quicker, causing the same mayhem Nothoi was causing on Riombara, with faster recruitment, without the need to go all the way to the other side of the map to get fresh units.

This does give them strategic advantage.


And please mbeal44 keep it civil.

If that was the intent, then WHY seceded now. We aren't talking about rookie players here. They would have been aware that if they had these future realm members swear oaths to the city before, they would have all nicely been transferred over in one go. Go one further Rio could have created a Duchy out of the city and made sure some regions swore oaths to it to at least provide some sort of food and income while the city repairs, as well as FUNCTIONAL RC's that don't rely on the city stats improving.

[Chenier]

The arguments that there is only one guy are worthless. It equates to saying that the move that was done in the past (secession) can have been legal then, and then become illegal in the future (ex: a week) if certain criteria are met (nobles join it and infrastructure if funded). Something cannot be legal when it happens and become illegal afterwards.

The secession creates the potential to recruit closer to the enemy, and that is what matters.

Intent is bullocks, because you can't read minds. Intent is hearsay and propaganda. Intent cannot be proved. And no it would not be simple to code, and you know it. Friendly with parent realm cannot be coded, and any attempt would be easy to game. Proximity is relative and arbitrary. Heck, even war would be a poor filter, because that can be gamed as well by having troops loot while neutral, or by giving realms the ability to declare war on neighbors they know will split in order to turn planned splits into issues. This is not something a code can judge on.

The secession wasn't built to eternally have a single noble, nor a single region, nor little infrastructure. It wants to fight Enweil. It will get more nobles. It will attempt to annex Enweilian regions. It will have a much easier time with the logistics of it. The purpose of it existing is to be able to take over Enweil's territory, and it will be able to do so a lot easier by being closer than by having the capital forever away.

[egamma]

Moderator note: please follow the forum rules.

All replies need to follow these rules, or they will be moderated:

• remain strictly on topic. Information relevant to the actual case only. This goes especially for speculations, hypotheticals, variations - discussing of the this could be... if... kind are unwanted. We have a specific case before us and will decide that case, nothing else.
  
• be positive and friendly. Don't insult or troll.
• add new information. Repeating a point does not increase its truth value.

[Telrunya]

Ruler of Riombara here. I'm not on these forums a lot, so I'll be slow to reply and can't read through everything carefully, but I can answer any questions from Riombara's side there may be.

The Realm of IVF had been planned ever since the end of the Invasion and it was the very purpose of this war. This secession was not done with any express purpose of giving some kind of strategic advantage and it's not some kind of satellite realm to allow Riombara to recruit on the frontlines (Besides, I believe it has like two mediocre recruitment centers). This wasn't a strategic move, I believe Riombara's intent has been clear in what they wanted to do. If anything, this secession is preventing Riombara from cashing their bonds on the frontlines and being able to stay there for much longer. As for maintenance problems, this whole secession wasn't exactly a well-timed move, Iato was stable and there were no issues with control (Not that that falls under Strategic Secession).

Tom's words on Strategic Secession in an earlier topic (http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,4434.msg113718.html#msg113718 for if I interpret it in the wrong situation):

As in most of the "more lose" rules of the game (in contrast to the Inalienable Rights and the Social Contract), there's one good test:

If there is a discussion about whether or not, then it almost certainly isn't.

If the case doesn't jump out, then it almost certainly is fine, even if some people don't like it.

These rules are meant to stop blatant abuses of the game mechanic. They are constanly being abused by whoever gets shafted to whine and complain and try to get the devs involve in a way that would tilt the balance of in-game events.

I believe it is therefore quite intended that the rule is not broken a lot. It's to stop blatant abuse to circumvent the can-only-recruit-in-capital rule. That's not the case here. This is the recreation of a Realm that Riombara fought for to see happen.

[mbeal44]

Hi All,

Firstly, please let me apologize for my lack of civility, it was unecsessary.  This whole thread is unsettling really as, conversely, it seems to me that a small group of players are using this rule to attempt to gain strategic advantage IG.  When this story line first began Marecs only goal was to bring back IVF and to right the wrongs they had carried out under the rule of his nemesis.  Throughout the past few months Riombara fought against multiple nations in a war to reclaim those lands and their intention was never to see the fall of Enweil.  Look at all the IG messages which will show this clearly.  They had no intention of declaring on Nothoi and certainly no desire to hold a huge amount of land they would struggle to populate.

The players of the opposition chose to guide their characters into a war against Riombara and refused to accept the re-establishment of IVF which sat in Iato and Fheuvenem.  It has always been made clear that this was the goal of Marec and Riombara, that these lands would be taken and IVF recreated here.  The path the opposing players took led to the utter destruction of Enweil and left Nothoi exposed.  Again that was NEVER the intention of myself and as far as I am aware the other key players within Riombara for our characters.  What we are seeing now is the purpose of this war being finalised as Riombara is achieving its aims along with Marec and the realisation of those opposition players is that they are about to see their time investment into their IG achievements to date flushed down the drain.  It has created an emotive response and they have used the only tools left in the box to try to avoid the inevitable, this complaint.

This is a fantastic game, but it is just that, a game with winners and losers.  Part of the joy is that it reflects real life on many occasions and the highs IG really cant be truly appreciated until you have had a few lows, but in this instance I strongly feel that those people experiencing the low right now, well, theyre trying to spread the pain a little with this insubstantial complaint.

[egamma]

IF you have additional, NEW information on this case, post in this thread. Otherwise, post here: http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,5295.0.html

And once again, may I remind people of the Courthouse Rules.

All replies need to follow these rules, or they will be moderated:

   
• remain strictly on topic. Information relevant to the actual case only. This goes especially for speculations, hypotheticals, variations - discussing of the this could be... if... kind are unwanted. We have a specific case before us and will decide that case, nothing else.
• be positive and friendly. Don't insult or troll.
• add new information. Repeating a point does not increase its truth value.

I'm probably going to start assigning points to those who violated these rules.

[Geronus]

Since what happened is not in dispute, everything that's of any importance to the actual outcome of this case is likely to be discussed in the new thread that egamma linked, so please direct yourselves there for the discussion about the nature and application of the rule in question.

[vonGenf]

Has there been a ruling on this case?

[Chenier]

Not guilty.