Rethinking the rules

[Gildre]

This game is already plagued by title hoarders. How many times do you see the signature block "Sir Guy, King of X, General of X, Duke of XX, Count of XXX, Marshal of the Flying Freaking XXXXs"?

If we allowed multiple holdings, you would have realms where one person holds 100% of any available power. I guarantee it.

[Zakky]

This game is already plagued by title hoarders. How many times do you see the signature block "Sir Guy, King of X, General of X, Duke of XX, Count of XXX, Marshal of the Flying Freaking XXXXs"?

If we allowed multiple holdings, you would have realms where one person holds 100% of any available power. I guarantee it.

Wasn't supporting the idea of letting people hold multiple titles. Was explaining one of the problems why dumping was happening. I don't believe people having multiple holdings will be that big of a problem to be honest. If that does happen, you can simply implement that efficiency thing that wasn't implemented with the estate system. That would be enough to control anyone who is trying to own the entire realm. Also, if someone does hold too many titles, people won't just let him hold all of them either. The problem would definitely be the length of your title for sure but that could also be fixed by implementing 'primary title' where you decide one title you wish to be addressed by.

Unless you rule a rich region, people don't have much love for their regions. Any regions outside of city+stronghold+townsland are not that popular. There are of course few exceptions but they are just that, exceptions.

Merge Realms: Unfortunately for us, the game is too small. Like Anaris mentioned, if a realm is too tiny to operate, then yeah they should be allowed to merge into a bigger realm. Even if you are a king, if nobody wants to fight then you are out of luck. You will be the only one fighting and you might be able to hold off for months since the game system is broken and flawed. But in real life, you wouldn't be doing that since you can't recruit endless militias so let's not bring up how you'd act if you were a real medieval king.

Lordship: If I were a baron, then of course I'd give up my region to become a count. If I were offered to be a baron of another dirt poor region, it wouldn't incentivize me enough to move. That isn't what happened in Ikalak. Got an opportunity to move into a stronghold but I worded it wrong and !@#$ just hit the fan. Should probably have said im getting promoted so peace the f out. Like I've explained above, there isn't that many incentives to stop people moving when they are offered a better region. Also, the argument so far has only been it breaks immersion. What immersion? When the game doesn't even have the same system as the actual real medieval era? Not even remotely close to it.

Moving Capital: I don't really see that big of a problem when people want to move their capital away from the front line. If they moved their capital before the war started, I think that is fine. If they did it during the war then probably a big no no. Why is it okay before the war? Because some countries actually moved their capital toward the direction they hoped to expand historically. Of course they didn't put their capital nearby a battlefield but if they wished to expand south, they moved their capital closer to south. There are of course examples where countries moved their capital away but that happened mostly when the battlefield got too near the capital.

Capital Centric: Wish the game would only allow you to recruit from your capital when you only own one city. Otherwise, recruits go to the nearest city or stronghold instead so you actually have to travel to different places to grab the best unit of that region. Giving people some incentives to travel rather than sit in the capital when they have nothing to do.

[Medron Pryde]

The simplest way to do that would be to simply say that you can recruit at each city or stronghold and the troops of lesser regions could be recruited at the nearest city or stronghold defined by how many miles away they are.

Not saying it would be SIMPLE mind you.  But I think that would be the simplest way to do it.

It could also be done where all regions of a duchy would send their troops to the duchy capital.  The main problem I have with that idea is that it would incentivize realms to have only one duchy.  We would lose the great multi-duchy realms.

Hence why I suggest it simply be hard coded to the nearest city or stronghold.

And yes...I know...simple in this case is not necessary simple or easy.  Just MORE simple.  ;)

[De-Legro]

You are forgetting the fact the game doesn't allow you to hold on to multiple holdings. If this game allowed people to hold multiple lordships, I doubt people would be 'dumping' their titles as you put them.

No I am not. Trading up is trading up. Trading up from badlands to decent farmlands or a town. Just cycling to whatever region needs a lord/work is not trading up regardless. If someone is abandoning their region to get a quantifiably bettesr one, no one complains. Hell it is common practise for  say when a city comes up. The case mentioned was different it was specifically said the player was taking on regions that needed work, fixing them and moving on to the next challenge.

Don't pull the bull!@#$ about immersion and RL. Games don't need to accurately reflect RL in order to have immersion. Immersion is about internal consistency. All simulations make compromises. BM has its own "stylised" medieval feel. Keeping to that brings about immersion. If Immersion had anything to do with RL people would not be able to be immersed in fantasy games, LARPS etc.

[Chenier]

There has been a lot of mentality of a "gamer" in this game, but it is in no way a traditional game. It is a political simulator, a role playing game, a diplomatic sandbox.

I think you are getting out of touch with the game's root. BattleMaster is a war game, first and foremost.

BattleMaster is a team-oriented browsergame merging strategy and roleplaying.

Politics and diplomacy are irrelevant without the mechanics to back them up. And they are only expandable within the scope of the mechanics. RL didn't force a nation to have so many nobles. RL didn't prevent nations from expanding greater than a certain (very medium) size.

Free-form roleplaying games exist, and they can be great. I've had a lot of fun with some FFRP boards back in the days.

But that is not what BattleMaster is, or ever was. It's predecessor, SpellMaster, largely was, but that just further reinforces that game mechanics are a fundamental aspect of BattleMaster.

[Nosferatus]

Perhapa create auto mssags for the realm stating the number of title nobles hold with 3 or more, ciing that the locals are taking the titles less and less serious.
This can result in lowering stats for the region title or realm wide slowly mounting trouble for governement positions.
Perhaps lower troop morale for a multi title general.

[pcw27]

Also can we just do away with that "no revealing secret abilities" rule. Most of us have played realm councilors before. We all know what abilities they have. This rule adds nothing.

[Zakky]

Also can we just do away with that "no revealing secret abilities" rule. Most of us have played realm councilors before. We all know what abilities they have. This rule adds nothing.

Agreed. Don't know what is so secret about it.

[De-Legro]

Agreed. Don't know what is so secret about it.

I don't know it

[Anaris]

That's...not a rule?

Dunno where you got that impression (at least recently; Tom did discourage "spoiling" more advanced aspects of the game back before 2010 or so), but there's no rule against players giving all the information they have about aspects of the game to other players.

(So long as it's reasonably accurate/good faith informationâ€"we don't want newbies being deliberately misled.)

[Vita`]

What's wrong with leaving the government council mechanics to be explored by new players and leaving the mystique? Just because you, or many of your friends, have player government positions (because its been so easily available the last few years), doesn't mean everyone else has, or that in the future government positions may be competitive once more instead of shared amongst the same old families.