From The Rulers Channel on Discord - Small realms

[Foxglove]

Trying to force people to do things through code changes that punish them for not going in the 'right' direction never works in this game. Punishing small realms will only create more disgruntled and unhappy players, just like things such as the ice age and Too Much Peace did in the past.

If you want more active, engaged, realms where people interact more, it comes down to a rather simple logistics problem. Generally speaking, the more players you have in a realm, the more likely it is for the realm to have more interactions and be interesting (although this isn't always true).

But, let's assume we think big realms are good and small realms are bad (which is the main thrust of what's said here). If this is the case, the realm merger rules are sending out mixed messages. Realms can merge, but only if the end-result merged realm doesn't end up being too big. The theory being that a large merged realm could come to dominate an island. The reason this is the wrong approach is because if two realms merge to create a large realm that can dominate an island, it would then actually encourage other realms to merge to create further merged realms to rival the size of the dominant merged realm. You can't say, on the one hand, we want big realms with more players in them. But then, on the other hand, say we don't want people to create big realms through the 'wrong sized' mergers.

If you want to see an end to small realms, just allow realms to merge regardless of their existing size and then let nature take its course. Fears of all islands being dominated by two or three monolithic realms are probably unfounded because it doesn't take in to account internal conflicts creating splits. However, even if most islands did end up with (let's say) four realms, why is that a problem? As long as they're roughly equal in size, wars will still happen. Frankly, based on the current player numbers, most islands could only really sustain about 5 or 6 realms (at the very most) with a decent number of nobles in each realm. Four realms on an island with 50 nobles in each of those four realms would probably be a decent result.

Equally, if you want to reduce the number of small realms, you have to ease the pain players in those realms experience in letting them go. People become hugely emotionally attached to their realms, which is both a beautiful thing about BM, but also its curse. Again, instead of hitting small realms with penalties for being small, give them incentives to encourage them to merge. On a simple level, introduce Duchy banners so that if a small realm merges with a larger realm, they can keep the banner of their lost realm as a Duchy banner. This may just be cosmetic fluff, but most of the things about realms are cosmetic. Also, when they merge, allow them to take a certain number of recruitment centers with them to be rebuilt in the new merged realm (i.e. a Dev manually moves an existing recruitment centers in a region that's going to be lost over to a region that will be in the merged realm). Basically, allow them to take as much with them from their old realm to the new merged realm as possible. Nothing can be done about the sentimental attachments to specific locations on the maps, but things can be done to preserve other things associated with the 'vanishing' realm. Let them take everything they possibly can to the new merged realm so they feel their lost realm is just relocating and not dying.

At any rate, encouragement and incentives are the way to go. Not punishments and penalties.

[Zakky]

Yeah. Remove the size limit. More people will merge for sure. I think that is actually the best solution.

When your neighbour turns into a behemoth, you might be more interested in turning yourself into a behemoth as well by merging with your close neighbours.

[PolarRaven]

Another point to note, is maybe many players do not prefer to be in larger realms.
On Dwi, BT, and EC more than half the realms are under 15 nobles.

Myself, i prefer to play in smaller realms. 
There is more likelyhood of moving up through the ranks.
Your input can carry more weight within a smaller realm.
There are less people to convince when you want to direct your nobles towards a specific goal.
Certainly, a realm can be too small to be effective, but I don't think setting an arbitrary number of "10" is truly the way to go.

We always hear about the advantages of a larger realm, but there are also advantages to a smaller realm as well.
Personally, I think that the real problem is that there is too much "map" for the current number of players.

[Ocean Yong Kiran]

Is hard for reading, so sorry if no understand everything. But my opinion:

Realm *size* no so much important for is fun, is not fun. More important, What can I do?

Be in realm with 40 nobles, but only one General saying all things must do, one Judge no thinking only making fines and bans for what General say, no much fun. Big realm okay if conflict okay. Only all mens puppets, very boring.

No think size most important for is fun, not fun.

[Anaris]

Y'know, nuance is still a thing.

"Very small realms are a problem" doesn't automatically mean "the larger your realm, the better."

I don't think that encouraging already-large realms to merge into behemoths is in any way, shape, or form the answer. Having a continent dominated by one or more behemoth realms is toxic to dynamic relationships on that continentâ€"we saw that on Atamara. That's why we sank Atamara.

No, we want realms to be of moderate size: not too big, not too small, and with a reasonable amount of variability in sizes.

[Abstract]

I don't like the idea of removing the option for new accounts to join the realm they want nor the removing the limits on mergers completely. I think Delvin covered the merger part well enough so I was reiterate what he said.

As for the removing the option to join small realms on new accounts, there are a few issues.

1) What if it is a returning player to the game? They know what to do and might even be willing to help being more activity to the realm. When I rejoined the game last year my realm of choice was Morek Empire because I wanted to craft a story. Under this limit I wouldn't have been able to do that. While I did fail to follow through completely on the story and ended up leaving, I did have some fun engagements with the players in that realm. I can't say for certain that I helped generate fun for those other players but I prefer to think that I did.

2) What if the small realm is engaged in a local war? Maybe the war side of the game is what the new player is looking for. A local war would be good for those type of players and arbitrarily cutting them off from that would not help.

3) What if someone recruited a friend and they want to play together in that small realm?

4) What if there is an active player or two in the small realm that only need another player, maybe even a new player, to engage with to spice things up?

Ultimately, the issue boils down to the fact that this would make it even harder for small realms to get larger or more active. I agree that generally speaking new players joining small realms means, at least in theory, that they are less likely to stay in the game. What I disagree with is denying the small realms even a chance to retain those players and removing player choice.

Edit: I should add that I do think it would be a well intentioned change. (Just like the majority, if not all, proposed/implemented changes.) But as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Maybe the benefits would outweigh the cost but I personally do not believe it would.

[PolarRaven]

Y'know, nuance is still a thing.

"Very small realms are a problem" doesn't automatically mean "the larger your realm, the better."

I don't think that encouraging already-large realms to merge into behemoths is in any way, shape, or form the answer. Having a continent dominated by one or more behemoth realms is toxic to dynamic relationships on that continentâ€"we saw that on Atamara. That's why we sank Atamara.

No, we want realms to be of moderate size: not too big, not too small, and with a reasonable amount of variability in sizes.

Maybe a better way to go about this is to limit the size of the larger realms. 
If the larger realms are full, then players would have to join the smaller realms and thereby give more moderate sized realms over-all.

There is currently a limit on alliances to prevent "behemoth" alliances so that no one group can dictate the happenings on any given island. 
Could this not apply to realms getting too large as well?

I believe that something of this sort already exists for the War Island? (haven't played there for a while, so not sure of the current specifics)

[Gildre]

I would favour this over the alliance bloc system we currently have. Typically, alliances with several realms have lots of drama and and are susceptible to backstabbing, double crosses, falling out, etc... all things that add good things to the game.

If realms are only allowed to grow to a specific it does force other players into smaller realms to help them grow.

Scrapping the alliance bloc and putting a limit on realm size seems like a good idea to me.

[Zakky]

We can adjust the idea proposed here.

Remove the size limit on merge. Even devs get confused with the number of nobles they set. Better remove the restriction so nobody has to remember the arbitrary number. Plus when the realms become too populated and too large to the point people can't stand each other, they can simply form a new realm since they will have more than enough nobles to do so.

As for disabling the option to join realms with under 10 nobles, we can also disable the option to join realms with more than 40 nobles so realms in between can get the full benefit of new players.

[Gildre]

Those are "back in the day" numbers. There aren't any realms currently that break 40 people. I would put the limit at 25. The seems to be the average that the "larger" realms have currently.

Also, what if all the realms are either above 25 and below 10 nobles? New players can't join? I think only one limit can be applied. Let new nobles join small realms. Maybe they get bored by not much going on, or maybe they breath some life into the realm. Who knows.

Definitely should keep the size limit on the merges. Huge behemoths, as stated earlier, do nothing for the game. Mergers aren't even supposed to be allowed, they were introduced as a way to amicably increase the size of two small realms. I don't think we should go throwing more freedoms at it.

[Foxglove]

I think limiting the size of large realms is riskly. Particularly a limit set at 25, which I believe would be too low. In most cases, there's a reason why the large realms are large. Players in them work hard to create welcoming atmospheres and help new arrivals - which is exactly the sort of environment you want new players to be entering to help with retention. The large realms are the realms that are doing something right. Blocking players out of them would be totally counter intuitive as they're the successful realms. In particular, forcing brand new players to join tiny realms that might be as dull as ditch water isn't a great idea.

Also, if you put a cap on the total number of nobles in a realm, before very long you'll see an epidemic of non-warrior classes disappearing. If you can only have 'X' number of nobles in your realm, warrior will become the essential class, because only warriors can secure the future of a realm. As far as I picked up from general chat, the introduction of the one character per island rule led to many people abandoning playing as courtiers, diplomats, and priests. Introducing another factor that encourages people even more to ditch these classes wouldn't be great.

The thing about the 'behemoths are negative for the game' argument is that Atamara is always held up as the disaster story. However, the Cagilan Empire has always been atypical. There have been many huge realms in the history of the game, and only the Cagilan Empire was really so dominant that it fatally damaged an island (although there is also an argument to be made that the Arcean Empire did the same in the Far East, there were exceptional circumstances around the Ice Age that influenced their dominance). This sort of behavior is the exception rather than the rule.

That being said, I wasn't ever advocating massive realms being created through untamed mergers. What I actually said is that if you think that around 25 to 30 nobles in a realm is a healthy number to try to encourage reasonable levels of interaction, every island can only really support in the region of 5 to 6 realms as a maximum. There just aren't enough players to support more realms than that and avoid having loads of realms with fewer than 15 nobles (which is apparently the level at which a realm is deemed too small to exist).

[Zakky]

I think people are overestimating the impact of behemoths. You can no longer take too many regions even with 40~50 nobles. The larger your realm gets, lesser the base tax rate. You will end up with a realm about 20 regions large at most with a lot of nobles. You won't get that much gold since your base tax rate would be 5~6% anyway.

The game already forces realms to be under a certain size in a way. I don't see the point of setting a limit on how large realms can grow.

[Gildre]

Because it is a subtle restriction. Many players don't understand that is how the mechanics work.

What about a hard density restriction? If your realm has less than 3 nobles per region, you just simply cannot initiate a TO. That would make more competition for positions and make moving to less dense realms more attractive.

[Zakky]

Because it is a subtle restriction. Many players don't understand that is how the mechanics work.

What about a hard density restriction? If your realm has less than 3 nobles per region, you just simply cannot initiate a TO. That would make more competition for positions and make moving to less dense realms more attractive.

We already have the hard density restriction. it is at 1.8 at the moment.

I don't know why you want to push for hard restrictions. We have more than one subtle restriction. Forming a super large realm is not efficient. It is not just gold. You have to constantly manage your regions. Not many people like running around spamming courtier work.

[Gildre]

Forming a super large realm is not efficient. It is not just gold. You have to constantly manage your regions. Not many people like running around spamming courtier work.

Yet people keep trying to do it, over and over. They accept the gold loss, they accept the constant region maintenance.

A big problem, at least on Dwi and BT, is the map is too big for the player base. Realms have rogue buffer zones between them. The maps need to be scaled back so they work with the player base we have.