A serious and constructive discussion on recent change in staff involvement

[GoldPanda]

We could have had some fun, relatively balanced wars going in EC. Sirion and Nivemus fighting Perdan. Caligus and Eponllyn fighting Shadowdale (after the Titans tell Perleone to withdraw). But then Perdan just had to declare war on Eponllyn. Now Eponllyn is forced to cooperate with Nivemus just to defend its lands, even though Eponllyn's leadership's every intention was to respect the alliance system restrictions and not interfere in the Perdan-Nivemus war.

If Perdan didn't want to attack Nivemus through the choke-point, then Perdan should have declared war on Eponllyn first. Declare Troyes and Poitiers as your war goal. Heck, declare the entire Westmoor duchy as your war goal. Then it would have been Perdan fighting Eponllyn and Caligus, still a relatively balanced war. Perdan would have more nobles. Eponllyn and Caligus can attack from two fronts but also have more regions to defend. If any other realm tried to interfere, players from one side or the other would be asking the Titans to stop the interference.

But you can't dog pile unless there is a really good justification like the realm getting dog piled provoking every realm that is attacking them.

Every realm attacking Thalmarkin had perfectly valid IC reasons to do so. The Admins put a stop to it anyway.

If realm A + B are fight realm C + D, instead of jumping in to attack either AB or CD, you should go for realm E or F or others.

And Perdan is in the wrong for interfering in the Shadowdale-Caligus war. Had Perdan declared war on Eponllyn first, it would have been Shadowdale that was in the wrong, but that's not what happened.

[Anaris]

Based on the best information I have, Perdan doesn't even care about Eponllyn, let alone Caligus. They just want to found a colony, and one of the regions either slated to be in it or on the way flipped from Nivemus to Eponllyn partway through.

Perdan is not interfering in the Shadowdale/Caligus war. Eponllyn is choosing to be distracted by Perdan from aiding Caligus.

[GoldPanda]

Rulers of the East Continent,

The Kingdom of Perdan hereby commits to a war of passage against the Kingdom of Eponllyn.

Accordingly, Perdan will:

- achieve and fortify a land-bridge to Nivemus, denying these lands to the Eponllyn war machine

- capture Eponllyn assets in order to restrict their capacity to retaliate and force capitulation

- pledge to conduct only goodly takeovers, attack only war assets and denounce unwholesome looting options.

- consider the war completed in their favor when Eponllyn concedes defeat and requisite treaty conditions are signed (which must include a mandatory safe period for the Alexandrian colony).

- agree to consider provisional return of Eponllyn assets;

            - once the colony has been safely established

            - on the condition that Eponllyn and its allies conduct themselves with nobility and

            - neither betray this agreement or impede the establishment of the colony.

- consider the war lost when Perdan concedes defeat and signs to mutually agreeable conditions for ceasefire.

Perdan has no interest in permanently diminishing Eponllyn unless they continue to block access for the colonial effort.

So Eponllyn is just supposed to continue fighting Shadowdale while Perdan "borrows" our regions?

Gadlock flipped to Eponllyn today. It was not a consideration in any of the war declarations.

And instead of running a TO on Troyes, Perdan's armies literally parked themselves in Eponllyn's capital. If there is some trick to this where Eponllyn can continue to fight Shadowdale without being "distracted" by Perdan, please tell me. :(

[GoldPanda]

Anyway, I'm sorry if I'm being too negative.

I guess I'm just still put off by that war declaration. I would have preferred it if Perdan just said, "Yeah, we're taking some of your lands because we can. What are you going to do about it?" This "We're going to borrow some of your lands, and maybe give them back to you later, if you're good little boys" just completely rubs me the wrong way, as if our regions are not even good enough to be worth conquering.

[BarticaBoat]

I will speak broadly - I have observed that the devs think very much like programmers and are trying to change the pieces of BM to work together for a certain outcome.

That doesn't work with games. The environment must be altered to incentivize playstyles, not discourage playstyles. Too often restrictions are placed which, while well-intentioned, are restrictions and make BM feel less like a game and more like a process that is performed.

For example, hinterlands is not a restriction, density caps are. I think there can be more done to incentivize realm shapes and sizes and how realms interact on their edges, but I think the dev team really needs to ask someone with experience in behaviour change techniques or similar experience how to go about making these changes.

[Anaris]

And I'm working on Hinterlands as fast as I reasonably can, given the other demands on my time.

But you know what one of those demands on my time is?

Constantly dealing with all this bull!@#$. And it's really frustrating, and not only does it take up the actual time I spend responding to people angry that their status-quo-derived power in a browser game is being reduced, it means that for hours or days afterwards I just don't feel like working on it, because dealing with the people !@#$ting on everything I try to doâ€"not "constructively criticizing", no, that would be much more reasonable, just telling me constantly how everything I'm doing is wrong and badâ€"drains my mental energy vastly more than writing code does.

And thanks, yes, I know perfectly well that hard restrictions are a bad way to operate, but they're something I can put into place now to prevent the game getting into worse and worse situations while I work on long-term fixes that take a lot of time and thought to develop even before I can write a single line of code. (I even said this rather loudly in the Dwilight Ruler/Admin OOC Channel recently, but I recognize you may not be on Dwilight to have seen that.)

[Victor C]

Hello,

I understand that we all have very strong feelings about this, but please do not turn this into a wild brawl.
This thread should be about CONSTRUCTIVE DISCUSSION.

Please remember that we ALL love this game, some love it in different ways than others, but nevertheless, we all love it. We all want this game to thrive, and I'm sure we all understand that it has been doing the exact opposite for some time.
Sometimes when our position is challenged, we will feel wronged and frustrated. That is just a proof of how passionate we are about the topic we are discussing. Please remember that, and take a breathe when you send your next message. When is one at the best in decision making: When they are flustered and a bit angry? or When they are calm and comfortable?

Overall, Tom has entrusted the game to Anaris, and there was good reason for that. For a lot of you old-timers, I am certain that you remember that Tom actually interfered much more frequently and harshly than Anaris and the Dev team. He smited an entire continent's Rulers at one point. (For what reason? Ask around, I think you'll find the problem is something that came back up eventually  ;) )

Please, respect each other, and STOP ARGUING ABOUT THE EC WARS.

It's irrelevant

[Zakky]

"constructively criticizing"

Let me try to provide feedback on the current war declaration. I am not sure how hard it is to implement this but hopefully not too hard.

I think some war declarations are too vague right now. Also, doesn't really show what the one being declared one can demand.

I think war declarations need to be more structured and be more specific. Plus the one being declared on should have their own win condition in response as well.

So let's take Perdan's recent war declaration that is available on this page right now.

Perdan has too many demands I feel. I think they need to narrow it down to as little as possible.

Win condition:
-Secure passage to Nivemus to be able to war them(need 3 regions to achieve this. List them)
Demands:
-If Eponllyn loses the war, Eponllyn will surrender the 3 regions listed.

Perdan should also have some kind of a condition where they will stop attacking Eponllyn.
Defeat condition:
-Lose Bescannon

Maybe we can also add White Peace condition as well.

-Both realms agree to end the war
OR
-Nivemus loses Kalmar, which opens up another route to Nivemus thus removing the need to attack Eponllyn.

Eponllyn should be able to write some win conditions as well in response but it should be something more achievable as well.
Win condition:
-Take Bescannon
Demands:
-Monetary compensation(x amount of gold)

Defeat condition:
-Perdan takes the three regions listed

So when a realm gets war declared on, the game will ask the defender's ruler to write the win condition, demands and defeat condition.

I feel we need to teach people how to limit their wars by making them learn to narrow down their demands.

[Constantine]

Well said, Victor C.
I would like to remind everyone that this is not a venting thread, but a constructive feedback thread.

It was never my intention to suggest that everything admins are doing hurts the game. I do support changes that help players make the game more dynamic (war declaration redux comes to mind). Still I think it is important to voice the concerns as they arise.

I only started this thread because I do love this game.

[GoldPanda]

How about something more standardized?

The attacker has to specify which of the defender's regions are the war goal. War goal regions must collectively be connected to the attacking realm.

The defender may counter-declare their own war goal regions that are owned by the attacker. These regions must collectively be connected to the defending realm.

Duration of the war should be N months for N war goal regions.

Each side can claim at most 1 city / stronghold, so at most 2 cities / strongholds can be contested per war.

Cannot claim an entire realm (and possibly destroy said realm) unless it's down to its last city / stronghold.

At the end of the N months, the war automatically ends. War goal regions are retained by their current owner, non-war goal regions are returned to their original owner. Note that regions are not guaranteed to be returned in their original state. The other side can and probably will strip a region of anything useful before returning it.

War declarations in response to another war declaration may just state that the realm is joining an existing war. May be rolled back by the Titans at their discretion, to prevent one-sided slaughters. I would personally consider wars where one side has more than twice the nobles of the other side as badly imbalanced.

Realms joining in as co-belligerents do not stand to gain or risk losing any regions by the end of the war. At the end of the war, war goal regions that they have taken are given to the side they supported, and non-war goal regions are returned to their original owner. They may still temporarily lose regions during the war, of course.

After the war is declared, war goals can only be changed by mutual agreement between the initial attacker and the initial defender.

Either side can end the war at any time by surrendering, in which case, the winner gets all war goal regions.

The war can also end in white peace, by mutual agreement between the initial attacker and the initial defender. In that case, all regions are returned to their original owners.

After the war is ended, enforce a ceasefire period of 1 month, between all realms involved in the war.

[Zakky]

...

I am against regions actually being connected to attackers and defenders. On Testing islands, you don't have to be directly connected to run a TO since coastal regions can be taken over.

Now having a duration is an interesting concept but not sure how practical that would be. I tried it once against Perdan, and it was fun and we fought over 1 region. Since we actually had an end date, despite losing first few battles, Vix still managed to keep their region by pushing hard at the end.

I think destroying a realm is perfectly fine as long as you are not looking to destroy a giant realm. If a realm is left with only their capital + some other non fortified regions, then there isn't much to take from that realm but their capital.

As for White Peace, I wouldn't bother returning regions. It would just end the war right away, leaving the region under the current owners.

[Anaris]

I'm extremely reluctant to limit the possible gains by the attacking realm to the regions originally specified. That significantly increases the incentive on the part of the defending realm to drag out the fight, even if they're losing region after region.

I think it's much healthier overall for the attacker to be required to offer peace after taking those regions, but allowed to take more if the defender refuses to accept their loss.

I am definitely considering a system that would mechanically track the regions specified, and whether there were non-territorial goals, and if the war was entirely about territory, automatically offer peace to the defender upon successful conquest of the last specified region. (And, of course, I already have on my list making all of these aspects of goals mutual, so that the defender has to declare their own intentions, even if those are just "don't lose our own regions, and get them to stop attacking us.") I didn't want to do that at first, because it seemed like it elevated territorial gains over other kinds of goals, but it's certainly true that they're the most common goal & desire in war (and once Hinterlands comes out, it will be much easier to go for them).

[Constantine]

After the war is ended, enforce a ceasefire period of 1 month, between all realms involved in the war.

Such hard restrictions are bad in a political game because they are easily abused. I.e. the loser can break the peace terms without fear of retaliation.

[Zakky]

I agree but with a bit of difference. I think instead of just being allowed to gain more after refusal of peace offer, you should re-declare/update your war declaration.

Let's look at it from an UI perspective
Name :: Type :: Status :: Length :: Options
War for 3 regions :: Conquest :: Won(Peace offer refused) :: 110 days :: <Declare Victory> <Surrender>
War for 3 more regions :: Conquest :: On-going :: 5 days ::

Declare Victory will send a message to the opposing party. If they accept, the one who initiated the declaration wins. Surrender will do the same.

Maybe down the road, we can have different types like pillage(ends when x amount of gold/resources were looted?), banishment(will end the war when the noble selected gets banished) and humiliate(upon surrendering, ruler will lose a big chunk of honour/prestige - could extend it to the entire realm but with different ratio of honour/prestige - ex: ruler 25%, dukes 20%, lords: 15%, knights: 10%)

[Constantine]

Please let us not make this system too automatized. We need flexibility there because wars can go for some time and circumstances may change.
Maybe you managed to conquer three enemy regions but they conquered four of yours. And then bam - you automatically offer peace.

And, of course, I already have on my list making all of these aspects of goals mutual, so that the defender has to declare their own intentions

Good idea.