Messages

46

Dwilight / Re: Future of Dwilight

« on: June 25, 2014, 08:03:33 AM »

One problem I see with this idea is that it incentifies lords to not give there knights land. But it does not incentify knights to stay in estates and not crave for lands of their own. This dynamic might actually make things worse.
Realistically we have to find a way to give estate knights something cool to do so they wouldn't be bitter they're missing out on a huge chunk of fun which lordship is.

No. Maybe I didn't explain it very well, but basically occupied estates should = more gold for knights and lords. Under the current system, lords receive more gold if estates are vacant, so there is no incentive to give land to knights currently, and realms are incentivized to strive for something close to a 1:1 ratio. That's the entire problem in a nutshell. The problem isn't too many regions, the problem is that the fundamental laws of "nature" need to be tweaked.

47

Dwilight / Re: Future of Dwilight

« on: June 24, 2014, 07:40:34 PM »

Which is why I do still have plans to make some tweaks to the estate system to make having more knights beneficial.

I just haven't quite figured out the details yet

I have a few ideas about this, but one pretty simple one that could have a major impact would be to change the current practice in which lords get 50% of the total tax gold collected from vacant estates, and instead have them either (a) get nothing from vacant estates (because there's nobody there to collect the taxes), or (b) 50% of the lord's share. So if the lord's share for an occupied estate is 10% of the total yield, he would only get 5% of half the yield from a vacant estate.


Wild lands should probably yield more than empty estates, but less than occupied estates. The reasoning being that wildlands wouldn't produce much, if anything, but they also don't require any upkeep, while maintaining an empty estate would be a drain on the coffers. This way it would only be beneficial to have wild lands if to mitigate the implied cost of maintaining empty estates, but it would always be better to have occupied estates.

48

Dwilight / Re: Future of Dwilight

« on: June 24, 2014, 03:31:19 PM »

Until there's some benefit to having lots of knights, realms will always strive to spread their nobles across as many regions as possible. The more lords and fewer knights you have, the more gold there is for everyone on tax day, and since a region can achieve maximum everything with one noble just as easily as with 3, there's absolutely no reason for a realm not to spread their nobles as thinly as possible.


The most stable realms, and typically most powerful, have just above 1:1 nobles-per-region. Morek Empire had exactly 1:1 on March 1 (the beginning of the monster invasion) and has maintained an average of 1.2 nobles per region since then.


Currently the 4 lowest density realms are: Morek (0.9); Astrum (1.3); Fissoa (1.5); and Swordfell (1.6). All 4 of them have about the same number of regions today as they did on March 1, give or take 3 regions. The 4 highest density realms are Asylon (4.7); Barca (4.0); Luria (3.6); and D'Hara (3.2).

49

Development / Re: Turn turning on Dwilight?

« on: June 22, 2014, 07:04:10 PM »

Does this affect all of Dwilight or just Asylon?

50

Development / Turn turning on Dwilight?

« on: June 22, 2014, 06:47:58 AM »

I haven't seen the usual turn reports for the last two days. Is something not working properly?

51

Helpline / Re: Distance to the capital?

« on: June 14, 2014, 08:21:44 PM »

It's Asylon and it's affecting all regions including the capital.

52

Helpline / Distance to the capital?

« on: June 13, 2014, 07:08:15 AM »

We moved the capital 4 days ago, but the regional report for all the regions, including the capital region still says "The large distance to the capital causes anarchists to prosper greatly, and the people feel as if the realm does not care about them." Is this a bug?

53

Helpline / Realm control

« on: June 07, 2014, 09:36:49 PM »

After several days of doing only normal police, diplomatic and courtier work in a particular region, the realm control remains unchanged. Do other actions affect realm control, such as holding court and diplomatic actions? What's most effective?

54

Development / Re: Is something wrong with the player page?

« on: May 29, 2014, 04:35:10 PM »

Great! Thanks.

55

Development / Is something wrong with the player page?

« on: May 29, 2014, 10:36:22 AM »

Once I log in, the player page only loads partially. I'm not able to access any of my chars. I've tried using 2 different machines and 2 different devices. Is anyone else having this problem?

56

Feature Requests / Re: Profit/cost sharing between lords and knights

« on: May 25, 2014, 08:39:40 PM »

I do support the idea of the lord being able to share the profit of food sales with their knights in an automated manner. This is an important factor that can help level the playing field between cities and the larger rurals. (It won't have much effect on smaller rurals, badlands, townslands, etc.)

There are some things that need to be considered, though.

[...]
Any feature request will have to deal with these realities. How does your proposal deal with this?

First: Situations where the lord is a trader, or a broker, and not the consumer of the food. I can foresee several situation where the lord is a temporary custodian of food moving to a final destination. (Brokering, trading, routine storage/movement, etc.) There would have to be some mechanism that only counts the food grown in the region for purposes of profit sharing. This brings up other complexities and potential for bugs. Also, the same thing for stewards who use the regional warehouses as a stocking location for their trading activities. I've done it myself, and funneled thousands and thousands of bushels of food through a rural region's warehouses, while the region itself was producing a few hundred bushels of food surplus all by itself. You simply cannot have the profit from that transient food being split among all the knights of a region.

I would defer these concerns to post-implementation improvements, to be looked at once players have had a chance to see how this plays out in practice, and then make any changes/improvements based on player feedback. There are so few traders I don't see this being a pervasive problem, but in the meantime, if it does come up, let the affected nobles settle with each other.

Second: Anything that creates new mandatory involvement in the repetitive, boring, drudge work of administering to estates/regions/food is going to have to promise one huge return in Fun. (As opposed to !!FUN!!.) Players have long treated administering to regions, estates, and food as one of the least desirable aspects of the entire game. There was a significant rebellion against enforced food management when food control was decentralized and mandated as the lord's responsibility. Any system would have to be set up with as much automation as possible, to the point where it is a "set it and forget it" system. Everyone wants to be the lord. Very few people actually want to have to do what a lord is really supposed to do.

I was thinking the cost/profit distribution mechanism should be automatic.


Slightly off-topic, you raise an interesting point, that is: "Everyone wants to be the lord. Very few people actually want to have to do what a lord is really supposed to do." I've said many times that lords have it too easy, and knights don't have enough to do. Generally I think it could be good for the game if steps are taken to make the knight game more engrossing and the lord game less of a "sinecure". Being a lord should imply some duties. Currently lords don't really have to do anything.

Third: Related to the above, forcing knights to administer things on a regular basis is a recipe for disaster. Options to allow knights to do things is good. Forcing knights to handle boring drudge work is really bad. Forcing knights to administer grain warehouses, and to manually transfer food around will not work. We tried making lords do it themselves, and it was a total disaster. I can't imagine how much worse it would be if we tried to make every player, and every character, have to deal with it. This point is critical! People play the game to have fun. Most of us don't consider having to log in to move food around to be fun.

Under option 1, the knights aren't required to do anything. Option 2 could lend itself to the same type of automation as is in place under the current system, i.e. automatic market orders and delegation of authority. That lets the player choose whether they want to be more "hands-on" or "hands-off".

Fourth: If you're going to have the knights accept part of the profit from net exporters, why not have them help shoulder the burden of paying for food in regions that are net importers? It's the same concept. If knights get to share the profit from goods produced on their estates, they should be required to pay for the expenses of those same estates.

Indeed. I make that very point in the last line of the "Details" section: "Likewise, the lords and knights in the purchasing region would share the cost of buying food, according to their estate size, by deducting it from their tax revenue."

57

Feature Requests / Re: Non-Region Lords can build buildings.

« on: May 25, 2014, 08:02:19 PM »

Anything that enhances the knight game experience is worth looking at.

58

Dwilight / Re: Sanguis Astroism

« on: May 16, 2014, 01:06:42 AM »

Yes, but did Asylon ever completely wipe out all the regions that Astrum owned? I think not...

They could have and they decided not to.

59

Feature Requests / Profit/cost sharing between lords and knights

« on: May 16, 2014, 01:05:37 AM »

Summary: Profit/cost sharing between lords and knights

Details: I get the impression that people dislike the food system. It’s seen as an inconvenience instead of the essential part of medieval society that it should be. Rather than scrapping the system altogether, I’m proposing the following feature request with two options.

Option 1
1.       Knights get paid a pro rata share whenever their lord sells food at the market. The knight’s share is based on the size and efficiency of their estate, i.e. how much food they contribute to the Lord’s granary. E.g.:

• Sir Galahad and Sir Lancelot’s estates are each 25% of the region with 100% productivity. They contribute 250 bushels each to the region’s output.
• Lord Byron’s estate is 50% with 100% productivity, and contributes 500 bushels to the region’s output.
• Lord Byron sells 500 bushels at the market for 200 gold

The profit is divided thusly:
            Lord Byron: 100 gold = 0.5 * 200
            Sir Galahad: 50 gold = 0.25 * 200
            Sir Lancelot: 50 gold = 0.25 * 1,000
2.       The Banker receives an administration fee for executing trades on behalf of lords. The banker’s fee can either be fixed across the board, or set by the banker.

Option 2:
1.       Make granaries belong to a specific estate within the region. Knights are responsible for managing their upkeep and supply. Lords can manage granaries in vacant estates.
2.       Knights transfer food to the Lord’s granary and get paid a set rate. There are a number of possible ways to determine the rate:
    a.   Lord’s prerogative
    b.   Banker’s edict
    c.   Establish a built-in across-the-board rate for all regions
    d.   Floating rates that adjust according to seasons and other supply-and-demand factors

3.       The Banker receives administration fee for executing trades on behalf of lords. The banker’s fee can either be fixed across the board, or set by the banker.
Likewise, the lords and knights in the purchasing region would share the cost of buying food, according to their estate size, by deducting it from their tax revenue.

Benefits:
·         Provides an incentive for knights to take an estate in a rural region.
·         Ensures that the rural regions don’t get shafted when the banker sells their food.
      Might increase interactions between lords and knights.
 

Possible Downside: Some may argue that this kind of system can be implemented by players without a feature request. The problem is that it’s not that easy to transfer gold. It would require copious record-keeping and frequent trips to the capital, making it too onerous to work. In the case of Option 2, there’s the question of what happens if a knight withholds food from the Lord’s granary. My answer is: Let them sort it out. They can argue, barter, threaten, etc. but if they can’t resolve it amicably, the lord can always have the last word by kicking the knight out and seizing control of the vacant estate.

60

BM General Discussion / Re: No peace time Generals

« on: May 14, 2014, 04:31:39 AM »

So what do you want us to do?

Removing the General position simply won't help. In realms where they want to maintain control over the nobility's actions, they'll just do it another way.

If you want something to change, make a suggestion that will actually address the root of the problem, rather than a surface symptom.

I typically agree with Miskel on almost everything and disagree with Anaris on almost everything, but in this particular moment--and I'll be sure write about it in my diary--I have to agree with Anaris. I'm not denying the existence of the problem raised by Miskel, but I'm not convinced that this is the best way to deal with it.


However I do agree whole-heartedly with this:

You're trying to get new players into the game, I'm telling the "30+ Fame Club" they need to start looking at it through the eyes of new players.