Topics

16

Questions & Answers / War Declaration Questions & Answers

« on: July 16, 2020, 04:59:32 PM »

The Titan team and the Admins would like to take a moment to clarify some issues regarding the War Declaration system and the recent political situation on Beluaterra.
Regarding the War Declarations, we want to clear up some misconceptions.

• The purpose of the War Dec is not for us to control wars. The Titans are notified when a war is declared, but there is no approval process. The purpose is for realms to officially state why they are going to war and what is their objective. The main purpose of this is to help keep wars on track. If a war has been going on for a year, and the cause is no longer relevant, it might be time to explore peace or otherwise re-evaluate the war.
• The ONLY time the Titans will intervene on a War Dec is if a war is for a reason that breaks the spirit of the game, seriously damages the fun of MANY players, or is a “bandwagon” war. “Just for Fun” wars are not the point of BattleMaster. There needs to be some sort of risk/reward and realistic politics involved.
• Regarding fun, obviously some people are not going to have fun losing a war or having their realm destroyed. That is part of the game, and we will never intervene to save a realm from destruction if it deserves to be destroyed. We WILL intervene if a realm is being so overwhelmingly ganged up on that they can do nothing but sit there and take it. There is a big difference between losing and being utterly steamrolled.
• A “bandwagon” war is when you involve your realm in a war that is already going on for no or weak reasons. BattleMaster works best when there are two or three realms of proportionate strength fighting. Large continental wars have a tendency to stall out, and this is not ideal. Jumping into an ally’s defensive war is a point of an alliance and is completely acceptable. Having three allies jump in when only one is needed for a real advantage or to even the odds is not alright because it leads to stagnation. “Bandwagon” wars have become increasingly common and they very often deteriorate the fun between the two original warring realms. Please discuss with your realm before jumping into an existing war whether you should be doing this or not.
• The War Dec system is not meant to replace in-game Treaties. Any war conditions agreed upon by the warring parties should be made into a Treaty. If either party wants the other bound by anything, they must agree to it in a treaty of some kind. War declarations are entirely one-sided. Please remember, Treaties are completely player driven. Just because you sign a Treaty does not mean you have to honour it.

We understand wars are fluid, and there have been discussions to have some sort of amendment option so that realms can update the purpose and objective of their war if it changes.

A War Dec should have a clear reason and objective. Some simple examples include:

“The realm of Riombara has declared war on Old Grehk for their continued looting of lands to which we hold claim. We aim to take over their regions of Avengmil and Rines as compensation.”

“The realm of Fontan has declared war on Westmoor for executing our Banker. We will not stop until we have reduced their realm to the regions of Oligarch, Akesh Temple, and Tabost OR the nobles of Westmoor remove Judge Vita from his position and subsequently banish him.”

"The Barony of Makar has declared war on the Ash Sea Islands for their continued attempts to conquest and enslave. They can not be trusted in any diplomacy efforts, and we will continue to fight them until the Ash Sea Islands have been destroyed.”

War Decs must not require approval from the defender. Any sort of “war conditions” (such as no TOs, only armies of 5kCS, etc…) should not be included in a War Dec.
To help clarify, we want to explain our views on the recent political situation on Beluaterra.

• Obia and VS enter into a war. They have reason and objective. No issues.
• SV enters the war against VS. This is something we scrutinize. They have an Alliance, but do they need to be in this war? VS and Obia have almost the same noble count, but Obia is in the process of moving their realm, meaning they have no income, no RCs, and could easily be outclassed by their enemy. A reason exists for SV to join the war to help their ally. The noble count is now 2:1 against VS. Still a fightable war, but more difficult.
• Hypothetically, moving forward, say Nova and Thalmarkin each join the war against VS. Let’s pretend Nova shares an alliance with SV and Obia, so they are using the same reason to join the war as SV did. Say Thalmarkin is upset that VS attacked them in the past, so they are declaring a retaliatory war. These are legitimate reasons to declare war, but THIS is the exact point where we are asking Rulers to step back and look at things from an OOC perspective. VS already has the odds against them. Is it completely necessary to initiate a 4:1 or 5:1 ratio? Absolutely not. Will you teach those pesky VS nobles a lesson? Sure. Will anyone on the losing side of a steamroll have any fun? Very doubtful.
• Now, let’s say VS is fighting SV and Obia, and they start winning, and are taking over SV regions. That is a good point to write to your ally Nova and ask for help, because you can no longer achieve victory (or stave off defeat) without assistance.
• Eventually, the war ends in whatever manner. Once wars are concluded, it is only natural for new ones to begin. If Thalmarkin isn’t engaged, there is no reason why they can’t then pursue their retaliatory war.

In the end, we want players (especially Rulers) to take a moment to consider the OOC implications of declaring war. We are all responsible for making this game fun. Winning/losing wars and having realms destroyed is part of that fun. Ganging up and bullying a realm is not.

Hopefully this clarifies the intent behind the War Dec system. We very much encourage any questions or discussions on the topic here.

17

Announcements / RP Interaction Preference and Spoilers

« on: June 13, 2020, 07:28:02 PM »

Two new additions to the message interface today:

• RP Interaction Preference: This will only show up when you are writing a Roleplay. It lets you indicate to what extent you are open to outside participants in your roleplay, and has three options:
  
  • private—Please do not interrupt this roleplay. It may be a solo RP, or may be between a group of people who are collaborating on it, but while you are invited to read it, and if it is being roleplayed as happening in public can even roleplay a reaction, you are asked not to interrupt. Please do be respectful of others, and if your roleplay is taking place in the open, please think twice before using this setting.
  • public—You may join in this roleplay, but it is polite to ask first. This is the default setting.
  • invite—You are invited to join in this roleplay! The roleplayer is actively seeking interaction and engagement! Please remain respectful, and do not attempt to hijack or sabotage other players' roleplays.
  Roleplays with an interaction preference set will have a coloured border and a small indicator text at the top clearly stating what the author's intent is. It is our hope that this will help to clarify expectations and increase positive interactions.
  
• Spoiler warning: This has been added as an option under Content Warnings, by player request. It will simply act as another content warning, in case you wish to roleplay a shocking twist, but avoid having other players accidentally spoil themselves by reading it prematurely.

18

Announcements / Reply to List available for realmwide messages

« on: June 11, 2020, 10:14:40 PM »

A commonly-requested feature, "reply to list" on realmwide messages, has now been enabled gamewide.

Please message responsibly.

19

Announcements / Graphic Content Warning

« on: June 01, 2020, 11:26:51 PM »

As was announced a little over a month ago, we are now introducing the feature to tag roleplays as graphic in nature—with several options for what type of graphic content is included—with such messages automatically being hidden in recipients' message feeds. Instead, below the "Roleplay from Delvin Anaris" header, you'll see a Graphic Content Warning box listing the warning tags, which you can then click to display the message.

If you find that there are tags you would like to use that are not in the provided list, please contact us and let us know (you can reach us on the forum, on Discord, or by email at community@battlemaster.org). This is still a very new feature, and the list is by no means set in stone.

Please note that the Roleplaying Guidelines have also been updated with these in mind, and have been added to the Rules & Policies page. All players are expected to follow these guidelines at all times.

20

Announcements / Message Editor Inline Preview + Message Saving

« on: May 15, 2020, 09:48:16 PM »

An update has just gone live with two significant improvements to the message editor, one fairly obvious, the other less so until you need it:

First, by actually using some of the fancy features of the rich-text editor package we just updated, we have implemented a live inline preview of your message as you type it. At present, it should correctly handle everything but Wiki, Region/Realm, and forum post links. (We will be working on support for those in the future.) If you have feedback on this feature, please bring it to the forum. If you find that you prefer the old version, you can click the "Toggle RTE Mode" button at the bottom of the page, and for that device only, it will switch to the traditional white-text-box RTE, and remember your setting. (You can use this to have one on mobile and a different one on desktop, for instance.)

Second, by very popular demand, we have implemented a feature that should make it much, much harder for you to accidentally lose that RP you spent half an hour writing. A little bit of extra Javascript watches what you type in the message editor, and automatically saves it to local storage on your computer or phone (so your drafts are never sent to us, but you also can't just start writing on one device then pick it up on another). If you leave the page without sending the message, the next time you open a new message to anyone on the same character, it will automatically preload the editor with your saved message. Upon successfully sending, it will clear the saved message for that character.

21

Announcements / Early May 2020 Updates

« on: May 10, 2020, 10:50:20 PM »

Major Changes

• All new war declarations will require a reason
• A bare-bones HTML message archiver
• Starving regions will gradually stack up more significant penalties*
• Update to the rich-text editor, which should allow it to support mobile

Minor Changes

• Results of training matches will now be sent to the region*
• Further reduce food production in lordless regions*
• Default to collapsing player page player info box on mobile*
• Prevent adventurer creation and War Island character creation from setting a family home region*
• Tweak sympathy adjustment values*
• Abandoning a region during a takeover will immediately complete the takeover

Notable Bugfixes

• A bug preventing supporting takeovers in certain instances
• Re-apply the prohibition on inter-realm communication on the South Island
• Make sure nobles in the same region as a tournament can send messages to it*
• Failed rebel leaders could fail to be banned, allowing them to stay in the realm and retain titles*
• Various miscellaneous bugs

* Already livefixed

22

Announcements / War Re-Declaration With Clear Goals

« on: May 09, 2020, 10:56:58 PM »

Tomorrow (Sunday, May 10), we will be sending live a package of updates that includes support for explicit reasons for declarations of war. We are requiring such declarations to follow certain rules, which can be found on the war declaration page, and the War Declarations wiki page.

We have decided that it is best not to permit any "grandfathered" cases, but to immediately mandate a valid reason for every declared war. We recognize that this is a significant change, and that what we will be doing to enforce this is unprecedented. However, we believe that it is necessary in the interests of fair play and transparency of goals and reasons for war.

On Tuesday, May 12, after the sunset turn, all War statuses in BattleMaster will be set to Neutral (Hatred, too)*. In addition, all nobles in enemy territory will be teleported to their own capitals (we would advise realms at war to use this time to move out of enemy territory and wait there until after the period of neutrality). This is to ensure there are no inadvertent—or exploitative—incidents during the (hopefully) brief period of readjustment. At that time, we strongly encourage everyone who was fighting a war as the aggressor to declare war once again giving both the reason for the war, and the specific goals that would lead to the war's end.

We would like to note that, while there are not yet clear guidelines written up on the precise details of this, we have come to the conclusion that we cannot continue to permit "dogpiling" where an entire continent (or nearly so) is at war with a single realm. Even if you feel you have sufficient in-character cause to go to war with a realm, we would like you to seriously consider another factor: Are there already enough realms fighting against them that their defeat is all but assured? If that is the case, then adding your realm to the pile will not change the outcome of the war, but might very well change whether the players in the realm being attacked can continue to enjoy the game. While a realm that botches its diplomacy should certainly expect to find itself on the wrong end of a beating, that beating should never be so utterly hopeless that it destroys the interest for the players in that realm of even logging into the game.

In the interests of transparency, we would also like to make it clear that as well as being sent to the entire continent along with the fact that war has been declared, every war declaration will be copied to the Titans, as name changes and rebellion reasons have been for many years now. While we expect that there will be some confusion during this transition period, and will be prioritizing education over punishment for now, it is our hope that once that has passed, Titan interventions due to an invalid war declaration will be exceedingly rare.

Additionally, we would like to remind everyone that game mechanics define reality. This is particularly important in cases where the game mechanics have been artificially limited to address abuses by players. Attempting to circumvent those game mechanics, and treat 3/4 of a continent as your allies when, according to the game, they are not, is exactly the abusive situation the mechanical change was made to prevent.

Again, we understand that this is an unprecedented step, and that it is likely to create some distress among some players, and we do apologize for this. However, we are confident that, provided the bulk of players are willing to work with us toward a game played with friends, the disruption in actual play will be brief and relatively painless.

Finally, we would like to emphasize one last point on this topic. We take no joy in introducing additional restrictions on the game. We have no interest in telling players how to play, beyond the basic broad guidelines of milieu and fair, friendly play. Our ideal is a game where the players work together as players to promote the fun of all, rather than insisting on promoting their own fun over everyone else's, or telling other players they're wrong when they come forward saying they feel like their fun is being ruined by others. The more players can do that, the fewer restrictions we will need to place and enforce on the game.

* (South Island is exempt from this, for reasons which should be obvious.)

23

Announcements / New Graphic RP Guidelines

« on: April 22, 2020, 06:58:55 PM »

BattleMaster is an international game with different cultures and players of various ages. As such, people have a wide range of preferences regarding graphic content. If you are going to roleplay a sensitive topic, like rape, or have detailed descriptions of gore or violence, then you will be expected to provide a graphic content warning at the top of the roleplay—for instance, add at the beginning of the roleplay: "Out of Character Warning: this roleplay contains graphic content."

This will be enforced by the Titans. If you are in doubt of whether or not your roleplay should have this warning, please use one. It is only one sentence and it can spare those who do not prefer reading graphic or explicit content.

In the future there will be a message feature for tagging roleplays as graphic with a click of a button, thus hiding them behind a content warning in the message feed. Readers will then be able to click to unmask the roleplay or have an option to have all roleplays automatically unmasked.

You can provide feedback on the following forum thread: https://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,9018.0.html

24

Announcements / Titan Spokesperson

« on: March 09, 2020, 08:44:24 PM »

In an initiative to help improve communication, transparency, and community outreach with the Titans, we have decided to implement a new position: Titan Spokesperson. The initial Spokesperson will be the player of the Gildre family.

The Titan Spokesperson will be available to answer questions, provide guidance, and essentially act as communication gateway between the players and the Titans. We strongly encourage you to ask questions, obtain advice, ask for clarity on results, and submit politely-worded appeals to punishments through the Titan Spokesperson. Simple issues can be answered by the Spokesperson, and more complicated issues will be taken for discussion with the other Titans, and they will get back to you with an answer. They are there to assist you, the players, to help make a fun and safe game environment for everyone.

The Titan Spokesperson will not comment on any ongoing case or investigation or provide information on the origins of any submitted Titan Reports. The Titan Spokesperson also does not retain any individual powers, cannot apply or remove punishments, is not an Admin or Developer, and cannot make any changes to the actual game.

25

Titan's Case Archives / Dragoness Family Case History

« on: January 20, 2020, 01:02:35 AM »

Multiple Continents
Complaints: EC #868, #889, #904 AT #444 SI #27, #42, #73 BT #420
Date: 2011 - 2020
About: Dragoness Family

The player of the Dragoness Family has been the perpetrator of an unacceptable streak of poor behavior which has spanned years. Recently, the Titans reprimanded the player for insulting and accusing game volunteers of cheating and unfair bias. The player has also questioned the validity of their history of punishments, claiming they have done nothing wrong in the past.

In response to a public request by the player, the following is a summary of all reported and punished transgressions made by the player of Dragoness. ALL of the following have resulted in punishments/warnings from the Titans to the player.

To be clear: The Titans/Admins/Devs do not "interfere" with the game. Their jobs in these positions require them to interact with the game, and sometimes will result in shifts in the in-game balance of power. This is a normal part of the game, and not an abuse of their positions or otherwise something they are to be reprimanded for. Some are players, while others are former players who no longer play yet still offer their personal time to support the game. There is zero tolerance for insulting or disparaging them, particularly in a venue where they have no opportunity to respond and presented in an unconstructive manner.

The following are the resolved punishments laid against the player of Dragoness. Messages have not been edited other than to redact names, realms, and specific profanity.

#444 2011: Inappropriate OOC vulgarity (F-word)

And again we have to vote and I don't get HOW THE !@#$ to vote.

#27 2014: OOC calling another player a "retarded idiot"

I simply find it surprising that I got promoted and  a <<real live retarded idiot>> figured one of my messages was not appropriated and accidentaly/surprisingly at the exact same moment proclaimed against it. That is meta gaming abuse, the lowest of things you can do in a game. If you can't beat them you call for the game master, chat moderator or worst case some ueber admin.

#420 2015: OOC insult to another player after being tortured (A-word)

That should be an out of char message. Not possible from prison.
So: thank you that you are such an !@#$%^& in real live that you tourture me causing me to lose a sword fighting point which takes me month if not years in real life to regain.
Thanks [NAME REDACTED], thank you so much ... next titan requests about you I wont ignore but answer with: "Ban that !@#$%^& prick!

#42 2016: OOC calling realm mates "stupid" and "dumb"

(OOC: next time you vote for rulers get a damn clue about what is IC and what is OOC and what is *in the game*. You traded OOC fun ... understandable, for game play. I play the game for winning. We are not playing against our 10 year old sons or daughters where we can be soft to give them a chance to *learn*. Not finishing [REALM REDACTED] in the beginning of the game was fine. Destroying your own realm by voting a "role player" into rulership where it was obvious that he would "play that role" till the end: that was pretty dumb ... no offense to the player ... actually: I would do the same. No offense to that player: but yes, I'm really offended that my realm mates are so stupid that a majourity actually voted for him ... not sure if I enjoyed XMas ... and I'm even more offended that people/players defended the situation with words like: "you voted for him, deal with it!" )

#868 2018: Banned a new noble who had been in the realm for three days for "not following orders". While technically an IR violation, the issue was punished as "Not Giving Newcomers the Benefit of the Doubt".

#73 2019: Inappropriate OOC message

I suggest you apply yourself for a name change ... no worries, I wont report you ... so you can keep it until a Titan freaks out. But getting bombarded by a "retard" with a "retarded name" with dozens of messages (which imply you know the game mechanics) is actually not really funny when you were forced to rename two of your chars just a few weeks ago, because "uh no native english speakers think your names for commoners are wrong, hah", no, it is not funny.

#889 2019: OOC suggestion that other players are a detriment to the game because they are more active than him (also arguably an IR violation).

(OOC: this is a game, not a part time job. If you can not agree to make the game more fun and more easy for everyone, that is up to you)

#904 2020: OOC messages to realm accusing Devs/Titans/Admins of cheating/bias/influencing

So the devs are again interfering with the game ...
I spare me the correct term, and just call it: a bloody shame!

There is nothing to approve. There is no "game rule" that devs have to approve or deny a merger.
It is just the same bull!@#$ as every were: devs are players too, and they can not distinguish between being players and being a dev. They took Bescanon from Perdan, they took the finest R5 SF RC of the continent from Perdan - did not restore it yet after nearly a year, probably to stupid, to hand write some SQL statements to put it back. But most likely: simply ill evil purpose. Some devs playing on the Perdan enemy side thinking they can invent new meta rules ... that is the point why I'm leaving.

Admins/Devs/Titans interfering all the time is the death to this game. I hear we once had close to 10,000 players, now we are ... 250? Or what? Whose fault is that? Certainly not the players faults.

(The game's peak was at about 2,000 registered players around the time that Dwilight was first opened in early 2008.)

To be clear, any complaints or disagreements about these punishments in-game are still entirely unacceptable, and will be punished accordingly. If you wish to discuss these, please do so here, in a civilized manner, or over email at community@battlemaster.org.

26

Announcements / January 2019 Update

« on: January 02, 2020, 03:30:48 PM »

Minor Changes

• Feedback for region descriptions can now be more detailed

Bugfixes

• Sympathy losses due to looting were being misattributed to the looted region's owner
• Personal messages sent by players were not being correctly labeled as such
• A number of other, minor bugs

27

Titan's Case Archives / Beluaterra, Case #476 "Group Migration"

« on: December 13, 2019, 05:18:05 PM »

Beluaterra
Complaint #476
Date: November 29, 2019
Title: Group Migration
About: Zeminemesis Kabrinski

This case was brought to our attention when a group of newer players were banned while leaving their realm of Luxx Nova to try to create a new realm near Thalmarkin. In addition, there was some concern about OOC knowledge being used IC.

The Titans judged this was not in violation of rules.

The Titans issued no punishments in this case.

We conducted a quite in-depth investigation on this case. When newer players are involved, we try to give the benefit of the doubt, and ensure they are being treated fairly. During the course of our investigation, we discovered the following events:

1. Players from Lux Nova had included the newer players into their realm. There was evidence of promises of war and titles, and also assurance that the newer group's minority culture would be allowed to exist within Lux Nova's laws.
2. The newer players decided that they still wanted their own realm, and they had enough players to do it.
3. The newer players sent a message to a different realm asking if they could set up their new realm nearby.
4. The newer players began moving there, with no communication to Lux Nova, which was obviously very quickly observed by nobles of Lux Nova. Leadership within Lux Nova sent several warnings that anyone moving outside of sanctioned areas would be banned.
5. After investigating, we found that Lux Nova learned that the newer group was moving to be near a rival realm, and that this information was gained legitimately through in-game and in-character means.

The main problem with all of this stems from the bolded and underlined portion of point 4. There was no relevant communication to Lux Nova. All Lux Nova saw was a bunch of nobles, who had units and presumably gold provided by Lux Nova's taxes, heading outside the realm in a direction they were not supposed to go. Upon receiving the information that the newer group was setting up a realm with their rival's assistance, it was an easy and fair deduction to label the newer players as traitors to Lux Nova.

As Titans, we cannot stress enough the importance of communication within the game. A lot of the cases brought before us would not be cases if players communicated openly with each other. One can not simply pick up a large force of a realm's nobles and move off to a rival realm without any word of explanation and not be considered traitors.

An OOC message explaining that they felt their characters did not fit in well, and wanted to make their own realm would have been an acceptable start. Even better, a developed IC reason.

In the end, we felt for the newer players. Undoubtedly, they are frustrated. However, BattleMaster is a game that is simple to play, and extremely complicated to master. They found themselves in a difficult position, but the nobles of Lux Nova broke no rules, and more importantly, we discovered no evidence of OOC malice in their actions or communications. They were simply acting on the information they had available.

As a last additional note, after the bans came into effect, the nobles became rogues and ended up fighting each other by accident. There was some call into the possibility of having their units restored. We would like to remind everyone that it is standard operating procedure in BattleMaster to not undo any in game effects. Things happen, and there are not enough resources to go into changing things to make everyone happy. Instead, we encourage players to use the bad to help develop the story of their character. Everything doesn't always go right in real life, the same applies to BattleMaster.

28

Titan's Case Archives / Multi-Island, Cases #573, 478, and 898 "Micromanagement"

« on: December 11, 2019, 07:29:16 PM »

Dwilight/Beluaterra/East Continent
Complaint #573/#478/#898
Date: December 10, 2019
Title: Micromanagement
About: Kinsey Family

This case deals with an ongoing issue which was previously addressed. Early in November, a warning was issued addressing "single player" playing of Battle Master. The specifics of the warning discussed micromanaging allied armies and nobles, as well as retaining singular power and information of their own realm's military.

The Titans were informed barely a month later that these shortcomings had continued, spanning three continents with three separate characters.

The Titans judged this in violation of several rules:

* Exclusion of several players from military affairs, to include Marshal characters
* Failure to guide and mentor as a Government member and experienced player
* Failure to acknowledge previous shortcoming and apply solution to all characters

During the course of our investigation, we discovered at least one player who paused due to feelings of exclusion. Several other complaints were received in addition to the paused character regarding being actively excluded from military planning/command.

Due to the fact that the player is a senior player with a wealth of experience, a longstanding Government member, and has already received a warning on this subject, the Titans have decided to apply the following punishments:

* Removal of General position for all three characters
* Removal of Marshal position for all three characters
* Lock out of positions for 14 days

For reference, the following documents were applied to the investigation were: Rules and Policies, Government Rules, Command Hierarchy, and the Social Contract.

First and foremost, Government members are expected to help, guide, and safeguard the fun for other players, as is detailed in the Government Rules. Second, players should not be excluded from gameplay.

As current and former players, we acknowledge the decline of playerbase, and the fact that sometimes positions are difficult to find volunteers to fill. Often a General must act as Marshal. This is not the issue at hand.

What we discovered in our investigation was a player with all their characters as Generals. Two of these characters were also Marshals. The third became Marshal when the Marshal of that realm paused due to feelings of exclusion. A poor attempt was made after the accused was called out IC of doing the same thing he had done on the EC for his previous warning, but evidenced by the Marshal pausing it was too late. Subsequently, the player continued to actively exclude several other characters of the realm who tried to involve themselves, repeatedly, into the realm military.

Battle Master is a game involving many people, and has many aspects available to enjoy. Too much focus has been applied to winning, to the point where winning is stepping on the enjoyment of the game for players. This is not going to be tolerated any longer. The point of Battle Master is not to win wars at any cost, it is to role play a noble character in a feudal society. Realms and wars are not as important as characters and players. Placing the former above the latter will result in punitive measures on and ongoing basis.

References:
http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Rules_and_Policies
http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Command_Hierarchy
http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Social_Contract
http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Government_rules

29

Titan's Case Archives / Dwilight, Case #559, "Strategic capital move?"

« on: September 05, 2019, 07:29:27 PM »

Dwilight
Complaint #559
Date: August 21, 2019
Title: Strategic capital move?
About: Rosalind Foxglove

This case deals with the move of Westgard's capital from its original location of Gelene to Eidulb. At the time of this move, Eidulb was a fairly central location within the realm, particularly given the expansion to the southwest it had been engaging in. However, it was also very near to the front line of their war with Tol Goldora. Over the course of a couple of weeks, the Titans investigated and deliberated on this case, and eventually concluded that the capital move was not in violation of the rules of the game.

As the rule against strategic capital moves is fundamentally one of intent, that always makes judging such moves much more difficult than many other Titan issues. However, over the years, we have developed a number of more concrete criteria that we can use in determining whether the move was most likely strategic or most likely not. These are:

- Was the strategic advantage of recruitment closer to the front an important element of the discussions of moving the capital?
- Did the capital move actually bring the capital closer to the front?
- Was there a historical or cultural reason to move the capital to the new location?
- Was the new location a more central one, more likely to make region maintenance easier for the realm as a whole?
- Are there other significant in-character/roleplay reasons for the move?

In this case, the most important thing our investigations revealed was that the discussions within Westgard were firmly anchored around centralization of the realm and a proposed merger with Astrum.

Tangentially, we did find that certain foreign officials privy to the discussion were advocating for the capital move on purely strategic grounds; they were each given an official private warning, particularly as they have all been playing long enough to know better.

In our discussions, we had to address multiple complicating factors: the proposed merger with Astrum, the unsolicited illicit advice of foreign leaders, the push by Tol Goldora up the western side of Westgard immediately prior to the merger, and the loss of western regions after the merger.

The main issue with the merger with Astrum was that it was not, and could not have been, approved, given the sizes of the two realms. Unfortunately, I personally contributed significantly to the confusion on this point, as I was asked for advice on this over Discord, and got mixed up about the requirements we have set for merging realms (no more than 15 nobles, as opposed to regions). This resulted in Astrum and Westgard believing for some time that their merger would go forward, when that was not the case. However, ultimately, the fate of the merger is irrelevant to the case, as the people involved in the discussion believed in good faith that the merger would be allowed to proceed. Thus, their intent was clearly not strategic in that respect.

Though, as mentioned above, certain foreign leaders were advocating for the move on strategic grounds, because none of them were members of Westgard, we decided that their transgressions were not directly relevant to the primary issue of whether the move itself was legitimate. So far as we could tell, their advice did not actually cause anyone involved in the discussions within Westgard to take up the idea.

The strategic situation on the ground was a tricky point, as by the time the capital move occurred, Eidulb was just a couple of regions from Goldoran territory. However, it quickly became quite clear from the message histories and the timing of the region takeovers that the efforts to move the capital significantly predated the Goldoran western offensive. Indeed, I can personally attest to hearing of discussions of moving the capital from months before this incident. Thus, we determined that the specific proximity of Goldoran regions to Eidulb at the time of the move was not enough of a factor to outweigh the clear intent demonstrated previously.

Some Titans did raise the issue of the current state of Westgard's regions, and the fact that, subsequent to the capital move, Eidulb quite clearly lost its central status within the realm. However, once again, the only factors that are relevant to the Titan case regarding the capital move are those that predate the move itself. Later events do not affect our judgement.

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Titan's Case Archives / Colonies, Case #246, "Rulers not making game fun?"

« on: August 19, 2019, 07:50:00 PM »

Colonies
Complaint #246
Date: July 19, 2019
Title: 'Rulers not making game fun?'
About: Mephista Beldragos

A case was reported to the Titans regarding a ruler, Mephista Beldragos, making the game not fun by being very controlling about estates in their region. In the course of the investigation, it was discovered Mephista was not making the effort to engage the players in their realm but insisting on blindly following orders. More effort was expended being paranoid about a new character to the realm than attempting to welcome and incorporate them into the realm, going so far as to interpret "please" as demanding. Rather than being open to constructive criticism on more efficient estate allocations, they were immediately shut down. Furthermore, a long record of attacks on fellow players, including developers and Titans, was discovered.

The Titans judged this in violation of several Government Rules:
*Enforce the Community Rules
*Make Fun Their Responsibility
*Try to Guide Not Order
*Be Open To Criticism—never believe they know everything
*Be Friendly and Courteous
*Make Failures Their Responsibility

As well as in violation of the Social Contract rule to not attack fellow players.

Given the player's record of past of Inalienable Right violations, complaining about player-developers, and our renewed effort at enforcing Government Rules, the Titans elected to apply the following punishment to the player of Mephista Beldragos: Removal from the position of Ruler & Banker of Lukon, Duke of Lukon, Lord of Lukon, a restriction against holding the positions  for 14 days.

There has been a lot of controversy revolving this case lately, so we have decided to post a public summary of how and why we reached the decision we did.

The Titans operate on a principle that players new to the game or to leadership positions deserve some leniency, but players with a history of rulebreaking should be treated harshly. Furthermore, we believe very strongly that many small acts that, taken individually, might not merit even a second look, can add up to the creation of a toxic, hostile atmosphere.

At the time of this investigation, the player of the Beldragos family had five complaints against them, ranging from violating the SMA on Dwilight, to violating the Inalienable Rights on two occasions, and several instances of publicly complaining about the Developers/Admins. In addition, punishments regarding Government members have been more strict lately, as we have noticed a slacking in the responsibilities that Government members are accountable for. These are the factors which dictated the severity of the punishment leveled.

There have been rumors that the player was targeted by the Titans due to some grudge. This is simply not the case. To be noticed by the Titans, a complaint must be lodged. There are simply not enough volunteers to supervise all interactions within BattleMaster, and even if it were possible, we would not want to do that.

However, once a complaint is lodged, an initial investigation is launched. We will verify whether or not an actual rule has been broken, and accept or reject the case. Once a case has been accepted, we conduct a full investigation. During the course of that investigation, if we come across further infractions, we will add them to the case, and thus increase the punishment.

That is exactly how this case unfolded. It stemmed from a simple complaint between two characters, but went on to reveal a long list of poor behavior. This, once found, is not something we ignore.