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BattleMaster => Development => Topic started by: loren on April 22, 2012, 07:44:52 AM
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I personally think it's time that the effects of looting on realm control be seriously reconsidered. It greatly bothered me when I observed on the outside the war between Ibladesh and Perdan/Caligus (and to a lesser extent Carelia v CE) that it appeared that realms simply didn't care about gaining lands directly anymore, they would instead just put to the torch everything of their enemies. As it stands, this tactic seems to have disproportionately gained adherents simply because it is so effective. This is amplified even more by the fact that many realms have difficulty simply getting enough characters to hold on to what they already have. Why bother taking over a region you know you won't be able to control if you can just deny its use to your enemy with much greater ease.
If you look at this type of warfare you see that its actually much more in line with the incredibly modern ideas of asymmetric warfare and scorched earth warfare of Sherman (yes yes the Romans et al would salt the earth of Carthage etc, but that is something much more permanent than what BM simulates). So the question becomes then, should the game mechanics push you towards trying to deny your enemy the use of lands, rather than taking them over for yourself from the outset. I've heard people say in the past that it is ultimately harder in the end to actually control lands that you've really done some hurt to, and that may be true, but (and it's a big one) people have rightly figured out that if you simply beat your opponents into submission and destroy their ability to fight, you can take your time assimilating new regions into your realm. Hell it actually works in your favor given the scarcity of characters to fill estates. By taking your time you can slowly accumulate new characters to fill the spaces as your gold/noble increases.
In summary, the paucity of people to fill estates, and the overbalanced effects of looting have changed the nature of BM warfare away from outright territorial gain to one of area denial. I find this change to make the game quite a bit less fun, and actually damaging to the spirit of the game. Whereas before new nobles might hope to prove themselves in battle and be rewarded with the acquisition of new functioning lands, they must instead grind away at their foes, and then grind away at repairing the damage they have caused to the lands they desired.
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On Dwilight they're experimenting with new types of takeovers, including peaceful ones which discourage looting. Haven't had a shot to try 'em out yet ('cause the Zuma beat me up right before I could click the button) but I think it's in line with what you're suggesting. Either way though I agree, it is kind of lame to just continuously raze the same region over and over again until neither side can really hold it without sitting a few dozen nobles in it and having them do police work for weeks.
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I remember, way back in 2007-2008, Hulaferd got down to 140 peasant population, just from repeated TO's between Wetham and the Assassins.
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So you want to push people toward a style of play you think is better by punishing them for playing the way they want to? Wasn't a simiilar discussion had a while ago about punishing "undesirable" actions rather than rewarding "desirable" ones?
Why bother taking over a region you know you won't be able to control...
Nothing you've said changes what you stated right there. It doesnt matter how much you "tone down" looting, people won't take regions they can't control, and they *especially* won't take regions they know they'll lose the next time they have to leave it to refit.
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the new estate and new TO systems combined should encourage more "land-taking" wars, rather than scorched earth. Let's see how things play out once those get pushed to stable.
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We still burn and loot lands in Fissoa, because we want to do damage to the realm and we will take care of a take over after the war if we want any lands.. So it's not like the new estate/takeover system has to change anything
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Fissoa really is a salt the earth situation for my character though. Maybe others will tone him down, maybe they won't, but if it's up to him, Fissoa will be nothing but a wasteland at the end of this war.
That being said, scorch the earth as a defensive tactic may be modern (though I'm not even sure about that) but looting was VERY widespread in medieval times. It actually got so out of hand with people all over Europe suffering that the Church intervened and tried to set some rules for warfare.
Anyway, the new estate system already makes conquest a lot more attractive but it remains a choice.
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Pherhaps some risks should be added to looting. Like let's say loss of soldiers, injury and even capture.
Looting is similar to certain infiltrator actions, and well they risk capture no matter what they do, no matter where they do it.
I mean capture in a rogue rgion with a population of 10 and no units of any kind around. That is just crazy.
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If anything, looting needs to be MORE damaging.
Recuperating from looting, with a lord and courtier present, is pretty easy.
And if you can neither war for land NOR loot, then why go to war at all?
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I would like to rebalance looting, so that it's less of a "loot the region using whatever option until it's a wasteland and it hates everybody" thing, and more of a "pick whether you want to destroy the region's infrastructure or terrorize the populace" thing.
This will require some changes that aren't going to come quickly, but we have discussed some things in this vein over the past year or so among the devs.
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I would like to rebalance looting, so that it's less of a "loot the region using whatever option until it's a wasteland and it hates everybody" thing, and more of a "pick whether you want to destroy the region's infrastructure or terrorize the populace" thing.
This will require some changes that aren't going to come quickly, but we have discussed some things in this vein over the past year or so among the devs.
In the pre-fourth invasion Enweil vs. Rio war, we did a lot of targeting specific things, be them recruitment centres or food supplies.
Though the difference never was that huge, it's always been possible to pick between a higher focus on production or on morale (pillage and maraud vs. murder/rape, for example).
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In the pre-fourth invasion Enweil vs. Rio war, we did a lot of targeting specific things, be them recruitment centres or food supplies.
Though the difference never was that huge, it's always been possible to pick between a higher focus on production or on morale (pillage and maraud vs. murder/rape, for example).
Oh, right, I almost forgot:
There are also ideas floating around about making it much easier to damage recruitment centers to the point that they cannot be used for a period of time, without having the centers be completely destroyed and lost forever.
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Which is a great idea. Disabling buildings rather than destroying is preferable in many cases.
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Oh, right, I almost forgot:
There are also ideas floating around about making it much easier to damage recruitment centers to the point that they cannot be used for a period of time, without having the centers be completely destroyed and lost forever.
Oh, that'd be pretty sweet.
As long as there's both. All of these RCs in Rio we wanted destroyed forever. Those in Grehk or Rines wouldn't have been targetted because there's much more strategic things that can be done in cities.
Actually, I have a hard time thinking of when one would want to temporarily disable a recruitment centre, unless it's super easy and lasts super long, other than in those cases of special 95-5/95/95 SF centres (anyone who destroys one of these deserves to be hung!).
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Oh, that'd be pretty sweet.
As long as there's both. All of these RCs in Rio we wanted destroyed forever. Those in Grehk or Rines wouldn't have been targetted because there's much more strategic things that can be done in cities.
I believe part of the plan was to have it still be quite possible to destroy RCs, but make it somewhat harder than it is now.
Actually, I have a hard time thinking of when one would want to temporarily disable a recruitment centre, unless it's super easy and lasts super long, other than in those cases of special 95-5/95/95 SF centres (anyone who destroys one of these deserves to be hung!).
Well, sure, if you're thinking about disabling one RC.
But what if you could send your looting force through their lands and disable 80% of their RCs for a week?
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I believe part of the plan was to have it still be quite possible to destroy RCs, but make it somewhat harder than it is now.
Harder? Destroying RCs is a slow process, and RCs can be insta-repaired by paying to enlarge them. Meanwhile, that kind of looting does basically no collateral damage whatsoever. Unless you know you will fight a very long war of attrition, targetting RCs is rarely a viable strategy as it is now.
Well, sure, if you're thinking about disabling one RC.
But what if you could send your looting force through their lands and disable 80% of their RCs for a week?
If you have the capacity to waltz through the enemy's lands and reach 80% of their RCs before needing to refit/retreat, then you can likely just waltz into the enemy capital and get it over with.
Most realms' fortified cities are where the find both the most centres, and the largest centres. You will typically not be able to target these centres until you basically won the war. The loss of the ability to recruit from the other RCs is mostly felt long-term, so you'd need to be able to consistently shut them down on a regular basis.
Some realms do have poor RC selection in their fortified locations, though, which would make them much more vulnerable to this kind of thing.
Overall, it'd depend on the ratio of how much time it takes to shut down an RC and much time the effect would last.
If it was easy, our looting army would probably have used the temporary one while the main army used the permanent one, given how the looting army was way too small to hope being able to destroy RCs by itself.
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Harder? Destroying RCs is a slow process, and RCs can be insta-repaired by paying to enlarge them.
I didn't think it was all that hard. Toupellon waltzed into OW and tore up all the RCS in four regions in under a week. And enlarging them costs gold, and require the lord to be there.
If you have the capacity to waltz through the enemy's lands and reach 80% of their RCs before needing to refit/retreat, then you can likely just waltz into the enemy capital and get it over with.
True...
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I didn't think it was all that hard. Toupellon waltzed into OW and tore up all the RCS in four regions in under a week. And enlarging them costs gold, and require the lord to be there.
How many was "all"?
Because when I measure time it takes, it's compared to time it takes to destroy a region's stats. Because unlike normal looting, which will destroy a ton of food, destroy the income, and potentially lower the control enough to temporarily disable the RCs and maybe even make the region revolt, the only thing you'll ever get out of attacking RCs is maybe destroying RCs.
If the option to permanently destroy RCs is made harder, then pillage and maraud becomes much more worth it.
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Five or six, I think. Not sure, I wasn't there for the whole thing. I know of at least three in two regions, plus more in another region or two. Call it five, minimum.
Also, we were intentionally only targeting the RCs. We didn't want to drive the regions rogue, or even inflict general mayhem. We wanted to remove their ability to make war with as little collateral damage as possible.
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Five or six, I think. Not sure, I wasn't there for the whole thing. I know of at least three in two regions, plus more in another region or two. Call it five, minimum.
Also, we were intentionally only targeting the RCs. We didn't want to drive the regions rogue, or even inflict general mayhem. We wanted to remove their ability to make war with as little collateral damage as possible.
That's not bad.
I disagree with your strategy, though. Collateral damage is the best way to prevent one from being able to go to war. ;)
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So you want to push people toward a style of play you think is better by punishing them for playing the way they want to? Wasn't a simiilar [sic] discussion had a while ago about punishing "undesirable" actions rather than rewarding "desirable" ones?
Altering the game mechanics in no way punishes people. As I clearly stated in my preamble we need to reconsider (in my opinion) the effects of looting on realm control. People can still damage the regions production, make morale go way down, damage recruitment centers etc. But it should in my opinion have a lowered effect on realm control. Looking at a map and seeing huge boarder regions that are just rogue rubs me the wrong way.
The 'power' game reasons for wanting it to stay the same are pretty obvious. It allows you to quickly do lasting damage that is cumulative over time. This isn't true of abandoned take over attempts. So from a military standpoint yes, deny your enemy the use of their lands. But that type of warfare isn't something that really fits BM's frame of reference. Looting in the medieval world by and large did not effect political control such that regions would just declare they had no lords.
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Altering the game mechanics in no way punishes people. As I clearly stated in my preamble we need to reconsider (in my opinion) the effects of looting on realm control. People can still damage the regions production, make morale go way down, damage recruitment centers etc. But it should in my opinion have a lowered effect on realm control. Looking at a map and seeing huge boarder regions that are just rogue rubs me the wrong way.
The 'power' game reasons for wanting it to stay the same are pretty obvious. It allows you to quickly do lasting damage that is cumulative over time. This isn't true of abandoned take over attempts. So from a military standpoint yes, deny your enemy the use of their lands. But that type of warfare isn't something that really fits BM's frame of reference. Looting in the medieval world by and large did not effect political control such that regions would just declare they had no lords.
Your arguments are sound.
I wouldn't mind looting having less effect on control, as long as their damage is longer-lasting.
I actually quite like the idea of a large realm having all of its regions at 0% production without everything revolting.
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the new estate and new TO systems combined should encourage more "land-taking" wars, rather than scorched earth. Let's see how things play out once those get pushed to stable.
It seems to me that while it make encourage it, the changes will not alter the fundamental calculus of simply denying your enemies their lands, and then later after they are utterly defeated rebuilding. It means that looting has an even greater tactical effect, but the same strategic effect. Ultimately the grand strategy of turning as many regions rogue as possible will remain as the balances is tilted too heavily in its favor.
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It seems to me that while it make encourage it, the changes will not alter the fundamental calculus of simply denying your enemies their lands, and then later after they are utterly defeated rebuilding. It means that looting has an even greater tactical effect, but the same strategic effect. Ultimately the grand strategy of turning as many regions rogue as possible will remain as the balances is tilted too heavily in its favor.
A few things enter into the calculation of whether to loot or do a TO.
1) the location of the region. One can't TO a region that doesn't border one's own realm.
2) the duration of a TO vs. looting a region rogue. If looting it rogue is quicker, it encourages to do looting in order to take the financial and infrastructure benefits from the enemy as quickly as possible. If a TO is about as long or shorter, then a TO is encouraged because not only it takes the bonuses away from the enemy, but it grants them to your own realm
3) the number of nobles. While the new system put much less of a limit on growth than the last one, it still caps to a minimum of 1 noble per region. Small realms sometimes already have 1 noble per region. And I'm far from convinced that 1 city and 1 rural, with both of them having just their lord, produces as much wealth (due to efficiency) as having 1 city alone, with a lord and knight. Also, the closer your noble/realm ratio approaches 1, the less likely you would be able to properly repair and protect your new acquisition.
4) the time available: Sometimes you want to be able to abort half-way and still have caused lasting damage, or otherwise be able to leave as soon as you are done. Looting allows this, takeovers don't (as much).
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Harder? Destroying RCs is a slow process, and RCs can be insta-repaired by paying to enlarge them.
so make it impossible to enlarge without repairing them 1st.
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mind you.. bit silly not to have it maxed already. having to shrink it then enlarge to repair? expensive...
eg... my lvl 2 sf cost 1k to up to lvl 3..
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so make it impossible to enlarge without repairing them 1st.
But there's no way to repair them otherwise, as it is.
And if you just do this without adding one, then you'd doom good RCs that were stuck in regions with starvation for too long.
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if going down that route, would probably need rework the whole building thing... i'd rather them stay as 0% than destroyed through dodgy production...
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People can still damage the regions production, make morale go way down, damage recruitment centers etc. But it should in my opinion have a lowered effect on realm control. Looking at a map and seeing huge boarder [sic] regions that are just rogue rubs me the wrong way.
So if, under your proposed change, you can still heavily damage a region to the point that it's a burden on your enemy (low production and therefore small harvests, but still a relatively large population), how will this encourage people to do takeovers rather than looting?
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There are a couple things in the new estates that will help, I think. Most importantly is that realms will be able to control more land, and thus will want to take it. The newly conquered border regions will be easier to integrate into your realm. They won't be revolting the next turn do to lack of lords and knight.
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There are a couple things in the new estates that will help, I think. Most importantly is that realms will be able to control more land, and thus will want to take it. The newly conquered border regions will be easier to integrate into your realm. They won't be revolting the next turn do to lack of lords and knight.
Is there any incentives to have more than 1 region per noble?
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Is there any incentives to have more than 1 region per noble?
I think you require two nobles per region at minimum. A lord and a knight with an estate.
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So if, under your proposed change, you can still heavily damage a region to the point that it's a burden on your enemy (low production and therefore small harvests, but still a relatively large population), how will this encourage people to do takeovers rather than looting?
Because as has been pointed out it is relatively easy to repair regions if you're uninterrupted. You can temporarily deny their use to the enemy by looting them, but if you wish to truly do lasting damage you need to take them. However, the current mechanics mean that you can just deny their use by removing them from the enemy realm altogether. Put another way, its a matter of the temporal nature of war. Looting should be more tactical, not more strategic. As it stands people are devoting entire strategies around loot the other guy's regions till they're mostly all rogue and he capitulates. Not take those regions by force from the outset, and loot regions where it makes tactical sense to do so.
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you don't "need" more than 1 noble per region. more regions than nobles? eh... that's pushing it a bit, isn't it?
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you don't "need" more than 1 noble per region. more regions than nobles? eh... that's pushing it a bit, isn't it?
Realms where the ratio approaches 1:1 are not that uncommon. From what I see, most seem to float at about 2:1, though.
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How can you maintain control when all the local government officials are dead or have fled?
Making looting less effective will only make things even easier for the defender, who already have most advantages in this game. It will only encourage more gang-up wars, because 1:1 wars will become nearly impossible to resolve. Two realms can trade border regions back and forth forever, because crippling the other realm's economy is no longer a viable option. The damage caused by your entire army can be undone with a few courtiers. ???
Just once, I'd like to see someone make a feature proposal that is not a subtle bid to help their own realms. Just once. ::)
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The damage caused by your entire army can be undone with a few courtiers. ???
That's not really true considering in about a week I know of a region that had lost 3k peasants limiting its production considerably for quite sometime. Also the "if you can loot all the regions why not take the capital, I know of one example where they couldn't take the the capital but could loot the rest the regions. Carelia's army could not defeat the Suville army looting it but Suville couldn't attack the capital because with the long time militia Suville's army would outmatched.
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That's not really true considering in about a week I know of a region that had lost 3k peasants limiting its production considerably for quite sometime. Also the "if you can loot all the regions why not take the capital, I know of one example where they couldn't take the the capital but could loot the rest the regions. Carelia's army could not defeat the Suville army looting it but Suville couldn't attack the capital because with the long time militia Suville's army would outmatched.
If it's a single region that lost 3k peasants, then it will recover quickly because all of your adjacent regions will be pouring in theirs, assuming that the local region lords know what they are doing.
If many of your regions are down 3k peasants, then yes, you're in trouble, but the enemy had to take a lot of time and effort to achieve that.
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If it's a single region that lost 3k peasants, then it will recover quickly because all of your adjacent regions will be pouring in theirs, assuming that the local region lords know what they are doing.
If many of your regions are down 3k peasants, then yes, you're in trouble, but the enemy had to take a lot of time and effort to achieve that.
Hell, if it's on the border, your enemy's regions will also deplete themselves to populate it!
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Looting has become more prominent as a method of warfare because of the estate system. Denying regions is a better way to win a war than to try and take them all with your already abysmal land-to-nobles ratio. There's no need to rebalance this as the new estate system should do a lot to help turn the tide and bring us back to the good old days - where wars were nearly always fought for land, as novel as that sounds!
It's also harsh, I think, to blame the mechanics. The estate system aside, the game doesn't force anyone to loot. Yes it's effective, but once you start looting with impunity, your enemies start doing it too. That's the risk you take. Really a lot of realms ought to be more gentlemanly in their warfare, because when all's said and done, both sides want to come out of the war strong and intact, without the prospect of prolonged, eye-wateringly dull efforts to restore battered regions. And what's fun about camping a big army in a region to loot, being constantly interrupted by peasants (though that changed recently?) and avoiding open-battle? It's so boring.
For me this doesn't need changing, the primary suspect in the growth of looting is about to die a death with the stable update. Couple that with migration now being able to revive ravaged populaces much more easily and I'm happy enough with that.
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I believe looting already got enough damage as with current mechanism? :o
Takeover failed (16 days, 8 hours ago)
The people of Bruck have not only resisted our attempt to take control of the region, they have even risen up against us and stopped our takeover attempt.
Losses during takeover (16 days, 8 hours ago)
During the failed but bloody takeover in Bruck, 2 of your men were killed and 4 wounded by rebels and resistance fighters.
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I think you require two nobles per region at minimum. A lord and a knight with an estate.
On stable. On testing, you only need a lord.
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You don't actually *need* a lord. But you can't get the food without one.
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heh. eh.. if there's to be auto sell in new trading.. would a region without a lord still have an auto sell offer?
ie... appoint lord. stick up auto sell. step down. no auto sell when it expires?
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How can you maintain control when all the local government officials are dead or have fled?
That's what a takeover explicitly says it influences/does. Pillaging in fact never talks about government officials afaik.
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heh. eh.. if there's to be auto sell in new trading.. would a region without a lord still have an auto sell offer?
ie... appoint lord. stick up auto sell. step down. no auto sell when it expires?
then the duke gets half the regions' income...
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I would think the peasants would complain about the absence of a lord. Which should decrease all stats.
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I would think the peasants would complain about the absence of a lord. Which should decrease all stats.
Will looting has a better adverse effect than the absence of a lord in the region? ???
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Just thinking about the looting options and their effects on the population. Raping and killing obviously makes the peasants hate you, but does not gain you any gold. Stealing food will be similar, but probably with a bit less hatred and you get food. Stealing tax gold, does not make peasants hate you (This is what I remember, I may be wrong about this) but you get gold.
Could a looting option be created that would not only not cause hatred, but actually increase loyalty to the looters? A "robin hood" style looting, steal the gold from the lords, and instead of keeping it, throwing it into the street? This would be a great option if you think you may want to TO the region later but want to damage the region's stats for the time being.
Should this be in a separate feature request thread?
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Could a looting option be created that would not only not cause hatred, but actually increase loyalty to the looters? A "robin hood" style looting, steal the gold from the lords, and instead of keeping it, throwing it into the street? This would be a great option if you think you may want to TO the region later but want to damage the region's stats for the time being.
This is possible, only it's not called looting! Priests and diplomats have such options already.
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I had to track this thread back down because of some observations made in the last few weeks with takeover actions. I had hoped that the new TO system would have eliminated what Loren was complaining about. But at least in the takeovers I've seen since then, it's actually made the problem more apparent.
-2 takeovers of rogue regions happened in about 3 days or less (FEI and Dwilight)
-Looting regions rogue takes, we'll estimate 4-10 days, depending on size, how many are looting, and if there's any real resistance
-A takeover of Mech Alb by Asylon (loyalty was friendly) lasted for ~2 weeks, never reached 50% completion, and was ultimately thwarted by Allison alone. By the time the TO failed officially, the region despised Asylon, despite doing only friendly TO options. Looting the same region rogue and then taking it potentially could have taken only that same 2 week mark.
-OT is currently going on about 3 weeks of a fear-based takeover of Giblot, facing no resistance, and is still only looking at about 67% completion. Which means we've likely got another week and a half, at least. Looting the region rogue and then taking it, again by even high estimation, should probably have only taken about 3 weeks.
I know there's a lot of factors involved with the new takeovers. You can't just sit in the region, you have to actively participate, and all that. But it still seems like the scorched earth method is the more useable option of the two available. Has anyone else made similar observations or even the opposite being the case?
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Hmm, did you have enough nobles perform those actions often throughout those 2 weeks?
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It wasn't full participation. I think some people are still stuck in the old way, even though Dwilight's been on the new system for months now. But if I had to guess, I'd say if we had 20 nobles in the region, at least half performed some sort of takeover activity each turn. The one thing I misspoke about was that it was only about 9 days, not closer to 2 weeks.
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Yeah, my impression is that the main issue is that people don't get the new TO system and don't use the support options. In Giblot, for example, before my character had to get to OT for a refit, I saw about 1-2 TO messages per turn. That's ridiculous if you want to take a city, you need more than two units to do it.
On Dwilight, the TOs done by Auravendil seems to go pretty quickly, so if your force is coordinated and actively working on the TO, things seem to be just fine.
It would be important to know how much active TO actions are done before making the system responsible. Maybe what we need is to improve communication of the new way?
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The takeovers by Solaria in Dwilight have been fairly quick & easy. Of course we've been taking over rogue regions with very minimal populations.
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It would be important to know how much active TO actions are done before making the system responsible. Maybe what we need is to improve communication of the new way?
Would it be possible to have the TO actions generate messages to everyone in the region with links to the looting screen? Something like "Sir Bob has ordered his men to rape all the goats and sacrifice all the women, would you like to do so as well? (link)"
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why looting screen? surely they would want to spend the time doing TO rather than "waste" it looting?
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why looting screen? surely they would want to spend the time doing TO rather than "waste" it looting?
Haven't seen the new system in action, I thought the TO actions were found from the looting screen. Is that not the case?
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It is most definitely not.
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It is most definitely not.
Well, alrighty. Link to the TO actions page then.
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The takeovers by Solaria in Dwilight have been fairly quick & easy. Of course we've been taking over rogue regions with very minimal populations.
Right, that's kind of partly my point. Comparatively, the takeovers of rogue regions are happening in about 25-40% of the time it's taking for a controlled region (resisted or not).
Tom, how many of those recent TOs by Auravendil were controlled by other realms vs rogue?