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BattleMaster => Locals => Dwilight => Topic started by: Gildre on January 07, 2017, 03:15:56 PM
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I was looking at the realm list on Dwilight the other day, and noticed that a shocking amount of realms have almost as many regions as nobles. On the map development thread someone suggested that maybe we alter the Dwilight map so that realms don't have to spread out so thin. This apparently would be a massive and near impossible undertaking.
However, the issue remains. In Luria Nova, for example, nearly everyone is a region lord. There are simply no knights. Pretty much the limit of exploitation as far as spreading out goes, and we are still pretty far removed.
So here is what I am wondering: Could we perhaps alter the rules to allow TWO characters per player on Dwilight? This would bolster the ranks of knights in the realms, and allow for brother/sister/cousin whatever RP.
The other continents seem to be doing ok, but Dwilight is HUGE and we don't have the player base to cover it. I think this could solve that problem.
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No. 2 chars per continent ain't coming back.
What we need is a system which allows realms with higher density to expand more easily while making realms with low density to have trouble holding on to regions.
I don't really get why we went down the path of trying to limit realm sizes based on the region count instead of the noble to region density. I think large realms are fine as long as their density is high. Well managed and highly populated realms should be rewarded while less denser realms like Fissoa or LN should probably only be able to keep half of their current regions at most.
Some people think having more realms is better and I can get behind that but what is the point of having many small realms when they only have 5 nobles per realm? You need at least 15 to have a realm that even bothers to send a letter or two per turn. Realms with less than 10 nobles are usually very quiet and hard to motivate. Personally, I think we should be merging those realms. Large realms are not bad if they are active. I think activity should come first to increase player retention. Instead we are going backwards.
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I don't really get why we went down the path of trying to limit realm sizes based on the region count instead of the noble to region density. I think large realms are fine as long as their density is high. Well managed and highly populated realms should be rewarded while less denser realms like Fissoa or LN should probably only be able to keep half of their current regions at most.
The problem with large realms is that they have an oppressive effect on the continent, or at least the area around them. If you are a small realm located near a large one, either you're their friend, or you're going to get invaded very painfully.
And when I say "friend," I'm not talking about any particularly two-sided sort of relationship.
Yes, right now, with our player density issues, low-density realms are worse for the game. However, no matter what the density, the effect of large realms on their area doesn't go away.
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The problem with large realms is that they have an oppressive effect on the continent, or at least the area around them. If you are a small realm located near a large one, either you're their friend, or you're going to get invaded very painfully.
And when I say "friend," I'm not talking about any particularly two-sided sort of relationship.
Yes, right now, with our player density issues, low-density realms are worse for the game. However, no matter what the density, the effect of large realms on their area doesn't go away.
You are overlooking one thing though Anaris. Realms like GX will still have the same effect despite their smaller size. You can't avoid large realms. People will simply find ways to work around it. I feel like if we do get enough players, we will simply see the days of old CE alliance.
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You are overlooking one thing though Anaris. Realms like GX will still have the same effect despite their smaller size. You can't avoid large realms. People will simply find ways to work around it. I feel like if we do get enough players, we will simply see the days of old CE alliance.
So what you're saying is that we should be limiting not based on realm density but simply based on noble count?
So once a realm is at, say, twice the average noble count, we should stop them from gaining more nobles....?
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No. I was thinking more on the line with making the limit more flexible like let's say you have 30 nobles in a realm with 10. Then you can expand to 15 without any penalty while if you have a realm with 10 nobles, you can't expand beyond 5 without suffering penalties. So limit would continue to go higher the more nobles you have. It will limit your realm as you lose nobles overtime.
Penalties could be different things too. If you want to avoid punishing people directly for losing density, you can simply make it impossible to expand or regions without lords a lot less efficient in terms of resource production. Or more likely to fall to takeovers.
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The problem with large realms is that they have an oppressive effect on the continent, or at least the area around them. If you are a small realm located near a large one, either you're their friend, or you're going to get invaded very painfully.
You would have a point, were this not Dwilight. Its sheer size prevented even the SA alliance from influencing the whole of the continent.
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Uhh I am on the side that big realms are detrimental to the game. Look at Atamara in its last ages. It was basically two realms. EC has Sirion who wield insane influence.
My big concern is that we don't have enough people to have knights in most of the Dwilight realms, and there are still tons of wild lands separating some of the realms on the eastern half of the continent.
Cutting the continent down of excess regions and stitching it back together has been shot down. Adding a second character slot has been shot down. Any other options we can explore?
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Nothing I can think of. Nobody wants to be relocated. Nobody can agree on a solution so we are at an impasse.
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Have big realms ever been detrimental to Dwilight in the same way the giant alliances of AT and EC have been?
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Have big realms ever been detrimental to Dwilight in the same way the giant alliances of AT and EC have been?
I don't think giant realms were the problem. Giant alliances were. You can gang up on one big guy like Fontan, SoA, and Westmoor did but when you have biggest realms on the continent all allying to form a bloc then you can't really do much.
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Cutting the continent down of excess regions and stitching it back together has been shot down. Adding a second character slot has been shot down. Any other options we can explore?
I don't think players don't really want a solution. It's one of those prisoner dilemma situations where everyone would be better off if everyone would sacrificed a little, but no one wants to take the risk because of fear they will lose their titles, lands, realms and someone else will have some. Rather than focus on where we all win - the process of playing and struggle.
We have too many lands per nobles. Players don't want to give up their lands because they've always had them and therefore, according to them, they should always have them for the future. Which means we keep dead quiet, isolated realms because the rulers have more fun looking at their titles than actually engaging their players. And if anyone suggests this is just because there are too many monsters to engage other players, the players weren't being engaged before the monster increases either, hence the reason for monster increases to apply pressure, without overwhelmingly killing realms. But nooo...players see monsters and decide 'this is our land and we will never ever forsake it, even if it means a crappy experience for new players'.
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You would have a point, were this not Dwilight. Its sheer size prevented even the SA alliance from influencing the whole of the continent.
SA influenced the whole continent, but it wasn't able to control the whole continent.
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SA influenced the whole continent, but it wasn't able to control the whole continent.
Indeed. Like Indirik and I used to say, we ran out of nobles to create more theocracies with XD.
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Cutting the continent down of excess regions and stitching it back together has been shot down. Adding a second character slot has been shot down. Any other options we can explore?
Getting more players? That would most likely solve the problem.
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After reading all these, here's what I suggest we do.
Plague
The disappearance of many food bushels overnight. Causing each realm to source food from neighboring realms and in the end, war! ;)
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Getting more players? That would most likely solve the problem.
I've only seen one person do it on a scale that we need. JeVondair.
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I've only seen one person do it on a scale that we need. JeVondair.
There was the Dwarf Fortress community... until certain events happened.
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There was the Dwarf Fortress community... until certain events happened.
I've only seen one person do it on a scale that we need. JeVondair.
So, the solution is simple:
1. Ask JeVondair to do on Dwillight the same magic he/she (I know not if JeVondair is a dude or a chick, I assumed it's a chick because most of his/hers characters are females but I don't wanna offend anybody) done on EC.
2. Make certain events unhappen and reinvite DF's community. Et voila - playerbase doubled! No need to thank me for my genius fellas. Now, where's my bowing with taking a hat off his head emoji? 8)
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What happened with the Dwarf Fortress community?
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They unfortunately joined Barca. When we wiped West Dwilight out, they quit.
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Dwilight never had 2 characters per continent, it was the first continent to have the 1 character per continent rule and never had otherwise.
I disagree that small realms are necessarily hopeless, though. The Ceded City Alliance lasted a while despite neighboring giants. The polarized nature of the continent and existence of competitive power blocs played a large part in it, though, but still.
I think what some people were trying to suggest was more along the lines of considering density at a more local scale, instead of continental. Right now, Luria expands and takes more regions than they have nobles, and the direct consequence is that more monsters spawn to carve up what is already the densest realm of the continent, Westgard. Every region the non-dense eastern realms take are basically at the cost of the densest realms of the game, Westgard and D'Hara, and potentially Fissoa and Astrum. Perhaps less so with the sea travel, but still.
If regions that remained without (enough) knights for too long attracted and spawned more rogues, while regions with enough never (or almost) spawned any rogues, it could be a means to direct the monsters where they are most likely to accomplish their purpose.
Some consideration would have to be put for depopulated regions, though. We wouldn't want to force knights to abandon their 150 gold/week estates just to join a 1/50 000 population region.
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I think what some people were trying to suggest was more along the lines of considering density at a more local scale, instead of continental. Right now, Luria expands and takes more regions than they have nobles, and the direct consequence is that more monsters spawn to carve up what is already the densest realm of the continent, Westgard. Every region the non-dense eastern realms take are basically at the cost of the densest realms of the game, Westgard and D'Hara, and potentially Fissoa and Astrum. Perhaps less so with the sea travel, but still.
It used to be more even to all rogue borderlands, but players whined about this (Fissoa almost dying and D'Hara being hit from both east and west), so Anaris made changes to have the monsters spawn strongest in the largest rogue clump (the West). First folks whine to turn down the monsters for eastern realms. Now you whine for the opposite of eastern realms not having it easier. People are never happy.
If regions that remained without (enough) knights for too long attracted and spawned more rogues, while regions with enough never (or almost) spawned any rogues, it could be a means to direct the monsters where they are most likely to accomplish their purpose.
Lordless regions do attract rogues preferably to other regions. And low estate coverage attracts rogue preferably to other regions too.
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Now monsters can swim across. This should do what you want them to do Chenier.
Lordless + Low estate coverage = Fissoa and Luria Nova. There you have it.
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It used to be more even to all rogue borderlands, but players whined about this (Fissoa almost dying and D'Hara being hit from both east and west), so Anaris made changes to have the monsters spawn strongest in the largest rogue clump (the West). First folks whine to turn down the monsters for eastern realms. Now you whine for the opposite of eastern realms not having it easier. People are never happy.
Lordless regions do attract rogues preferably to other regions. And low estate coverage attracts rogue preferably to other regions too.
Sure, but fine tuning can make a world of difference. Making the large hordes spawn in the largest contiguous rogue region, as opposed to all rogue regions, solves the "this prevents any realm from ever really being able to war another" problem. But it only worsens the "the realms with the lowest density are also the least affected by the rogues meant to keep density in check" problem. Theoretically, with the current course, we could have those hollow depopulated realms keep on growing, and growing, and growing, until the hordes overwhelm all of the most populous realms. I don't think anyone thinks this would be a good thing.
On the other hand, Fissoa and Arnor both have more regions than nobles (while I'm sure it used to be as such for Luria, the Realm List seems to suggest Luria has a lot more nobles than I recall?). And Fissoa is surrounded by rogue regions to keep expanding to. If the swimming hordes continued to spawn as they do now, but prioritized regions without knights as target breeding grounds to aggregate to, then wouldn't we be 1) applying the solution to its root cause (ultra-expansionnist realms) and 2) doing so in a way that doesn't interfere with regular realms' ability to do the PvP they desire?
A formula to determine a region's attractiveness to horde migrations could factor in: lack of knights, lack of lord, density of host realm (compared to average), region population, and region population percentage. As such, a region with no knight, no lord, in a realm with very few nobles per region, a huge population and 100% of its potential population would be considerably more attractive than a region with a knight, a lord, in a realm with a high density ratio, and only 1 peasant. Every other region would fall in between these two extremes.
To be clear, I do not have issue with the rogues in the West as they are. D'Harans do, I guess, but as general of Westgard, I personally do not. What I like less is the relation between our challenges and the actions of others over which we have no power. In a way, it feels like Fissoa is waging war on us with a battery of Big Berthas, our options being limited to healing the wounded and hoping we can heal them faster than they get killed. The underlying issue here is geography, I've made this point many times, but I think it obvious to all that tweaking monster behavior is far more likely to be done than removing all of these rogue land masses to crunch all of the eastern realms closer together.
I can't comment on the impacts of the new swimming code because I have no idea how it works, I have not been able to witness its impacts yet (I don't think anyone has nor will for some time). Personally, I don't think it, in itself, does much to address my cited concerns, it mostly just helps D'Hara retake Port Raviel. Eidulb and Candiels seem to have held just fine, nobody's holding the Northern pass, and Westgard doesn't hold any chokepoint at all. I can't really see great benefits for this change except for D'Hara, but if the monsters cross randomly, it could just be a step back towards the old "everyone is too busy fending the rogues to tend to their PvP".
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Yeah.. this PvP idea ain't going to convince anyone. There was a time when monsters were restricted to stay only on West Dwilight. People still didn't fight. It is not monsters who are preventing people from fighting. It is usually people.
You can condemn Fissoa and LN for their uncontrolled expansion. Players should try to solve the issues first. This monster sea travel change should make other eastern realms suffer a bit. Don't know by how much yet. Give it a few months.
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Yeah.. this PvP idea ain't going to convince anyone. There was a time when monsters were restricted to stay only on West Dwilight. People still didn't fight. It is not monsters who are preventing people from fighting. It is usually people.
You can condemn Fissoa and LN for their uncontrolled expansion. Players should try to solve the issues first. This monster sea travel change should make other eastern realms suffer a bit. Don't know by how much yet. Give it a few months.
While I can generally agree with the sentiment that the main obstacle to player fun is, often, players themselves, I don't really think it appropriate to describe Dwilight as a peace continent. There has just been wars all over central and northern East Dwilight in the rather recent past. And I've heard of other wars before that. And before before that, sure there were huge blocs, but there war rarely every extended periods without at least one war somewhere, other than when the context forced it. And even then? I really can't remember a true peace period for Dwilight. Even at its beginning, there was a number of conflicts in the Springdale area, with secessionists, colonists, and such. Then it spread to the North-West, with multiple conflicts among colonists there. And then in Central Dwilight and the Maroccidens. And then between Fissoa and Luria. And then again in the North. And I'm probably forgetting a bunch of wars between those, not to mention those since. While some may argue that not all of those wars were fun, or that not all of those wars involved a lot of parties, it remains that the continent, on its whole, had way more than its share of wars.
But players respond to incentives. Fissoa, as it is, really has no reason not to expand. Really, they have nothing else to do than to expand. I can't really blame them, though, the geography of that area is atrocious. If at least their expansion had a cost in terms of stability, then at least they could make the choice themselves: do we remain smaller, but able to project strength abroad, or do we grow and fold ourselves on ourselves, focusing on dealing with the rogues that threaten our expansion? I honestly kind of pity them.
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Like Vita` pointed out. Players don't want what is the best for the game overall. They want what is the best for them. It is as simple as that. Game mechanic changes can't fix that.
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Like Vita` pointed out. Players don't want what is the best for the game overall. They want what is the best for them. It is as simple as that. Game mechanic changes can't fix that.
Most of them, sure, but not all of them. ;)
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Just remove all restrictions for size and throw away stupid rogues... you will see Fissoa conquer whole continent with its new king :P
-Jaune
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Just remove all restrictions for size and throw away stupid rogues... you will see Fissoa conquer whole continent with its new king :P
-Jaune
But I like fighting the rogues. It's why I came back to this game. :(
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But I like fighting the rogues. It's why I came back to this game. :(
ok, mayby we could make a deal, you can have rogues on that east side of Dwi :P
-Jaune
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Who wants to colonize the west and abandon the east entirely?
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Who wants to colonize the west and abandon the east entirely?
You want to meet the fate of Westgard? :o
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You want to meet the fate of Westgard? :o
What's bad with that? :P
That being said, the North-East's geography, albeit imperfect, is fairly superior to other places'. Although I guess, despite it barely ever happening, things could be different with a bunch of city states in the West (as opposed to a few giant realms as it always was).
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What's bad with that? :P
That being said, the North-East's geography, albeit imperfect, is fairly superior to other places'. Although I guess, despite it barely ever happening, things could be different with a bunch of city states in the West (as opposed to a few giant realms as it always was).
The west only ever had one giant realm, and that was Astrum. Possibly Caerwyn before the crusade that destroyed it. After that was Kabrinskia/Farronite Republic, Asylon, and Niselur that had to fight together just to match Astrum.
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The west only ever had one giant realm, and that was Astrum. Possibly Caerwyn before the crusade that destroyed it. After that was Kabrinskia/Farronite Republic, Asylon, and Niselur that had to fight together just to match Astrum.
Realm size wise, Astrum was the largest. Noble count wise it was actually Asylon and Barca. At least in the west. I think in the east, it was Luria Nova.
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Realm size wise, Astrum was the largest. Noble count wise it was actually Asylon and Barca. At least in the west. I think in the east, it was Luria Nova.
Depends when we are talking about. For a long time Barca was only a small, tiny realm. It was only towards the end when they got the huge population of Dwarf Fortress players that it became large in noble population.
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Huge is relative, but Astrum was not the only meaningful realm in the area.
Everguard had from Eidulb to Valkyrja, so 4 potential duchies, for example, and was fairly strong during its time.
But my point wasn't that there was many huge realms over the years there, but that there were never really multiple realms there. I can only recall it happening in the very early days, Everguard quickly dislodging Caerwyn's initial colonization of Eidulb and pushing them to Golden Farrow.
As for Barca, it was tiny for all but a tiny fraction of its history.
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Depends when we are talking about. For a long time Barca was only a small, tiny realm. It was only towards the end when they got the huge population of Dwarf Fortress players that it became large in noble population.
And then the monsters came XD
I think it was close to the ice age well for dwilight it was monster age. Barca had like 33 players? It had quite a bit. Asylon had like 26 and Astrum only had 20. Astrum peaked during the war before the monsters came reaching 26. Recently Astrum peaked at 27 and came down a bit but for now Westgard is the largest. Luria Nova once had close to 50.
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And then the monsters came XD
I think it was close to the ice age well for dwilight it was monster age. Barca had like 33 players? It had quite a bit. Asylon had like 26 and Astrum only had 20. Astrum peaked during the war before the monsters came reaching 26. Recently Astrum peaked at 27 and came down a bit but for now Westgard is the largest. Luria Nova once had close to 50.
Well Astrum formed a few colonies too.
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Well Astrum formed a few colonies too.
Our colonies rebelled :p
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Our colonies rebelled :p
Indeed. Funding colonies combined with colonies breaking away tends to have a negative long-term impact on noble count.
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But I like fighting the rogues. It's why I came back to this game. :(
Maybe you can describe the rogues then. How tall are they? Do they have claws or many hands or many heads? :P
Who wants to colonize the west and abandon the east entirely?
That's good point. I tried to colonize the north but could not abandon the east for too long.
You want to meet the fate of Westgard? :o
Westgard is... they need all help they can get.
Our colonies rebelled :p
What have you done? Why would your colonies rebel? ???
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The monsters are about 2 feet tall, have no fur, pale skin, no teeth, no claws, but will kill you with their screeches. ;)