BattleMaster Community

A few weeks back, there was a change to generals. We are now not allowed to see the army details on ArmyInfo.php. Apparently now the general can only see the same generic details that every other army member can see? I don't remember any particular announcement of this change. I really don't like this at all.

I can't remember anyone ever complaining that the general had access to the army status. I'm curious as to the reasoning behind this change. It makes my job as general significantly more difficult. I don't see as to how this change improves the game in any way, or adds to the experience at all.

Hm, I hope that is a mistake.

Having sent my General army reports on several occasions, I must agree the change is no improvement. But perhaps it's too soon to tell :)

I agree. All this makes me want to do is steal the vice marshal position from someone else... which is not a good development for the game I think.

So what is the point of having a general anyway when he can't really see much of what is going on in his military? Better to just let marshals work things out than having a general trying to figure out with inaccurate information.

Quote from: Zakilevo on March 19, 2012, 09:33:29 PM
So what is the point of having a general anyway when he can't really see much of what is going on in his military? Better to just let marshals work things out than having a general trying to figure out with inaccurate information.

The idea is that Generals develop an overall strategy. Finer details are either left to the marshals or discussed within the military hierarchy. Its working okay for me right now, but then the realm I am general in isn't in a war that is really testing our military either, and I do want to strangle one of my marshals.

It is not true that generals see that same thing as everyone else. They have an additional summary at the bottom that aside from them only the sponsor and marshal see. That summary should contain all the info that the general requires at his level of command.

Quote from: Tom on March 19, 2012, 10:24:30 PM
It is not true that generals see that same thing as everyone else. They have an additional summary at the bottom that aside from them only the sponsor and marshal see. That summary should contain all the info that the general requires at his level of command.

For those interested you get a army summary like this

Total Troops: 678 men (7185 combat strength)
(258 Archers, 420 Infantry)

What was removed was individual unit CS and Readiness values.

This is only going to encourage "one army per realm", Tom.  >:(

Or maybe we will all follow Darka's example, and have one army for all the Courtiers and Diplomats, and one army for everyone else.

If you want to make the armies more important, please overhaul the combat system so that it makes sense to split your forces. Because currently the optimal strategy is "blob up and hit the other blob". Splitting up will just get your armies defeated in detail.

Putting blinders on your players will only encourage more micro-management (a General can still see the information you've hidden with enough scout reports, or by demanding data from other nobles), and more consolidation and centralization of powers around the General (one army per realm). Which I believe is the opposite of what you want to encourage.

One giant army with the general as either the marshal of the army or the VM. That sounds more efficient.

Actually, I've found that having a Vice Marshal actually hurts more than helps. If your Marshal gets stabbed/captured, that army is stuck on his last Marshal setting until he comes back, as the Vice Marshal cannot change the settings. Sure, you still have a Vice Marshal enforcing line settings, only now they might be the wrong ones. I've actually seen incidents where the Vice Marshal were told to move away from the battle site so that he can't screw up his army's settings.

It's another example where the game mechanics ended up discouraging what was meant to be encouraged (more positions, more distribution of power, etc.)

I see it used a lot as a springboard for new promising Nobles, since the Vice-Marshal position is a nice safe position for a Noble to employ itself without big mistakes being able to happen (The Marshal takes the lead anyway). Generally, I say Marshal Formations are set correctly most of the time, and the sponsor can always temporarily switch Marshal/Vice-Marshal positions in such a case. I don't see how the Vice-Marshal actually discourages more positions and distribution of power. To me, it seems quite the opposite.

Yes, the general gets a total summary. But in most situations, that summary is of no use at all. I don't care about the total army CS as anything other than a gross estimation of the army's overall health. What I really need to know is how much CS, and what type of troops do I have, in Region X? What good are troops in Firbalt if the battle is going to be in Iknopata? As it stands now, I need to beg for scout reports, wait for them to come in, then make the decision, then send a message to the marshals, then wait for the marshals to give the orders. All the while knowing that every minute the orders are delayed is CS lost because its not going to make it to the battle. If I had the information like I used to have we could short circuit all that and get down to what matters.

I really see no benefit to removing this information. It just adds frustration, confusion, and lots of unecessary busy work.

And yes, I know that if someone won't be marching with the army, maybe they shouldn't be in the army. But we all know that for every campaign there are always people that don't go for some reason, or fall behind, or get wounded. And getting lords to constantly move people around in armies is completely unreasonable.

In a perfect world, maybe this approach would work. But this is a game, and we're not perfect people. IMO this change adds nothing at all to the game except a bunch of unreasonable expectations.

I have to agree here. A General needs to have at least as much information as the realm's Marshals, because he has more authority *and* more responsibility. How can he make decisions if he doesn't have information about how much combat strength he has where? I definitely think this will encourage realms to slim down to one army, with the General as Marshal or Vice Marshal. It's what I would do. I shouldn't have to be asking my Marshal to copy and paste what he sees into a letter for me every turn just so I can get an accurate strategic picture of where *my own forces* are, or begging for scout reports of where our own forces are. Why not simply do away with Generals altogether and let the Marshals run everything? That's more or less what this encourages since the Marshal will have much better information with which to make decisions; given that fact, he should *be* the one to make decisions.

I seem to recall that Tom has said previously that Generals shouldn't be making decisions every turn. For Solaria I am trialling the following. I give each Marshal their objectives and make it their responsibility to achieve them. Part of that responsibility is determining if they have the force to achieve it, reacting accordingly and updating me if an objective is no longer achievable so I can draw up new plans.

So my orders might be something like follows

March your forces through enemy territory taking this route, attempting to avoid pitched battles and rally in region X within 7 turns. The other armies shall join you there. Once we are rallied siege the city. The siege should take place within 3 turns of our force arriving at the rally point.

I could also list general contingency plans, but to be honest that would just confuse one of my marshals at this stage. The weakness of this method is inter army communication when something goes wrong with the plan. To counter this I need to ensure that the marshals have a good understanding of the mission and the acceptable risks. As our system develops it will be part of our standard operating procedure that in emergency situations the first commander (This is our general description for Marshals and General) to become aware of the situation (log on) will assess and provide immediate orders. As General is is my job to then rework the plans to our current situation. Its not necessarily my job to provide a immediate response to the situation, the marshals should have adequate information to achieve this.

I'm basing most of this on my experience as a Lieutenant. At all levels of military command you need to make decisions immediately without necessarily being able to get clarification from above. A major part of my job as General is to ensure the marshals have the skills and information to react appropriately to the situations that arrive rather then being the man to make every single command decision.

Like Indirik said, with this new change, generals will always be behind. They won't be able to make quick decisions. We are not playing a game with a chat server where you can ask your marshals to get whatever information you need ASAP. If no one sends me a scout report of a region that is about to be hit by enemies, I have to either gamble or pull my men back to insure that I am not throwing an entire army into my enemies.

I doubt many generals are diligent enough to try and control their marshals' every order.

Quote from: Zakilevo on March 20, 2012, 05:08:06 AM
Like Indirik said, with this new change, generals will always be behind. They won't be able to make quick decisions. We are not playing a game with a chat server where you can ask your marshals to get whatever information you need ASAP. If no one sends me a scout report of a region that is about to be hit by enemies, I have to either gamble or pull my men back to insure that I am not throwing an entire army into my enemies.

I doubt many generals are diligent enough to try and control their marshals' every order.

Yes, but the real question is, do Generals need to make quick decisions. It is my understanding that the role Tom envisions for them does not require them to be making quick decisions. The theory is fast decisions are tactical decision. The Generals role comes after the "quick" decisions as he tries to salvage the entire operation.

See in your example you are making it the Generals job to decide if men are pulled back or not. What I'm attempting to do is make that the Marshals decision, after all those men are under his command not mine as the General. For that to happen the Marshal obviously needs some understanding of the strategic goals.

Quote from: De-Legro on March 20, 2012, 05:32:37 AM
Yes, but the real question is, do Generals need to make quick decisions. It is my understanding that the role Tom envisions for them does not require them to be making quick decisions. The theory is fast decisions are tactical decision. The Generals role comes after the "quick" decisions as he tries to salvage the entire operation.

See in your example you are making it the Generals job to decide if men are pulled back or not. What I'm attempting to do is make that the Marshals decision, after all those men are under his command not mine as the General. For that to happen the Marshal obviously needs some understanding of the strategic goals.

If you lead multiple armies, it becomes the generals job to decide in my opinion. If one army pulls back because the marshal of the army thinks his army isn't ready while the other stays, you will see nothing more than a massacre. Well obviously that is why we have military councils to share our knowledge. It doesn't do any harm by having detailed information of armies. During my time as the general of Sirion, I didn't dictate what each army should do instead I assigned them with assignments such as putting one of three armies in charge of crushing rebels while putting two others on assaulting a city. Only time I checked an individual CS was when we had stragglers. I checked if it was worth waiting for them or not. Also unit types as well. Waiting on cavalry units before assaulting a city does nothing but waste time and give enemies more time to build up their defences.

I do not see a big merit to this change at all. We have 12 hours to make a decision and I doubt Tom trying to let marshals make these 'quick' decisions will do much good. It will do nothing but make generals ask their marshals for information they used to have.

Quote from: De-Legro on March 20, 2012, 04:01:43 AM
I seem to recall that Tom has said previously that Generals shouldn't be making decisions every turn.

That's fine during peace-time. If your realm is locked in a life-or-death struggle with another realm of approximately equal strength, letting your Marshals debate on turn-by-turn decisions is a fast way to get your realms killed, imho. The more armies you have, the more chefs end up in the kitchen and the more things can go horribly wrong.

Eventually all realms would end up adapting and having one or two armies, or end up getting killed.

I'm not saying that the General needs to be able to micromanage every single knight every single turn. It's sometimes a good idea to give a Marshal a mission and let him run free with his army. However, it's not always a good idea to give all Marshals multi-turn instructions and somehow expect them to work it out all the time. A General needs to be able to see into his realm's armies so that he can make informed decisions on when and where to split off an army or two.

Quote from: GoldPanda on March 20, 2012, 09:06:57 AM
That's fine during peace-time. If your realm is locked in a life-or-death struggle with another realm of approximately equal strength, letting your Marshals debate on turn-by-turn decisions is a fast way to get your realms killed, imho. The more armies you have, the more chefs end up in the kitchen and the more things can go horribly wrong.

If you trust your marshals that little, your realm ought to die.

If your general thinks that he is the only one who can properly lead the armies, your realm ought to die.

If you need the general (maybe we need to abandon that term, it really is more like a minister of war) to issue turn-by-turn orders, then your realm ought to die.


You are complaining because you are trying to have the general do what is actually the marshals job. They have the information needed for turn-by-turn detail actions, so why don't you let them do it?

The general is supposed to tell his marshals to defend region X, attack region Y and make sure that there are enough forces near the border to Z to repell any raiding attempts.

If you act any more detailled than this, then you are not playing a general, you are playing a marshal who isn't happy with just one army.


And the "one big army" strategy isn't a solution, it is a big part of the problem. With a large army, of course you will only ever have a small part of your forces in any given region. Try smaller armies and you will find they are much more responsive and unified. Nothing in the game forces you to put 20 people into an army. Have you tried 5 ?

You can keep making these claims, Tom, but the reality in the game simply does not match up to them.

The realms with small armies are dead or dying. The realms with big armies are thriving. The realms that empower their Marshals are dead. The realms with micro-managing, megalomania-cal, charismatic, cult-of-personality Generals are winning and conquering, or at least surviving. This is why real wars are fought with centralized command structures instead of by committee. This is why Sun Tzu and Napolean end up in history books instead of war planning committee #532. War planning by centralized authority is simply a superior system. And when your realm only has 40 players in it, you don't need four helpers to decide where to send them.

If that's not true, then I suspect that you would not be trying to handicap the General position. But like the players in this thread are telling you, all you will accomplish is forcing every realm to consolidate into fewer armies.

Maybe all these realms ought to die. Maybe. But unless you start lightning bolting the realms that fail to follow your "vision", they'll keep on living. The realms that tried to obey your vision are mostly already dead. I know, because I helped kill one of them.

Quote from: Tom on March 20, 2012, 09:35:20 AM
The general is supposed to tell his marshals to defend region X, attack region Y and make sure that there are enough forces near the border to Z to repell any raiding attempts.

Very few realms are big enough to split their military three way and not get slaughtered, Tom. It's always "blob up and meet the other blob". Splitting up = getting defeated piece-meal = horrible casualties among the nobility + one or two dead Heroes = dismissed General.

Quote from: Tom on March 20, 2012, 09:35:20 AM
Nothing in the game forces you to put 20 people into an army. Have you tried 5 ?

I haven't, but I'm pretty sure Carelia did. It's dead now.

Good points there.

I want the General position. But do you really think that Sun Tzu bothered himself with the equipment quality of every squad within his army? I've actually read him, and everything he says is rather general and abstract. Absolutely no micro-management anywhere in sight.

I do agree that the combat system is part of the problem, because despite our efforts with overkill, etc. it still rewards hitting the enemy with everything you have instead of running encounters.

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.

He said you have to know your own army in order to be able to successfully fight. This is one of the most famous quotes.

An small chapter of The Art of War: http://suntzusaid.com/book/2
When I read that and try to apply it to a BM General, well, it does seem to imply a fair deal of micro-management.

The problem for me lays with the separation between Marshal and General. Ideally in a single-army realm those positions should be the same, and when more armies exist the General becomes the first of the Marshals. It is either that or one of the Marshals coordinates the rest, because there usually needs to be a central command. Realms are too small and the gameplay is too simple for a position of General be dissociated with the one of Marshal. The Ruler already takes care of the foreign relations (which makes the Ambassadors rarely do real diplomatic work), so there is very little for a General to do out of the field. He could send one army to defend the hypothetical north, while the other army is busy TOing or repairing regions in the hypothetical west, but those decisions are very unusual and leave the General doing almost nothing. Kind of the problem there is with the Banker position, though that one has much more potential for activity than a General dissociated of the battlefield and from foreign policy. Such General would not even be able to coordinate with foreign armies because of his ignorance of the state of his own.

Tom,

You know that I agree with you on this. I believe that BattleMaster is at its best with small armies led by empowered marshals, with a strategic-minded General over them who plans out the course of the war, while the marshals direct its day-to-day flow.

But however much we want it to be, this is not (by and large) how the players play the game. And we cannot force them to.

A clear, strong vision of How The Game Should Be is a good thing only in as much as the players will actually accept that vision.  And yes, there are some things on which we cannot bend: the Inalienable Rights are important, and need to remain strong, even if some players dislike them.

But in all practicality, no one is being deprived of fun because the General has the information required to plan out the actions of the whole army. In most realms, you have at most three people with the strategic and tactical sense to be a General or a Marshal who can plan out the actions of armies—and most of the time, one or two of them won't have enough time to devote to the position.

Give the General the tools he needs to be able to effectively command all the realm's armies without having to ask for status updates. It's an unnecessary complication thrown in at a time when we know we need to simplify the game to avoid driving people away.

Quote from: Tom on March 20, 2012, 09:35:20 AM
(maybe we need to abandon that term, it really is more like a minister of war)

That's not a bad idea. That position is meant to be a government office, and not a military title.

In fact, if the naming system was overhauled to look like this, without any change to the responsibilities and game mechanics:

General -> Minister for War
Marshal -> General
Vice-marshal -> Marshal (or lieutenant)

Maybe the system would be better aligned with most people's conception of the words.

Maybe you read it that way because that is the way your want to read it?

He says "know your army", but he doesn't say what exactly that means. You read it as meaning knowing every little detail about every single soldier. I read it as knowing your capabilities, strengths, weaknesses, etc. - neither is directly spelled out.


But instead of philosophy, how about those who are unhappy say what exactly it is they need? Not in the "the old thing back" way, but really think about what you want and why.

For example, I have gathered that you need a summary per region, and I don't see why that could not be provided. After all, the information is already there, the computer would simply sum it up for you. So we could add that.

You need to know how much strength you have in any given region, yes. That's a minimum requirement to be able to even make decisions, otherwise you're just guessing.

And I agree with Anaris wholeheartedly. Having multiple, independent Marshals might be an ideal but the fact is that it's been a recipe for disaster in most of the realms I've been in that have utilized multiple armies in the same theatre of war. Ibladesh comes strongly to mind here, but it didn't help Fronen much either. And Riombara shifted away from two more or less equal armies to one large one and one small supporting one for similar reasons. One army per theatre is my rule. Any more and you risk command dissolution.

There are examples where multiple armies worked fine, too. For example in Ibladesh it did, not in the last war but in the war with Itorunt. I think it worked well in Sirion too in times when they were attacked by several realms.

It worked because there were competent players in those positions. For example, if a general treats his marshals as drones they will do as drones do. This means if you have them become addicted to General issuing orders every turn, then they will lose themselves when he is not around. General setting goals to his marshals for certain time period is better than holding them by the hand through the entire process. There is no point in marshal being just a messenger, he needs to be independent in giving orders but still follow the goals the general sets.

Biggest issue with this is that there are indeed few good marshals in the game. In my opinion being a good marshal is one of the hardest jobs around, and it takes a lot of time and effort. People probably just think that it's not worth it.

Quote from: Arrakis on March 20, 2012, 02:33:09 PM
For example, if a general treats his marshals as drones they will do as drones do. This means if you have them become addicted to General issuing orders every turn, then they will lose themselves when he is not around. General setting goals to his marshals for certain time period is better than holding them by the hand through the entire process. There is no point in marshal being just a messenger, he needs to be independent in giving orders but still follow the goals the general sets.

Biggest issue with this is that there are indeed few good marshals in the game. In my opinion being a good marshal is one of the hardest jobs around, and it takes a lot of time and effort. People probably just think that it's not worth it.

I think it's important to note that while both your first point (treating good people as drones is bad) and your second (there aren't that many good Marshals in the game) are true, we shouldn't mistake the second as being caused by the first. Yes, some people who are good Marshals have been treated poorly by a General who doesn't understand the competence of the people under him and thinks it's his job to pass out orders to everybody every turn. (I was one of those Marshals, in Fontan a couple years ago—though now I'd make a lousy Marshal, as my activity has dropped.)

More often, though, you've really only got one person in a realm who can meet both the strategic and time-related requirements of being an active military leader. That means that every roadblock to getting relevant information to that one person is another step towards defeat—and, more importantly, is one more piece of frustration for that person, with too much frustration leading quickly to burnout.

Quote from: Tom on March 20, 2012, 11:00:10 AMI want the General position. But do you really think that Sun Tzu bothered himself with the equipment quality of every squad within his army? I've actually read him, and everything he says is rather general and abstract. Absolutely no micro-management anywhere in sight.

These RL analogies are cute, but they always fall flat. Sun Tzu had hundreds, or thousands, of people to do the micro-managing for him. People who's entire life revolved around filling the one duty that they had assigned to them. We don't have that, and we're not going to have that. We have a couple people trying to lead their armies and have some fun, with the little bit of time and information they have at hand.

I can see why we've tried to segment information, and tried to spread out power. But I think what we've actually done is concentrate power, but in a different person. Now it's Marshals who issue orders, instead of "anyone in the MC". Put all that power and responsibility in the hands of the marshal, and you burn out the marshal. If the marshal isn't there to give the orders this turn, what happens? Orders don't get sent out, and the army dies. Why? Because we're all conditioned that only marshals can give orders.

And finding marshals is really, really, really, friggin' hard! It's a !@#$ job. It's the worst possible job in the game. It's even worse than general. No one wants to do it, because they have to be able to be available to give orders twice a day, every day, reliably. Because they're the only ones who can give orders. Sure, you have vice marshals. But when the general gives orders to "All marshals", the Vice Marshals aren't included. (Why not? I've tried to get this fixed several times, but no one ever listens.)

I have seen so many times lately where we've been begging for people to be marshals or vice marshals, and no one ever wants to be general. Probably because they've been neutered and turned impotent. "Marshal Kepler, go deal with the enemy." What fun is that? Why do you even need a general to do that? And if the general's job is to coordinate with other realms, then yes, the general does need to be able to give orders per turn sometimes, because you're trying to coordinate attacks. And when you do that, you can't afford to be off by half a day. You can't afford any uncertainty.

Some of the best times I've had in BattleMaster, way back when I first started playing, were the military strategy discussions. 10 or 12 people in the military council discussing what we were going to do this turn to counter the enemy's moves. Ideas flying back and forth, and then whoever was there at the required time issuing the orders. It's wasn't necessarily the marshal, or even the general. It could have been the duke, or the banker, or even just a member of the Military Council. But it was a cooperative effort of people working together to address a situation and a problem, and overcome it. We were a team.

We don't seem to be able to get that kind of feeling anymore. Everyone has their assigned roles, and heaven help anyone who tries to step outside the borders of their clearly defined territories. But what if we don't want to run our armies that way? What if we want to do something different, because the way that you want us to do it just doesn't work for us, for our situation, or for the people we have at hand to run the realm? We only have a certain number of people to do it, and those people may not include those with the time and/or talent to run that way.

And if I sound frustrated and angry, it's because I am. Very frustrated, and very dismayed. What used to be one of the most fun parts of the game for me, the military campaigns and warfare, has become a long series of additional frustration, irritation, and annoyance. These changes which don't seem to make sense, or don't seem to have any clear purpose behind them. It's gotten to the point where I think I'll just give up on being any kind of Marshal/general at all.

Tom, I'd like to suggest that you try to run an army, and perhaps the armies of an entire realm, the way you envision them to be done. See if you can do it, and if the way that you want them to be done is something that realistically *can* be done. Make a new secret account and do it. I can pretty much guarantee that if you walk into a realm with a new account and claim to be a returning player, that you'll get a marshal position pretty quickly. And then just try and be a marshal in whatever realm you want. But do it from the perspective of a player trying to get it done. See how these changes that you've implemented affect the way that people play the game. I really don't think it's doing what you think it's doing.

The only way to win a battle in BM is by overpowering your enemies with much stronger CS. You can't do anything about that. Maybe you can overcome 1k or even 2k if you have a superior setting but once you have difference of over 5k you have to either rely on a fortification or run like hell. There is no point on letting only marshals have the information that generals need. This change to me like people said, is only trying to split power to lower ranks unnecessarily. If you want to do that so badly why not disable the same information to marshals and vice marshals then make people be in charge of even smaller groups within their armies and only let them have the information? As you know well things like that won't work. We don't have that many people who are willing to actively dedicate themselves to marshal/VM positions. I thought BM was a game where people structure the game not GMs structuring the game for the players.

Quote from: Zakilevo on March 20, 2012, 04:36:56 PM
The only way to win a battle in BM is by overpowering your enemies with much stronger CS. You can't do anything about that. Maybe you can overcome 1k or even 2k if you have a superior setting but once you have difference of over 5k you have to either rely on a fortification or run like hell.

This is true, but the dev team has been brainstorming like mad this morning coming up with ways to make it so that you can prevent your enemies from being able to have superior CS.

Hope we get more than one strategic option soon. There are so many ways to improve the game except I can only imagine how those will meet a giant wall called 'coding' and stop.

Quote from: Indirik on March 20, 2012, 02:48:22 PM
And finding marshals is really, really, really, friggin' hard! It's a !@#$ job. It's the worst possible job in the game. It's even worse than general. No one wants to do it, because they have to be able to be available to give orders twice a day, every day, reliably. Because they're the only ones who can give orders. Sure, you have vice marshals. But when the general gives orders to "All marshals", the Vice Marshals aren't included. (Why not? I've tried to get this fixed several times, but no one ever listens.)

This. This a thousand times.

First of all, I get tired of the bull!@#$ saying "it's hard to find a *good* Marshal". I am Marshal of two armies - one in Westmoor (yeah, yeah, get the laughter out now, I know several posters in this thread consider them a laughing stock) and one in Old Grehk. I generally work my arse off in those positions. If I don't issue orders within five hours of a turn change - not twelve like someone else said before - I get bitched at ICly and OOCly for it. The inalienable right to play when I want really does not apply to me, it seems. In the case of Westmoor, I started out as a VM and learned the ropes from the current General, who was the Marshal back then. In some cases, I'm still learning. You want a good Marshal? Help out by teaching them the basics, and letting them learn through experience. Things won't always go to plan - but we learn from when things go right and wrong.

Anyway, onto my main point. The leadership styles of the Generals in those realms are very different. In Westmoor, the General tends to micro-manage a little bit. For example, some Undead spawned in Evora. He tells me to send a couple of nobles down to deal with them. I choose who I want to go based on my knowledge of activity rates and what I know of how to fight NPCs. All being well, the orders are executed, the Undead are beaten, and we rally in one of the cities and do whatever it is we need to. In my eyes, that works fine for me. I don't mind being given the free reign to execute my orders as I see fit. However, I prefer not to be constantly told "move here, do this" because I'm not a drone.

Old Grehk is the reverse, generally. Okay, we're fighting against Tom essentially via his daimons, so it's kind of fighting one man rather than, say, twenty. But as the Marshal there, I pretty much have free reign at this point in time. I haven't given orders out for the last couple of turns because I'm dangerously close to suffering from burnout. It also doesn't help that the Banker from that realm is an insufferable dickhead towards me OOCly which has made me consider quitting the game for good. Having to tread on eggshells to do my job is not a good thing. But that aside, I enjoy the freedom to give orders, assess the situation and devise tactics to deal with the threats we or our allies encounter. An example is this, all the recent losses in Verdomite against the Flesh-eaters were planned. I gave the order to hold the line against them for a good three or four turns. I did this because I acted on intel from Rob (interestingly enough) that told me what their special ability was. I decided that based on that, I would try my best to whittle the enemy forces down enough to make them less of a threat if they then went on to use that ability of theirs.

Being Marshal can be a very tough and punishing job. Like I said before, if I don't issue orders quick enough, I get berated as a character and as a player for it. I have to deal with people insulting me - again as Ravier/Malos or as Ryan, the player behind them as well. Rob is right, it's unforgiving. The problem is that everyone holds a different view on the role of the General and his Marshals, if applicable. And that won't change. Personally, I'm fine with the General, Minster of War or what have you giving me a basic instruction, and I implement it in my own way with my knowledge and experience. How this whole rant ties in to the original topic is this: I have no qualms about letting a General see what I see in the Army Information screen. But I would prefer they can see it so they can discuss with their Military Council about the best course of action. But I don't honestly see any kind of compromise between the various views here.

(Note: I am aware that people will come along and say "Oh, well, that's not representative, it's all hearsay. Frankly - stick it. I don't give a rat's arse or a flying monkey's whether stating my experiences as a Marshal in two armies is subjective. It's supposed to be. And secondly, I'm sorry if this entire post comes off as a rant, but it is in part. I'm just tired of people thinking it's an easy role in your realm, and wondering why it's hard to find a good candidate.)

Problems with multiple Marshals:

1. One Marshal issues orders substantially later than the other, resulting in botched movements, or they issue different orders due to misunderstanding.

2. Two or more Marshals use different command staff settings in the same battle, which is generally a recipe for total disaster.

3. Each Marshal feels less able to make independent decisions since he only controls a portion of the friendly forces in a given area; as he has no authority over the other portion, his making a decision to move could result in split forces and defeat in detail. Thus even if one Marshal realizes the force in Region A is about to get pounded by a concerted enemy attack, he may be reluctant to order a retreat since he doesn't have any authority over the other army in the region and doesn't want to hang them up to dry.

All of these things happened in the waning days of Ibladesh and contributed substantively to turning what might have been victories into disastrous defeats.

Quote from: Ravier on March 20, 2012, 05:03:36 PMIf I don't issue orders within five hours of a turn change ...

Five hours? Five hours?! Damn... my general rule is if you can't send an order within two hours after the turn change, you don't send the order at all, unless it's a do-or-die emergency. Back in "the day" in Perdan, our standing policy was one hour. Give the MC one hour to issue orders. If you don't get orders by then, you're pretty much free to do whatever you want. We knew that for every hour you waited, you lost somewhere around 10% of your army to non-movement. And when your army is 80 characters (if not more) then that's easily 3K CS per hour you delay.

But yeah, I know what you mean with most of your post. I tried the "give the marshals an objective and some general guidelines" thing with my latest general. It was a flop, and I was told that I should take a more hands-on approach, and give orders myself. With the things going on in RL, I can't really do that. In fact, I'll probably have to give up General soon, and let someone else take over. I'm sure that will be fun. No one else at all has run for the past two months. I only ran the first time because after three days no one else was running.

Overall, you really do need to tailor your command style to deal with the people that you have to work with. If you have a go-getter marshal, like Herulcamo in Darka, you give them the objective and let him run with it. But you don't always get that. Many times (not always) you get a marshal who expects to be told what to do. And that's really hard to do when you lack the information to do it.

Quote from: Ravier on March 20, 2012, 05:03:36 PMIn Westmoor, the General tends to micro-manage a little bit. For example, some Undead spawned in Evora. He tells me to send a couple of nobles down to deal with them. I choose who I want to go based on my knowledge of activity rates and what I know of how to fight NPCs.

Quote from: Ravier on March 20, 2012, 05:03:36 PMOld Grehk is the reverse, generally. Okay, we're fighting against Tom essentially via his daimons, so it's kind of fighting one man rather than, say, twenty. But as the Marshal there, I pretty much have free reign at this point in time.

Quote from: Ravier on March 20, 2012, 05:03:36 PMBut that aside, I enjoy the freedom to give orders, assess the situation and devise tactics to deal with the threats we or our allies encounter.

In both examples you've given the Marshal seems to be doing everything. In the first one the General seems to say "hey, undead/monsters spawned in region X, deal with it", which makes him utterly irrelevant, since you already know where rogues have spawned. In the second one I don't even see a single task for him to do. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Most realms these days (in other words, the ones that are still alive) tend to field one or two armies per front. And realms that are forced to fight on multiple fronts tend not to live for very long, except the big and powerful ones.

I see a thread on the blobbing effect. I shall try to contribute some ideas there. But ultimately, ideas are cheap and programming time is expensive, yes?

Summaries, especially CS totals, by army AND by region would be fine. I could work with that. But, Tom, please keep in mind that, most of us are not micro-managing because we like it. We are micro-managing because the combat system encourages it, and we like winning in a pvp game.

Seriously. I do a happy dance when my General char gets to send off an army on its own mission. That means I don't have to worry about that army until it has to refit, and I realize that the Marshal's player probably enjoys it as well. If there was a way to do that all the time, without getting the whole realm killed, I would do it. Unfortunately, most of the time, the optimal strategy is to blob up, and if I try to pass orders through the Marshals, I get asked questions like "Why don't you just send orders to everyone directly? Everyone got the same orders anyway."

FWIW - GoldPanda has been running CE's war machine for, what, 2.5 years now? This guy knows what he's talking about.

Quote from: JPierreD on March 20, 2012, 07:05:12 PM
In both examples you've given the Marshal seems to be doing everything. In the first one the General seems to say "hey, undead/monsters spawned in region X, deal with it", which makes him utterly irrelevant, since you already know where rogues have spawned. In the second one I don't even see a single task for him to do. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I may have over-simplified in the first example, to be honest. What I was trying to get at was very much a case of "This army go here and do that, that army moves over here and does this" on most turns if there is any kind of battle being fought. We don't have that issue on EC right now, but when we do then he usually takes control.

Quote from: Indirik on March 20, 2012, 06:22:02 PM
Five hours? Five hours?! Damn... my general rule is if you can't send an order within two hours after the turn change, you don't send the order at all, unless it's a do-or-die emergency. Back in "the day" in Perdan, our standing policy was one hour. Give the MC one hour to issue orders. If you don't get orders by then, you're pretty much free to do whatever you want. We knew that for every hour you waited, you lost somewhere around 10% of your army to non-movement. And when your army is 80 characters (if not more) then that's easily 3K CS per hour you delay.

The problem there unfortunately is I'm in the UK, so turn change is 5am. Unless it's critical that I'm on to give the order at the right time, I think I'm staying asleep. However, I did like having turn changes at 12pm and 12am when I was staying with my fiancée in Rhode Island, so when I make the move over there, that'll change. But I don't really want to do what I had to be doing with Cybernations - having to get up at 5am during a big war to attack my opponents. Now if other members of the MC who were in America issued orders on the Sunrise turn, whereas I could issue them on the Sunset turn, there's an idea.

That is why you get a VM living in a different time zone  ;)

Ok, I gather that it would help immediately if vice marshals had roughly the same options as marshals?

Quote from: Tom on March 20, 2012, 08:16:28 PM
Ok, I gather that it would help immediately if vice marshals had roughly the same options as marshals?

Yes.

Then someone please put it into the bugtracker as a feature request so it won't be forgotten.

Quote from: Tom on March 20, 2012, 08:16:28 PM
Ok, I gather that it would help immediately if vice marshals had roughly the same options as marshals?

Can you elaborate please, Tom? What options are you thinking VMs should have?

I'll pop it on the bugtracker in proper format in a bit, but I was just wondering what you felt they should have access to.

Quote from: Ravier on March 20, 2012, 08:41:13 PM
Can you elaborate please, Tom? What options are you thinking VMs should have?

I'll pop it on the bugtracker in proper format in a bit, but I was just wondering what you felt they should have access to.

1. access to set formations
2. member of "all marshals" message group
3. access to the army information page that the marshal sees (might have this already)

Quote from: egamma on March 20, 2012, 08:45:25 PM
1. access to set formations
2. member of "all marshals" message group
3. access to the army information page that the marshal sees (might have this already)

One question about the formations, then. Assuming that the Marshal and VM cannot agree and keep changing the formation settings to their preferences, what would you do about that? I'm just thinking if that happens, it can be seen ICly as insubordination or something like a power play of sorts. Which could be quite fun, depending on your perspective of it.

Don't get me wrong, I can see the advantages of that being available to a VM. Just trying to make sure all angles are covered, though.

Each would be set independently. If the marshal is there in the battle, he takes charge and his formation is used. If not, then the VM takes charge and his setting is used. There would be no "change it back and forth" type power struggle.

Quote from: Indirik on March 20, 2012, 09:02:06 PM
Each would be set independently. If the marshal is there in the battle, he takes charge and his formation is used. If not, then the VM takes charge and his setting is used. There would be no "change it back and forth" type power struggle.

Yeah, that was the solution I was thinking of. Just wanted to clarify. With that in mind, I'll go and post it up.

...actually.. if you are going that way... on the marshal screen, there should be a bit that says what settings the vice marshal has.. and vice versa. (you can't change it.. but at least you can see it)

Why would we need that? No one can see what formation the Marshal has set.

Nope, can't set it indivually, because the database stores it on the army level.

Quote from: Tom on March 20, 2012, 10:34:58 PM
Nope, can't set it indivually, because the database stores it on the army level.

Then we can add a SecondFormation field.

The issue I see isn't so much that Generals the way Tom envisions them can't work. Its that when a realm that plays that way comes up against a extremely dedicated and capable micro-managing general, they are at a disadvantage. Thus in the interest of winning conflicts their is extreme pressure for everyone to follow this path.

I am trying something different, and I will admit it helps that I have some of the best military commanders in my realm to rely on, even though that means I've got lots of competition for the General position. I'm trying to set the army up something like the Dorsai mercenaries from the Childe Cycle books. Under this system part of being a good Marshal is making sure that armies that will be affected by YOUR decisions are notified, and that you take their actions into account as well.

For example people worry about armies getting left behind if one Marshal decides to pull back, turning what could be a close fought battle into a significant loss. Now I'm not going to fall into the trap of being online for every turn change to make decisions. I have no interest in ruining my family life just so I can be online within a hour of the turn. The important thing is SOMEONE makes the decision to pull back and that everyone is notified. I empower the Marshal to do this. I'm under no illusion that I am somehow more capable to make the decision, so long as the armies understand how system works, then orders provided by any appropriate source will have the same effect.

I will stress though, that this system creates LOTS of paper work for the general. I need to communicate in detail the plans and strategies to the military council so that everyone has the information to make appropriate decisions. Hopefully a side effect of this will be that the good Marshal I have will actually feel like they have something more to do then parrot my orders, and that players that aren't experienced in the military side of the game will be able to jump in and really learn.

Quote from: De-Legro on March 20, 2012, 11:35:07 PM
I will stress though, that this system creates LOTS of paper work for the general. I need to communicate in detail the plans and strategies to the military council so that everyone has the information to make appropriate decisions.

How long does it take you to do this? Is your realm in a war right now?

Quote from: GoldPanda on March 20, 2012, 11:44:49 PM
How long does it take you to do this? Is your realm in a war right now?

Yes it is, but the war has quietened down quite a lot, so right now very little is required. It tends to be sporadic too. Given that the plan shouldn't be changing too often there is generally a requirement for a fury of letters in the turn the plan is laid out and then things are more more manageable.

In the end the system hasn't removed the need to "micro manage" its just changed who is responsible for that. Marshals are responsible for ensuring that the units of there armies are where they need to be, and informing the military council if a significant amount of CS has been delayed somewhere. The biggest hurdle is again with multiple armies, since no one has access to anything like the old General view. I don't see that as a major problem though, in most cases where that is needed a lot of the required data is available for those in region (ie what are our forces like after a battle, how much of our force has rallied). Marshals NEED to co-operate well under these conditions, which frankly is one place you can have problems. People will follow a Generals Order were they may argue with and debate against a Marshal. But like Tom says, a realm that can't pull their !@#$ together deserves to take some knocks, just like a realm that has Marshals working against the General would have

Of course there are advantages to de-centralising as well. I've seen realms do nothing when a General misses a turn and get destroyed cause everyone is waiting for "the man" to show up and issue orders.

I still think the largest problem is the feeling that the game requires military orders to be issued close to the start of the turn. I'm not sure what we can do to slow down the system, but so long as this is the case I agree that a well run realm with a single point of command in the General is probably going to have the advantage over a well run realm that has placed the General in a long term strategy role only.

Quote from: De-Legro on March 20, 2012, 11:56:44 PM
Marshals NEED to co-operate well under these conditions, which frankly is one place you can have problems. People will follow a Generals Order were they may argue with and debate against a Marshal. But like Tom says, a realm that can't pull their !@#$ together deserves to take some knocks, just like a realm that has Marshals working against the General would have

I don't understand this. Just as I, humble troop leader, click the travel button confidently because I know my fellow nobles will do the same having received the order from the marshal without waiting them to read it, I, when one of the marshals, can confidently order my army to attack because I know the other marshals will do the same, having heard it from the General.

The army works fine because there is a single person which commands a bunch of people on a similar hierarchical level that would otherwise waste ages arguing. Marshal over nobles, General over Marshals.

I can agree that if a realm can't pull it together the moment a General is not around it deserves a beating. But the purpose of the game should not be to make this whole process harder by removing useful tools.

This does not meant the General should micromanage but that when the situation requires it, namely when different armies collaborate closely, he should have the tools to perform his task as chief of the entire armed forces. Because that's what he is tasked with: to make the war machine efficient and well oiled, and if that needs a sudden order to be done, well, be it.

This said, I still believe every general should be instructed by the ruler that his position is first and foremost a political one, the term minister of war being pretty fitting, such as assuring gold flows from the rich to the troops, dealing with allies, keeping nobles motivated and so forth. But it's not by removing the chance to act as leader of the Marshals that the latter side of the general's play gets developed.

Quote from: Indirik on March 20, 2012, 09:26:52 PM
Why would we need that? No one can see what formation the Marshal has set.

easier to look things up on the spot than talk and wait for replies that might not be given within the turn.

to be honest, there's no reason to hide it from anyone in the army anyway.. it tends to be mentioned in orders.. or at least the orders tend to include a load of settings... and i've yet to see someone give out orders and use a different formation for the purpose of anti espionage

--
anyway.. nothing in the game currently stops any tom, dick and harry issuing orders. whether refusal to follow that order will exact any retribution is down to the players

Quote from: fodder on March 21, 2012, 12:17:25 AM
easier to look things up on the spot than talk and wait for replies that might not be given within the turn.

to be honest, there's no reason to hide it from anyone in the army anyway.. it tends to be mentioned in orders.. or at least the orders tend to include a load of settings... and i've yet to see someone give out orders and use a different formation for the purpose of anti espionage

--
anyway.. nothing in the game currently stops any tom, dick and harry issuing orders. whether refusal to follow that order will exact any retribution is down to the players

Um, I've very rarely seen marshals post the Marshal formation they are going to use. That is very different from the unit settings that everyone tends to paste into standing orders. But then I tend to leave unit setting to the unit leaders, unless we aren't using a marshal formation.

I actually know that the realm I am in has done the formation different then the settings gave so that any spies would give the enemy the wrong formation to counter. If there are no spies you have no harm from it but if there are you gain getting your enemy to use the wrong formation.

Quote from: Penchant on March 21, 2012, 12:31:24 AM
I actually know that the realm I am in has done the formation different then the settings gave so that any spies would give the enemy the wrong formation to counter. If there are no spies you have no harm from it but if there are you gain getting your enemy to use the wrong formation.

I don't get it. Formations and Settings are two very different things. Now if the Marshal posted he was going to use Delay and Wound but in reality was going to use Infantry Charge sure I get that would confuse spies. But using Delay and Wound after telling all infantry to deploy line/rear whatever doesn't seem to impart much. Maybe I'm just confusing terminology.

Formations and settings aren't different actually its just the formations are names for a group of settings. So I believe settings for a formation were posted which is equal to posting a formation if the enemy is not being lazy with the info.

Quote from: Penchant on March 21, 2012, 12:42:41 AM
Formations and settings aren't different actually its just the formations are names for a group of settings. So I believe settings for a formation were posted which is equal to posting a formation if the enemy is not being lazy with the info.

Formations will change your line position. Some of the most advanced formations will affect if your units are in box or something. But the posted line settings have no bearing on intel. Savy spy masters will know they are for the situations were a Marshal or VM isn't available. You don't in general look to the standard line settings and make assumptions about the formations that will be used, its just too much of an assumption.

Quote from: Indirik on March 20, 2012, 07:43:17 PM
FWIW - GoldPanda has been running CE's war machine for, what, 2.5 years now? This guy knows what he's talking about.

This is an understatement. GoldPanda has been running the entire CE and allied realm's military's for the past 2.5 years. I am highly convinced that not only does he know what he's talking about but that he's the reason CE is winning and will win the current Atamara war.

The main issue that I think needs to be highlighted about this whole thing is that Generals should have the ability to see the same information, but it could be just as easily stated somewhere that it is encouraged for Generals to operate differently than they do now. However, as it is SO hard to find good marshals now-a-days, it really shouldn't be made any more difficult to lead the military. Shoot, there is exactly one noble in Coria that has proven they have both the time, dedication, and tactical awareness to lead the military right now, and its GoldPanda's character. The problem is that even though others have the tactical awareness, not everyone can dedicate the sheer amount of time necessary to have orders sent out in a timely manner. (Yes, this means that orders should be sent within an hour of the turn change or don't expect anyone to move. This is just simple game fact.)

I'd love to be able to be Marshal again, but it just takes sooo much time, that I can't dedicate. For those people that are willing to put forth that time and can do so, I say we let them regardless of whether or not they hold the Marshal or General title. Give the General the information, and let the players decide how best to use it so that the most people have fun. (And one thing that allows more fun, is if people aren't forced into more difficult situations due to lack of information).

Quote from: Anaris on March 20, 2012, 11:01:07 PM
Then we can add a SecondFormation field.

We could, but we shouldn't.

Let them fight over the formation if they want, but don't let the formation change unpredictably depending on who of them happens to be there.

I added a note in the bug tracker about how Vice Marshal titles need to be displayed in their message signatures. Knights are more likely to obey an order from "Vice Marshal of (your army here)" than "Knight of Bumtown (wherever that is)".

Quote from: Dante Silverfire on March 21, 2012, 08:17:55 AM
This is an understatement. GoldPanda has been running the entire CE and allied realm's military's for the past 2.5 years. I am highly convinced that not only does he know what he's talking about but that he's the reason CE is winning and will win the current Atamara war.

The main issue that I think needs to be highlighted about this whole thing is that Generals should have the ability to see the same information, but it could be just as easily stated somewhere that it is encouraged for Generals to operate differently than they do now. However, as it is SO hard to find good marshals now-a-days, it really shouldn't be made any more difficult to lead the military. Shoot, there is exactly one noble in Coria that has proven they have both the time, dedication, and tactical awareness to lead the military right now, and its GoldPanda's character. The problem is that even though others have the tactical awareness, not everyone can dedicate the sheer amount of time necessary to have orders sent out in a timely manner. (Yes, this means that orders should be sent within an hour of the turn change or don't expect anyone to move. This is just simple game fact.)

I'd love to be able to be Marshal again, but it just takes sooo much time, that I can't dedicate. For those people that are willing to put forth that time and can do so, I say we let them regardless of whether or not they hold the Marshal or General title. Give the General the information, and let the players decide how best to use it so that the most people have fun. (And one thing that allows more fun, is if people aren't forced into more difficult situations due to lack of information).

This is a perception problem. If people were willing to accept an army that didn't react every turn, that didn't have orders out with 2 hours of the turn etc then many more people would be willing to be marshals. Our constant drive to have "exceptional" armies has created the problem with finding people to take the roles. As it currently stands there is nothing even CLOSE to being light weight about taking on a military role.

I've been a marshal before. I know it takes a lot of time, and I stopped playing the marshal type of character when I had to cut back on my online time. I know it's hard, and you can't do it on 10 minutes a day. However.....

Quote from: Dante Silverfire on March 21, 2012, 08:17:55 AM
(Yes, this means that orders should be sent within an hour of the turn change or don't expect anyone to move. This is just simple game fact.)

This can be easily avoided by careful army management. A good marshall will always ensure that its army know what to do. You can send orders of the type

"If X happens on turn change, move to region 1.
If Y happens, move to region 2.
If Z happens, dig in.

Otherwise, wait for additional orders."

Then you can sleep through the 5AM turn change and see what happened at lunch. It's hard to miss a turn as marshal, sure, but it's not true that you need to wake up in the middle of the night, neither as marshal or general.

Quote from: vonGenf on March 21, 2012, 10:16:26 AM
I've been a marshal before. I know it takes a lot of time, and I stopped playing the marshal type of character when I had to cut back on my online time. I know it's hard, and you can't do it on 10 minutes a day. However.....

This can be easily avoided by careful army management. A good marshall will always ensure that its army know what to do. You can send orders of the type

"If X happens on turn change, move to region 1.
If Y happens, move to region 2.
If Z happens, dig in.

Otherwise, wait for additional orders."

Then you can sleep through the 5AM turn change and see what happened at lunch. It's hard to miss a turn as marshal, sure, but it's not true that you need to wake up in the middle of the night, neither as marshal or general.

I completely agree, this is exactly what I am trying to do on a larger scale with the general. Then given enough information from me the Marshal can in turn provide some parameters for standing orders for the knights. The end result would hopefully be that give a bit of though the majority of the knights can arrive at the correct action without explicit orders. Mind you it helps I am in a small realm, I'm not sure I am up to the effort of establishing this sort of system on a larger scale.

Quote from: Dante Silverfire on March 21, 2012, 08:17:55 AM
(Yes, this means that orders should be sent within an hour of the turn change or don't expect anyone to move. This is just simple game fact.)

Thanks for proving my point. Opinions like this is EXACTLY why people won't take a military role as well as being complete rubbish. If you don't get orders out early you risk SOME people not following them, depending on the realm and people play time. Besides which this assumption of required times for orders skirts dangerously close to a IA violation in my opinion.

Personally I miss the sunset turn. Depending on the time of year it is often up to 6 hours after turn that I can log in. Solaria was still able to have great movement rates without it.

Quote from: De-Legro on March 21, 2012, 10:15:27 AM
This is a perception problem. If people were willing to accept an army that didn't react every turn, that didn't have orders out with 2 hours of the turn etc got it's ass kicked on a regular basis then many more people would be willing to be marshals.

ftfy....

Seriously.

Quote from: vonGenf on March 21, 2012, 10:16:26 AMThen you can sleep through the 5AM turn change and see what happened at lunch. It's hard to miss a turn as marshal, sure, but it's not true that you need to wake up in the middle of the night, neither as marshal or general.

Yes, that can work. I've had success with that when leading armies in Perdan before. If you are leading the right people, who are willing to make that decision, tell other people they are making that decision, and then report to the MC that they made that decision, it can work great. With other groups of people it falls flat on its face. Which just goes to show that you need to know the people you are leading, and lead them appropriately.

Quote from: Indirik on March 21, 2012, 02:49:41 PM
ftfy....

Seriously.

Well, it's obviously a circular problem. Because some realms' armies can achieve that level of responsiveness, any enemies of theirs that fail to match or beat it will consistently get defeated.

If we could have a general agreement that it's Not On to require that, that would change things. But it ain't gonna happen.

Quote from: Indirik on March 21, 2012, 02:52:35 PM
Yes, that can work. I've had success with that when leading armies in Perdan before. If you are leading the right people, who are willing to make that decision, tell other people they are making that decision, and then report to the MC that they made that decision, it can work great. With other groups of people it falls flat on its face. Which just goes to show that you need to know the people you are leading, and lead them appropriately.

Yeah, I've had armies where, if you gave them a conditional like that, 1/3 of them would do the first thing, 1/3 would do the second, and 1/3 would do the third. Because "that's what you said to do".  >:(

Quote from: De-Legro on March 21, 2012, 10:35:59 AMThanks for proving my point. Opinions like this is EXACTLY why people won't take a military role as well as being complete rubbish. If you don't get orders out early you risk SOME people not following them, depending on the realm and people play time.

That's what he said: If you don't issue orders quickly enough, people won't move. OK, he stated it a bit more strongly. But the point is still valid. If you don't issue orders close enough to the turn change, then you will see people not move because the orders weren't available when they logged in.

This is proven fact. You're not a bad player, or a mean person, or a powergamer if you admit this. In fact, everyone should admit that this condition exists. Once we do, we can get around to spreading ideas that help people lead armies in a more effective manner, without requiring that a single person play 24/7. Things like advance conditional orders, councils that all participate in giving orders, clearly defined chains of command that show who is allowed to give orders, etc.

QuoteBesides which this assumption of required times for orders skirts dangerously close to a IA violation in my opinion.

Telling people they need to issue orders within one hour of the turn change = IR violation.

Acknowledging that sending orders later in the turn means that less people will move = Not an IR violation.

What am I missing here.  From my experience as marshall giving last minute orders in is in fact harmful because there is a good chance that not everyone will get the orders and people will get left behind.   I think the most important thing you need to do is learn what your army is capable of.  If you know you have a group of people that are responsive enough to march an hour before turn change great.  If not then plan accordingly. 

Funny.

I added Standing Orders precisely so marshals can plan ahead and issue orders for next turn that will show up on top instead of being buried in old messages. And I see them used that way. "everyone, gather in X" is probably the most common content of them.

I do agree that we need a few changes. But we need to get our code updated first, because the new code makes changes a lot easier.

Standing Order... most of them time, it displays generic stuff. But usually outdated.

Quote from: Zakilevo on March 21, 2012, 05:24:51 PM
Standing Order... most of them time, it displays generic stuff. But usually outdated.

That's the marshal's fault, not the code's fault.

Quote from: vonGenf on March 21, 2012, 05:31:05 PM
That's the marshal's fault, not the code's fault.

I know.

Quote from: De-Legro on March 21, 2012, 10:15:27 AM
This is a perception problem. If people were willing to accept an army that didn't react every turn, that didn't have orders out with 2 hours of the turn etc then many more people would be willing to be marshals. Our constant drive to have "exceptional" armies has created the problem with finding people to take the roles. As it currently stands there is nothing even CLOSE to being light weight about taking on a military role.

No, you mean 'if people were willing to accept getting their asses kicked in every war they fought in'. It's not a perception problem, my friend. It's a cold, hard truth of Battlemaster. The game *severely* punishes realms and armies that don't react every turn and that don't get their orders issued in a timely manner when they go up against realms that do do these things. So if you're willing to accept mediocrity and losing a lot, you can accept these things, but most people aren't interested in playing for team mediocre and losing all the time as a result.

Honestly, I do not see an easy way to change this paradigm. The best approach to mitigating the workload on individual Marshals and Generals is indeed to issue conditional orders/instructions in advance and empower everyone in your MC to issue orders at need, on their own discretion. This is not always possible, though. Some realms with smaller player bases may only have a single player who is active enough and interested enough to manage the realm's military. If so, he's going to be on his own no matter what.

It seams like to me you are blaming the system for a person problem.  IF realm A has people who work together and no how to follow conditional orders then yes they are probably going to beat realm b who needs to rely on one person to tell them what to do.

With this game you must remember that people play at different times.  Some may only play once a day or less often.  If you have people like this in your army you need to adjust your strategy.  Saying the game is broke and punishing realms because they people who are less active will not do anything.   

No, the game is not "broken", and I don't think that anyone is saying that it is. It just works in a very specific way, and to be successful you need to understand that way, and the player behavior it encourages.

But rather than sit here and argue about it, I'd really like to see more discussion aimed at helping people cope with this. How do you ensure that your orders are delivered in a timely manner? Whether timely means "within an hour of the turn" or "give the orders in advance/the turn before", or some other scheme, how do you do it?

Do we really need to code it? Why do we have VMs? Get a VM who lives in a different time zone. If you can't then let others in MC know what order you want to send out. I am sure at least one of people in MC lives in a different time zone. Or send orders ahead of time.

First you need to know the habits of the people you are working with.  I will use my recent trip to hunt some monsters my marshal went on recently.(I know it may be slightly different with a large scale war but for the purpose of getting orders out I think it is the same).  I knew that If I expected the whole group to move  from one region to another as a group it was best to give the order 1 turn in advance.  That way chances are  no matter when the person logged in during the day they would be able to move and respond with the group.  Now I know it might be a bit different when you are dealing with people but I am sure that in some cases this is what you will need to do.  Another suggestion that might be worth while. Divide your armies by activities of the players.  Have army a built up of people who can respond to orders when they are given at the last minute(less then 3 hours before turn change).  The first group would react to the enemy and hopefully be enough to take out moving armies. These are the ones who will do the bulk of you work where you need to react quickly.  The other army is just for power and support.  The second armies order would be simple stuf like go to this realm and loot or do civil work or go smash yourselves against the walls of this city.

Quote from: Geronus on March 21, 2012, 05:55:44 PM
No, you mean 'if people were willing to accept getting their asses kicked in every war they fought in'. It's not a perception problem, my friend. It's a cold, hard truth of Battlemaster. The game *severely* punishes realms and armies that don't react every turn and that don't get their orders issued in a timely manner when they go up against realms that do do these things.

Quote from: Indirik on March 21, 2012, 06:40:53 PM
No, the game is not "broken", and I don't think that anyone is saying that it is. It just works in a very specific way, and to be successful you need to understand that way, and the player behavior it encourages.

The whole point I'm trying to make is essentially summed up in the above. *I* don't have the personal attitude that this how things should be done, but it simply the way things are done. And, unless there is a clear established method in which to do things in another way without damaging their ability to win wars, (or simply survive) then I don't think it will change.

Many good suggestions have been brought up as to how to mitigate this issue:

1. Issue orders the turn before indicating follow-up movements based upon certain conditions.
2. Empower multiple people throughout the military command to send out orders to increase reactivity.
3. Split armies up based upon activities to help with this problem.

However, these are all just methods to help and try and fix the issue. They won't actually fix anything though because nothing is broken. It simply has to be understood that right now things operate in a simple manner and that is:

If realm A has a military which always has orders sent out within the first 30 mins to an hour, they are more likely to have a more effective military than realm B which does not.

This is simply fact. I'm not saying its a good or a bad thing, but that is the way things currently are. I mean, I love reminisching about the game, how 4-5 years ago, any military command I was in, we could dependably have orders sent out within the first 30 mins of the turn change after having the entire military council online after each turn change to rapidly discuss what to do. That was great, but it also required enormous time investment. We had a very effective military at that time. (CE of a few years back). Should we expect this to be required now-a-days? Absolutely not. Should we be surprised at a realm winning all their wars, because they are able to do this? Absolutely not.

The IR's allow everyone to play at their own pace. However, it doesn't ensure that you won't have an advantage by putting more time into the game. Tom has said this himself. If you dedicate more time, you'll likely do better/have more influence/etc... This isn't a flaw in the system, it just means that those who have more time are better suited to be military leaders.

Quote from: Geronus on March 21, 2012, 05:55:44 PM
No, you mean 'if people were willing to accept getting their asses kicked in every war they fought in'. It's not a perception problem, my friend. It's a cold, hard truth of Battlemaster. The game *severely* punishes realms and armies that don't react every turn and that don't get their orders issued in a timely manner when they go up against realms that do do these things. So if you're willing to accept mediocrity and losing a lot, you can accept these things, but most people aren't interested in playing for team mediocre and losing all the time as a result.

Honestly, I do not see an easy way to change this paradigm. The best approach to mitigating the workload on individual Marshals and Generals is indeed to issue conditional orders/instructions in advance and empower everyone in your MC to issue orders at need, on their own discretion. This is not always possible, though. Some realms with smaller player bases may only have a single player who is active enough and interested enough to manage the realm's military. If so, he's going to be on his own no matter what.

No, it IS a perception problem. Having a super active general that can issue order fast is just the simplest way to increase the efficiency of your military, since it relies on a single player. There are MANY other ways to create an effective military just as there are many ways to attempt to hinder the efficiency of the enemy force. My problem is that people adamantly believe having a super active general is the be all and end all of military conflict, there are other options but they since they generally require relying on more people and a lot of cooperation they don't seem to appeal nearly so much.

Hm.

If I were the enemy of such a realm, I'd send an infiltrator to take that general out. Boom, instant worthless enemy army, because they don't know how to operate without their hyperactive general.

Quote from: Tom on March 21, 2012, 10:12:53 PM
Hm.

If I were the enemy of such a realm, I'd send an infiltrator to take that general out. Boom, instant worthless enemy army, because they don't know how to operate without their hyperactive general.

Done that before. Gave us some breathing room but the infils were never able to make a successful second hit. War tend to go longer then wounding time :)

Quote from: Tom on March 21, 2012, 10:12:53 PM
Hm.

If I were the enemy of such a realm, I'd send an infiltrator to take that general out. Boom, instant worthless enemy army, because they don't know how to operate without their hyperactive general.

Tom, you've just stated the exact military strategy which Darka and friends are using against CE on Atamara. It works too.

Quote from: Dante Silverfire on March 21, 2012, 10:37:08 PM
Tom, you've just stated the exact military strategy which Darka and friends are using against CE on Atamara. It works too.

And I had contingency plans for that eventuality. It's a poor General who does not account for the times when he gets stabbed. And, yes, if your realm can't handle your General getting stabbed, it deserves to die. I have completely agreement with Tom on that point.

Of course, then that infil proceeded to stab every CE Marshal that was in the same region with Enri. It's kind of hard to still have a functioning military after that. I think he finally got captured while stabbing the last Marshal, and then escaped right after turn tick the next day, before the Judge could ban him.

And that's why I always say infiltrators are overpowered. Kudos to that infil though.  8)

Yeah, I think the fact that he stabbed the three back-ups as well really did the trick that time :P

Quote from: GoldPanda on March 21, 2012, 11:47:45 PM
And I had contingency plans for that eventuality. It's a poor General who does not account for the times when he gets stabbed. And, yes, if your realm can't handle your General getting stabbed, it deserves to die. I have completely agreement with Tom on that point.

Of course, then that infil proceeded to stab every CE Marshal that was in the same region with Enri. It's kind of hard to still have a functioning military after that. I think he finally got captured while stabbing the last Marshal, and then escaped right after turn tick the next day, before the Judge could ban him.

And that's why I always say infiltrators are overpowered. Kudos to that infil though.  8)

That is pretty amazing. My infil was pretty damn good but I never managed to stab more then two nobles in the same region.

Quote from: De-Legro on March 22, 2012, 12:05:57 AM
That is pretty amazing. My infil was pretty damn good but I never managed to stab more then two nobles in the same region.

Don't all the guards in the region become more alert when you pull off a stabbing, or is that only when you fail or get seen leaving the scene?

Quote from: Geronus on March 22, 2012, 12:11:43 AM
Don't all the guards in the region become more alert when you pull off a stabbing, or is that only when you fail or get seen leaving the scene?

My understanding is that they always get more alert. After all even if you have the best success there is still a stabbed noble laying around to make people suspicious. When you combine that with Generals and Marshals tending to have large units, I wouldn't generally risk trying for a second target let alone more then that.

Quote from: De-Legro on March 22, 2012, 01:41:37 AM
My understanding is that they always get more alert. After all even if you have the best success there is still a stabbed noble laying around to make people suspicious. When you combine that with Generals and Marshals tending to have large units, I wouldn't generally risk trying for a second target let alone more then that.

Yes, it does get more difficult. Making that achievement even more astounding.

Quote from: Dante Silverfire on March 22, 2012, 02:30:41 AM
Yes, it does get more difficult. Making that achievement even more astounding.

Hot damn, that is pretty incredible. How many people did he stab?

Quote from: GoldPanda on March 21, 2012, 11:47:45 PM
And I had contingency plans for that eventuality. It's a poor General who does not account for the times when he gets stabbed. And, yes, if your realm can't handle your General getting stabbed, it deserves to die. I have completely agreement with Tom on that point.

Of course, then that infil proceeded to stab every CE Marshal that was in the same region with Enri. It's kind of hard to still have a functioning military after that. I think he finally got captured while stabbing the last Marshal, and then escaped right after turn tick the next day, before the Judge could ban him.

And that's why I always say infiltrators are overpowered. Kudos to that infil though.  8)

Who was this infamous infil? :D

Quote from: Foundation on March 22, 2012, 04:30:31 AM
Who was this infamous infil? :D

Certainly deserves the erection of a statue in his name :P

Quote from: GoldPanda on March 21, 2012, 11:47:45 PM
Of course, then that infil proceeded to stab every CE Marshal that was in the same region with Enri. It's kind of hard to still have a functioning military after that. I think he finally got captured while stabbing the last Marshal, and then escaped right after turn tick the next day, before the Judge could ban him.

And that's why I always say infiltrators are overpowered. Kudos to that infil though.  8)

He probably has a very interesting bounty on him by now, not to mention a standing order to the judge to ban and execute him whenever he gets the chance. Yes, infiltrators are powerful. They also live very risky lives.

Don't forget the spoon torture ;)

He stabbed a General and three Marshals in a span of minutes. Our fourth Marshal in the region was wounded during the previous battle.

If you want to find out who it was, join one of the AT realms and ask around IC. :)

Quote from: Tom on March 22, 2012, 08:14:10 AM
He probably has a very interesting bounty on him by now, not to mention a standing order to the judge to ban and execute him whenever he gets the chance. Yes, infiltrators are powerful. They also live very risky lives.

His usual m.o. is stabbing the enemy Judge first. I think it's fairly safe to say that stabbing a single noble is not a risky action for him anymore. After that, even if he gets captured, there is no one to ban him.

Look at it this way, Tom. A very skilled infiltrator:
1. Can actively try to escape from prison before the Judge can reach for the ban-hammer.
2. Has a good chance to escape if the Judge tries to execute him.
3. Is a very unattractive target for other infils and can mostly shrug off bounties. And getting stabbed doesn't exactly kill the infil.
4. Can avoid execution completely if he stops attacking realms that have banned him, and maintains enough honor to not hit "outlaw" status.

The fact that there are very skilled infiltrators around suggest that it's not a very risky profession at all, if you know how to play it right. It must have taken them a long time to build up their skills.

Quote from: GoldPanda on March 22, 2012, 06:06:23 PM
He stabbed a General and three Marshals in a span of minutes. Our fourth Marshal in the region was wounded during the previous battle.

If you want to find out who it was, join one of the AT realms and ask around IC. :)

His usual m.o. is stabbing the enemy Judge first. I think it's fairly safe to say that stabbing a single noble is not a risky action for him anymore. After that, even if he gets captured, there is no one to ban him.

Look at it this way, Tom. A very skilled infiltrator:
1. Can actively try to escape from prison before the Judge can reach for the ban-hammer.
2. Has a good chance to escape if the Judge tries to execute him.
3. Is a very unattractive target for other infils and can mostly shrug off bounties. And getting stabbed doesn't exactly kill the infil.
4. Can avoid execution completely if he stops attacking realms that have banned him, and maintains enough honor to not hit "outlaw" status.

The fact that there are very skilled infiltrators around suggest that it's not a very risky profession at all, if you know how to play it right. It must have taken them a long time to build up their skills.

Atamara has more than most (all) other islands. I attribute this to it being a large continent with a lot of realms (and targets), so getting banned from two or three still doesn't limit your options too much or force you to take unnecessary risks. It also has an older player base and a lot of double-character families. In many cases I see one family member (a lord) pumping gold into the other character (an infiltrator). Sometimes the lord *is* the infiltrator.

I think it's fine the way it is. Even the best infiltrators will get unlucky from time to time. Hammarsett had to put up with Ivore Whiteblood for a while, but we eventually caught and banned him after a few weeks of depredations and he hasn't been back since. The way I see it, the events you've described are your own fault anyway for having so many attractive targets hanging out in the same region together  ;D You want to be able to ban infiltrators? Keep your judge away from them, or at least away from your military hierarchy.

The fact is that it's expensive (and tedious) as heck to get an infiltrator that good. You've got to burn months of time and hundreds or thousands of gold training to get your skills up to that point and then keep them there. That's the flip side to it. Sure it's annoying when one shows up and screws you over, but it took a *long* time for him to get that good. He deserves to have his day in the sun.

What Judge? CE has no Judge anymore. Ignore the man hiding in the bunker at the undisclosed location.  ;D

I would attribute it to Atamaran characters getting to that status before code changes nerfed some skill gaining. :P

I'm rather bemused at some of this discussion. I remember the bad old days before the present army system was introduced. I would humbly urge every budding commander that wishes to wallow in every little detail on the ground to simply get themselves appointed as Marshal and let someone else become General. Let's not go back to before or kid ourselves things are/were better with a hyperactive General pulling everyone's strings.

I remember what it was like to be a hands-on, control-everything General and it was bloody awful. It took up shedloads of my time and I'd be getting up earlier or staying up later to keep things all square. To be successful as a General you simply had to be a control freak ready to burn a lot of time on BM (and it's a shame to hear that some of us still do that!) Gone were any RPs or general letters. I was just sending orders, haranguing, breathing in reports. The needs of relentless communication was the one and only reason I ever got involved on IRC. Being General was good at building your profile, but it was a pig of a job. You were basically doing volunteer work in addition to whatever else you do in your real life!

I really appreciate the current system because, although the General still sets over-arching strategy and takes a keen interest in martial matters, much of the fine detail is spread across the shoulders of a handful of marshals. You don't have to micromanage dozens of nobles personally (though back in the day, scores was probably more realistic!) And it can work, I've managed to get along with the present situation fine. I've given Marshals more independence, been an independent Marshal and I have not obsessed so much, haven't needed to obsess so much. Some people apparently still do, but at least these days it's optional, not simply a requirement.

There is definitely a shortage of decent Marshal material around like. Part of Carelia's problem that. And then, if you have old characters you either don't have enough hours to really lead an army in war or you know better than to put your name forward ;-) Older players should definitely force their way onto military councils whenever and wherever they can though. I was on Carelia's for a good bit and it's really, really surprising what newer players don't know about certain aspects of war that you've probably picked up simply by long exposure. Some of these young marshals might be good at logging in early each turn, but they can definitely do with older wizened heads advising them from above!

I do that a lot these days. I no longer have time to actively Marshal. Even General is a bit of a stretch for me. I much prefer to chime in with my two cents from time to time during strategy debates.

And I am a fool for retaking the general position of Sirion. I totally forgot why I resigned in the first place LOL.

Remember, it's never too late to resign and live off of illegal profits. ;)

Quote from: Foundation on March 22, 2012, 10:12:53 PM
Remember, it's never too late to resign and live off of illegal profits. ;)

I like the sound of illegal profits. Sadly only illegal profits I know of is through black markets. :(

Quote from: Zakilevo on March 22, 2012, 10:54:02 PM
I like the sound of illegal profits. Sadly only illegal profits I know of is through black markets. :(

Be like the ex-General in Fissoa and insist that you are an employee of the ruler and deserved to be paid a wage. Everyone needs a good laugh at watching a noble actually insult them self.

Quote from: GoldPanda on March 20, 2012, 10:04:55 AM
You can keep making these claims, Tom, but the reality in the game simply does not match up to them.

The realms with small armies are dead or dying. The realms with big armies are thriving. The realms that empower their Marshals are dead. The realms with micro-managing, megalomania-cal, charismatic, cult-of-personality Generals are winning and conquering, or at least surviving. This is why real wars are fought with centralized command structures instead of by committee. This is why Sun Tzu and Napolean end up in history books instead of war planning committee #532. War planning by centralized authority is simply a superior system. And when your realm only has 40 players in it, you don't need four helpers to decide where to send them.

If that's not true, then I suspect that you would not be trying to handicap the General position. But like the players in this thread are telling you, all you will accomplish is forcing every realm to consolidate into fewer armies.

Maybe all these realms ought to die. Maybe. But unless you start lightning bolting the realms that fail to follow your "vision", they'll keep on living. The realms that tried to obey your vision are mostly already dead. I know, because I helped kill one of them.

I have to agree.

Imo, the main problem is not that generals take all the power from the marshals, but that it is so damn difficult to find people willing to be marshals and actually bother giving orders once appointed.

It's not a system problem. It's a playerbase problem.

And it's difficult enough to find just one person in a whole realm willing to actually run for the title of general, in most realms...

I've been general of Enweil for a long time while it was large and strong, and I did split up the forces to great effect into three distinct armies. But most of the time, I had to give the orders to everyone myself, because the marshals just wouldn't do it no matter how I nagged them. And most of the time, at least one of these armies was just sitting in a region where a ton of militia had been dumped just to dissuade counter-attacks while others looted more exposed fronts.

In Fheuv'n, I'm not general, but I may as well be. I'm the realm's only marshal, so I call all the shots.

Quote from: De-Legro on March 22, 2012, 11:49:33 PM
Be like the ex-General in Fissoa and insist that you are an employee of the ruler and deserved to be paid a wage. Everyone needs a good laugh at watching a noble actually insult them self.

lol that sounds wonderful. Hopefully I can convince people to increase my wage!

It's all good to chat and laugh, I enjoy it too, but could someone summarize what we've established in this thread?

We need concise, to the point, conclusions in order for us to act on them.  This thread is growing unreadable (by those new to the discussion), so starting a new fresh thread with these conclusions and a focused goal of proposing solutions to the problem would be welcomed.

I've added a little more text that people receive when they are announced as marshal, that should help inform the players of what the marshal actually is.

One idea I got from reading, feel free to make it a new thread:

Delayed Standing Orders.

I think many marshals would like to avoid saying "next turn" in the standing orders, because when the next turn rolls around, well, it still says "next turn.". Some sort of "rolling" standing orders would be nice. I see it like this:

Current orders: Move to Region A
Next turns orders: Wait for stragglers and misdirect to region B
Next: Move to region C
Next: Wait for stragglers and misdirect to region D
Next: Move to region D

Each turn, the orders move up one slot, so that everyone knows what they should be doing at that time, and what they should do the next turn.

To keep this from becoming useless in actual combat, marshals should be able to delete one or all of the orders.

And yes, there is a risk from planning 4 days in advance: if your marshal gets stabbed, then players may follow the wrong orders.

What would really help is having named days in-game. Ie, at the top of the screen, displayed prominently, it says "SUNRISE TURN, FIFTH DAY" or whatever. Currently you can't tell people to move on sunrise turn Wednesday, because Wednesday to some people is Tuesday to others. Being able to tell people to move (particularly in Standing Orders) on a specific turn on a specific, in-game day that is the same for everyone would help immensely.

Quote from: Velax on March 23, 2012, 04:35:14 PM
What would really help is having named days in-game. Ie, at the top of the screen, displayed prominently, it says "SUNRISE TURN, FIFTH DAY" or whatever. Currently you can't tell people to move on sunrise turn Wednesday, because Wednesday to some people is Tuesday to others. Being able to tell people to move (particularly in Standing Orders) on a specific turn on a specific, in-game day that is the same for everyone would help immensely.

Server time is displayed prominently on several pages, and has been for years now.

And yes, it includes the day.

Just because it's Tuesday in one place and Wednesday in another doesn't mean that talking about the Wednesday sunrise turn as the Tuesday sunrise turn in the areas where it actually occurs on Tuesday would make any sense at all. If you tried to talk about it like that, you'd frequently end up talking about the Tuesday sunrise turn, and the turn after it, the Wednesday sunset turn—and then the Wednesday sunrise turn.

Which is obviously silly, and I doubt there are many people who would actually try to operate under those conditions.

Quote from: Velax on March 23, 2012, 04:35:14 PM
What would really help is having named days in-game. Ie, at the top of the screen, displayed prominently, it says "SUNRISE TURN, FIFTH DAY" or whatever. Currently you can't tell people to move on sunrise turn Wednesday, because Wednesday to some people is Tuesday to others. Being able to tell people to move (particularly in Standing Orders) on a specific turn on a specific, in-game day that is the same for everyone would help immensely.

On top of playchar.php you can see: It is currently Day. Sunset is in 1 hours, 20 minutes (server time: 16:40 Friday)

You can see the same on play-status.php

For some reason, however, you don't see the same on top of play-news.php. I have a hunch that this was simply forgotten.

I'm always in favour of common numerical references for players, but that could be just me. :)

Not worth it. If the players care, they can already reference days, nothing is stopping them.

Quote from: Anaris on March 23, 2012, 04:42:14 PM
Server time is displayed prominently on several pages, and has been for years now.

And yes, it includes the day.

Just because it's Tuesday in one place and Wednesday in another doesn't mean that talking about the Wednesday sunrise turn as the Tuesday sunrise turn in the areas where it actually occurs on Tuesday would make any sense at all. If you tried to talk about it like that, you'd frequently end up talking about the Tuesday sunrise turn, and the turn after it, the Wednesday sunset turn—and then the Wednesday sunrise turn.

Which is obviously silly, and I doubt there are many people who would actually try to operate under those conditions.

I'm talking about specific, in-game, non-real world days. Not Thursday or Friday, but Jackday or Terfday or whatever the hell. It doesn't matter how prominently server time is displayed (and it's not very at all), if you say Tuesday server time, people will screw it up and think you're talking about their Tuesday, not server's Tuesday. Having a common day/term to reference would make a big difference, and make those conditional Standing Orders much easier.

Quote from: Velax on March 23, 2012, 06:52:46 PM
I'm talking about specific, in-game, non-real world days. Not Thursday or Friday, but Jackday or Terfday or whatever the hell. It doesn't matter how prominently server time is displayed (and it's not very at all), if you say Tuesday server time, people will screw it up and think you're talking about their Tuesday, not server's Tuesday. Having a common day/term to reference would make a big difference, and make those conditional Standing Orders much easier.

If people already aren't paying much attention to server time, why would they pay any attention to 'Terfday'? I suspect in-game terms would just complicate things further.

Quote from: Revan on March 23, 2012, 06:55:49 PM
If people already aren't paying much attention to server time, why would they pay any attention to 'Terfday'? I suspect in-game terms would just complicate things further.

Yes. Absolutely. Trying to introduce arbitrary names for days is way, way, way harder than just getting people to understand how time zones work.

Quote from: egamma on March 23, 2012, 01:33:19 PM
One idea I got from reading, feel free to make it a new thread:

Delayed Standing Orders.

I think many marshals would like to avoid saying "next turn" in the standing orders, because when the next turn rolls around, well, it still says "next turn.". Some sort of "rolling" standing orders would be nice. I see it like this:

Current orders: Move to Region A
Next turns orders: Wait for stragglers and misdirect to region B
Next: Move to region C
Next: Wait for stragglers and misdirect to region D
Next: Move to region D

Each turn, the orders move up one slot, so that everyone knows what they should be doing at that time, and what they should do the next turn.

To keep this from becoming useless in actual combat, marshals should be able to delete one or all of the orders.

And yes, there is a risk from planning 4 days in advance: if your marshal gets stabbed, then players may follow the wrong orders.

+1

Quote from: Anaris on March 23, 2012, 07:04:02 PM
Yes. Absolutely. Trying to introduce arbitrary names for days is way, way, way harder than just getting people to understand how time zones work.

Not true... people have the tendency to subconsciously believe that everyone online is running their time or at least are only 1 time zone away, even when they know this is not the case.

Quote from: Gustav Kuriga on March 23, 2012, 08:56:12 PM
Not true... people have the tendency to subconsciously believe that everyone online is running their time or at least are only 1 time zone away, even when they know this is not the case.

And yet, I have been in multiple realms that successfully talked about "Wednesday sunrise" and "Friday sunset" turns as timings for movement, with people spread around the globe, for long periods of time, with very high response rates.

In addition, I, personally, have no trouble keeping track of when people online are in relation to me. I'm very used to dealing with the 6-hour difference between my time (EST) and CET, the 3-hour difference between EST and PST, and the 11- or 12-hour difference between my time and Hong Kong time (from when my wife took regular business trips there).

So unless you can produce some kind of actual research on the subject, I'm gonna have to call BS on your bold claim :-)

Wow, I can only deal with the 3 hour difference between PST and EST, as well as the 12 hour difference between EST and China.  No idea how CET works. :P

Quote from: Foundation on March 24, 2012, 01:53:31 AM
Wow, I can only deal with the 3 hour difference between PST and EST, as well as the 12 hour difference between EST and China.  No idea how CET works. :P

...CET is server time.

... isn't this the reason why there's a server clock inside the game already? or is it necessary to move it from play info/play status to top bar/bottom bar/left menu?

Yeah, I know CET's the server time, but I never notice the server time anyways.  I convert the turn times to my own timezone and forget about it. :P

What would be easy to implement and intuitive for the players would be for the game to display the date in relation to the season. That would mean "First/1st day of Summer", "Twenty-third/23rd day of Spring" and so on.

If you want to add it even more complexity you can also add the year, starting with the date in which the continent was founded, but I don't really see a need for that.

Edit: the advantage, btw, would be from a RP perspective. It would be natural to address the 3rd day of Autumn, but not so much the 11th of September.

Quote from: Velax on March 23, 2012, 06:52:46 PM
I'm talking about specific, in-game, non-real world days. Not Thursday or Friday, but Jackday or Terfday or whatever the hell.

Discussed before, rejected before, at least twice.

What about JPierre's suggestion of the 7th of Spring, 1st of Winter, etc.

Quote from: vonGenf on March 23, 2012, 04:44:51 PM
On top of playchar.php you can see: It is currently Day. Sunset is in 1 hours, 20 minutes (server time: 16:40 Friday)

You can see the same on play-status.php

For some reason, however, you don't see the same on top of play-news.php. I have a hunch that this was simply forgotten.

Indeed, great progress was done in this regards over the years. There's still a few pages that should really display it and still don't, though, play-news.php being number 1.

Quote from: Tom on March 24, 2012, 10:18:17 AM
Discussed before, rejected before, at least twice.

And thank god for that. Making up week day names would create a whole lot of confusion.

It would be awesome if play-news displayed the server time in small text at the top.