Title: Remove mercenary distance limits
Summary: when travelling away from the realm, we usually switch out to mercenary setting. The army I'm on dwilight journeyed south, from Iashalur to Chesland in Terran. We'd set to mercenary setting, and were about 1280 miles from Iashalur. However, the morale of our troops kept dropping every turn, from between 15 points and 35. I originally thought it a bug, but turns out its not.
Quote
Mercenary setting *reduces* penalties of being far away from home, it does not remove them. There is nothing wrong, no bugs here. Your army is simply too far away from home.
I believe on an island the size of dwilight, such restrictions need to be scaled to cater to its size- the numbers that might work on EC won't on Dwilight. Even better, do away with the distance restriction altogether for mercs (does it serve a purpose?).
Here's what the Help page for unit settings has to say-
QuoteMercenary
Mercenaries are men hired to fight your war, with no loyalty to you or your realm beyond their pay. Their morale stays high while far from home, but 50% more expensive than regular army (this is the only designation available to traders).
When pursuing your Leader's agenda far from home, a Regular Army will get homesick before the week is out. Their Morale will suffer. When Morale is less than 50%, it can be a real problem. Combat Strength goes down, as does Cohesion. Morale can usually be salved with gold as a Regular Army will get a boost from regular payment. If, however, you discern that this will be a problem again, sooner than would be convenient, the Mercenary setting may be your choice. No morale concerns, so Combat Strength stays high, and your Unit is more effective in battle.
There doesn't seem to be a mention of any restrictions on this page either.
So I would like to request the restrictions be done away with, as mercenary troops are already being paid much higher than regular armies purely to avoid these morale problems. These are sellswords who don't care about loyalty to anything but coin.
Benefits: It allows the undertaking of campaigns across distances on a continent the size of dwilight. It makes sense because mercenaries shouldn't even care about distance as long as their pockets are full. Plus, RP benefits! Long glorious campaigns to distant lands to fight those heathens :D
Possible Exploits: Might overpower rich and large realms who can bully others. However, I feel there are already limitations in this. An army travelling a long distance has a long time between consecutive campaigns, and it is decently expensive to have a troop as mercenary for 3-4 consecutive weeks.
If morale drop is too high, maybe make it so that the more distant your troops are from your home province morale drop is higher and the closer they are morale drop is significantly smaller and "Mercenary" option just lowers penalties like it does now. Mercenaries without morale drop would be too powerful i think...
Sorry if i am blabbering i didnt get enough sleep ....
I think the main concern is Dwilight. It is a huge continent. I think that there are really two options.
1. A realms reach, even when using mercenaries, is limited as intended and nothing needs to change.
2. A realm on Dwilight should have greater reach and the numbers need to be tweaked to mercenaries will allow it.
It really comes down to what feel we want. Perhaps historical precedence could help decide? How far could an army effectively reach in this time period?
I agree that the penalty is a little much. Ten points a turn is one thing but 20 or 30 is way too prohibitive. I had always assumed that the game was tailored to make very distant wars difficult but not impossible.
Part of the problem is that the drastic moral drops came as a surprise to many of us. My unit's moral hovered at around 50% the entire journey down, then dropped to 12% within a couple days of sitting around.
Also if you start heading home will the moral penalties get reduced, like significantly? If not then there's no motivation to turn back when moral is low, after all you'll lose the unit either way.
Quote from: Unwin on October 23, 2012, 10:54:05 AM
It really comes down to what feel we want. Perhaps historical precedence could help decide? How far could an army effectively reach in this time period?
The Crusades had troops traveling from France and England all the way to the middle east. The Mongols waged war from East Asia all the way to Eastern Europe.
Quote from: Unwin on October 23, 2012, 10:54:05 AM
It really comes down to what feel we want. Perhaps historical precedence could help decide? How far could an army effectively reach in this time period?
Paris to Jerusalem, is around 2000 miles.
Iashalur to Candiels, is 2000 miles.
I would like to say, if you are at friendly land, morale loss should be much smaller. So you could travel long distance as long as you were on friendly zone, but going deep on enemy lands could cause more major morale loss. It would be realistic to think that if you are deep in enemy lands, fear to being cutoff and sacked causes more morale loss. Sitting at friendly city, even thought far from home, should let the morale raise a bit, cuase fear of being slaughtered aint there.
Just my 2 cents for the issue.
The dev team has a TODO item regarding an island-specific distance scaling factor open already (more things than mercenary distance are involved). But it's low priority. Not because it's not important, but because there are many things that are more important.
Quote from: Tom on October 23, 2012, 11:24:23 AM
The dev team has a TODO item regarding an island-specific distance scaling factor open already (more things than mercenary distance are involved). But it's low priority. Not because it's not important, but because there are many things that are more important.
Scaling for distance is already in place for these calculations. Are you talking about additional factors other than ensuring distance is consistent across all islands the same as travel distance?
In this case, it *is* actually 1200 miles. The request would be asking to decrease the effect of distance penalties across all islands for such large distances.
http://bugs.battlemaster.org/view.php?id=7490 (http://bugs.battlemaster.org/view.php?id=7490)
This may have been what prompted the feature request. This might not be a problem anymore.
It's still a problem. My unit moral seems to be dropping to 0 every turn. I pay for lots of entertainment which gets it up to 24% then it drops down again. Its impossible to get ahead.
Quote from: pcw27 on October 23, 2012, 06:27:55 PM
It's still a problem. My unit moral seems to be dropping to 0 every turn. I pay for lots of entertainment which gets it up to 24% then it drops down again. Its impossible to get ahead.
And if you're 1200 miles from home, that's not a bug.
One of the nice things about Dwilight is that a realm on one end cannot project power all the way to the other end. I kind of like that. It's not like EC where, theoretically, Eponllyn and Sirion can have a war, even though they're at opposite ends of the island. So, sorry, Iashalur, but it looks like you can't actually send troops to fight in Paisly. As a dev, I'm OK with that. (Although IC, it sucks! >:( )
I hardly think sending 3k support troops counts as "projecting power". Dwilight needs the ability for long distance campaigns.
For realms deep in friendly territory long campaigns are necessary to get involved in any wars at all. This is called battle master after all, it kind of defeats the purpose if your realm can't get into battles. It's one thing to say that long distance crusades should be difficult to wage, it's another to say they should be impossible. Right now they're very close to impossible. The other TLs in my army are able to keep moral hovering around 60% but since my character's older and has fewer hours I can only get it up to 20% only to have it drop again. Which incidentally doesn't make sense, when I pay for entertainment I'm not necissarily going out and partying with my troops, they could spend a full 12 hours drinking while Turin takes a nap.
If Iashalur wanted to invade Paisly all by itself it would be a completely wasted effort. Even if it had larger armies and could spare a more impressive force it could only field it for a matter of days then would need to return. Once back all the TLS would need to save up more gold for the next wave. By the time the next expedition is ready all the damage they did on the previous attack would be repaired. This would be totally impractical. However if the entire Astrocratic federation had beef with a single realm it certainly does make sense for even the most distant realm to send a few troops.
As has been pointed out, the distance from Iashalur to Aurvandil is the same as the distance from Paris to Jerusalem. Why should crusades be impossible in battle master?
I'm going to honestly say that I do not understand the problem with removing the penalties here... I can find some reasonable logic here:
Quote from: jaune on October 23, 2012, 11:14:39 AM
I would like to say, if you are at friendly land, morale loss should be much smaller. So you could travel long distance as long as you were on friendly zone, but going deep on enemy lands could cause more major morale loss. It would be realistic to think that if you are deep in enemy lands, fear to being cutoff and sacked causes more morale loss. Sitting at friendly city, even thought far from home, should let the morale raise a bit, cuase fear of being slaughtered aint there.
But even taking that into account, aren't mercenaries expected to don't give a !@#$ about anything but gold?
Seems to me like the benefits of setting one's troops as mercenary aren't worth the costs of it... Morale loss reduction doesn't seem to be all that great, if it drops that much at such distances. Imo, the morale loss reduction for mercenaries should be greater on all continents...
Quote from: Chénier on October 24, 2012, 12:53:34 AM
Seems to me like the benefits of setting one's troops as mercenary aren't worth the costs of it... Morale loss reduction doesn't seem to be all that great, if it drops that much at such distances. Imo, the morale loss reduction for mercenaries should be greater on all continents...
Just because an umbrella doesn't work in a pouring thunderstorm, does not mean it's not beneficial to buy one in other circumstances.
Quote from: Foundation on October 24, 2012, 01:03:10 AM
Just because an umbrella doesn't work in a pouring thunderstorm, does not mean it's not beneficial to buy one in other circumstances.
Just because it'd protect me from light downpours doesn't mean I'd be willing to pay 200$ for one.
I think that the benefit isn't worth the cost. Not that the benefit is never useful if considered alone.
Quote from: Chénier on October 24, 2012, 01:06:31 AM
Just because it'd protect me from light downpours doesn't mean I'd be willing to pay 200$ for one.
I think that the benefit isn't worth the cost. Not that the benefit is never useful if considered alone.
Fair, but also don't expect a $10 dollar umbrella to protect you against all forms of downpour.
We get it. I think that's quite enough of the umbrella analogy. Chenier thinks the cost is too high compared to the benefit.
If the front lines are too far from your home, then start a new front line closer to home.
Quote from: Indirik on October 24, 2012, 02:39:17 AM
If the front lines are too far from your home, then start a new front line closer to home.
Wear and tear + distance from banks aren't enough?
Quote from: Chénier on October 24, 2012, 03:12:43 AM
Wear and tear + distance from banks aren't enough?
These two things are already devastating...
Well using sea zones can help a lot so not as devastating on testing islands...
Quote from: Zaki on October 24, 2012, 03:26:15 AM
These two things are already devastating...
Well using sea zones can help a lot so not as devastating on testing islands...
Embarking costs gold so the distance from bank is still an issue if you let it run too low. Also refit times which is obviously longer when farther away is a huge issue.
Quote from: Indirik on October 24, 2012, 02:39:17 AM
If the front lines are too far from your home, then start a new front line closer to home.
So... Ruin the long standing roleplay of your neighbor being your closest ally because the game mechanics can't support a conflict that makes perfect sense in game?
Quote from: pcw27 on October 24, 2012, 03:35:49 AM
So... Ruin the long standing roleplay of your neighbor being your closest ally because the game mechanics can't support a conflict that makes perfect sense in game?
Sorry, I didn't realize that the only other realms on the entire island besides Iashalur are Astrum and Aurvandil.
Quote from: Chénier on October 24, 2012, 03:12:43 AM
Wear and tear + distance from banks aren't enough?
Apparently not.
Quote from: Indirik on October 24, 2012, 03:53:51 AM
Apparently not.
why do you say that? What Chenier was saying I believe is aren't those two things making it difficult enough? It sholdn't be impossible just difficult to do what Iashlur is attempting, IMO.
Quote from: Indirik on October 23, 2012, 07:03:16 PM
One of the nice things about Dwilight is that a realm on one end cannot project power all the way to the other end.
This isn't a game breaker. It's about a realm that hasn't seen war in ages finally getting one just to find it can't do it. Should Iashalur go back to sitting on its ass farming gold for the next couple of years? This was just the sort of thing to get people in the realm energised again.
Again, we sent 5 nobles to the war, with about 3k cs... Sure it may have a small impact, but its nothing that's outright breaking the game.
As I said in my original post, I don't see the need for restrictions at all, for the mercenary setting. But if it has to remain, at least mitigate the morale penalty! I'd gladly pay 75% gold more than usual for it. Hell, I'd pay 150% more for it, just to get the chance to be in battles. It's not like there aren't real, historical precedents for campaigns of this kind, over a longer distance than the one Iashalur currently faces.
BattleMaster is not a hisorical simulator. The restrictions on long distance warfare is part of the game design.
Quote from: Indirik on October 24, 2012, 04:51:41 AM
BattleMaster is not a hisorical simulator. The restrictions on long distance warfare is part of the game design.
but this isn't just restricting it, it is preventing it in this case. As in, making nearly impossible compared to just difficult.
Then find a war closer to home. If a realm on the far north corner of the map can't fight a realm on the opposite end of the map, then the restriction is working. It's *supposed* to stop it from being possible. Consider one more thing that makes Dwilight unique.
Quote from: Indirik on October 24, 2012, 04:51:41 AM
BattleMaster is not a hisorical simulator. The restrictions on long distance warfare is part of the game design.
Well several players are telling you it's a bad design, it makes the game less fun. Even Tom seems to agree that the penalty is too extreme.
Hand waving it as "one of the unique things about dwilight" wont suddenly make it fun. You know what could be a different unique thing about Dwilight, occasional massive crusades waged at great expense and sacrifice by large federations.
One of these possible unique features would be a product of the player community, the other would be the product of an arbitrary game mechanic. Which of these two unique features do you think will be better received in the game?
Quote from: Indirik on October 24, 2012, 05:01:16 AM
Then find a war closer to home. If a realm on the far north corner of the map can't fight a realm on the opposite end of the map, then the restriction is working. It's *supposed* to stop it from being possible. Consider one more thing that makes Dwilight unique.
There are no wars closer to home and given the political climate in the north west there wont be for some time. I'd like to add that it's not as if the battle field we're headed to is as far from Iashalur as possible. It's three quarters of the way down our landmass. I don't see why that should be an insurmountable distance, and certainly the excuse of "my battle hardened veterans are worse at handling home sickness then a ten year old going to sleep away camp" is not good enough.
Wouldn't hurt to test it out. After all we have two test islands ;)
Quote from: Indirik on October 24, 2012, 05:01:16 AM
Consider one more thing that makes Dwilight unique.
Peace?
Quote from: Indirik on October 24, 2012, 05:01:16 AM
If a realm on the far north corner of the map can't fight a realm on the opposite end of the map...
Yeah, it's going to hit Astrum too, in just one more region from Chesland. If only it was just the realm in the corner that got excluded.
In five years of playing BM, I have never once seen this restriction coming in to play. On EC, distance from Semall to Sirion is itself 1250 miles. I don't know about Atamara, as I don't have a character there. I didn't even know that mercs had distance limitations. A crushing limitation like this just hurts the game, doesn't improve it.
Just a thought here. A variation of the original feature request. Have Mercenaries be unaffected by morale loss due to distance from home but have the weekly cost to pay them increase the farther they are from the homeland. A unit that costs 40gold per week in realm might cost 200gold per week on the other side of Dwilight. This would severely limit the size of far reaching armies and other factors will limit how long they can be out and about. The exact numbers are just guesswork on my part...
Quote from: pcw27 on October 24, 2012, 05:17:21 AM
There are no wars closer to home and given the political climate in the north west there wont be for some time.
Iashalur had a chance for a war that was about 50% closer than Aurvandil, but they thought they /had/ to jump on the band wagon.
Maybe have special "mercenary" units that you can recruit and are resistant to morale drop while OUTSIDE of home territory but cost a big amount of money and if they are inside home territory their morale continues to drop (like they are made for fighting long range battles instead of waiting in home territory or something) so you use them to fight long range battles and then dismiss them when they are not needed anymore?
I like the idea of having to recruit a new unit of mercenary specific units. A lot. It always seemed odd to me that you can walk up to your current troops and say, "You are all mercenaries now. You do not care about your home. You are only concerned for coin and this is an advantage to me." Vanguard, Police force, Sentry and Regular army are all variations in equipment and mission and it makes sense that you can change those but mercenaries seem to be something else entirely.
I think I may have found a simple way to fix this.
Can any coders tell me if the "pay for lots of entertainment" has an effect in proportion to the number of men in your unit? It seems that as my unit went through desertions entertainment became more and more effective. I can't be sure because I also kept changing the type of entertainment, and hey maybe my troops prefer pub crawling to prostitutes.
If it is effected by unit size (which would make sense since 4 gold will only buy so much entertainment for so many soldiers) then we just need a system where you can buy as much entertainment as your troops need. Either the cost of entertainment should go up with unit size, or you should get a drop down of how much gold you want to spend (probably between 1 and 10).
Quote from: dustole on October 24, 2012, 06:51:04 AM
Iashalur had a chance for a war that was about 50% closer than Aurvandil, but they thought they /had/ to jump on the band wagon.
What chance was this exactly? Are we talking about the war with D'Hara? 50% is a stretch. Or did you mean that minor tiff we had with Asylon. I thought there was a chance for war there to but Glaumring backed down.
Quote from: MediumTedium on October 24, 2012, 06:56:03 AM
Maybe have special "mercenary" units that you can recruit and are resistant to morale drop while OUTSIDE of home territory but cost a big amount of money and if they are inside home territory their morale continues to drop (like they are made for fighting long range battles instead of waiting in home territory or something) so you use them to fight long range battles and then dismiss them when they are not needed anymore?
I think the idea is more along the lines of "I'm going to pay you more so you don't mind traveling as far". I have however thought that mercenaries as a troop type would be a possible solution. Losing moral in home territory is unnecessary, the cost alone would deter people from using them without a purpose.
Quote from: Indirik on October 24, 2012, 02:39:17 AM
If the front lines are too far from your home, then start a new front line closer to home.
The dev team's been saying this for ages, and to be perfectly honest, it doesn't work. The entire game has shown that the political benefits of having amicable neighbors outweigh having convenient war. Are you going to create an existential threat to your nation or are you going to deal with having nonfun wars? Almost always, people choose the latter.
The game doesn't have enough wars. Solution: make it so that pool of potential enemies is increased. More avenues of potential conflict = more conflict.
I've just about had it with everyone constantly complaining that there are no wars to the dev team.
People, we do not make war or peace, you do.
If you want to have a war, or have a war closer to home, or more war - get your ruler to declare war. You think it ruins long-standing roleplays? Seriously? What is non-roleplay about nobles wanting more loot, preferably from nearby and pressuring their ruler into making it possible?
There is no game-mechanics solution to this problem. The solution is in your heads. If you want war, go and make war.
The real problem is also in your heads. You want war, but you don't want to lose a war. So nobody declares a war unless they are absolutely certain they can win it. Which, of course, leads to very short and predictable and boring wars. Your characters can't even die, so WTF are you afraid of?
Go out there and make a war happen. And if you don't win, so what? Losing is fun.
Quote from: Lefanis on October 24, 2012, 05:31:39 AM
Yeah, it's going to hit Astrum too, in just one more region from Chesland. If only it was just the realm in the corner that got excluded.
Then bummer for Astrum. Again, we'll have to find a war closer to home. And Astrum is pretty much in the same corner as Iashalur. Not much difference there.
QuoteIn five years of playing BM, I have never once seen this restriction coming in to play. On EC, distance from Semall to Sirion is itself 1250 miles.
And how often have you tried to march an army from Semall to Sirion?
Edit: Fixed broken quoting.
I tend to agree, and I've objected to previous requests that would allow the northern realms to go pick a fight far away because they just locked themselves in peace for miles around.
However, I think that travel times, refit times (getting to banks to pay one's unit and then returning), equipment wear and other travel expenses already make realms rather ineffective over long distances. I don't think any of this should change. They don't make fighting far away impossible, they just mean you should bring smaller units and expect them to be weaker when they arrive.
On the other hand, morale is dangerous. If it gets too low, your men will abandon you outright. Considering the above issues and what's at stake, it doesn't feel to me like paying 50% more for your unit is providing enough of a reduction to morale loss for distance. And I mean this for all continents. I've never found it to be worth it even for smaller-range wars on other continents.
Long-distance war should be difficult in the sense that it takes forever to send troops, that it costs a lot to do so, and that very little strength arrives in the end. Not in the sense that your troops start deserting you as soon as you arrive to your destination, purely because of the distance.
Quote from: Indirik on October 24, 2012, 01:24:46 PM
Then bummer for Astrum. Again, we'll have to find a war closer to home. And Astrum is pretty much in the same corner as Iashalur. Not much difference there.
In five years of playing BM, I have never once seen this restriction coming in to play. On EC, distance from Semall to Sirion is itself 1250 miles.
And how often have you tried to march an army from Semall to Sirion?
When Enweil sent troops against Sint once (minor skirmish), we were getting these penalties. But really, we were only crossing one realm. I always felt like the distance penalties to morale were too great, despite being quite fine with the rest of the restrictions.
Quote from: Indirik on October 24, 2012, 01:24:46 PM
And how often have you tried to march an army from Semall to Sirion?
I once marched a mercenary unit from Sasrhas to Osaliel and back. Equipment damage was a big problem, but morale was manageable.
Quote from: vonGenf on October 24, 2012, 01:35:57 PM
I once marched a mercenary unit from Sasrhas to Osaliel and back. Equipment damage was a big problem, but morale was manageable.
I have twice marched an
army unit from Sasrhas to Taop and remained there for weeks without even the slightest morale drop. The message was pretty similar to "your men complain about being far from home, but their morale rises anyways X points".
So, army folks can stand long distance campaigns without penalties, but mercenaries can not? Even if there is only a reduction of the penalties, and not having them disabled, the bonus should be MUCH bigger than it seems to be right now.
They are mercenaries, not crying babies, for god's sake.
Quote from: Indirik on October 24, 2012, 01:24:46 PM
Then bummer for Astrum. Again, we'll have to find a war closer to home. And Astrum is pretty much in the same corner as Iashalur. Not much difference there.
In five years of playing BM, I have never once seen this restriction coming in to play. On EC, distance from Semall to Sirion is itself 1250 miles.
And how often have you tried to march an army from Semall to Sirion?
Astrum has a lot more options then Iashalur. Your widely stretched territory lets you launch forces at greater distance. Have you lost a third of your troops in Chesland to desertion?
Quote from: Tom on October 24, 2012, 12:29:27 PM
I've just about had it with everyone constantly complaining that there are no wars to the dev team.
People, we do not make war or peace, you do.
If you want to have a war, or have a war closer to home, or more war - get your ruler to declare war. You think it ruins long-standing roleplays? Seriously? What is non-roleplay about nobles wanting more loot, preferably from nearby and pressuring their ruler into making it possible?
There is no game-mechanics solution to this problem. The solution is in your heads. If you want war, go and make war.
The real problem is also in your heads. You want war, but you don't want to lose a war. So nobody declares a war unless they are absolutely certain they can win it. Which, of course, leads to very short and predictable and boring wars. Your characters can't even die, so WTF are you afraid of?
Go out there and make a war happen. And if you don't win, so what? Losing is fun.
No one here is complaining that there aren't enough wars. We're complaining that a war we all really want to wage, which makes perfect sense in character is being unnecessarily impeded by an arbitrary game mechanic.
I think Asylon has just provided itself as a valid target for you northerners. "Hey guys, look at us, we back the squatters of Paisly!"
This is true, but I don't think the issue should be thrown away over that. If Asylon hadn't done that we'd be SOL.
Quote from: pcw27 on October 24, 2012, 11:52:47 PMHave you lost a third of your troops in Chesland to desertion?
I never tried to march to Chesland. That's because I always figured it would be futile, and out troops would be ineffective.
Quotean arbitrary game mechanic.
The mechanic is anything but arbitrary. It was intentionally implemented for a specific purpose. You may not like the limits it imposes, but that does
not mean it was whimsical or random.
Quote from: Chénier on October 24, 2012, 11:54:10 PM
I think Asylon has just provided itself as a valid target for you northerners. "Hey guys, look at us, we back the squatters of Paisly!"
This is not the first time that Astrum, Kabrinskia, or Iashalur has had valid reason to poke Asylon with a sharp stick lately. They have merely chosen to ignore the prior events.
Quote from: Tom on October 24, 2012, 12:29:27 PM
I've just about had it with everyone constantly complaining that there are no wars to the dev team.
People, we do not make war or peace, you do.
I am not trying to argue that the dev team is causing there to be no wars to clarify. Next, it's what you said with above for this particular mechanic, you're not making war or peace, you're preventing war with this particular mechanic which keeps peace- that's even worse as your preventing change/keeping the status quo, which is boring. This mechanic is not game breaking by any means but at the same time, I don't see the positive effects of for the game at all with a mechanic that makes some wars impossible, though there is nothing wrong with making it rather difficult just no one likes it being impossible but the devs unless I have just not noticed a non-dev on the pro-prevention of a war side.
Though the original request was to be away with the distance penalty, I am sure all on my side of this would even be happy with keeping the penalty but making it manageable. We are not asking for easy long distance wars, we are asking for wars to be fought at quite far areas with them being somewhat difficult or quite difficult, just not impossible.
This feature was added prolly cause before it was implemented "gangbangs" were even more easier.
Darkans used to march down to Abington without major problems, even thought it is still possible to march long distance, but it needs a lot gold and work and preparation... Most of the times, not worth the effort.
I think this kind of feature is needed, but it shouldnt make it impossible or too hard to do.
personally... i think merc setting should not be something that you change after half way around the world and the men start bitching.
the way it should work would be.... you set it within own realm, then march to some far away place and the morale won't go kaput because the men knew how far you are going when they started.
as opposed to... your men thinking they are heading from london to paris... and then found themselves all the way to jerusalem. what does it matter if you pay them more after their eyes are throwing daggers at you already?
rework merc that way and possibly increase cost and you could remove/lower limits.
We don't make war impossible. We make it impossible to project power over the entire game world, which is - see the CE-Tara discussion going on elsewhere - a guarantee for not much war going on anymore.
Quote from: Indirik on October 25, 2012, 03:17:40 AM
The mechanic is anything but arbitrary. It was intentionally implemented for a specific purpose. You may not like the limits it imposes, but that does not mean it was whimsical or random.
The underlying principle is intentional, the specifics are arbitrary. Chesland is not on the other side of the game world from Iashalur, it's 3/4 of the way down the continent. If we were talking about a war in Candiels I'd see your point.
Quote from: Indirik on October 25, 2012, 03:17:40 AM
I never tried to march to Chesland. That's because I always figured it would be futile, and out troops would be ineffective.
But you just admitted in game that your moral is at 100%, which means you could march to Chesland if you wanted to. You could probably even make it to Candiels.
Quote from: Tom on October 25, 2012, 10:26:25 AM
We don't make war impossible. We make it impossible to project power over the entire game world, which is - see the CE-Tara discussion going on elsewhere - a guarantee for not much war going on anymore.
Irrelevant Tom, CE-Tara are in the center of the continent, they don't really suffer from distance effects.
Quote from: Gustav Kuriga on October 25, 2012, 06:41:40 PM
Irrelevant Tom, CE-Tara are in the center of the continent, they don't really suffer from distance effects.
Not the devastating ones, but I'm fairly sure that if they march armies to the edge of the map, they wlll see morale effects.
Yes, but this would just mean that any realm outside their reach currently would be made up of regions plastered along the edge of the map. A highly unlikely situation.
They are also in the center of the map, and potentially surrounded by enemies.
Quote from: pcw27But you just admitted in game that your moral is at 100%, which means you could march to Chesland if you wanted to. You could probably even make it to Candiels.
You have me confused with someone else. My character is a priest.
I have an interesting idea.
Make troops with mercenary settings gain a large amount of morale from looting. So you can march your troops a long way if you loot people on the way. Especially people that had previously been neutral to you, and even sympathetic to your cause (but, hey, your men want their treasure or their women, and they don't want to wait until you get to your destination). . . .
Well, it worked for the crusades.
(Note: the above suggestion is intended to be tongue firmly in cheek, although it would be pretty cool if mercenaries allowed you to go really far, but you would sometimes randomly loot your allies along the way or something. It's historic!)
Quote from: Gustav Kuriga on October 25, 2012, 06:41:40 PM
Irrelevant Tom, CE-Tara are in the center of the continent, they don't really suffer from distance effects.
Indeed. All it would change would be making it easier for realms on one side of the map to attack the realms on the other side of the map.
Considering realms on the limits already have fewer neighbors and tend to be (too) safe and involved less often attacked, would making one side of AT being able to hit the other be all that bad? Perhaps it'd finally be wars where CE-Tara wouldn't interfere?
Quote from: Indirik on October 26, 2012, 12:36:23 AM
They are also in the center of the map, and potentially surrounded by enemies.
You have me confused with someone else. My character is a priest.
Oh, right. It's Sergio's unit. Regular army with 100% moral in Chesland.
That's part of the problem, the penalty seems to go from "totally fine" to "crisis" based on either a days time or a single region moved. I made it all the way across the sea and kept 50% moral, but after a day in Larur my unit was deserting. Again, having soldiers that are about 50% worse at tolerating home sickness then a ten year old at a sleep away camp is not fun.
The idea of mercenaries gaining moral by looting sounds super cool to me!
I was at 100% morale in Chesland. Two turns, and poof, unit gone.
Quote from: Lefanis on October 27, 2012, 04:36:56 AM
I was at 100% morale in Chesland. Two turns, and poof, unit gone.
That's my experience as well.
"poof" does not help the dev team one bit. Actually posting the messages you got, and the % lost each turn, would.
QuoteUnit Status Report (7 days, 1 hour ago)
Wear and tear causes 1 % damage to your unit's equipment.
Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Morale of your troops falls 14 points.
Unit Status Report (6 days, 12 hours ago)
Wear and tear causes 3 % damage to your unit's equipment.
Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Morale of your troops falls 32 points.
Unit Status Report (6 days, 1 hour ago)
Wear and tear causes 3 % damage to your unit's equipment.
Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Morale of your troops falls 27 points.
Unit Status Report (5 days, 13 hours ago)
Wear and tear causes 1 % damage to your unit's equipment.
Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Morale of your troops falls 15 points.
Arrival (5 days, 13 hours ago)
You have arrived in Chesland, a Townsland region and allied territory.
Unit Status Report (5 days, 1 hour ago)
Wear and tear causes 1 % damage to your unit's equipment.
Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Morale of your troops falls 13 points.
Unit Status Report (4 days, 13 hours ago)
Wear and tear causes 1 % damage to your unit's equipment.
Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Morale of your troops falls 25 points.
Unit Status Report (4 days, 1 hour ago)
Wear and tear causes 1 % damage to your unit's equipment.
Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Morale of your troops falls 26 points.
Unit Status Report (3 days, 12 hours ago)
Wear and tear causes 1 % damage to your unit's equipment.
Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Your men are complaining about not having been paid for 4 days.
Morale of your troops falls 24 points.
I begin moving out of Chesland, after treating men to entertainment a final time...
Unit Status Report (3 days, 1 hour ago)
Wear and tear causes 2 % damage to your unit's equipment.
Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Morale of your troops falls 23 points.
Unit Status Report (2 days, 12 hours ago)
Wear and tear causes 1 % damage to your unit's equipment.
Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Morale of your troops falls 36 points.
Unit Status Report (2 days, 1 hour ago)
Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Morale of your troops falls 21 points.
15 have cowardly fled your unit!
Unit Status Report (1 day, 13 hours ago)
Wear and tear causes 2 % damage to your unit's equipment.
Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Morale of your troops falls 1 points.
Your men desert en bloc, leaving you alone! Word of your bad leadership spreads and your honour drops one point.
In Chesland, I was spending all my hours on entertainment (the more expensive variety). Treated them on the turn I moved out as well, though to the one that doesn't use up all hours. Within a day and half of moving out, they deserted.
Most interestingly-
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Back on Dry Land (7 days, 13 hours ago)
personal message
Your ship has arrived at the coast of Chesland and is putting you ashore.
Unit Status Report (7 days, 13 hours ago)
Your men enjoy having a few hours for themselves. Wear and tear causes 1 % damage to your unit's equipment.
Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Switching your unit to mercenaries would at least reduce the morale penalty they suffer. Morale of your troops falls 5 points.
I set to merc then, as I had forgotten to do it earlier. The morale loss as regular army (5) seems manageable, compared to the 36 point drop on the last day.
Hm. I tend to agree that 30%+ is too strong. But to reach those values - wow. You are off the scale, this is the last, most extreme message.
Where are the days that your men were happy to be away from home? :)
Quote from: Lorgan on October 28, 2012, 02:19:20 AM
Where are the days that your men were happy to be away from home? :)
Three to five days a month.
If you're spoiling for a fight, move to a realm that is next door to enemies. That's generally my advice: go where the action is. Realms at war have good turnover for various positions, and you can advance a lot more quickly than at times of peace. That said, anything more than a 5-10% drop to morale every turn while paying out the ass for Mercenary status is kinda bogus, especially considering you're generally losing morale from battles as well if you're projecting power.
You Dwilightians do realize that this mechanic is basically the only thing keeping Aurvandil from marching/sailing on whoever they hell they feel like, right? They could punch into basically anyone's capital as an organized unit and nobody would be able to stop that without a few days (Weeks, really) of notice.
Quote from: Lefanis on October 27, 2012, 07:39:37 PM
Most interestingly-
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Back on Dry Land (7 days, 13 hours ago)
personal message
Your ship has arrived at the coast of Chesland and is putting you ashore.
Unit Status Report (7 days, 13 hours ago)
Your men enjoy having a few hours for themselves. Wear and tear causes 1 % damage to your unit's equipment.
Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Switching your unit to mercenaries would at least reduce the morale penalty they suffer. Morale of your troops falls 5 points.
I set to merc then, as I had forgotten to do it earlier. The morale loss as regular army (5) seems manageable, compared to the 36 point drop on the last day.
Tom/Devs--is the morale penalty of mercenaries higher than for normal troops, at a certain distance? Surely the merc penalty would be 1/3 that of normal army, or something sensible like that--it would be bad if normal troops scale out gradually, versus merc with a 'morale shelf'.
Quote from: egamma on October 28, 2012, 08:39:40 AM
Tom/Devs--is the morale penalty of mercenaries higher than for normal troops, at a certain distance? Surely the merc penalty would be 1/3 that of normal army, or something sensible like that--it would be bad if normal troops scale out gradually, versus merc with a 'morale shelf'.
No, the penalty is guaranteed to be less. However, there are random fluctuations, so on an individual day, it might seem that it is higher.
To illustrate (NOT REAL VALUES), if the penalty for normal troops is a random value between 10 and 20, and the penalty for mercenaries is a random value between 6 and 12, then on some days, the randomness could give you a higher value with mercenaries than with normal troops.
Quote from: Marlboro on October 28, 2012, 08:14:38 AM
Three to five days a month.
If you're spoiling for a fight, move to a realm that is next door to enemies. That's generally my advice: go where the action is. Realms at war have good turnover for various positions, and you can advance a lot more quickly than at times of peace. That said, anything more than a 5-10% drop to morale every turn while paying out the ass for Mercenary status is kinda bogus, especially considering you're generally losing morale from battles as well if you're projecting power.
You Dwilightians do realize that this mechanic is basically the only thing keeping Aurvandil from marching/sailing on whoever they hell they feel like, right? They could punch into basically anyone's capital as an organized unit and nobody would be able to stop that without a few days (Weeks, really) of notice.
Even if they devoted all their mobile troops Aurvandil would have only the slimest chance of taking anyone's capital let alone every capital on the map. We're talking about landing penalties coupled with attacking a fortified position. They'd get crushed. However if they did invade any capitals that would be AWESOME. Basically all this is stopping them from doing is launching Viking style raids, which would also be awesome.
Quote from: pcw27 on October 28, 2012, 09:42:31 PM
Even if they devoted all their mobile troops Aurvandil would have only the slimest chance of taking anyone's capital let alone every capital on the map. We're talking about landing penalties coupled with attacking a fortified position. They'd get crushed.
Step One: Land 40K CS in donut townsland as a single unit, unannounced and unheralded.
Step Two: ??? (March on the capital, which is cut off from its armies)
Step Three: Profit
Quote from: pcw27 on October 28, 2012, 09:42:31 PM
Even if they devoted all their mobile troops Aurvandil would have only the slimest chance of taking anyone's capital let alone every capital on the map. We're talking about landing penalties coupled with attacking a fortified position. They'd get crushed. However if they did invade any capitals that would be AWESOME. Basically all this is stopping them from doing is launching Viking style raids, which would also be awesome.
Hardly. Aurvandil has a large mobile force, sure, but if they send it all to crush another realm's capital, all of the other realms have free reign to burn Aurvandil to the ground.
Only difference: Aurvandil only has one capital, while the allies have a whole bunch of them.
Quote from: Marlboro on October 28, 2012, 10:10:26 PM
Step One: Land 40K CS in donut townsland as a single unit, unannounced and unheralded.
Step Two: ??? (March on the capital, which is cut off from its armies)
Step Three: Profit
Townslands can have fortifications and militia as well. You'd probably have to land in a rural, then move to the townsland, who would have recruited militia, and then to the city, which will have recruited a LOT of militia.
Quote from: Chénier on October 29, 2012, 12:01:20 AM
Hardly. Aurvandil has a large mobile force, sure, but if they send it all to crush another realm's capital, all of the other realms have free reign to burn Aurvandil to the ground.
Yes, SA's cohesion is just incredible. I forgot that it didn't take almost two weeks to organize a halfway decent fighting force to retake Paisly. which was essentially unguarded. I bet the 'Moot's
even worse better.
Quote from: egamma on October 29, 2012, 12:16:45 AM
Townslands can have fortifications and militia as well. You'd probably have to land in a rural, then move to the townsland, who would have recruited militia, and then to the city, which will have recruited a LOT of militia.
No matter what it's gonna be a knock-down drag-out where victory for the defenders is not assured. Through miraculous reactions from all the realm's nobles and favorable RNG they MIGHT be able to fight Hypothetical Invasion Force off, but the odds are against it. I have seldom seen townslands with more than 5K militia, and their fortifications won't mean a lot once the siege engines start rolling in. I don't see how a typical townsland would be anything more than a speedbump unless they know exactly what's coming, which is essentially my whole point.
Anyway, massive morale drops are a mechanic that prevents this kind of thing. Coupled with sea travel it's more important than ever. I just hope everyone campaigning against the mechanic on the sole basis that SA would be able to shove more of its boot up Aurvandil's ass keep in mind that it works both ways.
Quote from: Marlboro on October 28, 2012, 10:10:26 PM
Step One: Land 40K CS in donut townsland as a single unit, unannounced and unheralded.
Step Two: ??? (March on the capital, which is cut off from its armies)
Step Three: Profit
1. Aurvandil's entire army is only 25kcs and that's counting militia. Only Astrum has 40kcs, and chances are a good portion of that is militia.
2. The "Doughnut" region is almost always a fortified towns-land with militia and units moving in and out of the capital. The landing force would suffer heavy casualties.
3. The capital would likely have heavy fortifications, militia and more then a few units. More heavy casualties.
4. As mentioned, this would leave Aurvandil completely open to attack.
5. If under different circumstances a realm did launch a massive amphibious assault on a realm's capital in a risky gambit to win a war it would be AWESOME.
Quote from: Marlboro on October 29, 2012, 02:25:10 AM
Yes, SA's cohesion is just incredible. I forgot that it didn't take almost two weeks to organize a halfway decent fighting force to retake Paisly. which was essentially unguarded. I bet the 'Moot's even worse better.
Two weeks is about as quick as this sort of thing could possibly be organized. It's not our fault Terran called us in when we weren't really needed.
Quote from: Marlboro on October 29, 2012, 02:25:10 AMNo matter what it's gonna be a knock-down drag-out where victory for the defenders is not assured. Through miraculous reactions from all the realm's nobles and favorable RNG they MIGHT be able to fight Hypothetical Invasion Force off, but the odds are against it.
Only if your hypothetical fighting force is more powerful then anything that actually exists, lands all troops roughly at the same time, and ignores the fact that claiming beachheads is an additional battle penalty on top of the disadvantage of storming fortifications.
Even if they manage to hold the capital the realm is far from doomed. They can simply move the capital, raise an army and take the city back (assuming the army hasn't already left by then due to lack of gold).
Quote from: Marlboro on October 29, 2012, 02:25:10 AMI have seldom seen townslands with more than 5K militia, and their fortifications won't mean a lot once the siege engines start rolling in. I don't see how a typical townsland would be anything more than a speedbump unless they know exactly what's coming, which is essentially my whole point.
I believe "navies" lets you know if an enemy force is coming, plus there are always informants and infiltrators.
Quote from: Marlboro on October 29, 2012, 02:25:10 AMAnyway, massive morale drops are a mechanic that prevents this kind of thing. Coupled with sea travel it's more important than ever.
There are already two other mechanics that prevent this from working out like your describing. First is unit payment, the invading force wouldn't be able to stay long especially with cost of a mercenary force. Second is that they could never TO the region and expect to hold it because of the distance from capital penalty. They could CTO but they'd most likely succumb to siege in a matter of weeks. If these proved to be insufficient to make such assaults acceptably challenging then the answer is simply to turn up the difficulty for landing troops on a defended coast.
Also once realms are aware of this possibility they'll start keeping larger defending forces in the capital.
Quote from: Marlboro on October 29, 2012, 02:25:10 AMI just hope everyone campaigning against the mechanic on the sole basis that SA would be able to shove more of its boot up Aurvandil's ass keep in mind that it works both ways.
If I logged in and learned Aurvandil had landed an amphibious force in Darfix or Eidulb it would make my day. See that's the problem, what you're describing is AWESOME and would be a great thing to have happen in game provided it was a suitably challenging feat. Under the current system it would still be a huge challenge to pull it off without getting massacred in the process.
Quote from: Marlboro on October 29, 2012, 02:25:10 AM
Yes, SA's cohesion is just incredible. I forgot that it didn't take almost two weeks to organize a halfway decent fighting force to retake Paisly. which was essentially unguarded. I bet the 'Moot's even worse better.
All of them... On their own.
Do you honestly think it takes that much to take down Candiels if Aurvandil's mobile army is all gone to torch someone's capital? I'm pretty sure Astrum could take on Candiels on their own, provided the mobile forces are absent. Same with Morek. And probably the same with others as well.
Quote from: pcw27 on October 29, 2012, 08:56:33 AM
1. Aurvandil's entire army is only 25kcs and that's counting militia. Only Astrum has 40kcs, and chances are a good portion of that is militia.
2. The "Doughnut" region is almost always a fortified towns-land with militia and units moving in and out of the capital. The landing force would suffer heavy casualties.
3. The capital would likely have heavy fortifications, militia and more then a few units. More heavy casualties.
4. As mentioned, this would leave Aurvandil completely open to attack.
5. If under different circumstances a realm did launch a massive amphibious assault on a realm's capital in a risky gambit to win a war it would be AWESOME.
At its height Aurvandil raised close to 60k cs. Aurvandil has allies to protect it.
Quote from: pcw27 on October 29, 2012, 08:56:33 AM
Only if your hypothetical fighting force is more powerful then anything that actually exists, lands all troops roughly at the same time, and ignores the fact that claiming beachheads is an additional battle penalty on top of the disadvantage of storming fortifications.
Even if they manage to hold the capital the realm is far from doomed. They can simply move the capital, raise an army and take the city back (assuming the army hasn't already left by then due to lack of gold).
I believe "navies" lets you know if an enemy force is coming, plus there are always informants and infiltrators.
As I said before Aurvandil could easly raise enough to annihilate a capital very quickly, as could the Astroists. Moving capitals takes time and money and even so they've probably just lost there best region if the capital requires moving. Knowing Tom i'd also bet there are adverse affects to capital moves expecially during a TO and worser effects of loosing a capital. And navies have no scout reports, you only know they arrive once they arrive.
Quote from: pcw27 on October 29, 2012, 08:56:33 AM
There are already two other mechanics that prevent this from working out like your describing. First is unit payment, the invading force wouldn't be able to stay long especially with cost of a mercenary force. Second is that they could never TO the region and expect to hold it because of the distance from capital penalty. They could CTO but they'd most likely succumb to siege in a matter of weeks. If these proved to be insufficient to make such assaults acceptably challenging then the answer is simply to turn up the difficulty for landing troops on a defended coast.
They can TO or CTO the region if it has a coast I believe, unit payment isn't a problem, gold can be gained from looting or by just having lots of it before attacking. If they CTO'd (does that feature still even work?) they would probably loose the seige, but by then the region would be ruined.
Quote from: pcw27 on October 29, 2012, 08:56:33 AM
Also once realms are aware of this possibility they'll start keeping larger defending forces in the capital.
If I logged in and learned Aurvandil had landed an amphibious force in Darfix or Eidulb it would make my day. See that's the problem, what you're describing is AWESOME and would be a great thing to have happen in game provided it was a suitably challenging feat. Under the current system it would still be a huge challenge to pull it off without getting massacred in the process.
Keeping a larger force in the capital is expensive, which means there will be less gold for realms to do fun things with.
No, its not awesome it would be terrible. Any realm being able to attack any other realm would be a disaster, It would also change the entire structure of how the game is played massively supporting power blocks of allies warring at afar over anything else. Expecially now with sea travel where you can travel at massive speed this is even more true.
Also notice how the war protests have ruined aurvandil thing was responded to by haha your taxes are too high and you need more diplomats deal with it, but when astrum have morale problems while trying to attack at the far side of a CONTINENT the response is oh noes! this is a problem we must look into it immediately..
Quote from: DamnTaffer on October 29, 2012, 02:03:48 PM
Also notice how the war protests have ruined aurvandil thing was responded to by haha your taxes are too high and you need more diplomats deal with it, but when astrum have morale problems while trying to attack at the far side of a CONTINENT the response is oh noes! this is a problem we must look into it immediately..
No, I did not notice that. Maybe that's because it was also looked into immediately?
Quote from: Tom on October 26, 2012, 10:46:06 AM
Now I agree that war protests should not add up in a linear fashion, and I've just added code to dampen it a bit, so that the 2nd, 3rd, etc. war they protest on counts progressively less.
Aurvandil is already gimped too much because of war protest bug so we cannot properly defend anymore, war could be considered already over unless something can be pulled of but i doubt it...
Quote from: DamnTaffer on October 29, 2012, 02:00:57 PMMoving capitals takes time and money and even so they've probably just lost there best region if the capital requires moving. Knowing Tom i'd also bet there are adverse affects to capital moves expecially during a TO and worser effects of loosing a capital.
You cannot move your capital while either the old capital or the new capital are being attacked, or the site of battles or unrest. If you are running a TO in a capital, then the target realm
cannot move their capital until the TO succeeds or is defeated. I think there's some unspecified waiting period (a few turns) after you regain control before you can move it. Or maybe it's just once you stop getting the appropriate messages in the region report.
QuoteAnd navies have no scout reports, you only know they arrive once they arrive.
As of now, correct. But the "shipyard" regional building (which you can build, but which is not active yet) is intended to allow some sort of "patrol" function. That will allow some reports of troop movement in the adjacent sea zone, The exact effects are TBD.
QuoteIf they CTO'd (does that feature still even work?)
No, the CTO function is not yet restored.
Quote from: DamnTaffer on October 29, 2012, 02:03:48 PM
Also notice how the war protests have ruined aurvandil thing was responded to by haha your taxes are too high and you need more diplomats deal with it, but when astrum have morale problems while trying to attack at the far side of a CONTINENT the response is oh noes! this is a problem we must look into it immediately.
You must be reading a different forum than me. The dev team's answer to the troops morale problem was: "Too bad for you, fight closer to home." You'll notice that no code change was made in response.
The dev team's response to Aurvandil's region morale problem was: "Hmm... That's a bit too extreme, let's turn it down a bit. Now, here's how you fix the rest of it yourself." i.e. Code was changed to help alleviate the worst of Aurvandil's problem.
So, are you ready to admit that this accusation of preferential treatment on the part of the dev team is unjust and unwarranted?
Quote from: Telrunya on October 29, 2012, 07:08:30 PM
Wait, couldn't Realms move their Capital during the Daimon Invasion even if there was 'unrest', but at a penalty?
Anything and everything related to Daimons is a poor example to base general assumptions on for the rest of the game worlds. :)
Quote from: Foundation on October 29, 2012, 07:28:56 PM
Anything and everything related to Daimons is a poor example to base general assumptions on for the rest of the game worlds. :)
Good point, but it could have been a general change. Was that Invasion-only?
Quote from: Feylonis on October 30, 2012, 12:16:16 AM
This is not some hidden feature. A realm suffers discontent, especially at the former capital, during capital movements. Again, this is not a hidden feature.
It is however... A feature i've never tested...
Just because you yourself haven't experienced it does not mean that you should ignore all previous reports regarding this feature.
Quote from: Indirik on October 29, 2012, 05:21:13 PM
You must be reading a different forum than me. The dev team's answer to the troops morale problem was: "Too bad for you, fight closer to home." You'll notice that no code change was made in response.
Here are the bug reports for morale:
http://bugs.battlemaster.org/view.php?id=7490 (http://bugs.battlemaster.org/view.php?id=7490)
http://bugs.battlemaster.org/view.php?id=7506 (http://bugs.battlemaster.org/view.php?id=7506)
You'll notice that Foundation made no code changes in response.
let's try and stay on topic
Capital Move discussion moved here:
http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,3430.0.html (http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,3430.0.html)
Quote from: Indirik on October 29, 2012, 05:21:13 PM
You must be reading a different forum than me. The dev team's answer to the troops morale problem was: "Too bad for you, fight closer to home." You'll notice that no code change was made in response.
Sorry if I say something that was already mentioned, as I didn't really read the entire post and I am quoting you just because it is the last useful line I could find.
Without going into the details of whether the distance based penalties are rightly tuned, I just believe either there was a bug before which was fixed or there is some sort of bug now. Or if not a bug there was a tweak in the code which calculates the morale problems depending on the distance.
Some months ago (I would say around 3-4) I travelled on dwilight with my Morekian char up to Vakreno Heaps with a 60men mercenary unit without any morale trouble, at all. Now, as soon as I landed in Chesland with another 60men mercenary unit I immediately started to get reports of heavy morale problems, around a 30% loss each turn. I would guess Chesland-Morek and Vakreno Heaps-Morek is roughly the same distance, and actually 3-4 months ago Morek didn't really go all the way down to Shyussei so it was even farer.
I believe what one should reflect on is that before sea travel to get to Vakreno Heaps from Morek it was painfully long, can't say exactly but easily more than a week of travel. Now, with sea travel, it's a matter of some days. Was this perhaps the ratio behind tweaking the morale/distance code?
As far as I know, there was no change to the unit morale code. Certainly none was discussed. It's always possible Tom may have slipped it in with the sea travel code, but I don't see why. Anaris could check easier than I could.
The ease of sea travel is simply because we don't currently calculate distance between sea zones and realms, so it's temporarily just a fixed constant distance while you're on the seas. Sea zones are no different than land and they will eventually receive the same amount of morale penalty based on distance.
The morale code itself has not changed to my knowledge.
The ease of travel I was mentioning is time-wise, not about morale.
Anyway clearly one single example is not that relevant for a game based on probabilities like bm, but I know for a fact that what I used to do does not seem to be allowed anymore. That is why I mentioned there might be a bug somewhere.
Quote from: DamnTaffer on October 29, 2012, 02:00:57 PM
At its height Aurvandil raised close to 60k cs. Aurvandil has allies to protect it.
60kcs mobile? BS and Aurvandil's allies don't do squat.
Quote from: DamnTaffer on October 29, 2012, 02:00:57 PM
No, its not awesome it would be terrible. Any realm being able to attack any other realm would be a disaster, It would also change the entire structure of how the game is played massively supporting power blocks of allies warring at afar over anything else. Expecially now with sea travel where you can travel at massive speed this is even more true.
Its only terrible if its too easy. Being able to occasionally pull off a risky, daring and audacious battle strategy in game would be great. If its found to be as easy as you say to launch an attack by sea then the answer is to make it harder to move troops by sea (not a fixed 16 hours which makes it easier to coordinate), make it harder to claim beach heads, and make sure there is a way to see a fleet amassing on your shores.
Quote from: Indirik on October 29, 2012, 05:21:13 PM
You must be reading a different forum than me. The dev team's answer to the troops morale problem was: "Too bad for you, fight closer to home." You'll notice that no code change was made in response.
Actually it was more like
Devs: "Too bad for you, fight closer to home"
Players: "30 points per round!"
Tom: "Too ba- did you say 30? Maybe this is worth looking into..."
how's that different from tim looking things up?
So did this get looked at?