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BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: Indirik on January 09, 2012, 02:39:03 PM
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I'm not sure how I feel about this, really. Yes, TMP had its problems. I think we can all agree on that one. People were continually criticizing about how their realm couldn't fight because TMP was killing them, etc., etc., yadda, yadda....
But TMP has been gone for months now. So why hasn't GDoF joined with Madina to attack Aurvandil? Weren't they complaining about how they wanted to do that, but they couldn't, because TMP was making their troops suck, and their regions revolt, or something? (Not meaning to put GDoF on the spot, but GDoF players were very vocal about how TMP was preventing them from fighting the war. TMP is gone, so, where's the war, guys? (So, yeah, I guess I am putting them on the spot. :D))
FEI is nearly dead. The only war taking place now is Arcaea v. Arcachon. And I hear that one is pretty darn boring.
EC... yeah... no one is fighting. Perdan and Caligus are just about done mopping up the last remnants of Ibladesh.
AT is hopping. But then again, AT hasn't really had a TMP problem.
So, where are all the wars? You don't have the excuse of TMP holding you back anymore. Why is almost everyone at peace?
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People don't like to do it if they don't have to. Because it could end up being the end of their realm.
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People don't like to do it if they don't have to. Because it could end up being the end of their realm.
Long Live PeaceMaster
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People don't like to do it if they don't have to. Because it could end up being the end of their realm.
And that's why we had TMP in the first place.
I still agree with the decision to turn it off—it needs so much fixing before it will really do what it was designed to do, without all the nasty side effects, that I'm glad it's gone, even now.
But things are starting to stagnate pretty badly in places.
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I agree that we need an incentive for war. The dev team has been discussing several alternatives for a while now, but due to ongoing code work, it'll be a while until they see the light of day.
I don't understand why people are afraid of wars. There's very little to lose in BM.
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No no, Mr. Tom, for some people, in their eyes, they apparently have a lot to lose.
It's like how those boyfriends kill their girlfriends after they delete that WoW account.
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i think GDoF has been busy starving itself... as in city didn't want to pay for the food.
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I'm not sure how I feel about this, really. Yes, TMP had its problems. I think we can all agree on that one. People were continually criticizing about how their realm couldn't fight because TMP was killing them, etc., etc., yadda, yadda....
But TMP has been gone for months now. So why hasn't GDoF joined with Madina to attack Aurvandil? Weren't they complaining about how they wanted to do that, but they couldn't, because TMP was making their troops suck, and their regions revolt, or something? (Not meaning to put GDoF on the spot, but GDoF players were very vocal about how TMP was preventing them from fighting the war. TMP is gone, so, where's the war, guys? (So, yeah, I guess I am putting them on the spot. :D))
Terran would be at war right now were it not for a certain group of non-humans to their west.
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Yes, I can accept that the Zuma have caused some issues on Dwilight in their area. You get a pass. ;)
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i think GDoF has been busy starving itself... as in city didn't want to pay for the food.
That's one reason. The Duke killed off a third or more of the population, so we've been in the process of replacing him. Also, we've put a new system in place, with a new duchy around Drowenton. Furthermore, there were the things going on in the Halls of Luria that kept me busy. Those would be reasons why I (and others in Fissoa) have been busy with other things than war.
But the reason why we didn't attack Aurvandil is different. It's Madina's failure. When we had those discussions about TMP, we thought we'd be able to tilt the scales in the conflict by joining in. However, Madina's battle plan was disastrous, and our realm decided to refrain from an offensive role in the conflict, until a proper plan was devised by Madina (communication issues, as well).
I've been thinking of getting into a new conflict, but several things indicate trouble brewing in Luria. Anyways, maybe I should propose once more to the realm, and Madina, to assault Candiels. Even if we fail, we'd have had the fun of a battle :) I'm just not very inclined to do that out of any RP context.
Now, it's not my intention here to talk about Fissoa all day, I'm just responding to Indirik's attempt to put me on the spot. To which I take no offense, by the way :D
Terran would be at war right now were it not for a certain group of non-humans to their west.
The Daimons seem to be the new point of conflict, after TMP. Maybe we're just all being difficult? :P (I don't dislike the daimons, though. But I can understand the pov of those involved. I guess I wouldn't have cared for TMP without Fissoa either...)
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I think the estate systems are to blame. And that's kind of weird for me to say because I love the estate systems, the old one even more than the new one.
The thing is, in the old estate system you sometimes couldn't go to war since you had no nobles to support any conquests, and land is and has always been THE most important motivator for war. (though in my opinion that's just a common excuse, take Thalmarkin before the 4th invasion: we didn't have enough nobles so we just let 3 of our badlands go rogue and went to war to take a strategically important stronghold, and of course... kick some ass.)
Anyway, with the new estate system that is no longer an issue. The issue now is: why try expanding when you would probably profit more from having your nobles concentrated in a city than by taking those rurals? Why risk it all for little gain?
Again, that is a stupid excuse in my opinion but I do believe it is, again, a common one.
The fact is that ever since "conquest" lost it's unquestionable correlation with "profit" or "fun" (because yes, it can be a drag to have to control too much land, or to build up newly conquered land again) wars became less appealing. Of course there's still those people who don't care and just want to have war for the fun of it, but I think there are also the more calculated players who don't immediately see an objective reason to go to war anymore. And thus stay at home.
I think the failure of TMP was that it tried to punish those who stayed at home (and those we did go to war but didn't manage to scrape up enough glory to last for one refit period) in stead of trying to encourage them to go to war. People would think: "Oh, TMP will never happen to us, we're still fighting monsters here and there!" but then it did and they'd go: "Darn it! Now we can't go to war anymore! Our units are completely useless!"
I don't immediately know how to solve this without getting rid of other great aspects of the game but I think the lesser value of pure land is one of the most important reasons for avoiding war.
I am thinking though that under the new estate system less efficiency means that less gold is getting collected by you or your knights but that gold needs to go somewhere... Maybe the peasants get richer and there is sort of a build-up of wealth inside the region that could be accessed by special, hurtful, instant and direct taxes and looting? Just an idea though. Land would at least not lose it's value anymore, it's gold would just not immediately fall into your hands (unless you have 100% efficiency) and it would increase income from looting, another of those fun acts of war. :)
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Also, here's a theory:
BM unites two kinds of gameplay. There's the strategic part of making your realm efficient and fighting wars, and there's roleplaying and developing your character.
Unfortunately, wars tend to disrupt plans for the part of the 'rp community' that I'd dare call 'docile or in high places'. Combine that with the lack of players (making the strategists choose the safer option as well) and many conflicts are being evaded.
Perhaps we need incentives for those /without/ great power to start wars. Unfortunately (though for understandable reasons) inter-duchy wars have been shot down.
Encouraging small raiding parties, for instance in rogue territory as well (triggering larger NPC counter reactions? -mostly for Dwilight), could be an idea? Hopping over and looting your neutral neighbour shouldn't be a reason for all-out war. Encourage small conflicts, and big ones will emerge over time.
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I miss TMP. For all it's flaws, at least it got wars going.
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Yes, TMP was not perfect. I'm not saying that, by any means. But many people were blaming the /lack/ of war on TMP. That, and the fact that it did have so many problems, was why it was removed. And now, several months later, not only do we not have more wars, we have even less. I know that one or two of my characters have tried advocating war, and pushing courses of action that would result in warfare. But too many people just seem to not want to cause waves, or take risks, or break treaties. Even when the holding of those treaties will probably result in very bad things for them and their allies.
So, maybe it wasn't TMP that was the problem after all?
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TMP itself was no bad idea, but I think it was inadequately attuned to whatever problems caused the lack of wars.
Surely there must be a way of making people, playing a war-game, want to go to war?
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TMP itself was no bad idea, but I think it was inadequately attuned to whatever problems caused the lack of wars.
Surely there must be a way of making people, playing a war-game, want to go to war?
Why not hurt character's honor score for lack of war? Those doing civil work, or fighting occasional monster hordes, should gain enough honor to cancel out a 1-point-per-week hit to their honor. But we should maybe make fighting wars more of a personal benefit.
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Why not hurt character's honor score for lack of war? Those doing civil work, or fighting occasional monster hordes, should gain enough honor to cancel out a 1-point-per-week hit to their honor. But we should maybe make fighting wars more of a personal benefit.
If there's one thing we've learned from our attempts to make TMP do what we want it to, without causing widespread pain, it's that simple, punitive measures like this just don't work.
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Why so serious about wars in BM? It be a game.
If it's a team based game, why not have something that makes this team a bit more obvious?
Every single game made right now has these stupid achievement points. We don't have to make ourselves appear above stupid, so why not join in the stupidity?
Me: OMG I got 10 BM points for beating two or more units with my unit! OMG I got the ultradifficult "Berserker's Soul" medal! To do that I need to my unit to wipe out two or more enemy units, and win the field with only one man surviving at the end!
Other dude: Oh yeah? I got the "Capitalist Pig" medal by being the Banker of the realm that has over two times the combined food supply of the other realms on the continent! It's all in the economic warfare!
Third dude: Well I got the "Brainwasher" medal for causing at least three enemy regions to revolt by preaching!
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well... could have a simple tax decrease. i don't mean tax rate tolerance..
what with the new estates efficiency stuff, could lower the efficiency.
whilst it won't make sense (war is probably best method to hide things) blame it on a lack of vigilance because there's peace.
does that help nudge it towards war? maybe, maybe not.
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we already have achievement points. They are: Gold, Prestige, Honor, Fame, Titles/Positions. Although not necessarily in that order.
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Yeah the medals system is in place already, and I think achievements would detract from the "sandbox" aspect of BM.
What about random, widespread famines? food dries up thus gold dries up, ergo less troops and vulnerability. The realm undergoing a famine would either have to buy food off of a neighbor or go out and loot food/gold from neighboring realms. I know we already have a food system in place (unless its been changed recently, I haven't been around in a couple years), but why not increase the severity associated with a lack of food? That would bring back the importance and fun in being a trader, create a legitimate RP reason to go to war, be completely random and unbiased, and create obvious incentives to go to war.
Think how awesome it would be to see BoM absorb a starving MI, or to watch a weak CE get torn asunder by an opportunistic Talerium. Similar situations could occur in the FEI and Dwilight, but those continents don't matter.... ;)
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TMP mainly punished those who didn't go to war. Has there ever been a system in place that gives incentive to those who war (outside the obvious gains like lands and gold), rather than punish those who don't?
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So it needs to be personal?
Something like - the only way to gain Prestige is war, and (new!) it goes down over time?
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So it needs to be personal?
Something like - the only way to gain Prestige is war, and (new!) it goes down over time?
Which would completely screw over priest and diplo characters?
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It would need some tinkering for all classes for sure. But considering how Nobles sometimes complain about losing 1 Honour from Vulgarity, it might have an effect if done well.
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How about simply restricting prestige increases to real, pvp combat? After all, being an infiltrator or courtier isn't all that prestigious.
It would cause problems for Priests, though (which can be highly prestigious in my optic), as well as for prestige already gained by various characters.
I don't think prestige should drop at any rate, though. You'd go to war once, or twice, and then see your stats drop again? That would work as a detriment once more. Let's keep it positive :)
Or we could put in a new stat. Something on the side. Or perhaps more active advertisement of those realms that are actively fighting, so they see themselves rewarded with more nobles? That kind of brings us back to realm achievements, though.
Lastly, I very much agree we don't need any more individual achievements. Fame hasn't been mentioned yet, even (I consider it to be at the player's level - cfr. it's severely limited influence in-game [at least for me?])
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TMP mainly punished those who didn't go to war. Has there ever been a system in place that gives incentive to those who war (outside the obvious gains like lands and gold), rather than punish those who don't?
I'm surprised no one cottoned on to this suggestion. It's novel: Instead of punishing peace, why not reward war? The stick didn't seem to work too well, so maybe it's time to try the carrot? Or maybe a mix of the two, to limit the complaints that seemed to result from the pure stick approach?
One thought: Give realms that have been in a war for a while some type of bonus to their warfighting ability, at either the tactical (i.e. in battles) or strategic (i.e. in tax gold, recruitment rates, etc.) level. For two realms (A and B) who go to war with each other from a position of peace, the bonuses accrue at the same rate and offset. But now the neighbors of A and B must consider how dangerous a fully mobilized (maxed out bonuses) realm A might be if it decides to smite them badly as soon as it is done smiting realm B. Maybe they'll want to start a mobilization of their own and get involved in the war in one way or another to begin accruing offsetting bonuses of their own.
Just a thought, no idea if it's practical or makes sense to anyone else.
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we already have achievement points. They are: Gold, Prestige, Honor, Fame, Titles/Positions. Although not necessarily in that order.
They aren't mutually exclusive. Lots of games have traditional scoring systems and also achievements.
Fame is our real achievement system. If we displayed Fame more prominently and listed the individual accomplishments that led to each point, we'd see more people chasing their cheevos.
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They aren't mutually exclusive. Lots of games have traditional scoring systems and also achievements.
Fame is our real achievement system. If we displayed Fame more prominently and listed the individual accomplishments that led to each point, we'd see more people chasing their cheevos.
But the ways of earning fame are not devised to encourage war, are they?
Also, when giving bonuses to one realm, you're basically still punishing the realm not going to war. A problem with TMP was that it kept weak realms weak, where would that suggestion address that issue? The idea that realms would join in on wars for future gain, turned out not to work in-game.
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A problem is this as well, for a war you need active nobles, good marshal and an infrastructure. Okay, you can fight a war without those but you will probably lose. Times of peace are great for building up infrastructure, but it sucks for the first two requirements. To get those you need war, but you dont have war because you dont have them.
circle..
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But the ways of earning fame are not devised to encourage war, are they?
Easy enough to make up new ones.
Also, when giving bonuses to one realm, you're basically still punishing the realm not going to war.
TMP punished realms by increasing unrest and making players put in more busywork on realm control. Simply letting moribund realms stay moribund wouldn't feel like the same level of "punishment".
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A problem is this as well, for a war you need active nobles, good marshal and an infrastructure. Okay, you can fight a war without those but you will probably lose. Times of peace are great for building up infrastructure, but it sucks for the first two requirements. To get those you need war, but you dont have war because you dont have them.
circle..
Bullplop. Every realm is bound to have at least one person in it who is skilled at BM warfare. If you have just one guy who knows his warfare, then you can use him to teach others. !@#$, if the Capets were still around I'd make one of my characters a tactician-for-hire.
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Don't forget, the dev team has come up with some pretty far-reaching ideas for implementing a new system, part of whose aim would be to replace Too Much Peace.
The gist of the system is that every realm would, at any given time, be either on a war footing or a peace footing. No realm could stay on either footing indefinitely without certain consequences.
These consequences (though the details haven't all been ironed out, and won't be until after the Doctrine transition is over) would follow logically from the nature of peace and war footings, and would be designed in such a way as to avoid making it harder for a peaceful realm to go back to war.
I don't really see the need to experiment with other systems, or (even more so) attempts at quick patches, before we've done some more serious work on the one we've already partially planned out.
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Sounds reasonable; the idea would be to make penalties for peace that do not fundamentally cripple the ability to prepare for war, and make penalties for war that do not fundamentally cripple a realm's ability to seek peace. It's a tricky balance, but not inherently disequilibriated.
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FEI is nearly dead. The only war taking place now is Arcaea v. Arcachon. And I hear that one is pretty darn boring.
:-[
Ah...That's...more or less my fault. I had anticipated the Arcaean/Arcachonian war would be over far sooner than this (most recently, I wasn't anticipating that the TO attempts of Enlod would fail completely when the stats were rock bottom for Arcachon and at 100% sympathy to Arcaea, and there have been several other points where I thought "this must be it!"). If/when (please god soon) that finishes, I can promise lots and lots of fighting, though possibly not of a kind anyone anticipates. Even if Arcachon somehow manages to survive (though, for the obvious reasons, I hope they don't).
I know that's...pretty weak...and kinda pathetic...But I think I may have figured out a way to crack several systemic BM problems.
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A problem is this as well, for a war you need active nobles, good marshal and an infrastructure. Okay, you can fight a war without those but you will probably lose. Times of peace are great for building up infrastructure, but it sucks for the first two requirements. To get those you need war, but you dont have war because you dont have them.
circle..
Which as was posted before is half the problem. People need to get over the fear of losing. Perhaps the whole combat mechanics need to be changed so that there is some fun in losing?
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Which as was posted before is half the problem. People need to get over the fear of losing. Perhaps the whole combat mechanics need to be changed so that there is some fun in losing?
Why should there be fun in losing? There should be more reward for taking risks, then losing is just part of the process.
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Why should there be fun in losing? There should be more reward for taking risks, then losing is just part of the process.
Generally cause losing is part of the game, and people like to have fun while playing a game. So long as losing is not fun, you will need massive rewards to make risk adverse people consider war. I'm not suggesting that losing be as much fun as destroying your enemy, just that it has some element to ensure it just doesn't suck.
What that could be I don't know. I already enjoy losing, plenty of scope for RP's about Heroic last stands. And vengeance, plenty of material for some serious plans of vengeance. Mmm wonder if a game mechanic could be created around vengeance.
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Which as was posted before is half the problem. People need to get over the fear of losing. Perhaps the whole combat mechanics need to be changed so that there is some fun in losing?
I don't think it's just fear of losing. In several cases, it's mostly due to the lack of advantages. And I am not speaking here about noble-based advantages because that's not the point. I am just saying that once a realm wins and reduces his neighbors to tiny puppet, there will be stagnation. The large realm will have little point to pursue in further war activities: it's already large and it's already powerful. What's the point of pushing it further? Yes, the small realms should plan revenge and somehow try to actively plan for a future war and things like these, but their chances of success are so slim that no one does that and contents itself with sitting down.
all in all the main reason is that players lack the will (and perhaps the incentive) to change things, or that is my impression. Normally one would think that the strive for power will fuel enough conflicts - internal when external is not an option - yet if you take your time to think about it you'll see that very few dukes would gain that much from seceding and drawing a very likely war upon themselves. The same holds for rebellions. Very few lords would gain from changing allegiance and messing things up. In short: messing things up is almost never useful, the status quo is most of the times the best situation one can reasonably hope to find.
At least that is my experience. Quite often I found myself saying "ok things are getting boring, what can we do to stir them up?" and I have then realised that unless I deliberately do something wrong and possibly stupid, things will never shake up. The most likely answer one would get when asked "ok but why is there not an intra-SA conflict?" or "why is not one of the dukes of sirion seceding since it's so big" or "why is not SA trying to destroy the remaining non-theocratic realm bordering it" is again and again "why would we? what's the point in that?". And so playing reasonably and making your characters behaving rationally and not wildly very often leads to stagnation and boredom.
Unfortunately, I can't think easily of a solution for this. In general players should be more daring, but that's not happening not only because of "the fear of losing" but much more from the little they can gain from it. It's simply much more rewarding (in terms of promotions and ultimately gold gained) to play a noble to be good and loyal than wild and greedy.
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Make war a game in BM...which itself is a game.
Like in those books about future dystopias where war is just chess except with real humans. Like 1984 (kinda), or Ender's Game (Kinda as well).
Not perfect examples, but should inspire people. If not, then the inspiration is fluttering in the winds like a goat in the river.
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In general players should be more daring, but that's not happening not only because of "the fear of losing" but much more from the little they can gain from it. It's simply much more rewarding (in terms of promotions and ultimately gold gained) to play a noble to be good and loyal than wild and greedy.
I would suggest even more radically: in many circumstances, the optimal behavior for a wildly greedy character is to be loyal, noncontroversial, moderate, mainline, etc. You make more money and generally have more power as the duke in a large, stable, powerful realm than the duke of a realm with enemies everywhere.
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No realm could stay on either footing indefinitely without certain consequences.
Why should a realm be punished for staying in a war footing for a long time? The solution to too much peace is certainly not punishing realms for fighting all the time. And if a realm is being ganged up on, it may not have any choice but to keep fighting indefinitely.
And how come the Devs almost always reach for the stick first rather than the carrot? I often hear from Devs about how we ought to punish this, and ought to punish that, and almost never about rewarding the players for something.
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Why should a realm be punished for staying in a war footing for a long time? The solution to too much peace is certainly not punishing realms for fighting all the time. And if a realm is being ganged up on, it may not have any choice but to keep fighting indefinitely.
Well, this is the current version of the discussion. (Note that it is still a discussion, not even a completed design—let alone code.)
The idea is that you need to have cycles of peace and war, so that you can take some time to rebuild after a long period of fighting.
And how come the Devs almost always reach for the stick first rather than the carrot? I often hear from Devs about how we ought to punish this, and ought to punish that, and almost never about rewarding the players for something.
First: It's impressive that you already know how we're going to implement the incentives for being on one footing or the other, when we don't even know for sure ourselves.
Second: If we give a bonus for being in one mode, that will quickly come to be seen as a penalty for being in the other. It's all a matter of perspective. The difference between a punishment and the lack of a reward is purely whether or not you're used to getting that reward as a matter of course.
If you're given X, Y, and Z as bonuses all the time (which you never had before), but then get X taken away from you if you do A rather than B...have you been punished for doing A? Or have you been given reward for doing B?
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One thing I've noticed is that war is expensive--repeatedly recruiting, losing income to looting, rebuilding walls, etc. Perhaps if recruiting costs were lower, or something along those lines, that would help?
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Lowering recruiting costs affects both sides equally. So lowering them is, in general, a wash. Unless you want to only lower them for the poor side, whatever that may be. But then you're giving yet more bonuses to the smaller realms. (Or is that really punishing large realms by making them pay more for recruiting? :P)
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Why should a realm be punished for staying in a war footing for a long time? The solution to too much peace is certainly not punishing realms for fighting all the time. And if a realm is being ganged up on, it may not have any choice but to keep fighting indefinitely.
And how come the Devs almost always reach for the stick first rather than the carrot? I often hear from Devs about how we ought to punish this, and ought to punish that, and almost never about rewarding the players for something.
We are considering all that, which makes the design process take a while.
And we aren't reaching for sticks. When we say "punish this" you could just as well read "reward the opposite". What we're doing is changing aspects of the game so that some things that we want to encourage are more advantageous than other things that we want to discourage. Calling it a stick or a carrot is purely a matter of perspective.
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What about...repair costs? Lower pay for troops away from home (since they can loot in their spare time!)?
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What about...repair costs? Lower pay for troops away from home (since they can loot in their spare time!)?
That's interesting. Afaik, armies were often kept in the field with the spoils of war. This would make war less expensive. Also, it would mean mockery wars, meaning simply being at war without any actual fighting), would not gain any bonuses.
Of course, those extra incomes could be used to strengthen the armies beyond the limits of the realm income, providing a bonus in fighting strength as well.
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What about...repair costs? Lower pay for troops away from home (since they can loot in their spare time!)?
That would mean the army would damage whatever region they were in. All that extra gold doesn't come out of nowhere.
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That would mean the army would damage whatever region they were in. All that extra gold doesn't come out of nowhere.
I refer to that as realism, and an additional incentive to remove that army.
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That's an interesting idea - looting a region in order to repair and feed your unit (you can already pay it that way).
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I refer to that as realism, and an additional incentive to remove that army.
It doesn't bother me too much. But your allies are really going to hate it when your army starts destroying your countryside while they help you fight. Especially annoying if you can't stop your own troops from looting your allies to support themselves.
This is sure to be an unpopular "feature".
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And we aren't reaching for sticks. When we say "punish this" you could just as well read "reward the opposite". What we're doing is changing aspects of the game so that some things that we want to encourage are more advantageous than other things that we want to discourage. Calling it a stick or a carrot is purely a matter of perspective.
A matter of perspective yes, but one that relies heavily on how it is presented by the game mechanics. The old TMP for example: I suppose one way to look at it is that you get a bonus to your peasants' tax tolerance for going to war, but there was nothing overt to queue players that their serfs' tax tolerance was rising. You might not even realize at all that you could safely raise your taxes during a war, particularly if you were not the kind of player who learns about mechanics by coming to this forum. However, it was made quickly and *painfully* clear when that 'bonus' went away, as if you weren't paying close attention, region morale could suddenly plummet drastically within a few days due to your taxes suddenly being far too high. This made the effect feel like a penalty for peace, not a bonus for war.
A simple adjustment to the daily region maintenance messages could have reframed this. A simple notice that the peasants eagerness to contribute to the war effort causes tax tolerance to increase, for example, coupled with warning messages about the bonus going away prior to when the morale penalties would kick in. Perception can be strongly influenced by the way the mechanic is presented, and whatever new alternative arises to replace TMP, careful thought should be given to how the effects are presented to the players via the game interface.
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It doesn't bother me too much. But your allies are really going to hate it when your army starts destroying your countryside while they help you fight. Especially annoying if you can't stop your own troops from looting your allies to support themselves.
This is sure to be an unpopular "feature".
Agreed, but very realistic. It was a truism of warfare for a long time that no matter which side was winning, the peasants were losing. Armies often supported themselves by living off the countryside, whether they were in 'friendly' territory or not.
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Agreed, but very realistic. It was a truism of warfare for a long time that no matter which side was winning, the peasants were losing. Armies often supported themselves by living off the countryside, whether they were in 'friendly' territory or not.
Add in a unit setting? "Allow auto-looting?" If turned on, your units would use a few hours every turn to find their own wages, no matter where they are. If turned off, all the costs would be added to their pay check.
It would even let Lords loot their own peasants if they'd want to.
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Agreed, but very realistic. It was a truism of warfare for a long time that no matter which side was winning, the peasants were losing. Armies often supported themselves by living off the countryside, whether they were in 'friendly' territory or not.
Oh I agree. It does fit in with the popular conception and depiction of armies. (And I would concede that it is historically accurate, although I really don't have any specific knowledge to support it.) It's just... not fun within the context of the game to have your own armies damaging your ally's lands as you march across the countryside to help him fight off the Evil Empire. It adds a negative component to marching to war. We don't want negatives. We want more reason for people to march to war, not more reasons to stay at home. So, yeah, it may be realistic. But so was dying of dysentery, and we don't put that in the game.
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We don't want negatives. We want more reason for people to march to war, not more reasons to stay at home. So, yeah, it may be realistic. But so was dying of dysentery, and we don't put that in the game.
(http://www.caffeinenebula.com/quizzes/quizFiles/oregontrail/dysentery.gif)
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Oh I agree. It does fit in with the popular conception and depiction of armies. (And I would concede that it is historically accurate, although I really don't have any specific knowledge to support it.) It's just... not fun within the context of the game to have your own armies damaging your ally's lands as you march across the countryside to help him fight off the Evil Empire. It adds a negative component to marching to war. We don't want negatives. We want more reason for people to march to war, not more reasons to stay at home. So, yeah, it may be realistic. But so was dying of dysentery, and we don't put that in the game.
Advantages:
Discourages gangbangs
Discourages blob armies
Encourages attacking realms closer to your own (well, you're not marching through allied territory if they're your enemy, right?)
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A matter of perspective yes, but one that relies heavily on how it is presented by the game mechanics. The old TMP for example: I suppose one way to look at it is that you get a bonus to your peasants' tax tolerance for going to war, but there was nothing overt to queue players that their serfs' tax tolerance was rising. You might not even realize at all that you could safely raise your taxes during a war, particularly if you were not the kind of player who learns about mechanics by coming to this forum. However, it was made quickly and *painfully* clear when that 'bonus' went away, as if you weren't paying close attention, region morale could suddenly plummet drastically within a few days due to your taxes suddenly being far too high. This made the effect feel like a penalty for peace, not a bonus for war.
The reason for this, in my opinion, is that many realms are, in fact, often at war. Therefore the ressources a realm has during wartime are defined as the "normal level", whether you want to call them bonuses or not.
The problem with TMP was not so much starting wars, it was what happened when they stopped. A realm that had been at war for a long time would get used to its war status. At some point, a realm could (*gasp*!) win the war. At that point it would be at peace. However TMP made winning look like a punishment. Moreover, because the realm had been at war prior and was used to it, it feels like it cannot go to war anymore because it is now not as strong as it was.
I think the idea of a war footing/peace footing as presented shows great promise to solve that problem. I think it is absolutely fine to give a bonus to a realm when it declares war - this would indeed incite realms to start wars. However, if this bonus diminishes with time, then actually winning the war will not feel like a punishment because nothing will be changing at that point. Moreover, starting a new war will not look impossible, it will look easier as intended.
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I think surrender may be the missing piece. There's no easy way of providing reparations, for one.
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Advantages:
Discourages gangbangs
Not really. It discourages traveling through allied or friendly lands. (Or, really, the lands of anyone you don't want to piss off.) This is not a requirement for "gangbanging". For example: Caligus and Perdan could both easily wail on Ibladesh without penalty with this proposed "discouragement" simply because one was on the Ibladeshian northern border, and one on the eastern border. They can both individually attack at will without passing through allied land.
Discourages blob armies
That depends. If the amount of damage is a linear figure based on number of troops, then spreading out the troops only spreads out the damage, which could be desirable or not, depending on the circumstances. Now, if the damage was non-linear, for example Troops^2, that would discourage blobbing while in your own or friendly realms.
However, this would also encourage blobbing once you cross into enemy territory. You would want to concentrate damage into one region at a time, so as to maximize the impact. Would you rather do 3 damage each to region A and B for two turns (for a total damage of 12), or 9 damage to A this turn and 9 damage to B next turn (for a total damage of 18)? Also, this would really screw over the defender. You are encouraging the attacker to blob in order to maximize the damage, but penalizing the defender for blobbing up to concentrate troops to combat the attacking enemy blob.
Encourages attacking realms closer to your own (well, you're not marching through allied territory if they're your enemy, right?)
Not directly. It encourages you to not march through allied lands. Thus you keep to enemy or rogue lands, which are likely to have crappy roads, slowing down your progress, making coordination difficult with mutli-turn moves, and generally slowing down the pace of the war to a crawl.
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Now, if the damage was non-linear, for example Troops^2, that would discourage blobbing while in your own or friendly realms.
I imagine that there should be a tolerance level for each region, probably dependent on population, for how many troops can be in-region before there start to be problems. Also, I suspect commanders wouldn't let their troops loot their own or allied regions, which would mean even less damage caused by friendly troops, although there should be some level (like you said, exponential) where problems start.
However, this would also encourage blobbing once you cross into enemy territory. You would want to concentrate damage into one region at a time, so as to maximize the impact. Would you rather do 3 damage each to region A and B for two turns (for a total damage of 12), or 9 damage to A this turn and 9 damage to B next turn (for a total damage of 18)?
Well...there's only so much gold to be had in a given region, especially with 'foraging'. Your men will be able to stay in the field longer if they are spread out a little.
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I think surrender may be the missing piece. There's no easy way of providing reparations, for one.
I think this is a very valid point. Lately too many wars are fought to the death because either the winners just see no point in keeping the enemy alive or the defeated just don't even try to negotiate, or that's at least my impression. This way grudges and other potential reasons for successive wars are often absent.
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I think this is a very valid point. Lately too many wars are fought to the death because either the winners just see no point in keeping the enemy alive or the defeated just don't even try to negotiate, or that's at least my impression. This way grudges and other potential reasons for successive wars are often absent.
True. Also, it keeps people from going to war because it means you're going 'all-in'. With surrender being a more valid option, you could attack your neighbour simply to seize a few regions in their absence, without risking to be destroyed yourself...
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With surrender being a more valid option
Surrender takes both parties to agree to a common set of terms. The reason that wars are fought "to the death" is because there's no common set of terms that both realms can agree on. For example, Caerwyn refused to accept the loss of the Godlen Farrow duchy, and chose to die instead. Astrum didn't truly kill Caerwyn. All the Caerwynians said "FU, Astrum!" and switched allegiance to Asylon. We even offered to help them retake Itau, and they snubbed their noses at us anyway.
Look at EC, with Ibladesh. The Caligus/Perdan "peace" terms were absolutely outrageous.
So, yes, some realms want to kill their enemies. But how many realms are willing to actually surrender and give up meaningful things, like significant amounts of land, in order to end the war?
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. But how many realms are willing to actually surrender and give up meaningful things, like significant amounts of land, in order to end the war?
Wouldn't you like to find out?
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That's why the new treaty system has these declarations of conquest, etc. - so a war can end when one side has reached its objective.
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So, yes, some realms want to kill their enemies. But how many realms are willing to actually surrender and give up meaningful things, like significant amounts of land, in order to end the war?
Well that is true, but maybe if there was a way to make reparations something more reliable and long-standing, the winners may sometimes think it would be a better deal to leave the defeated live and take their gold instead of burning everything to the ground and leaving only rogue devastated land behind. At least you would have a decent tradeoff for leaving a snake's nest alive in your backyard.
That's already possible, I know, but how often have you seen agreements such as "x gold must be delivered every month by a noble coming to our capital and sending it to the king" accepted and really happening for more than a short time?
Clearly it's not that productive to make critics without solutions, and certainly this is merely a side issue to the overall lack of interesting wars, but it's anyway a good remark I believe.
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A couple ideas I had:
1. Make it easier to fight further abroad. Change the Mercenary setting to be cheaper, such as instead of 50% have it at 25%. And/or make Mercenary units completely immune to distance from realm morale penalties. If they aren't already, I forget but the last time I had a unit set to Mercenary(years ago) I thought they still were affected by distance from the realm if not to the same degree as a regular unit.
2. Make it easier to protest your leaders out of office so new leadership can take power and change things when the realm has been at peace for a long time.
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The reason for this, in my opinion, is that many realms are, in fact, often at war. Therefore the ressources a realm has during wartime are defined as the "normal level", whether you want to call them bonuses or not.
The problem with TMP was not so much starting wars, it was what happened when they stopped. A realm that had been at war for a long time would get used to its war status. At some point, a realm could (*gasp*!) win the war. At that point it would be at peace. However TMP made winning look like a punishment. Moreover, because the realm had been at war prior and was used to it, it feels like it cannot go to war anymore because it is now not as strong as it was.
I think the idea of a war footing/peace footing as presented shows great promise to solve that problem. I think it is absolutely fine to give a bonus to a realm when it declares war - this would indeed incite realms to start wars. However, if this bonus diminishes with time, then actually winning the war will not feel like a punishment because nothing will be changing at that point. Moreover, starting a new war will not look impossible, it will look easier as intended.
Indeed.
Look at EC, with Ibladesh. The Caligus/Perdan "peace" terms were absolutely outrageous.
So, yes, some realms want to kill their enemies. But how many realms are willing to actually surrender and give up meaningful things, like significant amounts of land, in order to end the war?
Actually, that's a neat example.
Caligus and Perdan have, at least once or twice in each of their histories, accepted major punitive treaties very nearly forced upon them resulting in significant losses.
I remember the brief moment when Irombrozia was strong, with Enweil, and Rio was really threatened, and we were offering peace. As I remember, the peace treaty had strong support on the Riombaran side, despite being effectively punitive as our land grab was obviously unsustainable--- but the treaty was rejected by all the multis in Irombrozia that Twinblade (I have blocked out his actual name from my memory apparently) was running.
I think many realms actually would accept punitive treaties if they were offered more often, and if a return to peace looked likely to actually revitalize their realm, rather than bring on TMP penalties.
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I think many realms actually would accept punitive treaties if they were offered more often, and if a return to peace looked likely to actually revitalize their realm, rather than bring on TMP penalties.
Not in my experience on the Far East and Atamara. I've seen two kinds of peace treaties: 1. Everything goes back to pre-war, with minor changes allowed (one side pays one time reparations, for instance). 2. The losing side is so badly battered they cannot continue resisting in any way shape or form, but the winning side doesn't have the nobles to hold all the land, and some peace treaty is worked out based on then-current borders.
I am aware there are exceptions, but those exceptions, from everything I've seen, only exist in realms that have exceedingly long histories and older players running them, where the realm is still considered everything.
I think this is a very valid point. Lately too many wars are fought to the death because either the winners just see no point in keeping the enemy alive or the defeated just don't even try to negotiate, or that's at least my impression. This way grudges and other potential reasons for successive wars are often absent.
Speaking as someone who's been on both sides...The problem is more that the losing side tends to want the winning side to surrender. It's a bizarre phenomenon I've discussed with several players, and Tim quite a bit from a dev/design perspective. As a for instance, the last peace discussions between Arcaea and Arcachon fell apart because while Arcachon had mostly wrecked itself and then suffered a more or less unopposed campaign from Arcaea which looted a lot of what was left, lost half their nobles, and most importantly lost the chokepoint fortifications that had allowed them to stalemate things up to that point, their Ruler demanded three regions from Arcaea and higher food prices than the last treaty.
I saw the same thing happen with Ethiala, Soliferum, Abington, and various other realms over the years, and I've heard about many more.
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Surrender takes both parties to agree to a common set of terms. The reason that wars are fought "to the death" is because there's no common set of terms that both realms can agree on. For example, Caerwyn refused to accept the loss of the Godlen Farrow duchy, and chose to die instead. Astrum didn't truly kill Caerwyn. All the Caerwynians said "FU, Astrum!" and switched allegiance to Asylon. We even offered to help them retake Itau, and they snubbed their noses at us anyway.
Look at EC, with Ibladesh. The Caligus/Perdan "peace" terms were absolutely outrageous.
So, yes, some realms want to kill their enemies. But how many realms are willing to actually surrender and give up meaningful things, like significant amounts of land, in order to end the war?
They switched sides to Asylon and then the majority left to Madina, leaving us with about 4 Newbie Caerwynians and 1 ex-leader of Nisuler... The FU-army headed south.
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Add in a unit setting? "Allow auto-looting?" If turned on, your units would use a few hours every turn to find their own wages, no matter where they are. If turned off, all the costs would be added to their pay check.
It would even let Lords loot their own peasants if they'd want to.
Ummm... just thought I'd quote this very well thought out idea. Because everyone missed it, and this makes the issue of looting your allies a choice and not a matter of fact. It would also add some interesting rp elements if a Marshal ordered the army to do this in a realm currently at peace with his own.
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Ummm... just thought I'd quote this very well thought out idea. Because everyone missed it, and this makes the issue of looting your allies a choice and not a matter of fact. It would also add some interesting rp elements if a Marshal ordered the army to do this in a realm currently at peace with his own.
It would also add a dynamic to mercenary armies. "No need to pay us, we'll just collect our own wagers. From your lands."
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Ummm... just thought I'd quote this very well thought out idea. Because everyone missed it, and this makes the issue of looting your allies a choice and not a matter of fact. It would also add some interesting rp elements if a Marshal ordered the army to do this in a realm currently at peace with his own.
Indeed, having it as an option could be interesting.
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Ummm... just thought I'd quote this very well thought out idea. Because everyone missed it, and this makes the issue of looting your allies a choice and not a matter of fact. It would also add some interesting rp elements if a Marshal ordered the army to do this in a realm currently at peace with his own.
I like the idea, but how to implement? Have it use any spare hours? only hours in excess of a 12-hour pool?
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He already states that they would use some hours at the turn change (so you would get less hours per turn effectively, think of it like the way you have less hours to use after a battle, you also have less hours to use because your men are foraging each turn).
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He already states that they would use some hours at the turn change (so you would get less hours per turn effectively, think of it like the way you have less hours to use after a battle, you also have less hours to use because your men are foraging each turn).
I don't want to lose hours, I want the men to do this in their spare time, not when the army should be marching.
I would like a drop-down box to choose--either use all available hours, or be sure that I get 12 hours next turn.
Example: 25 year old, 5 hours remaining at turn change. Men could either use 1 hour looting, or 5 hours.
Example, 50 year old, 5 hours remaining: men either don't loot at all (because 5+6=11, so less than 12), or spend 5 hours.
We will also need to vary costs depending on the amount of looting done.
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I think that would cause problems with the payroll, making things more difficult than they should be. If you don't want to lose hours, pay your men. It could be that simple :) Basically, it would mean the reverse of being a Vanguard unit. Lower wage, lower travelling rate. (actually, you could make this a new unit setting even, just like Vanguard is. Vagabond?:P)
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I don't want to lose hours, I want the men to do this in their spare time, not when the army should be marching.
I would like a drop-down box to choose--either use all available hours, or be sure that I get 12 hours next turn.
Example: 25 year old, 5 hours remaining at turn change. Men could either use 1 hour looting, or 5 hours.
Example, 50 year old, 5 hours remaining: men either don't loot at all (because 5+6=11, so less than 12), or spend 5 hours.
We will also need to vary costs depending on the amount of looting done.
They are doing this in their spare time. Which they shouldn't have if they're marching...
Look at it this way. If you wanted to be on a hard march (think the 20 miles a day that the roman army was capable of back in the day), then you would march from sun up to sun down in a forced march. There would be no "spare time" in which to gather food from the country side and do a forced march, as you are saying you want to do. They would be sleeping any chance they get. In order to gather food, you would have to stop, organize a defensive postion (not necessarily build a temporary camp. I would consider that the dig-in option, which is not what you are doing), and then send out an organized foraging party so that they would not get taken out one by one. This takes time. Thus why clicking the "foraging" option (what we should really call it, to separate it from looting) would take some time out of the time you get each turn. I think a reasonable amount would be 2 or 3 hours per turn, thus you still get 6 or 5 hours a turn. Enough to slow you down a bit, but not so much that you can't do anything.
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Yeah...no thanks. It's already difficult enough getting armies to move cohesively without adding another potential delay in there. We made things better with "delay arrival", let's not make them worse again. Just put it under "Orders" like any other thing you can have your unit do.
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Just have all wasted hours (hours that would put you above 12) automatically used if you have it enabled.
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Just have all wasted hours (hours that would put you above 12) automatically used if you have it enabled.
There really aren't that many "auto" features in the game, I'm not sure I see this one getting through either. Besides if this happened at TC its just one more thing the scripts have to check and calculate, increasing the time taken for the turn to run.
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Yeah...no thanks. It's already difficult enough getting armies to move cohesively without adding another potential delay in there. We made things better with "delay arrival", let's not make them worse again. Just put it under "Orders" like any other thing you can have your unit do.
If this happens, this is how it will. I can imagine a unit action like this, but no automation.
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If this happens, this is how it will. I can imagine a unit action like this, but no automation.
So basically add an option to looting? "Find your own pay" :P
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If this happens, this is how it will. I can imagine a unit action like this, but no automation.
How about we make it like hunting enemies then? You click the order, it uses some hours, but doesn't run through until the end of the turn. (makes sense, since your men would be out foraging) This would make it not automatic.
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So I'll provide some high level reasons that I've seen in both Westmoor and Sirion not to goto war even though both have been at peace for some time.
In Westmoor:
- If we goto war with any of our eastern neighbors we'll get crushed by Sirion.
- If we goto war with our western neighbors we'll get crushed by their superior numbers.
- We cannot hope to play off Perdan/Caligus vs. Sirion/Nivemus at present.
In Sirion:
- If we goto war we can't gain anything due to a lack of nobles to fill estates. But damnit Oligarch is ours!
- We need to fight Westmoor for honor. But people don't want to just goto war for no reason. See above. (A candidate for PM had a rather length idea for a limited war of honor that was based on if we win X amount of large battles the winner gets a cash tribute paid to them by the loser. That was shot down as being dishonorable.
- We should wait for Nivemus to repair its regions before considering any future wars of aggression. For now we need to be able to appeal to being the injured party in a war.
In other words. Diplomacy is holding back a war b/c its unwinnable. Estates are holding back war because there is nothing to gain. Player RP'ing is restricting what is honorable/permissible. A lengthy protracted war where because we couldn't hold more regions due to a lack of nobles saw instead (this is true down south too) that looting regions until they went rogue was a better option in the war than holding on to them. Scorched earth warfare has led to completely devestated regions that are taking really long to repair.
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Wait, who do you consider your western neighbors? Obsidian Islands? Or Perdan?
And, seriously, you think Sirion would still come to Fontan's rescue? That treaty is over. Fontan needs to get up and stand on its own now.
But, meh... I left Fontan last week. Most. Boring. Realm. EVER. The entire EC is headed back to a giant peace just like before. The only ones that have a chance to break it is a Westmoor/Fontan war, or a Westmoor/Caligus war. Fontan/Caligus would just be dumb.
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Western would be Perdan. Caligus is more South... OI is North, but... Frankly, why would we want to fight for wasteland regions? :|
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So really what we need is a way to truly profit from wars that doesn't revolve around taking regions?
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So really what we need is a way to truly profit from wars that doesn't revolve around taking regions?
Taking captives? kidnapping trainers at RC's?
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What about...
Rulers are supposed to lead the realm, handle most diplomacy and are most of the times responsible for creating a war. If we would create a rule that if a realm doesn't fight in a war for "for example" 3 months, the ruler will be automatically be removed from his position so a new more war like ruler can be appointed. This should encourage rulers to make more effort to create a war if they want to keep their position.
Make a hard realm size rule, limit the size of a realm to prevent the current empire's we have at this moment, so that there won't be a huge difference between realms on the continent and wars become more "fair" with both sides having at least a chance on surviving. Let the size depend on the continent, so large continents can have larger realms. This would also allow for more colonies at defeated realms can only be taken over on that way.
Limit the amount of alliances and federations a realm can have to prevent powerblocks and incase a lot of informal alliances are made, let a titan act on it, we need to make the game competative and enjoyable and complete unbalanced wars don't help with that.
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What about...
Rulers are supposed to lead the realm, handle most diplomacy and are most of the times responsible for creating a war. If we would create a rule that if a realm doesn't fight in a war for "for example" 3 months, the ruler will be automatically be removed from his position so a new more war like ruler can be appointed. This should encourage rulers to make more effort to create a war if they want to keep their position.
Make a hard realm size rule, limit the size of a realm to prevent the current empire's we have at this moment, so that there won't be a huge difference between realms on the continent and wars become more "fair" with both sides having at least a chance on surviving. Let the size depend on the continent, so large continents can have larger realms. This would also allow for more colonies at defeated realms can only be taken over on that way.
Limit the amount of alliances and federations a realm can have to prevent powerblocks and incase a lot of informal alliances are made, let a titan act on it, we need to make the game competative and enjoyable and complete unbalanced wars don't help with that.
Maybe, yes and yes. I like the concept behind the first idea, but might be addressed by the other two, though. Realm sizes need some work; just look at Toupellon. And we can all point to AT as an example where realm size and diplomatic cockblocks conspire to kill fun.
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It would move BM even more towards strategy though, further away from role-play. And it still won't make people /want/ to go to war, which was kind of the point, no?
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It would move BM even more towards strategy though, further away from role-play. And it still won't make people /want/ to go to war, which was kind of the point, no?
It would remove reasons like, " we won't fight because we would have no chance to survive/win" as sides would be more balanced.
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Perhaps a start would be to make battles more appealing? If we can make that happen, then perhaps people will be more eager to get into the fight, and push their realm leaders to seek out new wars. One idea: Maybe victorious units could replenish their losses with captured/deserted enemy soldiers. Such a thing was not uncommon in the middle ages, I believe.
Another issue with TMP is that it punished the entire realm, which in effect ended up punishing the lower ranked nobles more than anyone, when it could just be a select few high ranked nobles blocking wars to protect their own selfish interests. Perhaps more personal punitive measures for realm leaders avoiding war would give them more incentive to find wars. Give rulers honor/prestige penalties if their realms are at peace for too long, maybe.
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....define peace within the context of the new treaty system?
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Maybe, yes and yes. I like the concept behind the first idea, but might be addressed by the other two, though. Realm sizes need some work; just look at Toupellon. And we can all point to AT as an example where realm size and diplomatic cockblocks conspire to kill fun.
For the first idea: how about giving rulers a (invisible) personal glory stat which would give all kind of bonuses for their realm? For example: slightly better chance for good RCs (I know many are frustrated by the ridiculous amount of below average RCs get built), morale bonus when he's participating in battles, etc...
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....define peace within the context of the new treaty system?
The old treaty system should be phased out first. Maybe the more fine-grained new system will be helping?
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The old treaty system should be phased out first. Maybe the more fine-grained new system will be helping?
At this time, we're afraid the new system is too fine-grained. For example, it makes things that the game-engine needs to know a bit tricky, like answerting the question "who are enemy troops"?
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At this time, we're afraid the new system is too fine-grained. For example, it makes things that the game-engine needs to know a bit tricky, like answerting the question "who are enemy troops"?
Everyone, simple and effective.
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At this time, we're afraid the new system is too fine-grained. For example, it makes things that the game-engine needs to know a bit tricky, like answerting the question "who are enemy troops"?
How is this not solvable by an internal state check for hostilities? If there is some sort of declaration between realms, it will check through other agreements and sort itself out pre-turn?
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How is this not solvable by an internal state check for hostilities? If there is some sort of declaration between realms, it will check through other agreements and sort itself out pre-turn?
Or an internal state that says X is not an enemy would do the same thing...
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Or an internal state that says X is not an enemy would do the same thing...
It has to do with multiple treaties, conflict treaties, defence treaties and the like. The code to decide who attacked, who defended and who fought was complicated enough when you could only have one treaty with each realm.
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All right, simple enough. A treaty cannot by definition occur during a turn change, so it'll make modifying the database rather trivial.
Each region has an encounter setting matrix that defines what happens if people, or troops are encountered by each realm at the turn change. This is modified by the various treaty types during each round before the turn. The matrix is actually multiple nested cells of arrays.
So for instance lets have three realms. With only three regions. I'll use matlab notation as its what I'm most familiar with. {region ID; owner ID}{1,nobles(1);troops(2)}(1:3,1:3)
So we're in region 1 owned by realm 1 and we want to know if we should arrest a noble from realm 2 So we go If {1,:}{1,1}(1,2}==1 then Arrest End If its combat for the same then it's just {1,:}{1,1}(1,2)==1 Then Blligerancy=1
You can use this then to set the belligerancy of any troops who would then enter into combat. You could even have it check who should be attacking and defending when setting that boolean.
To change a treaty you can then go through and look for regions that are owned by 1. If {x,2}==realm ID then {x,1}{1,:}(1,2)=1 {x,1}{1,:}(2,1)=1 Lets say that 3 has a defense treaty with 1. When 2 declares on 1 the code can check to see if there is a defense treaty between 1 and any other realm. If a region changes hands at the turn change it simiply copies the encounter matrix of any already owned region by the conquering realm, no need to recalculate it.
Any similar scheme would work. It's just a matter of doing encounters on a region by region basis.
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All right, simple enough. A treaty cannot by definition occur during a turn change, so it'll make modifying the database rather trivial.
Each region has an encounter setting matrix that defines what happens if people, or troops are encountered by each realm at the turn change. This is modified by the various treaty types during each round before the turn. The matrix is actually multiple nested cells of arrays.
So for instance lets have three realms. With only three regions. I'll use matlab notation as its what I'm most familiar with. {region ID; owner ID}{1,nobles(1);troops(2)}(1:3,1:3)
So we're in region 1 owned by realm 1 and we want to know if we should arrest a noble from realm 2 So we go If {1,:}{1,1}(1,2}==1 then Arrest End If its combat for the same then it's just {1,:}{1,1}(1,2)==1 Then Blligerancy=1
You can use this then to set the belligerancy of any troops who would then enter into combat. You could even have it check who should be attacking and defending when setting that boolean.
To change a treaty you can then go through and look for regions that are owned by 1. If {x,2}==realm ID then {x,1}{1,:}(1,2)=1 {x,1}{1,:}(2,1)=1 Lets say that 3 has a defense treaty with 1. When 2 declares on 1 the code can check to see if there is a defense treaty between 1 and any other realm. If a region changes hands at the turn change it simiply copies the encounter matrix of any already owned region by the conquering realm, no need to recalculate it.
Any similar scheme would work. It's just a matter of doing encounters on a region by region basis.
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The code has always worked region by region, since the matter we are trying to solve affects the armies in a particular region. Its not a matter of treaties changing, its a matter of the number of differing treaties realms can have with each other, and with interpretations of those treaties. For example we need to define how defence treaties work with regards to conquest treaties. Should realms that have a defence treaty with you only defend against the "enemy" if the enemy is attack one of the regions specified in the conquest treaty? Should they defend any of your regions or should they engage the enemy whenever they find them.
Implementing isn't a huge deal, though implementing in a clean, efficient and easy to follow matter would be a bit more of a challenge. The problem has always been defining the outcome for every possible combination, then doing so again and again as more realms are added. This is why people get upset with the current system when they are forced to the sideline when they thought they would aid an ally, or end up involved in a battle they wanted no part in.
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It seems rather clear to me that a defense treaty is only for defense, and should only defend against an enemy realm of that region.
So if you're in a neutral realm between two realms that are antagonistic towards one of your defense mates there is no battle. If you want someone to help you run a conquest of a region you need to get them to declare it, not just assume it'll happen from a defense treaty. I may want to help you defend against X, but I don't want to automatically help you fight y.
The only curious thing would be if passage rights attended to the only times when there is a peaceful encounter. Personally I think two realms that aren't in direct conflict should be able to pass through neutral realms unhindered (given I think relations are tied to a region not to a realm).
Once its defined how they all work then its rather trivial.
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It has to do with multiple treaties, conflict treaties, defence treaties and the like. The code to decide who attacked, who defended and who fought was complicated enough when you could only have one treaty with each realm.
The code could be set up to so that troops have three possible state depending on the treaties: side with the attackers, side with the defenders, or be confused. If the are confused, they have a 1/3 chance of siding with either side or sitting it out. Make sure that the confused status of the troops is clearly indicated by the flavour text of the batte.
Realms who don't like this need only to stop writing contradictory treaties.
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At first I was like ??? ...
But then I was like ;D
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The code could be set up to so that troops have three possible state depending on the treaties: side with the attackers, side with the defenders, or be confused. If the are confused, they have a 1/3 chance of siding with either side or sitting it out. Make sure that the confused status of the troops is clearly indicated by the flavour text of the batte.
Realms who don't like this need only to stop writing contradictory treaties.
Speaking as someone who plays Generals and Marshals, that would just make me less likely to order attacks, because I can no longer predict whether my side would win the battle or not. Fewer attack orders = fewer battles = less fun for everyone.
It's always best to make the system consistent and predictable. I believe the current behavior for "confused" troops is to not participate in the battle. Why change it if it's not broken?
And before you say "just stop writing contradictory treaties then", keep in mind that you need two realms in order to have an alliance. Sometimes you don't have much choice in which realms to ally with. Sometimes those realms are ruled by nobles whose competence, intelligence, and judgement that you deplore in private. ;) On top of that, you have zero choice on whether another realm declares war on you, or attacks you while neutral. If an ally of an ally of an ally attacks my realm (crazy but I've seen it happen), figuring out what would happen when and where is hard enough already. Please don't introduce randomness on top of that.
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GoldPanda,
That's exactly what they are discussing--how to make the new diplomacy less confusing and more predictable than the current system.
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Speaking as someone who plays Generals and Marshals, that would just make me less likely to order attacks, because I can no longer predict whether my side would win the battle or not. Fewer attack orders = fewer battles = less fun for everyone.
If you want to make sure that your realm fights your enemies, then make sure your diplomacy is clear. Then you will know who you will fight, who you won't fight, who will fight on your side, and who will not.
It's always best to make the system consistent and predictable. I believe the current behavior for "confused" troops is to not participate in the battle. Why change it if it's not broken?
In some instances, it is broken. I've been involved in enough cases that the battle setup was absolutely *not* what it should have been, or what logic would have determined it would be. Yet according to the current system, later analysis determined that what happened was exactly what the code intended to happen. Even though it made no sense...
And before you say "just stop writing contradictory treaties then", keep in mind that you need two realms in order to have an alliance. Sometimes you don't have much choice in which realms to ally with. Sometimes those realms are ruled by nobles whose competence, intelligence, and judgement that you deplore in private. ;) On top of that, you have zero choice on whether another realm declares war on you, or attacks you while neutral. If an ally of an ally of an ally attacks my realm (crazy but I've seen it happen), figuring out what would happen when and where is hard enough already.
You are correct. You cannot control when and if someone else declares war on you. But you can control who you declare war on. And if you want to fight Evilstani, then declare war on Evilstani, and you will fight them. So, no you may not be able to keep everyone else's diplomacy clean, but you can keep yours clean.
Oh, and if your "allies" can't keep their diplomacy clean, then perhaps you need to steer clear of them. Or teach them how to do it right, too.
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In some instances, it is broken. I've been involved in enough cases that the battle setup was absolutely *not* what it should have been, or what logic would have determined it would be. Yet according to the current system, later analysis determined that what happened was exactly what the code intended to happen. Even though it made no sense...
It's the "later analysis" that makes me tick. Currently, the code is set up that there is always a "right" thing to do for the troops. Therefore when something not predicted happens, the reaction is "the code is wrong".
If it was made clear that this is due to a contradiction in the treaties, it would be an IC event.
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It's the "later analysis" that makes me tick. Currently, the code is set up that there is always a "right" thing to do for the troops. Therefore when something not predicted happens, the reaction is "the code is wrong".
If it was made clear that this is due to a contradiction in the treaties, it would be an IC event.
After the battle, if you (or your character IC) look at the treaties in place, it will become clear why the armies took the sides they did.
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A lot of the "confusing situations" would go away if we make alliances transitive. Allying with a realm means allying with all of its allies. Declaring war on a realm means declaring war on all of its allies. Of course a realm can choose to not actually participate in the war, but if it wished to officially leave the war early, or was forced to surrender first, it would also have to leave its alliance bloc.
It seems to me that this would encourage smaller realms and larger wars, both of which are generally considered to be "good things".
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A lot of the "confusing situations" would go away if we make alliances transitive. Allying with a realm means allying with all of its allies. Declaring war on a realm means declaring war on all of its allies. Of course a realm can choose to not actually participate in the war, but if it wished to officially leave the war early, or was forced to surrender first, it would also have to leave its alliance bloc.
It seems to me that this would encourage smaller realms and larger wars, both of which are generally considered to be "good things".
That would just hurt wars. Nobody would even consider declaring against a member of a large alliance block in that case, since the game mechanics would instantly make them declare war against so many other realms. You would be left in the position of realms IGNORING war decelerations, or having to march to war because of them.
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That would just hurt wars. Nobody would even consider declaring against a member of a large alliance block in that case, since the game mechanics would instantly make them declare war against so many other realms.
Tell that to all the realms that declared war on Cagilan Empire et al. ;D All you need is a bigger bloc than the other guy, or maybe subvert and break down your opponent's bloc beforehand.
You would be left in the position of realms IGNORING war decelerations, or having to march to war because of them.
Sounds like a good source of inter-realm and pvp conflict, and getting mad at your allies for not helping you against a common enemy. I mean, heaven forbid that we drag realms into wars when they don't want to fight. :P
And you forgot a third option: Leave your current alliance bloc and make peace.
I'm not claiming it's a perfect system. If the devs are discussing improvements to the current diplomacy system, I figured you guys would want some player suggestions/feedback. I'm just throwing ideas out here.
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Tell that to all the realms that declared war on Cagilan Empire et al. ;D All you need is a bigger bloc than the other guy, or maybe subvert and break down your opponent's bloc beforehand.
And for how long did wars suffer on that continent specifically BECAUSE you needed a larger better co-ordinated bloc to even stand a chance?
Sounds like a good source of inter-realm and pvp conflict, and getting mad at your allies for not helping you against a common enemy. I mean, heaven forbid that we drag realms into wars when they don't want to fight. :P
No, we don't want to drag realms into a massive gang bang because of a common enemy. For all we know the realm has good relations with everyone else IN the bloc, so the common enemy may be an attitude forced upon them by game mechanics rather then reflecting actual politics.
And you forgot a third option: Leave your current alliance bloc and make peace.
Do you really see a realm leaving a successful alliance just because some other realm decided to go to war with one of the members and game mechanics FORCE that war upon everyone? I certainly don't. Like I said the likely outcome is people ignoring the war deceleration, or being force to team up against a realm because of over reaching game mechanics.
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Why not make diplomacy simpler by reducing it to 3 levels? Alliance, neutrality/peace and war. Surely that would reduce the complexity of the whole code?
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And for how long did wars suffer on that continent specifically BECAUSE you needed a larger better co-ordinated bloc to even stand a chance?
I may be suffering from selective memory here, but as I recall only Coria and maybe Talerium was suffering from TMP significantly. CE and allies conquered Falasan, and was in the process of curb-stomping BoM when six other reams piled onto CE and its allies.
No, we don't want to drag realms into a massive gang bang because of a common enemy. For all we know the realm has good relations with everyone else IN the bloc, so the common enemy may be an attitude forced upon them by game mechanics rather then reflecting actual politics.
If you have such good relations with every other realm in the bloc, then ask them to kick your target out of their bloc. If they refuse, then I guess you were not such good friends after all.
And your hypothetical scenario seems unlikely to me. Group-think tends to settle into an alliance bloc pretty quickly. People are social creatures and want to agree with their friends.
Do you really see a realm leaving a successful alliance just because some other realm decided to go to war with one of the members and game mechanics FORCE that war upon everyone? I certainly don't. Like I said the likely outcome is people ignoring the war deceleration, or being force to team up against a realm because of over reaching game mechanics.
If an even bigger bloc declared war on your bloc, jumping ship will suddenly look a lot more attractive.
And what's wrong with ignoring a war declaration? Under-the-table negotiations with the "enemy" to stay out of the war de facto seems perfectly reasonable and BM-ish to me, especially if your allies are preoccupied enough to let you get away with it.
Look, we're not going to reduce the number of possibly confusing diplomacy configurations by making the system more complicated. And if we make things more simplified, the diplomacy system will not be as expressive as before. We're going to have to balance between clarity and nuance here.
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I may be suffering from selective memory here, but as I recall only Coria and maybe Talerium was suffering from TMP significantly. CE and allies conquered Falasan, and was in the process of curb-stomping BoM when six other reams piled onto CE and its allies.
If you have such good relations with every other realm in the bloc, then ask them to kick your target out of their bloc. If they refuse, then I guess you were not such good friends after all.
And your hypothetical scenario seems unlikely to me. Group-think tends to settle into an alliance bloc pretty quickly. People are social creatures and want to agree with their friends.
If an even bigger bloc declared war on your bloc, jumping ship will suddenly look a lot more attractive.
And what's wrong with ignoring a war declaration? Under-the-table negotiations with the "enemy" to stay out of the war de facto seems perfectly reasonable and BM-ish to me, especially if your allies are preoccupied enough to let you get away with it.
Look, we're not going to reduce the number of possibly confusing diplomacy configurations by making the system more complicated. And if we make things more simplified, the diplomacy system will not be as expressive as before. We're going to have to balance between clarity and nuance here.
Sure, but the whole REASON for the diplomacy changes was to make power Blocs and group thinking LESS appealing, not reinforce them via game mechanics.
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I thought the reason was to make attacker/defender resolution during battles less of a guessing-game for humans. :P
I honestly don't know how you go about discouraging alliance blocs, short of disabling alliances. Every island I have a char in (Atamara, EC, Dwilight) have alliance blocs. BT had blocs the last time I played there. The first order of business for a new realm anywhere is usually, "are we in a bloc, and if not, how do we get into one?"
I hear FEI is the "lol-so-random" island, so maybe things are different there. Colonies seem to be too small to have significant alliances.
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I thought the reason was to make attacker/defender resolution during battles less of a guessing-game for humans. :P
I honestly don't know how you go about discouraging alliance blocs, short of disabling alliances. Every island I have a char in (Atamara, EC, Dwilight) have alliance blocs. BT had blocs the last time I played there. The first order of business for a new realm anywhere is usually, "are we in a bloc, and if not, how do we get into one?"
I hear FEI is the "lol-so-random" island, so maybe things are different there. Colonies seem to be too small to have significant alliances.
The need to maintain new treaties or they dissolved was designed to prevent large blocks from forming without SIGNIFICANT effort to maintain those treaties. This combined with the fact the new treaties are more specific results in a mass of treaties being needed to replicate the current Alliance and Federation status, and an accompanying burden of maintenance.
The unintended effect of more specific treaties is that it generates a even larger set of conditions to be checked for when battles are calculated. Thus the statement that perhaps we have made it too fine grained.
FEI politics are rather easy to follow. The main difference is that FEI has a good amount of rulers that consciously avoid forming power blocs in the AT sense. They did have a issue with too many allied realms though, even though the realms were not operating as a single empire, it did allow 1 or 2 realms to basically prevent any wars because they were allied with almost everyone, and could make threats of entering any war against the aggressors. Thankfully that realm proved to be so boring it fell apart.
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Dwilight blocs? Hah.
I hope you're not counting Luria as a bloc? It's a mini-continent, not a bloc.
Sanguis Astroism is a bloc... mostly because they've had an ample supply of people putting targets on their own back. Give'em a while to get frustrated at each other and they'll do it.
The Moot is a bloc, but even we struggle to keep unified.
Mostly, Dwilight blocs are just a prisoner's dilemma solution. If we cooperate, payoff is better for both, nobody loses, because payoff can be found in the wild. When the wild starts to run down, at least some realms will start to find asymmetric payoffs to violence, and start wars to capture those distributive anomalies.
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Dwilight blocs? Hah.
I hope you're not counting Luria as a bloc? It's a mini-continent, not a bloc.
Sanguis Astroism is a bloc... mostly because they've had an ample supply of people putting targets on their own back. Give'em a while to get frustrated at each other and they'll do it.
The Moot is a bloc, but even we struggle to keep unified.
Mostly, Dwilight blocs are just a prisoner's dilemma solution. If we cooperate, payoff is better for both, nobody loses, because payoff can be found in the wild. When the wild starts to run down, at least some realms will start to find asymmetric payoffs to violence, and start wars to capture those distributive anomalies.
If Bloc's functioned like the ones on Dwilight, they never would have been an issue. On Dwilight while powerful, they are also fragile, much like RL power blocs. Under the new system they will still exist, just they won't have that stale momentum that we sometime get with power blocs, where they have existed forever and feel like they would never change even if all the rulers started hurling insults at each other.
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Since TMP is gone, I have not seen wars diminishing, at least in the continents I play in. In Dwilight we have seen the start of a Lurian war, and in Atamara we have seen Suville winning the war against Carelia and now taking Riverholm from Caergoth. Beluaterra is under invasion, so hard to use it for comparison.
I am /very/ satisfied with the end of TMP, my characters have lately gained much more H/P than they used to.
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If Bloc's functioned like the ones on Dwilight, they never would have been an issue. On Dwilight while powerful, they are also fragile, much like RL power blocs. Under the new system they will still exist, just they won't have that stale momentum that we sometime get with power blocs, where they have existed forever and feel like they would never change even if all the rulers started hurling insults at each other.
You should ask Caergoth (Atamara) how its "stale" alliances are doing. Or Norland... oh wait.
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Hey, remember when people said they were gonna destroy CE or something?
Good times, man.
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Is there any new wars starting up? Everyone, mostly the people I know all are busy tending to the region maintenance. The war took quite a toll on lands. Something sort of rebuild, recruit, then we fight again. Nobody fight to the death anymore, everyone scare die, haha ;D
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Sanguis Astroism is a bloc... mostly because they've had an ample supply of people putting targets on their own back. Give'em a while to get frustrated at each other and they'll do it.
We already have. The last time we had a period of significant peace, Corsanctum and Morek almost went to war over Unterstrom. Then there was the Entai secession incident. Summerdale and LE really, really want to fight each other at some point. And then there was that time when the whole church almost fell apart. Or was that several times... ?
Things might be stabler in the east now with Allison out of the picture, but I predict that they'll start fighting soon, politically if not with actual armies.
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For the record, I am happy TMP is gone.
I advocated it strongly when it was first implemented, but then ended up realizing it did not do or behave as I expected it would. Mostly, it was punishing realms who could not go at war and often it was realms that wanted to go at war (or even who were already at war and fighting!). I'm happy that's gone.
I have not seen any decrease in warfare since. Is there much more? Perhaps not, I don't know. But a system that punishes small realms that are at war, for not being at war enough, just didn't have its place. RP should dictate how we play, not code that cannot factor in subtleties and context.
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To really know the effect, we would need to wait for the wars that were started DURING the TMP period to end. Most the large wars are still a continuation of those.
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To really know the effect, we would need to wait for the wars that were started DURING the TMP period to end. Most the large wars are still a continuation of those.
Indeed.
On the other hand, you haven't seen any of these wars end, just because they weren't being pushed in the back anymore, either.
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Indeed.
On the other hand, you haven't seen any of these wars end, just because they weren't being pushed in the back anymore, either.
Much harder to end a war. Once they are going they tend to have momentum to continue, if for no other reason then people generally want peace terms that favour their realm. The problem has always been establishing that momentum
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Most the large wars are still a continuation of those.
So... which large wars are these? The only large war I know of is "Let's all kill CE." On every other island, the wars are all ending, with no new ones starting. Yes, TMP had it's problems. But without it, or something to replace it, all I see are wars ending, with none starting. And how long has it been since TMP was removed?
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So... which large wars are these? The only large war I know of is "Let's all kill CE." On every other island, the wars are all ending, with no new ones starting. Yes, TMP had it's problems. But without it, or something to replace it, all I see are wars ending, with none starting. And how long has it been since TMP was removed?
Well, BT's being invaded...
The lurias also all broke out in a big war. Pretty sure TMP was long gone by the time that blew up.
TMP or not, you can't have war all the time on all the continents.
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So... which large wars are these? The only large war I know of is "Let's all kill CE." On every other island, the wars are all ending, with no new ones starting. Yes, TMP had it's problems. But without it, or something to replace it, all I see are wars ending, with none starting. And how long has it been since TMP was removed?
EC: The southern realms are mopping up Ibladesh. The northern realms are having trouble holding onto their piece of Fontan because they don't have enough nobles to go around. Once the new estate system gets pushed to stable, you'll see more wars starting again. Nobles won't start wars when a third of their realm's regions are revolting.
AT: To quote another player, "AT is hopping".
BT: Invasion.
FEI: I don't play there, but from what I hear on the forums, there are still wars and shenanigans going on.
Colonies: LOL Colonies.
Edit: Dwilight: Plenty of wars in the south. The Astroists in the north are keeping occupied with fascinating theological discussions, I'm sure. TMP is pretty damaging to SMA as well, in my opinion.
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The Lurias don't count. If we forbid all wars, and took out all mechanics for being able to fight, the Lurians would still find a way to have a war. :D
I know, though, that you can't have war all the time. But you should at least have some wars. FEI is practically dead. EC... well, *yawn*...
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Well, BT's being invaded...
The lurias also all broke out in a big war. Pretty sure TMP was long gone by the time that blew up.
TMP or not, you can't have war all the time on all the continents.
Yes, but the players in Luria (ie me and others) actively push for wars everywhere we play. We aren't exactly the people that TMP targeted since we go out of our way to generate conflict,
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The Lurias don't count. If we forbid all wars, and took out all mechanics for being able to fight, the Lurians would still find a way to have a war. :D
I know, though, that you can't have war all the time. But you should at least have some wars. FEI is practically dead. EC... well, *yawn*...
If the Lurias don't count, then neither does the East Continent. Similar logic applies: if you took out all mechanics for being able to be at peace, the East Continent will still find a way to be at peace. Forgive my cynicism for that continent, but I hardly consider it to be a valid model to judge on TMP's effectiveness and necessity. Since I joined this game over five years ago, people on EC have *always* been whining about not having enough wars while all my characters had plenty of stuff on their hands on the other continents I played on... FEI also seems to be peace-prone.
On Dwi, Lurias's war, in conjunction with Madina's downfall, opens the door for all kinds of changes. Also, nothing suggests that SA, after all these wars, will be happy to just be at peace and talk of how praiseworthy the shiny skylights are. I have faith in Dwi being able to brew some new developments.
Yes, but the players in Luria (ie me and others) actively push for wars everywhere we play. We aren't exactly the people that TMP targeted since we go out of our way to generate conflict,
Then people who complain about not enough wars should stop following the people who want nothing but to sit on their titles. Simple enough solution. There aren't just 2 continents and 5 realms in the game, after all.
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The Lurias don't count. If we forbid all wars, and took out all mechanics for being able to fight, the Lurians would still find a way to have a war. :D
I know, though, that you can't have war all the time. But you should at least have some wars. FEI is practically dead. EC... well, *yawn*...
And now Fissoa is entering the war. I know of others either considering war or preparing for it. In Dwilight and Atamara (Beluaterra doesn't count) the end of TMP has not ended wars at all. In Dwilight they seem to have increased, but I think the new estates are also playing their role in it.
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FEI also seems to be peace-prone.
Very true. Relic of everyone working together during the war with Soliferum. I think a solution to that is in the offing.
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Very true. Relic of everyone working together during the war with Soliferum. I think a solution to that is in the offing.
Gods knows I tried to get the south to actually fight a war. But whenever a conflict arrives they use DIPLOMACY. It is enough to make a self respecting warmonger cry.
Then people who complain about not enough wars should stop following the people who want nothing but to sit on their titles. Simple enough solution. There aren't just 2 continents and 5 realms in the game, after all.
You have seen Tom say enough that its not peace master. I don't think its ever going to be okay to just say, oh that is the peaceful continent.
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I have to put something out there... FEI is probably going to erupt into widespread war now that Jenred is no longer around to strong-arm the other realms into following his lead. ^_^
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I have to put something out there... FEI is probably going to erupt into widespread war now that Jenred is no longer around to strong-arm the other realms into following his lead. ^_^
His lead WAS war. Matt consistently pushes for war. The south, mostly Cathay (well in the past) and Kindara constantly work to restrict Araean wars. That was the problem, Jenred couldn't strong arm the realms that had the capacity to restrict war on the island.
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My bad then, that's just what I've seen in my short time there.
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EC... well, *yawn*...
I have to concur with GoldPanda. With the new estate system expansion on EC will be much easier, with the consequence of much more potential for wars. Right now it's largely locked into "mh I could attack X, but then what? just driving everything rogue would be pointless"
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My bad then, that's just what I've seen in my short time there.
I completely understand how it looked that way, though. There weren't many.
The difficulty was in starting wars that wouldn't lead to being utterly, utterly crushed by a coalition of realms who didn't agree with the reasoning behind the war. I only managed that twice, and one of those times almost resulted in Arcaea getting seriously hurt, and that was with being the most powerful (at the time) Ruler with the most experience and the most favours on the continent.
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I have to concur with GoldPanda. With the new estate system expansion on EC will be much easier, with the consequence of much more potential for wars. Right now it's largely locked into "mh I could attack X, but then what? just driving everything rogue would be pointless"
Sirion is so big you'll probably still have that problem even with New Estates. There are other coding limits that will hurt you if you get too big, like distance from capital anarchy gains, refit times, and increased recruitment costs. You need to start taking the hegemonic line. Instead of taking territory, start making buffer states, and then start expanding your buffer states. I guess you already are kind of making buffer states. Keep working on them.
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Sirion is so big you'll probably still have that problem even with New Estates. There are other coding limits that will hurt you if you get too big, like distance from capital anarchy gains, refit times, and increased recruitment costs. You need to start taking the hegemonic line. Instead of taking territory, start making buffer states, and then start expanding your buffer states. I guess you already are kind of making buffer states. Keep working on them.
It's very hard to make buffer states with the old estates system given noble constraints.
Under new estates, buffer states are far easier to set up, because the losses from dispersing the nobility are much "softer."
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It's very hard to make buffer states with the old estates system given noble constraints.
Under new estates, buffer states are far easier to set up, because the losses from dispersing the nobility are much "softer."
Yes that's the point, and anyway that was not only restricted to sirion. with new estates founding new realms is much easier.
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Oh, hey guys. The Colonies is currently in TOTAL WAR. Job done, yeah?
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Oh, hey guys. The Colonies is currently in TOTAL WAR. Job done, yeah?
Oh man, I might go install Medieval II again just to hear the monk eulogising about an era of TOTAL WAR at the start. It feels apt >.<
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Storm clouds gather over the Colonies!
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Colonies have never been at peace, at least since I joined in 2007. Now, the wars take a long, LONG time to end...
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If you want wars... Kill King Dobro of Caligus and become ruler of Caligus and come up with some excuse for starting a war something like: "i wunt Ibladesh City undur da banur ov caligus!!!"
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Whether you like Caligus or not, and whether you like Dobby or not, you have to give credit where credit is due. Dobby/Caligus has been one of the few who are not scared of taking a chance and declaring a war. Almost all the big wars of late have been started/provoked by Caligus.
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Whether you like Caligus or not, and whether you like Dobby or not, you have to give credit where credit is due. Dobby/Caligus has been one of the few who are not scared of taking a chance and declaring a war. Almost all the big wars of late have been started/provoked by Caligus.
Yes, Dobby is like Jenred was, they actually work to keep the island interesting, even if it is a risk for their realm.
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Oh, hey guys. The Colonies is currently in TOTAL WAR. Job done, yeah?
Lukon, Oritolon vs Giblot/Minas Thalion
Outer Tilog vs Giblot
Almost all realms at war. Oh, yeah! :P
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Lukon, Oritolon vs Giblot/Minas Thalion
Outer Tilog vs Giblot
Almost all realms at war. Oh, yeah! :P
Assassins are at war with Giblot, they took Koolaris from them and helped drive their northern regions rogue.
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Assassins are at war with Giblot, they took Koolaris from them and helped drive their northern regions rogue.
Assassins known for their treachery and gold-driven. They will side with the winning side as usual 8)
Hmm, Giblot and Minas Thalion dying. Time to secede a few cities! ;D
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War is an essential part of Battlemaster, it's what makes the game fun. No one should sit on their computer and think "gee I hope there is nothing exciting happening in my realm today!" I relish the chance to take part in the conflicts of the realms I belong to. War makes the game fun, it adds that risk factor that gives you an adrenaline rush when you read battle reports (or at least as much of an adrenaline rush as you can get from a text based RPG...).
I agree with the first post that If GDoF had aided Madina sooner than Madina might have lasted a wee bit longer but Aurvandil has the strongest military on the continent and was able to raise that in a matter of a month or two. Madina stood no chance, even with the aide of GDoF they were only prolonging the inevitable..
But my original point remains the same, war makes the game fun, war is essential to the game. Players should not be afraid to lose what they have, otherwise they don't deserve it. So what if they "worked so very hard" to obtain a position or what have you. Half the fun is working to gain something and the other half is fighting to defend it. In mid-evil times if a noble was raised to a lordship and then it was threatened he would call his banner-men and fight to defend what he had earned. Why should Battlelmaster be any different.
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Personally I've been trying to move a few big realms into war.
Though The RP's breed from the boring peace in EC keeps it interesting for me.
though I can only speak for Sirion.
And I would LOVE to start a war ;D
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Personally I've been trying to move a few big realms into war.
Though The RP's breed from the boring peace in EC keeps it interesting for me.
though I can only speak for Sirion.
And I would LOVE to start a war ;D
As would I, but I find it works best when you have a legitimate in game reason for doing so. Just for the fun of it doesn't really work to most people... sad as it is...
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As would I, but I find it works best when you have a legitimate in game reason for doing so. Just for the fun of it doesn't really work to most people... sad as it is...
Well yea, The RP with out-side realms can spark something that could force battles and hurt feelings, all IC.
It just takes time in doing so.
And is alot of grind for just a small number of battles that end up in a cease-fire and then peace because the SENATE formed a treaty and thinks peace is the best thing.
I'm pro encouraging war on EC, we need a IC reason for making the rascal peace-breeder characters start fighting.
Something with magic or three new red moons or something.
Or someone could get assassinated... always an option.
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Manifest Path--eradicate the elves!
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Manifest Path--eradicate the elves!
No elder priests, last of the temples just fell apart. Guess the Elves win this one.
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No elder priests, last of the temples just fell apart. Guess the Elves win this one.
You'd have to start a 'new' religion on EC anyway.
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You'd have to start a 'new' religion on EC anyway.
Riombara (BT) would also welcome a new religion...
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Riombara (BT) would also welcome a new religion...
Liara's got one (http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Quintarianism) ready and waiting...I just need the time to devote to founding it.
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Well, now's the time, assuming BT doesn't get blighted entirely :)
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We simply need some fetures that can be used for times of peace or more roleplay.
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We simply need some fetures that can be used for times of peace or more roleplay.
Um why? New features to encourage LESS peace would be nice, but why make peace more attractive?
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Riombara (BT) would also welcome a new religion...
Don't worry, we'll make it a pleasure to come preach in your lands.
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Don't worry, we'll make it a pleasure to come preach in your lands.
Alright, we'll be getting the gallows ready!
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We'd expand, but the Blight is in the way... Sadly, even priests can't pass through the Blight.
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We'd expand, but the Blight is in the way... Sadly, even priests can't pass through the Blight.
To my sadness as well. I wish I could go spread the faith to Fronen...
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Um why? New features to encourage LESS peace would be nice, but why make peace more attractive?
You can not have war all the time. Plus you need in game reasons to do it.
Even war can very boring when the only meseges you get are either scout reports or marshal or general ordes.
IC meseges and roleplays are welcome and far more important than war.
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You can not have war all the time. Plus you need in game reasons to do it.
Even war can very boringwhen the only meseges you get are either scout reports or marshal or general ordes.
Regardless of war or peace nobles seem so rediculasly antisocial.
This sounds very much as though your problem has nothing to do with the options available in the game, and everything to do with the people you are playing it with.
Many realms are active and fun during peace and wartime.
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Peacetime can be quite fun too. Noble vs noble squables are fun and do not require war to ocur.
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Peacetime can be quite fun too. Noble vs noble squables are fun and do not require war to ocur.
They don't require peace either. The game isn't designed for CONSTANT peace, but there is no reason to make long periods of peace more desirable, there is more then enough incentive already.
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They don't require peace either. The game isn't designed for CONSTANT peace, but there is no reason to make long periods of peace more desirable, there is more then enough incentive already.
Wars are fertile lands for autocratic dissidence-squashing and information-holding with all the nationalistic manipulation possibilities. It's much easier to brand someone a traitor, during war, and have everyone go with it than it would be during peace time.
That doesn't mean that constant peace is desirable, but I'm just saying that squabbles are much more likely (and much more apt to become significant) during peace than during war.
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Unfortunately, many players don't use peacetimes for political power-struggles, so in reality there's not so much difference.
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Unfortunately, many players don't use peacetimes for political power-struggles, so in reality there's not so much difference.
Many don't, but that doesn't mean nobody does. Most political power-struggles the game has had could not have happened in war time if you ask me.
Which is why I tend to blame some players for being crappy rather than broadly declaring peace to inevitably be boring.
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Unfortunately, many players don't use peacetimes for political power-struggles, so in reality there's not so much difference.
I've never really seen political power struggles in wartime, while I've seen them in Luria as well as in Cathay and Toupellon, all in peacetime.
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I've never really seen political power struggles in wartime, while I've seen them in Luria as well as in Cathay and Toupellon, all in peacetime.
I find that a lot of roleplay oriented things sometimes fall to the wayside during war, especially on islands not called Dwilight. Realms lock in to very team-oriented play where it is all about doing what is necessary to beat the other team. Things like religion, the ideas of feudal hierarchy, and other roleplay necessary parts of the game often fall to the wayside when the the main concern for everyone is "how much CS are the enemy rallying? Where at? Ok everyone refit and rally to X! How many cavalry do they have? Archers? Okay attack! Nice fight everyone, lets refit quick!"
Most other things get ignored. At least, in my experience.
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I've never really seen political power struggles in wartime.
I have. It's always fun when two influential dukes squabble over some minor point, and threaten to pull their sponsored armies back from the front lines, or refuse to allow their armies to defend the other duke's lands.
while I've seen them in Luria as well as in Cathay and Toupellon, all in peacetime.
Toupellon has had some intrigue, and some moderately interesting arguments. We have yet to have a true power struggle between influential nobles.
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I've seen about two duels to the death in peace time or wartime. It's hard to tell with how some works. You can end up have a whole week with absolutly no battles.
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I have. It's always fun when two influential dukes squabble over some minor point, and threaten to pull their sponsored armies back from the front lines, or refuse to allow their armies to defend the other duke's lands.
I wouldn't say never as he did. I saw some struggles during war as well, but much much more during peace.
I have. It's always fun when two influential dukes squabble over some minor point, and threaten to pull their sponsored armies back from the front lines, or refuse to allow their armies to defend the other duke's lands.
Toupellon has had some intrigue, and some moderately interesting arguments. We have yet to have a true power struggle between influential nobles.
I've personally never seen this happen. I reckon it's a rather rare event.
I've seen about two duels to the death in peace time or wartime. It's hard to tell with how some works. You can end up have a whole week with absolutly no battles.
Death duels are very rare, even when the most serious squabbles occur.