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BattleMaster => Development => Feature Requests => Topic started by: House Talratheon on January 16, 2013, 02:19:32 PM

Title: Army War Chest Options
Post by: House Talratheon on January 16, 2013, 02:19:32 PM
Title: Army War Chest Options

Summary: Options for sponsors to allow the war chest distribution to be adjusted accordingly.

Details:
As it currently sits the war chest covers training, repairs, and sea travel by 50%. I propose to include options to include wages and perhaps even recruitment wages beyond that to also include the percentages therein. for example.

Sponsor - Duke Morguth:

Wages: 50%
Training: 50%
Repairs: 50%
Travel: 0%

Duke Morguth decides he doesn't feel like paying so much for the army, so he makes changes.

Wages: 25%
Training: 25%
Repairs: 25%
Travel: 0%


Benefits: More financial power to the sponsor i.e. good sponsor = greatly funded army. Due to options to spread funding to various expenditures armies would have the ability to field longer (though usually this is considered a bad thing) Also allows and encourages sponsors to be generally wealthy.

Possible Exploits: Only that a small army could be better funded than a large army and have a significant advantage.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: vonGenf on January 16, 2013, 02:24:38 PM
 I like the idea of using the chest for recruitment costs. It would not result in exploits because you still need to to move to the capital to recruit.

Paying wages from the war chest however would allow for the sponsor to sit in the capital and finance endless expeditions. I don't see that as a good thing either.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Indirik on January 16, 2013, 02:52:42 PM
Wages are intentionally a limiting factor in army travel and distance fighting ability. (As well as having that gold stolen by the enemy judge.) Despite which other options of this are considered, paying unit wages out of the war chest almost certainly will not be added.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: DamnTaffer on January 16, 2013, 02:57:13 PM
Wages are intentionally a limiting factor in army travel and distance fighting ability. (As well as having that gold stolen by the enemy judge.) Despite which other options of this are considered, paying unit wages out of the war chest almost certainly will not be added.

I agree about paying wages but the rest of the suggestion seems fine
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Bedwyr on January 16, 2013, 08:11:51 PM
Wages are intentionally a limiting factor in army travel and distance fighting ability. (As well as having that gold stolen by the enemy judge.) Despite which other options of this are considered, paying unit wages out of the war chest almost certainly will not be added.

Agreed.  All the rest looks good, but not wage paying.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: fodder on January 16, 2013, 08:14:11 PM
certainly wouldn't mind seeing sea travel disabled, for example... not least because my wealthy hero with 80 sf drains the budget a bit i would think.

not sure about the recruitment part..
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on January 16, 2013, 08:40:32 PM
Perhaps allow the sponsor to choose whether to support sea travel and recruitment, but the minimum support for the war chest always being repairs.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Eldargard on January 16, 2013, 09:46:55 PM
Why not just allow complete customization? Let the sponsor chose how much of what they want to pay from the war chest. It would certainly make some armies more desirable than others. Besides, this is a broad stroke thing. If the sponsor wants to pay fro 100% of recruitment, they will be paying for the neighboring dukes SF's if he is in the army as well as the new knights awesome archers.

Recruitment: 0-100%
Training: 0-100%
Repairs: 0-100%
Travel: 0-100%
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Dante Silverfire on January 17, 2013, 03:44:28 AM
Why not just allow complete customization? Let the sponsor chose how much of what they want to pay from the war chest. It would certainly make some armies more desirable than others. Besides, this is a broad stroke thing. If the sponsor wants to pay fro 100% of recruitment, they will be paying for the neighboring dukes SF's if he is in the army as well as the new knights awesome archers.

Recruitment: 0-100%
Training: 0-100%
Repairs: 0-100%
Travel: 0-100%

The problem with allowing this is that abuses are very easy.

Realms could simply funnel all of their realm gold into the hands of one person and have him cover 100% of all expenses at all times. That leaves much to be desired about the system if someone chooses to do so.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Penchant on January 17, 2013, 04:59:38 AM
The problem with allowing this is that abuses are very easy.

Realms could simply funnel all of their realm gold into the hands of one person and have him cover 100% of all expenses at all times. That leaves much to be desired about the system if someone chooses to do so.
Realm banker banking for the entire realm  ;)
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Eldargard on January 17, 2013, 06:10:38 AM
The problem with allowing this is that abuses are very easy.

Realms could simply funnel all of their realm gold into the hands of one person and have him cover 100% of all expenses at all times. That leaves much to be desired about the system if someone chooses to do so.

How would a nation doing so benefit? I am not saying they won't, I just can not see it yet. They would have to tax all the knights at %100, and all lords at %100. How many knights and lords are willing to submit to that for the good of the realm? Or they could demand that all nobles send all extra gold to Duke X. Once again, what are the chances that they are ALL ok with that. Then, assuming they are all OK with it, how will that give an unfair advantage to the realm?
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Psyche on January 17, 2013, 06:41:19 AM
This, at least in some aspects, seems to set people up for a military realm the likes of what everyone on the forum used to complain about concerning Aurvandril(sp?).

I do like some aspects of it, but I would have to suggest capping it to 100% TOTAL.

Example:
50% repairs
25% travel
25% not budgeted towards anything
----------------
100% total

This would allow a sponsor to customize what he wishes to support, without making it some wonderfully overpowered army for wealthy sponsors.  This doesn't stop him from just switching percentages after orders to refit, or board ships, or whatever, but it does draw a line.  With that said, it might be wise to avoid that sort of behavior by making it so that the funding can only be reallocated once a week; though, this too could be worked around by switching armies.

This model would also encourage specialized armies.
Your realm has an army of newcomers?  You might look for heavy budgeting towards training.
Have a long distance campaign army?  Have their travel expenses paid for; When they return, set them up for repairs and/or recruitment.

It provides a lot of opportunities, but it would require some new regulations to how sponsors are restrained from switching allocations too often as well, and how frequently you can switch armies.

Alternatively, you could make it a one time established allocation when the army is founded; with existing army sponsors having the option to make the one time change.  Even then, though, is costs only a small amount to found a new army.


Overall, as great as the idea sounds, over all it is too hard to properly balance so that a wealthy noble can't just take advantage of the system six ways from Sunday.  Not without making some actions an abuse of game mechanics, at least.  In my opinion, though, a feature that you have to add a bunch of rules for GMs to enforce in order to keep the balance just isn't moving us anywhere positive.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Dante Silverfire on January 17, 2013, 07:28:04 AM
how will that give an unfair advantage to the realm?
This:
This, at least in some aspects, seems to set people up for a military realm the likes of what everyone on the forum used to complain about concerning Aurvandril(sp?).

Is the problem.

I am also not interested in fully detailing what is a possible exploit in case such a feature is implemented. No need to give ideas.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Eldargard on January 17, 2013, 08:45:22 AM
The realm does not gain more gold or nobles. For such an 'exploit' to work it requires everyone's co-operation.  Oh, and it is BAD but we will not prove it because we are to high and mighty and must not prove anything. We say it is bad and so it is.

OK. So be it.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Dante Silverfire on January 17, 2013, 02:04:49 PM
The realm does not gain more gold or nobles. For such an 'exploit' to work it requires everyone's co-operation.  Oh, and it is BAD but we will not prove it because we are to high and mighty and must not prove anything. We say it is bad and so it is.

OK. So be it.

Its common practice to not post exploits on the forums, beyond the basic explanation I gave. If the devs want a more in-depth look at my opinions on an exploit I'm willing to send it to them privately.

I like the idea of war chest options, but limiting it to specific percentages such as 50% is very much needed. If you let those percentages go too high then realms like Aurvandil with extremely high levels of cooperation (that dwarfs their neighbors) gain a huge advantage. While some may not see this as a problem, others do, including myself.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Anaris on January 17, 2013, 02:59:53 PM
There is a simple way to mitigate the exploits, and it's already handled in the current army war chest code:

Paying for things out of the war chest costs twice as much as paying for them out of pocket.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Indirik on January 17, 2013, 03:42:42 PM
Mrh? So... when it tells me that repairs cost 40 gold, but I got 20 back from the war chest, that it takes 40 gold out of the war chest in order to give me that 20 gold?
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Anaris on January 17, 2013, 03:59:48 PM
Mrh? So... when it tells me that repairs cost 40 gold, but I got 20 back from the war chest, that it takes 40 gold out of the war chest in order to give me that 20 gold?

Hrm. I swear I remember that it did that, and I remember talking about it in dev channels, but now that I look at the code, it says it doesn't.

Weird.

Well, regardless of whether it does it now, it remains a viable option for mitigating the exploits enabled by this. ;D
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Dante Silverfire on January 17, 2013, 04:37:44 PM
Well, regardless of whether it does it now, it remains a viable option for mitigating the exploits enabled by this. ;D

Why even have a warchest then?

I thought the goal of a war-chest was to transfer costs of supporting units to the sponsor from the knights.

If repairs cost 40 gold without a war chest, why would I want to pay a total of 60 gold, just so that my knights only have to pay 20 gold?

I think IF such a feature was in place, I'd definitely want to know about it because I'd stop using war chests immediately. They're essentially counter productive.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Anaris on January 17, 2013, 04:52:37 PM
Why even have a warchest then?

I thought the goal of a war-chest was to transfer costs of supporting units to the sponsor from the knights.

If repairs cost 40 gold without a war chest, why would I want to pay a total of 60 gold, just so that my knights only have to pay 20 gold?

Can you re-run your math for me? I get you paying 40 gold and your knight paying 20 gold.

Quote
I think IF such a feature was in place, I'd definitely want to know about it because I'd stop using war chests immediately. They're essentially counter productive.

Right, because there's absolutely no benefit to a feature that allows a single wealthy noble—who can stay in his region the entire time if desired—to pick up the tab for an entire army, simply because it costs more to do so than it would to painstakingly transfer all the money required to each of the nobles in question ahead of time (never mind calculating who would need how much).
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Indirik on January 17, 2013, 04:52:55 PM
You may be confusing this with the global treasury for guilds/religions.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Anaris on January 17, 2013, 04:54:25 PM
You may be confusing this with the global treasury for guilds/religions.

You may be right.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Dante Silverfire on January 17, 2013, 04:57:25 PM
Can you re-run your math for me? I get you paying 40 gold and your knight paying 20 gold.

That's correct. Instead of 40 gold for the knight 0 for me.

Its 40 gold for me, 20 gold for the knight with a total of 60 gold.

Right, because there's absolutely no benefit to a feature that allows a single wealthy noble—who can stay in his region the entire time if desired—to pick up the tab for an entire army, simply because it costs more to do so than it would to painstakingly transfer all the money required to each of the nobles in question ahead of time (never mind calculating who would need how much).

There is *A* benefit from doing so. However, if a realm is seeking the absolute most efficient method of gold utilization for maximum army strength, they would never use a warchest. Instead, the proper method would be to evenly spread out gold to nobles as needed prior to a campaign such that they can afford the costs ahead of time.

I realize that takes more time to calculate what nobles need, but it is also not unheard of. Realms such as Aurvandil have taken very precise methods of ensuring maximum army strength through extreme cooperation.

For new features, we have to consider that this very well could happen, not just that a normal realm wouldn't do it. I certainly would make sure to implement it while making zero use of the warchest should such be implemented. I'd much rather my gold be used efficiently if I plan to fight a 6 month to 2 year real life war, where gold becomes an issue long term. This is also much more reasonable to use the war chest assuming an abundance of nobles (ie. a lot of players). However, the current game state lacks players, so efficiency is paramount.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Anaris on January 17, 2013, 05:04:53 PM
That's correct. Instead of 40 gold for the knight 0 for me.

Its 40 gold for me, 20 gold for the knight with a total of 60 gold.

Oh, I see; sorry, I was misreading it as "I will have to pay 60 gold, and my knight 20."

Quote
There is *A* benefit from doing so. However, if a realm is seeking the absolute most efficient method of gold utilization for maximum army strength, they would never use a warchest. Instead, the proper method would be to evenly spread out gold to nobles as needed prior to a campaign such that they can afford the costs ahead of time.

Sure. Who ever said that a new feature of this sort had to be designed to improve maximum gold efficiency?

The best kinds of feature improve usability and reduce the need for micromanaging, but at a modest reduction in cost-efficiency.

Quote
For new features, we have to consider that this very well could happen, not just that a normal realm wouldn't do it. I certainly would make sure to implement it while making zero use of the warchest should such be implemented. I'd much rather my gold be used efficiently if I plan to fight a 6 month to 2 year real life war, where gold becomes an issue long term. This is also much more reasonable to use the war chest assuming an abundance of nobles (ie. a lot of players). However, the current game state lacks players, so efficiency is paramount.

You're welcome to do that. Indeed, I would be glad to see some armies try that.

And then have everyone assigned to them complain about always having to deal with the manual gold redistribution, and look enviously at the other army, where the Duke just dumps 1000 gold in the war chest so they don't have to worry about it.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Dante Silverfire on January 17, 2013, 05:10:44 PM
The best kinds of feature improve usability and reduce the need for micromanaging, but at a modest reduction in cost-efficiency.

Agreed, I just don't consider "double" to be "modest."

Perhaps a 50% or 25% increase in cost is "modest."

So, if it costs 40 gold without a warchest for the knight.

50%: Knight pays 20 gold, Sponsor pays 30 gold (20 gold + 10 gold or 50% of 20 gold)
25%: Knight pays 20 gold, Sponsor pays 25 gold (20 gold + 5 gold or 25% of 20 gold)

You're welcome to do that. Indeed, I would be glad to see some armies try that.

And then have everyone assigned to them complain about always having to deal with the manual gold redistribution, and look enviously at the other army, where the Duke just dumps 1000 gold in the war chest so they don't have to worry about it.

I don't think those complaints will be as much of an issue for those armies that want the success. This is primarily for smaller realms that NEED the efficiency to beat larger realms. Large realms, don't need efficiency because the game mechanics give them *most* of the advantages. All else equal.

I think the number of players just makes efficiency important enough to matter right now.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: fodder on January 17, 2013, 05:13:53 PM
i actually want to know how much shipping cost is subsidised via warchest atm I think it's 50%... need to read the text the next time I do it..... because it's a fair chunk of change.. and might be OP as it is. - money not spent on ship = money to spend on wages.

i suspect if you give a default possible range of between 0-50% or some such... perhaps some more capped than others, it'll be ok.

stuff like training doesn't really cost much and so a range of 0-100% is more than ok.

repairs tends to be more time consuming than money consuming.. - not saying it's not expensive.. but if you can afford that unit, you can usually afford the repairs. it's the sitting around for days that's the bigger problem.

travelling (which basically mean ships) should have a lower cap.. because gold cost is high.

recruitment/wages is out of bounds. no question.

For this to work, this feature is really more about how to allow a sponsor to not pay for certain stuff... than allowing sponsors to pay for more stuff.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Anaris on January 17, 2013, 05:15:12 PM
Agreed, I just don't consider "double" to be "modest."

Perhaps a 50% or 25% increase in cost is "modest."

I could get behind that. The precise cost can be looked at and tweaked as needed to make sure it's not too onerous, but still makes a difference.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Eldargard on January 17, 2013, 07:43:00 PM
Its common practice to not post exploits on the forums, beyond the basic explanation I gave. If the devs want a more in-depth look at my opinions on an exploit I'm willing to send it to them privately.

I like the idea of war chest options, but limiting it to specific percentages such as 50% is very much needed. If you let those percentages go too high then realms like Aurvandil with extremely high levels of cooperation (that dwarfs their neighbors) gain a huge advantage. While some may not see this as a problem, others do, including myself.

It seems a dumb practice to me. If any player or players out there know of ways to exploit the game, I would suggest that making the potential exploit publicly known so that it can be fixed and/or monitored is preferable to keeping that information secretly to your self. Go ahead and feel all smug and self righteous but I can not at all agree with your reasoning.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Indirik on January 17, 2013, 10:06:02 PM
OK, let's not get into the philosophical debate of "full disclosure" vs. "security through obscurity", please. If you want to debate it, take it private, or move to a separate OT thread.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Eldargard on January 17, 2013, 10:26:37 PM
Very well. Then back to the Topic of this thread. Could anyone who is not determined to keep knowledge of game exploits to themselves willing to explain, plainly, why my suggestion is so unbalancing? I am not saying that it is not and I am not so vested in my suggestion that I will contend any reason without consideration. I would, however, love to hear a real reason.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Indirik on January 18, 2013, 02:29:42 AM
I don't know that it would be "unbalancing". However, I could see it being used as an excuse to further centralize power and gold. (Gold is, in any case, power...) "You don't need a big estate, just take that 2% estate, and all your expenses will be taken care of by the war chest." Keep all the knights poor, and all the gold in the hands of the rich ruling class. (Although, I guess that could be considered an abuse.) I think that for this reason, allowing the war chest to cover 100% of all expenses would be a mistake.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Lefanis on January 18, 2013, 05:10:50 AM
Keep all the knights people poor, and all the gold in the hands of the rich ruling class. (Although, I guess that could be considered an abuse.)

Yeah, we're trying to go for 13th century in BM, not the 21st...
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: DamnTaffer on January 18, 2013, 01:00:52 PM
Yeah, we're trying to go for 13th century in BM, not the 21st...

Nope, it still works for then too.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Chenier on January 18, 2013, 01:06:56 PM
Why even have a warchest then?

I thought the goal of a war-chest was to transfer costs of supporting units to the sponsor from the knights.

If repairs cost 40 gold without a war chest, why would I want to pay a total of 60 gold, just so that my knights only have to pay 20 gold?

I think IF such a feature was in place, I'd definitely want to know about it because I'd stop using war chests immediately. They're essentially counter productive.

Me too.

The war chest pays for what, repairs? In the vast majority of cases, repairs are done at home. So yea, I'd rather see everyone with a higher income and do manual transfers than waste my gold by inflating repairs costs by 50% just by being a mix of greedy and lazy.

If the game imposes such a huge inefficiency cost, it should clearly say so somewhere.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Eldargard on January 18, 2013, 08:07:00 PM
I don't know that it would be "unbalancing". However, I could see it being used as an excuse to further centralize power and gold. (Gold is, in any case, power...) "You don't need a big estate, just take that 2% estate, and all your expenses will be taken care of by the war chest." Keep all the knights poor, and all the gold in the hands of the rich ruling class. (Although, I guess that could be considered an abuse.) I think that for this reason, allowing the war chest to cover 100% of all expenses would be a mistake.

Thank you.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Psyche on January 20, 2013, 08:08:58 AM
Hmm... all this talk of supporting knights makes me curious.   Do sponsors have a way of removing or banning knights from their army?

I'd be curious to see if sponsors would continue to fund so strongly if almost every knight requested to be placed in that army for financial benefits.

Maybe have an option to have a permission based army: lord assigns knight, but sponsor consents before knight is actually placed in army.
Would make for interesting RP of elite only armies.
Title: Re: Army War Chest Options
Post by: Indirik on January 20, 2013, 03:26:46 PM
Only a lord has the authority to add or remove a knight from an army.