BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: vonGenf on August 27, 2013, 09:50:57 AM
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It is generally received wisdom that there aren't enough wars in BM. While I also share this gut feeling, I would like to put some hard numbers on it.
If you have two characters in the same realm, please count it as a single war. By active war I mean one where battles are actually taking place at least semi-regularly.
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Four?
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Statistics I just made - sums of diplomatic relations between realms, excluding rogue:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9638874/diplstats.png)
Mind you, this does not check if the war is actually being fought or just exists on paper.
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Statistics I just made - sums of diplomatic relations between realms, excluding rogue:
Do you mean that for each realm, you sum up the relations to all other realms? Then you will see mostly peace - I wouldn't expect everyone to be at war with everyone else!
If your realm is at war with one neighbour and at peace or neutral with all others, then it's at war, period.
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Do you mean that for each realm, you sum up the relations to all other realms?
Not per realm, but in total.
In numbers, this is what EI looks like right now:
Alliance 6
Peace 17
Neutral 19
War 3
I didn't check what those 3 wars are. Could be one realm fighting 3 others, or 3 seperate wars, so anywhere from 4-6 realms are involved in a war. It really is just a quick picture showing that peaceful relations dominate the game. I wouldn't expect war to be the largest slice, but it shows what many people feel intuitively - that there's too much peace in this game.
IMHO, "neutral" should be the largest slice, with the other two roughly balanced.
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IMHO, "neutral" should be the largest slice, with the other two roughly balanced.
Unfortunately (as I said on the other thread), I don't think this is realistic. The players have shown, through the decade+ of BM's history, that they will seek out peaceful relations or alliances with other realms, even ones on the other side of the continent who they have next to no chance of ever meeting in person.
And frankly, unless we can come up with some really, really good game mechanics to encourage neutrality and discourage many peace treaties and alliances, I think this is likely to be one of those instances where we just have to accept that that's the way human nature is going to push, and let it be that way, rather than trying to force the playerbase to play in a way that we think is "right".
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How about some kind of fame or prestige point system for actions that are related to wars, like successfully taking over a region, participating in a major battle, commanding a unit with a high CS. It's human nature that players will usually do things that increase their fame and prestige, so create more fame/prestige incentives in war and war-related activities. Conversely, maybe you lose prestige when a region is taken from you. This would encourage players to vigorously defend their regions from being taken over, and would also discourage collusion.
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How about some kind of fame or prestige point system for actions that are related to wars, like successfully taking over a region, participating in a major battle, commanding a unit with a high CS. It's human nature that players will usually do things that increase their fame and prestige, so create more fame/prestige incentives in war and war-related activities. Conversely, maybe you lose prestige when a region is taken from you. This would encourage players to vigorously defend their regions from being taken over, and would also discourage collusion.
Participating in a major battle already gives you honour and prestige. I think there is a fame point for having a very large unit but it's unconfirmed.
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Participating in a major battle already gives you honour and prestige. I think there is a fame point for having a very large unit but it's unconfirmed.
That's great. And I'm sure even more incentives (or penalties) could encourage more fighting.
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Not per realm, but in total.
In numbers, this is what EI looks like right now:
Alliance 6
Peace 17
Neutral 19
War 3
I didn't check what those 3 wars are. Could be one realm fighting 3 others, or 3 seperate wars, so anywhere from 4-6 realms are involved in a war. It really is just a quick picture showing that peaceful relations dominate the game. I wouldn't expect war to be the largest slice, but it shows what many people feel intuitively - that there's too much peace in this game.
IMHO, "neutral" should be the largest slice, with the other two roughly balanced.
The stats are very misleading. FEI basically has two large alliances at war with each other; every realm on the island is at war, just not with every single realm at once. Those "peaceful" relations actually contributed to the current war status!
Can you do charts that show how many realms have at least one war status? Or maybe do your pie chart with 0 wars, 1 war, 2 war, etc.
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Atamara has 14 realms, of which 7 are currently at war with at least one other realm.
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2 of 3 my chars are at war, and one war just recently ended
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2 of 3 my chars are at war, and one war just recently ended
Same here. Perdan had two good wars going, but that ended maybe a month or two back. I had to travel to Astrum for a good war in Dwilight and emigrated to Outer Tilog after I saw the Riombarra war start to fizzle out.
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Not per realm, but in total.
In numbers, this is what EI looks like right now:
Alliance 6
Peace 17
Neutral 19
War 3
I didn't check what those 3 wars are. Could be one realm fighting 3 others, or 3 seperate wars, so anywhere from 4-6 realms are involved in a war. It really is just a quick picture showing that peaceful relations dominate the game. I wouldn't expect war to be the largest slice, but it shows what many people feel intuitively - that there's too much peace in this game.
IMHO, "neutral" should be the largest slice, with the other two roughly balanced.
I may say as major war mongerer of EC in the last year, that till July EC was completely at war.
EC enters now a period of peace as it is always after big almost continental wars....that is completely normal, especially when many regions are depopulated and produce no gold.
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Back when I started playing, about a year ago, I had a real tough time finding any war. I went maybe six months without seeing any serious fighting. Now that I've hopped my characters around a bit I've found some descent wars and battles.
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There's also an element of delayed gratification. There are certainly myriad ways to increase the number of wars, but it's worth considering whether you're trading quality for quantity. The problem I see with too much war is that you need time to prepare, i.e. training your unit and building your realm internally. I also enjoy the nervous tension that builds in the days leading up to an epic battle.
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Atamara has 14 realms, of which 7 are currently at war with at least one other realm.
I count 8 myself, so that is more than half of the realms on the continent who are at war. It's not necessary to fight everyone and his dog, only fighting one realm at a time can get quite lively.
The stats are very misleading.
QFT. In order for war to dominate, everyone would need to be fighting everyone else. It should be enough for a realm to just be fighting another.
PS: My three characters are in wars, and my advy is in a realm that is at war. So I put three for now.
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I count 8 myself, so that is more than half of the realms on the continent who are at war. It's not necessary to fight everyone and his dog, only fighting one realm at a time can get quite lively.
QFT. In order for war to dominate, everyone would need to be fighting everyone else. It should be enough for a realm to just be fighting another.
PS: My three characters are in wars, and my advy is in a realm that is at war. So I put three for now.
Good point. You also need time to prepare for war, and you also want wars to eventually end so there can be a winner.
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It has been pointed out by Lorgan before, that the enfasis on number of wars, might be a completely wrong way to look at things, but rather war-activity, and by this is meant, how many battles are made in how much time, and other things which are 'war-ey'.
Having a war on itself is as much having a war as being at peace wiht another nation, if both nations don't really do anything, or if they just battle once every week or two...
later edit:
Furthermore, Tom's stats are more relevant than this poll, for example, the votes are extremely dependant on HOW many characters you have.
Someone with 5 characters with 2 at war vs a newbie with 1 character at war out of 2 characters means that the noob is in more wars than the older player proportionately. The poll doesn't 'mean' anything at alllll. It should be in fractions or % of characters for it to mean anything at all. Right now it's just randomn numbers being voted on with no meaning.
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It has been pointed out by Lorgan before, that the enfasis on number of wars, might be a completely wrong way to look at things, but rather war-activity, and by this is meant, how many battles are made in how much time, and other things which are 'war-ey'.
Having a war on itself is as much having a war as being at peace wiht another nation, if both nations don't really do anything, or if they just battle once every week or two...
Excellent points.
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EC: For years, my favorite continent. I always played in Sirion and since the last great peace, Sirion has been involved in virtually all wars. We fought against almost the entire continent, we defeated our enemies and now we start to worry about the fact that we have a vast realms with few obvious enemies... because we killed them all. And we cannot retain characters without war. However, Perdan is growing so much that at some point, or we will have a great peace again, or another great war among the three great forces: Perdan, Sirion and Caligus. Perdan have the entire south now... Sirion still can wage war against OI, maybe against Westmoor... but after that, we will have a continent of three huge realms.
FEI: We have the Empire and the "free realms". Many battles, I must say. I believe FEI will have reasons to wage war for some years.
Dwilight: Almost the same thing with the Theocracies against the "free realms". I doubt this war will continue for a long time, but there's enough conflicts to stay and figt more wars.
One of the best recent experiences I had was in Beluaterra. I had some certainty that Melhed will lose the war, but war brought new life to the kingdom for a few months. However, I bet most of the people in power would not risk their relams when they have some certainty that they will lose miserably.
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Colonies seems a bit skewed also.
Currently there is a war between the North and South. OT and Lukon vs Aren and Orit with Assassins...well we both pretend they don't exist at this point haha.
Also i'm on Dwilight in Morek Empire fighting against Liberio and then I believe there is more to fight on the horizon.
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Someone with 5 characters with 2 at war vs a newbie with 1 character at war out of 2 characters means that the noob is in more wars than the older player proportionately. The poll doesn't 'mean' anything at alllll. It should be in fractions or % of characters for it to mean anything at all. Right now it's just randomn numbers being voted on with no meaning.
I don't think so. Of course if you have only two characters you are less likely to be in wars, but from a game-wide perspective the result is the same: you as a player are not in any war.
What this poll tells me is that 87% of people are part of at least two different wars. This is more than I expected. It is also pretty much in line with what I would call an ideal situation: no one can deal with 7 different wars anyway! If you're in two different wars there should be plenty of warfare to go around.
If there isn't, then it's a sign that it's not the quantity of wars that is an issue but the quality of wars.
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Though you must admit there is a bias in the poll. People who are more active in the forums will probably be more active in game and will be actively causing war or seeking out warring realms. Though I must say that I am still surprised by result of the poll.
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Though you must admit there is a bias in the poll. People who are more active in the forums will probably be more active in game and will be actively causing war or seeking out warring realms.
That is true. I'm not sure how I could unbias it though.....
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All my 4 characters are at war. 1 on East Island, 2 on Colonies Island, 1 on FEI Island. I do find it is a lot of fun to interact with other players during war ;)
Hearing about some posts on East Island. Do allow me to explain about the lack of war or what the graph shows as peaceful. The last big war is over which saw 9 realms at war. In other word, all realms on East Island: OI, Nivemus, Sirion, Caligus, Armonia, Eponlynn, Perdan, Westmoor, Fane involved. So naturally most realms settle down to peace status to rebuild their lands after war. War bring much destruction, we need sometime to rebuild after war. The graph does not show the true status. If we wish to get a true statistic graph, perhaps some timeframe of war until peace or peace until war period.
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dont think there's a way to not have this bias, its a very positive result nonetheless.
Ketchum, two characters on the same realm dont count :P
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EC: For years, my favorite continent. I always played in Sirion and since the last great peace, Sirion has been involved in virtually all wars. We fought against almost the entire continent, we defeated our enemies and now we start to worry about the fact that we have a vast realms with few obvious enemies... because we killed them all. And we cannot retain characters without war. However, Perdan is growing so much that at some point, or we will have a great peace again, or another great war among the three great forces: Perdan, Sirion and Caligus. Perdan have the entire south now... Sirion still can wage war against OI, maybe against Westmoor... but after that, we will have a continent of three huge realms.
I am working on some new wars there Erik, just join the guild and spread it to the north! ;)
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Wars are good, but they're even better - at least from a ruler's perspective - when there's a good narrative running behind them. The FEI's Empire vs the Free Realms war is really good in that respect. We probably have Galiard to thank for that - he turned it from a war the Empire was involved in to a war against the Empire.