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BattleMaster => Case Archives => Questions & Answers => Topic started by: Chenier on November 19, 2014, 06:06:53 PM
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To give context, recently, the titans stripped Ravenice Plavereen, King of Caelum (BT) of his titles of Duke of the Desert Stronghold, and lord of Watto, which it appears he is not to reclaim for 30 days. The reason for which was because he kept switching titles around and using temporary lordships.
This verdict brings a few questions.
The first of which is: is leaving the positions vacant for 30 days, to then reclaim them for himself, in line with the spirit of the judgement? If he does this, which he explicitly stated he would, he basically loses nothing. He's still the ruler, so he has full power over who gets to be dukes, so in 30 days he'll be duke of the largest duchy and lord of the richest region once again.
The second of which: would giving his second character, currently margrave of the capital, either of these titles be in line with the judgement? Titans regulate player behavior, yet the punishment are often targeted against characters more than players. If the player can simply transfer the lost titles to his second character, then he wouldn't have lost anything at all. Indeed, it's be pretty akin to the title shuffling he got punished for to begin with.
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The first of which is: is leaving the positions vacant for 30 days, to then reclaim them for himself, in line with the spirit of the judgement? If he does this, which he explicitly stated he would, he basically loses nothing. He's still the ruler, so he has full power over who gets to be dukes, so in 30 days he'll be duke of the largest duchy and lord of the richest region once again.
Theoretically, this one is simple:
The devs have always said during the many occasions that temporary positions have come up over the past several months, that the way to avoid temporary lordships is to leave the position vacant until the desired candidate is available for appointment. IIRC from the judgment that we saw IG, there is no restriction that says the guy can't wait and reappoint himself.
OOC, I think it's pretty cheap. The way his IG message reads is pretty IC offensive. The character is going to get a lot of flak IC over this decision. IMO, IG enforcement by the other characters in the realm is the way to handle this.
The second of which: would giving his second character, currently margrave of the capital, either of these titles be in line with the judgement? Titans regulate player behavior, yet the punishment are often targeted against characters more than players. If the player can simply transfer the lost titles to his second character, then he wouldn't have lost anything at all. Indeed, it's be pretty akin to the title shuffling he got punished for to begin with.
That's ... a more difficult question. This reminds me of the Atanamir/Perdan harassment case, where the player's ruler character was stripped of positions for 30/90 days, or something. But he had a second character in the realm. With the concentration of other positions of power between those characters (Duke/Margrave/etc.), many people felt that the loss of the one position associated with the abusive behavior simply wasn't adequate. That was a Magistrates case. I was never a Magistrate, and I don't really remember many of the exact details.
Perhaps this is a loophole in the system that needs addressed? If a player has two characters in the realm, should the position lockout be extended to include the entire family in that realm?
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What? Switching lordships frequently is against the rules?
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What? Switching lordships frequently is against the rules?
Appointing people to positions (other than Marshal/VM/Steward) without the intention of them being the permanent holders of those positions is against the rules. If you take a monthly or quarterly elected position, and only intend to hold it for a term or two, that's fine—there's no requirement to run for election every time the regular elections are called. But you should not run for an elected or appointed position if you just plan to step down shortly.
Lordships, Dukeships, and government positions are not just jobs that people do, to be assigned and removed at a whim.
Basically, if you ever find yourself thinking, "Well, the real Lord of X isn't back yet, but I'll just appoint this guy until he returns," or, "I'll run for General, but only until our real General gets back," or something along those lines, you should think again. Once someone is Lord, Duke, or a government member, they are the rightful holder of that position. Not a regent, not a placeholder, not a temporary one—the rightful position holder.
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I wasn't concerned about the placeholder issue. I was thinking about what I'm doing in Riombara where I switch lordship everyday. It might be considered "switching titles around and using temporary lordships" but NOT placeholding.
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I wasn't concerned about the placeholder issue. I was thinking about what I'm doing in Riombara where I switch lordship everyday. It might be considered "switching titles around and using temporary lordships" but NOT placeholding.
Why are you doing that? It is not placeholding in the sense described in the rules, but without some context it still appear to fly in the face of what a Lordship should mean to a character.
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Why are you doing that? It is not placeholding in the sense described in the rules, but without some context it still appear to fly in the face of what a Lordship should mean to a character.
A full third of Riombaran regions are Lordless by lack of nobles. The banker runs in elections here and there to make sure the food stores are managed. They are game-mechanics triggered elections.
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Completely unnecessary. Bankers have direct access to the granaries of empty regions. I do it every day.
Continuous swapping by elections is just as bad as doing it by appointment. If you have regions without lords, then that's just too bad.
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It is unnecessary if you have a good banker. I just get a nice profit from selling hundreds of bushels of food. It's arguably the only way I can make being a trader viable.
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Being able to make a profit does not make abusing the lordship system acceptable. Lordships are supposed to be serious things. If you have so many more regions than nobles, maybe you shouldn't have so many regions.
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If you have so many more regions than nobles, maybe you shouldn't have so many regions.
It's not like anyone keeps the regions lordless on purpose for the enjoyment of this character. I'd welcome anyone to come over and rule these regions permanently. OOCly, I'd also welcome anyone coming to try and wrestle them away from us.
There is no victim here. There is no set-up to abet any abuse. There are just a lot of regions with monthly elections and a character who sees more profit to be made by ruling over a different region than his own. This happens all the time when there is an election; we just happen to have very many right now.
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It's not like anyone keeps the regions lordless on purpose for the enjoyment of this character. I'd welcome anyone to come over and rule these regions permanently. OOCly, I'd also welcome anyone coming to try and wrestle them away from us.
There is no victim here. There is no set-up to abet any abuse. There are just a lot of regions with monthly elections and a character who sees more profit to be made by ruling over a different region than his own. This happens all the time when there is an election; we just happen to have very many right now.
The victim is the world setting. Jumping regions constantly in no way ties into the mindset nobility should have. Remember what Delvin said about the oath to the people that you abandon when stepping down as a Lord? If you have more regions then characters to manage them then just let them go rogue, drop the least attractive regions. This should happen naturally anyway, since people should be slowly gaining a lordship in the better regions, depleting the pool of available nobles to run for the lesser regions.
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This should happen naturally anyway, since people should be slowly gaining a lordship in the better regions, depleting the pool of available nobles to run for the lesser regions.
So, when a character sees an election starting, and thinks "hey, it would be better for me if I could run this region", at which point exactly should he not run because it hurts the world setting? Is the counter reset every time a region goes rogue?
Basically, you're saying a character should not have the right to run in an election if he won a previous election a short time prior. Which, on the face of it, would be a justifiable rule of the game, if it were a rule of the game. However it's not one, and it's not right to tell people they're abusing the system when they simply click the buttons that the games gives them.
Remember what Delvin said about the oath to the people that you abandon when stepping down as a Lord?
To address that point, there is an honour drop to leave the Lordship of a region, so that is taken into account game-mechanically, and it is also taken into account in RP in that a character who has had Lordship to multiple regions cannot claim a long history of leading one particular region.
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So, when a character sees an election starting, and thinks "hey, it would be better for me if I could run this region", at which point exactly should he not run because it hurts the world setting?
We're not talking about someone who gets elected as lord of a badlands, and the next day enters his name in the election that just started for lordship of a city. What we're talking about is: "I switch lordship everyday."
If you don't intend to actually *be* the lord of the region, then you shouldn't run in the election. If you're intention is to get to the Command tab and sell the food, then be elected lord of another region in the next day or two, then chances are you're doing something wrong.
The situation being described here is one where someone is entering into an election for a lordship knowing that he will only have it for a day or two, and fully intending to leave it for another. And then continually doing it in a big circle of unwanted/unlorded regions. I don't see any situation where this is appropriate, or any possible argument that could be made to justify it. It may not specifically be called out in a placeholder rule, but that's because these rules were written when the game was in such a state that the situation being described is simply unimaginable.
It is also completely unnecessary in order to accomplish the stated objective of managing food.
However it's not one, and it's not right to tell people they're abusing the system when they simply click the buttons that the games gives them.
"The game let me click the button" is never an excuse for abusing game mechanics. The game lets you do quite a few things which, if done for certain reasons, could be completely against the rules. That's why we have rules. Because game mechanics cannot cover every situation.
To address that point, there is an honour drop to leave the Lordship of a region, so that is taken into account game-mechanically
Honor loss does not apply when you lose the region due to being elected to a new region. It should. That would stop such blatant abuses.
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So, when a character sees an election starting, and thinks "hey, it would be better for me if I could run this region", at which point exactly should he not run because it hurts the world setting? Is the counter reset every time a region goes rogue?
Basically, you're saying a character should not have the right to run in an election if he won a previous election a short time prior. Which, on the face of it, would be a justifiable rule of the game, if it were a rule of the game. However it's not one, and it's not right to tell people they're abusing the system when they simply click the buttons that the games gives them.
To address that point, there is an honour drop to leave the Lordship of a region, so that is taken into account game-mechanically, and it is also taken into account in RP in that a character who has had Lordship to multiple regions cannot claim a long history of leading one particular region.
You are attempting to extrapolate to a general sense a comment and judgement made regarding a specific case.
I wasn't concerned about the placeholder issue. I was thinking about what I'm doing in Riombara where I switch lordship everyday. It might be considered "switching titles around and using temporary lordships" but NOT placeholding.
This is not a Lord using the existing election system to advance their "position" by taking up a more prestigious Lordship. It is a specific case of someone taking advantage of the churn of elections due to low noble population with the simple intent of accessing the command tab. Then again SOMEONE is voting him into the new positions, or Riombara has become so apathetic that his own votes are all he requires.
There is a massive difference to my statement about someone jumping CONSTANTLY between regions, and someone that recently came into a Lordship ceasing an opportunity to advance. I can't see how a single occurrence of region swapping could be construed as constantly. Besides as Indirik has mentioned, a major difference is at the time they ran in the election, the character (and players) intent was to be the Lord properly. Future events changed that, but they never entered into the election thinking, in a day or so I will be able to move, again.
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When you're the only one running one vote is all you need to win.
I forgot about one part of what I do that is not completely unnecessary, managing food distribution. If you want more food coming out of a region there's no way a banker can set 50% rations.
As for just letting unlorded regions go rogue, they won't do that on their own.
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If a single character repeatedly leaving the lordship of one region for another over a short span of time is undesirable, then perhaps some kind of mechanic should be placed to support this. I can think of a number of potential options:
* A noble that voluntary abandons a lordship (even if it is to accept an election or appointments), loses some prestige.
* A noble that voluntary abandons a lordship (even if it is to accept an election or appointments), is unable to become lord of their old region for XX days (a long time).
* A noble that voluntary abandons a lordship (even if it is to accept an election or appointments), gains flaky points and a noble with lots of flaky points is more likely to have a region they control rebel against them.
* A noble that voluntary abandons a lordship (even if it is to accept an election or appointments), gains flaky points. Flaky points reduce the amount of food/gold produced by any region under that nobles control.
* When a noble voluntary abandons a lordship (even if it is to accept an election or appointments), their old region becomes less productive for a while.
Putting something like one of the above in place would surely deter nobles from region hopping and if region hopping really is such a bad thing, then it is probably worth the effort to disincentivize such behavior!
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What we're talking about is: "I switch lordship everyday."
It's not every day, nor every other day.
But that's the whole point, right? How long should he have to wait before it's ok to run in another election? And if there's a time limit, then why is it not made explicit?
Honor loss does not apply when you lose the region due to being elected to a new region. It should. That would stop such blatant abuses.
I agree with that and/or Scarborn's suggestions. It's always better to align the game mechanics with your actual objective in running the game.
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How long should he have to wait before it's ok to run in another election? And if there's a time limit, then why is it not made explicit?
There is no specific time limit. It cannot be encoded into mechanics due to the complexity of the game, and the varying nature of why people do things.
Time is not the issue. It's the intent. If you are taking a lordship with the intent of holding it a few days and then moving on, and doing that repeatedly, then what you are doing is self-evidently wrong. There is no possible way to justify what you are doing in any IC/IG context.
The concern brought up here is not one of a lord who just got a region moving on to a better one. It is a case of one noble (Or perhaps a few? I don't play in Rio.) intentionally running round-robin through lordships, repeatedly, with absolutely no intention of holding any of them more than a day or two. Hell, even intentionally holding them for one week and then moving on, repeatedly is in no way acceptable. As I said earlier, there is no mechanic/rule implemented to handle this because at the time these rules/mechanics were written, such a situation would have been unimaginable. The only thing that makes it possible is realms having ridiculous amounts more regions than they could possibly support. It should not be possible, long-term, for a realm to maintain more regions than they have nobles. Having 20 nobles and 29 regions is simply ridiculous, and only possible due to the severely depopulated nature of BT.
I agree with that and/or Scarborn's suggestions. It's always better to align the game mechanics with your actual objective in running the game.
Anaris has already stated in another thread that this is something that needs fixed/implemented.
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Then perhaps BT should be further shrunk.
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BT is in a particularly bad situation. The geography that resulted at the end of the last invasion left the island pretty mangled. Rio's position and geography gave it a nearly insurmountable dominance in the region. The area it is in now used to encompass four realms, and part of a fifth. That dominance in the south leads to a particularly bad situation for Rio, in that they have no competition. They overshadow the south, leading to stagnation. The north, particularly the north-east, has a much higher density, and thus, that's where the action is.