BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => Locals => Atamara => Topic started by: Medron Pryde on April 29, 2016, 10:47:21 AM
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Yeah, some people said Atamara was a !@#$hole.
You know what?
Some people were wrong.
I first started playing on Atamara. And Atamara is one the place I always kept one or two characters because for me it was the funnest of the islands.
Did it slow down a bit? Yes. One alliance did the one thing that BattleMaster is designed to not allow. They won. Seriously, the way the game pushes things to degrade in time and everything about it is designed to break up large realms and alliances. But through ingenuity and determination and a lot of smarts the alliance BEAT EVERYBODY ELSE. They literally beat the system. That is what some people didn't like about the continent. There were clear winners and losers in a game that is supposed to stop that from happening.
In the case of Atamara it took the players to self-police and break the alliance up. Which we did. Atamara was crashing and burning into a continent-wide civil war when the Devs nuked everything. Years of gaming and scheming on the best map the game has just deleted and taken away from the players.
My hope is that sometime we can get that map back, either through restoring Beluaterra back to the Pre-Blight status, or by resurrecting Atamara entirely.
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Yeah, some people said Atamara was a !@#$hole.
You know what?
Some people were wrong.
I first started playing on Atamara. And Atamara is one the place I always kept one or two characters because for me it was the funnest of the islands.
Did it slow down a bit? Yes. One alliance did the one thing that BattleMaster is designed to not allow. They won. Seriously, the way the game pushes things to degrade in time and everything about it is designed to break up large realms and alliances. But through ingenuity and determination and a lot of smarts the alliance BEAT EVERYBODY ELSE. They literally beat the system. That is what some people didn't like about the continent. There were clear winners and losers in a game that is supposed to stop that from happening.
In the case of Atamara it took the players to self-police and break the alliance up. Which we did. Atamara was crashing and burning into a continent-wide civil war when the Devs nuked everything. Years of gaming and scheming on the best map the game has just deleted and taken away from the players.
My hope is that sometime we can get that map back, either through restoring Beluaterra back to the Pre-Blight status, or by resurrecting Atamara entirely.
Yeah, "winning", aka turning the continent into the biggest snooze fest I've ever seen in gaming.
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Medron, I think part of the issue is that while being one of the people at or near the top of certain Atamaran realms was probably pretty fun throughout (even if frustrating from time to time), being someone lower down, especially in one of the realms with less power, was absolutely maddening.
Feeling utterly helpless is really, really bad in a game.
So when you say that you "won" Atamara, what you actually mean is that you made everyone else lose Atamara. Except that where in a game with normal win/loss conditions, once you lose, you get to end that game and start a new one (if you still want), in BattleMaster, if you've "lost", that means you are continuing to lose, every day.
Honestly, I am not entirely happy about the fact that when we sank Atamara, it was, indeed, just starting to rev up for something. But...it started to rev up for things a few times in the past, and each time, however promising it looked at the start, it still ended with CE crushing everything else, one or more of the rebellious realms crawling to them and begging to be allowed to be a vassal realm, and the status quo either unchanged or one step closer to total Cagilan domination.
And given the results, there is no doubt in my mind that what we did was the right course of action. Since we sank Atamara and the FEI, the player numbers have stopped falling, and I've seen (anecdotally) more interest in the game than I've seen since well before the (ill-advised) Ice Age.
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Atamara was ruled by a relatively small group of people who made it their mission to prevent anyone else from ever doing anything independently.
It wasn't simply that they ruled in silence - they actively ruined the game for people not in their in-group. They took pride in not sharing, information or anything else. Some of them even hung out on the old IRC channels and made jokes about how stupid all the other players were and that that was why they needed to give them detailed commands every day.
That's not every single character who ever had any power, of course, but it far more than most people are willing to admit.
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"the (ill-advised) Ice Age"
I personally think the Ice Age was a fine idea, but it was lacking in how it was carried out.
It never put enough pressure on anything to substantially change the island politics. It seems like the density was calculated on nobles/region, but left out the fact that most nobles had no interest in being lords and instead were stacking themselves in cities. Without forcing realms tightly against one another to the point where there weren't enough estates for all the knights, nothing much was going to dramatically change.
You clipped Atamara's fingernails when you needed to amputate at the elbows.
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I must agree with the previous comments.
Having played there for a very long time, I felt no joy in sitting around doing nothing for very long periods of time. Whatever fun you were having, it did not come to me. I got so bored that I managed to raise an infiltrator from scratch and build it all the way up (only using the Academy) until it was a pure force to be reckoned with.
As for the Ice age, I was.excited to see this event carry out, until it stopped just barely over the land to the point that it only effected the realms that were already dying. This only made that Federation stronger and the game less fun.
I believe sinking Atamara was the right decision, I only wish its downfall could have been prevented.
I would also like to point out... It didn't "Slow down a bit", it literally came to a standstill.
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What the Game Devs did to Atamara was good for the game. This game is not meant to be "Won". It is supposed to be eternally in conflict. The game designers have designed it in this way.
We, the Cagilan Alliance actually "WON" this game, which is actually a wonder achieved due to team spirit, dedication and mastery in political planning. We dominated the whole server. Our team should have been given some sort of honor/acknowledgement before closing the server by the game admins (like many online games).
--Proud member of the great Cagilan Alliance.
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What the Game Devs did to Atamara was good for the game. This game is not meant to be "Won". It is supposed to be eternally in conflict. The game designers have designed it in this way.
We, the Cagilan Alliance actually "WON" this game, which is actually a wonder achieved due to team spirit, dedication and mastery in political planning. We dominated the whole server. Our team should have been given some sort of honor/acknowledgement before closing the server by the game admins (like many online games).
--Proud member of the great Cagilan Alliance.
If you won, as you say, why is CE under a watery grave, hmm? All you did was ruin the atmosphere of an entire island with your self-centered attitudes. Oh, by the way, you don't mean Cagilan Alliance, that would include everyone who played in CE, including me. You mean your little clique who shaped the island as you wanted and never ever did anything against one another's interest.
Nothing gave me so much satisfaction in this game than seeing that continent sink, and it was a shame because it had great potential that was locked in a closet with a deadbolt and chains by people like you.
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Nothing gave me so much satisfaction in this game than seeing that continent sink, and it was a shame because it had great potential that was locked in a closet with a deadbolt and chains by people like you.
This.
I think little needs to be said after that - that sums it up beautifully.
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What the Game Devs did to Atamara was good for the game. This game is not meant to be "Won". It is supposed to be eternally in conflict. The game designers have designed it in this way.
We, the Cagilan Alliance actually "WON" this game, which is actually a wonder achieved due to team spirit, dedication and mastery in political planning. We dominated the whole server. Our team should have been given some sort of honor/acknowledgement before closing the server by the game admins (like many online games).
--Proud member of the great Cagilan Alliance.
Mastery in political planning? Pft. Mastery in schoolyard bully tactics is more like it.
Think about what you're saying here. You're basically expecting a medal for playing the game the way it wasn't meant to be played.
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What the Game Devs did to Atamara was good for the game. This game is not meant to be "Won". It is supposed to be eternally in conflict. The game designers have designed it in this way.
We, the Cagilan Alliance actually "WON" this game, which is actually a wonder achieved due to team spirit, dedication and mastery in political planning. We dominated the whole server. Our team should have been given some sort of honor/acknowledgement before closing the server by the game admins (like many online games).
--Proud member of the great Cagilan Alliance.
This appears to be a study in doublethink.
Elegant, you really need to take a minute and think about what you've just said here. First you say that sinking Atamara was good, because winning the island was bad.
Then you say that you should be given a medal for doing exactly that bad thing?
"Winning" any island is actually something that the game cannot prevent in any way, shape, or form, because it doesn't require circumventing any game mechanics. All it requires is getting enough realms to climb on board your alliance, and let you be in charge of it. It's entirely a social engineering problem.
If it weren't for the invasions, Enweil probably would have won Beluaterra back around the time of the Third or Fourth Invasion. Arcaea unquestionably won the FEI—it's just that they then had a plan for how to make sure that did not lead to total, permanent stagnation.
Winning an island is pretty easy, really. All you have to do is have absolutely no regard for what makes the game fun to play for anyone but yourself and your closest friends.
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I realized the mistake after we decimated the Northern Alliance. We killed everyone who was an enemy, that left us with friends only. then began the eternal peace. In real life situation, it would be called complete victory. However, in game life, it was boring. Winning the server was an achievement for the team, but bad for the server.
I had never imagined that due to lack of enemies to kill, we may have to kill each other by creating ridiculous wars. It was good that Atamara was sunk before allies kill each other.
Now I play this game without the will to win everything and without extreme killer instinct. This game a taught a good lesson to me. The lesson stands true for the real life too.
Nevertheless, I consider myself fortunate that I was a member of such a great team. The team should have been rewarded/acknowledged for their great efforts by game admins. They could introduce the concept of an "Era" of dominance in game.
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The rest of the island should have come up for some excuses to shake off the yoke, as well.
It wasn't CEs fault for winning the war. They never wanted to go to war any more after that - the rest of the island rolled over and played dead.
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I realized the mistake after we decimated the Northern Alliance. We killed everyone who was an enemy, that left us with friends only. then began the eternal peace. In real life situation, it would be called complete victory. However, in game life, it was boring. Winning the server was an achievement for the team, but bad for the server.
I had never imagined that due to lack of enemies to kill, we may have to kill each other by creating ridiculous wars. It was good that Atamara was sunk before allies kill each other.
Now I play this game without the will to win everything and without extreme killer instinct. This game a taught a good lesson to me. The lesson stands true for the real life too.
Nevertheless, I consider myself fortunate that I was a member of such a great team. The team should have been rewarded/acknowledged for their great efforts by game admins. They could introduce the concept of an "Era" of dominance in game.
You completely missed the point. CE and Tara might as well have been one country for all the difference their foreign policy had, and allies should NEVER be a permanent status between two realms.
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The whole Ice Age shenanigans must have been the worst thing I have ever witnessed in this game to the point that I started to think that the devs just wanted to end the whole war and destroy all realms opposing the "Alliance".
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allies should NEVER be a permanent status between two realms.
I missed nothing. Where is that written in game rules or any authorized game link?
Edit: just joking :D
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As "leader" of the last real enemy of CE, that ice thing made Darka collapse. We had gold, we had nobles, we had best RC's on the game, we had guts to beat down CE. But then half of our land was taken away...
CE played real well their diplomacy when great war started, and south played real dumb and selfis. We had all the power needed to put CE & Tara on their knees. But even after south collapsed, Darka alone could have kept CE bouncing forever as long as Talerium would have stayed out from conflict.
Final decision to sink atamara i understand, but i think dev's didnt understand how it had just gotten lively again. Tara and CE were at war, Darka were decided to re-created the very same turn than announcement of sinking came. Darkan oldies still had 100k+ gold stockpiled. I was real excited how things were starting to roll again... then you sunk my world :P
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As "leader" of the last real enemy of CE, that ice thing made Darka collapse. We had gold, we had nobles, we had best RC's on the game, we had guts to beat down CE. But then half of our land was taken away...
CE played real well their diplomacy when great war started, and south played real dumb and selfis. We had all the power needed to put CE & Tara on their knees. But even after south collapsed, Darka alone could have kept CE bouncing forever as long as Talerium would have stayed out from conflict.
Final decision to sink atamara i understand, but i think dev's didnt understand how it had just gotten lively again. Tara and CE were at war, Darka were decided to re-created the very same turn than announcement of sinking came. Darkan oldies still had 100k+ gold stockpiled. I was real excited how things were starting to roll again... then you sunk my world :P
Devs perfectly understood that Atamara was getting lively again, but I highly doubt it would have lasted, and they know that as well. The Ruler of CE refused to let our armies fight Tara. He wanted to create the Federation again. It was both an instance of too little, too late, and the fact that stuff like this had happened before, but failed to unjam the blockage that was diplomacy, leading to more boringness.
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As "leader" of the last real enemy of CE, that ice thing made Darka collapse. We had gold, we had nobles, we had best RC's on the game, we had guts to beat down CE. But then half of our land was taken away...
CE played real well their diplomacy when great war started, and south played real dumb and selfis. We had all the power needed to put CE & Tara on their knees. But even after south collapsed, Darka alone could have kept CE bouncing forever as long as Talerium would have stayed out from conflict.
Final decision to sink atamara i understand, but i think dev's didnt understand how it had just gotten lively again. Tara and CE were at war, Darka were decided to re-created the very same turn than announcement of sinking came. Darkan oldies still had 100k+ gold stockpiled. I was real excited how things were starting to roll again... then you sunk my world :P
Yeah at Caergoth we tried what we could, but without Tara nothing was possible...
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Talerium was discussing about opening CE front too.
-Jaune
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Talerium was discussing about opening CE front too.
-Jaune
Suville and Caergoth had actually agreed to move against Strombran and were doing so at the end (which by extension meant CE as we all know). I know Talerium was also in favor, too bad all that happened was too late though.
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Talerium was discussing about opening CE front too.
-Jaune
No it wasn't. And later when I was ruler of CE I did everything I possibly could build up that rift - that a lot of the "common" chars in CE wanted - but it was constantly shut down by the Old Guard.
Nothing would have ever happened there, even with Miskel pushing against the Taleriums every day. Every time he caused some friction a bunch of Old Guards would jump in the Guild where all the *real* island decisions were made and say, "Oh, no! Don't mind him - you know we are the best buddies ever and we love you and love you and just want to smooch and hug forever!" and they'd kill every attempt.
Or did you mean while the war was still raging? I was in Talerium, and there were no discussions of anything, even though at THAT time *I* was the one always pointing out how CE was violating the border agreement, and we should go to war. Always shut down with, "The Border Agreement is how we've been able to safely sit here bored out of our skulls for the last 10 years - it is Inviolate!"
No , jaune - there was NEVER any serious discussions about Talerium joining that war. Someone may have fed you a line of bull!@#$ to get your hopes up, but nothing was going to happen.
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It was discussed again when Tara and CE started war. CE's arrogance towards Talerium were not forgotten.
Darka's creation propably would have made it flame in war. It was not agreed or anything, but possibility for that were kept open. Talerium had much more warm relations with Tara than CE.
-Jaune
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Blame game update...
AT is sunk and we no longer have two character in continents... we lost more than we gained.
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AT is sunk and we no longer have two character in continents... we lost more than we gained.
I feel like it was worth it. With lower. Populations, there were and still are silent realms. However, with the active players now spread out throughout the continents instead of focused on certain areas, the game can grow more interesting.
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I feel like it was worth it. With lower. Populations, there were and still are silent realms. However, with the active players now spread out throughout the continents instead of focused on certain areas, the game can grow more interesting.
That is a good observation, the issue with it is majority of the active players who played on the islands close were already on the other continents and the ones who were not either left the game or likely feel forced to jump to the islands because they no longer have a choice.
The idea is sound, but the result was not. Honestly silent realms are still silent. Tara was silent when I left it, CE was loud then silent then loud. If you look at the actually active chars it is still declining and will do so still. I've talked to a few others and they felt a bit punished at the fact they lost the 2 char on contient beside for DWI. I personally dislike colonies and DWI, but where else can I play my character and interact with those I enjoyed playing?
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That is a good observation, the issue with it is majority of the active players who played on the islands close were already on the other continents and the ones who were not either left the game or likely feel forced to jump to the islands because they no longer have a choice.
The idea is sound, but the result was not. Honestly silent realms are still silent. Tara was silent when I left it, CE was loud then silent then loud. If you look at the actually active chars it is still declining and will do so still. I've talked to a few others and they felt a bit punished at the fact they lost the 2 char on contient beside for DWI. I personally dislike colonies and DWI, but where else can I play my character and interact with those I enjoyed playing?
You mean you've talked to others in your personal little circlejerk group that all have pessimistic views on current things, and judge things based anecdotal evidence rather than first-hand experience. Besides that, you still have Beluaterra and East Island to play on even if you cut out colonies and DWI.
By the way, I originally hated colonies, but grew to love it. You have to give something a chance in order to find if you like it. You're just acting like the stereotypical older generation who decries every new thing that comes along the way.
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I was a common noble when CE, Tara, and Talerium "won" the last of the major wars. I had a lot of fun going out and marching and killing bad guys. ;)
Fast forward some time and when the Tyrant disappeared, I became the new Tyrant of Tara. I took one look at the diplomatic situation on the island from the eyes of a ruler who is supposed to give his players a fun time and realized that it wasn't setup that way. And so I spent the entire year of my Tyrancy first stabilizing Tara and making it an effective realm again, and then began working to break up the CE/Taran alliance.
As a player, I wanted it dead. Gone. Buried. But at the same time I (and especially my character Regstav) were loyal to CE. Regstav fought when Tara had three regions and it was CE that saved our butts time and again. So there was no way that Regstav would just drop them. He owed them way too much for that.
But others agreed that the CE/Taran alliance needed to be broken for the good of the game, including the previously-mentioned "Old Guard" in the League of the Eagle. We came up with some very interesting ideas that would have broken the League up rather well. Never agreed on any of them, but we were talking in the right direction. Heck, I was pushing HARD for an idea that would have broken Tara into three different realms with two cities each. Point is, we all agreed that things had to change.
Then the Strombanians lit another fuse by doing what they did best. Insulting people and then saying "come at me bro if you dare face CE."
At which time I responded with a "don't mind if I do" and dropped Tara out of the Federation. And considering all the work I'd done over the last year to improve relations between Tara and the non-CE realms, I'm pretty confident Tara would have survived. Oh, there was always a chance one of my new allies and friends would have stabbed Tara in the back. It had happened before. It could happen again.
I judged it worth the gamble though. Even if Tara died, I considered it worth getting the game going and exciting again. Now what I WANTED was to break CE and Strombran, see a return of Carelia in the Strombanian regions, and break up Cagil into some bite sized chunks. Then break up Tara. I was about "this" close to just handing Shanandoah over to Minas Leon. I had plans to get one or two of the Taran dukes to secede and start their own realms. Or maybe I would have stepped down as Tyrant and done my own secession. ;)
Either way, I had lots of plans to break the power of Strombran, CE, and Tara and they were going along very nicely and turning the whole island on its head. And I never could have done any of it without the help of the other rulers and high muckitimucks in the League of the Eagle. I don't think I've ever seen a group of players agree to destroy everything they've worked to build all because they knew it was best for EVERYBODY who played the game. Not that well at least. They pulled the trigger and it was game on. Made me proud to be one of their number.
It was a good game and it was a good time.
I'm sorry that outside people decided to end it before we found out how it was going to play out.
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that may all have been true, but if the history of the island is anything to go by, it would have taken you real life years to *maybe* have it take affect. Atamaran leadership was bitched at for many years and refused to change anything substantial about how they played.
As has been said many times - it was too slow, too late. All you ever had was an idea & some "conversations". No one wanted to give you another chance by the time it got to that point.
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Either way, I had lots of plans to break the power of Strombran, CE, and Tara and they were going along very nicely and turning the whole island on its head. And I never could have done any of it without the help of the other rulers and high muckitimucks in the League of the Eagle. I don't think I've ever seen a group of players agree to destroy everything they've worked to build all because they knew it was best for EVERYBODY who played the game. Not that well at least. They pulled the trigger and it was game on. Made me proud to be one of their number.
It was a good game and it was a good time.
I'm sorry that outside people decided to end it before we found out how it was going to play out.
Sorry, I truncated a lot of that quotation to get to the point: None of that was visible to the ordinary noble. It's great some people had a game going on, but it wasn't one anyone else got to play for far too long.
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It was WAY beyond conversations actually.
And if you'd read what I wrote you would have seen that.
The war had already started. The Federation was broken. Two new nations had already appeared and a third was about to happen.
Most of the realms on the island were at war. Actually, I think ALL of them were.
I understand that a lot of people left Atamara because it became PeaceMaster. The rulers figured that out and did what they had to do to fix it. I recognize that the changes in Atamara were too slow and too late for those who had left the island. I've seen the hatred and vitriol that some people aim at the island. But what they hated was gone. What they hated was not what the devs sunk.
Comparing the continent they left to the continent the devs sunk is ignoring all the evidence of what happened on Atamara. It is ignoring all the work the players went through to make it fun again.
The devs sunk an island rushing headlong into total war. Armies, made of players, were marching in the far north, the far south, and all over the middle of Atamara. And that is the whole idea of BattleMaster.
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I understand that a lot of people left Atamara because it became PeaceMaster. The rulers figured that out and did what they had to do to fix it. I recognize that the changes in Atamara were too slow and too late for those who had left the island. I've seen the hatred and vitriol that some people aim at the island. But what they hated was gone. What they hated was not what the devs sunk.
Unfortunately, the rulers figured that out about 6 years after the players did.
I tried playing on Atamara for a while in about 2011, and it was already nearly impossible to do anything that even remotely opposed the Cagilan bloc's will.
I would add one more thing, however:
It's not completely the fault of the Cagilan bloc.
The rulers of the other realms, and the players in the other realms, could have (at least for a while; it would have become impossible towards the end as power consolidated too much) banded together to oppose the Empire and possibly broken it up. But they wouldn't have been able to do so without absolute commitment, and that is really hard to get. I was in a similar position personally in about 2006 trying to get Beluaterra to band together against Enweil, which was having a similar warping effect on diplomacy there at the time.
Individually, players and realms don't have nearly enough incentive to risk destruction (or near-destruction) at the hands of the behemoth, even if the prize is a continent where there is no behemoth dictating diplomacy. Each one knows, for certain, that if they oppose the behemoth, they will lose.
And they're right.
Only together—probably with every single realm not a firm member of the bloc, in Atamara's case—would they have had any hope of defeating even a single realm of the bloc and changing the shape of diplomacy on the island. And from what I can tell, at least, that's been true since well before I tried it out 5 years ago.
In the end, the only way to get a continent out of a situation like that is to have a significant fraction of its upper echelon agree to act against their characters' interests in some manner to cause the bloc to break up, whether it's by committing to a grand alliance against the bloc, or having the bloc start to break up from within. And while that's a hard thing to do, it's important to remember that our characters don't get to dictate our actions. We get to dictate theirs. And if what we feel like our characters "would do" is in direct conflict with what is best for the game...sometimes we need to find a reason for our characters to do something else.
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Comparing the continent they left to the continent the devs sunk is ignoring all the evidence of what happened on Atamara. It is ignoring all the work the players went through to make it fun again.
I did read what you wrote. Here, I'll be more direct: the behind the scenes planning is/was the problem all along. Once again an elite cabal was deciding how to fix things whilst remaining in charge.
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Yes, Cagil and Tara won on Atamara because of two major things.
1) The two realms were united at the hip. If you fought one, you fought the other. Except for a very small handful of times. Cagil declared peace with Carelia while Tara was fighting them and left Tara to try to sue for peace. That was a bad time for Tara for a while. But the vast majority of the time, the two realms acted near enough as one that it was almost impossible to break them.
2) Cagil was VERY good at buying off or otherwise convincing other realms to side with Cagil and Tara even against other friends. No alliance was safe from Cagilan money or other forms of diplomacy. Just about every war we won, we did so because Cagil pealed one or two nations off the other side and got them to come over to our side. Of course, none of those nations still lived in the end. Every single one was targeted and destroyed in later wars. Only Tara and Talerium were never victim of such a strategy.
And yes. In the end there was no alliance of nations that could hold against the Cagilan-Taran Alliance. All nations that survived to the end did so because they became allied with Cagil, Strombran, or Tara and used the Federated Status of those big three to keep from being targeted.
That situation became untenable when Strombran and Cagil chose to destroy Carelia which was allied with Tara. Multiple Taran Tyrants resigned in a row over that situation. And when I became Tyrant I was informed in no uncertain terms that I had to give up Carelia. I couldn't say no because Tara was too disorganized to stand up to either Cagil or Strombran at the time. But I did welcome all the Carelian nobles into Tara and used them to help revitalize my nation and make it strong again. The Carelian general became my general for instance. And I spent the next year working to get the other members of the League of the Eagle to realize that the situation as it was could not continue.
I was of course smart enough to never SAY that. Not when it would have turned into a Taran clubbering at the hands of the other nations. But I and my general had this understanding. He did things I of course would never condone. And when it came out that he did that...well...then he had to be ordered back...but...you know...the army marched, broke some stuff, and then came home. Refitted. Went out and hunted some monsters. Came back. Refitted. Went out and smashed something somewhere else. I would of course apologize and call them back. Dang general getting a bit frisky and all that. Not that I ever told him to go do it. Honestly. I didn't. Though I may have made some idle wishes known. ;) So he played the belligerent and got our armies moving and doing things and marching as a real coherent force while I worked to restrain my overzealous general for the League of the Eagle. 8)
Then Strombran bellied up to the table and went further than I was ever prepared to go when it came to stuff like that. Heck. They played belligerent, admitted in total in the League of the Eagle, and basically dared anybody to call them on it.
Like I said. I spent a year trying to get everybody to see that the current power structure was unworkable. That it stifled the continent. And I was not the only one who was doing that. I wont give out names, but I was in contact with a LOT of people who were working very hard to break up the League of the Eagle. People both within the League and without. And in the end, we convinced the entire League of the Eagle that we were right. It had to be broken up.
Once the League came to an agreement on that point, we talked about doing it in an orderly manner that would have kept us on top and in charge of the surviving power structure. We actually came up with several very interesting plans to do that. I generally argued for plans that would significantly weaken all four of our realms. Each one would have broken up into two or three realms, each with no more than two cities to give us parity with the other realms on the island. My proposals were the most radical. We had a lot of very interesting plans on "how to fix things whilst remaining in charge" as Shulee so elegantly put it.
In the end though, we did not initiate any of those plans. We couldn't really agree on any of them. All we could agree on was that the situation had to change. So...we just rolled the dice. Granted, I'd spent the last year LOADING my dice, but when I pulled Tara out of the Federation and started the war, it was one heck of a roll of the dice. And there was every chance that Tara would be utterly destroyed doing it. There was no guarantee at all of remaining in charge.
The "elite cabal" at the heart of the League of the Eagle just agreed to shake everything up, bring down the power structure as it was, and see where things led. There was every possibility that we were sealing our doom in a war that would destroy all of our realms. We each wanted to make certain it was the OTHER realms that fell of course, but we were all willing to accept the risk that it would be ours instead. Or all of ours.
None of us knew where it was going to lead, and I'm very sorry that we never got to find out what was going to happen.
I generally focus my projections on two direction. Best case and worst case.
Best case. Talerium, Minas Leon, Tara, and the southern alliance work together to smash Cagil and Strombran, forcing some of their dukes to break away or die, and leaving them a shattered group of city states. It's MY best case. Sue me. ;) Then Tara breaks up into two or three nations that are each no more powerful than any of the other nations on the continent, and...bang...power structure reset with me in charge of Foda and that's about it...that would have been my happy "ending" for the war.
My worst case ending was Tara getting into a knock down drag out fight with Cagil and Strombran, only to be jumped by Minas Leon and the southern alliance when they decided that they could still have a chance of taking out Cagil and Strombran without Tara on their side. Now I was doing everything I could diplomatically to make sure worst case did not happen to Tara, but our little Tyrant and General Two Step had pissed off most of the realms on Atamara to a lesser or greater degrees. So...yeah...I consider the worst case scenario to have been VERY possible. Maybe even probable.
But that was the risk we all took when we decided to destroy the existing power structure on Atamara.
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This last post is a perfect example of how wrapped up the ruling elite got with themselves.
I can see you patting yourself on the back, oblivious to the fact that only 10 people on the island had any idea of any of that, and the rest hated your group with a passion.
Even now, it just doesn't sink in with you that the rest of us are not impressed.
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Sorry, I truncated a lot of that quotation to get to the point: None of that was visible to the ordinary noble. It's great some people had a game going on, but it wasn't one anyone else got to play for far too long.
Well Talerium often had some play going on somewhere, same with Caergoth, although the latter had a difficult situation we as players there said we'd rather be destroyed than sit still. Atamaran nobles could've changed realms also if that was the only problem.
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Even now, it just doesn't sink in with you that the rest of us are not impressed.
As I said before, I recognize some people had given up on the island, and I recognize that some people will never see anything good on the island.
The rest of us worked to make it better.
An interesting point is that the rulers and such of almost every nation were actually in the League of the Eagle. Not as full members of course, but they had signed up at guild houses and could get messages sent to everyone rather than just full members. And when we began discussing the end of the League of the Eagle and how we would do it, the messages were sent to everyone. There were some 40 people on that list as I remember, from almost every nation on the continent.
We in no way hid our intention to change everything.
The war between Tara and Cagil/Strombran was VERY public.
The war between the southern alliance and Cagil/Strombran was VERY public.
The war between Talerium and northern alliance was VERY public.
Everyone on the continent got the rumors of battles and declarations of war that were broadcast for all to hear.
If you thought that nothing was going on on Atamara then you were either not paying attention or were unwilling to see what was happening around you.
You might not know everything going on behind the scenes and the REASON for all of that if your rulers did not inform you, but that is not anything I can be in charge of. The rest, anyone logging in and reading their messages could see without any problem.
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Well Talerium often had some play going on somewhere, same with Caergoth, although the latter had a difficult situation we as players there said we'd rather be destroyed than sit still. Atamaran nobles could've changed realms also if that was the only problem.
Minas Leon and the other one or two nations up north were fighting Talerium as well.
The south was...buggered due to diplomacy but we tried to get it rolling. And then Tara broke the federation and EVERYTHING changed down there. I was rather happy to see all those nations down there getting together into a..."happy?" alliance. Hehehe. Of course I was afraid that the long term goal of that alliance was going to be Tara ground down and spit out but...hey...its a game. That would be an exciting way to go...;)
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Minas Leon and the other one or two nations up north were fighting Talerium as well.
The south was...buggered due to diplomacy but we tried to get it rolling. And then Tara broke the federation and EVERYTHING changed down there. I was rather happy to see all those nations down there getting together into a..."happy?" alliance. Hehehe. Of course I was afraid that the long term goal of that alliance was going to be Tara ground down and spit out but...hey...its a game. That would be an exciting way to go...;)
I know since I was both in Talerium and Caergoth. I agree that much was happening, but can actually understand the decision of the admins in respect to sinking the island. Could the island have become fun again? Hell yes, but there are problems on a larger scale which the sinking at least helped against. The reasoning behind their decision was not bad and carefully thought out this time. Yes I thought it was unfortunate, but at the same time I'm having fun now in realms I never thought I'd ever go to (colonies for instance is awesome, in Oritolon at least. Never would have thought that).
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I agree that they had valid and well thought out reasons for doing what they did.
They believed that they needed to sink two islands and they picked the two that were least fun in their opinion.
I think they were wrong to sink Atamara, but I do understand the reasons for why they did it.
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The rest of us worked to make it better.
An interesting point is that the rulers and such of almost every nation were actually in the League of the Eagle. Not as full members of course, but they had signed up at guild houses and could get messages sent to everyone rather than just full members. And when we began discussing the end of the League of the Eagle and how we would do it, the messages were sent to everyone. There were some 40 people on that list as I remember, from almost every nation on the continent.
I'm sorry, you're willfully warping things to suit your own argument.
I was an Elder when I was Ruler of CE. Everything of consequence went through a dozen or so Elders, and no one else.
But the *real* damage was done because these Elders were never removed. So when a realm elected "new faces", the Old Guard was still sitting in there with as much influence was ever. Since they were the majority, and the ruling oligarchy, little could change.
Even as ruler of CE I couldn't do anything because all my Dukes sat in the Guild and negotiated against my will. There was little or nothing I could do to defend the will of my Realm - which was quite vocally the opposite of what the Dukes wanted.
And since there was little or nothing I could do to kick out the Dukes, CE's common nobles were essentially !@#$ed to put up with your !@#$.
Until the island sank, thanks to all your cleverness.
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You do realize that Medron was in Tara right and that he wasn't really what you'd call "the old guard".
And yeah it's normal for Dukes to have that much power. If the majority of your realm is however 'against' them you have some options as the ruler. Those Dukes that do not follow the will of the nobility, ban them one by one (reclaim city before you move to the next) for what ever reason you want to. If said Duke is a royal (prob a few in CE's case) you have them stabbed in stead by infiltrators. Once the infil succeeds, you can appoint someone else as Duke. You can prob do that once and then some of the Dukes either rebel, or do something else. But with enough people to support this (as you say the whole realm except the Dukes pretty much) either the rebellion fails, or they form their own realms. In both cases you would have made Atamara much more fun. It's easier though to blame others and not look also at yourself.
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You do realize that Medron was in Tara right and that he wasn't really what you'd call "the old guard".
And yeah it's normal for Dukes to have that much power. If the majority of your realm is however 'against' them you have some options as the ruler. Those Dukes that do not follow the will of the nobility, ban them one by one (reclaim city before you move to the next) for what ever reason you want to. If said Duke is a royal (prob a few in CE's case) you have them stabbed in stead by infiltrators. Once the infil succeeds, you can appoint someone else as Duke. You can prob do that once and then some of the Dukes either rebel, or do something else. But with enough people to support this (as you say the whole realm except the Dukes pretty much) either the rebellion fails, or they form their own realms. In both cases you would have made Atamara much more fun. It's easier though to blame others and not look also at yourself.
You make it sound much, much easier than it was. I had a lot of people agree that Atamara sucked, but weren't willing to "change their characters" to make it better.
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I blame the south :)
We had thousand bucks chanche to beat the crap out of CE.. but southern front left Carelia alone, infact joined wrong side after all :P Oh well, north didnt do much better either in the long run...
But Darka could have kicked CE's butt any day, but Talerium were between us :P
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You can't "have them stabbed" when they sit in their city with 100+ men in a personal troop, and 5,000cs militia.
Infils can't get through that many, and if they can, it is no guarantee that they lose their Duchy (unlikely, in most cases).
There is very little you can do against a Duke who has been sitting in his city for a long time.
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I would remind you that I was a common noble when the second-to-last power structure was built. As much as I would love to take credit for it, I had nothing to do other than following orders and marching to war with the building up of the power of the Cagilan-Taran alliance.
I am happy with taking credit for helping tear it down though. Something that would not have been possible if the rest of the League of the Eagle elders had not agreed that it needed to be done.
Was it too late for some people? Absolutely.
But it did happen. And it did revitalize Atamara. I'm very proud that in the year I was Tyrant of Tara, I had a small part in helping to overturn the power structure of Atamara and start the war that ended the alliance that stifled war on the continent.
My one big wish is that we could have seen the "Succession Wars" continue and find out just what would have happened.
I know some people have a big hate on for Atamara and are glad it was sunk. Well I hate fish. But I don't want fish taken away from everybody else because I don't like fish. I guess that's just how I think. I know some people don't think like that, and for that I am sorry.
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You were already the Ruler of Tara when I tried to get a new war going against Minas Ithil, while stirring up the pot between CE and Talerium by not allowing T. to march across Rielston.
I'm not going to rehash the whole fiasco now, other than to say you would disappear for long periods of time & pop up with, "What? Are they serving sandwiches?"
After swearing to stand by you even if my realm (CE) wouldn't back you in the war, I went to pledge my sword to you to in the supposed war.
You had me instantly banned without even saying Hello because CE demanded it. If you had been looking to cause a rift, you had the perfect RP opportunity.
I'm REALLY sick of reading about how "innocent" you were in everything; you were as terrible as everyone else, and as much at fault as everyone else.
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You were already the Ruler of Tara when I tried to get a new war going against Minas Ithil, while stirring up the pot between CE and Talerium by not allowing T. to march across Rielston.
I'm not going to rehash the whole fiasco now, other than to say you would disappear for long periods of time & pop up with, "What? Are they serving sandwiches?"
After swearing to stand by you even if my realm (CE) wouldn't back you in the war, I went to pledge my sword to you to in the supposed war.
You had me instantly banned without even saying Hello because CE demanded it. If you had been looking to cause a rift, you had the perfect RP opportunity.
I'm REALLY sick of reading about how "innocent" you were in everything; you were as terrible as everyone else, and as much at fault as everyone else.
For god sake, Miskel was disaster where ever he roamed. He sure caused conflicts, but mainly internal ones :)
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That was the whole POINT of him.
That's why I'm so impatient with this "we were working soooooo hard to stir things up..."
No you weren't. Miskel was. All of YOUR energy was spent fighting him to keep the status quo.
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Being suicidal, and stirring things up so that you have even slight chanche to survive is diffrent things.
-jaune
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Being suicidal, and stirring things up so that you have even slight chanche to survive is diffrent things.
-jaune
And that reasoning is the very cause of Atamara sucking so much, good sir.
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Let's see -
Some things Miskel did that he got stomped down for:
General & Marshals never spoke to us in Darka, so he rallied nobles to go fight the monsters in the ice.
-- Branded a "troublemaker"
Complained about your old friend the Duke who logged in once per week to keep his Duchy, but wouldn't appoint lords or maintain his regions.
-- Miskel refused to do maintenance in his duchy, and told others not to. Branded a "troublemaker"
In Talerium, started an army so he could keep the newer players interested by giving them chances to learn how to be marshals and fight monsters.
-- Branded a "troublemaker" for starting an army without permission, and told he had to maintain regions for the dukes
etc, etc, etc. Years of your bull!@#$ about how "we'll have a war just as soon as everyone gets our regions in shape for the Dukes"
Yeah, real !@#$ing "suicidal".
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And that reasoning is the very cause of Atamara sucking so much, good sir.
Well, being suicidal was the reason why Atamara went on such situation. One by one smaller realms did something utterly stupid or over bold, without taking account what will happen next. Red Span, BoM, Norrland, Falasan etc.
Earlier we had real good chanche to crush CE, but alliance collapsed, we did real lot work and effort to make it work... to avoid what had happened all those realms which CE had crushed. We had majority of realms agreed to stop CE... but somehow CE were able to convience southeners abandon support to Carelia... and then north started to crumble as well.
Oh, some comments about Miskels doings:
General & Marshals never spoke to us in Darka, so he rallied nobles to go fight the monsters in the ice.
-- Branded a "troublemaker"
All was well and you gained some real respect... then you started to be a bitch and step over higher ranked nobles. That is what made you trouble maker. Not that you rallied nobles to fight trolls, but that you were jumping on peoples toes, those toes which can kick you.
Complained about your old friend the Duke who logged in once per week to keep his Duchy, but wouldn't appoint lords or maintain his regions.
-- Miskel refused to do maintenance in his duchy, and told others not to. Branded a "troublemaker"
Yes, you increased problems instead of doing what you should do. If someone does poor job, you do poor job too? Way to go...
Problem with Miskel was, that he didnt do well with authorities. You dont know how to lick ones butt to achieve something, arrogance carries you only to somewhere... Then you need to lick some butts to get what you need... after that you can again be arrogant a bit :)
Just declaring war left and right and pissoff everybody in realm and abroad, would have not made Atamara any better... only kill more realms.
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Well, being suicidal was the reason why Atamara went on such situation. One by one smaller realms did something utterly stupid or over bold, without taking account what will happen next. Red Span, BoM, Norrland, Falasan etc.
Earlier we had real good chanche to crush CE, but alliance collapsed, we did real lot work and effort to make it work... to avoid what had happened all those realms which CE had crushed. We had majority of realms agreed to stop CE... but somehow CE were able to convience southeners abandon support to Carelia... and then north started to crumble as well.
Oh, some comments about Miskels doings:
All was well and you gained some real respect... then you started to be a bitch and step over higher ranked nobles. That is what made you trouble maker. Not that you rallied nobles to fight trolls, but that you were jumping on peoples toes, those toes which can kick you.
Yes, you increased problems instead of doing what you should do. If someone does poor job, you do poor job too? Way to go...
Problem with Miskel was, that he didnt do well with authorities. You dont know how to lick ones butt to achieve something, arrogance carries you only to somewhere... Then you need to lick some butts to get what you need... after that you can again be arrogant a bit :)
Just declaring war left and right and pissoff everybody in realm and abroad, would have not made Atamara any better... only kill more realms.
No, being overly cautious prudes who wouldn't bread on the off chance that they would choke on it is what made Atamara such a horribly, horribly boring place. If what you said was true; East Island, Dwilight, Beluaterra, and Colonies should all be dead, dreary places with nothing to do. But we find the opposite is true, wars are common, nobles have stuff to do, and the balance of power of individual nations change over time. Compare that to Atamara, where the CE-bloc starts off overwhelmingly powerful and only gets more powerful as time goes on.
Oh, and please don't give me bull!@#$ about not knowing what was going on in Darka, I played their several times throughout my career here.
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So what was going on Darka?
Yes, Atamara was a bit diffrent compared to other islands, but suicidality didnt make it any better, only worse. Thats why there was huge attempt to change things. Which blew up. Later there was another attempt and this time Tara was involved... but Atamara run out of time.
What i try to say is that, Miskel kind of characters had no future in Atamara, too much old powerfull nobles, whom expected to being respected, earned or not. If not, then you were troublemaker and booted off.
Atamara gets way too much blaming, there was many other islands, you were not forced to play there. It had its problems, which playerbase tried to fix. If i whine how damn boring some realm, or island is, i get replied "move to somewhere else!"
But incase of Atamara, if someone didnt like, he says "Sink it!". If it was so bad, why it still had so many players?
Why Darka had most nobles in the GAME before ice? if it was so damn sucky island and realm?
-Jaune
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"Suicidal"?
Seems to me bottom of the sea is about as suicidal as you can get.
Well done ruining what used to be people's favorite island, and causing countless players to quit entirely.
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"Suicidal"?
Seems to me bottom of the sea is about as suicidal as you can get.
Well done ruining what used to be people's favorite island, and causing countless players to quit entirely.
With suicidal, i mean it was death to the realm if it alone, without any backup to meddle with CE or its federated partners.
You realize that I and many others were on the island from its start? We played those wonderfull times and it was our favourite island. I think your hate to Atamara is just because your way didnt work(either). You seem to blame everybody else, but yourself the state of Atamara? Especially you are jumping on those who really, really put effort to change things. You tried that too, but failed, like i failed, like few others failed.
I hope there would have been left Atamara alone(I mean also that ice thing, it really destroyed last real opposition of CE).
If there was more need for characters/players to other islands, it would have been enough to forbid more than 1 char per island and give 1 extra character whom ever wants it.
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This topic has grown quite interesting. On one side we have the "IT'S YOUR FAULT!" On the other we have "IT WAS YOUR FAULT!".
Two players aggressively blaming each other for the whole downfall etc.
Being overly aggressive as a minor noble will commonly lead to banishment. Being only a "Butt licker" (Favorite substitute in this post btw) will only lead to more silence and lack of wars. Why not combine the worlds? A fake follower whom wishes destruction to all, more interesting, no? So much potential, yet your sight is narrowing.
The fault was not on certain individuals, the fault belongs to us all. You both did what you thought was best, but it doesn't exactly matter anymore.
You should focus your time on making the other islands better rather than use all this hatred to hurt each other. So many different things to do and yet you ignore it all to complain about a lost island. Why not take your hatred and start fueds and wars that will make the game more interesting? Drama between two characters provides more excitement than a war where you just move every turn and follow orders.
You like Atamara? That's great, it's gone.
You hate Atamara? That's great, it's gone.
Notice the similarities? It's gone.
This is Battlemaster, islands are suppose to be unwinnable and there should be no pride in winning. Read the social contract and you will find my words to be true.
Atamara became exactly what it shouldn't, so it's gone. "It was about to change!" You know what, you had plenty of time to do it before, so too bad.
Please, stop this continuous bickering, you're hurting yourself more than you're proving your points.
Let us hate each other in game and not through the forums. OOC fights ruin the mood, but IC fights bring true enjoyment (I cannot stress that enough).
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This topic has grown quite interesting. On one side we have the "IT'S YOUR FAULT!" On the other we have "IT WAS YOUR FAULT!".
Two players aggressively blaming each other for the whole downfall etc.
Being overly aggressive as a minor noble will commonly lead to banishment. Being only a "Butt licker" (Favorite substitute in this post btw) will only lead to more silence and lack of wars. Why not combine the worlds? A fake follower whom wishes destruction to all, more interesting, no? So much potential, yet your sight is narrowing.
The fault was not on certain individuals, the fault belongs to us all. You both did what you thought was best, but it doesn't exactly matter anymore.
You should focus your time on making the other islands better rather than use all this hatred to hurt each other. So many different things to do and yet you ignore it all to complain about a lost island. Why not take your hatred and start fueds and wars that will make the game more interesting? Drama between two characters provides more excitement than a war where you just move every turn and follow orders.
You like Atamara? That's great, it's gone.
You hate Atamara? That's great, it's gone.
Notice the similarities? It's gone.
This is Battlemaster, islands are suppose to be unwinnable and there should be no pride in winning. Read the social contract and you will find my words to be true.
Atamara became exactly what it shouldn't, so it's gone. "It was about to change!" You know what, you had plenty of time to do it before, so too bad.
Please, stop this continuous bickering, you're hurting yourself more than you're proving your points.
Let us hate each other in game and not through the forums. OOC fights ruin the mood, but IC fights bring true enjoyment (I cannot stress that enough).
I think i have had bad output or you have misunderstood me? I dont blame Miskel for ruining or sinking Atamara, i blame him for mocking everybody who happened to love that island. I loved Miskel OOCly, in character he was horrible and were nothing but trouble and it was always great victory to see him move to another realm and know they have to deal with him, especially when he went to CE... shock was quite big to see him elected as PM :D
I still think its good to discuss about this? It's gone, but to discuss what was done to fix it were done by players and developers. What was good, what was bad, how people view it and why? So we learn from our mistakes and successes.
-Jaune
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"Suicidal"?
Seems to me bottom of the sea is about as suicidal as you can get.
Well done ruining what used to be people's favorite island, and causing countless players to quit entirely.
My post was not necessarily about you Jaune, but the overall tone that this topic has been following.
I see a lot of blaming and shaming happening. This is not constructive, but destructive. I understand you have been very calm... However others not so much.
Discussion is a part of growth, but if someone suddenly takes out a flamethrower, growth burns away quickly. ;D
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Warnings have been distributed to a few recent participants for violating the First Forum Conduct Rule. 'Be respectful of other users. No insulting or derogatory behavior toward other players or forum users.' Say what you have to say respectfully.
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I agree that the Ice really did nothing more than break what was the last major nation that stood against Cagil. I remember thinking that when it happened but I didn't have the power to do anything about it. Even with all the bonuses the Devs gave Darka, it was never going to be enough to stand up against the Cagilan-Taran alliance. What I wouldn't have given to have Darka still around when I became Tyrant...but the Devs destroyed them long before my time...:(
As for my activity in the time I was Tyrant...I logged in all the time and I worked all the time. I didn't talk with Miskel very much because Miskel wasn't one of the smart ones. He got all up in people's faces and angry and got himself kicked out when the people he was insulting got tired of him. I talked with people who acted smarter and worked behind the scenes to help change other peoples' minds.
Miskel's approach would have resulted in one nation telling everybody else to frak off and then getting gangbanged by everybody else on the continent. Believe me. I thought that one out a long time ago back when he was doing his thing. Miskel was not a reliable man to work with. Too chaotic. Too shouty. He was simply not a reasonable ally, and from his own admission he did not have control of Cagil. I could not trust anything he said to be binding.
My (very OOC) goal was not to start a single war and have a single nation wiped out. That is one reason Tara never wiped out a nation under my command. We hounded. We raided. We looted. We did not try to eliminate a single nation. Basically we sowed chaos and pissed people off. And one by one we caused the alliances that united the entire continent to the Cagil-Tara alliance to fail.
My goal was not to start a short war that would kill a nation and otherwise leave the continent unchanged except for a minor border change and another probable expansion of the federation. One by one, the actions I and others took shattered the single overriding set of alliances built over a decade that made it impossible to fight a good war. And THEN we broke the federation that enforced those alliances after talking those old Elders in the League of the Eagle into agreeing it had to be done.
Atamara was sunk before we could find out how the fallout would land, but we completely and utterly shattered the power structure of Atamara and brought in a new age of war.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1vKDM7wfiA
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Like I said, Miskel was a loose canon who did not have effective command of the nation he nominally ruled.
Quoting South Park "authority" just illustrates that more clearly.
8)
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uhm....you have absolutely no clue what is going on, do you?
Whoops! I meant that it a totally respectful way!
Seriously, though - you're just making !@#$ up to try to match what you wanted to have happened. I think I'm ready to move on from this thread now.
Thanks for showing everyone who was actually there for years and years just how delusional the people running things were.
(Do I have to explain the "Authority" video, or did other people get it?)
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The top brass can make excuses for themselves all they want. Ask anyone who spent considerable time on Atamara as a knight, they can attest that Atamara was 1) boring as !@#$ and 2) run by a select few people who basically controlled the entire island between themselves. I'm talking days without any letters, straight-up being ignored when asking things or simply being told to sit down and follow orders like a good boy. Every time something exciting was bound to happen, the Cagilan block either squashed the attempt, or simply used its power to determine the outcome for themselves. Masterful politics had little to do with it. And if that sounds resentful, good! You few elitists ruined a perfectly good island by your unhealthy desire to win the game, despite being told time and time again that nobody outside the war island is ever supposed to win the game.
Atamara was nothing more than the private playground of a select group, and if they didn't like you, you could forget about having an sort of fun.
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uhm....you have absolutely no clue what is going on, do you?
Whoops! I meant that it a totally respectful way!
Seriously, though - you're just making !@#$ up to try to match what you wanted to have happened. I think I'm ready to move on from this thread now.
Thanks for showing everyone who was actually there for years and years just how delusional the people running things were.
(Do I have to explain the "Authority" video, or did other people get it?)
As one of the people who backed miskel to become PM of CE, I can confirm he had far greater sway with common nobles and a very select few dukes opposed him. It was all going okay and then the small group said no you're not playing our game right.
It's frustrating because I was PM of CE for 6 months and I managed to not tread on the dukes and position CE towards involvement in the northern war but I was voted out and replaced by a character who proceeded to stagnate CE just as bad as anyone.
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I am making nothing up.
I have stated many times that the Cagilan-Taran alliance "won" Atamara. There was no way anybody could beat them after the last major war that broke both the northern and southern alliances. That is a fact.
And the Ice Age shattered what little was left of the north that was still holding out.
When I first became Tyrant of Tara, one or more members of the Federation was allied with every realm on the continent. And Carelia was being absorbed into Strombran. Some might use harsher words, but I will be nice here. There was no way to fight a good war when I became Tyrant.
Over the next year, we managed to end almost every alliance outside the Federation, and then broke the Federation itself, resulting in the largest war to hit Atamara since the last great war.
That is the pure and simple truth of what happened. That is what many people worked towards and what I was happy to help get done once I was in a position to do so.
That is what we did in Atamara.
If you are saying that didn't happen, then you are simply not living in the same world that the rest of us worked in.
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I am making nothing up.
I have stated many times that the Cagilan-Taran alliance "won" Atamara. There was no way anybody could beat them after the last major war that broke both the northern and southern alliances. That is a fact.
And the Ice Age shattered what little was left of the north that was still holding out.
When I first became Tyrant of Tara, one or more members of the Federation was allied with every realm on the continent. And Carelia was being absorbed into Strombran. Some might use harsher words, but I will be nice here. There was no way to fight a good war when I became Tyrant.
Over the next year, we managed to end almost every alliance outside the Federation, and then broke the Federation itself, resulting in the largest war to hit Atamara since the last great war.
That is the pure and simple truth of what happened. That is what many people worked towards and what I was happy to help get done once I was in a position to do so.
That is what we did in Atamara.
If you are saying that didn't happen, then you are simply not living in the same world that the rest of us worked in.
What we're saying is you never should have been trying to win the !@#$ing continent in the first place, for Christ's sake. They had been told time and again they were ruining the continent, but they never listened. So what that things started to change? It was after YEARS of stagnation in which the only way to have any fun in a war was to either be in Darka or join the CE bloc, and that latter choice was laughable at best.
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Oh, I agree.
The Cagilan-Taran alliance never should have "won" Atamara.
Or if it had, somebody should have done something to break that alliance. With 20-20 hindsight I can say that it would have been best to have a "Word of Tom" after the last great war when it became clear that nobody could stand against them. This issue with that, and probably one of the reasons it never happened, was the way the Cagilan-Taran alliance was formed. It was an alliance of brothers forged in battle. Or at least that is how the Tarans saw it. There is nothing that could cause the Tarans to turn on their brothers.
Anyways, hindsight says that SOMETHING should have been done many years ago to force the alliance to break up for the good of the game. There should have been an official finding by the devs or Tom that the continent had been "won." Announcement to the continent. Then have some roleplaying event that breaks all alliances and returns all diplomatic settings to neutral. Or maybe have something that caused every city to leave their nation. Or just inform the League of the Eagle that they had to find a way to break up the alliance or else. Make it all an official part of the "congratulations you won" announcement and finding.
Nothing like that happened. Obviously. And that obviously hurt the game on Atamara.
What I'm saying, from my experience, is that the players did break it up without the devs doing anything like that. I helped do that after becoming Tyrant so I remember it very well. We did what needed to be done. We broke the Cagilan-Taran alliance and started the largest war on Atamara since the last great war. I choose to celebrate the work we did to make that happen, and lament that we did not get to find out what was going to happen because the devs sunk the island.
Some people say we never did that and that we deserved to be sunk. I say they are wrong.
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I think I do need to be clear on something though.
BattleMaster is a competition. Everybody is trying to win.
What the Cagil-Tara alliance did was win against EVERYBODY. They beat all the other players on the continent. They beat a game engine designed to weaken large nations and to make it hard for larger alliances to march to support each other. Through diplomacy and military force, the players behind the Cagil-Tara alliance smashed everything and everybody.
I think that is awesome. And admirable. Winning is not a four letter word. They did what all of us wish we could do.
What is best in life? Or games?
In the words of Conan it is "Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women."
The Cagil-Tara alliance did that.
And I honestly and very happily applaud them for that.
What messed up Atamara after that is that there was no gameplay for "after win" in BattleMaster. The game was designed to make winning all but impossible so there was no plan for what to do when it happened. And when it happened nobody came up with one. That's not something I put on the players. The devs should have come up with something. My twenty-twenty hindsight thinks resetting the continent by having all cities secede would have been one way to do that. But that's twenty-twenty hindsight. And I honestly really don't fault the devs for not having a plan either. The game is supposed to stop that. And they didn't want to be in the position of taking away what players built. That's why my twenty-twenty hindsight says to congratulate them, give them some virtual medal of some kind, and then reset the island.
The point in the end is that winning Atamara was not bad. Not having a plan to reset Atamara in case of a win wasn't even really bad.
What was bad was not doing something to reset things. It should have been done. And it should have been the devs that did it.
In the end, we players took the bit into our mouths and did something about the problem. But it should have been handled years earlier. It shouldn't have been up to us players to fix it.
And once again, winning in Atamara was not bad. It was amazing that anybody managed to do it.
It was the lack of follow through after the win that hurt the continent.
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You do not win BattleMaster. The obsession with it is unhealthy. There is no congratulations for 'winning'. There is more than just our characters dominating each other; there is playing an enjoyable game. That involves playing *with* other players, not *against* them. Our characters playing against each others are element of a story to be enjoyed by the players playing *with* each other.
When Sirion, Cagil, Riombara etc. grew to unprecedented sizes, we should be questioning why that is different than the historical limitations they experienced not congratulating the players on 'winning their island'. And that questioning did happen (eventually, probably too slowly) and solutions implemented to fix the not-working large-realm limitations.
It is wrong to win a continent. It will not be congratulated. It will not be rewarded. It is a bad thing. The War Island is special because it is the only island that is conquered in entirety and reset. Not other islands. The only winning is the experience/story that we weave as players with other players, including the players of our characters' hated foes.
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I disagree here a bit. Winning your opponent is not bad, winning the game, is bad.
My opinion, is that devs should have left Atamara alone. Time will take care all those things mentioned. Like it was going to happen. There was great wars ahead, new realms were about to be born. With that i mean those ice things. It would have definately be handled diffrently, not punish those who had attracted most players and were having wars.
I speak from Darkan view, we had awesome times. We fought against huge alliance, were doing quite well. We had a lot nobles, we had a LOT gold, we had good activity, instead of getting beating, we had grown. Then ice came, we lost big portion of our realm, many good recruitment centers... it kind of snapped the spine. Players and characters start to leave.
If landmass needed to be tuned down, it should have been done there where it was problem(southern and eastern part of Atamara).
I feel bad for this all blaming on players, like we would not have tried to keep game intresting and fun. CE did what was best to their realm and they did it pretty well. Ofcourse if situation was like some mentioned, CE had some real internal problems too, but that all means it was not as solid as it looked for outside.
People talk like this would have been peace master for years? There was big great wars going for years.
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I think I do need to be clear on something though.
BattleMaster is a competition. Everybody is trying to win.
What the Cagil-Tara alliance did was win against EVERYBODY. They beat all the other players on the continent. They beat a game engine designed to weaken large nations and to make it hard for larger alliances to march to support each other. Through diplomacy and military force, the players behind the Cagil-Tara alliance smashed everything and everybody.
And once again, winning in Atamara was not bad. It was amazing that anybody managed to do it.
It was the lack of follow through after the win that hurt the continent.
First of all, I agree everyone of course will try to win. It is in people nature I believe.
Although this topic is about Atamara and what-it-would-be scenarios, do please allow me to share a brief history from Colonies where previously there was also a dominating alliance.
When a realm or alliance of realms grows too big, it is inevitable a domination will be found. Lukon realm used to hold 3 cities: Lukon city(their own namesake realm), Portion city(after they defeated Portion realm), Wetham city(after they defeated Wetham realm). While Oritolon used to hold 3 cities: Oritolon city(their own namesake realm), Alebad city(after they defeated Alebad realm) and Alowca city(after they defeated Alowca realm). Outer Tilog used to hold 2 cities as well: Outer Tilog city(their own namesake realm), Giblot city(after they defeated Giblot realm). The alliance of Lukon and Oritolon managed to defeat alliance of Alebad, Alowca, Portion, Wetham in the wars that follow. While in the north, Outer Tilog defeated its old enemy Giblot.
So you can see from the short summary here, it is possible to dominate an island. I don't think this happened on Atamara island only, my experience in Colonies island can be considered as one too. I think it happens for Arcaea on FEI island as well. But it will have many consequences. As some players already stated here, the players of the losing realms will likely to leave the island. Unless we come out with something or a solution. Either the winning realm absorb the characters of losing realms or we would end up losing characters.
At one point around the freezing of lands time when Colonies island realm was considered among many islands to be freeze, the players from many realms came together and decided upon a set of rules: 1 realm can only hold 1 city. If 1 realm hold more than 1 city, it will be destroyed or attacked by other realms. This is paved to be Colonial Senate guild foundation, besides we trying to establish only infiltrators realm as Assassins. Colonial Senate guild consists of all characters from all realms. Anyone can join up. Call it players manual reset, if you want. We tried to play it IC. At that point when 1 city 1 realm rule come into effect, from 1 city 1 realm we had not enough characters to even attend Tournaments or hold Tournaments successfully. However we realize we must do something to gather players interests. Or all will be lost.
On another note, I think developers realize big realms are starting to become a common occurrence and thus they release the game codes to prevent it.
You do not win BattleMaster.
Perhaps our players need to be reminded by our Uncle at Battlemaster Wikipedia. He says the following:
"How do I win?"
Uncle Freddie gives you a startled look, then bursts out laughing. He laughs so hard he nearly chokes, but finally settles down, grinning broadly.
"You can't win, child. It doesn't make any sense. You can no more win this here life than you can win an earthquake.
But I will tell you this: you can certainly feel like a winner, and it's not hard at all. Look at your Uncle Frederick here. I've got the respect of my peers, I have a good chunk of savings and a title of land, and when I speak, people listen. I've taught dozens of you youngsters the ropes, and watched most of you grow up to be fine, productive troop leaders. I still get letters from some of you, asking how I am and asking advice. If that ain't winning, I don't know what is."
Listen to your uncle. There is only one way to win BattleMaster -- by making friends and having fun. Be magnanimous in victory and gracious in defeat. Be attentive and courteous. Remember that even if your characters hate each other, their players can still be friendly. If you do these things you'll be well-liked, and well-respected, and there's no better definition of "winning" than that.
http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Introduction/Winning (http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Introduction/Winning)
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You make it sound much, much easier than it was. I had a lot of people agree that Atamara sucked, but weren't willing to "change their characters" to make it better.
I don't think so, if you wish to complain so hard, you should actively try to change things. At the same time, you should consider whether or not your actions can be done reasonable in the first place. You think my move of founding Oligarch for instance was smart? Hell no, I didn't think we'd last this long in the first place tbh, but I did everything to get that power and then split off. Actually, I tried to split up Sirion before that but failed. I am convinced there were options in CE etc for similar things as well.
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This game has great lessons hidden in it. Unlike other online games where we try to wipe out the enemies, win the server and sometimes get dragged in forum wars, the game Battlemaster teaches us how to "play". This game makes us realize that behind every character, there is a human sitting on a computer and he has same feelings as us. We all are complete strangers, who would have never met under normal circumstance, but are bound together by this game. There are no "enemies", there are "opponents".
In this game, we are not only expected to rise to power, we are also expected to relinquish everything we have won for betterment of the society. To make the game "fun" is a collective responsibility. There are several other good things to be learned from this game. Playing this game in the way recommended by Tom would impart good qualities in our real life too.
CE Alliance was the best team (I was fortunate to be a part of it. I love the teamwork). We rose to ultimate power, but we failed to relinquish it in a timely manner for betterment of society. Lesson has been learnt. Atamara is dead. Lets move on.
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I don't think so, if you wish to complain so hard, you should actively try to change things. At the same time, you should consider whether or not your actions can be done reasonable in the first place. You think my move of founding Oligarch for instance was smart? Hell no, I didn't think we'd last this long in the first place tbh, but I did everything to get that power and then split off. Actually, I tried to split up Sirion before that but failed. I am convinced there were options in CE etc for similar things as well.
Uhm, you're talking to someone who tried to actively campaign for the Prime Minister position in CE and got a good portion of the vote. I actually went through the trouble to make a train of logic where it would make sense for a realm of "honor" like CE to consider splitting from the Federation, noting the "dishonorable" acts of Tara against the Federation (before they split off themselves) and positing the notion that if Cagilan Empire could not act on its own behalf without allies, then they were little better than weak enforcers for Tara rather than the guardians of honor they saw themselves as. This, of course, was laughed at by most of the Dukes who proceeded to do their best to block my position, save for their southernmost Duke, who agreed with me but OOC wasn't willing to risk doing something that could lose them their position, nor go "against their character". I made that part of my platform as Prime Minister, but instead they chose Jean Luc, who proceeded to appease the Tarans and refused to attack even after they had broken the Federation and thus declared war.
I'm sorry, but you seem to think that the players in leadership of CE wanted was even willing to listen on an IC/OOC basis. That is not true.
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Snip
This post brings up such an interesting point... And it is ignored. How lovely.
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Not ignored.
He is accurate.
But it is not always a point of view that people see without being guided towards it. Sometimes with a gentle hand. Sometimes it takes a clue by four. Sometimes it takes mods or devs or whatever you call the people assigned to watch over the game to enforce that view.
As for the other post...I do find it amusing that he would suggest that Tara was acting dishonorably towards the Federation. Tara was the only member of the Federation actively fighting the enemies of the Federation. Cagil was doing its best imitation of an ostrich while Strombran joined into an alliance with our enemies and helped them grow in power and territory.
Strombran was the serpent that poisoned the Federation. Tara was the last defender of the Federation's ideals, and when it became clear that the Federation would fail to reign in Strombran's foul machinations, it became Tara's job to protect all of Atamara from her villainy.
8)
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This game has great lessons hidden in it. Unlike other online games where we try to wipe out the enemies, win the server and sometimes get dragged in forum wars, the game Battlemaster teaches us how to "play". This game makes us realize that behind every character, there is a human sitting on a computer and he has same feelings as us. We all are complete strangers, who would have never met under normal circumstance, but are bound together by this game. There are no "enemies", there are "opponents".
In this game, we are not only expected to rise to power, we are also expected to relinquish everything we have won for betterment of the society. To make the game "fun" is a collective responsibility. There are several other good things to be learned from this game. Playing this game in the way recommended by Tom would impart good qualities in our real life too.
CE Alliance was the best team (I was fortunate to be a part of it. I love the teamwork). We rose to ultimate power, but we failed to relinquish it in a timely manner for betterment of society. Lesson has been learnt. Atamara is dead. Lets move on.
This made me smile, really and truly, I remember when we actually played like this and that time was the best and most fun i've ever had throughout my time playing any online game.
Thank you Elegant for reminding me.
As for Atamara, i've played on both sides of the coin and had to experience Coria or should I say Narnia. Those who said CE won, well I could say that might of been possible after Fasland was defeated and the south got beat during that Redspan incident with Darka. Yet, toward the end CE was unraveling and Tara was just being stubborn. The brotherhood that existed was at its breaking point.
The thing I miss most about that island is the friendships I made in Darka and CE. They crossed over the years and many of those people are the reason I continued to login because they made the game that much more interesting Umbar, Indirik, Lavigna (Lavagina), Conquard, Munnegan, Valgin, Gorath, Paxwax, Salvador, Fury, Merlin, Juane, Randall, and Ghostdragon, just to name a few. Few of these people reached even outside of the game and summoned me back to play.
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Note how shocked I am that it is ruling clique versus everyone else in this thread?
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The thing I miss most about that island is the friendships I made in Darka and CE. They crossed over the years and many of those people are the reason I continued to login because they made the game that much more interesting Umbar, Indirik, Lavigna (Lavagina), Conquard, Munnegan, Valgin, Gorath, Paxwax, Salvador, Fury, Merlin, Juane, Randall, and Ghostdragon, just to name a few. Few of these people reached even outside of the game and summoned me back to play.
That is Tara for me. I always kept a character or two in Tara just to keep up with friends there. I never had a single role in the government or really did anything of much regard there other than marching when the general sent out orders. But I just enjoyed the nation and the people there. It was my home in BattleMaster more than any other place.
Then I saw several Tyrants disappear one after another, saw Tara in disrepair and ready to fail, and I had the audacity to think I could do something about it. So I ran for the Tyrancy and won.
At first I just did whatever it took to stabilize Tara and make her stronger. I had never looked at Atamara from the slightly-OOC perspective you need as a ruler. It took a few days or maybe a bit more than that. I made some mistakes. Shanandoah for one. I dealt with other leaders. I studied the diplomatic situation on the island. I started to realize that it was locked. Hard. That it stifled good gameplay. And that is when I began to realize why we had lost so many Tyrants recently. They felt helpless. Trapped by the situation as much as anybody else on the island.
So on the one hand, I pushed to make Tara more active. I got an awesome general from Carelia who knew how to do things, and we made Tara fun to play in again. Revitalized it and got things shaking up both inside and outside Tara.
And on the other hand I began working with those who wanted to bring down the federation. Because once I looked at the federation with the slightly OOC-eyes that a ruler should use, I realized that bringing it down was the only way to breath life into ALL of Atamara.
As for this being a ruling clique versus everyone else thread...I see some rulers who didn't get things their way complaining that they didn't get their way and being glad that the devs sunk the island. And I see other rulers who worked with the other rulers to fix things being happy that they did and wishing that we all could have seen the aftermath of that.
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Note how shocked I am that it is ruling clique versus everyone else in this thread?
Oh that takes me back.
"Leaders, this realm is getting stale and boring!"
"No it isn't. We are enjoying ourselves, ergo you must be enjoying yourselves too."
"But we're not!"
"You just don't understand what we're doing here."
"We might if you included us in realm affairs!"
"Go away, pleb."
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Oh that takes me back.
"Leaders, this realm is getting stale and boring!"
"No it isn't. We are enjoying ourselves, ergo you must be enjoying yourselves too."
"But we're not!"
"You just don't understand what we're doing here."
"We might if you included us in realm affairs!"
"Go away, pleb."
^--- so true...
I cannot understand. Everyone is telling you why they didn't like Atamara and you simply call us "Rulers that didn't get their way."
I have never been a ruler in the 4-5 years of my time playing this game. In fact I was an infiltrator (the only class that actually had something to do during your "fun time in Tara"). I stabbed Ottar in an attempt to cause uproar and nothing came of it... He was re-elected shortly after.
We are all responsible for Atamara's sinking. We had opportunities before and nothing came from it.
Pryde is not innocent, I am not innocent, we are all not innocent. This was a shared experience that had become dominated by the few who did not want share their experience. These words are being echoed over and over.
We as a community should have stopped it, why can we not follow Elegant's example and learn to appreciate our game as much as the next person's?
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I miss the days of Abington, Eston, Norland, Ash Sea Islands and Falasan. I started playing during the big war between Eston and the Vikings. I think Drachenwald was alive still, even. Back then things were interesting. Alliances were made and broken, wars started and ended. And even way back then, CE was already known as the party pooper on the block, constantly trying to meddle in wars they had no real interest in the war. But they came in like "Oh this war now involves an ally of us so prepare to experience the full power of the Cagilan Empire... and all of our allies. Oh, you object? Now we have to humiliate and/or destroy you." I remember very clearly the moment in the Viking War where we were looking at Cagilan involvement. Neither side asked for it or wanted it. It was like all of the fun was sucked out of the fight all of a sudden. Then one by one the old realms fell to the Cagilan block. Abington, ASI, RedSpan, Falasan, everyone was ever a vague threat or even a nuisance was taken out or neutered and subjected, usually by the entire CE block fighting together.
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Yes. That absolutely happened. I don't hear anybody saying anything else. The Cagilan-Taran alliance beat everybody else.
And once that happened something should have been done to reboot the island. It was not done in a timely manner. I think we all agree on that too.
What I have said since the beginning, and what some people say did not happen, is that the players of Atamara did cooperate to END that situation.
Ending it was the primary goal of myself and numerous other players who worked together to get it done.
We succeeded in that effort. We broke the alliance and started the largest war on Atamara since the end of the last great war.
I saw the possibility of a reborn Abington forming in the south. The entire peninsula was united in alliance for the first time since the end of the last great war. And they were marching to war against the League who had subjugated them for years. After a months' long conflict in which half of the League had been requested to NOT get involved.
Minas Leon and Rielestone had been at war with a League member (Talerium) for months with specific "do not get involved" statements to the rest of the League.
Talerium had formed a new infiltrator realm that would take stabbity stabbity contracts from ANYBODY.
The creators of a new Darka have said in this thread they were a day away from seceding from Talerium and creating their new realm.
And of course Tara broke out of the Cagilan-Strombran-Taran Federation and kicked off the first new MAJOR war in years.
All of this was happening because we had finally succeeded in making the League of the Eagle leadership realize that the old power blocs had to die for the good of Atamara. The League of the Eagle's primary mission (OOC) had become to divest control of Atamara from the four realms of the League through whatever means necessary. Gone were the days of Cagil bellying up to a conflict and saying "we're bringing all of our friends to this one."
Every nation outside the League of the Eagle had been fighting for months before the final split occurred. And the final split brought that war inside the League with major fighting between the Taran and the combined Cagilan-Strombanian armies. After months of small and medium sized armies marching and fighting across northern and southern Atamara, the three largest armies on Atamara were at war with each other in MAINLAND Atamara.
These are the undeniable events and wars that were taking place throughout Atamara and involving every realm on the island.
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And what we're saying is that it's THEIR !@#$ING FAULT for the situation getting to the point where they needed to do that in the first place. It NEVER should have gotten to that point.
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Tom has always been quite clear: Islands do not get reboots, except the South Island when it's actually, literally, completely won, and Beluaterra kinda-sorta with the periodic invasions. (And those are never complete reboots.)
Anyone who was expecting there to be one in response to the Cagilan bloc conquering the island was deluding themselves.
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They were playing to win. That is how we play games so I don't fault them for that. They beat the Kobiyashi Maru. They beat the other players and even the code of the game that is meant to discourage that. Awesome. Congratulations.
What should have happened next is that someone should have done something to break the power block. Like I said before I favor the idea of having all cities secede, but that is just one of many options. The devs are here to deal with odd things like this and should have done something effective. They did not.
The players did it in the end, but they shouldn't have had to.
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I've put this reply off since the very beginning of this thread...I apologize for length and repeated points.
My thoughts are more general towards the history of the continent and not about whether or not the last few months were or were not improving. It is not about blaming anyone, but trying to look at what happened. I apologize if my words may become more pointed, but I do mean them neutrally. I think some of the participants may have been discussing separate time periods and venting their own frustrations with others upon each other who were not there for the time period they are venting about.
I started playing in the Cagilan Empire in fall of 2005 where my 'main' character was for at least two years, almost becoming Prime Minister by the hair of a vote, and have interacted OOCly and played ICly with people on various sides of the conflicts over the years. I have played a character recently that was screwed by both Cagilans and Darkans in their own POV.
Seriously, the way the game pushes things to degrade in time and everything about it is designed to break up large realms and alliances. But through ingenuity and determination and a lot of smarts the alliance BEAT EVERYBODY ELSE. They literally beat the system. That is what some people didn't like about the continent. There were clear winners and losers in a game that is supposed to stop that from happening.
Or if it had, somebody should have done something to break that alliance. With 20-20 hindsight I can say that it would have been best to have a "Word of Tom" after the last great war when it became clear that nobody could stand against them.
What the Cagil-Tara alliance did was win against EVERYBODY. They beat all the other players on the continent. They beat a game engine designed to weaken large nations and to make it hard for larger alliances to march to support each other. Through diplomacy and military force, the players behind the Cagil-Tara alliance smashed everything and everybody.
I think that is awesome. And admirable.
The problem is that the game was not effectively degrading realms. The solution is not to celebrate these players, but to stop and look around and say 'hey, something is wrong, we should look into what changed'. That happened eventually, but took way too long. When continents were begin 'won' by realms vastly larger than used to even be possible, we should've stopped and figured out why. Not celebrating players who thought of nothing but their own characters. I am reminded of My Guy Syndrome (http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,6639.msg142772.html).
The game has a long cultural history of players self-policing. Atamara refused. Since you mention it, there was a time when there was a Word of Tom given to realms after East Continent's Great War. It was exceptional and players would probably not like it. If I remember correctly (and I confess to a degree of fuzziness), the realms of EC adamantly refused to war another post-war until Tom threatened to lightning bolt every ruler who was not at war by a certain date. Perhaps we should have done this much much sooner for Atamara, but again, long history of self-policing players and decreasing admin game intervention from the earliest years. And Atamaran history of gangbanging wars. Admittedly we have increased intervention since last December with the Invasion, density-based spawn rates, and Portal events, but this is exceptional for the last decade of game history.
In the case of Atamara it took the players to self-police and break the alliance up.
The idea that it should 'take the players' is wrong. That has been and should be the natural way the game has and should operate. As players, we are all responsible for the condition of our realms, religions, islands, the game atmosphere as a whole. This is important. We are a community. All of us, players and devs, together. The devs are only devs because they are players who volunteered their time, just like any player can do. Same as wiki editors, forum mods, those contributing to the Age of Wonders maps effort, and probably other aspects I forget. And the input, criticism, suggestions, contributions of players in community discussion. So, this thread is good, minus the occasional hostility. But I really want to emphasize that the players were supposed to self-police Atamara and the fact we did not, is a failure we need to avoid. You and I have discussed before the idea that religion/priesthood as a means of conveying OOC atmosphere player interests via IC roleplay.
Atamara was crashing and burning into a continent-wide civil war when the Devs nuked everything. Years of gaming and scheming on the best map the game has just deleted and taken away from the players.
The timing was unfortunate for those players that put an effort into fixing Atamara. But frankly, it came too little too late. The Freeze event that occurred was done instead of sinking Atamara. Atamara had more than a year and three-quarters where its players could have taken action to improve the continent, because we wanted to avoid taking it 'away from players'. I would have preferred to sink Atamara sooner in the year than we did, and then you would not have wasted your effort, but we were not going to delay yet again because it looked like something might be different now. Looking back, I wish we had gone ahead with sinking Atamara instead of doing The Freeze, but history cannot be changed. The same effort done on AT still needs done in a lot of places, even if not as critical. We do not want to get as critical as Atamara had gotten.
I personally think the Ice Age was a fine idea, but it was lacking in how it was carried out. You clipped Atamara's fingernails when you needed to amputate at the elbows.
As for the Ice age, I was.excited to see this event carry out, until it stopped just barely over the land to the point that it only effected the realms that were already dying. This only made that Federation stronger and the game less fun.
The whole Ice Age shenanigans must have been the worst thing I have ever witnessed in this game to the point that I started to think that the devs just wanted to end the whole war and destroy all realms opposing the "Alliance".
I agree that the Ice really did nothing more than break what was the last major nation that stood against Cagil. I remember thinking that when it happened but I didn't have the power to do anything about it.
I agree we should have kept the ice pushing and not stopped. I hope we do not make the same mistake with monsters. This is another example, as mentioned above, where it is important for players to speak up. You did have the power to do something. Perhaps some did, but I do not recall any particular suggestions that the ice should've kept moving, just arguing about whether it should have happened or not. Much like this thread is arguing about whether AT should have been sunk or not, or who was or was not responsible for Atamara etc., instead of the original Monster thread and contemporary concern.
Final decision to sink atamara i understand, but i think dev's didnt understand how it had just gotten lively again.
We understood, but it came after the decision had been made, after many months of discussing it and failing to come to a decision. And in consideration of the entire game atmosphere, with each of the islands compared. Atamara and the Far East had a long history of performing the most poorly. Sometime later came the OOC discussion in the League of the Eagle, which I clearly remember thinking 'now they get it...after we finally decided to sink AT, couldn't they have done this any sooner?'.
and we no longer have two character in continents
While they may appear initially contradictory, there were a lot of aspects going into the set of December changes. In terms of the character per continent change, Atamara is yet another example. Atamara had a particular habit of solidifying their alliance via silent doubled characters either both in one realm or one each in two realms. Not good for a dynamic continent, for one reason one char per continent was implemented. But also, it meant highly similar experiences between those two characters and one character quite often being played more as a glorified NPC than an actual full-fledged character. As opposed to exploring a different continent with its own style and feeling more engaged to interact because its a separate situation than your other characters. And thus helps ensure realms and islands are more engaging to new characters and players than a realm who is 1/5th silent double characters.
I took one look at the diplomatic situation on the island from the eyes of a ruler who is supposed to give his players a fun time and realized that it wasn't setup that way.
At first I just did whatever it took to stabilize Tara and make her stronger. I had never looked at Atamara from the slightly-OOC perspective you need as a ruler. It took a few days or maybe a bit more than that.
I commend thee. And this should be more encouraged in more government members, religious elders, and the playerbase as a whole.
As a player, I wanted it dead. Gone. Buried. But at the same time I (and especially my character Regstav) were loyal to CE. Regstav fought when Tara had three regions and it was CE that saved our butts time and again. So there was no way that Regstav would just drop them. He owed them way too much for that.
I had a lot of people agree that Atamara sucked, but weren't willing to "change their characters" to make it better.
This issue with that, and probably one of the reasons it never happened, was the way the Cagilan-Taran alliance was formed. It was an alliance of brothers forged in battle. Or at least that is how the Tarans saw it. There is nothing that could cause the Tarans to turn on their brothers.
Again I think of My Guy Syndrome above. But also the previous quote. This particular situation/objection/concern between staying true to a character's nature and not letting that fictional creation of ours ruin the game is why I often suggest religion as a means to remain both IC and to incorporate OOC concerns into our characters. That is, using religion, a character could have a religious epiphany that allows a character to shift their viewpoint. Not even drastic change, but enough to justifiably explain character development (as no one stays the same all their life anyway). And with religion there's so many roleplay explanations for inspiration with meditation, visions (dreams, drugs, otherwise), prayers, priest conversations etc. And I think its the responsibility of religious elders and/or priesthood to think about the continent's atmosphere, in terms of 'spiritual health', with their membership and using their position to improve it. Pursuing those without virtue (silent gov members, rulers locking island in alliance/federation blocks that stagnant island, vulgar folk etc.), giving characters goals that may not be aligned with their interests but (and this part is difficult and crucial) follow because they respect the Divine.
that we deserved to be sunk.
Not deserved. Simply there used to be more players in the game to fill the land, now there is not. Atamara persistently performed poorly compared to other islands.
I think I do need to be clear on something though.
BattleMaster is a competition. Everybody is trying to win.
What messed up Atamara after that is that there was no gameplay for "after win" in BattleMaster.
That's not something I put on the players. The devs should have come up with something.
The point in the end is that winning Atamara was not bad. Not having a plan to reset Atamara in case of a win wasn't even really bad. What was bad was not doing something to reset things. It should have been done. And it should have been the devs that did it In the end, we players took the bit into our mouths and did something about the problem. But it should have been handled years earlier. It shouldn't have been up to us players to fix it.
BattleMaster is not pure competition between players. The Social Contract discusses playing around a boardgame as with friends. Most times I play Risk or Monopoly I play to defeat the armies of their 'character ruler-general' or buy the properties of their 'character businessman' not smash my friend over the head with a hammer. As players, we need to recognize not just our character's interests, but how that affects others' enjoyment of the game. I fall short at times, we all do; we improve. Again, I think religion is a good medium for having IC versions of these conversations.
There was no gameplay for after-win, because there is no winning BattleMaster. It is up to the players and not solely upon the devs to provide answer for players who will not do for themselves. It is my view that devs coming up with something/intervening/'Word of Tom' happening is a last resort and indicative of a deeper issue amongst playerbase. Devs should be focused upon providing tools to tell stories not the story itself.
'Winning' Atamara was bad. Only the War Island is reset. That's part of BattleMaster, is the continuation of history. The devs are not around to reset continents that are won. BattleMaster is not a game about winning continents to be reset by devs. That is why the War Island was specifically created to do just that. It should not have been up to the players to create the situation in the first place; it should have been up to the players to resolve it, years sooner. This idea that we are all playing against each other to win and require the devs to step in and fix it afterward is absolutely foreign to what BattleMaster is. This is why I commend those who pushed for the Colonial Senate after Lukon dominated the Colonies.
And once again, winning in Atamara was not bad. It was amazing that anybody managed to do it.
I would say disappointing.
Winning your opponent is not bad, winning the game, is bad.
Agreed. In-character rivalries can be awesome. But we must remember that the rivalry won't exist if the player behind the character is not enjoying the experience. I think it helps to seek out and play alongside the characters of players your characters oppose on other islands instead of always the same crowd.
With that i mean those ice things. It would have definately be handled diffrently, not punish those who had attracted most players and were having wars.
If landmass needed to be tuned down, it should have been done there where it was problem(southern and eastern part of Atamara).
I agree about this. At the time of Ice, we were quite focused on trying to be impartial and so chose the locations as neutrally as possible, with vague forum polls affecting the locations. While we may have meant well, I think it was a mistake to not choose areas based upon factors like wars and attracting players. I have tried to keep that in mind in more recent events now, particularly the Invasion on BT.
On another note, I think developers realize big realms are starting to become a common occurrence and thus they release the game codes to prevent it.
There was old code limiting realms, but it was not done effectively as it was only relative. So if all the realms on an island grew bigger at roughly the same time as various smaller realms were eliminated, no one was penalized or the penalties were light. Last December we implemented more absolute limits in addition to the relative limits.
They were playing to win. That is how we play games so I don't fault them for that.
They beat the other players and even the code of the game that is meant to discourage that. Awesome. Congratulations.
Except the Social Contract we all read and agree to play the game says quite clearly "You can not win BattleMaster. Therefore, playing together is more important to us than playing against each other." Quite clearly, trying to win Atamara is breaking the rules of the game, the very Social Contract of our Community as players together. Congratulating players for violating the Social Contract is not awesome.
The devs are here to deal with odd things like this and should have done something effective. They did not. The players did it in the end, but they shouldn't have had to.
This is not an odd thing. This is against the very social fabric of the game that you can 'win an island'. The players should not have created the situation that required the devly intervention you now desire. The players absolutely should resolve it by going to war, not having war delivered to them. That does not mean there is no place to reach out and have a discussion of your concern too. Both have their role. Concerned about an island? Figure out how to fix it yourself in-character AND create a thread that says 'This Bothers Me, What Can We Do As A Community?'. Every situation is different in terms of degree of player and dev involvement (bugs for instance).
To whatever degree we were involved or not in the Stagnation that was Atamara, I think we can all take a lesson from it for future gameplay. Many have made great points at various times I could not exhaustively endorse or this post would be twice as long. I suppose I would highlight Elegant's post previous to this one and Ketchum's explanation upon the Colonial Senate. I hope this has been helpful in furthering understanding. Sorry for the length and repetition. Tried to be somewhat thorough as I had not yet thoughtfully contributed to this thread.
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They were playing to win. That is how we play games so I don't fault them for that. They beat the Kobiyashi Maru. They beat the other players and even the code of the game that is meant to discourage that. Awesome. Congratulations.
What should have happened next is that someone should have done something to break the power block. Like I said before I favor the idea of having all cities secede, but that is just one of many options. The devs are here to deal with odd things like this and should have done something effective. They did not.
The players did it in the end, but they shouldn't have had to.
I disagree with you on this one actually. I agree with much that you've said, but not this part. We as players are not small children that require constant supervision are we? The mechanics are clear enough guidelines and it's up to us to make and keep the game fun, not the devs. The ' big reboot' you speak off, should have happened by the players at full force. But too many were afraid to ' lose' their power which is rather rediculous but alright. The big reboot as happened in the end of Atamara should have happened 1 or 2 years before (there were ample opportunities for it) and then I think Atamara would still be around. Now it's not.
The lesson learned here is that we should not repeat the same on other islands. It's why I have high hopes for Perdan to be honest, as they seem to be keeping their allies minimalized at this point and will no doubt also consider warring Vix in the future. Our experiment in the north failed, but the amount of war on the other islands has been huge, which is a good thing.
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There was attempt to break/weaken CE & Tara, but it failed, due awesome diplomacy of CE and greedness of south.
Almost everybody non federated realms joined to war with CE, only closest allies of CE stay out of it. Tara & Talerium(Talerium stayed neutral at the war) & Strombran. But on the south, Carelia was pretty much alone and eventually Suville betrayed the coalition and attacked Carelia which meant end of southern part of war... Also north was not as united as we were planning.
I guess Darka should have forced Talerium to take a side, it would propably mean that Talerium would have taken CE side and Darka would have forced to focus take Talerium out... could have made war more brutal incase Talerium would have been defeated and CE & Darka would have common border.
I'm still dreaming to see Atamara rise again :) Awesome map, awesome history, awesome cultures.
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There was attempt to break/weaken CE & Tara, but it failed, due awesome diplomacy of CE and greedness of south.
Almost everybody non federated realms joined to war with CE, only closest allies of CE stay out of it. Tara & Talerium(Talerium stayed neutral at the war) & Strombran. But on the south, Carelia was pretty much alone and eventually Suville betrayed the coalition and attacked Carelia which meant end of southern part of war... Also north was not as united as we were planning.
I guess Darka should have forced Talerium to take a side, it would propably mean that Talerium would have taken CE side and Darka would have forced to focus take Talerium out... could have made war more brutal incase Talerium would have been defeated and CE & Darka would have common border.
I'm still dreaming to see Atamara rise again :) Awesome map, awesome history, awesome cultures.
Yeah I know, happened before I started playing again and joined Caergoth.
I still miss the time of Abington, my first realm ever along with RedSpann which I did not enjoy so much back then. Actually had a dream of one day founding Abington in Suville city again (as ruler of Caergoth, yeah I know) but we never even came close to that.
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Vita. Good post.
I have this to say in answer to it. If setting up a condition where one alliance WINS an island is considered a violation of the social contract...then I would say that is how the devs should step in. Make an official ruling on the problem and say it needs to be fixed or said group of players will be punished. One issue with Atamara is that nothing like that ever happened. There was a lot of sniping about Atamara, but never anybody in position of authority saying "do this, or this will happen." With an explanation of why of course.
I don't think there's any question in anybody's minds that Atamara should have been fixed years ago.
And I'm sorry that I wasn't involved in the effort to do that years ago. But I never recognized the problem until I became a ruler. I never looked at the continent in that way. And honestly, for a lot of years there I was burned out and only going through the motions of playing. The only reason I really kept playing was because one of my character was the only elder priest of what has become one of the largest religions in the game. I didn't want to abandon it or the other players who were part of it. If I'd had any other position I would have logged out and never returned honestly. Years ago.
Then I realized that Tara was falling apart. Only a handful of our oldest nobles remained, and we just weren't doing anything. I didn't know why. I just knew it was wrong. We couldn't have fought off a determined Girl Scout troop. Rielstone could have beaten us in battle. I'm not joking either. I didn't know what was wrong, but I knew something was. So I did the one thing that I didn't want to do at the time. Because I was still burned out. I volunteered to run for the Tyrancy of Tara. And when I figured out what was wrong, I realized one very important thing.
I could never tell Tara what was wrong. I couldn't tell ANYBODY what was wrong. Because if I ever said it publicly, the Cagilan-Strombran faction of the federation would either destroy me or they would destroy Tara. One thing that everybody here says is very right. They did not accept people not towing the line. Miskel proved that. A succession of rulers in Cagil showed that again and again. Just as the succession of Tyrants before me had shown that. Ottar the Great he is known as in Tara. One of our greatest rulers. To the League he was a traitor because he didn't tow the line. His player left the game because of that. And then one Tyrant after another retired within a week and never came back. Never spoke again in the realm. Just stopped.
So when I became Tyrant and was told what to do, I did it. I gave up Carelia in a heartbeat. My sole rebellion was in granting every Carelian a place in Tara. The League wanted them banished from the island so they could never threaten Cagil again. So I gave them a new home, and I searched out everybody else I could find who I thought had a chance of doing something about the federation. They were out there. There were a lot of them. Both inside and outside the League. And sometime in all of that I realized that I liked the game again. That I enjoyed it again.
We pushed to pressure the alliances and break them. And we pushed. And we pushed. And one by one, alliances crumbled and people started to realize the truth. And in the end we made the entire League realize that the continent had to change because it couldn't stay the same.
We did it. We won the battle that was really worth fighting. We broke the federation and put Atamara back on a path to total war without the League being in charge of it all. AND WE GOT THE BLOODY LEAGUE TO AGREE TO DO IT! That's the most amazing thing of all.
And then the devs just sunk it all. But they should have acted long ago. When players were being pushed out of the game entirely for standing up to the power bloc, the devs should have stepped in. It should NEVER have been up to a literal conspiracy of players to try to talk them into making the change. In the full knowledge that they could be driven from the game. Knowing that some already HAD been. The devs should have stepped in long ago. Because the rest of us players were at a severe disadvantage there...
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While the discussion goes on, please allow me ask something.
The League's main opposition was Darka and their allies. They were strong. Why did the Devs decide to eliminate Darka and allies artificially? Why didn't the Devs do the same to CE and Strombran coast and left Darka and BoM untouched? Making CE alliance weak by freezing their regions would have made the game play interesting and would have kept the two sides in competition.
(Conspiracy theory: I feel that Devs did that with a purpose to test the wisdom of leaders of League nations. They wanted to see what the League will do when left alone on an island (a genius plan). Of course, the League failed the test. Why the Devs wanted to do this experiment is a mystery.)
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While the discussion goes on, please allow me ask something.
The League's main opposition was Darka and their allies. They were strong. Why did the Devs decide to eliminate Darka and allies artificially? Why didn't the Devs do the same to CE and Strombran coast and left Darka and BoM untouched? Making CE alliance weak by freezing their regions would have made the game play interesting and would have kept the two sides in competition.
(Conspiracy theory: I feel that Devs did that with a purpose to test the wisdom of leaders of League nations. They wanted to see what the League will do when left alone on an island (a genius plan). Of course, the League failed the test. Why the Devs wanted to do this experiment is a mystery.)
That's actually a simply answer AT being sunk was a thought long ago because of it's problems the only reason it remained because so many old char's/players were on the island still, then the # started to drop off so Ice then it came to sinking. If you look back at older threads about the island clear talk of sinking it is there. I think really it was inevitable. If you can recall it used to be talk of EI and AT for sinking, FEI no clue really never was a fan, but hey EI is still around.
Prepare the Battle Groups! Troop leaders get your men ready to march! Blow the Trumpets and Horns, Onward to the Sea..
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I have this to say in answer to it. If setting up a condition where one alliance WINS an island is considered a violation of the social contract...then I would say that is how the devs should step in. Make an official ruling on the problem and say it needs to be fixed or said group of players will be punished. One issue with Atamara is that nothing like that ever happened. There was a lot of sniping about Atamara, but never anybody in position of authority saying "do this, or this will happen." With an explanation of why of course.
Fair enough. But yet again, until quite recently, the idea of intervention has occurred less and less over time so to expect a sudden change was probably unlikely; that is probably why we were so intent on trying to choose glacier locations impartially during the Freeze. We had also seen how the Colonies had self-organized their own solution and perhaps expected others to be inspired, if not replicate identically. But in retrospect, the similarity to EC may have warranted an admin declaration to the island.
It should NEVER have been up to a literal conspiracy of players.
Not a conspiracy. A community of players.
The League's main opposition was Darka and their allies. They were strong. Why did the Devs decide to eliminate Darka and allies artificially? Why didn't the Devs do the same to CE and Strombran coast and left Darka and BoM untouched? Making CE alliance weak by freezing their regions would have made the game play interesting and would have kept the two sides in competition.
(Conspiracy theory: I feel that Devs did that with a purpose to test the wisdom of leaders of League nations. They wanted to see what the League will do when left alone on an island (a genius plan). Of course, the League failed the test. Why the Devs wanted to do this experiment is a mystery.)
First, Allow me to quote from my last message:
At the time of Ice, we were quite focused on trying to be impartial and so chose the locations as neutrally as possible, with vague forum polls affecting the locations. While we may have meant well, I think it was a mistake to not choose areas based upon factors like wars and attracting players. I have tried to keep that in mind in more recent events now, particularly the Invasion on BT.
Second, we didn't really 'choose' where. There were polls on the forum that had vague questions. The locations were determined based on these poll results. Not quite random, but close enough for our purposes.
No conspiracy or test other than that expected of every player in maintaining a fun game for each other.
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All these talks how people controlling the Behemoths were about to set things in motion are lies.
Simple as that. We've actually heard them for around a RL year. And nothing ever happened.
I would just exile the leaders of certain realms to the Colonies and see what happens. But I guess the devs didn't want to experience the whinings of these players (as if you can ever avoid that) and nuked the continent. Well done, let's now all keep an eye on the people who ruined Atamara and don't let them anywhere near power.
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Make an official ruling on the problem and say it needs to be fixed or said group of players will be punished. One issue with Atamara is that nothing like that ever happened. There was a lot of sniping about Atamara, but never anybody in position of authority saying "do this, or this will happen."
This was the single most frustrating part of the whole thing.
This problem went on for years and years and years, and there was no one to appeal to to fix it.
Considering the signup (still) recommends new players start on AT, I personally think this surrender of responsibility on the part of the people in charge of the game was far more damaging than anyone has thought about.
Look at how bitter and hateful the experienced players on this thread are about it all. How many new players faced that experience and simply quit, week after week, month after month, year after year?
I don't say this now to start a blame game. I don't have any interest in reading a long-winded defenses.
MAKE SURE THIS NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN. Whatever you have to do, make sure you understand that ultimately this game is your responsibility to manage, and don't let it happen again.
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I agree.
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Snip
You understand that these are volunteers, right? They work with whatever spare time they have and you have the audacity to demand them to work harder? They are already working harder... They don't even get to enjoy the game anymore BECAUSE they're trying to help YOU enjoy the game.
I don't want to start a blame game either... But please don't point the finger at good people...
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You understand that these are volunteers, right? They work with whatever spare time they have and you have the audacity to demand them to work harder? They are already working harder... They don't even get to enjoy the game anymore BECAUSE they're trying to help YOU enjoy the game.
I don't want to start a blame game either... But please don't point the finger at good people...
+1, this is not some paid game and I'd repeat my statement that the players aren't children. For crying out loud, but if we together as players can't keep this game fun to play, then we deserve the sinking of any island.
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How about we settle with the whole community, players and devs, should have acted sooner? Now, where should we, players and devs, be concerned about now, not in yesteryear?
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You understand that these are volunteers, right? They work with whatever spare time they have and you have the audacity to demand them to work harder? They are already working harder... They don't even get to enjoy the game anymore BECAUSE they're trying to help YOU enjoy the game.
I don't want to start a blame game either... But please don't point the finger at good people...
Oh, please - give it a rest.
They had several years to write a 5 minute in game message saying rulers would be removed if things didn't change, or whatever course they chose to follow.
Leave out the "making them work harder" silliness.
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Please do not derail the thread.
I am personally still worried about BT's landmass shape. After this invasion is over there will be another boring and toxic Riombara not because it is run by bad players but because it is doomed to stagnation by its very geography.
Other continents seem fine.
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East Continent discussion split to East Continent Concerns About Xavax and Perdan (http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,7118.0.html)
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Question.
Do we need more game mechanic or limitation? We do not want everyone allies or peace with each other. I do not think we like to have TMP(Too Much Peace doh! 8) ) back either.
Perhaps instead of developers rolling out a statement saying "you must do this and do that" every time, why not we put forward this limitation in game?
You can only have 2-3 allies Diplomacy, depending on how many realms on that one island.
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Question.
Do we need more game mechanic or limitation? We do not want everyone allies or peace with each other. I do not think we like to have TMP(Too Much Peace doh! 8) ) back either.
Perhaps instead of developers rolling out a statement saying "you must do this and do that" every time, why not we put forward this limitation in game?
You can only have 2-3 allies Diplomacy, depending on how many realms on that one island.
I am unsure if limitations will help much. In Atamara,it only took 3 allies to halt everything, really and truthfully just 2.
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I am unsure if limitations will help much. In Atamara,it only took 3 allies to halt everything, really and truthfully just 2.
That's not really true. I'm guessing you're looking at CE and Tara, but you'll have to put Strombran here too. Cause Strombran was long allied with Suville as well and CE with Talerium. Had those two or 3 realms not be included in this alliance, the island would have looked very different. But I do agree that the matter is very difficult to arrange.
My biggest concern with alliances is that they are treated more like federations than alliances. Very few people have temporary alliances which they break after a while etc. But that's more a mindset than a mechanic and difficult to change I think.
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That's not really true. I'm guessing you're looking at CE and Tara, but you'll have to put Strombran here too. Cause Strombran was long allied with Suville as well and CE with Talerium. Had those two or 3 realms not be included in this alliance, the island would have looked very different. But I do agree that the matter is very difficult to arrange.
My biggest concern with alliances is that they are treated more like federations than alliances. Very few people have temporary alliances which they break after a while etc. But that's more a mindset than a mechanic and difficult to change I think.
I'm sorry. I was thinking by 2 or 3 allies that Ketchum meant independently rather than whole. As Tara did not like Surville I believe (I was in Strombran in and out).
Also, I am sure if we could somehow find mutual agreements on all the continents for certain rules, we'll have a much better experience. However that as well is very hard to arrange. Perhaps there is another suggestion on how we can prevent Atamara 2.0? (Sorry Ketchum, don't mean to hang up on your idea. It is a valid one indeed.)
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I'm sorry. I was thinking by 2 or 3 allies that Ketchum meant independently rather than whole. As Tara did not like Surville I believe (I was in Strombran in and out).
Also, I am sure if we could somehow find mutual agreements on all the continents for certain rules, we'll have a much better experience. However that as well is very hard to arrange. Perhaps there is another suggestion on how we can prevent Atamara 2.0? (Sorry Ketchum, don't mean to hang up on your idea. It is a valid one indeed.)
No worry, I am sure we all here are thinking of prevention of Atamara 2.0. How about if we modify it slightly?
Alliance status with duration of how many days. Those who not bother renew or forget to renew, the alliance status expire and the diplomacy change to peace/neutral.
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No worry, I am sure we all here are thinking of prevention of Atamara 2.0. How about if we modify it slightly?
Alliance status with duration of how many days. Those who not bother renew or forget to renew, the alliance status expire and the diplomacy change to peace/neutral.
I like this idea. +1.
Alliances are supposed to be temporary to begin with, might as well add a duration? This will prevent long term peace as alliances and treaties expire. It will also give a valid reason for people to turn on each other ^^
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We've tried something like that.
It doesn't take much effort to renew an alliance. These aren't inactive players, they are self-centered players.
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We've tried something like that.
It doesn't take much effort to renew an alliance. These aren't inactive players, they are self-centered players.
You could be right.. How about adding a slight modification again? This cooling off period will put many former allies at war with each other and make the wars interesting again as well.
You cannot ally with this realm because you are ally recently.
This is going to cause paranoia because realm A previous ally with realm B. But now after the duration expire, realm A cannot ally with realm B, realm A can only ally with other realm it not allied with before. So in case of war, realm B at least got an insight into realm A due to they both are ally before.
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You didn't actually play on Atamara, did you?
They'll just sit there and wait it out. The issue wasn't game mechanics.
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You didn't actually play on Atamara, did you?
They'll just sit there and wait it out. The issue wasn't game mechanics.
We're just trying to find a solution, perhaps you have a WAY better solution?
Perhaps we can get each continent to agree to a mutual rule/standard like on the colonies? (Though I admit that this idea will be difficult to accomplish ...)
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You could be right.. How about adding a slight modification again? This cooling off period will put many former allies at war with each other and make the wars interesting again as well.
You cannot ally with this realm because you are ally recently.
This is going to cause paranoia because realm A previous ally with realm B. But now after the duration expire, realm A cannot ally with realm B, realm A can only ally with other realm it not allied with before. So in case of war, realm B at least got an insight into realm A due to they both are ally before.
Although I like the idea of limiting alliances, I'm not so much a fan of forcing war between them automatically.
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Perhaps we can get each continent to agree to a mutual rule/standard like on the colonies? (Though I admit that this idea will be difficult to accomplish ...)
Religion. Make religion meaningful IC where destroying the enemy with overwhelming force is embarrassing not glorious. Where government members who don't engage their realm are actively overthrown as morally bankrupt.
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Religion. Make religion meaningful IC where destroying the enemy with overwhelming force is embarrassing not glorious. Where government members who don't engage their realm are actively overthrown as morally bankrupt.
Good luck finding someone to lead that. Doubt many people will leave their current religion and those who don't have a religion often simply don't care. But something like the high sparrow in GoT combined with a bit of more bloodlust would be pretty fun.
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That's why I said Religion, not named any specific religions. It's more about the ideas than the specific religion/church/theology/pantheon/cosmology. Don't want to leave your current one? Then make what you do have meaningful and push for your elders and priests to be full of conviction in uplifting those who do well and shaming those who do not.
Those who don't care to join a religion because they think in modern religious perspectives are a lost cause anyway, probably.
Must everything be paralleled in GoT? I had not drawn the connection previously and now...gah, I hate that is is an example and yet not what I had pictured at all, as fun as it would be. There are different degrees of religious methods and enforcement. ;) And religions can be large enough to host a spectrum of personalities.
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That's why I said Religion, not named any specific religions. It's more about the ideas than the specific religion/church/theology/pantheon/cosmology. Don't want to leave your current one? Then make what you do have meaningful and push for your elders and priests to be full of conviction in uplifting those who do well and shaming those who do not.
Those who don't care to join a religion because they think in modern religious perspectives are a lost cause anyway, probably.
Must everything be paralleled in GoT? I had not drawn the connection previously and now...gah, I hate that is is an example and yet not what I had pictured at all, as fun as it would be. There are different degrees of religious methods and enforcement. ;) And religions can be large enough to host a spectrum of personalities.
Yes everything must be paralelled in GoT! That is simply a must!
But other than that you are right of course. Although Garas doesn't really need a reason to declare random wars, so I'm good with him and Goriad...well you know him. Anyone, beyond my chars, I actually like the idea of promoting such a mindset in religions, but wonder how many would be up for it. It's certainly worth a try though.
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Ah, interesting. So Atamara got sunk, eh? :) Seems about right, I guess.
On a side note: a lot of the map links no longer work on the wiki...