BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => Development => Topic started by: pcw27 on July 16, 2016, 10:09:36 PM
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We often come to the Dev team with changes we'd like made that we think will make the game more fun, however we rarely ever talk about what we as players can do to make the game more fun for ourselves and each other. Most of the time the way to do this involves finding interesting new ways to start meaningful conflicts, conflicts within realms, conflicts between realms, even conflicts between two individual nobles.
Here are a few ideas people should consider to keep things interesting, all point out specific high power positions in the game that often get neglected, but they also explain ways for lower ranking players to get these elites involved:
For Judges:
Organize prisoner exchanges with enemy judges. You offer to release a prisoner if they do the same. Now you may be thinking "Wait what if they don't hold up their end of the bargain". Exactly! Now you've got a personal enemy. If you really don't trust them, demand a hostage. Their noble must offer to join your realm, or an additional noble can be sent to perform this service. If they break the deal then you can ban and execute their noble. Of course if he's real sneaky and all that fails it might be time to take some revenge on his realm mates with some quality time on the wrack.
For everyone who's not a judge, you can put pressure on the judge to get more involved. When you get out of jail and read your mail look for a list of captured enemies from a recent battle, then demand to know why you had to rot in a rat infested hell hole when they could easily have organized an exchange. Protest his indifference to your suffering, challenge him to a duel if you must.
For Bankers:
Get serious about regulating trade. Make sure no one is trading to enemies. Somewhere down the line we might have a black market to make this even more intriguing but there wont be much motivation if we don't have active bankers.
For everyone else, I hear the enemy is offering high prices for food.
For Dukes:
If a lord leaves your duchy, get mad! That's a betrayal. Have a duel with that duke, maybe bring your whole duchy into it, knights and all. It's the closest to private warfare the game can accommodate and that's really not so bad. Imagine two dukes four lords and four knights all squaring off and dueling on the same day. That would be an event worthy of tales. I'd find it infinitely more exciting then even a very large ordinary battle.
For vassals of these dukes, take a look at your taxes and see who's offering competitive rates.
Who else has ideas for how we can play the game in a more fun way using just the mechanics we have here?
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In general:
Advocate for wars that don't destroy realms.
If you're not very active, and hold positions, give up those positions to people who are more active (assuming your realm has such).
Don't require near-certainty of massive overwhelming victory before you're willing to commit to a war.
Remember, Losing Is Fun.
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Advocate for wars that don't destroy realms.
Need to learn to ask for monetary compensations maybe
If you're not very active, and hold positions, give up those positions to people who are more active (assuming your realm has such).
Already did this :D
Don't require near-certainty of massive overwhelming victory before you're willing to commit to a war.
Definitely need to work on this
Remember, Losing Is Fun.
We all know this is a lie!
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Need to learn to ask for monetary compensations maybe
Monetary compensation, taking a single region, requiring the stepping down/banishment of a particular noble, requiring the construction of temples to certain religions....
There can be loads of good goals for a war that have nothing to do with the destruction of the losing realm.
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Would be nice if we could find a way to get money from enemies more easily.
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destroying realms should be encouraged in certain cases. having this blanket attitude that no realm should ever be destroyed leads to more stagnation than any other cultural problem in the game.
destroying realms clears up room for new realms, new ideas, and new players rising to prominence. it can often be the only way to remove entrenched leadership, ideas, alliances and rivalries that stagnate the game.
there are so many realms dominated by one single active player or a small group of active players clinging onto their little titles, so afraid of change that they drive out any players bringing new ideas to the table. they cling to their old alliances, stagnating continents. they won't take risks, stagnating their own realms until all that remains are zombie chars and gold farmers. these realms should be destroyed.
splitting up big realms is not enough, because most often all it accomplishes is turning a big stagnant realm into a big stagnant alliance bloc. check out morek on dwi, after a year of essentially pointless kerfluffle you now have an alliance bloc that covers the entirety of morek as it was before the breakup other than HD. so all we got out of it was a couple new realm names and the same old, same old with the exception of one stagnant and marginalized realm.
im not advocating for every war to be a war of total annihilation, but just imagine how much more boring and stagnant bm would be if the realm list never changed. regardless of how many secessions there are you will reach a point where you cant secede anymore (and lets not get into how bad a one city per realm BM would be).
realms need to have life cycles like everything else.
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destroying realms clears up room for new realms, new ideas, and new players rising to prominence. it can often be the only way to remove entrenched leadership, ideas, alliances and rivalries that stagnate the game.
Sounds like something that needs to be done to Perdan.
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you should try, but this thread and my post are not in regards to any particular realm or continent. in the interest of not derailing an actual interesting and potentially constructive thread please keep the perdan hate in the perdan-hating section aka the ec local.
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destroying realms should be encouraged in certain cases. having this blanket attitude that no realm should ever be destroyed leads to more stagnation than any other cultural problem in the game.
I never advocated this, and I have not seen this as a prevalent attitude. I've seen it in certain cases, but overall, what's much more destructive to the game is the idea that every war that's declared is a fight to the death.
This is true, to a lesser extent, even if the war ends without any realm involved being destroyed or significantly reduced. If the intent of the war is to destroy another realm, it adds massively to the stress involved in fighting the war.
It should be possible to fight a war without knowing that losing will mean losing everything. That's the kind of fear, after all, that leads to drawing in allies to form massive alliances that stagnate a continent.
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i agree that not all wars should be fought to the death, but some should. its not morally unacceptable to destroy a realm in a game where that possibility exists, and as i mentioned there are cases where i strongly believe realms MUST die for the ongoing health of the game.
i would contend however that most wars fought to the death occur because the losing side refuses terms of surrender.
every war ive participated in that came to the point that one side or the other stated an intent to fight to the death was because the losing or perceived losing side refused terms. ive been on both sides of the coin.
there are times when i feel refusing to surrender or accept terms is justified, like in cases where you believe the health of the continent is at stake or the terms require something completely morally unacceptable in ic terms.
an example of both is when dustole's superalliance on fei was trying to gangbang cathay into joining "the new empire" and serving in its army to gangbang ohnar and Coralynth into submission, forming another continent-spanning empire. we refused and we won, well as much as a war interrupted by the destruction of a continent can be said to be won.
an example of purely the latter was in caelum when spearhold demanded caelum worship the daemons and join them. it wouldnt have hurt the continent but no caelish were going to join the daemons. caelum was destroyed. we all accepted the consequence of not surrendering and moved on. not a single whiny forum post about it.
but in too many cases it just comes down to player ego. case in point, westfold vs swordfell. when swordfell was swamped with monsters we offered them to surrender four relatively poor rurals, two of which we already had TOed, and return shomrak in exchange for peace. their ruler refused and as a result they have now lost twice as many regions as we wanted to take from them. westfold's objective in this war was never to destroy swordfell, but swordfell took it to the "one of us will be destroyed" level all on their own. we will see if they develop some common sense with a new ruler or if they will still be stuck in ego land.
what i do consider to be out of line is if a winning side offers terms, those terms are rejected, and then they say "that was your last chance" and refuse peace even if the losing side comes back to the table. this is what happened with the cathay-kabrinski diplomacy minus the attempt to come back to the table, since we started winning hardcore once everyone realized our backs were against the wall. im sure it has happened at some point though.
but again, if a war's expressed purpose is the destruction of a realm i dont see that as inherently bad and immoral. some realms are just bad for the game.
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and even as i write these words, morek empire reunites
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Thoughts on Wars of Annihilation.
It is true that this gets problematic for a lot of reasons. I don't think these necessarily counter stagnation. As has been mentioned people form huge alliances to avoid being destroyed. Demanding certain leaders step down as terms of surrender is a much better way to get some turn over out of a war.
The complaint that some realms refuse to surrender is valid, however there are ways around this. For starters, if a realm really has the upper hand they can let the war go cold. Drawn out hostilities can add just as much fun and intrigue as a cataclysmic battle. Also players in the realm being defeated should consider rebelling or protesting if they want to save the realm.
I've also seen the opposite with realms refusing to accept a peace even when they can't reasonably hope to achieve victory. It's annoying but I think it's made possible in part by the lack of intra-realm conflict. How Luria Nova managed to have such high player density yet no internal strife for so long is beyond me.
I think creative new ideas for terms of surrender is a good thing to discuss. Going off my exchange of prisoners idea, one term of surrender could be that certain key members of the defeated realm must swear a binding oath never to return to the lands of their former foes. How do you make this oath binding you ask? Simple, they have to briefly join the realm and then be banned. Once that happens they're fair game for execution. Of course at some point the rest of the realm might decide they want to renew hostilities anyway, forcing the leader to either put their lives at risk or be branded craven for putting their life before the dignity of the realm.
So as a more general topic which impacts all of this, people need to stop being so overly compromising and indifferent. By playing nobles we agree to certain rules of courtesy and respect, that doesn't mean we should all get along. Right now I'm playing a character in D'Hara who's a straight up pirate and part of a bastard lineage to boot. As of yet no one seems to care. I got one message asking why I was on the Western Continent and that's it. Someone should at least be grumbling about how my pillaging is a disgrace to our once proud realm.
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I think it will be difficult to get people away from the old mentality of war = destruction or all in.
This has been an issue for BM for a very long time and few people trying to change won't work. I am literally reducing a small realm that declared war on mine to a pulp yet they don't want to surrender. Already destroyed most of their capital. I am not even asking much. I just want the gold we spent to get there paid. Not in one go either. People would rather see their realm get destroyed than lose wars.
I am sad to say this but in order to change this, we will need a system where demands need to be forced to a realm like CK2 with a forced peace period of 3 months or so.
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@pcw i dont think i understand the meaning of this paragraph:
"I've also seen the opposite with realms refusing to accept a peace even when they can't reasonably hope to achieve victory. It's annoying but I think it's made possible in part by the lack of intra-realm conflict. How Luria Nova managed to have such high player density yet no internal strife for so long is beyond me."
Luria won the southern league war, so I don't think I understand what you mean by "cannot hope to achieve victory" if Luria is your example.. are you referring to the southern league refusing lurian peace terms?
Luria had internal strife, but it was kept in check by a few things. the SLW had Luria on its own fighting every realm on the continent but swordfell, when you face those kinds of odds it tends to unite the realm. after the SLW was over you still had a pressure valve for a fair number of dissatisfied players because of the promise of a new realm in the north, which became westfold. even still there was massive tension between rossgyr/kilhorn and theon whiteheart in the military council and a lot of future westfold nobles left to HD for a while, some partially because they couldnt stand Luria.
third and perhaps most important factor was a rock solid core of leaders who worked really closely and rarely fought, which was able to maintain order among the less powerful nobles. knights and minor lords were allowed to bicker amongst themselves as long as it didn't become a disturbance to realm goals, if it did they would be shut up pretty quickly. if they had the audacity to criticize, sometimes even merely question,authority figures, they'd be chewed out via the trademark Old School Lurian Player Wall of Text until they learned their place or left the realm.
are you pillaging rogue regions in the west? hows that going for you?
@zakky what war are you referring to?
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@pcw i dont think i understand the meaning of this paragraph:
"I've also seen the opposite with realms refusing to accept a peace even when they can't reasonably hope to achieve victory. It's annoying but I think it's made possible in part by the lack of intra-realm conflict. How Luria Nova managed to have such high player density yet no internal strife for so long is beyond me."
Luria won the southern league war, so I don't think I understand what you mean by "cannot hope to achieve victory" if Luria is your example.. are you referring to the southern league refusing lurian peace terms?
I'm talking about the war that broke up Morek and got Astrum to found Westfold. Realistically all Luria could ever do was raid Astrum and Morek from time to time. There was no chance of conquering either realm in any meaningful way. Eventually Morek gave up and split apart more out of frustration then anything else. The same is true for Astrum ceding land for Westfold.
Furthermore all the while Luria could have gone after Swordfell and actually expanded to accommodate their larger noble population but for some reason they never went for that.
Luria had internal strife, but it was kept in check by a few things. the SLW had Luria on its own fighting every realm on the continent but swordfell, when you face those kinds of odds it tends to unite the realm. after the SLW was over you still had a pressure valve for a fair number of dissatisfied players because of the promise of a new realm in the north, which became westfold. even still there was massive tension between rossgyr/kilhorn and theon whiteheart in the military council and a lot of future westfold nobles left to HD for a while, some partially because they couldnt stand Luria.
third and perhaps most important factor was a rock solid core of leaders who worked really closely and rarely fought, which was able to maintain order among the less powerful nobles. knights and minor lords were allowed to bicker amongst themselves as long as it didn't become a disturbance to realm goals, if it did they would be shut up pretty quickly. if they had the audacity to criticize, sometimes even merely question,authority figures, they'd be chewed out via the trademark Old School Lurian Player Wall of Text until they learned their place or left the realm.
If all that was going on I'm all the more perplexed that it so rarely boiled over into something visible from the outside. Sure eventually you had Luria Boreal break off but only after a prolonged and relatively pointless war.
are you pillaging rogue regions in the west? hows that going for you?
Great, 14,000+ gold on my last expedition. I just wish it were a tad bit more controversial.
I think it will be difficult to get people away from the old mentality of war = destruction or all in.
This has been an issue for BM for a very long time and few people trying to change won't work. I am literally reducing a small realm that declared war on mine to a pulp yet they don't want to surrender. Already destroyed most of their capital. I am not even asking much. I just want the gold we spent to get there paid. Not in one go either. People would rather see their realm get destroyed than lose wars.
I am sad to say this but in order to change this, we will need a system where demands need to be forced to a realm like CK2 with a forced peace period of 3 months or so.
I think this problem stems from a general unwillingness to give up grudges and concede to a victor. In some ways the game accommodates this. If your realm is destroyed you can join another hostile realm, or turn a non-hostile realm hostile, and just keep on fighting and getting pushed back until you're this overpopulated cluster dedicated to winning a war you lost fair and square ages ago. Character death might help this a bit but people can still just go on to make vengeful descendants as their new characters.
This is one of the cases where encouraging people to change their play style will help. Two things will break up the trend a bit.
1. Just tell people to give up the grudge already. If you lost, accept it and look for a new conflict. You can't fight every cause ad infinitum, it's not fun for anyone.
2. People need to balance things out a little more when it comes to character motivations. We can't all be honorable upstanding heroes and we can't all be conniving backstabbers, in fact most of us should be neither of the two because realms made up of only those two archetypes don't work. How about playing a lord who's dedicated first and foremost to his region? Then when the enemy rolls in and the king wont bend he might just decide to put pressure on the king, stating that he wont fight for this lost cause at the expense of his land, and if the king will not accept peace that he'll change allegiance to another realm, possibly the enemy.
I'll note that I think I might have just inadvertently prevented such a destruction from happening in Luria Boreal. I dueled and wounded their king and the Margrave of their capital thanked me for it and now wants to pursue peace.
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I think they were trying to remove their ruler. The duel probably removed him from the throne.
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I'm talking about the war that broke up Morek and got Astrum to found Westfold. Realistically all Luria could ever do was raid Astrum and Morek from time to time. There was no chance of conquering either realm in any meaningful way. Eventually Morek gave up and split apart more out of frustration then anything else. The same is true for Astrum ceding land for Westfold.
Actually it was the addition of Helyg Derwyddon that decided the war. Otherwise Astrum could have fought off the raids forever.
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So to get back to the core topics I think a big thing to work on is what can best be described as "archetype balance".
Right now there are a few archetypes that show up most in Battle Master and they show up in great numbers. They're often played in a way that just doesn't work, so I'm setting out to identify these play styles and suggest ways to modify them to ad intrigue and complexity.
The Follower:
It seems to me that the most common archetype by far is what I'd refer to as "The Follower". They follow orders, don't get involved in realm politics, don't talk much and basically go with the flow. When it comes to conflicts, they are usually tacitly loyal to the crown. Admittedly its normal for there to be a few followers in a realm, but too many who are also too effete to do anything leads to stagnation. I understand that not everybody has the time or interest in creating an especially complex character, but at least think a bit about who you're really loyal to. If you're a warrior, maybe decide you back the general more then the king. If you're a courtier maybe it's the judge or the banker. Or maybe you're loyal most of all to your lord or duke. Mention this here and there. March into battle crying "For (insert thing you value)" and if that thing is in danger follow that instead of the realm.
If you're a lord or duke, you really have no place playing this archetype. You have too much power. It's too important for everyone else's fun that you do something interesting with it.
The Loyal and Honorable:
This is a bit like the follower but a little more involved. You're outspoken about the importance of duty and honor. You write heroic role-plays. You will never lie or cheat and you are fiercely loyal to the crown. This is fine if it makes up maybe a third of the realm, but any more then that and you've got a boring realm with no conflict. Like the follower you can shake things up by changing the focus of your honor and loyalty by making it first and foremost to someone other then the king. Another thing to consider is looking at the figure you're loyal too, say the king, as someone you need to compete for against your realm mates. You want to show him who's the best in battle. Or who makes his lands most prosperous. Naturally, this can lead you into conflicts with other members of your realm. No one likes being told they're an inferior warrior or an incompetent administrator. Now an important part here is that sometimes rulers will suppress these sort of conflicts because they're also wrapped up in being overly honorable and benevolent. I'd advise against this. Pretend for a minute that realm members are not disposable and you can't just punish them both. In this case unless their conflict threatens the whole realm you're better off letting them fight it out. If you're at war, why not ask them to suspend their feud until the conflict is over (this could actually make for more exciting peace time).
The Manipulator:
The problem with this archetype is mostly in the way it's played. Some players get a kick out of being the back stabbing power player. They want to be Iago, Little Finger, Grima Wormtongue, Jafar. Nothing wrong with that by itself, but if done wrong it makes everyone groan. The biggest problem that comes up with this archetype is people are often way too obvious about it. They lash out at people in big public ways, accusing every other notable figure of being "The real power hungry manipulator". More often then not people keep them around just for amusement. When they eventually get driven out of every realm and give up, they then make a new character and almost immediately get up to the same old tricks, which makes everyone groan all over again.
If you want to be the shifty advisor there is one thing you need subtlety, say it with me SUBTLETY. Public condemnations of anyone should be the LAST thing you do. You need to work in the shadows, with whispers, little exchanges. Pay attention to things and find ways to drive wedges between people. I don't mean wedges between one person and the entire realm, or two huge groups within the realm, I mean two individuals. Say someone didn't sell food when another region was starving. Sell the needy region that food and send a PM saying how sorry you are you couldn't make the trade sooner and how horrified you are that so and so didn't see fit to offer food at a fair price. A good manipulation requires lots of little grudges that can build into bigger grudges, allowing you to play one side against the other until there's no one to stand in your way.
Also if you've played the big obvious manipulator too many times, either play severable honorable upstanding characters, or find yourself a proxy, some naive young character you promise to help reach the top. The great thing about that is you can also sell them out in the end and convince people you really have given up your family's manipulative ways and turned over a new leaf.
Another thing that can ad some flavor here is motivations. Most manipulators in the game are not poisoning their way to the top to accomplish anything. Hey it's not a big deal now and then to just be plain power hungry, hell that's realistic, but ambitious manipulators are more interesting. It's exciting to see people that don't just want to reach the top for the fun of being on top but in fact want to reach the top so they can change their realm some how. I'm talking about people who want to advance their religeon or destroy another. Maybe they want the realm to be more warlike or more mercantile. Maybe they want to declare war on an old enemy or bring about peace. These are things to think about
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So to get back to the core topics I think a big thing to work on is what can best be described as "archetype balance".
Right now there are a few archetypes that show up most in Battle Master and they show up in great numbers. They're often played in a way that just doesn't work, so I'm setting out to identify these play styles and suggest ways to modify them to ad intrigue and complexity.
The Follower:
It seems to me that the most common archetype by far is what I'd refer to as "The Follower". They follow orders, don't get involved in realm politics, don't talk much and basically go with the flow. When it comes to conflicts, they are usually tacitly loyal to the crown. Admittedly its normal for there to be a few followers in a realm, but too many who are also too effete to do anything leads to stagnation. I understand that not everybody has the time or interest in creating an especially complex character, but at least think a bit about who you're really loyal to. If you're a warrior, maybe decide you back the general more then the king. If you're a courtier maybe it's the judge or the banker. Or maybe you're loyal most of all to your lord or duke. Mention this here and there. March into battle crying "For (insert thing you value)" and if that thing is in danger follow that instead of the realm.
If you're a lord or duke, you really have no place playing this archetype. You have too much power. It's too important for everyone else's fun that you do something interesting with it.
The Loyal and Honorable:
This is a bit like the follower but a little more involved. You're outspoken about the importance of duty and honor. You write heroic role-plays. You will never lie or cheat and you are fiercely loyal to the crown. This is fine if it makes up maybe a third of the realm, but any more then that and you've got a boring realm with no conflict. Like the follower you can shake things up by changing the focus of your honor and loyalty by making it first and foremost to someone other then the king. Another thing to consider is looking at the figure you're loyal too, say the king, as someone you need to compete for against your realm mates. You want to show him who's the best in battle. Or who makes his lands most prosperous. Naturally, this can lead you into conflicts with other members of your realm. No one likes being told they're an inferior warrior or an incompetent administrator. Now an important part here is that sometimes rulers will suppress these sort of conflicts because they're also wrapped up in being overly honorable and benevolent. I'd advise against this. Pretend for a minute that realm members are not disposable and you can't just punish them both. In this case unless their conflict threatens the whole realm you're better off letting them fight it out. If you're at war, why not ask them to suspend their feud until the conflict is over (this could actually make for more exciting peace time).
The Manipulator:
The problem with this archetype is mostly in the way it's played. Some players get a kick out of being the back stabbing power player. They want to be Iago, Little Finger, Grima Wormtongue, Jafar. Nothing wrong with that by itself, but if done wrong it makes everyone groan. The biggest problem that comes up with this archetype is people are often way too obvious about it. They lash out at people in big public ways, accusing every other notable figure of being "The real power hungry manipulator". More often then not people keep them around just for amusement. When they eventually get driven out of every realm and give up, they then make a new character and almost immediately get up to the same old tricks, which makes everyone groan all over again.
If you want to be the shifty advisor there is one thing you need subtlety, say it with me SUBTLETY. Public condemnations of anyone should be the LAST thing you do. You need to work in the shadows, with whispers, little exchanges. Pay attention to things and find ways to drive wedges between people. I don't mean wedges between one person and the entire realm, or two huge groups within the realm, I mean two individuals. Say someone didn't sell food when another region was starving. Sell the needy region that food and send a PM saying how sorry you are you couldn't make the trade sooner and how horrified you are that so and so didn't see fit to offer food at a fair price. A good manipulation requires lots of little grudges that can build into bigger grudges, allowing you to play one side against the other until there's no one to stand in your way.
Also if you've played the big obvious manipulator too many times, either play severable honorable upstanding characters, or find yourself a proxy, some naive young character you promise to help reach the top. The great thing about that is you can also sell them out in the end and convince people you really have given up your family's manipulative ways and turned over a new leaf.
Another thing that can ad some flavor here is motivations. Most manipulators in the game are not poisoning their way to the top to accomplish anything. Hey it's not a big deal now and then to just be plain power hungry, hell that's realistic, but ambitious manipulators are more interesting. It's exciting to see people that don't just want to reach the top for the fun of being on top but in fact want to reach the top so they can change their realm some how. I'm talking about people who want to advance their religeon or destroy another. Maybe they want the realm to be more warlike or more mercantile. Maybe they want to declare war on an old enemy or bring about peace. These are things to think about
You're assuming too much with the Manipulator one, and making it an umbrella for a lot of characters it doesn't apply to. Specifically regarding myself, I've only played one character that could be regarded as that, and that's Zhukov. Yes, I was impatient with him, which is why he's pretty much in despair right now as all that he's tried to work towards falls into pieces around him.
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I have one type to add on.
The Quiet Manipulator/Pacifist:
I had one character who had time and again managed to defend the wall, stock it with enough militia to defend against no less than 2-3 realms attacks. Then one day poof! The wall is destroyed by the attacking realms and she showed how horror the war could be. Behind the background IC, I played her as a Peaceful character who disliked war. True enough when the realm faced war that the realm could bring to an end with just a signature on that treaty, she acted in her own way. This is despite she having her brother who was Ruler of the realm and her brother is much honorable character who could do no wrong in many realm nobles eyes.
If you're a lord or duke, you really have no place playing this archetype. You have too much power. It's too important for everyone else's fun that you do something interesting with it.
Many of my characters who are leaders try to distribute powers, grant them lordship, dukeship what-not to other characters. The difficult part is when other characters are not qualified for the ranks and titles promotions, they have lack of honor and prestige to do so. Then we send them off to fight monsters and undead, but then too much CS force fighting rogue won't get you many Honor and Prestige. That bring my characters who are leaders to try to create some conflicts and fun for everyone. But then too many peaceful realms around my characters realms and with many hostile realms being far distance away... I found out that when warring with hostile realms far away, the routine follow the military orders, result in nobles disinterests pretty much quickly. Unless I gave them a fighting against all odds like those nobles joining Oligarch fighting against many other realms for survival, make their backs against the wall, the nobles are disinterested. I have tried many ways to make them interested. Newcomers are welcome with messages, friendly ones, to ask them to ask questions if they have one. Roleplays is another way I tried out but the results are not impressive to say the least. The routine click button and travel, as with follow military orders maybe one of the many factors. I do encourage difference in opinions, I even encourage secession by Dukes. Maybe I should turn many of my characters into "Quiet Manipulator/Pacifist" instead ???
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You're assuming too much with the Manipulator one, and making it an umbrella for a lot of characters it doesn't apply to. Specifically regarding myself, I've only played one character that could be regarded as that, and that's Zhukov. Yes, I was impatient with him, which is why he's pretty much in despair right now as all that he's tried to work towards falls into pieces around him.
I actually hadn't considered Zhukov at all. I was thinking of Jonsu (an extreme example), Alison and Alison mark II, people like that.
I have one type to add on.
The Quiet Manipulator/Pacifist:
I had one character who had time and again managed to defend the wall, stock it with enough militia to defend against no less than 2-3 realms attacks. Then one day poof! The wall is destroyed by the attacking realms and she showed how horror the war could be. Behind the background IC, I played her as a Peaceful character who disliked war. True enough when the realm faced war that the realm could bring to an end with just a signature on that treaty, she acted in her own way. This is despite she having her brother who was Ruler of the realm and her brother is much honorable character who could do no wrong in many realm nobles eyes.
See this is an example of a good complex character with unique motivations. I'm not sure if I see where manipulation comes in though.
Many of my characters who are leaders try to distribute powers, grant them lordship, dukeship what-not to other characters. The difficult part is when other characters are not qualified for the ranks and titles promotions, they have lack of honor and prestige to do so.
Is this happening in a smaller realm? I've seen lots of large realms with plenty of high honor and prestige characters who also have do nothing dukes.
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Interesting look on this. Tell me where exactly you received such data to generalize the entire community?
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Is this happening in a smaller realm? I've seen lots of large realms with plenty of high honor and prestige characters who also have do nothing dukes.
This happens in a big size realm with low number of nobles to high number of regions ratio. Either our army has reached its limit size and then many nobles with high honor and prestige paused or left.
I have been thinking of solutions. Do my character need to force the duke to secede? If the duke secede, do that duke has enough nobles number to populate its government members ranks, region lordships? Do other characters need to be send to battles against monsters, undead or war to raise up their honor and prestige? You know that we all facing players number problem currently, and if we do not promote new characters to lordships as encouraged, then we are going to be left with only old players by that time.
The only changing mechanics thought I have in mind, is to lower down honor, prestige requirements for the characters to hold the government members ranks, or region lords. Or have their new characters to gain honor, prestige easily fighting monsters and undead on their own. It is a little frustrating when you know you have region lordships to give away but the available candidates are so few and none available due to honor, prestige issues.
I even Roleplay my characters but of course roleplays alone is never fun unless other characters join in. That said, been giving them incentive to take even poor region lordship, my character says will fund their unit and all. But lack of honor and prestige stand in the way still. These days if you want us to join in war given our lack number of nobles, that can be "suicide" against other high number of nobles realms. As realm leaders, I have to think of players fun, realms interests and so on. Of course reasons to justify war are part of my characters leaders reasoning for war. That probably bring me to my next point: Should we get more pacifist character type like my earlier post so that they fight to protect the peace? Have them Roleplay IC, send them to do something that they not normally do. This change can happen, we can justify due to they see many dead bodies on battlefields, I feel there is potential for our characters to change 180 degrees midway through their life. I have plan for an infiltrator class character, something I never try out before in this game. Other than trader of course ;)
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You don't have to do it all, you just have to do one or two of them well. Oligarch doesn't have lordships to give out and the government members are active and do a good job so dificult to replace (even those which are elected). All we give them is a fun war and roleplaying.
Something I have been pushing a lot though, which I think especially council members should do to make the game more fun, is to share almost everything public. We're discussing military plans in public, we're discussing conversations with foreign rulers etc in public, we try to get people involved, or simply spout some bull!@#$ on our enemies saying we'll crush them blablabla. Way too many realms do many of these things in special councils, which made sense 10 years ago. First off you had so many nobles and so many messages a day, receiving 20 more a day would be annoying to some. Also with all those chars you had far more spies, which you hardly see anymore these days with 2 char limit removed. Now you see realms where most knights and sometimes even Lords receive maybe one real message a day, but there is a whole lively discussion in the realm's council, the military council or whatever.
You can make almost everything public in your realm as council member, it won't harm your realm so much. When in doubt? Just share it!
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You don't have to do it all, you just have to do one or two of them well. Oligarch doesn't have lordships to give out and the government members are active and do a good job so dificult to replace (even those which are elected). All we give them is a fun war and roleplaying.
Something I have been pushing a lot though, which I think especially council members should do to make the game more fun, is to share almost everything public. We're discussing military plans in public, we're discussing conversations with foreign rulers etc in public, we try to get people involved, or simply spout some bull!@#$ on our enemies saying we'll crush them blablabla. Way too many realms do many of these things in special councils, which made sense 10 years ago. First off you had so many nobles and so many messages a day, receiving 20 more a day would be annoying to some. Also with all those chars you had far more spies, which you hardly see anymore these days with 2 char limit removed. Now you see realms where most knights and sometimes even Lords receive maybe one real message a day, but there is a whole lively discussion in the realm's council, the military council or whatever.
You can make almost everything public in your realm as council member, it won't harm your realm so much. When in doubt? Just share it!
This. A thousand times, this. ^
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You don't have to do it all, you just have to do one or two of them well. Oligarch doesn't have lordships to give out and the government members are active and do a good job so dificult to replace (even those which are elected). All we give them is a fun war and roleplaying.
Something I have been pushing a lot though, which I think especially council members should do to make the game more fun, is to share almost everything public. We're discussing military plans in public, we're discussing conversations with foreign rulers etc in public, we try to get people involved, or simply spout some bull!@#$ on our enemies saying we'll crush them blablabla. Way too many realms do many of these things in special councils, which made sense 10 years ago. First off you had so many nobles and so many messages a day, receiving 20 more a day would be annoying to some. Also with all those chars you had far more spies, which you hardly see anymore these days with 2 char limit removed. Now you see realms where most knights and sometimes even Lords receive maybe one real message a day, but there is a whole lively discussion in the realm's council, the military council or whatever.
You can make almost everything public in your realm as council member, it won't harm your realm so much. When in doubt? Just share it!
Tried this even before you suggest. Does not work with your sample result :'(
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Tried this even before you suggest. Does not work with your sample result :'(
It's not a one off thing, nor the only thing, but definately important in my view. Some people try this for a month, see no success and stop doing it. In my opinion this is a crucial part of keeping the realm lively, although it can never be the only part obviously :)
In the end you'll have to see what kind of nobles you have, who you have and adjust to that and get them involved somehow. Which realm are you talking about atm? I can't imagine for instance that it's Nivemus cause that should be pretty active I'd imagine?
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You don't have to do it all, you just have to do one or two of them well. Oligarch doesn't have lordships to give out and the government members are active and do a good job so dificult to replace (even those which are elected). All we give them is a fun war and roleplaying.
Something I have been pushing a lot though, which I think especially council members should do to make the game more fun, is to share almost everything public. We're discussing military plans in public, we're discussing conversations with foreign rulers etc in public, we try to get people involved, or simply spout some bull!@#$ on our enemies saying we'll crush them blablabla. Way too many realms do many of these things in special councils, which made sense 10 years ago. First off you had so many nobles and so many messages a day, receiving 20 more a day would be annoying to some. Also with all those chars you had far more spies, which you hardly see anymore these days with 2 char limit removed. Now you see realms where most knights and sometimes even Lords receive maybe one real message a day, but there is a whole lively discussion in the realm's council, the military council or whatever.
You can make almost everything public in your realm as council member, it won't harm your realm so much. When in doubt? Just share it!
This is a very good point. As the realm grows you can then break things up into new message groups to keep down message traffic.
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I don't think there's any realm that should be worried about keeping down message traffic, at this point.
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I don't think there's any realm that should be worried about keeping down message traffic, at this point.
Except Fontan anno 2005 or so, I mean seriously guys 120 messages per turn?
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Except Fontan anno 2005 or so, I mean seriously guys 120 messages per turn?
"at this point"
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I don't think there's any realm that should be worried about keeping down message traffic, at this point.
Swordfell on dwilight. I didn't check in for a few hours and found 60 new messages..... Long story short, it was a heated debate.
This happened probably less than a month ago.
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Swordfell on dwilight. I didn't check in for a few hours and found 60 new messages..... Long story short, it was a heated debate.
This happened probably less than a month ago.
With other words, this was once and not a regular thing? Because then you might wait a day with sending the message, but that's it. I know no realm where you shouldn't just send everything out and go for it.
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With other words, this was once and not a regular thing? Because then you might wait a day with sending the message, but that's it. I know no realm where you shouldn't just send everything out and go for it.
Actually it IS a regular thing in Swordfell...
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get ready for a burst of activity then. :3
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get ready for a burst of activity then. :3
Oh no... HELP! Someone get the Daimons and put them between us! There's a duke you will just LOVE I tell you.
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Here's a new one, peace tours. When a war ends part of the peace terms should be allowing diplomats to tour the realms (or key parts of them) and endorse the new peace among the people (by praising the former foe in regions that have deep disdain for them). This gives diplomats more to do and creates new possibilities for intrigue and betrayal.
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Here's a new one, peace tours. When a war ends part of the peace terms should be allowing diplomats to tour the realms (or key parts of them) and endorse the new peace among the people (by praising the former foe in regions that have deep disdain for them). This gives diplomats more to do and creates new possibilities for intrigue and betrayal.
I like this, a pity it wasn't proposed back when realms had a lot more nobles (and thus courtiers).
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I like this, a pity it wasn't proposed back when realms had a lot more nobles (and thus courtiers).
Well I do have a diplomat in East Continent, so next time a war rolls around I'll be sure to propose it. It could also be done amongst new allies.
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Well I do have a diplomat in East Continent, so next time a war rolls around I'll be sure to propose it. It could also be done amongst new allies.
1 diplomat alone is probably not goig to be all that fun...
I had an ambassador with maxed out oratory skill, great bureaucracy skill, and I did that (while "trading" or during random RP events), and it took a long time to not yield much of a result. Really you'd want like 6 highly skilled ambassadors at the same time spread through the realm to have much of an impact. And their own diplomats and ambassadors can then come and undo your work for free, though.
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1 diplomat alone is probably not goig to be all that fun...
I had an ambassador with maxed out oratory skill, great bureaucracy skill, and I did that (while "trading" or during random RP events), and it took a long time to not yield much of a result. Really you'd want like 6 highly skilled ambassadors at the same time spread through the realm to have much of an impact. And their own diplomats and ambassadors can then come and undo your work for free, though.
I've been able to make some changes in a reasonable time frame.
To get a stronger effect and more interaction from the arrangement the realms ambassadors and diplomats could pair off and tour together. They can combine their skills to spread peace and while they're at it discuss which realm has been giving them funny looks.
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I've been able to make some changes in a reasonable time frame.
To get a stronger effect and more interaction from the arrangement the realms ambassadors and diplomats could pair off and tour together. They can combine their skills to spread peace and while they're at it discuss which realm has been giving them funny looks.
True, if both realms have ambassadors that are good sport. I kind of get the feeling though that, being anonymous, the defeated realm would just do the opposite work without saying so. "Gee, those peasants sure are stubborn, aren't they?"
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True, if both realms have ambassadors that are good sport. I kind of get the feeling though that, being anonymous, the defeated realm would just do the opposite work without saying so. "Gee, those peasants sure are stubborn, aren't they?"
That's the beauty of it. New conflicts can develop on the diplomatic front. If I think the other ambassador is undermining our efforts maybe I'll hire a foreign infiltrator to put him out of commission for a while.
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That's the beauty of it. New conflicts can develop on the diplomatic front. If I think the other ambassador is undermining our efforts maybe I'll hire a foreign infiltrator to put him out of commission for a while.
Though I doubt that particular scenario would play out, a "you owe us X gold per week until all of your regions love us" could work.
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Though I doubt that particular scenario would play out, a "you owe us X gold per week until all of your regions love us" could work.
There's an idea. However I don't think it would be typical for this to be an every region thing. It would make more sense to stick to border states that were hit hard during the war and the capitals of both realms. Every region would only be viable in smaller realms.
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There's an idea. However I don't think it would be typical for this to be an every region thing. It would make more sense to stick to border states that were hit hard during the war and the capitals of both realms. Every region would only be viable in smaller realms.
Or, be a really long-term cash cow. ;)