Messages

1

Other Games / Re: Team Fortress 2

« on: September 06, 2011, 10:49:23 PM »

I'm one of the old farts who remembers the good old days, back when my laptop graphics card could handle average settings and you didn't get face-stabbed by a demoman every 9 seconds. 

Anywho, I'll put in a shameless plug for my favorite servers:  TrashedGamers.  During most of the day they are your typical public servers with a fairly quick rotation of standard maps minus some unpopular ones.  But when a bunch of regulars join in then things take a turn for the ridiculous and is a whole lot of fun.  I remember one time we ended up discussing advanced and theoretical physics (because someone made an insane clown posse reference), but all the while we were trying to pack as many cloak and dagger spies onto an enemy dispenser as we could before the engie noticed.  Stuff gets weird, but its hilarious. 

So has anyone tried out the cross-game item trading yet?  It might finally give me a use for the hats I don't really want. 

2

Helpline / Re: Who sets the realm share of taxes?

« on: July 15, 2011, 06:36:25 AM »

I believe the "to realm" share is set by the lord, while the "to duchy" is a tax imposed by the duke the region is a part of.

3

Development / Re: Testers Recruitment

« on: July 12, 2011, 11:52:24 PM »

I wouldn't mind helping out.  I played 2006-2009 when I burned out but I couldn't stay away forever and have come back.  I've done a fair amount of coding/testing/debugging for engineering projects so I feel as though I may be able to provide some insight on both the user and technical sides.  Besides, I'm always looking for ways to give back to worthy projects like this. 

Drawbacks include being FAR too comfortable and familiar with the current interface, being on east-coast usa time, and a drastically variable level of time commitment. 

4

Far East Island / Re: FEI Newb seeks counsel

« on: July 12, 2011, 11:38:58 PM »

The Duchesses of Nahad and Idapur are essentially schoolgirl anime lesbians.

   Where did it all go so wrong?  Back in my day all we had was the king/prophet alluding to some private sermons once in a blue moon.  If you wanted dirty medieval gaming you played Evony. 

On topic:  I've always heard positive things about Arcaea and Zonasa has become more active since I last followed them. 

5

BM General Discussion / Re: Estate System

« on: July 07, 2011, 07:25:23 PM »

You must have a very, very different concept of what "respectable weekly income" is!

Well, my numbers might be off since it was over 4 years ago but it worked out to around 50 gold each which, at that time on the EC was the average character income.  And who said building a recruitment center was even on the list of things that needed to be accomplished?

You also have a very very strange concept of fun.

Run court all the time and wave your big knight dick.

Well, yeah.  It wasn't just clicking a button once a day and writing one message saying "I'm important look at my knights!".  It was the interaction of 7 people roleplaying at once.  I won't go into detail since this is off-topic enough as is, but to put it bluntly the fun came from the interactions and dynamics of the mini-duchy I built rather than watching my 50 man unit silently beat the crap out of some other guy's 50 man unit every 3 days.

The reason why places like Oritolon march across entire continents is because they don't even have enough nobles to hold what they have, let alone pick an expansionary war with a neighbour. Back in the day folks, we used to be able to go to war with our neighbours.

This ain't TravelMaster.

I think this is part of the mindset that creates this issue with estates.  I have one real question and several rhetoricals:  Why must wars simply be fought for conquest?  Why is it that the only way to wage war is to forcibly remove the other realm's influence from a region then put your own nobles in their place?  Why can't you use gunboat diplomacy to force the lord and his knights to defect?  Why can't you go on a raid, steal some gold, and go home?  If a realm insults you/your king/your mother, why can't you simply crush their standing army and force them to appologize without conquering half of their territory? 

Hell, look at Dwilight.  People whine and complain about how the continent is so big and that they are lucky to have 1 knight per region and yet realms are still expanding into the unclaimed territory.  Its not purely the fault of the estate system.  Everyone wants to conquer new regions and spread out the few nobles in the realm because it gives them a chance to move up in the pyramid scheme that is feudalism.  I won't say if this is good or bad, but you can't only blame the system when the choices people make are just as responsible. 

6

BM General Discussion / Re: Estate System

« on: July 07, 2011, 07:03:44 AM »

While the execution might not be what we all hoped and dreamed (at this point its more like a pyramid scheme) I am a huge fan of the concept and really want to see it be successful. 

Story time.  So way back in the day (2007/8-ish?) I had a character in Caligus (EC) who was promoted to Baron of Scio, a small mountain region next to the capital with 800 pop, just enough food to feed itself, and a gold output of ~150.  Now, 1 knight was far more than adequate to maintain order and most people probably would have stopped there and gotten fat off the income.  But my character was in this for the glory and prestige that comes with becoming a lord, which he decided (for a number of reasons) to show by having a lot of knights serving him.  Long story short:  regular merciful courts and about 40 estate points in authority let him/me crank up the tax rate over 20% and keep 6+1 knights with respectable weekly incomes without losing any control or production in the region. 

In short:  Inherit very poor barony, add lots of estates, rival marches in both income and vassals, flaunt what ya got

7

Helpline / Re: Realm Banks

« on: July 03, 2011, 01:25:04 AM »

Presumably also Averothians could cash bonds?

I remember that way back in the day (~2007) my realm's last region, the capital, was TO'ed and I couldn't cash bonds or do anything similar.  Things may have changed since then. 

8

Background / Re: Religious freedom?

« on: June 29, 2011, 07:12:25 AM »

Well, I can think of 1 historical example:  Rodrigo Diaz "El Cid" (1050-ish?).  Long story short, you have a christian knight that chose to serve a muslim (who treated him as an equal) and in turn accepted both christian and muslim vassals.  I agree that you probably won't find a muslim knight serving in the papal states.  But in places like the Iberian peninsula, where no one religion had complete hold for very long, you'll find such instances of tolerance/acceptance.

As far as jewish nobles in particular, I can't think of any.  I always assumed that since they were pretty much the go-to scapegoat for natural disasters and the like that declaring yourself to be one was like painting a giant target on yourself.  Plus there were the laws against letting them own land or have positions of legal authority. 

9

Development / Re: Taking new regions becoming historically harder

« on: June 29, 2011, 01:16:04 AM »

I think part of this issue is that there is maximum achievable production level at all.  You're at peace, you have enough knights/estate coverage, and everything goes to 100% but not a fraction more.  Then the realm is at peace for a while, and what was seen as a new region and a nice boost to realm income becomes thought of as the standard that must be maintained no matter what.  If war comes or a knight leaves and the region drops below 100% then everyone freaks because the region that used to provide them with a reasonable income now makes less and they feel they are getting shafted.  Simply put, if there is a reachable maximum level then everyone will want to be there all the time.  Take a look at your typical mmorpg's (WOW, etc) and you'll see a large number of players don't even consider the game started and their character fully created until they hit the level cap and have the best available gear. 

So here's my thoughts: 

1.  We remove hard caps on production (and possibly other region stats, I haven't thought those through completely).  A region that hasn't been looted and has only a lord's estate will be some baseline value.  (call it 50% production).  War and looting lowers the value, having knights and maintenance will help to increase it.  But instead of a hard cap, you just have strongly diminishing returns.  Having 1 knight might be able to increase production by 20%, but adding a second only increases it by 5%.  Do civil work for 12 hours and the production increases by 5%, but the next person can only boost it by 2% after twice the hours.  If it goes above the current 100% value, so be it, reward the additional effort but make sure that the opportunity cost increases drastically. 

2.  Rubber-band production.  I can't remember if this is one of the repeatedly asked/rejected things, so I'll appologize in advance.  Anyway, once the production values get outside a specified "average" range then the region is prone to minor fluctuations in production value that increases in magnitude the further away from the average value it gets.  So, if production is slightly above the average then it would decay by 1% a week, whereas being far above the center value could cause a 5% drop in 1 day.  The same would happen if production was below the average, but in the opposite direction.  (so a region at 0% production would repair much faster than one that was just roughed-up a little) 

I hope that makes sense to more than just me.  To sum up:  make it easy to maintain a modest production value and difficult (but still possible) to reach the extremes.

10

BM General Discussion / Re: Looking for a Map Editor

« on: June 26, 2011, 08:42:11 PM »

My first thought was to use Europa Universalis 3.  (and not only because I was playing it today)  The map is simple, yet still has some medieval-esque detail to it, is already divided into regions, and most modding in the game is done by editing simple text files and letting the engine churn out the results.  If you wanted to use different sprites or textures it should just be a matter of changing what file is loaded. 

Of course, I haven't talked to anyone who wanted to build their own map from scratch with it, so it could be more difficult than I think.