Messages

1

Dwilight / Re: Which interesting realms to join in Dwilight?

« on: December 04, 2015, 04:43:39 PM »

Antiqualia:  Probably best not to join us at the moment unless you are okay with boredom while waiting for sufficient allies and resources to be built up.  I'd advocate Medina/Fissoa/D`Hara to help them become strong active realms in opposition to Luria again.  I'd caution against joining Arnor or Luria - despite knowing Luria has a good atmosphere - just to avoid stacking the deck for dual empires again.  If enough people were to join AQ with an influx of gold, maybe things would be different, but one or two won't make a difference.

Couple other things may not be common knowledge, which I'm sharing OOCly, obviously.  Ruler letters have passed back and forth that pretty much guarantee peace as between T(Antiqualia) and Helm(Arnor) is unattainable without a major shift in either of their viewpoints.  History/Gist is Antiqualia wants/wanted to have their whole realm solidified without being tied by treaty/contract to assist/help/defend/ally with/non-aggression pact with Arnor.  On a practical basis, Everybody knows those realms as neighbours need to war at some point, but it's just more important to Taran (as it was to Fulco) to keep Antiqualia out of agreements it might have to break in the future (in order to DO something in the North).   Helm/Arnor always wanted a peace accord of indeterminate, but LONG, duration to protect Arnor's flank while they attack elsewhere.  The only way that was going to mesh with Antiqualia from Fulco and Taran's perspective was if Helm/Arnor just GIFTED Cold Spring to Antiqualia as a gesture of friendship and AQ then offered support/etc. as a gesture of friendship in return - not by contractual/treaty obligation.  The rift is that AQ/Fulco/Taran never viewed it as reasonable or proper for Helm/Arnor to hold Cold Spring over them - the apparent view by Helm that AQ would just have Cold Spring and then immediately attack Arnor was insulting to us.  Since Helm wouldn't just give Cold Spring without a guarantee that we neighbours couldn't war without us breaking a treaty, Fulco ordered war and off we went on that path.

Militia issues made it so there was only one truly interesting battle in the whole war - in Cold Spring just after we attacked and Arnor's army came in to disrupt the takeover.  After that, there were too many militia to break in Cold Spring (believe me, we tried), and the sailing made it impossible to quickly respond to TO attempts with sufficient CS.

After Fulco went inactive and then eventually decided to abdicate fully, we had nobody with the time to lead.  Hell I don't really have the time to lead, but I did/do what I can.  I find it difficult to justify a change to the IC stance of Taran/AQ, as basically any long-term peace accord is totally counter to T's beliefs about war, and AQ-at-large's interest in fighting.  Might be justifiable to through a communion with the Bloodstars through Prophet Seoras when he arrives.  I have to talk OOCly with the others in the realm to make sure they're not just playing along and having a bad time of it.  As much as I like RP-consistency and the conflict it brought in creating the war, I don't want to have Helm/etc.'s refusal to actively try to conquer Springdale keep us bored.  Starving out, or dying of boredom is an unattractive prospect, and there's lots of players in Dwilight and on their way to Dwilight who could help with that.

I'm OOCly open to stuff, so if you have ideas, want to do something, etc. feel free to PM me. 

2

Atamara / Re: Sinking

« on: December 04, 2015, 04:12:55 PM »

Yeah the Westfold is a temptation and bit of an irritation.  We cannot join until things settle down a bit, and by then it may or may not be possible to branch off from Gelene to potentially retake Niselur - Don't even know if the Devs intend that to be possible.  Shoot, most of us in AQ were originally from Niselur.  Of course *most* still only counts for like 3 of us.

JDodger:  AQ could have worked with enough nobles at the outset.  'Told-you-so' is a rather pointless comment, especially if you merely grumbled to limited numbers of people.  I don't remember ever hearing anyone try to talk any of us from going North, so I don't think you should be so smugly satisfied with your prediction.  Besides, OOC nay-saying is such crap in a game that requires players to Do something (take risks, make mistakes, piss people off) in order to be interesting.

3

Atamara / Re: Sinking

« on: December 03, 2015, 11:01:02 PM »

I can tell you it wasn't the map or the large realms that hurt it. It was the near-helpless situation that people in the invasion were put in, not because of any player-caused event, but because of NPC rogues that were pretty much unstoppable.

QFT.  I was pretty pissed off - not so much THAT they overran the whole of the West, but that the Devs gave no heads up about it, and neglected to tell everyone the monsters were literally unstoppable.  In Niselur we spent so much of our resources fighting the monsters we had nothing left to try to carve out a realm in the East.  Asylon at least guessed correctly and just left with enough resources to make it.  Could've been interesting if both Niselur and Asylon had full strength and banded together like we planned.  The whole Lurian war might've ended differently.  Oh well.

@Ossan:
Antiqualia's performance:  Yeah, it has ended up really lacklustre.  None of us were really willing to step up and lead after Wouter/Fulco ordered war and then kind of dropped away into inactivity.  Pratap Eastwood basically flipped us off and quit as well, so there went the next most senior player.  It's a lot harder than one might think to defend regions by sailing around vs marching, and try to TO a region that can instantly replenish militia due to the broken militia mechanic.  Goddamn but sailing is expensive with reasonably-sized units.  I have to admit I would have taken Arnor's deal at the outset and built up with Cold Spring intact, but Wouter/Fulco D`Este did what he did, and I'm doing the best I can to lead a realm of nice and mostly quiet people who also don't really have time to lead a realm.

Could certainly use some help, or to get obliterated.  Either or.

4

Helpline / Dwilight

« on: December 03, 2015, 10:31:15 PM »

Well I'm happy at least there's going to be a new realm in Western Dwilight, and one hopes that the Monster/Undead AI changes will result in a different dynamic.  I was also hoping to see a meaningful change with respect to militia usage so there's a much higher likelihood of capitols getting conquered, but I suppose one thing at a time.  I guess also there may be a trickle-down effect as the new AI will chip away at less-defended regions such that it's more difficult to affordably dump piles of militia in one place vs. spreading it out for guard duty.

Gundam's right.  Eastern Dwilight is choc full of realms that are looking for active players if many of your realm-mates from other islands already play here.  Fissoa, Medina, D`Hara, Helyg Derwyddon all need people to be effective.  I'd say Antiqualia, too, but to be honest, there's a lot of sitting around/random raiding in that realm's immediate future.

I think with the Monster/Undead AI changes and the Large Realm penalties, you'll see a bigger need for nobles to do region maintenance, which is a pretty good gig for the less-active/1-a-day people, and generally makes more sense for Courtier Lords to do region maintenance than Knights or Dukes (so more opportunity there).

Any word on the Numbers of incoming nobles?

edit: missing words.

5

BM General Discussion / Re: Reduced noble count and siege

« on: November 09, 2015, 05:58:22 PM »

I think the militia-garrisons are overpowered in most cases. 

Antiqualia had an issue with Springdale and Cold Spring, where CS doughnutted Springdale and was owned by another realm, basically cutting off any travel on Arnor's whim.  Not possible to siege it with 10 nobles, since Arnor just dumped piles of militia into it once they realized our intent, and bam, more than a match for the max mobile force we could bring.  Despite being right next to our capital recruitment zone, it was still ludicrously easy to just have them recruit replacement militia for the ones we killed, and/or for their mobile army to drop off more militia in the townsland.

As it stands, we can buy food from other regions (assume transport by sea, I guess) and effectively survive indefinitely if we dump militia.  That plus our mobile force is ohh 'just' too high to consider attacking by Arnor's easily-available resources.

In both cases, it's making piles of peasants able to hold their own lands - which begs the question, What do they need Nobles for?

I think every effort should be made to make the militia armies far less powerful, and/or far more costly.  Prepare the island for a higher noble density, and we'll have less net need for militia anyway.

6

Feature Requests / Re: Enable Adventurer options (some or all) for Nobles, at a price.

« on: September 21, 2015, 06:17:30 PM »

make sure that nobody is pampering them.

Yes, that is the obvious solution state.  See, that's how I thought it was supposed to work, but it didn't fly ICly.  Everybody else (except maybe 1 Fissoan and a realmy of mine who now that I think about it only ranted OOCly about it) argues that treating Adventureres Well (talking to them, maintaining a guild and preferring Adventurer convenience, efficiency; permitting direct letters between them and nobility; publicly 'honouring' them for hunting monsters; tolerating them talking back/lack of respect to nobility etc.) is not pampering/treating them as equals.  It's a difference of opinion, which I guess can't really be settled easily or generally.

It's also kind of tough to purport to declare war on the realm that a) your noble was and may return to be a part of; b) is politically and militarily supporting your nobles' new realm; and c) effectively took on the rest of the continent that tried to gang-beat it, and emerged victorious.  Hell, what do you do when you cannot possibly beat (ICly) those nobles acting improperly?  If it's an OOC issue of proper roleplay, not really an IC disagreement, why should my character be the one ruined by being forced to be the aggressor and having his butt handed to him?

In any event, I figured if you can't enforce 'proper' roleplay, might as well try to fix the game mechanics and remove the incentive to pamper Adventurers; that way there'd be no tenable IC argument that Adventurers perform a vital service and are more valuable than other nobles.

7

Feature Requests / Re: Enable Adventurer options (some or all) for Nobles, at a price.

« on: September 21, 2015, 04:29:03 PM »

It's not more of a 'convenience' thing:  Nobles literally cannot repair items, solicit sages/wizards to make scrolls, etc..

I think if it really was just 'convenience', then the majority of nobles wouldn't have a problem ICly or OOCly with treating Adventurers as lowborn commoner scum, scoffing at nobles who do, making Addies beg to be permitted to sell/repair items, etc..  They treat the adventurers nicely and encourage insolence because they view ICly/OOCly the services they perform as valuable and irreplaceable, especially compared with other Nobles who cannot help them.

I think there's no utility in keeping adventurers "unique" from Nobles in this aspect.  It really gives disincentivizes the 'proper' medieval treatment of commoners by nobles, in particular, by allowing significant detrimental game effects (lack of access to items/repair items/scrolls, persecution by fellow nobles, Horde rising in one's region, etc.) as a direct result of adventurers choosing to not work for anyone who doesn't pamper them.

8

Feature Requests / Re: Guild/Religion Message Lists by Rank

« on: September 21, 2015, 04:17:40 PM »

I suppose it depends on what you view those message groups as.  If it's mail that gets sorted and distributed Through the guild, then anything could make sense, including ensuring Elders literally see everything.

If it's just an ease-of-reference list for Nobles/Addies to instruct/bribe their scribes to copy/deliver to, then there's no good reason NOT to have a aspirant + sender only, "member" + sender only list.

For backstory, the request arises out of a silly IC dispute over the annoyance factor of adventurers in a guild sending their Hunting reports just with the link to the Guild, as opposed to just the local area.

9

Feature Requests / Enable Adventurer options (some or all) for Nobles, at a price.

« on: September 18, 2015, 05:38:46 PM »

Title: Enable Adventurer options (some or all) for Nobles, at a price.

Summary: A bit of backstory information:
 - Nobles on Dwilight (and possibly elsewhere) are consistently treating Adventurers in the Royal Rangers guild as equals.  They deny it ICly and OOCly.  It is disputed as to just where the appropriate line is for the treatment of Adventurers by Nobles.  Not seeking to settle that here, really, but it is absolutely clear that the general treatment of Adventurers is not at all close to the Wiki article on the subject.  I think objectively the Adventurers are being treated as minor Nobles.  One Player remarked OOCly that they were effectively The Witcher, and it was suitable for them to go around insulting people, being disrespectful simply because they had sword skills and slew monsters.

I say the problem (improperly Nice treatment/tolerating/encouraging of Adventurers) is nearly mandatory by the game mechanics:
 - Since Adventurers are the only ones capable of repairing/improving Items and hunting bands of monsters/undead to keep Hordes from rising up in regions (the "Services")
   - And Since Those Services are valuable to the Realms and individual Nobles.
   - The presence of valuable services and the inability to obtain those services Without Adventurers makes those Adventurers valuable to the Nobles, and therefore Adventurers have power OVER the Nobility.
   - Since Adventurers have power Over Nobility, Nobility has to pander to the addies - Bidding huge amounts of gold for items, liasing with them directly, complimenting/honouring them publicly, insulting other Nobles in front of the adventurers, offering protection from arrest and harassment despite any insults the adventurer has made to any noble. 

This is in direct conflict with the concept of Adventurers = Commoners = Filthy, useless peasants Nobles should avoid, order around, and treat generally like "not people".  Dwilight characters/players seem overly concerned with treating the Adventurers well so they do a better job for them, so much so that they're treating the Adventurers as equals. 

I personally think that it's backwards and a complete non sequitur in a serious medieval atmosphere for Nobles to care about commoners' feelings, or to tolerate the elevation of Adventurers.

My proposed solution is to remove the OOC Game mechanics restrictions that effectively provide heavy incentives for Nobles to pander to Adventurers (the only ones who can repair items, who chose whom to sell/give items to, etc.).  Like in game theory examples, there is no incentive to Nobles to treat adventurers as poorly as they should treat commoners if Any other noble is not also treating them like they're supposed to be treated.  Since we'll never get an agreement from the player base as to what SMA means for the treatment of commoners by Nobles - People will not mistreat adventurers, for various reasons - and it is way too exhausting to try to enforce proper RP, a game mechanics change is required to reduce the potential heavy penalties for pissing off adventurers, or indeed from pursuing natural justice against them.

References this suggestion, referencing an OOC message I sent in game.

Details:
Open options for Nobles to hunt monsters/undead, and meet with sages and wizards to repair items.
- Requirements:

• Must not have a unit.

- Penalties/Cost:
Not entirely sure, will need some help with this one.

• Lose 1 prestige per day in which you undertook an Adventurer action, if there are other Nobles or adventurers present in the region to witness the action(s).  1 Additional prestige lost per day if you are a Cavalier.  Heroes may do this without prestige loss at all.
• Hours: Meeting with a Sage/Wizard costs 1hr, hunting groups is based on size.

I say Heroes do it free because as noted in other Cavalier vs Hero threads, Cavs get more benefits than Heroes, and Heroes are already live/die by the Sword, so closer to the Adventurer anyway.

Benefits:
- enables more actions for landless / etc. Nobles to acquire gold, repair items, etc.
- reduces OOC dependency on Commoners to remove the incentive to ignore SMA/Wiki guidelines for treatment of adventurers by Nobles.

Possible Downsides/Exploits:
- Reduces uniqueness of Adventurer mechanics
- increases the number of characters who can affect monster/undead hordes, repair/find/improve Items, get scrolls,
- May not actually affect RP of those who refuse to adhere to Wiki guidelines.
- requires coding expansion of Noble attributes to include Adventuring.

10

Feature Requests / Re: Guild/Religion Message Lists by Rank

« on: September 18, 2015, 04:28:42 PM »

Yes, sorry.  The intention is to have  message groups that do not have the form "x or higher"

Full currently goes to all BUT aspirant
Elder currently goes to all but Full and Aspirant (ie only top tier)

There's a place and use for message groups X only for the Full and Aspirant members.  Amended OP for clarification.

11

Feature Requests / Guild/Religion Message Lists by Rank

« on: September 16, 2015, 09:54:23 PM »

Summary:  Guilds/Orders currently have message group lists for
All / Some
all Full members (corresponding to "Members" members on the ranks list)
all Elder Members (corresponding to "Senior" members on the ranks list)
But there is no message group list for the "aspirant" ranks, nor is there any message group for ONLY Full members, or ONLY Aspirants.

Details:
Add the message group list option for only "aspirant" ranks and another for only Full ranks.  Call it... "Only aspiring members" and "Only Full members".  These message groups would create a "reply-to" list consisting of Only X members + the sender of the message replied to, if not already included.

Benefits:  Best one I can think of is for the leaders of the guild/order to be able to mass-message all the aspirants to tell them what to do to get to be full members.  Additional uses for Adventurer guilds, etc. to be able to communicate only amongst certain ranks, so don't bother the Higher ups with piddley crap.

Possible Downsides or Exploits:  Uhhh I guess it may make people's lives easier, so that's a downside in some circumstances (adventurers?), as 2nd post pointed out, it makes the exclusion of certain people from guild messages easier (ie top tiers could message fulls only and no other top tiers would see the message).

12

Newbie Board / Re: Adventures Using Unique Items to distribute gold among Guildmates/Nobles

« on: May 14, 2015, 06:18:33 PM »

Alrighty, will do as advised.

13

Newbie Board / Adventures Using Unique Items to distribute gold among Guildmates/Nobles

« on: May 14, 2015, 04:45:55 PM »

So there's:
A) a mechanic that prevents Nobles from passing gold to each other (only bonds).
And
b) a mechanic that permits them to purchase unique items from each other or adventurers.
And
c) a mechanic that permits any member of a Guild/Religion to deposit money into a local guildhouse as a donation/loan, and any other member that meets loan/etc. requirements to withdraw same.

My question is whether the fact of A means that I can't use B, despite C existing as a tacitly approved workaround to A.

EDIT:  Do me a favour and Email me please if you're in a position to give an "Official" answer.  It's a bit time sensitive.