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With a stable source of wondrous Prime to balance her, Quaranis [Materialize: 1 Prime] felt better than she had since waking on this strange world.  After spending some time building up the lava flows between her home in the Keahi Archipelago and the source [Effect: Gain Influence +2 / Cost: 4 Prime] she returned to begin exploring the various islands her attempt to seize the air had wrought.

To her surprise, they were still growing.  When her lava met the ocean, it turned to various forms of Earth, and the lava kept flowing.  Apparently, when she had created it, she had made more than she realized in her desire to cocoon herself.  There was an almost limitless amount deep within the world, and it seemed to enjoy rising to the Air.  This made sense, of course, as it wanted to complete its elemental lack by joining with the Air.

After a time, though, Quaranis realized that the islands were...Dull.  There were a variety of fascinating shapes, plenty of eye-catching metals and gems, swirls of different Earths...But she already understood those, and within a short time could easily predict what would happen, when, and how.  Now that the glorious beauty of Prime had nearly removed all the pain the separation of the elements had brought, she found she was bored.

As she visited her pyramid one day to bask in the Prime Source, she realized that a wild profusion of something had grown around it.  At first she thought this was a strange gift from one of the others, but after investigating she realized they had arrived from nearby areas, and seemed to thrive in the volcanic soils.

This was delightful!  She had no idea how these small green, growing things worked!  She could not predict them at all, and that made them intriguing.  And when she happened to return shortly after this part of the world began warming again in one of its bizarre cycles, she was amazed at all the colours!  Why, here were shades that reminded her of the gemstones!  And they changed so frequently that she could come back at any time and see different ones.  She had to have them for her islands!

But, to her confusion, the things did not seem to like the waters of the ocean.  Ah, yes, too much salt, hm.  Well, she could simply transplant them...But they seemed to die too quickly when her attention moved to something else.  This was quite an interesting puzzle.

Perhaps if there were waters with less salt on the islands?  Ah, yes...That seemed to work.  Well, then why not have them across all the islands then?  If water was what they needed, then let there be water across them all [Create Aquifers: 3 Purity]!  Yes!  Now they survived!  And this...life...spread across the archipelago.  And Quaranis was pleased and exhausted, and lay back in the vast pool of lava in the central mountain of the central island, and watched.

(Well, Tom did say to ignore the numbers...heheh)

As the ruby-eyed mountain joined it's power with the avatar of Air and Quaranis, hope surged.  Yes, yes, yes, yes...!  And she felt it.  The glory was part of her again!  And the last scraps she had been hoarding, the last remnants of her strength, now she could spare a little.  Enough for...

This.

Lava surged over the crevasse, forming a great pyramid.  It slowly flows into sheer obsidian sides, save for grand steps of basalt.  And at the top, Quaranis pulled forth from herself a great diamond.  With a whisper, it swirled into an arch, the facets catching the light and blazing like a second sun.  [Create monument, 1 Prime]

She turned.

"Thank you.  Let this stand as a monument to my gratitude.  Let this arch crown our endeavour, and announce to this world that the Seekers claim this ground!"

(Unless someone has a better name, let's call this the Seeker Pyramid.)

Quaranis stood in her despair.  How?  How was she to survive in this awful world?  Nothing was as it should be, and-

Another?

Here?

Yes...Another like herself...And this one had Air!  Perhaps she could learn the trick of that from this other.

A question?  Speaking?  Yes, speaking.  And polite, at that.  Maybe, maybe between them they would have the strength to grasp the Prime...But no.  She could sense there was not enough.

A mouth was formed to speak in turn.

"No, it is not mine, though I wish it were otherwise.  I cannot even touch it, I spent too much strength, if only I had waited, but it hurt too much-"

Quaranis' form began shaking, quivering in remembered pain.  And shook more, and more, until she look around and saw a third, wreathed in Earth, a strong spine of the world come to rest nearby.

A third!

Three, three might be enough!

"Please...I am not strong enough alone, none of us are strong enough alone, but if we joined, if we reached together, perhaps we might drink our fill!"

Two molten hands, pulsing deep white with urgency, reach out to the others.

[here!]

Gravity was an interesting phenomenon.  Quaranis could see possibilities in it, depending on exactly how it worked.  Were there natural elevations?  Something to do with the air?  She would have to experiment.  Maybe if she incorporated the air into her lava it could fly properly.

Her idle musings as her body re-knit itself were interrupted by a familiar sensation.  One she had not felt since awakening in this broken world.

Prime.

Prime flowing freely.

There was Prime in this world.

She flung her half-healed form through the newly-widened arteries of the archipelago, and into the still-expanding network deep within the world.  Pushing faster, faster, desperation surging through the capillaries...

Here!

It is here!

She started to rise, then remembered.  Gravity would cast her down, just as it had before.  But perhaps, if she changed the balance of her lava, a little more of earthen solidity, a little less liquid flowing...

A new form rose, half-molten magma taking awkward shape.  A head, to hold the eyes.  Arms, to reach and grasp.  A trunk to pull more and more of her self up, and out...

There!

Deep within a great gaping hole lay Prime!  It had a strange shape in this world, but what of it?  It could be all.  If it chose to look like the void, studded with stars in grand patterns, then so be it.

She reached...But could not grasp.

No, no, no no no no nononononononono...

This...Body she had built was constraining her.  Her essence was spread across too much of the world, she could not gather enough of it to meld with the Prime!

So near the eternal Prime, and yet unable, incapable of reaching it.

Black obsidian tears streamed from her woe, and her sorrow caused the very air to blacken and rise from her in grief.

[Up.]

Blood pumped.

Metals flowed out, molten rock poured back.  As Quaranis calmed, she began observing.  Considering.

Learning.

Her first conscious efforts were small, tentative.  The many-colored gemstones of her tears were beautiful, but...Isolated.  She could do better.  Combining the colors, swirling star-stuff into them, she brought forth diamonds.

She was so pleased with her success that she was took stock of what else she could do.  Her precious lava and glorious metals were much, much better than the pure earth that had existed before, and she wrapped it around every inch of herself.  But a nagging itch (she reveled in it only being an itch, rather than the grinding agony of before) presented itself.  She had gathered the flow of water, the heat of fire, and the solidity of earth...But had none of air.

She tried calling the air to her.  Cracks formed above her, but let in only water.  Air pockets and bubbles formed in the earth nearby, but were quickly consumed or befouled.  Bringing the air to her seemed doomed.

But what of bringing her creations to the air?

She gathered, and built.  Magma gathered around her in a vast flood.  And she pushed.

Up.

The sea boils.  Water and lava meet in a vast explosion of steam.  Rock hardens in vast tubes, blooming across the emptiness [Create archipelago: 3 Purity].  And for one grand moment Quaranis blossomed in fire and glory into the air, her blood reverberating with the near-Primal union of the elements once more.

And then...Quaranis learned of gravity.

And everything fell.

Thus the Keahi Archipelago was born.

Had she been more capable of thought, perhaps a better solution might have been found.  Had she been less-crippled, perhaps her effort would have gathered together all four of the...Elements...and restored them.

Perhaps.

But the agony of imbalance flaring through her was too great, her mind reeling as she writhed deep beneath the...Earth...and only three were brought together, bound with her own blood.  It was not the beauty, the eternal truth of Prime, but it soothed like a balm.

Fire, melting earth.  Earth, running like water.  Water, burning like fire.  And thus did the bones and body of the world gain veins [Create Lava, 3 Purity]+[Create Ore Veins, 3 Purity].  Hidden deep, far from the air.  And Quaranis wept in relief at the diminishment of her pain.  Her tears scattered throughout the veins [Create Gemstones, 1 Purity] as she wept for an unguessable time, lending their brittle beauty to the new blood of the world.

For a time, that was enough.

For a time.

Heya all, I've put chapter 2 in but this can obviously be slotted in wherever.  Not sure what the cost of this would be, but happy to pay all 10 Purity if needed.

-----

Had she been more capable of thought, perhaps a better solution might have been found.  Had she been less-crippled, perhaps her effort would have gathered together all four of the...Elements...and restored them.

Perhaps.

But the agony of imbalance flaring through her was too great, her mind reeling as she writhed deep beneath the...Earth...and only three were brought together, bound with her own blood.  It was not the beauty, the eternal truth of Prime, but it soothed like a balm.

Fire, melting earth.  Earth, running like water.  Water, burning like fire.  And thus did the bones and body of the world gain veins [Create Lava, 3 Purity]+[Create Ore Veins, 3 Purity].  Hidden deep, far from the air.  And Quaranis wept in relief at the diminishment of her pain.  Her tears scattered throughout the veins [Create Gemstones, 1 Purity] as she wept for an unguessable time, lending their brittle beauty to the new blood of the world.

For a time, that was enough.

For a time.

[Wrong]

Quaranis woke in dismay.  She knew not why, but the balance was wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong.

Wrong

Her senses flailed, desperate.  And recoiled in horror as they saw.  Prime had been split.  These...Elements were in disarray, with no unity.  No connection.  No balance.

Half-crippled in agony, Quaranis fitfully began reaching out, blindly groping to reform the balance...

I'm certain I'm missing something here, but I would expect to be able to Auto da fe a Pagan who has an estate in a region with 95% of the population faithful to my religion.  Somehow, I am not, and the only two things I can think of are:

1. Can't Auto da fe Pagans (which seems unintended, I would imagine you should be able to do anything to Pagans that you could do to those you found evil).
2. Can't Auto da fe Lords (which I could possibly see, but the wiki is ambiguous, as it says that the noble will lose "any landed titles they may have").

Region is Arempos, character Elcalyn, desired target is Anastasia Von Borghoff (who does have an estate in the region).

Thoughts?

    Title: Set Battle-Width by Region Type

    Summary: Limit number of soldiers per side in the front line (by region type)

    Details: Code would need to be added to prevent more troops from entering a line once it was occupied by X-(number of men in your unit).  Rules for who got to enter in cramped situations might need to be developed, but could presumably work the same way assaulting fortifications does when determining who enters the siege engines in what order.

    Benefits: Create greater tactical and strategic complexity in the game by providing real and significant differences to how battles have to be fought in different region types.

    Possible Exploits: The same exploits that come with any additional complexity.  I imagine there are going to be any number of ways for clever saboteurs to spike battles with inappropriate troop mixes, for instance, but I think they will be self-limiting, as their troops will get quickly slaughtered and the battlefield would have the same width the whole way.  This will also increase the importance of niche recruitment centers, and thus increase the effectiveness of that kind of sabotage.

Exploits of the new battle code will be harder, as drawing a line between innovative tactics and gaming the system may prove difficult, but I think a suitable period of tweaking will mostly ameliorate this.

First, this is part of a broader effort designed to make war more interesting with minimal changes, see here http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,3933.msg97163.html#msg97163

So: This is pretty straightforward.  I want every main class to be able to help with takeovers.  I want Priests to be able to call for peaceful submission to the righteous liberators, or scream for defiance against the filthy infidels.  I want Courtiers to be able to help find all the old officials and talk them into joining the new regime, or burn all the old paperwork to make it harder.

The idea is you might be able to win a battle, leave a token force to hold it militarily, then have the Priests and Courtiers work on bringing the region into the fold while your troops don't have to sit for a week with their thumbs up their butts and can go earn their pay.  Or, if you prefer, you can throw your entire realm into frantically working on a new conquest to get it up and running in a much shorter time than before.

Best part of this is it should be easy enough to take the existing options, give them new flavour text, and set them to work off of skill percentage rather than troops (should, should, hopefully, maybe!).  This would help give everyone something to do, which is never a bad thing, while not making it required by any means.  More options, without taking anything away that we already had.

First, this is part of a broader effort designed to make war more interesting with minimal changes, see here http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,3933.msg97163.html#msg97163

So: This goes hand-in-hand with my first suggestion about limiting the size of the front line of battles.  What if overkill had a much greater impact on combat?  What if when you have room (i.e. have not hit the maximum line width of the battle) the game assumes you flank and can have your troops fighting three to one?  Then even your crappy conscripts will cut down armored footmen (while taking horrendous losses, of course, but they are cheap, armored footmen are not).  What if we say the game does not artificially need to help the smaller army, because the smaller army should be fighting in the woods and hills, in the mountains and badlands, not the rurals?

What if when you have hit the line-width, the game assumes you can only fight one to one, maybe one and a half to one with crowding?  Then your conscripts can charge the armored footmen for the whole day and barely make a dent.

This could be done, in theory, in a number of different ways.  Maybe have each region type have a set overcrowding percentage, just like battle-width percentages.  Maybe the game can check to see if your troop can move forward, and if not, then the overcrowding kicks in.  It really doesn't matter, even if it's somewhat less realistic one way or the other.  Heck, if the battle-width idea doesn't work, maybe just do this, and set the overcrowding percentage per region type and assume the smaller army is smart enough to find choke points.  As long as it is consistent, I don't care (and I doubt many others will) how "realistic" it is so long as it introduces real strategy to where you fight, and what troops you send.

First, this is part of a broader effort designed to make war more interesting with minimal changes, see here http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,3933.msg97163.html#msg97163

So: This is something that I've considered for a while, and I think would make a big difference, especially if overcrowding were tweaked to make a bigger difference: Set maximum battle-widths that depend on region type.

Rurals, as one extreme, would have the currently very large (is there a max?) line widths, allowing thousands of troops to fight side by side if they so choose.

Mountains, to pick the other extreme, would have much smaller battle-widths, perhaps only a hundred (number chosen for ease of thought in this example rather than an actual suggestion, that would need to be considered) soldiers wide.  What that would mean is you can't go around them, you just have a hundred of their troops fight a hundred of their troops at a time.  So you can have a small, elite army hold off a much larger army of crap troops with very lopsided casualties in a mountain pass.  But, your small elite army would get cut to shreds by the ravaging hordes in an open field.

The other regions would fall somewhere in between.  Depending on the complexity of coding there are a number of options, but if we say that rurals can have a line ten thousand men long (again, chosen for easy thinking, not realism) and mountains can have only a hundred, with forests only having five hundred, maybe a thousand in hills, badlands at eight hundred, etc.

You then have situations where you have to consider where you are going to fight.  You have to pick the right troops to fight in a mountain vs a rural.  The idea of having one army for your realm would be laughable for anything except the smallest city states, because you would need different troops in different places.  And you would have to use your troops differently in those circumstances.

This would basically make geography much, much more relevant than it is now, with (hopefully) only one small change to the code that sets up battles.

Very first thing: The idea is to come up with something that would be as easy as possible to code that would help combat require more thought.  This is absolutely not the place to add "ooh, wouldn't it be cool if we could have sea battles?" or "man, we should totally be able to upgrade the armour and weapons of our troops!", this is the place to say "yes, that would be awesome, but it would still be pretty good if we did this, and that would be a much smaller change."

Now, I have a few ideas that I think could work.  I may well be wrong, as my coding knowledge is seriously limited, and I know the combat code is a snarled mess in places, but I think these will work.  I am going to create specific threads for each idea, and use this thread as a master list and for people to suggest other simple things that would work, which we can then actually discuss in their own thread.

Current list:

1. Maximum battle width depends on region type http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,3934.0.html

2. Make overkill count for more http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,3935.0.html

3. All main classes having abilities to help takeovers http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,3936.0.html

For those who have yet to hear, Jenred has regained his full faculties and returned to public life in Arcaea...And his daughter, Ashkeyana Aerywyn Kindon Bedwyr has moved from being the squire of King Galiard of Cathay to the newest Cathayan noble.

One thing that's caused all kinds of bizarre interactions in the game is that, for the most part, if all you want to do is join a different entity (as opposed to being granted something additional), you need not have the agreement or even knowledge of that entity.  Which leads to crazy situations like a traitor to one realm defecting to a federated realm and then managing to flee or commit further crimes before the other Judge can act.  Nobles, Lords, Dukes, switching regions, duchies, realms, all of which are theoretically bound by oaths, but which the theoretical liege has no way to refuse.

That said, it has allowed some quite amazing and infamous feats in the game.  So, this is more of a general question...Do people like this, or would people prefer it being something that a liege lord has to agree to?

Now, I will freely admit it's been a while since I've been elected as region lord (read: Never) but I thought you received some message along the lines of "Hey, you're a lord now!  That's awesome!  Have fun with your nifty new buttons!".  As is, there's literally no message.  There's the referendum result, which everyone gets, and a message to all the knights of the former region saying that the estate has been vacated, but nothing specifically to me.

On Beluaterra, if that matters.

If this isn't a bug or oversight, might I suggest a message like the one I described above?

I will preface this by saying this is more in the way of a "discussion of a fun possibility" than any serious effort to craft a feature request.  This is certainly not something that could be done in the next year, or even the next couple of years (at least I would guess that it can't), but I thought it intriguing enough that I wanted to see what others thought and if they could improve on it.  I think this would build nicely with Tom/Barek's ideas on more fluid hierarchies and geographies, but could conceivably work without those.

The basic premise is that everyone has political power, and everyone can cede that power to their liege, possibly with gradations (full vs. conditional support, more on this later).  Whether you kept or ceded power would be codified in your oath (now a formalized, game-mechanic construct) along with a few other things, and the effects would be...Interesting.

First, the strength of the Ruler and Council (central government) is dependent on how much of the realm's political power flows all the way to the top.  If you can convince all the knights to cede power to their lords, all the lords to cede to their dukes, and all the dukes to cede to you, congratulations, you are a very strong Ruler (Tyrant, in the traditional BM parlance).  What this means is where it gets interesting.  My initial thoughts are that strong central governments would have appointed Council and Dukes, and very strong ones might even have the Council serve at the Ruler's whim.  Strong central governments could control what tax rate regions/duchies/whatever pay to the realm, issue bans and fines at whim even to those in good oath standing, and if tied to Tom's idea on making a separation of regions/duchies held by lords and Dukes in their own right or in fief to their liege, regions and duchies would be held in fief to the central government.  The Ruler would hold the position for life as current Monarchs due, and maintain full diplomatic control.  Food could be controlled by the Banker, and the General would have more control over armies (possibly just a textual change to indicate that orders from the General take precedence to all other orders).  Regions in strong central governments have higher realm control, but estates will have efficiency penalties, requiring more nobles to run regions well.

Weak central governments might have elected Council members, and require them to face periodic elections.  Regions and duchies might be held in their own right instead of in fief, and various decisions would be required to be put to vote, including things once reserved for the Council like changing diplomacy, banning, fining, tax rates, etc.  However, the local control would keep everything running amazingly on production, but keeping everything in the same realm when there isn't much to the "realm" in the first place is difficult.

Holding in fief vs holding in your own right would, I think, have a number of effects, but the biggest one is that oath-breaking is treason if in fief, and not if in your own right.  So, for example, if you secede with a duchy you hold in your own right, you set up your own realm and everything as currently works.  If you secede with a duchy you held in fief, you receive an auto-ban like in the old system.  Same with switching to a new realm.  And if the oath is broken by your liege, if you hold the duchy in your own right you secede as current, or lose the duchy if held in fief.  Region lords become dukes in their own right of their new one-region duchy or are forced out.  In addition, regions/duchies that defect automatically join new realms as held-by-right, making accepting them somewhat risky as they can leave easily.

Now, full vs. conditional support.  Ordinarily, one offers conditional support to one's liege.  So, half your political power goes to them, and you keep half yourself.  A "typical" realm might have everyone this way, leaving the Council with half the power and the rest scattered in a fairly normal spread.  But, perhaps a really rich townsland lord wants more power, and offers a lot more gold in exchange for full support.  Or, a really charismatic King talks his Dukes into offering full support so he can act more efficiently.  On the other hand, a Duke that you talked into defecting to you might not only hold his region in his own right, but might keep all of his political power, leading to a semi-independent position within the realm.  You could have a "confederation" style realm with each Duke holding all their power and a weak Council, or a Democracy with each noble holding everything themselves, or a Tyranny with the Diktat holding everything, or anything in between and a mish-mash that allows negotiations based on relative positions and offers.

I wrote this for Jenred and Arcaea, but I am pausing all the rest of my characters as well for the same reason.  RP will follow.

Heya all. This is something I have been considering for a few months, but postponed because I thought this period in my life with such a drastic reduction in free time would be over at the end of February, and I would be able to dive back in like before. Unfortunately, discussions in the past few days suggest that will just not be the case, and in the best scenario I'm looking at a few more months, possibly as much as another half a year, before I can devote the time and energy Jenred's current positions need to be discharged effectively. My ability to do so over the past few months has, as many have noted to some extent or another (I'm not referring to the current round of protests, that's a separate issue, and one I'd ordinarily love playing out, such a change from the usual lockstep behind him, hehe) has decreased notably, to the point where I was missing letters I should have seen, misreading letters I should have read thoroughly, and making decisions based on that mistaken information.

I promised myself when I took the Rulership that I would never be one of those people who held on to a position I couldn't play properly. I've seen it happen far too many times, and it ruins a large portion of the game. I gave myself some wiggle room because I thought this was very temporary, and we have been so close to fulfilling various plans Jenred has been working toward for, in some cases, three RL years.

That time is now out. So, I will be writing a short RP explaining what is happening to Jenred, and then pausing. I am pausing, because I know full well that if I just tried to step back, it wouldn't work. Everyone would talk to Jenred anyway, and I'd get drawn back in.

That said, I do expect this to be a pause, not a slide to auto-deletion. Once I get various things in RL taken care of, I fully intend to jump back in to Battlemaster (and will probably hop on the forums every so often as well).

Thank you to everyone, it's been a blast, and I'm very much looking forward to have the time to devote to Battlemaster again. If you need to get ahold of me, shoot me a PM via the forums, I have it set up to shoot me an e-mail so I'll certainly see it. May take me up to a week to respond (for the reasons why I'm pausing), but I'll get to it.

Please not, as this is worth repeating...This has nothing to do with the current protests. Ordinarily I'd enjoy that, as it's been far too long since Jenred has had any serious internal dissension. But...When I logged in and say almost two hundred messages, I nearly had a heart attack, worrying about how long it would take to answer all of them and whether I would be able to get more than six hours of sleep tonight because of that...And I just can't do that anymore.

So, have fun, please try not to blow up Arcaea (shaped charges and planned demolition notwithstanding, hehe), and I'll be interested to see how things go.

This is just a general design thing I've been mulling for a while, and I'd like to get it outside my head and see what it looks like.

It was sparked by digging in.  Used to be used all the time in the days when people could count on high cohesion on a single turn.  Nowadays, I never see it used unless you have at least a day to do it, because you split your melee line otherwise.  Cavalry never does, because you want them to charge.

Then I thought about stuff like civil work and police work, where more is better, but less is still better than nothing.  And I thought...Why can't digging in be like that?

Why can't it work in the sense of every unit who clicks the button adds to the strength of the fieldworks, that the whole side then gets to use?  People would use it a lot more, and it would make far more sense.

Which got me to thinking about different aspects of the game that are similar.  Like line settings.  There's been a lot of arguments about formations and such, organization coming and going...But what if that worked the same way?  Your whole army fights better the more people you have on the right settings, but we stop penalizing people who forget to check, and just have them fight alongside everyone else rather than charging out front like an idiot, or staying behind.

This way you still get bonuses and some penalties, but not the stupid "Yar!  I will charge ahead of everyone else in the army because I didn't get the memo!" stuff.  Or the "nah, I'll just hang out behind these trenches while the rest of the army gets slaughtered" stuff.

I'm not sure what else this could apply to, but I'm sure there's other stuff.

Thoughts?