Topics

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Feature Requests / Approved: Abolish autopause for adv. if other characters are still being played

« on: February 18, 2018, 12:39:39 PM »

Title: Abolish autopause for adventurers if other characters are still being played

Summary: Only autopause adventurer characters if all of a player's noble characters are also to be autopaused

Details: Change the way the current autopause for adventurers is activated by first making sure that all of the player's noble characters are paused.

Benefits:
The adventurer game can be a bit of a grind-fest and I often find I don't want to play my adventurer characters for several successive days (sometimes a couple of weeks) - especially when my nobles are busy. Sometimes I miss-count how long some or all of them have been unplayed and then one or more autopauses will happen, dropping guild and religion memberships along with any positive balances or debts they've accrued. I know I could quick-play them every turn but clicking for clicking's sake is just more grind and that plays into the whole reason why those characters aren't being played at the time.

By only autopausing adventurers when the account itself hasn't been played for a while it makes the adventurer game a little more casual without breaking the guild and religion ties which are often its main social aspect.

Possible Downsides or Exploits:
The proposal only applies to adventurers so this wouldn't make it any easier for players to sit on government positions, Dukedoms or Lordships without maintaining reasonable activity. It might interfere slightly with the disbanding of guilds when they lose all other members but if so it would only be a question of a few extra days.

2

Feature Requests / Under Debate: Show Banker granary & spoilage information in Regional Food Status

« on: January 21, 2018, 01:56:16 PM »

Title: Show Banker granary and spoilage information in Regional Food Status

Summary:
Add two additional columns to the existing table.

• One column will show the number of granaries in each region.
• The other will show how much food spoilage occurred in that region on the current day.

Details:
The spoilage information is produced daily for each region so this would need to be recorded for the region. No history is required so a single variable/property per region should suffice.
The granary information is already stored for each region.

Benefits:
Bankers already have lots of useful data with which to plan a realm's food policy but this would allow them to make better informed decisions about where to stockpile food when necessary.

Possible Downsides or Exploits:
The most obvious downside is that Bankers will be better informed without additional effort, making them even less dependent on player interactions to do their jobs. However in many realms Bankers already do most of the trading so I don't think the impact would be that great. And anyone who doesn't want their realm's Banker managing their food can already achieve that by barring access to their granaries.
Having this information readily available will also allow Bankers to more effectively micromanage food distributions.
I can't think of any additional exploits this change would enable but perhaps I'm just not being devious enough.

3

Development / Wiki spamfilter

« on: August 22, 2017, 04:28:56 PM »

I keep my RPs in the wiki as well as anything related. Today's EC portal collapse was too good an opportunity to miss for a backstory RP - especially as I'm on summer holiday and can afford a couple of hours to write.

Imagine my surprise when I tried to update the page and discovered the wiki external spam filtering doesn't like crude language - even when it's not there.

It took great exception to !@#$ being in the text, only on this occasion I hadn't used the word (I have in the past as part of battle descriptions etc.). Turns out that the external spam filter doesn't care about word boundaries and triggered because of Ake!@#$e. For my purposes I changed it to Akeshate which still makes sense but I'm wondering if we couldn't use a more intelligent spam filter for the wiki?

4

Colonies / The Future

« on: November 25, 2015, 12:38:16 PM »

It appears the Colonies will be subject to the same character restrictions as other islands, and this will take a pretty heavy toll of active characters. 27 out of 84 will either have to be paused or move to other islands.

We've all worked very hard in the last couple of years to change the island's dynamics and return it to a healthy state, breaking apart the large empires into smaller realms which have to work through alliance and creating the Colonial Senate to provide a forum for cross-realm conversation.

I'm wondering to what extent other players believe these changes are sustainable once the character changes kick in - especially given that we're going to lose a number of characters with deep roots in the island's history.

As a slow-paced island I don't hold out much hope of us acquiring and keeping a large number of fresh characters from other islands - though it would be wonderful if we did: back when I started playing in 2007 there were a couple of dozen characters in Alowca alone, several major wars and at least seven active religions.

Even with an active war between 6 realms I fear we don't offer the instant hit of action and game success which many players demand when they do try out the Colonies. I should add that so far it's been an interesting war of manoeuvre and not the usual grind of win-battle-then-launch-TO which characterises so many wars on other islands.

Is it time to reconsider the new Colonial order and consolidate into a smaller number of realms? That seems like a regressive step to me but perhaps I've become too focused on keeping Minas Thalion alive to have an objective view of what's good for the island as a whole.

Or is there some other direction we can head in, respecting the history of the island (which I think has been a motivating factor for all the current rulers) whilst also increasing involvement for newer characters?

5

BM General Discussion / Character limit changes

« on: October 28, 2015, 10:29:22 AM »

It would have been nice to get some advance warning of the changes prior to login this morning.

You also might like to consider the impact of the changes on the Colonies where a number of players (myself included) have two nobles.

6

BM General Discussion / Colonies Realm seeks New Knights

« on: January 14, 2015, 11:41:24 AM »

Minas Thalion is a relatively young realm (refounded after a long period in exile) about to be pulled into a war against Outer Tilog and we could use good knights who are keen to win their spurs and become a significant force in the realm. With between 3 and 5 characters at any one time we've fought successful wars against both Portion and Aren, the latter now our Federation partner, but we really need between 7 and 10 characters to return to our pre-exile glory days.

For those of a mercenary disposition we have ample gold whilst those looking for good quality troops to command will find our RCs well stocked with infantry, archers and ranged special forces of excellent calibre. We recently opened a cavalry RC for those who like the thrill of the charge and have less expensive rural levies available as well.

In terms of history we were originally a realm carved out of the carcass of the Theocracy of Alebad back when the Colonies player count numbered in the hundreds. Our ruler was previously Duke of Alowca and a prophet of the Trinitarian faith so Minas Thalion inherits much lore from the old Colonial order, he was also the ruler who stood up to the joint armies of Oritolon and Lukon before keeping the realm alive in exile without a city for close to a year of warfare with Lukon and Outer Tilog. That's the longest that any realm has ever survived as a functioning entity without a city, the whole time maintaining an army of 3-4K CS and half-a-dozen knights.

Sadly Outer Tilog finally succeeded in destroying our palisade and ending our independence, but undaunted a couple of us worked with Lukon to destroy the Republic of Oritolon and refound our realm back in its capital city Alebad. Sadly many of our players had left BM by this point and the lands we acquired (Alebad and Abaka) were in an appalling condition. It's taken a long time to get Alebad's production back to the 90% it now boasts and every scrap of infrastructure has had to be built from scratch so for many months gold was in short supply and already spoken for. Thankfully that's no longer the case and we have plenty of space for estates which will deliver a decent income.

Frankly though this rebuilding made the realm unfriendly for newcomers as there was little for them to do outside of border skirmished and little gold with which to do it. Even our wars were on a reduced scale. But now we're back as a strong realm fully capable of supporting ourselves and a decent army making this an ideal time for knights to join.

If you've never played in the Colonies you may be put off by the one-turn-per-day pace: please don't be. Yes events happen slower than on other continents however our politics are every bit as dangerous and our culture quite unique. The war which refounded Minas Thalion also returned us to the city-state politics of an earlier age so there are plenty of opportunities for alliances, treachery and preferment. And many ancient feuds, often dating back into dimly remembered ancient history.

So if you fancy a change from your usual routine, come give the Colonies a try - and especially Minas Thalion. We have openings for region lords, government members, priests, diplomats, knights and adventurers. All are welcome!!!

7

Development / Coder qualifications

« on: August 06, 2013, 03:14:29 PM »

Everything you're talking about doing requires more people's time. Developers' time.

Right now, you know how many developers there are actively doing stuff?

Me.

And I have a real job, and a wife, and at least the rudiments of a social life.

Yes, I would love to be able to say, "Here! Here is the brand-new mobile BattleMaster site, guaranteed to be at least 5000% better than before! Here is a brand-new island to move the people from our X deleted islands to, to get everyone interested in exploring again! Here are the 30 most-needed new features and big changes to make the game in general more fun to play, so everyone playing is more likely to stay, new or not!"

But as much as I honestly enjoy working on BattleMaster development, and do devote a lot of spare time to it, for me to do all that stuff by myself, at the current rates, would take at least a year or two.

I've often considered signing up for the dev team but juggling family and work has always made getting involved seem impractical. However if things are really at the point where ongoing dev work is hanging by a thread then I'd be willing to pitch in and help if you don't mind a PHP newb poking around in the codebase.

8

Helpline / Do militia repair their equipment over time?

« on: July 09, 2012, 03:15:39 PM »

Would love to get some feedback from those in the know before embarking on a long and possibly futile experiment