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I wanted to congratulate everyone involved in the transformation done to the East Continent and to all the rps and events that brought us up to it.

Very well done, and I wanted you to know that as a player I think it is a good job done.

As a character, Benjamin may have some bones to pick with you, but me the player loves it.  :)

You keep saying they are in the works, and yet you keep strangling us with further limitations on what we are allowed to do with the regions we have.

When are they going to become a real option to work with?

In the games of Civilization, there is something called "influence."  The more really cool statues and temples and cultural things you build, the greater your culture looks to others and the further the reach of your culture extends.  To the point that you can surround a foreign city with your own cities until they decide to join you of their own accord.  No fighting necessary.

We will soon be entering a stage of BattleMaster's history when we will have "Hinterlands" or something like that, all part of a nation without having a lord.  And they won't count against the noble limit so recently imposed.  They will be easier to conquer and all that, but taking them will still be an act of war.

What if we had..."influence" poring out of every realm that would encourage non-aligned regions to join nearby realms as "hinterlands" on their own?  No massive takeover armies needed.  Oh...still useful and something that happens of course.  But in addition to that.  Every region keeps stats of what they think about nations.  Maybe they gravitate towards joining the nations they like the most?  Modified by distance and stuff like of course.  They'd be less likely to join a nation that recently looted them for instance.  And having courtiers do work in that area would stabilize their control so they wouldn't flip easily.  But what would you think of an idea like that?

Every single building we build in a region could increase the cultural influence of that region.  Granaries would show that we care about feeding people.  Training centers would should we care about physical security.  Temples and shrines would show we care about their spiritual security.  Imagine every single building in a region added together to give it a cultural influence rating that could increase or decrease a nearby region's willingness to join or be part of a nation.

It would give nobles another reason to invest in their region.

And it would provide an interesting new dynamic to the game.  Another way for players to compete with each other.  Imagine the competition for capitals over who has the most influence over nearby areas.  Another stat for empires to measure against others.  A crowing point that would factor in everything built up in a nation.

Imagine if winning battles increased your cultural influence.  Or losing battles reduced it.  Maybe even something as simple as having adventurers wandering around and hunting monsters and undead could give that influence score a boost.  People would talk about the rumors of battles in the distance, or the adventurer who walked out of the nearby capital to save little Suzie from that band of undead that used to be her family.  Of course they'd also remember that some rich noble came by and stole all their gold and killed off that entire village over by the river crossing.  They would remember the festival that took place a week ago.  And the jousting and swordsmanship competition that brought nobles from across the continent a month ago.  And EVERYBODY remembers the name of the noble who won that competition, and the realm he went home to.

Everything members of our realm did would increase or decrease the cultural influence of a nation.  Everything we built would influence it.  Distance would influence it.  Who cares about the capital a thousand miles away?  But everybody cares about the big city a hundred miles away full of market places, training centers, and home to the giant temple that little Suzie's mother and father got married in.

Now this may not be easy to code at all.  But I put this out for discussion here to see what other players thought of the idea.

Would something like this be fun for you all to play with in this game?

I know I personally LOVED playing that game in Civilization.  And I think it would make for a very cool competition between players that wouldn't include going out and trying to bash each other's virtual skulls in.

What do you think?

[Training Center Militias]

Training Center Militias:

Summary:
Use the trained soldiers in the Training Centers as the militias for each region.

Details:
The militia defending each region would be those soldiers trained in the training centers of that region.  A region lord could not recruit militia as they do now.  The only way for a lord to add more militia would be to build another training center.  And then the militia would be those men currently trained at the center and waiting to be picked up by a noble.  A unit abandoned by a noble as militia would disappear each week by 10%, 25%, or 50% of it's size until it is less than 10 men when it would disband entirely.  Militia units killed in battle would be removed from the training center, thereby reducing the size of the militia.

Benefits:
The amounts of militia defending cities has long been a major issue that we've been trying to fix.  Rich cities are basically impossible to break for a single nation.  Even the current fix doesn't fully fix that.  This would reduce the size of militias to only the amount of trained men in each center, setting an upper limit to how many militia you could have in any region.

Possible Downsides/Exploits:
A successful raiding campaign that attacks rural regions could reduce the recruiting prospects of nobles in the cities.  Though that would force realms to defend their rural regions, so maybe not a downside/exploit?
Skilled infiltrators could blow up recruitment centers and reduce militia sizes.
Numerous raids could kill the trained militia in a city, making it difficult for defending nobles to recruit any new units.
Training centers in high demand and often drained would not of course be available to defend their home region, reducing the militia guarding their home region.
The in universe lore of men defending their distant frontier region and then suddenly arriving in the capital when they are recruited to follow a lord could be...complicated.  ;)

I run an adventurer and have lately seen an appalling lack of sages or wizards.

I've been moving around, looking for them, for weeks.  One (ONE) will show up every once in a while and instantly be gone again by the time my character arrives to talk to them.

This is making it impossible to even repair existing items as the sages are never there to talk to.

Can we please get more of these individuals spawning for the player to use?  At least the sages so we can keep the unique items working.  If this trend is not reversed soon, we are going to start losing one item after another in the packs of adventurers who are competing over who can click first at turn change to get to the one sage that shows up.

I propose that nations be allowed to Takeover regions that don't count towards the noble/region limit.

These Imperial or Hinterland Regions would eat half the food of normal regions since they are more self reliant.  They would also produce half the normal food and gold of normal regions since they keep them.  All gold would go directly to the ruler rather than a duke.  No region lord can be appointed.  Takeovers would go twice as fast since they are less loyal to "their" realm.  Less likely to go rogue since they don't pay as many taxes.  More likely to switch loyalties to other neighboring realms, especially if next to a Noble-Ruled Duchy Core region.

Exact ratios open to discussion.  I used half as a starting point that seemed good.

Basically looking for a way to allow realms to expand their influence beyond current borders but have that influence be very sketchy.  When frontiers meet, regions could flip back and forth depending on which nations they have favorable opinions of.  And of course having a tendency to prefer joining a more closely controlled Noble-Ruled Duchy Core region next to them.

Nobles could influence future turnover via doing some of the things we currently have that make citizens like nations more or less.  Could make for some interesting "non-combat wars for influence" on the edges of larger empires.

Astrum is one of the oldest nations on Dwilight, having been a major player in Western Dwilight long before the rogue waves took it over.  Astrum was one of the few realms to survive by relocating to the Islands and peninsulas of the central sea and the edge of Eastern Dwilight.  That makes Astrum a rather unique nation in many ways, removed from much of the chaos of being surrounded on the mainland, while being centrally located to go anywhere on a moment's notice.

Astrum continues to perform "tax collection missions" in her old lands in the west, which generally includes sending forces to battle monsters and undead in the west and then collecting the gracious gifts of the locals in thanks for liberating them from those vile monsters while encouraging them to rise up and defend themselves as well.  (OOC AKA looting the helpless locals until they get fed up and form their own militias.  hehehe)

Astrum is a theocracy of Sanguis Astroism so if you are looking for fun in the religious game we have plenty of that as well.  In spades.  Sanguis Astroism is the most powerful religion on the continent, so you'll also be coming in top dog on that level.

Speaking of being the best, Astrum has some of the best and richest cities in Dwilight, meaning that nobles here are uncommonly rich.
Astrum also has some of the best special forces and mixed infantry in the entire game, meaning that rich nobles here can have uncommonly good military units.

Basically....Astrum rocks.  Come be one of the cool kids and help kick the dust bunnies out of heretics everywhere.  :)

I just found a new shiny.  I can make my family logo the image I use on the forums!

:)

If you want to do it too...just follow these directions.

Go to your family page where you can see your logo.  Right click on it and select "Copy Image Location."

Then go to the forum and hover your mouse over "Profile."
Click "Forum Profile."
Under "Personalized Picture" select "Specify Avatar by URL"
Delete the http:// from the nice little box on the right designed to house the URL.
Paste the link into said nice little box for the URL.
Then scroll down and click "Change Profile."

And there it is.  Your very own Family logo will forever grace the forums under your name for all to see and be in awe of.

:)

I was scrolling down on my family page today and saw an old message from the developers

"Adventurers No Longer Using Scrolls
Adventurers have been blocked from using scrolls for the foreseeable future due to players abusively using adventurers as weapons of war scroll-bombs. They may be restored in the future when significant changes are made to their operation, but that is not a priority in light of the recently posted development roadmap."

I think this an unnecessarily prejudicial statement for the developers to be using against the players.  Now you obviously decided to change the rules.  That is fine.  It is your job to add options or take options away if you feel they improve or hurt gameplay.  That is what you all volunteered for.

But what we have here is a case of one group of players doing exactly what has been done for years.  They used adventurers to cast scrolls.  It's been done against the daimons, the monsters, the undead, and other player realms in the past.

The only difference is that this time the group of players targeted by the adventurer-cast scrolls complained to the devs, and the devs stepped in to undue the damage so the targeted players could arrest and kill the adventurers used in the attack.

And then the devs blamed the players playing the adventurers for this and charged them with abusing the rules.  I think that is a bridge too far and is unnecessarily antagonistic towards the player base.  I think such statements have no place in the official announcements of the game and would request that the announcement on the matter be moderated to remove any charges of abuse for what was a simple case of doing what was allowed and done in the past under many similar circumstances.

The devs already punished the players by allowing their characters to be executed.  I think then accusing the players of abusing the rules is simply a matter of adding insult to injury and should be avoided.

Everybody knows that a strike was recently conducted on Wudenkin by agents of Daishi.

Well.  Yao Ling recently decided it was time to add her own say to the matter of Wudenkin and their Daimon worshiping ways.  So she walked into Wudenkin, fired off a scroll of hammerfall, a scroll of pain and suffering, and several summon scrolls.

And...she said a thing while there.  I figured I'd post it to the forum so all y'all that aint there can enjoy the festivities.  :)

*****

Yao Ling walked down from the mountains with six priests who once ministered from the pulpit of Wudenkin’s temple.

The seven figures came to a stop outside bow range of the walls of Wudenkin and raised their rams horns high into the sky.  The high and shrill sound echoed off the walls in one grand cacophony.  Then a second and a third time they blew the horns.  A fourth time came accompanied by a thick cloud cutting off the sun and darkness fell upon the city.  They blew a fifth time and thunder rumbled in the heavens.  Lightning clashed in time to the sixth chorus.

And then the horns blew a seventh time and the hammer of the gods came down to smash against the walls of Wudenkin.  Rubble fell from the heights and rolled onto the plains below as the last echoes of the rams horns faded away and silence ruled.

Finally Yao Ling stepped forward and brought a different horn up to her mouth.  She began to talk, and her words came clearly to everyone who still had ears to hear.

“I have come in the name of the gods of humanity!  For the people of Wudenkin have sinned and followed the Daimons!  Your leaders have forsaken humanity and have torn down the temples in their pride and arrogance!  They have sacrificed the innocent and fed their blood to Daimons!  They have driven the people to riot and murder of their fellow citizens!

“Now I come with the words of the gods on my lips!

“Your leaders have been found guilty of the betrayal and slaughter of innocents!  And so your walls tremble before the sound of our horns!  Your judge is guilty of the murder of soldiers of humanity and will be punished unless he repents of his evil ways!

“To the people of Wudenkin, I exhort you to repent!  Repent of your wicked ways!  Rebuild the temples to the gods your leaders destroyed!  Stand with humanity as you did in ages past and all will be forgiven!  But if you continue in this wickedness, in this slaughter of innocents, the gods will spit you from their lips and ruin will come upon you!

“The gods have sent me with this warning to you all!  Disregard it at your peril!”
Then the six priests behind her blew on their horns once more and Yao Ling turned away from the city to the sound of their haunting calls.  The procession returned to their mountain pathways and faded away from the city without a trace.

We've got a glitch in the matrix on Beluaterra.

10K CS worth of Rogues showed up in Reeds.  Not too much of a problem normally.  We have more firepower than that in Reeds behind walls so pretty easy to kill in battle.

Which is where the glitch started.  No battle.  Nothing.  They came in and...sat around and decided since they were there in sufficient numbers that they would start a TO.

So...capital of a realm.  Fully defended.  No battle.  Now under TO.

Serious glitch in the matrix.

Many players lost their family homes when the continents fell beneath the waves.

I'm one.  *waves*

Would it be possible to add an option to create a new family home for families that lost them?

Hey guys.  I know a lot of characters get killed over time.  Die in battle.  Or just leave for whatever reason.

Who do you think has the oldest character still in active circulation?

My Yao Ling started on 2006-08-17 for example, and the game says she's 115 years old.  Considering all the Daimon invasions she's lived through, I think she's starting to give Methuselah a run for his money.  ;)

Yao Ling Pryde
Prestige: 37
Honor: 78
Born: 2006-08-17
Age: 115

Royal, Ambassador, Duchess, Margravine, Priestess

Hey guys.

My character Yao Ling on Beluaterra has stepped down from her Duchy multiple times over the last week.  None of those times has had any effect.

The Daimons took the capital, the duchy has all but evaporated, and she simply wants to get back to playing the game like any other noble who can choose estates and other things.

She is trapped in a dead duchy.  I would like to fix that.

I can't close estates in the Govern Estates page.  It just goes to blank screen when I click the button and...when I go back the estate is still there...

We are running into a rash of "holy wars" in Beluaterra between the Daimon worshippers and everybody else.

This includes burning temples all the way to the ground.

From which there is only one way to fix things.  The region lord must close the temple and live with the protests of the realm.

THEN he or she can rebuild the temple.

I suggest the following change.

Allow the region lord to rebuild a ruined temple.  Pay same cost as normal.  Must be member of religion.  All that jazz.  Just allow the region lord to enter a ruined temple and order it rebuilt to its lowest level.

What can be done with a ruined temple?

My realm recently reaquired a lost city where the Daimons closed down the local temples.

The ruined temple is still there and I would like to rebuild it.

My last experience with this situation was several years ago and I just kept on getting told I couldn't do anything.  I couldn't upgrade it back to a real temple because it was ruined.  I couldn't build a new one because there was one already there.  It was...annoying.

So now I'm wondering if anybody knows if things have changed.  What can we do with a region that has a ruined temple in it?

The bugtracker won't let me log in so I can't enter this bug in there.

The Govern Regions page (http://battlemaster.org/testing/GovernRegions.php) is not allowing me to give one of my regions a new lord.

The lowest region (Zisswi in my case) does not report region type, population, Estates, Tax rate, or anything.  All I get is a region name.  no other data.

I was able to give another region a lord recently, but today when I try to give Zisswi a lord I simply have no data and no options.

All other regions are reporting data as normal.

Most odd.

Yeah, some people said Atamara was a !@#$hole.

You know what?

Some people were wrong.

I first started playing on Atamara.  And Atamara is one the place I always kept one or two characters because for me it was the funnest of the islands.

Did it slow down a bit?  Yes.  One alliance did the one thing that BattleMaster is designed to not allow.  They won.  Seriously, the way the game pushes things to degrade in time and everything about it is designed to break up large realms and alliances.  But through ingenuity and determination and a lot of smarts the alliance BEAT EVERYBODY ELSE.  They literally beat the system.  That is what some people didn't like about the continent.  There were clear winners and losers in a game that is supposed to stop that from happening.

In the case of Atamara it took the players to self-police and break the alliance up.  Which we did.  Atamara was crashing and burning into a continent-wide civil war when the Devs nuked everything.  Years of gaming and scheming on the best map the game has just deleted and taken away from the players.

My hope is that sometime we can get that map back, either through restoring Beluaterra back to the Pre-Blight status, or by resurrecting Atamara entirely.

Hey guys.

I've got a question about the bandits in Dwilight.

Are they more numerous or something?

I have a character who recently emigrated to Dwilight after the devs sunk Atamara and he had a cavalry unit in Black Mountain when the Daimons attacked.  He is a hero but they just wounded him, wiped out his unit, and left him in a coma for a week.

I have since been trying to get back to the capital of my realm, which is right next to the mountain.  I have been attacked by bandits and dropped into a coma every single time I recover to be able to move again.  I finally, this morning, after what feels like weeks of travel in real life, finally made it to the capital, and was instantly attacked and sent into a coma by bandits AGAIN.  In the capital.

Now I'm used to bandits being a slight problem.  Something that may show up in every other region or so as you are making your way home from lost battle.  Just like there is a chance of getting captured after your unit is wiped.

But I have never seen an organized campaign of banditry so effectively and routinely exercised that it would make a character spend weeks in real life to get from one region to the region next to it.

I would have been home weeks ago if I had been captured by the Daimons, held for a week, and then sent home.

Instead, my character has been in a coma, for 2 to 5 days, he wakes up with vastly reduced hours for maybe one turn, he starts to move, and then is put down by another bandit group immediately for another 2 to 5 days.

Is this normal in Dwilight because I've never seen anything like it before in all my years of playing this game...