Topics

1

Development / Sponsor a Feature

« on: October 16, 2013, 01:49:46 AM »

Question for devs:

Has the idea of giving players an option to do feature-tied donations ever been floated/denied?

I know that, for myself, none of the donation goodies are worth much to me and, as much as I love BM, the free-to-play model has kind of poisoned me against paying for what I get for free.

However, I would shell out in about 60 seconds at sums similar to what I pay for games I buy on Steam if I thought doing so would meaningfully hasten the implementation of already-accepted features, or convince Tom that certain features he has rejected or seems inclined to reject would actually improve a lot of players' playing experience.

Obviously I don't know how the mechanics on this would work. Devs are volunteers so their time can't be coerced. But I just wanted to start the discussion and see what peoples' thoughts on it were.

2

BM General Discussion / Local Mods

« on: September 29, 2013, 02:14:26 AM »

Locals are re-opened, we've talked about have stronger moderation.

Will we actually be appointing local forum mods in order to accomplish that goal?

3

Helpline / Protesting rulers

« on: August 07, 2013, 06:42:50 AM »

So, question:

Can you protest a ruler out of office using exclusively silent protests?

In Caelum we've had a boatload of protests and about 5-10 turns straight of the ruler losing prestige and honor: he's down to 5 prestige now. We haven't had lots of public protests, however, so I'm wondering how this works. Do we have to protest publicly to get him out of office?

4

Development / Manual Government Change - Terran

« on: May 03, 2013, 05:14:48 PM »

From e-mails with Tom:

Hey Tom,

So Terran, on Dwilight, has broken apart into pieces via secession. The realm was formerly a republic.

It has been kept alive by the generosity of Astroist lords and realms. And now, Hireshmont has pretty well purged the non-believers and declared a theocracy, and is getting material aid in this from theocratic realms.

The government system, including titles and laws, are all changing to be a theocracy. The people in power are cycling to be religiously exclusive. Major secessions have pulled all the republicans and non-Astroist out of the realm.

Is there any chance we can get a manual change to theocracy, given the above circumstances?

-Lyman Stone

Am 02.05.2013 um 20:18 schrieb Lyman Stone:

Is there any chance we can get a manual change to theocracy, given the above circumstances?

I'm not much in BM at the moment. Can you post that to the forum and ask the dev team (Tim, etc.), please?

----

Dev team, any chance I can get a manual change? It's changed in all but name (prevented by bug 0007729, which I have reported), and no nobles in Terran have expressed any opposition to the changes.

A manual government change would be nice, especially since I can't change the formal name yet due to a bug.

5

Helpline / Holy Temple Upkeep Reports, Batman, That's 200 messages!

« on: April 16, 2013, 05:13:21 PM »

I received 200 temple upkeep messages today for Sanguis Astroism, but no bug report.

They are formatted wrong and overlap with the frames on the left and bottom. They make all subsequent messages basically unreadable.

Anybody else have this issue?

6

Helpline / Stable City Size

« on: April 06, 2013, 06:57:34 PM »

Question:

Is there any size at which a city will produce enough food to feed itself, and not go rogue? Like, can you let a city shrink to a stable point (maybe like 1/5 or 1/10 of its original size)?

7

Helpline / Repetitious Protesting

« on: April 05, 2013, 08:22:01 PM »

So Terran has 7 nobles. One of them, Kas Mayhem, is protesting every turn.

He's the only one protesting.

And yet I keep losing prestige.

Because he's a royal, I can't have him banned.

Is it really intended that one noble can strip the prestige of every single ruler?

8

Helpline / Call for Impeachment

« on: March 16, 2013, 12:42:34 AM »

"Follow the public protests and impeach Kas Mayhem, Chief Magistrate of Terran, Royal of Terran."

http://www.battlemaster.org/testing/Impeach.php?Pos=Ruler
"Due to protests against the Chief Magistrate, you as the Magistrate of Justice can call for a vote of no confidence.
This vote will go out to all lords of the realm. A qualified majority will be required to remove Kas Mayhem, Chief Magistrate of Terran, Royal of Terran from the position.
Your reason for calling for impeachment will be posted to the realm and become part of the referendum:"

"There is already a vote of no confidence in the Chief Magistrate pending."

---

WHAT IS THIS?

Why have I never heard of it?

Why doesn't it work? It says there is already a vote of no confidence pending.

9

Feature Requests / Religion Feature Request: Honor and Prestige for Priests

« on: January 19, 2013, 09:40:17 PM »

Title: Honor and Prestige for Priests

Summary:
When a priest expands a temple, builds a shrine, carries out an auto da fe, or converts a large number of people, he/she would have a chance of gaining H/P.

Details:
Priestly actions likely to gain repute for the priest and which constitute expressions of power, authority, or accomplishment should increase that priest's prestige for sure, maybe honor too, but maybe not. At minimum, very successful conversion, and temple and shrine dedication, should yield H/P bonuses. I think more aggressive acts, like persecution, religious claims, and auto da fes, should as well. I will not offer a specific notion of how much H/P– obviously the priest class shouldn't equal out with warriors and such, but being better than infiltrators would be nice.

Benefits:
Many powerful priests are a few vulgarity complaints or high-profile abdications away from not meeting the threshold for various positions. That doesn't make sense. The H/P lack in the priest game misses the obvious fact of priests often being quite prestigious in Medieval communities, and also smacks of game imbalance which should be rectified.

Possible Exploits:
I honestly can't think of any, provided that H/P is conditioned in successfulness, not mere attempts, and provided that H/P gains are not too large or imbalanced.

10

Feature Requests / Religion Feature Request: Declare Characters Anathema

« on: January 19, 2013, 09:35:11 PM »

Title: Declare Character Anathema

Summary: Allow religions to declare a character anathema, causing a semi-random chance of that character being mobbed by faithful peasantry when they are in areas with high follower amounts of the declaring religion.

Details:
Provide religions an option to declare a noble anathema. Cap the number of nobles who can be anathematized at any given time at the number of priests in the religion. Any elder can declare a noble anathema. Nobles who have been declared anathema shall have a chance of being mobbed by peasants loyal to the religion in question. That chance is determined by 1) The size of the character's unit (bigger unit, lower chance) and 2) the number of followers of the anathematizing religion(s) in the region relative to the number of followers of religions who have not declared the noble anathema

The relative calculation is important. If a noble is declared anathema by 3 religions, no religion's chance of mobbing the poor sod should be harmed by the fact that there are other religions who have also declared him anathema. In most instances this won't matter, but it could in some, especially if/when schisms are introduced. A mere "% of population following anathematizing religion" is not enough. It needs to be "% of population (less other anathematizing religions) following anathematizing religion." Though if that's hard to code, it's probably a marginal issue.

Whatever the case, it would follow the same mechanics as other peasant mobbing mechanics present in BM– random highwaymen, auto da fes and riots, etc, etc. I don't know which exact model would be best, but chance of wounding, gold loss, and soldiers being killed seems right.

If an anathematized person has a lordship, followers of the anathematizing religion should also have a decline in loyalty.

Benefits:
First, this fills a realism hole in the game. This is a very medieval feature. Second, this would create conflict between religions and realms with which they may be otherwise buddy-buddy. A politically useful but religiously inconvenient person would create church-state conflict even in religiously aligned states (see: Morek/Bowie Ironsides/Astroism). This would create a tool for pursuing that which is unlike other tools. Infiltrators are clumsy tools for such a task, and are one-hit wonders. This creates a passive force by which religions could punish individual evildoers. But, again, while it strengthens the religion game, it doesn't give it any superpowers. Anathematized persons could flee to heathen lands, where only wars and assassins can reach them. Or they can travel with soldiers in tow, and have satisfying opportunities to slaughter peasant mobs that rise against them. This is a feature which grants some clout, and individual, pointed clout, to religions, but, again, which is fully dependent on their own ability to pursue these actions (getting high conversion rates), and which does not replace, but rather augments, RP.

Possible Exploits:
My concern is not so much exploitation as fairness. We say you do not have a right to play wherever you want. But this feature could really test that proposition. In the case of Astroism, a player would have to change class away from any non-unit-accompanied class and always have a good-sized unit, and/or a player would have to go to Fissoa, Falkirk, or Aurvandil. Everywhere else has substantive Astroist populations. I'm okay with that, but the repercussions for such forced exile and negative pushing to soldier classes could cause some bad feeling. Especially if multiple religions started anathematizing the same person, they could find the continent very unwelcoming very quickly.

11

Feature Requests / Religion Feature Request: Declare Realms Good/Evil

« on: January 19, 2013, 09:19:36 PM »

Title: Declare Realms Good/Evil

Summary: Allow religions to declare realms good or evil, with some limited in-game effects tied to priests and followers.

Details:
Religions would have a menu where they could label religions as "Faithful" "Ignore" or "Evil." Only realms with at least one elder of the religion can be declared faithful.

This feature has two different, unrelated sections, described separately below:

Priestly Effects:
In "Faithful" realms, priests' preaching would be more effective– and especially priest' ability to laud that realm would be stronger, while ability to badmouth that realm would be weaker. The opposite would be true for Evil realms. Essentially, declaring a realm Faithful or Evil under this system does NOTHING... except what priests can make happen. But when priests work in coordination with local religious authorities, the continental religious system, etc, they are more effective. Thus a religion can't just blasé name a realm evil and expect to be able to hurt it: but a religion can name a realm evil and then, if that realm has lots of followers, its priests become deadlier weapons. This would incentivize realms to try and spread their religion to other realms, to try and get elders in a religion... but would also incentivize realms to be faithful. Realms want good courtiers– priests with a "Faithful Realm" bonus would also be useful. So even realms without warlike aims have an incentive to try and get religious support, and to try and avoid losing it.

Direct Effects:
These effects could be left out, or, as I prefer, in addition to the above effects. When a religion declares a realm evil, its conversion rates in that realm should fall– but its followers in that realm will be less loyal to that realm. In other words, a religion has a balancing act: by naming a realm evil, they can hurt it... but they will also lose their own followers. If a religion worked with several priests and, say, an invading realm of the same religion, this could be worthwhile because of stacking bonuses. But if a religion miscalculated its strength, it could be facing significantly declining numbers of followers in the target realm.

In Faithful realms, there would be an opposite effect. Conversion rates would rise in realms named faithful, and religious followers would be more loyal. Realms and religions benefit from a friendly relationship. Hence realms and religions have an incentive to try and capture each other's positions of influence.

Benefits:
Priest Effects:
Allows religions to conduct formalized diplomacy with game-mechanics effects, but without having some kind of automatic kill button. Religion can be used to support or weaken the actions of players, but can never substitute for them. Religions would gain power as they gain priests, especially vis-a-vis realms, as the more priests means the more people who can run around maintaining regions in faithful realms, or punishing unfaithful realms. This encourages player-level decision making and empowers the priest class without empowering the individual priest. A priest can't just up and do these things on their own: a religion does these things which affect the effectiveness of priests.

Direct Effects:
This would be similar to the peasant-effects of diplomacy now. Religion was a much bigger part of peasant lives than realm was in the Middle Ages. This fills a massive gap of "passive religio-political sentiment." Such a thing did exist, and should exist, in however small a form.

Possible Exploits:
Priestly Effects:
I am unable to think of any. It would not be exploiting the feature to make an extremely friendly state religion. But simultaneously, state religions would not enjoy the feature to its fullness. This system incentivizes converting your neighbors to your own religion, so that you can send your priests to hurt them if need be.

Direct Effects:
Again, it doesn't seem readily exploitable. It can't suddenly award someone a position. My only concern would be the fairness of stacked effects. If a realm has positive priestly effects, high conversion rates, and positive direct effects, and state-funded religion, it could simply make that realm fiendishly efficient. We might be okay with that, but it's something to consider.

Both:
After discussion, it was determined that declaring a realm "faithful" could actually be a useful offensive tactic to gain converts for other uses later on– declare an actually hostile realm faithful in order to gain converts, when they clearly aren't faithful. In order to limit this possibility, I have added a section in the details suggesting that a realm can only be declared faithful if they have an elder in the religion.

---

Note: I have this as one feature request. Realistically, I see it as two feature requests in one proposal, because they are discussing the same topic, even if they're two different methods.

12

Feature Requests / Religion Feature Request: Religious Claims for Other Nobles

« on: January 19, 2013, 09:03:00 PM »

Title: Religious Claims for Other Nobles

Summary: Allow priests using religious claims on regions to install other nobles, namely long-standing elders of a religion, as lords in a region, rather than just themselves.

Details: When a priest engages in a religious claim, instead of automatically installing that priest, provide an option to select a noble. Make the options the priest, and any elder of the same religion who has been an elder for at least 30 days and who does not hold any other lordship and who is in the same region. The 30-days restriction is to try and forestall the use of temporary-elderships to circumvent normal TO mechanics. The requirement of being in the same region simply seems reasonable and obvious. The requirement of eldership is, again, to prevent this option from being used as a semi-normal appointment option. The requirement of no other lordships means that this isn't a way to just cycle offices around elders– you're awarding it to some other faithful elder, not just trying to use religious influence to reward a patron who had some lesser region. Whoever is going to receive the new region must have already have stepped down from other lordships: they must bear some of the risk of losing out if the action fails. If it does, they end up without lands.

Benefits:
It makes sense. It seems historical-ish at least. It adds some useful diversity to the game. It enhances the priest game and priestly power without an appeal to the mystical or any kind of god-moding power: it makes sense that a priest could install someone else as lord, someone who the peasants would recognize as a friend of their faith. A loyal exiled duke who has returned to reclaim his house from the pagan usurper, put in power by the will of God! That is the situation this mechanic is intended to address. Hence the requirement of eldership, no other lands, etc.

Possible Exploits:
With the restraints I have identified, exploits should be few. Even non-exploiting uses should be few. However, it is possible it could be used to re-appoint wounded important people if the King can't make it to some outlying region. Duke Joe who is an elder in State Religion and who has been Duke for 90 years is wounded? Duke Joe's city is 2 days march from the frontlines? Well then– send a priest to do the appointment. This kind of abuse is possible– but the base cost of religious claims to begin with should reduce its likelihood.

13

Feature Requests / Religion Feature Request: Report Heresy

« on: January 19, 2013, 08:53:37 PM »

Title: Report Heresy

Summary: Allow characters to report another character's message as "heretical," making a system like the vulgarity feature, but within religions. Have messages be judged by randomly-selected elders of the religion.

Details:
All messages a noble sends would have a "Report as Heretical" option like the "Report as Vulgar" option. If it is clicked and reported as heretical, it will be reported to the elders of the sender's religion. If the sender has no religion, then it has no effect (ALTERNATIVELY: pagan nobles could just not have the button be presented). Whichever elders receive the flagged message (maybe 3 randomly selected elders?) would then judge it, exactly like vulgarity– except they would judge it for a criterion of orthodoxy, not politeness. If ruled as heretical, the sender would lose some small amount of H/P. Also, there would be a random probability of an automated message going out to members of a religion saying, "Rumors that Noble X has been saying troubling and unorthodox things have begun to spread" or some similar statement.

Some kind of limitation on use could be necessary. A cooldown-time on reporting heresy, a frequency limit on how frequently elders can define something as heresy, and a minimum number of elders would all be necessary to prevent abuse, as described below in the "possible exploits" section.

Alternatively (or additionally), a cap on punishment for heresy could be set. Namely, a character cannot suffer an H/P penalty for heresy more than once a week. Elders can still vote on their messages of course, to no effect other than their own satisfaction, but no penalty is applied until messages from at least a week after the first heretical message are being condemned. The intervening messages have no effect.


Benefits:
This allows religions to "operationalize" doctrines without requiring some set of arbitrary game-defined doctrines. Players will be able to make doctrines a substantive and "real" force without replacing RP, without exceptionally burdensome or complex internal systems. The question of "what is heresy" will be determined by what players think heresy is: but this will provide a mechanic which can easily be used to generate some lower-level conflict, can be used to incentivize players to seek elderships in religions, and can be used to flesh out religions. If a player's message is declared heretical, it may encourage elders to explain their decisions, leading to further social elaboration and conflict. These are all beneficial game effects which, simultaneously, avoid creating some kind of game-defined doctrinal framework.

The possible exploits can be managed. The system seems unlikely to be very burdensome to code, given that much of it seems, from a layman's perspective, like it could be duplicated from the vulgarity system. It has a clear benefit of creating a social mechanism for players to utilize to act out existing and new RPs, without forming an arbitrary constraint on such RPs. As such, it seems, to me, like it would be an excellent addition to the religion game– and one that would include everyone, not just priests, in that game. Anybody can call their neighbor a witch.

Possible Exploits:
A cabal of elders with a political agenda could repeatedly report one person's messages as vulgar, and repeatedly orchestrate their being ruled as such. On the one hand, this would be cool– you could basically vaporize a person's reputation if they were heretical by having a monopoly on the elders. On the other hand, that would discourage powerful characters from joining religions, and just be grossly unfair.

This situation could be prevented. Only allow religions with, say, at least 6 elders (thus at least 3 priests) to use this feature. Tiny religions just aren't influential enough to hurt the reputations of powerful nobles. Only allow a person to report a message as heresy once every week, to prevent system-spamming (or create a penalty for frequent reporting). Another option, and one I dislike, would be to limit how frequently reported messages can be ruled heretical. This could be a hard cap, which creates problems of how to resolve the "waiting list" of messages, or some kind of penalty for frequent declarations: if you declare lots of things heretical, then peasants will start abandoning your religion as it gets too restrictive.

14

Atamara / Bounties

« on: November 27, 2012, 05:12:08 PM »

So I peeked at the bounty board recently.

And my character, Cyrilos, has the third highest bounty– and his buddy Kerwin is the top.

I understand the motive for stabbing Kerwin.

But why stab Cyrilos?

He has no office he can lose. He isn't particularly politically influential. He's annoying enough to merit a hundred or two hundred bounty to shut him up maybe... but a 1250 bounty? Really? Anybody want to fess up?

15

Helpline / Guild Message Bug Known or Not?

« on: November 26, 2012, 11:54:28 PM »

Is there a known bug where some members of, say, a group of elders, simply do not receive messages by another elder in a guild?