Messages

16

Feature Requests / Re: Improving Adventurers and Trade

« on: September 07, 2018, 12:31:51 AM »

Now, I hope you're grinning because you know I'm right, and not because you've found some exploit that makes adventurers highly effective in war that you're deliberately hiding from the game's admins...because we all know that knowingly exploiting the game is a big no-no.

The annoying weird stuff I occasionally pull off is always done within the rules and without exploits. There wouldn't be any point otherwise. So if I do found any adventurer exploits (I haven't yet) they'll go straight on the bugtracker.

17

Helpline / Re: Wiki Formatting Tips, Tricks, Assistance & Peer Review

« on: September 06, 2018, 07:19:14 PM »

I noticed that the Realm and Religion lists for the different continents doesn't appear to be updating correctly. Some sort of syntax problem perhaps? Anyone have any ideas?

Which page? I'll take a look at the markup and see if I can spot what's wrong.

18

Feature Requests / Re: Improving Adventurers and Trade

« on: September 06, 2018, 07:10:47 PM »

Unless some pretty impressive exploits have been found, I dispute the "effective" part of that. 

19

BM General Discussion / Re: Famous Old Characters

« on: September 06, 2018, 07:08:41 PM »

Man, reading this was a blast from the past. Loved the parts about Fontan and LoF. I'm just coming back, but I used to play Tal conDoin in Fontan. A minor player, and my only character to have a decent impact I think.

Fun times though, from LoF through the Sirion War and all. All the big names were hit though, I think. From Gregor to Basileus, Hamilton and all. There was one though...Zhakev? I can't remember, but I feel like it was an Eastern European name. He was a player in Fontan, not sure if he would qualify for this list.

Welcome back Tal! Fontan is sadly long gone but there's plenty of PvP action on EC, or if you fancy some PvE masochism both Beluaterra and Dwilight are desperate for new nobles.

20

Feature Requests / Re: Improving Adventurers and Trade

« on: August 26, 2018, 12:53:00 PM »

Adventurers are not going to be given options that make them effective weapons of war.

They already are.

21

Feature Requests / Re: Improving Adventurers and Trade

« on: August 17, 2018, 01:54:15 AM »

I like some of these better than the trading thing

If I wasn't a good-for-nothing PHP hater I'd even offer to code some of them

22

East Island / Re: The War

« on: August 12, 2018, 08:43:02 PM »

Evora was lost due to Zolan, upon taking command of the vixen troops freshly arriving in Akesh Temple, decided to withdraw the army for no reason, without letting anyone know.

Evora would have been lost anyway, it was just a matter of time as it's easier to reach from the North than from the South.

The North has organised its offensives well for several months whilst the South has been bickering amongst itself and alienated the peasantry too much to have stable control along the front lines. An alliance divided loses its ability to respond effectively.

23

BM General Discussion / Re: Discussion on Monsters

« on: July 31, 2018, 07:40:20 PM »

With Dwilight's size and distance of rogue travel, it may be that rogues striking are hitting not due to current density but due to density from a week or two ago. A target is chosen and then monsters have to traverse rogues, seas, and then more regions to reach their destination, by which density has shifted. This is partly why the pressure is cyclical.

It takes both realm and continental density into account.

Realm density we can work with, continental density not so much

24

BM General Discussion / Re: Discussion on Monsters

« on: July 31, 2018, 07:35:51 PM »

Luria has as many regions as the next two largest realms combined. It's a little early to say it's facing an existential threat.

You don't have to manage the food flows

25

Development / Re: Archer targeting

« on: July 31, 2018, 07:21:41 PM »

Basically, I take notice of tactics that change the way entire wars are fought.  Some of them are just smart tactics.  Some of them are abuses of unintended side-effects.  And just like we need to find a way of balancing militias against the new, smaller player base.

The Southern Alliance ran into that issue actually.  We could smash Northern armies again and again in the field, but taking a city was nearly impossible even with our entire army.  And then 5k and 10k militia units started appearing out of no where when we marched into their regions, and that made things difficult for us.  Basically, militia is an issue we need to deal with.  It is too powerful for the present player base.  And if we're being honest, many very small realms with three or four nobles are basically depending on militia to survive.  I don't think that was ever the intention of the militia system.

They didn't appear out of nowhere. That was the result of weeks/months of hard work which put Brigdha at great personal risk for an outcome that's far from reliable. And the main benefit of those militia wasn't that they held territory but rather that they broke up the coordination of SA advances and greatly diminished the stability of those regions if they were captured.

The thing to remember with militia is that gold spent on maintaining them can't be spent on mobile force so a realm which places all its emphasis on a strong defensive position sacrifices mobility. Yes that can stop a city from being captured as easily as attackers might want - though note that Oligarch fell and in spectacular fashion - but it also makes the defending realm fairly irrelevant.

26

BM General Discussion / Re: Discussion on Monsters

« on: July 30, 2018, 12:34:15 PM »

You gave me a good idea for a RP. Despite that, yes, Dwilight and BT are doomed. At least in Angmar we can take a region while another is taken. The circle of (un)life.

Dwilight I think may still be salvageable, though the mass invasions Luria's had of late don't seem to reflect any appreciable drop in active player count suggesting there are unintended consequences in the underlying rogue spawn mechanics. We have the noble density of Westgard and the Adventurer density of Swordfell do if Luria can't stand against the hordes I don't think there's much hope for anyone else.

Admittedly we're too physically big and our long-planned realm split may change the economics of dealing with the hordes so they become more of a nuisance than an existential threat.

Beluaterra though feels like a lost cause unless we either give up much of our history and merge realms permanently in one small area, or else do something radically different with what the Devs have gifted us. I'm happy to try the radically different and anyone who wants to know what that might look like can contact me IG

27

Feature Requests / Re: RC stat display during RC roll

« on: July 25, 2018, 11:59:09 AM »

The maximum number of troops at each level is different for cavalry and SF so perhaps showing the progression for each size the RC can expand to in that region could be helpful to some players when comparing options.

28

BM General Discussion / Re: Discussion on Monsters

« on: July 25, 2018, 12:06:28 AM »

Recover Fontan?

Revenge is a dish best served cold, and without the inconvenience of having to do the washing up afterwards

29

Development / Re: Archer targeting

« on: July 24, 2018, 12:32:21 AM »

I think this is just a situation of "if it's not broke..."

I mean, unless someone can give battle reports to show something truly egregious.

The closest I've seen is attackers relying heavily on R5 troops, against cities which lack any, allowing the attackers to win from out of reach. But I've never seen such battle reports, and I've only sparsely heard of it. And... I mean, honestly, sounds fairly legit. "attack the fortified location from out of range" seems like pretty basic siege tactics.

It's the tactic OT and co developed on the Colonies to deal with MT after a couple of years of our R4 SF basically slaughtering anything fielded against us. The battle reports were very dull with two or there successive turns of stalemate battles being common. I'd love to know how much they had to invest to get those R5 RCs

30

BM General Discussion / Re: Discussion on Monsters

« on: July 24, 2018, 12:23:56 AM »

What I dislike about the monster situation is the randomness of it. Having constant pressure against expanding too far is fine as long as there's something meaningful realms can do to push at that limit if they're active or their armies are commanded well or they're well-served with adventurers. At least give the damn things some intelligence.

Prior to this latest influx BT was a busy continent with PvP wars in the aftermath of the last Invasion and several realms working in alliance on PvE around the Vales. Now what do we have? Widely separated realms with little contact hanging on by the skin of their teeth. IT IS NOT AN IMPROVEMENT. Just dial down the damn settings and let people get back to what they were working on beforehand.

Frankly this whole issue annoys me. I've watched a decade of devs and vocal players here on the forum trying to dictate how this game should be played and during that time player numbers have crashed. I personally think the two things are quite strongly correlated and as one of those with an atypical style of play (ie who does things which broadly annoy the vocal forces on here) I sometimes feel unwelcome myself.

Yes BM's a text-based web game, yes there are prettier alternatives out there, yes it's developed part-time by enthusiasts, and yes there are players happy to sit on their privileges and not risk them. But it's also a solid strategy game with a strong player-generated background and there are plenty of us who look on power as an excuse to make the game fun for our fellow players rather than enrich ourselves.

Players invest emotionally in their realms. They care about them. Having a realm destroyed hurts and it should do because that means there was something worthwhile about the effort that went in to creating it. The hurt is acceptable when it's caused by another player faction or a GM-controlled event like an Invasion, and it sets up interesting long-term feuds and motivations. It's possible that soon I'll get my revenge for Fontan and perhaps I'll even get payback for Minas Thalion and Alowca in time. I can think of no other game where events from seven years ago have that kind of itch factor to them.

But when a realm is destroyed purely as a result of mechanics designed to enforce a particular view of how the game should be played that frankly sucks. Solve these supposed problems in a way that encourages players, not one which punishes.