Messages

31

Development / Re: Rebalance Feedback

« on: December 29, 2013, 04:41:38 PM »

Asylon, Niselur and Phantaria also lost gold.

Looking at the chart you provided, by climate regions, Barca is the most apparent one.

32

Development / Re: Rebalance Feedback

« on: December 29, 2013, 12:48:15 PM »

I'm afraid Rettleville was a victim of crime.

When working on the rebalance, we found that cities started to become totally absurdly wealthy when they got to high population densities. So crime was added to balance that out. Rettleville is unfortunate in that it is very small (in terms of area), but not especially high-production, so it got a fair amount of crime, but not much actual gold.

Sorry.

Rettleville wasn't wealthy to begin with. So the crime you added greatly affects small cities as well.

This shows the changes on Dwilight by climate region.

The only realm in the South Forest region in Barca. While everyone has seen an increase in wealth, we are the only one who lost wealth.

33

Development / Re: Rebalance Feedback

« on: December 27, 2013, 12:31:40 PM »

I'm sorry to hear of your...coal. Sadly some lose out by this balance change. But as sympathetic as I am, I wish to remind you that population size does not equal absolute wealth in the real world either. Iran is about as wealthy as Sweden in absolute terms, but has 8 times the population. Ukraine is about as wealthy as Romania in absolute terms but has more than twice the population, just to take two examples.

That indeed doesn't apply to the real world, however when comparing similar regions with each other, knowing that the rebalance are based on the statistics of each region, I simply didn't expect such difference between regions that are very similar.

34

Development / Re: Rebalance Feedback

« on: December 26, 2013, 01:11:49 PM »

I got coal for Christmas. Rettleville (Dwilight) needs to feed 4.500 more peasants with a 300 gold tax loss. Similar cities produce much more than 778 gold, such as Koshtlom, Shinnen, Fissoa, Chrysantalys & Sallowtown (both with an even smaller population). Besides that, 35% of all townslands are richer than Rettleville, while even more are more valuable because they do produce food, and Rettleville needs to import it. To complete the list, 5 mountain regions and two strongholds have a larger income while some don't even have half the population of Rettleville. This just doesn't sound very fair.

35

BM General Discussion / Re: Religion

« on: December 20, 2013, 05:14:11 PM »

I don't recall any specific instance of RTO ability being nerfed. Not that it didn't happen, but I just can't recall any specific changes that would have caused that. Do you remember any details about what the change was?

It is no longer possible to RTO rogue regions. I believe that was the nerf that was implied after the Sirion-Fontan war.

i was thinking about realm-level taxation of religions, while allowing it to be different for different religions.

I believe that if you decide to tax religions, make it a property-tax based on the size of the temple and the height of the tax rate depended on also the local tax rate. For example, you pay 5 gold for a small temple, and 10 gold for a large temple at a local tax rate of 15%. At 10% you pay less and at 20% you pay more. But the height of the tax you pay is no longer dependent on the amount of gold you have stored in the temple. Temples with empty treasuries still have to pay taxes, and it becomes more interesting to store more gold in the temples treasury, because it is no longer the treasury that is being taxed.

36

Dwilight / Re: Great Dwilight War, Pt. 2: The Southern League vs. Luria Nova

« on: December 20, 2013, 03:00:54 PM »

I believe the Farronite Republic will not send military aid to D'Hara any more, looking at what happened. But seriously, what did actually happen besides the obvious? Why?

37

Dwilight / Re: Great Dwilight War:Astrum defeats Asylon and Farronite forces.

« on: December 20, 2013, 02:58:05 PM »

Golden Farrow remains an independent city-state with all treaties with surrounding realms intact. I have personally seen how long single-region realms can last even with outright hostile neighbors and I am fairly certain that I can go on indefinitely since nobody is pounding on my doors with torches.

Don't you think Astrum might pound on your door?

38

Dwilight / Re: Great Dwilight War, Pt. 2: The Southern League vs. Luria Nova

« on: December 11, 2013, 04:25:57 PM »

Indeed, we recognise the Zuma as another Perfect race.

If the Zuma are perfect, how can the Lurians be perfect, as being so different from each other?

Nope, Khari. Waaay back. Before Barca had declared even.

True. We were quite late with declaring war. We were still at war with Aurvandil.

39

BM General Discussion / Re: Religion

« on: October 09, 2013, 08:58:08 AM »

'A main cause', not 'the main cause'. And historically speaking, I do not think my premise is that questionable. We need more wars like the Ibladesh - Itorunt war.

40

Dwilight / Re: Great Dwilight War:Astrum defeats Asylon and Farronite forces.

« on: October 09, 2013, 08:49:47 AM »

For those who didn't know yet, D'Hara and Luria Nova have signed a temporary cease fire to attend to the tournament in Fissoa! How noble of them.

41

BM General Discussion / Re: Religion

« on: October 08, 2013, 11:39:45 PM »

Before I took a break from the game, the PeL area had a few very significant and influential religions, to the point were the tensions between the religions were starting to lead to conflicts between the realms involved. People were taking sides and supporting their prophets and being INVOLVED.

Religion should be a main cause of conflict in the game. I think that it is also a problem that some people see religion in-game outside the right timeframe. Some religions are way too tolerant to others. Where is the fun in that? Too little debt cause for little strive. The people's characters should start believing that there is only one true religion, theirs.

42

Dwilight / Re: Anything interesting happening anywhere?

« on: October 08, 2013, 02:39:06 PM »

You don't do guilds right then.

Tell us your secret. 

43

BM General Discussion / Re: Religion

« on: October 07, 2013, 09:16:51 PM »

Wrong game.

You are thinking of religion as a tool to power and more buttons to click. It was never intended to be that, and that's why you find it lacking. It's a roleplaying device. If you think of it as a gameplay mechanic, you will always be disappointed.

It disappoints me as a role-play device, as it miserably fails at that.

These are good questions. But they are also things that we cannot enforce in game mechanics. Some characters will believe very strongly, some weakly, others will not believe at all. Some will believe in whatever faith can promise them what they want.

Of course. I hope that when religions are more 'useful' it becomes more attractive to invest time in it, role-play wise and take religion in general more serious.

And, on top of that, you also need a set of leaders willing to actually use that power in a religious manner, and a group of people willing to play along with it. Look what happened when you assembled all that on Dwilight. You got a strong church with lots of secular power, willing to use that power to achieve its own goals, and a bunch of nobles that jumped when the prophet said jump.

From my experience that is difficult to achieve, because what I usually hear is that religion shouldn't involve itself in politics. In my opinion, it should, as much as possible.

Game mechanics alone will not make any particular religion in BattleMaster the equivalent of the Catholic church at the height of its power. It takes players to get together and allow the church to have that power. If you try to force it on people, then you will end up with a lot of what we had when religion first was implemented: Each realm having its own empty-shell state religion run by the realm, and all other religions outlawed.

The equivalent of the Catholic church is desirable in my opinion. I do not want to force people to all become religious zealots, but I do think the current balance is off.

Another good idea. Some kind of official Excommunication, which may also include forbidding them from rejoining, is a good idea. I like the idea of excommunicated lords/dukes generating problems in their regions if the region is high in followers of that faith. The "can't leave for 30 days', though, I don't really understand. You've been excommunicated. You're no longer part of the religion.

I was thinking in terms how to code this. I saw the excommunication much like the exile option. So the game knows that you belonged to religion X, so it knows what peasants will be upset. The 'do not leave for 30 days' was to avoid that you dodge the negative civil effects of the excommunication.

In general, the influence followers ability is pretty low-powered. The advent of diplomats/ambassadors (which I feel are WAAAAY overpowered to the point of being absurdly ridiculous) has made this option mostly pointless, and usually more damaging to the religion than the target. The only practical use for it is to help recover regions in core areas of the religion's power.

Yes, it is not very productive compared to a diplomat. I say make it more powerful and minimize the penalties.

One additional thing that I think could really help:
Peasants should object to realm relations based on the religious beliefs of the various realms. Not based on state religions, but based on the amount of followers in the various regions/realms. For example: On EC, Westmoor is /heavy/ in Church of Humanity followers. Ibladesh was pure Church of Ibladesh. Both religions considered the other as Evil. But the two realms were federated! wtf?! That's pure BS. In a situation like that, the peasants should have been rising up in open revolt daily, and twice on Sunday.

The peasants in a region should be influenced by a cross-reference of the dominant faith in the region, its views on other religions, the type of realm-based relations to other realms, and the dominant faith in that realm. It sounds complicated, but it's really not. It works like this, assuming the prior Westmoor/Ibladesh scenario:

1) Westmoor city is part of the realm of Westmoor.
2) Westmoor city has 90% CoH followers.
3) The realm of Westmoor is federated to Ibladesh.
4) The realm of Ibladesh consists of mainly CoI followers.
5) CoH considers CoI as evil.
6) The peasants in Westmoor city should have a declining sympathy toward Ibladesh.
7) As the sympathy toward Ibladesh drops, the people in Westmoor city should start grumbling and complaining about their federation. This mechanic already exists. It should be modified to include a religious component that takes the religious views into account.

The amount of the effect would be based on the type of relationship between the realms, the type of religious view, and the amount of followers in each region/realm. If there is no clear religious majority in either place, then you shouldn't have any strong reactions.

This could give religions some additional power in a political arena, and is based directly off of existing mechanisms. However, it doesn't give in to the idea of just giving priests another button to click to hold realms hostage with an overpowered option. It's an effectively passive option that is based on the presence of the religion alone.

Tim whipped together the basic stats for something like this once. IIRC, it didn't take too long to work out the raw data.

Nice idea. I'll add it in the proposal section.

44

BM General Discussion / Religion

« on: October 07, 2013, 03:30:39 PM »

Dear players,

I have been playing battlemaster since 2007, and something that always bugged me is the value and power of religion. I want to start a real discussion on how to improve it, make it more realistic and more fun, before I make an official feature request. I'll update this post regularly to keep up with the proposals for an improved religion.

You see that some players put much time and effort in religion, role-play wise in-game and on the wiki. Religion has the potential to be a very interesting part of the game, yet it most cases it is just a silent guild you are part of to appease your peasants, or you aren't part of an organised religion at all. What does it really matter what faith you follow? From a day to day basis it has little use for your character. You notice that in the message group of most religions. It is silent. No one cares. Of course this is not true for all religions, but most of them. We need to revive those religions.

What is the value of a man's faith? How do we value a religion? To answer that, I ask you to look at the Church of Ibladesh. For a very long time in the history of the East Continent, the CoI has been a very powerful church. Probably the most powerful of the continent. After Ibladesh's last war against Perdan, duchies succeeded and peace negotiations followed. Perdan demanded that the new realms closed down every temple of the CoI, the rulers complied knowing it would mean the end of the Church. They complied to give up their faith in order to stay in power. The zealous Ibladeshi just gave up their faith. Who can make sense of that? As priest of the CoI, I told people not to give up their faith, but to continue fighting for what they believe in. I stood alone in that thought. So how much does a religion really matter to a charterer? Too little.

Historically, the Church was a very important institution in medieval Europe. The Church was rich and powerful, and the pope's influence was greater than the influence of Kings. They were powerful and could command a whole continent to take up arms to 'defend' the faith in many holy crusades. There was much intrigue, because the stakes were usually very high. And for the common men, the church was there directive in moral and principle matters. That was also something that made the Church powerful, because they commanded the loyalty of the people.

I say, make the church more important. Give them more power. Give them the people! Make kings fear the power of the Church.

PROPOSALS:

• Taxes - Allow realms to choose wether or not to tax religions, or perhaps to tax only certain religions. More gold for religions with support of the realm which means more power. Also, it can create interesting intrigue between rulers and the Church's council.
• Excommunicate - make it an option to excommunicate someone besides kicking someone out. Excommunicated nobles cause civil unrest in religious regions. Depending on the % of followers in the region and the rank of the noble. A simple knight will cause some unrest in the region, a lord more, a duke will cause unrest in his duchy and a council member will cause unrest in the whole realm, and most strongly in the capital. Again, more intrigue.
• Influence followers - When a noble priest tells the peasant to jump, he jumps. When he tells you to hate realm X and love realm Y, he will hate and love accordingly. This is already a feature, but seldomly used because the penalties are too high. If it takes me more than 100 days to convert 40% of a population (about 2500 people) from an evil religion to my own, I'll not hamper that slow progress by trying to influence the people and lose 300 followers again. It isn't realistic to abandon your faith like that. The Church was the main tool to influence the people. This makes religions actually useful and makes them desirable or not (for different people), which is interesting for the game. The duke wants to keep a good bond with the Church to make sure his peasants act as he commands. Not just statistics and role-play. I propose to minimize the penalties on influencing followers.
• Evil ally? What!? - The peasants in a region should be influenced by a cross-reference of the dominant faith in the region, its views on other religions, the type of realm-based relations to other realms, and the dominant faith in that realm. (Indirik)

Please debate the above proposals and if you have proposals of your own to improve religions or the priest game, please share them.

45

Dwilight / Re: What's the Deal with the Zuma Coalition?

« on: October 07, 2013, 12:31:32 PM »

As long as the Zuma remain fed, they remain friendly.