Messages

1

BM General Discussion / Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?

« on: April 08, 2014, 04:25:31 PM »

Lots of those pauses have likely been caused by the April Fools joke. The Realm I play in, while not directly affected by the Glacier, has seen an increase in Nobles.

2

Magistrates Case Archive / Re: Strategic secession of Iato

« on: November 07, 2013, 07:12:06 AM »

Ruler of Riombara here. I'm not on these forums a lot, so I'll be slow to reply and can't read through everything carefully, but I can answer any questions from Riombara's side there may be.

The Realm of IVF had been planned ever since the end of the Invasion and it was the very purpose of this war. This secession was not done with any express purpose of giving some kind of strategic advantage and it's not some kind of satellite realm to allow Riombara to recruit on the frontlines (Besides, I believe it has like two mediocre recruitment centers). This wasn't a strategic move, I believe Riombara's intent has been clear in what they wanted to do. If anything, this secession is preventing Riombara from cashing their bonds on the frontlines and being able to stay there for much longer. As for maintenance problems, this whole secession wasn't exactly a well-timed move, Iato was stable and there were no issues with control (Not that that falls under Strategic Secession).

Tom's words on Strategic Secession in an earlier topic (http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,4434.msg113718.html#msg113718 for if I interpret it in the wrong situation):

As in most of the "more lose" rules of the game (in contrast to the Inalienable Rights and the Social Contract), there's one good test:

If there is a discussion about whether or not, then it almost certainly isn't.

If the case doesn't jump out, then it almost certainly is fine, even if some people don't like it.

These rules are meant to stop blatant abuses of the game mechanic. They are constanly being abused by whoever gets shafted to whine and complain and try to get the devs involve in a way that would tilt the balance of in-game events.

I believe it is therefore quite intended that the rule is not broken a lot. It's to stop blatant abuse to circumvent the can-only-recruit-in-capital rule. That's not the case here. This is the recreation of a Realm that Riombara fought for to see happen.

3

Feature Requests / Re: Sanity Check for Peasant Mobs

« on: October 18, 2013, 12:28:45 AM »

Against smaller armies at least, you can really notice the difference and it's working pretty well. The Nothoi raid in Riombara, albeit it also included one failed attack by Riombara, seemed to got really whittled down after a while by the constant peasant militias. They still did some damage, but they had to leave after a while.

4

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

« on: September 29, 2013, 06:29:22 PM »

Perhaps you should poke around in your Realm about those weird Zuma guys and see what you can find out Some of what you describe is definitely working-as-intended and not a bug for as far as I'm aware.

5

Feature Requests / Re: Improve Ducal recognition in elections

« on: September 13, 2013, 09:20:29 PM »

Actually, it currently appears to be able for a Duke to become a Lord in a different Duchy. The region doesn't switch Duchies if the Duke is elected, which is what I would expect to happen (There's a bug about this on the bugtracker already)

6

Development / Re: "Too Much Peace" Revisited

« on: September 02, 2013, 11:15:42 PM »

I believe it should purely be an information tool for how fun a Realm is (For both the Ruler and the Devs and whoever), at least while we judge how effective it is and check the results. If you make those scores public, it will become a player-attraction/repulsion tool. Because many Realms are great fun with more Nobles. Things like that, just like counting the amount of messages and other such earlier proposals to measure a Realm, just seem too easy to game. To me there seems to be a good chance that whatever information you get out of such a tool will be less reliable and a worse indicator of fun-ness if we make it public. It'd be better if we at least start it with private scores.

7

Feature Requests / Re: Ducal prestige penalties and bonuses

« on: August 29, 2013, 12:13:51 PM »

How much do Dukes flat out ignore the loss of a region? In the very least, I've seen various occasions where Dukes actively try to maintain a core of regions in their Duchies and get upset if a Lord switches allegiances. They don't always throw out in public how this Lord got the better of them, but they certainly don't ignore it. Is it really a problem?

Still, doesn't make this a bad suggestion though, far from it.

8

Development / Re: improving the game via prison

« on: August 27, 2013, 04:53:47 PM »

But then the judge steals your gold, how long can you bribe the guards for? If it fails, or you don't have the money, you're locked out. That has nothing to do with an IC ban, which still allows you to play, just not in the realm of your choice. It's already stated that 'Prison is no fun', so then making people be stuck in prison for a month instead of a week doesn't seem to be a very logical follow-up on that. Especially when it's a rogue prison. So we need to make prison less of a 'locks you out of doing anything' and more like 'part of the game experience'. Perhaps take out the bribing part and allow everyone to always send and receive messages would be a dirty quick-fix to this. It wouldn't be such a lock out of the game then. It still inconveniences you, it still makes the enemy judge have some power over you and prevents you from doing some things, but it doesn't prevent you from playing.

EDIT: Wounding in that sense does the same. But at least it allows younger characters to heal up quicker, and tends to not last very long unless you're a 80-year old dude. These changes to prison can keep people out of the game for a month potentially.

9

Development / Re: improving the game via prison

« on: August 27, 2013, 04:32:47 PM »

An IC ban doesn't stop you from playing the game. I think that's the point, that going to prison locks you out from the game. It shouldn't work as a 'sorry, you cannot play the game with this character for a week/month'. It's not like prison can be entirely avoided except by sitting back in your city and doing nothing (And I don't think we want to encourage that either).

10

Development / Re: A radical solution to the food problem...

« on: August 26, 2013, 08:12:24 PM »

I never really had problems with Rural Lords not selling food. They get some extra money, and usually that Margrave and/or Duke on top is in that position because he holds a certain amount of power within the Realm that he can use to take care of any Rural Lords that just sit on their food for no reason. Especially when other Margraves / Dukes are afraid it might happen to them too. If anything, it's the Cities that hold more power over the Rural Lords instead of the other way around. If a Realm needs food, that Rural Lord will sell or else.

11

BM General Discussion / Re: stopping ForumMaster from destroying BattleMaster

« on: August 03, 2013, 06:58:21 PM »

I agree with the assessment made. While I loved the forums when it started, I've come to dislike them more and more. While I'm not innocent from it either, I agree with the comment made about there being two games. I feel like the discussions about ingame events, especially current ones, influence players in the game, even if just unconsciously. You get pulled into it. I believe it's not doing the game good and lately I've been trying to tone down on participating in ingame discussions. The focus should be ingame, but anything that happens ingame usually gets a shadow-topic on the forums where everything is discussed.

What the forums are great is for communicating with Devs (Feature Requests, Announcements etc.) and to ask help in regards to how things work (To be fair, I believe the latter can be done as easily ingame as well). Or basically anything that isn't ingame.

I believe the forums bring more bad then good. I would have no problem at all just getting rid of them. Otherwise, throw out the 'Locals' subforum and don't use the forums for ingame discussions. I believe that would fix a lot already.

12

Helpline / Re: Income when both ruler and duke

« on: August 01, 2013, 05:44:09 PM »

The entirety of the Lord Share goes to the Duchy as the Lord is also the Duke (Thus leaving no Lord Income). The entirety of the Duke Share goes to the Realm as the Duke is also the Ruler (It should show no gold under the Total Duke Share, only the full amount under Realm Share).

That 732 gold includes all the income you got as Duke/Lord/Knight. That is why it's nice for the Ruler to have Dukes also as Margraves / Lords of Rich Mountain regions. Their full income as a Lord/Knight is also taxed by the Realm Share.

13

Far East Island / Re: FEI Adventurers

« on: July 31, 2013, 05:58:26 PM »

It should still be possible to find bedrolls. You probably just got unlucky (Or lucky last time!).

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BM General Discussion / Re: Closing Islands ?

« on: July 30, 2013, 10:20:42 PM »

In all honesty, recruiting campaigns have been set up multiple times already. And we're still finding ourselves in this situation. We can call out to increase recruiting each time the problem arises, but there comes a time when you have to conclude that we can't hold out for that forever.

To be honest, I believe the Mentor system really needs work (I understand time is a very valuable resource we have so very little off) and the previous proposed ideas need to be worked out and included before we worry about getting new players. I just feel the Mentor system is not working well right now, which I feel is just losing us an increased amount of new players.

Still, that won't solve the problem at hand and we can't hold out for those kind of things. It are things to do after we've done this, so that we can hopefully grow again one day to rediscover old worlds.

15

BM General Discussion / Re: Closing Islands ?

« on: July 30, 2013, 10:00:52 PM »

Keep in mind that with some way to emigrate away as a Realm to carve out a new home on another Continent will help preserving that culture. Of course the culture will evolve from there, and not everything will survive, but it does get a good aid to establish itself.

I'm pretty sure Tom will have the final say on this matter. He's just letting us debate so he can come to the right conclusion and to find the best method to do this.