Topics

31

BM General Discussion / Feudal Hierarchy - Respect/Deference

« on: January 14, 2013, 02:05:12 AM »

I was wondering how different people viewed interactions between current and former members in the feudal hierarchy and whether or not people felt that holding a position formerly offered the character any manner of additional respect on top of that with regards to their current posts.

Also, are non-feudal titles and positions worth anything regards to manner of hierarchy respect or deference in comparison to feudal titles?

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To be more specific:

Would you consider former rulers of your realm to always hold the level of respect or deference of that of ruler? (or perhaps they'd be viewed on par as current dukes? Lords? regardless of current feudal holdings?)

What about former rulers of other realms?

Do former dukes or lords mean anything to you, or do you only view them by their current ranking? (For instance, My duke character calls all former lords of *his* duchy "Lord ____" instead of "Sir" or "Dame" or "Knight" even if they no longer hold a lord title)

Do foreign dignitaries of non-feudal titles hold any particular manner of respect to you? Would you perhaps place any ambassador of a foreign realm with the same level of respect as perhaps one of your dukes? (Address them as "Your Grace, Ambassador _____" Instead of just " Sir Kepler, Ambassador of Keplerstan") I don't, but perhaps some do.

Would you grant founders of religion a measure of respect equivalent to a ruler or perhaps a duke regardless of their feudal ranking or if you're a member of their religion? For example, does The Prophet of SA deserve to be treated with a measure of respect by non-SA rulers of at least placing him equal in power as a secular ruler when discussing things? Would his regent deserve the same? (I personally think that all religion founders should be granted that measure of respect, unless you're trying to intentionally anger them)

Also, feel free to bring up other cases I missed.

32

Atamara / CE-Tara Federation

« on: October 22, 2012, 10:08:57 PM »

So please take a vote, and if you'd rather not comment there is no need to. However, comments are welcome as far as I'm concerned.

33

BM General Discussion / Family Gold update effects

« on: August 10, 2012, 01:10:00 PM »

Darka suddenly loses its ability to produce extra large armies on an instant as all of its dukes and most of its lords jump from 10k family gold to 20k family gold overnight.

Hammarsett and Carelia watch as the average family gold grows and theirs stays constant or drops.

The Dukes across the continent decide to build less fancy palaces and more stored away.

The Dictators build more shiny palaces just because they can.

CE uses the increased family gold in other realms to convince other realms to not fight CE.

Suville is declared the next Abington even though their lords continue to put their gold into the war effort.

The knights of Atamara watch as the rich get richer and their lords have another reason to increase the taxes...

34

Feature Requests / REJECTED: Peer Messaging: Dukes

« on: July 19, 2012, 05:24:58 AM »

Summary: Currently all council members are able to contact their "peers." These consist of the respective council members for that same position from every other realm on the continent. My proposal is that this is expanded to allow Dukes to contact all of their peers on the continent.

Details: Add a new peers messaging group for Dukes only. (Note: Not Margraves, but only Dukes)

Benefits: Opens up many new avenues for communication and interaction between leading members of realms. Could lead to increased intrigue and cooperation and allows those outside of the realm council to better influence events. Will likely help counter stagnation as Dukes would no longer be dependent upon the realm council for communications with foreign realms. Would lead to more active and engaged Dukes and allows for both internal and external power struggles.

Possible Exploits: The only exploit is now being able to talk with those unable to before, and having an easy access to it. However, I can't think of any uses for this that are bad for the game.

35

Questions & Answers / Tearing down RC's- IR Violation?

« on: April 16, 2012, 08:11:22 AM »

Okay, so the IR in question is: Everyone has a right to recruit any type of unit that they wish. (Infantry/Archers/MI/Cavalry/SF)

The question is: Does it violate the IR to tear down all recruitment centers of a certain type within one's realm in order to encourage recruitment of the other types of units instead? (Also thereby preventing anyone from recruiting a certain type of unit)

Known violations of the IR:

1. Any member of the realm telling a noble to recruit X type of unit. (Whether a request/order/letter, etc...)
2. Any member of the realm telling a noble that they can't recruit X type of unit.
3. Any member of the realm saying that nobles recruiting X type of unit will be given Y punishment. (won't be given lordships, given fines, or even just not considered helpful, etc...)

Known non-violations of the IR:

4. A member of the realm giving encouragements to recruit a particular type of unit to the realm as a whole. ("Anyone who wants to recruit infantry will be given 100 gold towards recruitment of their unit")

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Situation A:
So, would it be against the IR if a realm didn't want any Mixed Infantry in its armies, so it decided that it would tear down the 2 Mixed Infantry centers that it had in its realm? By doing so, it eliminates the possibility of any of the cases 1-3 from occurring as listed above. Their nobles are still able to recruit any unit that they wish, but they simply don't have access to Mixed Infantry, so they have to choose another unit type.

Situation A assumes that all lords of the regions with those recruitment centers agree with the idea of eliminating the centers.

Situation B:
A realm doesn't want any mixed infantry in its armies so it decides to tear down the 2 Mixed Infantry centers in its realm. However, one of the region lords who has a mixed infantry center in its region refuses to comply with this standard. Is it against the IR's for the Duke of said lord, to raise taxes in his region for as long as the mixed infantry center remains in the region, so as to "encourage" the lord to destroy the mixed infantry center?

Situation C:
A realm doesn't have any mixed infantry centers in its realm and hasn't had any mixed infantry centers in its realm since the beginning of the realm. Is this realm in violation of the IR for not allowing all of its nobles to recruit mixed infantry if they wanted to?

Situation D:
A realm doesn't have any mixed infantry centers in its realm and hasn't had any mixed infantry centers in its realm since the beginning of the realm. A noble states publicly that they want to recruit mixed infantry. Is the realm in violation of the IR if they don't immediately comply and build mixed infantry centers to accomodate this noble?

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For the purposes of this IR situation, "mixed infantry" could easily be substituted with Infantry, Archers, or SF.

I have included Situation's A-D because I feel that all four are inter-related and address situations that would possibly arise should any one of them be allowed. I have based all of my "known" situations based upon what I've read at some point in the forums or the discussion list. I ask this question because I don't want to breach the IR when implementing a policy in one of my realms.

36

BM General Discussion / Seeking Active Players interested in Military Dominance

« on: April 11, 2012, 11:14:35 PM »

Greetings my fellow BM players,

I am looking for anywhere from 4-14 other players to work together with me in trying to see if BM's current player base is capable of putting up a fight and playing the military aspect of the game to its best potential.

The goal would be for us to all send either one or two characters to the same realm on Atamara or East Island, (or any continent really that can take more than one noble per family) and join together into an army with the intent of being the strongest military power that we can. We will not be taking over the realm but instead will be integrating ourselves into the way the realm is run. This could be a realm that some members already have nobles in or it can be completely new. We would try to form our own personal army and seek to have 100% movement rates within our army as well as due to our activity, we could move out from whatever region we are in as late as possible, thus ensure hard predictability of our movements. These things would not be required, but if we are able to do so, we would try as it gives us the best chance of winning militarily.

Any of our members would be free to run in whatever elections they would like, but are not required to support each other in any way there. The main goal would be to simply become a military powerhouse and test our abilities against those who would oppose whatever realm we join.

If you are interested, you can post here or contact me privately.

Edit: Interested players:

1. Silverfire
2. BardicNerd
3. GoldPanda?
4. Indirik?

Hmm, pretty low on noble count. We can still try it out but not many seem interested.

37

Atamara / Atamara: We're not afraid to Gang up on you!

« on: April 11, 2012, 04:04:33 AM »

So, here's an idea that I have been thinking about because apparently people are bored with the current war on Atamara.

Have every realm on Atamara agree to the following:

On the first day of every month, a realm is randomly chosen from among the realms of Atamara, and for the duration of that month every single other realm declares war on them and fights them utterly. At the end of the month, peace is immediately offered, and the process is repeated. Any realm which chooses to break this agreement, will have the entire rest of the continent declare war on them until they are destroyed, then the process continues.

Discuss.

38

Helpline / Dropping Militia on Testing

« on: March 04, 2012, 06:46:55 PM »

So, I was under the impression that a change was made a while back that units could be dropped as militia in different amounts other than one's entire unit. I thought there was an option for "half" of your unit to be placed as militia as well as a number to select the exact number of troops to place into the militia unit out of your own. This change happened as there was no need to have to drop one's entire unit as militia but that it would be possible to simply reduce the size of one's unit by placing part of it as militia.

Is this no longer true? I just tried to drop part of my 38 unit on Dwilight as militia but was not given the option as listed above, only an all or nothing disband and an all or nothing militia drop.

Can someone clear this up?

39

Helpline / Infil/Priests as Government Members

« on: February 17, 2012, 06:53:40 AM »

I cannot remember for sure what the status of this is or if it was changed at some point recently.

So, for a long time as long as I can remember, neither priests nor Infils could be government members. Does this still hold true, and if so, why?

40

Questions & Answers / IR - Choosing one's own class/Realm themes

« on: January 31, 2012, 05:25:07 AM »

So, I am wondering about how a particular situation may be thought of in relation to the IR. One of my characters, and many players in the realm that I play in are quite bored and I have been trying to think of something which could increase the fun and interaction for the characters and players involved.

One idea that came to me was that of a realm theme. Realm themes have been used in the past to give specific realms particular feels of RP as well as in game intent of actions which allows the players to more easily RP and develop character interaction. (Examples include: Darka as a mercenary realm, and Vikings in Norland/BoM on Atamara)

So, the idea that I was considering was that of a politically neutral infiltrator/assassin realm. The idea would be that it would be perhaps a theocracy dedicated towards some sort of religion based around a "death god". Being an infiltrator and carrying out assassinations would be considered a type of worship in this religion. The religion would be open to nobles of all classes, but advancement would be limited depending upon whether one was an infiltrator or Priest, or otherwise.

In addition, the realm would be open to nobles of any and all classes, but the roles that they would fulfill would simply be different than they may find in other realms if they were the same class.

Infiltrators would receive increased funding, and governmental protection as well as working directly as the sort of "military" of the realm, as the government would take private contracts from individuals up to realm governments and then the realm would choose infiltrators specifically for each contract to carry out.

Courtiers would operate pretty much the same as they do now, caring for the realm regions and otherwise.

Traders would also be able to operate the same as now, to bring food and gold into the realm and could receive extra government funding if needed.

Priests would be operating under the religion of the government to spread the religion and gain firm hold over the peasantry, but would also be revered somewhat by the realm on a similar level as infiltrators.

Warriors are really the only class which would operate significantly different. The realm would not operate an army in the same way that all other realms currently do. Those who chose to be warriors would be free to do so, but receive somewhat less funding than those who took the infiltrator path. These warriors could act as mercenaries for other realms or simply go and fight alongside foreign armies as they chose.

I'm not sure how such a situation would be looked upon and if this would be considered any type of IR breach. My gut instinct is that since each player is still free to choose their own class, but would simply operate in a different manner than if they were that class in another realm, that it would be acceptable. But, I do want to know ahead of time, because taking such a course of action and then apparently breaking a rule in doing so would not be good.

41

Helpline / Captain "Leadership" Bonus

« on: January 13, 2012, 12:07:36 PM »

First of all, I was just looking over one of my characters who has a captain leadership bonus of +15 and I got to wondering what that actually means if anything. I feel like it was vaguely told to me before what it kind of does but didn't receive much of an answer and have forgotten since then either way.

So can anyone tell me what game mechanics wise this does to help your unit? (Are we allowed to know, or is this another hidden mechanic?)
Like how does it affect my unit in battle, and is it really worth trying to keep up a good captain.

Secondly, I thought I'd include a poll to see what the highest bonuses everyone has from captains at this point are. Merely as an interesting side point to get an idea. If you have a really high number at least comment on your vote to let us know what it is.

42

BM General Discussion / To RP or not to RP...

« on: January 13, 2012, 11:37:34 AM »

(Dwilight)

So, a lively discussion concerning Role playing, players perception of it, how it can be used, and such has recently begun in the Lurian realms in response to an RP of my character's thoughts while sitting in a region. My character was contemplating his need to place a bounty (a rather large one) on two of his so called "allies" who are also part of Luria. The entire thing was the character's thoughts and thought process about what was taking place and how he should respond to it based on certain things. I sent the RP to my entire realm (PeL) and then to our guild which has a large membership of all 3 Lurian realms jointly because I figured those were the two groups who would best understand the RP and could then get a better feel for my character (from a player pov) and because I feel that Roleplaying is fun and is an important part of the game.

After doing so, I got backlash asking that I don't send RP's to such a wide range of people because it forces the players to deal with having knowledge which their characters do not and which if their characters knew would likely act a different way towards my character. The reasoning was that because they had received the RP through their character (not OOC tagged) and even though it was listed as an RP could lead players to use the information of my character's private thoughts and thus cause problems, etc...

I was taken a bit aback by this because I consider the whole point of roleplaying is to show your characters "character" as you will and their reasons, reactions, etc... for things. Every RP you do (unless its about some stupid, LOL, LMAO thing) is going to reflect this in someway and thus likely have something in it which could "hurt" your character from a strategic standpoint if used against you unjustly.

Now, I can understand when you RP a conversation that someone else can RP it being overheard, from spies, etc... or other similar things but private thoughts of someone's head while these can be even more revealing should never be able to be used.

The Question I have for the community of players, is do we have any sort of sanctity of role play? I mean quite frankly I was surprised by the outburst against the RP that I did because I believe it is a fun part of the game and is what makes BM unique from a simple strategy game. Since there is no "winning" in Battlemaster, I see no reason for anyone to do what I consider "cheating" by using OOC information gathered from RP's to adjust behaviors or otherwise. (I'm not saying that if I RP: "We will attack region X, in 2 days from region Y" to the RUler's channel that it won't happen to accidentaly be used or quite simply purposefully used against me) but this whole situation seems weird to me.

The final statement someone has made about this is that there is no backend reinforcement (from Titans/Tom) to stop players from abusing RP knowledge in this way. That players are free to abuse things however they want and nothing can be done to them. The only reaction of course is to change your reactions for your own characters outside of what they would normally do to fix the situation or punish the character which you knew to abuse it. I don't see this as an ideal solution.

Overall, I'm perplexed and would love to hear what the community has to say. I can post a copy of the RP if that is necessary, (since anyone involved would of course already know about it) but want to hear what my fellow players think on a large scale.

43

Development / Titles (Dukes and Duchies under new System)

« on: January 03, 2012, 10:22:49 PM »

Now, I know that Tom stated no feature requests right now, but this seems like a very very simply issue which could be quickly changed and I might even consider it a bug.

So the new estate system states that one can be a Duke of a duchy without being lord of a city. It just so happens that this occurred very recently in Pian en Luries (I don't know if we're the first to do it) but my character was recently made Duke of the Duchy of Askileon and proceeded to appoint another noble as the Lord of the city of Askileon after the previous Duke (holding both positions) left.

Now, my character has no title at all that indicates that he has this position of Duke, meanwhile the Lord of Askileon is proclamed "Duke of Askileon" still. I don't know if this is a bug or some such, but even if the "Duke of Askileon" title were kept for the Lord of the city, I believe a new title needs to be created  such as "Duke of the Duchy of Askileon" or something else that indicates my character's current unique position.

Every letter I write I have literally indicate my position to make sure everyone understands where my authority comes from first off. (Especially when sending very authoritative messages)

So, I don't know if this is a bug or simply the request for an update on the feature of titles but I understand if this is somewhat lower priority but I do think it needs a change as newcomers won't have any idea the difference especially if no title indicates it.

44

Feature Requests / Inter-realm Armies

« on: December 14, 2011, 08:14:56 PM »

So, it turns out that a city just seceded from Pian en Luries (go figure right? who would have thought?)

Anyway, this has presented the situation where my character on Dwilight is a member of Pian en Luries but is also a member of the army of the new realm created by the seceded city. This has presented what I would consider an interesting and possibly good situation where you can have an army that includes members from multiple realms. Now, I am unsure if this is a frequently requested (and denied) feature request but it seems to me that my Duke on Atamara could certainly find a use for an army that can have members from multiple realms. As well as some religions that like to field "militant groups" would be able to do so with this feature.

I realize it is currently a bug and that is already being looked into but was just wondering if this was possible and I would consider it a desirable feature.

45

SM General Discussion / Launch?

« on: August 31, 2011, 04:06:48 AM »

So, I know it was stated in one thread a while back that launch would potentially be set at September 1st. Is this date still accurate for launch or are things delayed?

Also, I've seen somewhere listed that we will be given a certain amount of starting basic spells to begin the game with and that these will be based off of our skills. Are we going to be choosing initial starting skill values or something or how will this be determined? I've seen no place on the actual spell master site to do this yet, and am just trying to get an official update on things.

I've never played a game like this before so am trying to get an understanding of it if at all possible.