Messages

46

Roleplaying / Re: Turin's return

« on: October 29, 2019, 08:53:18 AM »

Turin prepared another scathing rebuttal to Adam and as he did he coughed so violently it made him clench his eyes shut. When he opened them again he saw his parchment page splattered with blood.

He sighed and gazed out the window, reflecting on happier times. From the office of his manor he could his favorite hill, and atop it a pavilion with three peaked roofs sheltering three cushioned seats.

He remembered when Katrina had come to visit him so many months ago. He’d been sitting in the shade of the pavilion with Severina and Illyria. He heard Katrina’s footsteps on the cobblestone steps which wound their way up the hill. The sound roused him from his meditation upon the Maddening star

He turned to see Katrina’s smiling face creased with age though it was, her eyes still shown brightly, or at least to Turin they did. He could see an aura about her, as he could for all people, and hers was a warm red but somewhat more faint and wispy than others.

“Katrina,” he greeted, “it’s been too long. This is Illyria and of course the young Prophetess Severina”

The two made an imposing pair. They had the same dark hair and piercing crystal blue eyes. Severina was not quite five years of age yet she sat still and patient her face placid. It gave her an air of serenity, wisdom and dignity few adults can project.

Katrina curtseyed, “My lady, your holiness,”

“Indeed it has been too long brother,” replied Katrina, “What is this you’ve built here?”

Turin smiled with pride as he answered.

“I call it an Astro-oculus. It is my preferred space for meditating upon the stars. I think they will become quite common in the future,”

“Turin has been contemplating the Maddening, it is his patron,” Severina interjected, “mother is attuned to the Austere. I am balanced with all so I chose the Auspicious.”

“Would you like to mediate with Holy Severina,” Illyria offered as she rose from her cushion.

“It would be a privilege of course,” Katrina replied.

Katrina took her place beside Severina and she whispered something to Katrina, something Turin could not hear. Then the three sat for a brief time in perfect peace.

There was no peace now, not for the church and not for Turin. Yet one might know peace soon enough.

47

Development / Re: Angry Peasants - Remove, Keep, or Change?

« on: September 19, 2019, 08:53:26 PM »

It's also very close to how the system originally worked. They region would spawn a puny 100cs unit which the army would wipe out the next turn, but for that one turn the unit would prevent looting for the entire army. The problem was the scale and the willingness of this peasant band to go on a suicide charge made it all seem ridiculous.

48

Development / Adventurer Subclasses/New abilities

« on: August 26, 2019, 01:18:30 AM »

There's often been talk of new abilities for adventurers. Some get more traction than others. Traditionally the main things that are not happening are abilities that will encourage rampant killing of adventurers and abilities that just involve giving adventurers noble abilities. Even if it never happens these are always fun to talk about.

One that came to mind for me is an adventurer subclass called "cleric" or perhaps something else like "pastor" or maybe even "monk" basically anything that implies something less than a priest. The subclass is only open to adventurers who are a member of a religion. With this subclass they gain an ability by which they function as a shrine. It could be passive so whatever region they're in is automatically bestowed the same bonus that prevents follower loss. Or it could be an active ability where they have to expend hours to create the same benefit, perhaps when they do so they also gain some silver in donations, otherwise there'd be little incentive to preach. The idea is they only preach to inspire piety in existing followers but don't have the power to convert. They could also get a special ability that they can sleep for free in regions that have a temple. This could be an interesting way to give adventurers more to do in religions.

Another thought I've just had is "Bard". In addition to normal adventurer activities they can also "perform". They gain a small amount of silver and create a small moral and productivity bonus in the region.

One final idea, occultist, they automatically hear more rumors about witches and sages that come from a greater range away.

49

Marketing / Re: Landing page for newbies

« on: August 13, 2019, 07:33:23 AM »

Also now that we know it's there we can recommend it to everyone as the standard link to send friends.

50

Marketing / Re: Q-code flyers

« on: August 11, 2019, 06:57:24 PM »

...what is wrong with the one I made? Is it NOT GOOD ENOUGH?!

I am hurt and offended.

Just in case you’re not being facetious, nothing’s wrong with it. I’m just saying we can each make our own if we want. I think it would be sweet to have one where the code is incorporated into an appropriate old medieval painting.

51

Feature Requests / Re: Players hoarding positions - untouchable Dukes etc.

« on: August 10, 2019, 08:37:04 PM »

Are dukes not subject to bans?

52

Development / Re: Angry Peasants - Remove, Keep, or Change?

« on: August 03, 2019, 11:28:34 PM »

I think above all else peasant mobs should not form unless civilians are being attacked and it should take a few turns for that to happen.

53

Development / Re: 15 Nobles! 15!!!!

« on: August 02, 2019, 04:19:13 PM »

We know that it's not down to bare numbers. But numbers are an important part of the equation, and just allowing anyone to secede and create a new realm, no matter how small their current realm is, is not a tenable solution given the size of our playerbase.

I understand your frustration and your concerns, but at least for the time being, that restriction is not going to be lifted.

That said, I am presently considering the reintroduction of the Colony Takeover in the foreseeable future, and given the different nature of what is required for a colony vs a secession, I would be willing to at least entertain the idea of allowing those with fewer nobles.

Thank you. Bringing back CTO sounds like a great idea.

54

Development / Re: 15 Nobles! 15!!!!

« on: August 02, 2019, 04:12:59 PM »

"Tol Goldora started with 7 nobles and has 23 now."

And if Tol Goldora didn't exist where would those 23 nobles be? Would there still be realms below 15 nobles? Where would those nobles be, in the West making the island more spread out or in the east making the island more compact?

That’s a huge assumption to be making. I know many would have been in entirely different game worlds. Some would have gone dormant. Some would have probably done the bare minimum and just gold farmed for their other characters. As I’ve said before a realm of 20 minimally active players is far worse than one of ten highly active and invested players.

Besides what kind of reasoning is that? The founders of Tol Goldora built an interesting realm that a lot of people want to play in and that’s somehow a bad thing because all the other realms couldn’t keep the interest of their players? So the players who want to build and create things that other players want to participate in should be punished and all those  players should be forced to settle for less compelling realms?

This is the same logic people were floating a while back that they should shut down Dwilight because it was the most popular game world! The Devs at the time actually thought that all the players of Dwilight would meekly immigrate to all the other worlds. The reality is I would have quit if they’d gotten rid of Dwilight and I think a lot of other players would have too. We didn’t choose Dwilight out of some abstract metric like player density we chose it because it appealed to us as a place where we could play interesting characters in a dynamic setting. We rejected continents like Atamara because we didn’t see the same potential there.

Thankfully at the time the Dev team saw logic and we ultimately kept Dwilight and got rid of Atamara. That’s the approach that should be taken to realms. Make it harder to hold onto the small, underpopulated flagging realms, don’t force people into them from well developed, thriving and compelling realms, and don’t make building such realms impossible.

The problem is you’re thinking of this only in terms of numbers: X Player Density/ Y total number of realms = healthy game and it just doesn’t work like that. This isn’t a game of numbers it’s a game of people. Forcing people into your idealized vision of a proper realm distribution won’t make the game better if you do it at the expense of human agency. Trust me I’m a social scientist I know a thing or two about how people work.

55

Marketing / Re: Landing page for newbies

« on: August 02, 2019, 05:36:57 AM »

Dead? I noticed the realm pages weren't working but I figured that was a bug that would be sorted out sooner or later. Is this an irreparable problem or something?

56

Development / Re: Angry Peasants - Remove, Keep, or Change?

« on: August 02, 2019, 05:30:27 AM »

I remember this mechanic reaching its current form because people were frustrated with the regular use of total-war tactics. At the time peasant mobs were so puny and weak they just served to help you kill everyone that much faster. It was relatively easy to depopulate an entire region and it could literally take years (real world) to get it back. Now it seems more geared towards shutting down small raiding parties, which were never a problem.

I agree the peasant mobs are out of hand, but we want to avoid a change that would bring back the days of every war being a scorched-earth campaign. The simplest solution would be to just scale them back.

We had an older thread about this with a lot of suggestions that might be worth revisiting.

I've also just come up with a new idea. What if when peasant mobs form they're automatically set as "retreated" and they can't rally on their own. These retreated mobs still prevent looting from taking place, but they don't trigger battles. The idea is the peasants are smart enough not to attack a trained army head on, but they're prepared to fend off looters. Then instead of fighting the peasant partisans in battle the occupying army will have to hunt for them. If they kill them all they can loot again. We could also leave the potential for the defending army to come in and rally the peasants for a battle, after which point they should disperse as normal.

57

Development / Re: 15 Nobles! 15!!!!

« on: August 02, 2019, 05:15:27 AM »

So that's the reason now, not noble population but total realm number? If so this is not effective for that either. As it was new realms getting founded was still rare. You prevent maybe one realm from forming every few years while three low population realms are sitting around on EC. If you want fewer realms the solution is to create a mechanism that makes it progressively harder to manage a realm with too few nobles, forcing them to eventually merge or die out.

The reason I care about the creation of new realms remaining a feature of this game is that quite simply, in the dozen years I've been playing Battlemaster, there has been no experience more thrilling or fulfilling than founding a new realm. I don't think I'm alone in feeling this.

Whenever I try to recruit a new player I almost always tell them about the colonizing period of Dwilight. Now, if I'm going to be honest with them I'll have to say "but that can't really happen anymore, maybe someday we'll get enough players...". That's the really sad thing. I got to have my fun but the next generation will probably never know what it's like.

The way you're describing things right now sounds like a very disappointing vision for the future of this game. If we eliminate the possibility for new realms then what happens to the old ones? One way or another they merge or get conquered until various existing mechanisms render further consolidation impossible. You'll reach a point where for all intents and purposes a realm can neither be created nor destroyed. So the whole game becomes fixed, stagnant. A few regions can change hands but there will be no serious consequences. The greatest draw of this game, the ability to create history becomes a thing of the past. It would no longer be a player controlled world because everything of consequence wont be under player control, it will be derived directly from the game mechanics.

58

Development / Re: 15 Nobles! 15!!!!

« on: August 01, 2019, 05:57:59 PM »

But the new realm doesn’t stay at 10 that’s my point. Tol Goldora started with 7 nobles and has 23 now. A realm’s population at its founding has no relation to how many players eventually join it.

The limit does nothing to ensure a desired noble population. All it does is make it functionally impossible to found a new realm. Meanwhile on EC you have several realms with less that 10 players. So where is the benefit? No one can seem to articulate one besides insisting “ten’s too small” as if the noble population of a realm becomes fixed upon its founding. Do you consider it a minor thing that no new realm may ever be founded in Dwilight again?  Are you happy with the fact that in the unlikely event that it does happen it will be a top-down choice by the realm’s elites with other players contributing little more than their opinions to the split?

59

Marketing / Landing page for newbies

« on: August 01, 2019, 05:27:30 AM »

We could add a page "Battlemaster.org/welcome". Then when introducing new players to the game we make this the standard link we provide. The landing page could feature a short trailer then links with the option to view tutorials, read the wiki or proceed to the main game page.

60

Marketing / Re: Q-code flyers

« on: August 01, 2019, 05:20:53 AM »

Desire to know more intensifies

Nice. We could design our own if we want. This site will make the QR code for free and then we can decorate it however we like:

https://www.qr-code-generator.com/a1/?ut_source=google_c&ut_medium=cpc&ut_campaign=en_top_kw&ut_content=qr_code_generator_exact&ut_term=qr%20code%20generator_e&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqKbVudvg4wIVDhgMCh2wjgLcEAAYASAAEgJD8vD_BwE

It might be a good idea to develop some kind of new-player landing page for this.