This is not a request for a change; rather it is a comment on why BM is so great. Reading the thread on increasing the time pool (
http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,781.0.html) reminded of some thoughts I had about why BM is a game I can keep playing without sacrificing my life, and I though I'd share them.
Many years ago, arund 1998-2000, I was playing a game called Earth:2025. I don't know if anyone else here played it, it had a few thousands player at some point, although many were undoubtedly multis. It had many of the same features as BM: you were controlling a single entity (in this case a realm instead of a character), you had complete control over your own realm and set your own goals, but the main goal of the game was to be part of a team. I rarely saw any spying or backstabbing, so maybe I can compare to the "mythical golden age" of BM; I think the main reason was that you were allowed a single realm, such that treason was really seen as personal treason, and no one would claim to play one character one way and the next one another. There was no meaningful IC/OOC separation either.
Like BM, the game let you accumulate hours, capped at a certain number that you would reach in roughly a day, and then spend them all at once. It didn't have turns.
Like BM, you could play with literally two clicks a day, although if you played only that way it was about as fun as playing excel spreadsheet optimization. The real fun was in joining a team ("alliances" in this case), reading countless messages and forum posts and IRC logs, and generally be involved in decision-making for your alliance.
There were other differences, of course, like regular resets, but enough introduction. I think the main difference, the difference that means that I can still play BM at the rhythm I want and not let it eat all my life, is that Earth:2025 was an exponential game. By this I mean that if you played the game on the two-clicks a day schedule, your realm would grow daily by roughly 10%. If you were really good at micromanagement it would grow by 15%, if you were bad or unlucky only 5%.
After ten days, the difference amounts to a 250% difference in strength. At the end of the month, a 1600% difference. As in BM, if you try to fight an enemy 16 times as strong as you are, you rapidly die.
The game therefore consisted in micromanaging your realm and that of your allies at the beginning, and then strike only when ready. Almost every war devolved into a world war; if war involved less than everyone, the realms at peace would almost certainly grow bigger than realms at war rapidly. This was fun in itself, although quite different.
What was not fun was the "play every single day" mentality this entailed. If you missed a single day, your enemy would outgrow you by 10%. If you missed 3 days in a row, you would lose comparatively 30% in size, and with no way to gain it back since everyone was micromanaging to keep that breakneck pace of 15%/day growth.
Eventually, once everybody understood how to micromanage their realm, this meant activity was the only deciding factor. And then you either you lose the fun, or you decide to put your whole life into it. It wasn't worth it and I quit.
BM is not like that. Sure, when you leave for a few days, or weeks, or months, other people grow in skill, gold, or land, while you're not. But they just grow linearly; they cannot use that growth as a lever to ever more growth and get so far ahead of you that you'll never catch them.
In BM, of course newcomers and less active characters are not as powerful as you are; but you actually can catch up.
Sure, if you train twice a day instead of once a day your troops will be better trained; nevertheless your unit will eventually be wiped out and you will have to start again, and you will be equal to others.
Sure, if your realm has 20% more gold than your enemy, all else being equal it will be 20% more powerful; but if nothing happens 3 months from now it will still be only 20% more powerful, and if you've found an edge by that time you can still win. They can't use that 20% advantage to become 4 times as big just by letting time pass.
And this is why BM is neverendingly great.
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