Topics

61

Announcements / No Sunset Turn

« on: June 06, 2015, 11:52:19 PM »

Due to some unexpected server downtime, there was no sunset turn run today (Saturday the 6th).

We expect future turns to run normally.

62

Announcements / Sea Travel

« on: May 21, 2015, 12:48:02 AM »

Sea travel is now working again!

Thank you for your patience.

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Announcements / Portal to Might and Fealty

« on: April 01, 2015, 06:44:45 PM »

A portal has been opened from BattleMaster to Tom's newer game, Might and Fealty, that will allow raiding from one game into the other! You can check it out by clicking on the link in the blue section of your family page, just above your characters.

64

Announcements / Lower Taxes

« on: December 09, 2014, 05:27:16 PM »

There appears to be an elusive bug in the region turn script on testing and war islands, which is causing taxes to be lower than they should be.

I am not yet sure whether this is an ongoing problem or if it was simply due to glitches last week; however, be aware that the most recent tax collections, and possibly those coming up this week, will be lower than expected.

65

Announcements / Character Limits

« on: December 03, 2014, 09:33:04 PM »

You'll notice a minor change on your family page—the display of character limits now includes how many of each category you currently have. This is merely an outward sign of a complete rewrite of how the limits are handled behind the scenes. This is the only change you should notice, aside from the fact that hopefully some old bugs were cleared up...and unfortunately, probably some new bugs have been introduced. There has been no change to how your limits are increased, only to how they're checked.

If you see any bugs related to character limits (for instance, the game giving you the option to create a character when it shouldn't, or tells you you have too many characters when you know you don't), don't panic, just please report them to the Helpline and/or Bugtracker ASAP.

66

Announcements / Peasant Militia Nerfed

« on: December 03, 2014, 05:04:54 PM »

Some of you may have noticed that the looting overhaul has produced some rather harsh penalties for angering peasants. These have been reduced—mainly in frequency, rather than strength, since one of my goals in this was to make peasant militia no longer totally worthless cannon fodder. In any case, it should no longer be quite so easy to produce 10k+ CS of peasant militia ready to kill you for stealing their gold.

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Announcements / Looting Overhaul

« on: December 01, 2014, 07:28:59 PM »

The Looting Overhaul is now live on Testing islands and the War Island.

This will probably require a fair amount of testing before it is fully balanced, and a number of things are quite different about it compared to the old looting options. Please report problems in the Helpline forum and on the Bugtracker if bugs are confirmed.

The biggest change to looting, in terms of its effect on strategy, is that production drops will now be much sharper, but also much shorter in duration. It will be relatively easy to push production down to 0 in a region, but it will recover in about a week.

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Announcements / Quarterly Elections and Mixed Infantry

« on: October 06, 2014, 07:19:31 PM »

I pushed a couple of fixes live today that I think are worth noting: First is a fix for quarterly elections, which should have them both announced and run at the proper time (at the beginning of January, April, July, and October).

Second is a fix for Mixed Infantry and ranged Special Forces, making them move forward into melee when they are on aggressive settings, rather than firing carefully into it.

69

Development / Food/Trade Revamp

« on: September 19, 2014, 06:04:08 PM »

...you've already got to be screwed before it matters. And if it did matter, then it would become overpowering.

This, I think, is the fundamental problem with food in general. There are really only three possible situations for it: Either you have plenty, you're starving (and thus dying), or you're balanced on the knife-edge in the middle constantly stressing out about it.

I have some ideas that should change that—the core of them being that regions that are capable of producing a surplus will never, themselves, be starving except in times of famine and immediately after a vicious looting raid.

But I think it may need more refinement before it's ready to be implemented, and in any case, it'll have to wait until after the rest of the WIP is finished, which will be a while yet.

However, De-Legro's suggestion of location-independent food transfers gave me an interesting idea for a different kind of change to the way food is handled, which I will present here for critique:

1) Lords can set up buy and sell offers for regions at any time, wherever they are—they don't have to be at a market. Bankers, similarly, can order food bought and sold to and from anywhere within their jurisdiction and range without being at a market.
2) But in order for any region's offers to be visible, it needs a market. (Markets can be made less expensive if need be to ensure no one has trouble constructing them, and other steps can be taken to ensure the transition to this system will be smooth.)
3) Markets can be disabled by sufficient damage from reaving enemy troops (using the Demolish option).
4) Traders can make deals with regions without markets, as long as they are present in the region. In other words, if your region has no market, but has a buy offer set up for 1000 bushels, and there's at least 1000 bushels for sale nearby, you just need a Trader to be in your region to be able to get your region fed.

...And I think I'll probably also make it possible to set up buy offers that draw from tax money, which would work for offers the Lord sets up while not present and automatic buy offers.

This would remove the requirement for Lords to stay in their regions, while keeping food as being something of a strategic resource.

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South Island / MOVED: Luria Nova vs The Rest

« on: August 17, 2014, 11:05:02 PM »

This topic has been moved to Dwilight.

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php?topic=6075.0

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Announcements / Some Food Distribution Fixes

« on: August 08, 2014, 06:46:12 PM »

Over the past few weeks, I've made several important fixes to the way food distribution is handled. This includes ensuring that regions which produce a surplus of food will never set themselves to quarter-rations, fixes to the way food supply duration is calculated, and a fix preventing a region which has just set itself to quarter rations from immediately setting itself back up to half rations.

Many Lords will note that their regions have (erroneously) been automatically set to half-rations at some point in the last two weeks. If you want to go back to full rations, you'll need to manually set it there.

Finally, I realize that this will have made some people nervous about food supplies and keeping enough food available even in regions with a surplus. Please rest assured that this is no longer necessary. Regions with surplus should no longer need to fear any ill effects from trading away food to needy regions.

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Roleplaying / Alanna Anaris ~ A Final Reunion

« on: June 06, 2014, 07:40:11 PM »

On Friday morning, a rumour started to spread that the maid who brought breakfast to Queen Alanna found her unable to get out of bed. However, that maid could not be found by anyone seeking confirmation of the rumour.

By late afternoon, it was certain that she had not been seen outside her chambers all day.

By evening, Alanna's aide Stefan had been seen leaving the palace and returning with the best-known physician in the city. Once this became public (which took approximately five minutes after the cook's helper saw them come through one of the less conspicuous entrances to the palace), the city soon erupted in rumours and speculations about what ailed the aging Queen who had ruled this land (on and off) for so many years now.

Around midnight, a new rumour began to spread, that the physician had emerged from Alanna's chambers, but had not been able to do anything for the Queen.

Alanna was dying.

* * *

As days went by without official word from—or about—Queen Alanna, the mood in Askileon grew tense. Though she was not universally loved in the city, she had been a public figure there for so long that many of its people saw her as, for better or for worse, the embodiment of Luria. Some even spoke of the Asylonian capture of Giask, and the other Lurian regions in foreign hands, as having caused her illness.

Finally, late in the evening on Tuesday, a proclamation was issued from the Palace and read throughout the city: Wounds that Alanna suffered in the recent battle in Giask were worse than they earlier appeared, and the Golden Queen was now fighting for her life against wound fever, and, no doubt, other maladies brought on by being laid low in her advanced age. Physicians had seen her, and done what they could, but she was not expected to last the week out.

* * *

At the dock, a lean, lithe woman stepped off a ship in time to hear the end of one of the readings of the proclamation, and chased after him as he began to depart, demanding that he read it again. When she heard it all, her face went ashen. After several moments, she set her jaw grimly, returned to the ship briefly to collect a small backpack, then set off at a run for the Palace.

* * *

For two days, she was refused admittance to the Palace. Still, she kept trying, insisting every time that someone tell the Queen she was here.

Finally, as she waited outside the Palace on the evening of the third day, a surprised and rather pale-looking functionary returned from within to say that the Queen was awake, and had demanded to see her.

With crisp efficiency, now that she was deemed worthy, she was whisked past various guard posts and through a dizzying array of corridors, until, at last—at long, long last—she was once again by her Queen's side.

Alanna's form was no longer that of the lean but strong warrior-queen she had once known. Her cheeks were sunken, her body too thin beneath the blankets. Even her hair no longer held its golden lustre. But when she opened her eyes, through both their tears, Kyra could see that they were still the eyes of the woman she had served for so many years.

Alanna reached out to her, and Kyra knelt beside her bed. "Oh, Gods," Alanna murmured. "I thought you dead these last years, Kyra. After those bandits took me in the woods, I never saw you again, and I feared..." her voice broke. "I feared you slain for my sake. My fault."

Kyra embraced her monarch and friend. "No, my Lady; I was taken, but not slain, nor even badly injured. Not then, anyway. What I endured in the years that followed...is a long tale, and a hard one, but at the end of it I found you again, so none of the rest matters."

Alanna smiled a wan smile. "When I heard you were here, alive, and asking for me...well, I was so overcome with surprise and joy that I tried to come to you at the Palace gate myself." Her smile twisted into a wry grimace. "I got no more than three steps. Kyra...I'm so, so glad you found me again in time, because I don't have much time left."

Tears sprang afresh to Kyra's eyes. "They said you were ill, even dying, but I couldn't believe it...not you! But then...it's true?"

Alanna nodded, her face a mask of grief and pain. "I took wounds in Giask that didn't heal properly, and now they tell me wound fever has set in. All I can tell for sure is that I hurt like the pits of Aya, and I have no energy anymore...and it's been getting slowly, but steadily, worse. I...don't think I have more than another day or two, Kyra. But...if I can spend my last day or two on Earth with you by my side once more, then...well, that will be the last thing I could have wished for. Because you were the one thing I felt I had truly failed, Kyra."

Kyra looked at her questioningly. "But...my Lady, when we parted, you had lost everything.  Are you saying...?"

Alanna smiled again, and this time it was the smile Kyra remembered, perhaps brighter than she had ever seen it. "Oh, yes. In the end, after all the pain and death and betrayal, I won! It may not have been for long, but I was Empress. I stood at the top, and looked out over the whole world, and it was the most glorious, beautiful thing..." she paused for a moment, looking off into the distance of memory, then continued, "And though, by that time, I was old enough, and tired enough, that it was not the mighty victory I had once craved, in some ways, it was better this way. Because I was able to give it up freely, at the right time, and not cling to it in bitter selfishness, as Elanzil would have had me do. And so Luria, my Kingdom, my Empire, will live after me. It may change, even change out of all recognition, but my mark has been left forever on the history of this continent, and no one, and nothing, can ever change that.

"And now...I have you back by my side." Alanna's eyes crinkled in a grin. "You know, I was never able to find another aide I could work with. I think I've gone through ten just in the past six months. That poor lad over there—" she gestured at Stefan, visible through the door into the sitting room of her suite, standing by a window "—can probably give you chapter and verse on it. He's good, better than most of them, but he's just too young. Too...I don't know." She looked back at Kyra, and her face softened. "Not you."

Tears still trickled down Kyra's cheeks, and she took Alanna's hand, murmuring, "My Lady, I'm so glad you finally found the peace you had sought for so long. And now...if I can only have another day or two by your side, then I will be glad of them. And when..." she choked on a sob, took a moment to compose herself, and continued, "when you are gone, I will make sure that no one, anywhere, will ever forget the name of Alanna Anaris, Golden Queen of Pian en Luries, Empress of the Lurian Empire."

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Roleplaying / Duris Anaris ~ Searching for the Black Sword

« on: May 23, 2014, 05:57:18 PM »

In a relatively modest lodging house (at least, compared to those available closer to the palace, which was still being repaired of the damage dealt by years beneath the sea), Duris Anaris reviewed the fair copy of the letter he had dictated. Handing it back to his scribe, he nodded, saying, "Very good, Seb. Send it." The scribe stood, bowed, and left the room.

Duris stood from the second chair next to the writing-desk and crossed the room to the window. He stretched his muscular nearly-two-meter frame as he looked out, the breeze ruffling his dark brown hair. He brushed an errant lock from pale brown eyes as his gaze followed another noble entering the barracks across the street that was the reason he had chosen this inn. He was still new to actually commanding troops, but he felt that it was wrong to stay too far from them.

Turning from the window, he picked up a scabbarded sword from where it hung on a peg next to the bed. He drew the sword and inspected it. The edge was already as keen as he was likely to make it, but he pulled out a cloth and polished the flat of the blade a little more. It was a plain, unornamented steel sword, and while it was a finely-made weapon, in perfect condition (after all, it had never yet been used), he was still dissatisfied with it.

"Some day," he muttered to the sword, since there was no one else around, "I need to get you replaced with a black steel sword. Then I'll truly be worthy of my name."

Duris: the Black Sword. Though it was not the name he had been born with, he had refused to answer to anything else since his fourteenth birthday. At the time, it had been little more than a way to push back against what he saw as his parents' overprotective nature and their sometimes stifling expectations of him. Over the past three and a half years, though, he had come to see it as more, and felt that it was his duty to grow into the name he had chosen for himself. "The Black Sword," he whispered. "Not flashy. Not the blade you see coming a mile off, but the one that does not rust, and does not rest. This is what I must become. This is what I will become."

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Development / Further War Island Information

« on: May 17, 2014, 02:21:37 AM »

So as those of you who've been paying attention know, it's less than a week now until the scheduled opening of the new War Island. I thought it would be a good time to make public some more information about it.

• There will be three realms on the War Island—Taselak, Sandalak, and Ikalak. Adding a fourth realm (Toren) causes too much disruption to the balance of the island, at least for the time being.
• All players will be given a free character slot specifically for use on the War Island. This slot will be non-transferable, and characters for the War Island will remain there for their entire lifetime—no immigration, no emigration, no deportation. Relatedly, it will not be possible to use family gold or contribute to family gold with characters on the War Island.
• All characters on the War Island will be mortal. This means that pretty much anything that can wound you will also have a chance to kill you, and you can die from wounds getting worse.
• There will be no adventurers on the War Island. There will also be no monster or undead spawns. Pure PvP.
• While it will be possible to found a religion on the War Island, priests will not have any options for influencing peasant behaviour. They will essentially function like guilds.
• Since there is no diplomacy on the War Island, there will be no Diplomats or Ambassadors.
• There will be several changes to the amount of time or effort needed to complete various tasks—such as population recovery or running a takeover—and other tweaks designed to make war on the War Island more fast-paced, with less waiting around, and (hopefully) very little region maintenance.

I'm consulting with Tom on just how previous island startups have been run, but for now, I'm planning to handle it like this, based on my memory of the startup of the South-East Island and Dwilight:

• On the 22nd (probably morning US Eastern time), signups will be opened up, with a limit on the number of characters allowed on the island. The limit will be raised gradually to allow a few (dozen) people at a time to create characters there. No turns will be running at this time.
• After a day or two (or once the island has reached what we consider its maximum safe population, which is probably a few hundred characters), referenda will be created in all three realms to elect the first Rulers. Since all characters will be new, exceptions to the usual prestige requirements will, of course, be granted.
• Those referenda will run for 3 days. Once each realm has a Ruler, they can start appointing a Duke each, who can appoint Lords to the starting regions of each realm.
• Turns will begin to run, and travel will become possible, but for another few days, no one will be allowed to leave their realm. This will give everyone some time to build the initial recruitment centers their realms will require.
• Once that period is over, the floodgates will be opened, and everything will be set to "normal" for the War Island. Let the games begin!

Questions are welcome.

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Development / War Island Realm Flavours

« on: May 17, 2014, 02:21:20 AM »

I have some initial ideas for how to set up the flavours for the three realms on the War Islands, but since I've heard rumours of several groups of players already planning to start in this realm or that, I thought it would be good to see what particular ideas you all had for how each War Island realm should be themed.

Please note: I'm not looking for general comments from the peanut gallery. If you're not actively planning to start in the realm you're giving suggestions for, I'm afraid they're not what I'm looking for.

So, without further ado, the (rough, sketched-in) themes I had in mind:

Silver Kingdom of Ikalak

Government type: Monarchy

Realm Theme: Monarchial realm valuing honour over all

Ruler: Silver King/Queen, elect once
Judge: High Justice, elect once
General: Argent Commander, appoint
Banker: Silverkeeper, appoint

As you can see, there's a silver theme going here

In general, I had in mind a somewhat Camelot-esque feel here; chivalry and honour would be highly valued, and underhanded tactics of all sorts would be frowned upon.

Wolf Republic of Taselak

Government type: Republic

Realm Theme: Meritocracy where strength rules

Ruler: Wolf Lord/Lady, elect monthly
Judge: Warden of Law, elect monthly
General: Alpha Wolf, elect once
Banker: Foodward, appoint

For Taselak, I pictured something much more focused on strength, but with the slightly incongruous element of it being a Republic. The wolf theme would lend itself well to things like having a (player-enforced, not game-mechanic) rule allowing anyone to duel the Ruler (or General) for the position.

Holy Desert Empire of Sandalak

Government type: Theocracy

Realm Theme: Theocracy dedicated to the Desert Lion and the Snow Eagle, Whose rule must be spread across the land

Ruler: Eagle's Claw, elect once
Judge: Eagle's Eye, elect once
General: Lion's Claw, elect monthly
Banker: Prelate of Accounts, elect monthly

With its desert and tundra, a dualistic theocracy seemed like an interesting direction to go with Sandalak.

Bear in mind that all of these are just the quick ideas I came up with off the top of my head while trying to get the realm data set up in the database, so none of it has a lot of thought, planning, or RP behind it.

So, who's got plans to start a group in one of these realms already?