FEI POWER RANKINGS

[Bedwyr]

The number of bonuses smaller realms have is...Kinda astounding to me.  Mildly annoying as well, as I think the bonuses combine with the penalties for large realms in a way that is rather unfortunate.

Ohnar West would be ranked higher if they did not have such crippling internal issues.  The near-civil-war status between the Sartanian and Adgharist camps is basically why Arcachon pummeled them so effectively, and why they are lower ranked in my mind.

Here's what my order would look like:
Arcaea (noble count, very large once regions reclaimed and population in Topenah rebuilds, not bad diplomatic situation, just won the crucial, crucial war to the south that might have broken it)
Zonasa (large, very good diplomatic situation)
Kindara (reasonable size, very good diplomatic situation)
Cathay (large, not horrible diplomatic situation)
Aenilia (reasonable size, badly pummeled, reasonable diplomatic situation)
Ohnar West (large, crippling internal problems, reasonable diplomatic situation and wars defused to give time to recover)
Arcachon (proven military, good geographic position (though this is weakened by the new delay arrival feature), now completely isolated diplomatically while being at war with Arcaea)
C'thonia (small, just got the crap kicked out of it, bad diplomatic situation)

Now, I anticipate that much of this will change in the relatively near future, but I'm fairly confident in that ranking. 

[Heq]

Delay Arrival doesn't work over seaways.

Let the endless siege of Arcachon commence!

[Kain]

The number of bonuses smaller realms have is...Kinda astounding to me.  Mildly annoying as well, as I think the bonuses combine with the penalties for large realms in a way that is rather unfortunate.

Could you be so kind as to elaborate on exactly what bonuses smaller realms have? And the penalties of the larger ones?
I was in Cathay when they attacked C'thonia. They didn't stand a chance, even with 2 cities. Of course, it might also be a badly run realm and not be related to this at all

[Heq]

Am I committting apostasy when I say cities are much less important then cohesion?

I think the big realm gripe is unwarranted though, as the whole point is to stop from having one realm rule an entire land, which is gotta be vexing if that's your goal, but is good for overall gameplay.  Of course, I'd love to see 50 lines of code written so there could be an elector-states/japan kind of emporer with limited powers who officiated wars between clans only nominally subservient to him, but it's probably a pipe dream unless there are people who reall, really love FEI and have nothing like estates or economy to code.

Sorry to say, but Arcachon probably isn't going to pull a C'thonia and get ROFLstomped in a month or two.  I'd prefer if it was, oddly, because I hate sieges, but both sides think they win in a waiting game.

Ugh.

[Bedwyr]

Delay Arrival doesn't work over seaways.

Let the endless siege of Arcachon commence!

Does it not?  How odd.  I wonder why...Still, that's why we can march through Nbasah and sail to Ecsetuah.

And I don't expect Arcachon to be ROFLstomped.  It'll be an annoying, nasty war unless one of the various intrigues work.  But, the key thing is, Arcachon has been diplomatically isolated and there's really no one who can come to their rescue this time like Aenilia/Zonasa/Kindara did before.

C'thonia was in poor shape before Cathay attacked, as they were incapable of even holding the regions they had without revolts.  I don't know why that is, but it surprised no one that they got rolled over.

[Morningstar]

C'thonia was in poor shape before Cathay attacked, as they were incapable of even holding the regions they had without revolts.  I don't know why that is, but it surprised no one that they got rolled over.

I think Edairn has spent more time rogue than under any one banner since the island opened.  It's not just C'thonia.  Same for Apasur up where you guys are.

[Bedwyr]

Could well be.  I don't recall Soliferum/Mosesadelphia having problems holding Edairn, but Apasur (and Skizzard on the EC) I'm quite familiar with.

[Chenier]

To sum everyone up:

8. Arcaea

8. Arcachon

8. Principality of Zonasa

8. Kindara

8. Cathay

8. C'thonia

8. Greater Aenilia

8. Ohnar West

[Huntsmaster]

To sum everyone up:

8. Arcaea

8. Arcachon

8. Principality of Zonasa

8. Kindara

8. Cathay

8. C'thonia

8. Greater Aenilia

13. Ohnar West

There.

[Bedwyr]

Am I committting apostasy when I say cities are much less important then cohesion?

No.  The only reason Arcachon's low on my list is the diplomatic isolation.  Without taking diplomacy into consideration, I'd call it Arcaea, Zonasa, Arcachon for the top three.

I think the big realm gripe is unwarranted though, as the whole point is to stop from having one realm rule an entire land, which is gotta be vexing if that's your goal, but is good for overall gameplay.  Of course, I'd love to see 50 lines of code written so there could be an elector-states/japan kind of emporer with limited powers who officiated wars between clans only nominally subservient to him, but it's probably a pipe dream unless there are people who reall, really love FEI and have nothing like estates or economy to code.

Tom's planned changes to hierarchy will, in theory, allow a level beyond realms.  And, of course, you can RP something like that...As I plan to 

Also, are you sure delay arrival doesn't work over sea routes?  Because I just checked on the dev server and it looks like it should.

[Perth]

So, I spent a few minutes trying to formulate a few stats into a numerical system in which we could generically rank realms.

1. Noble Count/Region Count: The first category would divide the realm's noble count by their region giving them a score. The higher, the better (these days, at least).

2. Combat Strength: The realm's CS as determined by the statistics page (perhaps this is not an accurate or good way to do it, but it is really the only way I know how...) One point for every 10,000 CS.

3. Diplomatic Score: The most subjective stat. Will basically be an opinion based on the scorer taking the diplomatic situation of the realm and continent into consideration. Score on levels from 1-5.

4. Realm Income: One point for every 1,000 gold.

So, using this basic and primitive system. The Far East would look like this:

1. Arcaea (3.5/2.6/5/5.8 ): 16.9
2. Zonasa (3.5/1.1/4/4.5): 13.1
3. Cathay (2.6/1.7/3/4.4): 11.7
3. Kindara (2.7/1.1/4/3.9): 11.7
4. Arcachon (4.3/1.2/2/2.6): 10.1
5. Greater Aenillia (3.2/0.4/3/2.4): 9
6. Ohnar West (2/1.4/2/3.3): 8.7
7. C'thonia (5.6/0.5/1/1.2): 8.3

The results seems to hold pretty steady with what everyone was generally saying. Perhaps the big outlier is that Cathay and Kindara tied for third and beat out Arcachon. Though, this I believe is attributed to the fact that Arcachon's latest CS strength record seem a bit low. Perhaps it was just after a battle or something. The CS is recorded every 4 days, so keep that in mind. However, I think it would be neat to update the power rankings perhaps once a month or maybe twice a month.

If we can find a good system. Perhaps tweak this one a bit, make it word better, etc. I would be happy to run Power Rankings for each continent.

[Gustav Kuriga]

On paper Zonasa has a strong military, but their leadership and cohesion are abysmal.

[Vellos]

You need a fifth category:

Geography.

I would suggest giving a 0, 1, or 2 for geographic advantages: 0 meaning "no advantages," 1 meaning "moderate advantages" (Arcaea's homeland?), 2 meaning "Arcachonian advantages"

[Heq]

Unless the code has recently changed, yeah, yeah, delay arrival doesn't work over sea routes.

Nothing like 30+ letters per turn trying to organize the invasion of Nbasah (twice).  Hellish, just hellish, but damn did it feel good when everyone arrived on time.  The winter assault was the worst, it was five straight turns of correspondance.

Marine assaults are supposed to be difficult though, and the real problem is that there is an increaseed variance factor on sea travel (+/- about 40%).

There are so many inrigues running both ways that everyone knows that's how this sort of war ends.  Hey, I'm now three for three in running rebellions, so maybe I can just replace some of those southern kings with more tractable lords.

[Perth]

On paper Zonasa has a strong military, but their leadership and cohesion are abysmal.

I agree (I play in Zonasa, lol) however I don't have much of an objective way to measure these kinds of things. For instance, I know this about Zonasa, but I really have no clue what the command structures are really like in other realms.

You need a fifth category:

Geography.

I would suggest giving a 0, 1, or 2 for geographic advantages: 0 meaning "no advantages," 1 meaning "moderate advantages" (Arcaea's homeland?), 2 meaning "Arcachonian advantages"

Not a bad idea.