Regional protests over war

[Tom]

I don't see how you can try to blame high tax rates in Aurvandil with a straight face.

We have run the exact same tax rates across the realm continuously since the new estate system was implemented without fault for the entire time (Save for a few experiments in the north where we tried lowering taxes to ease the damage of war protests, didn't do anything), before the new estate system we ran even higher taxes. So Aurvandil collapses entirely within two days as a result of war protests and you say that our taxes are at fault.

You can listen to me or you can plug your ears and go "la la la", the choice is yours, but only one of these options will actually help you.

Yes, you could run those taxes BEFORE HALF THE WORLD DECLARED WAR ON YOU.
Does that mean they have no effect? No.
Does it mean you should be able to run them now? No.

Your regions WERE getting those tax complaint messages every day, weren't they? Before, however, positive effects compensated, so you were essentially having stable morale.
Now with the war protests, you feel the FULL force of the war protests. If you weren't running a limit tax rate, you would NOT - you would have some positive morale effects left to compensate for parts of it.

You run your engine on its physical limits, don't be surprised if it blows up when it meets a bump in the road, and while you can blame the bump, your driving style DID contribute.

And until you realize that and act on it, we have nothing to discuss. I see that a few of your regions have now reduced tax rates, though by far not as much as I had suggested. But you will probably notice a difference in the morale drops between those and the other 2/3rd of your regions which are still running high tax rates.

[mikm]

No protests against the war with Barca? I mean they are neighbors.

[Blint]

This coding destroys the tactical aspect of the war, it puts the power entirely in the hands of one side, SA in this case. How can you expect us to even begin to fight this war when all our regions are revolting, when Sea Travel makes it way too easy for SA to land anywhere on the coast and begin a takeover. This isnt even a practical code for the times, there was a thing known as patriotism, the belief in ones nation and ones ruler.

There were people that followed every word their rulers said unto their dying breath. I already pointed out earlier in this thread that during the mid-evil times in England there were some villages and towns that had no idea that their nation was at war with the french for more than a century. So if they had no knowledge of the war how can they protest to it? They cannot. Declarations of war were not always released to the general public, and especially not immediately after they were declared. Especially regions on the fringes of the realm. It, in a practical and realistic sense, would take time for the message to reach the outlying regions and a turn after war is declared there are protests and region revolts to the declaration.

To me it also doesn't make a lot of sense that peasants would protest against their own realm after their own realm had war declared against them. It would be slightly more reasonable and believable if they were protesting a war that Aurvandil declared, but they are not.

It just outrages me that this stuff happens. Similar things happened in Thulsoma with the entirety of the northern realms, with the exception of Averoth, ganged up on Thulsoma simply because they would not accept SA as their official religion. Then they cried about it when they could not break the level 6 walls the stronghold in Storms Keep had.

This code makes it unfair for Aurvandil, there is no longer a tactical aspect to war. There is the mass declaration of war and then watch as the target realm crumbles into rubble and ash from the inside out because of protests to the DECLARATION of a war. Not even the actual war taking place yet. The mere declaration sends a realm into an uproar... How does that make any sense?

[Feylonis]

Because your people are scared that half the continent is seeking to destroy you. Also, simultaneous declaration of war is pretty tactical. It's not like war protest is something new - you should have had the foresight to prepare for it, firstly by bringing down taxes, secondly by making sure your people are hateful towards the SA and Moot realms.

[Poliorketes]

Patriotism? Patriot peasants in the middle age?... 

Your peasant only know you are one realm at war with more realms than they can count... And they protest, with good reasons, because they are going to be killed for fun, and their wives and daughters are going to 'give a lot of fun' (before killed) at the soldiers of this enemy realms... then, they will burn all their town and go to the next one in their path to Candiels.

honestly, I would protest too!

[mikm]

Let's not forget there are also alliance protests and those hurt too.

[Tom]

First, you are going at this with the base assumption that it is unfair towards you. That's a category mistake - the code is a fact of the game world and has been for a very long time, longer than your realm exists. So it can't be unfair to you any more than a tornado is. Sure it might suck to have your house blown apart, I can certainly understand the outrage - but by assuming a position as if this were a directed force against you, you are already missing half the point.

Two, your realm, which is well-known for being able to rapidly and very successfully coordinate turn-by-turn army movements STILL has an average tax rate of about 12%, with several regions at 15% and above. To me, this says that complaining on the forum is more important to you guys than actually doing what you can do to solve the real issue, that of very low region stats.

Three, broad statements like "this destroys everything" are almost always untrue. They show you are outraged to the point of tunnel vision. Please snap out of that, it does nobody any good.

Four. as several comments show by example, the roleplaying aspect of BM sometimes consists of making sense of the game events. The game only says "protest". It doesn't say if the peasants are unhappy about or afraid of the war. It doesn't say if they protest so you make peace or if they protest that you seemingly can't protect them. Making sense of the protest is more productive towards a game atmosphere than arguing on the forum about realism.
BM tries to be realistic to the "suspension of disbelief" point, but not to the "simulation" point.

Five, diplomacy IS a tactical aspect of the game. BM is not a pure strategy game, it has a huge political aspect to it. It appears that while your realm has shown it can wipe the floor with most enemies on the battlefield, your enemies have just demonstrated that they can wipe the floor with you in the halls of diplomacy.
That is why diplomacy protests aren't destroying anything in the game, they are part of the game. It's like snipers in FPS games - everyone hates them and sure it sucks being shot in the head by a guy you can't even see - but it's a part of the game and you need to figure it into your strategy.

[Norrel]

Five, diplomacy IS a tactical aspect of the game. BM is not a pure strategy game, it has a huge political aspect to it. It appears that while your realm has shown it can wipe the floor with most enemies on the battlefield, your enemies have just demonstrated that they can wipe the floor with you in the halls of diplomacy.
That is why diplomacy protests aren't destroying anything in the game, they are part of the game. It's like snipers in FPS games - everyone hates them and sure it sucks being shot in the head by a guy you can't even see - but it's a part of the game and you need to figure it into your strategy.

Shouldn't the fact that like 10 realms are gangbanging them be enough of a punishment for the bad diplomacy? Why should the game influence things in the favor of the guys with the enormous numerical advantage?

[Penchant]

Shouldn't the fact that like 10 realms are gangbanging them be enough of a punishment for the bad diplomacy? Why should the game influence things in the favor of the guys with the enormous numerical advantage?

Its Aurvandil's fault. You are saying the game is punishing, but its not true- the players are punishing Aurvandil though if they would have done proper diplomacy work they would be fine. When I say proper diplomacy work I do not mean making sure that war isn't declared on them by a bunch of realms, it's that if they saw it as quite possible ahead of time, which they did- then they should of have had their diplomats bad mouthing the realms they were going to war with. If they have no diplomats to change the peasants sympathies, it is the characters' faults for none being one because it is a choice that none can command other to do, it does not mean that they can't be hurt due to it.

[Indirik]

Why should the game influence things in the favor of the guys with the enormous numerical advantage?

"The game" does not influence anything in favor of anyone, or against anyone. The game responds to the situation set up by the players. It doesn't care who is who, or anything like that. All it knows is that Realm X is at war with Realms A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I. And that the peasants of Realm X happen to *like* Realms A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I. So regardless of how the war happened, they are going to be pissed off at their government, either through "Why the hell did you declare war on all these guys, we love them?!" protests, or "How could you be so stupid as to piss off so many of these people that they all declared war on us?!" protests.

Certain people completely ignored some basic mechanics of the game, and ignored or misunderstood what the game was telling them. Proper preparation via diplomats/ambassadors or priests (oh wait, that's right, religion is, for all intents and purposes, illegal there, regardless of assertions otherwise), having courtiers and other non-combat roles standing by (oh wait, that's right, that realm doesn't believe in non-combat roles), lowering tax rates to something that doesn't cause the peasants to be pissed at you to begin with, and, how about this: maybe NOT planning a secession a day before you *know* the !@#$ is gonna hit the fan.

There is a huge confluence of negative factors all coming together at the same time that caused this to happen, and many experienced players could have predicted something like this, given a good idea of the sequence of events that were going to occur. You cannot ignore all the facets of the game you don't feel like dealing with, and expect nothing to come of it.

[egamma]

Aurvandil's players think they are playing on the old war islands.

[MediumTedium]

Tom when i want to invade some realm ill pm you and you can make me teleport feature mkay?

[Vellos]

There is a huge confluence of negative factors all coming together at the same time that caused this to happen, and many experienced players could have predicted something like this, given a good idea of the sequence of events that were going to occur. You cannot ignore all the facets of the game you don't feel like dealing with, and expect nothing to come of it.

At least one experienced player (me) was calculating his strategy reliant upon the assumption that declarations by even distant powers would matter. Didn't no it'd be so huge– but I wouldn't have gone to so much effort if I thought the only northern contributions to the war would be in swords and bodies.

[^ban^]

Tom when i want to invade some realm ill pm you and you can make me teleport feature mkay?

...because trolling makes your argument so much more convincing. Especially trolling the guy that created, runs and provides without charge the game that you're playing.

Right?

Don't be disingenuous. You're smart people: that you can manage your military as well as you have proves that. There is no developer conspiracy against you. The fact is that BattleMaster is about war in all of its aspects, and those extend far beyond simply "I have the bigger army." While you have an excellent military, you have neglected (and in some instances, completely rejected) other aspects of the game that ultimately tie in to how a war plays out.

You've essentially done the same thing as Robb in A Song of Ice and Fire. Sure, you can win on the battlefield with swords. But it wasn't on the battlefield that you lost your war.

[Foundation]

Tom when i want to invade some realm ill pm you and you can make me teleport feature mkay?

What is this I don't even...