Vent Thread

[D`Este]

Ah Fleugs, funny, the timing of this topic. For those who might have missed the event, Fulco stepped down today in Luria Nova. Why? To put it simple, I couldn't motivate myself anymore to spend enough time on the character. Well, certainly not enough motivation to pull a realm of 44 nobles out of their apathy. I do disagree with you fleugs that its only up to a ruler to make a realm interesting. There are plenty of leading positions in a realm and it's the collective job of everyone with responsibility to do their best and create something. If it's only up to a ruler than he or she will lose their motivation at some point. Also, your character has not put any effort in making somehting of his time in LN, he was just as passive as the most random newb.

But I agree rulers should seek conflict more, create wars, it doesn't matter if you lose, as long as you have fun. This game is designed to have conflicts, to fight and also to play it with all. Politics are nice, but if it means that at some point 95% of your nobles just sit around and do nothing, than somehting is wrong. At the same moment rulers also need some reaction from their nobles. If you bring up events, choices and ask your nobles for their opinion, and nobody responds, even the most willing ruler will give up at some point. And it are not only the new players who are too afraid to speak up, but also the more experienced ones who don't bother to talk. There is a limitation to what rulers can do, at some point others have to stand up and make clear IC they want action, or else they have to rebel, protest or do something. If you just sit back and wait for the ruler to act, you are just as much to blame as the ruler itself.

[Zakilevo]

I think what stops many people from starting wars is that the fact if they lose they lose everything.

Losing evenly matched wars are perfectly fine to me but fighting a gigantic empire with one city realm doesn't sound fun at all and this game has turned into just that. Big realms crushing smaller realms.

[Chenier]

Chenier,

I don't know about you but the part of EC I was in fought five realms for years. I don't know which EC you were playing on but on EC I was playing on, it has only gotten boring about a couple months ago.

I don't play on EC. Haven't since ages. Why would I? Whenever people complain about the state of the game, 90% of the time they mention the EC. Why on earth would I go play on such a continent?

[Zakilevo]

I don't play on EC. Haven't since ages. Why would I? Whenever people complain about the state of the game, 90% of the time they mention the EC. Why on earth would I go play on such a continent?

If you haven't played on EC for ages, don't try to pretend you know what is happening on EC :p

[vonGenf]

The lack of war bothers me, but what I really take issue with is the consolidation of land on many Islands. The Colonies started with 9 (I believe) realms. Now there are only three. East Continent when I started playing (2004~) had 13 realms. Now there are 8. So over the years we've seen the smaller realms gobbled up by empires. Empires of boring. Most of the huge realms have been around forever and will likely continue forever as well. Lack of change is boring. Dwindling number of realms kills off opportunities for fun. And not least of all is that waging war as a large realm is inherently less exciting because the stakes are lower and the distance you have to travel to refit is higher than in a small realm.

I started playing in Coimbra and it was hella fun, battles constantly going on; desperately scraping together scarce gold in order to recruit a new unit; the threat of destruction always looming over the horizon. Then Coimbra was destroyed and I decided to continue the fight against Oligarch by joining Sirion... but it was hella boring. It was just triumph after triumph, our future victory was always certain. Battles were less frequent and gold was always on hand. It lacked the fast pace and tension of Coimbra. The consolidation of realms has essentially destroyed all of the Coimbras out there and left nothing but Sirions. So the game is much less interesting now than it once was...

The threat of destruction is an important part of the fun, therefore realms must actually get destroyed once in a while. However, I would like to see more secessions occur. And not only planned friendly secessions, but real ones.

[Penchant]

I think what stops many people from starting wars is that the fact if they lose they lose everything.

Losing evenly matched wars are perfectly fine to me but fighting a gigantic empire with one city realm doesn't sound fun at all and this game has turned into just that. Big realms crushing smaller realms.

similar to what someone else said though that's not entirely true, it's also been said big realms are less fun to be in during war because there is no edge, worry, or feeling like you need to act.

[Penchant]

The threat of destruction is an important part of the fun, therefore realms must actually get destroyed once in a while. However, I would like to see more secessions occur. And not only planned friendly secessions, but real ones.

A recurring theme is more realms/smaller realms.

[Chenier]

If you haven't played on EC for ages, don't try to pretend you know what is happening on EC :p

I don't have a clue what's happening on EC. I just know that people always whine about it, and that a bunch of crappy features were forced upon everyone over the years because of problems that could only be found on that continent.

Atamara also has some chronic issues, but East Continent ranks #1 at whining about the boring state of the game, hands down.

The threat of destruction is an important part of the fun, therefore realms must actually get destroyed once in a while. However, I would like to see more secessions occur. And not only planned friendly secessions, but real ones.

Only if you feel attached. MI looks like it will get pwnt. That doesn't make me care any more about the realm, or find it any more exciting. Otherwise, the threat is destruction is just something you are powerless about and therefore don't care much about.

A recurring theme is more realms/smaller realms.

More realms need more players. I've seen many realms, small and medium, that simply lacked the required number of characters to keep interesting exchanges going. Concentration into larger realms is a natural response to a decreasing noble/realm count.

[Lorgan]

stuff

This is quickly becoming a time-sink. D'Hara's core-regions and the regions I am talking about are heavily fortified (1 +5 fort, 2 level 5 forts, 2 level 2 forts and 1 no fort) and you're relatively close to much more of the continent than anyone else. Secondly, they're rich (6 regions = 5065 gold, try to find that sort of concentration elsewhere). The downsides are travel costs, travel distance, scouting and food. Of those food is the only concern that does not fully go both ways, and yes it's hard to get that food but then you also get quite something for it in return. Our views just differ at how to use what you get in return.

As for the conflict... I really don't care to go into it. D'Hara set out to keep everything they had and you're doing a good job at it. Luria is squashing that little rebellion and not going for D'Hara anymore and when we did go for D'Hara we failed miserably because of reasons that you're going to turn around into excuses so whatever. I don't feel responsible for them anyway as I've only been general since the merge and have never even tried to go after D'Hara, it's been made clear from the start that that's not my goal.
But really this specific conflict is arguing besides the point. The point is that D'Hara /is/ an excellent spot for a militaristic realm. You do with your realm what you want but that's how I'd run a realm in such a fortified, rich, central location.

You can't seriously be taking any credit for your successes in the invasion... Invasions are a roll of the die. With the possibility of damning yourself or, like Enweil, being damned by others. Rio's had it nice many invasions in a row. Not because of how godly you were.

There's an element of randomness in everything, just an element though.
But anyway, I wasn't talking about Rio, I wasn't very much involved in what Rio did this invasion. As for having had it nice for a few invasions in a row... let's see.. off the top of my head:
1st and 2nd invasion: can't remember which one but rio died in one of those two.
3d invasion: ravaged by daimons, lost the islands.
4th invasion: got ripped apart by secession, lost the islands before the invasion was well underway, stood alone against the monsters. Survived because of the Light, everything outside grehk destroyed.
5th invasion: fought most of the invasion on our own against the southern daimon lord. Managed to hold him off but didn't make much progress. Lost Grehk and Fwuvoghor. Lots of kills towards the end.

So anyway, Enweil may have been targeted by Overlord this invasion (which was sort of their own fault) but then so was the realm that I was actually talking about, Thalmarkin, and that was 100% our own fault. My point being not one realm is responsible for the survival of BT, we're all responsible, but you can't argue the extent of Thalmarkin's involvement in BT's victory throughout the entire invasion. We set out to keep BT alive and have as much fun possible doing so and we succeeded.

[vonGenf]

A recurring theme is more realms/smaller realms.

There was talk of Riombara splitting in two at some point. OOCly, I think it will happen eventually and it will be good for the game, however my character will not abide the thought and will hate whoever causes it to happen.

Which is good. Tension and hatred leads to actual, meaningful wars.

[Penchant]

Ah Fleugs, funny, the timing of this topic. For those who might have missed the event, Fulco stepped down today in Luria Nova. Why? To put it simple, I couldn't motivate myself anymore to spend enough time on the character. Well, certainly not enough motivation to pull a realm of 44 nobles out of their apathy. I do disagree with you fleugs that its only up to a ruler to make a realm interesting. There are plenty of leading positions in a realm and it's the collective job of everyone with responsibility to do their best and create something. If it's only up to a ruler than he or she will lose their motivation at some point. Also, your character has not put any effort in making somehting of his time in LN, he was just as passive as the most random newb.

But I agree rulers should seek conflict more, create wars, it doesn't matter if you lose, as long as you have fun. This game is designed to have conflicts, to fight and also to play it with all. Politics are nice, but if it means that at some point 95% of your nobles just sit around and do nothing, than somehting is wrong. At the same moment rulers also need some reaction from their nobles. If you bring up events, choices and ask your nobles for their opinion, and nobody responds, even the most willing ruler will give up at some point. And it are not only the new players who are too afraid to speak up, but also the more experienced ones who don't bother to talk. There is a limitation to what rulers can do, at some point others have to stand up and make clear IC they want action, or else they have to rebel, protest or do something. If you just sit back and wait for the ruler to act, you are just as much to blame as the ruler itself.

+1 I have been trying to revive a religion so I provide suggestions of things we do to make the religion and reformations of the beliefs but I get no feedback or almost none, including from those that helped come up with the idea, that though I was really dedicated at the beginning to make the religion great I am starting think I should just give up on it.

[Chenier]

I'm not even gonna bother debating the invasion issues.

However, it's ridiculous to simply look at gross income to determine wealth and military capacity. When we were forced to pay food at market price because of bad seasons in the West, Paisly went BANKRUPT. It had basically no militia, and it went BANKRUPT. Due to food sales ONLY.

And then you chose to ignore the costs of war. "It makes a great realm to attack everyone" despite the fact that all attacks cost 3x as much as anyone's else's attack. D'Hara CAN make a lot of gold... as long as you don't spend any on militia, nor on invading others.

GROSS income, sure, D'Hara beats most realms, perhaps all. Net income? Absolutely not.

[Fleugs]

@D'Este: yup, sad timing. It's true I didn't do much to change it, though, but don't forget that I was in LN before and I did try back then, which only resulted in me OOC-ragequitting your realm. Looking back at it LN is probably the seed for this thread, but certainly not the subject.

There was talk of Riombara splitting in two at some point. OOCly, I think it will happen eventually and it will be good for the game, however my character will not abide the thought and will hate whoever causes it to happen.

Which is good. Tension and hatred leads to actual, meaningful wars.

Yes, that was my idea. Before and after I became ruler. But there was some protest against that and the main supporter, JPierreD, has vanished into thin air. By the way I'm actually rather worried about that player vanishing into nothingness and I would really love to hear that he's fine.
The entire splitting up idea fits in something that I wanted to apply to Ibladesh too, but I regret not doing: making each duchy a realm on itself. Ideally I would like to see inter-ducal wars enabled (within realms) but I understand that this is too much coding. I asked Santa to code it for me but he really is old fashioned and doesn't know much about modern technology. I strongly believe, and this fits perfectly with the "smaller realm" idea, that splititng up your own land will more easily lead to tension. You know, because Duke A thinks that adding a region from Duke B would just be marvellous! The problem is that I still want these duchies to be united under "the same flag", i.e. they form a realm although they are technically, according to the game mechanics, all different realms. You could do so through a federation but that beats the point of having Duchy A fight Duchy B (as it would get all duchies involved, something you do not want). Next to that it would demand some form of OOC-commitment to at least somewhat act as "one united realm" and for all I know humans are prone to lying and OOC-commitments kinda fall under the "clanning" thing.

Fighting these smaller wars may at the same moment also give each player the sense that he or she is more involved in the war, because his or her presence does make a difference. Nevertheless I fear that I will have to win the lottery first, before it will be coded into the game (yes I would totally donate enough money to Tom to see that happen).

@Penchant: good luck trying to revive your religion. If you succeed, can you please try not to be like most religions? Most of them focus on "POWAH MUST CONVERT THE EVERYTHING" and forget that a content-driven religion that is actively maintained will automatically lead to a greater base and more "success". There certainly are some beauties out there but they all need a lot of maintenance.

[vonGenf]

I strongly believe, and this fits perfectly with the "smaller realm" idea, that splititng up your own land will more easily lead to tension. You know, because Duke A thinks that adding a region from Duke B would just be marvellous! The problem is that I still want these duchies to be united under "the same flag", i.e. they form a realm although they are technically, according to the game mechanics, all different realms. You could do so through a federation but that beats the point of having Duchy A fight Duchy B (as it would get all duchies involved, something you do not want). Next to that it would demand some form of OOC-commitment to at least somewhat act as "one united realm" and for all I know humans are prone to lying and OOC-commitments kinda fall under the "clanning" thing.

But if you do that, then the point of each small realm is to re-create the original, big realm. You will not get people to break up just to recreate what they already had but be all friendly in the face of outside enemies: that is just not SMA (and even outside Dwilight is just meta-gaming).

[Fleugs]

But if you do that, then the point of each small realm is to re-create the original, big realm. You will not get people to break up just to recreate what they already had but be all friendly in the face of outside enemies: that is just not SMA (and even outside Dwilight is just meta-gaming).

No, no that's not the point at all. It's the contrary of that. Take Riombara, an example we are both familiar with. Say each city now gained the possibilty to war eachother. What would happen first? Well, the duchy of Grehk, which is oversized, would probably be banged upon for a while to make sure that everyone has the regions they more or less desire. More or less because, hopefully, nobody will ever be satisfied. The dukes will or should not attempt to entirely conquer another duchy (and if need be, you can ensure that through a solid treaty that prohibits such or, if it were implanted game-mechanic wise, you could deal with it through coding). Basically the Duke of Jidington would never strife to conquer all of Riombara. First of all, at some point, the other dukes would realize that he is getting way too strong and would intervene. Secondly it is not the goal of this idea. Riombara would still "exist" and be able to wage wars with, say, an Enweil that has 4 "separate" duchies too. Some dukes fight, some dukes don't. It depends on how much they like the ruler.

It is actually pretty medieval. I love to take the larger region of France as a prime example of an exciting medieval time, and the king of France sure did not control all his dukes during the Middle Ages. Territorial strife within a "country" (because, really, our notion of nationalism should really not fit to anything related to the Middle Ages) was not so uncommon. There were no perfectly defined boundaries. It wasn't "out of the question" that a King's peers would join him in his wars; he had better be good friends with them or they would have their army sit at home behind the Duke's walls.

The core idea though is that no duchy should attempt or be allowed to swallow another duchy because that would lead to a "united-recreation" of the split-up realm. The core idea is that your realm is effectively feudalized.