Dwilight War Declarations

[Solari]

Nonsense.

There was nothing wrong with our tax rates they were hardly "comical", as evidenced by the fact we were able to run them perfectly fine for more than a year before the war protests, in fact by Dustoles standards Aurvandil is running very low tax rates, by my old standards, the tax rates of Aurvandil were low.

I'm pretty sure you saw these already, but since you've either forgotten or just disagree with the premise, I've decided to help by pointing you toward the relevant facts.

I would like to point out a few things, that I hope that Mendicant will take to heart, and into the in-game discussion (I can't remember, is he played by DamnTaffer or NoblessChevaleresque?):

• The devs have already located two separate bugs that, together, made this effect much greater than it would otherwise have been. These bugs have been fixed. No, the damage hasn't been reverted: we just don't do that. We didn't take away the family gold that Thulsoma got through exploits, either.
• The situation that Aurvandil has come across is, indeed, an unusual one. In addition to the bugs (one of which may have caused extremely high sympathy to the SA realms in some regions), they had a large number of realms declare war on them, immediately after a secession, when they had already been running very high tax rates, and without any non-combat-class nobles available to mitigate the damage beforehand or repair it afterwards. This unusual—even unprecedented—confluence of circumstances can make it appear as though there's something shady going here. However, if you take it all apart and look carefully, you'll find that only the bugs have anything to do with the devs' actions or lack thereof. All the rest is due to Aurvandil's own action and inaction.
• Despite what has been claimed, both previously in Thulsoma and Averoth and again in Aurvandil, the devs do not run SA. In fact, there are only two devs in SA, and neither of them writes code. I know of at least three other devs on Dwilight (including myself) who have, at various times, interacted with SA, but who have never been on better than lukewarm terms with them. As a concrete example, Alanna Anaris, during her time as Queen of Pian en Luries, invited SA priests to the realm, but had already ensured that they would find next to no interest in the religion amongst the nobility. She has always opposed SA hegemony in the southeast.

Naturally, you can dismiss all this as lies designed to take suspicion away from the true conspiracy. Indeed, that's the usual response when someone provides evidence  that contradicts a conspiracy theory, even when it is not provided by someone who is accused of being part of the conspiracy. However, I would hope that Mendicant's player has enough integrity to at least provide this information to his realm in-game, to let them see a rebuttal of all the hatred and flaming being spewed there in OOC messages, even if some of them will dismiss it as nothing but propaganda.

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.

I'm inclined to believe the guy who designed the game and the guy who contributes the lion's share of the coding.

[NoblesseChevaleresque]

Peasants obviously know about war declarations.

Well considering that in many areas English peasants late into the hundred years war had no clue they had been at war with France even after a century, I'm inclined to disagree.

Should threatening messages about war cause big penalties? No.
Should a mechanic clearly intended to have direct effects on peasants have effects? Yes.

Why? It has yet to be adequately stated why the peasants of Aurvandil would at all care, when they are not in the least bit threatened and when Aurvandil is consecutively winning campaigns, which if anything should provide regional bonuses. Winning battles, taking regions and beating your opponent should make the commons happy, not the other way around. Realms would hold big celebrations when they win after all, the peasants would celebrate etcetera. If war protest coding has negative affects, then it should have positive depending on the context.

Declaring war in solidarity to allies, especially when you are actively fighting an ally of the target of war, or when you are actively supporting realms doing said fighting, is an entirely reasonable proposition. Just because Iashalur, for example, is far away from Falkirk should not prohibit them from declaring war on Falkirk: same for Zuma and Morek.

Well then their war declaration should have no negative affect, as its relatively meaningless to the commons anyway and won't affect them.

[Vellos]

Oh, also, let's not phrase things as people "admitting." That makes it sounds like I, for example, feel somehow guilty, or have any cognizance that I may have done something wrong– and those just ain't true.

There is absolutely nothing wrong either in the spirit or in the letter of the rules with engaging in extensive RP, involving numerous players, to convince people to declare impossible wars in the name of political or religious reasons that can't necessarily be backed up by force. I'm actually rather proud of the fact that one of my characters has had a part, however small or large, in such a peculiar undertaking as the current one. The task of convincing a realm that another realm 2,000 miles away is truly worth declaring war on is a very large one.

[Vellos]

Well considering that in many areas English peasants late into the hundred years war had no clue they had been at war with France even after a century, I'm inclined to disagree.

Why? It has yet to be adequately stated why the peasants of Aurvandil would at all care, when they are not in the least bit threatened and when Aurvandil is consecutively winning campaigns, which if anything should provide regional bonuses. Winning battles, taking regions and beating your opponent should make the commons happy, not the other way around. Realms would hold big celebrations when they win after all, the peasants would celebrate etcetera. If war protest coding has negative affects, then it should have positive depending on the context.

Well then their war declaration should have no negative affect, as its relatively meaningless to the commons anyway and won't affect them.

Peasants aren't rational.

They don't know Aurvandil is so much stronger than other realms.

Also, winning shouldn't really matter. Did peasants die in your victorious battle? Yes? Then they're unhappy.

You assume an improbably large amount of nationalistic feeling among peasants.

[NoblesseChevaleresque]

Peasants aren't rational.

They don't know Aurvandil is so much stronger than other realms.

Also, winning shouldn't really matter. Did peasants die in your victorious battle? Yes? Then they're unhappy.

You assume an improbably large amount of nationalistic feeling among peasants.

How could they not know, when all they hear is reports of great victories and seeing a massive army wander around every now and then, we've even won battles in our own land.  More Terranese died than any peasant in these battles, I find it hard to believe the entire Commonwealth is unhappy because a handful of peasants from the other part of it were killed.

Peasants did care whether or not you won, and they tended to celebrate and consider it a good thing when you did as opposed to you losing ... and them likely being raped and killed by savage hordes of Republicans.

[NoblesseChevaleresque]

Oh, also, let's not phrase things as people "admitting." That makes it sounds like I, for example, feel somehow guilty, or have any cognizance that I may have done something wrong– and those just ain't true.

There is absolutely nothing wrong either in the spirit or in the letter of the rules with engaging in extensive RP, involving numerous players, to convince people to declare impossible wars in the name of political or religious reasons that can't necessarily be backed up by force. I'm actually rather proud of the fact that one of my characters has had a part, however small or large, in such a peculiar undertaking as the current one. The task of convincing a realm that another realm 2,000 miles away is truly worth declaring war on is a very large one.

Oh.. so there was roleplay and a basis behind the war. You know we honestly haven't the slightest clue down in Aurvandil, since you all declared war "out of the blue" without explanation or even a letter before or after the war (This being SA), but I suppose we're not relevant enough to warrant being in the loop?

[Indirik]

A case of "you didn't RP with me, therefore you didn't RP at all", eh?

[NoblesseChevaleresque]

More that we didn't see any indication at all that any was going on, and that includes through our foreign contacts. Of course it was an open secret that it was going to happen anyway.

You'd have thought they'd at least give their reasons behind the war, or open up some kind of dialogue about it.

[Indirik]

Well, it's a comfort to know that your "foreign contacts" aren't really all that good then.

[NoblesseChevaleresque]

Well, it's a comfort to know that your "foreign contacts" aren't really all that good then.

Quite so, I wouldn't want them ruining all the surprises.

[Vellos]

Oh.. so there was roleplay and a basis behind the war. You know we honestly haven't the slightest clue down in Aurvandil, since you all declared war "out of the blue" without explanation or even a letter before or after the war (This being SA), but I suppose we're not relevant enough to warrant being in the loop?

Um, yeah, there has been quite a lot of work and roleplaying behind all of this.

If it didn't take any work, then all of this would have happened many, many months ago.

How could they not know, when all they hear is reports of great victories and seeing a massive army wander around every now and then, we've even won battles in our own land.  More Terranese died than any peasant in these battles, I find it hard to believe the entire Commonwealth is unhappy because a handful of peasants from the other part of it were killed.

Peasants did care whether or not you won, and they tended to celebrate and consider it a good thing when you did as opposed to you losing ... and them likely being raped and killed by savage hordes of Republicans.

Bro.

Soldiers are peasants.

Did soldiers die? Yes? Then the peasantry are unhappy.

You don't actually think that the peasants WANT to fight your wars, do you? Even the "volunteers"– that probably isn't patriotic adoration as much as material need. A soldier peasant makes a whole lot more money than a farmer peasant (I remember somebody did this calculation one time but I forget where...).

Just because you kill more Terran peasants and manage to pay your soldiers on time doesn't mean your peasants enjoy it.

[Kwanstein]

Penalizing realms before any battles, looting or takeovers are fought is problematic and unrealistic. It's a poor mechanic by game play standards, in that it can be abused, and it's poor by role play standards as well, as it doesn't make sense and contrives the setting.

This game would do well to borrow from the war exhaustion systems of other games. Europa Universalis, for instance, gives you a war exhaustion rating. The score of the rating scales the size of the penalties you receive and is influenced by battles, occupied regions, blockades and other such things. The merit of this system is that it penalizes players only for things that have actually happened, and so it is both balanced and realistic.

Because, you see, it's the consequences of war that should matter, not merely the fact of war itself. Peasants should care if there are foreign armies marching through their lands, or if their sons are being sent off to die in battles. Currently, they do not care about that at all, instead they care about their state's diplomatic situation and are completely ambivalent towards the effects of the war; they merely care about the existence of war. It makes no sense and should be changed.

[NoblesseChevaleresque]

Um, yeah, there has been quite a lot of work and roleplaying behind all of this.

If it didn't take any work, then all of this would have happened many, many months ago.

I didn't say there wasn't any work but as from our perspective in Aurvandil, there wasn't any roleplay reasons behind the war, and even after we gave SA a reason it hasn't amounted to much.

Bro.

Soldiers are peasants.

Did soldiers die? Yes? Then the peasantry are unhappy.

I thought you made the distinction between soldiers and peasants. Not all soldiers are peasants anyway, and soldiers die as a matter of course, it's their profession, why would this cause great unhappiness in the Commonwealth? Particularly as the Commonwealth is an honour society entirely built around men-at-arms.

You don't actually think that the peasants WANT to fight your wars, do you? Even the "volunteers"– that probably isn't patriotic adoration as much as material need. A soldier peasant makes a whole lot more money than a farmer peasant (I remember somebody did this calculation one time but I forget where...).

What a strange outlook.

The notion of the armies being entirely comprised of unwilling peasants there only out of necessity is a bit... dark age, rather than Medieval.

[Solari]

To the point raised about being unfamiliar with the reasons for why a declaration of war was made...

Show of hands: how many of you have had your realm blindsided by a declaration? How many of those declarations were the result of intrigues undertaken well before the war began?

[^ban^]

To the point raised about being unfamiliar with the reasons for why a declaration of war was made...

Show of hands: how many of you have had your realm blindsided by a declaration? How many of those declarations were the result of intrigues undertaken well before the war began?

The only war declaration I can think of in the past years that might pass as a "blindside" is the Norland/Minas Ithil declaration some four years back.