Closing Islands ?

[Tom]

Perhaps that should be taken as a sign, since it has been different people supporting the idea each time? Honestly you are the most stubbornly obstinate person I've ever seen in some regards.

I am also the one who will have to do the bulk of the work, which is why I get to shoot down anything that is unreasonable in that regard.

[Tom]

Gathering everything that has been said, I think here's something that most people could live with. Yes, I realize it will be unpopular still, but frankly, if we don't do anything, the game will run into the ground. Please read this in full before you comment:


On the island(s) picked for armageddon, we will implement some kind of "slow" destruction (meaning a few months at most from start to finish). There is a bonus for holding on and surviving. Something along the lines of honour and prestige gains for everyone in a realm that still has more than half their original regions (or something like that, just thinking out loud there).

Some fully-automated outside force will push realms down. A combination of starvation and monster/undead spawns would be fairly easy to do. Rogue regions can not be taken back - what is lost is lost.

However, we realize that people hate losing their realms and social connections. So every realm can retreat in an orderly fashion by declaring a target island. We will manually re-create the realm there and those who flee can join it. Details TBD (landing location? how to get a region or two to get started?). This way, people can move to a different island with their entire realm. Sure, you lose your land and all, but the people are sitll there and you can rebuild.

The longer you hold, the more you win, but if you miss the optimum point to leave, you will make your re-start on the target island more difficult.


This is just a thought, nothing has been set in stone. But do let me know your thoughts.

[Wolfang]

Sounds good.

[trying]

How do you recreate the realm on a different island without taking land from existing realms? Unsink BT?
Also how would the destruction be made "fair" so some realms don't get protected by others?

[Meneldur]

However, we realize that people hate losing their realms and social connections. So every realm can retreat in an orderly fashion by declaring a target island. We will manually re-create the realm there and those who flee can join it. Details TBD (landing location? how to get a region or two to get started?). This way, people can move to a different island with their entire realm. Sure, you lose your land and all, but the people are sitll there and you can rebuild.

This I think would be very good. At the very least it gives players who might initially been inclined to quit after the loss of their favorite island a motivation to carry on and try and rebuild elsewhere.

[Lorgan]

Three cheers for human invasions! \o/ \o/ \o/

[Foxglove]

I think I could live with it, if you're convinced we have to lose an island. After all the discussions, I'd been tending towards thinking that a variation on your idea at the start of the thread would be the best route anyway. This is effectively a war between islands, and that would at least put a lot of drama into the game.

The movement of religions is going to be a touchy subject and needs to be taken into account too, because players who've put a lot of playing time into building up regional followers for their faith are going to be incredibly disgruntled to see that wiped away unless priests have a way to gain a firm foothold on their new island. Even then, there's stuff like this to consider:

I would never carry on with Turin on another continent. Not because of habit, not because he brings in lots of gold or wields a lot of power, but because his existence is defined by a religion which exists only on Dwilight. I have a very strong sense of who Turin is and what he'd do in a given situation. He would never leave Dwilight in the face of some cataclysm. Based on his fanatical religious beliefs he would conclude that achieving enlightenment was impossible without a geographical proximity to the blood stars.

How you would manage the practicalities of realms from one island invading another and standing a chance of survival is going to be difficult to fathom, but I imagine you've already got thoughts on how to do it. This will be the tricky part:

So every realm can retreat in an orderly fashion by declaring a target island. We will manually re-create the realm there and those who flee can join it. Details TBD (landing location? how to get a region or two to get started?).

Because the invading/landing realms will need more than a beachhead landing to be able to even stand a chance against the established realms. They'll also need an immediate point of recruitment on their target island, because they can't reasonably sail back home to fetch more troops. It'll also probably be in the interests of the realms on the closing island to form a huge alliance to move en mass to a target island to give themselves a better chance of surviving an invasion attempt.

Still, it's an exciting option that could inject some drama into the game. If it's well received, I could imagine people requesting that an island-to-island invasion mechanic be added to regular gameplay.

[Tom]

As I said, lots of things are not thought through.

Religions may have to be re-founded, or we find an option for them as well. Gaining a foothold will be hard, and I expect quite a few realms to perish. However, those with the right strategy, good diplomacy and a tiny bit of luck should be able to make it.

[Gustav Kuriga]

How do you recreate the realm on a different island without taking land from existing realms? Unsink BT?
Also how would the destruction be made "fair" so some realms don't get protected by others?

I think this would be a good argument for bringing back some of the regions of Beluaterra, though not necessarily all of them. That would save the devs a lot of headaches with coding in my opinion, although that would be up to them.

[Foxglove]

Another organizational headache for this is what to do about character limits on the islands. Some people are sure to have characters playing on the invading and target islands in such a way that will exceed the character limits.

[Indirik]

Hrm... Interesting idea. There will surely be quite a bit of maneuvering of realms trying to convince other realms to abandon their realm and join a new one. "Eston will surely be lost. Join us in Silnaria and we can forge a new realm together on Beluaterra!" Will any realms attack another realm, to force them to be destroyed early, thus ruining their chances of survival and orderly migration to the new land? Will any realms abandon their regions wholesale, and join forces with their neighbors?

This is an interesting idea. How many realms, though, will be willing to give up a city and a few rurals to a bunch of carpetbaggers from another island?

How about if we partially cross-connect the ruler's channels of all the islands for the duration? For example: if EC is going to be sunk, then allow the rulers of EC to message any ruler on any island individually, and allow the ruler of any island to individually message the rulers on EC. Make it just single-recipient letters, not game-wide all-ruler blasts. The rulers of realms can work out deals regarding the immigration of the refugees.

You could make it so that a realm on one of the non-affected islands can set aside regions for the carpetbaggers. We'd have to come up with some game mechanic method for the realm to pre-generate the realm, or something. Maybe designate a duchy or something? Say, for example, that Rio wants to set aside the duchy of Grehk for refugees. They contact, say, Perdan on the sinking EC. The two come to an agreement, and the two rulers create and accept the deal. When Perdan accepts, a Perdan is created on BT, and the nobles migrate en masse to the new island, populating the new realm.

Some way to set up a deal before the realm-wide immigration happens would allow realms that want to do it to move with some form of pre-arranged structure, maybe allowing them to survive.

[Geronus]

I think this would be a good argument for bringing back some of the regions of Beluaterra, though not necessarily all of them. That would save the devs a lot of headaches with coding in my opinion, although that would be up to them.

Unfortunately, I think the missing regions were actually deleted from the DB, though Tom would have to confirm. If so, they may not be recoverable.

[Wolfang]

All the realms of the closing continent, could be made into one on the merge-continent, and they would have the RP of invaders. So this would include a sort of 'invasion' of the continenet where everyone is moving to, as well.

[egamma]

All the realms of the closing continent, could be made into one on the merge-continent, and they would have the RP of invaders. So this would include a sort of 'invasion' of the continenet where everyone is moving to, as well.

Doubling the density of one continent would be a little too hard, I think. Better if the realms go to various islands, so that all the islands get a density increase.

[Wolfang]

Well, the real question now is, how will the continent to be closed be selected?