If I change one thing to make Battlemaster better, I would...

[egamma]

Please--ONE reply per person. No arguing; just post your own idea.

[Dante Silverfire]

Game-wide mortality.

The common reason I have heard against this is that players are heavily invested in their characters. As someone who is very heavily invested in my characters, I would agree with that. However, I believe that this heavy investment is ultimately a bad thing for the game. When players are so unwilling for anything bad to happen to their characters, they end up creating a very stagnant atmosphere. Players will go to extremes to preserve the power or influence of their characters if that character represents years and years of investment. However, it is my assertion that if a player understands that their character could die at any moment, they will do more to "live in the moment" and make things interesting instead of creating long-standing dynastic hegemonies that prevent others from enjoying the game.

Will this cause some players to leave? Absolutely yes. But, I believe that in the long-term it will create a much better atmosphere for the game in general because those players that remain and the new players that join following this change will be able to play a more fluid game with deeper interactions not limited by long-standing friendships, alliances, and entrenched leaders.

[Revan]

Restore the old system of food supply along with the old system of trading. Everything to do with food has become a bit of a palaver and a distraction. Ox carts were simple and easy to use. If a region starved, it would reach a subsistence level instead of going all the way to rock bottom. Soldiers died of malnourishment in far, far smaller numbers. I miss those days.

[Vonyx]

Remove the "to far away from home" mechanic. Or make the mercenary setting a lot stronger.

[Kwanstein]

Introduce new maps while retiring old ones every few years. The goals would be to reduce stagnation and to maintain the pioneer spirits that players on new maps initially posses.

[Dishman]

Remove the "to far away from home" mechanic. Or make the mercenary setting a lot stronger.

I'm fond of this. I think it would be helpful to the game if you could feasibly pick fights with distant realms. Looting parties that could be sustained abroad. Not indefinitely, but something that allows players the ability for a trade-off distance with effeciency.

Making mercenaries cost more but be entirely immune from 'too far away from home" mechanic would be my change.

[Lorgan]

Make raids a viable conflict option.

Now looting is just a tool to break regions down. There's no real profit in it so wars are fought over region ownership and since that's a sensitive issue, they escalate fast until all wars become a fight to the death. And fights to the death, in general, are tedious and boring and just bad for the game... destroying a realm with years of history to replace it with a little puppet state. No thanks, I prefer my realms old and bursting with hatred and the desire for vengeance.
So maybe just making raids actually profitable isn't enough but it's the most important step towards more casual and thus more constant conflicts. And the fight to the death would be so much more special.

[Fleugs]

Enable interducal wars and have duchies function as tiny kingdoms within the larger realm. Additionally force a maximum size on duchies so a realm can't exist of just one duchy (unless it is tiny itself).

[Geronus]

Implement island resets in some way shape or form. The lack of renewal is sucking the life out of the game as surely as any other factor, and it's a terminal condition.

[SaDiablo]

have older characters actually die...  seriously what good are characters that are over 90 years old. There are some (if not more) that get around this by pausing character, creating new younger version that takes the place of the older one,  that is just bad mechanics.

[Perth]

Mortality.

[Vellos]

Island renewal of some kind.

[DamnTaffer]

A real, functional magistrates system which provided actual worthwhile punishments and was formed of trustworthy respected players within the community

[Eirikr]

I'm also on board with mortality. I think it would solve a large number of problems, even if it creates others:

• Addresses a common (to my perception) desire for the game.
• Potentially forces change on continents.
• Makes the Infiltrator class more useful (perhaps too much, but this can be balanced).
• Potentially prevents players being so attached to their characters that they leave in frustration when something goes wrong. (The more options for failure, the more you can accept the possibility. I can elaborate if this is confusing.)
• Adds another quasi-enforceable condition for war. Let's say Keplerstan wants Duke Universe gone (currently, this is done through exile); they can now fight until he dies in battle or is killed otherwise.

[Valast]

Island wide social events IN GAME... perhaps with AI or with other players... go to the pub and play cards and have a drink... Go to a local merchants daughters ball... :-P sounds silly but the truth is after the planning is done (or right away for a brand new player) you run out of things to do.