How many wars are you in?

[vonGenf]

It is generally received wisdom that there aren't enough wars in BM. While I also share this gut feeling, I would like to put some hard numbers on it.

If you have two characters in the same realm, please count it as a single war. By active war I mean one where battles are actually taking place at least semi-regularly.

[pcw27]

Four?

[Tom]

Statistics I just made - sums of diplomatic relations between realms, excluding rogue:




Mind you, this does not check if the war is actually being fought or just exists on paper.

[vonGenf]

Statistics I just made - sums of diplomatic relations between realms, excluding rogue:

Do you mean that for each realm, you sum up the relations to all other realms? Then you will see mostly peace - I wouldn't expect everyone to be at war with everyone else!

If your realm is at war with one neighbour and at peace or neutral with all others, then it's at war, period.

[Tom]

Do you mean that for each realm, you sum up the relations to all other realms?

Not per realm, but in total.

In numbers, this is what EI looks like right now:
Alliance    6
Peace    17
Neutral    19
War    3

I didn't check what those 3 wars are. Could be one realm fighting 3 others, or 3 seperate wars, so anywhere from 4-6 realms are involved in a war. It really is just a quick picture showing that peaceful relations dominate the game. I wouldn't expect war to be the largest slice, but it shows what many people feel intuitively - that there's too much peace in this game.

IMHO, "neutral" should be the largest slice, with the other two roughly balanced.

[Anaris]

IMHO, "neutral" should be the largest slice, with the other two roughly balanced.

Unfortunately (as I said on the other thread), I don't think this is realistic. The players have shown, through the decade+ of BM's history, that they will seek out peaceful relations or alliances with other realms, even ones on the other side of the continent who they have next to no chance of ever meeting in person.

And frankly, unless we can come up with some really, really good game mechanics to encourage neutrality and discourage many peace treaties and alliances, I think this is likely to be one of those instances where we just have to accept that that's the way human nature is going to push, and let it be that way, rather than trying to force the playerbase to play in a way that we think is "right".

[Buffalkill]

How about some kind of fame or prestige point system for actions that are related to wars, like successfully taking over a region, participating in a major battle, commanding a unit with a high CS. It's human nature that players will usually do things that increase their fame and prestige, so create more fame/prestige incentives in war and war-related activities. Conversely, maybe you lose prestige when a region is taken from you. This would encourage players to vigorously defend their regions from being taken over, and would also discourage collusion.

[vonGenf]

How about some kind of fame or prestige point system for actions that are related to wars, like successfully taking over a region, participating in a major battle, commanding a unit with a high CS. It's human nature that players will usually do things that increase their fame and prestige, so create more fame/prestige incentives in war and war-related activities. Conversely, maybe you lose prestige when a region is taken from you. This would encourage players to vigorously defend their regions from being taken over, and would also discourage collusion.

Participating in a major battle already gives you honour and prestige. I think there is a fame point for having a very large unit but it's unconfirmed.

[Buffalkill]

Participating in a major battle already gives you honour and prestige. I think there is a fame point for having a very large unit but it's unconfirmed.

That's great. And I'm sure even more incentives (or penalties) could encourage more fighting.

[egamma]

Not per realm, but in total.

In numbers, this is what EI looks like right now:
Alliance    6
Peace    17
Neutral    19
War    3

I didn't check what those 3 wars are. Could be one realm fighting 3 others, or 3 seperate wars, so anywhere from 4-6 realms are involved in a war. It really is just a quick picture showing that peaceful relations dominate the game. I wouldn't expect war to be the largest slice, but it shows what many people feel intuitively - that there's too much peace in this game.

IMHO, "neutral" should be the largest slice, with the other two roughly balanced.

The stats are very misleading. FEI basically has two large alliances at war with each other; every realm on the island is at war, just not with every single realm at once. Those "peaceful" relations actually contributed to the current war status!

Can you do charts that show how many realms have at least one war status? Or maybe do your pie chart with 0 wars, 1 war, 2 war, etc.

[Buffalkill]

Atamara has 14 realms, of which 7 are currently at war with at least one other realm.

[flames]

2 of 3 my chars are at war, and one war just recently ended

[Dishman]

2 of 3 my chars are at war, and one war just recently ended

Same here. Perdan had two good wars going, but that ended maybe a month or two back. I had to travel to Astrum for a good war in Dwilight and emigrated to Outer Tilog after I saw the Riombarra war start to fizzle out.

[Atanamir]

Not per realm, but in total.

In numbers, this is what EI looks like right now:
Alliance    6
Peace    17
Neutral    19
War    3

I didn't check what those 3 wars are. Could be one realm fighting 3 others, or 3 seperate wars, so anywhere from 4-6 realms are involved in a war. It really is just a quick picture showing that peaceful relations dominate the game. I wouldn't expect war to be the largest slice, but it shows what many people feel intuitively - that there's too much peace in this game.

IMHO, "neutral" should be the largest slice, with the other two roughly balanced.

I may say as major war mongerer of EC in the last year, that till July EC was completely at war.
EC enters now a period of peace as it is always after big almost continental wars....that is completely normal, especially when many regions are depopulated and produce no gold.

[Kwanstein]

Back when I started playing, about a year ago, I had a real tough time finding any war. I went maybe six months without seeing any serious fighting. Now that I've hopped my characters around a bit I've found some descent wars and battles.