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Farronite-Aslyon Merger

Started by BattleMaster Server, December 21, 2013, 09:02:26 PM

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Graeth

#60
Quote from: Geronus on December 29, 2013, 07:29:23 PM
Cleaned up some more posts... Try to stay on topic.

And I have the same issues with interpreting this rule that way as I did with how the strategic secession rule was interpreted in our last case on the subject. If the only way to violate this rule is to explicitly say "I'm merging realms so that I can take advantage of game mechanics," then it's basically never going to be applicable and we might as well say "realm mergers are fine," because for all intents and purposes they would be. Furthermore, I recall that several of the characters involved in attempting to merge Summerdale and Thulsoma back in the day got lightning bolted for their efforts, and that case was similar. If that was an illegal realm merger and this isn't, I'd be curious to know why people think this is different.

If you are considering zapping players in a dying realm who are trying to keep the game fun admist game-wide declining populations then I think you need to seriously reconsider your policies.  I foresee this sort of case becoming more common as the game continues to lose players, banning your existing and loyal player base seems counter-intuitive.  This is a holdover rule from another time in this game's life.  It is also extremely obscure and poorly worded.  Realms can never merge as equal entities, and if they can it is not applicable here.  Asylon maintains its governmental system, personnel (especially in regards to our King), name, capital, distinct history, distinct culture and overwhelming player amount.  Further, Asylon unilaterally culled out FR nobles that it deemed politically harmful, explicitly demonstrating its overwhelming advantage in the duchy change.  And that is considering the fact that you are ignoring that FR still exists in GF and might be able to exist indefinitely and perhaps even expand with the new addition of sea travel.

Your post is extremely troubling.  In character wise I'm not sure what the problem is, it isn't like nation states in the past never conglomerated together.  It seems like you want to bring down the hammer just because you don't like the way the rule has been applied or not, and not for mechanical or roleplaying atmosphere reasons.  A dying realm can takes months to be finished off naturally, and I imagine that natural attrition is extremely boring for those involved.  In this case a Duchess decided to proactively change her duchy in a way that made sense in character and in line with explicit or implicit political strife in her realm.  The fact is that strategically this does not help our realm in our war, we now find ourselves in a food shortage after accepting the duchy change, further none of the regions would allow us to change the capital to a more strategic position.  Finally, it lowers our population density per region. 

I do not want to clutter this post, however I feel that the overwhelming amount of magistrates on the other side of this conflict puts Asylon and former Farronites at a severe disadvantage. 
Geg Family: Elshon (Bel)

Vita`

Quote from: Geronus on December 29, 2013, 07:29:23 PMFurthermore, I recall that several of the characters involved in attempting to merge Summerdale and Thulsoma back in the day got lightning bolted for their efforts, and that case was similar. If that was an illegal realm merger and this isn't, I'd be curious to know why people think this is different.

First, I don't recall any lightning bolts (could've been during one of my away periods), so its very likely I could be missing an important point from that specific situation. But playing the king of Libero Empire at the time, I do recall some of the ideas floated before any lightning bolts were used. They were very much of a joining as equals concept in order to be more powerful against neighboring realms and unify as northmen. The difference between then and now is that Duchess Khari is not also Queen of Asylon or some other arrangement where they 'merge' together. There is a difference between realigning one's loyalties and merging realms.

Dishman

I started this case with little info. Now that I'm more aware of the situation, it seemed like this (or something similar) was inevitable. It still seems to fit the mechanics for a realm merger, though. I'm content either way this is decided. The merger rule could potentially draw too many people away from the game as realms slowly wither.

Then again, I wonder why people stayed in Farronite? Dwilight is huge and with a good variety of flavor, not to mention other continents. Did people grow attached to their positions and lordships?
Eoric the Dim (Perdan), Enoch the Bright (Asylon), Emeric the Dark (Obsidian Islands)

Orobos, The Insatiable Snake (Sandalak)

Anaris

Quote from: Graeth on December 29, 2013, 09:32:07 PM
If you are considering zapping players in a dying realm who are trying to keep the game fun admist game-wide declining populations then I think you need to seriously reconsider your policies.

If what was done violates the rules, then those who did it must be punished as laid out in those rules. "But the game's population is declining" or "But I was trying to make things more fun" are not valid defenses.

If you feel the rule needs to be changed, then that is a separate discussion, and does not belong here.
Timothy Collett

"The only thing you can't trade for your heart's desire...is your heart." "You are what you do.  Choose again, and change." "One of these days, someone's gonna plug you, and you're going to die saying, 'What did I say? What did I say?'"  ~ Miles Naismith Vorkosigan

Chenier

I disagree with the assertions that it was "inevitable" or that FR was "not viable" due to low noble density. As others have stated, FR had a LOT of regions, ceding a few of these away could have brought density up considerably. Furthermore, density was no lower than other realms who have maintained such low levels for quite some time without ever talking about merging with a neighbor.

Just because the duchess lost hope doesn't mean the situation was truly hopeless.
Dit donc camarade soleil / Ne trouves-tu ça pas plutôt con / De donner une journée pareil / À un patron

vonGenf

Quote from: Chénier on December 30, 2013, 05:15:12 PM
Just because the duchess lost hope doesn't mean the situation was truly hopeless.

Characters are sometimes wrong in their evaluation. It's not cheating to be wrong.

This doesn't address the issue, of course, but trying to evaluate the correctness of the amount of hope there was isn't going to help either.
After all it's a roleplaying game.

Graeth

Even ignoring the fact that FR still exists, the rule prohibits two realms merging as equal entities.  What is the argument for that here?  It seems pretty clear that this "merger" was extremely unequal in terms of realm sovereignty among a long list of other inequalities. 
Geg Family: Elshon (Bel)

Glaumring the Fox

The Thulsoma/Summerdale merger was that the Queen or king got lightning bolted for a couple of days and we were told not to try a merger. Which we did anyways by abandoning Thulsoma inthe end but never tried to recover the old regions because the Summerdale nobles were extremely paranoid of SA nobles in their realm, which Thulsoma was so they didnt want to actually see it succeed, even though it would have been beneficial. After they combined Averoth was to join ad we would have been a large force in the north. It was my idea to found a federated united kingdom under the Summerdaliam crown with three kings in revolving leadership etc. it would have been cool and we could have offered a good bit of strength in that region. What happened instead was fragmenting and little wars and the Thulsomans left to Asylon where we thrived.
We live lives in beautiful lies...

Glaumring the Fox

What happened with FR and Asylon is a duchy merger not a realm merger. If you want to prevent duchies from merging then restrict the size of duchies or what or how duchies merge.
We live lives in beautiful lies...

Geronus

Quote from: Graeth on December 29, 2013, 09:32:07 PM
If you are considering zapping players in a dying realm who are trying to keep the game fun admist game-wide declining populations then I think you need to seriously reconsider your policies.  I foresee this sort of case becoming more common as the game continues to lose players, banning your existing and loyal player base seems counter-intuitive.  This is a holdover rule from another time in this game's life.  It is also extremely obscure and poorly worded.  Realms can never merge as equal entities, and if they can it is not applicable here.  Asylon maintains its governmental system, personnel (especially in regards to our King), name, capital, distinct history, distinct culture and overwhelming player amount.  Further, Asylon unilaterally culled out FR nobles that it deemed politically harmful, explicitly demonstrating its overwhelming advantage in the duchy change.  And that is considering the fact that you are ignoring that FR still exists in GF and might be able to exist indefinitely and perhaps even expand with the new addition of sea travel.

Your post is extremely troubling.  In character wise I'm not sure what the problem is, it isn't like nation states in the past never conglomerated together.  It seems like you want to bring down the hammer just because you don't like the way the rule has been applied or not, and not for mechanical or roleplaying atmosphere reasons.  A dying realm can takes months to be finished off naturally, and I imagine that natural attrition is extremely boring for those involved.  In this case a Duchess decided to proactively change her duchy in a way that made sense in character and in line with explicit or implicit political strife in her realm.  The fact is that strategically this does not help our realm in our war, we now find ourselves in a food shortage after accepting the duchy change, further none of the regions would allow us to change the capital to a more strategic position.  Finally, it lowers our population density per region. 

I do not want to clutter this post, however I feel that the overwhelming amount of magistrates on the other side of this conflict puts Asylon and former Farronites at a severe disadvantage.

I think you're reading too much into what I posted... I have no particular desire to punish anyone. I am merely concerned now, as I was in the prior case concerning strategic secessions, that the rule could be so narrowly interpreted as to be pointless in which case why have a rule at all. That said, my thinking on the topic continues to evolve and these discussions contribute to that evolution. I hear what you are saying. Also, Please do not derail the topic with accusations of bias. Vellos and I happen to be the two Magistrates who do most of the posting in these cases, but we aren't the only ones who vote, and I haven't had a character active on Dwilight for months now.

Geronus

Quote from: Glaumring the Fox on December 30, 2013, 08:53:02 PM
The Thulsoma/Summerdale merger was that the Queen or king got lightning bolted for a couple of days and we were told not to try a merger. Which we did anyways by abandoning Thulsoma inthe end but never tried to recover the old regions because the Summerdale nobles were extremely paranoid of SA nobles in their realm, which Thulsoma was so they didnt want to actually see it succeed, even though it would have been beneficial. After they combined Averoth was to join ad we would have been a large force in the north. It was my idea to found a federated united kingdom under the Summerdaliam crown with three kings in revolving leadership etc. it would have been cool and we could have offered a good bit of strength in that region. What happened instead was fragmenting and little wars and the Thulsomans left to Asylon where we thrived.

This is the incident I remember, and it sounds like the bolt came down before anyone even tried anything, just based on the idea being discussed. But again, curious as to how that's different from this case - it doesn't seem to me like the proposed Thulsoma-Summerdale-Averoth merger was about exploiting game mechanics any more than the current case is, which calls into question that narrow interpretation of the rule and would seem to place more emphasis on the idea that realm mergers between equals are not permitted for other reasons (game balance? promoting conflict? keeping with Tom's interpretation of medieval governments?).

There are arguments to be made that interpreting this rule too narrowly will encourage more virtual mergers like this one and lead to consolidation of smaller realms into bigger ones, something that I am certain Tom would not care for since it replaces expansion by conquest and limits conflict. There are also arguments that this sort of merger should be permitted anyway in an era of a shrinking player base, as Graeth is arguing, but that would definitely be a departure from current practice.

Vita`

#71
Quote from: Geronus on December 31, 2013, 12:55:25 AM
This is the incident I remember, and it sounds like the bolt came down before anyone even tried anything, just based on the idea being discussed. But again, curious as to how that's different from this case - it doesn't seem to me like the proposed Thulsoma-Summerdale-Averoth merger was about exploiting game mechanics any more than the current case is, which calls into question that narrow interpretation of the rule and would seem to place more emphasis on the idea that realm mergers between equals are not permitted for other reasons (game balance? promoting conflict? keeping with Tom's interpretation of medieval governments?).

Equals (that is sovereigns/rulers, not realms of equitable strength) would indeed not voluntarily submit to another (hence why there's *not* a mechanic for a ruler joining an entire realm), according to how I've read Tom's words.

I note a distinct difference between TSA attempting to merge as equal realms to one another and a farronite duchy changing loyalty to Asylon's king. TSA would've changed from three independent realms with different rulers, capitals etc. to one realm with the benefits of communication channels, gold transferability, less complicated diplomacy in battles, one governing system (in contrast to three realms where, even if federated, one of them could have a falling out with the other through some internal political change), only one realm to improve sympathy towards, and all the other little mechanic benefits a realm provides. It would've actually been different entities merging as one (similar to how Riombara formed, which I believe predated and was the cause of this rule's creation) as opposed to a realm expanding through an allegiance change. TSA merging would've been done for the purpose of forming one game mechanic realm to defend itself with while this FR incident was about either IC tension or OOC boredom.

I'll try to avoid chiming in too much on the specifics of the IC and/or OOC reasoning, as I'm rather far removed from the specifics, but I would be hesitant about punishing someone for an attempt to liven up the game. Obviously a broken rule is a broken rule and must be dealt with, but I've often seen (and done myself) IC actions done for the sake of a better playing environment and don't think that should be discouraged. I would hope players would also keep it within IC sensibility in not breaking their character's style either.

I think a key element is that FR is continuing as a realm, however much diminished. There is no movement of nobility leaving Golden Farrow to join Asylon and reconquer GF, as you would seen in a merger that wasn't also a bug exploit. Asylon had two choices for interacting with GF without merging. Conquer it in a war based on various grievances between farronite nobility and those who left for Asylon. Or ignore it. They're taking the latter route.

Geronus

Quote from: Vita on December 31, 2013, 01:55:57 AM
I'll try to avoid chiming in too much on the specifics of the IC and/or OOC reasoning, as I'm rather far removed from the specifics, but I would be hesitant about punishing someone for an attempt to liven up the game. Obviously a broken rule is a broken rule and must be dealt with, but I've often seen (and done myself) IC actions done for the sake of a better playing environment and don't think that should be discouraged. I would hope players would also keep it within IC sensibility in not breaking their character's style either.

I think a key element is that FR is continuing as a realm, however much diminished. There is no movement of nobility leaving Golden Farrow to join Asylon and reconquer GF, as you would seen in a merger that wasn't also a bug exploit. Asylon had two choices for interacting with GF without merging. Conquer it in a war based on various grievances between farronite nobility and those who left for Asylon. Or ignore it. They're taking the latter route.


I am inclined to agree with you at the moment. An argument could be made that in some cases a move like this one would be a true realm merger, but I just don't see the intent here, not really.

Penchant

Quote from: Geronus on December 31, 2013, 02:26:17 AM



I am inclined to agree with you at the moment. An argument could be made that in some cases a move like this one would be a true realm merger, but I just don't see the intent here, not really.
To add a little to what Vita said, they planned on rulers of the other realms taking turns ruling such that that way all 3 kings are equal, making it more explicit that they are merging as equal entities.
"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."
― G.K. Chesterton

Buffalkill

I was looking through some of the past magistrate cases and I came across this post from Tom, which I think is instructive. I think that whatever arguments you can make to construe this as a violation, it's sufficiently ambiguous that the case should be dropped.
QuoteIf I may inject, because this is already taking way too long.

We are bickering over details.

A "friendly realm merger" does not require a precise definition of every word. What I intend by those words is that I don't want realm A and realm B to sit together and say "hey, as one realm we would have better game mechanics on our side" or whatever, and then simply join up.

What happened here was NOT the scenario I see as a "friendly realm merger", because it was not an agreed act of cooperation between two parties. You can discuss the "friendly" part if you want, but there wasn't a merger. Whatever you call it, and it sure is a strange event, but it's not the event I ruled disallowed.

Moreover, that real question is, which part of the Social Contract was broken. If we can not spot one without lots of arguing, then we can not assume that the players should have.

That is what I meant a while ago when I said cases should be handled a lot faster because unless they are fairly obvious, we can't expect the players to have seen their acts as violations. If it takes a week of deliberation between half a dozen Magistrates to determine whether or not... - how can we expect the players to come to a sane conclusion?

I'm almost ready to make a ruling that says if the Magistrates can't clearly say "guilty" within a few days, then he's innocent. Mostly so the whole game doesn't get bogged down in rules-lawyering. If that means we let a few people go without punishment, that's fine with me. I'd rather improve the rules than try hard to get every last one of them.


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