Noble density per realm - Dwilight

[Chenier]

People flock to opportunity, and flee disaster. Is Luria populous because it is fun, or fun because it is populous?

Enweil was populous and strong. When the invasions cut it apart, its playerbase melted away. I've seen it elsewhere. Players hate losing, they love easy victories. They tend to join realms that seem like they might win en bloc, and desert realms that aren't doing so even more rapidly.

When I ruled Enweil, we continued to grow, and I had great means to make changes on the continent. Later, when I ruled Fheuv'n, I was no less active. Indeed, I was much more active, had a lot more intiatives, assured a much greater distribution of power... And yet, Fheuv'n never grew. It shrank. Because all we had was a miserably city, and we kept getting pounded by rogues, again and again. We were too small to achieve anything, and players quickly lost interest.

I'm not saying that we should have few very scattered cities... In my mind, that's not structurally different than few very scattered city clusters. Pre-invasion BT had so many realms because these were surrounded by competing powers. When some clusters are overwhelmingly richer than the rest, it leaves much fewer opportunities.

[Indirik]

Like FEI. After Arcaea's victory, the island seems to be dying. Might as well say you won and wipe the island off.

FWIW - The federations are all dissolving, and Velax has unlocked diplomacy. I expect there will be something rolling out soon. No one wants to keep going in eternal peace. Maybe some people will take advantage of this to finish off some old grudges.   

[Bedwyr]

FEI in general has a lot of cities. You're right about Coralynth. But the rest of the island has plenty of cities able to stand up to external enemies. Arcaea's cities did help. But they also had exceptionally good politics, a successful long-term plan, and more than a bit of opportunism.

As the original architect of Arcaea's plan (although I'm still astonished Velax managed to pull it off), I can say that the core cities of modern Arcaea were very much a major goal.  There was a lot of talk in the Shadow Council back in the day that if we could complete Festung Arcaea by holding the continuous line of fortifications from Lasop to Niel, we'd be pretty impregnable.  We were all delighted when it actually happened...Right up until the starvation kicked in.  I haven't ruled Arcaea in years, and I haven't been the Banker of it for longer still, but I still have the occasional nightmare about the food situation, and I always RP'd that Jenred had them pretty frequently.  I lost count of the number of times Topenah essentially starved to death while I played on the FEI, but it was at least six.  Jenred once calculated that more people had starved to death in Arcaea under his tenure that all the soldiers killed in all the wars on the Far East during his reign combined.

Having the secure food supplies from surrounding realms is absolutely critical for Arcaea.  I actually felt that Soliferum's old position was actually the best on the continent, and if Conan hadn't gotten impatient they would easily have steamrolled Arcaea back in the Sunset Crusade.

That said, I think there are plenty of other good superpower possibilities.  Coralynth is really the only exception, but their position is so good at holding off outside attackers that I'd say it more than compensates.  It took Arcaea calling in allies, and no less than four landed or Council-level spies/defectors/traitors within Arcachon, combined with an Arcachonian rebellion to allow Arcaea to win, and it was a tough fight even then.

I actually think FEI is one of the more balanced maps.  Dwilight and post-Invasion BT are definitely on the lower end to my mind.

[vonGenf]

...Right up until the starvation kicked in.  I haven't ruled Arcaea in years, and I haven't been the Banker of it for longer still, but I still have the occasional nightmare about the food situation, and I always RP'd that Jenred had them pretty frequently.  I lost count of the number of times Topenah essentially starved to death while I played on the FEI, but it was at least six.  Jenred once calculated that more people had starved to death in Arcaea under his tenure that all the soldiers killed in all the wars on the Far East during his reign combined.

It got much easier after the latest rebalance. Arcaea is actually running a food surplus now.

[GundamMerc]

I actually think FEI is one of the more balanced maps.  Dwilight and post-Invasion BT are definitely on the lower end to my mind.

The thing is, Dwilight was so large in size and travel time (which is very important, as it determines how far you can travel from your realm without equipment damage becoming a huge factor) before the monster invasion that Luria being so much more powerful than all the other realms didn't matter, because no matter how powerful they were, they could really only influence D'Hara, Swordfell (someone tell me if that's the right name, been a while since I've been on Dwilight), Fissoa, maybe Corsanctum (when it existed) and maybe Morek. That left the entirety of the west and north completely outside of their influence.

However, that is no longer the case because the west is gone. All of it. Meaning now Luria is able to influence just about every realm on the continent. So you basically have an Arcaea scenario.

[Indirik]

... Luria being so much more powerful than all the other realms didn't matter, because no matter how powerful they were, they could really only influence D'Hara, Swordfell (someone tell me if that's the right name, been a while since I've been on Dwilight), Fissoa, maybe Corsanctum (when it existed) and maybe Morek. That left the entirety of the west and north completely outside of their influence.

That was really kid of the point of Dwilight being so big. The idea was to have a continent so big that you *couldn't* beat the crap out of anyone that annoyed you. If we had enough players to fill it, like at least 700 (but prefereably closer to 1,000), then you'd have a completely different situation. You wouldn't have the monster realms like Luria and Morek.

[Zakilevo]

FWIW - The federations are all dissolving, and Velax has unlocked diplomacy. I expect there will be something rolling out soon. No one wants to keep going in eternal peace. Maybe some people will take advantage of this to finish off some old grudges.   

Nice. Although I still think it might be better off to have at least one island where a victor is declared but it wouldn't hurt to have realms go at it each other 'again'.

[Antonine]

Looking at player densities where I play, East Continent is pretty good but that's about it. Beluaterra is pretty fun to be in right now but the south is completely unplayable - only the northern two thirds allow for a relatively balanced game and this has skewed player densities massively. Dwilight has poor player densities made worse by a disproportionate number residing in Luria Nova. The Far East is generally good apart from two pocket realms which have pretty much 1:1 noble to region ratios. I don't know about other continents.

But it does seem to me that the best ratio, game-play wise, is a ratio of 3 nobles to a region. However, there aren't any realms (other than one region realms) which have anywhere near that ratio.

Put bluntly, the player base is too low - closing a continent is one way forward but, then again, the geography of several of them channels them into fixed patterns, many of which aren't good for gameplay.

The geography of Atamara forces realms into essentially the same areas (apart from the realm names much of Atamara looks very similar to the way it did when I first started playing the game) but it's large enough to have balanced conflicts - the only problem it has is the players who've sewn it up under almost total Cagilan Empire hegemony.

Beluaterra has great geography north of, say, Fheuvenem but the south sucks for having sustainable conflict.

The Colonies are great in terms of geography but obviously have the one turn a day thing.

Dwilight sucks geographically - the player base is too low and a combination of travel times, history and geography have rendered the north pretty doomed to stagnation. The south is where it's at but the large gap between Fissoa and Giask-Shinnen basically distorts things and guarantees a regular powerhouse where Luria Nova currently is which will be mostly untouchable by its neighbours. Split up Palm Sea into some more regions, throw a city in the middle of it and maybe reduce the population of Askileon and Giask, however, and then we might be talking...

East Continent largely works but it will inevitably lead to north/south alliances and wars due to the terrain. On the other hand, the way it's divided up into regions works much better than the Far East where you have more than one chain of cities/strongholds adjacent to each other.

For the Far East see what I said about East Continent.

Now if it was me I'd say you could tweak the geography of southern Dwilight and sink the north of it, you could sink the south of Beluaterra, you could keep FEI, Colonies and EC the same and you could nuke Atamara (trolololol). That still wouldn't fix the player base issue though so the best would either be a big geological upheaval which forces continents together while sinking part of them or locking some continents and giving players a small window to evacuate to a neighbouring continent.

[GundamMerc]

Looking at player densities where I play, East Continent is pretty good but that's about it. Beluaterra is pretty fun to be in right now but the south is completely unplayable - only the northern two thirds allow for a relatively balanced game and this has skewed player densities massively. Dwilight has poor player densities made worse by a disproportionate number residing in Luria Nova. The Far East is generally good apart from two pocket realms which have pretty much 1:1 noble to region ratios. I don't know about other continents.

But it does seem to me that the best ratio, game-play wise, is a ratio of 3 nobles to a region. However, there aren't any realms (other than one region realms) which have anywhere near that ratio.

Funny you should mention that. The two realms closest to 3 nobles per region, Barca and Asylon, were both destroyed by the monsters. Kind of counter-intuitive if you think about it.

[Bedwyr]

It got much easier after the latest rebalance. Arcaea is actually running a food surplus now.

Really?  Without any food subsidies, Arcaea makes a yearly food surplus now?  Holy crap.  If that's the case under the current situation, then I take back what I said.  Without the strategic weakness of needing food imports to survive, that rather changes the overall scenario.

[Glaumring the Fox]

the monster invasion was the single biggest mistake in Dwilight history. BM history. Stop trying to kill this game off. So what if its not packed with players. The players that are here love the game and have played for close to 7 or 8 years or more day to day on laptops or cellphones in far flung places all over the earth. We check in to one of the deepest tactical strategy games out there and so what if its our secret. The people who care will stick around. BM is an awesome game and I wish Tom would realize what he has right here, BM is an awesome game.

[Lorgan]

<rant>
The argument of "this or that realm was better and therefore their continent should have survived" is stupid. It's exactly the same argument the conspiracy theorists in this thread use to point out why Luria's continent survived.

The argument that this was all a big mistake is also stupid. It's happened and seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I'm in Luria and was spared total annihilation or any irretrievable loss, so yes, that's easy for me to say but nevertheless things changed for me as well, so do the only thing you - we - can and move on.

Which brings me to moving on: continuing rant in newly created topic.
</rant>

[Renodin]

Hey guys,

Specifically, I cannot help but feel that some comments here are added to, dramatized, over expressed or just skewed. I understand that to make a point its often good to emphasize but at times I read glaring misconceptions or portrays of the truth (as I also experience it).

Let's not assume that over expression is the reality when seeking stand points or solutions, that will drive us further from achieving anything.

My words apply to Dwilight and I don't claim sufficient knowledge about other continents.

I suppose some of the words are added at times to vent a bit and that's alright of course. Let's just stay real or as close to it as we can.

[GundamMerc]

Hey guys,

Specifically, I cannot help but feel that some comments here are added to, dramatized, over expressed or just skewed. I understand that to make a point its often good to emphasize but at times I read glaring misconceptions or portrays of the truth (as I also experience it).

Let's not assume that over expression is the reality when seeking stand points or solutions, that will drive us further from achieving anything.

My words apply to Dwilight and I don't claim sufficient knowledge about other continents.

I suppose some of the words are added at times to vent a bit and that's alright of course. Let's just stay real or as close to it as we can.

I, at least, am not exaggerating. I am pointing at damning evidence that what happened was the wrong choice, and damning evidence from before the monster invasion was in full swing (and when there was still time to stop it) that we tried and tried to point out to the devs that what they were doing was a huge mistake. They didn't listen. The huge drop in player numbers on Dwilight falls squarely at their feet for failing to listen to the evidence given to them, and arbitrarily deciding the issue in a way that would affect the majority of players on the island negatively.

[Antonine]

Just for reference, I've tried to mash up a Battlemaster world map using the available maps on the wiki (most of the links are actually broken which makes things hard in terms of finding good images to use and this is my excuse for Dwilight in particular.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kfql275inpr7pej/BM%20world%20map.jpeg?dl=0

Of course the continents could be rotated slightly to make things look better perhaps but generally it seems to me as though it might be possible to do something like merge (via land bridges) or close some continents in a plausible manner.