Sigh...

[Foxglove]

Westmoor may have been a lot of fun for the people inside the realm. I won't deny that. But you have to admit that they were the most pathetic war fighting realm of all time.

They became better when I was General   

merely saying that "any duke can fix it" is a bit disingenuous. If Slimbar seceded, it would quickly get crushed. Same with Aix. Or even Partora. Now, if two dukes conspre to secede at the same time, then perhaps something could happen.

Naturally, a certain level of organization and planning helps hugely. But anyone at ducal level should already have some sort of powerbase and following. To take an example from Atamara, Kindel succeeded in the Riverholm duchy split from Caergoth because he talked to all his lords and knights, and they liked and trusted him.

But, even if we're dealing with a single rogue duke, there will always be some players who could find reasons to support him (or her, for Duchesses) within the RP of their characters. That's where it comes down to being a collective responsibility on the part of players to make the game interesting. Over the years, I've encountered a huge amount of people with the attitude of "I'm bored, someone should do something to make the game more interesting for me". Rather than, "I'm bored, what could I do to make the game more interesting for myself." Again, that probably requires effort by the player/s to lay the foundations to successfully pull off something interesting, but the refusal to do that is all part of people expecting others to make the game interesting for them.

However, it doesn't even take a secession to stir things up. It is possible for realms to just ... let things happen ... to their allies without blindly supporting them. Nothing is more infuriating than a ruler who says nothing but "We support our allies" as they march off to war.

Although you might be able to do this from time to time, doing that regularly would probably leave you without any allies. As someone who's played in his fair share of smaller realms fighting bigger realms, it can also be massively frustrating and not fun for players when you call on your allies and they don't respond.

When you have a perfectly acceptable reason to just allow something to happen, and thus create more excitement and opportunities for *everyone*, yourself included, why not do it? Probably because it involves some risk. Rulers are programmed to avoid risk at all costs, and that's a shame.

Again, I'd disagree that this is completely down to the rulers avoiding risks. Taking Sirion as an example, you could probably get 3 new realms out of their current regions and still keep a Sirion core realm. The fact they don't do that has to be more than the ruler. It has to be that most of the players there want to avoid the risk of breaking up their blob and their defensive line.

Even when you do take a risk (i.e. me allow Fane to exist), someone comes along and crushes a maverick development at birth to make their own position safer and less risky.

[Ketchum]

You still have a choice though.

See Sonya reply below which answer your post. It is not much of a choice, there is someone asked before and we all discuss previously. Comparing Perdan and Sirion distance to Nivemus, who is the nearest bigger neighbor you probably do not want to annoy?

From Nivemus perspective. We did make our choice previously by not getting Sirion to help us in our war with OI. We preferred one on one realm war just like the good old days. But then Perdan army came visiting and say hello, then crushed our whole army, and then they bide us good day. We were left amused at the whole army massacre should I call it. That was the worst nightmare Brock ever had as Nivemus General, imagine all nobles requesting for gold fund after their units all completely vanished into the thin air   

Sirion created Nivemus and Perdan what you see on the south, you can say "no these realms rule themselves" LIES, if Perdan/Sirion wanted these regions would be just wasteland. Also in a conflict you have to take your neighbor's side (the bigger one).

Quick response:
Fontan is gone...that's what happened!

Yes, I guess that's the reason why. Most of Central realms are gone, which can be of balancing force.

Sirion has the most amazing defensive line ever seen. Even better than Astrum did on Dwilight. The southerners never broke Sirion's line. We snuck a raid or two around the north. But that was back when Fontan was running the war, and they couldn't understand anything more than "Big Blob attack on Trinbar!"

Democracy does have its good and bad points. All Fontan Generals elected were favoring attack on Trinbar, I think they won their elections based on that campaign key selling point. It is becoming too predictable for Sirion to guess. Brock once participated in the north raids on Sirion and the raids were a success.

I agree that more realms = better game. But merely saying that "any duke can fix it" is a bit disingenuous. If Slimbar seceded, it would quickly get crushed. Same with Aix. Or even Partora. Now, if two dukes conspre to secede at the same time, then perhaps something could happen.

Interesting proposition here

But, even if we're dealing with a single rogue duke, there will always be some players who could find reasons to support him (or her, for Duchesses) within the RP of their characters. That's where it comes down to being a collective responsibility on the part of players to make the game interesting. Over the years, I've encountered a huge amount of people with the attitude of "I'm bored, someone should do something to make the game more interesting for me". Rather than, "I'm bored, what could I do to make the game more interesting for myself." Again, that probably requires effort by the player/s to lay the foundations to successfully pull off something interesting, but the refusal to do that is all part of people expecting others to make the game interesting for them.

I agree with your statement. We are bored, what can we do? Let go shake things up!

[Atanamir]

I'll take a page from your book on this one: "I never called anyone a "brainless drone". I didn't name anyone, you're taking this all too personally. I'm not insulting anyone."

"Everyone is an actor reading from a publicly available script they refuse to change."
Is for me the same as calling someone brainless. Just with some few flowers around it.

And yeah, I did post something similar to the way I started this thread. And if you'll note from that post, and from this one here, I'm not the only one that feels this way. If it was just me, then sure, sour grapes, one random nutjob, whatever... But it's not. That prior post was written following an OOC message from the EC ruler's channel where the rulers of EC were bemoaning the fact of how EC was turning into a sucky place. (And I didn't start that conversation, either.) I stand by what I said back then. And nothing has changed.

I wasn't ruler back then. But I didn't see any other ruler going public about it.
You know why? Because there is no point. Only rulers can change some things, that's why it was discussed also in this channel.
There is no other point bringing this to the forum, than to beg or sympathy or someone's impotence to change things.
But that is not good for the game.
Leave some OOC conversations within the game, and start some things not at all on an OOC level and not on the forum at all.
Play the game and stop hurting it.
You complain on the one hand that we have not enough chars, on the other none will be joining Ec if he reads all this !@#$ here. Seriously.

Moving past all that, convince me that I'm wrong. Convince me that events on EC are not now where anyone could have predicted they would be, one year ago today. (Again, making allowances for the ice age event.) IC letters just point out how lock-step everyone is marching. I tried to break things up, and just got locked out. Yes, I failed to split things up, and effect some change to the political landscape.

You are old enough to recognise things alone.
If you still aren't able to, then leave better these things to others.
I do not need to tell you how to play or to convince to anything.
But Eponllyn could have had more of the share at many points of its lifetime, without being on side A or B.

It is quite entertaining to hear Atanamir say no one can fight Sirion 1v1. When Perdan had just as many players as Sirion they still brought their underlings along. So don't try to come up with some petty excuse.

Atanamir was not ruler then. That's not his (or my) pigeon.

Sirion has the most amazing defensive line ever seen. Even better than Astrum did on Dwilight.

And what happened to Astrum? Who were the Generals of Niselur and Asylon again...oh wait...Perdanese players. 
This new SA had not yet her shot at Sirion's walls, so do not judge what has not yet happened.

And, yeah, sometimes you get a lot of negativity. Every time a ruler makes an important decision, they will *always* get negative attention. No matter which way Eponllyn went during this recent crisis, someone would have been screaming and yelling at me for doing the wrong thing. Same thing happened when we went to war with Armmonia. Or when we took Betholm. You have to realize that part of a ruler's job is to take that negative attention, and try to do something positive with it.

And that's your mistake as ruler.
You play a totally reactive ruler when you should play an active ruler.
As reactive ruler you always have to respond to situations or even worse, you look to legitimate things after they have happened.
It's like with chess. A good player has already set up his plan and has thought several moves ahead before he even starts the active part like taking a region or declaring a war.
And the plan should always include that negative attention is not being able to come up at all.
Communication is key here and communication is something that Eponllyn always lacked.

I agree that more realms = better game. But merely saying that "any duke can fix it" is a bit disingenuous.

Then let the SA do her job with Sirion and go out of our way!

[Vita`]

But Eponllyn could have had more of the share at many points of its lifetime, without being on side A or B.

You think Eponllyn didn't try? Perdan, and specifically the character of Atanamir, has cockblocked Eponllyn at every turn. And now when Eponllyn finally gets to move our home while keeping the realm's continuity (ie, not joining another realm to fight for them in the hopes we can colonize a new area because we know how well that works out historically in BM, especially on EI), its Perdan/Atanamir being the same old tyrants as when Eponllyn was upset about King Nigel's intervention and threats in Fallangard/Armonia/Eponllyn. If you as a player really wanted Eponllyn to have 'had more of the share' perhaps you would've let us figure that out on our own between us three instead of throwing your military/diplomatic weight around?

I'm not saying Sirion was innocent in this time either, all they wanted was to use Eponllyn for its aims too, but in light of the glacier they were a lot more gracious to us than 'join us and hope you get a new realm in the future, but lose the old realm in the process and likely never get it in the end because players lose interest, times and priorities change, and Perdan just uses the characters for its ends without any real care for Eponllyn'. Seriously, the realm was somewhat neutral still until the last week character Atanamir/Perdan pushed Eponllyn straight into Sirion's arms. You praise character Atanamir's diplomatic skill, but if anything this has proven there is no diplomacy in character Atanamir, just threats, betrayal, lies, and tyranny.

Then let the SA do her job with Sirion and go out of our way!

The only reason we're 'in your way' is because you're deciding we're in your way. It is not Eponllyn saying 'come at us SA', its SA insisting there's no other way than to attack Eponllyn. Seriously, with all Atanamir's spies, did you miss the part where we were discussing only insisting on being a buffer/not allowing SA/NA to travel through our new lands?

[Atanamir]

You think Eponllyn didn't try? Perdan, and specifically the character of Atanamir, has cockblocked Eponllyn at every turn. And now when Eponllyn finally gets to move our home while keeping the realm's continuity (ie, not joining another realm to fight for them in the hopes we can colonize a new area because we know how well that works out historically in BM, especially on EI), its Perdan/Atanamir being the same old tyrants as when Eponllyn was upset about King Nigel's intervention and threats in Fallangard/Armonia/Eponllyn. If you as a player really wanted Eponllyn to have 'had more of the share' perhaps you would've let us figure that out on our own between us three instead of throwing your military/diplomatic weight around?

Sometimes I wonder about these high level complains.
Eponllyn doubled its land mass in the war against Armonia.
It got Itorunt basically without a fight.
Other realms fight to double their landmass for years.
You got it faster than you deserved it, complain to the people of Armonia who didn't give you a good fight and just handed it over.
But you want more, more, more...well at some point, it stops, and you have to wait till new oppurtunities arise.
Well now the glacier came and again you feel mocked around...eh well...what else can I say now...please go to Sirion, seriously.

I'm not saying Sirion was innocent in this time either, all they wanted was to use Eponllyn for its aims too, but in light of the glacier they were a lot more gracious to us than 'join us and hope you get a new realm in the future, but lose the old realm in the process and likely never get it in the end because players lose interest, times and priorities change, and Perdan just uses the characters for its ends without any real care for Eponllyn'. Seriously, the realm was somewhat neutral still until the last week character Atanamir/Perdan pushed Eponllyn straight into Sirion's arms. You praise character Atanamir's diplomatic skill, but if anything this has proven there is no diplomacy in character Atanamir, just threats, betrayal, lies, and tyranny.

Assumptions. Show me proof for what you say and I shall agree.

The only reason we're 'in your way' is because you're deciding we're in your way. It is not Eponllyn saying 'come at us SA', its SA insisting there's no other way than to attack Eponllyn. Seriously, with all Atanamir's spies, did you miss the part where we were discussing only insisting on being a buffer/not allowing SA/NA to travel through our new lands?

LOL Eponllyn receives from Sirion the most contested city of the continent and you wonder why you are in the way?
The most hilarious thing is that Garin thought the SA would have offered Oligarch as well to them.
See, Westmoor is a founding member of SA, and well, Oligarch is their strongest claim in a future war against Sirion, so why should they give the city suddenly to you?!
Eponllyn's strategic analysts should have done better their math before accepting the next best offer, because Westmoor would ask the SA to attack ANY realm that controls Oligarch asides of Sirion.
Oh and Atanamir has no spies, no worries. It is your interior problem if you have rebels who contact him and ask for help.

And I'd ask a moderator to delete that last line of yours since it is IC knowledge - which I didn't know (but could have guessed though).

[Gustav Kuriga]

Atanamir. This will be the last time i have the misfortune to read one of your illogical, fallacy ridden posts. Every thread you post in has its matureness reduced to that of a seven year old crying about not being able to eat desert before dinner. From this point on you will be ignored, and anyone with any sense will do the same.

[Atanamir]

Atanamir. This will be the last time i have the misfortune to read one of your illogical, fallacy ridden posts. Every thread you post in has its matureness reduced to that of a seven year old crying about not being able to eat desert before dinner. From this point on you will be ignored, and anyone with any sense will do the same.

And your actual point with regards to the content in the whole discussion was...? lol

[Velax]

Tone it down, everyone, or the thread will get locked.

[Hinamoto]

Taking Sirion as an example, you could probably get 3 new realms out of their current regions and still keep a Sirion core realm. The fact they don't do that has to be more than the ruler.

That.

[Indirik]

Although you might be able to do this from time to time, doing that regularly would probably leave you without any allies. As someone who's played in his fair share of smaller realms fighting bigger realms, it can also be massively frustrating and not fun for players when you call on your allies and they don't respond.

I do agree with this. It's a tough line to walk. I'm trying not to name names or drag IC stuff into this, and just talk generalities, but its hard when everyone probably knows what you're talking about anyway. When you have two realms of equal size trying to square off in a war, and Big Brother steps in to side with one, using its overwhelmingly large armies to squash the war before it happens, then how is that contributing to the fun and dynamic nature of the game? It's a different situation when a large realm goes after a small realm and the smaller realms equally-small allies bail out.

It's a tough line to walk. But at some point, don't you just have to sit back and say "You got yourself into it, now get yourself out of it" especially when doing so comprises no risk to yourself.

Again, I'd disagree that this is completely down to the rulers avoiding risks. Taking Sirion as an example, you could probably get 3 new realms out of their current regions and still keep a Sirion core realm. The fact they don't do that has to be more than the ruler. It has to be that most of the players there want to avoid the risk of breaking up their blob and their defensive line.

At one time, Sirion did split off into three realms. Apparently they didn't like it, and consolidated back into one monolithic realm.

Honestly, at this time I can't really blame them for not breaking up. As much as I think more realms = more fun, it would be suicide for Sirion to break up now. 2/3rds of the island has publicly declared they desire to not just beat up Sirion, but slaughter each and every last one of them, and replace the entire realm with "human kingdoms", or something like that. Doesn't exactly provide Sirion much of an alternative to sticking together for mutual defense, does it?

Even when you do take a risk (i.e. me allow Fane to exist), someone comes along and crushes a maverick development at birth to make their own position safer and less risky.

Unfortunately, that happens sometimes...

[Indirik]

"Everyone is an actor reading from a publicly available script they refuse to change."
Is for me the same as calling someone brainless. Just with some few flowers around it.

I never said that. If you choose to interpret it that way, then that's your cross to bear.

And in case you hadn't figured it out yet, this is the exact same claim you use all the time to insult people and then try to wiggle out of it. Lots of insinuation, no actual names being mentioned, and yet everyone knows exactly what you meant. But you just laugh it off, toss on some smilies, and claim that everyone is being too sensitive. Kind of annoying/infuriating, isn't it? Think about that the next time you start tossing around obvious/veiled insults and claiming that they really weren't.

I wasn't ruler back then. But I didn't see any other ruler going public about it.

"I didn't see it, therefore it didn't happen."

Only rulers can change some things, that's why it was discussed also in this channel.
There is no other point bringing this to the forum, than to beg or sympathy or someone's impotence to change things.

The point of bringing it to the forums is to try and increase awareness of the situation, and see what can be done, in aggregate, to alleviate the situation. Discussing something between 5 or 6 people, when you're trying to make changes that affect the entire game as a whole, is pretty pointless. I'm not trying to change anything for Eponllyn. It will live or die based on what happens IG, not what happens on the forum.

But Eponllyn could have had more of the share at many points of its lifetime, without being on side A or B.

This is absolutely wrong.

And what happened to Astrum?

Apathy. Overconfidence. Bad leadership. Niselur was beaten and begging for mercy. Astrum refused Niselur's terms. Then our general left and everything went to hell.

Communication is key here and communication is something that Eponllyn always lacked.

Another case of "I didn't see it, therefore it didn't happen." The fact that you didn't receive a letter doesn't mean that no letters were sent. Eponllyn exchanged lots of letters with other rulers. Yet you can't expect Eponllyn to be all buddy-buddy with the man who declared that if Armonia loots Perdan, then Perdan will burn Eponllyn to the ground, and then proceeded to do so, can you?

[Atanamir]

2/3rds of the island has publicly declared they desire to not just beat up Sirion, but slaughter each and every last one of them, and replace the entire realm with "human kingdoms", or something like that.

Do you actually really believe what you say?
I mean seriously, where do you find these obvious facts for your argumentation?

[Atanamir]

The point of bringing it to the forums is to try and increase awareness of the situation, and see what can be done, in aggregate, to alleviate the situation. Discussing something between 5 or 6 people, when you're trying to make changes that affect the entire game as a whole, is pretty pointless. I'm not trying to change anything for Eponllyn. It will live or die based on what happens IG, not what happens on the forum.

And how many people discuss here on the forum?
And I mean seriously discussing.
Less than 5 - 6 people if you look at it.

And there is your big forum mistake as always.
See, the 5-6 people ingame are elected by many more people.
Why? Because they have obviously some talents. Experience. Leadership. Visions.
So these elected people have much more knowledge in what is best for their realms than most of your forum people.
They are there every day, know the continent, the people who play on it and everything that is relevant to it.

You should have left the discussion therefore better to them, they are much more civil and productive than this forum could ever be.
Instead you come here and complain how bad everything is. Let's cry everyone a bit. But solutions? Nothing.
So again, leave some things ingame to the people who care, know and are competent enough.
Because incompetent people do not get elected in Battlemaster usually. Usually.

[Hinamoto]

Its the best reason people had so far to war Sirion... the extinction of the elves.

Sirion defends its kind, while the southern alliance wants to make a genocide of the elven race.

Take it, is ten times better than invent the kidnap of a King like Westmoor once did.

[Atanamir]

Its the best reason people had so far to war Sirion... the extinction of the elves.

Sirion defends its kind, while the southern alliance wants to make a genocide of the elven race.

Take it, is ten times better than invent the kidnap of a King like Westmoor once did.

Soon the real reason will be revealed. No worries. Everything will come.