What is your playstyle as a general/marshal?

[De-Legro]

I don't make too many mistakes. Usually I start making them when I get cocky after winning multiple battles in a row.

When I burn out I don't even want to log on send orders out because I feel so exhausted. I haven't left military positions due to my burn out yet though. Unless RL stuff happens, I usually still stick around to send orders out.

I've been trying to create a system to have multiple marshals leading different armies but I made a big mistake on that idea. People live in different time zones... It is really hard to get discussions going when one guy logs in at 10 pm o clock while the other guy logs in at 6 am. Need to figure something out but it is good to know that no style works perfectly.

The only way for things like that to work can be almost as much work. You need to look back to how armies ran in RL before the advent of rapid communication for the answer, when plans were long range and general in nature so that each group had some idea of their role in the greater campaign regardless of the communication barriers, and did not rely on orders from the top to know if a change was required.

In BM since we are used to being able to message everyone in the realm instantly, most plans are designed to need constant updates to react to what is occurring, and we tightly integrate the roles of the individual parts. Assuming that the constituent  parts can react to the updates, then this is efficient so long as the decision process is rapid, which requires either a highly centralised decision, or for high availability of whatever council at the correct times. To go to a truly distributed system it is incumbent on the General or high military council to design the campaign in a completely different manner, where changes to the over all plan should be infrequent and non-time critical once the implementation phase has begun. Most importantly people must accept that under this system sometime the individual decision elements will make decisions that conflict and lead to a non-optimal outcome.

[Kai]

That's irrelevant because even communication of units in the same region is restricted by activity. The "individual decision element" is literally a single player. Overlooking such facts is understandable when being distracted by a historical hardon.

[De-Legro]

That's irrelevant because even communication of units in the same region is restricted by activity. The "individual decision element" is literally a single player. Overlooking such facts is understandable when being distracted by a historical hardon.

Not irrelevant at all. If a single player, say the general is making the decisions, then there is one activity point that matters. Sure he needs info from the battle lines ASAP, but then so does a council. The difference is a council has discussion, conversation back and forwards as they reach a decision, thus time zones become even more important as the progress of the decision is impacted by people being available over a period of time to contribute.

The Historical context I suggested is a framework to maintain a "single player" as the individual decision element, while including more people in the entire decision process. It retains the effectiveness of single player decisions to some degree by making people responsible for decisions along the tree, rather then trying to have a council quickly and efficiently make all the decisions and then still get out timely orders.

[Haerthorne]

I don't make too many mistakes. Usually I start making them when I get cocky after winning multiple battles in a row.

When I burn out I don't even want to log on send orders out because I feel so exhausted. I haven't left military positions due to my burn out yet though. Unless RL stuff happens, I usually still stick around to send orders out.

I've been trying to create a system to have multiple marshals leading different armies but I made a big mistake on that idea. People live in different time zones... It is really hard to get discussions going when one guy logs in at 10 pm o clock while the other guy logs in at 6 am. Need to figure something out but it is good to know that no style works perfectly.

I found that problem exactly. It seems like it is either rule by committee where everything gets confusing, or micromanage. The best thing though is the find the third way I think where you have only a few marshals and armies who are essentially your right hand men/women while you set a firm and definitive plan and slam your fist every now and then. You don't have to delegate too much, but you give allowances of what might happen and what they should do in that case if they don't hear from you before they need to make a decision quick.

[Kai]

Not irrelevant at all. If a single player, say the general is making the decisions, then there is one activity point that matters. Sure he needs info from the battle lines ASAP, but then so does a council. The difference is a council has discussion, conversation back and forwards as they reach a decision, thus time zones become even more important as the progress of the decision is impacted by people being available over a period of time to contribute.

The Historical context I suggested is a framework to maintain a "single player" as the individual decision element, while including more people in the entire decision process. It retains the effectiveness of single player decisions to some degree by making people responsible for decisions along the tree, rather then trying to have a council quickly and efficiently make all the decisions and then still get out timely orders.

As far as I can tell you're saying that orders can be given to armies which are far away from each other (or otherwise not requiring turn by turn coordination) using only scouts from the regions around them and possibly with different people giving each order. I think this is obvious. Did I miss something?

[De-Legro]

As far as I can tell you're saying that orders can be given to armies which are far away from each other (or otherwise not requiring turn by turn coordination) using only scouts from the regions around them and possibly with different people giving each order. I think this is obvious. Did I miss something?

Yes, distance of the armies is irrelevant. Typical BM military organisation has the general making decisions every turn. There is a large emphasis on scouting as soon as a turn occurs so that the general has information from all front quickly, and is able to issue orders to all elements of the army quick enough to have a reasonable expectation of decent movement. This generally leads to burn out for various reasons but mostly because of the activity strain it places on a single player.

As has been mentioned military councils generally, though not always, fail due to not being able to put out orders fast enough. In theory it should spread responsibility among multiple players and help reduce burn out, but since in most cases it sticks to the concept of updated plans every turn, the collaborative nature often proves inefficient.

So there are two solutions usually seen. The first is a hierarchy such that if the general has not issued orders there is a clear chain for who will step in and do so. The second is a move away from realm level military changes every turn. Instead a plan of engagement is draw up, rules of engagement formulated. This is the generals domain and provides the framework for others. Instead of every turn this should really only be updated every few days as objectives are either achieved or failures are evident.

The chain of command then is responsible for the more regular updates. Marshals for example are able to consult the plans, contingencies and general rules, examine the local situation they are in and make a decision independent of others. A good framework would provide a reasonable expectation that the outcome of this would at least be good, if not the absolute optimal. This of course has its own problems, it is often more feasible to find a decent general then several decent marshals as well.

[Renodin]

I find myself agreeing a lot with De-Legro. What he is describing is how I attempted to run things when I was the Imperial Marshal for Luria Nova. I worked quite well I believe. It was different for some players who were used to the more traditional, centralized command of a single player but it allowed  a far wider playing field, deployment zone and drawing on the various qualities our realm was rich in.

Making mini Generals in a sense. Assign scouting bodies to armies that fluctuated. Outline general strategies, set goals, give resources to manage, short and long term objectives.

Outline clearly and regularly who is in control of what and who their second's are. Request updates and reports. Inform the realm in general ways and entrust marshals to inform their armies and allocate their resources. This freed up a lot of time for me, the actual general to move the piece on the theoretical chessboard. Not having to fuss over the details anymore.

The issue I ran into is that the Ruler was used to something different and felt the need ( I think ) to step in at times which led to the military leaders to make a choice who to listen to. Often this led to some minor friction at first but in the end I gained the trust of the people and ruler.

This way of command also allows for mistakes to be more easily absorbed. One element fails then you other can be moved in to do damage control or make a second attempt.

[Kai]

Yes, distance of the armies is irrelevant. Typical BM military organisation has the general making decisions every turn. There is a large emphasis on scouting as soon as a turn occurs so that the general has information from all front quickly, and is able to issue orders to all elements of the army quick enough to have a reasonable expectation of decent movement. This generally leads to burn out for various reasons but mostly because of the activity strain it places on a single player.

The distance was only relevant as one of the reasons that armies may not care about the other.

As has been mentioned military councils generally, though not always, fail due to not being able to put out orders fast enough. In theory it should spread responsibility among multiple players and help reduce burn out, but since in most cases it sticks to the concept of updated plans every turn, the collaborative nature often proves inefficient.

So there are two solutions usually seen. The first is a hierarchy such that if the general has not issued orders there is a clear chain for who will step in and do so. The second is a move away from realm level military changes every turn. Instead a plan of engagement is draw up, rules of engagement formulated. This is the generals domain and provides the framework for others. Instead of every turn this should really only be updated every few days as objectives are either achieved or failures are evident.

The chain of command then is responsible for the more regular updates. Marshals for example are able to consult the plans, contingencies and general rules, examine the local situation they are in and make a decision independent of others. A good framework would provide a reasonable expectation that the outcome of this would at least be good, if not the absolute optimal. This of course has its own problems, it is often more feasible to find a decent general then several decent marshals as well.

This is a restatement of what I didn't miss earlier. You've begun thinking about the problem but it is worse. Anyone that can function in the way you describe is competent enough to give orders to any of the armies. A realm operating in that way is simply lucky enough to have multiple generals. It is not difficult to see how this can be used to reduce order delay. Assigning such a person to a single army is just tradition and probably just inefficient, because if each such person is aware of the general plan, then they could give orders to any army.

BM is truly not large enough to benefit from a complicated chain of command.

Renodin: you sound like a management buzzword library.

[Renodin]

Renodin: you sound like a management buzzword library.

Professional life butting in, Guilty!

[Chenier]

Yes, distance of the armies is irrelevant. Typical BM military organisation has the general making decisions every turn. There is a large emphasis on scouting as soon as a turn occurs so that the general has information from all front quickly, and is able to issue orders to all elements of the army quick enough to have a reasonable expectation of decent movement. This generally leads to burn out for various reasons but mostly because of the activity strain it places on a single player.

As has been mentioned military councils generally, though not always, fail due to not being able to put out orders fast enough. In theory it should spread responsibility among multiple players and help reduce burn out, but since in most cases it sticks to the concept of updated plans every turn, the collaborative nature often proves inefficient.

So there are two solutions usually seen. The first is a hierarchy such that if the general has not issued orders there is a clear chain for who will step in and do so. The second is a move away from realm level military changes every turn. Instead a plan of engagement is draw up, rules of engagement formulated. This is the generals domain and provides the framework for others. Instead of every turn this should really only be updated every few days as objectives are either achieved or failures are evident.

The chain of command then is responsible for the more regular updates. Marshals for example are able to consult the plans, contingencies and general rules, examine the local situation they are in and make a decision independent of others. A good framework would provide a reasonable expectation that the outcome of this would at least be good, if not the absolute optimal. This of course has its own problems, it is often more feasible to find a decent general then several decent marshals as well.

I'm not in total agreement.

If the general is responsible for everything, then yes, it is burdensome for him. However, if you split the turn-by-turn responsibilities between, say, four marshals, then each of these marshals will not have but a fourth of the burden the general had. They will have nearly just as much. Yes, the more you manage, the more data you have to analyze and the more orders you need to send out, but that's not the core of the burden. The burden is actually being there early enough to give out orders. In fact, it's easier to manage an army of 30 nobles than an army of 7, because odds of getting early scout reports are significantly better with a larger army than a small one. And often, one can't/won't issue orders before having these scout reports.

Yes, distributing responsibilities lessens the general's burden. But it's more of a multiplication and transfer than a diffusal. Instead of having one guy who is so active and risks burnout, you'll need to find many. And as a general, whenever I would try to use this diffusal of responsibilities rhetoric, I'd often have to give up because I couldn't find anyone to do a decent job at it.

And I tend to view time zones as irrelevant. What matters is turn change, and being able to log in at that time. People wake up, work/study, and go to bed at different times, even within the same time zone, the player base is not homogenous.  What's important is when the player will log on, not what time of day it is in his part of the world when he does.

[De-Legro]

I'm not in total agreement.

If the general is responsible for everything, then yes, it is burdensome for him. However, if you split the turn-by-turn responsibilities between, say, four marshals, then each of these marshals will not have but a fourth of the burden the general had. They will have nearly just as much. Yes, the more you manage, the more data you have to analyze and the more orders you need to send out, but that's not the core of the burden. The burden is actually being there early enough to give out orders. In fact, it's easier to manage an army of 30 nobles than an army of 7, because odds of getting early scout reports are significantly better with a larger army than a small one. And often, one can't/won't issue orders before having these scout reports.

Yes, distributing responsibilities lessens the general's burden. But it's more of a multiplication and transfer than a diffusal. Instead of having one guy who is so active and risks burnout, you'll need to find many. And as a general, whenever I would try to use this diffusal of responsibilities rhetoric, I'd often have to give up because I couldn't find anyone to do a decent job at it.

And I tend to view time zones as irrelevant. What matters is turn change, and being able to log in at that time. People wake up, work/study, and go to bed at different times, even within the same time zone, the player base is not homogenous.  What's important is when the player will log on, not what time of day it is in his part of the world when he does.

That is the nature of responsibility in any form and situation. Taking the responsibility of one person at work for instance and splitting it between four people does not result in each shouldering 1/4 of a burden either. The burden that is directly affected however is not really the planning, but the pressure to never miss a turn.

[Indirik]

We've been trying to use a military council for orders in Sandalak, like we used to do in Perdan back in '06/'07. In Perdan the council would work out orders collectively within the first hour after the turn. Then when the hour was up, whoever was there would send the orders. Everyone would follow them. Worked great. The load was spread out over 10/12 people for each turn change, and there was *always* someone there to do it.

We're trying something like this in Sandalak, and it's not working very well, except for short periods at a time. You'd think that everyone would like the help. The non-leaders would like getting orders in a timely manner, and the marshals/general would appreciate not having to be there for every turn change. What we've found is that the players have not been able to adjust to anything other than the usual selfish behavior and the protecting of their personal authority that occurs on every other island.

From my point of view, the problems we run into are this:

1) You have to have clear direction from above on the overall strategy. Your ruler/general has to provide the long and medium term strategy that will be used. It could be "take region X", or "stop the enemy TO in region Y". Without a clear goal, people waffle around and go 10 different directions.

2) Multiple, sometimes conflicting, orders are being given. We've had cases where some people have gotten up to 5 different orders in one turn. People have to remember to copy their orders to the council. You wouldn't believe how many people bitch about having to copy/paste their army orders to the council. But if no one reports that the orders were sent, then no one knows they were sent, and they get reissued, possibly different than the first. Or the individual armies get different line settings/formations.

3) People not willing to make the final decision. You get 6 or 7 people taking about "we could do this" or "what do you think about this" for 2 hours. At the end no one makes the call and says "Do this!"

4) Marshals getting pissy about someone else giving orders that apply to their army. (But wait until they can't be there for a turn, and then get mad about all the army members asking why they didn't send orders!) This goes along with #5:

5) Army members getting pissy about taking orders from someone other than their marshal/vm. (And then when the marshal doesn't give orders because, you know, they have a life, they get pissed off that no one gave orders!) These two go along to create #6:

6) People getting pissy about orders not being out on time.

wtf people?! These last three, put together, just make life hell for the military leaders. Marshals don't want anyone else ordering their army, armies don't want anyone but their marshal giving them orders, and everyone gets angry when the one person from whom they will accept orders can't be there so they scream that the whole military command sucks!

And this doesn't even get into all the individual idiots who say things like "I won't accept orders from anyone who won't face me in a duel to the death!". Or the aggressive insulters who insist that they are god's gift to military strategy and everyone else is a moron.

You can design whatever kind of campaign you want. Make it as distributed as you want. Empower everyone with whatever authority you want to make whatever decisions. It's all pointless if the players won't buy in to it. So long as you have problems #4, #5, and #6 above, all your brilliant planning goes down the crapper as soon as one Marshal decides to go toss down a few beers with his buddies instead of mashing the reload button on his browser while he waits for sunrise.

Council *should* help with the whole process. It should spread out the load, allowing any of 20 or so people to make the decisions. At least until you run into problem #3: People unwilling to make the call on what to do. Sometimes it's because they're afraid they'll get yelled at for it, and sometimes because they don't want to cut other people out of the decision making process. But what's usually been happening is that you get a lot of questions and proposals, and not a lot of decisions.

The South Island is supposed to be heavily strategy dependent. A realm that can work out how to manage the work load inherent in fighting an active multi-front war against two enemies that are both trying to wipe you out, should be able to gain a significant advantage. (BTW - Have Ikalak and Taselak ever fought even a single battle against each other? It seems like they have focused exclusively on Sandalak from the very beginning.) People need to realize that things will work different on the South Island. Your orders may not come from your Marshal or VM. Just because you're not a Marshal or VM doesn't mean you can't give orders. You need to *gasp* COOPERATE.

I had hoped that the War Island would help rebuild some of the team spirit that we lost over the years. What I've found is that a vocal minority of the players seem to think that "War Island" means that you're supposed to play some bad-ass short-fused super-warrior who threatens everyone with death duel challenges over meaningless trivialities, that some people feel that the RP tag has no place on the War Island, and that people who like to play in a civil environment without gratuitous profanity are apparently supposed to play only on Dwilight.

[Lorgan]

I think you just can't expect the same level of respect, trust and focus that existed in Perdan between players that knew eachother for many years and had an established power base as in Sandalak where you've all been thrown in the pit together just a couple of months ago.

[Anaris]

I think you just can't expect the same level of respect, trust and focus that existed in Perdan between players that knew eachother for many years and had an established power base as in Sandalak where you've all been thrown in the pit together just a couple of months ago.

I don't think that has to be the case, though. I'd really love to create an environment where trust is the default, not suspicion and an insistence on being #1 from at least 1/3 of the players.

[Haerthorne]

I think you just can't expect the same level of respect, trust and focus that existed in Perdan between players that knew eachother for many years and had an established power base as in Sandalak where you've all been thrown in the pit together just a couple of months ago.

To be honest despite getting along with everyone very well there are only two people I'd trust to the extent of co-operating with them completely and utterly. It makes everything else starkly surprising.