I've read only about half of this post and a few from others. Generally, there are those who will stay and who will not. Those that will stay are not going to outweigh any positive reaction while those who leave will give a negative reaction to the game. I for one, with my current characters placement, would be impact by this change but I would nevertheless, will still continue. But what worries me most is those who left especially some who really built their characters to attune with mine (even though secondary, not all just remains it as puppet). I can generally speak up that a lot of players will hate artificial changes or forced to make one. We cannot however force a character out of an island and I really suggest if 2 characters in the same island were to remain, a note like, "You are not allow to take political position (be it Lord, Duke or Council position) due to the influence of your family member that has another position", would be suffice. Yes, some realms may fall but I also understand the predicament of the players because they would wish to uphold that 'little history', nevertheless. If this 2 characters in the same island is remain and by imposing the position restriction, you can increase the density of knights per realm (which would very much improve region output).
However, with the changes made (to be made), making this changes would affect gameplay but I'm not out to detest these changes. I would like to recommend a little tweak because if one can take away, one should also give. My recommendation may or may not be justified but I feel this is what is needed to be done:
1: Old characters
- There is surely more old characters around in the game and one very difficult issue is the hours in a turn, tuning it will get rid of the dependency of a second character using it as a puppet to attain scout reports or do what the primary character isn't able to do. We are already getting 16 hours per turn (8 hours per turn) and there's not much you can do even with that. It will be okay if one keeps it but it is a penalty if characters are on the move and I'm sure many are prompted for a second character because of this. Either release the age penalty or increase the age whereby the age penalty would come to affect. I justify this with the second character usually far apart in age with the primary character.
2: Scouting
- It takes an hour to scout which is costly. I would suggest whereby scouting doesn't take any hours at all because it doesn't make sense to take the character's hour when the scout is actually doing the moving. When one sends a scout, it will take an hour or two in real-time for the reports to generate OR instant reports but with the report being inaccurate. Increasing the perks of how scout would value a battalion where the scout judge by banners when an army is stationed (scouts shouldn't be able to come near a camp) and maybe by marching movement if on the move (more accurate), I believe would bring a very far ahead excitement to the game. Yeah, a bit complicated but it's an idea.
3: Priest
- Priest characters are counted as noble counts and the priesthood is acting less a noble in average, the character itself, is under-powered. Tuning the priest character and allow more restricted actions can bring out what religion can bring to the game. Battlemaster (the name says itself) is all about how one can bring war into a nation and I would very much like to see sparking more crusade war. This would not only make it more lively but enhance creativity (which I have seen a lot). Put in more function and the players will let the ball rolling. With the one per island change, a priest can be closed to useless and would not encourage people to get that character (some may disagree but I will go with agree to disagree). Lastly, take out the restriction where a religion falls when their last priest leaves. A priest should be a way to strengthen a religion and maybe a spirituous leader, nothing less. Without a priest, I can see the religion falling by itself, there's no need for expecting that religion to fall if there's no priest anyway. You would expect realms to be closing shops but I see religions will be impacted more if nothing is done.
All these may attune BM to a more heavier game but I would like to beg a differ as giving so much feature doesn't mean a player would use them all. And sorry if it's long