Bored

[Fleugs]

It all depends on which realms you're in. There are some where numbers crunching is the number 1 national pastime, and there are others where you'll get a ton of RP. If one realm isn't to your liking, there's dozens of others you can try out.

Riombara has complex math class from 1pm to 3pm. Each day. Weekends included!

[Indirik]

Well,anyway, mechanics are not that complex.It's all about who has the most CS to throw at the enemy and who can recruit faster.

In a lot of cases, that's true. But then again, what else would you expect? CS is, after all, the "combat strength" of your army. All else being equal, if you have twice the combat strength of your enemy, then you *should* win. If not, then the system is messed up. Badly.

Your task as a military leader is to make sure that all else is not equal. There are things that you can use to your advantage to help you win. This includes things like troop type balance, fortifications, terrain, infiltrators, scouting, troop discipline, diplomacy, etc., etc. If you think the only way to win is "bigger blob of troops", then you're seriously missing out on a lot.

Not that "the bigger the blob, the better the job" isn't sometimes exactly what is required. Things like assaulting cities and strongholds come to mind.

[mikm]

Pherhaps if recruitment was harder,then you wouldn't throwing their troops on suicide misions.

[Indirik]

Suicide missions are not always well-received by the players. It really depends on how well you can convince your fellow nobles that this missions is really necessary. Quite a few people are proud of their troops, and don't appreciate when they are thrown away on a whim.

About two months ago, there was a huge debate and series of complaints about a battle that, after it happened, many of the nobles in the army thought was known to have been a suicide mission. Darka barely won the battle, but succeeded in wiping out a rather large CE army. Even though we won, we were mostly wiped out, too, and left to straggle home with our own broken army. I almost thought the army was going to revolt over that one.

[Sacha]

What good is a shiny unit if all you're gonna do is parade it around like an !@#$%^&? Soldiers are for dyin', man.

[egamma]

What good is a shiny unit if all you're gonna do is parade it around like an !@#$%^&? Soldiers are for dyin', man.

Soldiers are for killing. They can't do that if they're dead.

[Sacha]

It's all about how many enemies they can kill before they die.

[De-Legro]

Well,anyway, mechanics are not that complex.It's all about who has the most CS to throw at the enemy and who can recruit faster.

If that is the extent of your understanding of what is possible with game mechanics, you really haven't investigated all that part of the game offers. If RP is what you are after, I recommend looking into a realm that is known for it, Arcaea, Arcachon and Zonasa on the FEI all have good reputation for RP.

[Chenier]

That might help the flavor, but will certainly do no favors to BM as a strategy game. Are some of us forgetting that BM is as much a strategy game as it is a roleplaying game? There will always be a conflict to get the right balance of both genres, but I'm pretty sure making everything too descriptive with no reliable way to make even semi-precise estimate is going to lead to lots of people going "this combat system sucks! (more than it already does!)"

Most people I talk with, myself included, have no idea what the descriptive texts mean, other than the really good and really bad ones. When I see something else than Hateful, Worshipful, or Enthralled for loyalty, for example, I have no idea how bad or acceptable the situation is, and whether or not intervention is really required. So I'm just prompted to try to bring it back to Worshipful, which I know is safe and for which possible drops will not put the region in the danger zone.

Same with huge battle reports, and I'm actually the one to have suggested that, that we only know the number of men. Sure, it's more realistic, but I still feel a feeling of disappointment by not knowing if one's soldiers were any better than the other's.

I like when alternatives to raw numbers and the like are present, but unfulfilled when they replace them. That's just me and the bunch I tend to socialize with, though. I've gotten a liking to expressing myself simply and not wasting my time with a ton of fluff to say simple things over time...

[De-Legro]

Pherhaps if recruitment was harder,then you wouldn't throwing their troops on suicide misions.

Suicide mission quickly empty your RC's, requiring drafting measures which invariably lower the stats of your regions, aside from the fact that recruitment cost tend to drain gold reserves. Arcaea recently had to spend alot of effort to ensure we were fighting battles that preserved the majority of our force while still protecting our land in order to boost our armies back above the 13-15k mark that was our limit if most the army was refitting at the one time. All things being equal the fewer troops you lose and need to replace, the better and the larger the army you can support.

[mikm]

Just bored with the game mechanics.

[Telrunya]

Most people I talk with, myself included, have no idea what the descriptive texts mean, other than the really good and really bad ones. When I see something else than Hateful, Worshipful, or Enthralled for loyalty, for example, I have no idea how bad or acceptable the situation is, and whether or not intervention is really required. So I'm just prompted to try to bring it back to Worshipful, which I know is safe and for which possible drops will not put the region in the danger zone.

It's colourcoded and everything to give you an indication on how bad it is. If you spend some time on keeping regions in shape, you will figure it out quickly enough. The whole thing gives a lot less obsession with keeping it at exactly 100% at least.

[Bael]

If that is the extent of your understanding of what is possible with game mechanics, you really haven't investigated all that part of the game offers. If RP is what you are after, I recommend looking into a realm that is known for it, Arcaea, Arcachon and Zonasa on the FEI all have good reputation for RP.

While I have only an adventurer in Zonasa, I can favourably report that even the busier nobles (Council members) take time to RP.

Same with huge battle reports, and I'm actually the one to have suggested that, that we only know the number of men. Sure, it's more realistic, but I still feel a feeling of disappointment by not knowing if one's soldiers were any better than the other's.

It would be nice to have a report on which noble's unit distinguished itself on the battlefield. Say, whichever one killed the most men/did the most hits, with wounded Knights counted as extra points, wounded Lords more, and Captured the next, with killing a hero the most (although capturing a council member might be seen as more prestigious). And perhaps a runner-up unit.

The blurb would be something like: Keplerstan's unit was seen to distinguish itself on the battlefield, killing almost/over (so many score men), injuring (names) and capturing (name of nobles).

Edit: Or perhaps an alternate document that you can choose to view, which ranks all the units according to amount of men killed (and the whole nobles thing). Although this would not really be that realistic I suspect.

[Indirik]

Most people I talk with, myself included, have no idea what the descriptive texts mean, other than the really good and really bad ones. When I see something else than Hateful, Worshipful, or Enthralled for loyalty, for example, I have no idea how bad or acceptable the situation is, and whether or not intervention is really required. So I'm just prompted to try to bring it back to Worshipful, which I know is safe and for which possible drops will not put the region in the danger zone.

I hated the idea of that particular change. Still don't really like it, but I can live with it. In fact, it wouldn't bother me at all if the words were completely removed and replaced with a simple colored box that went from bright green to dark red. (In fact, I think I would prefer that a lot more than the words.) But that's a bit hard on the color blind people, isn't it? 

Anyway, the point is that I have no idea what all the different descriptive words are. If you put them all in front of me I couldn't arrange them in order. The effect that they've had on region maintenance in general, though, I think has been positive. You don't see people obsessing over "Gotta get 100%" all the time.

I still don't like it. But I can deal with it. Because they have colors.

[Indirik]

Edit: Or perhaps an alternate document that you can choose to view, which ranks all the units according to amount of men killed (and the whole nobles thing). Although this would not really be that realistic I suspect.

I really don't think anything like this will ever happen. That's more of an RTS of FPS style "leaderboard" thing than fits within the feel of BattleMaster. The Huge Battle  Reports already list some of the information, such as captured and severely wounded nobles. If you want all the details, get your hands on the original battle report and you get everything.