Author Topic: Atamara's Fate  (Read 61677 times)

Medron Pryde

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #30: May 05, 2016, 09:09:19 PM »
It was WAY beyond conversations actually.

And if you'd read what I wrote you would have seen that.

The war had already started.  The Federation was broken.  Two new nations had already appeared and a third was about to happen.

Most of the realms on the island were at war.  Actually, I think ALL of them were.

I understand that a lot of people left Atamara because it became PeaceMaster.  The rulers figured that out and did what they had to do to fix it.  I recognize that the changes in Atamara were too slow and too late for those who had left the island.  I've seen the hatred and vitriol that some people aim at the island.  But what they hated was gone.  What they hated was not what the devs sunk.

Comparing the continent they left to the continent the devs sunk is ignoring all the evidence of what happened on Atamara.  It is ignoring all the work the players went through to make it fun again.

The devs sunk an island rushing headlong into total war.  Armies, made of players, were marching in the far north, the far south, and all over the middle of Atamara.  And that is the whole idea of BattleMaster.

Anaris

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #31: May 05, 2016, 09:30:08 PM »
I understand that a lot of people left Atamara because it became PeaceMaster.  The rulers figured that out and did what they had to do to fix it.  I recognize that the changes in Atamara were too slow and too late for those who had left the island.  I've seen the hatred and vitriol that some people aim at the island.  But what they hated was gone.  What they hated was not what the devs sunk.

Unfortunately, the rulers figured that out about 6 years after the players did.

I tried playing on Atamara for a while in about 2011, and it was already nearly impossible to do anything that even remotely opposed the Cagilan bloc's will.

I would add one more thing, however:

It's not completely the fault of the Cagilan bloc.

The rulers of the other realms, and the players in the other realms, could have (at least for a while; it would have become impossible towards the end as power consolidated too much) banded together to oppose the Empire and possibly broken it up. But they wouldn't have been able to do so without absolute commitment, and that is really hard to get. I was in a similar position personally in about 2006 trying to get Beluaterra to band together against Enweil, which was having a similar warping effect on diplomacy there at the time.

Individually, players and realms don't have nearly enough incentive to risk destruction (or near-destruction) at the hands of the behemoth, even if the prize is a continent where there is no behemoth dictating diplomacy. Each one knows, for certain, that if they oppose the behemoth, they will lose.

And they're right.

Only together—probably with every single realm not a firm member of the bloc, in Atamara's case—would they have had any hope of defeating even a single realm of the bloc and changing the shape of diplomacy on the island. And from what I can tell, at least, that's been true since well before I tried it out 5 years ago.

In the end, the only way to get a continent out of a situation like that is to have a significant fraction of its upper echelon agree to act against their characters' interests in some manner to cause the bloc to break up, whether it's by committing to a grand alliance against the bloc, or having the bloc start to break up from within. And while that's a hard thing to do, it's important to remember that our characters don't get to dictate our actions. We get to dictate theirs. And if what we feel like our characters "would do" is in direct conflict with what is best for the game...sometimes we need to find a reason for our characters to do something else.
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Shulee

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #32: May 05, 2016, 11:18:27 PM »

Comparing the continent they left to the continent the devs sunk is ignoring all the evidence of what happened on Atamara.  It is ignoring all the work the players went through to make it fun again.


I did read what you wrote. Here, I'll be more direct: the behind the scenes planning is/was the problem all along. Once again an elite cabal was deciding how to fix things whilst remaining in charge. 

Medron Pryde

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #33: May 06, 2016, 09:05:30 AM »
Yes, Cagil and Tara won on Atamara because of two major things.

1) The two realms were united at the hip.  If you fought one, you fought the other.  Except for a very small handful of times.  Cagil declared peace with Carelia while Tara was fighting them and left Tara to try to sue for peace.  That was a bad time for Tara for a while.  But the vast majority of the time, the two realms acted near enough as one that it was almost impossible to break them.

2) Cagil was VERY good at buying off or otherwise convincing other realms to side with Cagil and Tara even against other friends.  No alliance was safe from Cagilan money or other forms of diplomacy.  Just about every war we won, we did so because Cagil pealed one or two nations off the other side and got them to come over to our side.  Of course, none of those nations still lived in the end.  Every single one was targeted and destroyed in later wars.  Only Tara and Talerium were never victim of such a strategy.

And yes.  In the end there was no alliance of nations that could hold against the Cagilan-Taran Alliance.  All nations that survived to the end did so because they became allied with Cagil, Strombran, or Tara and used the Federated Status of those big three to keep from being targeted.

That situation became untenable when Strombran and Cagil chose to destroy Carelia which was allied with Tara.  Multiple Taran Tyrants resigned in a row over that situation.  And when I became Tyrant I was informed in no uncertain terms that I had to give up Carelia.  I couldn't say no because Tara was too disorganized to stand up to either Cagil or Strombran at the time.  But I did welcome all the Carelian nobles into Tara and used them to help revitalize my nation and make it strong again.  The Carelian general became my general for instance.  And I spent the next year working to get the other members of the League of the Eagle to realize that the situation as it was could not continue.

I was of course smart enough to never SAY that.  Not when it would have turned into a Taran clubbering at the hands of the other nations.  But I and my general had this understanding.  He did things I of course would never condone.  And when it came out that he did that...well...then he had to be ordered back...but...you know...the army marched, broke some stuff, and then came home.  Refitted.  Went out and hunted some monsters.  Came back.  Refitted.  Went out and smashed something somewhere else.  I would of course apologize and call them back.  Dang general getting a bit frisky and all that.  Not that I ever told him to go do it.  Honestly.  I didn't.  Though I may have made some idle wishes known.  ;)  So he played the belligerent and got our armies moving and doing things and marching as a real coherent force while I worked to restrain my overzealous general for the League of the Eagle.   8)

Then Strombran bellied up to the table and went further than I was ever prepared to go when it came to stuff like that.  Heck.  They played belligerent, admitted in total in the League of the Eagle, and basically dared anybody to call them on it.

Like I said.  I spent a year trying to get everybody to see that the current power structure was unworkable.  That it stifled the continent.  And I was not the only one who was doing that.  I wont give out names, but I was in contact with a LOT of people who were working very hard to break up the League of the Eagle.  People both within the League and without.  And in the end, we convinced the entire League of the Eagle that we were right.  It had to be broken up.

Once the League came to an agreement on that point, we talked about doing it in an orderly manner that would have kept us on top and in charge of the surviving power structure.  We actually came up with several very interesting plans to do that.  I generally argued for plans that would significantly weaken all four of our realms.  Each one would have broken up into two or three realms, each with no more than two cities to give us parity with the other realms on the island.  My proposals were the most radical.  We had a lot of very interesting plans on "how to fix things whilst remaining in charge" as Shulee so elegantly put it.

In the end though, we did not initiate any of those plans.  We couldn't really agree on any of them.  All we could agree on was that the situation had to change.  So...we just rolled the dice.  Granted, I'd spent the last year LOADING my dice, but when I pulled Tara out of the Federation and started the war, it was one heck of a roll of the dice.  And there was every chance that Tara would be utterly destroyed doing it.  There was no guarantee at all of remaining in charge.

The "elite cabal" at the heart of the League of the Eagle just agreed to shake everything up, bring down the power structure as it was, and see where things led.  There was every possibility that we were sealing our doom in a war that would destroy all of our realms.  We each wanted to make certain it was the OTHER realms that fell of course, but we were all willing to accept the risk that it would be ours instead.  Or all of ours.

None of us knew where it was going to lead, and I'm very sorry that we never got to find out what was going to happen.

I generally focus my projections on two direction.  Best case and worst case.

Best case.  Talerium, Minas Leon, Tara, and the southern alliance work together to smash Cagil and Strombran, forcing some of their dukes to break away or die, and leaving them a shattered group of city states.  It's MY best case.  Sue me.  ;)  Then Tara breaks up into two or three nations that are each no more powerful than any of the other nations on the continent, and...bang...power structure reset with me in charge of Foda and that's about it...that would have been my happy "ending" for the war.

My worst case ending was Tara getting into a knock down drag out fight with Cagil and Strombran, only to be jumped by Minas Leon and the southern alliance when they decided that they could still have a chance of taking out Cagil and Strombran without Tara on their side.  Now I was doing everything I could diplomatically to make sure worst case did not happen to Tara, but our little Tyrant and General Two Step had pissed off most of the realms on Atamara to a lesser or greater degrees.  So...yeah...I consider the worst case scenario to have been VERY possible.  Maybe even probable.

But that was the risk we all took when we decided to destroy the existing power structure on Atamara.

Noone you know

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #34: May 06, 2016, 10:10:36 AM »
This last post is a perfect example of how wrapped up the ruling elite got with themselves.

I can see you patting yourself on the back, oblivious to the fact that only 10 people on the island had any idea of any of that, and the rest hated your group with a passion.

Even now, it just doesn't sink in with you that the rest of us are not impressed.

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #35: May 06, 2016, 10:26:32 AM »
Sorry, I truncated a lot of that quotation to get to the point: None of that was visible to the ordinary noble. It's great some people had a game going on, but it wasn't one anyone else got to play for far too long.

Well Talerium often had some play going on somewhere, same with Caergoth, although the latter had a difficult situation we as players there said we'd rather be destroyed than sit still. Atamaran nobles could've changed realms also if that was the only problem.
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Medron Pryde

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #36: May 06, 2016, 01:11:04 PM »
Even now, it just doesn't sink in with you that the rest of us are not impressed.

As I said before, I recognize some people had given up on the island, and I recognize that some people will never see anything good on the island.

The rest of us worked to make it better.

An interesting point is that the rulers and such of almost every nation were actually in the League of the Eagle.  Not as full members of course, but they had signed up at guild houses and could get messages sent to everyone rather than just full members.  And when we began discussing the end of the League of the Eagle and how we would do it, the messages were sent to everyone.  There were some 40 people on that list as I remember, from almost every nation on the continent.

We in no way hid our intention to change everything.

The war between Tara and Cagil/Strombran was VERY public.
The war between the southern alliance and Cagil/Strombran was VERY public.
The war between Talerium and northern alliance was VERY public.

Everyone on the continent got the rumors of battles and declarations of war that were broadcast for all to hear.

If you thought that nothing was going on on Atamara then you were either not paying attention or were unwilling to see what was happening around you.

You might not know everything going on behind the scenes and the REASON for all of that if your rulers did not inform you, but that is not anything I can be in charge of.  The rest, anyone logging in and reading their messages could see without any problem.

Medron Pryde

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #37: May 06, 2016, 01:18:43 PM »
Well Talerium often had some play going on somewhere, same with Caergoth, although the latter had a difficult situation we as players there said we'd rather be destroyed than sit still. Atamaran nobles could've changed realms also if that was the only problem.

Minas Leon and the other one or two nations up north were fighting Talerium as well.

The south was...buggered due to diplomacy but we tried to get it rolling.  And then Tara broke the federation and EVERYTHING changed down there.  I was rather happy to see all those nations down there getting together into a..."happy?" alliance.  Hehehe.  Of course I was afraid that the long term goal of that alliance was going to be Tara ground down and spit out but...hey...its a game.  That would be an exciting way to go...;)

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #38: May 06, 2016, 01:25:25 PM »
Minas Leon and the other one or two nations up north were fighting Talerium as well.

The south was...buggered due to diplomacy but we tried to get it rolling.  And then Tara broke the federation and EVERYTHING changed down there.  I was rather happy to see all those nations down there getting together into a..."happy?" alliance.  Hehehe.  Of course I was afraid that the long term goal of that alliance was going to be Tara ground down and spit out but...hey...its a game.  That would be an exciting way to go...;)

I know since I was both in Talerium and Caergoth. I agree that much was happening, but can actually understand the decision of the admins in respect to sinking the island. Could the island have become fun again? Hell yes, but there are problems on a larger scale which the sinking at least helped against. The reasoning behind their decision was not bad and carefully thought out this time. Yes I thought it was unfortunate, but at the same time I'm having fun now in realms I never thought I'd ever go to (colonies for instance is awesome, in Oritolon at least. Never would have thought that).
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Medron Pryde

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #39: May 06, 2016, 08:17:21 PM »
I agree that they had valid and well thought out reasons for doing what they did.

They believed that they needed to sink two islands and they picked the two that were least fun in their opinion.

I think they were wrong to sink Atamara, but I do understand the reasons for why they did it.

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #40: May 07, 2016, 09:07:21 AM »
Quote
The rest of us worked to make it better.

An interesting point is that the rulers and such of almost every nation were actually in the League of the Eagle.  Not as full members of course, but they had signed up at guild houses and could get messages sent to everyone rather than just full members.  And when we began discussing the end of the League of the Eagle and how we would do it, the messages were sent to everyone.  There were some 40 people on that list as I remember, from almost every nation on the continent.

I'm sorry, you're willfully warping things to suit your own argument.

I was an Elder when I was Ruler of CE. Everything of consequence went through a dozen or so Elders, and no one else.

But the *real* damage was done because these Elders were never removed. So when a realm elected "new faces", the Old Guard was still sitting in there with as much influence was ever. Since they were the majority, and the ruling oligarchy, little could change.

Even as ruler of CE I couldn't do anything because all my Dukes sat in the Guild and negotiated against my will. There was little or nothing I could do to defend the will of my Realm - which was quite vocally the opposite of what the Dukes wanted.

And since there was little or nothing I could do to kick out the Dukes, CE's common nobles were essentially !@#$ed to put up with your !@#$.

Until the island sank, thanks to all your cleverness.

Gabanus family

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #41: May 07, 2016, 08:06:35 PM »
You do realize that Medron was in Tara right and that he wasn't really what you'd call "the old guard".

And yeah it's normal for Dukes to have that much power. If the majority of your realm is however 'against' them you have some options as the ruler. Those Dukes that do not follow the will of the nobility, ban them one by one (reclaim city before you move to the next) for what ever reason you want to. If said Duke is a royal (prob a few in CE's case) you have them stabbed in stead by infiltrators. Once the infil succeeds, you can appoint someone else as Duke. You can prob do that once and then some of the Dukes either rebel, or do something else. But with enough people to support this (as you say the whole realm except the Dukes pretty much) either the rebellion fails, or they form their own realms. In both cases you would have made Atamara much more fun. It's easier though to blame others and not look also at yourself.
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GundamMerc

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #42: May 07, 2016, 10:56:31 PM »
You do realize that Medron was in Tara right and that he wasn't really what you'd call "the old guard".

And yeah it's normal for Dukes to have that much power. If the majority of your realm is however 'against' them you have some options as the ruler. Those Dukes that do not follow the will of the nobility, ban them one by one (reclaim city before you move to the next) for what ever reason you want to. If said Duke is a royal (prob a few in CE's case) you have them stabbed in stead by infiltrators. Once the infil succeeds, you can appoint someone else as Duke. You can prob do that once and then some of the Dukes either rebel, or do something else. But with enough people to support this (as you say the whole realm except the Dukes pretty much) either the rebellion fails, or they form their own realms. In both cases you would have made Atamara much more fun. It's easier though to blame others and not look also at yourself.

You make it sound much, much easier than it was. I had a lot of people agree that Atamara sucked, but weren't willing to "change their characters" to make it better.

jaune

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #43: May 07, 2016, 11:04:09 PM »
I blame the south :)
We had thousand bucks chanche to beat the crap out of CE.. but southern front left Carelia alone, infact joined wrong side after all :P Oh well, north didnt do much better either in the long run...

But Darka could have kicked CE's butt any day, but Talerium were between us :P
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Noone you know

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #44: May 08, 2016, 08:34:07 AM »
You can't "have them stabbed" when they sit in their city with 100+ men in a personal troop, and 5,000cs militia.

Infils can't get through that many, and if they can, it is no guarantee that they lose their Duchy (unlikely, in most cases).

There is very little you can do against a Duke who has been sitting in his city for a long time.