Estate System

[Lorgan]

So apparently there's a lot of people unhappy with the estate system?
I find that intriguing because I have to say that it has been good to me.
I've been duke under all tax systems since 2004 and  I have to say that in my opinion this is hands-down the best one. All it demands is the willingness to put up with boring work in exchange for lots and lots of gold.
I am the guy who uses this system to aim for 10 knights as duke of a mediocre city and takes in everyone else who comes along (currently I've got 14 but during the invasion the same city supported 18 knights - which was the whole realm at the time). In another city I used exuberant estate support to make the city's normal income with 1/3 of the population.

My point is, if there are landless nobles in a realm where you're Duke: get started already and reap the heaps of gold and possible political power that come free with every city. If you have too little nobles: do something to attract new ones.

Lords of poor or distant regions however do have too much trouble attracting knights in the first place in my opinion.
And taking new regions could also use some tweaking to benefit realms who are short on nobles.
I kind of like the large patches of wasteland that have arisen on some fronts though. That is war how it should be fought: kill your enemies, burn their lands. On the other hand, before the blight Thalmarkin had to let several of our Northern rebellious, undead-spawning badlands go rogue in order to be able to expand one region South. 3 badlands for a strategically important stronghold is not too bad a trade but not all realms have the possibility of completely shielding a rogue area from other realms _and_ have a strategically important region bordering right next to them.
Therefore there should I believe always remain the possibility to take regions for tactical or even purely expansionist purposes.

Has anyone else had positive or negative experiences with the estate system?

[Revan]

I wrote an article on Estates in The Journal in September 2009. I pretty much still stand by all that now. In fact, I can hardly believe that it's been what? Three or four years since the noose of estates was first placed around BattleMaster's neck - and it's still there, unchanged, choking the life out of us.

I'm sure the trickle of new players we get nowadays really enjoy missing out on proper wars because their realm doesn't have enough nobles to even contemplate expansion. Instead they get sent ridiculous distances across entire continents for a battle or two. That or get stuck with maintenance duty. It isn't satisfying. And while it's all well and good saying realms should do more to woo nobles, we're all drawing from an ever diminishing pool. Now there are fewer than 800 active players.

Estates are killing BattleMaster.

[Bedwyr]

I'm with Revan.  I understand the reasoning behind it, but the way it ended up working out was godawful.  Dev team is actively working on fixing it, though, and the new estate system combined with open offers (so that lords and Dukes who need knights put out offers that people can see when starting a new character or emigrating or joining a new realm) should fix a lot, and bring in some nice new options (have your estate support your religion, for instance  ).

[egamma]

. Instead they get sent ridiculous distances across entire continents for a battle or two.

I agree with most of what you're saying but, I think that alliances with neighbors are what cause armies to march all the way across the continent. For example, Barony of Makar marching all the way south across Atamara, or Oriolton attacking Giblot--everyone knows that the march is for two reasons:

1. get rid of "too much peace" messages
2. leadership is too cowardly/lazy/friendly to attack an enemy that can actually fight back--ie their neighbors.

Even in Darka, we can't attack Talerium, so we have to march halfway to Makar and around the stupid lake, just to comply with a stupid treaty arrangement to stay out of Talerium.

[J-Duds]

While the execution might not be what we all hoped and dreamed (at this point its more like a pyramid scheme) I am a huge fan of the concept and really want to see it be successful. 

Story time.  So way back in the day (2007/8-ish?) I had a character in Caligus (EC) who was promoted to Baron of Scio, a small mountain region next to the capital with 800 pop, just enough food to feed itself, and a gold output of ~150.  Now, 1 knight was far more than adequate to maintain order and most people probably would have stopped there and gotten fat off the income.  But my character was in this for the glory and prestige that comes with becoming a lord, which he decided (for a number of reasons) to show by having a lot of knights serving him.  Long story short:  regular merciful courts and about 40 estate points in authority let him/me crank up the tax rate over 20% and keep 6+1 knights with respectable weekly incomes without losing any control or production in the region. 

In short:  Inherit very poor barony, add lots of estates, rival marches in both income and vassals, flaunt what ya got

[Perth]

2. leadership is too cowardly/lazy/friendly to attack an enemy that can actually fight back--ie their neighbors.

Kind of, but not really. If you don't have the nobles for expansion, attacking neighbors is motivated by the same "Get Rid of Too Much Peace" mentality as attacking people across the continent. If all you need is a battle every week or two to stave off TMP, why attack a neighbor whose territory you don't have the nobles to take and will only results in some of your own regions probably getting looted, when you can just attack someone far away, keep your regions healthy, and still stave off TMP? I think if people had the excess nobles to attack their enemy and, say, take one of their duchies, they would do it.

Look at Darka when they took the Massillion Duchy from Eston. They had the nobles to expand, they wanted to fight, so it didn't matter that Eston and Darka had been in a trend of working together lately, they just attacked us cause we were close and weaker and took a duchy. Easy as that.

[AlexR]

Long story short:  regular merciful courts and about 40 estate points in authority let him/me crank up the tax rate over 20% and keep 6+1 knights with respectable weekly incomes without losing any control or production in the region.

In short:  Inherit very poor barony, add lots of estates, rival marches in both income and vassals, flaunt what ya got

You must have a very, very different concept of what "respectable weekly income" is!
A rough estimate says that running 20% (at 150 gold) gets you ~215 and, 25% gets you ~268.

The 268 evenly divided by 7 works out to average income of 38 gold a week.  While impressive
from a poor region, that's far from respectable income and you also had to run court to maintain
that?  With such income it would take years to build and enlarge a single recruitment center...
(a reasonable infantry center took me 100+300 and needs another 500 to go to size 3)

[Kai]

You also have a very very strange concept of fun.

Run court all the time and wave your big knight dick.

If you think this is a reason why you want the estate system to succeed I think uh should be removed.

[Revan]

This is one of those moments were I'm not sure I'm inhabiting the same planet as some of my other BM players. I don't know where these promised lands are with realms literally drowning in nobles so they can hire six, 10, however many nobles at once per region. But as much as two years ago there were places in BattleMaster feeling the severe strain of noble shortage. That was with 1000 active players. Now we have 800 and the problem is only worse.

Why anyone is happy with a core game mechanic that we have to consider OOC before we even act IC is beyond me. The reason why places like Oritolon march across entire continents is because they don't even have enough nobles to hold what they have, let alone pick an expansionary war with a neighbour. Back in the day folks, we used to be able to go to war with our neighbours. Region stability wasn't tied to stacking up Knights. War came easy and it was fun. Now the first question any council member must ask when war is raised is 'do we have the nobles?'

This ain't TravelMaster. We're not planning holidays. If I started BattleMaster now and my only experience of battle and war was after a week or two's march every so often where nothing is risked and nothing is gained, I'd probably have stopped playing sharpish. Estates have done far more to harm BattleMaster's core experiences than player conservatism (as reflected by Too Much peace) ever did.

[Kain]

This is one of those moments were I'm not sure I'm inhabiting the same planet as some of my other BM players. I don't know where these promised lands are with realms literally drowning in nobles so they can hire six, 10, however many nobles at once per region. But as much as two years ago there were places in BattleMaster feeling the severe strain of noble shortage. That was with 1000 active players. Now we have 800 and the problem is only worse.

Why anyone is happy with a core game mechanic that we have to consider OOC before we even act IC is beyond me. The reason why places like Oritolon march across entire continents is because they don't even have enough nobles to hold what they have, let alone pick an expansionary war with a neighbour. Back in the day folks, we used to be able to go to war with our neighbours. Region stability wasn't tied to stacking up Knights. War came easy and it was fun. Now the first question any council member must ask when war is raised is 'do we have the nobles?'

This ain't TravelMaster. We're not planning holidays. If I started BattleMaster now and my only experience of battle and war was after a week or two's march every so often where nothing is risked and nothing is gained, I'd probably have stopped playing sharpish. Estates have done far more to harm BattleMaster's core experiences than player conservatism (as reflected by Too Much peace) ever did.

Yes, well spoken and I think your views are held by a great many battlemaster players.
As I understand it, the new estate system is on its way so we can just wait for that

[Revan]

In fact, while I'm here grumping, here's a link to a thread I killed with a veritable essay on what I think has happened to BattleMaster in the last six years and what the problems are. Seems as Estates, whilst a big factor, can't be the only reason why the playership is declining. I mean, I'm sure we could solve a lot of problems by simply closing a continent and adjusting the number of nobles you can have on Dwilight, but that would be a very sad day and doesn't really address the how and the why. Estates as presently constituted would work fine if we had the players for it.

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,196.msg2454.html#msg2454

[Indirik]

Look at Darka when they took the Massillion Duchy from Eston. They had the nobles to expand, they wanted to fight, so it didn't matter that Eston and Darka had been in a trend of working together lately, they just attacked us cause we were close and weaker and took a duchy. Easy as that.

Lies! Our attack was a pre-emptive strike to head off the planned Estonite invasion of Darka!   

You know it's true... 

[Sacha]

I thought it was because of the Duke of Massillion running his mouth about Darka

[egamma]

I mean, I'm sure we could solve a lot of problems by simply closing a continent and adjusting the number of nobles you can have on Dwilight, but that would be a very sad day and doesn't really address the how and the why.

I think closing a continent would be an excellent idea. The problem is, which one?

My suggestions are: Beluterra or the Colonies. Of course, everyone has their favorite continent, so here are my explanations:

Beluterra: half the continent is gone anyway.
Colonies: politics are at a standstill, with nobody wanting to take on Lukon. It's a pretty boring place to play.

[Forbes Family]

I have a few suggestions...

1. Allow each player 1 character/continent

2. Allow each player additional characters if they are a Lord and additional characters cannot be region Lords. (this would allow for expansion to a new region soften the blow to current estates by allowing the new region lord to start a new character with an estate)