Author Topic: General role  (Read 4544 times)

Wimpie

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General role
« Topic Start: January 23, 2017, 08:23:14 PM »
Hi all,

Been talking to someone through the game who does not have an account on this Forum but is playing a lot of different roles. I figured I might as well put this on the Forum (he mentioned it as well), to see what everyone thinks about it.

To be clear, I don't really have an opinion on this, because I mostly play non-military roles.

Quote
Just been comparing my General with a Non-General character.

General has just these extra powers:

Commands
1. Step down
2. Generals bulletin
3. Assign militia

4. Other: Can see total CS and composition (infantry/etc split) on the other Info>> Armies screen, though any player can see total CS on the Politics>>Armies page.

I suggest two improvements to the General role:
1. Allow the General to see the same as a Marshal on the Armies page.
2. General should be able to appoint the Marshal and Vice-Marshal, along with the sponsor.

Otherwise might as well merge the Marshal and General roles.

Ps. Army sponsor should be able to revoke Marshal appointment access to the General, just as a regional lord can revoke the Bankers access to granaries.

I've seen several improvements to the banker role in the last year which makes them much more useful. Now the General role needs the same reforms.

Having played a lot with all the Government positions, I really like the powers of the other three, it's just the General that sucks (Marshal
Is far more powerful than General yet not elected).

Powers:

Ruler: Handles diplomacy and government/capital/duchies settings.
Judge: Xan hold courts anywhere, has load of fun options with prisoners, can discipline realm mates.
Banker: Can trade foood in all regions, can go corrupt in he black market, see overall food and tax reports, can call an early tax.
General: Er...can assign militia!!!!!!!!!!!!
Osgar (Thalmarkin, BT), Jeames (Perleone, EC)
PAUSED: Nasgar (Avernus, DWI), Jari (Outer Tilog, COL)

Gabanus family

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Re: General role
« Reply #1: January 23, 2017, 11:12:04 PM »
I'm not exactly sure what we're missing when you're just General vs Marshal in terms of info. My char Garas on EC has been General, but not Marshal, for quite a long while now and I've never felt like I was missing something tbh.

Under 'information' the General has an option to 'view armies' which gives you a detailed overview of the different units, how strong they are, where they are, if they're stationary/traveling/wounded etc. I'm not sure what we're missing considering the first point which was raised here.

In many realms General and Marshal of the main army are the same people, but if you're not I do not feel as if you're missing out a lot. There are several different scenarios in which your General is not a marshal and different types of roles emerge from that. I would see no reason why we would ever want to merge them, but I'm not missing anything either. So if he/she could clarify a bit more specifically what is missing?

As to the second point, I disagree entirely. The fact that the army sposor can dictate the marshal and not the General is actually an amazing feature. Most of the time, sponsors just appoint who the hell the General wants, but I've seen cases where sponsors go against the General and you actually get some action because of it within the realm. In those cases it's often tied to one political camp or another etc, which makes for some awesome experiences.

The General is probably the most powerful and influentual character in many realms, but its power does not necessarily come from the game mechanic features themselves. The need of a good general is always high in BM and if you have one, you can often gain quite some support and followers to a point where you can even disregard the ruler often.

Also never underestimate the important of assigning and removing militia, especially in 1 situation 'rebellions'. Many, if not most succesful rebellions are supported or led by the General as far as I've seen and that's because the General can first of all give orders for a march, but keep enough rebels in the capital to 'refit'. Secondly the general can dismantle all the militia in the capital and make it a walk in the park for the rebels to take controll, especially if the main army is away.
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Garas: First Oligarch - Goriad: Astrum - Goriad II: Obia'Syela

JDodger

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Re: General role
« Reply #2: January 24, 2017, 05:28:00 AM »
General is actually a pretty pointless role in terms of game mechanics, as highlighted by the nameless player.

However Gabanus is correct that a General's role and influence are usually greater than the limited powers he has in the code.

I agree that Generals should be able to view as much detail on armies as Marshals. They do not get nearly as much detailed info as Marshals which doesn't make much sense.

Other than that the position is fine.
By the way, would love to see you coordinate three realms without having an OOC teamspeak with everyone on it.

Wimpie

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Re: General role
« Reply #3: January 24, 2017, 08:34:26 AM »
I'm not exactly sure what we're missing when you're just General vs Marshal in terms of info. My char Garas on EC has been General, but not Marshal, for quite a long while now and I've never felt like I was missing something tbh.

Under 'information' the General has an option to 'view armies' which gives you a detailed overview of the different units, how strong they are, where they are, if they're stationary/traveling/wounded etc. I'm not sure what we're missing considering the first point which was raised here.

...

The information regarding detailed CS per unit and their status etc is only viewable for Marshals and the Army Sponsor, not the General.

I think this is the main concern of this player, as JDodger also pointed out. The other ideas are more like a brain storm of his own opinion.

Myself, I do tend to like sponsors being able to appoint their own Marshals, for the reason you pointed out. As far as who can view what information, I am too uninvolved in such positions to really know whether it is annoying.
Osgar (Thalmarkin, BT), Jeames (Perleone, EC)
PAUSED: Nasgar (Avernus, DWI), Jari (Outer Tilog, COL)

Gabanus family

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Re: General role
« Reply #4: January 24, 2017, 10:11:25 AM »
The information regarding detailed CS per unit and their status etc is only viewable for Marshals and the Army Sponsor, not the General.

Aah I see. I may not be Marshal, but am the army sponsor which is why I didn't notice the problem.

In that case I agree that it makes sense in the current BM climate to make that info visible to the General as well.

My point on the army sponsor vs general remains the same.
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Garas: First Oligarch - Goriad: Astrum - Goriad II: Obia'Syela

Chenier

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Re: General role
« Reply #5: January 24, 2017, 12:53:17 PM »
That info was removed from the generals when we wanted to delegate to marshals more, in a time where we had many nobles but most titles hogged by a few. I don't think giving the generals more info/power at this time would be all that harmful.
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Dogsbody

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Re: General role
« Reply #6: January 27, 2017, 12:10:23 PM »
Thanks for the feedback everyone and thanks to Wimpie for adding my comment.

I have a day off today so clearly top priority was re-activating my account here!

We try to delegate power as much as possible in Vix Tiramora (along the theme of it being a democracy), and my character got to the point where he was General, Marshal, King and Duke. So as a first step to fix, I asked Wimpie to delegate the Marshal position (he is sponsor) and also appoint a Vice-Marshal, with the hope of grooming these two for the General position.

But then I noticed the amount of information I had on the Info>>>View Armies screen dropped. Before I could see the CS and readiness (which drops due to damage etc) of each unit. After, this info disappeared. So now the 'View armies' screen for my General is almost identical to my Non-General character, only differences are:
1. The General sees total CS at the bottom (but this can be seen by anyone on the Politics>>>List the armies screen anyway.
2. The General sees total army composition (archers etc)
3. The Generals sees this info for each army, if several are running.

My opinion is that the General should see the same info as the Marshals. It's very difficult to make decisions as to who needs to refit without this.

Having played all the difference BM roles (though my infil got executed straight away so that's my weak area), I think the military is by far the hardest and most stressful area to play. It's great that there's a split between the General and Marshal/VM, but both needs certain info to do their job.

As for my other point, a General should be able to appoint Marshals, that's the military hierarchy. I agree with the point about the Sponsor disagreeing with the General, but we already have a good mechanic elsewhere for that: Region Lords can revoke the Banker's access to their granary. Likewise, the sponsor should be able to revoke access to the General. I don't know which dev came up with that Banker improvement but I thought it was awesome.
Daedalus: Vix Tiramora - Draco: Westfold - Dido: Ar Agyr - Deirdre The Younger - Ikalak

Chenier

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Re: General role
« Reply #7: January 27, 2017, 03:13:11 PM »
The point was that generals shouldn't be giving orders to individuals, that's the marshals' job. Generals give orders to marshals. Generals handle strategy and marshals tactics, in a way, at least that's how it was intended.

For example, General Bob would order marshal A to take his army on the western front to clear the rogues, and marshal B to go conduct a takeover of a given region. When to leave, what regions to take, what formations to use, what takeover actions to favor, and such, would be determined by the marshals in due time.

Overall, this tends to give little responsibility to the general title, though, so the general is usually also a marshal. And honestly, while this is the idea, I've rarely seen it work all that well.

As for who assigns the marshals, this is a reflection of the feudal hierarchy. These aren't modern armies, with a centralized command. Troops are paid by a large number of individuals, with support from other individuals, under the command of many independent folk. The general has no de jure power over anyone, he's more of a public servant.
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Gabanus family

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Re: General role
« Reply #8: January 27, 2017, 04:51:34 PM »
As Chenier mentioned earlier, this was also created in a time where we had more players and typically also more armies. I know only few realms which really use more than 1 army and if they do, it's often 1 smaller elite army on the side which actually does work quite as planned, as those elite armies often have autonomy.

The main question with having less info for the General is, do we want to keep that process alive? If the answer is yes, then most Generals would have to be Marshals as well, but so far I think we are all leaning towards giving General the same info. This would make the Marshal a bit of a vice-General though.

As to the option of General choosing Marshals, I agree with Chenier above. The General is appointed almost separately from the feudal hierachy to lead the army that all the lords and nobles assembled, including the Marshals etc. He is only there to lead it, but he has no say on who is Marshal etc. Of course IC the General has so much influence that he can usually still dictate who becomes Marshal and if you really disagree, you can decide to create a new army.
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Dogsbody

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Re: General role
« Reply #9: January 27, 2017, 05:05:46 PM »
Thanks for the comments all.

As it is at the moment, with fewer players then it used to be, (and therefore less for the General to do with controlling multiple armies) I think we need to have a bit more of an overlap between General and Marshal. This allows the General to help out whilst still training the Marshal. Having the same 'view armies' screen is crucial to that.

I'll drop my second point as I'm less fussed about it. But I would like the 'Revoke Access to Granary' idea used elsewhere, it's a good one that drives player interaction.
Daedalus: Vix Tiramora - Draco: Westfold - Dido: Ar Agyr - Deirdre The Younger - Ikalak

Chenier

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Re: General role
« Reply #10: January 27, 2017, 05:16:41 PM »
Honestly, with our densities, that hierarchy does feel redundant. Few realms have enough nobles to justify two armies. The days of having 15 titles spread over 45 nobles are gone for most people, many realms having more titles than nobles and most having a ratio near 1:1 (one way or another; all titles considered). Though I seem to recall that when marshals were created, realms often just had only 1 army anyways, or 1 normal and 1 elite, or 1 normal and 1 bureaucrat, etc. Whatever the number of armies, there was usually a single main one that did almost all of the fighting. Blob tactics and all command.
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Vita`

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Re: General role
« Reply #11: January 27, 2017, 05:52:32 PM »
Do note that my replies here are of a sort of explaining, 'this is why its the way it is', not a rejection. So there's no point in saying 'but it should be this way'; I get it. I just wish to ensure you understand why its come to be the way it is. I do consider this change worth giving reconsideration in light of the smaller playerbase.

But then I noticed the amount of information I had on the Info>>>View Armies screen dropped. Before I could see the CS and readiness (which drops due to damage etc) of each unit. After, this info disappeared. So now the 'View armies' screen for my General is almost identical to my Non-General character, only differences are:
1. The General sees total CS at the bottom (but this can be seen by anyone on the Politics>>>List the armies screen anyway.
2. The General sees total army composition (archers etc)
3. The Generals sees this info for each army, if several are running.

My opinion is that the General should see the same info as the Marshals. It's very difficult to make decisions as to who needs to refit without this.
The General isn't supposed to be making decisions as to who needs to refit. That's for the marshals to decide. Or for the General to decide an entire army looks a bit too beat up. Generals don't need to see more information because they don't need to be making the decisions that belong to marshals and trying to micromanage the military.

Quote
As for my other point, a General should be able to appoint Marshals, that's the military hierarchy.
Again, because Generals have a bad habit of trying to run everything in the realm. BattleMaster, while battles/war are crucial, also vitally needs interaction, not just a character directing folks like a director commanding stage actors. Having sponsors allows other folks to get a say in how the realm is run. The point is to have the characters of different players working with each other, not giving the General everything.

DeVerci

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Re: General role
« Reply #12: January 27, 2017, 10:36:48 PM »
I feel it really depends on the size of the realm as to the importance between a marshal and the general. In smaller realms there is no real point to appoint two different people to the roles as the general might as well take full command anyway, and most often ends up with the marshal/vice-marshal position. Though of course this is only my view on the matter, as most of the realms I have ever joined are either small, or became very small due to certain events.

Sacha

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Re: General role
« Reply #13: January 29, 2017, 01:28:44 PM »
The General has the most important role.

He's the scapegoat in case the war goes badly. Never underestimate the value of a good scapegoat.

DeVerci

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Re: General role
« Reply #14: January 29, 2017, 07:35:31 PM »
Very true! They can also get into cross-realm hijinks if the rulers are not confident enough to stand up to them, like what happened towards the beginning of the invasion on BT where the Fronen general wanted to fight Ar Agyr, then in a one turn border conflict between the two the General got killed and everything went back to normal.