This is how EC, and BM, used to be. Realms engaged in cosntant warfare against other realms. This is how BM should be played.
haha, that's not how I remember things to be. I remember mostly a lot of gridlock alliance blocs, eternal peace, and gangbangs against any and all rabble rousers. And the dev team and Tom needling to repeatedly prod players with soft and hard incentives to break the stagnation and do stuff, a few occasions spawning rather serious threats from Tom against involved rulers. AT was the worst, but I think EC was pretty bad too. All had some good moments in at least some parts, but I'm not sure I'd have qualified those at the norm, or how it "used to be". EC I think had a tendency to have long rotations between lasting wars and lasting peace, while AT was really more stagnation than anything. The introduction of a "too much peace" mechanic wasn't happenstance. It didn't stay because it had its share of faults, but it did underline a serious problem of the time.
BM's metagame has evolved much since. There are more smaller scale wars, more wars in general, and more leniency to trouble makers. Back then, a realm doing a sneak attack on its neighbor was likely to result in 10 realms ganging up to destroy them, while now there are more greater odds of neighbors letting them fight it out or, if joining, trying to even the odds more than making them as lopsided as possible.
