BattleMaster > Development

Rethinking the rules

(1/6) > >>

Chenier:
To start of, I firmly believe that, as long as the rules stand, they ought to be applied. And that in general, the cases that bothered me the most were not when people were punished for breaking them, but when they were broken by people who weren't stupid enough to admit their reasons for their actions and thus weren't sanctioned, given how many of the rules are based on intent.

So we've just had an umpteenth case of someone blatantly breaking the rules, then being a sore loser about it, and then quitting with a bunch of his adepts. Should things have been handled differently? I have a hard time seeing how. But is this a phenomenon we need to keep, to allow to regularly return? I don't think so.

Many of the rules, like with some of the mechanical aspects of this game, were designed in what is nothing less than a different era. I'm not sure when the game launched, but for the wiki that's 2005... A lot of the players have since become parents, and it's plausible some of our current players were not even born yet when the game started.

In the early and middle days where most of the rules were made, the game had few continents, the realms had lots of nobles, and overall the culture of both online games in general and this one specifically were quite different than they are now. The game also had less built-in mechanics to guide/force players into acting a certain way. But when you compare realms of today with realms of back then, the contrast it stark. The social issues that were rampant back then are now isolated cases, the most damaging tools (OOC bans for example) have been removed, and overall inflicting lasting damage upon anything is much harder to achieve than it once way (ex: automatic half rations on starving regions instead of mass starvation). So all in all, there are few !@#$%^&s, they are more universally shunned, their power to impose upon others is greatly diminished, and, none the less, people have abundant alternatives to just go find better people to play with (no automatic ban for quitting the realm, much more open realm cultures in general, etc.).

So maybe we should take a good long look at the social contract, the rules, and the policies, and think hard at what REALLY needs to be there.

If I'm to start the ball, I'd say the social contract is fine as it, doesn't need a touch up.

As for the IRs, I'm not so sure. I mean, who really cares for the unit types, what does it change? People are often looking for suggestions and guidance, and it's a hassle to address these questions when told not to touch the issue even with 10ft poles. It'd be nice if it were at least clarified/modified to allow people to issue recommendations (as long as sanctions for non-compliance aren't also used). The IRs in general are fine, though.

The core of the problems, in my opinion, lie in the "policies". They are based so much on intent, which cannot be verified, and with the game in its current shape, don't really offer much.

* What does it matter how people use duels?
* What's the big deal with strategic secessions? Most realms don't have enough nobles to split. And in most cases, splitting only makes the sum of the parts lesser than the original whole. Yes, the realms get numerical buffs. But the only cases where this is not offset by the human logistical aspects are when the realms were ripe to split anyways, and that this rule therefore only really regulates the context (ok to do so when there's no war, not ok during war). This rule doesn't contribute to anything anymore, we don't have the player counts for it to matter.
* Why have OOC rules against strategic capital moves? For starters, moving capitals is very costly. Secondly, the distance from capital allowance was greatly reduced over the years. A realm that moves its capital to the front will have an advantage in terms of refit cycle, but a HUGE disadvantage to its economy, as region stats and tax tolerance will drop. Furthermore, many current capitals barely allow for any wars, if they don't make it outright suicide, so why not give people a bit more flexibility if it means that, as a whole, BM gets more war?
* Why not just make realm mergers legal? This has caused so many scandals in the past, for no gain. What's equal footing? What's friendly? What's hostile? Why does it all even matter? And what's the logic in banning strategic secession if the opposite is also banned? Are small realms the threat or are big realms? Or are any at all? Mergers mean less titles to share around, lower tax tolerance, a lot of people being moved away from their traditional area. There are a LOT of costs to it. And we don't have a ruler who can OOC ban the whole realm to make it happen anymore, either. Players will not willingly give up their realm unless they have strong reasons to do so, why not respect these reasons without threatening sanctions over them?

Anaris:

--- Quote from: Chenier on December 07, 2017, 07:37:50 PM ---
* What's the big deal with strategic secessions? Most realms don't have enough nobles to split. And in most cases, splitting only makes the sum of the parts lesser than the original whole. Yes, the realms get numerical buffs. But the only cases where this is not offset by the human logistical aspects are when the realms were ripe to split anyways, and that this rule therefore only really regulates the context (ok to do so when there's no war, not ok during war). This rule doesn't contribute to anything anymore, we don't have the player counts for it to matter.
* Why have OOC rules against strategic capital moves? For starters, moving capitals is very costly. Secondly, the distance from capital allowance was greatly reduced over the years. A realm that moves its capital to the front will have an advantage in terms of refit cycle, but a HUGE disadvantage to its economy, as region stats and tax tolerance will drop. Furthermore, many current capitals barely allow for any wars, if they don't make it outright suicide, so why not give people a bit more flexibility if it means that, as a whole, BM gets more war?
--- End quote ---

The reason for both of these is the OOC restriction on recruitment in capitals.

Frankly, I'm interested in ways to remove that that will work well and not cause a raft of negative unintended consequences.

The most interesting simulationist approach I've come up with so far would be sort of a two-part thing:


* First, have the recruits in recruitment centers actually be in those centers. That is, you can only recruit them if you're physically in the region. But...
* Second, those recruits will be sent, over time, to a place that is designated as your realm's "Recruitment Fair" or something (yes, I think that's a dumb name, but I just came up with it ;D ). The default place for this would be in the capital, but it could be designated as any region in your realm. Any region but the capital would cost a significant upkeep, and the recruits would have to travel, from region to region, toward this Fair, during which time they would be vulnerable to disruption.
This would be able to piggyback on some other code I've got simmering on the back burner for nearly-fully-automated (but still manually manipulable, for perfectionists) trade.

It would also require getting an OK from Tom. Changes to any of these rules and policies would, actually.


--- Quote ---
* Why not just make realm mergers legal? This has caused so many scandals in the past, for no gain. What's equal footing? What's friendly? What's hostile? Why does it all even matter? And what's the logic in banning strategic secession if the opposite is also banned? Are small realms the threat or are big realms? Or are any at all? Mergers mean less titles to share around, lower tax tolerance, a lot of people being moved away from their traditional area. There are a LOT of costs to it. And we don't have a ruler who can OOC ban the whole realm to make it happen anymore, either. Players will not willingly give up their realm unless they have strong reasons to do so, why not respect these reasons without threatening sanctions over them?
--- End quote ---

I dunno, I'm still a bit ambivalent about this. I do have a hard time with the idea of a King just cheerfully giving up his crown to make his entire Kingdom just a province of someone else's.

However, I also have a hard time with the fact that a realm that's got 2 regions and 3 nobles, and wants to join the realm with 10 regions and 30 nobles, has to pretend to go to war with them so they can "surrender"...and then still has to have the larger realm run takeovers on all their regions.

I think we can find a balance, but I'm not sure we'll ever do away entirely with the rule against the former type of merger.

Chenier:
For the merger thing, well, a king can't unilaterally destroy his realm. Destroying one's realm takes time and (foreign) resources. A ruler can't just click a button to delete the realm. And I'm not against the mechanic that prevents a realm's last city to switch out (go fix that bug, btw ;) ).

So if a ruler wants to destroy the realm in order to merge with another, you need to 1) declare war, 2) empty the capital of all militia and troops, and 3) have the other realm come take it over.

If the realm's nobles don't want to merge... it'll be hard to do so. The ruler has no power to sack militia, he needs the capital's lord or the general's support. And none of them have any power over the mobile forces. So every noble who opposes the fusion can recruit to the max and sit in the capital. With those lvl 5 walls (or greater), even without militia a mobile army is usually strong enough to repel an invader. And in the case of friendly takeovers, the assimilating realm usually isn't ready to accept heavy losses for the move. Not to mention that this gives plenty of time for dissenters to protest or rebel against the pro-merger government.

As for the recruitment fair idea, I don't really see it tied to the cited capital issues. Those are interesting mechanics idea, but it's on the whole mostly a tweak on the current system, where a capital on the border helps reduce the refit cycle but intentionally placing it there is against the rules.

Anaris:

--- Quote from: Chenier on December 07, 2017, 08:39:39 PM ---As for the recruitment fair idea, I don't really see it tied to the cited capital issues. Those are interesting mechanics idea, but it's on the whole mostly a tweak on the current system, where a capital on the border helps reduce the refit cycle but intentionally placing it there is against the rules.

--- End quote ---

The point is that only being able to recruit in the capital is a gameplay balance decision, and as such, circumventing it by moving your capital (or seceding) specifically for that reason has no IC justification. It is purely an attempt to circumvent a deliberate balance decision.

If we change the decision on balance, then there's no longer a reason to restrict secessions and capital moves, because there's no longer a recruitment benefit to doing them.

Chenier:

--- Quote from: Anaris on December 07, 2017, 08:43:23 PM ---The point is that only being able to recruit in the capital is a gameplay balance decision, and as such, circumventing it by moving your capital (or seceding) specifically for that reason has no IC justification. It is purely an attempt to circumvent a deliberate balance decision.

If we change the decision on balance, then there's no longer a reason to restrict secessions and capital moves, because there's no longer a recruitment benefit to doing them.

--- End quote ---

Well, you mentioned that having the recruitment fair anywhere else than the capital would be very costly in upkeep, so the incentive to move the capital to the front would remain the same.

Strategic secessions and strategic capital moves are both risky for their own reasons.

I consider the secession of Iato to form IVF to have greatly precipitated Enweil's death, despite being a friendly secession. In theory, both realms had higher tax tolerance, had two capitals to recruit from, and thus were better off. But Enweil was at that point as almost all realms are now: devoid of enough both capable and active players to run two realms efficiently, if it even has enough for one.

Let's just think of generals and marshals here, since it's the most blatant example. How many realms have enough competent people to run multiple armies efficiently? Barely any. Heck, I'm sure we can all think of a ton of realms that can't even run a single army efficiently. So what happens if you split them up? They'd crumble. Two poorly run splinter realms would have no clue as to what the other is doing or enduring, would not react in a timely fashion to any invasion, would not be ableto coordinate joint attacks, would have much longer refit cycles, etc.

In almost all cases, strategic secessions are an unstrategic option.

But what about the few that would be strategic... so what? Wars have become too rare for many parts of the game world. Are colony takeovers even a thing anymore? Do they still exist? What's the difference between a normal takeover of an enemy city and then seceding it to form a new realm at the front, and a colony takeover? They both allow to continue a war where distance might have otherwise rendered it impossible to continue, or would have caused extremely long and boring refit cycles.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page