Colonial Master!

[PolarRaven]

I was still fairly new back then (in CE) and do not recall many specifics, but one of the major concerns was being able to get out of the federation in one piece. 
Breaking the federation meant automatic war with each other. 

There were hard feelings against each realm throughout most of the other realms of Atamara.
There was justified concern that the split would have seen at least one of the two realms destroyed.
Likely gang-banged by many realms depending on how diplomatic talks were handled.
A one sided battle in the other direction.  I guess the other guys would have had fun erasing CE (or Tara) from the map.

[Chenier]

I recall Tom implementing various mechanics, plus threats, because of it. So... woudln't say the titans were idle about it.

[Wimpie]

While not taking part in this entire topic, as Moderator I would like to gently remind everyone to keep the discussion civil and friendly.

Thanks.

[Gordy77]

Being Taran, I didn't feel anything about being part of the Tara/CE hegemony except boredom. Things eye only just starting to get interesting when the island was sunk, like others, forcing me to split up the two characters I had on that island.

[Medron Pryde]

Unfortunately, many of the things meant to push things into action only punished other realms and left Tara and CE untouched.

The icebergs that hit the north and south and destroyed entire realms didn't twitch us in the center of the map at all.  They actually weakened our enemies and caused the Taran-Cagil alliance to be even stronger by comparison.

A giant tornado or earthquake or something crazy like that blew the center of the alliance into dust bunnies actually would have weakened us and given the others a chance to do something.  Yeah we would have bitched about it, but it would have saved the island.

Imagine something like the continent-wide stoppage of emigration that has been used on Beluaterra during Invasions aimed at Cagil and Tara.  Have a storm smash Foda and all the other border regions to dustbunnies.  Randomly kill the second character of anybody who had a character in Tara and Cagil.

Yeah, it would have been heavy handed.  But at least it would have been targeted against the nations that were seen as the problem instead of the last few who had enough fighting spirit to stand against us.  Yeah, we would have bitched, but it sure would have made things exciting.

Instead, nobody made the hard call until the end, when the players finally made the hard call and brought about a circumstance that allowed all of us to break it up and start a new crazy war.  And then the island was sunk anyways.

1)  the players shouldn't have been forced to make that decision in the first place.
2)  the admins had the responsibility to make something stick to push what needed doing.
3)  the admins shouldn't have punished the players after the players showed the moral courage to do what the admins had the power to do but never did.

The point in the end is that sometimes the admins have to make a hard call that nobody will like for the good of the game.  They have to have courage to do.  They also have to do it in a way that doesn't attack the players.  Just say...look...we've got an issue here.  We have to change it for the good of the game.  Nobody did anything "wrong" by doing it this way, but it had unintended consequences and we need to change things.  Yeah, the players will grumble and bitch, but if you say it's for the good of the game and if you don't blame players for playing badly, they'll understand.  They'll move on, and look for another way to find an advantage in the never ending competition to outmaneuver the other players.

Which is exactly what we all should do in a game called BattleMaster filled with armies and medieval warfare. 

[Zakky]

Gotta stop talking about the ice age. We all agreed it was a terrible move.

I think the diplomacy system needs to be reworked. It is really bad.

I think Vita had a plan to limit # of allies you can have back in the days.

I was actually on board with his idea to limit # of allies to 2 at most.

If we want to continue the current system, there should be some downsides to having too many allies. Maybe reducing CS when all your allies are fighting the same enemy. For every allied realm in the region, reduce CS by 20% maybe? So Sirion, Nivemus, Highmarch and Caligus in the same region vs Perdan and Vix would reduce Sirion, Nivemus, Highmarch, Caligus's CS by 60% while reducing Perdan, Vix by 20%.

Or instead of touching CS, you could also go for increase in recruitment cost. Each ally adding 20% more cost.

Also, provide an easier way to break an alliance. Not from alliance to peace to neutral. More like alliance to straight war. But at the cost of huge honor and prestige drop. Like 50%.

[Chenier]

Gotta stop talking about the ice age. We all agreed it was a terrible move.

I think the diplomacy system needs to be reworked. It is really bad.

I think Vita had a plan to limit # of allies you can have back in the days.

I was actually on board with his idea to limit # of allies to 2 at most.

If we want to continue the current system, there should be some downsides to having too many allies. Maybe reducing CS when all your allies are fighting the same enemy. For every allied realm in the region, reduce CS by 20% maybe? So Sirion, Nivemus, Highmarch and Caligus in the same region vs Perdan and Vix would reduce Sirion, Nivemus, Highmarch, Caligus's CS by 60% while reducing Perdan, Vix by 20%.

Or instead of touching CS, you could also go for increase in recruitment cost. Each ally adding 20% more cost.

Also, provide an easier way to break an alliance. Not from alliance to peace to neutral. More like alliance to straight war. But at the cost of huge honor and prestige drop. Like 50%.

This just makes cities even more stupid to attack.

Remember what it took to destroy Oligarch?

Imagine with these penalties...

[Zakky]

This just makes cities even more stupid to attack.

Remember what it took to destroy Oligarch?

Imagine with these penalties...

Cities are hard to take due to militias. Militia nerfs are already planned.

[Chenier]

Cities are hard to take due to militias. Militia nerfs are already planned.

Until/despite then, nerfs to mobile armies make sieges more difficult, and sieges are already more difficult than they should be.

[Medron Pryde]

I'm not certain I agree with a hard limit on allies, but I can see where it would be interesting.  And it could work.

That said, I prefer the gradual idea of making larger alliances less...efficient at doing what they do.

Possibly one way of doing it that wouldn't be a blanket "alliance does less damage the larger it gets" could be a "army is less effective the further it gets from your capital" idea.  My first inclination would be to actually have that be a distance from your border idea, but that would quickly be played with by empires asking to "acquire" land closer to the fight so their armies would work better.  Making armies less capable the further they roam from their capital would act as an empire-size limiter as well.

[Zakky]

I'm not certain I agree with a hard limit on allies, but I can see where it would be interesting.  And it could work.

That said, I prefer the gradual idea of making larger alliances less...efficient at doing what they do.

Possibly one way of doing it that wouldn't be a blanket "alliance does less damage the larger it gets" could be a "army is less effective the further it gets from your capital" idea.  My first inclination would be to actually have that be a distance from your border idea, but that would quickly be played with by empires asking to "acquire" land closer to the fight so their armies would work better.  Making armies less capable the further they roam from their capital would act as an empire-size limiter as well.

Armies already become weaker as they travel farther. Equipment damage and morale penalty are current major concerns and to top it all off, you have gold issue.

There needs to be a way to deal with mega alliances. Federation should just be removed from the game as it promotes a certain kind of game play that the devs don't want to see. As for mega alliances, it needs to have some serious downsides to discourage alliances that are larger than 2 realms. There aren't that many realms left when you get 2 alliances with 3 realms each. If the game had 20 realms, it wouldn't be a problem, but no island has that many. Even then you will just see bigger alliances. I am not quite sure where the game is heading at the moment to be honest. The devs might clear things out a bit.

[Chenier]

Federations are easier to break than alliances.

Also, please, keep in mind: where are mega alliances an issue?

It was bad enough when the whole game got rekt for the social issues of 1 continent.

We don't need the whole game to get rekt for the social issues of years back on 1 sunk continent.

[Gordy77]

I'd like to see federations removed for simplicity and maybe even neutral. Keep war, peace and alliance.

Limit alliances to no greater than 1/3rd total regions as proposed AND treat the disposition of realms towards the alliance, not the member. It makes no sense to question wars against realms you hate. Introduce some consequences into alliances and make the actions of allies affect the perception of those allied nations.

[Gordy77]

You don't think the six nation alliance on East is a problem? You might not .... You're in it!

[Chenier]

I'm sorry, but I can't help but read that as "limit alliances to the size of my own alliance bloc". Lurian bloc members demanding a limit of 33% when their own bloc forms almost exactly 33% rings obnoxious to me, doubly so given they were what caused these alliance blocs to begin with.

If there was no problem with a large alliance gangbanging a lone realm, I see no problem with a similarly larger alliance forming in response. Unless you think alliances should not be able to declare war on parties less than 75% of their strength, for example?

Also, yet another "don't fight the war you want to fight" mechanic.