unless Astrum has drastically changed in the last weeks none of that is true at all.
Astrum was extremely dull and it lost several good players because nothing at all was happening.
There is no realm wide discussion and by far, letters including personal letters are left un replied.
Its hierarchy isnt open at all even though there where no active marshals for example.
We sat around waiting for weeks without anything happening while all sugestions where ignored.
Eventually some people simply went rogue by heading west to collect gold but all the messages we ever received was not to do that and eventually we where just ignored.
Antigone set up a guild for looting tax gold and did alot of effort to get a special army in Astrum for nobles who wanted to loot do something other then waiting for orders that never come.
The idea was to put people in armies based on what they wanted, so if you want to sit around and do nothing you'd have an army but you'd also have an army for you if you wanted to go out and loot.
One duke liked and supported the idea but didn't do anything with it as he didn't want to upset the government with creating an army.
The government was against it because it was afraid the realm would be left unprotected if a few active nobles would go out looting.
Some promised expeditions that never came for months.
No discussion where realm wide, no letters shared by governement members and suggestion like these wherent discussed but just ignored and eventually turned down.
Astrum has a council where they presumably discuss everything but it wasn't open nobles with actual ideas, writing actual letters.
There was nothing else going on in Astrum, no religious discussions either.
I am sorry to say but as former member of Astrum i cannot find any truth in anything your saying to promote Astrum.
It has in fact been one of the worse realms i have ever been in.
Astrum does have very good RC's and knight shares are around 200 gold most of the time.
so basically its a good realm to start in and get some gold in order join more interesting realms with a decent unit and personal wealth.
But definitely not a fun or interesting realm to play in.
It used to be different, but that doesn't matter if you are thinking about joining now.
