Where is BattleMaster headed???
Firstly, I would invite everyone to look through the "ANNOUNCEMENTS" section of this forum.
It is the area where the Devs announce changes to the game. Where they define the recent changes that are being/have been implemented.
From MY point of view;
We have seen many features added to the game that have been restrictive to the "wargame" aspect of BattleMaster.
Increasing density restrictions, alliance bloc size restrictions, increased costs of funding both militia and normal fighting units, more stringent requirements for declaring war, nearly impossible restrictions for allowing secessions of a duchy to name those that come readily to my mind.
On the other hand, we have seen many new features added that seem to cater to the RP writing aspect of the game.
Discord was added as a medium to allow better communications as a "community". There have been constant "improvements" to Discord to better facilitate the actions of this "community". We have seen several improvements to the in-game messaging system. We now have "graphic content warnings" to allow more involved/graphic roleplays to be written while not offending those who would prefer NOT to see such content.
What reason does the average realm have to want to go to war?
The vast majority of wars over the years have been fought in an effort to see some "gain" by the victors, land gains being the foremost on the list. With the density restrictions land gain is no longer possible for most realms.
A disgruntled Duke used to be able to secede which would often lead to a war.
A religious war is currently not a possibility within BattleMaster. Alliance bloc restrictions would prevent any chance of a Daishi vs Mordok war for example. Daishi has many followers spread throughout various realms, which would prevent them from forming a "religious bloc" due to the alliance bloc limitations.
The alliance bloc limit also discourages the need of "diplomacy" when dealing with other realms. I understand the need to prevent "dogpiling" any given realm, but if that realm makes no attempt to maintain civil relations with those realms not currently involved in the fighting, why should the (non-involved) disrespected realm(s) remain uninvolved? (ie."We are fighting a war here, and I don't really care if you don't like us traveling through your lands to get to the front")
"The enemy of my enemy is NOT necessarily my friend."
We have heard the idea of "HINTERLANDS" for a while now. Sadly, from the little I have heard about hinterlands, I suspect that it will fall short of what many people are hoping for. We will see how it pans out once it is implemented, we can only hope for improvement.
The war aspect of BattleMaster needs "more carrot and a lot less stick".
The Devs have done well in boosting the RP aspect of the game in recent times, maybe now it is time to do the same for the war aspect as well?
