This message is written not to bash anyone but to voice real and legitimate concerns of mine.
The staff has been actively trying to influence the course of the game for the longest time.
And for the longest time it was done through introducing new rules (or rather restrictions) as indirect incentives to nudge the playerbase in the direction admins (not the majority of players) envisioned.
Those incentives proved to not be very effective. Because the overwhelming majority of players do not want to play the game this way. And restrictions can not influence human behaviour outside the very specific facets of gameplay they pertain to.
Now we are increasingly witnessing admins directly taking the steering wheel out of players' hands. I believe that this godmoding is absolutely terrible for a social/political game no matter how noble the motives are. And I will argue that motives may also be misguided.
With admins basically dictating to players which wars they are allowed or not allowed to fight, which part of the political game is now actually left to players' own agency?
Please give this question serious consideration.
And now to discuss the motivation behind these latest actions performed by the staff as I understand it.
People hate losing. People get upset when they're backstabbed. Or when the fight feels unfair (due to overwhelming odds). When opportunists flock to the battle, like birds of prey. I get upset about that too as a player.
Still I'd never ask admins to forbid other players play the game the way they want to play as long as it is within the rules.
I like BM because it is a simulator of both politics and military strategy. Where diplomatic blunders may have devastating consequences or bad things just happen out of the blue and you need to try and recover or take the L. That's how great stories are forged.
I never wanted to play a "fair play" simulator. Who wants that in BM? Why?
I hated so much when the entire North pummeled on Perdan, while former allies betrayed it one by one. Prevailing in that conflict was the experince of my entire time here. Even if we lost there, it would be sad but still a crazy ride.
If Northern realms were just told to stop fighting Perdan by the admins, what would that story be like? There would be no story, just punting the ball across the river with Eppy and maybe Sirion. It is simply painful to think how this could rob everyone of incredible amounts of suspence, fun and community building opportunities.
The real problem of BM was never unfair wars. It was always stagnation. It is realms and alliance blocks potentially staying the same way forever once an equilibrium is reached.
To bring up once again my previous example, I was really bitter at the time when everyone piled up on Perdan. But I never thought it was bad for the game overall. What I thought was bad for the game was the stalemate we have found ourselves in for 2 consequtive rl years. The North was fighting a war that could go on forever and that they could neither win nor lose. That was my only problem. It made everything boring as it left no place for new opportunity and conflict.
Now admins are artificially doing exactly the same thing.
The war declaration system is great. It makes wars dynamic and does not allow the continent to fall back into stagnation. This is the best change in a long time. When you can wage and conclude a war in a clean and relatively quick fashion, you can then go to the next thing, shift alliances, change the map, etc.
Alliance limit idea is also good, although not very efficient, because game mechanics-wise alliances are not as important as personal connections between characters, specifically leaders.
But When wars have clear and modest goals, why mess with the diplomacy manually? Why allow an agressor to steamroll a weaker realm if he has three times as much nobles, but make it harder for the agressor if he has a similar advantage due to diplomacy and smart foreign policy?
What is being done is not a feasible answer. You can forbid a realm to participate in a war and coerce into allying with someone admins want instead. But what problem does it solve? Weak realms or realms without allies get to not lose as hard? Why is it preferable?
This takes real politics out of a political simulator. This takes real political agency out of players' hands. This makes political game non-existing really because it ends up being beholden to ooc considerations where no one has to feel bitter or lose really hard.
This can ultimately make BM no longer appealing to people most interested in intrigue and political aspect of the game.
Thank you for your attention and looking forward to hearing more constructive opinions.
