Cyrene's Bank, post office, arena, and council rooms are nowhere near the access points to the City (apart, nominally, from the arena, which you can more or less access from the Muurn).
Same goes for Targossas.
Pretty sure the same goes for Eleusis.
Not super super familiar with other Cities' geography, but I don't think any of them have any of those rooms within five or even ten rooms from their entrances. I could be wrong, though.
As for shops, how they compensate the shop-owners for the destruction of those spaces is best left to each City, I think. It's a good reason for shop owners to stay on their toes about opening shops in dangerous places!
Almost none of Ashtan's sanctioned raids happen anywhere near the city gates. Rooms are destroyed in places where guard placement is thin to non-existent.
Edit for clarification, sanctioned raids on Ashtan.
(D.M.A.): Cooper says, "Kyrra is either the most innocent person in the world, or the girl who uses the most innuendo seemingly unintentionally but really on purpose."
Well, there's no perfect system for concentrating raids. But, in Cities which are huge, having the ability to damage rooms that actually mean something is a way to force an end to a conflict. The problem is, conflict means nothing at the moment. To win, to lose, means absolutely nothing. Even if, only for a little bit, we can come up with a way for war to matter, I'm personally in favor.
Damaging the city is one thing, damaging individuals from a war system directly by either killing non-coms for any reason, or leaving shopkeepers without access to their shop and/or goods is just wrong. I mostly skimmed, since as a non-com I not only am incapable of anything more than rudimentary combat, I also have zero interest in participating in said combat. I'm all for consequences on a city scale, but leave the non-coms out of it, individually. Shopkeepers have enough to worry about with thieves and competition, especially people on term rentals. Remember, the purpose of this is to be more fun and engaging for those who enjoy combat, not to force everyone to participate; that will just alienate a portion of your current and potential playerbase.
~
You close your eyes momentarily and extend the range of your vision, seeking out the presence of Drugs.
Though too far away to accurately perceive details, you see that Drugs is in Mhaldor.
Shopkeepers have enough to worry about with thieves and competition, especially people on term rentals. Remember, the purpose of this is to be more fun and engaging for those who enjoy combat, not to force everyone to participate; that will just alienate a portion of your current and potential playerbase.
Well if their shop keeps getting damaged they can either start to look for a shop that they can rent in a less attacked city such as Cyrene or Hashan or they could demand that the taxes and/or rent goes down if their shop is more affected than others.
It also opens up an avenue for RP. If your City is consistently unable to defend shops, the rates will probably go down a ton. Not to mention, you can put together a collection of shop-keepers in union style, to champion the rights of shopkeepers the world over. I think part of the problem -is- that war has been left mostly to 'just combatants'. It encourages people not interested in fighting to step away and ignore it, because there's no role for them, and no consequence for them. That's at the heart of the problems associated with the conflict system. It's not so much about broken mechanics as the reality that you can just journal/go sailing/leave Achaea, and you can just 'wait it out,' that keeps war from being interesting. Solutions for war should be pushed for not only by combatants, but it should be something that touches everyone, to keep it from being a phenomenon most people enjoy. The problem is, there's no avenue, currently, for non-combatants to participate through, and that's something that needs to be addressed.
Ok so the solution is to give us non-combat ways to contribute and for there to be consequences that can relate to those contributions, or the city as a whole, in some way. Not to just penalise us because the combatants are doing their thing.
If there was a shopowner's union it would be ooc and we would be yelling at the Admin, not the playerbase. Leave shops alone.
~
You close your eyes momentarily and extend the range of your vision, seeking out the presence of Drugs.
Though too far away to accurately perceive details, you see that Drugs is in Mhaldor.
ETA: Let me try that again. It doesn't sound strange to you to say there's no way to include a certain section of the population and a vital part of the way Achaea operates, in-game, in what should be the most inclusive manifestation of Achaean conflict?
Er... I guess I should've added that I think only rogues should be allowed to act as mercenaries. City members can't sign up for another City's military, that's crazy.
Er... I guess I should've added that I think only rogues should be allowed to act as mercenaries. City members can't sign up for another City's military, that's crazy.
Edit: Grammar
There is the city ally status that can be used for those officially allied to another city besides their home city.
This could be checked by having the fee to the mercenary guild being substantial.
Gold isn't an acceptable drawback with multiple artied dragons in a city. I'm reasonably sure a single Targossas shrine defilement party could pay for any amount of mercenaries.
While I'm all for a revamp of the city destruction system, I'm concerned about how much the system will affect the general population of a city, like the short discussion on shops above. For the hardcore cities, it likely won't be much of a factor, but for Cyrene/Hashan for sure, it will be a huge division in the city, pitting the commies against the non-commies. It will draw a line, essentially, where cities above the line actively engage the enemy and accept the consequences, while cities below the line shun all external conflict in the hopes of minimizing city destruction. Meaning, essentially, that it will be very easy to fall below the line, and very difficult to climb above it.
Its just a comment, something to think about. I think it would be great if non-commies could get involved more (Perhaps charge the Fonts like a shrine, where all corpses can be used but it takes a lot (or a few stronger) corpses to fill?) but for cities firmly in the middle position, it will force them over to the pacifist side. This may even be your intention for the game, since its already been said that no more faction classes will be coming, but if it is the admin's intention, it would be nice to get a heads up.
Cities will be more inclined to choose war or pacifism if they had to stand on their own two feet without the knowledge that some other faction will be right there to prop them up when they bite off more than they can chew.
Give every city a firm reason to distrust one another, to the point where alliances would be out of necessity, i.e, "oh shit, Bal'met 2.0 is here, let's get it together guys". Voila. Cities now have five potential enemies in varying degrees of hatred. Make treaties. Be diplomatic. Smack the hell out of people who randomly gank or join in fights that they weren't invited to because it's going to break the fragile piece of paper that says that City A will not rob, gank, nor defile City B so long as City B keeps its mouth and hands to itself. You have conflict again. You have political intrigue.
It's either that, or start deleting noncombatants and snuggle bunnies, and I'm pretty sure they spend more money on credits for housing and beds than I do on Lupines'.
If the system of comply-or-die is put forth, then neutral cities will probably be paying out the nose for their safety. Which is fine. Being a pacifist state shouldn't be easy with bullies like Mhaldor/Ashtan/Targossas around.
I don't think I made my point very clear. What I was trying to say, is that this system would force cities on the fence between fighting and neutrality over to the neutral side, with zero chance of reversing that. There wouldn't be any more Ouranians or Phaestaens defiling, no counter attacks if someone decides to bust in and break up your ritual. Of anyone does -anything- to cause a sanctioned raid with these sort of far reaching consequences, they will be abhored by the non com portion of their city.
Its not a matter of paying to be neutral, its being forced to be neutral with no chance of coming out of it.
If Cities are that weak-willed, I don't see how their half-assed incursions into action are any better, to be honest. Maybe it'll actually force the Orders that want to oppose their enemies openly to abandon that crazy multiple-allegiance thing that the neutral Cities have going on, where you're a total fighter for one of your teams, but never for another. I don't know. That attitude doesn't seem like something worth preserving, to me.
Comments
Same goes for Targossas.
Pretty sure the same goes for Eleusis.
Not super super familiar with other Cities' geography, but I don't think any of them have any of those rooms within five or even ten rooms from their entrances. I could be wrong, though.
As for shops, how they compensate the shop-owners for the destruction of those spaces is best left to each City, I think. It's a good reason for shop owners to stay on their toes about opening shops in dangerous places!
Edit for clarification, sanctioned raids on Ashtan.
ETA: Let me try that again. It doesn't sound strange to you to say there's no way to include a certain section of the population and a vital part of the way Achaea operates, in-game, in what should be the most inclusive manifestation of Achaean conflict?
To be honest, this would just eventually lead to the usual Hashtan/Targossaseleusiscyrene alliances being fully IG justified.
I suppose it is better than the flimsy justification currently in place.
Edit: Grammar
→My Mudlet Scripts
→My Mudlet Scripts
Give every city a firm reason to distrust one another, to the point where alliances would be out of necessity, i.e, "oh shit, Bal'met 2.0 is here, let's get it together guys". Voila. Cities now have five potential enemies in varying degrees of hatred. Make treaties. Be diplomatic. Smack the hell out of people who randomly gank or join in fights that they weren't invited to because it's going to break the fragile piece of paper that says that City A will not rob, gank, nor defile City B so long as City B keeps its mouth and hands to itself. You have conflict again. You have political intrigue.
It's either that, or start deleting noncombatants and snuggle bunnies, and I'm pretty sure they spend more money on credits for housing and beds than I do on Lupines'.