This war

Kiet

I'm glad the war is no longer god-backed, so can we just cancel it or call it a tie, now? I don't care if we're in the lead.

For the future, I believe what would help is making sure the terms reward winners, rather than punish losers.

Cooper

Let's not pretend that what Deuc and Sartan said regarding slaves had anything to do with the shitty behavior that came out of this war. It did not.

Kiet

Cooper said:

Let's not pretend that what Deuc and Sartan said regarding slaves had anything to do with the shitty behavior that came out of this war. It did not.

Idgaf about slaves, I care about the five real life months where RP would be restricted for a significant population of Mhaldor (and I assume Targossas).

I'm not saying without that the war would've gone better, but a lot of people are gonna feel extra stress (rather than competitiveness) to win if losing is an extra punishment.

Rangor

Hang onto what was fun, leave the things that wasn't behind and try again at another time. Won't ever get it right the first time around. 

Tysandr

Kiet said:

making sure the terms reward winners, rather than punish losers.

Might be same thing.

Kiet

Not at all, and that's something that's been discussed at length by game designers in interviews/essays/etc.

Frederich

The 10 years of no preaching, and enemies allowed to walk into your city unmolested are, frankly, horrible.

This means for about 4-5 ooc months, you aren't allowed to have a raid involving that city whatsoever.  Can skirm, sure.  But, by rules, they could walk in, murder folks, and we just can't enemy them/attack them at all.

I didn't really realize just how long that was, tbh.

Ahmet

#BringBackUWMechanics

Kiet

Daeir said:

As if those laws would be abided by anyway. Do you think either side would willingly capitulate 100% as characters, unless explicitly ordered to by their Divine? Nothing short of the Bloodsworn's direct condemnation would've stopped me from ICly invoking the Fifth and going rogue with Aurora soulburn and breathrain cheese to stop our citizens leaving the city, and I can say with 100% certainty that I'd have people alongside me the whole way. Ala Mhigan resistance up in this shit.

I'd expect nothing less from Mhaldor either on that front.

No law written by mortals in Achaea is sacred.

Except that term was explicitly ordered by the gods

Antidas

I dunno, I might be in the minority but I'm actually pretty happy we got rid of the RP consequences, and am now looking forward to participating in the war -more- because I no longer gaf if we lose. Of course it comes just as I leave for vacation so I'm not gonna have much time to play anyways, but still. Thanks @Sartan @Deucalion, and thanks to everyone else who helped plan this war out.

Taryius

Its hard to balance consequences so people are encouraged to win but also won't be devastated if they lose. 10 years of not preaching and allowing others in, sucks.

Shirszae

I am just watching from the sidelines, but I can definitely understand the people who say they are pretty bummed out and lost all interest about the war now. 

Ahmet

If the consequences of the war changing cause you to lose all interest in the war, you're doing war wrong.

Shirszae

Ahmet said:

If the consequences of the war changing cause you to lose all interest in the war, you're doing war wrong.

The point of war is the consequences of it. Without it, its just the usual raids and skirmishing and whatever else. That happens anyway, everyday. Nothing new.

Torinn

Daeir said:

As if those laws would be abided by anyway. Do you think either side would willingly capitulate 100% as characters, unless explicitly ordered to by their Divine? Nothing short of the Bloodsworn's direct condemnation would've stopped me from ICly invoking the Fifth and going rogue with Aurora worldburn and breathrain cheese to stop our citizens leaving the city, and I can say with 100% certainty that I'd have people alongside me the whole way. Ala Mhigan resistance up in this shit.

I'd expect nothing less from Mhaldor either on that front.

No law written by mortals in Achaea is sacred.

It is however, a disappointing end to a stark inevitability. I said earlier in the thread that capitulating to terms to the point of abandoning the city during sanction is essentially OOC and has not a shred of IC credibility, and I stand firmly vindicated on that point. I had no idea it'd go to this extreme though, damn.

I am 100% there with you Daeir.  I would have done all sorts of crazy stuff to get around it, including offering myself as a slave instead of the 2k citizens, going to remote locations to preach, etc.

Skye

Micaelis said:

Alrena said:

Honestly I'm kinda relieved the stakes were lowered and we can have more casual fun skirmishes. I'll agree that in the next attempt, relying more on preplanned battles could be a lot of fun, though I'd hope at different times of the day! Europeans can't do a Nish battle at 3am! Well, it's not good for us anyway. Even if it's high stakes then, all engagements will have a clear ending and allow some breathing room.

Also yes to Naval battles.

Pre-scheduled is probably the only way to go at this point, yeah. Also agree that it's nice to be able to tie in Naval things for once.

I would like to propose that instead of a 2-year or any sort of multi-month war, the future war be decided in what can be described as a stamina-based grief-fest.

Long drawn out wars that stretch over many weeks tends to wear on people so we should try to implement it like pulling off a band-aid. like a 3-hour 2-city CTF on the weekend. Whoever rageqqs first loses.

Kiet

Now that there's neither consequences nor rewards for the war, we're left with boring fights where both sides play ultra-defensively for no reason at all.

It's like watching paint dry, except at least before we'd get something if we didn't pull away. I have 0 interest in the war, either, anymore, and it should honestly get called off or something.

Ahmet

If you're doing something because of the reward at the end, even something this big, you're doing it wrong. Find a way to do it where people can enjoy it, and where people aren't terrified of fucking it up for their entire faction to the point where nobody wants to participate, and where people are encouraged to just not take part, or to just stop fighting. If you think that's a stupid way to look at a game, especially one where we're all part of a community that (for the most part) doesn't want this game to die, well then you can contain your opinion to the sewers.

Just my two cents
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Kiet

Right, if it was an enjoyable system, it makes sense you'd do it for  no reward, like people playing other competitive games. However, the issue is it's not enjoyable as a system, imo.

That doesn't mean the attempt wasn't good or that the work isn't appreciated, of course.

Marisella

Why don't you make your own consequences and rewards with what's left of the organised conflict?

Antidas

I find it strange that before this, all I ever heard was how people would enjoy the conflict more if the consequences were less severe, because people would be more willing to fight with a smaller chance of winning (I was absolutely one of these people).

Now that the admins have listened to our complaints and removed the vast RP consequences of losing, all I've heard here is people complaining about how the war no longer has any point and people don't want to participate anymore.

This community can be so damn hypocritical sometimes haha.

Mathilda

The grass, it is greener on the side you're not standing on.

Shirszae

Antidas said:

I find it strange that before this, all I ever heard was how people would enjoy the conflict more if the consequences were less severe, because people would be more willing to fight with a smaller chance of winning (I was absolutely one of these people).

Now that the admins have listened to our complaints and removed the vast RP consequences of losing, all I've heard here is people complaining about how the war no longer has any point and people don't want to participate anymore.

This community can be so damn hypocritical sometimes haha.

I think it has to do more with basically pulling the plug on something mid-event so to speak.  While it might have been for the better, I can imagine it feels kinda shitty nonetheless. Sure, you guys can organize something between yourselves, but thats what you were doing from the start and then the gods intervened and now the gods are gone and now you are left on your own devices again.

Nazihk

I'd like to make another attempt at a player run war and just run it as basically a series of war games. Could probably even do it with a theme, like Mhaldor and Targossas fighting for control of an island or something. 

Mhaldor gets to the island first. Naval battle for Targossas to break a blockade and land, followed by a ground battle to establish a beachhead. Hold some ground battles of various types, maybe some more naval engagements off the shore of the island. Overall losing side then has to fight a ground battle to board their ships and then has to break a blockade to escape.

No worries about losing the war because of sanction. No worries about random war duels feeding the opposing team, though maybe one/some of the ground battles could be a series of duels between factional champions. 

Antidas said:

Now that the admins have listened to our complaints and removed the vast RP consequences of losing, all I've heard here is people complaining about how the war no longer has any point and people don't want to participate anymore.

low != no

The problem is that we went from "huge incentive to avoid losing" to "no incentive to actually win".

Reyson

I also think if the last week hadn't been so up-and-down-y, maybe people would be more interested in continuing just for fun. However, because of how evasive both sides were, I think it drained a lot of the desire to participate from a lot of people, so it being continued for not a whole lot of reason is more a relief, than anything else. 

Prythe

Also an outsider. I think the consequences made a lot of sense, but the time period was far too long (as was the duration of the war).

I don't quite get all the points and how they were set up, but if one could deny points to the "other" side merely by choosing not to engage, that seems a bit mucked up.

That said, the entire thing was neat from afar, and like others I hope the good is kept, the areas for improvement are improved, and there is another go soon.

Cooper

This war was started, organized, and driven by players.

All that has changed are the one term that didn't have any tangible impact in game (the slaves), and the removal of the no preaching/etc that were set by the gods.

The rest of everything that was discussed is still in effect - the limit on tanks for the losing city, public post admitting defeat, and public execution of the MoW.

I don't understand why everyone is bitching now. The Divine did exactly what everyone wanted them to do - remove the negative 10 year no preaching term. They also rightfully took shots at each others cities for being pussies during the war.

We're exactly where we started when the war was organized. Let's stop being Negative Nancy's about this and finish the war and have fun.

Nazihk

Micaelis said:

This is why we can't have nice things. 

Everyone's already been chill about it, so let me blow my top since no one else wants to, then everyone can rage about it or agree. I don't really care.

What this boils down to, flowery pillow talk aside, is that the playerbase of Achaea (obviously, specifically the two War cities) was literally deemed too incompetent to back the RP justification of a storyline they had planned. That is an absolute travesty.

Also, no, that's not what this means at all.

What this means is that our experimental first time attempt at a player-run war system didn't work out in practice like we had hoped it would. That's all it really means. It turns out that you can't effectively base a war system off of mechanics that are entirely opt-in, because once you get a lead the best way of keeping that lead is by opting out of everything risky. It's something that we honestly should have foreseen, but nobody involved with the planning did foresee this. Or at least, nobody who foresaw this said anything about it.

What happened is that both sides pretty quickly grasped that the optimal strategy was to refuse to commit to anything unless you were sure of your victory. And this kind of thing is a MAD situation. You can't afford to play this non-optimally because you're fucked if you don't do it but your opponent does. 

And it wasn't even an OOC decision, really. Sure, it's a bit gamey, but so what? We came up with the rules and everything else entirely ICly, and our behavior makes perfect sense from an IC perspective. 4000 lives depended on our success in this battle, 2000 slaves who would know freedom if we won and 2000 freemen who would be enslaved if we lost. With that at stake, how could we justify going all #YOLO with tanks and giving up disarms? How could we justify risky duels or giving them sanction?

So I'm glad that @Deucalion and @Sartan dropped the heavy RP consequences. This was an ambitious experiment and I'm glad we tried it, but it turned out to be an unsuccessful experiment and so I'm glad that there aren't going to be heavy RP consequences for it. It was a good learning experience, and War mkII will be a lot better because of the lessons we learned from this.

Xaden

We're still at war right?

I mean, I was kinda looking forward to lagging out to the point of uselessness on Nishnatoba at stupid o clock on Saturday night...

all joking aside; it was a great attempt at creating meaningful conflict in a way that curbed the nastier elements of some of achaea's playerbase.

I, personally, would be very disappointed if it was just abandoned now.

Jayden

Cooper said:
All that has changed are the one term that didn't have any tangible impact in game (the slaves), and the removal of the no preaching/etc that were set by the gods.

So I guess I'm the really odd one out here, but the matter of the slaves is what got me so emotionally invested. Yeah, I know they're imaginary people that don't even have any effect beyond RPing out 'oh, that's awful'. But I'm a person who can get deeply invested on an emotional level if I let myself, and it's that RP consequence that made the victories so sweet, the sacrifices completely worth it, and the defeats utterly painful. It opened up a wonderful avenue for Jayden to settle in a bit more into her role in Targossas, and to gain yet more zeal in her roles - and as some of her family can attest, she was very, very invested in the outcome of this before now.

Really, I don't think it will change much of anything on my end. This can absolutely be spun for RP, even if it isn't the way you wanted to see this war turn out. For example, Jayden isn't shrugging it off, she's more zealous afterwards because it removed a chance for her to help in some incredible (in her eyes) work - and it's not like she needed help hating Mhaldor's very existence. With the RP consequences in place, she really had to temper herself in many ways. Soft-spoken as she can be day-to-day, she loves the chance to throw herself into battle with Mhaldorians especially, but she had to cool herself off because if she lost a duel (which let's be real, she usually does) there were serious potential consequences. Seeing her avoidant of conflict was a very bizarre turn borne of necessity. Besides, a Harbinger losing the ability to preach is a kill-me-now level of punishment.

ITT: Overly-emotional woman overly-invests herself in a nameless fictional populace and spouts off self-important nonsense.