War System Changes

Gilliam

Ashtan's "A"-team is just Austere now. B-team is down to just me. We're working on training up more people but its not a super fast process. My most major concern with the new system actually kind if matches with that training. When we get enough of a team together to attempt raiding again, bam, we're generating hostility and the price point on refusing war while we're still trying to learn goes up. Probably going to be an issue to bring up with the team we raid semi-oocly to make sure we're not all making each other want to kill ourselves. Still a concern though.

Vhaith

Jinsun said:

Lenn said:

Remember when Ashtan killed over a hundred Hashan guards in a single night? I remember.

By the way that was 2.5 million at least in damages, ignoring all the other nights they only managed ten or so, and ignoring all the rooms blown up.

Honestly, Ashtan should start off with maximum hostility toward Hashan after the stuff they pulled.

Again, none of those people play, should I start killing you any time we get raided because it's "fair" vengeance?

None of the people who raided play/play in Ashtan anymore, but that's totally on Ashtan. Maybe don't drive your citizens away/into inactivity with stupid decisions/baseless accusations/needless drama? Does that exempt your City from the War system? Hell no. Does not having reliable combatants exempt your City from conflict now? Nope. Every City, at one time or another, has been dog piled when they weren't prepared for it. Every City, at one point or another, has dog piled another City. It's the nature of conflict. The fact that Ashtan is no longer ready for that, is absolutely on you guys, and the decisions people in your City made.

Cobault

Astarod said:

 Man, you never really got over that, did you?

Without devolving it anymore after this explanation, that quote is pretty much the standing issue wrapped in a nutshell. You see it as a fault lying in someone else. You need to comprehend at some point bruh, you are not the fix-all end-all to every situation and not every last thing you do is infallible. I was a whisper in an explosion when trying to voice that you didn't deserve to be kicked and enemied to the City. The collective majority that I spoke to and interacted with thought that you were, pretty simply put, a cocky prick. Most of Ashtan were glad you were gone, the handful against it were like me, drowned out by the rest.
Then later on you post something to public boards that basically sings to the tune of "I mean, if -I- were still there none of these problems would be happening." So it's clear you didn't really learn any humility from the experience, just more "those venomous plotters did this to me!!" Getting screwed like that doesn't work when the entire City screams in outrage, but it's super easy when they mostly scream in joy. There wasn't shit I could do for you except I guess ragequit/go dormant like the other whispers did. Which, I mean, I like you and all despite what you probably think, but no thanks.

The problem standing right now is people don't comprehend that leaderships change. Things can be reverted. Problems, fixed with time. I should know, I watched Shadownsakes go through the rise and fall motion a dozen times. Factions that come in and basically ruin the game for everyone with their political bullshit. But it never lasts. A whole bunch of people screamed we would be better off without Truax. They couldn't stay in Ashtan under her, it was just, impossible! She had to go! Well, she's gone now and where are these people at? Oh, right. They got in their feelings and either ragequit or went dormant. The easy way out. And they still don't plan to come back. That's not even counting the quitters we've had because they refuse to be on a losing team after being on a winning one for so long. It's absolute shit but we're working with what we got left and it really can't be helped.

Astarod

For everyone emotionally inclined to the "Who screwed the Pooch" debate circling Ashtan's fall from grace, lets take it to Less Aggressive Menace. 

Namino

I'm doubling down on my earlier position.

The tone of this thread has really crystallized to me that war is a seriously negative system in Achaea in both its current deployment, as well as previous ones.

The language being used in this thread is entirely focused on one thing -- how much pain you can inflict on the opposing side. There is next to no talk about the actual positive benefits of winning a war for your side, only talk about how much hurt you can do, or avenging previous hurt done to you by doing some hurt of your own. When the primary motivating factor of engaging in a system is to distribute pain onto another group of players, rather than actually acquire any positive net benefit for yourself, there's only one thing you can call this:

Griefing. War in Achaea is a tacitly staff-sanctioned griefing system. Simply glancing at this thread, it's fueled exclusively by each sides' desire to see the other side suffer, not their desire to see their side thrive.

Wars in reality, with certain religiously motivated exceptions, are generally fought for things -- living space, arable land, oil deposits, plunder, expansion. Staff need to reimagine a system that provides positive incentive to be gained by engaging in war, rather than expect the system to be sustained exclusively by vitriol and griefing tendencies of the playerbase. As things stand, all it does is engender serious grudges amongst your playerbases. I raided with Tanris. That was in 2013, seven years ago, and people are still referencing in this thread how pissed off it made them. Do staff really want a system that is so negative and trollish that bitter tastes can permeate ad infinatum like this?

Vastly increase the positive incentive for victory and vastly reduce the negative consequence for loss for a much less toxic experience, and resultant community.

Keorin

This sure has gotten toxic and pointless fast. I know I'm posting way too much in this thread (I've fixated on it a bit as I've dealt with anxiety on some IRL shit these last few days), but bear with me for another, and I'll shut up afterwards.

I've played this game long enough to see the excesses of most every faction in the game, as well as what it's like to be on the receiving end. I wasn't a fighter at the time, nor particularly plugged in, but I started playing my first char in Hashan around the time of the Qashar, I played in Shallam during the constant Ashtan raiding, I've played in Smalldor, I've played most of my time in Cyrene. And in being in so many places, there's two things I can say: every faction is guilty of its excesses if we're looking at a long enough timescale, and at the same time, every faction is full of pretty fundamentally decent people overall, who care about this game and this community and the places they play in.

We should be smart enough to know that this circular blame game over history that's often the better part of a decade old is deeply irrational. We can treat cities like monolithic entities IG, but OOC, we should all know damned well enough that cities have fluid playerbases and leadership, and a city today can hardly be held responsible for what happened in the past, because the people who did it have moved or have left or on different characters. In game, it makes sense to compare Targ to the Qashar or seek vengeance against Ashtan for all the shit they pulled, but the moment we take it outside and join in with all this forum roleplay things get stupid fast.

We have a small (and, frankly, shrinking) playerbase, for a single game in a niche hobby. The health of the game and its playerbase as a whole directly contribute to the health of each of our organisations. In short, we're all in this together. Not all of the issues in this game are on us as players, but a lot of this nonsense is, so we can't afford to tear each other apart based on the griefy shit that different groups of people pulled ages ago.

So just, can we maybe sit down, and forgive each other for what happened a decade ago, or a few years ago, or a few months ago, and start focusing on what will make the game better -from here-? A lot of stuff in the past sucked, and we all know it sucked, and we've all been responsible for those issues and been on the receiving end of them at one time or another. So let's try and work out how to make things suck less, how to make our orgs better, and in this case, what would improve a war system that most of us seem to agree has some issues, for every one of our sakes.

Or I guess we can just keep playing circular firing squad, if that's really what sounds like fun to everyone.

Lenn

I'm not particularly angry, personally.

I just think it's silly to hear from Ashtan players that they don't want to lose millions of gold, in the light of recent context.

What they did solidified Lenn's place as a valiant defender of Hashan... until she did a Lenn, anyway. So it was cool for RP reasons for me personally.

It's just also completely ridiculous.

Silas

Astarod said:

I'll preface this with the fact that I am a griefy person. I'll also thank @Nicola @Ictinus and everyone else who held a part in this for giving combat in Achaea some love.. we should NOT forget that this is a step in a direction, even if not forward. I really enjoy changes, and even if there are some bad in this, we should try to be thankful they gave it any attention at all.

Couldn't disagree more with this. This is literally their job. Sure, it can be thankless at times, but they're not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, and can expect criticism when they mess up in their job like anybody else.

Totally different with the actual volunteers, naturally, but this is a strange mentality to fall into.

Ererean

What did I just walk into

Tahquil

I'll preface to say I'm not a combatty person and I might be misinterpretting some of the post.

Would it be more acceptable if a city loses/surrenders a war gets a small buff to dissuade dog piling by the same enemy city or other city. Things like : 
- Due to blood soaked ground, the city font thrums with a new energy granting citizens a point to each stat within the city walls for the duration of the two years.
- Guards are cheaper to employ, or have to attend a mandatory training camp for the two years making them stronger for these two years.
- A band of Mercs offer their services to the losing city until they are 'back on their feet', giving the city a new type of protecter guard for 2 years.

[Deleted User]

Cobault said:

Most of Ashtan were glad you were gone, the handful against it were like me, drowned out by the rest.

Bruh, what are you even saying? There were like a handful of people only who wanted him gone. Unfortunately it was that handful who actually had the power to remove him, and don't actually listen to anyone except themselves.

Jinsun

Pyori said:

Cobault said:

Most of Ashtan were glad you were gone, the handful against it were like me, drowned out by the rest.

Bruh, what are you even saying? There were like a handful of people only who wanted him gone. Unfortunately it was that handful who actually had the power to remove him, and don't actually listen to anyone except themselves.

As someone who didn't buy into the drama and tried to remain neutral, Astarod did everything possible to make himself an unviable candidate to return and you're all just looking like a bunch of twats bickering over it.

[Deleted User]

Jinsun said:

Pyori said:

Cobault said:

Most of Ashtan were glad you were gone, the handful against it were like me, drowned out by the rest.

Bruh, what are you even saying? There were like a handful of people only who wanted him gone. Unfortunately it was that handful who actually had the power to remove him, and don't actually listen to anyone except themselves.

As someone who didn't buy into the drama and tried to remain neutral, Astarod did everything possible to make himself an unviable candidate to return and you're all just looking like a bunch of twats bickering over it.

That hardly refutes what I said, but go on.

Rangor

If you're gonna go to war, set a war council/cabinet that holds the leadership positions until the war has passed.

Minifie

so talking to @Aetous, Something that may help alleviate the duress of "losing" a city's gold, especially if they are in dire times:

The gold cap hoard boon stuff is working okay for what it does, but let that cap split into hoard and "WAR HOARD", which is gold inaccessible outside of players hands. This gold accumulates the same as hoards do at the moment, and can be donated by players in the same way. If one loses a war, any losses incurred comes from this fund, and straight to the winning city's bank. This may seem like an issue, being able to game it by not hunting past the cap much and keeping your hoard low. The way around this is simple:

City A declares war on city B, city A only has 200k in their war hoard, but city B has 25 million. City A loses the war, and thus, the 200k comes from their hoard, and the rest from city' B's hoard to their coffers. Sure, you "pay" yourself, but that's gold you CAN'T use for anything anyway. 

If this would cause an issue with inflation (which I think it would), instead separate the hoard into two groups: Warchest and coffers. Warchest is what gets pilfered, and coffers can be used solely to pay for things like guards, city improvements etc. It can't be transfered directly to players or any coffers, and it specifically ONLY exists as additional gold to spend on guards, improvements, and MAYBE bounties (though that can still stay in the standard coffers IMO).

Cities have a lot to gain by having access to more of their additional coffers, and this gold (never reaching players hands), doesn't cause an issue with inflation or hurting credit prices, only with city-based sinks. Losing a war only grants more of this illusion gold, and winning means you take from another city's war chest. 

The current issue is that this isn't even a gold sink, either, so it doesn't help that it's just a transfer of gold from point A to point B, where instead players can feel invested in their chest, even shit fighters or just hunters can participate with this. 

There are other issues I have with the current iteration,  but just a change like this could go a long way to dissuading the "FUCK DON'T ENGAGE AND RISK LOSING GOLD" mentality, since no city effectively "loses" gold, just invisible safety nets.

Vinzent

That requires a relatively large city with people who like to hunt, and can do so quickly to pass the gold cap. It additionally relies on artefacts to achieve in a realistic way if you don't have hours and hours of free time.

I think the gold cost for losing/declining (when appropriate) makes sense, but I do not believe it is implemented in the best way. It might better serve as a percentage of the cities coffers going to whomever with a hard baseline number significantly less than what is on the board already. For example, losing might cost 1.5M and then 15% of your city coffers goes to the winner. In declining, maximally you might lose 15% of your city coffers (with no additional baseline cost like losing).

It might be good to reduce guard prices during a war as well to alleviate the gold burden that could otherwise be incurred. I don't think eliminating the cost entirely would be wise, though.

The point isn't to make war cheap or meaningless but more attainable/attractive for cities that cannot, or would not, otherwise ever participate.

Minifie

Except now you just have people gaming the system if need be to not push hostile both ways, especially in a game where idiots are in a hard pressed, "can't lose" attitude. If you can't field hunters to keep the hoard topped up, then get your fighters to do something. Gold cap isn't hard to reach, and everyone doing a little bit will more than send it over. Losing gold because one side can out no-life the other isn't going to entice anyone to give a shit, or specifically target cities they know they can mollywomp.

Vinzent

Maybe the gold cap is easy to reach for auto bashers and artied Serpent, or similar fast bashing classes, but it takes me 2+ hours even going after the most valuable denizens. People don't have that sort of time to dedicate to nothing but generating gold for a war. At least most of us don't.

Minifie

Then don't? You don't have to engage in war, either.

Astarod

Minifie said:

Then don't? You don't have to engage in war, either.

 I'm kinda against that idea of thought. 

Don't you want someone to fight at the end of the day? What's the point of discouraging people- we want more people willing to engage in group conflict, not less. 

Minifie

Astarod said:

Minifie said:

Then don't? You don't have to engage in war, either.

I'm kinda against that idea of thought. 

Don't you want someone to fight at the end of the day? What's the point of discouraging people, we want more people willing to engage in group conflict, not less. 

Because the current iteration, most people are going to take the smallest risk possible, and game the system just to be sure they don't push themselves past a certain level of hostility to not overreach their gold amounts, and not every city is so full of gold they can just toss bags of it out, especially if you lose the war because your enemies hide on guards and wait for roving gank squads. Your city doesn't even need to bash past this gold cap level, if you don't, and you win a war, you take from another city. If nobody does, then gold rewards don't really hurt anyone anyway. This doesn't force any city to mass-hunt past gold cap UNLESS they want to be assured of a good reward for winning wars. 

Micaelis

I like the idea as it mitigates the cost of losing while maintaining the benefit of winning, I just don't think tinkering with the gold portion is the most successful idea. 

The entire addition of gold as an incentive (as a boon or a loss) doesn't make much sense as who honestly cares about losing someone else's gold? Sure, it may be your city's, but you don't ever see it or feel it. Most aren't even aware of how much gold their city has or what it's used for. And, even if you do know these things, it's just an arbitrary number that floats around for years and years. It rarely affects any avenue of your life. If the winning city decided to give that gold to those who fought it might raise some greedy eyebrows but, even then, how much are we talking over the course of a war and time necessary to win it?

I think you touched on the core of the issue with people's inability to lose, and that this system only reinforces that concept by giving you a tangible number you're supposed to not lose. I, for one, have no real problem losing if for the right reason. The banners, as an example, I personally love. I love the idea of roleplaying a loss with tangible things I can see, hear, and speak about IC. It brings to mind Trevian Shea, the bitter defeat at the hands of those you despise. I think if the pool of what is won and lost bent more towards tangible roleplaying effects (banners, environment emotes for a given time period, denizens changing or adapting after a win/loss, etc) I'd be far more interested in not only winning, but actually losing. 

There's something to be said about playing the underdog and if the system brought that out with things people might be able to work with on a roleplay level, I think people would be surprised how willingly others would participate. 

Kog

That's definitely a good point. Losing a war should mean you focus on rebuilding, or building up. The winners should get something concrete, for the win- banners, bragging rights, glory. But the losers should get something too, in order to help with the rebuild.

Give the winners something taken from the losers, but also give both participants something to encourage using the system from an OOC perspective- reward people engaging, because systems that are interesting but don't pay out well don't get used (forays are rarely done, for example).

Keep the current things, also give the winners a +1 stat, or extra xp bonus. Maybe give them access to an extra tank, or more font power. Extra resists when in an enemy city, or slightly more damage when fighting at home. Something that appeals to fighters. Maybe just generate a list and let them pick one thing.

The losers get the same, or similar, to encourage the rebuild- just not nearly as effective. Scale the duration of both buffs based on the total number of points scored. You want a bloodbath? Reward people for getting scored on, and scoring.

As it stands, I wouldn't sign up Cyrene for a war because it would cause leadership (who I like!) a lot of pointless grief. If I was going to get something out of it either way, though, I'd be a lot more willing to throw them under the bus for a few weeks (sorry @Laedha).

[Deleted User]

Not a fan of adding another incentive for passing the gold cap, it exists for a reason and allowing it to fund city expenses (even at a limited capacity) defeats the purpose. 

I do agree that the incentive structure seems off here. In my experience, the people who care a lot about city finances and the people who care a lot about PK don't fully intersect. One of the big things that cities want to avoid is having backlash from the 'non-com' population over the choices the combatants make; it's a scenario that we've seen play out repeatedly, and this system could serve to deepen that divide. 

I really like the RP-oriented penalties like the banners in the losing city, and I think one way to improve the setup is to move away from the more tangible 'punishments' and more towards benefits for the winner. Your city wins a war? Now your denizens are happy to join the army and can be recruited at a discount. Or maybe your barracks have reduced upkeep in the afterglow of the war. Maybe your soldiers get bonus experience when they land a killing blow, and Dauntless get a bonus beyond that. Or maybe even shared XP for group PK, which has been long yearned after by the more support-oriented fighters. This could be tied to the morale mechanic, and the losing cities might experience reduction in how quickly morale can climb for awhile. Morale could have a cap from general mechanics that can only be bypassed during war time, and you achieve these sort of rewards as you reach each morale threshold (or have their effectiveness scale to the morale). 

Basically, gold as a reward/penalty is boring, and doesn't really add any additional appeal to the system, it might only serve to frustrate those who didn't want to go to war in the first place. Instead of penalties for participating, add incentives to taking risks by going to war in the first place, by allowing those orgs to achieve benefits you can only get by engaging in warfare.

EDIT: I took forever to post and it looks like @Kog landed on a similar idea while I was drafting it. Great minds etc.

Farrah

Micaelis said:

I like the idea as it mitigates the cost of losing while maintaining the benefit of winning, I just don't think tinkering with the gold portion is the most successful idea. 

The entire addition of gold as an incentive (as a boon or a loss) doesn't make much sense as who honestly cares about losing someone else's gold? Sure, it may be your city's, but you don't ever see it or feel it. Most aren't even aware of how much gold their city has or what it's used for. And, even if you do know these things, it's just an arbitrary number that floats around for years and years. It rarely affects any avenue of your life. If the winning city decided to give that gold to those who fought it might raise some greedy eyebrows but, even then, how much are we talking over the course of a war and time necessary to win it?

I think you touched on the core of the issue with people's inability to lose, and that this system only reinforces that concept by giving you a tangible number you're supposed to not lose. I, for one, have no real problem losing if for the right reason. The banners, as an example, I personally love. I love the idea of roleplaying a loss with tangible things I can see, hear, and speak about IC. It brings to mind Trevian Shea, the bitter defeat at the hands of those you despise. I think if the pool of what is won and lost bent more towards tangible roleplaying effects (banners, environment emotes for a given time period, denizens changing or adapting after a win/loss, etc) I'd be far more interested in not only winning, but actually losing. 

There's something to be said about playing the underdog and if the system brought that out with things people might be able to work with on a roleplay level, I think people would be surprised how willingly others would participate. 

I don't disagree with this at all, but there's a somewhat weird aspect to me from an IC perspective where war is voluntary and it's weird to accept it if you know you're going to lose. If I was a city leader, what would be the reason I'd provide to my city for going to war, to rally them behind it, rather than just taking all the punches they can throw without war? For example, Ashtan was clobbering Hashan for a while and it definitely felt like being an underdog, and we absolutely rallied and fought back, but I couldn't really fathom accepting a war that essentially amounts to "we're going to keep fighting this losing battle but let's increase the stakes so we lose more."

It just feels too irrational and difficult to justify. It's easy to justify fighting when it's forced upon you - resist the oppressors, etc etc. But why would you agree to give them more? That's why I think some kind of incentive is important. If we could have some goal that would be achievable for us by going to war but otherwise not possible, even though we're otherwise going to get smacked in the war, it would make sense to say "let's do this, it's worth the cost." Similarly, if war wasn't voluntary, and was just forced upon us from time to time, we could roleplay and fight it out. But I have a hard time IC justifying choosing to lose big IC for no rational reason.

Micaelis

Farrah said:

Micaelis said:

I like the idea as it mitigates the cost of losing while maintaining the benefit of winning, I just don't think tinkering with the gold portion is the most successful idea. 

The entire addition of gold as an incentive (as a boon or a loss) doesn't make much sense as who honestly cares about losing someone else's gold? Sure, it may be your city's, but you don't ever see it or feel it. Most aren't even aware of how much gold their city has or what it's used for. And, even if you do know these things, it's just an arbitrary number that floats around for years and years. It rarely affects any avenue of your life. If the winning city decided to give that gold to those who fought it might raise some greedy eyebrows but, even then, how much are we talking over the course of a war and time necessary to win it?

I think you touched on the core of the issue with people's inability to lose, and that this system only reinforces that concept by giving you a tangible number you're supposed to not lose. I, for one, have no real problem losing if for the right reason. The banners, as an example, I personally love. I love the idea of roleplaying a loss with tangible things I can see, hear, and speak about IC. It brings to mind Trevian Shea, the bitter defeat at the hands of those you despise. I think if the pool of what is won and lost bent more towards tangible roleplaying effects (banners, environment emotes for a given time period, denizens changing or adapting after a win/loss, etc) I'd be far more interested in not only winning, but actually losing. 

There's something to be said about playing the underdog and if the system brought that out with things people might be able to work with on a roleplay level, I think people would be surprised how willingly others would participate. 

I don't disagree with this at all, but there's a somewhat weird aspect to me from an IC perspective where war is voluntary and it's weird to accept it if you know you're going to lose. If I was a city leader, what would be the reason I'd provide to my city for going to war, to rally them behind it, rather than just taking all the punches they can throw without war? For example, Ashtan was clobbering Hashan for a while and it definitely felt like being an underdog, and we absolutely rallied and fought back, but I couldn't really fathom accepting a war that essentially amounts to "we're going to keep fighting this losing battle but let's increase the stakes so we lose more."

It just feels too irrational and difficult to justify. It's easy to justify fighting when it's forced upon you - resist the oppressors, etc etc. But why would you agree to give them more? That's why I think some kind of incentive is important. If we could have some goal that would be achievable for us by going to war but otherwise not possible, even though we're otherwise going to get smacked in the war, it would make sense to say "let's do this, it's worth the cost." Similarly, if war wasn't voluntary, and was just forced upon us from time to time, we could roleplay and fight it out. But I have a hard time IC justifying choosing to lose big IC for no rational reason.

That's a good point. My point was more from an OOC perspective, if taken IC things change as you mention. 

I'm ignoring the gold incentive as personally I don't agree with it.

But let's assume another incentive. What if the victory for the challenging city lead to smaller rewards/higher losses (I lean towards more roleplay-centric losses here so as to not discourage challenging in the first place) than the accepting city which had the chance to win higher rewards/smaller losses? As to what those rewards/losses are exactly I'm not entirely sure, but something other than gold.

This would reduce the risk of the target (who is more than likely undermanned versus the aggressor) and increase the incentive to compete.

Laedha

Kog said:

As it stands, I wouldn't sign up Cyrene for a war because it would cause leadership (who I like!) a lot of pointless grief. If I was going to get something out of it either way, though, I'd be a lot more willing to throw them under the bus for a few weeks (sorry @Laedha).

I'm 100% willing to get thrown under the bus and die a bunch if there's any remote chance of Cyrene gaining anything out of it, tangible or intangible. I love the idea of us having it out with Hashan. But the way it's set up now, I can't see anything but a really unpleasant month of getting "raided" at odd hours and having a bunch of guards killed for points. 

Also, a month, really? That's waaaaay too long. World events even get stale when they last that long, let alone a two-city conflict. An in game year would be more than enough. 

Jinsun

Laedha said:

Kog said:

As it stands, I wouldn't sign up Cyrene for a war because it would cause leadership (who I like!) a lot of pointless grief. If I was going to get something out of it either way, though, I'd be a lot more willing to throw them under the bus for a few weeks (sorry @Laedha).

I'm 100% willing to get thrown under the bus and die a bunch if there's any remote chance of Cyrene gaining anything out of it, tangible or intangible. I love the idea of us having it out with Hashan. But the way it's set up now, I can't see anything but a really unpleasant month of getting "raided" at odd hours and having a bunch of guards killed for points. 

Also, a month, really? That's waaaaay too long. World events even get stale when they last that long, let alone a two-city conflict. An in game year would be more than enough. 

You get grief either way. We're already getting grief from one of our 10 active players for not agreeing to lose a war

Cooper

Issam said:

Not a fan of adding another incentive for passing the gold cap, it exists for a reason and allowing it to fund city expenses (even at a limited capacity) defeats the purpose. 

The gold cap exists because the person who created the game made them implement it. It was implemented because gold was being generated "too fast" and out pacing credit purchases, which drove prices up.

Unfortunately, this was not the most impactful cause of the problem(s). It was the seafaring bug that was allowing individual players to generate an immense amount of gold. It went undiscovered for a very long time. One individual player is rumored to have gotten over 100 million gold from it, which they used to buy credits off the market over time.

To give you a frame of reference, the most gold someone can realistically generate from bashing is about 250k per reset. So Penwize would have to bash to cap for 400 days straight to generate the gold one of the abusers generated in a couple months.

The second part (and again, a larger problem than the gold generated from bashing) is the credit promotions that Achaea is running. Before the credit market started to see wild inflation, promos were mostly 30% off sales on credits. Now they are globes, spins, stockings, etc. The amount of unbound credits coming into the game is drastically smaller than "before".

In fact, you can see the month that Achaea introduced these sales just by watching the credit market prices over time. For real life years, the market had averaged around 5000-5500, with a couple of short jumps to 5800/6000. The first month the gambling promotions were introduced, credit prices started to go up steadily.

tl;dr - the bashing cap exists because the person in IRE who had the final say on implementing it did not have a good grasp on Achaea's economy.

Lorath

Would a cities individual allies also count in this new war system? Meaning if City A has a few people allied that are rogue. Would they also count towards things with the war?