Numbers (split from politics)

[Pistol]

To me politics is important but the focus should (and prob is) on numbers.

Personally I think we are about 100 people short for this game to be a success. As it stands now we have a situation where politically there cant be another war this age as basically no one can attack anyone unless a) they want to lose or b) they are downhitting.

The only possible exception to this would be if AOA were to hit DR and did a well attended (ie every guild member) first strike.

The real sad thing that came out of the abuse that came from the Justblind war and the seemingly ridiculous comments made to Masta are that when the guild folded most of its members stopped playing. At the very least they havent joined one of he 2 Leto guilds.

Not sure how we do it but we need more players..... the more we get the more plitics can play its part.

[Gili]

Are we not hit-able? or do we need to downsize in numbers a little?

[Pistol]

Who is we Gili?

[Gili]

BaN - the building is dull, was hoping some guild would hit us

[Pistol]

LoL Look at the rankings...... What guild could attack you unless they are happy to lose? DR is close enough in terms of land etc but in numbers its clear we would lose. The barnie guilds havent got a hope in hell. I say this as the person losing in Domination after attacking above my weight and yeah im having fun but I would imagine its hard to motivate a guild to basically restart their kingdoms.

Also what guild could BAN attack without some muppet calling you Hiltler / osama bin laden as from what I can gather someone may have done said to masta

[Gili]

If your saying its over, and others agree maybe we should reset.

[Aeyliea]

Not over yet, I'll come for you guys in BAN just gimme a little longer

[Gili]

thats the spirit! if you need some cash there is about 70 mil or so between my two kingdoms. Help yourselves, just try not to leave to much of a mess please

and don't sab my caravans

*edit* I feel a "Feed the world" parody coming on

[Blacklock]

We have debated this some internally, because I agree the one hit that looks doable and fair would be AoA hitting DR. (though in time the two barnie guilds could probably attempt BAN).

The reason we haven't is not for want or the fact that I am not sure what I am doing(I dont:)) its more the fact that if we do succeed the it might make the top of the scrolls a little more blue heavy and I just think at this stage its not a good thing.

I was hoping another Leto guild would form from Devious guild or some more people would jump on(I am not worried yet its still pretty early in guilds coming back) or BaN would be hit and things would normalize a little bit.

For now I am okay with hitting unguilded and npcs if we can find them and perhaps make ourselves more of a target instead. I am not for a reset because I still think this is a good age for learning and perhaps getting other people back into the game but I am for whatever would help the game the most at this point in time.

[Kaz]

The whole JustBlind war basically could have led to 5 dual-kingdom players leaving because they were closely connected to Masta or theBrony.

Masta, his wife Ophelia, Igneous, his brother theBrony and his other brother.

Barraind hasn't returned since the JustBlind thing, so he might have a personal connection to Masta or theBrony that I'm unaware of. Maybe he just left because of the crappy thread that developed, or he was forwarded the dodgy OOC scribes that Masta was sent and realised that years down the line, nothing seemed to have changed.

Whatever reason Barraind had, looking at the last accessed timestamp, Ophelia (Masta's wife) seems to still be logging in as does Igneous and theBrony's other brother. That suggests that a few more Letos eventually returning isn't totally out of the realms of possibility.

If you want to hunt for new Leto's elsewhere, Taldric and Fo created Leto kingdoms then stopped logging in after the first few days, if you can get them back that's 4 more kingdoms for Leto. Lady Aria, Nether, Rob and Scribe have only created 1 kingdom each, they could create a second kingdom to boost numbers. That's 8 additional Leto kingdoms that are reasonably easy to achieve, even without the kingdoms connected to the two players most involved in the JustBlind thread fiasco. Add Calis's UG and there's another 10 kingdom guild.

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On the subject of a reset, resetting now would just be another blow to the member count. No doubt people will not come back after such a short age. A lot of people find the early part of the age boring, if this game is just have a couple of wars, have a downhit, reset, it'll get boring for those people fast.

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In my opinion, numbers really are not as bad an issue as it seems though. There is a limitation that only exists because we've chosen to ignore several perfectly reasonable avenues of play.

Many guilded games allow you to play your kingdom how you want to, guilds are an additional feature that adds an additional element that you can't get through solo play. Here guilds take away the solo element, forcing you to play by a certain set of rules.

This game offers three forms of war. Kingdom vs Kingdom, Quad vs Quad and Guild vs Guild. There is no reason why Kingdom vs Kingdom and Quad vs Quad warfare cannot be a part of the Guilds game. The 'only' reason it isn't, is because unwritten tradition states that all warfare must be Guild vs Guild. Any warfare of another sort is just an excuse to declare Guild War.

There are plenty of games that don't make that distinction. Those communities are quite happy to declare kingdom vs kingdom wars, and then on occasion create a much larger conflict.

Take the JustBlind war. It was mostly an issue because they included Empire fresh out of war as the bulk of the numbers, even though Empire only really have 1 kingdom of any note. They were really interested in the larger cult of Mav kingdoms, but Mav's guild had too few numbers to war with.

If we didn't have such a narrow minded view of warfare options in Guilds, then he could have created a Ranked Quad of his largest kingdoms and fought a perfectly fair war with a similar cult of Maverick Ranked Quad. Some of the smaller JustBlind kingdoms could be having different Kingdom vs Kingdom or Quad vs Quad wars elsewhere against different guilds.

But traditionally we can't see beyond Guild vs Guild. If we could, we could open this game up considerably. It's a mind shift that I'd love to see happen.

[Lak]

I don't mind changing over to Leto if needed - after all it was my first 'home'.

But yeah... I think I'd be more of a handicap even as an extra number! I'll try maybe speak to a few peeps I've been playing games with since leaving here and see if any are interested... if so you might see me re-appear as a Letite... still either way - I shall go where needed.

[Nether]

I looked at hitting, the obvious choice was Empire but after some poking around it would be over before it began. No offense to Empire but they are held up by like three kingdoms and we could get through those, so I directed my people to hit NPCs. BaN is just a tad bit to strong for me to go after right now as tempting as it might be.

[Calis]

I remember when we used to throw down ala "12 kingdoms (3 quads) out of our 40-player guild have attacked your 15 kingdom guild. We promise they are the only ones involved." It was messy enough when I did that during my time leading ~ISA~, and a total disaster when Dysh did the same thing. Putting aside the issue of trust (as in, you actually believe only those named are participating), there were so many headaches from that kind of hit!

Some examples:
1. ok, so the other kingdoms in the guild just get to build on their open land while protected by a war dec only 1/3rd of the guild is involved in?
2. what happens when another guild hits the kingdoms "not involved?"
3. what if a small guild were to declare on the larger guild, and "pick" kingdoms to participate - would they really expect the larger guild to not retaliate with its other realms?

it's very tricky. I think we went with saying "well, thats the advantage of running a big guild", cuz for sure there are disadvantages to balance it out!

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I'm likely staying UG for now...AoA decided to make a few landgrabs on me and I'm not the kind of player to take that lightly...don't want to foul up relations with another Leto guild for what happened to me while UG!

[Gili]

probably not an issue now,but i always did wonder why Unguilded didn't get a recruitment type info in place of where a guild banner might be. Perhaps with direct links to apply. And i guess maybe a Dismiss to get rid of the page if thats what your not looking for. Way back when the game was bigger there was always new players who seemed clueless about the game, and didn't seem to find their ways into guilds. It seemed especially daft asking friends in opposing faiths to let you know who in your faith was guildless so you could message them and see if they wanted in

[Kaz]

Calis, the difference between now and then is that there is now a ranked quad setup much like with the guild ranks. It's not 'currently' active in the guilds game, but if you create a kingdom in Domination you'll see it.

When you're in a ranked quad you can't actually ally with members outside of the quad so getting 'bonus' alliance aid would not be possible. External burning etc would still be possible, but that happens outside of war anyway so it's not 'really' an issue.

Also, a guild war declaration would not exist. Ranked quad can declare quad war on another ranked quad, but only on ranked quads (not any old alliance), so if a guild has a selection of ranked quads then it's saying that it's ok utilise them. If it doesn't want to take part in quad warfare it doesn't make quads and sticks to standard alliances.

As for your questions, other games manage it fine. The only reason why it's an issue is because we 'chose' to make it one. If we change mind-set then it's no longer an issue. The only issue that's not 100% mind-set based, is what happens if a guild war happens while quad wars are going on. If that happens the quad either fights both fronts, or asks for peace. Again, it's only an issue because we've traditionally made it one.

[Kaz]

Gili, I've recently been thinking about newly created kingdoms having a selection of useful scribes waiting for them. Vets could just delete them. Plus there's the idea about the training system, maybe I ought to move that thread here and make it a bit more visible. In fact I'll do that.

[Calis]

Kaz, that last post - default scribe msgs upon joining - is pretty awesome. It's like the welcome to gmail email!
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Oh very interesting. I like how that could work out w/the quads. "Here's our best 4...think your best 4 can take us out? bring it!"
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You're exactly right in that it's only a problem if we make it a problem. We're all a little older, and hopefully a bit less hot-headed, and maybe there'll be some influx of new blood that won't remember the "old ways" haha

[Dark Horse]

I'm likely staying UG for now...AoA decided to make a few landgrabs on me and I'm not the kind of player to take that lightly...don't want to foul up relations with another Leto guild for what happened to me while UG!

Technically AoA had nothing to do with it other than that I needed some land and assumed you were gone. I'd be happy to turn over your acres again because what you suggest is why I quit playing in the first place. Revenge is a lame motive. Too many other things I could do with my time... Being an adult and everything.

[Calis]

I don't want to to quit because you think I'm gonna haunt you the rest of the age or something, I did my damage, although it's tempting to go after your other kingdom (as well as Ricardo's). However, that'll probably cost me my other realm too - one vs guild is pretty bad odds - so I have to decide "is it worth it?" Probably not, in this particular environment.

What I -really- want to do is track down some old buddies and get more players and another leto guild up...

No need to turn over any acres...I can tithe it all back quickly enough!

[Dauthi]

Calis if your looking to play around until you get a gang going your welcome to join the Goblins, but you'll have to have a goblin realm first.