Your View: Warclaims, Warfare and Casus Bellis

[Narthok 10416]

Your View: Warclaims, Warfare and Casus Bellis

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Ego Stroking

Hey y’all, I think we can all pretty conclusively agree that the current state of warfare is absolutely horrid. The present system is excessively bureaucratic in nature and makes it nye impossible to conduct a proactive or aggressive military campaign or action. To that end I’d like to take a litmus test on community thought. War is, whatever you might think, a necessity to many lotc populations and rp communities. The dynamism and narratives player driven wars generate are responsible for many of the most epic stories of LOTC proper. Many LOTCers were drawn to our community by this unique aspect of our platform and following the many iterations of war and conflict nerfs. Departed. So I put the question to the community at large. What is your view, on LOTC wars?

 

Data Collection

With my last Your View:, I made an admittedly large error. Using a google form was a bad idea for a plethora of reasons. But in short it made it difficult to refine the data due to the long answers that were collected. Following this refinement it made it difficult to properly interpret the data. And no doubt the more mortal of sins, it made the publicization of said data an irritating and arduous chore that could be easily and reasonably criticized. The criticism filed at the data collection for raids was fair so I will be making an effort to publicize the data so that there are no questions on what the community thinks here. Data will be compiled in the form of the above poll, enabling all who wish to see the hard voted numbers do so above. Those who do not choose the correct options will be found in violation of the community guidelines :^) (Fireheart told me to say this was a joke).

 

The Situation

As it stands nobody understands how the LOTC war system works. But for those of us who pretend to, it mostly involves the fabrication of a series of CBs which almost to a T boil down to ‘they were mean to me so I should be allowed to hit them with my stick’. There is very little to absolutely no room for aggressive action, the system as it stands allows only (for the most part) retaliatory action. So, to ‘go to war’ one must wait for one’s enemies to make sufficient mistakes wherein the offended party can gather a bunch of major and minor cbs and conquer them. This system is unrealistic and stifles dynamism and political relations, conflicts and general rp between LOTC’s diverse political factions and entities. The only wars that currently happen are between tiny 20 man factions mostly comprised of inexperienced leaders and players who do not understand how to avoid being warred (by properly tip toeing around ooc regulations and barriers).

 

Some Thoughts

I don’t think I’ve ever been particularly subtle in voicing my ardent opposition to ooc barriers hindering legitimate rp. Especially legitimate conflict rp. Thus it is probably no surprise when I say that the current system needs a great deal of work before it is palpable. I personally believe that a reversion back to the old system is ideal. Wherein there are no ‘casus belli’ requirements. All that was required was merely stating the rp reasons that drove your faction to warfare. This of course prefaced by an rp post outlining the conflict or providing some nice fluffy context. There was absolutely nothing wrong with this system as it put the onus of regulation on the RP political entities of the wider world. Wars were not constant invasions by militant factions who would rampage out of control. Nor were passifcist factions heavily bullied by those militant factions. Protections were established IRP and that system worked admirably for the majority of LOTC’s lifespan.

 

In my view the system we have now relies too much on silly bureaucracy, excessively strict definitions and the  assumption that warfare is always just and righteous retaliation (in line with the democratic nations most LOTCers presumably come from). These restrictions should be cut away to remove the heavy restrictions on dynamism that are strangling lotc. However, I will concede that I am very much in favour of having to ‘pre register’ your alliances and bonds. While it might be a bit too strict as it stands preventing the acquisition of mercenaries and such. It is a good starting point to stop every war from devolving into an absolute global slog that was chic during Athera and for the entirety of Vailor.

 

Some Thoughts Regarding Warclaim Mechanics.

Now, to delve into my one and only love. Discussing minecraft warfare systems and mechanics. I personally would like to see a modification made to the current way we do set piece and pitched battles on lotc. I also really think we’ve really badly bungled warzones as a concept and as an execution and think warzones can be applied to make warfare significantly more interesting.

 

Firstly I’d like to talk about Warzones. Historically warzones have been a big activity draw for consistent conflict and mechanical based content on lotc. However they have largely been entirely irrelevant in the resolution or outcome of a warclaim proper. In my eyes warzones on LOTC serve as a proxy for the ‘siege’ phase of a siege or to represent the skirmishing between scouts and foragers of marching armies. Thus they should have more of an impact upon the outcome of a conflict, rewarding factions for their victories in skirmishes and prolonged commitment to this kind of content. Warzones in my ideal rework would server two purposes, both giving significant rewards towards dominant parties. A siege warzone would involve the operation of siege weapons prior to the actual siege warclaim (which is essentially a forlorn hope / general assault rather than a siege). During this defenders would have the option to sally forth and disable the war machines, with consistent dominance of a siege warzone ensuring that the fortifications of the enemy are heavily damaged or untouched depending on the actions of involved parties. The second kind of warzone would be the skirmish warzone, which would precede a field battle. Involved parties would battle over key checkpoints to determine dominance. With the most dominant party being able to choose their point of deployment on the battlefield and perhaps if sufficiently dominant the deployment area of their opponent, to represent tactical outmaneuvering / ambushes / flanks etc.

 

As for warclaims themselves. I personally dislike the one battle a week, pitched battle slideshow we’ve suffered with for so long. I think it’s a really unfun experience for something that should be very engaging content. Generally warclaims devolve into a hyper lagged slide show where the commanders will yell that you are winning and to push even though they have absolutely no idea what is happening. There are very few warclaims in the ‘modern’ era of lotc that are sufficiently free of lag as to allow skill and command decisions to manifest in the outcome. This of course compounded by the absolutely horrid grind of a one battle per weekend war. I personally would like to see a more free flow war system. The entire territory of both factions being moved to the war server. And for a period of say two hours both sides are able to try and assault or defend as many locations as they can. If you are able to say raise a flag or replace a block of wool within a keep you capture than that keep would fall into your control on the live server. Commanders would need to actually consider where to send their troops to either attack or defend, having to properly allocate resources to maximize gains and minimize losses. Additionally not having 200 people in a single chunk would be great for reducing lag. At the end of the two hour period the state of the war server would be transferred to live and new warzones would be setup for the week. This would continue until a peace settlement or victory condition was met ending the war. It’s a bit radical perhaps but we need to acknowledge the reality that warclaim lag especially for very large pitched battles is not going away. So to cut down on extremely long one dimensional wars that devolve into a stat check on population or degree of traps this might be a more interesting alternative. As it would allow multiple battles to take place simultaneously and allowing skilled players to showcase their skill rather than watch slideshows.

 

Some Responses to FAQs

 

Q: When are Coup Rules being done?

A: After War Rules

Q: Why can’t we just remove wars entirely

A: Because you’re a pheasant

Serious Answer: Because wars generate an insane amount of our player driven narratives and are one of the biggest draws for a server. Lotc is a dynamic roleplay server rather than a slice of roleplay server. Therefore it is crucial we have systems that reflect this and allow the players to aptly showcase and enjoy the dynamism and freedom we offer here. War rules have become increasingly restrictive over the years and this is us dipping our toes into the proverbial waters of LOTC to see if folks would like something a little more free.

 

Q: Won’t militant factions just go crazy and conquer everything?

A: They haven’t in the past when we had significantly fewer restrictions than we had today

 

Q: Why should aggression be allowed?

A: RP dynamism and realism

 

Q: Didn’t you **** up on Raids.

A: Yes I feel that I really let the community down on how I approached raids. I think that I came in with a vision of my own and then tried to tailor that vision to satisfy polls, rather than constructing a system after taking a large amount of polling data. I think the biggest failure was that I tried to gather data via long answer questions rather than just yes / no voting questions and adding new options as the community suggested them. I’ll be letting raids sit for a while because we did spam the **** out of the community with polls for almost a month before we try to come back to them with a clean slate. Leowarrior’s poll did indicate there was a desire for a change to rules but perhaps my proposed system was not the correct one. When we as a team do end up returning to raids I’ll be constructing an entirely new ruleset going exclusively off the polling data we had. Anyway that isn’t the purpose of this post. I want to get the ball rolling on wars because I know that I have the energy, tolerance and work ethic to try and get it done. Raids, Wars and Coup rule upgrades were my main goal when I joined the team and I intend to continue trying to fight that fight

 

”Narthok I’m not reading 4 pages of your ramblings, whats the low down?”

1. Wars are over bureaucratized and restrain rp excessively

2. It might be cool to look at changing warclaims and making warzones more relevant

3. I’ll be approaching data collection and publicizing it in a different method. Putting the horse before this cart this time and making any new war / CB systems after community polling has completed.

4. Please feel free to defend the current system / criticize it / criticize my ideas / suggest your own improvements or changes below I will try to answer everyone I can. 

[Chase 3793]

make it better then your raid rules please

[Pond 1069]

YES REMOVE CBS

[Narthok 10416]

1 minute ago, ChaseusBelli said:

make it better then your raid rules please

The best rules are very few rules

[TankM1A2 840]

1 minute ago, ChaseusBelli said:

make it better then your raid rules please

 

Very constructive feedback.

[Chase 3793]

Just now, Narthok said:

The best rules are very few rules

Simple and easy to understand too

 

[Unwillingly 18133]

2 minutes ago, ChaseusBelli said:

make it better then your raid rules please

 

[Chase 3793]

1 minute ago, TankM1A2 said:

 

Very constructive feedback.

thanks i try

[Narthok 10416]

1 minute ago, TankM1A2 said:

 

Very constructive feedback.

[Chimp 528]

The simple fact that CBs are a thing on lotc is retarded, Casus Beli meant “a reason to war” and was something that christian nations through out the middle ages and later, had to have to wage wars against OTHER christians. It doesn’t make sense that Casus beli are something enforced by admins, if anything it should be enforced by irp religious leaders rather than ADMINS. Even with casus beli, christian nations needed next to nothing to completely curb stomp their neighbors and they’d just fabricate bogus claims and use that.

[_pr0fit 3084]

I don’t like you, so your ideas are bad.

 

Edit: How Ironic is it that that’s exactly what the person below me said unironically?

[El Ricktador 1394]

I voted no simply because I don’t want you to be the one to write them frankly.

 

I didn’t like the line of thinking behind your raid rules and I know we’ll see more of the same.

[Inferno_Ougi 1454]

yes please

[_pr0fit 3084]

Just now, Chimp said:

The simple fact that CBs are a thing on lotc is retarded, Casus Beli meant “a reason to war” and was something that christian nations through out the middle ages and later, had to have to wage wars against OTHER christians. It doesn’t make sense that Casus beli are something enforced by admins, if anything it should be enforced by irp religious leaders rather than ADMINS. Even with casus beli, christian nations needed next to nothing to completely curb stomp their neighbors and they’d just fabricate bogus claims and use that.

 CB’s exist so that you don’t go to war for ooc reasons...

[Your Stepdad 711]

Please satisfy my pvp thirst.