[Discuss] unit responsibility

[Timothy Collett]

Frankly, Tom, from what I've seen, people *want* clear orders on what  
to do.  In fact, in one of my realms, some people are complaining  
bitterly because the General isn't giving *enough* orders.

I can see where you're coming from, and I think that there *should*  
be more protections afforded to newbies.  But I *don't* think that  
the way to do it is to say that Generals are no longer able to give  
out any orders more detailed than, "I want that region."

I know what you're going for with the Marshals, and trying to  
decentralize responsibility and power, and I think it's great.  I've  
tried to make it work time and again, both before and after the duchy  
system was implemented.

It doesn't work.

It used to be that you only needed one person in the realm to focus  
on strategy--the General.  That was OK.  You can usually find 2 or 3  
General candidates in a medium-sized realm--though as often as not,  
at least one of them already has another Council position.  Trying to  
find a General *and* two to four Marshals, all of whom have a good  
grasp of strategy and the way it applies in BattleMaster, *and* a  
willingness and ability to give out good orders, is much harder.

In general, the players in a realm want to win whatever war they're  
in.  That means that they want the army to move as a cohesive unit,  
and win battles.  They may not always agree about the best way to do  
that, but 95% of the time, they'll do what the General says because  
they think it's the best way to win.  I would bet you that at least  
40-50% of the players in this game don't even want to do much more  
than read the orders the General gives and follow them.

Now, all that said, I would like to predict what would happen if you  
*do* make ordering settings, unit sizes, times to pay, etc. against  
inalienable rights: first, it'll take a long time for the news to  
actually *get* to some realms, unless you make an unavoidable in-game  
announcement.  Second, what a lot of realms will immediately do is  
try their best to find ways to get around these new inalienable  
rights.  Third, the realms that don't will find that half the people  
in the realm are asking for direction on exactly those things  
anyway.  Fourth depends on the level of Titan enforcement: if the  
Titans ruthlessly punish everyone who steps out of line on this,  
it'll drive a lot of people away from the game because it's becoming  
"lame" with "too many rules".  If they don't, the realms that *do*  
circumvent the new rules (that is, those who care more about winning  
than anything else) will have a moderate to significant advantage  
over those who don't (that is, those who care more about the game  
than winning), and the "good" realms will find themselves losing  
pretty consistently to the "bad" ones.

I think that the way to solve this is to make it very, very clear  
that newbies (new *players*, not new characters) are under your and  
the Titans' protection, and unless they are *clearly* being willfully  
bad, they should be given the benefit of every doubt, under pain  
of...well, probably pain, for the characters not giving said benefit.

Timothy Collett
Anaris Family

--

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission."
-Eleanor Roosevelt



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