[Discuss] players that like orders :)

[Andrew Asche]

> It was beautifully simple and smooth
> running and infinitely customizable. I can live with this new system, I
> guess, but it seems we're adding more stiff features that players
> *have* to do as opposed to fluid options that players *could* do.

On the surface, and until its fully implemented and adapted to, it may
feel like that, but in the long run, I honestly believe the opposite
is true.  As a comparison to IRL, I would consider it the difference
between communism and democracy.

For instance, when is the last time the President of the US attended
your city council meeting?  Of course he never does, because it has
been delegated to lesser parties.  Of course, this limits the things
the President can do to affect each and every citizen, but what it
does instead is increase each person's representation.

When you put control at a lower level, a greater number of interests
can be better represented.  With the old military system, we've all
seen monsters or undead in a small, rural region get ignored for a
turn or two while something else is taken care of, or until it can be
noticed long enough to send a few people to deal with it.

With the new system, one of the armies of your realm is going to be
more attached to that region, whether because of the Knights of that
region in the army, or the Duchy that region is a part of, which has
sponsored the army, wants its regions taken better care of.

And as for the claims that it requires *more* people to be on *more*
often, I can only suggest that something is being done wrong, if that
is the case.  If the general is having to be on more, then he has not
really delegated, only pretended to do so.  That means he is *still*
micromanaging the armies, with marshals as his puppets, designed to be
loudspeakers of what he says.  True delegation will mean the marshals
were in on, and aware of, the bigger picture, and are free to do what
they see fit in order to participate in it to make it a success, or
abandon it if they think it is a foolish plan.

Further, it decreases the impact when a key figure fails to log in for
a turn.  If the general fails to login, and doesn't send a message to
the council asking some non-military figure to send orders, the whole
realm, 50-100 people usually, will sit on their hands, wondering what
to do.  If a marshal of 20 men fails to log in, but everyone else
does, only that army will be left behind, and if the nobles have any
brain at all and note a mass movement, they'll join in anyhow.

And we're not saying the general *can't* talk to the realm.  He surely
can.  I just don't see a need to make a practice of it.  At the
beginning of a campaign, a general could surely announce "Well, we're
all gathering in region X to accomplish Objective A.  Your marshal
will fill you in on the details."  With that, even if a marshal fails,
nobles talking to each other and reading that, which wasn't an order,
merely information, will say "Hey, I'd like to get in on that, I think
I'll follow along."

The new system also imposes the hierarchy better.  In the old system,
a general would order the whole realm, including bureaucrats, traders,
priests, infiltrators, busy council members, and unaligned nobles.
Especially unaligned nobles, and often others, are not being paid for
military service, but something else, or nothing at all.  Should they
really have to pay attention to the military orders that literally
don't apply to them?  According to the old system, an order is an
order, and when it comes from someone "higher" than you, you're
compelled to obey it.  With the new system, you're only compelled to
obey orders within your own army which just makes good sense...

I really think while it *seems* to impose limitations on the surface,
that is only because we have yet to explore the nooks and crannies
that are the benefits, and possibly other problems, associated with
the new system.