Are contested totems the best way for land control

[Book]

I agree. The spin off of creating things of value, is you develop real trade. and real trade hubs. trade causes human interaction. Interaction causes drama. Drama creates politics, which creates more drama. Ultimately, pvp should just be a means of ensuring something is obtained, and be the final stage of 'diplomacy'. But you have to have something to start the train moving.

but if you start the diplomacy train by having war as the destination, why bother with the diplomacy at all? Wouldn't it save everyone time to just go to war? War may well be an extension of diplomacy, but done correctly, and as sanely as war can be done, that is all it is.

Also, just have to mention so it's said somewhere... interaction needn't necessarily cause drama. For people like me (presumably not the only one), drama is not incentive to interact. Quite the opposite actually.

[Trenchfoot]

but if you start the diplomacy train by having war as the destination, why bother with the diplomacy at all?

War IS the destination, which is precisely why diplomacy exists. For some it's a matter of personal honor or morality. For others its simply a way to keep from biting off more than you can chew. For others it's a personal quest for revenge through subterfuge and deception. That's why bother with diplomacy. But if you're a tribal nation that believes you have the muscle to go to war and thereby gain more than you loose, then by all means let it be so.

Let a tribe get out of line and begin sweeping the map and you'll see the entire map become a game of joining the oppressed tribes of the world to crush the evil invaders. Will you unite the tribes and be enough of a diplomat to pull them together to stop these evil conquerors? These type of things should be allowed to happen.

EDIT: Of course interaction creates drama. Unless you're all the same, with nothing to loose, ever.

[Dubanka]

Right on.

I think you should be able to hold totems for ransom.

For example: X tribe keeps contesting our newly conquered resource. We form a war party and capture their totem. Then through diplomacy, we hammer out an agreement that we return their town unblemmished if they agree not to contest our rare resource.

yeah, i agree. we would actually do that in shadowbane...capture a 'tree' and then auction it off

you're getting into seige mechanics...where it would be nice to be able enter into different types of seiges....the more drastic the potential outcome is, the costlier it is for the attacker...ie.
raid totem. Drop a raid seige totem. allows you to damage walls (no other structures), and prevents any bin/storage device from being locked (by the defender)...you break in, take some stuff and leave...a 'friendly' seige...and the cheapest.
Pillage totem. same as raid, except also allows you to destroy buildings. still just a 'message' tho, as you are not attacking the totem.
Capture totem. Same as pillage, except it is a fight where the attacker will capture the opponents tribal area if they win.
Destruction totem. allows total destruction of tribal area, including the defending totem. mOst expensive.

now the drama happens when tribe a drops a raid totem to send a message, then tribe b responds by dropping a destruction totem as a big fu in their lawn. then we find how much people really do love their pixels.

but then you get into things like warring drops having huge needs for architectural supplies and whatnot, since they literally wont have the time to gather. LIkewise the trade in raw materials will be huge. Oh, and you are selling to them? really? coming after you next for aiding my enemy. of course it's one thing to say you're gonna, and another to actually do.

lastly. seiging should be extremely difficult. as much as i besmirch peoples love of pixels...they do represent time invested, and a well built town should be extremely difficult to take.

but if you start the diplomacy train by having war as the destination, why bother with the diplomacy at all? Wouldn't it save everyone time to just go to war? War may well be an extension of diplomacy, but done correctly, and as sanely as war can be done, that is all it is.

Also, just have to mention so it's said somewhere... interaction needn't necessarily cause drama. For people like me (presumably not the only one), drama is not incentive to interact. Quite the opposite actually.

i've seen more than one guild bite off more than they can chew. it's one thing to be billy bad ass. it's another to be bill badass to everyone at the same time. waging war (ie going after totems) should be expensive and time consuming...it's not something you should be able to do on a whim.

[Trenchfoot]

you're getting into seige mechanics...where it would be nice to be able enter into different types of seiges....the more drastic the potential outcome is, the costlier it is for the attacker...ie.
raid totem. Drop a raid seige totem. allows you to damage walls (no other structures), and prevents any bin/storage device from being locked (by the defender)...you break in, take some stuff and leave...a 'friendly' seige...and the cheapest.
Pillage totem. same as raid, except also allows you to destroy buildings. still just a 'message' tho, as you are not attacking the totem.
Capture totem. Same as pillage, except it is a fight where the attacker will capture the opponents tribal area if they win.
Destruction totem. allows total destruction of tribal area, including the defending totem. mOst expensive.

Well I sort of agree. I agree with the premise and I admit the only problem with that I have is a semantic argument more or less. War of any kind should be a costly endeavor. I don't believe you should need totems for those actions, but for that to be true, war must be made equally costly.

I just don't like the hypothetical 'payment system'. 50 logs a day for what exactly? Not for what effect but why require logs? Why not just put a dollar amount on it? Or bottle caps? Or whatever? I think the payment in itself should relate to providing for war. What are the logs being used for? Again, semantics. I could overlook it.

Food isn't a problem because there are no marching armies.
Water isn't a problem for the same reason.
Equipment isn't a problem until you've lost 100s of troops so that wouldn't apply.

The only things I can think of is:

Siege Equip.
Feeding your horses.
Repars due to decay.

So maybe its better the way you suggest. War must be much more costly than nonchalant.

EDIT: What if a formal declaration of war was required, and when you declare war some kind of decay increases for your tribe?

[Dubanka]

Well I sort of agree. I agree with the premise and I admit the only problem with that I have is a semantic argument more or less. War of any kind should be a costly endeavor. I don't believe you should need totems for those actions, but for that to be true, war must be made equally costly.

I just don't like the hypothetical 'payment system'. 50 logs a day for what exactly? Not for what effect but why require logs? Why not just put a dollar amount on it? Or bottle caps? Or whatever? I think the payment in itself should relate to providing for war. What are the logs being used for? Again, semantics. I could overlook it.

Food isn't a problem because there are no marching armies.
Water isn't a problem for the same reason.
Equipment isn't a problem until you've lost 100s of troops so that wouldn't apply.

The only things I can think of is:

Siege Equip.
Feeding your horses.
Repars due to decay.

So maybe its better the way you suggest. War must be much more costly than nonchalant.

EDIT: What if a formal declaration of war was required, and when you declare war some kind of decay increases for your tribe?

problem is i'm not being clear in my definition of 'costly'

'raid totem' 100 wood blocks, 200 bricks, 60 mortar, 50 feathers, 50 nails, 50 cloth string. they get more expensive from there.
in additionthe attacker will need to bring in and assemble seige equipment on site...ie.
battering ram: 6 large wood logs. 500 twine. 10 med metal plate. 100 screws. 20 long wood handles.

so by costly i mean that the attacker is having to front a large amount of resources up front to wage a war...in addition to any maint costs they have on their totem.

[Trenchfoot]

problem is i'm not being clear in my definition of 'costly'

'raid totem' 100 wood blocks, 200 bricks, 60 mortar, 50 feathers, 50 nails, 50 cloth string. they get more expensive from there.
in additionthe attacker will need to bring in and assemble seige equipment on site...ie.
battering ram: 6 large wood logs. 500 twine. 10 med metal plate. 100 screws. 20 long wood handles.

so by costly i mean that the attacker is having to front a large amount of resources up front to wage a war...in addition to any maint costs they have on their totem.

As long as it isn't too impossible. My concern is that large tribes shouldn't be the only ones allowed to go to war. We won't really know how accurate your numbers on this are until some changes are made. But it's a reasonable solution.

Perhaps the costs could be based on the size of your opponent rather than your own size. Because requiring too much will exclude smaller tribes/homesteaders.

Or something that would essentially say 'Pick on someone your own size.'.

EDIT: The cost would have to be scaled in both directions to work.

[Hanover]

Sounds very much like SB siege mechanics, which would integrate nicely into Xsyon.

[Dubanka]

Sounds very much like SB siege mechanics, which would integrate nicely into Xsyon.

obviously...while trying to cover some of the holes in the sb mechanics (i always hated not having a cheap 'deranking' bane when i just wanted to make a point but didnt want to spend 10 Mil to do it).

and my numbers were just off the top of my head thngs that sounded large just numbers...conceptual, not a huge amount of thought behind it.

i wouldnt be against having the cost increase significantly when attacking a smaller target.

[Trenchfoot]

I think this might work.

You base the cost on your opponent size. Then you add a feature that allows homesteaders and smaller tribes to 'ally', thereby increasing the cost to attack any one of them. The more allies you have, the more it costs your attacker. On the other hand this would have to have some limit so that massive tribes can't make it impossible to go to war ever. Perhaps only small/homestead have the ability to use the ally mechnism and larger tribes woud have to arrange formal treaties on their own in game?

and my numbers were just off the top of my head thngs that sounded large just numbers...conceptual, not a huge amount of thought behind it.

Right right. I just meant that it's difficult to judge at this point but I agree the concept is sound.

[Book]

War IS the destination, which is precisely why diplomacy exists. For some it's a matter of personal honor or morality. For others its simply a way to keep from biting off more than you can chew. For others it's a personal quest for revenge through subterfuge and deception. That's why bother with diplomacy. But if you're a tribal nation that believes you have the muscle to go to war and thereby gain more than you loose, then by all means let it be so.

Let a tribe get out of line and begin sweeping the map and you'll see the entire map become a game of joining the oppressed tribes of the world to crush the evil invaders. Will you unite the tribes and be enough of a diplomat to pull them together to stop these evil conquerors? These type of things should be allowed to happen.

EDIT: Of course interaction creates drama. Unless you're all the same, with nothing to loose, ever.

You're talking about building a coalition. That requires bargaining, bribery, incentive... all facets of diplomacy in some regard but an effective diplomat's primary job is the ability to avert war altogether.
The notion that diplomacy exists to negotiate an entrance to war is backwards.

If one party is determined to go to war without a hint of an open mind or capacity for compromise, then the negotiating table is a waste of good wood.

But you are right, interaction for the dramatically inclined, I suppose, will always lead to drama. Seems unfortunate imho.