Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think it's much of an issue. If the Defender wants to continue a conflict that the Agressor does not (presumably because the Defender is winning and counter-attacking), they can simply DoW the Agressor in return to renew the conflict. I'm not sure any special mechanics would be neccesary to handle such usage cases.
Wars are serious business. They require a significant change in production queues and logistics management. I would hate to see a system whereby an Attacker could declare War on their enemy (at a time of their choosing, with supplies ready and significant planning done), get in a week or two of attacks, and then let the WarDec lapse after forcing their opponent to completely upend their entire production infrastructure.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@BrotherZael
My basic expectation for MMOs is that if players can do something, then players will do it. Just because YOU as a PC take pains TO NOT ENGAGE IN SOME ACTION doesn't mean it won't occur. Any player proposal to 'improve the game' certainly should be looked at for loopholes and if it won't 'improve the game', it shouldn't be added to the design.
Yes, absolutely. I am just stating that those of us who would be against those actions should be actively acting out against those actions. (hue)
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ GrumpyMel
I was going to argue the other way... I am now considering that it might turn out to be a bad mechanic to be "locked" in a perpetual state (for the aggressor) if they found they had made a mistake.
Ideally, I would like to see "some" low cost or no cost (for the target) satisfaction for trivial and unwinnable DoW's. The aggressor started it and can't finish it. I believe that DFUW has the "wager" for conflicts. The "winner" takes all, but that system has easily measured win/lose conditions which probably won't be so simple in PfO.
It may be that the Influence/DI cost to declare is good enough. We will have to see.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Whats to stop the Defender from simply issuing thier own War Dec back at the attacker in that case?
Nothing is stopping that. My objection is to the real advantage gained by the Attacker in that scenario. Either the War is over and they've completely disrupted their enemies production infrastructure, or the Defenders are forced to bear the costs of continuing the War.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I don't think it's much of an issue. If the Defender wants to continue a conflict that the Agressor does not (presumably because the Defender is winning and counter-attacking), they can simply DoW the Agressor in return to renew the conflict. I'm not sure any special mechanics would be neccesary to handle such usage cases.
My point was that the defender might want reparations for the war, and either side might go to ground rather than fight and lose. Various combinations of that result in edge cases bad enough to scrap the idea if they can't be addressed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Again not seeing the problem here guys. War isn't a structured badmitten match....it's a state where one side is throwing out the rules of Diplomacy because it thinks they aren't going to serve it's goals anymore.
The Agressor pays a cost for going to and maintaining a State of War, if they aren't gaining something valuable by doing so then they are just hurting themselves.
The Defender has the option of determining how much of thier economy they are going to devote to thier war effort. If they think the Agressor isn't a credible threat then they don't need to devote much of thier economy to the effort.
If the Defender thinks that turtling up and trying to avoid provoking an engagement is the best Strategic option for them, then that's a perfectlty viable approach that should be allowed.
If the Attacker drops thier DoW and the Defender wants reperations then they are free to demand them and can use threat of thier own DoW against the Agressor as a goad.
I hate to say this, but I think in this case you are trying to introduce mechanics for things that aren't needed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Whats to stop the Defender from simply issuing thier own War Dec back at the attacker in that case?Nothing is stopping that. My objection is to the real advantage gained by the Attacker in that scenario. Either the War is over and they've completely disrupted their enemies production infrastructure, or the Defenders are forced to bear the costs of continuing the War.
You forget that the Agressor bore the costs for the initial DoW in the first place. If they gambled and lost, they already hosed themselves for that cost. Worse yet, they've just made an enemy who very well may turn around to beat the snot out of them.
For the Defender it's a calculatuon cost....is it better to let the War end or to go on the offensive themselves in hopes of gaining something.
Millitary preperations for War, even when not in a State of War are always going to be a percentage of the economy that is essentialy "wasted" if not actualy needed. It goes into the overhead of running a Kingdom. States that make good calculations about how much they really need are going to be doing better then States that don't. It's part of the Kingdom building game. Even in the absence of an official DoW...there will be posturing and rumors designed to get a State to spend more on it's millitary then it needs or really can afford......heck that's pretty much what happaned during the Cold War.
I also have a feeling that a State that thinks it's going to be able to turn a "peacetime" economy into what it really needs to defend itself in the time between an official DoW and when the fighting really starts is going to be in for a rude surprise.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If they gambled and lost...I'm considering the case where letting the WarDec lapse at their earliest opportunity was part of their plan from the very beginning.
How is that qualitatevly different from simply spreading rumors that they were about to DoW to get the Defender to start spending on preperations?
Other then the fact that they've cost themselves more to try to achieve the same effect?Bluffs, Ruses, Intelligence are all part and parcel of the Game of Kingdoms that Player Organizations are going to play. How does that not fall within the bounds of fair (but dirty) play?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@GrumpyMel, as I stated originally, I recognized that my "intuitive reaction" was likely not the appropriate solution. I'm concerned about this case, but don't have a real solution for it. It may well be that the best solution is to force the Defenders to pay the same cost they'd've had to pay had they initiated the War, but something about that leaves me unsatisfied; it seems to me that being attacked should factor into the equation somehow.
Declaring and maintaining a state of war requires a settlement to spend a large amount of coin and to set aside a portion of its Development Indexes (the measure of a settlement's advancement)
There are three development indexes: Security, Morale, and Civilization.
It seems logical to me to have a Morale Cost to initiate a War, but it seems illogical to me to have a Morale Cost to continue a War in which you were attacked first. At a minimum, I would hope the Defender would have an option to forego setting aside the Morale portion of their Development Indexes Cost to continue a War in which they were attacked.