| New Class System Information | January 10, 2009 |
Tom posted the following message on the Discussion List regarding the new class system. These options are not yet available in the game, although class/subclasses are listed on your character status page.
New Classes System
We are currently working on a change to the way classes are handled in the game. This change will also pave the way for the diplomats that we talked about, which are required for the better diplomacy system we discussed.
What we are going to do is separate classes into two - a main class and a sub class.
The main class determines your primary "way in life". There are only four main classes:
- Warrior (old knight)
- Courtier
- Priest
- Adventurer
The "courtier" is new and is a class for all those whose primary focus is not warfare, but peaceful interaction. Those who today play bureaucrats, traders, etc. fall into this class.
The subclass determines your actual day-to-day activities. So while the main class is your broad direction, the subclass is how you implement it. Your tools and methods.
There are eight subclasses at this time.
Having a subclass is OPTIONAL. You do not have to, in fact many players will not.
Adventurers can NOT have a subclass. Warriors, Courtiers and Priests can. All main class/subclass combinations can be mixed freely. Of course, some combinations will be very common (Courtier+Infiltrator), but that makes the uncommon ones just more interesting.
Subclasses are:
- Mentor / Student
- Diplomat / Ambassador
- Trader
- Infiltrator
- Cavalier
- Hero
An Ambassador is simply a Diplomat with official support. Anyone can become a Diplomat, but only the ruler can turn a Diplomat (any Diplomat) into an Ambassador, or an Ambassador into a simple Diplomat again. Only Ambassadors have the abilities associated with treaties as described on the Enhanced Diplomacy page.
Mentors will have to give up their subclass to become a mentor, but they retain their main class, so they are a little less hindered than currently, and there can be Warrior-Mentors, Courtier-Mentors and Priest-Mentors.
The interaction between main- and subclass will be interesting, but I will not yet answer detailed questions, as many details are not yet finalised. But everything should be quite obvious, really.
For example, while all three main classes (adventurers always excluded, remember) can become traders, there will obviously be considerable differences between a Warrior-Trader, a Courtier-Trader and a Priest-Trader. For example, priests can not recruit a unit, courtiers can only
recruit small units. But courtiers will have more civil options, some of which allow them to find better trade routes.
It will be a while until the system is completely implemented. Especially Priest-X combinations will not be available for some time until we solved all the trouble that the priests' different travel system could cause (e.g. Priest-Infiltrators moving away immediately after an attack).
– Tom
|
| Indirik |
| Scouting Changes: You Better Hire Some Scouts | January 10, 2009 |
| A new change has gone into effect on the testing islands regarding the scouting system. Trained scouts are now required to scout regions. If you don't have any trained scouts, then you can't scout. You can also only scout as many times as you have trained scouts. Those of you who have been playing for two years or so will remember the different trained and untrained scout reports. It appears that the new systems is trained or none. |
| Indirik |
| And You Thought Travel Times Were Long Already... | January 10, 2009 |
Road Quality
On testing, travel times will now take road quality into account and travel in winter will be slowed down.
– Tom
Some people are noticing extremely large travel time increases on Dwilight. |
| Indirik |
| Preaching Skill Renamed | January 9, 2009 |
Preaching Skill Renamed
The skill "Preaching" has been renamed to "Oratory". Nothing else has changed in how it works, etc.
– Tom
|
| Indirik |
| Character Subclasses Appearing on Testing | January 8, 2009 |
Recently players on the testing islands have noticed the appearance of two new entries on their character statistics page: Main Class and Sub Class. This is almost certainly a first step toward an extensive makeover of the character class system. Some of the combinations that have been seen so far include:
- Character Class: Hero
- Main Class: Warrior
- Sub Class: Hero
- Character Class: Cavalier
- Main Class: Warrior
- Sub Class: Cavalier
- Character Class: Trader
- Main Class: Courtier
- Sub Class: Trader
- Character Class: Knight
- Main Class: Warrior
- Sub Class:
- (No subclass is given for this class)
- Character Class: Bureaucrat
- Main Class: Courtier
- Sub Class:
- (No subclass is given for this class)
As of now, you can still only choose your class the same as always. The new information appears to be a display only. |
| Indirik |
| Character List Gets a Makeover | January 8, 2009 |
| The island-wide character list on testing islands has gotten a makeover. The new style is the same as that used for the realm list. In addition to a new look, it also displays the character's family name. In a related change, a user's family page now lists the sex of the character next to that character's age. |
| Indirik |
| One Less Testing Island | January 8, 2009 |
Far East moves to stable
The Far East Island has been moved to the stable branch.
This leaves two islands as "testing", namely Beluaterra and Dwilight.
– Tom
|
| -- Indirik |
| New Mentor/Student System on Testing | January 8, 2009 |
New Mentor/Student system
A new mentor/student system has been activated on testing.
The main change is that students and mentors do not have a 1:1 relationship anymore. All mentors of a realm can now teach all students of a realm. When the student concludes his study, he can grant mentor points to all the mentors who have taught him.
– Tom
This is a long-anticipated change to the mentoring system. (Although a bit different than was first anticipated.) This new change should allow new players a much greater chance of receiving timely information, and from a much wider pool of knowledge. |
| -- Indirik |
| Name Changes Available | January 8, 2009 |
If, for some odd reason, you missed all the previous name changes, here's another chance. This is a good opportunity for those of you who didn't plan on going to Dwilight, but found yourself there and would like to stay. Name changes are available again in the "Politics" tab.
This feature is intended only for those with names that don't qualify for the SMA rules on Dwilight. Only changes away from obviously bad names will be accepted.
– Tom
|
| -- Indirik |
| New Tax System Changes | January 6, 2009 |
Tom sent the following message to the Discussion List today. It highlights some very important changes to the tax system soon to be in operation on the testing islands.
tax system change
We are currently preparing a minor, but important change to the tax system.
Instead of the lords deciding how much they give to the duchy or realm, and the dukes how much they pass on to the realm, we will now have a consistent "higher-up decides" system. In other words:
- Lords decide how much taxes the peasants pay to them
- Dukes decide how much taxes each region pays to the duchy
- Rulers/Bankers decide how much taxes each duchy and imperial region pays to the realm
In order to allow this to work as simple as possible, duchy/realm shares are now taken from the local tax income before any knights are paid. That allows the banker/duke to set them from 0% to 100% with no regard for the local distribution.
It is a simple change, but we hope that it creates a lot of power-struggles within realms, and makes lords a little more defensive of their deeds. The important benefit this brings is a way to punish people THROUGH THE HIERARCHY.
So if a knight is not behaving well, the duke can punish that knights lord with a higher tax share, possibly causing the lord to pass on the penalty. That's the future - punishment down the hierarchy, everyone is responsible for the people under him, but he can also decide to defend them, if he wishes to.
Yes, that means that banker fines are probably going to go away sooner or later. But first we need to check whether this system works.
Yes, it DOES create enornemous potential for "evilness". Yes, duke X could decide to take most of the taxes away from all his lords. Which, of course, would cause most of his lords to leave the duchy. Yes, some lords may not be able to (not bordering any other duchy), which would force them to do some low-level diplomacy (e.g. convince another lord to switch as well) first. All that is intentional. We WANT to create more strife and a little more hostility within realms.
The changes will go live on testing with the next code update in a few days.
– Tom
This is a big change to the system which will require some rethinking in the way realms handle gold up and down the hierarchy. |
| -- Indirik |
| "Too Much Peace" Code Active in Testing | January 6, 2009 |
Too Much Peace
New "too much peace" code is active on testing now. Our goal, as always, is to invite you to more war. That means that when your realm is hit by a "too much peace" penalty, drawing back to do region work is the wrong answer and will only make the problem worse. Please keep that in mind.
– Tom
At the latest turn change, many realms received an "empty" Too Much Peace message that had only the title and no content. This means that your realm should not have received the notification at all. (See bug note 4592.) |
| -- Indirik |
| Fixes Live | January 5, 2009 |
| All fixes completed as of the morning of Jan. 5 have been uploaded to testing. |
| -- Danaris |
| More Code Updates | December 19, 2008 |
| Several more fixes have been moved live onto testing islands. One important change, not listed in the bugtracker, is a change to overkill and overcrowding. Overkill and overcrowding have been changed to take into account the size of the combatants. This means that monsters and daimons should receive less of a benefit from overkill against them, and you should be better able to get into combat against them with less overcrowding. |
| -- Indirik |
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| January 10, 2009 |
| Bug 4602 4604, 4605, 4606 Several travel-related bug fixes due to the recent travel changes. |
| January 10, 2009 |
| Bug 4600 Priest should now have access to manage their unique items. |
| January 10, 2009 |
| Bug 4491 Lords should now receive a special message when they arrive in their region. |
| January 10, 2009 |
| Bug 4512 Unique items now have a link to the wiki page for the item. |
| January 10, 2009 |
| Bug 3725 Scouting can now only be done by trained scouts. If you don't have any trained scouts, you will not be able to scout regions. |
| January 6, 2009 |
| Bug 4592 Inappropriate, empty "Too Much Peace" warnings should no longer appear. |
| January 6, 2009 |
| Bug 4583 Archers are firing at enemies engaged in close combat, and while they themselves are engaged in close combat with an enemy |
| January 6, 2009 |
| Bug 4592 Empty "Too Much Peace" warning appears inappropriately. (Fixed) |
| January 6, 2009 |
| Bug 4590 Marshals and Seconds should once more be able to take command of their armies in battle. |
| January 2, 2009 |
| Bug 4473 Rulers can now send orders to their Council and Dukes. |
| January 2, 2009 |
| Bug 4206 Anyone who can send orders to "all of" a particular group should now be able to send orders to "some of" those nobles in the same groups. |
| December 29, 2008 |
| Bug 4575 Recruitment hints has been corrected to properly evaluate unit cost and pay. |
| December 29, 2008 |
| Bug 4444 Judges can no longer send messages to prisoners on the first day of imprisonment. |
| December 29, 2008 |
| Bug 4041 You should now be able to see how many paused members there are in your religion. |
| December 29, 2008 |
| Bug 4382 You should be able to view the region description for all regions on the island. |
| December 29, 2008 |
| Bug 4557 Custom titles have been added to the positions displayed on the realm details page. |
| December 29, 2008 |
| Bug 3982 Copies of Protests you send should now appear in "Message you sent" |
| December 29, 2008 |
| Bug 3384 Regions with no temple are now treated as if they had a "size 0" temple, capable of supporting only a small number of followers without loss of faith. |
| December 26, 2008 |
| Bug 4558 When a lord is removed all existing food Sell orders are canceled, and Buy orders transfer to the new lord. |
| December 23, 2008 |
| Bug N/A (Live on Testing Islands only.) Battle notifications sent to the realm and Huge Battle notifications now report the combatant strength in "men" and not CS. The actual Scribe Note of the battle will report full Combat Strength values. |
| December 23, 2008 |
| Bug 3830 The death of a ruler during a rebellion should now result in a successful rebellion at the next turn change. |
| December 23, 2008 |
| Bug 3709 Units that go past the enemy during battle should no longer continue "advancing" off the battlefield. |
| December 23, 2008 |
| Bug 4570 Tax rates should no longer be inappropriately reported as excessively high. |
| December 23, 2008 |
| Bug 4460 MI should no longer inappropriately leave the fortifications during sieges. |
| December 23, 2008 |
| Bug 3815 Family history should now be correctly updated when elected under new referendum system. |
| December 23, 2008 |
| Bug 4572 Gold from food sales to caravans is added to the trade balance, and not given to the lord as bonds. |
| December 23, 2008 |
| Bug 4561 You will now get a warning if a rogue character is idle more than 7 days, prior to automatic deletion of the character. |
| December 23, 2008 |
| Bug 4541 Secession reports should now be sent to the correct nobles, and not just government members. |
| December 23, 2008 |
| Bug 4114 The Lord who created a food sell order should only get the gold from sales to a trader so long as he is still the Lord. If he is no longer the lord, the gold gets added to the region trade balance. |
| December 12, 2008 |
| Bug 4558 Purchasing food using the new "Sell" orders does not honor the food reserve setting. |
| December 8, 2008 |
| Bug 4255 A new messaging option has been added to religions to allow you to message all priests of your religion. |
| December 5, 2008 |
| Bug 4542 Adventurers are now reported as a separate category from nobles on the realm list. |
| December 5, 2008 |
| Bug 4227 Realm list now sorts properly. (This is active on testing islands. You may need to clear your browser cache to see the proper formatting and colors.) |
| December 5, 2008 |
| Bug 4523 Lord is no longer removed from their position when the region realigns to a new realm while the lord is banned from their current realm. |
| December 5, 2008 |
| Bug 4457 Moving capital no longer objects to unrest in the old capital if it's not part of the realm. |
| December 5, 2008 |
| Bug 4536 Looting shrines and temples should now be possible regardless of diplomacy. |
| December 4, 2008 |
| Bug 3941 Ignore function should now be available while at tournaments and in prison. |
| December 1, 2008 |
| Bug 3993 Position titles, voting settings, and power settings are now not reset when someone new is appointed or elected. |
| December 1, 2008 |
| Bug 4422 Guild members should now be informed when the last guildhouse of a guild closes. |
| December 1, 2008 |
| Bug 4534 Nobles can no longer be captured in battles in which their unit takes part, but at which the noble is not present. |
| December 1, 2008 |
| Bug 4158 Estates in seceded regions should no longer be reset to small/idle. |
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