As people may or may not have seen, the Empire cabal was recently updated with a few cosmetic changes and minor guideline updates in order to remove the vast majority of confusion about what is or is not acceptable for members.

On a semi-related note to that, I would love to hear some input from the masses about the cabal in general and any ideas that could help make it more fun.

Although this may not actually relate directly to tribunal there is also the issue of when an Imperial calls centurions on eastern....and eventually those centurions are attacked by those guards who troop up and down the roads looking for criminals.


Now I understand this is a mechanical feature to lessen the impact of calling centurions on the eastern road but we also try and couch things so that there is an RP reason behind it...sometimes :P

So here is a thought bomb for the sake of an explosion or fizzle.

This particular feature underlines imho the idea that Empire currently has no inherent reason to respect the laws of the cities when the guards of those cities actively attack centurions doing their duty by collecting tithes.

If this was a real world situation it would get ugly fairly quickly.

Who 'owns' the eastern road? Or whose territory is it? Is it Galadon? Hamsah? the Empire? Or none of the above?

As far as I know it belongs to nobody, which in essence means that when you place centurions on the road, the empire is claiming that stretch of road as theirs....or at least that one part of it they have decided to collect a tithe on.

When those guards attack them (and im assuming these guards are connected to the cities i.e. the Tribunals - but they don't have to be tribunal guards for me to make my point) they are as far as an Imperial should be concerned making a direct attack against the Empire on 'their' territory.

That is to say in plainer terms, the cities attack the forces of the Empire on a regular basis without consequence....so much for taking RP to its logical consequences :)

Even if you turn this around and say the Eastern Road belongs to the cities and the guards are simply repelling the 'illegal' enroachment of the Empire onto their territory you have merely recreated the same problem - the interests of the cities and the empire obviously do not coincide especially when it comes to the claim of eastern road.

Wars in real life have been fought for lesser provocations than what goes on in-game (albeit between mobs) on a regular basis. Just pointing out another crack in the idea that Empire should respect order within the cities when it is not Imperial order.

Tribunal guards serve the specific purpose of going after adventurers. City guards are there by the order of the Sultan of Hamsah and the mayor of Galadon to protect the citizens.
So those patrollers are city guards the way I look at it. They might care if someone is wanted and go after them though.
They are there to keep the roads clear by protecting the citizens and caravans that travel the eastern road.

At least, this is how I have always pictured it.


Either way, there are probably a few ways to mix up Tribunal and empire to make them more or less of allies at times.
Often times, I find that they are really limited allies when I'm playing on either side.

In fact after re-reading my post I did in fact point out that my point would stand whether or not those guards that roam eastern were tribunal guards or just connected to the cities...i.e....city-guards.

The main gist of the post is that they are (my assumption) directly connected to the political powers that run which ever city or cities lay claim to Eastern road.

Those guards aren't (from the perspective of an imperial) protecting the roads when they attack the centurions. They are directly interfering with the centurions ability to collect tithes to the Empire on 'their' road.

In any book I've read, every fantasy novel, every fantasy movie of an authoritarian government with vast military power and a penchant for conquest was repeatedly attacked on a territory (eastern road) that just happens to be a major hub of trade between two major cities there would be major repercussions for those militant acts. That major military power would use those acts as pretext for war.

I understand there has to be some 'looking the other way' when it comes to making fantasy work in an interactive game like this one though. But let the 'looking the other way' go in all directions if so.

We can stick to our guns on RP - which would require taking a hard look at the current relationship between empire and tribunals which this post has brought the brunt of scrutiny to...and just admit that it simply doesn't make sense...from an RP perspective....because saying that the Empire is simply promoting order is a weak band-aid to cover a gaping hole in RP logic....then come up with some ways to keep things as are but have a better explanation (like a treaty for example or instead of roaming guards attacking the centurions maybe roaming bands of outlanders?)

OR

We can admit that sometimes out of sheer convenience we allow things that don't really make much RP sense to slide for the sake of maintaining the status quo. Which is fine. Just look me in the eye and tell me that instead of trying to hand me a band-aid. Then we can have a more honest discourse knowing that we ALL stumble on RP....even the game itself.

You have a lot of interesting ideas/theories presented in your two posts. Some of your stuff makes a lot of sense when looked at from the perspective of the player (from the outside looking in) or when using real life logic. The problem is that most of it is built up from a failed base.

Yes, there are things in CF that are done to ensure that fun is more relevant than pure hardline RP. Being able to die dozens of times is one of the big ones there, and there are countless more. Basically, you are trying to draw all encompassing conclusions of how you think a certain dynamic (Empire and Trib) should work based on the small interactions of NPCS that you see.

Who is to say that the Imperial Inquisitor isn't the one ordering the assault on the Eastern Road blockades? How do we know that the Empire doesn't conquer Galadon because they already own it with the Mayor secretly being a member of the Divine Sect? For all we know the Sultan of Hamsah is the Imperial Blademaster himself and that's why Hamsah allows an Imperial Recruiter there so often.

If you only look to find the flaws (that exist in every aspect of everything with CF due to the desire for it to be a game) then you are probably going to be less than satisfied with a lot of it. If you are trying to using these flaws that occur within NPCs and the overall flow of Thera in order to have an excuse to break RP yourself, then you are really going to be disappointed.

My only hang-up in life and CF is the logic that is used by the powers-that-be.

Now if you had read all my comments on the Empire/Tribunal thing you would note that far from my opinion being based solely on the interactions of a few NPCs, it is based on the logic 'presented' of an Imperial power that utilizes forced induction as it main means of recruitment. The Eastern road thing is just another logical inconsitency (imho) that could be better handled.

I also speak as someone who was playing when Empire was first introduced as the newest cabal. This isn't just a random critique or to 'find' a flaw but 'expose' a flaw in the logic that is being presented. Take that as you will.

The hardline RP of an imperial is real simple to grasp and after having played alongside some real hardline imperials (Meleleme- cant remeber the name dark elf shaman that became emporer was VERY hardline) it boils down to this -

1. Offer the bloodoath to all, if they don't take the bloodoath - kill them (instructing through death).

Few imperials actually take this to its logical conclusion because you would soon find yourself with few people to actually rank with. Empire is meant to be a very large cabal by the very fact it is so easy to get in (and easy to get out).

In an ideal gaming environment no imperial would group with a non-imperial. It's that simple. You offer the bloodoath, they say 'no' they die....they die enough times, they delete, delete or they take the bloodoath.


Take THAT to its natural conclusion - and every citizen in every city should by rights be dead or a bloodoath. But for the sake of argument I'll entertain your suggestion.

Let's say the real reason the Empire is cool with the cities as is without a more direct and obvious control of them is because they secretly control them as you laid out.

I personally would be FINE with that as an explanation as long as I had some means in-game to find that out and a reason to believe that the same type of mindset that requires absolute obediance and forced induction would be fine with people walking around with swords thinking they are free and more than a few plotting against them.

Part of my responsibility as a player is to RP within the rules and logic of the game before me. The responsibility of the staff (imho) is to help me stay immersed in those rules and logic by having as few logical inconsistencies as possible.

And logic doesn't require things to be based on real world ideas, only that there is some order from how A gets to Z. You can't just tell me as a player, its that way because something MAY be going on - you have to throw me a bone, let me dig for the bone and be happy when I find it, maybe with a little reward. Quests and world-building.

The logic you presented for why the empire may not interfere is just sound enough to be a better band-aid than the one that is presently presented which is to say 'the empire maintains order within the cities because the promotion of order within the cities benefits the empire' without actually spelling out what those benefits are when the cities are NOT Imperial territories (officially).

A few lines of code having the Sultan speak to a shadow every few days at 12am game time and voila - instant RP logic and a middle-finger to Moligant.

Other than that - my argument stands.

PS

If you were to make what you pointed out the official reason don't be terribly shocked when I create a fort character at war with the Spire. :P

Damn those logical conclusions!

For the record,

This is simply a part of my RL personality.

I can't stand logical inconsistencies. I'm capable of enjoying things on one level while still gnawing on their errors like a dog on a bone.

This is why I went to see Xmen DOFP this past weekend and was able to enjoy it as a decent enough popcorn flick but just couldn't understand the great reviews a fairly (imho) average movie was getting purely based on the sheer burden of knowledge I had from watching the previous movies.

What kept rolling around in my head you ask?

Why didn't Professor X (in the first x-men movie) recognize Mystique?

They supposedly grew up together after all (since the newest x-men movies)and he had DEEP feelings for her.

The reason is obvious - its called a retcon and damn the viewers who have a halfway decent memory. That is a huge logical inconsitency that someone like me would have brought up in the writers room and demanded a fix for.....then Destuvious would have walked in the room and said SCREW YOU Moligant.....we are doing things my way and damn your logical inconsistencies, the audience won't even notice!

Sad part is he would be right :(

LOL

Marvel being a multiverse rather than a universe. Especially when pertaining to time and time travel. In 1 world they meet, in another they don't, etc.

How about all the digital and advanced digital technology constantly there in 1973?!

Retinal Scanners, Thumb print scanners, digital flat screens, harriers! etc...

After I just said, "let it go," i enjoyed the movie. Not GREAT, but it was fun.

Harrier was introduced in 1969. Retinal Scanner commercial use was in the early 80's so the government could have had it much sooner. The same with fingerprint readers. And as far as Digital, well, no digital but flat screens have been around for a very long time in the form of projection and SED TVs, again commercially developed in the early 80's. SED TVs have a better picture than LCD's and are very thin so they could have been seen as a modern LCD or LED, Digital TV.

I'm behind you on this in general principle and in this particular situation specifically.

If your belief is that you should be a hard-line - by the book - cabal member - that book has to be fairly extensive and deal with common scenarios. If you believe on the other hand that we need to overlook consistency because it's not realistic to have that level of detail - then wouldn't it also be reasonable to overlook violations that stem from this lack of consistency?

The biggest problem I have with Empire is that most of the time these days it does not feel remotely like being in an Empire. My last Imperial ran solo the majority of the time - wasn't anyone else on. It's just very strange because the reality doesn't match the description. I'd suggest allowing for maybe some more imperial NPC movement and presence throughout the game and more "convenience goods" within the imperial city and even a bit more protection inside the palace.

After all - it's one of the few cabals (only that I'm aware of actually) that relies on quantity of members to perform it's RP designations. The whole system falls apart below a certain number of active applicants. Maybe that's part of the problem with it and maybe it could use some tweaking from that aspect.

Conscripting good help is difficult.

Also:
"and im assuming these guards are connected to the cities i.e. the Tribunals"

And then you go on to say it doesn't have to be tribunal guards to prove your point. So yes, you actually kinda did say that.

1.

I mentioned both city guards and tribunals. This should underline that I do not consider them necessarily as the same entity but it didnt matter because they both work for the CITIES - which means for the purposes of my argument they are effectively under the same umbrella.

2, Roll up an imperial. Get to the rank where you can call centurions. Head to eastern. Call them. Wait around for a bit. Nobody has to say anything. The facts speak for themselves.

Some relatively quick ones:

1) Maybe make powers available to players for a certain cost re: donations? IE If I want to have Blade of the Codex up because I have to retrieve against 3 shamans I can have it up without the Codex but it costs 25 gold (or whatever)? No idea if that idea is feasible but it would certainly make you feel better when you are outnumbered 7 to 1.

2) Maybe add retrievels of the Codex to some type of counter re: donations? IE You retrieve the Codex you get +5 gold in donations. Just trying to think of ways to incentive people staying on when outnumbered. There is nothing worse than logging on, being the only Imperial on and no item (with 4 to retrieve from), sticking it out, but seeing others log on for 2 minutes and log out (don't blame them). Just throwing out ideas here.

1) if all it takes is gold to be able to call your cabal powers, then what is the point in going to retrieve? The overall idea of it is interesting but what it would probably do is make it so that vet players would just go and farm out gold so they can use their powers whether they have the cabal item or not.

2) This idea I enjoy a lot. With a lot of the stuff that is tracked in retrievals and raids etc, it might be possible to kick in a little donation love for Empire retrieving the codex or taking other cabal items. The gain would be minimal for undefended cabals and worth your while for defended ones. The same could work for retrievals, and imo I would probably make retrievals the more 'beneficial' way to get gold if this came to light. Esp since there is the annoying cb chatter about gaining the dark lords favor for retrieving the Codex.

1) It would be awesome if Centurion costs were looked at. By that I mean, I'm not sure if the code already does this, but I would love if Centurions asked for more coin the higher level the character trying to get by. IE a level 13 might only have to offer 1 gold, but a level 51 needs 20.

2) Another Centurion thought. I understand (maybe incorrectly) that Centurions called equal the level of the caller (and only something like the Centurion edge may affect this). I would love if Council members and the Emperor got specific boosts to their Centurions. Like, Council members get Centurions that have perma-haste. Emperor gets Centurions that have perma-haste and perma-frenzy + perma-bless.

OR (and this could be a total bitch to code, so feel free to tell me NO) you could make it so Council Centurions have specific sect skills. Such as a WarMaster's Centurions have up Blade of the Codex Strength + imperial offense. ShadowLord's Centurions come with some stock assassin/thief skills (maybe give them Nerve and something like Acrobatics? who bashes a Centurion anyway). High Priest's Centurions come with black sanc already, etc. Then you could make it so the Emperor's Centurions come with a random set. IE They call it on X day and get the WarMaster style Centurion, or they call it on Y day and get the High Priest Centurion.

I just think there should be a perk re: Empire in gaining a Council seat. Yeah you get an extra power, the ability to demote/promote increases, and you're one step closer to the throne, but all the Imperial mechanics don't really change (and I would think they should...maybe even add cosmetic changes so that all Centurions welcome Council members when they walk by, the Inners recognize the Council members in the throne room....those these could all create spam).

3) To further my retrieval gains you donations...how about if you almost got "Empire" points for things like retrievals/defenses/Centurion placements? These things could only be viewed by Sect Leaders/Emperor/IMMs, but it might be a better way of promoting people? IE I could really notice that Imperial Blade who plays off hours is a retrieval machine and also is placing Centurions/defending like a madman but his donations are low because he's constantly restocking his gold to prep.

As of right now, the idea is not to take on any ideas that would require a boat load of work for people to implement. I am generally looking for small/simple/quick adjustments that could occur to make Empire better in general but without having it take a year for the changes to go into effect.

I would sometimes sit there hacking away at the tara'bal for an hour or more whilst my donations were dwindling away. It was a case of 'farm gold or attempt to retrieve' - I chose retrieving as the proper Imperial RP and my donations sucked.

Never be the one to call cents unless the gain outweighs the cost. Ideally, order someone else to.

I'm not sure centurions need to be any better than they already are.

Equally, I don't see that council powers aren't already good enough.

If you start boosting centurions I would argue balance needs some kind of weakening to compensate. Eg healing curse has shorter duration, sigil can be saved against, tactics fires less, piercing gaze only works with scan and not with where.

When was the last time Empire was really in a position of strength?

CF today (with the low numbers) moves towards goodies (IE the majority of the empowering interactive IMMs are good/neutral).

When I played nererial, at least during many of my hours.

Doesn't change the fact that cents are a good power already, and also, if you improve empire powers, you'll probably end up with the same people bandwagoning, just in empire instead of fort.

Stay tuned for the official responses from the rest of team imm.

You skipped a step. You have to go through me to get to the ladder. Send me your wand list and I will let you "take it up the ladder."

The main reason that I didn't feel the need to post them here is that they in general consist of such a minor change from how the 'pre-Dest' Empire functioned that it didn't seem necessary. Apparently I was wrong, so here is the summary of the update.

There was a tiny niche where Imperial Law and Tribunal law didn't overlap which in turn could lead to breaking Tribunal law without violating Imperial Law. That has been remedied so that there is no little window where you can have a 'free pass' to be a law breaker but fine with the Empire.

There at one point seemed to be confusion about what happens when you are a Bloodoath and you violate Imperial Law, that has been made more clear.

There are a few very very rough guidelines outlined on what is expected for each sect within the sect halls beyond the sect laws. By no stretch of the imagination is this me telling people how to play their characters or saying that they will be punished if they do not fall into this very general ideal.

wersd

Fwiw, there is still plenty of gray area in Empire. It just doesn't exist for an oath =P.

Does this mean Imperials are no longer allowed to retaliate in towns? Or no longer allowed to loot bodies they find/make in towns?

Both were pretty major differences between Tribunal/Imperial law. If Imperial Law now means never being wanted why on earth would I not just roll Tribunal instead, since it's possible to break Imperial Law without breaking Tribunal Law, but no longer vice versa? Or have I misunderstood?

As it was written before, you could freely loot any corpse you came across to the pies without being in violation of Imperial law while violating Trib law. There are TONS of situations where being wanted as an Empire is 100% legit and honestly, I'm kind of surprised it doesn't happen more often.

Now looting is pretty handled as follows: if the corpse was made by an Imperial its not a violation of Imperial law to clean it out. If it was made by a non-Imperial you will probably want to avoid looting it to the pies.

I'm kind of surprised it doesn't happen more often.

That is largely due to lack of tribs.

I am struggling to understand how this is supposed to be clear to the players.

Do you define orderly as following tribunal laws? Do you define it as following imperial law?

I understand the imperial law allows for exception to tribunal law, but if your ethos is orderly and tribunal law is a tool of order how do you reconcile ethos being subjugated to a cabal dogma? It is written in game that a supreme orderly act is bringing a criminal to justice. If this is accurate, how is this in line with saying you think an imperial should be flagged more often? If an imperial is orderly how in gods name are they breaking imperial law (even under the pseudo-shadow exception of if you don't get caught, wink wink)
Oh and when their Emperor makes a "mistake" and attacks unprovoked in a city, it isn't a big deal because well he's the emperor and tribunal law means nothing to him and making mistakes of ethos, psh no big deal. (see Kraldinor assumes a paladin attacked him and breaks tribunal law by striking him in hamsah, woopsie no repercussions because? emperor!)

Shouldn't ORDER dictate that the player follows the codified instructions of the cabal? You give out character breaking beat downs for breaking imperial law, for violating alignment, but not for violating the players ethos. How are players supposed to know which of the character defining choices they make apply and in what order?


Isnt this exactly what Aael was punished for? Subjugating the inherent properties of the character (good) for roleplay and cabal concerns? Didn't want to look weak in front of reavers, killed good aligned creatures violating alignment.

As I see it now alignment is static and any infraction of it is a BIG ####ing deal. Acting good requires effort and doesn't get you ####, it is what you are supposed to do. Acting evil means doing whatever you feel like, whenever you feel like it so long as you don't appear to be gaming the system - Oh noes, an orc killed an orc for an ingame advantage? uhhh why is that bad because did it for game mechanics advantage!(or not)


Ethos is completely #### and might as well not exist other than for tribs, some paladins, and certainly sphere purity/baer paladins - Even if the Tribunal says something is not against the law, we are somehow supposed to know it will show up on the immortal "law break" channel ( See Baer's comments on Hrilifaxi death thread.) Outlanders certainly do not generally act chaotic - Lets take the codex and camp the refuge for another 420304 hours. That is soooo disorganized, they behave identically in almost every strategic way to other players. Mechanically they don't use coins, but otherwise yeah! prep and fight only in the woods, that'll show them! Only engage when odds favor you, because you know planning and forethought. Lets get organized here and camp the centaur to uniformly oppose all invaders like good soldiers do! (While saying things about trees and nature.)



This came off as a bit of a rant here but I hope the point is made. We cannot tell from situation to situation what point of behavior is going to be enforced. Certainly players who just play the game and read the help files have zero chance of knowing what they can and cannot do, or what order of priorities you all will punish or reward them for following.

Ethos is not as red and gold as alignment. You can group with people of opposing ethos and all that fun stuff. To me, the biggest difference is that the ethos aspects are slightly more difficult to put boundaries on than alignment is. You don't even need to play CF to have a general concept of what is 'good' and what is 'evil'. When it comes to defining what makes something 'chaotic' or 'orderly' the lines are much more blurred.

To be brief on the Aael commentary, when you are required to add an additional step to bypass a mechanical restriction that otherwise exists, its probably a bad idea to do it.

Does the following situation, in your opinion, require immortal intervention? (Or rather, do you think an immortal should intervene):

Level 12 evil warriors ask neutral warrior to join.
level 12 neutral warrior doesn't care what alignment he groups with. he accepts
level 12 neutral warrior asks goodie to join them, not knowing the first is evil
level 12 good warrior doesn't pose the god awful, dumb ####ing question "what alignment are you and evil warrior?" in any form because it is stupid.


neutral, leading the group, takes them to kill big nasty evil trolls. Evil guy chuckles and accepts the free ride. Now goodie who can't detect evil is in a group with an evil.

I think you have to be very careful here, as it really comes down to whether the goodie character should have an idea if his groupmate is evil. Hopefully goodie character could maybe spot that this person seems like he might be an unfavorable sort, but perhaps not.

I personally would hesitate to say fully either way, because it does come down to a judgement whether the mortal is reasonably aware. If evil groupmate spends his time in the group talking about being bored
with monsters and how they don't scream delightfully enough for him when they die...the goodie MIGHT should have an inkling that something's not right with this guy.

Keep in mind, this isn't even in the same category of discussion as a priest (with detect evil) who is fully aware they're grouping with evil to collect shinies.

Not in the same category at all and my question wasn't related to that. Thanks for answering.

Are you talking about if the good and evil pcs are races that are not alignment specific ones? In most cases, it probably wont be interrupted with a huge ugly scene. There might be a few little hints thrown at the goodie if things start to become too sketchy though.

Now, in your example, lets say the neutral guy is a gnome. The evil guy is an orc and the goodie is a paladin. Don't you think that the paladin would see the problem with this?

Edit: I guess it wouldn't matter if the good align guy was an auto-good race/class in this situation, but the overall theory is still sound.

Assume also then that race is not an alignment indicator for anyone, or if it is, it's just the good guy.

The reason I ask is that we often see/hear about immortal intervening when someone is doing something (knowingly) against their alignment. You are mentioning in this thread (and I agree) that alignment is the... I dunno core? of the character.

Anyway, in my opinion, this situation should warrant no action on the immortal side at all. Unless, of course, one of the three involved is already a follower of god X and god X doesn't like seeing what the hell is going on. Then god X can come down as god X and say something. Though I don't know why god X doesn't have better things to do than come have tea with a level 11 warrior ;) .

Seems to me that examples of deception could/should exist and I always wondered if and when immortals would intervene. Also, as game admins or as a god persona. It's probably pointless, that level of trickery isn't something I ever see tried, but that's why I have to ask so I know what would happen.

I don't know how I got side tracked on this. Folks wearing the admin hat vs. their god hat, and distinguishing the two is an interesting thing to think about. I guess this isn't really Empire-important. Whoops.

Why not just combine Empire and Tribunal?

This has been an idea advocated by a few people on here and I believe in light of these guidelines should really be talked about by the Imms.

1. Smaller PB

With a much smaller PB these days having so many cabals especially cabals that have similar philosophies, enemies, etc. doesn't really seem imho to be efficient.

2. The Reasoning

I have never been able to grasp the reasoning behind why Imperials respect Tribunal Law yet call themselves an empire and by their very RP are supposed to be a 'dark empire' whose main goal is domination and subjucation of anyone who is not an official part of the empire.

Let's take this to recent history shall we?

Within recent history the Tribunals were mostly made up of neutrals and lightwalkers with any evil aligns required to get the blessing of an elven god to become a Tribunal. Even more recently the Tribunal has allowed more evils within their fold but that doesn't change the fact that the Tribunals admit 'good-aligned' people who are for all purposes enemies of the Empire.

I've heard all the arguments for why this is so and none of them really make sense in light of the Empire's stated mission.

1. The 'protected cities' are the Empire's territory thus Tribunal Law is a reflection of Imperial law...

Except that protected cities are in no way shape or form subject territories of the Empire. Hamsah is ruled by a sultan, Galadon has a Mayor, Seantryn is ruled by an Empress, and so on. There is no true connection on a political level between any of these cities and the Empire.

2. We all respect order and thus promoting order within the cities promotes the goals of the empire.

Except when it doesn't. The specific idea of imperial domination (order through assimilation - the bloodoath) clearly contradicts the order of the Tribunals which is far more tolerant of freedom and is more tied into promoting adherence to mutually agreed upon standards of conduct vs. the imperial ideal of 'the master' demanding order from his subjects. This is why you have lightwalkers in the Spire but not in the Empire.

A paladin and anti-paladin can agree within the Spire that their hatred for each other doesn't supercede their mutual duty to order within the cities that the Tribunals have been HIRED to protect.

But what does that have to do with the Empire? Once again - the protected cities clearly ARE NOT imperial territories.

A true empire would look at Hamsah, Galadon, Seantryn, and especially Voralia as targets to be conquered and would see the paladin as an enemy to be slain and the anti-paladin as a potential recruit or enemy to also be slain.


3. We have a treaty with the Tribunals!

Ok fine. Show me the treaty.

4. It is Imperial Law!

Exactly. Why? What does the Empire gain by peace with potential targets for conquest and domination which is oft times headed by Lightwalkers allied with the Fortress and whose main diety is an elf?

IMHO -

Take some of the cities and give them to empire and the rest to the fort. Create a treaty between the two in terms of combat within the cities ala the Geneva conventions and then it makes sense and is overall better for everyone due to the small playerbase.

EDITED TO ADD:

You can even possibly up the ante here like this:

Empire has its item and Fort has its item. Empire controls Hamsah, Seantryn, maybe Udgaard. Fort controls Galadon, Voralia, maybe Tir-Talath.

Empire holds Forts item - They control all the cities, or vice versa.

Control could be evidanced by perhaps the types of guards - imperial centurions vs. some sort of fort guard mob. And perhaps place centurions at the gates of each city and they collect a VERY small toll in order to pass and also make them low level weak mobs so this is more cosmetic than anything. Now you would have a real empire with cities they control and sometimes need to go out and re-conquer.

As for how this could work, use whatever code is used in certain areas that change depening on the time of day (including which mobs populate the area) only base it on who has the items vs. time of day.

I think there is a large disconnect on Empire and Tribunal law. Empire does not give a hoot about Tribunal law. It is not out of concern for Trib that Empire doesn't pk in 'protected towns' it is so that they can promote the order that THEY believe in. And its hard to be a beacon of order when you are rampaging around like the tree-huggers from Outlander within civilized places.

I addressed that argument. But I'll try and make the huge hole in it more plain.

The order that Empire believes in is one of assimilation. This is made clear by the bloodoath itself.

You are fundamentally either an Imperial citizen, a slave of the empire, or an enemy of the Empire.

Anyone who isn't amongst the above is due to the inherent complications of going after everyone. You have to establish priorities especially with such low numbers and the need to rank. In other words your average player will ignore the hardline RP of the true Imperial in order to rank.


The purpose of an actual empire is to maintain its power and gain more power through the acquisition of territory.

In Thera these territories are the various lands and cities.

Galadon, Hamsah Mu'tazz, Seantryn Modan, Voralia all represent independent (sovereign) states/governments which is clearly seen in that each has a different form of governance and overall alignment.

These city-states however all utilize the Tribunal to maintain order within their borders. In this instance the Tribunal are a smaller and limited version of the United Nations Peacekeepers wherein the various sovereign members have made available armed forces who act in the interests of maintaining peace and security for their member states but unlike the UN they only act within the borders of their respective sovereign city-states.


The empire on the other hand is neither a part of this agreement (officially) nor benefits from it (in actuality) if one regards the role of the empire is not only to promote order (through assimilation) but to conquer those who refuse to assimilate (which would include any non-imperial government).

In the real world, if the Tribunals can be viewed as a smaller version of the UN the Empire would be North Korea I think. A repressive government which at best has an uneasy relationship with the rest of the world.

The main difference is that in Thera the Empire is much larger and more powerful than North Korea and is on par with the Tribunals (UN).

So imagine how things would look in real life right now if North Korea has the equivalent power of the United Nations. I doubt things would be peaceful and highly doubt that 'in the interests of order' a nation whose leaders are hellbent on acquiring political and military, power would hesitate to undermine any other nation who refuses to assimilate.


Fundamentally for an empire there should be no difference between an imperial soldier killing an enemy of the empire and the imperial armies marching into Galadon and taking over. It is the same thing only on a much larger scale. The point is that you have people who have refused to take the blood oath roaming free who even worse maintain their own independent armies...and worse than that...employ people who are direct enemies of the empire and who give direct aid to enemies of the empire while 'off-duty'.

As I recall it is DARKNESS and ORDER - not just order.

If I was the Emperor I would lay siege to Voralia and demand the Tribunals never give another elf, storm giant, or good-aligned person a position of power. Then I would just say screw it and take over and put in my own centurions to maintain order within the cities.

And then once again - it would then make sense for me to declare that order must be maintained within the cities because then it directly benefits me.

As long as the people within protected cities are free of the blood oath none of this makes sense. The benefit of promoting order only makes sense when that order is putting gold and slaves into the imperial coffers.

It is not an isolationist state that tries to exclude the rest of the World outside and live in its own little bubble like North Korea is trying to do.

Make it Hitler's Germany then....or any other more appropriate analogy. The point still stands.

The Empire is out to conquer Thera not just the Fortress and the Outlanders. I can understand not wanting to cause trouble in the cities because they have a treaty, I could also understand them wanting to promote order and recruit people to the Empire through public relations vs. at the edge of a sword.

What I don't understand is treating the protected cities as anything other than foriegn territories for future conquest when the main enemies (fort and outtie) have been dealt with.

Given this (appropriate) mindset, I can (and in the past always have) seen the relationship between empire/tribunal as an uneasy relationship akin to the US and Russia during the Cold War with no actual open conflict with each other and in 'public' adhering to each others laws while visiting their respective countries - foriegn diplomats and the like - but in secret (CIA/KGB) doing whatever is necessary to further their respective governments goals and if their agents (SHADOWS!) are caught then they are disavowed and punished (for getting caught!)

I have never actually had a problem with most of the sects being required to obey tribunal law but it really really really really has never made sense to me that the shadow sect cannot operate inside of foriegn territories with alot more freedom than they have been given as of late. Maybe these new guidelines give them that freedom, who knows.

But imho if im a shadow and I am in Hamsah and there is a group of Forties in Hamsah preparing for a raid (im eavesdropping) and there is no Tribunal around and I'll even go the extra RP step of saying there isnt even a tribunal guard mob in the room....I shouldn't be punished for robbing them of all their prep potions before they get a chance to use them especially if I do so without actually causing any of them to yell out. If anything I should be rewarded for that by the shadow lord for managing to weaken the enemies of empire while not giving cause for an 'international incident'.

But as far as I know (because I've been demoted for robbing a fortie of his prep potion in town when NOBODY else was around and didnt get caught)- if a Imperial Imm was watching (unknown to me) I'd be demoted for doing so because it was....against imeprial law to break the laws of a foriegn territory....see how that doesnt make sense for a spy?

Always thought it would be cool if Empire could spread their influence to surrounding areas. Perhaps through cabal presence online, total time of cabal item held+ others, successful raids/defenses even perhaps through donations. As influence grows perhaps special merchants would appear selling some nice imperial only things, shopkeeps say in balator/hamsah etc would give better deals, and maybe even a boon to the cabal powers themselves, or a cabal wide boon of some sort. Think it would give something to work towards and give a little added dynamic to cabal wars.

I am fairly certain the amount of work that would be required to do this would far outweigh the benefit, although it is a neat idea.

Thanks for reading and giving your input Dest. Always nice to hear from an imm..no matter the topic.

If certain areas like popular cities were affectied like the veil with magic.

Shopkeepers refusing to sell or deal with cerytain alignments because of imperial influence so the goodies and the chaotics need to take arms against the Empire or risk not being able to buy certain things.


Would be a nice dynamic.

Would solve some tedium and make a lot more to sense if Centurions EARNED you gold rather thank took it. Adds strategy to placement. I loved the days when you called on fortress to help keep roads clear. It makes imperials feel like a much more evil and far reaching presence.

I might ask up the ladder to see about doing something along this lines. The trade off however probably would end up being significantly weaker centurions. Maybe in order to keep cents the same strength something could be done so that if they don't collect X gold in their time that the person who called them is required to fund the difference? That could also make for an interesting turn of events.

Long ago when I rolled my first imperial and finally got high enough to call centurions I was SOOOOOOOOOOOO happy! I had dreams of using them to collect gold because it seemed a no-brainer (as someone who had been on the opposite side of the fence forced to pay centurions) that OF COURSE there will be a mechanism to get some of the gold the centurions I've called up are collecting.

MAN! What a dissapointment that was after about 30 minutes trying to figure out how to get my gold. :(

So in light of the comments on this very thread about mitigating the grind of collecting gold, how about imperials get a percentage of the gold the centurions they call collect (have it go directly to their donations) so that the cost of calling them is mitigated by their potential profit to you.

I prefer the idea that Centurions still cost your to summon, but a percentage of what they collect, 20% maybe, would go towards your donations, then it is possible to actually make money off the centurions if they collect enough.

Each sect leader can toggle "hold vote" to yes or to no.
When majority are set to yes, they get a prompt to vote.

Votes not cast by deadline are excluded. Majority vote then wins if any one individual has a majority of the votes. Otherwise coup fails and emperor is notified.

This removes potential for imm influence, which is both good and bad bit I'd suggest good overall.

But for right now, I am more than active enough to handle any and all needs for a coup when they arise.

Without an automated process, it isn't clear how one should attempt to overthrow the emperor. When I played nererial I was rping with the other council members and ready to make the attempt, but I didn't know how. Eventually this led to my note which ended up going to the whole shadow sect when I addressed it to the shadow lord.

For those who are wondering how to start a coup in current Empire, its as simple as a note to me or praying to me about it.

Even Zulgh left eventually. Note to person who may or may not be around or active or even an Imm anymore is a bad process.

Did you read the other post I made just above this that said 'Maybe down the road' or are you trying to be difficult? For the short term (which is what I am attempting to do with this) I am more than active enough to handle the rare instances where a coup is needed.

I didn't see the part about down the road, no. I wasn't trying to be particularly difficult.

Gold is required for prepping/healing/etc/etc

The Empire requiring donations is one of the reasons I hate playing empire so much. Having to constantly grind gold in order to use centurions, or get promotions SUCKS (especially in today's fort friendly/heavy environment). I need that gold for staying alive, forget about donating to the "greater vision" of the empire. I've recently played 2 imperials, and deleted them both when I realized I can only really log in 2-5 hrs per week, and I don't want to spend that time grinding donations/etc. I know I'm picking on empire here..but the amount of tedium required to stay a member in 'good standing' is far far too much.

If the donation requirements went away, I'd be an empire fanboi.

Edit to add:

Perhaps you could just hard-code an "Imperial Tax" that gets "taken" every time an imperial grabs some gold from a corpse, etc..

.

Bring back donating of equipment! They did use to be able to donate equipment right? Why did that get taken away?

nt

I remember that change while playing and I suspect the main reason was because there are some items in the game you can stockpile and then donate that are quite valuable.

At that moment, I had started collecting books in some shelf near the Void, then getting in the Void, letting it repop, and stockpile it to donate.

I'm guessing they had enough of some players doing it this way(different methods but same point) and changed it.

At the time, donations were not a big deal, they were just used as a point to impress folks.

It's not like it took gold to promote someone, I'm not even sure if it cost gold to call centurions.

which was worth 100K. I'd do that a few times a login.

Especially then you could get an idea of what people are doing.

Random Blade has no "taxes" accrued, demotion for presumably dying all the time or generally doing nothing.

And me looking at the amount I needed to 'catch' up with my donations and saying "no thank you" If it were some automated tax like 10-20% or something of every gold you pick up, and then disjoined (directly) from promotion I'd be a much happier camper.

I get the idea of the empire demanding its citizens fund it, but I'd think that should come in the form of a tax, rather than "donations" And maybe the tax scale slides, so that the upper echelons have less of it! heck yes, in fact you can almost use the US economy as a starting point of what an economy run by elitist assholes would look like! :P

It would be neat if you could set the tax rate higher to donate more and be promoted faster as well.

Set by emperor. Give people a reason to depose! WE ARE THE 99%!

I don't even know how Empire voting works. Ignore me.

Now, that being said, I understand that the amount of time required to farm out donations and all that is a bit on the heavy side unless you get some really lucky breaks. That is why I often hand out piles of gold to Imperials when they do something cool.

I think a far more realistic plan, and one that I am more likely to get support on from the rest of Team Imm, is to modify a few of the other variables that are tied into donations for Empire.

For instance, reducing the donation hit required to call centurions as well as dropping the amount required to promote people. Another potentially viable option would be to allow treasure objects to be donated as well as good.

Though personally, that still wouldn't be enough to make me want to play empire.

So that would be a welcome change.

Not to be a pain to the player but so that when you promoted people there was this sense of give and take. So when an Elite promoted you, you felt closer to that person. That person paid the 25 or 50 to promote you, but also gained that 'influence'.

I certainly don't take it for granted whenever I've been promoted, but they had to put in a decent amount of the gold so that the person promoting made their choices well.

Even so, getting gold in this game is easy for anyone that isn't a clear newbie so I don't see what the problem really is.

NT

I thought you had at least played an Imperial to feel that way...come on man.

I wonder how many of your other posts cite the source "I was told".

I had 500 gold in donations.

With another 500 in the bank.

Gold-gathering is not HARD, it is BORING.

I'm actually curious if something has changed from what your source told you to what I remember.

Did you give anyone the bloodoath?

Do you think giving someone the bloodoath cost you 100 gold? If not, do you think it cost you anything?

I am confused.

No I did not promote anyone.

No I did not give anyone the bloodoath.

No I did not think giving the bloodoath would cost me gold. I didn't think giving the bloodoath would cost me anything.

I was led to believe that, for example, were I a Blade in a position to promote someone, if I wanted to promoted someone from Bloodoath to Sheathed it would cost me 100 gold.

1. Once you have enough donations, promotion from Oath to member of your Sect is automatic after a certain period of time (the Council does it).

2. Promotion from lowest level in your sect to middle level costs 25 gold to the one who promotes (IIRC. It may be 50.)

3. Promotion from middle to Elite costs 50 gold to the one who promotes (IIRC. It may be 100.)

4. Promotion from Elite to Sect Leader costs the Emperor 100 gold (IIRC. I am pretty sure that's what it costs, though, which is where my other numbers come from.)


A couple other facts for those who do not know. Divine Sect members can promote/demote outside their own sect. No other sect can. You can't promote someone to the same respective rank as you (so an Elite can't promote someone to Elite, for example).

Yep, to administer the Oath you are charged 10 gold as the Oathgiver. But that also remember is supposed to give you an in-game bond with said character.

Then to get promoted to next tier is 25 gold.

Then to next tier is 50.

To Elite is 100.

To Sect Leader is still 100 I think.

To Emperor is we will never know :P

TMNS, you need to have a chat with your source, it's just mind boggling to me how you had 500 gold in donations and didn't even want to try, even IF it cost 100 like you thought. TRY things out, there are still plenty of things in the game that haven't been revealed through a FAQ. IE, people might know about some of the assassin edges now, but it took someone picking them and saying it.


Wood-elf warrior edges, same thing.

Black circle, same thing.

Etc, etc.

I got promoted rather quick.

I was oath for about a half hour, Sheathed for about 6 hours, and I deleted about 5 hours after becoming a Blade.

I didn't delete because of donations. I expressly stated donations weren't a problem with me because I grinded out 5 hours of gold gathering to gather like 1000 gold.

I think it's rough to ask 100 gold for a promotion. I see now that's only for upper echelons. It still doesn't change the majority of my opinion that donations are a pain for a lot of reasons. Now that Centurion costs will be looked at I'd imagine it's a lesser concern, and with lower player numbers the amount of people you can promote is still going to probably be low, but yeah.

This info is actually really useful.

Echelons are Oath, Citizen, Sect noob, Sect grunt, Sect elite, sect leader and emperor. I suggest that donations do not decrease from the amount that is required for sect grunt promotion. This would allow more casual style Empire experience for people who aren't hard core players. My opinion is that activity should not be a requirement for sect grunts and below. Automatic booting of inactive people isn't a nice idea either, and should stop from happening in Empire.

Currently the window of inactive time to get anathema is 21 days. If you cannot even log in one time over 3 weeks then Empire just won't be the cabal for you.

I don't understand why it is considered necessary. I can see automatically demoting limited tiers of elite and above for inactivity, but below that I just don't see the point of automatically booting people. Could you explain it to me?

If you aren't logging in, you aren't feeding your donations or offering the oath to people or defending the palace or collecting other cabal items. If you aren't doing any of those things then you also aren't 'useful' to the cabal in the RP sense.

The number of times someone in the cabal is auto-demoted is fairly small, and it almost always occurs for a character who ends up auto deleting anyways so in the big picture, it would do almost nothing helpful to change how this works.

On a semi-related note to that, I would love to hear some input from the masses about the cabal in general and any ideas that could help make it more fun.

The biggest thing would be not always being outgunned by some other cabal or combination of cabals pretty much any time you log on to 15 people or more. Not really much you can do about that. I haven't played Empire since Jalrandar (that's like a month ago) but can tell that is still pretty much the case. If it's not outlander its fortress or battle. Empire kicked ass for the two weeks Ooglar was in hero range, but that has pretty much been it since Soviatos and the Mummy were both in the cabal.

Yeah, and you hit a lot of the really big issues that Empire faces in it as well. The biggest balancing act is the fact that Empire is meant to be a force. When Empire is down it gets bad really fast. Conversely when Empire starts to do well, it can snowball very very quickly as well because of the way everything syncs.

nt

Its inside the cabal.

then post about it.

I would also accept a helpfile update.

But making a character to join empire just to maybe be able to find out what he's talking about is a little silly.

I just don't follow the rationale there. Yeah helpfile update would be great.

Why even mention it if we can only find out by rolling an imperial someday? What if the new guidelines make or break the interest in playing one?

I mean, is it that you're not really interested in it being open to discussion?

This may sound rude, but I am getting a really mixed message here. It's almost like you'd rather us just find out what has officially changed but also be able to say you mentioned it.

"There's something you ought to know about this, but you have to find out for yourself someday what it is."

...okay?

I think most of us would be pretty interested in just knowing what it is.

Empire needs people. It's a clever marketing ploy to get people to roll Empire. Nice try Destuvius. I'm rolling elite Empire killer.

Responding here for lack of better place:

I remember when cabal powers were not listed in help files and you couldn't really know the dogma of a cabal without being in it, or using OOC means to find out.

One of my biggest pet peeves when playing Carrion Fields is someone not in cabal X, telling someone that is in cabal X that they are violating the their dogma. In some cases you might know and in others you might not. The state of cabals has been static for so long and this information available to all for so long that... Well, everyone knows everything and so their characters do too.

Now for my demands:

Erase all the cabals and start from scratch. Every month, the cabal immortal of the new cabals is responsible for shifting the dogma in significant ways to keep people not IN that cabal guessing about the dogma. Then randomly because of veil shifts the cabals completely change their dogma to something else entirely. Whatever the new goodie cabal is becomes an anti-mage cabal and whatever the new evil cabal is becomes Nexux, and so on. Let the Lord of Chaos rule.

I hope you feel terrible for having read any of this nonsense.

nt