Life is Feudal Official Forum

[SlingKing]

Hey,

I've seen some ideas suggested from people (although no official word seen as of yet) of building "monuments" and "key buildings" as a potential means of establishing a radius of domain "control". Some of you seem keen quite to have this implemented, but going on my own and my friends play-style the idea just doesn't work from a ranger/bandit perspective.

In my server, the rangers I play with (sometimes confused with bandits or a bit of both) are all exceptionally skilled in their respective fields but just have not focused on formal basebuilding aspects at all... As a matter of fact, we've intentionally created camouflage tree defense rings and a maze to navigate through to actually visit the base. Big kingdoms on our server are wary of us but don't know where we live as it's very hard to actually discover our headquarters for this reason (although the barn does make noises it is very hidden).

All of us can fight on par, if not better then the bigger kingdoms in the server because we all had to rely on our wits to make do with what we have. Our bases have intentionally conformed to the habitat of a forest to fit with our chosen playstyle (i.e. sticking chests underneath coops instead of building large obvious structures).

My only concern with having a "build this to build that" to secure "territory" in a formal sense does not consider our way of life at all and this only benefits castle builders.

All it takes is some determined castle builders to decide "right i will build this enormous structure and now everything within this radius is my kingdom!" except for the fact that us forest people take great pride in being independent players.

I don't want to feel "sleighted" by having our ranger hideouts arbitrarily incorporated in a claim radius just because another player can build a huge structure nearby. I know there's talk of defeated opponents having to declare "fealty" to a superior lord but if I'm honest this tactic just won't work with ranger types as we will just use guerilla tactics to outwit exapnsionist neighbours and we never had any intention of building castles or belonging to big settlement in the first place.

I just wanted to throw that out there. I don't want any guild system to be biased against people who choose to play more like Riften and less like Windhelm.

[Willbonney]

More details on the Order and Realm/Kingdom concepts can be read here:
http://lifeisfeudal.com/mmorpgsandLiF/O ... ual-worlds

What you are describing as your playstyle would be the an "Order," a group of players banded together who have not claimed territory.

Now, if someone else comes along and claims territory you rightfully see as your own, then you would be trespassers on that territory until such a time as you can destroy their claim (monument). Might is right so to speak.

Being a trespasser as far as I'm aware only makes your alignment "gray" on those lands, which means that anyone who attacks you will receive no alignment penalty for doing so if those lands are apart of their claim.
There might also be an alignment penalty for trespassing, of that I'm not sure.

[Azzerhoden]

I don't think someone in an order could destroy a monument, or any other assets for that matter. An Order cannot set standings. Wouldn't this be needed for a war? They could certainly raid players (does not require standing), but would suffer the alignment hit.

As to the OP, monuments are not something that players would want, it is planned for the game. Please see the wiki for details.

[Willbonney]

I don't think someone in an order could destroy a monument, or any other assets for that matter. An Order cannot set standings. Wouldn't this be needed for a war? They could certainly raid players (does not require standing), but would suffer the alignment hit.

As to the OP, monuments are not something that players would want, it is planned for the game. Please see the wiki for details.

As far as I understand it, the only disadvantage is not being able to set diplomacy, and thus actually declaring war.

What war declaring does is allow one group to attack another group without loss of alignment, allows enemies to gather materials on the claimed tiles of enemies, and allow for the Instanced Battles and also the Sieges.

So I guess here is where you'd be right according to:
http://lifeisfeudal.com/mmorpgsandLiF/M ... -is-Feudal

So yes, to downgrade/remove other group's monuments it looks like the group wanting to do this will need to be at least a Realm (and have a monument) of its own.

[Tymefor]

countries will be able to recruit orders to fight in their WoO battles. So an order could ask a country to declare war for them and they just fight the battle. I can see this as being pretty cool. im sure the country could then demand that they fight in another war for them at another time. excellent RP.

[Atlantis]

Thanks for the links about the MMO battle and siege. I have to say I am currently unsure what the mechanic is like.
Can someone tell me what a "Battle" is, why it is instanced and what exactly I as a winner gain from a won battle?

Siege is as far as I could get it the most basic form of PVP i could think of, simple pvp with tools (siege weapons) on the normal map as everyone is working on.

[Willbonney]

Keep in mind, most of this response is still only conceptual:

It's instanced so that no outside forces can interfere with your battle. In Darkfall they called them "scroachers," those who equipped lightly and came to the battles all in the effort to loot decent gear bags. These Dev's played Darkfall, and I guess it was a part of that game they really did not like.

In the instance, there is a limit to the number of players you are allowed to bring along, as attackers or defenders.

The reason you have battles is so the attacking side to attempt to downgrade the monument of the defending side.

Attackers win and the defending monument is reduced, and less land is claimed within their domain. Defenders win and they become immune to further attacks by those attackers for so many days.

Only when a Monument reaches level 1 (the smallest) can a Realm be sieged. Sieges are not instanced, and are fought at the walls of the Realm. Anyone and everyone can show up to a siege. Now, it's not clear to me whether or not the Monument gets destroyed in a Siege (and thus destroying the Realm), if the Attacking Realm will force supplication and acquiescence, or if something totally different occurs. Not sure as that hasn't been explained well enough for me to understand.

[Atlantis]

Ok thank you. I did not catched that part about the use of the battles while I read the info site. So basicly it's simply some kind of "pre-siege" that has to be won so the attacker actually "qualifies" to siege the enemy.

[Azzerhoden]

The way I look at it, is that an invading army is going to be fought out in the field before it gets close to the castle walls. The instanced fights are those open terrain battles.

[Hoshiqua]

In order to claim land, a guild has to build a monument, which will be damageable during construction. So if a local order wants to keep territory for itself, it has to fight the invading guild directly, and try to destroy the monument before it's complete.

[AussiePastor]

Just put YOUR monument in the middle of your Forrest Maze.

[Azzerhoden]

In order to claim land, a guild has to build a monument, which will be damageable during construction. So if a local order wants to keep territory for itself, it has to fight the invading guild directly, and try to destroy the monument before it's complete.

I must have missed that part, as I assumed the monument would be built just as quickly as everything else. Have you seen anything describing how long it would take to complete construction?

[Willbonney]

It's apparent you don't understand the "Band" type description they've given. Like Outlaw Band, or Mercenary Band, or Tuetonic Orders, Order of the Temple (a.k.a. Knights Templar).

All of which had "titles" such as described here as Military ranks, like Sergeants and Commanders.

[Vamyan]

Tuetonic Orders.

But the Teutonic Order had alot of land in Prussia during the late midievil era.... Also you misspelled Teutonic...

When one lives in a house of glass, one should not be throwing stones. Medieval. I'd even accept the British spelling of mediaeval.

[Willbonney]

Gotta love nitpickers.

The Orders never owned the land. They were tasked over the management and defense of the lands in the name of the various churches. Several historians name the separate regions as City States in their own right, but all of them answered to the Church in their demesne. So again, the claim on the land was never their's alone, was not hereditary, nor were they supposed to gain wealth from these lands (though many did).

This argument aside, the examples I gave are of Orders. Not Realms, not Kingdoms, not "Empires" or dynasties, Orders. A group of men and some women who came together to defend a territory with no claims on the land.

Which is precisely what the Order system will accomplish in LiF: MMO, if you desire that.

As for mercenaries not using a "ranking" system, you're joking right? Even outlaw bands had a "boss" or leader, sometimes even referred to as a foreman. The Pinkerton Detectives and Blackwater being two more modern day mercenary groups, both of which had a rank structure, to earlier times in which the Tang Dynasty used mercenaries to defend territories, to Xerxes and Persia's use of mercenaries, to the Celtic mercenaries used prolifically throughout Europe. They all had commanders, subcommanders, and their form of regulars.

Edited to add offensive comment: Open a book once and a while.

[Willbonney]

Eh, it was the nitpicking that annoyed me, pointing out a simple misspelled word when in the same sentence you had one of your own. So it was me attempting to irk you after you irked me.

To respond to your comments, you're making my point for me.

Do you think the Dev's are planning for failure? Do you think they are structuring the game so that groups of players fail? I don't. And thus because the "successful" Bands and Orders had a militaristic styling of structure, that's the model. To help groups of players, who want no land claimed, to still have a structure to succeed, thus the ranks.

And again you argue my point, that the Orders no real legitimate claim on the land, it was the various Churches (it was not just the Catholics who used orders to secure land, though most of them were a part of one Crusade or another). As stated in another posting of mine, I'm not a huge fan of using Wikipedia as a reference, but they have a pretty thorough list of many of them so here goes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_o ... ic_society)

[Willbonney]

Strangely enough, that Wiki page misses out on another order, the Shaolin were a Buddhist order.

[Falcion]

I would like to refer to those million groups of mercenaries and lone mercenaries...

How in nine hells would someone survive alone in medieval era as being mercenary? I know we have a lot of stories and films about a lone swordsman that cuts down a group of 5-6 thief's that try to rob him on the road... But please LiF is suppose to be realistic not a fairy tale. You could make a small shack in the woods and live there close to other communities. Traveling around is another story.

But yes if we count a fool who runs away from home with a pitchfork and declares himself free mercenary for hire, and then he get's killed by a band of thugs on the first road. Yes if we count that as a mercenary then we might get those millions. Although I would just call it natural selection. It really worked well in those times, you did something stupid - never again.


I agree that originally the orders were not suppose to own land in their on name but manage it in the name of the church but as we all know too much power corrupts and some orders like those mentioned didn't just managed land they acted like it was their own but their "supervisors" allowed it because they got bribed, were afraid or simply didn't care.

So basically in LiF an order should be able to settle on the lands of a realm and govern the lands if they're given such rights from the realm king. And they could pay tributes and fight in the name of the realm that has given them those rights.

[Vamyan]

pointing out a simple misspelled word when in the same sentence you had one of your own.

I couldn't care less about the discussion at hand, my irk is from the grammar/spelling issue outlined above.

Argue as you will, but please try to keep grammar and spelling consistent... yes, I'm petty.

[Azzerhoden]

I always find it funny when arguments flare comparing the details of a game to history. You cannot build something that exactly matches what existed at some point, at some location, in the real world. So arguing over it IS as pointless as arguing over spelling errors.

So stop the nerd rage, m'kay? Lets get back to the original topic.

[Azzerhoden]

The reasons why an order cannot have standings is to add some balance in the game. It will take a lot of effort to build up a town, country, or kingdom, and those who want to tear it down should have to put something at risk to do so.

A scenario that might work is where a group of mercenaries would ban together and build a neutral city with a single monument. Employers could hire one band to attack someone and set standings appropriately. If the target retaliates against the city with the monument - all would go on the offensive.

Would have to think about it more, but honestly, I am focusing on different plans right now.