Thoughts

[Pontifex Maximus]

Proposal 1: For the next weeks on the new year we count it as two years in game. For RP purposes his helps advance the plot a bit in terms of characters aging, children coming of age, and other things of RP importance. Ideally this would also mean double income on those days but I'm not bothered either way abou that.

Proposal 2: Ravens aren't an instant messaging app. We need to place a limit on the number of ravens one lord can send in any given period AND we need to put a timer on how long it takes a raven to arrive somewhere.

Thoughts: We make raven availability related to the relative rank of the lord or the lords keep: 5/10/15 for example.

Movement: Ravens move at 5x the regular speed across any tile and their movements must be posted. It then takes the same amount of time for the raven to return to be used again.

Proposal 3: Make movements of characters tracked regardless of whether we are at war or not and make them subject to all the movement rules. This solves the problem of characters being multiple places at a time.

Impacts: the impacts of all of this will essentially force us to consider how large Westeros is and make that a actual factor in strategy. Want to call on Dorne for help from the North? Go for it, but it's going to take you a while. Might even take a year between information reaching someone's ears and calling the militia and then marching. And that's a good thing. Much more in line with the actual lore, scope, and size of westeros. Also has the added benefit of slwing wars down a bit.

Final thoughts: we could offer moneysinks in the bull's wares to improve chaacter movement individually, or raven delivery time etc.

[Xion]

Question about the ravens. Say half a player's ravens are killed somehow, would a player have to purchase new ravens or would they replenish at a rate of x ravens per turn similar to levy replenishment?

[Pericles of Athens]

I like most of it, but isn't each raven trained to fly to a specific keep?

[The Mad Skylord]

That doesn't really make much difference to Ponti's ideas, he just wants it to take time, in theory you could force them to gi by Hightower, but really just letting them go to each keep with movement rules should work as a time drain.

I like thr way you're thinking Ponti.

[Wheatley]

I like the raven part, communication is way too easy and quick and sometimes it might decide the fate of a battle or something important like that. Or damage control... But I think a bit more than 15 max is necessary and that they travel faster, like 10 tiles per hour. Then you could also send messages by road and they would travel by normal speed, which is months just to get a message across.

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[Wheatley]

Visiting someone for trade and stuff rather than sending a raven should remain for the good of RP but has to be balanced against the raven thing so if someone wants to inform someone else about an assassination they can not just appear at the door three hours after

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[Zeus Almighty]

Eh the raven thing just seems tedious to me. But then, I'm a man of simplicity

[Dirty Chai]

Well, it sounds annoying to do, as Zeus suggests, but I think there's merit to it and we should at least try it out.
I mean, we tried out the budget system Poach made, and reverted to vaults by unanimous decision - if it doesn't work for us, we can always undo it.

[Gandalfus]

I'm with Zeus on the raven thing. But we won't know until we try, I suppose.


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[Poach]

We could make it simpler to implement by just putting a delay on raven messages. Building a web of who can send ravens where may be far too tedious to enforce for a game where everything needs to be done manually, but we could easy introduce simple delays:

- Within your own 'Kingdom' (eg inside the Reach) = 1 hour (that is roughly 2 days ingame)

- To neighbouring Kingdoms (eg Westerlands to Riverlands or Reach) = 7 hours (2 weeks ingame)

- Over every 'Kingdom' afterwards = 7 more hours (eg Dorne to North is Dorne > Stormlands > Crownlands > Riverlands > North, or 4 'hops', so 4*7 = 28 hours, or 2 months ingame)

- We dump the Ravens of the Kingdom thread and instead make it a semi-OOC announcement thread for things that would travel through the grapevine. You can announce feasts, tournaments, deaths of characters, major victories/defeats, major mod-events (like the Kingswood fire). It will no longer be essentially for propaganda or having realm-wide IC arguments as it's used for now.

Character movements I sort of disagree with. If people are blatantly having their characters in several places at the same time then sure (eg still receiving guests in Winterfell if they're the Master of Coin), report it. I don't think having to wait out travel times for absolutely everything you want to do ingame will do anything to help keep the game interesting, though.

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[Lord Dread]

I agree on the ravens as well, but rather would make the availability of ravens based on Tier buildings.

By standart a lord should have a regular raven roost, so this one doesn't have to be purchased. As well they have multiple ravens, but for gameplay reasons I feel like three constants are important when it comes to siege battles:
- Time in which a fulfledgedout letter is written
- The ammount of Ravens a player can send
- The chance to kill a raven by arrow

Based on these I would propose the following Tier buildings:

Ravenroost without Tier - Takes 2 hours for each sentence written out after the attackers have been spotted (of course this does not refer to the Maester being a slow fatass, but rather symbolizes the (dis)ability of the Lord's family and household to argue whom to contact. It's also a modifier for those who actually besiege keeps as it also would make now a difference whether people get attacked by surprise or actually realize the enemy army by scouting it)
Tier I Ravenroost - The time for each sentence is reduced to 1 hour
Tier II Ravenroost - An additional Raven is provided for war times (Total of 2)
Tier III Ravenroost - another raven is provided for war times (Total of 3), chance to kill a raven is decreased by -1 for the besiegers
Tier IV Ravenroost - another raven is provided for war times (Total of 4), chance to kill a raven is decreased by -2 for the besiegers (in total -2; not kumulative), time for each sentence is reduced to half an hour

And the same way we could award Regional boni, which grant the ravenroost an additional raven during war times for provinces like Raventree Hall, Crow's Barren and other places, where we can either assume a better raven popularity or simply grant them a unique regional bonus.

Simple, easy, while making at the same time Tier buildings more various in terms of choices.
And since it doesn't conflict with Poach's proposal, we could also tie this in as well.

PS: And before people argue about the sentences system: Of course we shouldn't be nitpicky about it, but I kinda feel Ravens during war time short deliver short messages, solely stating stuff like "We get attack by forces, bearing the banners of House Tyrell, and await your aid." than letters full of accusations and attempts to explain why the attacks aren't justified.

PPS: And this rule goes btw solely for besieged keeps, as that's the only time where we have to argue about letters, send by raven.
Otherwise people can send as many letters as they wish to do, making LPs still able to mass-produce letters for telling their Houses to gather at the destined location.

[Pontifex Maximus]

Question about the ravens. Say half a player's ravens are killed somehow, would a player have to purchase new ravens or would they replenish at a rate of x ravens per turn similar to levy replenishment?

It isn't my intention with this proposal to keep track of how many ravens someone has, rather, how many messages someone can send at once. So I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't think it's worthwhile to consider ravens assets in terms of them dying and having to keep track of that. This proposal is just a control on the spread of information.

We could make it simpler to implement by just putting a delay on raven messages. Building a web of who can send ravens where may be far too tedious to enforce for a game where everything needs to be done manually, but we could easy introduce simple delays:

I agree, I didn't intend to set limits on who can send ravens where. Send a raven beyond the wall for all I care, but it just shouldn't be instantaneous.

- Within your own 'Kingdom' (eg inside the Reach) = 1 hour (that is roughly 2 days ingame)

- To neighbouring Kingdoms (eg Westerlands to Riverlands or Reach) = 7 hours (2 weeks ingame)

- Over every 'Kingdom' afterwards = 7 more hours (eg Dorne to North is Dorne > Stormlands > Crownlands > Riverlands > North, or 4 'hops', so 4*7 = 28 hours, or 2 months ingame)

- We dump the Ravens of the Kingdom thread and instead make it a semi-OOC announcement thread for things that would travel through the grapevine. You can announce feasts, tournaments, deaths of characters, major victories/defeats, major mod-events (like the Kingswood fire). It will no longer be essentially for propaganda or having realm-wide IC arguments as it's used for now.

I'd be happy with all of this.

I agree on the ravens as well, but rather would make the availability of ravens based on Tier buildings.

Ravenroost without Tier - Takes 2 hours for each sentence written out after the attackers have been spotted (of course this does not refer to the Maester being a slow fatass, but rather symbolizes the (dis)ability of the Lord's family and household to argue whom to contact. It's also a modifier for those who actually besiege keeps as it also would make now a difference whether people get attacked by surprise or actually realize the enemy army by scouting it)
Tier I Ravenroost - The time for each sentence is reduced to 1 hour
Tier II Ravenroost - An additional Raven is provided for war times (Total of 2)
Tier III Ravenroost - another raven is provided for war times (Total of 3), chance to kill a raven is decreased by -1 for the besiegers
Tier IV Ravenroost - another raven is provided for war times (Total of 4), chance to kill a raven is decreased by -2 for the besiegers (in total -2; not kumulative), time for each sentence is reduced to half an hour

And the same way we could award Regional boni, which grant the ravenroost an additional raven during war times for provinces like Raventree Hall, Crow's Barren and other places, where we can either assume a better raven popularity or simply grant them a unique regional bonus.

Simple, easy, while making at the same time Tier buildings more various in terms of choices.
And since it doesn't conflict with Poach's proposal, we could also tie this in as well.

PS: And before people argue about the sentences system: Of course we shouldn't be nitpicky about it, but I kinda feel Ravens during war time short deliver short messages, solely stating stuff like "We get attack by forces, bearing the banners of House Tyrell, and await your aid." than letters full of accusations and attempts to explain why the attacks aren't justified.

PPS: And this rule goes btw solely for besieged keeps, as that's the only time where we have to argue about letters, send by raven.
Otherwise people can send as many letters as they wish to do, making LPs still able to mass-produce letters for telling their Houses to gather at the destined location.

I think it would be hard to enforce the time/sentences thing. For example, that system could favor someone who speaks English as a first language much more than it might, say, effect sombody who is not a native speaker while presenting, of course, another unique problem: we all become grammar teachers. Additionally, I think we need to make a certain number of ravens available as a matter of course, since communication can't function well without them. I like the way you're going in terms of money sinks, but I think we should tweak them a bit with relative costs and bonuses. :

Stacking bonuses:

Tier I Ravenroost (10,000) - Grants the defenders of a keep a -1 to shooting down ravens
Tier II Ravenroost (20,000) - Increases raven speed by 15%
Tier III Ravenroost (30,000) - Grants the defenders of a keep a -2 to shooting down ravens, but if besieging +1
Tier IV Ravenroost (40,000) - Increases raven speed by 15% and grants an additional +1 to shooting down ravens if besieging

[Adamat]

Can we have this raven rule at least only in wartime? I don't really like it anyways but if it's gonna limit the communication between players even in peacetime I'm against

[Lord Dread]

Uh, I actually like the third Ravenroost upgrade, as it's benefitting also attackers in terms of ravens. Like it.

Otherwise yeah, more simplified might be better.

And I mentioned raven numbers solely, because right now it's more efficent to send various ravens to multiple keeps in hope of one making it through, so it's kinda not benefitial for any besieger with whatever motivations if he shoots 3 out of 4 ravens.
Mayhaps a negative modifier per sent raven might avoid it, so people rather send 1-2 ravens than alarming right away King's Landing and two befriended LPs right away (meaning, the first raven roll has no negative modifier in favor of the attackers to shoot it down, second one has -1, third -2, fourth -3 etc.), but it's merely a suggestion.

[Zeus Almighty]

I'm likely to forget either way, but I'd say most often times by the time they are sent and the avg RPer sees them many of them will have already waved goodbye to the retrieval time. But like BF said, we can try it.

[Pontifex Maximus]

The insta-raven-messaging did affect the last war to a fairly large extent. A strategy based on quick movements and surprise seems, well, impossible.

[Zeus Almighty]

The insta-raven-messaging did affect the last war to a fairly large extent. A strategy based on quick movements and surprise seems, well, impossible.

I hear you I'm down to the anything once

[Poach]

I cannot fathom why better raven roosts translate to better enemy archers.

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[Lord Dread]

I cannot fathom why better raven roosts translate to better enemy archers.

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As far as I understood it, when getting besieged the castle/city with the Tier III attackers get a -2 on shooting down the ravens.
If the forces from said castle, which possesses the same roost attack another castle/settlement on their own, they get a +1 bonus for shooting down the ravens (most likely because their overlord actually trained them better to shoot down ravens, while improving the roost to a better level).

So, it's probably a misunderstanding in terms of numbers, as the negative numbers rather refer to the enemy troops, trying to shoot the ravens.

[Gandalfus]

Well, there's more ravens to shoot at, I guess