House 7 is the result of boredom and sharp/conflicting personalities - to be honest, reading Bonez's post I am just sat here nodding and acknowledging - it's not surprising to me. Looks like H7 seems to be around the same size the Hammers were in Age 1 actually.
Priest Guardian wrote:I say we all fight to the death , total control , kill the server , One House rules ALL , etc...etc until only the victors remain
Rhetoric like this makes me wonder if you're masochistic.. to be honest anyone playing this game is to
some degree, but this takes the bacon.
For me, you either farm or play to win.. but regardless, you should always strive to keep the moral high ground as it's simply better for everyone. People play games for a number of reasons - some treat it as an idle distraction, take pride in what they've produced, while others enjoy the fight, the challenge that comes with doing something efficiently and effectively regardless of the odds. Going towards a single dominating house keeps farmers in check while effectively shunting their potential for game variety - changing house warfare into troll warfare. Lucky for you, the Hammers weren't trolls in Age 1.
It would have been
so easy for the Hammers to become a troll/scorching group - we felt that the political landscape had been so rigged against us that we were being shown the door; we could have left, or gone down while trying to drag everything around us down as we went, but instead we simply roamed as we waited for our next opportunity (upgrading parishes as we went, I might add). It's like we were the travelling circus - giving people a small taste of the fight - such sheer amount of mails we got from people even just spectating the action, like a dog drooling while watching his master eat at the table.. while admittedly it was a little gratifying, it was also sad, as it showed the true extent of the suppressed climate on the map.
If there's one thing I think I learnt during that time of roaming, is that in the end, everyone wants to fight. Very
very few enjoy the daily grind enough that they wish for
nothing more. Having a global, dominating house prevents proper wars from occurring; it negates an entire, enjoyable, aspect of the game. Instead, you're left with disgruntled and bored players, some of whom will never truly play anywhere near the full extent of the game while the regime stands.
I've gone a bit off topic (viva la revolution!), so I'll try to bring it back around. Scorching is spiteful, the loss of time and energy all around. It gives a false sense of purpose and of progress that is unhealthy, for players and the map. If you believe that you
have to scorch parishes in order to either a) make a point, b) get an 'edge' in a conflict, or c) have fun - you have WAAAY bigger problems than you think, whether tactically or mentally.
The Hammers were in a perfect place to use the "scorching is our only option now" card in Age 1 and yet we survived, coming back around to win Age 3, having kept our morals on that. We fought wars - multiple of them and had an amazing time, we acted as a house, not under a dictatorship, and we kept it above the belt. That road is far thinner and longer than the one that leads to stagnation through domination, but at least the game remains playable.
TL;DR
- Being dominating is self-defeating - it is better to rule as the few being respected by the many, than the many who are either pigs, or slaves to pigs.. it is healthier and more interesting on the whole.
- Scorching is spiteful and is not worth dirtying yourself or your house with
- PG is terrible at being Canadian :p
