First of all, since Military leadership is only from the stack leader, and since
this is the person who is reported in the obits, then a warlord either needs to
expose his high-powered leaders in the obits, or forgoe the usefulness of
Military Leadership.
Next, I really don't think rumors would be all that hard to program up. Carl
Edman has often described interesting systems that work. They're fine with
me.
As to Obits being logical, since of course the local populace will report any
combat, what about
1.) Ambushes can be made in places where the attack will be unobserved
2.) How many people are willing to be witnesses in crime-ridden areas these
days? Do you think people would be more willing to talk to random people
passing through asking too many questions?
The way it appears to me, Obits make it harder to warlord, something most
people agree wasn't prevalent in the current situation, and if removed could
be replaced by systems where active player interaction would be necessary,
fostering player cooperation and roleplaying.
As to Oleg's combat reports on locations meaning the information would get out
anyway, I ask:
1.) How many of these were from the victims of the attack, where the victim
was captured or killed, having no men escape.
2.) How many were from people who fell into category #1 within the same month?
If we cut out reporting to these two groups, people would now need to send
scouts to find out what happened, or recon-in-force.
Scott