Fifth Invasion

[Indirik]

Your information exchange amongst the humans is horrible.

I agree. Nothing in Sint gets shared at all. It is partly because our ruler has been inactive. Had two inactivity warnings, and finally got booted out of office a couple days ago. I think the election ended today? Maybe tomorrow...

Anyway, in Sint we don't know anything at all. Stuff apparently only gets discussed in one small council. Our council members almost never share anything with the realm at large. I've asked about information sharing or coordinating guilds. "No, we don't do that."

[Lefanis]

I agree. Nothing in Sint gets shared at all. It is partly because our ruler has been inactive. Had two inactivity warnings, and finally got booted out of office a couple days ago. I think the election ended today? Maybe tomorrow...

Anyway, in Sint we don't know anything at all. Stuff apparently only gets discussed in one small council. Our council members almost never share anything with the realm at large. I've asked about information sharing or coordinating guilds. "No, we don't do that."

Mostly nothing is shared in Nothoi either, and we are about to get whacked. I suppose it's kept within council. It's been a pretty boring fifth invasion, just orders now and then to move to face the attacking daimons.

[Calanar]

As far as I knew, this turn he's in Tindle...

[Solari]

For much of the invasion, the generals were doing the vast majority of the work. We:

• coordinated the ceasefires that led to alliances;
• agreed to arrest the Sons and other daimon worshippers on sight, and to lobby our judges for their swift execution;
• readily shared battle reports and tactics;
• organized refits, rotations, and campaigns halfway across the continent;
• and compiled scraps of information to point out—EARLY ON—that portal stones were bad news and scrolls were good

Much credit goes to Sassan of Rio for sustaining this momentum, but it's exhausting.  The game doesn't encourage realms to cooperate like this.  Just the opposite, actually.  When the Overlord shows up and starts mocking us for working against years of training that's taught us not to trust one another and then deliberately introduces additional mistrust by baiting Chénier and others, it can get maddening. 

Rulers have to step up.  Judges have to step up.  Everyone has to step up.   If it's not worth the effort, then the continent needs to be closed until such time as the player base expands to make a non-blighted BT feasible again.

There you go.  Two cents.

[Indirik]

Benton just shared scout reports with Sint showing the location of Overlord's army in Tindle.

[Tom]

Much credit goes to Sassan of Rio for sustaining this momentum, but it's exhausting.  The game doesn't encourage realms to cooperate like this.  Just the opposite, actually.  When the Overlord shows up and starts mocking us for working against years of training that's taught us not to trust one another and then deliberately introduces additional mistrust by baiting Chénier and others, it can get maddening. 

Nothing Overlord did so far was accidental. :-)

Rulers have to step up.  Judges have to step up.  Everyone has to step up.   If it's not worth the effort, then the continent needs to be closed until such time as the player base expands to make a non-blighted BT feasible again.

Totally. Early on I was seriously afraid that it would all be over before it really started, because you were doing very well initially. But it all fell apart really soon, and ever since I'm wondering if you want the island to sink or why the heck nobody is giving me any opposition whatsoever. I ran 3 TOs in parallel, with my forces distributed over the regions. One coordinated attack on 2 of them (the other had too many troops, I agree) could have been done. They were running for days.

And I am very surprised that the north is really leaving the south to die. Sure, there's the Blight inbetween - but there's a couple things that could be done regardless.

[Zakilevo]

Well the south tried. It was really good in the beginning since things were actually working out pretty well. But the blighting of Piwani flipped the board. southern nobles can't even travel to the north to help out

[Geronus]

And I am very surprised that the north is really leaving the south to die. Sure, there's the Blight inbetween - but there's a couple things that could be done regardless.

I can't think of anything.

And Solari had it - that kind of coordinating and constant information sharing is *exhausting* from the player perspective. You really have to be an addict to do it well, logging in constantly to nudge other people into sharing information, voicing their opinions and coordinating with each other, and copy/pasting everything you get of the least significance so that as many people as possible know about it. After the initial surge of interest, people got tired. It's hard to keep people playing at a hyper-active level for weeks on end - just look at what happened to Tan_Serrai. Sassan was the main force coordinating everything early on and he just burned out and realized he didn't have enough time IRL to keep doing it. It's also hard to keep people engaged when puzzling out the truth is so difficult. Maybe from the perspective of someone who knows everything it seems like it should be easy, but the vast majority of players only have tiny fragments of the truth (if any) and no obvious avenue to pursue to obtain more. So they're losing interest in trying. To keep people engaged you need to keep taking every opportunity to drop information, or its just not going to get out there. I don't know, maybe you've been doing that, but like I said earlier I should be one of the more knowledgeable people but I still feel like I know diddly squat in terms of what we can do to actually stop the daimons.

[Lorgan]

I don't know, maybe you've been doing that, but like I said earlier I should be one of the more knowledgeable people but I still feel like I know diddly squat in terms of what we can do to actually stop the daimons.

The moment the first nightfall turned into midnight I picked the"just kill them enough times"- strategy and I'm sticking with it. Not the greatest chance of success ever but it's pretty fun.

[Naidraug]

I agree with Geronus here.

If there is information been sent, I have no idea where it is. I can't see nothing on Overlord's messages that helps or give clues, and I haven't receive much info on the sons either.
So with out much info on how to defeat, we can only fight and hope someday we'll be able to kill them.

When we were going south, the only ones that could have helped preventing the blight were Fronen, they asked us to perform TO, but we couldn't do it since there was no region connected to our realm, and them the blight came, now we can't move across and have no idea what to do.

Just kill the daimons and kill the sons

[Indirik]

I can't think of anything.

Me either. There's no way to get troops across. So far as I know, no one has managed to find a way to move into the blight, but I've heard rumors that people think it's possible or something. I have no idea why they think it's possible. No rumours of how to remove blight. So, there must be something that you can do in the north to distract overlord, or cause him to move troops toward the north?

copy/pasting everything you get of the least significance so that as many people as possible know about it.

^^This. This *must* be done! You don't have to be highly coordinated, or hyperactive. But you have to share what you know. When Overlord gloats to all the rulers that he's moving north to attack the northerners, share that! When Overlord issues an ultimatum that Sint must convert to daimon worship or die, share it! (FWIW - The general nobility of Sint has still never been told about this ultimatum.) When a daimon army is spotted moving out of the blight, share it! When one of the Sons moves between realms, tell that other realm! And don't just share it with some secret society, or private council, either. Share it with the whole realm.

[Tom]

If there is information been sent, I have no idea where it is. I can't see nothing on Overlord's messages that helps or give clues, and I haven't receive much info on the sons either.

I keep saying that you are looking for the wrong things. It doesn't help looking for the cat food if you really need the car keys.

It seems to me everyone believes there is some deus ex machina - some puzzle to solve, and as soon as you've figured it out, you have won. And I have been consistently saying since the beginning that it doesn't work this way.

I will say it again: There is NOTHING that will make the invaders go *poof*. There is no magic wand to solve your problem.

There is, however, a theme to every invasion. And if you figure out the theme, it helps you figure out what to do. But you still have to do it. Just knowing doesn't help.

And that's all I will say because that's already too close to spoilers for comfort.

copy/pasting everything you get of the least significance so that as many people as possible know about it.

I honestly think there are too many people in charge who suck at large-scale coordination. I have been saying for years that I hate micro-managers and that BM isn't a game for them. And yet, I see in many realms in the invasion that crucial information is kept within some realm council or whatever.

If you make all information go through a few chokepoints, then of course you will burn them out.

Guilds and religions, which can provide easy communication between realms, are almost entirely absent from the invasion, except for a few priests worrying that I'm converting all their believers.

There's a guild for unique item exchanges or something, but none for information exchange.


If information were sent on all the government channels - ruler, general, judge and banker - then there would be four and not one person who could distribute it within the realm.


Some people do a great job. I see some not copy/pasting, but summing up. Doesn't take much time, as you've read things already and writing two sentences is probably faster than copy/pasting several messages.


And there's a part I can't reveal, yet.

[Tom]

^^This. This *must* be done! You don't have to be highly coordinated, or hyperactive. But you have to share what you know.

Not even everything. But I am seriously frightened that I can move through an entire realm to hit the next-door neighbour, and when I arrive they are completely surprised.

How many people outside Sint even know of the priests?

How many people still don't know that Overlord has announced Notoi as the next target?


You don't have to spread every tiny bit. I agree that would be straining. But there's at most one or two major events per day, often more like every few days, and most of the people on the island never learn about them, or learn about them with long delays.


Example: I know for a fact that someone had figured out how the Blight spreads weeks ago. He had a hunch after the first(!!!) region was blighted and was entirely sure after the second (except Villriil). It took three more blightings until the mechanics is more or less general knowledge.

It's not that it was too hard to find out. It was that when someone found out, nobody listened and nobody spread it.

[Marlboro]

The moment the first nightfall turned into midnight I picked the"just kill them enough times"- strategy and I'm sticking with it. Not the greatest chance of success ever but it's pretty fun.

That's sort of what I'm getting; Thalmarkin and Melhed ate up the various "of the North"s and you don't really see him around anymore, while Nightfall of the East is still kicking around tearing stuff up in the South. Seems like they change tactics whenever a new one spawns- Nightfall launched suicidal campaigns while Darkest Hour would start a TO then sprint around the realm until he got cornered. Might just be the Daimons changing tactics to specifically deal with the northern power bloc though.

Edit: They're probably different species of Daimon completely, seeing as some even seem to have special powers, like Darkest Hour's strange two-region escape from Jedinchel after OG and Thal tore through his unit.

[Lefanis]

And I am very surprised that the north is really leaving the south to die. Sure, there's the Blight inbetween - but there's a couple things that could be done regardless.

Did anyone get their hands on a scroll of teleportation?