Barca

[Chenier]

You are unaware then.  They discovered an exploit where they could raid their family gold via visiting the aunt and sending the gold away or into a guild/temple and drop it to incredibly low levels.  The game then immediately began auto-replenishing the family gold to get in the neighborhood of a thousand gold.  How many of them were multis is unclear, as the situation was and is quite tangled, but the system only worked because they had a /lot/ of new families starting with their family home in Thulsoma, so make of that what you will.

In other words, using brand new families they managed to scam several thousand gold out of the game and didn't even lose any honour because they went through the visit the aunt feature.  The exploit was closed, but that got them a lot of gold to play with, and combined with various other schemes (starting a new character to get the starter troops, then pause/delete and start a new character to get starter troops as an example) got them an army several orders of magnitude larger than they could have had otherwise.

I was aware of the loop to take out more gold than normal, but not that this was game-generated gold. Honestly, I don't even see the point of poor families getting extra wealth: takes wealth to make wealth, it this was just abused by many over time. Thulsoma aren't the first to do this.

I generally dislike IC actions being taken to compensate OOC actions, though. Bolts would have been more appropriate than sending 5 extra armies.

[Bedwyr]

I was aware of the loop to take out more gold than normal, but not that this was game-generated gold. Honestly, I don't even see the point of poor families getting extra wealth: takes wealth to make wealth, it this was just abused by many over time. Thulsoma aren't the first to do this.

I generally dislike IC actions being taken to compensate OOC actions, though. Bolts would have been more appropriate than sending 5 extra armies.

It was done systematically and to a far greater extent than anything any of the devs had heard of before.

I do agree that bolts would have been a better answer, but that's not my call to make, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with sending armies to annihilate a realm that insults your religion.  The fact that it took most of SA to do it is a function of OOC abuse, but if you're going to piss off the single most powerful bloc on the continent without having a contingency plan except for exploiting a loophole, then I have precisely no sympathy.

[Jhaelen Irsei]

Which honestly says more on the bunch of bullies than on them. Anyone with the least bit of pride would not have participated in this gang bang...

I don't get your point. Gang bang? The SA alliance is built on RP basis, it took years for players to enrich this religion and doing diplomacy, lots of philosphical and political debates etc...pure game. So it's not an organized gang bang just to "win" the game, on the contrary is one of the best IC-intra realm interaction.

It's good that other players want fight the SA alliance..but why whining that they act like..well AN ALLIANCE??? They'd know that this was the outcome. I think smart players can fight SA alliance maybe breaking the ties between the realms, SA is all but not monolithic, it could shatter in pieces sooner or later who knows..(Morek had a civil war recently).

My character is too tied to SA and I'm fine with it. I'd suggest to new players in Dwi to go and fight SA because I think it'd be more fun but to remeber it's a game, so it's pretty useless to comply and maybe it's better to enjoy to be in the weaker fornt now but to "work" hard in order to change things in the future.

[Nosferatus]

I think smart players can fight SA alliance maybe breaking the ties between the realms, SA is all but not monolithic, it could shatter in pieces sooner or later who knows..(Morek had a civil war recently).

I am quite surprised that Thulsoma, Averoth and Cearwyn don't seem to put energy into this kind of indirect warfare.
If only two of the allies would not be able to join the fight and Cearwyn adjusts to the right strategies, the alliance won't be able to really destroy Cearwyn that easy as they could now.

Obviously down south, no one really cares (yet).

[Chenier]

I am quite surprised that Thulsoma, Averoth and Cearwyn don't seem to put energy into this kind of indirect warfare.
If only two of the allies would not be able to join the fight and Cearwyn adjusts to the right strategies, the alliance won't be able to really destroy Cearwyn that easy as they could now.

Obviously down south, no one really cares (yet).

We are all too busy.

[Sacha]

You make it sound like you could make a difference even if you wanted to :P

[Indirik]

I would disagree and rather say a foolish ruler who let himself be manipulated against his council's explicit wishes.

The king going against the express wishes of his entire council? Sounds like internal strife to me.

The apathy part has more to do with the final end of the last remnants of what used to be Springdale following it's switch of allegiance to Morek. For quite a while they operated as an autonomous duchy within Morel. They even had their own religion, The Seven, which operated in the Springdale duchy. (I tried to convince Morek to wipe it out, but they declined to take my advice.) Eventually all the old Springdale supporters, and The Seven, just kind of faded away.

If a kid goes and shoves around a bully and gets a beating for it, you kinda feel pity for him but feel he deserved it in a way. When a kid shoves around a bunch of bullies and all of them give him the beating of his life, you'd judge the gang of bullies a lot harsher than you would have a lone bully. Imo, at least.

Your analogy is flawed at the very core. Thulsoma wasn't some defenseless little 12 year old kicking the 18 year old in the shins and sticking out his tongue. Thulsoma would have been a good fight for either Libero or Xinhai individually. Terrain, distance, monsters on Xinhai's southern border, the fortifications, etc., all combined to keep it from being a stand-up fight. And as it turned out, Libero couldn't take Thulsoma. They tried, but were unable to make headway. That's how Xinhai got involved. The two of them managed to push Thulsoma all the way back to the Keep, but couldn't break past the insane armies that Thulsoma could generate with all the gold exploits that were being used. Which is how, eventually, Astrum got involved.

The fact of the matter is that the force applied to Thulsoma was exactly the force that was needed to wipe it out. It took all three realms to break Storm's Keep.

This is what the Thulsoma story felt like. Sure, they kinda asked for it. But ganging up so badly on such a tiny realm? I can't see how anyone would not shake their heads at this.

Because the scenario you describe is not what happened.

[Sacha]

If I saw some skinny dork run up to a bunch of gangsters and insult them and their mothers, I'd just think 'What a moron' and consider the beating he's gonna get a well-deserved one. Rule #1 of politics: if you're gonna have a big mouth, you'd better have the force to back it up.

[Nosferatus]

You make it sound like you could make a difference even if you wanted to :P

Well yeah, we all can, but it takes allot of effort.
Know your enemy, then exploit his weakness.
You can do this on the battlefield and out of the battlefield, which the later is much more effective :P

[Anaris]

Which honestly says more on the bunch of bullies than on them. Anyone with the least bit of pride would not have participated in this gang bang...

So they should just have ignored all the awful things that were said about them? By this piddly little upstart realm?

Any realm that says such things to/about such a massive behemoth should expect to get squashed.  (Honestly, I'm frequently surprised Riombara didn't get squashed long ago for the things I said about Enweil—and they weren't a tenth as bad as what Thulsoma was saying ;) )

And, as Indirik said, they were able to abuse family gold and new-character troops to bring their army size up to a staggering amount for such a small realm, and build up their walls to (I think) level 7.  This made it absolutely necessary to bring a truly massive army against them.

And what would you have had Tom do? Just delete all their troops?  You know he doesn't operate that way.  The loopholes were closed, and people were advised to handle it IC.  Which they were already doing.

[Geronus]

Yes, Storm's Keep had level 7 walls, and Thulsoma with 20 nobles could field 8kCS on the back of a total realm income that probably never exceeded 500 gold a week on a good week, and probably averaged closer to less than 250, especially as they lost their outer regions. As Indirik pointed out, we did not all show up at once to kick them down with overwhelming force. The war escalated gradually as it became clear that Thulsoma was not your average one-region realm.

[Chenier]

You make it sound like you could make a difference even if you wanted to :P

Not all aid needs to be military. And honestly, grouped together, the southern realms sure could grant Caerwyn comparable assistance than Astrum gets from its buds. The south is distracted and somewhat divided, not impotent.

The king going against the express wishes of his entire council? Sounds like internal strife to me.

I wouldn't say so. Disagreeing on a single act which he thought to be innocent but which the lords correctly predicted to be disastrous isn't strife. It wasn't "we hate you and want to replace you, you tyrannical son of a dog!", but rather "You shouldn't have made Cato a duke, you twit". The lords didn't envision any scenario to replace him.

Yes, Storm's Keep had level 7 walls, and Thulsoma with 20 nobles could field 8kCS on the back of a total realm income that probably never exceeded 500 gold a week on a good week, and probably averaged closer to less than 250, especially as they lost their outer regions. As Indirik pointed out, we did not all show up at once to kick them down with overwhelming force. The war escalated gradually as it became clear that Thulsoma was not your average one-region realm.

I doubt they could still field such a force after the loophole was closed. Circumstances may nuance it, but to outside observers who couldn't care for nuances, that was pretty much the equivalent of 100 regions going to war against one or two. Patience would have served SA's PR better than acting as a bloc.

Any realm that says such things to/about such a massive behemoth should expect to get squashed.  (Honestly, I'm frequently surprised Riombara didn't get squashed long ago for the things I said about Enweil—and they weren't a tenth as bad as what Thulsoma was saying ;) )

You can thank invasions for that. The western coalition saved you in the first round, and all of Enweil's progress against you had to be restarted, but by the time the invasion started we were back in business deep in DoA's turf, having some nice looting times. With hindsight, I wouldn't have pulled the army back and would have continued looting the peninsula dogs. After all, you guys only took advantage of the retreat to ambush our stragglers, turning what would have been a glorious Enweilian victory into a useless and frustrating defeat. Should have known that the start of the invasion didn't matter as much to you.

As for before I had any political pull in Enweil... well, what can I say. People were too passive when I arrived.

[Geronus]

I doubt they could still field such a force after the loophole was closed. Circumstances may nuance it, but to outside observers who couldn't care for nuances, that was pretty much the equivalent of 100 regions going to war against one or two. Patience would have served SA's PR better than acting as a bloc.

We were patient. As an outsider, you really have no idea what happened and how long this process was. I appreciate that the end result was not good PR (due in no small part to efforts by Thulsoma's players to spread misinformation), but this affair went on for months. Most people outside the north probably didn't hear about it until it reached the epic proportions that it did at the very end, which took a long time. We eventually grew tired of being insulted and mocked and stalemated on level 7 walls that they never should have had in the first place if they weren't abusing game mechanics. I'm sure that the closing of the loophole had an effect on the war, but honestly I don't even know when that happened in relation to everything else. Do you know why? Because I treated it IC the entire time. We thought they would be easily dispatched. We were wrong. So, we gradually escalated things until we were forced to bring in the full force of 3-4 realms just to end things. This is not in any way a testament to Thulsoma, rather it is an indication of just how serious their abuses were.

[vanKaya]

Honestly I don't know what everyone's complaining about. The fact that SA rolls around and !@#$s !@#$ up if you're a heathen is epic!!!! It makes for great role-play and deepens dwilights culture immensely. Maybe it's just cause we feel safe from crusades in Terran that I feel this way but honestly I think that anyone talking about how awful it was that they were "gang banged" ( stupid term) is focussed to much on winning battle master and not enough on making the most of a situation that can potentially be loads of fun, for both sides.

[Rogi]

It's curious to see in what kind of discussion this topic ended...  :D