Dwilight War Declarations

[Indirik]

I was not aware that it took only a few days of ambassadorial work to protect again. In that case, I do not see it as being a serious issue.

To be fair, that is *per region*, and *per realm*. i.e. a competent ambassador (they get bonuses to this type of work) can sway the sympathy of a region toward a single realm several percent per turn. If they are also a priest, they get lots of hours per day. They should be able to remove the penalties that one region suffers, due to war with one realm, in only two or three days. Less if you are not worried about completely removing it. Diplomats may take slightly longer, but not too much. Priests can do it, too. And they can tag-team it and add their results. If you start early enough, you could completely remove any possible penalty long before the war even starts. In addition, this will also make TOing your own regions harder for the enemy.

I have seen realms that have done this with devastating effectiveness.

And, also to be fair, if you do get slammed with several war declarations that you didn't see coming... you could be in trouble. But then again... maybe you deserve it. You *do* need to be aware of the political and diplomatic situation on the island, especially as concerns your realm.

[Solari]

Proofing the entire realm against the whole continent takes more than a few days for sure.

So does preparing for war. Walk and chew gum at the same time. Any successful realm should be able to do it.

[Glaumring the Fox]

Why not have war protests in regards to the size of the enemies who declared and not the amount? As it goes 5 little kingdoms could drive a single larger kingdom rogue, even if that larger kingdom is clearly stronger.

[Shizzle]

Why not have war protests in regards to the size of the enemies who declared and not the amount? As it goes 5 little kingdoms could drive a single larger kingdom rogue, even if that larger kingdom is clearly stronger.

So how define a larger realm? Amount of regions? Square km? Noble count? Total CS? Max CS over the past year? Most won battles?

The way I see it, Aurvandil and Falkirk have made quite a few enemies. Even without the penalties applied to region stats (which I'm even all but unaware of) I'm sure some realms would have declared war to show their support to their allies or future partners in trade.

Also, Astrum managed to send a force (though small) all the way across to the Madinian Isle. So despite their failure, their clearly was an intent to actually join the war effort.

[Anaris]

Why not have war protests in regards to the size of the enemies who declared and not the amount? As it goes 5 little kingdoms could drive a single larger kingdom rogue, even if that larger kingdom is clearly stronger.

No, they couldn't.

The magnitude of the effects that Aurvandil felt was drastically increased by the bug that caused sympathy for a number of realms to skyrocket to absurd values in many regions.

[JeVondair]

A couple if months ago the northern realms declared war on Aurvandil at the behest of Terran to give them penalties in their regions for so many realms being at war with them.  The northern realms even with sea travel have no real chance to march that far south.

It seemed to me that they simply were gaming the system.

Now they are all declaring war on Falkirk. They have no hope of doing anything meaningful. They likely cant even get troops from Darfix to Madina.

It seems gamey to declare a war you have no intention or capability to wage simply to cause negative game effects against another realm.

Happens to me in Civ and Crusader Kings, and every other 4x game, all damn time.

[Vellos]

I didn't say there wasn't any work but as from our perspective in Aurvandil, there wasn't any roleplay reasons behind the war, and even after we gave SA a reason it hasn't amounted to much.

I thought you made the distinction between soldiers and peasants. Not all soldiers are peasants anyway, and soldiers die as a matter of course, it's their profession, why would this cause great unhappiness in the Commonwealth? Particularly as the Commonwealth is an honour society entirely built around men-at-arms.

What a strange outlook.

The notion of the armies being entirely comprised of unwilling peasants there only out of necessity is a bit... dark age, rather than Medieval.

With all due respect– if your RP says all your soldiers are nationalistic volunteers, but game mechanics say all your people are protesting the war... game mechanics are right, and your RP loses. You can't claim they're all patriots fighting purely for honor and glory when it's quite clear that in fact they're fighting for a rather hefty paycheck: just watch what happens when you stop paying them.

The ONLY soldiers who fit the patriotic volunteer stereotype are the ones you get from the hero feature "recruit volunteers." That's why it's there, it simulates that effect. Besides that, your soldiers are somewhere between "loosely organized peasant rabble with a few knights among them" and "hardcore professional unit, either mercenaries from the peasant and urban classes or landless lordlings collected in a royal court somewhere." That's pretty much your options for infantry, MI, and archers. SF and cavalry you might be able to argue come from a different class of people.

But, broadly, you ask why dying soldiers would cause unhappiness... because those soldiers are peoples kids and parents and stuff. You don't actually think that the French and English peasantry LIKED the 100 Years War, do you? They weren't exactly (until Joan of Arc) lining up to go lop off each others' heads in a fit of nationalistic glee.

Long story short: peasants aren't patriots. They're pragmatists trying to survive in a noble's world.

[Chenier]

So does preparing for war. Walk and chew gum at the same time. Any successful realm should be able to do it.

I was just saying, not arguing that it should be any other way.

[egamma]

A couple if months ago the northern realms declared war on Aurvandil at the behest of Terran to give them penalties in their regions for so many realms being at war with them.  The northern realms even with sea travel have no real chance to march that far south.

It seemed to me that they simply were gaming the system.

Do you have any evidence at all that the part underlined is true?

As far as I know, and I was in D'Hara at the time, war was declared because the SA realms wanted to actually fight Aurvandil, only to discover that even with mercenary settings, Aurvandil was too far away. Also, nobody knew about the bugged sympathy settings--do you have any evidence to the contrary?

I'd like to point you to the Social Contract, which states:

Do not publicly accuse anyone of cheating, abuses or violations of this contract without proof or evidence.

[Perth]

This whole discussion is pretty silly considering every nation at war with Aurvandil and/or Falkirk has sent troops at some point to fight the war.

Just because its really hard and they haven't been successful doesn't mean the aren't trying.

[Vellos]

Do you have any evidence at all that the part underlined is true?

As far as I know, and I was in D'Hara at the time, war was declared because the SA realms wanted to actually fight Aurvandil, only to discover that even with mercenary settings, Aurvandil was too far away. Also, nobody knew about the bugged sympathy settings--do you have any evidence to the contrary?

I'd like to point you to the Social Contract, which states:

Oh, I definitely knew that war decs would hurt Aurvandil. No doubt about it. I did NOT know about the bug, nor did I expect the shockingly severe effects. But I certainly expected continent-wide declarations to hurt Aurvandil.

It's not bad to use a game mechanic that is designed to hurt an enemy realm in order to hurt an enemy realm, especially given that virtually every realm that has declared has sent troops at least once, in several cases twice, and several have sent gold and food. The war declarations are far from empty declarations. They have manifested in real troop deployments and resources spent and they are grounded in significant RP and game politics. There is absolutely nothing wrong with going, "Oh– I realize diplomacy is designed to be able to affect a realm's internal efficiency. Maybe I should try and diplomatically outmaneuver my enemy." Aurvandil certainly wasn't ignorant of diplomatic effects: the game gives you notices about peasants' sympathies in various circumstances. They were ignorant of how big the effects would be (as was I, and I think pretty much everybody)... but to call a war declaration abusive when it has been paired with actual soldiers, battles, and invasions, as well as other acts that qualify as aggression, simply because the declarers were aware that the declaration would cause damage... that's total nonsense. It's not like, if the war declarations hadn't been damaging in and of themselves, Hireshmont would have been twiddling his thumbs not seeking diplomatic support. Anybody who has ever interacted with him should realize he basically never does anything without first having consulted with a half-dozen allies first. He's a compulsive coalition-builder.

[dustole]

Do you have any evidence at all that the part underlined is true?

As far as I know, and I was in D'Hara at the time, war was declared because the SA realms wanted to actually fight Aurvandil, only to discover that even with mercenary settings, Aurvandil was too far away. Also, nobody knew about the bugged sympathy settings--do you have any evidence to the contrary?

I'd like to point you to the Social Contract, which states:

I'm going by Vellos' own admission to this fact in a different thread on this forum.

[dustole]

As far as I can remember I've never seen Morek or Iashalur troops nor Libero Empire or Farronite.  Astrum and Corsanctum made it 1 region south of D'hara IIRC. 

[Feylonis]

1) FR isn't at war (yet) with Falkirk nor Aurvandil. Kabrinskia was, though, and has sent troops south.
2) No, you haven't seen Astrum/Corsanctum/Iashalur/Morek troops, because they had too low morale to make it all the way south. However, it's clear that the intention to fight was there, and that's what counts in this case.
3) In case I missed it: yes, Aurvandil was able to run high taxes during peacetime. People don't mind being leeched of from if that's the only thing they have to worry about. In war, though, a lot of other worries crop up, and on top of high taxes, the negative feelings pile up.

[Sypher]

for what its worth, Libero Empire isn't at war with Aurvandil or Falkirk either.

It seems clear to me based on other posts in the forum that the northern realms thought they would be able to fight Aurvandil and didn't realize the morale penalties would be so severe as to make it basically impossible.