The Current War

[Indirik]

What would this have really achieved?

Well, Hammarsett wouldn't be on the verge of extinction, because Tara and Coria were, well, hammering on them. This would let the north focus more on Tara, and expanding Hammarsett to make them a viable realm.

Or we would have to march over the mountains, something we could still do now but don't, obviously, because it doesn't work.

If Coria didn't exist, we wouldn't have to march through the mountains. We could have gone right through Barad Falas to hit Tara's northern regions. And possibly linking with Carelia for joint attacks. Again, allowing Hamamrsett to expand.

How is destroying Coria IN ANY WAY a better strategy than neutralizing Talerium?

I didn't say it was better. It was just more realistic, and more likely to happen. Darka has made clear from the start of the war, and probably before, that they would not attack Talerium. Good/bad doesn't matter. It just wasn't going to happen. And that's really what sticks in the craw of many people. Eston knew, or should have known if they were paying attention, that Darka simply would not attack Talerium under any circumstances. It's been Darka's policy for years. But Eston ignored that, and tried to force the northern alliance down a path that one of the largest members of it refused to follow.

Would Darka attacking Talerium have more sense from a pure strategic standpoint? Sure. If you completely ignore years of political history, and the people involved. But you just can't do that. Everyone who had been paying attention knew that Darka would not attack Talerium. Eston apparently wasn't paying attention, because they tried to force the issue, and it backfired. And it's going to cost the northern alliance a lot.

And no, all the blame won't fall on Eston for it, either. Darka share's some of the blame, too. As do MI and Hammaresett, who can't seem to learn to cooperate. Grr... 

[Geronus]

Hammarsett has been plagued by poor coordination with and amongst our allies. Some poor strategic choices were also made, such as attacking fortified regions. Those campaigns resulted in stiff losses and forced our allies to refit while Tara and Coria were then free to burn large tracts of Hammarsett to the ground after suffering minimal losses in defense.

I largely agree with Indirik though. We should have just finished Coria when we had them on their knees. The simple absence of their army from the field combined with having all their fortified regions out of our way (as opposed to a constant hindrance to our lines of supply and communication) is not an insignificant thing. Tara's rural north would be completely open to attack on multiple fronts, and it would only be them, minus the 5-7k CS Coria seems to be able to maintain. A stronger Hammarsett plus MI, BoM and Darka could do an awful lot of damage to them... Even with Coria in the picture we've managed to sack Tucha twice. Imagine what we could do if they weren't around...

[Dante Silverfire]

Nothing that any of you are proposing though has anything to do with fighting and hurting CE. Simply put, to hurt CE you have to go through either mountains (Coria) or Talerium. If the NA's goals in this war were to hurt CE as they say, then even destroying Coria and burning some of Tara does nothing to accomplish this.

Talerium and a token CE force can hold the mountain-pass indefinitely while not losing any ground in the south against Carelia. In other words, even if you are 100% successful in all that this strategy would entail, you are still 0% successful in actually hurting CE the realm itself.

P.S. As far as destroying Coria goes, none of that would have even been necessary due to us having been out of the war by treaty. However, y'all chose to bring us back into the war and thus we caused problems once again.

[Perth]

Nothing that any of you are proposing though has anything to do with fighting and hurting CE. Simply put, to hurt CE you have to go through either mountains (Coria) or Talerium. If the NA's goals in this war were to hurt CE as they say, then even destroying Coria and burning some of Tara does nothing to accomplish this.

Talerium and a token CE force can hold the mountain-pass indefinitely while not losing any ground in the south against Carelia. In other words, even if you are 100% successful in all that this strategy would entail, you are still 0% successful in actually hurting CE the realm itself.

P.S. As far as destroying Coria goes, none of that would have even been necessary due to us having been out of the war by treaty. However, y'all chose to bring us back into the war and thus we caused problems once again.

This.

[Jens Namtrah]

Hammarsett has been plagued by poor coordination with and amongst our allies.

This.

Some poor strategic choices were also made, such as attacking fortified regions. Those campaigns resulted in stiff losses and forced our allies to refit while Tara and Coria were then free to burn large tracts of Hammarsett to the ground after suffering minimal losses in defense.

Not this, unless there are some very old battles you are referring to.

When I first joined, there was a big attack on Barad Gardor that very nearly succeeded. HAD it succeeded, we would have sacked the city and the whole war would have been different. Instead, we are about the same as we were before.

I don't know who ordered that attack but it was a good decision.

The only other attack on a fortified position was a rather insignificant fight in Menedor that would have been just fine if our allies sitting in Chuca had thought to mention the 4,000cs Tarans marching through Anafalas.

THAT'S where the issue is - constant begging day after day to get Generals to do the most basic knight's task of scouting and passing it on.

[Indirik]

Nothing that any of you are proposing though has anything to do with fighting and hurting CE.

Of course it does. You can hurt someone and change the relative balance of power in more ways that just dropping CE's region count a few notches.

Talerium and a token CE force can hold the mountain-pass indefinitely while not losing any ground in the south against Carelia.

Which is why I wanted to completely wipe Coria off the map, so we could march through Barad Falas, and go around the mountains. And yes, I know that puts me in Northern Tara. Sounds almost perfect.

In other words, even if you are 100% successful in all that this strategy would entail, you are still 0% successful in actually hurting CE the realm itself.

Only if you're only yardstick is how much physical damage you do to CE regions. It is possible to weaken CE overall by distracting and damaging their allies, and allowing the northern alliance to grow stronger.

P.S. As far as destroying Coria goes, none of that would have even been necessary due to us having been out of the war by treaty. However, y'all chose to bring us back into the war and thus we caused problems once again.

That was the !@#$tiest treaty ever written, so far as the northern alliance goes. Completely unacceptable to anyone but Eston. Coria was /not/ out of the war, as evidenced by your "trip to the family home" expedition, or whatever you called it, that was a (not very) disguised military expedition.

But this is a ridiculous discussion. We've been over this at least a dozen times, and we both know we completely disagree with each other The outcome of the war was a foregone conclusion when the southern front devolved into Carelia fighting CE one on one. The Caergoth secession, and Suville's backstab were just icing on CE's cake.

[Jens Namtrah]

It doesn't much matter now. Darka has shown the world the only reason they were feared is because of the large number of cs they would bring swooping down into the middle of any gangbang.

Now that you have  a long, complicated war you can barely muster 2/3 of that, have long marches that put you out of the war most of the time, and can't coordinate a tea party with your allies.

It won't be much longer before Hammarsett and Minas Ithil fall, and then the Coria/Tara/CE/(Talerium) axis will be so strong Eston and Darka will become the latest footnote in history.

[Lavigna]

It doesn't much matter now. Darka has shown the world the only reason they were feared is because of the large number of cs they would bring swooping down into the middle of any gangbang.

Now that you have  a long, complicated war you can barely muster 2/3 of that, have long marches that put you out of the war most of the time, and can't coordinate a tea party with your allies.

It won't be much longer before Hammarsett and Minas Ithil fall, and then the Coria/Tara/CE/(Talerium) axis will be so strong Eston and Darka will become the latest footnote in history.

Whoa now you found your solution to the problem of this war.Our whole alliance has shown incapability and if you want my opinion we do not !@#$ing deserve to win this war.

Since day one there is only bitching in this alliance and crying and i will remind you that in the beginning of this war if there was one realm that would actually fight that was Darka  and yes for both numbers and moving.When BoM for example wa s only bringing on the field 5k that never stayed alive for longer than a week. Darka does not have men to bring on the field anymore because a huge amount of players left, any person who actually follows the Realm List and checks on  statistics has already understood this.

This alliance sucks and i include Darka's results in this war because it is a bitter truth but do try to understand it's a failure combined by everyone ,either that is in military power and strategy or agreements it must honor.In fact i would only praise Carelia at this point for having balls to fight this war with whatever they had and suffered the worst already. But pointing fingers has really started to be annoying because the problem is not one or two realms but the combination of this whole alliance.

[Carna]

I can't praise Carelia. I had (now paused) a character there for most of the war. I have people I like there and I know its military fairly solidly having been in all three of their current armies. And that's where the credit goes out the window. Yes, Carelia is to be admired for fighting the Cagilan Empire, rather than some proxy, in a war that was supposedly targetting the Cagilan Empire but the fact was, is, and will remain that Carelia's armies are disorganized and under-motivated. They've seen victories against CE, but far far more defeats. Last I was there, the sentiment was "Its only a matter of time". I can't imagine what the sentiment is with Suville attacking them from the south.

Tim is right in that damaging CE's allies hurts CE and benefits its enemies in the long run. But how long a run do you want to go for here? Because at the end of the day, even without her allies, CE is a monster of a realm with plenty of food, gold and motivated nobles. Fight that or eventually lose. That's always been the case.

Finn.

[Jens Namtrah]

yeah, we're all guilty, but at least (very) recently we're starting to see actual coordination, instead of just talk about how we need to do it better.

not out of this war yet.

[Indirik]

Darka has shown the world the only reason they were feared is because of the large number of cs they would bring swooping down into the middle of any gangbang.

So, you finally noticed that Darka is no different than any other realm, eh? The only reason any realm is feared is because fo the large amount of CS they can wield. Some realms wield it directly, others when combined with allies.

Now that you have  a long, complicated war you can barely muster 2/3 of that, have long marches that put you out of the war most of the time, and can't coordinate a tea party with your allies.

You're right, Darka's strength has dropped. But not because it's along war. It's because for Darka, it's mostly a boring war. Too much marching. Not enough fighting. Too much politics. Not enough fighting. All those people that joined Darka at the start of the war, because they thought "This is finally the war where we get to stick it to CE", realized that this war is just like most wars. Long and boring, except for those who are fighting on their borders.

It won't be much longer before Hammarsett and Minas Ithil fall, and then the Coria/Tara/CE/(Talerium) axis will be so strong Eston and Darka will become the latest footnote in history.

You could very well be right.

[Jens Namtrah]

yes, so you need to show up with enough gold to stay in the field and refit in your allies cities. only cycle back people who lose most of their men - keep as many men on the front lines for as long as possible.

This is something only the Darkan leadership can arrange. We can tell you these things, but we can't arrange it among your troops.

Many of your troops could be joining us in an attack right now if they had refit in Shanandoah - many had a good 15-20 men left - , but if you only take the time to order "everyone refit in Azzal" instead of looking at possibilities, then the expected results occur.

A lot of marching, a lot of boredom, a lot of attrition among your nobles.

Maybe now that you have a new General some things will change 

[Bael]

I think the assumption that the Cagilan Empire would wish to destroy realms, just because they are fighting against them, is false. It would be more about the conduct during the war, the relations before the war, and the manner in which the war was declared.

[Sacha]

Like the time 30-region CE and its allies felt threatened by tiny Falasan?

[Bael]

Like the time 30-region CE and its allies felt threatened by tiny Falasan?

That is another matter, and years separated from this one.