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BattleMaster => Locals => Beluaterra => Topic started by: Tom on July 27, 2012, 10:07:34 AM
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During most of the invasion, I wrote a kind of journal so I could look back and see what went which way. Let me share a few things so you can see the invasion from my perspective, and then afterwards feel free to share your stories.
First, though:
The Plan
From the very first day, this invasion had a plan. The plan was to have two attack vectors, the sons and the minions. The sons were spawn of Overlord and could be re-created at will, with a max of 3 active at the same time. Basically, you could kill them as much as you wanted, they'd always come back. They served no actual invasion purpose, were for roleplaying (because the minions were from day one decided to not interact with humans except by killing them). And of course to make everyone focus on the wrong thing.
The minions had their succession set up from the start:
- Nightfall of (direction)
- Midnight of (direction)
- Darkest Hour of (direction)
After this, there would be the option to win back parts of the Blight.
So much for the plan. Here's a few collected notes from the journal. I've xxx'ed out a few names and not used all the notes I wrote down, but most is here:
December
Observations on how the players deal with the challenges:
Much discussion about trusting the sons (basically the only Daimons talking to them, as Overlord essentially only ridicules them and the other leaders are entirely silent). But still easy to make them think the sons would be on their side. Hehehehe
Quick joining up end ending of wars, surprising. Some good cooperation. Distrust between some realms remains, but overall, very good.
Trouble of keeping track of basic facts that would be entirely possible. Location of the various Daimon leaders is often unknown or unsure, even though I take pains to make them obvious - wherever they go, they loot, preach or do something else that generates messages. I believe that, except for times spent in the Blight or the few rogue regions, the players could have a perfect timeline for who was where when if only they would share the available information.
They try through scouting, but simply getting the region lords (who get the looting messages) to sharing all such events would be more effective.
Religion spread very successful. Daimon Worship is now the largest religion on the island, though I cheated a bit with making it dominant within the Blight regions, but that is entirely ok in the game story and if I had spent the past 6 or so months manually spreading it there, I'm sure I would have at least as much spread.
Very little organised resistance, and so far nobody seems to even try estimating the spread of Daimon Worship. The sons are largely left alone, except in the north. I need to step it up and make them see the negative region effects of a hostile religion.
First humans are coming around and joining, but very, very slowly. May change if I get more dominance. The south is ripe for that.
Misinformation is spread and never cleared up. The wiki is horrible. It still says that Daimon Worship spreads without priests - yeah, it does. So does every other religion in the game. Or that 1st Son is an infiltrator, which he isn't (confusion caused intentionally by a player, who plays an infiltrator, looted the tax office while in the same region as 1st Son and that deed was pinned on the NPC...)
Scrolls: There are a *lot* of Banishment scrolls still left over from the last invasion, but they are mostly in the hands of a few individuals - who have not said a word so far. Apparently they are hoarding them (especially xxxxx) for when their own realms come under attack.
January
Someone has figured out what's really going on resp. the blighting, but is not being listened to.
FUD by the sons works like a charm.
The stones thing takes too long. I'm not sure if I can still turn it around properly, we'll see.
Interesting to note that again, someone had the right idea almost immediately regarding the CS of the new Daimon forces - and yet it remains ignored. There was a player present for the battle in Getheseme, so the information that the true CS is much lower could be available - but it isn't.
They are still moving the portal stones around. But it seems they're now in the hands of one person. I hope he uses them soon...
They are starting to notice the discrepancy between scout and battle reports and start to realize that the CS values are faked. Good. :-)
Ah, just now the same guy who already was on the right track before has noticed it again. I wonder if they'll listen to him this time. If only they would be a bit smarter - checking a map against his theory would explain to them in a second why Overlord is so focussed on Ulallo. And they could easily see where I'm going to hit next.
TO of Ulallo almost complete with no humans army even in sight. And nobody talking about it, either. I fear many in the north don't even realize it is going on. This is going to be a shock to them this evening.
Looks like a lot of the island is going to go down. I never thought I would manage that. Right now, my bets are on the south being entirely lost and the north doing well, maybe even reclaiming some blighted regions.
Some already are [frustrated]. They don't realize that Overlord is waging psychological warfare as well as conventional one. But I can't tell them without it losing its effect and becoming a mockery of itself.
February
They've finally figured out the Blight mechanics, and it seems to be common knowledge now.
Information flow between realms is still horrible. North is rampaging through the north and half the realms are unaware. Overlord has moved into Tindle and none but Fronen seem to be aware, even though I moved him the slow way, no teleport. Enweil, IVF and Riombara never even told the north that they had lost sight of him!
Oh yes, and xxxxx auto-paused. There goes 80% of the Daimon Banishing scrolls that the player base owns. xxxxx should be named a hero of the Netherworld.
April
They've finally managed to kill a Darkest Hour, finding their long-sought-after way to undo the Blight. But, apparently, they haven't yet realized. Someone wrote a message pointing it out, but not much of a reaction.
Funny.
Interesting. No offensive planning. Even though most should have realized that killing the minions is the key to undoing the blight, there is no plan to jointly attack one of them and destroy him. Instead the focus on Overlord, defending their cities, everything else but that which really makes a difference.
Ah! Finally, after Ossmat, some players are actually trying to mislead and trick Overlord. Took 'em long enough to get that idea. :-)
They know that killing off the Daimon leaders will save them, but they do absolutely nothing active to accomplish that goal. They are strictly on the defense, trying to save their cities, etc. What-would-Tom-do? Run suicide attacks against the Daimons and hope for a lucky hit, while gathering your armies to crush them in the field.
They managed to gather huge armies in Pomatim, because Overlord challenged them to a battle there. Why can't they gather those same armies to go and kick out the two Daimon leaders? Same in Riombara. They go defending their precious capital and while they do, Midnight of the South will simply blight all that is left of IVF and Enweil.
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Interesting. Now that we know what you planned, you actually tossed us everything we needed. When the first Nightfall fell, I think some realized how to end the invasion though. But people who suspected it did not open their mouth. Sad stuff... And yes, I was one of those people who joined the daimon worship :D. Got something out from talking to one of the sons but can't remember.
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(confusion caused intentionally by a player, who plays an infiltrator, looted the tax office while in the same region as 1st Son and that deed was pinned on the NPC...)
Oh yes, and xxxxx auto-paused. There goes 80% of the Daimon Banishing scrolls that the player base owns. xxxxx should be named a hero of the Netherworld.
These two parts made me smile :)
A very interesting read, to see a bit of the other side of the story!
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Misinformation is spread and never cleared up. The wiki is horrible. It still says that Daimon Worship spreads without priests - yeah, it does. So does every other religion in the game. Or that 1st Son is an infiltrator, which he isn't (confusion caused intentionally by a player, who plays an infiltrator, looted the tax office while in the same region as 1st Son and that deed was pinned on the NPC...)
Muahahaha! That someone was me! ^_^
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What about the collection of books? Did the ritual after collecting three books which supposedly weakened the barrier between the worlds accomplish much?
And question about the fourth invasion- was there a chance that the monsters or undead could have won? And did you begin the story, knowing there would be a Light faction?
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Re: 4th invasion: Yes. No.
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Alas, I just wish you'd written more.
I really enjoyed the Fifth Invasion, although now that I look back, seems I only really got involved in the second half. It also seems like people in different areas had very different experiences. For instance Daimon Worship hardly intruded on Old Grehk and Thalmarkin. I'll have to do a write up of my own thoughts about the Invasion.
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For instance Daimon Worship hardly intruded on Old Grehk and Thalmarkin.
A lot of priests of daimon worship came out of the blight and preached in Sint. Hunting them down was almost a mini-game. :) We nearly destroyed a couple of our own regions arresting all those priests.
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Alas, I just wish you'd written more.
I really enjoyed the Fifth Invasion, although now that I look back, seems I only really got involved in the second half. It also seems like people in different areas had very different experiences. For instance Daimon Worship hardly intruded on Old Grehk and Thalmarkin. I'll have to do a write up of my own thoughts about the Invasion.
OG didn't border the blight, which was probably the largest factor in how quickly the religion spread into your realm. As for Thalmarkin, well I don't know how they managed that. Must have been all those Priests of the Golden Feather keeping themselves busy.
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My impression about the massive CS in the scoutings was that most realised that scoutings were wrong quite quickly but still was demoralised by the real strength of the Daimons. I believe that the Riombaran general got captured or wounded around there and he had been coordinating the campaign. No one took up his mantle when that happened and everyone ran around like headless chickens.
Early on it was quite easy to capture the Daimon commanders by whitting down their forces until they got so weak that they auto surrendered. That didn't seem to work at all after the horrors. Was this intentional?
The most frustrating part of about anything was our inability to kill Midnight of the East in the end. Three times we whitted down his forces and he kept standing...
Melhed was the only realm without a border on the blight. We quite quickly made the realisation that we couldn't keep enough forces at home to defend against the daimons and move out and fight them as well so we made the decision to let our lands bleed if necessary while we went on long campaigns over half the continent to fight daimons, only leaving troops enough to deal with monsters and undead at home.
I think most people expected to have killing Overlord to have more impact on the blight than what killing his commander would so I don't think that was a strange strategical decision even if it was made on erroneous assumptions.
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Muahahaha! That someone was me! ^_^
Yea, I knew. But I played along to save Fheuv'n the embarassement. :P
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Alas, I just wish you'd written more.
I really enjoyed the Fifth Invasion, although now that I look back, seems I only really got involved in the second half. It also seems like people in different areas had very different experiences. For instance Daimon Worship hardly intruded on Old Grehk and Thalmarkin. I'll have to do a write up of my own thoughts about the Invasion.
Barely any daimon priest showed up in Fheuv'n, which might be why we took so much time to respond. But it is the main reason The Way was founded, because I otherwise wouldn't have bothered with managing another religion.
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They managed to gather huge armies in Pomatim, because Overlord challenged them to a battle there. Why can't they gather those same armies to go and kick out the two Daimon leaders? Same in Riombara. They go defending their precious capital and while they do, Midnight of the South will simply blight all that is left of IVF and Enweil.
The excessively prudent approach of Riombara during the early invasion quite frustrated me, reason which made me address our General in private and start having more participation myself, now being the Judge.
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You're the Judge!?
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You're the Judge!?
;)
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My experience (being general of Riombara during most of the time)
Phase 1: All daimons attack Enweil:
We managed to get /all/ human realms (with the exception of Melhed and IVF) to fight jointly in these battles. The humans were outnumbered most of the time - and th daimons had the advantage of being able to recruit close to the battlefields. Still, we managed to kill several daimon armies this way.
During that time Riombara did send their whole army to aid Enweil several times. The only ones staying behind were inactives. This did result in monsters hurting us quite a bit...and once a daimon army did burn their way from Fwuvoghor through the isles, past Grehk and on towards Lopa, costing us around 20.000 peasants - while we fought in Enweil.
Phase 2: daimons have near destroyed Enweil, head north.
Phase 3: the horrors appear and attack the capitals.
I think we can agree that defending capitals in that phase was the only logical choice. Riombara lost Grehk, then MotS did take Fheuvenehm, then Enweilios. Riombara did try to send aid (again, the whole army) far towards IVF. We also sent our army to defend Enweilios but did arrive a halfturn too late.
Phase 4: daimons change tactics - the do not attack capitals anymore but concentrate on outlying regions.
This phase did start after the daimons did take Enweilios. After losing Enweilios we thought that MotS would head right for Rines - thus we scrambled to defend it. Once it became clear that he was not heading straight towards it we - again - sent our whole army to fight him in Rumannen. This is equivalent of marching across half the continent. Again leaving our capital completely uncovered - if any other daimon would have marched out of the blight /anywhere/ we'd have lost Rines - and this would have meant the practical end for Riombara. Thus we did take quite a risk.
After Rumannen we continued to march out to engage MotS actively: Mio Dupaki and finally Ardmore where we killed him (the 4th full battle we fought against him, always seeking him out). The following daimons were all engaged and killed in the field - with the exception of one of the portal guardians.
So - during the entire time of the invasion from the heavy allied fighting in Enweil until the end, the only time we did concentrate to defend Rines was for 2 weeks during the time horrors attacked capitals and during the final assualt of the portal guardians. We did risk losing first Grehk, then Rines near the entire time.
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Same in Riombara. They go defending their precious capital and while they do, Midnight of the South will simply blight all that is left of IVF and Enweil.
XD
that's bad, because? not like they'll join the fight, blight or not.
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No capital = No recruitment. If it's a one-city realm, it also means no more cashing in bonds.
While uniting our forces to focus on specific daimon leaders means more chances to kill him, it also means that that it leaves the whole realm exposed, giving the daimons the possibility of completely wreaking one's production and therefore ability to renew the army. Not mentionning how far everyone was from each other, especially in the South. To focus on one daimon would have been a very dangerous gamble: if the daimon retreats into the blight before the coalition arrives (it did happen at least once I think), he can go and flank anyone and cripple realms. Meanwhile, the armies would not only have failed to dent the daimons, the long travels would have cost a lot in equipment damage. Not to mention that capitals have walls...
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Run suicide attacks against the Daimons and hope for a lucky hit, while gathering your armies to crush them in the field.
I should note, this was more-or-less the strategy Solari, Ivagil and I pursued after the fall of Ossmat.
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My experience (being general of Riombara during most of the time)
Phase 1: All daimons attack Enweil:
We managed to get /all/ human realms (with the exception of Melhed and IVF) to fight jointly in these battles. The humans were outnumbered most of the time - and th daimons had the advantage of being able to recruit close to the battlefields. Still, we managed to kill several daimon armies this way.
What base slander is this? ??? Melhed fought a long campaign in the south before the blight closed you off.
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I must say I really enjoyed this invasion, and I'm very happy that I decided to start playing on BT again right before it began. My character slaying MoTS (I believe) was the most joyous moment!
Also, about Enweil/IVF: from Folcard's (my character's) point of view the devastation done to Enweil/IVF was welcome. Slaying the daimons was of course the priority but seeing the damage done to those silly Enweilians and their spin-off was a big plus. Experiencing this invasion from within Riombara I was amazed how such a realm could simply be so kick-ass. The armies we brought to the daimons were always strong, gold was plenty and our military leadership (that's you Tan_Serrai!) was extremely experienced and quick to discover how to tackle each different wave. I'm certain the realm changed a bit during the invasion, like all realms do under duress, but it certainly is for the better. I even like the Enweilian refugees now.