BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => Locals => Far East Island => Topic started by: Indirik on November 01, 2012, 03:49:00 AM
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People on FEI are obviously way too bored, and have way too much disposable income. There are far too many people at the tournament with ridiculously high sword skills.
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That or all the Infiltrators have just changed class...
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Why would they change class? Infils can go to tournaments.
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Why would they change class? Infils can go to tournaments.
They can? I know there is something they can't do... :s
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People on FEI are obviously way too bored, and have way too much disposable income. There are far too many people at the tournament with ridiculously high sword skills.
Rob. You should have been to Dwilight tournaments. Every tournament, I had to face a truck load of people with 80% swordfighting and most of them came from Morek!
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They can? I know there is something they can't do... :s
I think they cannot be one of the "Big Four" council positions.
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*smashes fist on table*
What we need is another war! (http://youtu.be/7U23A0zrE-E?t=50s)
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Rob. You should have been to Dwilight tournaments. Every tournament, I had to face a truck load of people with 80% swordfighting and most of them came from Morek!
FEI is close. I've seen a couple 80's, I think, and several in the 70's. There are probably others that haven't shown off. (Well, at least one that I know of. ;) )
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Well, there are several realms who've had long stretches of peace - Aenilia and Kindara, for example - and training is one way to stave off boredom. And most realms usually seem to have a few nobles who do little more than sit in the capital and train.
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*smashes fist on table*
What we need is another war! (http://youtu.be/7U23A0zrE-E?t=50s)
Why... why would you link that? *pukes on the keyboard*
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Seems that GA was the great benefited here... That 2000 gold should be more than enough to play around with...
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Seems that GA was the great benefited here... That 2000 gold should be more than enough to play around with...
Probably also the realm that had the most expendable gold with nothing to use it on already.
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GA was boring as hell while I was there. Nothing to do but train. Or respond to rare RPs.
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And for some reason I get accused of spending all my time at the academy...
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Then they should spice things up. Get some soldiers with all that gold and go annoy someone already! 8)
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Aenilia fight? Hah!
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Well, they fought in the Southern War. Although a lot of that seemed to be Xarnelf moving his two characters with 2000 CS together in late turn (often a minute before turn change) moves.
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A few years ago I always thought GA actually had to power and influence to wipe out realms on religious grounds. Now that I returned a few years I no longer hold this illusion... GA seems to have little friends and is more a stuck in the middle neutral realm, even in the last war.
Also it does suck, only found out that my judge char was not allowed to join the tournament in her own nation... damn... Oh well, back to monster hunting I suppose
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GA did have that power a few years ago. They atrophied a bit in the meantime. It's not impossible to reverse, but tough to do by sitting on the sidelines.
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The part that most people don't think about is that GA's largest stretch of border is adjacent to the realm with the largest military force, by far. Aenilia right now has two options- fight alongside Arcaea or fight only when Arcaea doesn't. Picking a fight against Arcaea would spell destruction for the realm.
It's easy to take snipe shots from further away at GA's stance. But in all honesty, I'm beginning to understand why Switzerland chose the way they did. The one time we tried to flex recently, Arcaea flexed at triple the strength.
GA (when it was TA) used to take the wars to the other realms in an effort to avoid them ever happening on TA's soil. Those days, and those nobles, are long gone unfortunately. And yes, it was always thinly veiled as religious/righteous indignation.
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It's easy to take snipe shots from further away at GA's stance. But in all honesty, I'm beginning to understand why Switzerland chose the way they did. The one time we tried to flex recently, Arcaea flexed at triple the strength.
Well, everyone likes to make fun of Switzerland too. ;) In all seriousness, GA's position makes perfect sense out of character and, for the most part, in character. Since most of us nobles are egotistical and quickly angered, we're bound to get mad at GA when they don't do what we want them to do though.
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Well, everyone likes to make fun of Switzerland too. ;) In all seriousness, GA's position makes perfect sense out of character and, for the most part, in character. Since most of us nobles are egotistical and quickly angered, we're bound to get mad at GA when they don't do what we want them to do though.
Oh, I know. I think we're at a point where we'd rather be compared to Switzerland with lots of money and nothing to do than to France and surrender as soon as the fighting starts. ;D
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I don't know that I'd compare GA to Switzerland. Switzerland may be neutral, but they had the most respected mercenaries in late medieval times, and I understand that their military is still rather badass today.
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GA's position makes perfect sense. The only problem is, Arcaea is the realm involved in the most wars (7 out of the 9 fought in the last two years), so if you wait for a conflict Arcaea isn't involved in - and one which you're geographically capable of involving yourselves in - you may be waiting a while.
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I don't know that I'd compare GA to Switzerland. Switzerland may be neutral, but they had the most respected mercenaries in late medieval times, and I understand that their military is still rather badass today.
If there were an in-game way that some of our nobles could act as mercenaries and not act on behalf of the realm, I'm certain they'd jump on it. Even if it were just to make coin. ::)
And yeah... the largest realm tends to find themselves involved in the most activity by virtue of being adjacent to everything.
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GA's position is very difficult but it is always possible to find a way out, particularly when Arcaea can't expand much more.
For instance, in the Kindaran war, Aenilia blew its friendships with Kindara and Zonasa, but it didn't bank a whole lot of favor with Arcaea or Cathay because it showed up so close to the end ("American cavalry film", anyone?) and wasn't willing to get its hands dirty. Its position is worse off now than it was before: sure it has an alliance with Cathay, and Galiard has always had a soft spot for Aenilia, but there will be a number of Cathayan nobles who will say, if and when anyone goes to war with Aenilia, that we should wait several months and then speak sternly to the other side and then we'll be even.
The only respect in which Galiard has ever been successful at anything is when the diplomacy game was a big factor, particularly as I am decent but not great at the military game. Aenilia in the old days never had the largest military, but it banked favors everywhere and pushed the MAE while making absolutely certain the MAE never actually annoyed any rulers -- one reason why it spread as quickly as it did several years back. I know Arella hates hearing about Orphen and Luyten but I remember very well how other rulers would line up to get their blessing or Osric of Ethiala's blessing on whatever war they wanted to fight because it was like a stamp of legitimacy.
Cathay was in a situation very similar to Aenilia right when it was re-founded. There was only barely enough support to re-found it at all and we had a very unpleasant choice of either maintaining a half-decent noble count of around 22 or banishing about six people over a couple of months that we knew would be big problems down the road. We chose door number 2 and for a while had 18 nobles - but now we're up to 27. It was stressful right up until I realized that the in-character thing for Galiard to do (and the easier thing for me to do) was to admit that I didn't want to invest the time running a realm that didn't feel like Cathay, and if that meant the realm would fall apart and some other realm would appear and I wouldn't have to do anything other than log in for five minutes here and there, that was fine with me!
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Aenilia could always join the Arcaean Empire. Guaranteed protection, so you could fight anyone you wanted, then. ;)
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Aenilia could always join the Arcaean Empire. Guaranteed protection, so you could fight anyone you wanted, then. ;)
Velax has always been too gruff for that to become a reality with Arella. But I don't think anyone knows how close this was (even in-realm) to being a reality on some level if Jenred had stayed on the throne.
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Velax has always been too gruff for that to become a reality with Arella. But I don't think anyone knows how close this was (even in-realm) to being a reality on some level if Jenred had stayed on the throne.
That'd make the Arcaean Empire a three realm political entity at this point, which is pretty interesting to think about.
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That'd make the Arcaean Empire a three realm political entity at this point, which is pretty interesting to think about.
You're assuming that Arella/Aenilia was the only person Jenred had discussed that with and received a positive response from (aside from the colony, which was a given). That's a very interesting assumption.
Hopefully, at some point I will finally be able to freaking move and have the time to play power-politics on the FEI again. Rebuilding all of those connections will obviously take time and probably be impossible in some cases, but had my life not made playing Jenred effectively impossible (which contributed to his various stupid choices even before I had to pause) a four realm empire was looking like a reasonable short-term goal, and we were looking at six or so realms in the medium-term, maybe eight given a few sensible secessions. I anticipated the next big war after that would either destroy the empire or bring the entire continent under it.
Have I mentioned lately that I really, really, really hated having to give up the game?
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I feel your pain. I remember when I had to give up playing BM a number of years ago, and I've recently had to give up playing one of my other characters, at least for now.
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You're assuming that Arella/Aenilia was the only person Jenred had discussed that with and received a positive response from (aside from the colony, which was a given). That's a very interesting assumption.
Hopefully, at some point I will finally be able to freaking move and have the time to play power-politics on the FEI again. Rebuilding all of those connections will obviously take time and probably be impossible in some cases [...] I anticipated the next big war after that would either destroy the empire or bring the entire continent under it.
Timing was everything, at least for Arella. You could still give her a religious nudge in a similar direction, but the imminent threat would be more localized and er... human.
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You're assuming that Arella/Aenilia was the only person Jenred had discussed that with and received a positive response from (aside from the colony, which was a given). That's a very interesting assumption.
Not really an assumption that you only talked to Arella, more ignorance on my part on who you did talk to. I didn't pay much attention to the global stuff in the Far East until fairly recently. Most of the time Jenred was in power, my Far East character was really focused on his plans locally within Soliferum. The rest of the Far East only concerned him as far as keeping his religious domain protected.
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Timing was everything, at least for Arella. You could still give her a religious nudge in a similar direction, but the imminent threat would be more localized and er... human.
Timing is everything with all of this, as well as a judicious use of both carrots and sticks. Whether Jenred will be in a position to offer either when I come back is highly in doubt, especially given how much Arcaea's internal politics have changed even from what I've just seen on the forums, and how much bad feeling remains about his attempted treaty with Arcachon.
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It would be fun to see Jenred return and "fight" with Velax for the throne of the Arcaean Empire, which they'd also need to build. Persuade Sorraine to join (what to do with religion), or will you take them out? Same for GA and maybe even Cathay.
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It would be a pretty tough fight. Jenred had a lot of loyalty but there are now a lot of nobles who never served under him.
Of course I hope it happens anyway. :)
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Not to mention Jenred's finall meltdown pissed off a lot of people.
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Wait, they'd have to build a new throne? What happened to the cool old one with the skulls of Jenred's enemies on it?
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I think he meant that the Arcaean Empire needs to be built, not the throne.
A fight between Jenred and Velax isn't impossible, but I don't think it's likely. They had their differences, but Velax was one of Jenred's handpicked successors, after all. Not to mention that the amount of damage the fight would cause would likely cripple any chance either of them could accomplish anything of worth afterwards. Besides...The two of them working together would be much more intriguing.
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Lokenth feels really loyal to Jenred still. Jenred gave him a chance, and direction, when no one else would. Velax invited him into his house even though he was a [literally] stinking, dirty commoner, gave him wine and food and treated him like a guest. He'd be hard-pressed to have to choose between them. Though he is a knight now, and that oath of fealty and sense of honor does strange things to a man.
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Jenred may better speed up, the Arcaean Empire has been formed...
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Jenred may better speed up, the Arcaean Empire has been formed...
Unfortunately, real life is dictating my pace at this point, and it's not favourable to BM.
Fortunately, despite how amusing it might be, I don't see any particular reason Jenred and Velax need to fight, and if Velax can pull it off, more power to him.
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Wait, they'd have to build a new throne? What happened to the cool old one with the skulls of Jenred's enemies on it?
That throne was moved to Talex, with Jenred and Edara. Didn't really feel right to sit on a throne with the skulls of someone else's enemies.
As awesome as a battle for the control of Arcaea would be, I don't think it'd be to anyone's benefit in the long term, aside from the enemies of Arcaea.
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That throne was moved to Talex, with Jenred and Edara. Didn't really feel right to sit on a throne with the skulls of someone else's enemies.
I'm sure Velax won't mind building his own, starting with the shattered remnants of the Arcachonian throne and working up from there. The number of skulls Jenred and Edara managed to accumulate continues to astonish me, though Conan and Moses pausing before they could be caught and executed was such a shame.
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Not many of the prominent Arcachonians actually died, though. Most paused, emigrated or moved to Ohnar West. They did execute a few of their own nobles during the rebellions, but they were mostly nobodies. I could always have Shinya dug up. Think it'd piss off the Way of the Dragon people if I dug up one of their saints and took his skull?
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Not many of the prominent Arcachonians actually died, though. Most paused, emigrated or moved to Ohnar West. They did execute a few of their own nobles during the rebellions, but they were mostly nobodies. I could always have Shinya dug up. Think it'd piss off the Way of the Dragon people if I dug up one of their saints and took his skull?
It took Jenred three years and continent-altering wars to accumulate four skulls, and one of them was a gift (the Himoura who tried to rape Edara, offered from one of the other Himoura's), and the other he essentially bought from an Arcachonian who killed Viracocha in a death duel. Deathwyrm took three death duels to kill, and Keffer was the only one actually executed.
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That's what finally became of Keffer? Oh my.
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That's what finally became of Keffer? Oh my.
Indeed. He paused when Ethiala fell, then unpaused some time later...But as he had paused in (and had been sworn to) Topenah, he unpaused as an Arcaean noble, in Arcaean lands. He managed to escape (to Aenilia, I think) but we banned him first, and managed to capture and execute him later.
Only man to ever torture Jenred. Which is why his skull has pride-of-place on Jenred's throne.
Just like the original Sartania was the only realm to ban Jenred during his sadly brief infiltrating days. Jenred never had anything particularly against them, but he had to get rid of that pesky ban...(and the threat they kept posing by publicly saying they'd attack as soon as they could, but, you know, the ban was the important bit).
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Darn. If I'd known that then I might have been able to save Sartania after all.
Oh well. All's well that ends well. And I suppose the destruction of Sartania did give us the chance to spread over a much wider area.
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Darn. If I'd known that then I might have been able to save Sartania after all.
My joking aside, that was unlikely. Sentiment in Arcaea was pretty harsh. As odd as this may sound to a number of politicians on the continent, Jenred's efforts were much more often spent trying to moderate aggressiveness within Arcaea.
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My joking aside, that was unlikely. Sentiment in Arcaea was pretty harsh. As odd as this may sound to a number of politicians on the continent, Jenred's efforts were much more often spent trying to moderate aggressiveness within Arcaea.
I don't think it would've helped either. I fear that I made Arcaea pissed enough with my actions as Pontifex back then and the whole "we're gonna destroy Arcaea completely" agenda which in the end was no big secret anymore.