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BattleMaster => Locals => Beluaterra => Topic started by: Nosferatus on June 07, 2011, 10:43:59 AM
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Power blocks are establishing in Beluaterra and several realms definably have something to solve between each other.
it's starting to look like this:
Enweil, Fronen, (and perhaps Sint?)Vs OG, Notoi, Riombara and Talmarkin and Melhed on the decisive side line.
Things have been awful silent lately, i have a feeling something is brewing, some realms are definably planning something.
what do we think?
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So basically, business as usual with the same basic factions as before :P
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So basically, business as usual with the same basic factions as before :P
They still have unsettled business, (un)Fortunately.
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With the recente OG/Thalmarkin alliance I think we can add them to OG side, leaving only Melhed as a decisive realm....
Edit: One other thing also, with monsters and undead spawn beeing more rare now, the realms can fight each other once again.
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I don't think things are quite that cut and dry yet, unless I've missed something (entirely possible). Blocks are forming, but a lot of things are still quite fluid.
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... leaving ... Melhed as a decisive realm ...
Melhed... decisive? Surely you jest... ::)
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Melhed... decisive? Surely you jest... ::)
Just following Nosferatus iniciall line of tought(that of course if i understood his post correctly)...
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leaving only Melhed as a decisive realm....
By the time Melhed has decided which side they are on this war is long over.
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By the time Melhed has decided which side they are on this war is long over.
indeed, something Shae & Soren and many others have tried to change many times before, lets see if Melhed actually CAN make a decision.
I don't think things are quite that cut and dry yet, unless I've missed something (entirely possible). Blocks are forming, but a lot of things are still quite fluid.
true, i am merely speculating, taking various historic events into consideration.
Like the fact that Old Grekh has border issues with almost all it's neigbours.
The conflict between Enweil and Riombara needs no explanation i geuss, there doomed to go to war.
When that war sparks, many hungry eyes will be set on the conflict.
With the recente OG/Thalmarkin alliance I think we can add them to OG side, leaving only Melhed as a decisive realm....
Diplomatic stances don't necessarily say everything.
Allthough Talmarkin is a colony of OG, Melhed was there only and true ally during the invasion and it's aftermath, helping them considerably.
If it really comes to it and the odds are somewhat even, Talmarkin will probably choose for Melhed above OG.
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Well, I can give one information from within Riombara - believe it or not, they do not want a conflict with Enweil. If they would, they would have attacked Enweil weeks ago - Riombara was basically stable and (apart from a few infrastructure buildings) did not need any real growth to be ready for war. While Enweil was beset by monsters and still had a long way to go to become stable. Riombara was very much aware at that time that they were in a position of considerable strength in relation to Enweil (roughly twice their army size, smaller territory while having a larger income, less dark borderlands) - a difference which they knew would vanish within 2-4 months (depending on monster attacks). They chose peace with and helping Enweil. Riombara is basically waiting if Enweil attacks them or not - hoping its the latter.
It would be a nice change.. though I am sure that Chenier has an explanation all on his own for that...which basically revolves around Riombara being both too strong and too weak while still being highly aggressive and their help being nonexistent, not asked for, plus with Riombara not receiving _any_ attacks from the borderlands it still needs to be premetively attacked by Enweil on a peace mission...grin.
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Melhed... decisive? Surely you jest... ::)
I was gonna say that but you beat me to the punch.
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Too many Enweil lovers in Riombara and too busy discussing tax changes...
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Too many Enweil lovers in Riombara and too busy discussing tax changes...
It will be very interesting to see which camp prevails. There's definitely a militantly anti-Enweil faction in Riombara, but there's also a pragmatic faction that thinks there's a chance for peace.
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Well, I can give one information from within Riombara - believe it or not, they do not want a conflict with Enweil. If they would, they would have attacked Enweil weeks ago - Riombara was basically stable and (apart from a few infrastructure buildings) did not need any real growth to be ready for war. While Enweil was beset by monsters and still had a long way to go to become stable. Riombara was very much aware at that time that they were in a position of considerable strength in relation to Enweil (roughly twice their army size, smaller territory while having a larger income, less dark borderlands) - a difference which they knew would vanish within 2-4 months (depending on monster attacks). They chose peace with and helping Enweil. Riombara is basically waiting if Enweil attacks them or not - hoping its the latter.
It would be a nice change.. though I am sure that Chenier has an explanation all on his own for that...which basically revolves around Riombara being both too strong and too weak while still being highly aggressive and their help being nonexistent, not asked for, plus with Riombara not receiving _any_ attacks from the borderlands it still needs to be premetively attacked by Enweil on a peace mission...grin.
Riombara is indeed being complacent... Doesn't mean we don't resent it for taking Fwuvoghor from us. Our recovery would likely be going a lot better if we had that city back. Ete City was also a big part of our economy, and that's not coming back... I wouldn't expect Enweil to go knocking on Riombara's door any time soon.
So while Fwuvoghor is a major irritant and old insults are not forgotten, Riombara *did* help (and most importantly, didn't exploit our position of weakness) and vengeance for perceived ills (the previous war was to get Delvin's head for Katia's murder, which was never achieved) is not feasible, so Enweil will likely maintain the peace as well. I see no love for Riombara, but not calls for conflict either.
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The fact stays....it's battlemaster, so there will be war one way or the other. Nobody enjoys sitting around in a city all day with their shinny units and do nothing.
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The fact stays....it's battlemaster, so there will be war one way or the other. Nobody enjoys sitting around in a city all day with their shinny units and do nothing.
Won't stem from Enweil, our units aren't shiny and they aren't doing nothing. It's not that nothing brews, mind you, just not a war against Riombara.
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Allthough Talmarkin is a colony of OG, Melhed was there only and true ally during the invasion and it's aftermath, helping them considerably.
If it really comes to it and the odds are somewhat even, Talmarkin will probably choose for Melhed above OG.
Colony of OG and Rio, if I remember correctly.
Melhed was not their only "and true" ally during the Invasion or its aftermath. Because if that was the case, Thalmarkin would have no regions right now. They'd have all long since starved and gone rogue. It was Grehkian food that kept them alive.
Pomatim would also again be flying the OG banner above it rather than the Thalmarkin one. OG had plenty of chance to seize it but held off because Thalmarkin needed a more constant food source.
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I was gonna say that but you beat me to the punch.
lol indeed, before a decision is made the Senate first has to discuss the colour of the toilet paper and the towels. Important choices can wait :p
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If push came to shove, Thalmarkin would probably go with OG rather than Melhed. Not that it wants to have to make the choice though.
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I tried to get melhed to war once. Ended up making the whole trip south with 48 well-trained men of their awesome level 5 ranged SF (65 90/60, good in melee too) to join Riombara and kick some Enweilian ass. :)
Oh, and receiving a 1500 bonds farewell present from my liege, bonds because by the time I got it I was already in Grehk and didn't return. Still, nice guy...
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Will Melhed every go to a war? I mean, they're like a modern-day democracy. They excel in discussing matters but they fail in making concrete decisions that actually leads them to do stuff. They haven't, as far as I know, been in a war for the past... heck, for as long as I know Melhed was around (and I was there when we founded Old Grehk). Maybe their last war was against Ar Agyr? Varyama Nolvo? Some shady realm probably, that either everyone hated or was so weak they could squash it in a week.
Beluaterra might be a nice place to see some more 1-city states, like Thalmarkin. TM seems to be flourishing and I hope it will encourage other people (read: dukes) to try to achieve the same. In the end, what BT needs is not giant empires (frankly, no continent needs that) but a scattered map with tons of realm fighting over small bits and pieces of the map.
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Will Melhed every go to a war? I mean, they're like a modern-day democracy. They excel in discussing matters but they fail in making concrete decisions that actually leads them to do stuff. They haven't, as far as I know, been in a war for the past... heck, for as long as I know Melhed was around (and I was there when we founded Old Grehk). Maybe their last war was against Ar Agyr? Varyama Nolvo? Some shady realm probably, that either everyone hated or was so weak they could squash it in a week.
Beluaterra might be a nice place to see some more 1-city states, like Thalmarkin. TM seems to be flourishing and I hope it will encourage other people (read: dukes) to try to achieve the same. In the end, what BT needs is not giant empires (frankly, no continent needs that) but a scattered map with tons of realm fighting over small bits and pieces of the map.
i disagree, if any place then its beluaterra that needs centralism, a single religion or realm that binds all in a common goal to fight the invaders.
Melhed has changed, alot of 'imperialists' or 'centralists' have taken over and that is also exactly why Melhed survived the invasion.
Without that small revolution that happened and all the fuss it created, Melhed (and talmarkin)would have been destroyed by the undead.
so yeah i think they will easily make such decision now.
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i disagree, if any place then its beluaterra that needs centralism, a single religion or realm that binds all in a common goal to fight the invaders.
Melhed has changed, alot of 'imperialists' or 'centralists' have taken over and that is also exactly why Melhed survived the invasion.
Without that small revolution that happened and all the fuss it created, Melhed (and talmarkin)would have been destroyed by the undead.
so yeah i think they will easily make such decision now.
The common goal used to be the "survival of mankind", and I think it somewhere still is. A large religion that would convert practically all of Beluaterra would be interesting, but it would not exclude conflicts. It is not because you share a faith, that you can't fight for land or whatnot. Faith will glue these realms together against a common enemy, but when there's lack of a common enemy, they will not hesitate to jump on one another.
I'm still sceptical about Melhed. Even if they get into a war, do they remember how to march their armies against humans?
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I'm still sceptical about Melhed. Even if they get into a war, do they remember how to march their armies against humans?
Oowww yes :P
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A large religion that would convert practically all of Beluaterra would be interesting
Now that would be a nice goal.....and there is a conclave of the Order of the Golden Feather this weekend. I suspect this goal might pop up there.
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Now that would be a nice goal.....and there is a conclave of the Order of the Golden Feather this weekend. I suspect this goal might pop up there.
I shiver at the name of that religion and what it stands for! :D
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Concerning that religion, i have been thinking about it for quite some time now.
This is what i have until now: http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Beluaterranism
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Concerning that religion, i have been thinking about it for quite some time now.
This is what i have until now: http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Beluaterranism
I think your approach might be a little off, while I applaud the creation of a new religion. But try not to create something with the intention of it dominating Beluaterra (as a prefix to your religion). Instead, I'd go for creating a religion that does not necessarily has full dominance in mind, but will try to achieve it through war. Much.more.fun. 8)
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I think your approach might be a little off, while I applaud the creation of a new religion. But try not to create something with the intention of it dominating Beluaterra (as a prefix to your religion). Instead, I'd go for creating a religion that does not necessarily has full dominance in mind, but will try to achieve it through war. Much.more.fun. 8)
but it will go to war, do you think the concept is so perfect that everyone will just join? :P
no there will always be others out to destroy it and lots of em.
And if you read threw the lines, war and victory threw military conquest or a fight is what set devine events in motion and warriors belong to the highest peasant caste there is.
uniting all beluaterra is quite difficult, it's not as simple as it may look like.
Shae, my characters whos founding the faith is one of reason and logic with a great military career, those who support her are all centralists(imperialists) mostly with a military background.
It is actually founded with the intention of war.
A quite intense one to.
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but it will go to war, do you think the concept is so perfect that everyone will just join? :P
no there will always be others out to destroy it and lots of em.
And if you read threw the lines, war and victory threw military conquest or a fight is what set devine events in motion and warriors belong to the highest peasant caste there is.
uniting all beluaterra is quite difficult, it's not as simple as it may look like.
Shae, my characters whos founding the faith is one of reason and logic with a great military career, those who support her are all centralists(imperialists) mostly with a military background.
It is actually founded with the intention of war.
A quite intense one to.
I just based most of my "argument" on the title of your religion (I assume you will change it?). In any case, I would advise getting settled in a realm first. Preferably having that realm completely converted to your faith (you can do this partially by force, within the realm). Then pick a smaller realm, but do not destroy it. Instead, force it to join your faith and convert. It's what I always wanted to do... :D
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I just based most of my "argument" on the title of your religion (I assume you will change it?). In any case, I would advise getting settled in a realm first. Preferably having that realm completely converted to your faith (you can do this partially by force, within the realm). Then pick a smaller realm, but do not destroy it. Instead, force it to join your faith and convert. It's what I always wanted to do... :D
well then, join the club and join the fun!
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well then, join the club and join the fun!
I might... I have actually been looking for a good religion on BT. This continent is really the only continent I play on that lacks a decent religion that offers player involvement and clear goals. Most are just "hanging around", waiting for spontaneous participations... and as far as I know, none have managed to control a state yet (which is a huge requirement for a religion, in my opinion). Then again, I have been absent from Beluaterra for quite a long time, so I might have missed some history.
Where will it be founded?
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I think that another name might give it more possibilities, in that respect I would agree with Fleugs. Besides that, I would welcome the competition :D
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and as far as I know, none have managed to control a state yet (which is a huge requirement for a religion, in my opinion).
Excluding the theocracy of Sint, right? :P
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Concerning that religion, i have been thinking about it for quite some time now.
This is what i have until now: http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Beluaterranism
The next big thing for me regarding religion is one that basically says "Look guys, X had this right, Y had that right, Z had that right, but none of you guys bothered to recognize the truth in the others' preachings or develop on the truths you had within our your own lore. To save Beluaterra, we must exit this narrow-mindedness". I don't intend to make it an official religion, though, but I wouldn't mind affiliating myself with you if you desire to found something close to this.
Excluding the theocracy of Sint, right? :P
For a very long time, Fronen was nothing but an extension of the Blood Cult. Also, I think the Valentic Order had a good grasp on Valentia. ;)
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The next big thing for me regarding religion is one that basically says "Look guys, X had this right, Y had that right, Z had that right, but none of you guys bothered to recognize the truth in the others' preachings or develop on the truths you had within our your own lore. To save Beluaterra, we must exit this narrow-mindedness". I don't intend to make it an official religion, though, but I wouldn't mind affiliating myself with you if you desire to found something close to this.
Well it already sounds like what I had in mind, so sure.
Be patient, I will have some character travel around Beluaterra to spread it amongst similar minded when i found it, to give every open minded realm a chance to participate in the establishment of the church.
out of character wise i could always need help writing these religious texts.
As long as it Collides with the core thought, which is that there is only one god, the others faiths either (un)-consciously worshiping this god(deceived by 'variants') or worship the gods that where all slain before the bm universe was created, in other words thus an illusion, for they don't exist(anymore).
What is also very important is that as any human, once your born your blood(caste) decides what kind of life you will have/ job you will do.
The highest three castes are first the royal caste which is only two families strong(whom are lost but will return during the great salvation), then there is the noble caste which are all noble born. The third highest caste is the warriors caste, the soldiers that serve the nobles in there units.
Once this structure is respected and fully lived after, the curse in which humanity is divided in wrong or no causes, shall be lifted and peace and the prosperity of humanity will be possible on Beluaterra.
Only then, the darkness can be defeated.
The third important basic core in the faith is the realization that this life is only a tool to get into heaven, like a game that has to be played and won by anyone who follows it's rules, each person will go to the heaven of his or her caste in blissful eternal satisfaction, but will got to eternal damnation if sinned, which is endlessly more horrible then anything you can experience on earth.
And fourth, humanity is superior above others and all life is created to directly or indirectly feed humanity(children of god).
Fifth, mixing of caste is sinful and is exactly what caused castes to exist, lower castes have more genes of the beasts that degenerated humanity in the beginning.
just add your texts on the wiki page and we'll discuss it.
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Well it already sounds like what I had in mind, so sure.
Be patient, I will have some character travel around Beluaterra to spread it amongst similar minded when i found it, to give every open minded realm a chance to participate in the establishment of the church.
out of character wise i could always need help writing these religious texts.
As long as it Collides with the core thought, which is that there is only one god, the others faiths either (un)-consciously worshiping this god(deceived by 'variants') or worship the gods that where all slain before the bm universe was created, in other words thus an illusion, for they don't exist(anymore).
What is also very important is that as any human, once your born your blood(caste) decides what kind of life you will have/ job you will do.
The highest three castes are first the royal caste which is only two families strong(whom are lost but will return during the great salvation), then there is the noble caste which are all noble born. The third highest caste is the warriors caste, the soldiers that serve the nobles in there units.
Once this structure is respected and fully lived after, the curse in which humanity is divided in wrong or no causes, shall be lifted and peace and the prosperity of humanity will be possible on Beluaterra.
Only then, the darkness can be defeated.
The third important basic core in the faith is the realization that this life is only a tool to get into heaven, like a game that has to be played and won by anyone who follows it's rules, each person will go to the heaven of his or her caste in blissful eternal satisfaction, but will got to eternal damnation if sinned, which is endlessly more horrible then anything you can experience on earth.
And fourth, humanity is superior above others and all life is created to directly or indirectly feed humanity(children of god).
Fifth, mixing of caste is sinful and is exactly what caused castes to exist, lower castes have more genes of the beasts that degenerated humanity in the beginning.
just add your texts on the wiki page and we'll discuss it.
What I had in mind for myself was really a sort of trans-religious order, something akin to what you could expect if the knights Templar were about the "people of the book" (Christians, jews, and muslims) instead of just Christianity. If your project fits with what I have on the drawing board, then you'll find fertile lands to spread your faith where I operate, and likely military support. I am unlikely to help it replace other friendly religions, but will serve as an ally against the rest of the religions.
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I am unlikely to help it replace other friendly religions, but will serve as an ally against the rest of the religions.
Thats the whole goal of the religion i had in mind.
Off course similar minded are approached and received with open arms, but only with the intention to convert.
Radically opposing views should be exterminated by the sword.
The rest of what your saying is exactly what fits my idea.
The faith is a doctrine on how to life your life and it will rule each and every life to the fullest extend(just like the good old days IRL:P)
I've updated it now and written 12.000 characters, if theres anything you'd like to add or suggest, feel free, meanwhile i will move this discussion to a different tread, where getting off subject.
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One thing I'd suggest would be to look through the theology of existing and past religions. When I first started thinking about this project, I noticed that many of those I looked up had at least one aspect that was echoed by the last invasion (if not the previous). I don't remember the specifics off the top of my head, but it's things like the Cult who preached the divine power of blood (the Light used it as a weapon), the druids who talked about some tree acting as the seal against evil (the NPCs spoke about a seal keeping the dark forces out that was wearing down and then breaking), and stuff like that. A number of faiths had "predicted" little bits of lore and could have easily said, during the invasion, "Ha! Told you so! We are the real deal around here!", but none of them actually did.
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I see the subtle signs of a looming war. What are your bets as to how long before it breaks out?
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As soon as we can get Ghrekh and Sint off their butts.
Stomp-stomp-stomp. Though Enwiel letting their federated ally get jacked is just too wierd, so everyone's kinda just staying quiet for the time being.
My bets are about a month.
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As soon as we can get Ghrekh and Sint off their butts.
Stomp-stomp-stomp. Though Enwiel letting their federated ally get jacked is just too wierd, so everyone's kinda just staying quiet for the time being.
My bets are about a month.
Haha, true, it is kinda weird. But I suspect most people forget they still even exist. I don't recall the last time I heard of them. And then there's the whole mess that happened with the allegiance change and the secession, so I don't think anyone here knows who is who over there anymore.
We have had a very inactive leadership since the invasion as well.
I can tell you, though, that if Enweil was Fronen instead, we'd have marched onto Sint long ago already. Shameful that this turncoat realm be allowed to live like that. A good example of usefulness outweighing ethics.
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I can tell you, though, that if Enweil was Fronen instead, we'd have marched onto Sint long ago already. Shameful that this turncoat realm be allowed to live like that. A good example of usefulness outweighing ethics.
We'd rather be friends with them. We'll see what they do.
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We'd rather be friends with them. We'll see what they do.
I honestly cannot understand why *anyone* is letting Sint live, after turning on everyone twice in a row during invasions and throwing themselves at the service of whichever faction knocks on their door all the time.
Despite what Riombara personally did to us, if Sint was on Enweil's border, we'd be attacking Sint before Rio. That's not the official diplomatic position, but let me tell you I personally wouldn't allow it to be any other way, and I'd start that war one way or another.
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I honestly cannot understand why *anyone* is letting Sint live, after turning on everyone twice in a row during invasions and throwing themselves at the service of whichever faction knocks on their door all the time.
Despite what Riombara personally did to us, if Sint was on Enweil's border, we'd be attacking Sint before Rio. That's not the official diplomatic position, but let me tell you I personally wouldn't allow it to be any other way, and I'd start that war one way or another.
i concur, what have i hated them in the past...
its almost the greatest mystery of BM why sint is not destroyed by either humans OR daimons.
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i concur, what have i hated them in the past...
its almost the greatest mystery of BM why sint is not destroyed by either humans OR daimons.
They pussy out to the daimons all the time, and are more useful alive than dead.
Then, all their neighbours have historically needed their aid in their conflicts against everyone else. It was therefore better for OG, Heen, and Mesh to be nice with Sint rather than making a new powerful enemy in their flanks.
Sint is also far from those who do care. Enweil looted it for a few days when we were at war, but it was more to spit in their faces than anything. Marching from Fengen to Sint is just unbearable.
The only one in a position to attack Sint today is OG. And OG is probably still not on great terms with Fronen, indeed I expect a war to break out there sooner or later, so being friends with Sint is a strategic decision for them, and it makes sense on the short term.
That being said, if Sint's next pussying out costs us the continent, I think I'll make hunting the OG characters to all corners of the world one of my priorities. One has to consider long term, and I doubt that long term is that far away.
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...I tried leading a unit to burn down Keffa, but fade was a pain.
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...I tried leading a unit to burn down Keffa, but fade was a pain.
Fade...?
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i concur, what have i hated them in the past...
its almost the greatest mystery of BM why sint is not destroyed by either humans OR daimons.
Really? A mystery? I'll tell you why - it's because they have very good diplomacy. Remember the last war? They were allied with both OG and Heen, which were... The two realms that formed 90% of their borders. There's not much you can do against a realm with buffer states - you can loot them, but only if you get through the realms protecting their borders first. That's about it. They were the big dog on their block, and their neighbors consequently sought protection from them, which they effectively provided. This time around, I don't know... I don't know how OG feels about them exactly, but I suspect they're still on alright terms, and I doubt OG cares about what they did during the last invasion. The daimons didn't bother OG, after all, and they were close in the past. Nothoi is suspicious of Fronen, and so therefore likely to cozy up to Sint. As for the daimons, Sint didn't turn on them until fairly late in the game, and I think the daimons felt they had bigger fish to fry in Hetland. Then the Archons came and that was that.
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Fade...?
The end of the invasion - and the beginning, before it was realized some mechanics were too harsh - was harsh on NPC units.
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Well, Nothoi is also down with the daimons. If Sint were monster friendly there would be a problem and I'm not sure how many others in Nothoi are pro-Daimon, but there is most defonately a pro-daimon faction. Not something advertised, of course, but it's not really hidden either. Less now without Ramuh and Nikkitalinas but hating daimons is so passe. Hating people who welsh on duelling outcomes, now there's some real rage.
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Really? A mystery? I'll tell you why - it's because they have very good diplomacy. Remember the last war? They were allied with both OG and Heen, which were... The two realms that formed 90% of their borders. There's not much you can do against a realm with buffer states - you can loot them, but only if you get through the realms protecting their borders first. That's about it. They were the big dog on their block, and their neighbors consequently sought protection from them, which they effectively provided. This time around, I don't know... I don't know how OG feels about them exactly, but I suspect they're still on alright terms, and I doubt OG cares about what they did during the last invasion. The daimons didn't bother OG, after all, and they were close in the past. Nothoi is suspicious of Fronen, and so therefore likely to cozy up to Sint. As for the daimons, Sint didn't turn on them until fairly late in the game, and I think the daimons felt they had bigger fish to fry in Hetland. Then the Archons came and that was that.
I think OG still has interests in Sint, as an OG/Fronen conflict is likely to re-emerge at some time.
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Well, Nothoi is also down with the daimons. If Sint were monster friendly there would be a problem and I'm not sure how many others in Nothoi are pro-Daimon, but there is most defonately a pro-daimon faction. Not something advertised, of course, but it's not really hidden either. Less now without Ramuh and Nikkitalinas but hating daimons is so passe. Hating people who welsh on duelling outcomes, now there's some real rage.
Nothoi´s down with the daimons? Didn´t knew that...I know BK allied with the daimons and most of our realm members are from BK, but I wouldn´t say we are pro-daimon...
I think war should come by the end of the month, we just need to figure it out now who´s going to strike first
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I think OG still has interests in Sint, as an OG/Fronen conflict is likely to re-emerge at some time.
And there you have it. That's how Sint gets away with it - they maintain close relations with the realms that border them.
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Well, it's a Tonker thing. That's what happens when you make a religion around living mortals, all their decisions become divinely correct.
Ramuh is a daimon in human form, or was just crazy, and Nikki and Solips had some long term discussions with Prudent. Oh course the whole "war is good for you" and the "cult of heroics" overlap an awful lot.
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Well, it's a Tonker thing. That's what happens when you make a religion around living mortals, all their decisions become divinely correct.
Ramuh is a daimon in human form, or was just crazy, and Nikki and Solips had some long term discussions with Prudent. Oh course the whole "war is good for you" and the "cult of heroics" overlap an awful lot.
BK was also federated to Enweil, who was in a strategic alliance with the daimons to fight the monsters. That surely helped.
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And there you have it. That's how Sint gets away with it - they maintain close relations with the realms that border them.
The surprise is not that some people seek their support, but that those who seek vengeance are not enough to overpower those who don't. Consider Mesh, for example, before they turned on Enweil. Had they chosen to turn on Sint instead, they would have gotten our support, and could likely have rallied at least Hetland to their cause. With Mesh on our side instead of against us, we might not have had time to crush Sint before the invasion started, but we certainly could have cracked some of the realms that surround it (Heen and OG).
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Really? A mystery? I'll tell you why - it's because they have very good diplomacy.
Exactly. I was in Old Grehk after the third invasion and was pushing hard for a war against Sint. If we ended the war we would even get Fronen's support to take back Gethsemene. But Sint's diplomatic effort got the realm that was completely destroyed because of them and their daimons to actually trust them more than their old allies.
I actually abandoned OG over the alliance with Sint and took Vozzessdor with me to BK, they then gave it to Fronen and that was that, I lost the city and was off with my 8 knights to Thalmarkin.
With OG losing a third of her nobles and Thalmarkin gaining half we declared war on OG for allying with Sint "the daimonlovers" and went on to join the raid in Ossmat and take Vatrona.
Anyway, Sint's diplomacy has always been excellent and this is one of the most stunning examples I can give for that but in the end they remain big fat pussies for allying with the daimons. :)
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Anyway, Sint's diplomacy has always been excellent and this is one of the most stunning examples I can give for that but in the end they remain big fat pussies for allying with the daimons. :)
Twice. And then some.
Let's kill them off this time, shall we? Before they make us lose the continent? The whole continent against Sint. Then we can resume our old petty feuds that never ceased to entertain us all. 8)
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With OG losing a third of her nobles and Thalmarkin gaining half we declared war on OG for allying with Sint "the daimonlovers" and went on to join the raid in Ossmat and take Vatrona.
And how'd that work out for OG in comparison to Thalmarkin? =P
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And how'd that work out for OG in comparison to Thalmarkin? =P
Not very well at all if memory serves. OG really got saved by the beginning of the invasion and ended up benefiting from it immensely.
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Not very well at all if memory serves. OG really got saved by the beginning of the invasion and ended up benefiting from it immensely.
OG siding with Sint did earn them a (continued) beating.
But now OG looks as strong as Sint is, and no doubt they could convince their neighbours to help them out if they wanted. An easy war with there, for justice, and for the survival of Beluaterra by eliminating those most likely to ally with the daimons and cause us all our dooms.
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Not very well at all if memory serves. OG really got saved by the beginning of the invasion and ended up benefiting from it immensely.
Memory serves you well. OG lost two duchies in that war, Thalmarkin gained 1. But of course, the invasion changed things... Thalmarkin lost 3 duchies, OG gained 2. Still, one of the best invasions ever in my opinion. It had me sitting at the edge of my seat practically the whole time wondering whether my realms and humanity as a whole would survive. :)
But that aside, I don't think Sint was the only realm to ally with daimons or any of the other invaders now, was it? ;)
Sint seems like a lightning rod used to distract us from the sins of other realms.
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Of course. The one realm who also has a history of siding with the daimons is usually among the first to call for Sint's blood. Right, Chénier?
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Of course. The one realm who also has a history of siding with the daimons is usually among the first to call for Sint's blood. Right, Chénier?
Are you talking about Enweil? Because Enweil only allied them to fight the monsters, and never fought against any human realms.
Sint, on the other hand, allied with the daimons to kiss their asses, and did not fight any invading forces. Not comparable.
Enweil also did not ally the daimons in the invasion before that, and especially did not worship them as Sint did.
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Well, Enweil certainly /did/ ally with the daimons...and Enweil was both getting ready to attack a human realm and gave its support to Fronen/Bara'Khur when they did. Their reason was 'stop attacking the daimons or we will kill you'.
I admit that the points of distinction between Enweilian alliances and Sint's during the last invasion are a bit too fine for me to allow to call for the destruction of one realm and the view of the other as potential saviour.... ;)
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Well, Enweil certainly /did/ ally with the daimons...and Enweil was both getting ready to attack a human realm and gave its support to Fronen/Bara'Khur when they did. Their reason was 'stop attacking the daimons or we will kill you'.
I admit that the points of distinction between Enweilian alliances and Sint's during the last invasion are a bit too fine for me to allow to call for the destruction of one realm and the view of the other as potential saviour.... ;)
Ahem. Fronen never attacked a human realm during the invasion.
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Enweil, Fronen, Bara'Khur, and Avalon did not attack any human realms during the invasion, get your facts straight.
And I wouldn't call fighting an invader during the whole invasion while another did not a "fine detail". Sint only ditched the daimons when they thought they found an invulnerable weapon, the Light, and their reactions after the undead stomp that followed clearly proved their act was not altruistic at all.
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Enweil, Fronen, Bara'Khur, and Avalon did not attack any human realms during the invasion, get your facts straight.
And I wouldn't call fighting an invader during the whole invasion while another did not a "fine detail". Sint only ditched the daimons when they thought they found an invulnerable weapon, the Light, and their reactions after the undead stomp that followed clearly proved their act was not altruistic at all.
Well, BK at least did send an army after Creasur... I can't quite recall whether they actually ended up fighting Hetland or not, but the intent was definitely there.
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Bara'Khur didn't really fight. Daimons have already destroyed the city by the time BK arrived.
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What about Hetland? The Daimons destroyed Hetland but I recall Hetland's neighbors were either going to attack or did attack them.
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What about Hetland? The Daimons destroyed Hetland but I recall Hetland's neighbors were either going to attack or did attack them.
The threats never materialized.
The threats were because of the allegations about how all these human sacrifices were empowering the Servants to sinister ends. Considering they picked the turncoat/daimon-worshiping Sint, the douchebaggish Hetland, and the passive Riombara who sat out for most of the invasion as the three realms that were "pure", it's of little surprise that Enweil and her friends had little trust in them. Hetland was offered to no longer be attacked if they stopped feeding the Servants. Threats were made after Hetland refused to stop giving their blood to empower the Servants. But the Servants left soon afterwards, and the daimons killed them. No human realm attacked Hetland. If they weren't so stupid, they would have accepted our mediation and would still have been alive.
I'm happy they were, though.
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You could say the same thing about Mesh and Heen, too stupid to sell their souls to the daimons. It's what Sint thinks after every invasion.
Also, Riombara passive? More monsters died at Riombaran hands than at the hands of Enweilian armies marching together with daimons, on the battlefield plus with the power of the Light. Their assault after the construction of the Temple of the Light cost them almost 100k CS, before that we held Grehk against an overwhelming monster force. Alone.
But what did you expect, that we'd leave our city state to defend you and risk losing our armies to your daimon allies in the process?
We may not have allied with any of the invaders, but we're not THAT stupid either.
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You know, having read this thread, its suprising that war didn't break out months ago.
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You could say the same thing about Mesh and Heen, too stupid to sell their souls to the daimons. It's what Sint thinks after every invasion.
Also, Riombara passive? More monsters died at Riombaran hands than at the hands of Enweilian armies marching together with daimons, on the battlefield plus with the power of the Light. Their assault after the construction of the Temple of the Light cost them almost 100k CS, before that we held Grehk against an overwhelming monster force. Alone.
But what did you expect, that we'd leave our city state to defend you and risk losing our armies to your daimon allies in the process?
We may not have allied with any of the invaders, but we're not THAT stupid either.
I would not count the kills of the Light as Riombaran kills at all. Because the Light considered the realm sitting on its ass to be more "pure" than the realm fighting tooth and nail the monsters.
Our alliance with the daimons was just to fight the Monsters. Rio could easily have done the same, if it wanted. That's what Enweil's allies did, to make sure they could join in the fight fully against the monsters.
Mesh and Heen isn't the same story as Hetland at all. They pissed off the daimons too much prior to the invasion for anything they did during the invasion to change that. They fought knowing they would die, but believing in their cause. Hetland fought thinking the Light made them invulnerable. Time has shown that they did not know honour, they were just fighting out of pride and for the misguided belief that they would gain from it. A sacrifice is only honourable when its planned. If you are convinced you are survive and end up dying, then there's little honour in that, as it was never your intention to risk your life for others.
What did Enweil want of Rio? That you at least attack Meridian Republic, if nothing else. They were feeding and sustaining the monster armies, and you complacently sat next to them as they fueled the war against Enweil and Avalon.
Riombara also accepted peace with the monsters before accepting peace with Enweil. Enweil offered military aid in the South when the monsters attacked, but it was rejected with insults.
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What about Hetland? The Daimons destroyed Hetland but I recall Hetland's neighbors were either going to attack or did attack them.
The threats never materialized.
Yes they did. Bara'Khur invaded at least one Hetland region. If they didn't get more, it's because they were too slow, not because they had no intention of doing so.
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We congratulated BK for sieging Creasur. They did, for real. Not very successfully, but they did.
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The threats never materialized.
Yes they did. Bara'Khur invaded at least one Hetland region. If they didn't get more, it's because they were too slow, not because they had no intention of doing so.
They TOed a region that the daimons had just turned rogue, leading many to think they TOed it directly off of Hetland.
We congratulated BK for sieging Creasur. They did, for real. Not very successfully, but they did.
It was either such an insignificant battle that I got no report of it, or was done when Hetland was basically dead anyways.
The original plan was to have BK, Enweil, and Fronen rally and attack it together, because they wouldn't accept our peace offer (we were just asking that they stop empowering the Servants, not even that they destroy the temple). We cancelled the attack because the whole thing became moot when the Servants packed.
BK always was a little overeager, but the only time I recall it sending forces in Creasur was when they thought Hetland to already be dead (as they were doomed) to do a takeover, which failed I believe. They spoke of attacking it a few times before that, but these had not materialized.
I always denied any of our realms as having attacked Hetland, it's not a recent claim. I would have thought that if it weren't accurate, then people would have long ago shared me a battle report showing otherwise. I know for a fact that Enweil never did attack, though, despite those that claim it did.
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I always denied any of our realms as having attacked Hetland, it's not a recent claim. I would have thought that if it weren't accurate, then people would have long ago shared me a battle report showing otherwise. I know for a fact that Enweil never did attack, though, despite those that claim it did.
Old claim != accurate claim.
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Old claim != accurate claim.
With the amount of people that'd love nothing more than to discredit me and Enweil, one would assume so...
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Well, you can say what you want, but my character's actions as elder priest of Qyrvaggism meant the destruction of thousands of monsters. You may say it was not his doing but the fact remains that without Riombaran blood and without a Riombaran to channel the Power, you would've had to face an extra 100k CS of monsters. We could not seek them out far away from Grehk as we did not have daimons to protect us under their wings, but more importantly we did not *want* daimons, or monsters for that matter, to protect us.
For that reason we did not hunt them actively but made them regret coming near us every time. You can say it's a passive approach but it was a choice, to not ally with the monsters, the daimons or the undead and I think it was the right one. The monsters indeed grew stronger because of their alliance with MR, but so did the daimons because of your alliance. We were not going to support one of the armies that laid waste to so much of the continent, in stead, we'd kill them without discrimination if they got close enough.
The thing is though, there is honour in fighting, whether you die or not. Of course there are different things to fight for. One can fight purely for survival of one's own realm or one can spit in the face of the invaders and fight them on principle, or both. I can't say what Hetland did but one thing is certain: they fought the daimons and did not surrender to them.
About attacking MR... well... things were nicely balanced I'd say. MR and the monsters vs Enweil and the daimons. If we were to attack MR the daimons would eventually break through, end that southern conflict and turn their attention to the rest of the continent. I doubt things would've been much better. We didn't attack MR but their allies suffered considerable losses at our hands. It's one of those old invasion-principles forgotten by many: kill invaders, not humans.
And finally, I can't remember which peace was signed first, I only know the monsters spawned in Enweil and then marched on Enweil's enemies.
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I would not count the kills of the Light as Riombaran kills at all. Because the Light considered the realm sitting on its ass to be more "pure" than the realm fighting tooth and nail the monsters.
Are you really still that thick?
It's about purity. Not about strength.
The Light would have praised and lauded a realm that allowed themselves to be destroyed rather than ally with any of the invaders.
They considered anyone who joined with the invaders to be part of the problem.
Plus, there's the whole "unwilling human sacrifice" bit that parts of Enweil were into.
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Are you really still that thick?
It's about purity. Not about strength.
The Light would have praised and lauded a realm that allowed themselves to be destroyed rather than ally with any of the invaders.
Sint, of all realms, was declared "pure".
Enough said.
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A sacrifice is only honourable when its planned. If you are convinced you are survive and end up dying, then there's little honour in that, as it was never your intention to risk your life for others.
Really? So if a soldier dies in real life, he only has honour if he knew he was going to die? If he thought he'd survive the war and return home to his family, but dies instead, he has no honour? Wow.
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Really? So if a soldier dies in real life, he only has honour if he knew he was going to die? If he thought he'd survive the war and return home to his family, but dies instead, he has no honour? Wow.
Dying in battle doesn't automatically make one honorable. There are a lot of scumbags serving the forces, being at the wrong place at the wrong time doesn't turn them into angels.
And my message involved the commitment to risk. A better example would be: those that enlisted to fight the nazis were more honorable than those who were conscripted into doing it.
That being said, there are a wide array of circumstances that can influence how "honorable" an act is or isn't. Honor is determined by the intent and the values guiding an act. If two people do the exact same act, but one does it for the greater good while the other does it because he underestimated the risks and saw potential gains and self-gratification, then the former's act was more honorable than the latter's.
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Well, you're backtracking now, because that's not what you said. You said dying is only honorable if you planned to sacrifice yourself, and that you can't both plan to survive and risk your life for others. I think perhaps someone made a gross exaggeration in their attempt to make a point.
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So the whole continent is going to bash Fronen?
Enweil will surely step in and be stoped by a declaration of war from Riombara leaving Melhed to decide if this will be a long or a short war....
some interesting options etc.
Glad something is finally happening.
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Well, you're backtracking now, because that's not what you said. You said dying is only honorable if you planned to sacrifice yourself, and that you can't both plan to survive and risk your life for others. I think perhaps someone made a gross exaggeration in their attempt to make a point.
Not really, but adding precisions. One wishing to go home is not the same as one being convinced that he'll survive and go home. If someone joins the army to get all the perks, convinced he'll never actually have to fight like the others, and then ends up being forced to fight for whatever reason and dies, then that's not the same as the others who joined and fought knowing they might die. This person was just out for self-gain, he did not want to risk himself. Just as Sint, thinking they could get all the perks of declaring war on the invaders without ever actually getting hurt themselves.
And there is no inherent honor in going to fight in stupid wars. There is no inherent honor in being a soldier. You are being thickheaded yourselves if you think that all you need to do is sign up in the army to suddenly become a good person. There are good and bad people in the army, going there for good and bad reasons, to fight good and bad wars.
I personally have much greater respect for firefighters than soldiers.
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In some moral systems, intent is as important as action, even if the actions never reflect on the intent. (ie A person has the intent to harm people but never materializes this intent; conversely, a person has the intent of helping people but only acts to harm them. Obj/subj of events not considered, let's just be simple and say that in this case, for the sake of argument, there is no in-between and hurt/harm are two clearly identifiable extremes)
It's something we do all the time too. We consider whether something was premeditated and whether there was malicious intent in crimes. We gauge potential business associates for other motives possibly more self-interested in addition to simple mutual profit.
Anyway, the point is that the soldier who goes off to fight because he truly believes in defending the ideals of his country and whatnot is clearly different from the soldier who does it because he didn't get into college, who both are also different from the soldier who just wanted to fire a gun. (And let's just say that I've known enough people who enlisted to know that there are more than two of each aforementioned example that I personally have known.)
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but my character's actions as elder priest of Qyrvaggism meant the destruction of thousands of monsters.
I very much resent the unitary nature of your claim. It was my character, Hireshmont, who first contacted the Light concerning Qyrvaggism, informed them of our united position against the Invaders, and directed to the temple in Grehk. And Hireshmont was also one of the first to be consumed at the temple of light in Grehk. Whatever you may have thought of him, his last days in MR were spent guaranteeing the survival of Riombara and the defeat of the Invaders as he directed every effort towards getting the Light established in Grehk. Now, naturally, many other players, especially in Qyrvaggism, contributed quite meaningfully. But don't hog all the credit.
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Indeed, there are too many variables beyond our control and level of knowledge that influence the results that results are not a valuable indicator of the moral worth of any given act.
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As an aside, we were supposed to have all three elder priests, of Hemaism, Daishi, and Qyrvagism, all gather in triplets at Firbalt, Creasur, and Grehk. Then they would each within the same day, sacrifice themselves to the Light, such that a total of 9 elder priests, 3 from each religion, would die, but in return there would be this "burst of light" that would have dissipated the blight and prevented the invaders from gaining any more reinforcements. Combined with the inherent fade by that point, it would mean that we would have the military means to take down the invaders then.
However, a lot of deception meant that people never really trusted the Light and so its true purpose was never realized. lol.
(Also, there is more than one part of what I have written that's actually true.)
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As an aside, we were supposed to have all three elder priests, of Hemaism, Daishi, and Qyrvagism, all gather in triplets at Firbalt, Creasur, and Grehk. Then they would each within the same day, sacrifice themselves to the Light, such that a total of 9 elder priests, 3 from each religion, would die, but in return there would be this "burst of light" that would have dissipated the blight and prevented the invaders from gaining any more reinforcements. Combined with the inherent fade by that point, it would mean that we would have the military means to take down the invaders then.
However, a lot of deception meant that people never really trusted the Light and so its true purpose was never realized. lol.
(Also, there is more than one part of what I have written that's actually true.)
OOC, I believe it, but there is not a chance in hell that anyone could have convinced me characters of this.
Declaring Sint "pure", after their repeated worshipping daimons, while snubbing Enweil and her allies for their strategic alliance with the daimons in order to have a fighting chance against the monsters made them lose absolutely all credibility. While it could have been accepted that Qyrvaggism be "pure", reluctantly, the same can't be said for Daishi and especially not for Hemaism. Incidentally too, the three realms that were chosen to receive the Light were all allied against Enweil in the last age.
And now that I think of it, even declaring Qyrvaggism "pure" is a bunch of bollocks. Qyrvagg priests were actively siding with the monsters, helping them, and attempting to convert everyone else in Rio to ally with them against Enweil.
Had the Servants at least used different terminology... but "pure"? And from the exchanges, the Servants of the Light had a clear penchant for the anti-Enweil bloc. They never even bothered coming to discuss with Enweil and her allies. And if Enweil had so much to repent for, then they should have snubbed every realm other than Thalmarkin, which interestingly enough they ignored.
While I can understand the strategical value of these three places, purity was obviously a facade, so if the Light was misleading us on such a fundamental thing, how were our characters to believe them on anything else?
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I think what happened with the Iato duke that you play is that he was too involved with Enweil. That is not wrong but I get the feeling that the Light was looking at a more impersonal view of the conflict. They're not exactly the most benevolent in terms of caring for individual human concerns, which is normal since they're not human. They are the Light. Their purpose was...pretty much to defeat the Darkness that they more or less saw as represented in that particular conflict by the three NPC invaders.
So keeping that in mind, they most likely didn't care one bit about prior history, or human relations, only that at the moment, and for that particular conflict, they showed their willingness and determination to fight against the Darkness.
In the case of Hetland, I believe it had to do with them thickheadedly bashing against the daimons and dissolving all ties to the monsters once they got the Light on their side. For Riombara, I have no idea. For Sint, I believe that there was at least one priest who got adamant and managed to convince the youngest and most naive among the Light, Virgil, that they would in fact stand up against the daimons. Which they did. Kinda.
As for Thalmarkin, well, recall that by that time it had more or less been overrun by Undead. Given the Undead GM's parting gloating, it is not too absurd to believe that by then Thalmarkin had already been "marked" to become a future cursed land where the undead would spawn.
Anyway, from the Enweil thing, it was mostly an issue with the Blood Cult I believe. Marta pretty much called the Chenier who spoke to her evil because of the whole unwilling sacrifice thing.
In the end, I think that, like many other things, humans can sometimes be very strange creatures in times of great calamity.
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OOC, I believe it
That's too bad, because he made it up.
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And now that I think of it, even declaring Qyrvaggism "pure" is a bunch of bollocks. Qyrvagg priests were actively siding with the monsters, helping them, and attempting to convert everyone else in Rio to ally with them against Enweil.
As an elder in Qyrvaggism, I can state with OOC categorical certainty that this is false. Well, I dunno, Sendan might have been wandering around up north somewhere, but none of the ones in Rio were doing this. Qyrvaggism did suggest that the monsters were a lesser evil than the daimons... and meanwhile, as soon as the Light appeared, we rejected the daimons.
For Riombara, I have no idea.
Riombara never affiliated with Invaders. The Meridian Republic did, and, prior to its secession, many of the nobles of that realm advocated for collaboration and tried to get Rio to collaborate. Riombara did not. That's why MR seceded. Because Rio refused to collaborate with the monsters. Certain dissident elements of the Meridian Republic coughmecough threw their realm under the bus as soon as the Light appeared, and begged the Light to go to Riombara and Qyrvaggism. Hireshmont valued Qyrvaggism more than the Meridian Republic or revenge against Riombara. Qyrvaggism was one of the only viable religions left at that time with any kind of theology or RP basis (Eretzism is laughable), and in previous Invasions it had been stalwartly pro-human. Rio and Qyrvaggism made a case that any appearance of collaboration with monsters was purely incidental to the Meridian Republic.
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That's too bad, because he made it up.
Aw, and you had to give it away. Actually, by this time, with Beyond on seemingly indefinite hiatus, does it make a difference anymore?
I think it doesn't. Who gives a damn what is true if it makes no significant difference in current BT environment, and if the majority of humans remaining believe in it? That goes for the real world too. So much of what is popularly believed to be the case is so off-base and has been romanticized over time that it's a wonder we have the gall to call it "history" and place some rather ridiculous literature in the non-fiction section. And yet we accept it, whether it is because it's the best we have, or because it feels right to us, or whatever other strange reason we have for accepting it.
Yeah, sure, "journalism". The majority of people do try to make efforts to be accurate and would like the truth. But tell me, how many people actually pay attention to the precise details about how something like life in the royal courts were, or how battles were really fought, and the actual lives of individuals?
But that is all an argument for some stupid blog or a college lecture. I stand by the thought that, given the lack and continued insistence of those who organized 4th Inv to say anything, it is open season to we the normal players to fill that gap with whatever makes us feel more comfortable.
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I very much resent the unitary nature of your claim. It was my character, Hireshmont, who first contacted the Light concerning Qyrvaggism, informed them of our united position against the Invaders, and directed to the temple in Grehk. And Hireshmont was also one of the first to be consumed at the temple of light in Grehk. Whatever you may have thought of him, his last days in MR were spent guaranteeing the survival of Riombara and the defeat of the Invaders as he directed every effort towards getting the Light established in Grehk. Now, naturally, many other players, especially in Qyrvaggism, contributed quite meaningfully. But don't hog all the credit.
I didn't mean to hog all the credit. Heck, I only became a priest so that I could use the Power of the Light. Mithridates has always been a warrior and that was THE way to destroy the monsters, and in accordance with the teachings of Qyrvaggism. I didn't convince the Light, I didn't even destroy the biggest part of those monster armies, Sendan did. Before he destroyed the temple and went preeetty crazy. All I'm saying is that I, as a Riombaran and elder priest of Qyrvaggism, drawing on what was mostly Riombaran blood (even though nobles and advies from in the neighbourhood flocked to the temple to sacrifice themselves or give blood as well) did destroy a ton of monsters that then didn't go north to fight enweil. And that's not exactly sitting out an invasion...
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I didn't convince the Light, I didn't even destroy the biggest part of those monster armies, Sendan did. Before he destroyed the temple and went preeetty crazy.
Yeah, what did happen with Sendan? Anybody wanna fill me in? Because now he's a completely silent head of Qyrvaggism.
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That's too bad, because he made it up.
I meant I believe the Light was meant to defeat the invaders. Not necessarily that particular exotic scenario.
As an elder in Qyrvaggism, I can state with OOC categorical certainty that this is false. Well, I dunno, Sendan might have been wandering around up north somewhere, but none of the ones in Rio were doing this. Qyrvaggism did suggest that the monsters were a lesser evil than the daimons... and meanwhile, as soon as the Light appeared, we rejected the daimons.
Riombara never affiliated with Invaders. The Meridian Republic did, and, prior to its secession, many of the nobles of that realm advocated for collaboration and tried to get Rio to collaborate. Riombara did not. That's why MR seceded. Because Rio refused to collaborate with the monsters. Certain dissident elements of the Meridian Republic coughmecough threw their realm under the bus as soon as the Light appeared, and begged the Light to go to Riombara and Qyrvaggism. Hireshmont valued Qyrvaggism more than the Meridian Republic or revenge against Riombara. Qyrvaggism was one of the only viable religions left at that time with any kind of theology or RP basis (Eretzism is laughable), and in previous Invasions it had been stalwartly pro-human. Rio and Qyrvaggism made a case that any appearance of collaboration with monsters was purely incidental to the Meridian Republic.
And the thing about using the light is that you were doing so comfortably from your untouchable city while the rest of your regions were basically being babysitted by MR to be given back once the invasion ended. Had the light set up in Enweilieos instead, Riombara would have had next to no involvement for the great majority of the invasion, and Enweil would have suffered a lot less damage.
Many of these MR leaders were very important Rio nobles. Many of these MR nobles then came back to Riombara. Some keeping their positions. It's therefore hard to absolve Riombara of what MR did, considering it came from it and came back to it.
Sendan closed the temple of the Light, if I remember correctly. I don't see how that's not pro-monster. Mordred Lefanis was also a priest of Qyrvaggism at least for some time, maybe even an elder, and I got a !@#$load of his messages to the monsters. He was trying since day 1 to get Rio to ally the monsters to destroy Enweil and Avalon.
Rejecting the daimons was also pretty damn easy considering they were, you know, at the complete opposite corner of the map. They may as well have said that they condemn Outer Tilog, while they were at it.
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IC/Serrai:
Sendan did destroy the Temple of Light due to an argument about interior policy that got out of hand but had (please correct me) little to do with the invasion. It was done to hurt Riombara, not to change Riombaras course towards the monsters. He was promptly declared traitor and banned under pain of death. The temple was rebuilt and reconsecrated and continued to kill a whole load of monsters.
Note that I only state this for those who might find it of interest (view at that time I assume) and not to change Chenier's opinion that Riombara was 'sitting out the invasion', that it was 'pro Monster', that Enweil 'fought more, harder, more honourably and...than Riombara.'
OOC: player
What I (as player) would be seriously interested in is if Chenier is to be considered as being the enweilian character (and thus IC) or as the player. Or to be more concrete, may I (as player) assume that what Chenier states is IC or do you as player consider what Chenier states here on the forum as your OOC opinion? Note that I (as player) love the IC ability for propaganda of the enweilian character - this makes this awesome game so much richer!
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Yes, there was a political dispute between Delvin and Falcore's other character Gardin. Sendan got involved and closed the Temple to try to get back at Delvin for basically winning a political fight and forcing Gardin to resign as High Chancellor of Riombara.
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Threatening tens of thousands with being devoured by monsters in response to losing a political battle. That, ladies and gentlemen, is style.
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IC/Serrai:
Sendan did destroy the Temple of Light due to an argument about interior policy that got out of hand but had (please correct me) little to do with the invasion. It was done to hurt Riombara, not to change Riombaras course towards the monsters. He was promptly declared traitor and banned under pain of death. The temple was rebuilt and reconsecrated and continued to kill a whole load of monsters.
Note that I only state this for those who might find it of interest (view at that time I assume) and not to change Chenier's opinion that Riombara was 'sitting out the invasion', that it was 'pro Monster', that Enweil 'fought more, harder, more honourably and...than Riombara.'
OOC: player
What I (as player) would be seriously interested in is if Chenier is to be considered as being the enweilian character (and thus IC) or as the player. Or to be more concrete, may I (as player) assume that what Chenier states is IC or do you as player consider what Chenier states here on the forum as your OOC opinion? Note that I (as player) love the IC ability for propaganda of the enweilian character - this makes this awesome game so much richer!
Most know knowledge is shared by my characters, the opinion is similar, minus all the Enweil supremacist sentiments.
To me, Rio's participation is comparable to the USA's during world war 2. Tipping the tides of battle and getting disproportionate glory for it, because of the circumstances around it's involvement, its ties to the other side, the relative safety from which it performed its operations, and the great economic advantage they gained for the combination of all of these things.
For let's remember that when the invasion started, Riombara and DoA *refused* to end their war status with Enweil (wars which they were the ones to declare). Fighting a united front wasn't what they had in mind. Indeed, they had even attacked the retreating Enweilian army *after* we all learned of the invasion. Uniting against the invaders wasn't exactly a priority of theirs, and they showed that they would have been quite happy to sit by and watch had the monsters pressed northwards instead of south-east.
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Most know knowledge is shared by my characters, the opinion is similar, minus all the Enweil supremacist sentiments.
To me, Rio's participation is comparable to the USA's during world war 2. Tipping the tides of battle and getting disproportionate glory for it, because of the circumstances around it's involvement, its ties to the other side, the relative safety from which it performed its operations, and the great economic advantage they gained for the combination of all of these things.
For let's remember that when the invasion started, Riombara and DoA *refused* to end their war status with Enweil (wars which they were the ones to declare). Fighting a united front wasn't what they had in mind. Indeed, they had even attacked the retreating Enweilian army *after* we all learned of the invasion. Uniting against the invaders wasn't exactly a priority of theirs, and they showed that they would have been quite happy to sit by and watch had the monsters pressed northwards instead of south-east.
You know, we spent at least as much time fighting monsters as you did - Enweil fought them in the middle, but we took the beginning and the end. Remember that after MR left they took with them most of our nobles and 80% of our remaining income. I think you vastly overestimate Riombara's ability to have an impact after that point. After MR left, every region remaining to us (all four of them) except for Grehk was completely devastated, so we were pretty much running off the income of that one city and trying to feed it with depopulated rurals.
So yeah, we took a break. At that point the monsters had already moved on to attacking Enweil, and were just keeping one monster commander around to step on us every time we tried to leave Grehk. It was literally pointless to keep trying to fight under those conditions, so we accepted the cease fire. Then we rebuilt and picked off regions that went rebelled from monster rule, and eventually we went back to war once a little of our strength was back. Expecting us to have been able to attack MR at any point during the invasion demonstrates your ignorance of the conditions we faced. We were noticably weaker, never mind the fact that they were allied with the monsters. MR probably could have destroyed us without any help from them at all had we pushed them into doing so.
When it comes to Riombara, you lack objectivity.
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Remember that after MR left they took with them most of our nobles and 80% of our remaining income. I think you vastly overestimate Riombara's ability to have an impact after that point. After MR left, every region remaining to us (all four of them) except for Grehk was completely devastated, so we were pretty much running off the income of that one city and trying to feed it with depopulated rurals.
So yeah, we took a break. At that point the monsters had already moved on to attacking Enweil, and were just keeping one monster commander around to step on us every time we tried to leave Grehk. It was literally pointless to keep trying to fight under those conditions, so we accepted the cease fire. Then we rebuilt and picked off regions that went rebelled from monster rule, and eventually we went back to war once a little of our strength was back. Expecting us to have been able to attack MR at any point during the invasion demonstrates your ignorance of the conditions we faced. We were noticably weaker, never mind the fact that they were allied with the monsters. MR probably could have destroyed us without any help from them at all had we pushed them into doing so.
Wisdom was quite eager to smash Rio to the floor after MR was formed. It was MR who convinced the monsters to attack Avalon instead. Mordred insisted to Wisdom that the north be struck, and the brethren of MR in Rio be left alone. So in a way (though unforeseen to me at the time), it was MR that bought Rio the time it needed to survive the invasion. The end (survival) was reached through debatable means, exactly what MR was formed to do. Pity it had to die, it was great fun.
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Wisdom was quite eager to smash Rio to the floor after MR was formed. It was MR who convinced the monsters to attack Avalon instead. Mordred insisted to Wisdom that the north be struck, and the brethren of MR in Rio be left alone. So in a way (though unforeseen to me at the time), it was MR that bought Rio the time it needed to survive the invasion. The end (survival) was reached through debatable means, exactly what MR was formed to do. Pity it had to die, it was great fun.
Yes, in hindsight I believe that MR absolutely did end up saving Riombara from being destroyed, not that Evander would ever admit that. IC and OOC though, there was no coordination. It just happened to turn out that way, despite Riombara's best efforts to get itself killed off by repeatedly provoking the monsters. Kind of amusing actually, how Mordred really did (apparently) do what needed to be done to save the south.
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You know, we spent at least as much time fighting monsters as you did - Enweil fought them in the middle, but we took the beginning and the end. Remember that after MR left they took with them most of our nobles and 80% of our remaining income. I think you vastly overestimate Riombara's ability to have an impact after that point. After MR left, every region remaining to us (all four of them) except for Grehk was completely devastated, so we were pretty much running off the income of that one city and trying to feed it with depopulated rurals.
So yeah, we took a break. At that point the monsters had already moved on to attacking Enweil, and were just keeping one monster commander around to step on us every time we tried to leave Grehk. It was literally pointless to keep trying to fight under those conditions, so we accepted the cease fire. Then we rebuilt and picked off regions that went rebelled from monster rule, and eventually we went back to war once a little of our strength was back. Expecting us to have been able to attack MR at any point during the invasion demonstrates your ignorance of the conditions we faced. We were noticably weaker, never mind the fact that they were allied with the monsters. MR probably could have destroyed us without any help from them at all had we pushed them into doing so.
When it comes to Riombara, you lack objectivity.
Riombara did not fight long *at all* before surrendering. You were blitzed into submission extremely quickly, and you rejoined the fray when it was just about over. Enweil continued to fight despite a army that was no stronger than yours, I shall let you know, it's inevitable when all of our cities got smashed repeatedly (when they didn't revolt completely) and our armies were being destroyed on an almost daily basis.
I am biased, but not blind either.
Yes, in hindsight I believe that MR absolutely did end up saving Riombara from being destroyed, not that Evander would ever admit that. IC and OOC though, there was no coordination. It just happened to turn out that way, despite Riombara's best efforts to get itself killed off by repeatedly provoking the monsters. Kind of amusing actually, how Mordred really did (apparently) do what needed to be done to save the south.
MR were in great part Riombarans, the other part were Riombaran allies. Most of these people then came back to Riombara. MR fought to further Riombara's ends. You may dissociate Riombara from it, but I certainly do not.
Wisdom was quite eager to smash Rio to the floor after MR was formed. It was MR who convinced the monsters to attack Avalon instead. Mordred insisted to Wisdom that the north be struck, and the brethren of MR in Rio be left alone. So in a way (though unforeseen to me at the time), it was MR that bought Rio the time it needed to survive the invasion. The end (survival) was reached through debatable means, exactly what MR was formed to do. Pity it had to die, it was great fun.
Thank you for confirming my allegations.
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Enweil continued to fight despite a army that was no stronger than yours, I shall let you know, it's inevitable when all of our cities got smashed repeatedly (when they didn't revolt completely) and our armies were being destroyed on an almost daily basis.
Enweil was one of the first to start negotiating with the inhumans, even I was surprised that only about 5-6 day after the monsters had appeared, they had made a deal with the monsters, siccing them on Riombara and DoA. Of course later there was the alliance with the daimons, and threatening to invade the Light temple of Creasur (probably would have too, if Marta hadn't decided to leave).
To make the argument that what MR/Sint/whatver did was wrong, the entity condemning them must be able to stand on some moral ground. Enweil however, can hardly do so without being hypocritical given their past.
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Enweil was one of the first to start negotiating with the inhumans, even I was surprised that only about 5-6 day after the monsters had appeared, they had made a deal with the monsters, siccing them on Riombara and DoA. Of course later there was the alliance with the daimons, and threatening to invade the Light temple of Creasur (probably would have too, if Marta hadn't decided to leave).
To make the argument that what MR/Sint/whatver did was wrong, the entity condemning them must be able to stand on some moral ground. Enweil however, can hardly do so without being hypocritical given their past.
The deal you speak of did not exist, as Enweil offered to help DoA and Riombara as soon as the monsters arrived. Both realms refused to sign peace with Enweil. While you were amongst the lead people negotiating with the monsters to attack human realms, Enweil's talks with the monsters limited itself to warning them of how untrustworthy you were. Because, you know, it was pretty obvious what you were trying to do. We might have been the first to speak to them, but that was because they spawned, you know, in our frigging lands, and we wanted to ask them what the hell they wanted to understand our enemy is little more while gaining ourselves a bit of time to prep the army you had just backstabbed.
There are no moral grounds lower than Sint and MR. Yourself being at the very lowest of the lowest.
Enweil fought the invaders for 99% of the invasion (the other 1% being when our aid was refused and when we had to refit the army you backstabbed), you just spent the whole invasion fighting *with* them.
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Everyone cut deals with at least one of the invaders except for Heen, who died about two weeks in. Pretending that Enweil was the lone moral beacon amidst a sea of evil backstabbing traitors doesn't convince anyone.
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The deal you speak of did not exist, as Enweil offered to help DoA and Riombara as soon as the monsters arrived.
There may not have been any official whole-realm consensus on such a deal, but I know for a fact that the monsters were told that DoA and Riombara were good targets by someone high up in Enweil (though I don't remember who).
And, knowing that, why in the name of Great Cthulhu should we have agreed to any kind of deal with you? Why should we have trusted anything you said?
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Riombara did not fight long *at all* before surrendering. You were blitzed into submission extremely quickly, and you rejoined the fray when it was just about over. Enweil continued to fight despite a army that was no stronger than yours, I shall let you know, it's inevitable when all of our cities got smashed repeatedly (when they didn't revolt completely) and our armies were being destroyed on an almost daily basis.
Well, what do you want Chenier? There's only so long you can fight before it's over. Personally I think you're being a bit uncharitable. I remember it being a decent amount of time that we fought. We still had about half our realm left once the monsters started focusing more on Enweil, but then MR seceded and basically gutted us. We were still technically at war with the monsters, but we had around 12 nobles and no income to speak of. Armour was literally sitting outside Grehk waiting to step on us every time we tried to make a move. They offered a cease fire, we took it by a vote of the realm. Even then we did what little we could. We took back a few regions that went rogue. Once we'd rebuilt a bit we also went back to war and got the monsters off your back. It looked like we were going to die for it too, but Gerontius showed up at the eleventh hour and built us a Temple of Light.
The only reason Enweil lasted so long was by making their own deal with the devil. Your devil was even worse, actually. The daimons destroyed three entire realms next to the monsters' count of two and blighted half the island single-handedly. I'm sure Riombara could have lasted longer too had we had the help of the nearly omnipotent daimons to back us up.
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Woot, looks like there is in fact some hostility looming under the surface. Now if only this could materialize in-game...which apparently it hasn't for whatever reason. Probably something stupid like "We gotta repair our regions! T_T"
Man, how long has this "conflict" been "looming" anyway? Well, at least it's not like DNF, though even that recently came out.
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Woot, looks like there is in fact some hostility looming under the surface. Now if only this could materialize in-game...which apparently it hasn't for whatever reason. Probably something stupid like "We gotta repair our regions! T_T"
Man, how long has this "conflict" been "looming" anyway? Well, at least it's not like DNF, though even that recently came out.
If you're referring to the current debate, hostility between Enweil and Riombara is not new, nor is it particularly under the surface. I think this thread is actually referring more to what's going on in the north these days.
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It's still just a word war so far. But seeing as how the Blight restricts movement I wouldn't be surprised if neither Enweil nor Riombara ever cross each other again. For that matter, I wouldn't be surprised if Riombara turns into a hermit realm.
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There may not have been any official whole-realm consensus on such a deal, but I know for a fact that the monsters were told that DoA and Riombara were good targets by someone high up in Enweil (though I don't remember who).
Alex Kidd, If I'm not mistaken.
The deal you speak of did not exist,
This Chancellor? I do not know. I know his full title is Supreme Chancellor of Enweil, just like your title of Great Chamberlain of Riombara. I do not care to remember human names.
My Epic will either be impressed with your offering or not. He looked upon favour to Enweil merely due to their bravery to talk to him and also their quickness at responding to his will. Enweil has spoken regarding your people, that you are insidious and evil. You will turn on my Epic when his back is turned and even now you are trying to develop plans to thwart the will of my Epic. You know I cannot allow these things to reach my Epic's ears or your people will not exist for much longer. I cannot verify these matters, but it certainly seems that you are wasting time and trying to go against the will of my Epic and it seems Enweil speaks somewhat truthfully about your habits.
Enweil has stated that the people of the south are evil and sly, and deserve to be punished. I have not seen proof of this, but it does seem that Enweil is willing to live up to its promises regarding the regions it is giving to us.
Do you suppose Enweil may betray us? Indeed, that thought has come to me. But I will let you into some of my thoughts. Think, if they do betray us what will they gain? Right now they have traded 2 not so important regions and juicy information for a period of peace with my Epic. - Wisdom
I'm used to calling something like this a deal.
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Alex Kidd, If I'm not mistaken.
This Chancellor? I do not know. I know his full title is Supreme Chancellor of Enweil, just like your title of Great Chamberlain of Riombara. I do not care to remember human names.
My Epic will either be impressed with your offering or not. He looked upon favour to Enweil merely due to their bravery to talk to him and also their quickness at responding to his will. Enweil has spoken regarding your people, that you are insidious and evil. You will turn on my Epic when his back is turned and even now you are trying to develop plans to thwart the will of my Epic. You know I cannot allow these things to reach my Epic's ears or your people will not exist for much longer. I cannot verify these matters, but it certainly seems that you are wasting time and trying to go against the will of my Epic and it seems Enweil speaks somewhat truthfully about your habits.
Enweil has stated that the people of the south are evil and sly, and deserve to be punished. I have not seen proof of this, but it does seem that Enweil is willing to live up to its promises regarding the regions it is giving to us.
Do you suppose Enweil may betray us? Indeed, that thought has come to me. But I will let you into some of my thoughts. Think, if they do betray us what will they gain? Right now they have traded 2 not so important regions and juicy information for a period of peace with my Epic. - Wisdom
I'm used to calling something like this a deal.
A deal implies both parties get something they want. We didn't go to them saying "Hey, here, take these two regions as a sign of our love for you!". They demanded them. It was either that, or have all-out war right-away, while Riombara and Dominion of Alluran were not only refusing peace, but actively trying to ally the monsters against us. Unlike the undead who started weak, we could not have opposed them there and then, because if you'll recall, your armies had just backstabbed the Enweilian army that was recalled after the invasion was announced.
I'm not saying Enweil is pure, it had to make some concessions. Thalmarkin, imo, is the realm only realms that survived that is irreproachable. However, Enweil was a lot more moral than the realms of the South-East, who showed no desire in uniting against the invaders, but rather did everything they could to get Enweil to fall. The letter you shares confirm that Riombarans were making deals with Wisdom. Enweil's only actions with the monsters that weren't fighting them were done in order to force the south-east to also fight, as while Enweil was ready to fight the South-East clearly did not want to and wanted us to fight and die alone, against armies of both monsters and men.
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...while Riombara and Dominion of Alluran were not only refusing peace, but actively trying to ally the monsters against us.
We were not. There may have been some in our government attempting to get them on our side, but Delvin would not have accepted any alliance with the Monsters against Enweil, and would have employed all his considerable political capital and rhetorical skill in attempting to prevent it. Nor was he alone in this sentiment.
If it had come to a showdown, it probably would have ended with an earlier Meridian Republic secession than ended up happening, but Riombara would not have allied with the Monsters against humans.
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We were not. There may have been some in our government attempting to get them on our side, but Delvin would not have accepted any alliance with the Monsters against Enweil, and would have employed all his considerable political capital and rhetorical skill in attempting to prevent it. Nor was he alone in this sentiment.
If it had come to a showdown, it probably would have ended with an earlier Meridian Republic secession than ended up happening, but Riombara would not have allied with the Monsters against humans.
Alone, you are not Riombara. As you said, some of your government was attempting it. Had things played out differently, such as if he would have managed to have you removed somehow, it is quite likely that Riombara as a realm would have chosen this path. Pro-monsters and non-pro-monsters were to Riombara what monarchists and republicans were to RoF: conflicting opinions, but still the same people. Riombara and Meridian Republic were two sides of the same coin. Further, no matter your official policies, Lefanis was able to obtain some favors and concessions from the monsters that benefited Riombara, both before and after the secession. You opposed it, you prevented the realm from going fully with the monsters, but you failed to completely prevent it too.
You also weren't making any efforts to have peace with Enweil either. You were refusing Enweil's peace and military offers. So while you didn't want to look bad by siding with the monsters against Enweil, you also had no intent to help. In a way, you engineered a quicker fall for Rio so that it may have an excuse not to fight when Enweil needed it. Enweil didn't like Riombara, we did want you to die, but we also knew that our best odds against the monsters were if everyone fought them at the same time, to attack from all fronts in order to reclaim monster lands as soon as they were taken, so we put our lust for vengeance on hold and offered cooperation, which was rejected all along the SE's fight.
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hmm? the monsters went down south partly as a result of enweil nudging them there, no?
it's not so much pro-monster as anti-daimon. and we all know about daimon and enweil. that's not talking about the last invasion, but the time in between invasions.
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hmm? the monsters went down south partly as a result of enweil nudging them there, no?
it's not so much pro-monster as anti-daimon. and we all know about daimon and enweil. that's not talking about the last invasion, but the time in between invasions.
Yes, as in "You know, not only Enweil has rurals", because if they weren't nudged to the SE, the SE never would have fought them, as their governments were paralyzed by the anti-enweil and pro-monster factions. The goal was to force them to fight alongside Enweil. Their arrogance was too great for even that.
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Yes, because nothing says 'You can trust us to work together' to the anti-Enweil factions more then sending hordes of Monsters to their lands ;) And then you went and had a party with the Daimons anyway!
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as i said. it's more like anti-daimon rather than pro-monster. there might well be some people who were pro-monster, but it doesn't make anyone who fights daimons pro-monster.
given a choice of fighting daimons and monsters, i'll fight daimons, thanks.
of course.. daimons = enweil. so no brainer.
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Yes, as it turned out there were people in Riombara dealing with the monsters behind our backs. That doesn't mean it was official policy. Far from it. The point is, you accuse with one hand while excusing your own largely equivalent actions with the other. I'm sure Lefanis did try to get the monsters to go after Enweil. Well, as we've seen and you've admitted you had tried to get the monsters to go after us even before that. How can you really complain about us not trusting you... ?
Riombara stayed pure if you ask me. That's why there was a secession in the first place. All the hard-line anti-invader people stayed in Riombara while the collaborators went with the Meridian Republic. It's not like there was a tacit understanding about it either. Evander and Delvin were both enraged by what happened. If Telrunya hadn't out of the blue offered to return his duchy to Riombara and step down, bringing D'Este with him, it's very likely that we would have allied with Enweil to go after the Meridian Republic after the invasion. Most of the people who were behind the secession did not return to Riombara. Telrunya and D'Este were given amnesty because of their voluntary actions in returning their duchies, plus Telrunya stepped down. Celyn Haethorne was already gone. Hylor Hobbs was only permitted to return because he was deleting his character and wanted to do an RP about it. Vellos had already sacrificed himself at the Temple of Light. Lefanis was not permitted to return under any circumstances. Athins was gone. The only one I can think of whom we allowed to return was Nigel de la Fere, and Evander pushed to ban him. Thought about trying to get Yuri Ishimu banned too for taking Avengmil over to MR shortly after the original secession.
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well.. as i said, it's not pro-monster but anti-daimon. i did try to see if it wasn't possible for ardmore to join mr and possibly avoid getting looted to crap (and allow its food to head to grehk) wishful thinking probably.
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Yes, as it turned out there were people in Riombara dealing with the monsters behind our backs. That doesn't mean it was official policy. Far from it. The point is, you accuse with one hand while excusing your own largely equivalent actions with the other. I'm sure Lefanis did try to get the monsters to go after Enweil. Well, as we've seen and you've admitted you had tried to get the monsters to go after us even before that. How can you really complain about us not trusting you... ?
Riombara stayed pure if you ask me. That's why there was a secession in the first place. All the hard-line anti-invader people stayed in Riombara while the collaborators went with the Meridian Republic. It's not like there was a tacit understanding about it either. Evander and Delvin were both enraged by what happened. If Telrunya hadn't out of the blue offered to return his duchy to Riombara and step down, bringing D'Este with him, it's very likely that we would have allied with Enweil to go after the Meridian Republic after the invasion. Most of the people who were behind the secession did not return to Riombara. Telrunya and D'Este were given amnesty because of their voluntary actions in returning their duchies, plus Telrunya stepped down. Celyn Haethorne was already gone. Hylor Hobbs was only permitted to return because he was deleting his character and wanted to do an RP about it. Vellos had already sacrificed himself at the Temple of Light. Lefanis was not permitted to return under any circumstances. Athins was gone. The only one I can think of whom we allowed to return was Nigel de la Fere, and Evander pushed to ban him. Thought about trying to get Yuri Ishimu banned too for taking Avengmil over to MR shortly after the original secession.
A third of Riombara's current lords served in Meridian Republic. Three of them were actually lords in Meridian Republic. Meridian Republic and Riombara are the same people. If Riombara wanted to dissociate itself from Meridian Republic, it would have given Fwuvoghor back to Enweil and not given any position of power to those who served MR, if not outright ban them. I actually kept a list of all the MR nobles, because I correctly predicted they would just merge back into Riombara as if nothing happened once the monsters left.
as i said. it's more like anti-daimon rather than pro-monster. there might well be some people who were pro-monster, but it doesn't make anyone who fights daimons pro-monster.
given a choice of fighting daimons and monsters, i'll fight daimons, thanks.
of course.. daimons = enweil. so no brainer.
No, daimons fought the monsters to defend humans, while monsters defended no humans against anyone. Therefore, daimons > monsters. There was a reason Enweil allied it in the first place.
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well.. as i said, it's not pro-monster but anti-daimon.
They weren't anti-daimon, they were anti-Enweil. The daimons were just a coverup for feeding thousands of their peasants to the monsters to have them kill Avalon and attack Enweil.
Telrunya and D'Este were given amnesty because of their voluntary actions in returning their duchies, plus Telrunya stepped down.
Indeed, how convenient. As if I hadn't seen that coming as soon as the secession took place. If Riombara was pure, it would have refused them amnesty, and preferred to ask for Enweil's help rather than take them in as if nothing was to then proceed to steal Fwuvoghor. But killing human realms is no big deal when it's done by one of our own, right?
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A third of Riombara's current lords served in Meridian Republic. Three of them were actually lords in Meridian Republic. Meridian Republic and Riombara are the same people. If Riombara wanted to dissociate itself from Meridian Republic, it would have given Fwuvoghor back to Enweil and not given any position of power to those who served MR, if not outright ban them. I actually kept a list of all the MR nobles, because I correctly predicted they would just merge back into Riombara as if nothing happened once the monsters left.
No, daimons fought the monsters to defend humans, while monsters defended no humans against anyone. Therefore, daimons > monsters. There was a reason Enweil allied it in the first place.
Why on earth would we give Fwuvoghor back to you? As far as we were concerned we had a right to it in the first place, MR or no MR.
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They weren't anti-daimon, they were anti-Enweil. The daimons were just a coverup for feeding thousands of their peasants to the monsters to have them kill Avalon and attack Enweil.
Indeed, how convenient. As if I hadn't seen that coming as soon as the secession took place. If Riombara was pure, it would have refused them amnesty, and preferred to ask for Enweil's help rather than take them in as if nothing was to then proceed to steal Fwuvoghor. But killing human realms is no big deal when it's done by one of our own, right?
This makes you sound paranoid. You've been informed by people who have no reason to lie that there was no coordination, IC or OOC, between Riombara and MR. Maybe some of those who went to MR planned to rejoin Riombara all along, but if that's true we certainly didn't know about it in advance. From what I heard at the time, Mordred alienated a lot of people towards the end. I have always assumed that that is why Telrunya decided to quit MR and rejoin Riombara. Maybe if he cares to, he'll shed some light on that subject himself.
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This makes you sound paranoid. You've been informed by people who have no reason to lie that there was no coordination, IC or OOC, between Riombara and MR. Maybe some of those who went to MR planned to rejoin Riombara all along, but if that's true we certainly didn't know about it in advance. From what I heard at the time, Mordred alienated a lot of people towards the end. I have always assumed that that is why Telrunya decided to quit MR and rejoin Riombara. Maybe if he cares to, he'll shed some light on that subject himself.
It didn't need to be planned. It was obvious. How many realms created thanks to the invaders survive very long past invasions? None. It was therefore quite predictable that, in order to not be totally ruined, the opportunists would rather surrender to Riombara than die alone. It was also quite predictable that Riombara would then prefer to take back these nobles, to be in a stronger state to eventually fight Enweil again (because that's all Riombara seems to know how to do), then to do what is morally right and side with Enweil against the realm that used invaders to kill a human realm and attempt to kill others during the invasion, as that would have left them much weaker than they are now. That is Riombara. You are quite forgiving to your own when it comes to scandalous anti-Enweil actions. It's like when your judge executed an enweilian royal infil, despite an prisonner agreement saying she would be deported. Did Riombara actually punish the judge? No. The nobles cheered him, and he left for an allied realm on his own. His crimes, like MR's, went unpunished because they were aimed against Enweil, which many Riombarans have made it their holy quest to destroy.
These are the double-standards of Riombara. They scorn Enweil for having accepted the aid of an invader faction that demanded nothing in return, in order to survive, while they accept with open arms and give positions of power to people that fed thousands of peasants to invaders in order to allow them to destroy a human realm and with the hopes of destroying even more.
Coordination was not necessary, as you couldn't have planned it any better than what happened. Support was tacit. As for Mordred, that's just who he is. It is beyond me how people still don't get this into their heads. All he wanted was to form his oligarchic RoF back, he made it rather painfully obvious even before the secession occurred, and that he would eventually become ruler was obvious since day one.
Why on earth would we give Fwuvoghor back to you? As far as we were concerned we had a right to it in the first place, MR or no MR.
Because the only reason Enweil lost it was because of invaders. Some people complain that Fronen grew, but even *they* did not stoop that low, and basically only grew due to lords switching allegiance to them (+ the TO of Dyomoque, which nobody seemed to mind, Bara'Khur included). In fact, that's likely one of the reasons you were so eager to have MR nobles join back, so that you may take the city before Enweil mustered the force to reclaim it.
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They weren't anti-daimon, they were anti-Enweil. The daimons were just a coverup for feeding thousands of their peasants to the monsters to have them kill Avalon and attack Enweil.
Indeed, how convenient. As if I hadn't seen that coming as soon as the secession took place. If Riombara was pure, it would have refused them amnesty, and preferred to ask for Enweil's help rather than take them in as if nothing was to then proceed to steal Fwuvoghor. But killing human realms is no big deal when it's done by one of our own, right?
how kind of you to play my characters for me. if i say my characters are anti-daimon, then they are anti-daimon. the fact that they are anti-enweil as well is neither here nor there and in either case they weren't pro-monster.
daimons fought monster to help humans? tell that to all the humans killed from Fwu all the way to athol margos and that was before the last invasion. let's see.. daimons, enweil, blood cult, etc, did that. my character happened to be the lord of ajitmon when that happened. thus, anti-enweil stems from anti-daimon
Fwuvoghor has nothing to do with anything, it belonged to riombara well before the last invasion.
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I have always assumed that that is why Telrunya decided to quit MR and rejoin Riombara. Maybe if he cares to, he'll shed some light on that subject himself.
Mordred had quite quickly become a nuisance in MR and a few of us had made plans to work him out. Khaludh had learned about his RoF ideas as well. Sadly things had changed quite a bit, with some by the time we had a chance to do so and it was too late by then (Next to that, Khaludh was a bad Ruler). Mordred became Ruler and Khaludh retreated to Rines. He spend his days fortifying Rines to ensure it would be a proper Stronghold against any MR forces, figuring Riombara wouldn't have a lot of forces to defend his City (or if he needed to secede should Riombara have been destroyed). Except for the Oaths of Knights, not one gold produced by Rines went to MR (Something nobody seemed to notice for some reason) during that time. Once the Invasion came to his end, he and D'Este contacted Riombara to return. Khaludh didn't want his Dukeship any more, so that particular demand was quickly agreed upon. He served Riombara for a while as a repayment of his debts (Not that he had a lot of regret of his actions, except for thinking they could work out Mordred later). He was allowed to lead an Army as Marshal against MR. He wanted the deformed remains of his actions gone and wiped off the map.
And you can say what you want, but it's not like Enweil has such a good reputation in Riombara. The return of those lands allowed Riombara to recover quickly without needing to fully rely on an 'Ally' that they thought would certainly worry about their own lands and spoils first before worrying about poor Riombara's regions. It's not like Riombara had a lot of options.
Though, all in all, Riombara shouldn't have elected a Noble who was in their Realm for a month without having done anything out of the ordinary to prove his loyalty as Duke of Rines.
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No, daimons fought the monsters to defend humans, while monsters defended no humans against anyone. Therefore, daimons > monsters. There was a reason Enweil allied it in the first place.
So you fell for their propaganda. Gotcha. The Undead gave similar propaganda. That didn't make any of it true.
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So you fell for their propaganda. Gotcha. The Undead gave similar propaganda. That didn't make any of it true.
Someone give this man a cookie. Stat!
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It seems like this thread got taken over by a rehash of the invasion rather than talking about current events on Beluaterra. Can't that go to its own thread?
From my perspective, it looks like Thalmarkin and Nothoi would be the most able to take on new lands. They have the most favorable noble to region ratios. So, I would expect them to be looking for a fight. From the military build up by Nothoi, I guess they've sorted out their monster and undead problems. Fronen will probably regret not giving them the nudge it would have taken to make them collapse a few months ago.
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Yeah, we managed to sort our monster problem, a few still shows but now it´s controlable.
Fronen wanted to make us a puppet realm for their will and didn´t showed us respect, now we´ll see...
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It seems like this thread got taken over by a rehash of the invasion rather than talking about current events on Beluaterra. Can't that go to its own thread?
From my perspective, it looks like Thalmarkin and Nothoi would be the most able to take on new lands. They have the most favorable noble to region ratios. So, I would expect them to be looking for a fight. From the military build up by Nothoi, I guess they've sorted out their monster and undead problems. Fronen will probably regret not giving them the nudge it would have taken to make them collapse a few months ago.
Fronen's policy has been nothing short of schizophrenic for months now. Bara'khur's collapse really screwed us over. Fronen's ruler has very lofty aspirations, but is a terrible politician. So far as I can tell, she has successfully alienated every one of our neighbors except for Enweil. And, she has no idea what's coming.
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To be honest, Fronen´s ruler started nicelly but became really arrogant with time, and even wanted to interfere in Nothoi´s internal politics complaining about our alliance with OG.
Arrogance was beeing Fronen biggest problem.
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Fronen complaining about Nothoi's alliance to Old Grehk isn't exactly "internal politics". That' international diplomacy. Who you elect as your judge, or appoint as a region lord is internal politics.
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To be honest, Fronen´s ruler started nicelly but became really arrogant with time, and even wanted to interfere in Nothoi´s internal politics complaining about our alliance with OG.
Arrogance was beeing Fronen biggest problem.
I would agree that that is the heart of our problem. As I said, she has very lofty aspirations but is a terrible politician. Her arrogance is going to cost us.
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Fronen complaining about Nothoi's alliance to Old Grehk isn't exactly "internal politics". That' international diplomacy. Who you elect as your judge, or appoint as a region lord is internal politics.
thank you for the correction.
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Sorry, I wasn't trying to comment on the right or wrong of the situation. Just that the terminology is a bit off.
I often hear various people complain about other realms meddling in their internal politics. But they don't really mean internal politics. If you're allied to my enemy, then that directly affects me. So I should be concerned about it, and try to get you to change. But who you select as the lord of a townsland, or as your general, is really none of my business.
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I would agree that that is the heart of our problem. As I said, she has very lofty aspirations but is a terrible politician. Her arrogance is going to cost us.
She doesn't even listen what my character tells her.. and my char is a general. She is way too focused on her ambitious little plans :P
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So you fell for their propaganda. Gotcha. The Undead gave similar propaganda. That didn't make any of it true.
Uh, no, fact? What realms did the monsters protect from the attacks of the daimons? The monster presence in the west was so marginal its meaningless. Undead neither fought monsters nor undead.
Did the daimons want to wipe out everyone? Sure. That doesn't change the fact that they were also the only ones to help some humans survive against the other invaders, which is more than can be said for the other invaders.
The alliance with the daimons was not an ideological one, it was a strategical one. If the daimons had gained a considerable advantage over the monsters and shown signs of being able to single-handedly defeat both other invading factions, we would have turned on them then. The goal was to make invaders fight invaders as much as possible, and for this we did succeed to make the daimons fight human realms less than they otherwise would have.
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Baah! Someone declare war already! Maybe I'll unpause my character there and continue playing.
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It seems like this thread got taken over by a rehash of the invasion rather than talking about current events on Beluaterra. Can't that go to its own thread?
+100
Baah! Someone declare war already! Maybe I'll unpause my character there and continue playing.
+100
Sounds like a typical BM situation - a handful of people chatting in councils and ruler channels and telling everyone "we can't always be at war" while most players on the island sit on their thumbs and wait.
Players concerned about player retention should think about this issue as well.
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Sounds like a typical BM situation - a handful of people chatting in councils and ruler channels and telling everyone "we can't always be at war" while most players on the island sit on their thumbs and wait.
Players concerned about player retention should think about this issue as well.
That is about as far from what is actually happening as it could be. Before you make sweeping negative generalizations, maybe you should acquaint yourself better with the facts.
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That is about as far from what is actually happening as it could be. Before you make sweeping negative generalizations, maybe you should acquaint yourself better with the facts.
That's why I've been following this meaningless, meandering thread for nearly 2 months - to acquaint myself with "the facts".
The facts as near as I can tell is for at least two months there's been nothing but chatter about "the conflict looming " from a small group of people in the know. Do you have more info you'd like to share with us, so we can decide if it would be fun to play there or not?
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No one is sharing much detail on this thread, so it's less than illuminating. There is a coalition forming in the north to attack Fronen. It's taken longer than I was expecting, but it's not because the people in power don't want war. You'd have to ask them about exactly what's taking so long, but things should come to a head very soon. Nothoi's army is massing on our borders, which I doubt they would do if things weren't going to explode shortly.
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That's great to hear - I have always thought BT is the island with the most potential, but I've been waiting for ages for something to happen there. I have a char who's not so excited with his current war and may be looking around.
Sharing more details would be welcome by all, I think.
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As to the player retention - which should go in another thread, I know - you really can't expect those new players who make it past the first 24 hours to sit around for 2-3 months being told "war is coming soon" and not quit the game, unless you have a very active RP realm. I have always felt this "BM is a slow paced game" is taken to too much of an extreme by many players, and hurts the game. Folks need to think about that when discussing the player retention issue.
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There's plenty "looming", including a bunch of !@#$%^&s who decided to play Son of Thulsoma in Thalmarkin. That's also the reason why no details have been shared. Since no fewer than /three/ people have contacted me on IRC knowing things they wouldn't possibly know IC, there's been no incentive to share.
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There's plenty "looming", including a bunch of !@#$%^&s who decided to play Son of Thulsoma in Thalmarkin. That's also the reason why no details have been shared. Since no fewer than /three/ people have contacted me on IRC knowing things they wouldn't possibly know IC, there's been no incentive to share.
Are you serious? Son of Thulsoma? wow how many of those annoying people are bugging you? lol
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There's plenty "looming", including a bunch of !@#$%^&s who decided to play Son of Thulsoma in Thalmarkin. That's also the reason why no details have been shared. Since no fewer than /three/ people have contacted me on IRC knowing things they wouldn't possibly know IC, there's been no incentive to share.
Well, that would explain why they suddenly have almost 40 characters...
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That's great to hear - I have always thought BT is the island with the most potential, but I've been waiting for ages for something to happen there. I have a char who's not so excited with his current war and may be looking around.
Sharing more details would be welcome by all, I think.
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As to the player retention - which should go in another thread, I know - you really can't expect those new players who make it past the first 24 hours to sit around for 2-3 months being told "war is coming soon" and not quit the game, unless you have a very active RP realm. I have always felt this "BM is a slow paced game" is taken to too much of an extreme by many players, and hurts the game. Folks need to think about that when discussing the player retention issue.
The problem is that you joined right after an invasion. This is BT's cooldown time, the only time where it isn't at war. There is extensive damage some realms must repair, and it'd be extremely bad PR for other realms to attack them. The conflict has been looming for a while, but I personally never said "soon". But Nothoi just made a declaration against Fronen. and things usually escalate pretty quickly once they start.
Don't worry, there's enough of old grudges to go on for years.
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The problem is that you joined right after an invasion. This is BT's cooldown time, the only time where it isn't at war. There is extensive damage some realms must repair, and it'd be extremely bad PR for other realms to attack them. The conflict has been looming for a while, but I personally never said "soon". But Nothoi just made a declaration against Fronen. and things usually escalate pretty quickly once they start.
Don't worry, there's enough of old grudges to go on for years.
Yes. And new players will not be very concerned with all of this background information.
I only have an advy there - I don't care. New players will quit. Old players need to stop having "cooling down periods" and "region rebuilding periods" and think about making the game fun, if they want new players to stick around.
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Well, it's kinda hard to fight a war with having a half destroyed realm, although i agree the war could have started a few weeks earlier...
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Yes. And new players will not be very concerned with all of this background information.
I only have an advy there - I don't care. New players will quit. Old players need to stop having "cooling down periods" and "region rebuilding periods" and think about making the game fun, if they want new players to stick around.
You said before mockingly, but it is true: you can't be at war all the time. After the invasion most realms were literally incapable of waging war. Many regions were rogue, and many that were still under control were devastated. And then of course, there were some truly nasty hordes of undead and monsters pouring out of the blight and completely swamping realms like Nothoi and Enweil. You can't even think about war when you have 10k CS of undead pouring into your border regions on a daily basis. That's what most of BT has been dealing with for the past couple months. Now that rogue regions are reclaimed and the undead spawns have tapered off to a large extent, people can and are going to war. I think a lot of the delay has just been for the diplomatic maneuvering necessary to stack the odds against Fronen.
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Yes. And new players will not be very concerned with all of this background information.
I only have an advy there - I don't care. New players will quit. Old players need to stop having "cooling down periods" and "region rebuilding periods" and think about making the game fun, if they want new players to stick around.
Blame the game, not the players.
What you are saying would be along the lines of telling a runner "So what if you broke your leg, your sponsors will not stick around if you quit so go and run the marathon anyways!"
If realms did not *need* that much time to rebuild, then they would *not* spend that much time. This ain't the East Continent we are talking about.
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Yes. And new players will not be very concerned with all of this background information.
I only have an advy there - I don't care. New players will quit. Old players need to stop having "cooling down periods" and "region rebuilding periods" and think about making the game fun, if they want new players to stick around.
You must move a character to BT. So by the time a player moves to BT, he usually already has a decent amount of time in the game, and is no longer "new".
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You must move a character to BT. So by the time a player moves to BT, he usually already has a decent amount of time in the game, and is no longer "new".
Plus, emigration is pretty scare to newbies, unless re-assured by an experienced player many will not dare make the trip.
There are very few "new" people on BT, ever, and those who do make it are almost always tutored by someone or in a group anyways.
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BT is simply an example where this problem is an extreme - I'm talking about the game as a whole.
And yes, you can be at a state of declared war ALL of the time, where and troopers from opposing parties who happen upon one another fight. War doesn't have to mean "everyone glom their troops into 10k cs groups and march together"
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BT is simply an example where this problem is an extreme - I'm talking about the game as a whole.
And yes, you can be at a state of declared war ALL of the time, where and troopers from opposing parties who happen upon one another fight. War doesn't have to mean "everyone glom their troops into 10k cs groups and march together"
This makes me wonder if you play in Melhed by any chance? :p
Anyway, BT is just a little different as we often have to fight large invader forces together, trying to keep humanity as a whole alive. This is now true in a lesser extent as before though. Nowadays we've got realms siding with invader-forces left and right, but if you declare on BT that you truly want to the invaders to win in the end, you're sure to be shunned by most - probably all - realms.
My point being that while there are always conflicts looming on BT, there always remains the knowledge that one day you'll have to work together with your enemy if you are to survive. Everybody has experienced the death and destruction of the invasion and it is considered improper to attack a realm while it is still recovering. Thalmarkin for example had a total of 4 downsized RCs, level 1 walls in the capital and about 10,000 peasants left by the end of the invasion. There's no doubt that Fronen or Melhed could have attacked us (Melhed often had a bigger army than our own in our lands to help us against the hordes) yet they didn't for that reason.
It is also the reason that it has taken this long for war to break out again. But I assure you that it will be constant fighting from her on until the next invasion. I've never known it different, and I've lived through all invasions. Never in a realm that died and never in a realm that allied with the invaders I might add. I hope I didn't jinx it now... :p
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BT is simply an example where this problem is an extreme - I'm talking about the game as a whole.
And the fact remains, Jeff, that you are saying, "You must change human nature, or the game will die."
That is, at best, deeply unhelpful.
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And the fact remains, Jeff, that you are saying, "You must change human nature, or the game will die."
That is, at best, deeply unhelpful.
Not in the least.
I'm saying you can wage small-scale war while rebuilding your regions, instead of being 100% one thing for months and months, then switching the other way 100%.
Nor did I say "do this or the game will die". I am pointing out another part of this game I think is very unattractive to newer players and saying I think you should consider this when discussing your "player retention" campaign.
Putting hyperbolic words into my mouth that I never said or hinted at is also deeply unhelpful, Timothy.
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I think once people understand exactly how powerful diplomats can be, the rebuilding period will dramatically diminish. The most difficult part of stabilizing a region is getting it to the point where the Lord can hold court. Used to take weeks, sometimes months if you were unlucky. Now? Week, tops, so long as you have a good diplomat. And the Priest/Diplomat synergy is such that you'll have plenty of good diplomats running around, so I personally see rebuilding periods dropping to a month at most, and aggressive realms could probably manage in two weeks even with multiple regions with terrible stats.
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I'm saying you can wage small-scale war while rebuilding your regions, instead of being 100% one thing for months and months, then switching the other way 100%.
The thing that took the most time was trying to rebuild infrastructure. You can have a sufficient amount of RCs ready in say 2 weeks, but most of them won't be worth the ground they're standing on.
It has taken months and thousands upon thousands of gold to get some decent RCs ready where the recruits have learned to use steel swords and chain mail in stead of wooden sticks and rags. You also need your regions to recover up to 75% of their population unless you want drafting to be the only source of recruits. And in between you need to rebuild the entire army that was destroyed during the invasion.
That means a period of peace and rebuilding on BT but on other continents, destruction is a good tactic that doesn't stop all conflicts as it isn't so widespread as on BT.
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I'm saying you can wage small-scale war while rebuilding your regions, instead of being 100% one thing for months and months, then switching the other way 100%.
That's actually very rarely true. Especially on BT. I don't know how much experience you have with it, but it's a very all-or-nothing place.
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Not in the least.
I'm saying you can wage small-scale war while rebuilding your regions, instead of being 100% one thing for months and months, then switching the other way 100%.
Nor did I say "do this or the game will die". I am pointing out another part of this game I think is very unattractive to newer players and saying I think you should consider this when discussing your "player retention" campaign.
Putting hyperbolic words into my mouth that I never said or hinted at is also deeply unhelpful, Timothy.
Conflict escalates, and always very quickly. There is no such thing as "small-scale war while rebuilding your regions", as both parties always want to win these conflicts, and will dedicate more and more of their resources to the fight, mutually forcing each other to quickly use full force. Because, after all, if you let troops pass by, then they will destroy your reconstruction efforts.
And you clearly haven't seen the undead spawns of the South. The North didn't get those. We needed our full military strength just to deal with these.
As for rebuilding, if you only take half the forces you otherwise would have, it takes you about 4 times the time to fix the region, if not more.
I too wonder why you joined the realm who hasn't been in a war since 2005 if battle is what you seek, though.
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Conflict escalates, and always very quickly. There is no such thing as "small-scale war while rebuilding your regions", as both parties always want to win these conflicts, and will dedicate more and more of their resources to the fight, mutually forcing each other to quickly use full force.
Some of this is also a Beluaterran ethos wherein the destruction of a realm is not as big a deal. Beluaterran realms come and go. Very rarely are Beluaterran wars fought for limited objectives. It's all about weakening the enemy to the point that an Invasion will destroy them.
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Some of this is also a Beluaterran ethos wherein the destruction of a realm is not as big a deal. Beluaterran realms come and go. Very rarely are Beluaterran wars fought for limited objectives. It's all about weakening the enemy to the point that an Invasion will destroy them.
Partially. But let's not forget that estates mean wars of conquest are just no longer even an option anyways.
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I too wonder why you joined the realm who hasn't been in a war since 2005 if battle is what you seek, though.
Probably because, as I said, I didn't join Melhed as a noble. I have an advy is all.
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The thing that took the most time was trying to rebuild infrastructure. You can have a sufficient amount of RCs ready in say 2 weeks, but most of them won't be worth the ground they're standing on.
It has taken months and thousands upon thousands of gold to get some decent RCs ready where the recruits have learned to use steel swords and chain mail in stead of wooden sticks and rags. You also need your regions to recover up to 75% of their population unless you want drafting to be the only source of recruits. And in between you need to rebuild the entire army that was destroyed during the invasion.
That means a period of peace and rebuilding on BT but on other continents, destruction is a good tactic that doesn't stop all conflicts as it isn't so widespread as on BT.
I think this is a part of the BM myth - that you must have everything at top level all the time.
Regions don't have to be at core or 100% in all three categories. You can fight a war with crappy troops in small numbers (as long as the other guy has the same issue).
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My point is that new players are not going to be attracted to a game where there is very little realm-wide communication (as attested to by psymann and others) and where any time a large war ends, the players in charge shut everything down for 3-6 months so they can rebuild.
I think if you are really worried about player retention you should also look at that problem, and be a bit open-minded about finding other ways to deal with the in-between war periods that will ensure the game is fun for those new players who join during times of peace. This problem goes beyond BT.
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I think this is a part of the BM myth - that you must have everything at top level all the time.
Regions don't have to be at core or 100% in all three categories.
No, you don't need max stats. You do need good enough stats that things won't spiral if you leave them alone, which in my experience means you need them at least in the seventies and at main, and even that will collapse quickly if looted whereas a region in the nineties and core will take a lot longer to fall apart even with looting. As I said earlier though, I think the advent of diplomats (especially once the new estates get going) will make rebuilding periods much, much shorter.
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No, you don't need max stats. You do need good enough stats that things won't spiral if you leave them alone, which in my experience means you need them at least in the seventies and at main, and even that will collapse quickly if looted whereas a region in the nineties and core will take a lot longer to fall apart even with looting. As I said earlier though, I think the advent of diplomats (especially once the new estates get going) will make rebuilding periods much, much shorter.
They help somewhat, depending on your size, number of them, and problems you are facing. They will help you get a region under control, but they won't help you get any decent production on them.
Also, yes, you do basically need near-optimal stats. Why? Because the devastation levels are varying, and if you declare war with sub-optimal stats you may very well get a realm at 100% stats come down and crush you like a bug. Most of the old rivals came out of the invasion with radically different strength levels.