Observation about new TO system in Dwilight

[Ross]

I'm sharing observation of a realm mate (with no forum account,bugged or something) as the topic says.


This is the difference I have seen between the old and the new systems:

Under the old system, rogue regions slowly fell down to a small number of people, the final spot was 1, although as quickly as regions would grow by 20s and 30s each day after a takeover, it was assumed that most people were in hiding and it just took them a while to come out into the light of day.
You could send in the army and start a friendly takeover.
If there was starvation in the region, you might have a few men get sick, but your healers could easily deal with that.
If doing a friendly takeover, you could perform civil work and fix the region up to whatever the local population could handle.
And when the region came over, it would be at a high morale, high love of new country, high control, and whatever the highest production it could maintain.
It was then easy to keep the region under control by doing police work until a new lord was decided on.  Even in a nation where elections were required, it wasn't difficult at all.

Under the new system, things are different.
When you send in the army to start a friendly takeover, the army starts to starve.  When the new starvation code started, it was 90 percent of your troops instantly wounded.  I saw a 20k army turn into a 2k army in one turn change.  With the new provisions, you get a day of grace before HALF of them start dropping, but when half of your men are dropping to starvation each day, your healers can't keep up.

If we do a friendly takeover, we are doing civil work and stuff to make them like us.  This all seems to be fluff though.
When the region finally likes us enough to come over to the new nation of their own accord, after having civil work done, we see the following situation:
no production
no morale
they hate us
low control
It's like all the work we did to friendly takeover the region is not used at all to show how they feel about us afterwards.
And we've lost three quarters of the army taking the region so getting it under control is a very daunting task.  And even if we get food into the region IMMEDIATELY, it will be another week before people stop starving, including our own soldiers that will be dropping into wounded status at about half the group each day.  I've seen a region totally rebel, not simply kick out the lord, but rebel from the realm two turns after the takeover, even with what was left of the army doing control work.

Right now, I'm seeing a system designed to make takeovers of rogue regions very slow and very costly to the army doing it.  Not impossible.  Just very slow and very hard.  And by takeover, I don't mean just the act of bringing the region over, but then the next WEEK of holding it together until starvation comes to an end, of building a region up from no production, no morale, no love, and low control with an army that has largely starved to death while doing the takeover.

Is there any other way to deal with this ?

Medron Pryde

[Tom]

Well, you are talking about taking a devastated region. That's not the only way to do it, but most of what you observe is fairly intentional and is intended to discourage the "loot to rogue and then TO" approach.

Simply put: Don't do that. TO it directly.

There is one part there that is not intentional and one where most players probably haven't figured it out yet.

Not intentional is that all your friendly TO actions have no effect. In the long term, we will transition from the current "control" and "morale" system to fear and sympathy, just like TOs do, which means they will carry over. But we aren't there yet.

Not figured out is provisions. If you think you have a day of grace, you're doing it wrong. With 100% provisions, you should have 5 days before starvation sets in.

[Gustav Kuriga]

Well, you are talking about taking a devastated region. That's not the only way to do it, but most of what you observe is fairly intentional and is intended to discourage the "loot to rogue and then TO" approach.

Simply put: Don't do that. TO it directly.

There is one part there that is not intentional and one where most players probably haven't figured it out yet.

Not intentional is that all your friendly TO actions have no effect. In the long term, we will transition from the current "control" and "morale" system to fear and sympathy, just like TOs do, which means they will carry over. But we aren't there yet.

Not figured out is provisions. If you think you have a day of grace, you're doing it wrong. With 100% provisions, you should have 5 days before starvation sets in.

Problem here. The devastated region in question never suffered an enemy attack. The region starved to revolting, plain and simple. We starved purely because of mechanics, mechanics that you refused to change until it was too late.

[vonGenf]

If we do a friendly takeover, we are doing civil work and stuff to make them like us.  This all seems to be fluff though.
When the region finally likes us enough to come over to the new nation of their own accord, after having civil work done, we see the following situation:
no production
no morale
they hate us
low control

Diplomats before. Diplomats after. Learn to use them, learn to love them.

[Telrunya]

You would never have been able to start a Friendly TO under the old system for a region like that. You pretty much had been forced to do a Brutal TO. The region is devastated, so Civil Work is difficult, but that doesn't matter per system. You need to:

-Raise sympathy beforehand. Use Diplomats/Ambassadors for this. This is *extremely* powerful. Once the region no longer hates you, you will get and be able to keep the region in a good state and you can repair it without too much effort. If the region is devastated, you pretty much need a force there permanently to keep up Control until you're ready. Priests can do this too, especially with regions with lower population, but Diplomats/Ambassadors are way more effective usually.
-Rotate troops in and out to gather Provisions while the other part aids the TO. You'll have about five days with full provisions, so you shouldn't need to rotate too much.
-What happened in Riombara with a starving region was that we took the region, put enough Food in it, had it go rogue and then we TO'd it again when the starvation was over. The second time we had no troubles with it.
-IF the region is in bad shape (the whole trick is to avoid that from happening though), you need a combination of Courtiers and Police/Civil Work done to push up loyalty enough to the point you can hold Court. Heroes can be a great aid in this too, but are also unreliable at the same time. Things like Festivals and Holidays can aid as well.
-Also, use Diplomats/Ambassadors. They are so powerful with taking over devastated regions it's worth saying twice. All your troubles can instantly never exist in the first place if you raise Sympathy before you take it over.

[egamma]

I assume this is about the Desert of Silhouettes? Ha ha! My plan all along!

Other than that, your army needs to retreat to a region nearby that produces a surplus of food for 10 days in order to reach full provisions. Then you can start back into taking over my regions.

[Gustav Kuriga]

Actually, this is about Demyansk.

[De-Legro]

I assume this is about the Desert of Silhouettes? Ha ha! My plan all along!

Other than that, your army needs to retreat to a region nearby that produces a surplus of food for 10 days in order to reach full provisions. Then you can start back into taking over my regions.

Sorry, Solaria was well aware of the starvation issue for the Desert of Silhouettes and has planned for it.

[egamma]

Sorry, Solaria was well aware of the starvation issue for the Desert of Silhouettes and has planned for it.

Ah well. Starvation will still slow you down.

[De-Legro]

Ah well. Starvation will still slow you down.

True, bonus is we can actually FEED the regions once they are ours. Our banker may have his odd habits, like hitting people with that axe of his but he at least manages our food well.

[GoldPanda]

Yes, good job feeding those 2 peasants. Well done. 

It's a desert. It won't be the starvation that slows you down.

[Indirik]

Watch out for those scorpions. They breed them big in the desert.

[Foundation]

I thought BM was low fantasy.

[Indirik]

Low fantasy, but with big scorpions. It doesn't take magic to breed scorpions as big as a house.


...does it?

[Anaris]

Low fantasy, but with big scorpions. It doesn't take magic to breed scorpions as big as a house.


...does it?

I'm no biologist, but I think scorpions may be subject to the same size limits as insects, due to size:mass ratio problems. (Basically, if they got too big, I believe their exoskeletons would simply collapse under their own weight.)