Author Topic: Tournament in Ozrat...  (Read 19643 times)

BardicNerd

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #15: November 06, 2012, 11:48:11 PM »
Aenilia fight?  Hah!

Velax

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #16: November 07, 2012, 05:47:03 AM »
Well, they fought in the Southern War. Although a lot of that seemed to be Xarnelf moving his two characters with 2000 CS together in late turn (often a minute before turn change) moves.

Gabanus family

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #17: November 08, 2012, 01:09:15 PM »
A few years ago I always thought GA actually had to power and influence to wipe out realms on religious grounds. Now that I returned a few years I no longer hold this illusion... GA seems to have little friends and is more a stuck in the middle neutral realm, even in the last war.

Also it does suck, only found out that my judge char was not allowed to join the tournament in her own nation... damn... Oh well, back to monster hunting I suppose
New account active chars:
Garas: First Oligarch - Goriad: Astrum - Goriad II: Obia'Syela

Scarlett

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #18: November 08, 2012, 03:03:34 PM »
GA did have that power a few years ago. They atrophied a bit in the meantime. It's not impossible to reverse, but tough to do by sitting on the sidelines.

Morningstar

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #19: November 14, 2012, 11:57:19 PM »
The part that most people don't think about is that GA's largest stretch of border is adjacent to the realm with the largest military force, by far. Aenilia right now has two options- fight alongside Arcaea or fight only when Arcaea doesn't. Picking a fight against Arcaea would spell destruction for the realm.

It's easy to take snipe shots from further away at GA's stance. But in all honesty, I'm beginning to understand why Switzerland chose the way they did. The one time we tried to flex recently, Arcaea flexed at triple the strength.

GA (when it was TA) used to take the wars to the other realms in an effort to avoid them ever happening on TA's soil. Those days, and those nobles, are long gone unfortunately. And yes, it was always thinly veiled as religious/righteous indignation.

Ender

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #20: November 15, 2012, 02:13:13 AM »
Quote
It's easy to take snipe shots from further away at GA's stance. But in all honesty, I'm beginning to understand why Switzerland chose the way they did. The one time we tried to flex recently, Arcaea flexed at triple the strength.

Well, everyone likes to make fun of Switzerland too.  ;) In all seriousness, GA's position makes perfect sense out of character and, for the most part, in character. Since most of us nobles are egotistical and quickly angered, we're bound to get mad at GA when they don't do what we want them to do though.

Morningstar

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #21: November 15, 2012, 03:26:15 AM »
Well, everyone likes to make fun of Switzerland too.  ;) In all seriousness, GA's position makes perfect sense out of character and, for the most part, in character. Since most of us nobles are egotistical and quickly angered, we're bound to get mad at GA when they don't do what we want them to do though.

Oh, I know. I think we're at a point where we'd rather be compared to Switzerland with lots of money and nothing to do than to France and surrender as soon as the fighting starts.  ;D

BardicNerd

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #22: November 15, 2012, 04:35:27 AM »
I don't know that I'd compare GA to Switzerland.  Switzerland may be neutral, but they had the most respected mercenaries in late medieval times, and I understand that their military is still rather badass today.

Velax

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #23: November 15, 2012, 05:54:01 AM »
GA's position makes perfect sense. The only problem is, Arcaea is the realm involved in the most wars (7 out of the 9 fought in the last two years), so if you wait for a conflict Arcaea isn't involved in - and one which you're geographically capable of involving yourselves in - you may be waiting a while.

Morningstar

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #24: November 15, 2012, 03:23:53 PM »
I don't know that I'd compare GA to Switzerland.  Switzerland may be neutral, but they had the most respected mercenaries in late medieval times, and I understand that their military is still rather badass today.

If there were an in-game way that some of our nobles could act as mercenaries and not act on behalf of the realm, I'm certain they'd jump on it. Even if it were just to make coin.  ::)

And yeah... the largest realm tends to find themselves involved in the most activity by virtue of being adjacent to everything.

Scarlett

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #25: November 15, 2012, 03:27:21 PM »
GA's position is very difficult but it is always possible to find a way out, particularly when Arcaea can't expand much more.

For instance, in the Kindaran war, Aenilia blew its friendships with Kindara and Zonasa, but it didn't bank a whole lot of favor with Arcaea or Cathay because it showed up so close to the end ("American cavalry film", anyone?) and wasn't willing to get its hands dirty. Its position is worse off now than it was before: sure it has an alliance with Cathay, and Galiard has always had a soft spot for Aenilia, but there will be a number of Cathayan nobles who will say, if and when anyone goes to war with Aenilia, that we should wait several months and then speak sternly to the other side and then we'll be even.

The only respect in which Galiard has ever been successful at anything is when the diplomacy game was a big factor, particularly as I am decent but not great at the military game. Aenilia in the old days never had the largest military, but it banked favors everywhere and pushed the MAE while making absolutely certain the MAE never actually annoyed any rulers -- one reason why it spread as quickly as it did several years back. I know Arella hates hearing about Orphen and Luyten but I remember very well how other rulers would line up to get their blessing or Osric of Ethiala's blessing on whatever war they wanted to fight because it was like a stamp of legitimacy.

Cathay was in a situation very similar to Aenilia right when it was re-founded. There was only barely enough support to re-found it at all and we had a very unpleasant choice of either maintaining a half-decent noble count of around 22 or banishing about six people over a couple of months that we knew would be big problems down the road. We chose door number 2 and for a while had 18 nobles - but now we're up to 27.  It was stressful right up until I realized that the in-character thing for Galiard to do (and the easier thing for me to do) was to admit that I didn't want to invest the time running a realm that didn't feel like Cathay, and if that meant the realm would fall apart and some other realm would appear and I wouldn't have to do anything other than log in for five minutes here and there, that was fine with me!

Velax

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #26: November 15, 2012, 04:43:06 PM »
Aenilia could always join the Arcaean Empire. Guaranteed protection, so you could fight anyone you wanted, then. ;)

Morningstar

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #27: November 17, 2012, 06:07:01 PM »
Aenilia could always join the Arcaean Empire. Guaranteed protection, so you could fight anyone you wanted, then. ;)

Velax has always been too gruff for that to become a reality with Arella. But I don't think anyone knows how close this was (even in-realm) to being a reality on some level if Jenred had stayed on the throne.

Ender

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #28: November 17, 2012, 08:16:22 PM »
Quote
Velax has always been too gruff for that to become a reality with Arella. But I don't think anyone knows how close this was (even in-realm) to being a reality on some level if Jenred had stayed on the throne.

That'd make the Arcaean Empire a three realm political entity at this point, which is pretty interesting to think about.

Bedwyr

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Re: Tournament in Ozrat...
« Reply #29: November 17, 2012, 09:19:01 PM »
That'd make the Arcaean Empire a three realm political entity at this point, which is pretty interesting to think about.

You're assuming that Arella/Aenilia was the only person Jenred had discussed that with and received a positive response from (aside from the colony, which was a given).  That's a very interesting assumption.

Hopefully, at some point I will finally be able to freaking move and have the time to play power-politics on the FEI again.  Rebuilding all of those connections will obviously take time and probably be impossible in some cases, but had my life not made playing Jenred effectively impossible (which contributed to his various stupid choices even before I had to pause) a four realm empire was looking like a reasonable short-term goal, and we were looking at six or so realms in the medium-term, maybe eight given a few sensible secessions.  I anticipated the next big war after that would either destroy the empire or bring the entire continent under it.

Have I mentioned lately that I really, really, really hated having to give up the game?
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