Post invasion politics

[Nosferatus]

Ripped from the cold feet of Melite peasants.

Oh and we definitely went out of our way to give you reason to.
We just didn't feel like waiting any longer, sooner or later someone was going to drag us into some war we didn't want and leave us open for you. And of course there is the many many points you gain on the awesome meter for declaring the first war of the new age. 

And this one is going to be a long one. 

Off course if war is coming, its best to take the initiative your self, the timing was perfect i must say.
Waiting was only in Melheds advantage, many knew that.

[Fleugs]

I would bet on Thalmarkin winning. In my many years of Battlemaster, and with - amongst others - Lorgan putting in a very serious effort to create an enjoyable sphere for others, it has been a realm that made amazing progress in the past year. Very few can compete with how Thalmarkin was able to attract so many nobles in a time that the player base was slightly shrinking.

[Charles]

The war would have started the minute the invasion was over if that was not hiding behind OG and Sint. 
Also,  Thalmarkin came and saved Agyr?  Why is it that Agyr was even left open?  Melhed was in Unger saving thalmarkin.  During the last invasion, I hired three full SF units for two characters and they all died fighting to save Unger.  Thalmarkin did a lot to try to provoke a war, but it was never guaranteed that it would be a one on one war.  That amounts to taunting someone when your big friends with bats are standing beside you. 

What I find most interesting is the differences in interpretations on how events unfolded.  The whole Fronen war was a huge debacle in Melhed.  But the interpretation of the events by others is in no way accurate to what occurred in Melhed or in any way  representative of the motives at the time.  Melhed wanted to stay out of the conflict, but every attempt to stay neutral was seen as aggressive and eventually I feel like we were bullied into attacking Fronen.  As I look back at it, the whole think felt like an elaborate attempt for Thalmarkin to have reason to attack Melhed.  I am still not certain it wasn't.  And yet, from the outside Melhed is seen as cowardly and dishonest.
Oh well.  Not playing in Melhed anymore.  Although I am interested in how this war turns out.

[jaune]

Among old farts, which i doubt are not many left... atleast original characters, mayby their siblings like my chars... Melhed is face with mixed feelings. They were the ones fighting side by side with Ar Agyr against almost rest of the island, but they were the ones giving up and whole coalition could push against AA which eventually TOGETHER with monsters and undeads wrecked AA and it was destroyed. The day Melhed gave up, many AA's nobles said it loud, "some day, Melhed will pay for this!"

JJ didnt thought that way, cause he knew that Melhed simply has lost its motivation and strenght... they were not able to keep even their own regions on shape, AA TOed them to keep them away from Fronen. After that war, Melhed became burocrazy machine. If something were asked from them... issue were over long time ago before their senate gave any word about issue... it became public joke at Thalmarkin... But Melhed were still watched as friendly realm. PP were with good terms then. I guess relations started to get poorer during Fingolfins rule... Melhed continued to be just rich buddy on our neighbour. Some of them indeed were very respected at Thalmarkin, example Duke Bob, who always were there to help out with his huge units, he became legend at Thalmarkin.

After invasion ended, things started to string more and more... big parts of Thalmarkin were blighted, Melhed started to demand Lastfell back. That was refused strongly by almost all nobles at Thalmarkin, Thalmarkin was ready to fight over it if needed... same time our lands were wrecked. Most regions had only handfull peasants, Unger was still ruined... We were simply not ready for war. Fingolfin is excellent King, he played time... when time was running up and Melhed started to get real angry and war started to look for real thing, OG and Sint stepped up and that made Melhed to sign treaty.

Religious events started to dig deeper and deeper gap between the realms, and both realms prolly knew, war will start soon... Thalmarkin had recovered about invasion pretty well, Melhed were going through powerswift and new leadership had shown that it is seeking to make Melhed ready to face any military actions needed. This time clock started to tick on other direction, time was on Melheds side. Thalmarkin quickly started to be ready for war, nobles started to recruit on both side of the border, Thalmarkin invested a lot to get gold stocks ready for war... then war started. Here we are... well build war scenario... Melhed prolly stronger as economy and military wise, but they lack nobles compared to Thalmarkin... also Thalmarkin has many traditionally very well known military leaders as well as experts on economy side. Thalmarkins military is almost all mobile, and big part of Melhed military strenght is from militia.

This indeed will be very intresting war, as long as it stays 1 vs. 1... I dont think this will be fast war, they are too even to get quick upper hand, as long as leadership arent fumbling big time.

These are my few cents on the issue...

-Future King of Agyr, Grandson of Julma Jaune, Son of Piru Petteri, Holder of endless stock of socks.

[Geronus]

What I find most interesting is the differences in interpretations on how events unfolded.  The whole Fronen war was a huge debacle in Melhed.  But the interpretation of the events by others is in no way accurate to what occurred in Melhed or in any way  representative of the motives at the time.  Melhed wanted to stay out of the conflict, but every attempt to stay neutral was seen as aggressive and eventually I feel like we were bullied into attacking Fronen.  As I look back at it, the whole think felt like an elaborate attempt for Thalmarkin to have reason to attack Melhed.  I am still not certain it wasn't.  And yet, from the outside Melhed is seen as cowardly and dishonest.
Oh well.  Not playing in Melhed anymore.  Although I am interested in how this war turns out.

Interesting, if true. Fronen obviously never did anything to provoke Melhed, and since it wasn't part of the original alliance attacking Fronen, its rather sudden decision to get involved looked an awful lot like rank opportunism. Of course we always wanted Melhed to help us, but we weren't about to blame them for staying neutral; even with Melhed's help that war was still a losing proposition. I can't say what the realms fighting us were saying behind the scenes, but the way things came out I'd be surprised if any of them were seriously pressuring Melhed to join in. If that were the case, you'd think Melhed's involvement would have been welcomed. Obviously that's not how it turned out.

In these situations the simplest explanation is usually the most likely. In this case, it would be a serious misreading of the political situation by Melhed. I rather doubt that there was any elaborate conspiracy at work to trick Melhed into doing something stupid. Most realms are quite capable of doing stupid things all on their own...

[Lorgan]

The war would have started the minute the invasion was over if that was not hiding behind OG and Sint. 

Yes, back when we had just over 40,000 peasants total (with a potential of almost 160k) and had just lost all of our gold and most of our infrastructure and manpower to Overlord, DHotN, DHotW, MotE, the first blight daimon and the northern blight daimon's genocides and other plundering and all the battles we had fought throughout the invasion, fielding 23,000 CS standard and often more. We were so poor that even in the middle of the invasion, my character suggested to ask Melhed of all realms, for a loan to keep it up. Needless to say the suggestion was shot down and we did without it but when the invasion was finally over, we were flat out broke. And that's when Melhed came looking for war.

Sure we provoked the genocides and everything that came with it and brought it all upon ourselves - Overlord wasn't the first to besiege Unger, DHotN and DHotW both tried before him - but still, you could not expect us to look at our immensely rich and populous neighbour in the state that we were in and say "ok, we'll fight you one on one over this". You may have expected us to cave and just give you the townsland right next to our capital along with the other lands but then we were not /that/ weak that we'd just roll over for a neighbour we had long lost all respect for and we knew wanted to war us.

Also, the moment that Agyr was left open was when King Fingolfin provoked Overlord into naming his battlefield and face the united armies of man, a battle which ended up killing the last of Overlord's sons, making him mortal, while also utterly devastating all of our armies. When refitting we had a choice: save Ossmat from the Darkest Hour of the West or save Agyr from Midnight of the East. In the end it was decided that OG and Sint would attempt to save Ossmat - which failed - and that we would move to save Agyr with Melhed, which did succeed.

Anyway, we did during the invasion what had to be done. You won't hear me complain of Melhed's performance but this war has been long coming, had the fifth invasion not come so early, we would have had this conflict settled before the invasion. It's only fitting that it is the first conflict to be settled after.

In these situations the simplest explanation is usually the most likely. In this case, it would be a serious misreading of the political situation by Melhed. I rather doubt that there was any elaborate conspiracy at work to trick Melhed into doing something stupid. Most realms are quite capable of doing stupid things all on their own...

Our expectations from Melhed for that war were as following:

1. They'd stay out of it.
2. They'd join on Fronen's side.

To see them join our side, even after multiple votes in favour of war with us, was quite a surprise. Their behaviour during the war as well as their peace treaty less so.

[Nosferatus]

Our expectations from Melhed for that war were as following:

1. They'd stay out of it.
2. They'd join on Fronen's side.

To see them join our side, even after multiple votes in favour of war with us, was quite a surprise. Their behaviour during the war as well as their peace treaty less so.

I think Sorens Reasoning behind this action was that staying neutral or joining Fronen would lead to another gang bang on Melhed or at-least heavy deterioration of relations between Melhed and its allies in the north.
He also wanted to help Fronen so he thought he could find a 'clever' middle way, joining the NA alliance in there war without really harming Fronen, taking Jyl and Marpii to prevent the other realms from taking them ( i have no idea if the NA had that intention, probabaly not).
After the war Melhed gave the regions back.

But it didnt work, mostly because Melhed  joined in to late due to endless discussion in the senate, who for that reason was disbanded and eventually (just recently) replaced by a new government.
Fronen also didnt take it as 'help' and some still hold a grudge against Melhed for it.
Yet i believe most Fronites back then are no longer in Fronen right now.

It also caused quite the upheavel in Melhed, with nobles like Pierre going beserk over it almost draging Melhed in a war with Thalmarkin (unfortunatly it didnt work)

[Geronus]

Our expectations from Melhed for that war were as following:

1. They'd stay out of it.
2. They'd join on Fronen's side.

To see them join our side, even after multiple votes in favour of war with us, was quite a surprise. Their behaviour during the war as well as their peace treaty less so.

I was certainly surprised at the time; I figured that the odds were 10:1 that they would stay neutral, with a long shot chance for us to convince them to help us. It was kind of fun to see them panic and back peddle though after it all went down. It all went over like a lead balloon. In the immediate aftermath of their war declaration I actually seriously discussed with Fingolfin the possibility of making peace with the north (at a not insignificant cost to Fronen) so that we could then ally with Thalmarkin and attack Melhed together. I've never been certain, but I'm fairly sure that Melhed caught wind of the possibility somehow because that's right about the time that they suddenly started being very nice to me (if not downright solicitous) and offered to take themselves right back out of the war with a polite "sorry for the misunderstanding," an apology I had no choice but to accept with a forced smile and clenched teeth.

I think Sorens Reasoning behind this action was that staying neutral or joining Fronen would lead to another gang bang on Melhed or at-least heavy deterioration of relations between Melhed and its allies in the north.
He also wanted to help Fronen so he thought he could find a 'clever' middle way, joining the NA alliance in there war without really harming Fronen, taking Jyl and Marpii to prevent the other realms from taking them ( i have no idea if the NA had that intention, probabaly not).
After the war Melhed gave the regions back.

But it didnt work, mostly because Melhed  joined in to late due to endless discussion in the senate, who for that reason was disbanded and eventually (just recently) replaced by a new government.
Fronen also didnt take it as 'help' and some still hold a grudge against Melhed for it.
Yet i believe most Fronites back then are no longer in Fronen right now.

It also caused quite the upheavel in Melhed, with nobles like Pierre going beserk over it almost draging Melhed in a war with Thalmarkin (unfortunatly it didnt work)

See, the problem with that line of reasoning is that Soren never discussed such 'help' with us beforehand. Those regions were not in fact targets of the NA; they wanted everything west of the lake as far east as Wudenkin and Dyomoque, so losing more regions besides was not really 'helpful.'  Seeing as we were never told that Melhed taking our regions was supposed to 'help' us, we definitely didn't take it that way. You are probably right though, I think a lot of the families that were around then aren't in Fronen any more, including mine.

[Eduardo Almighty]

Melhed tried so hard to always stay neutral that they never did anything, at least in my time serving the realm. I realy don't care with the past since I was not there to evaluate. Yeux is not neutral and this kind of policies will not happen in the future if we survive and if he stay as King 

[JeVondair]

So, how long before all the other realms of Beluaterra realize that the demons are gone, alliances are growing stale, and the grass is truly greener on your neighbors side of the fence?

[Vellos]

Not too long for Rio, methinks.

[Anaris]

Here's to hopin'!

[JeVondair]

I can't tell in Melhed, but are any of the Bel realms big on RP? I'm just imagining what a great writing opportunity this is. The break down in post-invasion relations, the intrigue, the old feuds previously thought laid to rest being dragged up from the dead, new wars and hatreds, all just in time for yet another invasion...

Fun times.

[Penchant]

all just in time for yet another invasion...

Invasions, as we know them, will never happen again. Key being as we know them since technically a bunch of summoning scrolls being used at once could be "an invasion".

[Solari]

The war would have started the minute the invasion was over if that was not hiding behind OG and Sint. 
Also,  Thalmarkin came and saved Agyr?  Why is it that Agyr was even left open?  Melhed was in Unger saving thalmarkin.

You know that Melhed contributed to about 2 of the 9 battles that were required to free Unger, right? And even then, that they made up less than half of the CS present at the battles? That we depopulated entire regions, and bankrupted families in this pursuit? Solari family had 9,900 gold before the invasion, and spent 8,500 in two weeks in Thalmarkin... and that's just one family. And that we helped free Grehk's capital after yours? And you know that we—literally me, Lorgan, and Noldorin—had to coach Melhed's general and marshals on how to handle Agyr? Turn by turn. They were ready to throw in the towel. We had to encourage them to keep recruiting militia and fight. Enzo sat in Agyr and told them what to do. I can't even remember why it was a good idea at the time. I think I disagreed with it. Maybe Lorgan did. Or Noldorin. The point is, despite a nagging intuition that it was a bad idea, we did it. And even then, Melhed's Council wasn't entirely sold. Ivagil was apparently the only Melite with any sense. I miss him.

Melhed as it is now would not exist without Thalmarkin. I don't think this is especially controversial to people who have a decent command of the facts on both sides. The takeover was at what... 88-92% before they started listening? There is tremendous resentment in Thalmarkin with regard to how this assistance was (or wasn't) conveyed to the rank and file of Melhed... the rank and file that now rules. That is the root of all of the animosity that led to this war. 

I'm incredibly modest as to the accomplishments of the various realms I play in. Every character and ream has flaws. But Thalmarkin, beginning the since last invasion, has been a paragon of how a realm should behave when it cares more about a cause than its own self-preservation. And this seems to be a theme. I wasn't there for the previous invasion, but they bounced back quite nicely from the brink of death (2 regions). How did Melhed fare again? Accordingly, when it comes to Thalmarkin and Melhed, I get tired of competing narratives. I've seen both sides of it. I've intentionally sought out explanations of motives and histories from folks on both sides. Let's be diplomatic and chalk it all up to a series of small failures and indelicacies on both sides following the invasion. But suggesting that Melhed was somehow self-reliant and capable of addressing this threat on its own is nuts.

EDIT: I remember now. It was very much me who thought that we should let Melhed die.
EDIT 2: I realized that the idea to spare no effort to save the capital came from two people—Noldorin and Lorgan. I was all too eager to abandon Unger for Vore. I was wrong. Tom even commented on this show of resilience, and how it wore down the Daimon army and the Overlord.