Author Topic: Dear Atamara...  (Read 50005 times)

Gabanus family

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #75: November 19, 2015, 04:17:22 PM »
Well this is a really fun conflict isn't it? An alliance of southern realms who all hate each other ICly and that was mostly organized OOCly for the purpose of breaking up another alliance, just buying regions with their bloated gold from the stagnation period.

First of all, Caergoth and Suville are probably the nations (looking at recent history) that have the least stagnation as they actually fought each other. This war was the second one in relatively short time. During all this time, Strombran fought not a single war. So you should have more gold than we do. The difference is, this gold is family wealth that people are willing to spend. Perhaps those in Strombran are no 'devoted' enough, or whatever you want to call it, to do so as well.

And again, yes Suville and Caergoth are still not good friends and many still don't trust Suville. But this last war against Suville was fought over Riverholm. Strombran decided to take the city and proclaimed that all other claims, other than their own (which they didn't really have to begin with) were baseless and non-existing. Basically, Strombran told both Suville and Caergoth to !@#$ off. Also don't forget that Strombran had been raiding Caergothian lands for a long time on the (cowardly) Taran method. The entire situation brought with it a hate towards the federation, which in all honesty has always been present in the south, all of the south. For the first time however, Caergoth saw an opportunity to strike back and they took it. The alternative was to destroy Suville and take their lands (with ease as Tara would support it) but after that they'd be stuck with nothing as they still couldn't oppose the federation, Caergoth would be dead-locked. As a final insult, Strombran took Ser'quea and quickly denounced all other claims to the region as well.

So for the last time, the majority of the arguments for the south to unite was IC. While no doubt OOC sentiments played their parts also, the majority of this was pure IC logic and hatred towards Strombran and the federation's dead-lock.

Trust me, when this is over, there will no doubt be war in the south again. I don't believe this alliance will last long once the federation has been brought to its knees. But then again, why should it? But right now, there's someone who's more hated than any other. And I must admit I had expected CE to be stronger. The forces right now are somewhat unbalanced, but not as much as in the old 'gangbang' days of AT. The end of the federation, you don't want to know how many tried and failed.
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Ossan

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #76: November 19, 2015, 06:31:26 PM »
I must say that the 500 gold bounty Rielston put on a number of CE's nobles' heads including my own is quite flattering. The hilariously inaccurate accusations of raping and murdering a bit less so, but that is certainly within the realm of believable rumours and peasants telling exaggerated tales.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2015, 06:34:31 PM by Ossan »
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Indirik

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #77: November 19, 2015, 06:41:42 PM »
Fwiw: When a unit loots a region and that results in the unit raping the locals, the noble's own realm is not informed of that little part. They get the same message as if rape was not involved. Only the perpetrating noble and the victim realm get the true report. This gives the perpetrator some deniability. Also, not all looting incidents are reported to the noble's realm. So if the enemy is reporting it, but you're not seeing it, don't start shaking your head because you *know* ooc that they're lying. They very well could be telling the truth.
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Ossan

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #78: November 19, 2015, 07:02:34 PM »
That is true yes, though their kings claims seem to indicate that he believes it was ordered or at least planned. The orders were strictly NO RAPING and if anyone was caught raping they would be heavily punished. It definitely lends to the possibility of exaggerated rumours and it's perfectly fine IC fodder.
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Indirik

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #79: November 19, 2015, 08:20:10 PM »
Sure is.
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Eirikr

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #80: November 19, 2015, 08:38:47 PM »
I must say that the 500 gold bounty Rielston put on a number of CE's nobles' heads including my own is quite flattering. The hilariously inaccurate accusations of raping and murdering a bit less so, but that is certainly within the realm of believable rumours and peasants telling exaggerated tales.

Do you mean Minas Leon? I thought they put all the contracts out?

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #81: November 20, 2015, 01:11:22 AM »
We still hate each other. We just hate Strombran more. Enemy of my enemy, and all that. apparently you still don't understand how much Strombran pissed off *everyone*.

Although, to be honest, Suville is pretty pragmatic about the Wayburg secession. We don't have enough people to take it back. We were screwed, and knew it. Julius made an amicable treaty with them pretty quickly.

And stop complaining about giant gold reserves. Strombran had multiple cities and few nobles for years. And your lands were untouched for this entire war. Hell, it's been *years* since you lands have ever even seen a battle that didn't involve rogues. If you don't have gold it's your own fault. If you're that hard up, ask your allies for some of their hundreds of thousands of reserves.

Just curious, is this more or less pissed off than people were at Merlin with the founding of Silnaria? (Throwback Thursday for me)
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Ossan

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #82: November 20, 2015, 02:55:18 AM »
Do you mean Minas Leon? I thought they put all the contracts out?

Yes yes I do my bad, I don't know how I got them mixed up.
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Indirik

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #83: November 20, 2015, 04:32:35 AM »
Just curious, is this more or less pissed off than people were at Merlin with the founding of Silnaria? (Throwback Thursday for me)
More.

I can only explain it from Suville's point of view. Someone fro Strombran can explain it from their PoV.
  • Suville is allied to Strombran. Strombran is federated to Tara. Tara is allied to Caergoth. Caergoth declares war on Suville.
  • Suville and Strombran go after Caergoth. Caergoth and Tara go after Suville. So Tara and Strombran are both allied and federated to realms on both sides of the war. (Gotta love Atamaran diplomacy.)
  • Strombran and Tara both refuse to drop their alliances or federated status. That means Suville can't declare on Tara, and Strombran can't declare on Caergoth. This makes Suville unhappy. Nothing we can do about it.
  • This means that Tara can just walk through Suville land while Suville can't stop them. Likewise Strombran can walk through Caergoth lands while Caergoth can't stop them. This makes Suville really unhappy. strombran come sup with some plan to "escort" the Tarans while they are in Suville land, so they can't attack, or something like that. It doesn't work, and some Strombran troops end up attacking Suville along with the Tarans. Suville is unhappy about this. Strombran blows it off.
  • Both Strombran and Tara take advantage of this to be completely untouchable while still burning and looting Suville and Caergoth. Suville (mainly my character, I think...) accuse Strombran of dishonest and cowardly diplomacy. Caergoth starts complaining about the Strombran attacks being against what Strombran said they would do, that being only to defend Suville.
  • Due to the federation status, Taran and Strombran nobles occasionally take the wrong side in battles, meaning Tara fights against Caergoth, and Strombran fights against Suville. This really pisses off Suville.
  • Tara uses their federation status to travel through Strombran lands to attack Suville. Despite Suville's complaints, Strombran refuses to stop Tara, and also refuses to let Suville travel through to attack Tara. This really pisses of Suville, who is now getting attacked from two fronts, and their "ally" refuses to actually be an ally and stop their enemies. Strombran makes excuses about not being able to refuse Tarans passage because they're both part of the League, and it wouldn't be right to not allow them to do it. Besides, Strombran can use Tara's lands to attack Caergoth, too. Suville is underwhelmed.
  • Multiple Suville regions get burned and looted to shreds, without Suville being able to do anything about it. Tara controls their encounter settings to have battles only when they want to fight, and then always when they have overwhelming odds. A couple times, Strombran nobles end up fighting alongside Tara, against Suville. Suville gets mad, but Strombran brushes it off. Strombran counsels Suville to just put with the looting, and endure as best they can. Eventually, they say, Caergoth will give up, because Strombran is looting them, too. Suville is mad. Our complaints are ignored.
  • Riverholm swaps from Suville to Strombran to protect the duchy from Caergoth and Tara. Since Caergoth wants Riverholm, Suville hopes that this will stop the war. (Ha! Stupid idea on suville's part.)
  • This really pisses off both Tara and Caergoth.
  • Unbeknownst to Suville, a discussion in the League results in Strombran claiming the duchy for themselvs, promises to never give it back, and never let Caergoth have it, either. Strombran neglects to actually tell Suville about this. (We don't know about this, so we're not pissed about it yet. But we will be later, when we find out about it.)
  • When planning a big battle in Wynford, Strombran plans to hit the region first, then promises to have everyone out so Suville can hit the next turn.
  • They don't have everyone out. Four people move out. Like 8 or 9 stay behind. They join in the battle against Suville, resulting in Suville getting massacred, and a Suville noble dying. Suville is really, really, really, really pissed!
  • Suville says they're sick of being !@#$ on by Strombran, and cancels the alliance with strombran. Strombran doesn't understand why, because everything was going so well for them.
  • Tara immediately declares war on Suville.
  • Suville and Caergoth sign peace. Strombran tries again to get Suville to go back to war with Caergoth.
  • After much argument, Strombran reveals that they have permanently claimed Riverholm, and if anyone else tries to take it, even if the lord switches allegiance, they will declare war and take it back. Suville goes nuts, viewing it as a betrayal. Tara gets mad because they were fighting to get Riverholm for Caergoth. Caergoth is pissed because they still want it. They feel betrayed by the League.
  • Caergoth, Suville, and Tara all stop fighting, and go after Strombran. Tara drops out of the federation to go after Strombran. CE declares emotional support for Strombran, but says they're too busy i the north to actually send troops right now.
  • Ser'quea realigns from Caergoth to Strombran. Strombran declares that, like Riverholm, Ser'quea now belongs to them forevermore, and no one else can have it. This really pisses of Caergoth even more. Suville snickers behind Caergoth's back.


So... yeah. Strombran managed to piss off just about everyone.
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Eirikr

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #84: November 20, 2015, 07:47:38 AM »
I would agree with that "more" assessment, but add one more point: Strombran's moves were all sponsored in some way - that's how they got away with so much. This also means, however, that the fall is much higher. In some sense, this also means less because the CE at least is supporting them and that's a pretty significant chunk of the continent. Merlin got lambasted by everybody when he went public. :/

GundamMerc

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #85: November 20, 2015, 09:41:22 AM »
I would agree with that "more" assessment, but add one more point: Strombran's moves were all sponsored in some way - that's how they got away with so much. This also means, however, that the fall is much higher. In some sense, this also means less because the CE at least is supporting them and that's a pretty significant chunk of the continent. Merlin got lambasted by everybody when he went public. :/

CE is a paper tiger, at least for the size that it is. The people in command of the military (basically only the Prime Minister and the General at this point, with the Prime Minister sending almost every single order) are not really the best suited in my opinion.

Dante Silverfire

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #86: November 20, 2015, 12:22:12 PM »
How could CE support them in that? Sounds messed up.

Also, were murderous settings not an option?

I think I would have dropped that alliance much earlier. If you aren't fully defending a realm, then you need to simply be at peace. But, yeah AT politics are too messed up.
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DeVerci

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #87: November 20, 2015, 02:17:09 PM »

Also, were murderous settings not an option?

Nope, Strombran marched in the middle of Caergoth's lands several times with murderous settings but couldn't trigger a battle. The only way to do that was to loot until a mob formed to force a conflict.

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #88: November 20, 2015, 04:41:25 PM »
Murderous settings are unreliable because of one very important distinction: You cannot be a "murderous defender" and force someone else to attack you. This is related to the explanation in the other thread about "possible diplomacy bug". The game first decides who the defender is, then looks for anyone that wants to fight them. If the one with the Murderous settings is picked as the Defender, then it's up to the other person's settings as to whether or not there is a battle. The Defender's encounter settings are never checked!

What you have to do is force the foreigners to be the Defender, so that their encounter settings are not used to determine if there will be a battle. This is not easy. When you're wandering through someone else's region, the region owner will almost always be the Defender. You have to jump through some hoops to make the foreigner the Defender, and even then the foreigner usually has to make a mistake.

Remember:
Step one of the battle system is "Who's the defender?". In this case, the region owner in their own region, with no TO running, is almost always the defender.

Step two is "Who wants to fight them?" If the foreigner is neutral or defensive, then they don't want to fight. So no battle.

How do you make the foreigner the defender? I can think of two ways.

The first way requires the invader to be stationary, while no home troops are in the region. If the foreign troops are in the region across a turn change, and all the home region troops are marked as "freshly arrived", then the foreigners will control the field and be defenders. The region owner is now a potential attacker, and their Murderous encounter settings will trigger a battle. If the foreign troops keep moving, this method won't work. The foreigners will always be "freshly arrived", and never the defender.

The second way is to arrange it so that the home troops and the foreigners arrive in the region at the same time, and for the home troops to have a *smaller* force. If even one home realm unit is already in the region when everyone else arrives, even if it is a militia unit or peasant group, then the home team will control the field and be the defenders. All home realm troops have to be freshly arrived. The reason for the home team being smaller is that when all other means of determining the defender have failed, the battle system defaults to "Bigger army is the defender". And if all units are freshly arrived, and there's no TO going, and there are no peasant mobs, then the game throws up its hands in disgust and picks the biggest army.

Both of these methods are very difficult to arrange. There will usually end up being some militia unit already there, or a rogue monster group popping up to throw things off. Or you have to chase the invader and can't ever manage to arrive in the same region together. And even if you do, you'll have to have a smaller force to trigger the battle, which means you'll probably lose.

As always, the real answer is to fix your screwed up diplomacy. If you want to fight them, declare war.

In Suville/Caergoth's case the two realms weren't willing to do that, because it would mean canceling their only alliance and being cut loose to fight by themselves. In Suville's case, it was made clear that if they dropped their alliance with Strombran, that Strombran would walk away, and Suville would have to face Tara and Caergoth on their own. I imagine that Caergoth got the same answer from Tara. Strombran wasn't willing to break out of the federation, and neither was Tara. Both realms were more than happy to sit pretty and be invulnerable, while having all the fun they wanted burning down regions of realms that couldn't possibly fight back.

Strombran could have gotten away with it if they hadn't gotten greedy. Who knows how long Suville would have put up with it, if it hadn't been for the Wynford debacle, and the revelation that they claimed Riverholm for themselves.
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Dante Silverfire

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Re: Dear Atamara...
« Reply #89: November 20, 2015, 05:39:37 PM »
Honestly that just sounds more like OOC abuse of game mechanics than any legitimate IC thing.
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