Monster Problems

[Chenier]

Sea travelling rogues are to islands what normal rogues are to non-islands. Island realms are no worse off than landlocked realms, but simply lost much of the advantage. If we look at the West; Westgard now, but Barca, Terran, Caerwyn, Niselur, and the score of other realms that have been there, they too faced numberless rogues that they could not see coming. Just because sea zones aren't scoutable doesn't make them much different from having vast land borders that just aren't scoutable in a significant manner either, if not only because of the unreasonnable manpower it would take to have nobles in place to scout all potential routes.

Does Westgard scout all of its borders all of the time? No... it's impossible, and even if it was, it's pointless. They come from all the place, all the time. You only really need to know details of how much they are and what they are doing while they are adjacent to your army.

The realms have less nobles, yes, that's true. But the rogue forces are also much smaller. 15k? Seems like that's the average force all over... that's not very threatening. Yea you may lose some regions during the whack-a-mole hunt, but as soon as enough realms lose enough regions, they'll stop spawning. Back in the days, it often got much, much higher, and they didn't start calming down just because realms started losing. They were tweaked many times to make the odds less impossible, but still, overall, people accomplished great things.

If nobles care enough about their realms, they should survive with much more than the colonists first really dreamed of. Regions may be lost, but since rogues now mostly spawn from the largest contiguous rogue region, having small rogue clumps here and there shouldn't be as bad as it was back in the days. Realms would be better off accepting diminished states. Perhaps putting some gold and troops into making their larger states more feasible.

For example, Avernus wanted to relocate. Helping them settle in Itau, Golden Farrow, Paisly, or Candiels could possibly help kill some of these monsters before they even get a chance to swim East, thus allowing you to regain some of your lost regions.

[Ketchum]

I am quite interested how people manage to adopt to the sea traveling rogues and if we can manage to ambush their landings effectively.

Let me share a bit of my experience as Ruler of Morek. Yes, we got shocked when rogue overwhelmed our militia at Aegir Deep(townsland level 2 wall) easily from the sea. Then we realize we could not face off that big CS rogue force. The only sensible thing to do, is to report on their movements and update allies, neighboring realms about the situation. I think information sharing are not being done much if any do share. If you checked Morek Empire nobles count, you will realize how few nobles Morek has presently. With our limited army and resources, the only way we will win is by working together. So we wait until the massive CS rogue force split up to many regions from Aegir Deep. I think almost everyone who fought rogue before know this. As to Chenier statement about landlocked realm, Morek is one such realm. When rogue split up, they have less CS, but we still suffered defeat when our refitted force attacked them at Aegir Deep. Then they slowly went away(rogue behavior?). Unfortunately the rogue force had too much time taking over many of our lands(except capital), eventually we lost Nimh, a rural region which turned rogue. We almost lost Mark, another rural region, at this point my character Gary was thinking he would be the last Grand Duke/Ruler of Morek. We fought back rogue smaller force at Mark for many turns now and we won, thanks to DeVerci General character. All we need to do are understanding rogue behavior and by working together. Sometimes it is hard to predict attacks, so the only way we can make it up, is to refit, recruit and counter attack when we have the chances. When I first arrived at Dwilight, I had the impression that this island is to cater for PvE (Player versus Environment). However over time, I not only seen PvE but it also does become PvP(Player versus Player) as in realms conflicts.

[Chenier]

Rogues do tend to establish some behaviors. Despite many tweaks to these, for example, we in Westgard know one thing: Monsters will rally in Sabadell. They just frigging love that region. I tell you, if we could just build walls there... nah, nevermind, we'd never get a chance to repair them. XD

But yea, they often move around too. We've  often seen them completely abandon takeovers without us needing to confront them head on. You win some, you lose some, just gotta try to make sure you keep a path back to your capital so that your army doesn't lose many times in a row and that you don't get cut off from your refit centers, as these are harder to recover from.

Realms will need to cooperate for optimal results. Militarily, yes, but also just communicating.

But it's inevitable that the East will look a lot more like swiss cheese than it used to.

[Ketchum]

I do have idea to fight the rogue. My character suggests station 10K CS in each of our regions and watch the movie unfold

Chenier, you are right about keeping the path back to our capital safe. However as rogue force overwhelmed Aegir Deep which is our path to our capital and my character was stuck defending Nimh(that time Nimh was not rogue yet) against rogue attack, my character had to do the inevitable: abandon most of my men as militia and travel by sea route back to capital. It was crazy as I recall it back now that rogue can use sea travel, so why not we use sea travel back to our capital for refit?

Sometimes you have to do some things you never try or thought before. Never give up easily. Refit and recruit each time your unit men down in numbers. It looks like... when warring with another realm where you need to refit and recruit anew. Never be afraid to request for gold if you can recruit more men, many characters are pretty generous

[Zakky]

So anyone else other than Westgard fighting monsters yet?

[Chenier]

Many realms have been engaged by the rogues. Are any of those actually pushing back against the rogues, having mobilized their army as Westgard has? Doesn't really look like it.

First thing Westgard thing when Delvin said the bug was fixed was finish our refit and rush to Sabadell. Because if there's anything one can bet on, it's that monsters love Sabadell as much as Russians love B, they just can't help rushing it.

(*ping facebook meme masters)

[Chenier]

What did the eastern realms do, anyways, when the monster bug was announced? Did anyone even react, outside Westgard?

I mean, we've been getting missives of confused nobles wondering what the hell is going on... "the monsters are coming, duh". Heck I sent multiple explicit reports to all generals, too.

Ditch your lousy governments, settle in Westgard, serve humanity.

[Ketchum]

We beaten back the small rogue forces at each of our lands that got access to sea when rogue tried to land. Unfortunately we see 16K CS attacking Aegir Deep, then it become 21K CS strong rogue force. We lost Aegir Deep battle after that. Now they moving towards Muspel, later probably to the north east.

[Zakky]

I wonder if monsters suffer the same landing penalty as players.

21k sounds like too much for Morek.

[Anaris]

I wonder if monsters suffer the same landing penalty as players.

If they don't, it's a bug.

Putting militia in coastal regions to ward off rogue landings should be a highly effective strategy.

Ditch your lousy governments, settle in Westgard, serve humanity.

Now I'm wondering what it would look like if the entire noble population of the East joined Westgard and made a concerted push to colonize NW Dwilight...

[Zakky]

If they don't, it's a bug.

Putting militia in coastal regions to ward off rogue landings should be a highly effective strategy.

Yeah thats what I was thinking when you first mentioned the whole swimming monsters. My plan was to fill the coastal areas with 3-5k CS. Too bad I quit before the change came XD.

[Chenier]

If they don't, it's a bug.

Putting militia in coastal regions to ward off rogue landings should be a highly effective strategy.

Now I'm wondering what it would look like if the entire noble population of the East joined Westgard and made a concerted push to colonize NW Dwilight...

Haha

The city disposition in the NW doesn't really allow for many viable realms though. Still, if some realms start dying to these monsters... 

[DeVerci]

60 militia won against 220 monsters on the first landing attempt due to the naval invasion mechanics, so coastal militia is highly effective to a degree. But once that 20k CS landing party comes in there is nothing you can do about it. In other news, it looks like the density thing might be working now, as they're passing through Morek's regions but not triggering takeovers, while our scouting of Helyg reveals that their monsters seem to want to stay.

[Chenier]

Right, the landing penalties can help stagger the invasions a little, but if they only apply at landing, and we know that monsters retreat early anyways, odds are a lot of that invasion force will be intact for the second battle when they rally.

When you  consider the cost of all that militia, and that their effectiveness is limited to the first waves, you come back to the original conclusion: the best defense is a good offense. Ie: invest in your mobile army.

In Westgard we've barely ever placed militia outside of the capital, and I've often discouraged people from doing so. Militia is a fair deterrent against enemies of similar to lower strength than your own. Not against monsters, not unless it's in a heavily fortified city that can afford to hire a lot. It's not very effective in combat, the amount needed to fend off regular hordes isn't affordable, when there's no horde it's just a drain on resources, when there's an overwhelming horde there's no way to save the investment, etc. A mobile army? That can fight every turn, move when the region is safe to hit other hordes, move when the incoming horde is too large, mass all of the realm's strength into one or a few very strong forces, etc.

Realms that have no military experience worth mentioning are mostly those that will lose the most. I'm honestly quite fine with that. If the weak die to bolster the deserving, that's a good thing in my books. Madina, Fissoa, and Luria could come learn a few things in Westgard, then maybe we can prop them a realm or two somewhere.

[Chenier]

So Delvin, how many monsters have their eyes on Sabadell this time around, just for fun?

Seems less ridiculous than before, though still puzzling how popular it is.