The Current War

[Munro]

Hammarsett has sent an offer days ago,without requests. The diplomatic relation between Hammarsett and Coria could have changed from war to neutral two days ago.

The agreements were for 'peace' talks...not 'neutrality' talks. To say you'll sign neutrality so you can attack the CE without coming into conflic with Corian troops, but not sign peace is incredibly suspicious and it just looks like you are all stalling for time so that you can attack the CE and then later Coria. Some rulers have said that it doesn't matter what the relations are, if they are going to attack they will attack. Personally I agree with this, which is why I didn't see the point in signing an alliance with Hammarsett when they were first created (if we were going to be friends, we wouldn't need to be allied to one another, as actions would speak louder than words, turns out I was correct and it was wise not to be allies with Hammarsett).

But all the signs point towards later betrayal and Saeculo wanted to make sure that this wasn't the case. Otherwise, why allow military access to the enemy if Coria was just going to be attacked afterward anyway?

Having had the replies from the Northern rulers, and discussed it in the Corian Senate. Neutrality will be accepted. I just don't have enough hours at the moment to accept it. I'll have to wait until Sunrise.

[Perth]

It's not a problem of just going through "the mountains".  It's a problem that the one-region-wide route allowed by the treaty leads straight into a fortification.  Aside from the border with Carelia, CE now only has one border region, and it's fortified.

The treaty we signed does not restrict us to a "one-region-wide route" it doesn't even mention a route to the CE at all. Have you read the treaty? It merely gives Nazia to Eston. Thanks to Eston and Kerwin playing nice with Coria, the north now have Coria's full permission to roam unopposed through Belegmon and Belegmon, their only regions that provide us access to the Cagilan Empire. There is absolutely nothing else that can be gained from Coria regarding the war with the Cagilan Empire, what more do you want?

Darka's policy has been to not piss of Talerium for as long as I've been aware of even the basics of Darkan policy, so this is hardly new.

Indeed, nothing new. But just as frustrating to Kerwin and Eston nonetheless. Especially when somehow Eston and Kerwin are being blamed for not securing something. What that something is, I don't know. But we're being blamed and having fingers pointed at us for being nice with Coria. I don't why Darka doesn't take any heat for being nice with Talerium when they are actively helping the Cagilan Empire AND possess a far better route into the Cagilan Empire than Coria has ever had.

So, in effect, Coria gets out of the war, CE gets a fortified border, and none of the northern realms gain anything of note.  That's a really, really good treaty for Coria.  I just don't get why Eston agreed.

-Yes, Coria is out of the war. In a good way, though. As in, they aren't fighting us anymore and they aren't helping the Cagilan Empire. This a good thing.
-CE got a fortified border? They have three mountain border regions which we the northern alliance has access to all of now. Yes, Talerium and Tara are defending the CE... I don't see how this would not have happened no matter what peace was signed. We could have annexed every Corian territory to Eston and Hammarsett and still had this problem. How is this in any way the result of the treaty Eston and Coria signed?
-The northern realms didn't gain anything? We gained uncontested access to the Cagilan Empire! What else do you want!?

Eston agreed because it achieved what Eston thought was the primary and most important goal: getting access to the Cagilan Empire and then actually being able to free up our armies to go fight them. This is achieved: full access to the CE for the northern realms, and peace with Coria so we can actually go fight CE. What else should the north have garnered?

[^ban^]

What else could we want?

Why, more Corian coin in our pockets, of course. One day it may be as valuable as Hang's Drachenwald coin!

[Perth]

What else could we want?

Why, more Corian coin in our pockets, of course. One day it may be as valuable as Hang's Drachenwald coin!

Well, with the way things are going, lets hope it's the coins of the Empire that soon became so rare!

[GoldPanda]

CE/Tara/Talerium had 30K CS waiting for us in Alaise.

Let me get this straight: We are fighting what is essentially an 8 on 3 war. You have us badly outnumbered in terms of territory, income, nobles, military strength, pretty much every statistic and indicator.

And you are complaining that we somehow managed to field some troops on our choke-point? 

The truly sad thing here is that CE only declared war on Eston because Coria threatened to break our alliance if we didn't. 

[^ban^]

The truly sad thing here is that CE only declared war on Eston because Coria threatened to break our alliance if we didn't. 

The truly sad thing here is that CE provoked these wars and no one there seems to know it.

[GoldPanda]

The truly sad thing here is that CE provoked these wars and no one there seems to know it.

I have a char in CE's realm council, so... if anyone knew, I knew. Famine may have been a bad/arrogant Prime Minister, but at least he shared his messages with us.

Of course, I'd be lying if I said that CE was just going to sit around and wait for "Too Much Peace". We just didn't want to fight Eston, but ultimately it didn't take too much persuading. 

I wish we had the "save messages" feature a few months earlier. I could have saved all the relevant messages and actually have some evidence to show you guys.

Of course, people needed a reason to jump on the anti-CE bandwagon. Famine was as good a scape-goat as you were ever going to get. I understand. 

[Silverfire]

The truly sad thing here is that CE only declared war on Eston because Coria threatened to break our alliance if we didn't. 

Oh come on you know that's not true. I don't know who your character is that is on CE's ruling council but that is simply false.

It was a lot closer to a polite suggestion that you don't ignore your allies wishes.

Then again, the truly sad thing is that the only reason Darka started fighting Coria was because CE started trying to do diplomacy for Coria. Demanding things we didn't actually want.

[Draco Tanos]

It was a lot closer to a polite suggestion that you don't ignore your allies wishes.

That sounds like a threat to me.

[Silverfire]

That sounds like a threat to me.

Shhh! I know what a threat is, and this wasn't one of them. Coria laid multiple options on the table for CE's Senate to consider. And just like any normal real life Senate they took forever to deliberate things and make any decision at all. There was no threat, and its hard to describe so long after the fact. Trust me threats have been used since then in different ways but none I'd like to speak of here.

btw, I'm fairly sure I know exactly what I'm talking about since my character was the singular one to actually visit CE in order to meet with their Senate members personally.

[GoldPanda]

Well, fine, like I said, it didn't take too much persuading. CE was willing to take a risk in order to help out an ally. I'm just saying that the suggestion that CE provoked the whole thing does not hold water. We were not entirely blameless, but we didn't get together one day and say "hey let's go piss off eight realms at the same time".

What's more likely? One realm deciding to provoke war with most of the rest of the island? Or a bunch of realms conspiring to take down the biggest realm on the island?

I am fairly certain that Famine never demanded Barad Lacirith. We all knew that Coria did not have enough nobles to expand. Otherwise Shanandoah would have went to Coria.

People are making all sorts of accusations at a character that isn't even around anymore. The player is not exactly here to defend himself. Like I said, the perfect scapegoat.

This is Yangfan, by the way. You can see the family affiliation by clicking on the poster's name, assuming that he set it up correctly in his profile.

[johnny Hammarberg]

Well, fine, like I said, it didn't take too much persuading. CE was willing to take a risk in order to help out an ally. I'm just saying that the suggestion that CE provoked the whole thing does not hold water. We were not entirely blameless, but we didn't get together one day and say "hey let's go piss off eight realms at the same time".

What's more likely? One realm deciding to provoke war with most of the rest of the island? Or a bunch of realms conspiring to take down the biggest realm on the island?

I am fairly certain that Famine never demanded Barad Lacirith. We all knew that Coria did not have enough nobles to expand. Otherwise Shanandoah would have went to Coria.

People are making all sorts of accusations at a character that isn't even around anymore. The player is not exactly here to defend himself. Like I said, the perfect scapegoat.

This is Yangfan, by the way. You can see the family affiliation by clicking on the poster's name, assuming that he set it up correctly in his profile.

Your logic is so flawed that it almost hurt my eyes.

CE didnt piss of all realms at once, it was done over a long time and that has been clearly stated in public. Repeated offensive and power abusing was the reason for most declarations of war presented, I do not know if the CE nobles got all declarations presented for them.

And you cant be sure what Famine had asked for as that character did NOT share all with his council, I know that the current ruler of CE have had a few aha moments trying to figure out what happened before Famine vanished and I am sure that more information is shared today. Saying that your character should know about all cause he was in the council if flawed logic as Milan have discovered when stepping up from judge to ruler. In the beginning of the war it was CE who made the demands towards Eston and it was CE who told everyone to stay out or feel the wrath, I see that as a taking a lead role in the war and as provoking by power abuse. Coria defended themself saying that they wanted a 1vs1 war from the start and was not to blame for CE joining the war by their side but as we have been told here that was another lie to put on the pile.

What I want to see now is CE stop acting like a turtle and starts to go offensive as everything will break if hammered long enough on!

[Munro]

The truly sad thing here is that CE only declared war on Eston because Coria threatened to break our alliance if we didn't.

Come on, that's a bit stretched, we did no such thing. How many times has Saeculo complained at Enri for the Empires heavy handedness? If we've ever threatened to become less friendly, it was because of the way you used to push us around. The reason I found the accusation that we were the CE's lapdogs so amusing is because we had considered lowering relations with the CE if they continued to push us around for that very reason, that they were treating us as such but we were not.

We are supporting the CE now because yes, we are their colony and yes we are their allies. We want to be loyal to our allies, and we've certainly done everything we can do for the CE, we couldn't do much more save being destroyed and our lands given to Hammarsett. Coria is still loyal to the CE and whilst it cannot aid it Militarily any longer, that doesn't mean it's not rooting for it, we are happy if it's a mutually respecting relationship.

At the end of the day, our friendship with the CE is important, but you've not treated us much different to the other realms who have problems with the way you've acted. Yeah you've not threatened us, but we've not appreciated being pushed around. Enri himself apologised for Famine to Saeculo at the start of this war. Even before this war, when we refused you all military access to BoM, Tara threatened to take Lothruin from us! That was one of the reasons you were able to then have access.

Coria is in one of the most strategic positions on Atamara, and we are constantly asked for military access and then threatened if we do not give it. Carelia invaded us last time to get to Eston. It was only when we threatened to declare War that they left our lands. But for many Corians it was an unofficial invasion.

In the League of the Eagle and amongst the Generals, Saeculo had been stating his desire to attack Darka rather than Eston. The only reason that this didn't happen was because we couldn't have gained access to Darka because Talerium wouldn't let us due to the border agreement (and they had a bigger issue with Eston at the time anyway) and we believed Eston would refuse us access to attack Darka. (Infact now that I think about it, military access to Darka was actually one of the requests we made to Eston when we asked for peace).

Then given the 'too much peace', their actions against us in terms of halting trade, threatening us with starvation and then offering enemies of our realm sanctuary, it's only understandable that we declared war on Eston as these were at least two genuine IC reasons for doing so. Plus we were told we had the full support of our allies, we didn't have to demand this support as was stated.

It wasn't a war of annihilation however as we were only ever going to take a single region from them, ask that their Judge be removed and that we be allowed military access to Darka. We didn't ever intend for it to last this long, much less try and destroy their realm.

It's ironic that at that time, the situation was reversed and Eston was the equivalent of Coria, it was just in the way between us and Darka and I believe the main war would have been between our allies and Darka (well that's not a certain, but it was possible).

It's even more interesting that given this situation, the peace terms we requested were almost identical to the peace terms they requested. It just shows that neither realm look at one another as hated enemies.
 

[Munro]

Coria defended themself saying that they wanted a 1vs1 war from the start and was not to blame for CE joining the war by their side but as we have been told here that was another lie to put on the pile

You shouldn't be getting the OOC and IC confused. There is no way you would know for a fact that was a lie apart from the fact it was stated in these forums.

Even now, with everyone being completely honest, it's easy for the truth to be distorted. People remember things differently, people have different reasons for their actions and then remember them as being 'the' reason for that happening.

Originally, I thought that the sole reason for War against Eston was because of the Herunumen incident. He did try to kill me after all. But then I realised that Merlin, a Duke with a large city to feed, well, his main reason was because of the ceased trade. Two different reasons, and two different characters putting different emphasis on those reasons. Whilst I didn't really even originally consider the food issue, it was clearly a reason for war for Merlin.

Saeculo became a bit unstuck because of this and was accused of lying, even though, as a player, I've attempted for him to tell the truth on every occasion.

[Bedwyr]

The treaty we signed does not restrict us to a "one-region-wide route" it doesn't even mention a route to the CE at all. Have you read the treaty? It merely gives Nazia to Eston. Thanks to Eston and Kerwin playing nice with Coria, the north now have Coria's full permission to roam unopposed through Belegmon and Belegmon, their only regions that provide us access to the Cagilan Empire. There is absolutely nothing else that can be gained from Coria regarding the war with the Cagilan Empire, what more do you want?

Better spies, evidently.  The only version of the treaty I've seen IC talks about Coria "possibly" allowing northern armies through at a later date.  Given what I know of Battlemaster diplomacy, "possibly" generally means "ahahahahah you're funny, no."  Which meant that only Nazia could be traveled through.  Which meant that armies could camp behind the fortifications in Sauvia as that was the only way in.

Indeed, nothing new. But just as frustrating to Kerwin and Eston nonetheless. Especially when somehow Eston and Kerwin are being blamed for not securing something. What that something is, I don't know. But we're being blamed and having fingers pointed at us for being nice with Coria. I don't why Darka doesn't take any heat for being nice with Talerium when they are actively helping the Cagilan Empire AND possess a far better route into the Cagilan Empire than Coria has ever had.

Oh, they are.  But when there's this convenient surrender treaty (again, the info I had was evidently out of date) that should have rectified the problem anyway...