So You Want To Join The Far East - An Overview of the Realms

[Heq]

Okay, this may be overambitious as a project but one of the main things in making sure any player is happy in their new realm is making sure that they fit.  Battlemaster in the Far East is a collaborative story so I'd like to start up a topic which is not a recruitment drive but instead tells players what sort of realm each realm is, who would fit and who would not.

There have been a lot of changes as the rulers have turned over and not every new player is going to ask "Why X and not Y?" or get unbiased advice.  Theme and "what can be expected," strike me as things that often get ignored.

[Heq]

Here goes,

Arcachon:
General Role In The Story:  Most of the time Arcachon sees itself as the victim, but at it's core Arcachon is the villian in a lot of other stories.  As villians it is important to remember that villians tend to lose out in the end, so winning is less important then making sure that theme is fulfilled.  It's not Lord of the Ring Orc villians but more like groups such as the Taliban in the real world or Stannis's forces in Game of Thrones.  It is a very black and white worldview.

Stories That Tend to Be Told:  Almost any of the warrior or celtic archetypes can fit but personal power is fleeting and even the grandest Duke is expected to be driven by faith and war.  There is a lot of leeway given to players but in the end it is more of a Dark Ages kingdom then a Middle Ages one.  Politics tend to be personal and family based rather then state-level, in TV shows, Borgias more then Tudors.

Characters Who Might Have Difficulty:  Noble knights who ride chargers and crush their enemies will be very out of place, especially given that Arcachon doesn't always fight wars to win them.  Bookish intellectuals who are not theologians will probably be outsiders.  Infiltrators, given the harsh laws of Arcachon, will find very little leeway for their actions.  It is also a poor realm, so things that require large sums of money will be hard to pull off (like Tourneys or impressive units).

Historical Proxy:  Ireland, pre-Elizibeth or pre-Christian Goths.

[Indirik]

Note: This overview may sound a bit harsh, but you really have to be in Ohnar West to understand it.

Ohnar West
General Role in the Story: Bumbling sidekick. They like to think themselves important and powerful, but really they aren't. They could be if they could ever get their act together. The perennial shortage of nobles, however, tends to ensure that this never happens. The main problem is no one in the realm can ever agree on anything. Many of the characters are prone to getting snippy, and are quite easily offended at the drop of a hat. The two dominant religions, Adagharhinism and Sartan, are mortal enemies.

Stories that tend to be told: Not much. It's usually pretty quiet when there are no political arguments going on.

Characters who might have difficulty: Anyone who likes organization or cooperation. People who like to focus on the military/strategy side, more than the political infighting.

Historical proxy: The Keystone Kops

[Velax]

Hah, as soon as I saw Indirik has posted in this thread, I knew we'd get a scathing review of Ohnar West.

[Indirik]

But am I wrong? I really tried to be honest... 

[Velax]

From what I can tell, you're not wrong, but I can only see from the outside.

[Indirik]

The Duke of Ozrat tangent has been split off.

[Stabbity]

C'thonia

General Role in the Story: Under dog. C'thonia started out with some promise, but with poor fortunes in wars, some poor political alliances, and the decline of an active player base, it has begun to slow down from the initially RP heavy realm it was. Most of the characters are almost blindly loyal to the throne, but there is a lot of behind the scenes attempts to sway the King to gather power on lower levels of the government. Its pretty quiet right now, but can be prone to bursting into activity with prompting. Most of the talk doesn't happen realm wide. But the Senate and other groups of more private nobles who compete for positions and power are much more active. Currently C'thonia is caught between two alliances to opposing factions, and recovering from a one sided war brought on by a former ally.


Stories that tend to be told: Not much. It's usually pretty quiet but what does get told is stories involving the Order of the Elders, or battles. The warrior caste is rather important, but again, so is the priestly caste.

Characters who might have difficulty: Anyone impatient and quiet, who expects things to just happen.

Historical proxy: The reign of Henry VIII, minus the juggling of wives.

[TDLR]

The Principality of Zonasa:

General Role In The Story:  Zonasa is (was) the peaceful realm of the continent for most of it's history. Admittedly this is a hard position to play when the game is titled "battlemaster". Zonasa has historically intervened for peace, but that's been changing a bit lately. As the realm has grown (as the result of the demise of her allies in Svunnetland and Soliferum, unfortunately), the Principality is growing to accept her new role on the continent (and in the game in general) as a protagonist. When you're a one duchy realm, it's easy to be an afterthought. When you're a 4.5 (does Haul really count?) duchy realm, you've got to take some initiative. Zonasa hasn't bucked her peaceful ways entirely and as she's pretty much grown to the fullest extent possible (and all lands that could be sustainably annexed are controlled by allies), there's not an active push for aggressive expansion. Presently, Zonasa relies on sticking up for her allies in conflicts to bring action to the realm (although, again, trying to change that).

Stories That Tend to Be Told:  There are remnants of many realms in Zonasa. The Grand Lodge of Lunaria, Svunnetland, and Soliferum are all represented. Many stories and experiences, therefore, are quite old as far as gameplay goes. As a result, new players/characters might find themselves not understanding the full content of an RP. Of course, most nobles are happy to recount history if asked, but it can be overwhelming I think. The Order of the Elders is the dominant faith, led principally by priest Phellan. Noteworthy: there are more followers of the Order of the Elders in Zonasa - a realm that is pretty much tolerant of all religions - than there are in C'thonia - a realm dedicated to the religion. Anyway, the Order is very prominent in Zonasa, although there are at least three other religions present in the realm (Trinity, Aenilia and Echad). Regent Erandi is obsessed with honor and hates infiltrators, which sets up a bit of tension with some realm leaders (Batesaor is RPed to be a Pirate City, the Duchess of Alanurs is/was a fairly skilled infiltrator, The General's brother is a prominent infil, etc...). Erandi is also very much influenced by his council, which has led to some rather embarassing reversals of policy (see his "solely committed to the defense of Aenilia" statements... and then marching into Arcaean territory not two days later).

Characters Who Might Have Difficulty:  Ones that stir up trouble of course! No, really. Characters who want constant conflict will find themselves frustrated in the Principality (trust me, I know!). Anxious players as well. Sometimes I think Zonasa would be more suited for the colonies... Zonasa's core players are a relaxed bunch. There are times where we go a few days without logging in (typically we provide a heads up, but still...) Most of the conversation is limited to upper circles and private messages, but realm-wide RPs always seem to come in waves. Some weeks everyone is really active. Other times, we're really flat. If your character needs to be constantly stimulated, Zonasa will not be a great place for him.

Historical Proxy:  I failed history. repeatedly.

Final notes: Zonasa is a growing and developing realm. Slowly the tired 'peaceful' realm is coming around to be more assertive.

[Velax]

As marshal of Arcaea's largest army, Velax found Zonasa to be quite a decent opponent, at least when compared to how you were before. But many, in game and on these forums, believe Zonasa's army was badly led and disorganised. What's your opinion on this?

[Phellan]

As marshal of Arcaea's largest army, Velax found Zonasa to be quite a decent opponent, at least when compared to how you were before. But many, in game and on these forums, believe Zonasa's army's were badly led and disorganised. What's your opinion on this?

Their army could have been a much more deadly and decisive force.   There was a lot of mistakes being made somehow.

[BardicNerd]

As marshal of Arcaea's largest army, Velax found Zonasa to be quite a decent opponent, at least when compared to how you were before. But many, in game and on these forums, believe Zonasa's army was badly led and disorganised. What's your opinion on this?

Our general is not brillent and sometimes overcautious, but certainly provides decent leadership.  It could be better organized, and there have been increasing coordination problems.  It comes and goes, though, and is not quite as bad as some make out -- but for no reason I can point to, we are less organized than we were two months ago.  Probably in another two months we'll be doing great.

To expand on the stories to be told in Zonasa:
Batesoar is 'sort of' a pirate city (I'm speaking as the duke of the city here).  This has not been a major RP in Zonasa, but there was something related to pirates with it before, so I've kept it in the back of my mind.  However, anyone using 1600s/1700s pirates as a guide for this will be mercilessly mocked by me.  The way I imagine it tends towards seafaring merchants who are, shall we say, not always honest . . . and if they see another ship all alone when they're out trading, and think they can overpower it, well . . . so not out and out pirates per say, but certainly not so ethical opportunists.
There's a least one other religion in Zonasa, and the new church of Echad is growing reasonably fast . . . so religious conflict could certainly be coming.  Zonasa has avoided it thus far by officially tolerating all religions that aren't trying to kill people, but . . . given that a lot of people support the Order, and the attitude of some of the Echad people, things might happen soon.

[TDLR]

The war from the beginning should have been close to a stalemate, maybe favoring Arcaea a little, but not much. Zonasa's long refit times really hurt Aenilia as well as Kindara's relative inaction. Although combined Aenilia and Zonasa may have been stronger than Arcaea, Arcaea benefited from her position close to the front. When Zonasa was on her long refit, the Aenilians didn't stand a chance. I think they could have done a bit better in defending themselves and I really expected them to put up at least 10k CS in defense of their regions, but alas, 5k CS was all the Aenilians could really muster. A real pittance compared to the days of Orphen and Tharion when just the regions of Nahad, Idapur, Ornaz and Erahol fielded 15k CS. Ah... those were good days. Anyway....

On to the point. It's true, there were a lot of mistakes made in the last conflict, on both sides really. I wouldn't claim Arcaea's tactics to be great by any stretch. They were simply more effective than Zonasa/Aenilia's. They could have sacked Idapur long before but stuck to attempting TOs of Nahad and destroying production in Ornaz. With Ipsosez producing food (well, until a replacement Duke couldn't be named anyway) Aenilia was always going to be able to feed herself. Plus, at least early on, Arcaea stretched a bit and left herself exposed to counter attacks. Some of the early victories Zonasa scored could have been a bit more level I think.

But as far as Zonasa's errors, I wouldn't pin any of them on anyone or anything in particular. Just with every trip north it seemed something would go wrong. On the early trips, Zonasa did not have a very defined goal. It was unclear what the war was really about (as Jenred was quick to point out, the premise for the war was dubious at best). So Zonasa marched north for the sake of marching to aid her allies in Aenilian (who kinda had grounds about defending Arcachon, although Zonasa really didn't care about Arcachon. Pretty weak stuff, but meh)... which doesn't provide much direction at all. Erandi wanted the conflict to go in one direction (Zonasa staying in Aenilian territory and simply defending against Arcaean onslaughts), but of course that would be a foolish tactic for the Arcaeans and it was quickly apparent that Zonasa would have to go on the offensive, even if she didn't have much of a reason to. Conveniently, Jenred and Arcaea gave Zonasa a reason when they assaulted Nahad. Throughout all the campaigns it was nearly impossible to get the Aenilians on the same page. Xarnelf was suceptible to overly-ambitious marches and doomed assaults (marching 4k CS of Aenilian troops against 8k CS of Arcaeans a day before Zonasa's armies arrived being one example).  Just a simple mismanagement of resources...

So Kindara never really did anything. I mean, they 'marched to the defense of Aenilia'. Which is what Zonasa always wanted to do, but given that Arcaea used those stalemates to shuffle nobles from the front into refitting... it really hurt Aenilia/Zonasa more than helped. Erandi tried to explain this to Tissaphernes, but to no avail. Unfortunate.

On a later campaign, Xarnelf went with a small cadre of nobles and assaulted Talex, which effectively left Zonasa doing the babysitting of Aenilian territories instead of sacking the city, wasting an entire campaign. The next time around, Zonasa was poorly organized due to an apparently popular weekend to be OOC away from the game. It seemed everyone missed a turn or two or four and the last assault on Talex just ended up being incredibly rushed and disorganized. Pretty bad luck and a little communication would have gone a long way. Oh yea, and the Aenilians failed to show up for that one too. Oh well.

Lessons learned: When moving in large groups, always take things slow. Also, when evenly matched,  attack as far away from the enemy's capital as you can. Make the enemy stretch to defend herself. Marching on Larmebsi did wonders to destabilize Arcaea's Southern regions (Talex, Hupar, etc...), but given Arcaea's quick refit times due to the proximity of their capital, it was clear Arcaea would always come back to defend her regions before any lasting gains could be made. And finally, this is probably the most important lesson learned: Have an endgame in mind before marching to war. You can't plan a course of action if you don't know where you're trying to get to.

Your thoughts?

[Chenier]

Lessons learned: When moving in large groups, always take things slow. Also, when evenly matched,  attack as far away from the enemy's capital as you can. Make the enemy stretch to defend herself. Marching on Larmebsi did wonders to destabilize Arcaea's Southern regions (Talex, Hupar, etc...), but given Arcaea's quick refit times due to the proximity of their capital, it was clear Arcaea would always come back to defend her regions before any lasting gains could be made. And finally, this is probably the most important lesson learned: Have an endgame in mind before marching to war. You can't plan a course of action if you don't know where you're trying to get to.

Your thoughts?

All good lessons.

[Bedwyr]

The war from the beginning should have been close to a stalemate, maybe favoring Arcaea a little, but not much.

I'd say favouring the southerners, myself, given that Ohnar West was steadily losing.  They shouldn't have been, of course, and that was a surprise to Jenred, but it became evident pretty quickly.

Zonasa's long refit times really hurt Aenilia as well as Kindara's relative inaction. Although combined Aenilia and Zonasa may have been stronger than Arcaea, Arcaea benefited from her position close to the front. When Zonasa was on her long refit, the Aenilians didn't stand a chance. I think they could have done a bit better in defending themselves and I really expected them to put up at least 10k CS in defense of their regions, but alas, 5k CS was all the Aenilians could really muster. A real pittance compared to the days of Orphen and Tharion when just the regions of Nahad, Idapur, Ornaz and Erahol fielded 15k CS. Ah... those were good days. Anyway....

They had to dump a lot of gold into rebuilding the walls and militia in Nahad, especially given that Arcaea frequently took all the gold in Nahad and Ornaz.

On to the point. It's true, there were a lot of mistakes made in the last conflict, on both sides really. I wouldn't claim Arcaea's tactics to be great by any stretch. They were simply more effective than Zonasa/Aenilia's. They could have sacked Idapur long before but stuck to attempting TOs of Nahad and destroying production in Ornaz. With Ipsosez producing food (well, until a replacement Duke couldn't be named anyway) Aenilia was always going to be able to feed herself. Plus, at least early on, Arcaea stretched a bit and left herself exposed to counter attacks. Some of the early victories Zonasa scored could have been a bit more level I think.

We were anticipating having better luck with the TO's.  Especially the first one, when we had good sympathy, our whole army ready, and Aenilia out of position.  They had some good luck on a couple of suicide attacks that broke the TO's, and then we couldn't quite manage to take the region before Zonasa showed up.  I still think if we'd had one more day it would have been different, but that's the way it was.  A gamble, and it didn't work.  We'd have been much better off ravaging Aenilia rather than trying to TO Nahad, but there was no way to know that.  The absolute most painful thing Aenilia did for the entire war was steal all the food in Hupar.  Arcaea's food system is fragile because most of the production is in the north-east and most of the consumption is in the south-west, and that starved 30K out of Topenah.

But as far as Zonasa's errors, I wouldn't pin any of them on anyone or anything in particular. Just with every trip north it seemed something would go wrong. On the early trips, Zonasa did not have a very defined goal. It was unclear what the war was really about (as Jenred was quick to point out, the premise for the war was dubious at best). So Zonasa marched north for the sake of marching to aid her allies in Aenilian (who kinda had grounds about defending Arcachon, although Zonasa really didn't care about Arcachon. Pretty weak stuff, but meh)...

They didn't have justification by defending Arcachon, actually.  Xarnelf had already signed away that right after the Talex incident, which is why he based the whole thing on being attacked by the infiltrator, which was on very shaky, as he was violating his own sworn word (for the third time) and violating Cathay's territory after being refused passage put the whole thing on even worse footing.

So Kindara never really did anything. I mean, they 'marched to the defense of Aenilia'. Which is what Zonasa always wanted to do, but given that Arcaea used those stalemates to shuffle nobles from the front into refitting... it really hurt Aenilia/Zonasa more than helped. Erandi tried to explain this to Tissaphernes, but to no avail. Unfortunate.

Kindara had a few high-level nobles strongly objecting to the war (I know at least two Dukes did), and Tissaphernes thought Xarnelf was an idiot.  She felt obliged by Ziode's actions, but didn't like it, from everything I saw.

Lessons learned: When moving in large groups, always take things slow. Also, when evenly matched,  attack as far away from the enemy's capital as you can. Make the enemy stretch to defend herself. Marching on Larmebsi did wonders to destabilize Arcaea's Southern regions (Talex, Hupar, etc...), but given Arcaea's quick refit times due to the proximity of their capital, it was clear Arcaea would always come back to defend her regions before any lasting gains could be made. And finally, this is probably the most important lesson learned: Have an endgame in mind before marching to war. You can't plan a course of action if you don't know where you're trying to get to.

Southern alliance did have predictable tactics, which made Arcaea's response a lot easier.  And most of the time, we got information on Zonasa's movements as soon as they happened one way or another.

Good war, though.  Had me biting my nails more than once.