The HARD battle

This is a little post I'm making regarding the battle last night while I was sleeping... I had been posting all day in the alliance circular of hitting HARD members on various Islands using Bartleys towns to stage from... I even said that I was on Island 48:70 at his town Doris(which was a site of another large battle not too long ago) I left my troops in town figuring that 1000 phalanx and 500 guns would be enough to deter most from bugging us.. I came back from a long day and we had been attacked.. A medium sized army. They took a good loss, and I figured I'd let the alliance know. I posted the CR in the circular, let the alliance know what was up and went to bed, leaving the troops in town, since Bartley seemed to be gone for the last couple days and I didn't want him to get wiped out..I woke up this morning to a loss at Doris. The loss didn't seem to bother me as much as it did Pocketchange , who blamed me for the ruination of our solid footing against HARD(first of all the CR wasn't that huge, if they need to brag about that it's sad).. I just took it as a loss of 400 troops and moved on, no big deal.

I understand how much time and effort organized military strikes take. I understand that HARD is all about the glory of big CRs, but why would we not attack their stronghold when I have sent my spy report in.. They don't really have any more troops to send there, their military is tapped out and they have all their eggs in one basket. If we send a huge force in to completely wipe them out, wouldn't that send the true message that we want to send.. Don't mess with Hetre!!! Or do we want to send the message that Hetre only waits to be attacked and doesn't attack back? I may be out of line, and I know we have no official declaration of war, but wouldn't it just feel good to kill 3000-4000 HARD troops? If you play chess, you realize that pieces get taken on both sides, leading up to an eventual checkmate..I think that if we find a time to strike tonight, checkmate will happen.

I understand both sides of this discussion (Yours and PC's). I think an attack could bring about two different results. 1. HARD will be beat into submission and will declare this whole deal over. 2. HARD will rally friends in other alliances or rebuild and this ordeal will escalate into a full blown mess.

Now personally I'm bored and don't care either way but I am just a pee-on and am not responsible for anyone or anything but my own happy little towns. The General and the Captains are another story all together. They are the backbone of this alliance and the Diplomat and Home Secretary are the heart. The leader is the brain (Hardstyle? uh oh lol)
so when the stuff hits the fan the leaders are tied to their computers watching our behinds.

So now begins the next dilemma. Let the diplomats talk and either 1. It works and this deal is over or 2. HARD rebuilds and regroups and this whole thing starts over and is worse.

Now that I have played the devil's advocate I will say let the diplomats work on something, build your military, hideouts, and 100 or so ships and prepare for the worst and the better outcome will prevail. If we sit idle they will notice and react. If we grow they will drop this mess and we can find something more productive to do than fight.

Already Have about 150 ships ready to blockade any time it's needed. Flames, Paddles, and catapults. Over 100 in just Stormreach alone.. Mostly building navy there since it seems navy is where we are lacking and HARD is strong. Just focusing on that at the moment, building troops is secondary for me right now. Can send another 50 paddles from my other military town whenever needed.

This is all just my opinion on things anyway, just the way I see it. That's why I'm just looking for opinions and feedback. Not trying to stir anything up or cause drama in the alliance.

The most important thing to remember about the island at 48:70 is that it is their Sulfur Island.. Without it, their military will dwindle. A complete occupation and takeover of that island would hurt them immensely. It's not just blindly attacking their stronghold it's strategic... Why do you think they made that Island their stronghold...they can't live without it.

I see your point and I agree with you. I can also see the point of PC and the others in Leadership. I was just throwing out both options. I do not think either side is wrong there are just two different points of view. I would like to see other opinions in here as well. I think we should go about this as a democracy. Let the people be heard. I am not trying to down play either side because both have good reasons. We need feedback from the alliance and then base the decision on which way to go. Diplomacy or Extermination?
Discussion is now open.........

I just took over Hardstyle's account.... so I can't see the troops in Stormreach by now.... but I thought there were less in there than before. Take into account a lvl 15 wall. Them being able to pour troops in on the defensive side, and their phalanx will stretch it...

For such an operation you'd need a significant amount of people online at the same time... ventrilo coordination.... preferably when the enemy is sleeping.

I don't think it is as good an idea of picking their relatively undefended cities. Let them be holed up while we raid their cities. They'll get tired of it.

They have a lvl 12 wall... and there are less troops in Stormreach, Pocketchange pulled out.... Still around 7000 troops there though. They have less than 5K troops and only lvl 19 hideout, lvl 12 wall.. Plus I have 1000 troops away from the action on the other side of the map that I can send whenever we are ready to go on the offensive. I took them out of the area of combat , so that I wouldn't cause any trouble I'm being a good boy.

The enemy is currently building steam giants at Azure, so they will only become harder to beat the longer we let them sit. All I'm doing is giving intel on the situation, letting you know what HARD is up to right now.

@Echo Are you still doing the diplomat thing? What is the 'feel' of the discussion? Anything regarding how the talks are going will be more useful than troop intel right now. If the talks are sounding favorable than we should go with that angle, if they are getting more hostel than we need to get together and see how to cool this down (slowing pillaging raids, MWC's, etc). I think that escalating this would only hurt us right now. Let's get our towns up and hideouts going, then see what happens.

I am of the opinion at this point, that a major set battle will just tick them off and is liable to escalate things rather than solve them. I think that depriving them of resources with lightening raids will be more valuable course of action at the present time. We will be hitting them economically and speeding up our growth while we hinder theirs (at least until they learn to build hideouts and walls). A major troop battle will cause economic hardship on both sides for awhile and could cause other alliances to get involved which, at this point in the life of the server, could be pretty bad for us long term.

My personal opinion is that we let this issue cool down and do the diplomacy thing, shore up our number 1 position on this server with a few strong allied alliances, and then we can pretty much do as we please (within reason of course). On the other side of the coin, if the leadership and captains decide that it's going to be all out war, my troops stand ready just as they did the day we defended Stormreach.

boldrin, i already explained why we aren't going after them in pm's (and to the rest of hetre on ventrilo days ago, and through pm's and circulars days ago).. when you ignore me and get the alliance wondering if we have plans to organize an attack and drag us into war, i have to address the alliance and reconfirm that we have no such plans. all of the active people who were on ventrilo this week while we were in stormreach know i won't be calling on them to do this.

1. i told you to stop abusing your military score. nobody is impressed. its disgusting. you need to dismantle that massive navy/army and keep a military that you can afford legitimately before the server loses all respect for us.
2. HARD will just rebuild and never let this die if you don't. they have no respect for you for abusing the bug and they will likely punish you down the road if you keep it. if you keep it, or grow it, we are not going to make a war out of it next time, we are just going to take your hetre tag away and let you play by yourself.
3. storing troops to make/save some gold is one thing (it sucks but we cant force gameforge programmers to fix the code) but using the bug to build a massive military and use it against another alliance is just unacceptable.
4. even if you weren't abusing the military, it won't help the HARD situation if we win another big fight. it will make it worse.
5. we can't schedule enough people to be online while they sleep to attack and fight a 6 hour battle. and that won't be the end. it will be just the beginning.
6. their stronghold is not easy to beat. you would need 10000 troops online at the same time in the same place, all attacking together.
7. how much time do you think we will have to be online watching our backs after a fight like that? you don't have the time to be online when things happen, so it upsets me to see you trying to make the leaders stay online and run a war in your absence.
8. phelix is gone. and when he gets back, this is just 1 fight you're asking for, but there will be many more if you don't let this thing die. phelix doesn't have time to lead an endless war. let diplomacy proceed.
9. i have a life too. i can't stare at the military adviser and quarterback things 24/7 while 90% of us are offline 90% of the time..
10. i dont like permanently having my entire military 8 hours away from my towns and leaving myself defenseless and not having my military where it belongs so i can use it to pillage so i can grow.

im just really tired of wasting everyone's time on this situation. HARD is very far away from most of us, and you can't expect us to want to stay in stormreach permanently.

Boldring, knowing where they are is valuable info, and it is good to know what kind of troops they have. But we can't get a significant win out of that situation, as long as they stay holed up there. Raiding and looting is fine coz it shows they can't defend themselves from speedy and active members. In the mean time, I'm gonna talk to Hard and get back to business as usual.

Looking at both sides:

@ Boldrin:
I am all one for a good fight but i dont see how we would even get a player to stick for 1 round so the rest could join. but hell if we can get enough people to say yes you know im always down to bang out.

@ Echo:
I agree if we keep kicking them when they are down and pillaging there un guarded resources they will get bored rather quickly of paying double upkeep and still loosing a ton of good. And if you can wrap with up diplomatically im all for that as i really want to focus on a 6th town not a war.

@ PocketChange:

Do you have to try to be that much of a D'bag or is a natural gift? Why is it every time your send out a circular you must belittle some one? As you said you kept getting asked if we were planning a mass attack the second half of the circular would of been enough to cover that.. And well im not going to touch that last post as well it is typical PC on his high and mighty thrown why not take a chapter our of any one of our other great leaders...

Echo- is always calm sends out informative messages and always answers questions and listens to players.

Space- Always looking to trade extra resources and even gave me some for free and sends out circulars with the same info you do but in a much more receptive way...

Indy- is just awesome i love the fact when we have an inactive she is on the ball to get them dropped so we can target the resources. On no other server have i seen that before

Shaun- well he is just an all around good player who is a great addition to the leadership team sending out informative messages that help further our cause.

See another example of Echo at his best:

Echo wrote:Boldring, knowing where they are is valuable info, and it is good to know what kind of troops they have. But we can't get a significant win out of that situation, as long as they stay holed up there. Raiding and looting is fine coz it shows they can't defend themselves from speedy and active members. In the mean time, I'm gonna talk to Hard and get back to business as usual.

@Zar In PC's defense he doesn't sound belittling on ventrilo. I have chatted with him a few times before. I do however understand where he is coming from. I have been given more information on this ordeal and as PC has said We Won't Win. So either we go fight a battle and lose and look like idiots and become targets or we just end this by swallowing some of our pride and hit the flanks and cut the supply line from the rear. If you don't have access to ventrilo you need to get it. It is very useful and real fun also.

Firemedic wrote:The leader is the brain (Hardstyle? uh oh lol)

I...feel...the...need...to...abuse...admin...powers...Must...resist...

I'm talking to Hard about normalizing relations. I expect it to happen later today, maybe tomorrow.

As for the topic of subtlety, that is something we'll work on.

@ PC I was told by someone I should make a post on the forums about this so I took their advice...

i don't like making long posts but i did type all of this out in response to the recent events.

about text communication:
text is impersonal. i hate it. if i hurt you with my pen/keyboard, then get on ventrilo and you will see im not worth getting upset over and that i am not a complete asshole. Having an actual voice helps. It does everyone more justice than text alone ever can. If you are on ventrilo you would see im a nice guy who pokes fun but takes the alliance seriously.

yes echo doesn't like it when i am a jerk to a member in a text fashion, and neither do i. when it comes to typing, i sacrifice kindness in favor of message. I try to be clear, I know it doesn't always come off ideally, this doesn't mean I don't like Boldrin or any one else. I just felt that his proposition needed an instant response.

about boldrin plan to attack their stronghold:
this was never in the planning. I don't believe it is the right move. I don't think we can win the battle, and will suffer on the board and in the diplomatic process. I'm not the only one who believes this. I can't write it in a nice way when I feel it needs an instant response.

@ Zar and all of Hetre who have not used our ventrilo:
when you see indy post that we are kicking an inactive (easy example).. well thats a team effort, like many things are. Members do not see the stuff that echo, indy, and i do on a daily basis. We work on ventrilo together at all hours. We get a lot done because we don't have to sit and write letters to each other and wonder if what we wrote is being understood. ventrilo is like a phone.

Right now we don't have an active general yet, because Phelix has to prioritize school, like I will have to in a couple of days. Acquiring an active general again will be a enormous step in the right direction. Right now diplomacy has to have a bigger priority. Its all the more reason to chill out and not get into a never-ending war outside of hetre territory. we need to make some allies and find more active players who can play a role in our leadership before we get in deeper.

step in my shoes:
I don't like being a jerk. but i don't like it when someone tries to undertake something, when we already told him (and the rest of the alliance), we're not going to go down that road. It is frustrating to get a reply that someone will then go it alone.

I am sorry for being a jerk, but we need to get back to building our economies in relative peace so we can actually afford a war in the future. we need to put this behind us. there are only a few Hetre members in that area.

on HARD:
at this point, things are escalated. i don't see a way to end to hostilities with HARD, but i know more organized attacks from us is not the solution. please respect our decision. go back to 1v1, don't give them any loot and don't get your troops killed. and if you aren't from the area, i can't force you to keep your military in stormreach, but they may attack it again now and we don't want to lose a defensive battle. Going there will prolong hostilities and we are 8 hours away. We aren't going to occupy an entire island. we spread our troops out like that and they will tear us apart, and catch someone off guard, and will post a CR like they just did.

they have organized and come up with a nice CR in their favor, they are going to likely keep attacking ungas and bartley because some of us are going after their active fighters, which isn't profitable. we don't want to be stuck in a permanent war with these guys, with very little Hetre in the area... i don't think bartley or the new guy, ungas, will appreciate it. we'll lose a lot of battles and make it so that HARD accomplished just as much victory as us, if not more.

side note:
if anyone in hetre can be online 24/7 and take up the war-time general role.. someone with excellent understanding on 3.1 ikariam game mechanics and recorded military experience.. i am sure phelix would give it to you in a heartbeat, but even then, that doesn't mean we are ready for war with HARD 8 hours away from the bulk of our towns, and it will still require a huge investment of time.

just an ice breaker....

i lambasted HARD again in the boards...

No hard feelings PC, we're both just opinionated , strongwilled people. I respect the wishes of the Hetre leadership, and have already taken the majority of my army away so that I will not be tempted to kill HARD members...back to pillaging and selling I go.

-space- wrote:just an ice breaker....

i lambasted HARD again in the boards...

LOL lambasted.