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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
The Grand Unified Theory of Verrathing
sunfrog
Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Hello friend,
Allow me to take you on a journey. A journey of... the imagination.
When we first start off on Verra nodes will be populated by NPCs and monsters. We'll probably help the NPCs and start a race that will likely end in disaster!! [Dun dun dun!!!]
I'm not talking about the race to become a parent node, I'm talking about taking the castle and the entire planet. Let me explain. People will grow their nodes and fight for parenthood. Meanwhile, let's say... me, I will declare war on the Green Castle. It will be announced everywhere. (Not sure if only in the Green Castle's zoi, or planetwide.)
If it's planetwide everyone will join and we will beat the monsters. I will get credit in the game as the first person to take a castle on Verra, then it will be my castle. I will give out rewards to people and nodes and everyone will move into my zoi because all the others are controlled by monsters and people like getting stuff. As soon as I can I will attack the Yellow Castle and take it. How can I lose? They're just monsters and I have an army. Then someone else will take the Orange Castle. I have twice as many people (because I have 2 castles) so my next move will be to attack the Orange Castle and take it. I now have 3 castles. The pink castle will fall next so I'll attack them and win 'cause I have 3xs and many people. etc... Then I'll take all the castles and unify the kingdom.
What if the castle attack announcement is local only to the Green Castle's zoi? Well, when we arrive on Verra everyone will spread out and no one will know which zoi they're in so the population of the different zois might look like this.
Green Castle 5000 people
Yellow Castle 1000 people
Blue Castle 500 people
Pink Castle 1500 people
Orange Castle 2000 people
We all declare war on our own castles, 'cause it's full of monsters, but only I win 'cause I have 5000 people and the other zois don't have enough people to win against the monsters.
Same scenario occurs again. I attack all the other castles and win and I unify the server.
So, I know what you're thinking. Why would the population be spread out that way?
Maybe the Blue Castle is far away, or the monsters are tougher. Maybe we all start out near the Green Castle so it's the closest. Maybe the Yellow Castle is a stinky swamp. Yuck. There's lots of reasons.
Steven said there will be portals all over so we'll be spread out when we land. Yes, he did, and that makes me think that he thought of this before I did. He has seen this possibility and planned against it. But the first thing we're going to do when we arrive is run all over looking for the best spot to live. If that's the Green Castle's zoi, because fishing, coastline, mines, resources, what have you, this scenario could still occur. And also, the battle is not for parenthood, the person who takes the first castle has a huge advantage towards winning the game by unifying the server.
How do we prevent this? Well, 5 different people have to take the 5 castles at the same time. To do this the monsters in the castles need to be easy to beat. In other words, forget the nodes, attack the castle! If you fail it's game over because you've already fallen behind in the arms race.
Allow me to take you on a journey. A journey of... the imagination.
When we first start off on Verra nodes will be populated by NPCs and monsters. We'll probably help the NPCs and start a race that will likely end in disaster!! [Dun dun dun!!!]
I'm not talking about the race to become a parent node, I'm talking about taking the castle and the entire planet. Let me explain. People will grow their nodes and fight for parenthood. Meanwhile, let's say... me, I will declare war on the Green Castle. It will be announced everywhere. (Not sure if only in the Green Castle's zoi, or planetwide.)
If it's planetwide everyone will join and we will beat the monsters. I will get credit in the game as the first person to take a castle on Verra, then it will be my castle. I will give out rewards to people and nodes and everyone will move into my zoi because all the others are controlled by monsters and people like getting stuff. As soon as I can I will attack the Yellow Castle and take it. How can I lose? They're just monsters and I have an army. Then someone else will take the Orange Castle. I have twice as many people (because I have 2 castles) so my next move will be to attack the Orange Castle and take it. I now have 3 castles. The pink castle will fall next so I'll attack them and win 'cause I have 3xs and many people. etc... Then I'll take all the castles and unify the kingdom.
What if the castle attack announcement is local only to the Green Castle's zoi? Well, when we arrive on Verra everyone will spread out and no one will know which zoi they're in so the population of the different zois might look like this.
Green Castle 5000 people
Yellow Castle 1000 people
Blue Castle 500 people
Pink Castle 1500 people
Orange Castle 2000 people
We all declare war on our own castles, 'cause it's full of monsters, but only I win 'cause I have 5000 people and the other zois don't have enough people to win against the monsters.
Same scenario occurs again. I attack all the other castles and win and I unify the server.
So, I know what you're thinking. Why would the population be spread out that way?
Maybe the Blue Castle is far away, or the monsters are tougher. Maybe we all start out near the Green Castle so it's the closest. Maybe the Yellow Castle is a stinky swamp. Yuck. There's lots of reasons.
Steven said there will be portals all over so we'll be spread out when we land. Yes, he did, and that makes me think that he thought of this before I did. He has seen this possibility and planned against it. But the first thing we're going to do when we arrive is run all over looking for the best spot to live. If that's the Green Castle's zoi, because fishing, coastline, mines, resources, what have you, this scenario could still occur. And also, the battle is not for parenthood, the person who takes the first castle has a huge advantage towards winning the game by unifying the server.
How do we prevent this? Well, 5 different people have to take the 5 castles at the same time. To do this the monsters in the castles need to be easy to beat. In other words, forget the nodes, attack the castle! If you fail it's game over because you've already fallen behind in the arms race.
1
Comments
I don't see a problem... first off I think you can only be king/queen of one castle and on the other hand... the gates are all over in the corners of the world, and probably some underground for tulnar.
So different spread of people and different times... people are always envy of someone so you won't be able to get all castle if it's even possible to start with...
We can ask Steven on Tuesday to clarify it but I don't see a problem so far.
Even when you can have multiple castles, they are spread out in the world and you can't hold all. You just need 2 announced attacks on two castles and you have to split people. The enemy can just overrun you... the more castle the more you have to split people the less manpower you got.... so I don't see a problem at all.
Well, let's wait for the video.
Best regards
Ibarumarky
- The Dark Wanderer -
PS: there's one month CD on sieging a castle
Second: I dont think that the people will go and help you, they will rather kill you and take it for themselves
Third: The second you go to attack the second castle, will lead to a revolt and people will attack your castle most likely. Dont forget a siege can happen once a month.
This is a regular match. It doesn't matter who wins, the two castles merge. Unification takes place in 4 months.
In this scenario white and blue don't fight, or the fight is a fail and the two castles don't become one.
In this scenario white and blue declare an alliance.
At this point I stopped making slides because there would be too many and all of them end in 4 or 5 months even with alliances. The only way the server doesn't unify is if all fights fail forever.
[Last minute update. There is a solution but you'll never guess it]
Also: castles ONLY CONTROL THREE NODES, and they are outside of the zoi system xD
https://de.ashesofcreation.wiki/Castle_sieges
Sounds like there is a limit to how many can participate in a Castle siege.
We'll have to see what that limit actually is, but the Castle siege blog says hundreds of players on a battlefield; not thousands of players.
Siege announced everywhere doesn't really matter because only guilds can participate in Castle sieges, so it won't be everyone on the server in any case because not everyone will choose to be in a guild. So, no, not everyone will join. Players who don't enjoy PvP combat won't join. Players not interested in the Green Castle won't join. Most likely, the people who don't live in the Green Castle region of influence won't care enough to join the siege. And, no, everyone cannot move into the Green Castle's region of influence even if they wanted to.
I'm pretty sure a guild leader can only own one Castle. You could form an alliance with the guild leaders/owners of other Castles, but you would not be able to govern those other castles.
If you have a dev quote saying that one guild can own multiple Castles, please post that quote.
Even if one guild leader could own two or more Castles, that doesn't mean they could successfully manage the defense of the all those Castles month to month.
Keep in mind that in-game guilds cap out at 350. So, even if you had 5K people helping you grab the Green Castle from the NPCs, that doesn't mean that all those people would continue to be happy with you owning the Green Castle each month. Could be that the second month, 4K of those people who helped your in-game guild grab the Green Castle decide they want to support a different in-game guild not associated with you take over the Green Castle.
The best you could really hope for is that your 2K-member out of game guild is able to split into 5 factions that can form an alliance that could successfully grab all 5 Castles at the same time. And that those owners of the White, Blue, Pink and Yellow Castles are willing to continue following your directions.
In any case, one out-of-game guild owning all 5 Castles for a period of time, doesn't really count as unifying the server. Different Castle regions will have conflicting interests. Different Node ZOI's will have conflicting interests. And that will lead to contention among the different Castle owners as well.
Especially since in addition to that out-of-game guild trying to defend against Castle sieges, they will also have defend against Node sieges at the same time.
(you is used as an example for the leader of such a group)
It all is already wonky when you just assume that you can unify so many people under you and assume you have the strongest, most ginourmous group capable of subjogating all others at the same time across the entire map. If you manage that feet, I would be impressed. Maybe run for president after that and unify a country by pleasing everyone somehow....it will never happen. The game is set up to be displeased with other groups in certain situations.
You know, you are right, people like getting stuff, but you know what people hate above all else? Even getting stuff? Being told what to do.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
Virtue is the only good.
But, I’m eager to see your video and slides.
I'm gonna try to redo it. %&^%@&$&#!! lol
I somehow always imagine the gaming community like a self-cannibalizing horde of terror.
We all want good games, but always in different ways. We all want complete world domination, but always under a different ruler.
I think Ashes should be more like a horde of self-cannibalizing maniacs, that would be way more fun. ;D
And it won’t just be Castle vs Castle.
Rather it’s guilds vs guilds.
Probably 25-50 guilds all trying to own 5 Castles each month.
Power of two Castles isn’t really a thing. You could hope that the leaders of two Castles might form an alliance, but it could also be that the other three Castle leaders form an alliance to defeat the other two.
I don’t think you understand how Castle regions work and you don’t understand how Castle ownership works. And you don’t understand why numerous guilds will be motivated to unseat the leaders of each Castle... month after month after month.
And, really we can’t have server unification with peace across Verra.
Because there are only five Metros but there are 9 races. And those other 4 races will also want to have Metros so they can complete their racial progression/masteries.
In addition to the Castle sieges, we will also have Node sieges.
Verra revolves around meaningful conflict.
Kings and Queens aren’t really voted on. A King/Queen is the person who successfully channels the final relic during the siege or the same person as before if the defense is successful.
Mayors of Scientific Nodes get voted on.
ppl will always find ways to make big alliances and most of the flying mounts will stay owned by the very few.. you have to follow them and theyr guilds to benefit from bonuses you want. if you dont you will miss out, only fueling those few with money and power making them even stronger. to bad this mostly depends on political talk and stuff outside the game like forums, guild PR, websites, and discord meetings and not so much playing skill. i would love to see a person with a flying mount and get hyped because that is a strong skilled player in pvp, siege planner, or established merchant and not because he has a big pile of money/resources back in the castle for the flying mount to sleep on. if guildy's(or allianced guild) of this player get mad that they never get to fly the mount ? he just creates a guild(or alliance) event for that month where a guild has a chance to get be king and get the mount for that month. and all nerds are happy again because it is a 'fair chance' for all guildy's LuL. overcapitalisation of guilds is the only big worry i have about ashes and we cant say anything for sure... but most of the info seems to point towards this direction.
edit:added a part
Fighting alongside the other allied guilds for every Castle every time a battle is due and allowing the same 5 guild leaders to take control of the same castles.
While it is true that could happen, I don't see it being a likely occurrence. If that agreement were to happen among 5 guilds powerful (and active) enough to make this happen, it would invariably happen in a one or two battle round power play.
I do like the idea of it happening at some point in a server's history, just to say it happened, I'm not sure it would last long. A sleeping giant, of sorts, would surely jump in to disrupt it and make those guilds struggle to regain that same foothold
Can you link me to a conversation that took place where the discussion referred to castles attacking other castles?
Yes, my head. lol. Castles have to attack other castles or else what is the point of this game?
Every node unde the White Castle is from the same family. If they attack each other the White King will say, "Stop that. We need to come together to attack the Blue Castle." After the Blue Castle falls the White King will put one of their lieutenants in place and now the White King will have the power of two castles.
Castles don't have tournaments but they can be attacked once a month so they will be. The castle is the biggest prize. If you take the castle all the nodes that belong to it now belong to you.
Guild attacks have to come from a different castle 'cause you can't attack your parent. The White Castle is the parent of all the nodes under it and all the guilds belong to one of those nodes. Except for guilds from the Blue Castle's nodes. If the White Castle is defeated by a Blue Guild... hmm... I guess the Blue Guild could renounce their citizenship and own the White Castle themselves, but I'm sure the Blue King wouldn't like that and would attack them in the next round.
Alliances are a different topic. If 5 guilds take on the White Castle who becomes king? Someone from Guild A? How will the people in Guilds B,C,D, and E, feel about that? No one likes being told what to do.Why should I help you become king so you can boss me around? Alliances will be most useful against nodes, like, 'Help me take down this node because it will benefit both our regions." or, "If we take out this node trading will increase for both of us." For these reasons, Castles, who can command the entire kingdom, will attack other castles, and alliances will attack nodes.
Now I’m hungry.
even better if you use knights to flank them