Raids and Reinforcements

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May 2012

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[Revenge Sempati]

The biggest problem i have with these kinds of groups is that they get called in as reinforcements during an ongoing raid. I saw a group of them coming to the aid of rorus when treve attacked, treve already being outnumbered by the rorians. I dont know if someone was sent to get help, but if you think about it.. a person is dispatched to get the help of allies/mercenaries, whatever... these guys are living on a secluded island on the thassa, yet they manage to come and help within minutes.

I find it hard to understand why cities take this approach. You have walls, you have raid ratio's... but still you need to rely on reinforcements to completely unbalance the odds in your favor so you can win. Take a look at Minus sometime. No walls, 2:1 raid ratio, no allies to reinforce us.. and if the raid is in progress no defender may teleport to the mainland to assist.

I have always been of two minds about reinforcements during raids, on one hand having allies from leagues away suddenly appear to turn the tide of battle can be frustrating for raiders and unrealistic, however on the flip side a city under seige might have allies in the field nearby or one of their own legions to return for assistance.   I have never liked attacking a place then suddenly watch as suddenly their entire male population makes an appearance to beat back raiders.

I think reinforcements to an ongoing battle are reasonable, but I think should be a block of time (30minutes or whatever) from first contact to when reinforcements can arrive.  That gives attackers chance raid and pillage if able, it gives the defenders a reason to fight smart and understand that they have long time before help will arrive, and reinforcements can be itchy with anticipation to join the fray.

What do you think would be reasonable rules around reinforcements for raids and such?  How are they contacted, time limits an number limits?

[ramond lax]

Here is the thing.. the reason we have raid ratios is to keep things within reason.  we don't want 30 guys to show up and take out 5, so we put it in writing, 1:1 or 2:1 or 1+2:1, whatever we thing is reasonable.  To then get raided by 5 guys, when you have 5 defenders, only to call up another 25 guys, is equally unfair, but many people don't care to think that way. 

I admit i have come when called, because I want to play too. but I have never once encouraged or called reinforcements to come aid my sim in battle.  I think it is cowardly. 

In addition I don't ever yank on my cock and chant "look at me, I have a 2:1 Raid ratio, Ain't I brave"  No, I am not.  whether my pixels can beat up your pixels doesn't really matter to me, no Matter how many Sets of Pixels you have along side you.  We think we are great because we can click and swing our sword.  We are really not. 

Maybe it's high time we just get over ourselves, Hmm?

[Mel Fitzcarraldo]

...  whether my pixels can beat up your pixels doesn't really matter to me, no Matter how many Sets of Pixels you have along side you.  We think we are great because we can click and swing our sword.  We are really not. 

Maybe it's high time we just get over ourselves, Hmm?

Good lord Lax! You're making way too much sense!
Mel

[Anarch]

The concept of raid-ratios is a bit outdated in my opinion.

To me the approach of not having raid ratios but kinda expecting that the other team will keep things fair and reasonable seems to work best. Less rules usually means more room for valid and realistic RP. Einar has this approach, but perhaps understandable too, as I've seen Ghost outlaws trying to raid them 5 to 1 and Ghost Outlaws still losing the attack.

The whole reinforcements thing is not something you'll be able to get out of BtB Gor anymore. Fina and Sais started with the whole docks reinforcements thing and other sims have started picking up on it. So while you might bring your 2:1 or 1:1 raid to attack a walled city, be sure to also watch your back for a whole bunch of others coming in. Saying you don't like it is only gonna make them shrug their shoulders because if you raid-ban em you might get the entire Southern Trade Alliance group bashing your sim / group.

Having raid-ratios is a bit like saying: "Hey I don't like my pixels being beaten up by yours." At least that is how it comes across to most groups and men who are a bit heavier on the raiding side. If the other guys that raid you can't keep it within reasonable numbers then you can have a talk with them. That does not mean throwing out invalids and RP-bans and raidbans like a sensitive soul though. It's a very complex thing and I think that in general there should be a complete remodeling of the basic raiding structure in SL Gor, when it comes to it anyway...

Lack of avatars on a sim to actually represent all the men / combattants / defenders present is one of the biggest issues in SL Gor probably. Perhaps even a 1:2 or 1:3 raid ratio would make more sense for BtB Gor to be completely realistic. The strike forces and "raids" mentioned in the books were groups of perhaps 5-20 men trying to kill / capture someone in the middle of a city that would've had a few hundred or thousand guards... I'm really not quite sure either how this can be correctly represented when sims get overran by armies of attackers who have equal or twice their numbers. It does not make any sense or is not even book-plausible in my opinion unless you have some kind of major defense systems that can wear down any incoming raiders. It's even stated that raids on walled cities extremely rarely be succesful and it usually ended in a bloody dead for the offenders. Pa-Kur sent hundreds of men into their deaths over and over when he tried to have tarnsmen-strike forces trying to assault the towers in Ar, everytime groups of 5-20 men who rarely would succeed, but when they did succeed they'd have plenty of gold and new slaves...

The GE-model of raiding still has BtB Gor in a vice grip which it seems unable to struggle out of... and in most cases does not seem to want to struggle out of either. Same with every attempt at adopting or trying out a new meter being completely ditched (or else just the sims that use them.)

[Bhoamar Landfall]

I promised Myself I would not comment on this. I really did.

But


When I came to sl gor in 2008, from text/html/irc style gor, fighting was completely foriegn to Me. I think I had played one first person shooter prior to sl gor. Now this is after 11 years in text style gor. It took Me forever to become competant at melee. I still struggle with ranged weapons. I am better, I have a decent system but I do I admit it. I at times suck.
I choose to rp with people that are like minded oin that rp is so much more important and the fighting is at besy a blip on radar for us though we have and do on occasion. We are attched to rorus and have it set up for assistance thru rp and a firestack. We have a 2 to 1 raid ratio. We are a laager or wagon camp as some call it.

For us alliances and raid assistance is necessary. I came here to rp and add a demension to My gor I could not get elsewhere. I rankles Me, that some gorcrafter can declare btb by reading some quotes on an nc and then tell every one they are the future of gor. Bullshit. They tired of wow and moved onto fighting and tittes. They will tire once again.

Until they do, there will be raid ratios, there will be assistance, there will be an attempt to balance what I have done for 14 years, rp gor and not some shoot em up game. 

[Daved Calderwood]

I think also that needs to be considered is the amount of lag that is guaranteed when you have so many avies on the sim doing alot of things at once. I can remember in Tancred's Landing and Semris where we would get hit by a panther or outlaw group , so we take them down or its a stand off with neither side really winning and then out of the blue the opposition got five to seven more fighters, then a few more fighters, then a few more. In between taking prisoners and trying to rescue our own the sim would fill up and then the dreaded lag would come in where it felt like it was going to take three hours just to get from one end of the city to the other. It got to the point where in both sims the mods had to call for a time out just so each side could get themselves sorted out before continuing.

The whole ratio thing i believe was put into place so the defending and attacking forces were on more equal grounds plus also to prevent too much lag. It worked well for low populated cities but in places like treve where you had over fifteen warriors not to mention all the regular citizens the same lag issues would pop up again.

[steamyraj]

maybe it's time for Chuck Norris to join Gor SL and give some roundhouse kicks to raiders who call reinforcement during the ongoing raid... ;-))

[Yuroki Uriza]

We were with 5 men in Besnitt yesterday (one of our enemies, but mostly empty). We started to climb on the walls, then a Kur approached and we downed the beast. But then they started to teleport people in from Turia...

[2012/02/29 15:26]  MasterJonathan Python: Besnitt is protected by Turia....do you want to head down this road?

Sorry, i cannot play and continue that:

Besnit: A small city within a hundred pasangs of Esalinus and Harfax. It is an ally of Harfax. Besnit does not upkeep its roads in order to isolate itself. It is next to impossible to reach the city in the spring due to the rains.

Esalinus: One of the three cities, within 100 pasangs of the edge of the Woods of Clearchus and within a hundred pasangs of Besnit and Harfax

[Carter Ebbage]

I think reinforcements to an ongoing battle are reasonable, but I think should be a block of time (30minutes or whatever) from first contact to when reinforcements can arrive.  That gives attackers chance raid and pillage if able, it gives the defenders a reason to fight smart and understand that they have long time before help will arrive, and reinforcements can be itchy with anticipation to join the fray.

That would be an excellent rule to have.... or to add to complexity, if a town or city is taken over.... reinforcements should not be allowed to enter the city and wait outside the city to trap the raiders inside... and then two options are open

1. Surrender and negotiate for the release of captives and freedom
2. Fight to the bitter end and come out with swords glinting in the sunlight

I am afraid that would require organisation, maturity and a desire to expand the interaction to more than just shooting up a place, grabbing a slave and getting away before anybody can react.

in situations I have been where something like this happened.. several things start to happen

1. Captives tp out or miraculously escape from chains  and start fighting again
2. Reinforcements start appearing inside the city.. sometimes niavely as people log in..others are Tp'd in
3. The reinforcements come from all over SL because they hear about a raid and there is no organisation
4. The issue over raid ratio's goes out of the window with the resulting bitch fest and claims of cheating

I admit i have come when called, because I want to play too. but I have never once encouraged or called reinforcements to come aid my sim in battle. 

Now in Treve I used the IC theme of "no alliances because every hated us" to stop reinforcements or the alignment of alliances

the reality was.. we lost control when strangers turned up, we lost the ability to organise or orchestrate..which is what happens in other sims when the calvary comes over the hill.

the only time I saw it working was.. Cardonicus.. they had an IC and OOC relationship with Port Kar that ensured when PK warriors came to the rescue and vice versa...it was organised.

Perhaps if you stop rent a mob coming.. it could work..