Well, I've been thinking on this for a while, but never really voiced it. From what I've seen, combat currently consists of 1vs1 to small groups. It's the best fighters with the most levels, plenty of shiny credits and the finest systems leaping into a raid. 'War' with another commune is sort of like a few catfights, Narsrim raiding Nil, Daevos raiding Ligh. Oh what fun. So just as a little idea, what about NPC armies? Like the Ur'Guard Marshals and their equivalent in the communes, each guild can buy their special little army and campaign wherever they like. Campaigns will naturally cost a lot of gold and bring a lot of losses. However, if you're good enough you can go raid Celest, or conquer Magnagora, or set fire to Serenwilde. I think it'll put a little different spin on combat really, it won't be demigod Larry saying 'Hey, lets go raid!' a war will actually mean something and battles will have to be thought through. Oh, and there shouldn't be a skillset for it either, your Warlord or GM can entrust armies to you.

Oh yeah, and lieutenants or captains can command little details of your army, and you can issue them commands through tells. (Each with a specific name)

So yeah, my Jedi senses tell me that it'll never be implemented and that I shall recieve a lot of flame. But it matters not! I just thought I'd post it.

Something quite like it was implemented in other ire games and it just did not work at all.

You didn't think Aetolia's war system was cool?

It was horrible. Nice idea but just plain didn't work at all.

omh. Why do you guys always do that?

Because we're cowards.



Eh, in what way? It's just that saying 'This won't work!' isn't very helpful... But anwyay, thanks for the replys... replies... yeah.

I could go into depth about how badly it worked out in achaea and aetolia but its been covered in great detail I think even matt the ire founer made a report or something like that about how it didn't work.

I love the idea and concept, but from past experiances IRE is probably not gunna go with it.

What if each soldier had like....1000 health, and a system of points kind of like power, up to about 20. Attacking would take 10, and moving another 10. They'd be limited in moving, maybe it would take a little while to cross the basin? Each soldier doing around 250-500 damage, maybe have a certain percent go through defences.

Flibberdygibbet gets together 20 fine Ur'Guard infantry, and begins moving them across the Basin. The Celestians get wind of it, and amass their army, and at the Toronada bridge, they launch their attack, with 15 Celestian Infantry and 4 paladins. Heavy losses are suffered on both sides, but the Ur'Guard wins the day, and begins advancing. They arrive at Celest, and begin an assault. During assaults, cities would lose a bit of money a month, and commodity produce would suffer. Herbs in the local area would have trouble growing, etc. Finally, a Celestian army is gathered, and they launch a counterattack, lifting the siege and breaking the Magnagoran army, with heavy losses on each side.

Everyone then comes to the forums, discusses how much fun it was, and how it should have been done, why Narsrim ruined it , and why the Magnagorans lost.

Then repeat! WOOT! Sorry, /hijack

oh, and it'd be a simple system, where the soldiers move in units of 5, and kind of counts as one mob, with 5000 HP. When 1000 HP is gone, it changes to "A unit of 4 Celestian Infantry"


And they could always do it on a test server, couldn't they? MAybe make it a skillset, and have people buy loads of credits!

The problem with NPC armies is how do players interact with them.

If its a set up and "go" system, thats no fun, and only the war minister will be involved.

If its a dynamic system then eventually 1 person will = 100 npcs, and it will be a question of who is awake and active at the proper time of the day to ensure the armies stay alive or move to the next point.


Now something that could be cool in Lusternia, is the possiblity of armies that are defined by the amount of power you have in your nexus. The armies would be entirely RP based, and have no reall affect in the game, it would just be a type of aura that shows reflects the "power" of your city.

For example... of your city has few power and you walk down the street in a village you own you see "A few farmer stand around with pitchforks carrying the banners of Halifax"... but if you have 2 bajillion power, then when you walk through the streets of your village you see "Well formed Batalions in shiny armour and well manicured nails, march in unison to the sound of a trumpets carrying the banners of Halifax.

Hm. The closest thing we have to armies at the moment are the Inner Sea and Faethorn battles. Would that count?

What if instead of 'army' it was 'navy', and takes place in aetherspace?

You can send a fleet of small ships (which could be protected by a few player frigates) to attack another organization, prompting your enemies to respond with their ships in defence?

Ah, aetherspace. *dreamy sigh*

No. I'm opposed to this not because IRE history has shown it doesn't work, but because if there's a battle going on I want to actually be fighting it, not watching while some random mobs fight.

good point vix

Well, the fact is that right now, combat is lame. It's high level people with all their spiffy credits and top of the line systems fighting other high level people with all the same stuff. Which means that these epic battles consist of five people throwing afflictions on each other and eating special herbs. I'm not a combatant, I can't be a combatant. Why? Because I have no system, and have no way of getting a system. It just doesn't seem correct that all combat should be dicated by something so blatantly OOC.

Anyway, as far as interaction is concerned... I figured you could just have little Lieutenants that you promote, and send them little commands through tells (I know, I said this already).

Which raises the problem of you (the commander of the armies entrusted to you) being logged off. Well, you could look at the fact that it's no different than the little commander sleeping in a real army, you could set up a little fort (See: The Romans) and log off. Fun.

Now, as the subject was raised of the fact that it would take away from Player combat... well, I suppose this is true if you're the ultimate little General, however, this doesn't mean that you can't go in there yourself. ( I know, I see a lot of problems with it. )

And... I really hate comparing Lusternia to Achaea/Imperian/Aetolia. We're not Aetolia, we're not Achaea, We're not Imperian. Most of the problems I've seen refered to, are brought about by the player's ineptitude. Not the game.

So yeah, that's my 2 cents.

Have you tried to use Ethelon's "free" system that is here on the forums?

The problem is, that if your issue is credits and systems, well credits and systems will affect any "army" system as well.

I remember people in orone use to thing I was "cheating" becaused I used triggers to and aliases to link two attacks together... untill they did it also.

Actually, there are alternatives to regular combat... aethership combat will be great!! (At least I hope so!)

And yes, I'll shut up about aetherships now.

(But I can't wait!!)

As no system has currently been written for a Mac client, and I'm certainly in no position to write one... systems are quite a forlorn thought for me. But I don't see how credits and systems will affect the idea, I mean, if there's no skillset for credits, and unless you want to cure all your little troops yourself, no system could help it.

EDIT: Oh and yeah, Aethership combat would be awesome. But even then, you could have little NPC crews...

Well, just imagine that everytime you went out to make sure your army was doing a good job you found yourself jumped.


As for the mac issue, try looking into using the *nix capalities of macs.

Eck, I'm replying too much...

But yeah, which is why I said that you could order your army to camp. Build a little fort, and then log off -in- your army. Which would be the same as if a real general were sleeping in his real little camping tent with his real teddy bear and his real gas grill, and an enemy army attacked the camp.