Written by BoneDancer:
http://unmoderated.info/forums/showthread.php?t=886
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Week 3
Week 3 saw a shit ton of sieges, wars, and at least one city and one hamlet change hands. Alliances are in constant shift in Darkfall and there really appears to be some wonderful 'risk-like' intrigue in this game.
The Siege mechanics of today still heavily favor large alliances and blitzkrieg strikes. For those of you unfamiliar with the game mechanics taking a town on a fresh server up costs 10k gold. However, to challenge for that town even one minute after its captured will take significantly more effort. To start, you need to buy a challenge stone (or bane if you will) for approximately 10k. More money is required if you are a solo guild and don't own a city or hamlet (think escrow) so those of you considering NA release prep now for the early rush or face the hard road uphill. A recent raid on Kill Cult's western-island city (#8) by a guild that did not own a hamlet or city had a 52k down payment requirement. The attackers lost that fight and the down payment defaulted to Kill Cult's bank.
Assuming you own a Hamlet or City to challenge another guild for their assets you need to:
a) Wait 4 hours - this is dubbed defenders prepare time, I call it 'get on a boat and ride around' time.
b) Bring the clan stone to 0 health
It's "B" that is the problem for most today. Plenty of guilds have siege hammers and battle spikes but only a select few can afford cannons. As cannons are one of the "few" ways to do considerable damage to a clan stone (rumored at 20k health), you are going to need allot of people to support that cannon, wipe out the city. Siege hammers do a whopping 5pts a swing, require a skill, cost money, and take a unique drop from a PVE kill. The quotes around "few" is in honor of the remaining unknowns today (Battleships, Skills/Spells that impact success). In any event, the cost to produce the items required to take a clan stone from 20k to 0 is is easily 30-50k alone. The effort is NOT trivial (which by the way is why they are not being used on Hamlets yet)
North West Island - Deceit
After what seems like an endless amount of battles LOD and Harm were at a standstill, that is until someone pushed the 'zerg button'. It's not terribly clear who pushed it but suffice it to say the island has turned into a server battle on almsot every skirmish. The Harm alliance has Covenant of the Sword alone and together these two guilds could filed 300+ on one field, add in the friends of friends players, and you get a very large and dominant force. LoD responded by solidifying relationships with friends, most notably Awful Company (aka Goons) As it stands now most towns on Deceit have been reduced to rubble by the opposing sides. Victory is still to close to call but if you went on numbers alone it's an uphill battle for LOD.
North East Island - Hawaii
Vagina Guard (VG) continues to struggle to survive. Forum posts abound with people quitting, bank being robbed, and other internal turmoil. Meanwhile Order of The Phoenix has been keeping a low profile. While the other towns on Hawaii clearly are not relevant in the Agron war. Look for them to be gobbled up in the coming weeks.
Northern Mainland - Dwarven Territory
Very little action since release, The Anvil Society who owns one of the city's in the mountains appears to be on nobody's hate or favor list and this alone should make them someone to keep an eye on.
Western Mainland - Elven lands and crafter central
Some pitched battles early in the week when SOV apparently had their shit pushed in by the Hyperion guys? I don't know the story here, but SoV was one of TheMerc's only 'allies' in this game and I'm sure Osium couldnt have been happy at seeing their buildings go offline for his usage, even if he's still spinning the 'we don't want a city' thing.
Western Islands - Pirate's Cove?
Major events happened on the player city #8 owned by Kill Cult last night. A large force (backed by Hyperion?) attempted to take the island for the Dog Company. The LOD guys didn’t look to kindly an enemy force so close to their backyard and mobilized to defend. After surviving the 4 hour wait period of a siege attacking guild, The Dog Company, had their bane holder crashed in transit to the fight. 52k down the drain and a whole bunch of busted dreams. Just as a side note; I agree with Obs-LOD when he says: 'don't bring 500 people and you won’t have to worry about crashing'. I was late to get to this fight but it easily would have been a 1 - 1.5k participant encounter
Eastern Mainland - the Hyperion empire
The eastern half of the map remains quiet as the Hyperion folks appear to have their politics in order and nobody seems to be pushing them off their ground. Lot's of shit talk on the forums about them being robbed, bad players, and or being bad, but their cities still standing tall.
Mid-Mainland - PvP Central
The middle of the map saw another week of embarrassing losses for Murder Herd. Earlier in the week one of the larger alliances in the game lead by the Vindicators smashed their town to pieces only to be followed up days later by LOD/Awful Company repeat visit. Having a hamlet close to this town I can tell the effects, what used to be daily raids from Murder Herd to our village has turned the area into a ghost town I can't find their farmers and I rarely see a raider from their guild to our Hamlet. These guys are in trouble.
Southern Hemisphere
The entire south half of the map was quiet this week. No action worthy of notice from the SuN/Blood alliance who appears to be tolerating LoTD's existance, although I believe this will change in the near future. The Vindicator alliance (South West peninsula) flexed their muscle on Murder Herd (player city #1) earlier in the week and in a game where your success at Politics and Warfare can be judged by how much of your city is not on fire, they appear to be damn near leading the race.
Player owned territory that changed hands this week:
* Jeovos Diablo’s lost their island Hamlet (#52, north middle island) to an alliance (need Tyr Noir?)
* Society Demonica lost their city (#375, south west island) putting up no real resistance as they clearly were pushed out of the island by the larger alliances there. SoD was to small to own that size of a city anyways.
* Mercenaireis (not related to TheMerc's) closed their doors as a guild after being kicked off their island. A first in what I'm sure will be a long list of guilds that crash on the rocks in Darkfall
<reserved for updates I might have missed>
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http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/7...calmap2000.jpg
Darkfall Geopolitical Update - Week 3
"Am I a clown? Do I amuse you? Do I FUCKING amuse you?"
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