I guess it depends on whose strength it is. I personally value Ulyssian's own abilities more, rather than strategic play and counting on allies to get us through the war.
[Exalted, ?] Most High
- Thread starter Rihaku
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Man, all the shitstorms about how they should have assassinated him before his Exaltation would have been awesome.
But people either didn't believe a mortal could be that much of a threat, didn't like the thought of his Exalted friends retaliating or were afraid of him Exalting right during the fight and crushing them, so they decided on becoming an Immaculate Master for the massive prestige of it and in order to be strong enough to crush Uly's friends and kill Uly while he's still a young Anathema should their nightmares be fulfilled.
I can't decide whether I'd prefer to see the rage over Zao protecting the Anathema or the hypothetical reveal of how Uly cheated alt!SV out of their Destined waifu.
SirLagginton
Shadow Cabal Caerbannog Bun-Bun
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Ahahaha, someone should do one of the parallel alternate universe quest commentary things like we did for Bleach Quest, it'll be great.
Rihaku
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Man, empowering shout is Really Good at the E4 version. Too bad you don't access to any Supernal Presence Solaroids. Nilul might be able to generate a similar effect via Heretical Ebon Dragon-Blooded Charms, but they would have to follow her themes, which means marriage / family / blood at the intersection of the ED and Her Redness. Since you are neither her husband nor brother nor kid, you wouldn't benefit anyway.
I don't really see how this is a "good" starting point for the civil war. A good starting point for the civil war would be an intentional surprise attack on one of the factions you know would be against you. That's the way to start a war from a position of strength not surprising your OWN forces with "Oh hey I unilaterally decided to start a war in your name."
[X] Demonstrate Massive and Total Remorse.
[X] Demonstrate Massive and Total Remorse.
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This assumes that the other factions will be sitting back and doing nothing while we prepare the perfect opening. Needless to say, Mnemon and the Roseblack and everyone else who fancies the throne will not be sitting idly by, and their strength will be growing while Zao's will be declining. At least if we start it off in chaos then victory will go to whoever is most adept at exploiting the unsettled situation through boldness, ruthlessness, and energetic action. Which you know sounds a lot like Ulyssian.
Waiting "two years" until he can solo the Realm (hah) strikes me as kind of optimistic at best and ignores the fact that control of the Realm is inherently about armies and strategy and politics and not "lol I can one-shot the Unconquered Sun." Also to be frank if we wait Rihaku will drop the Quest sooner or later and probably before we kick off the war. May as well take the chance of achieving a major mark on the setting on this go-around.
Rihaku
The Internet
Empowering Shout just has so much synergy with Uly. 4 cap-breaking dice applied to whatever he wants? Think of the applications! Wake the Sleeper alone, that's like 40-80,000 free XP per artifact. Would speed up Sorcerous Workings too, and of course +2 Dex +2 Melee would help a lot with his extremely accuracy-dependent Clash-centric fighting style!
what E4 and E5 charms did we choose for the BPA, or is it still unused?
In any case, I'd prefer it if we just go start the civil war here. Zao's plan for Uly sets up what Zao thinks would be the fastest way for Uly to gain power the Realm. Let's prove the old bastard wrong for underestimating us shall we? We'll get the power, fame, and even the girl(s?) too while saving the creation ahead of the agenda.
In any case, I'd prefer it if we just go start the civil war here. Zao's plan for Uly sets up what Zao thinks would be the fastest way for Uly to gain power the Realm. Let's prove the old bastard wrong for underestimating us shall we? We'll get the power, fame, and even the girl(s?) too while saving the creation ahead of the agenda.
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I didn't say lets Turtle and wait till we can just wipe out whatever's in our way. I said if you are going to start a war don't do it by accident. If the questers want a war do it properly go back to Zao gather a strike force and find a faction to decapitate. That way your forces are prepared, you still get the first strike and it isn't something you did in REACTION to another event.
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Decapitating one faction is less likely to be decisive than gaining the allegiance of multiple factions by using the momentum of events in our favor. Right now everyone is in shock and the war kicking off in unplanned fashion will make everyone insecure and hesitant. The show of strength by Zao's faction increases his diplomatic leverage. Purposefully destroying a single faction in a surprise attack is more likely to unite multiple factions against us rather than net more allies.
regardless what we do here, the stirrings of war would still ripple, after all we did just kill the greatest remaining general that is responsible for keeping much of the order in the realm, it's unrealistic to believe that a display of remorse and regret would stop or even delay the chains of event substantially. In addition, the fact of the matter is that now everyone knows Zao's faction has a unit that can job Polemgaos tier threat like it was nothing, and alliances would be make to maintain whatever balance and keep him in check.
Ulyssian killing Polemgaos here, accident or not, shows that the power balance had greatly shifted, and unless someone establish a pecking order, civil war would follow sooner or later due to building up of power and factionalizing that come from that
Ulyssian killing Polemgaos here, accident or not, shows that the power balance had greatly shifted, and unless someone establish a pecking order, civil war would follow sooner or later due to building up of power and factionalizing that come from that
Obviously this means we must marry Nilul for the extra power it brings us and I'm pretty sure she'll go along with it as it ties us closer to her.
That was really just a general suggestion. It doesn't have to be a decapitation strike or ANY specific action but if you want to start a War that you actually intend to win then you should have a plan, any plan before you begin.
Except that we have pretty much emptied our XP pool and any efforts to gather political power run rather heavily into the issue that the SIddie's will oppose any of our efforts on that front, House Cathak will be doing whatever it can to openly screw us over personally and the chosen course of action was to go for a Satrapy, which is definitely not a very fast route to acquiring political power.
Realizing Uly's potential to the degree where he can solve all problems personally is not a realistic goal for the timframe in which we have to act and, given that politics is definitely not our area of expertise and that we just made some very strong enemies, it's questionable whether our efforts in the political area can actually outweigh Zao's constantly diminishing political power or the constantly weakening strength of the Realm navy.
Because the Realm being expected to survive about a decade neither means we can actually afford to let it bleed for that long nor does the number actually account for less predictable catastrophies waiting to happen, like the Handsom Monkey King, whatever the hell the Infernals are up to or one of the 300 Solaroids just throwing a wrench into all plans and calculations like they are wont to do.
A Realm that has been left to its own devices for ten years is a Realm that has been incredibly crippled.
And letting the Great Houses pile up weapons, troops and supplies for even longer will resolve it any mroe quickly?
The currently outlined alliance is honestly all you're ever going to get going into this Civil War because the moment one of the other major factions sees you gaining any more support than what we can get right now, they're going to kick off the Civil War themselves, before they have no choice but to bow to you. The other players aren't stupid enough to sit back and do nothing but watch while any coalition gathers up more than four Houses.
At the same time however, the other Houses are also not in fact united. Our current forces may not be enough to ensure a win, but they're a pretty good opening move, giving us decent odds to prevail, assuming there will be around three to four major power blocs in total, which is pretty much the minimum. And then, as the war progresses and Houses take blows, alliances and Allegiances will shift accordingly.
It's not going to be quick and it's not going to be pretty, but this is an inevitable Civil War we're talking about so there is basically no scenario in which it's going to be either of those things.
The best we can do is to just grit our teeth and go through with it now.
And once again, hanging back and waiting will not do anything to change this.
Yes, others are likely to pounce on this chance, but the war is inevitable and as we wait the other factions will grow more prepared as well.
Ulyssian's growth may be all kinds of bullshit, but we have both run out of our impressive XP stockpile and there are fifty Infernals alone out there. A year for Uly to power up is a year for those fifty Solaroids to power up as well. A year for Uly to gain political connections is a year for all his enemies to advance their own schemes and gaining political conenctions isn't even in our area of expertise. A year for Uly to build up his Satrapy is also a year for those hundreds of Solaroids that hate the Realm to build up their own kingdoms.
Uly's core strength is his ability to train at a ridiculous pace and to murderize stuff.
He's run out of XP, so switching to the biggest opportunity to murderize stuff is not that bad a plan, especially since once this is over our faction will (hopefully) have the world's greatest superpower (even if diminished by the Civil War) and it's greatest WMD under their control, which will put us a long way towards starting to confront all the threats we can't really do anything about right now.
Thank you. Starting this thing WITHOUT a plan of action is ridiculous. Especially since we haven't talked to Zao or Ivory yet about the viability of such a thing. Seriously starting a war without a plan of action or consulting your closest advisors who can give you viable advice? What kind of idiot does that?
It makes it even worse if we stay at the tournament after this because that doesn't even allow us an opportunity to coordinate with our allies after starting
a civil war. It also gives our oppenents a chance to show our one shorting Poelmgaos was partly due to luck and diminish the reputation we gained. Rihaku said our future opponents paid attention to what we did and will be making adjustments. See Polemgaos for what could happen if we get overhyped and the dice fucks is over.
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that is the thinking of people who is not the fucking lord strategos
Odyssial had been making wars longer than the realm had existed for, he thrives in chaos of melee as much as the planning of stratagem. Starting the war here takes everyone except Uly by surprise, and when nobody has a plan, whoever can come up with most efficient one fastest would easily find himself on top.
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And I suppose we won't be making connections and alliances in the mean time, while building up the capabilities of both Ulyssian himself and his closest companions? Zao's decline is not set in stone either, that is something we can and have affected.
Throwing the Realm into chaos is exactly the kind of thing that will increase the death-toll and invite other factions to take advantage of a tumultuous Realm. That also, in turn, greatly underestimates the other players of the civil war. Who's to say they are not "bold and ruthless"?
Did I anywhere say that is the only factor? Ulyssian, at this point in time, does not seem to have an army either. Although dismissing personal power so utterly is still wrong, especially when talking about someone like him.
So instead of using that to construct a massive surprise attack you want to throw away the benefit of surprise to start a war with the public assassination of a Hero of the Realm?
You've got a point. We don't have nearly as much thought into what we'd do after withdrawing, though granted deciding there isn't as urgent.
I personally really don't like the means we'd be using, though; and they set the foundation for everything that comes after. Just establishing Zao as Emperor isn't an endgame in its own right - he's only going to live so much longer, and we'd need all the time we could get to reestablish the legitimate institutions of government and succession. (Succession's going to both be really hard, and really important. We don't want it to implicitly become a matter of whoever has the biggest army; see what happened to Rome. Using control over the Navy and Legions to seize power... that's not the kind of thing that ends well, for the Realm.)
I'd rather try to strengthen some of those existing institutions, and support their legitimacy and independence from the Houses, than break them now for advantage and hope we have the resources to rebuild them later.
edited for word choice.
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Except to make a viable plan we need to coordinate with Zao since a large part of our military strength would be because of him and last I checked he was a day away even with a sorceror's help. It's likewise going to take at least
a day for him to respond. So our response time is going to be delayed and that could give our enemies more
time to respond before we do.
Also these things go more smoothly
when your enemy is the one unprepared and your allies are prepared.
Seriously do not underestimate our enemies. Just look at the shit we just pulled off to see what happens when you mix some luck with enough strength or skill. We would be facing the strongest of the Houses and the Immaculate Order at least. They're going to have some of the strongest dragonblooded on their side.
To say nothing what the other 7 houses could do. We aren't guaranteed that they'll be on our side.
As much as people say like to say "if we don't do it now the houses will be more prepared" they keep forgetting the opposite is true. Not starting the war now gives us time to prepare. Time to grow stronger, make more allies, assemble our army, actually having a fucking plan of action for the civil war.
Look, it's not literally starting the war right this very second.
Noone will run to their weapons and start killing each other in the streets this night quite yet.
And there will almost certainly already be plans for the civil war in place by everyone. It's just too important not to plan for.
What this means however is that it will start very soon, before anyone including our enemies thought to finalize their plans and that Zao's faction kicks the rush for final preparations off by having Zao's teenage apprentice (and possibly illegitimate son) publicly crush the third strongest DB in all of existence without even taking a scratch.
Considering what this must say about Zao himself, a lot of people will be strongly in favour of throwing in their lot with his faction and a lot of others will be very reluctant to actively oppose him. What will happen next is that tensions between Cathak and Zao's faction will rise to an unbelievable degree, that the Navy wil stop protecting Cathak Assets, that Cathak and their allies will do what they can to get back at us and that very soon the first blow will be struck and hostilities break out in earnest.
The whole thing, while admittedly escalating rather quickly, is going to be a lot better planned and tought through than you apparently think it would be, because it has both already been planned extensively and there is still going to be time for final preperations and there will still be plans made and set into motion after hostilities have broken out.
That this decision is ultimately one Uly has to make himself is admittedly suboptimal, but the current situation does not allow for anything else. Either Uly uses this opportunity to seize whatever advantages can be gained from this debacle by gaining Zao's faction a lot of momentum or he shows remorse and still takes a significant hit in the for of the problems killing Polemgaos causes him.
As for the problems of staying, just don't stay for the rest of the Tournament then.
Noone forces anyone to go for the exact permutation anyone else is arguing for.
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Merc gonna merc ya
You do realized that Odyssial thinks this is a good plan.
If this was shitty, he would not even think of doing it.
Huh, that's a valid point, forgot about the posting. Finishing the Academy to go to the Satrapy does sound a little less exciting than a murder-filled fast-paced call for war. Which might also at last involve Lea, at least peripherally. Tough call.