The Wild Edge (Fantasy Border Outpost)

[karmaoa]

[X] Plan Orcs No Swiping

I'm fine with Gauntlets, they should work inside the Overgrowth and outside of it.
I still think something like a Meteor Hammer with bigger than normal Weights could work.
Long Range by throwing a Weight and then using the Chain to reel it in, close range by using them like a Flail and against several Enemies by swinging them around if there is enough Space.
It also should be easier to train her with it than a normal Human, with how she is more durable against bludgeoning.

Anyway once we get the Outpost stabile, we can look into how we can use the Overgrowth and profit from it.
Depending on how the Magic of the Overgrowth works we could try using a Ship or burrow from outside of the Overgrowth into it to get a save Place to do Enchantments.
Or we could use the growth boosting Magic to harvest huge amounts of Lumber and Corn.
Also the huge Animals made me curious if we could start breeding Silkworms.

 

[wingstrike96]

[X] Plan Paladin

 

[me.me.here]

[X] Plan Orcs No Swiping

@veekie , could I get you to add the shield as well as the gauntlets to this plan now that inverted helix has okay'd it? It's only 50 denier, and both opens up tactical flexibility for Olivia and covers for the possibility we bungle enchanting her clothes.

 

[Metrux]

[X] Plan Orcs No Swiping

I'm fine with Gauntlets, they should work inside the Overgrowth and outside of it.
I still think something like a Meteor Hammer with bigger than normal Weights could work.
Long Range by throwing a Weight and then using the Chain to reel it in, close range by using them like a Flail and against several Enemies by swinging them around if there is enough Space.
It also should be easier to train her with it than a normal Human, with how she is more durable against bludgeoning.

Anyway once we get the Outpost stabile, we can look into how we can use the Overgrowth and profit from it.
Depending on how the Magic of the Overgrowth works we could try using a Ship or burrow from outside of the Overgrowth into it to get a save Place to do Enchantments.
Or we could use the growth boosting Magic to harvest huge amounts of Lumber and Corn.
Also the huge Animals made me curious if we could start breeding Silkworms.

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Is there a river big enough? And a burrow would still be affected by the plants, maybe even more because most plants grow more inside the earth than outside. Also, aren't we already using the super growth to harvest and sell wood?
About the silkworms... That's a curiosity trully, would they be bigger and produce more, or be bigger and produce big lines that can't be separated? Or would the quality change with their size? I don't know nearly enough about the buggers to fathom the results. Very curious indeed...

 

[Zaratustra]

So, my plan is... A mix match of the two already proposed ones, with one difference: Battle Hammer and Shield. A battle hammer is basically a heavy one handed weapon, that rellies more on strength than finesse, thus it should work very well for her, especially since she can't keep running forever and can't outrun everything with her shield charge, so when she isn't running she can keep hitting. Is it possible, @inverted_helix ? And what about it's pricing?

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You forgot the weight problem, remenber she is super strong but only weights a normal amount so any weapon capable of actualy taking advantage of her strengh would be to unwieldly to actualy use due to how it mess with her center of gravity.

You can see it from the options, the gauntlets are light and keep close to the body and the shield is only suposed to be used on charges, the greatsword is so good because the super heavy plater acts as a counterweight and let her actualy use a weapon.
Also a hammer would be one the worst options since the weight is focused on the head

you can try to enchant her clothing so she can be both ladylike AND protected

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I think it bears pointing out that base materials matter and at the end of the day enchanted clothing isn't going to be anywhere as good as enchanted heavy plate, specialy considering the whole diwidling magic, dresses not coming with helmets and the fact magic items lose power when damaged.

 

[karmaoa]

Is there a river big enough?

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Going by the Map on the first Page, there is some kind of Shore between our Part of the Overgrowth and the Orc part.
I'm not sure if it is a River, a Lake or a Ocean.

And a burrow would still be affected by the plants, maybe even more because most plants grow more inside the earth than outside. Also, aren't we already using the super growth to harvest and sell wood?

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The Mole Rats were to big to live outside of the Overgrowth, at least without shrinking to a more normal Size.
With how big they are they have to spend at least some Time inside the Forest. We also don't know how deep the Roots or the Magic reach.
And there is a difference between how we sell Wood now and how we could sell Ships full of that Stuff.

 

[inverted_helix]

A battle hammer is basically a heavy one handed weapon, that rellies more on strength than finesse, thus it should work very well for her, especially since she can't keep running forever and can't outrun everything with her shield charge, so when she isn't running she can keep hitting. Is it possible, @inverted_helix ? And what about it's pricing?

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I still think something like a Meteor Hammer with bigger than normal Weights could work.
Long Range by throwing a Weight and then using the Chain to reel it in, close range by using them like a Flail and against several Enemies by swinging them around if there is enough Space.

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You forgot the weight problem, remenber she is super strong but only weights a normal amount so any weapon capable of actualy taking advantage of her strengh would be to unwieldly to actualy use due to how it mess with her center of gravity.

You can see it from the options, the gauntlets are light and keep close to the body and the shield is only suposed to be used on charges, the greatsword is so good because the super heavy plater acts as a counterweight and let her actualy use a weapon.
Also a hammer would be one the worst options since the weight is focused on the head

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This is exactly the issue with both hammer and flail. Because her weight isn't increased any heavy weapon essentially drags her around when she swings it. She could swing a weapon on a chain or a heavy hammer, but then if she didn't let go she'd be dragged along behind it.

 

[veekie]

Sure, shield going in

 

[King50000]

[X] Plan Orcs No Swiping

 

[Saphrith]

Just read the new update, maybe some kind of long spear or halberd? Her strength could take advantage of it without throwing off her balance.

Though on the process of building up, what're the odds we can slowly begin getting a dock set up? Import some sailors and shipwrights, with our constant wood supply, we could get a thriving shipbuilding industry going, or at the least have access to the sea for trade.


[X] Plan Heavy Knight.
-[X][Construction] Expand a palisade to cover a larger area. You'll go a different direction than last time Needed to safely fit more buildings within the wall.
-[X][Personal] Experiment on the effects of enchanting within the Overgrowth.
-[X][Nerissa] Spend a Personal Slot teaching her yourself, potentially developing better trust.
--[X] Ask her to help with you experiments and check if her natural abilities can help with enchanting.
-[X][Olivia] Heavy armor and Greatsword, incredible defense, good versus multiple units or single target, low endurance, expensive (400 Denier)
-[X][Hunters1] Hunt for food, reduce upkeep by 50
-[X][Hunters2] Scout, learn more about the forest, reduce chance of enemies slipping by.
-[X][Levy] Guard
--[X] The base and sawmill
-[X][Footmen] Patrol, reduce chance of enemies slipping by.
-[X][Captain] Train Olivia

 

[Metrux]

You forgot the weight problem, remenber she is super strong but only weights a normal amount so any weapon capable of actualy taking advantage of her strengh would be to unwieldly to actualy use due to how it mess with her center of gravity.

You can see it from the options, the gauntlets are light and keep close to the body and the shield is only suposed to be used on charges, the greatsword is so good because the super heavy plater acts as a counterweight and let her actualy use a weapon.
Also a hammer would be one the worst options since the weight is focused on the head

I think it bears pointing out that base materials matter and at the end of the day enchanted clothing isn't going to be anywhere as good as enchanted heavy plate, specialy considering the whole diwidling magic, dresses not coming with helmets and the fact magic items lose power when damaged.

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This is exactly the issue with both hammer and flail. Because her weight isn't increased any heavy weapon essentially drags her around when she swings it. She could swing a weapon on a chain or a heavy hammer, but then if she didn't let go she'd be dragged along behind it.

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I think you're both thinking of a warhammer. My idea is a small but resistent hammer for one hand, that isn't meant to generate force, only to let her leverage it. As in, it almost doesn't extend her reach, and won't increase her power, but will allow her to swing without breaking, and with her strength any hit is good enough to damage. Maybe we have diferent ideas on what I'm implying, so I'll try to explain better.

A small shaft, some 15cm, with a solid head, don't even need to have a hammer design to be honest, it only needs to be resistent enough. Which is, incidentaly, why I thought enchanting it is a good idea. It won't have weight or momentum to throw her off, but will allow her to beat things up with a tool, instead of her hands. If you still think it's unfeasible, helix, then I'll change it for a gauntlet aswell.

 

[inverted_helix]

I think you're both thinking of a warhammer. My idea is a small but resistent hammer for one hand, that isn't meant to generate force, only to let her leverage it. As in, it almost doesn't extend her reach, and won't increase her power, but will allow her to swing without breaking, and with her strength any hit is good enough to damage. Maybe we have diferent ideas on what I'm implying, so I'll try to explain better.

A small shaft, some 15cm, with a solid head, don't even need to have a hammer design to be honest, it only needs to be resistent enough. Which is, incidentaly, why I thought enchanting it is a good idea. It won't have weight or momentum to throw her off, but will allow her to beat things up with a tool, instead of her hands. If you still think it's unfeasible, helix, then I'll change it for a gauntlet aswell.

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That doesn't convey any advantage I can see over gauntlets. It doesn't provide the hand protection they do. It's short enough that the extra leverage and reach it generates isn't that significant. The striking surface would be smaller than gauntlets which would give it more armor penetrating capacity, but there's very little she would need that against. Meanwhile the smaller striking surface makes it harder to actually connect with a target. I'm just not seeing the advantage. It also requires training that isn't transferable to other circumstances like hand to hand training.

15cm isn't even as long as a standard claw hammer used as a tool. No idea what advantage it would give at that short a length.

 

[PsyFarrow]

[X] Plan New Crew
-[X][Personal] Recruit new units. Specify what kind.
--[X] Replace losses, 130 denier
-[X][Nerissa] Spend a Personal Slot teaching her yourself, potentially developing better trust.
--[X] Ask her to help with you experiments and check if her natural abilities can help with enchanting.
-[X][Olivia] No weapon for now
-[X][Hunters1] Hunt for food, reduce upkeep by 50
-[X][Hunters2] Scout, learn more about the forest, reduce chance of enemies slipping by.
-[X][Levy] Guard
--[X] The base and sawmill
-[X][Footmen] Patrol, reduce chance of enemies slipping by.
-[X][Captain] Train Olivia

No construction this turn, because until we replace our workers that -20 means we might as well be fishing for crit-fails.

Fullmetal Olivia is a hefty investment, but she'll finally gives us an answer to greater threats from the forest like the bear or wolf packs. Unfortunately, we can't afford her gear and replacement workers, so that'll have to wait for a turn while we focus on getting rid of that nasty malus.

 

[me.me.here]

To be honest, none of these weapons are really the best method of taking advantage of super strength but not super weight/leverage. I'm not really complaining about that though, because the best use is for Ophelia to grab things/people and rip them apart. That's both extremely brutal and disgustingly messy, so it's understandable why nobody is particularly eager for Ophelia to make it standard operating protocol.

 

[karmaoa]

I think the best Weapon for Olivia would be the Bow. It keeps her out of Danger, gives her a huge Range and would be ridiculous useful to keep our Camp save.
But the Costs are to big right now and we would need something like a Tower and enchanted Gear to get the most out of it. Maybe later.

Armor and Sword are great for a Frontline Fighter and the Shield to break a Frontline or Enemy Unit, but I would like to keep Olivia as our Bodyguard.
The thing with a Bodyguard is that they cant follow us around in full Armor or with the Shield. Well, she could but it would be uncomfortable and awkward.
We have WoG that the Gauntlet training would be useful even without the Gauntlets and if we enchant Olivias Cloths then she would be always armored.

It also opens the Quest to use something out of the Forest to make her the best possible Armor. With how difficult it is to clear a Area inside the Forest for farming and with how Nerissa probably wont allow us to keep Sheep inside her Clearing, I think our best Bet would be Silkworms.
Nerissa should be fine with having them around, if only because she gets a bunch of Butterflies out of it, and I think it would be funny to give Olivia a expensive and ridiculous enchanted Dress.
I'm sure this won't start any Rumors.

If we can't get any Silkworms we could look into Stuff like Sea silk. Depends on how the Overgrowth works on Plants and Animals underwater thought.

 

[Nevill]

3. ... Yeah, unless we somehow discover gold or diamonds, we're not affording that.

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It's a bit too late to address, but... I was under the impression that this is our gold or diamond mine. I mean, the forest is growing very literal magic, so if we find a way to preserve and repurpose it, I don't think there will be any rivals on the enchantments market. There is simply nothing and no one that has enough raw power to compete.

Naturally, this is also the most expensive option, but it is one of the few ways to climb out of the financial hole we are digging for ourselves.

Just look at the leading plans... the orcs have our crews/soldiers on alert so they aren't doing much else; we aren't producing anything useful since we finished the Sawmill; and whatever little we manage to scrounge we have to pay back to replenish the losses. We need new sources of income, badly.

As for Olivia...
Not completely sold on the bow. The rate of fire is a concern, as is ammunition, accuracy, and defensibility, which is only slightly mitigated by the distance.
I much prefer the armor, especially with magic cooling installed, for the perfect frontline option. But it is costly. Though we may be creating an autonomous unit that can be deployed on her own and produce results on par with our other teams.
The Gauntlets are just messy, and I don't think we have a plan for defense. Coupling it with a Shield... might be acceptable, I guess.

I don't think we have the money to outfit her as she deserves this turn... or this year. If we could arm her with whatever is at hand, and then switch when our financial options improve, that would be ideal... but with the way things are going, we will have more urgent things to pour money at for years to come, and it would suck to lose the time invested in training with the temporary weapon. So if I had to make the choice now...

[X] Plan Heavy Knight.

Maybe we can send her to poke the bear and get some money out of it to replenish the costs. Also, experimenting with enchantments is always nice.

-[X][Olivia] No weapon for now
-[X][Captain] Train Olivia

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Alas, without a specialization she can not benefit from additional training:

Olivia can now be deployed to fight something. She could still benefit from additional training, but it would require specializing in a weapon.

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[][Footmen] Guard
-[] The base and sawmill
-[] The construction crew

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@inverted_helix, what is the difference between guarding the base and construction crew? Is the crew not near the base?

I am a bit worried about attempting construction at a malus, and if it turns out they aren't being guarded to boot...

 

[inverted_helix]

Really happy when I see people actually talking about the various options, makes me feel like I did a good job at both making an interesting world and providing interesting choices.

@inverted_helix, what is the difference between guarding the base and construction crew? Is the crew not near the base?

I am a bit worried about attempting construction at a malus, and if it turns out they aren't being guarded to boot...

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That's included for the contingency that whatever they're constructing is away from the base. If they're building something inside the base you can consider it the same.

 

[Pyro Hawk]

Honestly, I personally favour the bow for one important reason. It's basically making a ballista into a bow. Which means we more or less get our equivalent to a 'man' portable anti-armour weapon.

As for why that's important... Do you guys remember just how damn dangerous the Overgrowth Boar was? We're most likely going to need some equivalent of an anti-armour weapon to deal with those in a practical fashion. The bear's most likely just as bad. Though to be fair, unless there's things like wyverns and similar mythological/legendary creatures in the Overgrowth, then the boars and bears should probably be two of the most dangerous creatures in the forest.

Of course, we've already found a Dryad. So I'm going to guess that there's going to be more myths and legends roaming the forest, though they may be deeper in.

 

[Nevill]

Why dealing with a bear with a ballista is more practical than sending a tin can with a huge sword in its general direction?

Leo explicitly says that the armor might be able to withstand bear claws. The bow option, on the other hand, has low defense, which means that if we don't kill the threat before it closes the distance, we are going to get hurt.

On the other hand, an armored unit isn't going to do much chasing after mobile targets that aren't willing to engage directly, so there are drawbacks there as well.

 

[Taut_Templar]

[X] Plan Heavy Knight.

 

[veekie]

Why dealing with a bear with a ballista is more practical than sending a tin can with a huge sword in its general direction?

Leo explicitly says that the armor might be able to withstand bear claws. The bow option, on the other hand, has low defense, which means that if we don't kill the threat before it closes range, we are going to get hurt.

On the other hand, an armored unit isn't going to do much chasing after mobile targets that aren't willing to engage directly, so there are drawbacks there as well.

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Also noting that many large animals can keep going after taking fatal damage to internal organs, because the functions those organs provide aren't immediately deadly and they got enough mass that the systems run on basically momentum.

 

[Zaratustra]

Why dealing with a bear with a ballista is more practical than sending a tin can with a huge sword in its general direction?

Leo explicitly says that the armor might be able to withstand bear claws. The bow option, on the other hand, has low defense, which means that if we don't kill the threat before it closes range, we are going to get hurt.

On the other hand, an armored unit isn't going to do much chasing after mobile targets that aren't willing to engage directly, so there are drawbacks there as well.

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Actualy you are underselling the armor, first on defence what Leo actualy said was:

I'm not even sure the bear in the forest would be able to hurt her with as much armor as I'm thinking of giving her.

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Less able to withstand and more probably straigh up invulnerable to the bear.

On mobility you have to consider the weight inssue, Olivia normaly has to step lighty and deliberatey due to how massively underweight she technicaly is, so the armor wouldn't actualy affect her speed at all, that is why the only stated dowside is endurance due to heat, outside of that she would be as able of chasing targets as with every other option, maybe even better due to bein able to ignore most enviromental hazards.

On this note @inverted_helix I wanted to ask on Tristain expert opinion how effective would a enchanted dress be in general and compared to the super heavy plate?

 

[karmaoa]

Just look at the leading plans... the orcs have our crews/soldiers tied so they aren't doing much else; we aren't producing anything useful since we finished the Sawmill; and whatever little we manage to scrounge we have to pay back to replenish the losses. We need new sources of income, badly.

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Well, in the long Run we could try Ship Building, Enchanting or Farming.
For the short Term, we could try killing the Mole Rats, maybe smoking them out, or start fishing to cut down the Upkeep.

As for Olivia...

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Well, we could use her in different Roles but with how active the Orcs are, I would like to keep her as a Bodyguard for now.
The Gauntlets might not be the best Choice, but the Hand to Hand training will be useful even if we get her another Weapon.

 

[Metrux]

@King50000 @Raptor580 @wingstrike96 I changed her weapon in the plan for Gauntlet + Shield. Just a heads up since you voted for it.

The reason for Gauntlet + Shield is that shield is a must, so she can protect us and be protected while fighting by herself, while a bigger/heavier weapon is impossible without some better enchanting than we got, or alot of weight, besides, as has been pointed out the guantlet training is basically the same as hand to hand, so usefull anyway.

 

[me.me.here]

It's a bit too late to address, but... I was under the impression that this is our gold or diamond mine. I mean, the forest is growing very literal magic, so if we find a way to preserve and repurpose it, I don't think there will be any rivals on the enchantments market. There is simply nothing and no one that has enough raw power to compete.

Naturally, this is also the most expensive option, but it is one of the few ways to climb out of the financial hole we are digging for ourselves.

Just look at the leading plans... the orcs have our crews/soldiers tied so they aren't doing much else; we aren't producing anything useful since we finished the Sawmill; and whatever little we manage to scrounge we have to pay back to replenish the losses. We need new sources of income, badly.

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Uh, have you been reading the right quest? Here's the accounting of every season since we built the sawmill.

370 starting -700 upkeep this turn -55 construction - 110 enchanting +600 season payment +25 partial hunting +100 partial sawmill profit = 230 Denier

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230 starting -650 upkeep this turn -55 construction -55 restarting sawmill +600 season payment +200 sawmill profit = 270 Denier

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270 starting -610 upkeep this turn -105 construction +600 season payment +200 sawmill profit = 355 Denier

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355 starting -609 upkeep this turn -53 construction +600 season payment +150 sawmill profit -25 replacing sawmill workers = 418 Denier

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The only one in which we did not end with more money than we started is the one where we didn't guard the sawmill and got half the team killed. Yes, the sawmill doesn't provide enough of a profit to both expand our base/military and start enchantment research at once, but we aren't in the hole and things are getting better. Plus, now that the trickle of replacements has been automated, we have an extra action that can be spent to train troops and start a positive spiral.