Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Could I get a cite on this? AFAIK the extent of our initial knowledge on the other villages was that the northeastern one was under attack by a barb force of strength somewhere between "enough to make the defenders call for reinforcements" and "enough to crush the defenders before they can call for reinforcements", and I haven't seen any updates to that knowledge beyond the continuing Zhengui link.
There is no citation. It is plausible speculation, nothing more. If we are crossing our fingers on things, then crossing our fingers on him being at the other village is reasonable, as it would make sense for him to be there.

Our initial knowledge was that both northern villages had seen multiple second realm barbarians massing in the area, and so were concerned about attacks large enough that reinforcements would be nice.

We do have a reference, actually. Shen Hu has a defense focused domain weapon and was making no efforts towards attacking the barbs when we arrived, whereas Zhengui made an attack on the barb scouts that showed up at our assigned village. Extending from there, it's pretty reasonable to say that the raiders decided to hit the place or places that didn't reveal any anti-air capacity rather than the one that did.
I mean, what Zhengui showed was bad anti-air capability. He has artillery. He's unlikely to actually hit anything at range though. I don't see why that would panic them.
 
So I don't think this is a raid at all, rather this is the start of an invasion. Possibly the first skirmish in the war. Specifically, I think this is an effort on their part to clear out this area. We know that a cloud tribe has recently married and made some alliance with some spooky ice witches. The witches seemed kind of aggressive from the interlude at the end of FOD and there seemed to be some sort of plan to get revenge on the empire. This feels like a start to that. Clear us out of some lightly defended area that they can use for staging (the nearby mountain) and then raid further inward. I think this is a good explanation for the events.

This raid started with the mountain going mad while two villages were being attacked with raids of unusual size (this one was at least 10x the normal size) and something disrupted communications to our village. That doesn't seem like an accident. Too many things helping them out at once. One explanation is they sent a small team to the mountain to stir it up while their main force assaults two villages. I'm thinking there is a small but powerful force disrupting communications and preparing to strike once the beast wave is bad enough. There could be a large force there too, but I feel like that would be the actual start of the war. It would end up with a few hundred people and the sect will have to respond in force to that.

I think the raiders we just chased next move is to try to link up with the other raid group at the farther village, either to crush that village and move on or get a bigger force for this one. I don't think we've done anywhere near enough damage to make them flee completely and if I'm right their objectives aren't simply take stuff, burn stuff, leave. So I'm going to vote to return. I don't think we can really help the other village too much because I doubt we can take two raid groups. I think that our village is the next to be attacked and I'd like to be there to support it. Returning does emphasize our over protectiveness which isn't great, but I don't think waiting is for us and chasing them is emphasizing our bloody side.

That said, I will say I know I'm very risk-adverse so I'm probably too conservative.

[X] Return
 
[X] Help the other village

[X] ...Wait

I'm not a huge fan of returning right away. We have no indication that our home base is under serious attack, while we do know the other village requested reinforcements. Waiting for confirmation is a good middle ground for the risk-adverse.
 
[X] Help the other village

[X] ...Wait

I'm not a huge fan of returning right away. We have no indication that our home base is under serious attack, while we do know the other village requested reinforcements. Waiting for confirmation is a good middle ground for the risk-adverse.
Why would they hit two villages, but not three?
I could understand pooling all resources for one mega hit and then spreading out from there.
But hitting two villages with a force dozen times the usual raid size feels odd when they could hit all three at the same time.
And no, i don't think Zhengui would be a good enough a deterrent for a hundred+ barbarian raiders.
If anything, he could be an extra incentive to attack.

We can go back to our appointed village, make sure shit is under control there, and wait for more information.
 
[X] ...Wait

seems interesting, we need to talk to shenhu and the garrison this time anyway. Last time we ran off because we trusted zheng+lanlan
 
Why on earth is there no option to ask advice?? The vote is split pretty evenly, because we don't know what is happening. Shen Hu is there; explain that you have a choice in what to do, pursue, return, aid another village. Get a second opinion. Did they get intel that the third city is being attacked? We picked this front because of our mobility. We used that mobility to support this city and quite probably saved that one cultivator we don't know. Does the third city need supporting? Did the cultivator we saved get singled out for some reason?

Is all this folded into the 'wait' option? Because if so I'm voting for that.
 
@yrsillar, can you tell us how far apart the villages are in terms of travel time? How long would it take for messages to reach us? And, for that matter, how long would we expect a village to be able to withstand an assault like this?

Also, currently our big questions revolve around the relative likelihoods of:
  • There's just one big main attack here, with possible minor feints or raids at the other villages to try to either prevent them sending reinforcements or take advantage of them sending reinforcements.
  • They're attacking both northern villages on masses, but don't have the people to also hit the southern village.
    • If this was the case, would it not then make sense for them to then roll down and hit our village on their way back south? Committing this many people suggests they're trying to really hammer this valley...
  • They're hitting all villages at once to try to really hammer this valley.
These feel like things that would make sense to talk with our more experienced colleague about rather than making a gut call on zero experience and haring off without talking to anyone.
 
Why would they hit two villages, but not three?
I could understand pooling all resources for one mega hit and then spreading out from there.
But hitting two villages with a force dozen times the usual raid size feels odd when they could hit all three at the same time.
There's two possible reasons to not bother with the southern village:
  • Barbarians instigated the mountain problem and know that a massive beast tide will attack the southern village anyway
  • The plan is to hit the southern village on the way back (after hitting the north, and after the beast tide has softened up the southern village).
As I mentioned in my vote, these aren't the most convincing reasons, but they do exist (I still think "exactly two" is the least likely possibility).
 
villages are roughly ~10 minutes apart for ling qi. probably closer to 15-20 for groundbound cultivators going top speed.
 
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villages are roughly ~10 minutes apart for ling qi. probably closer to 15-20 for groundbound cultivators going top speed.
So, hypothetically, of a village sent out a messenger when they came under attack then by the time we could reinforce them 30 min would have passed.

Question is, I guess, how long would we expect such a battle to last if they were getting hit by a force as large as this one? Would waiting for a messenger mean tjat we'd arrive too late to really affect matters?
 
well you got the message from this one and arrived in time to help, so...presumably? It depends on how hard the barbs or other enemies are going I suppose, and the condition of your forces at the time the messenger is sent
 
is there a plan where we run back to village 1 to check, run back to village 2, then run to village 3? that should take roughly 30 minutes in total, and would make sure that village 1 and 2 are relatively safe before we run to reinforce

30 minutes hard running sounds in our stamina park, but might be a bit rough
 
That's beyond the scope of the vote basically, if Ling Qi arrives to find that theres nothing she can do at whatever site she went too, obviously she will move to check the other site or otherwise stay in communication, I'm asking you guys to select the next immediate course of action
 
well you got the message from this one and arrived in time to help, so...presumably? It depends on how hard the barbs or other enemies are going I suppose, and the condition of your forces at the time the messenger is sent
Helped that the original request came with so much forewarning, something like "we saw 2nd realm barbarians nearby, we might need some help in a quarter of an hour".

So I don't think this is a raid at all, rather this is the start of an invasion.
I do suspect territory is a part of it (though territory doesn't necessitate "invasion"). I think there's likely two and a half objectives here:
  • Push back imperial territory
    • It becomes hard for imperials to rebuild if the barbarians successfully kill the civilians and destroy the structures, formations, and fields.
  • Blood the youth
    • Imperial heavy combatants will be tied up at the mountain, leaving villages a relative safe way for the youths to get experience fighting imperials.
  • Grab metals
    • Once the villages are destroyed, might as well loot the sturdy resources.
 
well you got the message from this one and arrived in time to help, so...presumably? It depends on how hard the barbs or other enemies are going I suppose, and the condition of your forces at the time the messenger is sent
Well, those messengers were sent when they saw barbarians in the distance - there was forewarning. That's different from a messenger being sent out to say "we're under attack", which is what we're waiting for now.
is there a plan where we run back to village 1 to check, run back to village 2, then run to village 3? that should take roughly 30 minutes in total, and would make sure that village 1 and 2 are relatively safe before we run to reinforce

30 minutes hard running sounds in our stamina park, but might be a bit rough
Good point. Us checking the villages personally wouldn't actually lose us any time over waiting even in the worst case.
 
Oh that makes sense YRS haha <3
hmm I would change to Vill 3 then I think. I trust treasured little brother and galpal. They've even trained together offscreen! Zhengui is an absolute UNIT of a hardpoint and his CC is death to invaders. Combine that with the extreme killing power of the best glass cannon and frankly, I think the two of them could do about as well as Shen hu and us did. All four of those fighters are extremely powerful for their rank/level, I would be more worried for our unknown colleagues in village 3. If we can only choose waiting or running, I think I change my vote to vil 3 actually. I like talking but this area is stable. I think Shen Hu + the organized and alert defenses will be competent against the force we ran off. I think that force would lose to Zhen Gui + Lanlan. So, let's aid the unknowns and at worst we wasted 10 minutes checking to make sure vil 3 is safe
 
Mmm, another thing to think about is how abnormal this actually is. We know that most of the time it's just low level skirmishing and harassment. That doesnt mean though that this kind of attack is "weird" or a sign that something bigger is going on. For all we know, larger raiding parties coming out to burn down a village happens several times a year, and there's nothing too surprising about this.

@yrsillar have such things been covered in our briefing? What does our more experienced colleague have to say? Is this kind of attack super surprising?
 
[X] Help the other village

to the unknown! They requested backup and we have that need for speed! Away!!!
 
Good point. Us checking the villages personally wouldn't actually lose us any time over waiting even in the worst case.
There'll be something at both the other villages, even if it's something minor like cleaning up the last of the beast tide, or the last gasps a minor barbarian force at the third village. It'll be enough that Ling Qi with poor war score will move to help.

Also in the worst case visiting the other villages does lose Ling Qi critical time. The worst case is that Ling Qi gets bogged down dealing with a minor threat at one village and leaves the major threat at the other village unchecked.
 
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