Welp your now obligated to make the omake, get cracking
Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Greece
Let's expand that thought.
Assuming talent 2 guardsmen and 5 people squads (the standard), that would mean we need 5-6 red arts to create squads. That, imho, is the bare skeletal minimum to run a fief
If we need specialised squads, we need more than that. If we have squads captained by yellows, we need more than that. If we need our guardsmen to have element- appropriate arts, we need more than that. If we want all of these, we need even more. If we want our guardsment to be able to alternate arts depending on the occasion so that they/their squads can switch specialization, we need more.
And all of these factors get even more complicated for our yellow and green lieutants.
Conclusion: the quantity of red, yellow and early green arts available does affect the strength of an army. It may even be the third most important factor, after the quality of the highest-ranked members and numbers it can field.
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I don't think having specialized mooks is worth the cost. I would prefer soldiers that don't need to be deployed in a specific unit size and composition to be able to fight effectively. Not even the Argent Sect with their vast resources and higher talent mooks tries to do this...
- Location
- Greece
What are you talking about, have you seen our army lifers yellow mooks? The Sect does exactly that. And if you say "these are yellows", well, that just makes them more expensive, they are still mooks as far as anyone is concerned.
I'm aware, but you need more than "average red guardsmen" to actually defend a fief. And much of my work was attempting to estimate how many soldiers Ling Qi's fief would need to levy as part of Cai Renxiang's ability to project force in the region, as well as what the soldiery needs to do their jobs.
Looking at Ling Qi's squad during Elder Zhou's test (Han Jian, Han Fang, Fan Yu, Gu Xuilan, Ling Qi), most of them only had one or two arts, but where they differentiated themselves was important. The same logic applies here; the bulk of Ling Qi's forces are going to be early or mid red, with enough talent to open at most 2 meridians, so squads need to get the most out of a very small number of meridians.
You might want to reread Zhou's test arc again, Ling Qi's squad being specialized was a pretty massive upside. More importantly Ling Qi's scouting adventures in 5:2 her squad being specialized was super important. Useful specialization is clearly better than significant overlap of skills.
- Location
- Location: Location!
Picking a bunch of arts that slot into a standard array of meridians would make switching arts depending on the then-ongoing catastrophe feasible. AFAICT, once you have the meridians, training arts is just a question of time, effort and resources.
Having said that, I think that getting this far would require that LQ spent a not inconsiderable amount of time, resources and quest attention setting things up, and I don't know if being known as the fief with the surprisingly versatile redshirts is worth the hassle.
Having said that, I think that getting this far would require that LQ spent a not inconsiderable amount of time, resources and quest attention setting things up, and I don't know if being known as the fief with the surprisingly versatile redshirts is worth the hassle.
- Location
- Greece
Redshirt quality is the reason for the Empire's combat superiority. The main conceit of this world as opposed to other Xianxia is that redshirts matter. Doing what you describe would not create a reputation of surprisingly versatile redshirts, it would bring Ling Qi's holding on par with old houses and border strongholds.
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deadcrystal
Slaaneshi Cultist
- Location
- The Warp
Worth noting that even once you've reached the levels where you can start modifying and creating arts, you at an absolute minimum won't be able to create arts that are inconsistent with your way. (Plus creating arts in things that you dislike or are only mediocre at is going to be a slog)
So, basically, Ling Qi can't practically create arts except ones that are very well suited for herself.
Meaning trying to create arts for someone with a different personality, nature and aptitudes is pretty much a non-starter.
If it turns out that Ling Biyu is drawn to presenting different personalities to people, then LQ won't be able to help, the sincerity that's part of her Way due to Argent Mirror would prevent it. If Biyu wants to become a solid-style, Mountain heavy Muscle wizard, LQ again won't be able to make arts for that.
This explains two things about the strength of ancient big clans, firstly why they strongly encourage 'Family arts' and attitudes, since they've built a very strong and tall tower of arts there for millenia. Secondly the length of time they've been around has given enough time for those of every walk of life and every inclination to climb and make arts and ensure that any new cultivator has something to draw on.
Things are hard for a new clan.
Im doomed
Sadly, im a reader, not a writer
Someone please help me :O
Havent wrote anything creative since middle school
- Location
- Location: Location!
As we have just seen in the previous arc, redshirts matter because the empire is big and leveling up is hard, therefore in order to cover terrain you need reds and yellows (and greens, if we want to be honest). Human wave tactics are not feasible, unless that wave is dispersed enough that the stronger cultivators can't wipe out all of the weaker ones before some of them cause damage to the fief and flee. Glider-riders managed to get around us and damage the crops because we were busy dealing with their bosses. As for old houses investing resources into redshirts, if that were true I'd expect mama Qingge to have been introduced to cultivation way before this.
Is this WoG? The rules for creating successor arts don't really delve into the modification of keywords, but aside from that and the necessarily subjective difficulty of the technique creation mini-arc, it doesn't seem like it would be too complex. The formula is 2+L+(P/3), with a P of zero (it starts ath the ground floor) and an L of six (for the three red and the three yellow phases) that would cost us eight APs. Add 50% for uncertainties and spread it over six turns and it would hardly slow us down. I'm sure that creating an art based on meridians we don't have would range from prohibitively expensive to impossible, but Biyu is still our blood half-sister, and is still young enough that LQ will be a large influence on her personality. Heck, we're specifically brainwashing her into liking cultivation, as per the Turn 5: Training/Family Time threadmark.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Give it a shot! There aren't any grades on the line or anything, and you just might enjoy it!
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Biyu would clearly ask to be sorted into Slytherin, but then wonder where the turtle half of the House mascot is.
Unfortunately, when we start out we'll have no idea what is best for her, or what she wants. While we'll probably start teaching her Cultivation when she's twelve or thirteen, there isn't any real way to tell which direction she's going to go in before she does.
Therefore, all we can do is offer what we have - Arts from the Tablet, or Arts of our own design - and the latter will almost certainly be stronger than what is available from the Tablet, if substantially more limited in scope.
Even a 'For Reds' version of SSC could be useful, with the bonuses being towards Base, Yin Arts, qi, and Spirit Binding, capping at Late Red. Teach her that, teach her at least SCS and FVM (~4-5 Meridians, IIRC) [tack on an art of each other type, too - Imperial 8 and Traditional 5 - because of the Tablet], get her to Late Red, send her to the Sect, have her learn Argent Soul, and then, when she's in Yellow, send her a Jade Slip for EPC. Or send it with her when she leaves, one or the other, to allow her the option of forging her own path.
The creation of new Arts is almost certainly not the same as creating Successor Arts, but we have no rules for the creation of new Arts at this time. Presumably we will find out by the time we are in Green 6/7, as one requirement for Green 8 is 'successfully creating a unique personal Art'.
deadcrystal
Slaaneshi Cultist
- Location
- The Warp
That you can't do things that violate your Way is known, and making arts is obviously included in that. (Granted LQ's Way is not terribly restrictive atm, but the more insights you develop the more things are disallowed)
Further, you (obviously) can't teach what you don't know. If LQ wanted to make an solar explosion fists art she has to develop every level of the art, which means at minimum the same effort it would take her to learn said art if it already existed and she had a jade slip for it herself. She can't just dip into just enough Solar and Muscle Wizard to make the first layer of an art, drop it onto a slip and expect that if Biyu picked it up it would be a fully developed five level green art.
Thus, no making a Punch, Solar, Explosion keyworded art with A rank ability in brawl unless LQ were to develop those requisites herself.
Needless to say we won't be doing that when we don't have any skill in that area already and no bonuses towards developing down that route.
But Biyu's life is vastly different to how LQ's was. LQ grew up in a brothel afraid of her possible future, and then on the streets scrabbling for survival.
Biyu is growing up as an incredibly excitable girl in a new cultivator household with servants, a loving and supportive family, and never having to worry about where the next meal is coming from. She's going to be a very different person from LQ, and the things that drew LQ towards certain arts and methods just aren't going to be present in her.
It is nice that at Red level you can pretty much dip into arts without worrying too much about whether they suit you. They don't take much investment, they don't tie you to anything, and you aren't going to be blocked from stuff because you have no way as yet.
....
I figured it out.
Talent comes from tribulations during mortal childhood!
Lets arrange some for biyu, she can take it.
I figured it out.
Talent comes from tribulations during mortal childhood!
Lets arrange some for biyu, she can take it.
- Location
- Greece
As we just have seen in the previous arc, redshirt buff overlay techniques were the key to tipping the scales in a fight between mid-Greens, and that was at low numbers of people and war scores. Maybe they are not strong enough to tip things in a fight between Indigos via buffing... but if they can help a Green kill a Green, then it'd still help, because Green human buff overlay tactics can tip things.
WoG, as far as I remember, has stated that the value of armies only starts to not matter at White or Prism, and that is solely because enough people of the realm exactly below cannot be easily gathered in order to complete the chain, not because it stops mattering.
But wait, there is more. The reason we actually managed to slaughter the next barbarian batallion was solely because we countered their buff overlay strategy, as they were not specced against stealth and coup de graces. If their army was bigger and more specialized, we would have as bad a time in our second fight as we did in our first.
In short: no, as the bandits have shown, human wave tactics are not feasible, as you said. This is precisely the reason why advanced tactics, that actually work, were developed, and why armies, including barbarian armies, are on such a different league compared to bandits. These tactics can, if not defeat a higher realm outright, (WoG implies that defeating a higher realm via war tricks is a thing that happens) help a weaker higher realm defeat a stronger higher realm via an unbroken chain of weaker units supporting stronger units while disrupting the other side's weaker units.
As for mama Qingge, that has several possible answers. All of the following can factor, more or less, or it may be one of them that overpowers the others.
1) the Liu are neither a border nor a Count level clan, and as such, they do not really need a strong standing army to protect their interests. As such, they only maintain city guards and a relatively weak army for emergencies and use their wealth to create stronger cultivators of their own family.
2) Levying troops is still costly in spirit stones (rather than arts numbers, which, once created, are forever) and, as such, there is a limit to the number of troops one may raise dependent on their wealth. While you could say "this proves troops are a waste", I counter with "troops are one of the main reasons richer clans are stronger when on the same level" (e.g. baron vs baron, viscount vs viscount)
3) levying troops is still costly, so the talent tests are stringent, and no one let our mom take one cuz they didn't think she'd qualify
4) the Liu are corrupt idiots and not people one should look up to when desiring optimality(this is evidenced not solely on what they did to our mom, but also on the state of Tounghou on the moon mission and on the bonus story published on RR)
The reasons could be many, a library to strengthen our redshirt army would still be a good allocation of resources after we pay for our clan.
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Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
It break down already against Indigos:
They are still useful, mind.
Don't look down on the Liu so much? Also, the Liu are in a border. Tonghou might not be right at the border, but it's south enough that it is very much susceptible to attacks.
I don't think Yrs has ever said that...
So, a veteran division might be able to momentarily inconvenience a single Indigo. It seems unlikely that just pure numbers will do anything at all to a Violet. I suppose a division's worth of Cyans could kill a Violet, but that would be a pretty unusual Imperial formation.
EDIT: Huh, I got ninjaed...
- Location
- Greece
Ah, fair enough, seems I valued armies too highly, but the reasons it does break remain the ones I stated.
Also, I will look back at the Liu. Here's the map.
At long last, the map of the Emerald Seas is complete!
And a quick explanation of what this map is showing:
The colours on the map are determined by de facto county rulership. That is, if your county-level liege is the Luo, directly or indirectly, then your spot on the map is Luo red, even if you're geographically within Diao county. Note that it's not just the borders where these things are happening, it's just that within a county all bordergore shenanigans between viscounties will end up the same colour anyways.
And a quick explanation of what this map is showing:Tounghou is past the Wang, smack dab in the Diao, far from the border of the Diao never mind the Dukedom. Normal barbarian excursions have trouble surpassing the tiny thing that is the Argent Sect. You can argue that the Argent Sect is a tough target, but geographically, it is small, there is no way random barbarians will breach the Wang or Meng borders in such a way as to be dangerous to even a stupid Viscount clan... unless we have another Ogodei, that is.
Again, sorry, it seems indeed that I was undernumbering things. I guess these kind of numbers did matter in the whole Ogodei fiasco, but this was an abnormal situation. However... we will be dealing with Green, Cyan and Indigo level conflict for quite a while, so it is still very useful to us. Moreover, as I stated, it still matters in that they help the top dog fight better through buffs, I think I remember it being stated that they could make a difference in a fight of Violets or Prisms not by themselves, but by buffing their commander, but I cannot find the citation and I may well be misremembering.
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EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
[X] Reunions(Ling Qingge & Biyu, Su Ling, Xiao Fen)
@yrsillar would a nat100 have resulted in LQ getting a doggo spirit?
The answer is actually neither, 95-100 is the best you would've gotten as it was a huge crit enough. Also no matter what happened, we weren't getting a dragon (yes, yrs confirmed this in discord)
It wouldn't have been a Thunder Beast but a Thunder Lizard!
Denied again. Where's our Tyrannosaur Yrsillar!!!
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
If we want Ling Qi to keep being great at taking down masses of enemies she needs to learn some mass dispelling arts. The thing that has been stoping us is mooks stacking buffs on each other.