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

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I think I'm making a slight tweak to our windup so that we have PLR online too. It gives them another turn to react, but ensures that our deathcloud is appropriately augmented with Joyous Toast to make it a bigger pain in the neck to avoid it.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by 1986ctcel on May 25, 2019 at 4:38 PM, finished with 364 posts and 73 votes.
  • [X] Plan: The Night Parade of One Thousand Demons - Final Mix
    -[X] Approach from one of their flanks and raise up defenses (especially SES and TRF, but getting Persistant effects like one with shadow up and running in advance to shroud us from any scouting stunts). Activate Forgotten Vale Melody and Illustrious Phantasmal Festival at maximum radius while making final approach, scale up to Traveller's End--using Joyous Toast as needed to maximize our containment--as fast as we can and hopefully have that shield in place by the time they're in the net. Use Elegy to isolate the illusionist, and maintain defenses and PLR control effects while sneaking Hannyi and Zhengui as a team into the mists to launch ambushes to chip away at the lower realm 'Bandits'. Stall them and contain them by abusing our mobility and stealth to limit counterattacks, but ensure that defenses are in place to endure a potential sneak attack from the third target. Respond to any surprises or us being cornred (Such as a backstab by third target on any allies) by detonating Traveller's End with Joyous Toast boost, in hopes of the paralyze effect giving us a chance to disengage and regain control.
    ... and 8 more.
    [x] Plan Control and Capture
    -[x] Get ahead of the enemy without being detected and roughen their route with ice or Zhengui to divert them to rougher terrain and potentially draw out their veiled problem solver for direct confrontation. Any time the environment is favorable, attempt to ensnare the enemy formation in our mists and target leaders with song and dancers to disrupt rallying efforts. Try to keep up an area perception technique and if anyone manages to escape the mists, or is detected outside of them, leave the Travellers End reinforced mists behind to pursue immediately. Keep our spirits close in case of emergencies, but trust them to keep watch over shed mists if necessary.
    [X] Plan If It Bleeds...
    -[X] Lean on all your skills to turn into a shadow and track the source of the false trails, the assassin who undou btedly serves as the trump card of that raiding force using your superior speed. Once you've located his inevitable location around his fellows, use all your skills in perception, tracking, and stealth to locate him remembering the techniques favored by Lu Feng (For obviously this is what Sun Liling was taunting you with) and ambush the assassin with your Spirits. Once you've engaged the assassin, begin preparing your full suite of arts for mass combat, then once you've confirmed the kill, take them with you to attack the main force by dropping Zhengui and Hanyi on them from above, while using PLR and Elegy of the Lost to isolate the relevant combatants, specifically the illusionist, and crush them with FVMs ultimate technique before holding out as best you can until reinforcements arrive.
    [X] Plan: Wait Them Out
    -[x] Set up mists between the enemy and the border and hide within them. Retreat if pressed by a prepared offense. Push back when enemy enhancement techniques weaken, or if the enemy makes significant progress to the border. If the enemy splits up, defeat in detail. If a battle is inevitable, hold nothing back.
    [x]
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Night Parade was edited for conciseness and clarity, the basic intent is largely intact with the only change being that we envelop them a bit faster due to the security we can get on Mist of the Vale courtesy of Sixiang and Joyous Toast mixing with our resist suite to make it sufficiently hard to dispel that it should parry anything they can organize before TE comes out, which is where it goes from nuisance level to menace.

Revision has the same posture and intent, but it's hopefully less confusing to read because it's not a frakenstein of a dozen people yelling at me and a bunch of edits.
 
Arkeus said:
I believe that there are higher chance of people escaping than Ling Qi being in danger of losing the fight, and so Control Plan makes more sense to me, as the possible point of failure isn't being beaten but not catching them, in my mind.
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On the other hand, while the failure state of losing a fight is much less likely to happen it's also much worse. If we do somehow lose the fight badly, Ling Qi could be horribly maimed or killed. If these bandits get away with the loot, it's just egg on the face for the Bai/Cai.
 
So, anyway, my current thoughts: I think that the bandits dying might actually be intended - or at least, it's not a major problem that they'd expend things like suspiciously valuable talismans to prevent.

I think that the bandits may, in fact, be genuine Thousand Lakes bandits paid by the Sun. By showing off the Bai's inability to control their lands, they deliver a massive humiliation to the Bai. They also drive wedges between the Bai and Cai with the Meng being able to ask those awkward questions like "if the Bai are so incompetent and can't stop bandits from attacking us why should we be friends with them?", and the Bai being all embarrassed and salty and probably being "and why couldn't you keep them out???? why did your security suck?".

This isn't to say that the bandits getting away wouldn't be *better*. Certainly it would, since it would deny us any kind of mitigating win, and loose us the loot. But if they die, Sun still wins. And this, I think, is a large part of what gives us decent odds at getting our loot back - it's designed to be a success even if we do.
 
Basically, it doesn't really matter if on the higher levels, it's win-win for the Sun?

On our level, we can't let them get away.
 
Also important to note the bandits may not know what they're stealing and who it belongs to. I'd expect they've been told at most they were fucking with some minor baron's stuff unless either they've got a deathwish or their families are being held hostage.
 
PrimalShadow said:
Makes sense. SES's tech was pretty out of line with how mediocre Archive 1 arts are clearly supposed to be.
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The problem was that the SES tech was breaking the premise of the rank system by letting a C tech no-sell an opponent's B tech unless (presumably) their tech has a higher ordinal perfection.

This isn't something we can see or reasonably plan for, since this "degree of perfection" is like adding another layer of invisible ranks to do what ranks were supposed to do in the first place. Not to mention making skills and attributes matter less since you never know if your opponent has a perfect tech to ignore them or not.

In any case, it's not like the SES capstone will be weak, we still get to ignore enemy dispels at C rank (like Sixiang's offensive multi-dispel, and I'm guessing combat dispel-aura like effects for cultivator weapons), presumably the tech would provide a hefty bonus to resist against B+ rank dispels.
 
I was reading through the control plan and there is one thing I'm confused about. If we are doing all this stuff to the terrain, and leading their path, how are our reinforcements catching up? We don't have a method of communication, which means the reinforcements kind of have to follow the bandits, so if the path is meant to slow down our enemies won't that also effect our allies? Maybe I'm reading it wrongly. Also legitimately only the three greens have a chance of escaping our FVM to the face. It's unlikely they can carry the cargo. No way all three can do it. And most importantly unless they are very quick we can probably catch them. TehChron said it earlier and I agree, it's unlikely any of these greens can face us one on one.
 
Leosky00 said:
I was reading through the control plan and there is one thing I'm confused about. If we are doing all this stuff to the terrain, and leading their path, how are our reinforcements catching up? We don't have a method of communication, which means the reinforcements kind of have to follow the bandits, so if the path is meant to slow down our enemies won't that also effect our allies? Maybe I'm reading it wrongly. Also legitimately only the three greens have a chance of escaping our FVM to the face. It's unlikely they can carry the cargo. No way all three can do it. And most importantly unless they are very quick we can probably catch them. TehChron said it earlier and I agree, it's unlikely any of these greens can face us one on one.
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Way I see it the whole point is to arrange this order
Border of Safety- Ling Qi- Bandits- Angry Cai Army
so Bandits have to bypass Ling Qi.
If Bandits are stuck fighting Ling Qi for too long, Angry Cai Army catches them.
If Angry Cai Army catches them things go south mighty quick.
 
[x] Plan Control and Capture

I think this approach is the better choice, a bit more cautious - our objective is not to kill them all by ourselves, after all. Just hold out until Gandalf Renren arrives. If they are weak enough for us to take them down, sure, go for it, but I wouldn't go in with that assumption.
 
Theo Promes said:
[x] Plan Control and Capture

I think this approach is the better choice, a bit more cautious - our objective is not to kill them all by ourselves, after all. Just hold out until Gandalf Renren arrives. If they are weak enough for us to take them down, sure, go for it, but I wouldn't go in with that assumption.
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By making our reinforcements have to go through the same obstacle course we set up for the enemy which just delays their arrival?
 
It's a good point that they haven't already had their fastest member(s) bolt with the loot (I lost track of the two people who said that). There could be a few reasons for this** but the important part is that there's a reason they're moving together as a whole and it's likely they'll only scatter if things look desperate (as opposed to the instant Ling Qi shows up).

I'm now a lot less worried about them scattering and expect them to be hesitant to abandon each other. It's unlikely they were (and are) so close to employing the "scatter" strategy that LQ's very presence will instantly activate that hair trigger.

**Possible reasons: (1) the shipment is too large to fit in the fast people's storage rings or (2) ambushing the pursuit is one of their goals or (3) they value each other and think that more of them will survive if they stick together.
 
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Grigori said:
Shenhua seems the type to have her kid walked through their first murder before going off to conflict with their peers. I at least wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.
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I disagree, tbh. There is a difference between not being a caring mother, and setting up your child to commit murder. I could see CRX witnessing some violence, but I would be surprised if Shenhua was quite as bad as you make her out to be, here.
 
Leosky00 said:
I was reading through the control plan and there is one thing I'm confused about. If we are doing all this stuff to the terrain, and leading their path, how are our reinforcements catching up? We don't have a method of communication, which means the reinforcements kind of have to follow the bandits, so if the path is meant to slow down our enemies won't that also effect our allies? Maybe I'm reading it wrongly. Also legitimately only the three greens have a chance of escaping our FVM to the face. It's unlikely they can carry the cargo. No way all three can do it. And most importantly unless they are very quick we can probably catch them. TehChron said it earlier and I agree, it's unlikely any of these greens can face us one on one.
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This concern has been raised a few times now. It's a legitimate concern, but I believe it's just... wrong. There's a number of relevant details in the update that paint a picture of this not being a huge issue.

First off, Ling Qi is going to consult with the scouts and their maps, so her broad intentions can be communicated to them ahead of time. They could even share some of their unit's marking language so that Ling Qi can covertly guide our friendlies on non-fucked-with paths; we know from the Dark Dreams test that such things exist. Secondly, the Cai forces are implied to be familiar with the terrain, which means that they can more reliably navigate around hazards without losing time. Third, as noted by the Cai captain, our force is smaller which means they're more maneuverable when navigating obstacles and chokepoints. Fourth, our forces aren't carrying anything but their personal gear, whereas the 'bandits' are attempting to abscond with loot- there's good odds that valuables like art slips are in formation strongboxes that 3rd realms lack the capability to crack in the field.

All indications are that terrain difficulties will hamper the enemy more than they will allies. The Cai forces are already set to catch up... except that the enemy has a head start. If we throw down an obstacle that costs the enemy 2 minutes and our own forces 1 minute to bypass, we've gained a minute. Our fight with the enemy group is likely to take roughly the same time regardless of whether we've slowed them down prior to engagement or not. The ideal situation is our allies arriving during the conflict so that it can be ended with lesser personal expenditure of energy, leaving us more ready to engage with additional surprises. This scenario is more likely if we impede their progress prior to engaging in combat because, as established, our allies are faster than our enemies.

I trust Ling Qi, and @yrsillar, to not blow time we don't have in the scenario. Sabotaging the enemy's route is a pretty basic tactic here. With Ling Qi aware of the distances and approximate speeds involved, she should be able to ration her efforts appropriately.
 
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