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[Roboson]

No, about mages not casting at sea.

After seeing this, I'd really like a GM answer to the question. I feel like we've missed something.

[VoidSlayer]

No combat is occurring at sea.

[10ebbor10]

No, about mages not casting at sea.

After seeing this, I'd really like a GM answer to the question. I feel like we've missed something.

I'm pretty sure we didn't, unless the rules changed, again.

[VoidSlayer]

We have done between nothing and zero designs for the ocean.  Despite that we are at basic parity with them with our general designs.  I would say that is about right.

[Roboson]

No, about mages not casting at sea.

After seeing this, I'd really like a GM answer to the question. I feel like we've missed something.

I'm pretty sure we didn't, unless the rules changed, again.

I guess its just their weather magic. The only combat report that really points out how/why we're losing at sea is from 918. Apparently they can control the ocean enough to sink our ships without having to get close enough to get hit by fireballs.

[10ebbor10]

We have done between nothing and zero designs for the ocean.  Despite that we are at basic parity with them with our general designs.  I would say that is about right.

Every single fireball design applies to the ocean.

Meanwhile, the Moskurgians have only their single wind spell.

[Roboson]

We have done between nothing and zero designs for the ocean.  Despite that we are at basic parity with them with our general designs.  I would say that is about right.

Every single fireball design applies to the ocean.

Meanwhile, the Moskurgians have only their single wind spell.

No, I think that they have several wind spells. What confuses me is which are the expensive ones and which are the cheap ones. As far as I can tell, they have:
- Wind Spell (may have a seperate one for moving ships as opposed to deflecting arrows)
- Wind Shield
- Lightning
- Rain spell
- Ocean control
What I don't understand is how they're casting all of these AND their mind reading, AND their sleep spell, AND their radio spell, AND their homing arrows spell. It seems like almost all of their spells are very expensive or expensive strength levels, but they're casting all of them in all theaters. And it can't be that they have magical items like our charms, because we would have come across at least one from all the enemies we've captured.

[VoidSlayer]

Each theater can use different spells which are most effective in that one, I think.

[10ebbor10]

Yeah, the issue is that they're using all their spells in all areas.

Which means they're all cheap, somehow.

I must say, I've really come to detest, even hate, the way stuff is hidden. You're acting completely blind, relying on just a few sentences from which you have to try and figure out what the enemy has done. Entire designs are simply forgotten because there is no way to keep track of what happened in past turns. No index, no lists, nothing.

[evictedSaint]

Arstotzka has been using fireballs at sea the entire time.

However, their ships have the trade off of being worse at combat but having a higher bonus when landing troops.  Moskurgs needed to develop research to do sea magic likely as a balancing mechanism - once they did things began tipping in their favor.  Once Arstotzka shifted their ships back into one massive fleet, things became balanced again.

[Azzuro]

Arstotzka has been using fireballs at sea the entire time.

However, their ships have the trade off of being worse at combat but having a higher bonus when landing troops.  Moskurgs needed to develop research to do sea magic likely as a balancing mechanism - once they did things began tipping in their favor.  Once Arstotzka shifted their ships back into one massive fleet, things became balanced again.

That ... doesn't exactly address ebbor's concerns. So all this time our ships have been worse at combat than Moskurg sailing ships? That wasn't mentioned in the opening post of this thread, where it was stated that our ships are slow, but can carry lots of troops. Nowhere was it stated that our ships are strictly worse at combat than those of Moskurg. A reasonable interpretation of this would be our ships are strategically slower to move from port to port than Moskurg, but as rowing ships are more manoeuvrable than sails, the two should be about equal in combat.

Again, Moskurg is receiving the advantage (better combat ships), whereas our advantage of landing more troops doesn't even apply until we've captured the whole coastline, which we would be hard-pressed to do given the Moskurg advantage. And again, none of us would have known this without you mentioning it, since nowhere is it stated that our losses at sea were due to our ships being worse at combat than those of Moskurg.

Overall, all this salt is coming because we have introduced several new things in the past two turns, where Moskurg has introduced none, and yet combat has not shifted an inch in our favour. The only possibilities are that Moskurg has developed some incredibly powerful and incredibly subtle magic that shifts combat, which is beyond your ability to reasonably describe or hint at without giving it away completely, or that we are not progressing because our designs don't address the mechanical reason why we're not winning, which is again due to the descriptions not adequately matching the underlying mechanics you're using for rolls.

[10ebbor10]

To be fair though, Moskurg apparently didn't have the ability to use magic on their boats, which neither we nor they appeared to know.

[FallacyofUrist]

You know what? Let's do this.

Catgirl Assassins: Using the splicing magic we developed earlier for fire wasps, our mages have figured out how to splice the housecat with a human, giving them cat-like traits like cat ears on the top of their head, a tail, claws, and yellow eyes. Our men don't seem very interested in receiving this treatment. Maybe if it actually made them stronger or tougher. Our women, on the other hand... a small minority of women in Arstotzka have been wishing to fight for years, and are more than willing to receive this treatment if it means they can fight. And it does. This treatment, though unfortunately it induces some mental... changes... improves dexterity, senses, and stealth, creating the perfect assassin. Our Catgirl Assassins, when sent out at night, will be perfect for assassinating enemy mages and leaders.

Bestial Splicing: 0
Arstotzkan Fireball Corps: 0
Dragon's Fireball: 0
Ministry of Integrity: 0
Darkvision: 0
Summon Crystal Wolves: 0
Summon Magic Detection Amulet: 0
Improved Frost Tower: 0
Anti-Magic Arrows: 0
Functional Anti-Magic Charms: VoidSlayer, StabbyMcStabStab, Roboson, Azzuro
Mega Fireball: 0
Ritual Sacrifice: 10ebbor10, FallacyofUrist, Andres
Gilded Guardian Gilda: 0
Fogships: 0
Catgirl Assassins: 0

[Roboson]

Unfortunately, they have detection of all non-magical traps, ambushes, and movements. We can't invest in assasins, because their magic counters basically everything physical we could throw at them. *cough* remotely operated shadow assassins *cough cough*

EDIT: We could invest in summoning deadly scorpions or spiders to sneak into their camps and assassinate leaders and wizards. Since they're magical in nature they should avoid detection, and because they're small and we can summon a multitude of them, there's not a lot of defense against that. Even if they posted guards, in the jungle, there would be no way they could spot tiny black widows (or whatever) climbing through trees and into camps.

[FallacyofUrist]

We could do that... I'd be willing to put my vote onto that.

But the question is: how magical does something have to be in order to avoid detection?