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[Jamini]

((The six visible vulpinans do not have their weapons ready, they also are predominently spearmen. The rest  are currently hiding in the surrounding area in case of a fight.

Also, my group met yours outside of the city, along the banks of the river. There are no walls here.  :p))

Raom stepped forward, standing under the parly flag as the giant approached and watching Hrafn with curiosity. "I am Raom, leader of the town of Liliaceleba. What is your business here giant, your diplomat could not have reached your outpost fast enough with the requested trade agreement in order to catch up with you. We delt with your kind in good faith, now are you planning to betry us?"

Behind him, one of the spearmen quietly murmered in Roam's ear, causing the marksman to brush the soldier away somewhat brusquly, murmering in an undertone, "I can see that, now is not the time Jeu."

~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~

"Cenna, wait!" the merchants called out as she attempted to leave, one of them grabbing her arm, "Don't you remember me? It's Maxim! Mother has been worried sick about you ever since word came back to Liliaceleba that you had disappeared on Graed's expedition. Where have you been all this time?"

~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~

[Akroma]

quote:a perfect hit by a really powerful blow by the hammer of those 10m storm giants could at least disable most of the others.)  

Fuck that

so the storm giants are the only one who could at least disable them ?

Each civ has one immortal hero, and this one should be their most powerful unit.
As game has already shown, the gods can add 1-2 powerful units, but an army of nearly indestructable robots which each are easily comparable in power terms to the heroes IS overpowered, even if they are only support units that mustn't kill anyone.
I have already planned to add ONE powerful unit and guess when that will happen ?
The moment Madara dies.

Your robot army is not "awesome"
they are overpowered and extremely out of character.
You said the !!elves!! are just like normal elves (just on fire)
they should despise such extreme technology (especially since they do not need it. They are living torches fir christs sake)
also, you said they are neither believeing nor listening to Armok. Why should they do stuff that could only come from him ?

Also, I want this game to be at least somewhat fair. Look at what war did to the valtans: within ust a few turns they invented new and very powerful weapons.
and that was against a fairly underwhelming tactic.
Now imagine what players will come up with when faced with such an army. The whole game would escalate to a point at which neither RP nor fun would be important, only "who can come up with the most powerful godhax" will be important.

[Poltifar]

((First of all, Armok I'm sure we will have to change some of the golem plans, I don't want to anger other players, and Akroma already stated quite clearly how angry she is   This issue should be adressed ASAP.

other than that: Sure, the soulforging many time in a row is unethical, but golems accept unethical things in the name of 'progress', so this is accepted.

For the Council of Guardians, I disagree that most of the members are golems. That would sort of defeet the purpose of having an equal council for both races. Also, I feel it would be hard for the council members to be the super-golems, since they won't have time for both governing and keeping order. How about the council being constituted of the eldest and smartest and wisest of the !!elves!! and golems (normal unmodified golems) with the super-golems and !!elven!! engineers that maintain them being a 'Special Division' under the control of the council that is only used in times of need?

I was also about to keep the proposal of joining a super-computer with a golem soul for a surprise twist later on, but nothing escapes you Armok   although I didn't think of adding it for the library... Only 1 problem, alot of the knowledge we will be amassing would be magic tomes that couldn't be stored in a technological computer, and besides, I like the feel of a HUGE 10 level library  

For Akroma and any other who would like to help balance our golem plans, please post ideas and suggestions on how to do it.))

[ June 13, 2008: Message edited by: Poltifar ]

[Akroma]

If you want balance, I propose you make them more like regular golems.

first of all: no flight

both !!elves!! and golems lack the magic/technology for that

don't make them that thick. All races should be able to damage them. Ever tried damaging a metal plate that is thicker than just 5 milimeteres ?
make them more like walking armor

the !!elves!! could still drasticaly change the design of the original battle golem, making them far more dangerous. But Transforming arms into weapons ?
The !!elves!! are good at melting and purifying metals. Not at such difficult mechanics. Mechanics are the power of the valtans, and the !!elves!! cannot simply come up with such extreme technology if they came into existance only 7 years ago.

as of the giant turtle, I have no objections myself, as I already have the means to destroy it, but most other races would be mostly defenceless against a walking fortress that is made entirely of iron. Maybe you should do something about it, like not making it air-tight
Your opponents should be able to climb unto it, break through whatever entrance it has and fight whoever is inside and be able to destroy it's core and kill the fortress

also, no lasers
why would the golems, who can't fire lasers, and the !!elves!! who can#t fire lasers as well build a robot that fires laser ?
The only in-game laser comes from the Roshani, and it
s a gigantic, insanely complex machinery, which would be impossible to build in a portable size (not to mention, you lack the technology for that)

I have no objections against the computers. Again, both sides lack the ability to build them, but oh meh, they are not that overpowered, so whatever

[Armok]

((Ok, clicked Add Reply after only havin answered Polifars post before, my mistake.))
((Or not even the whole of that it seems:
Fro name of the entire aliance, posibly including more races later, what abaut The Unified Minds?
Trade will be rather open once Mindgates has breached the mountainside, however most !!elven!! specific materials will be set aside for building the Council of Guardians and whatever other important projects. But trade in art, gems, and elven tech made of lesser materials will be plentiful.
Most golem/!!elf!! interaction and research on golems will most likely take place in Mindgates for a while, but there might be constructed highly efficient iron mining golems to be sent mining in the mining outpost near Ariquemera. (simple stuff compared the the Council of Guardians)))
((I mostly agree whit Strifes ideas regarding refugees.))
((Akroma: I hope you wont have any protests against me building skynet then...
Relly, I quite see your point, it is just common sense they  cand evolve this fast and be this overpowered... but it is just to awesome not to do, sorry.
Not to try to justify it.
I can see the problem whit "army of invulnerable uber-robots", however:
it's not an army, more an adventurer party, 8 or so. they are not invulnerable, some of them are downright fragile, they are aluminium whit reinforcements of titanium and tungsten, and most of them kinda wireframeish, even the best are about as armoured as a small tank. (Except the small "coconuts", but those are small and slowish and don't have any overpowered attacks.)
Really they wont be at all as overpowered as the giants whrigth was in the beginning or like Iten will be.
But yea, I can see why you have a problem whit it.
The !!elves!! are no longer very much like elves at all, or rather the Ariquemerans are not, after all in some mythologies dwarves and 'dark elves' were the same. Really the "unelven" stuff I still blame on that spray bottle))
...
Ok, I just discovered page 40, and this is not good.
My elves are smart, and them making an obvious design miss when there is a simple and obvious way of doing it better (like making the armour really thin) is unrealistic. I don't want to turn this into a fight but the only way I could imagine them not getting those good golems it if they somehow all got killed before they had a chance.

Line by line arguments:
"so the storm giants are the only one who could at least disable them?"
No, dropping a huge rock on them whit a catapult or flying it in whit Tengu would do for all of them except the coconuts and the turtle, and I am sure there are way to kill those to even if it's not obvious, maybe specific magic.
"Each civ has one immortal hero, and this one should be their most powerful unit.
As game has already shown, the gods can add 1-2 powerful units, but an army of nearly indestructable robots which each are easily comparable in power terms to the heroes IS overpowered, even if they are only support units that mustn't kill anyone." The golems wont be as powerful as the heroes, also in practice my !!elves!! don't have one, my "hero" is a pencilpusher the cant fight and that is my 5th most important char or something. Not that my hero sucking is relevant.
"Your robot army is not "awesome"
they are overpowered and extremely out of character."
It is not an robot army, it is less than 10 magical golems.
"You said the !!elves!! are just like normal elves (just on fire)
they should despise such extreme technology (especially since they do not need it. They are living torches fir christs sake)"
They are not like elves, especially not those in Ariquemera, I probably said they LOOK like elves on fire. And the Ariquemerans as you noticed are very much into science and tech.
"also, you said they are neither believing nor listening to Armok. Why should they do stuff that could only come from him ?"
Why could it only have come from me, almost all of it comes from Ilecaaye that is a kind of Archimedes style tech multi-genius.
"Also, I want this game to be at least somewhat fair. Look at what war did to the valtans: within ust a few turns they invented new and very powerful weapons.
and that was against a fairly underwhelming tactic.
Now imagine what players will come up with when faced with such an army. The whole game would escalate to a point at which neither RP nor fun would be important, only "who can come up with the most powerful godhax" will be important." I am not doing that as this will take lots and lots of turns to do, I can only hope your prediction of others doing it is wrong. it is less likly that there will be such a development as they wont be doing conquest warfare the same way.

"First of all, Armok I'm sure we will have to change some of the golem plans, I don't want to anger other players, and Akroma already stated quite clearly how angry she is  This issue should be adressed ASAP."
Probably, but I'd prefer to make them less overpowered in some other way first.
"other than that: Sure, the soulforging many time in a row is unethical, but golems accept unethical things in the name of 'progress', so this is accepted."
Good then, next turn iron prototypes will begin to be made.
"For the Council of Guardians, I disagree that most of the members are golems. That would sort of defeet the purpose of having an equal council for both races. Also, I feel it would be hard for the council members to be the super-golems, since they won't have time for both governing and keeping order. How about the council being constituted of the eldest and smartest and wisest of the !!elves!! and golems (normal unmodified golems) with the super-golems and !!elven!! engineers that maintain them being a 'Special Division' under the control of the council that is only used in times of need?"
They would be golems, but they would be up brought whit !!elves!!, and psychological stuff would be done so they don't see themselves as members of any one race. Also there would be a more intellectual "mission control" of !!elves!! inside the turtle.
They would not really be rulers, just have a veto on both governments, and just go around adventuring most of the time.
"I was also about to keep the proposal of joining a super-computer with a golem soul for a surprise twist later on, but nothing escapes you Armok although I didn't think of adding it for the library... Only 1 problem, alot of the knowledge we will be amassing would be magic tomes that couldn't be stored in a technological computer, and besides, I like the feel of a HUGE 10 level library So how about the computer stores all the non-magical info, but we also keep all the non-magical AND magical books/papers/manuscripts... in a library? Finally, that computer would also be helping the council ofcourse."
for the size the computer will make you happy I think, remember the gr3eat hall of Moria? think one of those filled whit computer components, one whit huge automated memory banks, and one whit an ordinary library and computer consoles.
The tomes would be whit the computer to, the ordinary library built on top of the computer and controlled completely by it.
The thing would be mindbogglingly huge.
Also did you niticed what I named the computer?
"Yeah I have read both Eragon books. Can't wait for the third one."
Then you know what I meant whit a group of elite soldiers under nobody's control can uphold peace, and why it is important for them to have good ethics.

Polifar, generally how are the normal golems, say give a very detailed description of your iron miners?

"first of all: no flight
both !!elves!! and golems lack the magic/technology for that"
Thats thy only I kind of golem can fly, and that just abaut the only thing it can do.
The butterfly is made entirely from titanium that is far more expensive than gold or platinum, it has huge wings (20m wingspan, 350m^2 area) that are extremely fragile, you could quite easily punch thought them. The body itself is practically wireframe and it could be killed by a well aimed arrow. It has a very limited weight for stuff to fit in it, and can carry only slightly more than a single Tengu. It has no weapon and no arms good enough to really handle one. Without all this wingarea/weight ratio stuff making it useless for fighting it could never fly.
"don't make them that thick. All races should be able to damage them. Ever tried damaging a metal plate that is thicker than just 5 milimeteres ?
make them more like walking armor"
Why the hell would an engineer be stupid enough to make that design flaw, it's unrealistic.
Still, this is sorta done for most of them, but it is more like a few cm, and supported by stronger wireframe. A medium-sized balista could most likely poke a hole in them, but it is still unlikely it would be in an important area..
"the !!elves!! could still drasticaly change the design of the original battle golem, making them far more dangerous. But Transforming arms into weapons ?
The !!elves!! are good at melting and purifying metals. Not at such difficult mechanics. Mechanics are the power of the valtans, and the !!elves!! cannot simply come up with such extreme technology if they came into existance only 7 years ago."
The "Transforming arms into weapons" is really a simple hinge thing, like a Swiss army knife.
Besides that they have had rather advanced clockwork mechanics for quite some while if you had paid attention.
"as of the giant turtle, I have no objections myself, as I already have the means to destroy it, but most other races would be mostly defenceless against a walking fortress that is made entirely of iron. Maybe you should do something about it, like not making it air-tight
Your opponents should be able to climb unto it, break through whatever entrance it has and fight whoever is inside and be able to destroy it's core and kill the fortress"
I can kinda agree, I'll make something like that. I still want it watertight so it can travel water but maybe it cant fight in that mode or something.
"also, no lasers
why would the golems, who can't fire lasers, and the !!elves!! who can#t fire lasers as well build a robot that fires laser ?
The only in-game laser comes from the Roshani, and it
s a gigantic, insanely complex machinery, which would be impossible to build in a portable size (not to mention, you lack the technology for that)"
It is not a real laser, only ordinary light focused whit a concave mirror and a few lenses. The elves have used these devices co communicate for quite som while, and I mentioned a stationary version when the tower was built.
The device is not very powerful and rather hard to focus correctly, especially on a moving target. It can blind rather instantly but to make any serious burns it must focus on a foe for a few seconds, and it cant burn thought armour even if it can make it very hot. Also only one golem of the Council of Guardians that specialises in it and can be easely disabled by just felling it has this weapon.
"I have no objections against the computers. Again, both sides lack the ability to build them, but oh meh, they are not that overpowered, so whatever"
Thats good, but I must mention that I have been talking quite a lot abaut how they were making computers, so again they do have the tech. However it isn't GOOD computers, size/power ratio is like ENAIC (or however it is spelled) at best, and fundamentally limited by their method at that level.
The "Skynet" will be more powerful totally but only because it's size and many processors working in parallel.

Hope this'll do. I might have to post specifications for all of them that are less overpowered and hyping later.

[Nhiphanter]

OOC: Oh well... slight misunderstanding but nothing serious. We could always go by that Hrafn is smart enough to know the spearmen arent the only ones there.
Also, Hjolf is obviously one of the original fifty and Hrafn knows him quite well.

Hrafn was sligtly taken back by the words of the old vulpinan that apparently was their leader. He homever took great care not to show it and gave only a faint smile. Surely this was the work of that old fool, Hjolf.
This would need improvisation... And then, there was a glint in his eye as he thought of the possibilities here.
"Betray you? By all means no, homever we have ways of communicating with each other and i was nearby on a hunting trip when Hjolf informed me of this new trade deal... But allow me to introduce myself. I, am Hrafn, Lord of Storms. The supreme ruler of the stormgiants and the master of the mountainfortress of our capital"
Hrafn made a small bow while introducing himself.
"Dont be bothered by our rather... warlike gear. I like to be well protected and these Elite units are in charge of my safety. Should something happen to me they are to escort me to safety... and of course discuss the penalties with the third party"
He made a motion to the bodyguard, who promptly sheathed their weapons and stood at ease.
"Now... Might i inquire you about yourself? I am sure we are going to like each other"

[Akroma]

thanks armok for making your post easily readable...

The spinning wall of text strikes akroma's patience
it's mangled

Anyway, if you start boasting about your plans, be precise. First you say things like
"a perfect hit from a very powerful warhammer"
and then ignore that you said that completely without acknowledging that my point wasn't a simple assumption.

Furthermore, they are golems. They feel no pain and need no sinew to move their limbs. To get rid of them in battle needs high precision and force. And even then, they wouldn't die unless you broke whatever holds their soul. If you broke a golems arm, he would still simply tackle you (and even if they are hollow, guess what it means to be tackled by a walking steel armor)
If you break their legs, they are still lying on the ground swinging their arms at whomever comes into their reach. To disable them you need to practicaly crash each and every limb or the soulstone. Now if you need the force of a ballista to pierce the armor, how are you gonna reach the core ?
THAT is why they should implent such "obvious" design flaws. For fairness sake.
They are not even building them because they NEED war-robots. They are building highly descructive war mashines out of sheer boredom. Unrealistic.

And for their competence in building flying mashines and computers:
The !!elves!! came into existance just 7 years ago. Before that they were hugging trees for a couple hundred years, then they were burned and tortured untill insanity and then suddenly thrown into the world, suddenly finding out about that everything they love dies when they touch it. Even if they are smart, no one is that smart.
There are other races on the board who might be capable of achieving such a feat, and this is because it's their sphere. Their racial flavour. The valtans can build such stuff because they are a race of scholars who are working for the god of inventions. And even their stuff is not as extreme as supercomputers or flying robots.

You are quite simply using a power that you do not have yet. If you want the ability to do that, trade for it. Achieve it. And if I read about that correctly, the golems are not the race that could trade it to you. The golems are either completely solid, or they are mostly hollow. No amazing technology inside them. Just magic.
Computers are amazingly complex mashines, and with nothing but the ability to melt things, even a basic calculator would takes decades untill it is fully functional. And how long did it take humanity to learn to fly ? About 5000 years of recorded history ?
The !!elves!! originate from a race of tree huggers who never built anything complex, because for them nature is beautiful and perfect enough. They have no basis to build on. They started experimenting with molten metal and glass just 7 years ago and are already building supercomputers, gigantic towers and cyborg armies.
Frankly, I am disappointed on how you play this race. You are completely and utterly ignoring the origin and the racial flavour of your race (elves that lost their memory due to torture and were then set on fire), and instead of using their countless advantages, you see that other players have had different awesome ideas and steal them. Yes steal.
The !!elves!! produce technology they simply CAN NOT have out of thin air.

There are so many awesome possibilities for the !!elves!!
Just imagine a air pressure magma gun.
Fill a cannon with molten metal, cause a reaction that produces lots of gas and spew it at your enemy. Yes, that's portable mini-vulcanoes.
Or to make it simply, build a heat resistant bucket and just throw the molten metal at your enemy.
The !!elves!! are a race with enormous potential, and you misuse it to build something that defies common sense so much that it is no longer awesome, but simply boring. Even bombing the city was more awesome, because it was at least somewhat reasonable and feasible.

oh, and even if they are no army, it's a group, yes a group, of immortal champions. As souls that are bound to metal vessels, killing them might prove much more difficult than killing, let's say, Madara.

[ June 13, 2008: Message edited by: Akroma ]

[Armok]

Ok, I give up, I just suck at writing.  

So, what am I gonna do, I should never have ruined this RP by attempting to play in the first place.

You are right Akroma, that tech is out-of-character and unrealistic, and I have been spreading it around the world already, I even sent a titanium bow whit magnesium arrows to the zefies.

I have been really exited about this RP all along, and it has been one of the VERY few thing I have actually been able to get inspiration to write. But by being that selfish I have mostly ruined it.
I have no excuse other than I got really exited and "inspired", and that I am the worlds suckiest author.  

So, how are we gonna get the !!elves!! of the board?

[Istrian]

I can easily see a few achievable ways to defeat Armok's robots. As far as I understand the robots are moved by a golem soul gem, which seems to be quite fragile. It means that a strong enough blow can shatter the gem, even if it leaves the shell undamaged.

An electrical discharge would roast the electronics inside the robot, effectively immobilizing it. I think some races might be able to do that. Heat should be an obvious one too.

Then there's water. I expect that there are some parts in a robot that can rust. It would significantly reduce the autonomy of the super-droids.

Even that taken into account, the robots are still mostly unbeatable. I would go for some very obvious design flaw : Armok keeps his robots for 20 turns but then they realise their own power and try to destroy their creators (like most machines do, eventually).

However there is something I cannot agree with with what Akroma said about gods and civs. I think civs have the right to be completely unrelated to their deity. In which case, the deity is rather very angry and tries to change the way of its civ, or the deity stops caring and no longer intervenes in the development of that civ.

By that I mean that Armok should either directly try to change the way his creatures behave or stop caring about them and take away the gifts he gave them (namely the spray that makes them so intelligent, and probably their memories, even their lives if he wants to).

EDIT : Didn't read your latest post. I think you should keep playing with the !!elves!! if you want to, but avoid giving them overpowered weaponry. Or stop their burning altogether.

[ June 13, 2008: Message edited by: Istrian ]

[Akroma]

Not of the board. Just don't start producing war-cyborgs that are as extreme as you planned to. The !!elves!! are still formidable smiths and should be able to get some nice upgrades for the golems.
Also, it's not to late to build your own, fire-based weaponry. The !!elves!! lost most of their memories and their mind in eons of hell torture, if they act a little out of character, that's fine. Just not the "Oh wow I am suddenly 3 Einsteins with a villain mustache" out of character.

edit: Istrian, if he stops making them burn, it would be ordinary elves. I think the races on the board should have at least a minimum amount of awesome. And come on...elves ?

also, the bows with magnesium tips are totaly fine, they are not overpowered and nothing an !!elf!! couldn't build if he already knew about normal bows from before. And that magnesium+fire=OHFUCKFUCKFUCK isn't really something that takes research to find out.

[ June 13, 2008: Message edited by: Akroma ]

[Istrian]

True enough. Burning elves have their racial flavor. Besides it was really fun reading about those freaking diplomats you sent, Armok.    

[Armok]

I got an idea how to get all the tech out, because it is all in Ariquemera:
They DO build a nuke, and they are stupid enough to test it inside the city!
Really, then it would be a bunch of tech artefacts nobody could ever reproduce, because the knowledge was only in Ariquemeras computers.
And we can say... that Ilecaaye was part human and that made him capable of all that impossible stuff?
Will that work?

Istrians idea would work if they were robots, but they are golems.
I do kinda agree whit the civs/deity relationship.

[Istrian]

If you really want to nuke them out, why not. Then again you could play on a 'civil war' between the bureaucrats and the scientists. Or a magma flow. Or Armok's fury. Possibilities are endless.

There's also something I've been wondering about and since we are going to move to new forums soon I thought I might ask. Is there anyone except those playing who are reading this thread ? I'm feeling kinda curious today.

[Armok]

See you after the move then? I hope we can come up whit something, but it has already been done ridiculous things whit the !!elves!!, and I doubt I could RP them any other way.

[Strife26]

Armok, you need to have more of a backbone. Tech is definitally the !!elves!! strong suit. I personally would rather keep the game as low-tech as possible, but I am more than ready for progressing technology. Every race is more than capable of coming up with easy solutions to ost of the golems (provided they don't gain effective long range weapons).
Ex:
I'm assuming (properly)that any golem coul be killed with enough direct pressure.
Thelash- Rock + Airship = squash.
Tengu- lord knows what they'll think of. Earth magic, droped rocks, ect.
Storm Giants- Lightning, Warhammer, Pickaxe. Lots of possibilities.
Everyone- a pike at high speed could probably kill everything except the sphere thingee. Provided the sphere isn't too strong, It shouldn't be too bad.
As long as the battle golem numbers stay small, it shouldn't be a problem.
Zefies- Being a bit too small to easily build up enough pike force, I'd have a bit of a problem.I'd probly resort to a pit trap. None of them (except the turtle) has any effective jumping abilty.
Option B= 120 mm smoothbore.

Akroma, you need to stop being so mean. It's fine not to be peachy, but please be polite.

This concludes the strife rant for the day.