Fishy

Morgan of Angren has become an aspiring woodcut comic, giggling incessantly about "The Cuckolds' War."

"What is this I am nine?" Asks Morgan of Angren, Witchslayer, upon finding the missive.

"This is just evil," Commented eight year old Morgan of Angren, a worldly youth.

I lost a lot of good mice to left clicking to break blocks.

Building Blocks Q: Do you think there should be just one set of each building block or node? Or multiple? How would you scatter them throughout the world? Multiple, normal/basic building block nodes should be naturally abundant in the world and thus able to be sourced at a variety of locations. Different wood types should only be found at different climates/regions but still plentiful in their locales. As materials get more niche, there should be a decline in the amount of nodes they have. A block such as Endstone perhaps only has 2-4 nodes on the entire map but there should still be stacks to gather at each node. I would distribute nodes throughout the world by assigning each to a different tile. Basalt could only be found in a, or formerly, volcanic tile so perhaps only 3 nodes exist spread out in the world. Q: Would you want to see different numbers on these building blocks? In yield or in harvesting time? Yields for nodes as they are are very poor. I’d like to see a major increase, at least a stack for fully harvesting a node. Perhaps better tools, such as iron over stone, could be used to also boost yield. Q: Would you prefer a system where you physically break the block rather than right clicking it? Right-clicking is better but it matters little. Q: Do you think there should be a distinction between Niche and Common blocks? Yes, I’d even go so far as to say that resources such as iron, coal, gold, copper (when it's introduced in the update), redstone, lapis, emerald, and diamond should be separated from each other. There should be no such thing as a generic mine, rather specific mines for each resource with their own levels of rarity in the world. Iron should be plentiful as it is universally used, and realistically can be sourced from a variety of things, even bog water, so let’s say 10 or more iron mines. Gold on the other hand is niche being used for either RP or ornamental purposes and should be quite rare, perhaps only 2 or 3 gold mines exist on the entire map. Q: Would you like to see a system, perhaps expensive tools paid for with mina, that increase your yield when gathering? Not for mina, any tools players use should be craftable by players. Iron tools should give 3x yields on a node. CT and Travel Q: Would you like to see more Soulstone slots? What are possible benefits / consequences? I’d like to see no Soulstone slots. 😎 The Soulstone mechanic is far too convenient and de-emphasizes the world. There is nothing I hate more than hearing 'Alright, everyone soulstone home' at the end of a group outing. Unfortunately I seem to be a fringe minority with that opinion. Q: Would you like to see the return of the Greater Soulstone for purchase from Cloud Temple? What difference should it have? I don’t even recall what that was. Q: Would you like to see a road placed before nations, or a road placed between nations shortly before launch? Why? Roads placed between nations before launch. Putting roads before nations is cart before the horse, roads exist to help facilitate travel between nations and guide players between them. Q: Should there be a speed boost on the main roads? Not against it, but the last implementation was rather clunky and caused a heap of issues by not allowing landowners to manipulate their roads and the surrounding land. Perhaps use a ‘Traveling Boots’ item instead that allows players to move faster on road materials. Q: Do you foresee any issues with the removal of hubs and reliance on beacons/pillars? I’d worry that communities could become too insular and the rest of the world ignored if SS pillars become the standard of travel. This issue is not that far off from what we have now. Tiles Q: Should tiles be uniform in shape or arbitrarily drawn by hand (roughly following geographical features etc.) such as how they are on 8.0 (current)? Arbitrated all the way. The current tile map isn’t perfect and I could list a thousand things wrong with the Heartland’s tiles but the system remains the best. Tiles should correspond more to their geography, rivers and mountains splitting them up. Ideally a stronger emphasis on a tile being a single biome as well. The Arentanian Mountains, the ones west of East Fleet, are split into fragments with wildly different proportions for no good reason when in reality the mountain range should be two tiles at most. I’d like to see mountains be real dividers of territories by being unclaimable and having their hinterlands parceled out into surrounding tiles. Making mountains, their summits and ridges, unclaimable could also go a long way toward map preservation by leaving areas as wilderness and unbesmirched by ISA space ships or dwarven cake forts. Q: If they were uniform, which of the following would be preferred? Squares because the implementation is far easier than other systems. Q: If they are not uniform or arbitrary, how else would you like to see them? Based on geography/biome. Q: What kind of tile upgrades would you like to see possible? I think resources should be intrinsic to a tile, if you’re already shelling out 10k minas to purchase a tile, you shouldn’t need to spend more minas to develop it further.

Inscribed on a shrine somewhere beneath a portrait of Saint Foltest of Aeldin is the word "UNDEFEATED."

Jack from Cross-the-Waters rows his boat ashore.

You cannot sell provinces while at war in eu4.

Is this for warclaim roster documentation?

Move CT off map. Have one way warps to the capitals and remove soulstones. Roads can then arise naturally from traffic between settlements, and be built/agreed to by invested player groups. If you want to bring about true navigation and exploration of a new land, this is the way to do it. Instead of lazily warping back to spawn to go check in on the next new map build, players would need to learn of where they are in the world and where each group had settled. Such a system also encourages nations to spread more evenly across the greater whole of the map, without fear of getting noob traffic blocked off and simultaneously preventing players from navigating via the protected CT. Whether it be ring road, hubs, or King's road, these designs all fall victim to a CT bias and constrain viable land to their arteries. Removing these designs from a potential map can offer a lot in terms of how the world can grow past its initial release. Prebuilds are fine, I will build it on a flatworld if I must, this is a threat.

Owyn was the sixth born amongst his siblings, and the second son. It was a loving family he had been born into, in times when peace was abundant. Yet fate would not leave it so. Tension and turmoil would sink their roots in as Owyn first learned of the world. First was his mother’s death, not so long after his final sister had been born, little Laurentina. Then came estrangement as his eldest sister, Henrietta, would be cast out for what she wrought upon their father in her marriage. Next a sister, Daphne, would be taken this time by that Pale Rider. Years passed and Owyn grew, confiding himself as no more than the spare to his brother, Helton, the heir. That was the task he gave himself in quiet, availing these deaths in righteous delusion that he would one day as Duke make this pain and suffering worth it. But that was a lie, all to mask the covetous nature of his heart. And then came war. From then on all was calamity, the complete and utter upheaval of the world Owyn had been born into. Institution after institution crumbled and decayed, smashed to bits as surely as Southbridge had been. Owyn had fought then, alongside his father and brother, for an Emperor and Empire the world despised. He did so because he thought it made him better, for only a dutiful son could ever hope to inherit. Where others fought for wealth and baubles, land and wives, he did so only because he was obliged, a true nobleman. Only this was another way Owyn deceived himself, for he had his prize in mind, though pride and patriotism were there in equal measure. The war dragged on and the nation’s fortunes withered. His father, an already elderly man by the war’s onset, had passed away between campaigns, leaving his brother as Duke. Owyn had spent much time away from home then, finding comfort in traveling abroad between campaigning seasons. Still he was drawn home with his father’s death, embracing his remaining siblings at the funeral. With his brother, though they quarreled, he still felt the fraternal bond, and the two wrestled as they had in younger years. Glad that despite their divergent paths, they were brothers still. Not long however after, was their family visited with death once more. Murder is what Owyn likened it to, the day the news broke of his brother’s demise. Caius de Ravensbourg, may his bones be crushed, had issued the execution of the Duke at his capture, affording him no ransom or cell to wait out the war. This was a blade through Owyn’s heart, an impotent fury that engulfed him, for while the war was waged this murderer was beyond his reach. So then the task of raising the orphaned children of his brother fell to Owyn, children who bore the title he once so coveted. The prospect dangled in front of him so, he needed only to reach out and take the title he so righteously considered as his own, like so many others would have done. But Owyn did not, after all this time Owyn’s ambition faltered, it was not right. The prospect was a poison to his soul, he could not imbibe it in his grief and his zeal. To do what is right, Owyn obsessed himself with this now. So then when his youngest sister, Laurentina, went to him with her prospect for marriage, Owyn was inflamed. How could she have possibly considered such a match? For she would forsake what Owyn considered to be right and good in the world, the faith and family that they had been brought up in, for so trite a thing as love. Owyn challenged the man on the spot and was promptly refused and beaten by the suitor’s men for it. Of the hands that pulled him up to recover from the pummeling were those of a Prince whose place in the succession was not so dissimilar from his own. From then on, Owyn was estranged from Laurentina, a rift that had only just begun to mend when fate would next reveal its hand. The war was at long last lost. A conflict that had consumed over half of his life, of his families’ lives, was over and they were defeated, the entire nation laid low as the vanquished. The country was then put into a tailspin; the defeated monarchs sought to quarter the realm in their final act before death. Quickly enough, armies were again raised, beneath one banner was the heir, who claimed righteousness to reunite, and under the other was the spare, who had once lent Owyn a hand. Owyn went to neither initially; there was no right in this Brother’s War, either side would have seen him slay comrades and dear friends alike. But then this civil war came to Providence, where his kith and kin had resided, the entire world being drowned in the fever pitch of the armies. Owyn damned what was right and wrong right there and then, abandoning the false pretenses that had guided his life until then. With victory came a dead niece and the title he had long ago coveted. Then his sister Laurentina died. Laurentina had flung herself from a tower, taken by madness. Owyn could not weep a tear for her, heart hardened to news of death, instead his sorrow manifested in the hollowness he felt inside. Years passed and friends died just as they had before Owyn became Duke. Owyn took a wife and tried to find love with her, but his growing reservedness held him back. She bore him a son, but he remained unfulfilled. Ever the Duke reigned, the more alone he felt, prone to a brooding depression. Time would pass still but eventually that too would be cut short. A word on his youngest sister drew him from home, and then his demise. Owyn Leopold Helvets 1836-1876

The primary method for political shakeups on the server is war, rebellion, and diplomacy, not in the ability of charters to grab land. Nations, as a general rule, want to grant land as it is the primary currency in which they deal, allowing them to foster ties with communities that are different from themselves. You need only look at Urguan to see this in action as they've created a system of vassalage where they grant nominal independence in exchange for military or other services, this is/was the case with Sedan, the Ferrymen, and Blackvale. This was used to great effect in the last major war as either side saw swings in the balance of power due to the actions of these groups which ultimately left Oren fragmented. The regions at the center of this may be OOC constructs, but they facilitate an entirely RP exchange and relationship that the server would struggle to otherwise have. Nation status is itself an OOC mechanic ideally representing more permanent communities of the server from which better foundations for RP can be built. Nations themselves are both RP and player constructs created from the various communities that populate the server and are reinforced via roleplay. Any group is free to operate in the manner of a nation at any time just don't expect to be immediately endorsed with nation status. If these pseudo-nations wish to land themselves then they should either work with an existing nation through diplomacy or take land from another through war. A majority of our nations rise and fall in a manner similar to this and often times it is the primary RP generator on the server and sparks creative interest. You can run through a hundred other LoTC systems and pick out what components of them are OOC. The point that I make with regards to charters is that it is a system better done in RP by players and nations than staff.

Nations will acquire land regardless of the system implemented by the admins, whether it is through arbitration or freebuild. Atlas is more than proof of that despite its freebuild system, with settlements like Belvitz ultimately being arbitrated by Renatus. Nations are not OOC staff-constructs, rather they are player-constructs endorsed by the staff. Most often they are created either through player groups petitioning staff, see Fenn, or by de facto operating as a nation, such as Haense or Ves. My argument is that if a group cannot acquire land using RP or simply recognition from any of the multitude of nations in existence, then they should not receive land. Negotiate a treaty, sign a contract, vassalize, outright purchase it from players, any of these methods is itself an RP interaction that integrates a would-be group into the wider community, staff meddling should ultimately be just to enact these deals with regions. Charter systems as they've existed are solely an OOC method of land distribution, requiring no interaction or grounding in the world to be done, which in my view is their greatest point of failure. As for who should receive land in a new map, the answer is usually self-evident, take what exists at the end of the last map and prune what was seriously deficient or reduce their footprint to just a settlement or enclave.

No thank, I do not want or need freebuild. Charter systems should be done away with as well. The only method one should use to acquire land is through RP with Nations.

No it doesn't. It just furthers the arms race between builders and infiltrators which results in larger structures to make explosives futile and limits building options to be anti-ladder.

"Absolutely deranged these vampires." Owyn Leopold Helvets remarked, mulling the report over some red wine at Cheval Hall. "A bolt through the heart and a leaden sarcophagus chained to the bottom of the sea. That will rid us of this menace."

Owyn Leopold Helvets laments the death of his sister from an armchair in Cheval Hall, observing the spot upon which so many of his family had been cremated. Not long before they had just laid to rest their joint niece. The past decades had taken their toll on the family, every year seeming to bring with it the death of a sibling or a child. Whatever discontent he had with his sister now melted away, leaving him in the vast halls alone with his sorrow.

Owyn Leopold Helvets wept before the destruction, kneading a small gold rosary in his hands. It was not the first time such a calamity had befallen the City of Providence, then he was but a boy he gazed up and saw the towering inferno. Now he stood before the ruins of his father's own cathedral, praying for GOD to deliver swift retribution upon this foul Omen's provocateurs.

7th of Tobias’ Bounty, 1857 So it came, another weary night for the old Duke of Cathalon. He had spent the eve pacing his halls, ever drained from the ordeals of recent years. Once he had all the piss and vinegar of youth, but father time had seen to that. His hand grazed over a dusty windowsill, recoiling as he took notice of the wrinkles that adorned the appendage. “All that you see before you is yours, dear. From the River Reden to the Petra, all that falls beneath the statue of the horse is yours.” He heard his mother say, recalling the touch of her hand on his brow and the golden tresses that would wreath him in an embrace. It was a simpler, boring time. It almost moved the Duke to a smile, were it not for the dagger that punctured his mind for daring to recall. Her death was but the first that he could not put right, the thought unsettling him as he gave a final look out over the hills dissolving into dusk. Beside him now paced a phantom of his younger days, moving through the vaunted Cheval Hall. He sparred with the pottery as a boy, practicing his spins, twirls, and pirouettes as he had been taught. Below he saw himself drinking with friends, belligerent in his candor as he socked a bard in the mouth. He also saw his sister come and go, the presence of his elder sibling he greatly missed as she departed at last with an easel and wrapped portraits. Arriving at the door of his bedroom, he took a glance back to it all now. Where once had been visions of himself, he saw his children scurrying about the halls. In one corner his sons Helton Rhodes and Owyn Leopold quarreled, fighting over whose turn it was to shoot the arbalest. Another he saw his daughters Henrietta Therese and Francesca Ada fuss with their dresses and braiding each other’s hair. At the windowsill he saw Guinevere Amadea throw down a rope of bedsheets to escape for the night while Saturnina Cyrille fidgeted with her hands, contemplating tattling on her younger sister. Then there was Daphne Priscilla, no more than four at the time, cradling the newborn Laurentina Marigold wrapped in swaddling clothes. The Duke lingered there for a time, finding some small contentment before the beat of his heart struck like a hammer, pressing him on. Within his room was darkness as he was greeted by a pale specter of a woman whose back was turned to him, Raven-haired, he knew it to be his wife Leopoldine Vivien and so the Duke moved to embrace his beloved. He imagined the warmth of her touch, shutting his eyes as tears sprung forth and dripped through the vision of his wife. Still, however, she did not turn to him. “You know this is not real…” she murmured to him, “I know.” He murmured back, collecting himself after a few breaths. When the Duke opened his eyes the specter now faced him recalling every gruesome detail of the dead woman. She was devoid of eyes, peering at him with empty sockets that bleed over her porcelain skin, her neck ripped and torn open as if by some savage beast. Thus did the Duke’s torment begin and every image of his dead loved ones appeared within the room. The twisted form of his mother Blanche, broken by the fall she had taken. The contorted neck of his daughter Daphne who had likewise fallen from a height, unable to breath in her last moments. Then there was his eldest daughter Henrietta who had perished most recently. He had only seen after she had been prepared for the funeral pyre, but nevertheless the eerie stillness of her form was enough to unnerve him. So many were gone now, what a truly terrible thing it was for a father to outlive a child. Beyond the dead, however, the Duke saw a light come through in the windows of his bedroom. The landscape that had so recently fallen into the night was now engulfed in flame. In the shadows cast over the land, he saw the fates that were still to come, small horrors in and of themselves. The Duke shut the curtains and turned to the dead. “I’ve had enough for the night.” He spoke aloud and they did vanish, leaving him alone in the dark. Shutting his eyes, the Duke made ready for bed, retracing his way around the room from memory. Outside he heard the whinny of a horse and the clip-clop of its hooves, no doubt one from his own stables, paying it no mind he crawled into bed. Thomas Andrew then laid down and died. R.I.P. 1793-1857

Thomas Andrew Helvets, Duke of Cathalon, watched over the pyre throughout the night, growing cold in the blackened steel that entombed him. What a terrible thing it was for a father to outlive his child.

"The only cure to vampirism is a bolt in the heart and a golden blade through the brain." Remarks Thomas Andrew Helvets, Duke of Cathalon.

The law of surprise dictates that you may take his red tag. @breeniDo it.

"I wonder upon what such conclusions are based." Thomas Andrew Helvets waved over a servant, presenting him a mortar and pestle with which he ground up some little red pills for his aches.

The Duke’s Affirmation of Faith Seeking Penance 1st of Horen’s Calling, 1850 Issued and penned by the Duke of Cathalon from Cheval Hall. To whom it may concern, It is not for us, the laity, to decide upon matters of the clergy, ardent worshippers such as we seek the guidance of the Holy Synod and the Holy Mother Church led by the Vicar of GOD, His Holiness to bring us to moral righteousness and salvation in the Seven Skies. Duke Thomas Andrew Helvets, and the whole of the House of Helvets do affirm our fealty in faith to His Holiness, High Pontiff Everard VI. The tumultuousness of the past year of 1849 is behind us all, so let all come forward in this new year to be of one Empire, one faith, one High Pontiff. Lessons of the War of Two Emperor’s are remembered well within the household of Helvets, and bloody schism shall only lay humanity low as we sit at the precipice of invasion by the dwarves. Thus we denounce the actions of schismatics who would tear the tapestry of our faith apart and anoint themselves as its leaders. It is our fervent wish that their Imperial Majesties be reconciled with His Holiness, and that remedy be found so that the unity of our faith remains whole and the brotherhood of Canonism defended. We are their Imperial Majesties vassals always and the true Vicar of GOD, His Holiness High Pontiff Everard VI, leads the faithful. I, Thomas Andrew Helvets, Duke of Cathalon, seek penance from our Holy Mother Church so that excommunication and interdiction may be lifted from the souls of our Empire. We appeal to His Eminence, Francis Cardinal Albarosa, @KaiserJacobII, the Archbishop of our local diocese to hear our plea and dispense such penance. Signed, Thomas Andrew Helvets, Duke of Cathalon