Age 89: War between Enigma & Villains
War broke out between the kingdoms of Enigma and Villains and it had some interesting flavour added in with razes from a kingdom presumed to be Atlas of 3:5.
So how did war start?
Enigma had been waving another kingdom and spend 23M GC on a dragon and that kingdom suddenly dodged war. While Enigma messaged Villains about warring, one of their provinces hit into them and Villains responded by waving Enigma. Most of the US contingent for Enigma were offline and they had to wait before they were able to do anything.
Villains had been larger and this was something Enigma had tracked from before Christmas and they feared that because Villains had been larger for quite a while, they would have more WPA. Despite no dragon GC, weaker T/M capacity, and a brand new 25th province that was not up to speed, Enigma decided to take on the challenge as "warring is better than not warring".
Once their American were up and about, they increased the meter and pushed the button; plunging both kingdoms into war! Upon declaration, Villains were able to abolish two rituals: the remaining 20% of the Havoc ritual and then the stalwart that auto-activated the following tick on Enigma. The fear that there would be a disparity with the WPAs was quickly realized and just as an extra kicker, the Godspeed ritual that Villains had up meant they were outpacing Enigma with attacks. With mystics struggling to land MS, Enigma focused on ET'ing rogues and focusing their hits on the top offense provinces of Villains.
***RAZEKILL TIME & War Continues***
24 hours into the war and with Enigma gaining acres, both kingdoms were propping to each others merriment, before Atlas decided to pop in to join the party as unwelcome guests by razing into Enigma. As the story goes, Enigma feels that this all derived from last age as they had warred a kingdom for 5 days and that kingdom hung on because they had unbreakable provinces. Fast forward to age 89, Enigma thought they found the same kingdom, Atlas 3:5.
After Atlas had made 2 learn attacks, Enigma waved. A CF was sent with no communication and in the exact same situation the prior age, when Enigma were the ones offering the CF; the other kingdom decided to wave a second time. Holding a minor grudge, Enigma decided to return the favour and completed a their own second wave. Atlas proceeded to to go war and Enigma considered the issue closed and moved on.
How wrong this assumption would turn out to be!
Coming back to our current war, Villains had chained the province, Paul the Pimp, in Enigma. He was the unfortunate recipient of the razes being made by Atlas. The province was raze killed and with attacks being initiated on a second province, Enigma were able to force a CF. When Atlas were asked for a reason for the razes, it was apparently due to a province from Enigma sending a nasty message when they had waved earlier in the age. The only message that Enigma were able to find only said "you get what you deserve and we will not let you go' so not anything they considered "nasty".
Down a province (that had been holding onto 500k offense and 350kNW) and a war still raging on, Enigma had to get on with it despite the circumstances. They made progress in growing an econ advantage that they had targeted from the beginning. They were able to fund their dragon before Villains could fund theirs, which helped tremendously. As the war continued, after another 48 hours; Atlas broke the CF and returned with more razes. Another chained province in Enigma was targeted but still had 250k defense. As this province had also been NM'd, there was returning defense each tick and Enigma were able to stave off multiple attacks by using a 10k soldier pool to block hits.
Another forced CF with Atlas and more damage done, the chained province was down to 750 from 2400 acres. Over pop had been increased to 24k and the province had to release 5k troops, which otherwise would not have had to have been released.
The econ advantage for Enigma kept improving and the peon count increased to 380k vs. 310k. They were able to fund multiple dragons and once they were able to activate a barrier ritual this prevented the rogues of Villains being able to land ops as freely as they had been. At this juncture, Villains chose to withdraw, giving Enigma the win.
***Drum roll and surprise surprise***
Villains confirmed that they were the kingdom that had warred with Enigma last age and not Atlas 3:5.
Some extra comments from Enigma:
All in all it was, except for the outside interference, a great war. Abolish rituals, dragons, prop-runs (even on our rogues), and everyone giving all continuously for 6 days. Shoutout to Julian (Paul the Pimp), who overcame being raze killed. Maybe something you can expect from an ex-King of the North seasoned player, but we all felt sour when it happened. Great show of
character.
Lastly: we tagged up. We thank Sadira for providing the great banner
***Extra Layers - razes spill over onto discord***
The situation with the raze kills spilled over onto the MUGA server as Atlas took to raze killing provinces into multiple kingdom. Enigma just happened to be the first victim.
From #utopia-talk the suggestion arose that 3:5 is Atlas and raised the point that in-war raze mechanics can be abused.
A lot of arguments and activity taking place off the back of the action. Smile in particular leading the charge!
**War Summary**
Total attacks made: 587 (63,324 acres)
-- Traditional march: 504 (62,263 acres)
-- Ambush: 10 (814 acres)
-- Conquest: 5 (247 acres)
-- Raze: 53 (0 acres)
-- Massacre: 9 (15,434 population)
-- Failed: 6 (1% failure)
-- Uniques: 217
Total attacks suffered: 629 (58,833 acres)
-- Traditional march: 572 (57,865 acres)
-- Ambush: 11 (968 acres)
-- Raze: 33 (0 acres)
-- Massacre: 3 (19,602 population)
-- Failed: 10 (1.6% failure)
-- Uniques: 246
