Virtual Kingdom, Age 62 ~ Tannhauser Requiem

[StratOcastle]

Welcome to Age 62 and a new addition of The Virtual Kingdom, Tannhauser Requiem.

To summarize, The Virtual Kingdom is a template and not an existing kingdom.
Features of The Virtual Kingdom:

1) based on a balance, or zero core, of 3 of each personality and race. With the equivalence of 24 provinces an additional 25th province is included that must be a different combination than represented in the 24 existing provinces.

2) based on a merge between 3 fragmented kingdoms. 2 kingdoms bring 8 of their most active and experienced players. One kingdom brings 9 of it's most active and experienced players. Each division is from 3 different major timezones: the Americas, Asia and Europe.

3) based in a system of competition between the 3 divisions to combine the individual synergy of each that can function as a whole from genesis. As experience and interaction progresses the theory is to enjoy interaction in a kingdom that functions like an old roadready jazz ensemble. Everybody gets to solo, but we all meet at the bridge.

The hope isn't necessarily to have an actual zero core kingdom in game, but to offer a muse to your strategies and kingdom culture. My aim is that you enjoy this journey and perhaps something of use may come to mind. As always your input is most appreciated. I look forward to your version of a Virtual Kingdom and any comments are humbly welcome.
Thank you.

[StratOcastle]

The Kingdom of Tannhauser Requiem:

1) avian cleric - stormwing occult
2) avian tactician - stratocastle
3) avian war hero - swordsong skies
4) dwarf merchant - gemtower jewelers
5) dwarf merchant - platinum hammer armorers
6) dwarf tactician - axespectre
7) elf mystic - celestial tundra
8) elf mystic - silvergirl sails
9) elf sage - eyes of a stranger
10) faery mystic - sparklecast meadows
11) faery rogue - unicorns shadow
12) faery sage - poor dual brain
13) halfling rogue - snakesmile brooks
14) halfling rogue - silencesharp syndicate
15) halfling war hero - bluefalls taverntown
16) human sage - eclipse-men castle
17) human warrior - collision mission commandos
18) human war hero - mourntorn mountain
19) orc cleric - bludgeon occult
20) orc warrior - behemoth collapse
21) orc warrior - volcano undulators revival
22) undead cleric - asunder occult
23) undead merchant - confectioners embalmery
24) undead tactician - vorpal citadel
25) human mystic - triskelion plaza deluxe {M}

Here's the initial Virtual Kingdom subject to change as we see what shines in game.
Thank you for your time.

[StratOcastle]

Balance & Reach:

The intensions of certain aspects of the Virtual Kingdom distribution is to provide the kingdom with the necessary tools to combat a variety of scenarios. We have the ability to launch an amnesia assault I call Amnesia Cannon. We have warriors to break the furthest reaches of our opposition. We have rogues to sabotage the toughest targets. All things in moderation, we then have balancing builds that lend an overall flexibility and strength. We aren't the strongest in any category nor are we the weakest, but we may be the most versatile.

Critics can site weaknesses in their given field and that's fair. My goals are not to please the focal kingdom think tanks but to offer a fun and highly interactive experience for the player. Because there are a number of uniquely equipped provinces, the individual can feel a sense of worth doing kingdom work in their unique way.

A gaze at the charts last age would present us with evidence that disheveled cores enjoyed a degree of success. This can be attributed to lack of quality due to a diminishing player base, but we shouldn't let that stop us. It's a simple fact that the game is shrinking. Better to embrace the charms of this vintage game and play through its autumn.

The sterile kingdom strategies have proven effective, but I would argue lack longevity. There isn't much for a core player to look forward to with spoon fed wave tactic, build requirements, and timetable slavery. While I don't propose we abandon this logic, my intuition tells me we should be involved in more intimate fashion. Behold, I could even say that the organization being derailed can be disconcerting as we have examples of kingdoms dissolving after arduous work only to fail in destiny. We saw Roughknecks and Legacy dissolve this age. We saw a Fratzia last age. We must respect Simians for their insight regarding burnout; of the top kingdoms that endure age after age it is Simians that take time off as required or desired.

[tetley]

They say restriction breeds creativity, and this virtual kingdom thing is a perfect example of the adage.

[StratOcastle]

They say restriction breeds creativity, and this virtual kingdom thing is a perfect example of the adage.

Thank you tetley. I hope you and your kingdom have a fine age.

One thing that I think would be fun would be a Virtual Kingdom Tournament. Submissions could be voted on by poll. In order to avoid popular bias the submissions could be pmed to a neutral party who could copy them to a thread.

On a side note, 2 players chose faery and 1 player chose elf for a war hero array. In the current build we could switch out the 25th. I'm trying to retain some amnesia capability so I'm hesitant to move sages.

[smercjd]

Um you should join my KD Strat0Castle - you and Nightmare are like the coolest people on the forums :D

Meaning - I like your virtual KD

[StratOcastle]

Thank you smercjd. Right now I'm a walking disaster area. - My car broke down and so I borrowed my brothers and it suddenly won't start. - So I'm going to let my bad mojo wear off before I try anything. ;-)

[smercjd]

Ok - but we could really use your intelligence and personality in our KD :) Anytime you're interested - just say the word - I'll save an invite for ya :D

[StratOcastle]

The 25th Element:

The reason so much emphasis is put on the 25th position in the Virtual Kingdom is because it ultimately determines strategy bias. In my original version of post #2 you can see the choice is human cleric. The strengths are obvious: we get one more Tree of Gold and Pitfalls. Pitfalls synergize with cleric low losses to offer loss disparity.

My choice is no more legitimate than anyone elses. When we look at a crossection of what the possible choices could be, we can also look at the possible counter measures an enemy my offer. This helps us imagine our challenges in measured segments. The familiarity with each persona/race combination can help us determine like strategies.

From the genesis of the Virtual Kingdom there had been a focus on strategic complexity. I imagined a kingdom that fluctuated like an octopus in color and myriad of arms. I imagined war kingdoms as sharks. It's easy to relate the powerful jaws and single purpose of the shark to many war kingdom signatures. I would never suggest this template superior, but I would ask that you approach the strategy of this kingdom in careful engagement of war kingdoms.

The 25th position is where you can further extenuate your version of the Virtual Kingdom. It represents your signature on the build you chose which could also be different and beautiful.

[StratOcastle]

Preparation:

If you know me from playing or reading it's obvious I'm not technically proficient in how this game works. My perceptions of Utopia are based in general understanding of game balance and I relate it to successes I've had in other games.

In Utopia the idea of preparation is a universal concept from technical to emotional. We can admit that some competitors will be more prepared, better prepared. This is no excuse for lax practices from an execution standpoint. Preparation in strategy is also understanding how to adapt. You can adapt to change direction or adapt to a more effective way of doing something that was initially ineffective.

You shouldn't read things like ' undead don't need gs ' from a knowledgable source and take that as fact. In fact I've run the most contrarian build strategies and done well among many technically superior players. When someone reputable regards the giving of acres by one personality vs another as expected, you must deny your conformity and think about this in the open air. Keeping acres is wise. Think about one fundamental truth: the most respected crown is the land crown. Always remember this.

When you read about who or what is most efficient you should immediately refer to what will dismantle that efficiency. Understand it and if possible, build the counter into your strategy. You see, the fact is that most of us that are reading this are not going to do efficiency as well as the best; it's a losing race. The real answer is to have the capability to hobble the most efficient. This is where you make your stand. The one thing to remember about efficient design is durability to adversity. This doesn't mean all efficient things are fragile, but that all efficient things operate at a high tolerance. Crash those tolerances and they become mortal. Tough mortals albeit, but like they say: behold the god that bleeds.

Preparation is about position to achieve objective. We should have the personalities in place, the players in place and an understanding of diplomatic environment to exercise maximum leverage where needed. You see the kingdoms who build cows, calves and killers. You can never underestimate them if you are a kingdom that doesn't. Your provinces at the valance of kingdom power and reach must be in a zone of understanding if you engage such kingdoms. The core must be made to understand they are a wound spring to be released at the prelude of actionsat the valance level. I realize this doesn't sound like the fun part and I'm not into deceptive propaganda. Let's just say you are prepared as a jazz artist. You are aware of the song and where you need to be. If you're out of tune, turn it over to a band member ready to offer a helping hand.

[StratOcastle]

25th Element Alternatives:

Last age we had a faery war hero in kingdom that was effective but I didn't know. This player was doing focussed casting and sabotage on certain targets with instant effects. What was noticeable and effective was this provinces ability to harass chained undead with impunity: learns, massacres, etc.
The other benefit was the relentless pressure a faery war hero can unleash on a hapless target. This isn't necessarily a hard target operator, but a logistic weight on enemy kingdoms.
Noobium points to elf war hero. With the ability to hybrid easily and absorb a great deal of damage I can see this build doing well. As an express hard target caster there may be a limit insofar as mana and massacres may shelve the express nature of the build. Still, like all other builds in this Virtual Kingdom, the elf war hero presents a problem that is either dealt with or operates unfettered.
My last Virtual Kingdom featured a dwarf sage in the 25th position. We could look at cleric or war hero. An outsider we might consider would be human mystic to muster the wizards needed for soft casts with extended durations.
I like the war hero build for some reason this age because I'm appreciating dragon choice in the enemy camp. If we align war hero in such a way that it bypasses the deficits of dragon effect we can exercise leverage in that particular sector.
Orc isn't something I look at often for 25th position, but add the war hero badge and we have a hard hitter that can break solid defenses and exchange with undead. Tactician would be another option.
Halfling is kind of fancy this age and the elite is balanced. Since we don't worry about relative net worth in the Virtual Kingdom there are several directions we could go. Warrior seems crazy until the thing start running multi-taps with dizzying ambush resistance. Thieves are cheap and effective, and there's no population penalty this age. Cleric makes for a big pain in the butt and tactician might be overkill unless your an intel freak like I am.

* the reason we don't worry about net worth in the Virtual Kingdom is not because it is simply a template; It's because we have the tools to engage outside of our net worth range and the attitude of this kingdom is to war up. Thus, we treat ourselves to unbridled elite armies and look at tops as potential war partners. While we lack the overall refinement of top exploring kingdoms we are eager to experience their strategies first hand to learn. As a sign of good faith, the top kingdoms perhaps see features that help them stay sharp against kingdom with similar but more prominent characteristics of this kingdom. This is not a boast. The Virtual Kingdom is built to excercise the most variables one may experience in conflict. So we might not operate in the strength of a top, but we would have the tools to make inroads to learn a more refined path. Our diplomacy isn't to dodge potential dangers, but to embrace them. *

[StratOcastle]

Patterned For Who?:

Since I'm not a product of top exploring kingdoms I can't pretend to parallel what they do so well. If we look at the larger, upper echelon war kingdoms we can now begin to find our legs. The one thing I notice about the majority of the larger war kingdoms is a potential limiter. Sometimes they overlook tools to challenge 'up' in order to be more effective in equal to lower net worth challenges. I'm not condemning these builds, it's simply that they aren't designed to cross swords with cows, calves and high potency killers.
If you recall the damage inflicted by Remote on AMA two ages ago you may begin to understand what we may develop in this kingdom. Remote only unleashed what they could get away with and they were wonderful in achieving the objective. This kingdom may be destined to stall at the hands of the larger war kingdoms and this would be natural in that we would have some disadvantages. However, if a win was achieved in this sector we would be a position kingdom.
The alternative would be getting caught in the lower tier. Since we aren't trying to imagine ourselves as greater than the whole of any other kingdom we should be prepared to experience failure.
As a recap of other posts I noticed a few kingdoms climbing in the top 20 with similar build strategies to the Virtual Kingdom. Jerks, Plaidovia and Where Am I? each showed a plethora of race. Organizationally, Jerks would be the most refined of the three. Where Am I? was a collection of old school players and very knowledgable thus dangerous. Plaidovia was active and willing. If we see ourselves in a marriage of these three kingdoms then the expectation should be top 20 contention.
To be in top 20 contention is not to rest, but to engage for further learning. Butting heads with the likes of Pyro, Simians, WSK, Pew2 would be most interesting and the limits of this strategy. From here we may come back with an eye toward top kingdom doctrine but with our focus on challenge. Crowning is a goal, or should be for any kingdom that feels the pull of competition. This doesn't mean we abandon our culture. If I've learned anything from my travels it is that culture is the most enduring feature of any kingdom that has been in this game for 10 years. We don't have 10 years to look forward to, but it'd be nice to retire from the game in a kingdom that contended and remained centered on the charms that made the game worth playing.

[StratOcastle]

Waving & Constant Pressure:

One criticism I encounter when I speak to the discipline of relay tapping is how it lacks the impact of full waving. The greatest misunderstanding is by organized kingdoms that aren't privy to nuances in strategy. This isn't to say they lack technical command, it's that they rationalize compromise for benefit.
The dirty secret of full waving kingdoms is time constraint. This is a compromise. Not all but some full wave doctrine is based in RL. Many players don't have the time to commit to strategic alternatives and this is what we are all about.
Because this kingdom has differences in GMT and personality we can take advantage of a supposed weakness. Pyro for instance run near full waves, but they also camp as an indication of refinement.
What i propose is waving with certain provinces, camping with others and constant pressure from still others. If we look at the tactician for instance it may be nice to have this character involved in waving, but we're wasting potential if they must slow down to meet the wave sequence. Thus, we can assign the tactician to rove the enemy core like shock troops and excercise leverage on provinces clinging to population limits. We can designate others to relay tap as opportunity presents itself. The reason we do these things is to dismantle waves. If we can disrupt net worth zones and crash provinces through camping we should take that initiative.
If we theorize an MMA analogy of the submission wrestler vs the striker we can start to see eye to eye. We don't abandon striking, we use it to achieve a submission. The wave kingdom exercises knockout power and can do submission. I'm not saying one is clearly better than the other, I'm saying we should be open to RL examples to take advantage of a situation. No one has said we can't designate a full wave, we simply keep that in our tool box. Too often kingdoms force themselves and their players into strategies that are a compromise of the whole. This is ego.
I've seen and been part of organized kingdom waves dismantled by supposedly disorganized enemies. This isn't theory. There have been examples by known formidable war kingdoms that full wave who've been broken by alternative strategies. They may or may not adapt, but if the wave is based in RL constraint they essentially have no alternatives. Top kingdoms? Totally different story. They do things to preserve net worth and are known to nurse their chained. If I knew how to break tops I might be hanging out in one myself. Not for the glory but the benefit of learning their wonderful cohesion and execution.
Engaging tops is to understand preparation. If you want to compete you need to pay attention to the articles Zauper and Crazy Pete have been writing. Even so, there are things they do to stay optimized that I never see even in some of the top 20 that are easily done. This doesn't mean I grasp the totality of their prowess. My intentions are for the naive to draw closer to the ideal. Topsy is also a friend to the competitive ambitions of the lower tier player. When we see the cross nature, kingdom to kingdom, in top conflict we need to understand the game beyond mechanics. It is a refined and far reaching package. We should honor that with challenge.

[StratOcastle]

Design Elements:

Most all kingdoms are based on a preconceived design. The Virtual Kingdom culture is integral to its design. 3 of each personality and race is what we do and then we attempt to achieve performance from that design. If we imagine the Virtual Kingdom as a knife or sword we need to have comparable elements to convey those similarities.
The blade should be razor sharp and stay that way. We know that generally the harder something is it also is brittle. Because the hard blade tends to be brittle the reinforcement to the edge is softer and pliant but can take on a flat ground or a hollow ground. The grind is simply the profile of the blade asit extends toward the spine. The flat ground is stronger, but offers less penetration than a hollow ground. The spine of the blade should be as flexible as possible with memory; memory is the steels spring ability to return to true if bent.
So if I'm wrong make fun of me. ;-) but here is the breakdown:
2 elf mystic: blade
2 halfling rogue: blade
2 orc warrior: blade
Ok. What we look at now is how do the rest fulfill a role if this is the blade. Well, if we look at unfettered economy as a characteristic of the spine of a blade then we're on the same level.
But let's get this back to game. What's is the blade? The blade is your 3 main penetrator persona/race combinations. Each of these builds is the zenith of percentage reach in that they are all classified to break hard targets in their given field.
Just like a blade, if these guys get hurt it isn't the end of the world. A dull knife is very dangerous to. But the idea of the next level of persona/race is to protect the blade through defensive striking. We'd rather have these 6 provinces in tip-top shape and we'll work to keep it that way. Targeting then becomes any threat to the function of the 6 provinces. This is not a fixed strategy, as we might have great interest in defending the economy provinces. Suffice to say we defend what is important to offend with. If it's dragon generation that's in peril we aren't sitting on our hands.

[StratOcastle]

Rage Against The Machine:

War, explore and honor are foremost on many players and, by default, kingdom mindsets. Observing the server in total we see most kingdoms as pigeonholed to war status. This is the dilemma of self evaluation. So here I'll just touch on being true to yourself and mention the idea of playing house. I mentioned this in the Talk forum, but feel it should be explained here in it's genesis of the Virtual Kingdom.

PLAYING HOUSE~
Seems somewhat derogatory but I don't like mincing words for mock toughness. Playing house refers to putting kingdom culture ahead of numerical goals. The kingdom functions as a peaceful neighbor who's aims are internal growth. The ideals of playing house are:
1- exploring our pool at our leisure.
2- studying science like any higher culture may desire.
3- taking acres from inactives or kingdoms wishing to reduce acres through diplomatic relationships.
4- our interests are defensive at heart so retaliation is part of a higher culture.
5- practicing diplomacy as a means of preserving peace.

We aren't lacking in a willingness to war. While we might be more concerned with our internal harmony there will always be aggressors attempting to take advantage for any number of reasons. The Virtual Kingdom provides every personality and race, therefore contains elements to aggress in our own right. We don't have to wait to be hit if indications are obvious that an opposing kingdom wants to test their luck. It's important to note that elements for retaliating larger kingdoms are built in. If by roleplaying we serve our happy peasants we owe them proper defense and retribution against our enemies. The most important thing is that we stick together provided the occupants of this kingdom act in a noble manner. Trouble makers aren't tolerated. That said, retaliation is not just about trading acres or science, but to force a point. I can respect a willing kingdom relentlessly waving this kingdom, but this is only respect. We can be as cruel in action as we please, but speak calmly and respectfully to our enemies. Call it chivalry. The reason cruelty is important to excercise at times is because some enemies will focus in cold regard to what we stand for. Sometimes diplomacy is the light that guides by example. Sometimes relentless punishment is necessary to exhibit the fact that this kingdom is not about weakness, but strength.