I have enjoyed carrionfields for many years and seen the evolution from the days of Midgaard. Way back when I was dodging lecturers and mudding from the school lab, I even remember facing off Kryldor the player! Anyway, one of the things that has always seemed odd to me was the cabalwars and the way one or two Marans or one or two Imperials could charge into the palace or fortress without so much of a clang or defence from the maran warriors or imperial soldiers, fight their way into the central altar, kill the watcher and council and get the items respectively. I suppose when I picture the palace or fortress in my head, I always picture Helms Deep or a massive castle siege, and with “Players” actually being the main heroes/villains , who can do more than the average soldier and whom the story revolve around.

So here is my suggestion on how to create a more “Epic” feel.

What I propose is the coding perhaps of “army mobs”. Army mobs aren’t meant to be engaged with by players directly, but only other army mobs, which can be summoned through cabal powers or perhaps even bought at the mercenary stores.An army mob might be a huge hp mob for example that cannot be attacked by players. Their use will purely be to break down the siege doors at cabals for retrieval or raiding purposes. For example, lets say the Fortress holds the codex. An imperial player, of suitable level, will have a “call imperial army” as part of its function. He goes to the maran gate, summons his army, and an imperial army mob will appear and start to siege the gates. Similarly, the fortress will have defences that start to try to repel this and the two army mobs will start duking it out.

The Maran gate guardian can therefore be sort of a captain, that if the players manage to kill, will more or less result in the maran gate defences being broken after a time lag, and the codex retrieved.

You can play around with balance and things like how often a besieging army can be called, factors affecting whether attackers or defenders win, time lag, etc. To make things more RP and also add in a greater dimension on the “cabal wars”. I could see Nexus sentinels, outlander dryads and wood-elves and treants, scion nightwalkers and demons, battle rager berserkers, tribunal militia, all doing battle with one another. You could play with how long the armies fight as well, so that it requires people to hang about the place. They don’t need to engage the guardians and be weakened, but at least stay there for engagement and it takes some time to siege, as opposed to “lets quickly kill the guardian and run away”. I realize there is some fun in these ninja guerilla retrievals, perhaps those can be factored as well, such as perhaps thief classes maybe having assassins or infiltrator units that do not give a cabal alert or something similar.

One element of Tribunal that I rather like (and hate) is how special guards are automatically summoned when you raid the Executioner.

I wouldn't mind seeing cabal hideouts get more intelligent, such that the number of players on either side, their levels, and the power level (based on ratio, time since PKdeath, AP charge logic, etc.) all factor into how the hideout defends itself.

The Watcher, for example, might order reinforcements in the form of NPC squires to fight off attackers, the number and stretch of which being based on the attacking force. This way, cabal raids aren't so one-sided and/or the point negated all together because one cabal has a thirty-something on the retrieve and the other doesn't, despite having hero superiority.

I don't know if it's feasible, but essentially what would be cool is more NPC action in cabal raids backed by some very crude "AI".

If done correctly, this could make cabal raiding a LOT more fun, interesting, and (tactically) challenging without requiring each team have five guys on.

Though mine was more have stuff like the Empire have units that move around the roads, since they are trying to take over the lands and such. Not a mob that one would call, but will fight the enemies of the Empire, or like the slayer and executioner, They would meet a band of the Refuge or Marans. but make them mobs but just lvl 30-40 or what ever balances you could make of that. But maybe make it for all cabals minus the Scions or the Nexun since they are more just wizards and stuff.

I do like the Idea of having armies have to siege and strike like that, perhaps you could make it so a raiding cabal has to get past some kind of gate before they get to the captain for instance, and Solo or group pcs can still break down the walls, it just wouldn't strike back nor would it be as easy as it would be with the siege. And once that battle started then the defense would be called.

As much as I love all these Ideas and yours too, I don't think the Imms would really want to sit down and code it, mainly cause they still have a lot on their plate.

I always wished there was events like, Tribunals taking a new city under their wings, or the Empire tries to expand its boarders, maybe the Maran tries to shrink the Empires boarders. Ahh so many Ideas.

I always thought this would be an excellent idea as well, but the only idea that is pulsing through me right now is, Can you imagine the Round size of combat as a five on five battle is going on?

It would be so massive you would have no idea what the hell is going on until you realize oh #### my hp is almost gone because the one defender just landed a few massive blows that i couldnt keep track of in the spam NPC fighting