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>>38853351
The purpose of this thread is for me to lay out my thought on the quest as it is and possible future approaches and invite discussion on those. The quest is what it is due to the decisions of players as much as any grand plan of mine, so I’m not going to radically alter the flow or feel of the quest without talking about it.

To summarise, I’ve had to face up to the fact that AEQ has deviated so radically from my notes and expectations that my attempts to use them in the face of player agency has resulted in a meandering mess (in my opinion). When I think of the overarching approach of the quest, I think of it like Big Bang Age where every enemy faction has its own storyline and the overarching storyline barely comes up outside of the ending. The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t really allow for ‘sequence-breaking’, such as when you vote to go to Terrnaine Forest and bring all the elves back. Two problems have resulted from this: cast/power bloat and meandering pacing.

The cast and power bloat is the direct result of me thoughtlessly letting TYE’s power to grow without thinking much of the opponents. To point out the biggest offenders that I’ve poorly handled, that you shouldn’t have had by my sketchy notes: the elemental sisters (save Undine); Taira; the foxes (besides Vad and Arisa); any and all elves (including Finn); vampires (besides Aladria); Sylvian’s imminent arrival; pattern research. One or two of these isn’t a big impact (well, except Taira and Sylvian – Sylvian was supposed to be handled by having you effectively fight the world) but all of them together completely changes the strength of the empire. It’s the reason it took a huge army of demons to really threaten you. Cast bloat also accompanies this, and dilutes the personal stories and interaction.

>continued

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>>38853360
The poor pacing of the quest can be seen by comparing what’s happened post-Taour to that ‘opening’ arc. Even where things got a bit distracted, Taour was still the primary goal and everything was done to push towards it. The pacing still wasn’t great back then, but it was miles better than it was currently. The lack of anything vaguely overarching (beyond general conquest) has, in my opinion, enormously weakened the quest. There’s a dozen plus minor plots all spread around but there’s nothing to really connect them beyond Talon’s drive. This wouldn’t be a problem in a game with a single player, but in a quest it makes it hard for people to be on the same page as to their objectives.

I’m next going to go into depth about how my notes (and the ‘history’ of the setting) deviated so much from what is actually happening and why that matters. Before that, I’d like to hear opinions on this blurb. Do these problems seem familiar to anybody? Am I worrying too much? Let me know how you feel. And no, I’m not quitting or planning to no matter what is decided in the thread. So don’ worry about that. I just see the aftermath of the demonic invasion as a good turning point for the quest.

>Let me know your thoughts on the quest’s current problems, including those I haven’t raised

Hey Aspire, been looking forward to this all day.

As far as current problems, the BIG one that comes to my head is the amount of strong characters that we've surrounded ourselves with. It honestly gotten to the point where I completely forget who's who and have to resort to my cheat-sheet to figure it out. I really don't remember any of our generals at this point and captains are even worse (besides Moss, don't know why i remembered him.) Honestly I was a little bit revealed when you said that one of the devils during the siege was a hero-killer (not that that boar any fruit), just because the cast has gotten larger then I like. Obviously this has some issues with the power bloat you mentioned; I feel like very few people, excluding some crazy strong beings in the setting, could actually take us and our entourage on.

Just my initial thoughts of the situation, I'm gonna get words together with some other issues and get back to you.

>>38853387
I definitely see character bloat, power issues and pacing issues as problems. The biggest thing I really see is direction issues. I understand people want to have fun and go to those islands but is it essential in a quest about conquering this continent? When we do fight the MG or the RSK are the biggest problems fighting them really just going to be the quality/quantity of their troops? That could be really boring with Syl and Tiara able to level armies themselves.

More of a personal issue but I think we have been distracted from our deal with Alyce. Also I don't fully understand how we are supposed to help her with the fracturing of the league itself when so much of it is so far away.

>>38853387
I agree somewhat (though I personally like many of the caste you've added), though I don't think you've focused enough on the downsides to our rapid expansion: namely, that people have noticed. Irlin undoubtedly has a plan for if we side with Silvian, and is probably actively searching for a counterwieght (I can think of 4 possibilities personally). Malantine and the Lords are presumably not going to just twiddle their thumbs while a pro nonhuman empire amasses on the other side of the continent. We've made allies, but those allies have enemies of their own.

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>>38853611
Yeah, it's the number of powerful characters (particularly Taira and the elemental sisters) that make things hard for me. I'll get into it a bit more in my next big post, but I built things around an individual Champion with the likelihood of you building a large crew of powerful characters as you covered the continent.

After all, it's not that the setting doesn't have opponents capable of challenging you, it's just that only a few have enough of them in one place to actually threaten you and (apart from the Towers of Stars/Moon) are mostly on opposing sides of the continent (or another continent entirely).

The Lords, Malataine, Darvui and the sorcerer(s) in Farlou are all massively powerful. As are the infernals, what lurks in the Wasteland (if I ever bother to use it) and Pharos.

>>38853680
>Also I don't fully understand how we are supposed to help her with the fracturing of the league itself when so much of it is so far away.
This is a big deal, especially when I now compare the reasons for the historical fracturing to what's happening now.

And yeah, the difficulty I've been having in making the Mage Guard a threat (apart from a few individual encounters) has been what's gotten me thinking.

>>38853750
>though I personally like many of the caste you've added
I like them too, but you were never supposed to have so many so soon.

To begin with, as far as I'm concerned we're set on a path and any attempt to rectify it drastically will only turn for the worse. Anyway, I remember when the "Do we summon Gnome & Sala" problem came up I argued against it. Simply because of power bloat. Yes that are valuable assets, and they were balanced by taking away our access to dragons earlier on, but it started us down this path. But at this point what do you do? I suppose you can deprive us of "hero units" and superior forces for awhile. I'd happily put off patterns for another research period, I'd happily never get Syl and/or put her stuff off, and hell I'd happily put off getting the remnants of the Wardens as well. I think the only fix to that is allowing us to maintain a better distance from the Mage Guard schism, and perhaps putting it off. The incursion of the Shadow Beasts to the north should help in that, the desire to explore the islands should as well, and putting off certain research programs (granted in lieu of going after others) would as well.

Basically what I'm saying is you've made your bed and it's a situation of you must lie in it now. The Demon Incursion, while fun, really showed how OP Talon's army can be even in inferior numbers, and as much as it pains me to say the amount of work that has gone into Harrowmont's defenses and the city itself has made us almost impossible to defeat on our home turf, Dominion included. With the next expansion what the hell are you going to do when it comes to mortal armies?

Another point is "conquering being our only driving force" feels wrong to me. I want more Empire related activities. More politics, don't let us get away with skirting it anymore with the pseudo shadow government thing, it's lame, uninspired and holding back a huge portion of the quest. If we put stuff off by furthering developing equally important areas of the quest I'd be happy. I'd also be happy if you just decided to cut it back to a clear cut host of characters.

>>38853841
>And yeah, the difficulty I've been having in making the Mage Guard a threat (apart from a few individual encounters) has been what's gotten me thinking.
Simply have Irlin cut a deal with Albanon. There have been weirder deals historically.

>>38853917
>Simply have Irlin cut a deal with Albanon. There have been weirder deals historically.

Pretty much this. Get weird. Fuck it, why not. Talon is a fucking monster on and off the field now. People have to be threatened by this "Empire" that has sprung up over night and is now playing host to the best outfitting military/Foxes/Vampires/Elves/Dragons/etc. Who cares, get crazy with it. We won't complain. I think we all like the challenge, the Third Siege legitimately frightened me, even though I knew my Crown Wall would hold.

>>38853387
>>38853841

Its sure been a ride, and despite issues coming up you've handled it well and its been fun. One way to deal with cast bloat, and engage in alot of the mini intrigues, would be to assign companions to deal with things, like our generals in the campaigns. It also seems like alot of tension exist between the other nations but as of yet no major conflicts have broken out between them except for internal rebelions. One way to advance pacing would be to have actual armed conflict between nations and have some of that spill over. Refuges, supporting sides ( subtly or directly), what happens if an army accidentally wanders over our boarders slightly? [I see that as a hilarious event, with the commander freaking out as he realizes hes violated the boarder and sees our forces mustering, and being cut off from retreating back to his territory by the enemy, hahaha]
also what >>38853886
says: some internal management

One issue is Talons power growth. I understand we have to specialize in power/balance/life in order to get the best abilities of them, but asking numerous players (who might not be the same you had the week before) to choose one of them is near impossible. This creates a bit of a pickle as removing the choices removes player agency.

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>>38853886
>Basically what I'm saying is you've made your bed and it's a situation of you must lie in it now.
I understand that and I don't plan to retcon anything. Really, the solutions involve cutting through a lot of the dross and weaker opponents and trying to get to the meat through political changes and bringing some of the power players to the fore of the plot instead of lurknig on the other side of the continent.

>I want more Empire related activities. More politics
This is something I'm considering, but I wonder how to handle it given ninety percent of all meta-problems with the quest have been due to anything approaching diplomacy or politics. It's also radically different to most everything else in the quest.

It also doesn't really detract from the other problems the quest faces, so much as it just distracts from them. I will do more politics, but I think I need to tie it in with the broader approach of the quest too.

I am very interested in what sort of political events people might actually be interested in, given my memories of them have been of generally poor player interaction/reaction.

>>38853917
Albanon doesn't really have much of a military. It got destroyed in the Shropham invasion.

If the cast is a problem, then creating situations where they are needed elsewhere should help fix the power bloat. An earthquake happened and Gnome has to repair shit, mal is locked doing research, Vad has to hunt someone alone, Taira is looking for a new drink, etc.

The east side of the continent is very fractured and in chaos, it's easy fot Talon to take advantage of it and conquer it, even if it's slightly harder without the cast. Talon is a force that changes the world, weakened empires can't stand against the wind of change.

Unless they suddenly united against Talon, which is more likely to happen in the west.

You could also introduce enemy hero units, like the combat magisters. Those were a bitch to deal with.

>>38853387
I think you're generally quite on point about the problems of the quest, but I have to say they don't actually detract from my enjoyment of it.

I think what you need to do is cut back your personal expectations for what you can handle in the quest itself. While I see the issues are here, they don't detract from the quest itself, everything is still fun as hell. And I legitimately think you're worrying too much. But if this character/power bloat is beginning to wear you down as much as it has seemed recently, then perhaps it's time to cut things back. The routine and characters that actually specifically. IMHO Talon, Undine, Gnome, Mal(by extension Sala/Slyph), Finn, Taira, Lynn and Vad are the only characters that should get focus, unless the scene or interests calls for otherwise. Sarah, Sala, the other foxes, dragons, vampires, etc. Simply don't matter anymore and don't garner much interest when they have scenes dedicated solely to them. They have functional auxiliary roles, but not staying power anymore.

>>38854076
>>38854076
>Albanon doesn't really have much of a military. It got destroyed in the Shropham invasion.
To be fair, they've had a while to rebuild (and an enormous incentive to do so), and I think their spellblades got out intact.
Other options include any and all of the following:
1. Asefel playing chicken with her armies
2. A splinter group of Ember's Knights who dislike our policies
3. the need to keep our southern border fortified against demons drawing off a lot of our strength
4. A rebellion somewhere
5. Racist mages/nobles/ Knights supporting our enemies
>>38854272
I disagree immensely about Sarah, she's probably my favorite character.

>>38854076
>I am very interested in what sort of political events people might actually be interested in, given my memories of them have been of generally poor player interaction/reaction.
The farmer one was great in my opinion. Loads of fun. Maybe have another one with the issue of military/nobility/knighthood?

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>deviation from notes/history

I’ve mentioned before that AEQ takes place in an alternate history of a setting I created. Things started around the time the industrial scale war(s) of the first half of the century and the upheaval that resulted were winding down. The problem is that a massively powerful empire with radical views and a god-king should shake things up more than they really have so far.

Historically, both the RSK and League fractured as a direct result of their sudden expansion in the late 1940s and subsequent stalemate in the 1950s. The RSK fractured into squabbling nation-states (plus Darvui), leaving only the capital under the control of the Seraphi nobles. The League fell apart into the old array of nations, ruled by a mix of royals and mages, with the networks of towers that were formed lasting and leaving Alyce as a decaying power player in continental politics. Due to the collapse of the League, the Guard invaded Shropham and failed. That stopped the radicalisation but still led to the collapse of the Guard as a government, turning it instead into a mere organisation split between guarding relics and the Barrier as well as the inquisitors nosing about everywhere.

By the ‘current’ period of the setting (around 2000PC), the main setting is a mess of squabbling nation-states with militaries that have seen little change plus a few tremendously powerful mages lurking about.

The problem of using this for AEQ is that (as several people have pointed out in-thread) a massive empire and cross-race alliance should massively change the face of the politics. More so than it has.

>continued

>>38853387
Kind of have to agree with this >>38854122.
I can certainly see where you're coming from and can definitely understand why you and others would feel that way, but to be honest I myself am having just as much fun with this quest as I had at the beginning, which together with being really tired right now honestly makes it hard to contribute ideas on how to rectify the situation.

Still, I can understand the need for change both to make the quest less of a chore for yourself and more enjoyable for the people who share these problems, so I wish anyone capable of contributing stuff luck.

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>>38854421
The League shouldn’t be fracturing with the renewed threat and power of TYE. Darvui and the Farlou sorcerer(s) can’t sit around and watch Felix’s powerbase in the RSK erode when he still has Talon as his ace in the hole. The Guard is obviously not ceasing to radicalise. Malataine now bears no resemblance to the nation of my notes as I dropped the Mage PC there. An astral power user capable of replacing/killing Ember has appeared fifty years earlier than expected (and differently). Somebody capable of actually helping Raphael with his aims is also around, well before his power has degraded too much more.

The problem with bringing these things to the fore is that it will enormously change the nature of the quest. Right now it’s a case of expanding and tackling problems one nation at a time, with separate stories that are only somewhat tied together; plus the occasional larger event. This would make the quest potentially more reactionary to greater events than it currently is, which can be problematic. I once had a DH GM who had a huge plot that sat on top of the campaign, which seemed cool until we realised that when we misstepped (and we did that a lot) then the plot would keep moving until we were completely lacking any real agency.

I’ll go into problems next, but this is really about how people prefer the quest to play out over the longer-term. Do people prefer the nation-by-nation approach? Or would massive political and continental upheaval and constant threats be more interesting?

>>38854507
>Or would massive political and continental upheaval and constant threats be more interesting?
Yes.
That said, it would also probably lead to misunderstandings galore and the quest going down in flames.

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>>38854507
>I’ll go into problems next
Possible solutions, not problems. Mistyped.

>>38854425
It's not so much making the quest less of a chore than trying to assuage my constant worrying about the quest having gotten stuck in a rut. That's why I'm trying to discuss it all instead of just changing everything (which I've tried in half-measures before, to not much success and more worrying).

>>38854272
I think no matter what happens I do need to narrow down the focus to major characters. I need to start treating some characters more like I do folks like Phrace and Illon, where they're named and known but their development takes a backseat.

>>38854122
>>38854272
>>38854425
It is interesting to hear that not everybody is as worried about the state of things as I am.

>>38854047
This is a very hairy problem, sadly. I should probably make the power choices more like 'upgrade' choices, so that people can properly weigh up their decisions. I'm not sure I can do much better than that without taking away more agency than I'd like.

I think you should take a bit of time off and remake your notes. Sounds like you are running into all these problems because you're trying to keep your self constrained to your old notes.

The power bloat is fine, let the empire grow the more it grows the more that power has to be spread around. The other nations can respond, to this and change, theres still Pharos and other places you could add for us to go to.

>Do people prefer the nation-by-nation approach? Or would massive political and continental upheaval and constant threats be more interesting?

I view it like a natural evolution from one to the other. You start a business as one little stall, then into a building gotta manage employees, then into a bigger building even more people, then into 2 buildings gotta get managers, then 20 buildings gotta manage the chain and the company.

>>38854507
>Do people prefer the nation-by-nation approach? Or would massive political and continental upheaval and constant threats be more interesting?
Hard to say. Nation by nation would be fun. Political chaos and threats would be far more interesting.

>>38854507
Hmm. This is actually a good question.
First of all, I have to say I'm not very familiar or skilled at either economics or politics.
I prefer the upheaval approach, honestly. The nation-by-nation approach should honestly lead to the upheaval anyway.
OTOH it seems like it'd be a chore to constantly have to redraw the maps, as it were, both for the players and you.
The main reason I like it more, though, is the reason you've been having problems: we're having a serious impact, maybe too much of one.

Also, some advice: if you're really concerned about any course of action you might undertake, we're rather used to shitstorms anyway. There's very little you could do to really dissuade me (and, I hope/imagine, much of the other 'hardcore' players, who follow every thread they can) to call it quits.

>>38854507
>Darvui and the Farlou sorcerer(s) can’t sit around and watch Felix’s powerbase

The curse has even gotten to Aspirational.

>The League shouldn’t be fracturing with the renewed threat and power of TYE.

Its your setting, your quest, change it. Not like they don't have a reason to reunite, even if it's in an entirely different way. Darvui and Farlou should do something, I think Darvui is our only mortal enemy on this side of the continent that could latch something together presently. Not like we didn't snub him anyway. Really I don't see why you can't just go ahead and change a bunch of stuff, you were talking about doing some massive timeskips at one point or another, wouldn't be hard to readjust some of the threats into something more viable.

>I’ll go into problems next, but this is really about how people prefer the quest to play out over the longer-term. Do people prefer the nation-by-nation approach? Or would massive political and continental upheaval and constant threats be more interesting?

Like I said, go with change, it's good. Talon has caused a lot of his only, it might encourage others.

>I am very interested in what sort of political events people might actually be interested in, given my memories of them have been of generally poor player interaction/reaction.

I'd love to handle Gespad being integrated into the Empire politically. There has been a lot of interest in finally taking it but not much doing. Shadow movements, placing our own yes men, back room dealings, etc. They hold an important resource of shoreline with infrastructure and the people in place to exploit it best. And diving into the ballroom of RSK politics sounds fun. It might give Darvui a reason to force his issue with us again and the big dog to the south some reason to start barking again and gaining support.

Also the islands give us a unique political situation of claiming land. Getting into it with Pharos and Malataine and their unique politics.

>>38854507
>Or would massive political and continental upheaval and constant threats be more interesting?
This would keep the quest the most unpredictable, but I'd be wary of constant action. After a certain number of conquest threads I get a little fatigued and want a change of pace, but the reverse is true also.
If you were to adopt a format of player-driven objective arc, global consequences arc, and then restructuring/ internal objectives arc, repeating that might keep things lively and address your concerns as I inderstand them

>>38854507
>Or would massive political and continental upheaval and constant threats be more interesting?
The current cause of the majority of conflict is currently mage vs royalty. I think this should be gradually replaced with the genie that Talon let out of the bottle when he openly decided to found a multicultural empire. Humanities status as effectively the only race to hold power outside of two small geographical areas is going to change things.
In essence, things will gradually start to shake out into three main factions:
1. The Multiculturalism faction, this is the TYE, the Dwarves, the Elves, maybe the Farun, and the portions of the Magi League that follow Alyce
2. The "Humanss in power" faction, centered around Malantine, parts of the Magi League, and factions of the RSK.
3. The Astral Adepts, may or may not include Ember

>>38854698
Do narrow the focus of our cast though, our retinue is definitley unwieldily and OP. Long term assignments away from Harrowmont might be best, with the development of several threats that need capable oversight but not by us

>>38854698
>I need to start treating some characters more like I do folks like Phrace and Illon, where they're named and known but their development takes a backseat.

What's funny is that's why I know those characters, why I like them. I think it's awesome that Phrace has been with us from the beginning and to see where he is now. I like our wise ass officers, I like Moss being a badass and Talon still owing him one for the help in Fort Locke. Background characters are great, and function well in that space. Sure they get their moments but it doesn't drag on you. I definitely think it's time to put some characters there.

>>38853387
>pacing and lack of focus

I think you're mostly spot on with your analysis there. There's a stack of anons who do read your bins and track the various plot points religiously, but by and large, the irregular thread schedule and the sheer volume of "yeah lot of shit going on, BTW there are consequences for certain courses of action, better keep track of all those variables" means players without a good handle of what's going on and who's friends with who, who wants what, etc run the risk of fucking up badly. I don't think I'm alone when I refrain from voting or posting because I'm not up to date with what's going on and I'm afraid of making an ill informed decision that could significantly impact the outcome of the story.

If you have to read the gdocs and pastebins and trawl though multiple previous threads for details you don't remember, while crossreferencing your own cheat sheet of characters in order to vote for a good course of action, eh. It's certainly not as fun as it used to be.

and then add on to that, recently we've had an influx of new players who try to participate but haven't looked super closely at the fluff/politics/etc and then get shouted down and you end up with a quest that's by and large, hugely inaccessible to more casual players.

>>38853351
You could always add new things to the setting.
Like an invasion by insect/rhino people from an unknown continent, or the sunken kingdom of the merpeople deciding to claim the surface world for their own.
Or hell, invasion of the fantasy Sectoids from another universe.

>>38854507
>Do people prefer the nation-by-nation approach? Or would massive political and continental upheaval and constant threats be more interesting?

I really hate politics and economics, I just can't play politics well and I have zero experience and skills in large national economics. That being said, the chaos and craziness of the continent going to shit on a national level, i feel, would be a lot more fun to play and manipulate in the long term.

>>38855035
>WRT cast bloat
Kind of an interesting issue

On the one hand, yes we have a huge collection of fairly diverse hero units + factions, and together they make TYE ridiculously OP as an empire built for/focused on conquest. On the other hand, the impression you've given us time after time is that yeah we've got lots of hero units, but if we go up against any of the other heavy hitters, we're still going to get our shit kicked in because most of our guys are depowered to some extent and we still need to level up because if Raphael gets serious, we're done, if we try to take on Saareg, we're done, if we catch the Lord's attention, we're done, etc

which has resulted in the playerbase buckling down and deciding we need to build up and fortify as much as we can (GET THE ELVES, GET THE FOXES) or build our technology (GET THE PATTERNS) or special units (GET THE NIGHTWALKERS) or more hero units (GET THE SISTERS, GET REN, GET TAIRA, POWER UP FELIX) etc etc

>>38855063
>I really hate politics and economics
To be fair, this is one of three quests on /tg// that has what I would consider large scale politics. One of those is about a genderbent succubus with an OP who can't keep a schedule to save his life, and the other is the longest running quest on /tg/.
Give us politics anons a break.

>>38855064
>if we try to take on Saareg, we're done
I was under the impression that we could take Saareg without much trouble by just swamping him in mooks.

>>38853360
>The cast and power bloat is the direct result of me thoughtlessly letting TYE’s power to grow without thinking much of the opponents. To point out the biggest offenders that I’ve poorly handled, that you shouldn’t have had by my sketchy notes: the elemental sisters (save Undine); Taira; the foxes (besides Vad and Arisa); any and all elves (including Finn); vampires (besides Aladria); Sylvian’s imminent arrival; pattern research.

I think I agree with all of those but three. The Elemental Sisters was going to happen regardless, and they were handled well. Gnome and Sala were both depowered a lot in the early goings and you took away the dragons then as well. And the Vampires. They are a different case. You outright told us at one point that genocide wasn't the best answer, it was an option, but not the best. So we cut out the bad, waited a LONG time for integration and just now got our first batch of Green, mind you GREEN, troops from them. And we can't even use the Daywalkers properly until we do a research program. They have been handled well and, from my perspective, to the standard you wanted.

>>38855064
>POWER UP FELIX

Not like we needed to anyway, the fucker is immune to RNG.

>>38855169
which is the longest on /tg/?

>>38854995
I agree, I really enjoy that. Its like in X-com when random rookie one is the last alive gets an overwatch kill then flanks and kills the last xeno then goes onto becoming one of your best soldiers.

>>38854076
>Albanon doesn't really have much of a military. It got destroyed in the Shropham invasion.
What about having a particularly grumpy black dragon picking a fight with Slyvian and effectively canceling her out?

>>38855233
For House and Dominion, Started in December 2011

>>38855169
I wasn't trying to say anything bad about politics in this quest, more that I just REALLY suck at it and I've kinda given up adding anything useful when we get into political discussion that isn't direct and easy to understand.

>>38854698
Been going back and reading the old threads for fun, and I think your QM style has changed a lot though. It seems like for every event, you already had a general outcome already prepared; while player agency existed you mostly utilized it in a way that would enhance the story. Good planning could mitigate a poor set of rolls, etc, whatever happened, the story would go on in an interesting way.

Now that things are a lot larger scale, it's probably not possible for you to roll with the story in the same way because failure has to have serious consequences and sometimes there's no real way to have that occur in a believable way when you're writing on the scale of nations and empires.

Probably an unpopular opinion but it sorta felt like that last siege just dragged on longer than it needed to; like no matter what happened, no matter what we did as players or how well we rolled, we would have ended up in a confrontation with the big bad. It felt more like a series of generally scripted events that we had no chance of breaking the sequence on, more than anything else.

Just curious. How do you guys want to run this empire in a territory grabbing sense. Do you want to straight up conquer, play the political game, do some sort of merge-alliance with other larger nations, etc etc?

>>38855294
>It felt more like a series of generally scripted events that we had no chance of breaking the sequence on, more than anything else.
To be fair, that's kind of what happens when you're the defender in a siege.

>>38855374
A combination of conquest and politics. I want to peacefully absorb the shattered remnants of the magi league, the dwarves, the elves, and violently subvert and conquer everything else.

>>38855287

To touch on this. I think this quests involves a degree of player work. Personal time dedicated to understanding specifics. If you don't quite get something, look around maybe? Read something about ti so you may contribute more. Aspirational gives us this huge world, and it's fun to play with. I've thoroughly enjoyed working on Harrowmont, learned a lot about castle design(I'll finish the interior of Harrowmont someday), defenses, infrastructure placement, the economics of city development, etc. It's fun, when I said I probably know the most about Harrowmont outside of Aspirational, I meant it. But that's because I worked on it a lot. I don't claim to know everything about economics or politics or tactics, but I've read up on things. Just like I would for any DM that ran a game for me in RL. This is a joint venture, and I miss the amount of discussion and ideas we'd throw around, i.e. someone came up with the canal with the economic side, I was able to speak on the construction side. Combining player ideas on our own knowledge bases and researched topics will surely help the drag on Aspirational's side to "keep things fresh".

>>38855374
I personally like to use diplomacy first but thats to limit casualties. At the same time, I'm really bad with politics and usually opt out of em like many anons when they come up.

>>38855063

I think the problem is that he's basically split this quest into two+ completely different game genres
Some threads it's an action/RPG with a focus on TALON STRONK. Others it's a resource management/strategy game with open ended research and politics.

This was great early on because it drew in a fairly diverse playerbase and because we only had limited resources/allies and were the underdog, it forced players to be creative and think outside the box to win.

He's def made a conscious effort to appease both sides of the playerbase by regularly having politics/action threads but part of the problem is that there's now so much plot/character bloat that tuning out/not participating in the types of threads you don't enjoy isn't really an option anymore because doing so means you can't vote in an informed way when big decisions come up.

I'm with you on being bored as fuck by the politics, it's fun to push the research/strategic stuff on the side because of how it affects the action stuff (NHMKs were great) but neglecting those threads just isn't an option now, if you want to participate. Like the number crunching on our non-hero units is boring and I just want to see/roll for Felix and Talon and Finn and whatever, but if I try to vote/plan for a pre-battle course of action, I... probably shouldn't, just because I have no idea/no interest in what the state of our regular troops is like

>>38855374

All of the above, they all have their own merit and specific uses. And utilizing them like we did with the northern territories before it just became "fuck it kill them all", was fun as hell.

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>>38855294
>It felt more like a series of generally scripted events that we had no chance of breaking the sequence on, more than anything else.
Well, you were actually supposed to pull back when fighting Belrauth. He was meant to be stupidly dangerous to fight normally. You need 3 consecutive successes to defeat him, and you only had two or three failures before burning a Fate Point. Otherwise, it's hard not to have that sort of general approach happen when you're in a reactionary role.

I do see the overall concern, however. Both my QMing and writing styles have changed immensely, with both affecting the other. A lot of this is also affected by what sort of player reaction I get.

>>38855195
The difference is that I haven't handled the synergies of powerful traps of the sisters in battles, resulting in steamrolling at times.

>>38855035
I'm not sure it's possible to make a quest of this scale without making it hard for casuals to get involved. There's a few things I could do to make it easier to keep up-to-date but I simply don't have the time or drive. To an extent, it's like the difficulty I often have in picking up a Total War campaign or Dorf Fort fortress after a several month break.

In a way, it's just a symptom of AEQ being (overly) large and ambitious. It hasn't worked out the way I ever expected or hoped it too.

>>38855498
And I enjoy all of it, though I do wish there were a bit more politics. And this is basically a fantasy game of crusader kings.

Coming from someone who has been more of a casual reader than a poster, my biggest issue with the quest lately has been that it feels like you've lost a lot of your drive.

The past few months of this quest have felt almost forced, and you seem to be short with the players at times. There's this weird underlying tension in the more recent threads, where it feels like everyone is kinda stepping on eggshells. I just chalked it up to you growing tired of running a quest with a large playerbase, compounded by this being by far the most complicated quest I've seen.

>>38855294
I agree with a lot of what this guy said, it's started to feel like more of a story that we're tagging along on, rather than OUR story as Talon.

>>38855576
>To an extent, it's like the difficulty I often have in picking up a Total War campaign or Dorf Fort fortress after a several month break.

That's a huge issue too, in order for any new players to participate they need to read the past threads, which is expected, but also go through massive amounts of background info in several pastebins and PDFs. It's unrealistic, and the existing playerbase resents those that don't read it, as evidenced by a new guy posting in one of the sieges. Several players and yourself complained about new people. But to top it off, there often are month-long breaks between threads nowadays. If you can't pick up a savegame on total war after a month, imagine picking up a game with a year's worth of backstory and nuances.

Anyway I'm going to go back to perma-lurker status, like how I expect a fair number of people are.

>>38855498
>but neglecting those threads just isn't an option now, if you want to participate.

Honestly when is neglecting a thread ever an option? Outside of the real world, you wouldn't neglect a session of your given tabletop because, "Oh today is about killing demons and then talking politics with the king. That's not really my deal so I'm going to sit this one out."
It's rude, it does the person running the game a disservice and then leads to people asking redundant questions or arguing with Aspirational about things long since done and bogging stuff down.

I may not enjoy the down time stuff or economics but I still come around at least to read and have the knowledge in case we need it later.

>>38855450
>>38855498
Maybe I am just kinda wording this wrong, it isn't so much that I see a political based thread and think "fuck politics moar action!!1!" more like I take everything at face value and it hard for me to see the underlying consequences with political decisions, like when we were initially taking Vitria and we made a deal with whathisface that he could move into a position of power if he helped us, I was immediately like "sounds good lets do it" but then you guys had the whole discussion about it and how it would interfere with Sarah's power and what-not, and its just shit like that that I can never think about when It comes up, its gotten better over the threads but I feel like im a college freshman who passed Bio101 by the skin of my ass and is trying to work with a Senior in advanced Bio. I try to participate but it mostly just goes over my head and I vote and hope i didn't choose something stupid.

>>38855747
>That's a huge issue too, in order for any new players to participate they need to read the past threads, which is expected, but also go through massive amounts of background info in several pastebins and PDFs. It's unrealistic, and the existing playerbase resents those that don't read it, as evidenced by a new guy posting in one of the sieges.

I've noticed myself being hostile to new people in the past and gone out of the way to be nice recently.

>>38855576
>I'm not sure it's possible to make a quest of this scale without making it hard for casuals to get involved. There's a few things I could do to make it easier to keep up-to-date but I simply don't have the time or drive. To an extent, it's like the difficulty I often have in picking up a Total War campaign or Dorf Fort fortress after a several month break.

I don't really think it's your job to. If someone wants to get into the quest, that's on them. I don't even read or follow any other quests then this simply because I haven't the will nor desire to dedicate myself to it. And I'm not going to sit there and ask the QM to make it easier for me. That's not fair.

>>38855774
poor choice of words, sorry.

Rather, I see a politics thread and it doesn't interest me, I'll drop in every few hours and catch up on what other people did/decided and see who we politicked with and what we ended up with. By the end of the thread, I'll know who we negotiated with (those mage dudes) and what we did (we promised them help) and what we got (got some magic shit and some training) but not the nitty gritty. (we promised this factional leader who hates this person and is slightly racist 1400 troops to aid against one faction in exactly 13 days time, in return for the hidden mystic techniques of left handed underwater basketweaving)

Compared to, say, an action thread where I'll actively wait on each post and read what other anons come up with and try to think of off the wall tactics we can use that aspiration may not have thought of

>>38855952
>I've noticed myself being hostile to new people in the past and gone out of the way to be nice recently.

In my opinion a healthy bit of teasing is fine. We've all been there or made bone headed statements. And people always have questions. And usually they get answered.

I think the shortness someone read was when the idea of "blowing up the Source" was proposed and Aspirational was very flat in that response. And I was actually surprised by the total lack of player answers to that.

>>38855576
>There's a few things I could do to make it easier to keep up-to-date but I simply don't have the time or drive.
Eh, don't worry about it, you're doing a good job. After I finish redoing the NPC doc I'll see about putting together a cliff notes introduction.

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>>38855747
>There's this weird underlying tension in the more recent threads, where it feels like everyone is kinda stepping on eggshells.
To be blunt, this cuts both ways. I did lose a lot of my drive last year, and stuck it out because I enjoyed a few parts of it and a few particular players kept me going. I'm still mostly running due to those few involved players, though I've slowed down the past few weeks simply out of exhaustion from work.

Towards the end of last year, it felt like most players simply gave no shits about the quest. Then complained at the drop of a hat if something went wrong. My QMing and writing styles changed immensely at that point, because any attempt to involve the players in things were falling flat. I'm wary of trying to shift backwards, simply because I suspect many people who stopped participating fully will quote the same problems you and others do of the quest being too large and complicated.

I can't run AEQ for that playerbase. Period. Though I don't mind if new players come in without full knowledge - it's just difficult to handle them on top of everything else at times.

As for making it 'your story about Talon', I honestly don't know how to deal with that. The quest is radically different to anything I've already done and it can already be like pulling teeth to get people to come up with strategies, let alone grander ideas. I stopped doing SoL simply due to the fact nobody knew what the hell they wanted. I resumed after-hours because I decided that didn't matter.

>But to top it off, there often are month-long breaks between threads nowadays.
This is also nonsense. I've had one month-long break. Most breaks have been a week, perhaps two at the most.

>>38856108
That's because those periods can be pretty stressful for me, trying to deal with a myriad of ideas while coming up with an interesting scene.

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>overarching plots/themes and possible solutions

So there are four overarching plots that can be stitched together from the setting as it currently stands, plus two additional approaches for the quest. This is ignoring the two elephants in the room that are Pandemonium (and the can of worms that it involves) and the shadowbeasts. Note that the dragon plot runs under any of these.

>1. Divine races and astral power

This has to do with Raphael/Samael, the Sources, the Infernals and the Lords. It focuses on the existential threats to Gauron and the transition of Talon to a real ‘God-King’. Mage politics and continental issues are all a smaller part of this, simply because there’s always more happening or bigger fish to fry. This is the sort of thing that Sylvian was talking about when she mentioned enormous threats to the world constantly appearing.

>2. Mage Ascension

AEQ is a vaguely Gotterdammerung-like setting (or LotR even). The great divine races are shadows of their former selves (save a few particular infernals) and even the Lords are now declining. On the other hand, mages and the lesser races are becoming more powerful than ever. There’s more powerful mages hanging around in the setting right now than any time previous (including Kushan, because he was only one mage).

So the focus of this side is on the mages and civilisation-changing impacts. What happens when a bunch of powerful mages research stuff that was never really looked into. The focus here is very much the southern side of the continent – Darvui, Farlou, Malataine, the Wasteland. Plus the royal v mages thing.

>continued

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>>38856273
>3. Humans v Non-humans

Non-humans, save the dwarves, have been on the decline for ages. Clearly Talon is trying to change that and not everybody will appreciate it. The focus here would be on the internal politics, plus the fact that both Malataine and the Lords are going to oppose this outright and start moving now before you build too big a power base.

>4. World-wide interest

This brings Pharos and the Taurine Islands to the fore, as well as general empire projection. This would put a lot of themes aside for the sake of empire management and conquest, with Pharos making an earlier impact in the quest (beyond what little is involved with the foxes). Conflict with Malataine would also result due to the Taurine Islands.

>5. Kitchen sink

Just try to do all of them, resulting in a crazy amount of upheaval.

>6. Business as usual

Nation-by-nation, changing from theme to theme as necessary. Playing it by ear and what little of my notes I can use.

>7. Whatever the hell people can come up with

If you want a Talon path, then make one. I don’t know what to do about that problem beyond let people get involved.

>discussion on these ideas. Not a vote

>>38856229
I would be willing to help you with whatever, but I live in Britbongistan so I'm almost never awake when you're actually doing things.

>>38853841
>After all, it's not that the setting doesn't have opponents capable of challenging you, it's just that only a few have enough of them in one place to actually threaten you and (apart from the Towers of Stars/Moon) are mostly on opposing sides of the continent (or another continent entirely).
Feel free to buff our opponents if you want. Historically, Bisirum fought Ahm to a draw and Taren Hand died trying to invade it, so you could easily give them an Arlquin Terece or two.

>that warm and toasty feeling when aspie responds to things you've said and posts your drawfaggotry

>that not warm and toasty feeling when you don't like your drawfaggotry are embarrassed that it's floating around

>>38856273
>>38856305
All four of those sounds fun as fuck.

Your annoyances and problems show up in your writing as they grow. Continue in anyway that you think would give you the most room to work with and not get put in a rut.

>>38856406
Bro get back in here and finish drawing the other sisters.

>>38856273
>>38856305
The biggest plot I see currently is
>2, the Mages
I see this as possibly leading directly into the end of
>1, Divines and Astrals

>>38856229

This entire post is gold. It needed to be said and I'm glad you finally did. Anyway.

>>38856273
>>38856305

I think you can do pretty much all of them together but it becomes far too muddled. 4, while fun, isn't at this stage the most ideal situation, while it would challenge the power creep idea, it also make everything on Gauron seem trivial by comparison. I think the islands can be integrated early, just so we can go cold war with Malataine.

My personal interests lie in 1 and 2. They mesh well, and TYE is doing some of 2 right now with the research into Patterns and viable means to maintain a "good" vampire population. Mal owning two Pure Elementals and bitch slapping other people's magic like it's his day job only furthers this point. 1 helps address Talon and maintaining his importance to the story. I think the mild shift from Talon being the sole focus is good, he's still our PC, but it works better to imagine us handling things as his aids, advisers, architects, etc. But him being a big power player in the over arching plot, also works.

3 also has an interest, but only later on. Half of 4 can work in favor of starting some political movements with Malataine, and I honestly think we need that. Having someone to universally hate and flip off from across the League would do wonders for unifying the player base again.

Really, I see merit with all of the ideas. I think they can be stitched together to create a better long term plan that encourages our power growth and political decisions to tell everyone else to toss off.

>>38856589
I agree with this, they all sound doable and lead into each other.

>>38856273
>>38856305
>3. Humans v Non-humans
Honestly I feel like this theme strikes me as something that is going to continue regardless of anything, or id prefer it that way, I like TYE being a place where everyone regardless of race is going to have a place. I think it bring a lot of diversity to the quest in general to have these non-human races about.

>7. Whatever the hell people can come up with
So here's what I would like, I doubt very many other player would enjoy it but It's what I would enjoy. I want to see Talon resume his overall goal of making a global empire, I want him to strengthen his ties with Alyce and begin taking over territory across the Continent.
I meant to bring this up earlier but one of my favorite parts of this quest was when we were deciding what to do about taking over the northern territories, i truly enjoyed the way that we had so many options about taking them over; either politics, alliance merge, conquering; and how each had its own advantages and disadvantages and some options with some territory would cancel options with other territories.

>>38856305
>3. Humans v Non-humans
This needs to be done to some degree. We've broken the expected powerscale entirely by relying on large numbers of nonhuman beings. We've got to pay the price in some fashion. I'm not saying they have to declare war on us, but there are tons of things they can do short of war to make things interesting.

>>38856703
Worth noting that we were warned IC about the possible backlash of this multiple times, and did it anyway.

>>38856649
>i truly enjoyed the way that we had so many options about taking them over; either politics, alliance merge, conquering; and how each had its own advantages and disadvantages and some options with some territory would cancel options with other territories.

This, so much this. I loved it. I especially love Mal saying, "Nah bro, just conquer them all." The lead up to it was integrated well with the Tourney arc to maintain a good balance of action and back room.

Integration always works in your favor. The Third Siege's opening stages were flawless in my opinion, Talon directing the early goings, then leading the most ridiculous strike team to ever assemble helped break up the pacing enough to satisfy people's multiple desires. The whole thing integrated a lot of work that went into Harrowmont as well. And I liked that.

>>38856273
>>38856305
Those all seem pretty cool.
1 should probably be mainly saved for last IMO, maybe with some foreshadowing throughout prior plotlines.
2 and 3 already seem to be starting, what with the Shropham mage trying to become an Astral creature and Malataine getting changed by the mage PC (I'm guessing the animate armour Felix fought was related?).
4 seems a bit premature, but it's entirely your call.

Also, a bit of a non-sequitur, but if you're having trouble coping with the workload you could delegate non-plot stuff like updating character sheets to a trusted anon or two.

>>38853841
really off topic but is that the imperial academy in the top right? do you have a close up picture of it?

>>38856833
yes, a closer view is on the top of page for in the pdf below
>>38856229

>>38856775

I think the way Aspirational is talking is Malataine is going to get about tired of our shit soon. So we'll get to the backlash here soon. Which should help shake some stuff up.

I'm sure they are confused as fuck by our progression though.
>Purge vampires
YAY
>Create Thrall cure
YAY
>Create viable blood sub
Sure?
>Use them in active military campaigns
The fuck?
>have Daywalkers close to Talon and unchecked
Alright this guy is insane.

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>>38856833
Pic related.

>>38856649
>>38856783
>The Termina conquest
I think some of my memories of this get mixed with the 'pick a partner' thing regarding the major partners. I remember a lot of people complaining about the build-up.

With that said, providing more options is better but sometimes combat is the only real solution. I'm hoping that if I do a timeskip and have some political changes take place while TYE recovers from the demons I can shift the focus to a grander scale.

>>38856775
You know what I think should happen? I think Irlin should have a new force of about 100 10 ft tall armored warriors painted in Mage Guard colors that he swears are just some really big guys. Any similarities to the God-Knights are entirely coincidental.

>>38857091
Those little green men could be from anywhere eh?

>>38856273

Hmm, so admittedly this is sort of a kitchen sink wish but hear me out.

Existential threats usually make for good Tory telling because by definition they put the characters backs against a wall and usually force hard choices to be made, so I'd like to see some element of that at play at least in the background for now but slowly creeping to the fore. But mainly, I think is story is about a world in flux. Old power structures are crumbling and in the process of being replaced. The story of the fall of the Divine and rise of the Mages is linked, at least in my mind, with the battle between ascendant Humanity and the decline of the non-human (Magical) races. I think that's where the heart of this quest really is. In trying to forge something new and powerful from this turmoil. Kind of in every other direction we see a faction either on the edge (or just passed) of civil war, or genocide, or being extinguished, and our choice has been to reject those as the only viable options. We've made space for humans, foxes, dwarves, vampires, dragons and damn well anything else that can find a way to coexist despite the internal pressures and challenges those decisions have caused...so yeah, I think options 2&3 are more or less where the heart or the empire lies.

Option 1 might still be the fundamental justification for Talon's existence though.

>>38856994
huh. i dont remember the thread the IA debuted. have we ever been given a rundown of it other then the .pdf? im mostly confused by the circle in the middle, and the ring around it.

>>38857091
>My Bane Warriors are not God Knights, merely warriors afflicted with Gigantism, and I would thank you not to speak so lightly of their condition.
>Shadow Beasts? Oh no no, those are our newest guard dogs!
>Mr Lairos has been so kind as to lend us his invaluable aid in ensuring that the Mage Guard aren't left behind in our neverending arms race with dangerous magi. I assure you that any claims of 'unethical experiments' on his part are baseless slander.

>>38856994
If i remember right, the build-up was kinda confusing but I think you made a post laying all the options on the table and It became clearer.

I really like playing at a territorially level rather then a personal level sometimes, i know we 'kinda' tried that in the Shropham Conquest but I think people looked at it at more of a "well we have to kill them all anyways mindset" instead of looking at it like a "if we could flank them properly they might surrender" mindset. I just think that kind of combat encourages a bit more strategy and I think it's a nice break from Talon just shoving his sword up everyone's ass.

>>38856273
>>38856305
Hey Aspie, just chiming in now. I've been a mixed lurker/roller since the PoP dive as Finn, and I just wanted to say that despite agreeing that you've had a tense tone (that Irlin vs. Sylvian thread really got to you, eh?) I really do still enjoy the quest, I recognize that its gotten hard to do, and man do I appreciate it.
Now then: it's aspiring EMPEROR quest, isn't it? I feel like if we follow 4 we'll naturally have to deal with 3>2>1, and if you need to railroad us a bit to make it work, I'll accept that. I've always liked the idea that talon's only been sneaking along the edge of bigger forces, and we will totally have to deal with them as they emerge.

>>38857331
>I really do still enjoy the quest, I recognize that its gotten hard to do, and man do I appreciate it.
Ten thousand times this. It's been a blast, and sometimes I'm not sure we've made that clear to you. Thank you.

>>38856994
I think some of my memories of this get mixed with the 'pick a partner' thing regarding the major partners. I remember a lot of people complaining about the build-up.

The bad always tends to stick around in your head more then the good. You have a bad tendency to beat yourself up over things that didn't end or go as badly as you thought. Sometimes were just bone headed too.

>I'm hoping that if I do a timeskip and have some political changes take place while TYE recovers from the demons I can shift the focus to a grander scale.

That sounds ideal. Not like we need to know about every single thing going on anyway. More backroom deals that spring surprises on us would be fun. People bitching about our spy network not picking it up be damned.

>>38857384
Absolutely this, I love the fuck out of this quest and I don't think I've ever really thanked you formally for it Aspire. So sincerely thank you for running this awesome quest and putting up with our bullshit.

>>38857384
Right? Thanks for agreeing, I really don't feel like I'm thanking him enough for livening up my weekend. Other quests I don't feel bad missing a thread or two, but AEQ you can sit down with a nice meal and beer and really take it in for a few hours and enjoy.

>>38857282
>I really like playing at a territorially level rather then a personal level sometimes, i know we 'kinda' tried that in the Shropham Conquest

I think the blitz plan worked all the way up until the point the Guard became an issue. The promises made to Alyce and not wanted Shropham to be a pile of rubble really bent our decisions into, fuck it end this quickly.

IIRC the blitz plan also involved us scooping up the southern provinces and forcing Devon to roll over with a split force led by Arail. And then putting the pressure on Shropham proper and pretty much daring them to strike out at us.

>>38857494
>but AEQ you can sit down with a nice meal and beer and really take it in for a few hours and enjoy.

My weekly ritual has become chinese, a bottle of wine, and AEQ. Throws me off when Aspir doesn't run. It's like reading a good book.

>>38856305
>>3. Humans v Non-humans
Honestly, one of the best ways I can think of to handle this involves the templars. The Lords originally founded the order, and with their sudden inability to create more godknights, perhaps they believe it is time for a revival. A new order, more carefully indoctrinated and standing for everything the original order came to hate. You basically create a Saerg tier anti-Talon as well as having a unit of elites you can set against us whenever things look too easy.

>>38857384
>>38857434
>>38857494
Not sure about anyone else, but I like to go back and read through past threads sometimes.
I honestly feel that this quest deserves a game adaptation, like some weird cross between Total War, Crusader Kings and a Visual Novel.

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>>38857331
>that Irlin vs. Sylvian thread really got to you, eh?
I think it was more the timing. I lost a lot of my drive leading up to the one month break where it felt like most players stopped caring. Where it felt that only a few players were, well, playing. Coming back from the break (which wasn't much of a break as I spent days on what I did of the lore doco) and hitting that thread just made it a microcosm of my problems with the quest. The plus side is that it made me realise why I'm actually running - I just need to handle general mental exhaustion (I've been shifting around a few things in my life over February and into March).

I don't have a general problem with the playerbase, even if I do seem bitter about it. It's more that what I'm running and why I'm running is all about the most involved players, because the quest is involved. I do enjoy running it and my main problem recently is that I feel a constant need to second-guess what I'm doing or have to do big rewrites (like with that Gnome thing last thread).

>>38857600
I'm about to reread through the threads again now that all my classes decided to finally stop shoving tests down my throat

>>38857600
>game adaption
>imagining the majesty of coming out of the mountains on the canal into the lower districts of Harrowmont and seeing the Crown Wall, Imperial Academy, and castle proper in all their glory
>walking through the streets of Ahm attempting to figure out what are magical parlor tricks and what is reality
>Becoming a Knight and aspiring to be in the Imperial Order
>being a mage on the Patterns Project
>facing down hordes of demons with a god-king leading you into the battle of your life

I'd pay all the money

>>38857384
Yeah man this is true. Thanks again

>>38857600
>I honestly feel that this quest deserves a game adaptation
I said the same thing.

Just popping in to say, I'm glad you aren't quitting. When you tweeted about this thread I really thought you were going to tell us that you just weren't feeling it anymore and I was so sad. So... Thanks for putting up with us still man.

>>38857625
>I don't have a general problem with the playerbase, even if I do seem bitter about it.
Never crossed my mind. We know you love us, why else would you continue this gargantuan project? When I was new I shut the hell up and didn't post for a few threads until i got my bearings and read the docs, and I think other worthwhile new players will do the same, because AEQ is just that shiny and cool.
>>38857712
>the majesty of Harrowmont
would fund/10

>>38857884

You know I think that's the best advice you can give a new player to the quest. Lurk more. Reading the archives gives you a great basis for the quest, but player opinion, direction, and plans play a healthy part in the the quest. Learning how the rest of us jackasses work is just as important. Even if we change opinions at the drop of the hat, i.e. vampires. All it takes is one cool moment.

>the majesty of Harrowmont
One of my biggest regrets is that I was scheduled to take a CAD course earlier this year and I was determined to get good enough to make a rendering of Harrowmont, but then my computer caught fire and I didn't have a replacement laptop in order to take the class.

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>Where to from here

So that’s the gist of all of it. The question is, what to do about it?

I don’t think I’m going to continue as is. From reading this thread, and typing out my own responses, I think a change is needed. Not retcons, but a shift of the future focus of the quest and how to handle things.

My current idea is to timeskip a few years. This would be fluffed as a sort of recovery period, due to the invasion by the demons and just general management of the sheer size of the empire. At the same time, the political situation across the continent would change as the fallout from the York Empire forming as quickly and as powerfully as it has sinks in.

Post-timeskip would be where I would then try to shift the focus to whatever overall theme(s) I choose. Right now the interest seems to be in 2 and 3 from >>38856273 and >>38856305, with 1 lurking in the background.

The overall point is to manage the immense power of the empire by moving onto the comparably powerful enemies, with the political issues and other nations being an addition to the quest rather than the focus. I’ll need to rework my notes and decide how I’m going to do it, particularly as I will use the timeskip as a chance to cement longer projects such as pattern research, the foxes and the elves.

>continued

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>>38858080
An example might be the Guard being handled like Termina was, with you controlling your intervention into the civil war alongside Sylvian. Key changes of any timeskip would be the League changes and Alyce acting differently now, plus the powerful southern sorcerors in general. As the focus isn’t on Ember or Raphael, I’ll need to determine how they’ll fit in on the side but maintain the focus on the more direct enemies. Another big part will be more internal empire management and politics – internal management needs to be more than just the numbers threads and empire sheet after all.

Another thing I want to talk about in a little bit is the military, which will again look at my notes and setting ‘history’. Until then, I’m interested in feedback and ideas on how to go forward. Particular ideas, factions and characters that are of interest. How interested people are in a continuation of the demon ‘world event’ (for reference, they were going to invade some other areas simultaneously and so the event was supposed to continue with you rallying your forces to aid an ally, which then leads into the Raphael thing that’s lurking about). That sort of thing.

>feedback on how to proceed with the quest is welcome. Do people want to do the timeskip? Do people still want a focused Mage Guard conquest, which would mean I'd need to twist what's happenign there a lot (I can do it if people are interested)?

>>38858105
Could we do a series of minor timeskips?
Like, timeskip 4-6 months, decide what to do the next 4-6 months, then repeat until the three years are over?

>>38858105
I think the Guard should be handled more like Termina was, but with out presence at a few key battles. Essentially, we're usually pinned in Harrowmount due to the fact that demons could try again if we pull all our heroes out, but us appearing for a few key battles.
After all, one of the downsides to talon staying back is that it stunts his personal power growth, which can cause problems.

>>38858105
In my opinion:
>finish this timeskip while including
>demon crusade
>islands
>then do a numbers thread to set up for the next 3-4 years, start new projects, and solidify direction
>second timeskip
>include politics involving locals, i.e. Gespad, homefront issues, racial integration and racism, etc.
>continue on with new direction and radically different world, if this includes the Mage Guard sure, but it doesn't need to be the need to do it has been

But for real I want to go on a demon crusade, attack MY city will you. I think mixing up the few things we've been planning to do and giving you time to plan out how you want the world to differ should help give us new focus and clearer direction on both sides.

>>38858182
>Like, timeskip 4-6 months, decide what to do the next 4-6 months, then repeat until the three years are over?
That sounds like a pain.

>>38858080
>>38858105
Supporting Minor timeskips of >>38858182
I'd like to have a hand in our r&d and politics, maybe you could throw a wrench or two our way if you like? I wouldnt mind one thread dealing with timeskip mangement as a way of sinking into neo-AEQ

>>38858267
We can't take the demons, not right now. the dude we fought was minor stuff. infernals are Lord Teir opponents.

>>38858270

Agreed. Our tech progression and projects span way longer then that give timeframe. The way Aspirational is doing timeskips now works. It gives us the basics with a numbers thread, then events during it correlating to direction given.

>>38858105
I think a timeskip would work well in letting you change the quest how you need to change it.
As far as the demon event goes, i can live without it, the siege was a nice break from the "monotony" of normal events, but if you'd think that it would make the overall story better i'm all for it.
Also would it be possible to give us some more minor timeskips/timelines; just like a year forward, tell us what's been going on, let us make some decision on things like research and resource management, then timeskip to next point?

>>38858328
>How interested people are in a continuation of the demon ‘world event’ (for reference, they were going to invade some other areas simultaneously and so the event was supposed to continue with you rallying your forces to aid an ally, which then leads into the Raphael thing that’s lurking about).

If we couldn't why wouldn't the option be present?

>>38858337

Is that basically how he's been doing it with this timeskip? And we don't need multiple numbers thread every other thread.

I'm not seeing where people are getting this tiny jump idea. We do that already, just significantly less difficult on Aspir's side.

>>38858353
Because you seem to be talking about counter attacking the demons, which we lack the capacity to do.

>>38858407
Well, when I suggested that idea I meant more a minor timeskip between each post rather than between each thread, though I'm not sure if that would be too much work or not.

>>38858465
I mean if we rally a large portion of troops from across our territory and garrisons, and possibly enlisted some allies/other countries affected by the demons to help us, i don't see why we couldn't. It would be tough and we would be crippled for a while to repair and rebuild, but i think we could do it.Guess it all comes down to how big the demon force actually is.

>>38855576
dude I join this quest like two weeks ago you want to know how I got up to date I read the archive that is all people have to do

>>38858407

Yeah but I wasn't, misunderstanding on the use of crusade. I mostly wanted to purge them from the mortal realm, the continuation of the event allows that, and damn it if it wouldn't be cool to be the saving grace of an ally. Put some real fear into the Infernals. And kill the rest of our Noble Knights. ;_;

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>>38858331
I'll probably do something like this. A single numbers thread regarding development over the three to five year timeskip, plus a thread or two of content that takes place during it.

>>38858353
That option is about helping the dwarves when the demons attack them (and Sortaine) - there's a reason why I said not to worry about Sithran when I initially planned to do the whole event. Some other things are in Sithran that would be covered at the same time, though one of them is massively complicating (and the real reason I cut it back to a simple siege).

>>38858524
Well, there are two or three beings about on par with the Lords or Rapheal. There are probably at least a dozen beings at great knight level or greater. Demon Lords are as capable as a Great Knight Candidate, and most Devils are at Grand Magister/Combat Magister tier. Noble demons are probably at the level of godknights. Greater demons are spellblade quality opponents, and common demons are the near equal of Noble Knights.

>>38858105
>continuation of the demon 'world event'
I dunno aspie, i think that might be more business as usual. What would we even do with them? liberate other nearby nations? You know we'd just take that as an excuse to send occupation forces. I think skip to timeskips is a cleaner transition: TYE took a hit that delayed its conquest abilities, everyone knows it, so the timeskip is the calm before the storms

>>38858573
>And kill the rest of our Noble Knights. ;_;
I'm more worried about our LMK.

>>38858582
>That option is about helping the dwarves when the demons attack them (and Sortaine)

That could be fun. It would be entirely different, though I imagine actually laying out the dwarven city would be a bitch. We'd have to use a vastly different mixture in our army as well. I wonder how Dwarves feel about Nightwalkers...

>>38858573
>And kill the rest of our Noble Knights. ;_;
Those guys deserve manors or something.
Seriously, they should all be elites by now or something.

>>38858803
I had an idea that we had some assorted Orders that almost got wiped out and the remnants banded together in a new order with focus on being elite demon killing badasses. Then I remembered we don't have any other Orders in Harrowmont and only the Bears and Stones were there from Vitria, and I was sad.

But for real, give those guys something.

>>38858937
At least a symbolic order.

>>38858937
actually, a bunch of misic orders from vitria were there.

>>38858937
We could look into getting Basette armour for their higher-ranked knights.
And invent medals just so we can give them some.

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>Military

So the way military is handled in the quest is getting a bit troublesome. This should have been apparent in the siege, where only certain units really mattered. A fair bit of this is also in determining where units are deployed – a quest simply can’t handle detailed deployment, particularly on a large scale. So I’m looking at thinning the numbers a bit under the guise of ‘modernisation’. To give an idea of what that means, I’ll explain a bit about how I saw combat in the setting in the ‘current’ period (1990sPC).

When the world devolves into a mass of squabbling nation-states without the concentrated industrial or R&D power of either the League, RSK or Guard as they currently stand (and no real military focus) then there’s less developments that take place on the military side relative to what took place leading up to the quest. In short, mage-knight technology becomes more refined and battlefields shrink even as the general ability of fighters increases. That same technology also becomes more expensive.

When I was thinking of running a different quest in the modern period of the setting (about being a mercenary commander) the army could be divided up into a few pieces: the core (ground mage-knights, elite soldiers with magical weapons); the support (a reasonable number of soldier/MAA that can patrol, build earthworks etc); the ‘cavalry’ (flying mage-knights, basically); the elites (NMKs, HMKs and LMKs); the archers (supported by some mages to enhance their arrows); the mages (ritual casting, so they act as siege weapons). The main army is then supported by the hero units.

>continued

>>38858937
>>38858961
>>38858964
Orders are a big deal guys.
Although >>38859023 has it right with medals. I think we should have medals made up and maybe like a big ass festival and stature made for all who fought and died during the invasion.

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>>38859097
The basic idea is that anything less than a mage-knight (or an elite soldier who is well-equipped, like the Tallorn) is useless on the battlefield. Even the core of mage-knights isn’t that useful, given the enemy has their own. This was the reason the siege was based around an overall strategy, with the deployment of the ‘elite’ units being so important. I was testing this out – I’m considering just cutting out any unit from the professional military short of a mage-knight for all factions. This has already happened for TYE, for the most part.

Another part of this modernisation would be to start cutting down on the variations of the same units that aren’t different enough. This would also let me start bulking up some of the elite units so they become more valuable. I would also probably start cutting down on the veterancy thing, and instead delineate them by unit types (e.g. HMKs and NMKs might as well be equal, with their experience and fluff being the main difference).

>Thoughts on the military side?

>>38859023
>And invent medals just so we can give them some.

I think that sounds like a fun bit of fluff. Though we definitely should do some promoting, Phrace, Illon, & Moss could all probably become Generals now, we do need some more.

>>38858961
Nothing brings people together quite like a horde of demons.

>>38859121
Cutting out regular Archers and Men At Arms for anthing other than militia work and the like seems like the way to go about thing. As things stand now they are only good for getting killed and bleeding.

>>38859097
>about being a mercenary commander
We would have ended up here anyways good thing you skipped it and went right to trying to be an emperor. heh

>>38859121
I think that has some merit. After all, every archer and men at arms in garrison will be reequipped with MMK and AA gear by the end of the timeskip, and as a practical matter, most of the other factions will be doing the same. One of the worries I have with this is how the removal of experience ties in with our knightly orders. I like the griffon knights, and it would be sad if they lost all distinguishing characteristics in the quest for simplicity.

>>38855576
I'm late, but
>I'm not sure it's possible to make a quest of this scale without making it hard for casuals to get involved. There's a few things I could do to make it easier to keep up-to-date but I simply don't have the time or drive.
Don't worry about that. It's not your responsibility and you sure as hell aren't obligated to make things "easier". It isn't hard for people to get involved anyway. As long as they aren't illiterate, they can do what I (who just got involved a couple weeks ago) and plenty of other people did - read.

>>38859121
I agree with >>38859201
I've never really understood then need for Men at arms or archers currently. When the bulk of armies are guys in medieval power armor designed to fight other guys in medieval power armor they only become cannon fodder.

>>38859121
As far as I was concerned Archers and MAA were dead and gone anyway. HMAA should probably as well, instead being bunched in with MMK as best we can.

As for anything else, I like the system as is. And really I don't see the need to worry about this, your Battle Sim works fine as is. It's just that we met an army that messed with it, where more "mostly a fluff unit" was in the side bar then actual crunch. Military conflict will usually always focus around the deployment of Elite/special units, and while this may eventually lead to the demise of the standing on opposite sides of the field with a mass of MMK, at present it isn't as possible. The looming threats to the north, magical renaissance, and general political states dictate more of a build your army big stance. It's a product of the times and how the setting has now deviated.

Of all things you do, this is not one to second guess. The military is aces in my book, just evolving differently.

>>38859201
Archers are still needed to be listed, as there are only archers and AA, with AAs being still new in the world.

>>38859293
He has a point. Although I was here since thread 2, I've read up on plenty of quests, some longer than yours, and joined in.

>>38859330
>>38859201
Arcane Archers are the only alternative to archers. They are TYE's trump card and were decisive in various battles, IIRC. No one else has an AAs, so cutting regular archers off feels weird.

>>38859358
>>38859400
Figured that when our Siege Archers hit the shelves there would be a stronger line between Archers and Archers who are just a tiny bit more enchanted.

>>38859121
I do worry about losing the experience. That scene when fighting the anti magic spears and one order of knights saw their weapons lost magic and just fucking chucked em to the side and smashed their enemy in the face with their fists and grappled them to the ground was one of my favorite scenes so far.

>>38859400
AA archers are good no doubt about that but its already been mentioned that other powers are looking into making their own. So its reasonable to say that soon they will be mainstay in other armies. But as it sits, I think their only use is for taking out men at arms.

>>38859347
Putting in a vote of support for this >>38859347
I'm okay with how the military has operated and I feel like the buildup of numbers is just as important for maintaining the grand scale of the quest as it is for in-quest reasons

I think the intention is that over the timeskip(s) other nations will have developed AAs that are similar, yet inferior or structured differently to TYE's. 10 years is plenty of time to learn your neighbours designs, or steal them. That the the League has them now and might end up off their own version at some point. If the world is developing with ground troops you can be damned sure people are going to look t the guy making a small empire in 3 years with magic arrows and say, "HEy yeah we should do that too."

AAs were our early going trump cards, magical development is not going to allow us to maintain it.

>>38859463
Iirc our AAs are reasonably effective against MMKs and presumably moreso against LMKs, but useless against HMKs and God Knights, which is why we're getting the Siege Archers.

>>38859121
>(e.g. HMKs and NMKs might as well be equal, with their experience and fluff being the main difference).
That and unit size. HMK actually take NMK at 2 to 1 odds

>>38859603
A better example would be MMK vs Dwarven warriors. Seriously, why bother to differentiate between the two?

Is there a difference between FMK and LMK other than the first being able to fly? Maybe we could mix them as a single unit, though that would mean Talon gave the AA design to Alycia for free.

>>38859657
Racism, anon. Because racism.

Now take your plotline 3 and enjoy your diversified army that properly represents the minorities, you MMK scum.

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>>38859279
Important orders would still be tracked separately but I'd probably shift noble knights onto a different track. If you read that pastebin I tweeted a while back about knights, I had a bunch of different tiers of them using the Knights of Basette as a base. I would simply formalise those tiers and use them as a 'base' for any unit - the empire's size and decisions made would determine how many of each tier was supported at any one time.

Although people are happy as-is, so I won't shake things up much, I do want to do away with veterancy as it currently stands because it's not easy to track and can be pretty arbitrary. Another method would be to extend the current approach to knightly orders to all elite units. I'm not really sure.

At the very least, I want to develop a grouping system for military units across races and factions.

>>38859400
You did sell them to Alyce. In any case, general archers would remain but you'll probably start seeing them supported directly by mages (e.g. mages casting magic on the arrows as the archers are firing).

>>38859709
LMKs have melee weapons intended for armour piercing and run really fast. FMKs can shoot explosive spells and fly.

>>38859709
They are very different tactically. FMK are bombardment units, LMK do charges.
>>38859743
But literally the only difference is trading a bit of moral for DQ! I swear its easier this way judge!

>>38859709
FMKs are flying ranged skirmishers that are probably worse than MMKs in melee (at least, I can't think of any reason for them to be *better* than MMKs, but eh).
LMKs are fast shock cavalry that cannot take prolonged combat but wreck face on the charge.

Well Aspirational, I'd just like to say I do still very much enjoy your quest. Even with the hiccups you've had along the way, it's easily been one of the better quests /tg/ has seen in a long, long time, and I'm still very much entertained by and look forward to every thread.

I actually kind of wish you hadn't brought this up. While it could use some streamlining, I don't think it needs changed in any major way and might in the end cause confusion with the changes. Elite units have a tendency to shift a battle, our DracoGriffs vs. whatever crazy demon. But the bulk is still made up of mooks. The way you write leans on elite units being utilized in specific ways, while the bulk of an army that includes mundane HMK or otherwise deals with the crunch of the actual battle. Deviating from that formula seems foolish to me when it has worked since day one.

>>38859780
>But literally the only difference is trading a bit of moral for DQ!
What does DQ actually stand for?

>>38859772

Developing a tier list for Elite Units that is more of a "veterancy" bend and doing away with for the bulk of the army is likely the best way to go about it. That should streamline things to a solid usable point that still maintains the good system you have while being able to utilize the Elite Units in combat fluff as you have been.

>>38859772
>At the very least, I want to develop a grouping system for military units across races and factions.
Collapse Elven Soldiers, MMK and Dwarven Warriors into a single unit. There isn't enough difference and the Elves are starting to use MMK anyway, and the dwarves might not be far behind.
Grunt Elven rangers are AA, elites are in the same category as our elite rangers.
Split Seraphi nobles into elite Knights, archers and mages (maybe have them narratively swap between the statblocks?)
Demons count either as some sort of MMK/HMK, Elite knights (greater demons), or God Knights (Noble demons).
Combat magisters, Fluffy elite dragons and similar units are combined, their abilities are narrative anyway.
>Another method would be to extend the current approach to knightly orders to all elite units. I'm not really sure.
I'd recommend extending it to mages, and folding in Lefir and such under the system. They are probably the other unit that really varies in capability.

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>>38859819
Damage Quotient. Just a rough way of working out how much damage an individual unit does relative to their unit size.

>>38859815
This seems to be the general opinion. I do want to streamline the way veterancy works simply from a paperwork perspective, however. I'll try not to touch the way battles are handled otherwise as people seem generally happy.

>>38860009
Random question: but for every Arlquin who can go toe to toe with great knights (or the candidates, not sure how good he really was), around how many knights are capable of fighting a god-knight? I was thinking on how there isn't much on this side of the continent that can really threaten Talon and Co.

So I imagine this would effect the idea of using Talon's dominion powers to "level" his troops huh? Not that I'm complaining that sounded like it would be trouble on your end then it would end up being worth in the end. Having to find a quantifiable amount of experience to gain that directly correlates to the amount of trainees and amount of power that Talon has stored up for said session sounds like a pain.

>captcha: urhot
Thanks captcha

>>38853360
>>38853387
As far as weaker opponents go, i can see two options
1. skip their plot
just do a timeskip to "you won easily because you have super elves and taira and stuff". And go straight to the the next enemy that is a threat (ember)
2. split our forces.
The lords are attacking the elves, or ember, or the devils, or fae, or shadowbeasts, or something that makes us unable to fully focus on the guard. Hence allowing you to use the original plot since talon can't bring his heavy hitters to bear against them.

>>38854076
>This is something I'm considering, but I wonder how to handle it given ninety percent of all meta-problems with the quest have been due to anything approaching diplomacy or politics. It's also radically different to most everything else in the quest.
yea, diplomacy goes very poorly

>>38859772
>Another method would be to extend the current approach to knightly orders to all elite units. I'm not really sure.
I think you should ask yourself "Will this elite unit vary in quality enough for this to be worth it?"
For mass produced stuff like LMK, HMK and FMK, the answer is probably going to be no.
The other option is to formalize the Knight/Spellblade divide of durable anti elite vs fragile anti army, split it into 3 main tiers (Noble Knight, Rune Knight, God Knight effectively), and put virtually every elite unit into one of those categories.

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Okay, so that does it for things I wanted to bring up. Feel free to bring up any general questions or ideas now. One thing people should think about is the general structure and direction of the empire, as I agree with a few anons that there needs to be more politics in the quest.

>>38860179
Arquin would be around the level of an elite god-knight at best (the fancy guys that showed up with Garynth at the end of the flashback). Volante would have defeated Arquin, for what it's worth.

As for knights able to go toe-to-toe with a GK? Extremely few. The RSK would have a few, given their nobles have powerful magic. The League would have some who talented enough, too. It's safe to say that there are Masters and Grandmasters who are capable of matching Arquin - and there would be a few magical warriors spread around who are very dangerous, too.

Basically, the League and Darvui have enough to threaten Talon and Co. The RSK doesn't post-fracturing and neither do the Guard.

>>38855035
>irregular thread schedule
the thread schedule is very regular, there is the occasional deviation, but its uncommon

>If you have to read the gdocs and pastebins and trawl though multiple previous threads for details you don't remember, while crossreferencing your own cheat sheet of characters in order to vote for a good course of action, eh. It's certainly not as fun as it used to be.

I am going to have to strongly disagree here. It is more fun then ever, and you don't have to trawl the gdocs, they are there for those who want them, and can easily be searched for relevant info.

In fact the gdocs make this one of the most friendly quests around, because you can easily use them as a cheat sheet for info you forgot. Most quests do not have it and require you to remember or reread the entire quest.

>>38860489
Im not opposed to politics its just a tough thing to deal with but I did like when our cabinet all weighed about what and why they thought we should go one way or another.

>>38860489
Well that went well then.

Are you feeling better about things? Bit more direction?

>>38860489
So what's the plan for the next few threads? I know you want to do the one shot, and so does everyone else, after that? Islands? Demon continuation? Straight to end of timeskip, numbers thread, then not timeskip?

Also, I still think you should take a week off if able. Sounds like your job has you bent over the take recently.

>>38858234
The heroes can be teleported from the guard all the way back to harrowmont.

>>38860489
In the TL:DR version, I think Talon long term (like centuries here, he has time) wants an increasing number of the nobility to be ac complied warriors, generals, mages and statesman rather than those who inherited power. In the short term, that means formalizing the nobility with large numbers of knights, mages accomplished civil servants and generals with life titles (or maybe branch titles w/e), while respecting the current titles of the nobility. Long term, as noble families die off or get convicted of crimes sufficient to abolish the title (IE treason), we simply do not create new titles, slowly changing the color of the nobility to be more and more merit based.

>>38860766
>The heroes can be teleported from the guard all the way back to harrowmont.
That requires tieing up a lot of powerful foxes anon.

>>38860489
Hey Aspirational, so you've been grilling us on the direction we want to see things go and what we love recently but what about you?

What's been your favorite parts to write? You've given us a vague, "I have wide and varying tastes," before but I imagine there have been sections you enjoy the most and would like to do more of. Because if that's the case I'm sure we could come up with ways to steer things towards those every once and awhile with actual goals in mind.

>>38860792
which is better than having all the hero units, foxes included, sit in harrowmont in fear of another demon incursion.
the hero units can still go out there and do stuff, within a certain range so that they can teleport back to aid

>>38860860
these are important questions

>>38860489
>Basically, the League and Darvui have enough to threaten Talon and Co. The RSK doesn't post-fracturing and neither do the Guard.
I see. They are presumably aware of this though. I wonder what they will do?

>>38860860
This, it's no fun if you arnt getting to enjoy it every now and again aspire

>>38860860
I wonder this as well.

Its funny that we are the ones who prevented the league from fracturing.
It was one of the issues I had with rushing to make the alliance with alyce, if we had just sat tight for a few years without expanding or making waves we could have let both the RSK and the league fracture on schedule, it was obvious that our growth will interrupt that, especially when alice wanted to have us attack shropham which makes us a boogyman that prevents further fracturing (this is why albanon didn't get kicked out)

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>>38860610
It feels like I've got support to switch things up a bit so I guess we'll see how it goes.

>>38860698
>So what's the plan for the next few threads?
I don't know yet. I'm taking next week off outright and working on my notes. I'll do the one-shot the week after (currently it will be the peasant one-shot, though there are a few other possibilities floating around - I want to avoid an action one, however).

The first normal thread back will pick up right after where the last thread dropped off, as there's a bit to do there. I'm currently leaning towards skipping the islands for now and having a colony set-up off-screen, simply because it would be a distraction from trying to renew focus in the quest. I'll probably spend a thread or two doing the timeskip.

>>38860860
The only type of thread I find frustrating are the numbers threads, if only because of all the wrangling and work I have to do. They can be a bit stressful as they can involve doing a lot of organising and number-crunching while also weighing up a bunch of write-ins and trying to narrow down broad wishes to a vote.

The part of the quest I enjoy the most are the world-building parts. Scenes like exploring the Last Retreat; a lot of the scenes in Terrnaine (like the memorial for the Templars). Scenic scenes are nice in their own way, though they tend not to work well with a good narrative.

I try to gloss over scenes that I feel are plodding and boring now. That's why I skipped so much of the ambush stuff in the terraces. On the other hand, some scenes are very visual and striking for me and I enjoy writing them - the duel with Volante; meeting Raphael for the first time; the 'crazy' scenes when looking for the revenant in Farun; the battle scene in the flashback at the shrine. It tends to be more the content of the scene than the type of scene, I suppose.

>>38860999
Dunno, Mercs from Pharos? I'm sure the East wind trading company could hook them up with a few...

>>38861291
I doubt Pharosian mercs would be very tough, the Empress probably keeps the best fighters for herself.

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>>38860698
>Sounds like your job has you bent over the take recently.
Forgot to address this. Work this year is going to be busier than last year, as I moved areas. Not much I can do about it. We're in our 'off-period' now, but that only lasts about seven weeks (then it's six weeks on, again). The problem is that the area has been a trainwreck for the past couple of years so even our slow period is busy.

I may end up having to take a week or two off from AEQ each quarter as things get busy, but I also hope things get easier as I get in the swing of things.

>worldbuilding scenes
I also didn't mention that the other problem with doing these is that player participation tends to bottom out during them.

>>38861178
>The first normal thread back will pick up right after where the last thread dropped off, as there's a bit to do there. I'm currently leaning towards skipping the islands for now and having a colony set-up off-screen, simply because it would be a distraction from trying to renew focus in the quest. I'll probably spend a thread or two doing the timeskip.
Feel free to gloss over the numbers from this timeskip. We probably won't be building any factories (except like 1 for the Siege archers) and we're about at the number of troops our military can sustain, so we'll spend the time reequipping our garrison and outfitting the elves out of our existing production, which can be basically automated. Just offer us an option to purchase LMK from the league.

>>38861382
If you gotta take time off from quest for work, then do it.

>>38861178
>currently it will be the peasant one-shot, though there are a few other possibilities floating around - I want to avoid an action one, however
Maybe Aspiring Rebel Quest?

>>38861178

So more scenes with visual resonance, got it. I think that can be combined well with certain other actions, and your examples she that quite well.

As of recently I think some of your best with came out of the infernal incursion. The strike team into the demon siege engine was so much fun, as we've all gushed over before, the fluff was great. Demons getting destroyed by soulless monsters, foxes seeing some new shit, Talon/Felix combo, even the initial jump into it felt great.

That and the descriptions of Harrowmont before/during/after the siege really drove home how much this affected. Man it hurt to see the canal district in ruins, to know we gave up a wall. Everything felt important, like we let someone down by letting them get this far.

But yeah, more scenes like that sounds great. Raphael unfolding his wings still sticks in my head. See what we can do to put you in those positions.

>>38861362
Its a big damn continent Anon, bigger than Garuon.

>>38861742
And Iirc has less population.

>>38861178
No action sounds great. Actually for "scenic scenes" the PC coming to Harrowmont after the siege should be great. Seen from the eyes of someone who only knows stories of majesty. Man that'll be painful.

>>38861791
More like half again as much IIRC

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>>38861742
>>38861791
>>38861837

PHAROS:
4.2m sq miles land mass.
Population of 800m.
40m urban population.
155 cities, population of 10m.
15000 towns, population of 30m.

Compared to Gauron at:
1.76m sq miles land mass.
Population of 300m.
60m urban population.
84 cities, population of 20m.
5000 towns, population of 40m.

>>38862026
So basically, yes, yes there are probably are a few mercs capable of threatening us in Pharos.

>>38862026
are we looking at these numbers for gauron's size counting shadowbeast occupied northern gauron or just livable gauron

>>38862026
>800m
>300m
Kushan's rotten balls that's significant.
Though I guess they don't have MK tech, or Gods.

>>38862094
Their agriculture also seems to be significantly inferior.

>>38862153
Point, it doesn't matter how many farmers they have, but how many craftsmen, merchants and soldiers those farmers can support.

>>38862094
Yeah looks to me like Gauron is way more industrialized and urbanized, although how much that can be chalked up to refugees swelling urban populations i couldn't say.
Looks like its gonna be a bit of a headache when we bulldoze our way through pharos to the empress.

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>>38862079
Liveable Gauron, which covers around 60% of its landmass.

>>38862094
Pharos has a higher population density, but it's poorer and more rural. They have a lot less arable land and even then tend to cluster in the even smaller amount of land that is suitable for growing rice (except for those that live in the parts of the continent where they can't grow it as easily, like the south-west).

I need to revisit the statistics, as I did a lot of research into the productivity of rice after creating these figures, but around 40% of the continent is arable but only 15% is suitable for rice (including terrace farms). The rice is fantastically productive relative to the land occupied, even without magic everywhere like in Gauron, but it requires enormous amounts of labour and thus results in smaller urbanisation.

The flip side is that the higher population means they'll have a greater number of people to draw their 'heroes' from, so don't underestimate their power. Pharos is tremendously powerful.

>>38862267
AEQ is the best quest on TG bar none

>>38863716
Banished quest and Homeless mutant quest are pretty damned good too. I mean, i love this quest to death, but if i had to pick one of the three to kill off, id probably end up having to flip a coin for it. And id cry afterwards. Like a wee babby.

>>38863716
>TG

>>38853387
Just got here. Personally for me I say I like how it is powerwise. I would just kick up the foes or make it more likely to get in a situation where Talon can't use everyone at once.

Pacing wise though I think it has tended to meander a bit. It's not really a bad thing as long as it's possible to get people to agree to do one or two things at a time. It's more if one or two people each want to do four or five things.

>>38856273
>>38856305

Personally I feel that 1/2 Works really good. 3 is decent but that feels more like something that should be a side plot that happens while dealing with the big issues.

Mostly because Talon's empire has hit a large growth spurt. So anyone who has dreams of doing something vital or the likes will obviously want to get rid of the upstart who is risking the status Que they can break. With the Infernal invasion repelled I would imagine a lot of interest will be gathered from divine powers. Add in mage interest and I think 1/2 would be the most likely in a way.

Personally I think the key thing is to build situations where Talon can't always rely on his retinue and build up the scaling a bit so that the larger foes start to make things more troublesome.

>>38853351

Hello Aspie. As this is the first time I'm addressing you directly, I wish to start by thanking you. Truly, you've build something wonderful.

I've been following this quest since part II, and have enjoyed every bit of it during the past years. In fact, I haven't seen any QM to put as much effort and commitment to the quest as you have, something of which I am extremely grateful about.

Not only because it has been a constant source of joy during my travels where I am pretty much constrained by hotels, meetings and airports - but also because your dedication has build a deep and vibrant world that keeps drawing me back to lore docs.

So thank you, truly. If nothing else, you've given one person tremendous amount of joy in his otherwise grey and stressful corporate life.

>>38856273

As for the future direction, here's me two 'cents.

Firstly, I agree with the fellow anons here that the combination of 1 & 2, with a dash of 3 is the way to go as the more long term plan. However, I am personally also interested in seeing more of pandemonium and shadowbeasts, as the fluff behind them is intriguing.

As for how to go with it concretely, here's how I would propose it:

1) Do time-skips that encompass some of the smaller solidification actions, with couple of content posts per each action to give some background to it.

2) Handle the research and leveling during that same set of timeskips, with limitations to what we can do (choosing x, y prevents you from choosing A & B, but you can then still choose between z & C). Few content posts for each of these is a good idea.

3) Tracking wise, simplifying the military stuff is a good way to go on the number side. However, when grouping say elves, dwarves and humans to HMK or similar, do give them character in the content, so that they still retain their individuality.

4) This relates also to that way how you handle combat, which is great as it is. In the content you tell about the mooks fighting and how it impacts things, but the focus is more on the deployment of the special units, yet influenced by the usage of mooks.

5) This then relates to the character bloat, which is a valid concern, thought not as bad as it is made to be. I support the anons suggestion about creating situations where we cannot use our full cast, due to having to have them delegated to other tasks as our empire grows.
5.1 This solves nicely the focus issue, as for a particular set we can focus on certain members of the cast that we choose to utilize.
5.2 This also gives nice empire handling benefits, as the choice of sending a particular character to handle a particular event will have an impact on how well it will resolve. Some content post here are good.

1/2

>>38867249

6) And to empire management. I agree with the anons who propose to up the game a bit after the timeskips, with moderate amount of political gaming similar to the Tournament scene you had, great combination of combat and politics.
6.1 I would also suggest some simplification on the number running, or have an anon help you with it, but again to remember to bring the unique aspects out in the content.
6.2 Similarly to the research part, I propose that it's more of an aggravated choice between options that larger implications, with some details thrown in the content for the smaller things.

>>38867262

And finally, I recommend

1) Take the time you need to organize yourself, if your notes are the ones that help you the most.

2) Take your time. If you need to have few weeks of break per each quarter, do it. We'll be waiting eagerly as ever!

3) Delegate. There are anons who wish to help you, so if there is stuff we can help you flesh out (like Harrowmont) please use us.

And finally, while I truly appreciate your commitment to the quality you wish to produce, I feel that you are too strict on yourself about it. Be more forgiving to yourself.

You are doing fantastic work and deliver joy to countless people. Don't lose the sight of that when criticizing yourself.

Hope this helps, and again, thanks for everything.

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>>38867039
>grey and stressful corporate life
I can definitely understand that feeling. Work can be rewarding but it's always nice to escape from it.

Also, for what it's worth, I do read and appreciate all the posts in a thread, including all of these advice and response posts. If I don't respond, it's just that I don't have anything in particular to point out or say.

>>38867538
Actually I could toss my advice out a bit.

>>38870790
Personally I feel that it would be a decent idea to focus on the main characters for the major threads. Then on the slice of life go for everyone.

The slice of life scenes are useful at making Talons life more then a amorphous blob before he rushes off to conquer the next foes.

The fighting/Political dividewise I think that some arcs would do good to have a lot and some with less. A middle point does really well especially internally given how we have a Hodge podge of advisers that mutually mistrust each other.

As for the power deal. Personally there I would think the other nations will react once they realize how fast Talon has built up. So I would go full dirty tactics. Blow bridges up, Use fox children as meatshields, Rig up towns to explode.

Even if a foe is weaker then Talon's empire, in a total war situation they will not fight neatly or fairly. I've noticed in a lot of fights the foes tend to be kind of giving up after a certain point. Taour was mostly in a retreat, Shropham was just buying time, The infernal army runs away. I'd advise once or twice having a group that just goes all out dirty to try and make up for it.