Don't apologize for war.

If you are a new player in Illyriad, you have no doubt endured several attempts by the Global Chat (GC) crowd to indoctrinate you on why war in Illyriad is bad, and why new players shouldn't be allowed to play with armies or diplomats.  The peaceniks will wax on at length about the evils and terrors of Illyriad war, and admonish you about how negative it is for the game, and oh please don't make war just think about the kittens or magic bears or sparkles or whatever other insipid rubbish is getting peddled that day by the chat-gamers.

If you're an Illy "veteran", you've probably discouraged new players about war yourself. Shame on you.

So straight off for all you peaceniks: I don't apologize for war.

War in Illyriad is great. No, really. It's different from many other MMORTS games. You can't pay to win, so the playing field is largely determined by skill. It's a team environment, so you can't just be a solitary titan. The slow motion nature of battles means that strategy, map placement, preparation, and military deception are far more important than reflexes. The combat system is straightforward, but it has just enough crunch to keep things interesting for experienced wargamers, especially the way that units and terrain interact.

When Illyriad war has sucked, it was because non-combatants got involved in wars. I really, genuinely mean that in the worst way possible. There are many tournament players in Illyriad, and some of them nurse grudges for a very long time. It's entirely possible to batter down a superior opponent by applying sheer mass, but that isn't what I'm talking about. Like knights in the age of chivalry, the elite fighters in Illyriad have a code of honor about warfare. They don't zero the accounts of defeated opponents, nor do they batter defeated alliances into extinction. Surrender is offered generously to almost all opponents. In fact, historically the people who outright obliterated accounts were almost always from the ranks of the peaceniks. Curious how that worked out.

If you're reading this blog, you are probably from the ranks of SIN, its allies, or its affiliated training alliance. Many of the lessons I will teach here are reprised from my days as an instructor in Night Squires, back when it was the finest military training alliance in Illyriad. If there's one thing I want you to take away from the very first post on this blog, it is this: war in Illyriad can be an invigorating test of skill and teamwork, but only when both sides of the conflict are honorable combatants.

Planned topics will include:

• Building a military city for defense and troop production
• The importance of city specialization
• Troops vs terrain
• Upkeep vs build time (standing vs wartime armies)
• Basic siege execution
• What to do when you have incoming enemy armies
• Magical defense, including blight shields
• How to match commanders to armies
• Using crafted equipment: why and when
• Composing and deploying elite divisions
• Building specific elite commanders
• War of walls

I'm sure other topics will eventually come to mind. Until then:

Misbehave, everyone. Kill lots of stuff.

<^^^^^^^^||==O    Skint Jagblade