Ansalon at War!
Headlines
War Results - August 3rd, 2007
War Results - July 27th, 2007
War Results - July 20th, 2007
War Results - July 17th, 2007
War Results - July 13th, 2007
War Results - July 7th, 2007
Rules
Ansalon War Rules 1.11
Last Update:Monday, December 19th, 2005
Ansalonmud War System Rules v. 1.11
By A.J. Dembroski (Kiri-Jolith/Denbrook)
Additional Contributions by
Kael, Takhisis, Morgion, Branchala, Skol/Zivilyn, Snefru, Ayasana
Introduction
Throughout the existence of Ansalonmud, wars have always been problematic. The first war that I ran personally was a mess. It was under planned and difficult to judge. The next major war on Ansalon, which was run primarily by Chislev of the other Ansalon, was a primarily RP based affair using the dice code to resolve conflict. The first was too restrictive, leaving little to the imagination and battles were chaotic bloody affairs that produced little of storyline value, and the second fell victim to loose rules and irresponsible players.
With that in mind, I decide that my efforts on this third major organized war on Ansalon would be directed at creating a reusable system that would be easy to implement and execute, permit battles to leave lasting In Character impressions, and eliminate the influence of "God RP".
It is yet to be seen whether or not I've been successful, but my belief is that with good direction and responsible staff, this war system can be used for any war that may break out on Ansalon.
Getting Started
If you are an unclanned PC, then your involvement is limited to participating in the battles themselves. Unfortunately, there is no good way to permit unclanned PCs to participate at the strategic level of the war. For unclanned PCs, you need only show up on scheduled days for battle and pick a side.
For those of you who are clanned, you must first recruit and deploy. If you are a member of a militant clan, see the section below. If you a member of a support clan skip the next section and read the section afterward.
Selecting Units: Military Clans
First check with your clan leader to see what brigade types are available. You may select 2 brigades from those on your clan's unit list, then check the map of Ansalon on the war page at www.ansalonmud.com and find what territories are HELD by your clan and select one to act as the home city of your units (both of your units must be from the same home city).
The home city is where your unit will heal the most effectively, recruit back to effective levels when it has been decimated, and will go to retrain when eligible to become elite. Choose wisely, because if this city falls, you will have no city in which to perform these actions as effectively (your unit will respawn after decimation at your capital city but will have to heal at the standard rate rather than the home city rate before it can reenter action).
Selecting Units: Support Clans
Check with your clan leader to see what unit types are allowed. You may select 2 units from those on your clan's unit list. These units may begin play in any neutral territory or territory held by a clan that permits your clan trespass rights. For example, Holy Order Light may deploy in any Solamnic controlled territory.
Reporting to Judge
Every war has a judge a single immortal that oversees the war as a whole. His word is law while war is active. The Competition Committee (CC, discussed later) ultimately is the highest authority, they cannot overturn his on-the-spot rulings, only clarify the rules in the future. Only the arbiter (also discussed later) can overturn a decision by the Judge.
When any action is taken by a player, a report to the Judge is required. This includes claiming units and declaring starting cities, as well as troop movements and attacks.
When declaring actions to the Judge, you must write a WARNOTE to the judge (your clan or clan immortal may require that the note be to them as well, check with your clan leadership). The subject line of the war note MUST begin with the word WAR in bold white text ({WWar{x).
Rounds
The game is broken up into Rounds, which are 1 week a piece. The first two days of the week are reporting days, where in players write their war notes and declaration of actions to the judge. The next two days are response and resolution days, where the judge responds to war notes requiring such, and determines the results of all declared actions. The next two days are battle days, in which the players actually fight out the quest based battles on the mud (more on that later), and the final day is the final resolution day, in which the judge reviews the week's events and posts an overall update to the entire mud.
The specific day of the week that the round will start on will vary from war to war, sometimes within a war. Players will be notified of the war schedule and any changes in it that occur. The day beginning and end of a given day, and thus the deadline for actions permitted on that day, is always midnight system time (GMT -7:00).
Inactivity
While you may assign your units under another's command (with limitations, see Combining Units, below), you must reaffirm this command every other week. If three weeks pass with no correspondence from the commander of a division, the division will be disbanded.
If units are not imbedded with others, lack of correspondence will simply result in the unit not moving. An unattended unit will still defend itself if attacked, as normal, but no clan member except the owner may give it orders, regardless of rank.
Combining Units
Units may be combined to form larger, more powerful forces. By declaring your units imbedded with another clan member's units, you are giving that person temporary control over your units. Your units will move and fight with the new commander's units until you take control back. However, the new leader has only limited control over your units.
First, the units you assign under their command may not be separated. You may assign each of your units to different commanders, but if you do assign both to one, they must move as one. Furthermore, the new commander must move your units as one with one of his own units. He may order your units to remain behind while moving his units, but he immediately loses control of those units and they remain stationary until you give them orders again. Your units must be in a territory with the new commander's units to imbed them.
Naval Units
There are two sources for naval units: the Mariner clan and holding designated war port cities. Not every port city on the Ansalon map is considered a port city for the purposes of this war. The port cities are as follows: Gwynned (area 3), Daltigoth (area 8), Caergoth (area 17), Palanthas (area 19), Kalaman (area 29), Sanction (area 38), Port Balifor (area 49), Morthosak (area 54), Nethosak (area 55), Winston's Tower (area 56), Sea Reach (area 57), Silvanost (area 61), and Citadel of Light (area 79).
All port cities provide 2 trade fleets. A trade fleet has a "Speed" value of 3, a "Capacity" value of 3, and a "Power" value of 3.
Fleets can move their speed in nautical territories each round. The capacity value determines the number of Brigades a fleet can carry, and the power value acts as the combat power in sea battles.
Sea battles occur when opposing naval units end their turns in the same nautical territory, when a naval unit attacks another while at port, and when a naval unit attempts to break a naval blockade. Naval warfare is purely warfare of attrition, as sea areas cannot be "captured".
Disembarking onto an occupied coastal area is considered automatically ambushed, so if you are planning a sea invasion, expect D-Day like casualties. The advantage, however, is that maritime invasions of port cities ignore fortifications sense it's not practical to build a wall around a port.
It is the discretion of the leader of the clan that holds a territory who has control of the nautical units there in.
Activating Neutral Territories
Neutral territories are territories that are not aligned in a given war. These territories may enter the war in any several different ways.
An army may force a territory into the war by moving a militant unit into the area. Each area has a tendency level toward each clan (the specific information is hidden and only available to the judge and mud imps). A territory may be naturally hostile toward a clan, unbias, or friendly.
By moving onto a hostile neutral area, the offending clan provokes a war, and the neutral territory will defend itself, automatically entering the war on the opposing side and giving the opposing side trespass rights. Moving into a friendly territory will give the clan Trespass rights.
Trespass rights allow a clan to move troops through the area and even stage them there for short periods of time. A brigade may remain in a trespass territory for 1 full turn (they may move into the territory on one turn, remain there for the next, then leave on the next) before raising the suspicion of the local populace and being asked to leave. Remaining a second round will provoke the territory to revert to neutrality and ask your brigades to depart, and 3rd round will cause them to become hostile).
Moving into an unbiased territory will provoke negotiations. Some representative will be required to meet with the leader of the territory to arrange for trespass rights, alliance, or something else that would permit your clan to move through the area. The quality of the arguments will be judged by a panel of immortals, and a decision will be made by those immortals as to whether rights should be granted.
In some cases, unclanned players may control territories in this case, all above rules are thrown out and the unclanned "duke" makes the decisions himself.
Dukes
Dukes are unclanned PCs who control territory. A Duke receives 1 basic spearman unit with which to defend himself, and may make all war-time decisions for his territory, including alliances and what units have trespass rights. Dukes are assigned by application and can be replaced at anytime depending on circumstances.
Actions
Unless otherwise noted in unit documentation, every unit, military and support, has 2 action points per round. Actions vary in point cost, and those that cost more than 2 require more than 1 round to resolve. Actions always resolve when the entire point cost has been paid.
When declaring actions, it is advisable that you consider the point costs of the actions you are performing and plan ahead. You may not reserve actions for the next round. If you declare more actions than your unit is capable of taking, the actions will resolve in the order in which you declare them until the unit is out of action points, all further actions declared for the week will be IGNORED unless you specifically canceled previous actions.
Below is a list of specific actions that can be taken during a round and their cost.
| Action | Cost | Description |
| Besiege | 1 | Begin or maintain siege on a fortification that has not fallen within a territory that has |
| Board fleet | 1 | Load brigade onto a fleet in harbor |
| Cast a spell | 1 | Conclave and Holy Order support units only |
| Construct Siege Engine | 1 | Build engines necessary to engage in an assault on heavy fortification |
| Fight Battle | Variable | When combat commences, all remaining action points are depleted. However, no actions points are necessary to participate in a battle. |
| Fortify | 1 | Unit moves from territory to that territory's fortification |
| Movement | Varies | Move from one territory on the campaign map to an adjacent area |
| Prepare Ambush | 1 | Attempt to hide from scouting attempts in order to spring an ambush on enemy brigades |
| Repair Fortifications | 2 | Restores damaged fortifications to their original fortification rating |
| Rest/Retrain | 2 | One full round of rest heals back 1 depletion while in a friendly city, heal to full while in home city |
| Root out | Variable | Find and remove parasite support units- must spend action points equal to unit's stealth rating |
| Sally | 1 | When under siege, brigades may sally forth to break the siege |
| Scout | 1 | Scout an adjacent territory |
Once a territory has been one, it is considered contested until the fortification is occupied by the conquering army.
It is difficult to take fortified positions (see Battles, below) due to the fortifications One of the ways to ease the assault is to besiege the fortification for a time. Over the course of a siege, the brigades within the fortification deplete their food and water supply, and eventually morale also erodes. The risk of this is that within that time, reinforcements may arrive to relieve the besieged army.
A fortification can sustain the brigades inside of it for a number of rounds equal to its fortification rating. Once the supplies have been depleted, all units within the fortification take one depletion per round until all units are eliminated.
If the siege is broken 1 full round at any time, the fortification is considered to have been resupplied and besiegement must begin anew. Some support units can slow or accelerate the effects of besiegement.
All cities designated "Port Cities" automatically include 2 fleets. A fleet is a number of ships capable of transporting brigades. A standard fleet is capable of carrying 1 division at a time. Once boarded, brigades can take no actions until they disembark. Disembarking is a normal move action.
Support units which are capable of spell use may cast 1 spell per round.
It is presumed that every brigade has an engineer unit within it which is capable of constructing a siege engine. See "Siege Engines" below to learn more.
Battles are fought when units come into contact with each other in the same territory. Once the conditions for a battle to take place are met, all remaining action points held by any brigades involved are lost. Brigades without remaining action points still participate in the battle.
Every territory has a fortification. 1 action point is required to move a brigade into a fortification.
To move into a territory that is not friendly, units must pay the movement cost associated with the new territory's dominant terrain.
Mountains- 4 points
Foothills- 3
Badlands- 3
Glacier- 2
Forest- 2
Plains- 1
Desert- 1
Movement into an area does not occur until the full movement cost is paid. For example, if brigade is ordered into a mountainous area as their first and only action for one turn, they will not actually "arrive" there until after both that and the next turn has passed.
In order to execute an ambush, a brigade must establish himself in a hidden position. The process of hiding several hundred solders takes time, and so an action is required to do so. When a unit is hidden, terrain can give a hidden unit a bonus to their stealth rating in order to avoid detection by scouting units.
Forest- +6
Mountains- +3
Foothills, Badlands- +2
Glacier, Desert, or Plains- +0
Over the course of a battle, fortifications are damaged by siege weaponry and magic. Whenever a fortification takes damage, the fortification rating of the structure is reduced by 1. Any military can be assigned to repair damages. This restores the fortification to its original rating by 1 point per round. The number of units that can simultaneously work on a single structure is equal to ¸ its original fortification rating, rounded down (i.e. 3 units can simultaneously repair a structure that was originally a rating of 6, but only 1 may repair a structure with a rating of 3).
Resting is the standard process of "healing" a brigade. Retraining can also heal a brigade, but is much faster and requires the unit to be in its home city.
Resting in wilderness requires double the normal cost, so it takes 2 full rounds of inactivity to heal one depletion.
Resting in a friendly city heals one depletion.
Retraining has several uses. First, healing in the standard way within a brigade's home city restores the brigade to full health in 1 round rather than 1 depletion per round. Additionally, should a brigade have earned any upgrades (Elite status, special abilities), the brigade must return to its home city and retrain in order to make use of the new ability.
Some support units are "Parasite" units, meaning they latch themselves on to an enemy unit and cause it harm. This action must be taken to rid a brigade of a Parasite unit. Every parasite unit has a stealth rating, which is the cost, in action points, that must be spent to expel the offending unit.
Brigades under siege may chose to rid out and meet the enemy army in the field rather than away assault. This is known as Sallying Forth. This is an extremely dangerous maneuver and is generally attempted only in the direst circumstances, as an army's own fortification will work against them.
When sallying forth, the fortification value of the defended structure applies toward the sallying army at half its normal value (rounded down). Additionally, the Combat ratings change; the sallying force use their ATTACK value, and the besieging force uses their DEFEND value.
A militant brigade can be assigned to scout an adjacent area prior to entry. Each militant unit has a SCOUT rating, and it is this rating that dictates what the brigade finds. Any enemy units present in the target area are revealed if their total stealth value (scout rating + terrain ambush bonus (if prepared for ambush) + any additional bonuses) is equal to or lower than the scouting brigade's SCOUT value. Any units currently in transit to another area are automatically revealed to the scouting brigade.
Support units cannot be revealed through scouting.
Battles
There are four types of battles in the Ansalonmud War System: Wilderness battles, Sieges, Ambushes, and Nautical battles. Each type of battle has it's own rules for resolution.
Wilderness Battles
This is the basic pitched battle. No fortifications, no ships, just 2 armies head to head. This type of battle occurs when two opposing armies meet in the same territory and both are outside of a fortification. The army that occupied the area first uses the DEFEND value against the invading army's ATTACK value. If both armies enter the area on the same turn, the SCOUT values of the two armies are compared, and the winner uses whichever is higher.
The total combat values of the two armies are compared to determine which side has the advantage. For example, if 2 KoT Heavy Cavalry units (attack value 12 for a total combat value of 24) attack 3 KoS spearmen (defend value 8 for a total of 24), there is no advantage. If a KoT archer unit were to join the fray, however, it's attack value of 7 would give the KoT side a +7 advantage in resolution. More on combat resolution later.
Sieges
Sieges occur when an army that has taken control of the wilderness area of a territory attempts to take that territory's fortification. The besieging army uses the BESIEGE value, and the army defending the fortification uses the FORTIFY value.
Siege warfare is a brutal affair, requiring a significant advantage by the force attempting the siege. There are several ways to approach a siege.
The besieging army may attempt to blockade the enemy force. This requires the presence of a number of brigades equal to the Fortification rating of the structure under siege. A blockade is an attempt to prevent supplies such as food and water from entering the city. A fortification can maintain itself for a number of rounds equal to its fortification rating before beginning to take damage. After the stocks are used up, the army inside the city begins taking 1 depletion per round (the general decides which brigade takes the damage) until the siege is broken. These depletions may not be applied to the fortification rating (see below).
Another option for the besieging army is the direct assault, as described in the first paragraph of this section. This is an extremely dangerous maneuver that will almost always result in heavy casualties. The fortification rating of the structure being assaulted must be paid in depletions by the assaulting side before combat is resolved. For example, an attacking army must assign 6 depletions to his own brigades before he can actually assault the High Clerist Tower. One way to resolve this problem is with siege engines.
Siege Engines
Siege engines can be employed to pay the depletion cost of assaulting a fortification. A siege engine must be manned by a brigade (which cannot otherwise participate in a battle). At the start of an assault, each siege engine pays 1 depletion toward the defeat of the fortification, permitting other units to participate in an assault without taking depletions just attempting to defeat the fortification.
Ambushes
An ambush occurs when an army enters a territory where an enemy army is undetected and prepared to ambush. In this type of battle, the Ambushing army uses its AMBUSH value, while the other uses whichever value (between ATTACK and DEFEND) that is lowest. Additionally, each brigade in the army being ambushed takes a penalty to their combat value equal to the movement cost of the territory the ambush occurs in.
Nautical Battles
Naval battles, see as they do not result in the exchange of territory, will only be fought in the battle system if there are few land battles that day.
Naval units will always use the "Combat Power" value to determine the victor; there is no attacker or defender.
Battle Resolution
Battles themselves will be decided by the player base on the mud. The day prior to the start of battles, a note will indicate which battles are being fought and when. If you wish to participate in a battle, simply log on at that time and announce your intent to join. All players, regardless of clan or lack there of, may participate. There will be two sides, so each player will have to select a side to be a part of.
Each team will, as a group, fight through a series of independent quests worth a predetermined number of points. Some quests will have several levels of victory and defeat that earn different numbers of points, but the total points of all quests presented shall be twice the army's total combat power.
Once the quests have been resolved, the point totals won by each side is added to their respective army's combat power to produce the number of Victory Points. The army with the greatest VP total is the winner.
Special
Characters capable of using the Charm ability are permitted 1 charmed creature. They may replenish this creature from within the area if lost, or use summon to acquire a new charmie, but may never have more than 1. Pets and mounts do not count toward the charmie limit.
Players may have no more than 1 character controlling units in a given clan. Players who have characters in multiple clans are discouraged and will be observed closely to prevent misuse of player knowledge. Any player who is found to be making use of Player knowledge in order to advance his war cause, or uses two of his characters in cooperative maneuvers, or even has two of his own characters fight each other in war, will be dealt with as any multi-player, and will furthermore loose his rights to participate in wars permanently.
Depletions
Depletions are an abstract measurement of casualties. As a brigade takes casualties, it becomes less effective. Each time a brigade takes a depletions, each of it's ratings are reduced by 25% (rounded to the nearest whole number). After 4 depletions, all of the brigade's ratings are reduced to 0 and the unit must retrain.
In every battle, each brigade inflicts 1 depletion on its enemy. For example, if 4 brigades attack 2 brigades, each defending brigade will take 2 depletions for the battle. In the attacking army, 2 of the 4 brigades will take 2 depletions a piece. Depletions are distributed according to which units had the greatest impact on the battle, i.e. the units contributing the highest combat values are the first in line to take depletions. The exception to this rule is elite brigades, which always take casualties last.
The winning side of any battle may chose to either reduce its depletions taken or increase the depletions inflicted by the percentage by which that army was victorious. For example, if KoS defeats KoT in a battle by a score of 23-15 (a 65% better score) may choose to either increase its outgoing depletions by 65% of reduce the incoming depletions by 65%.
Special Units
Special units are things like Dragons, Gryphons, Outsiders, etc. Generally, special units are earned through in-game questing between battles, but there are any number of ways of earning them. They have special rules governing them which are documented upon receiving the unit.
Elite Units
Elite Units are standard Militant Units with special effects, similar to a Militant Unit with an embedded Support Unit. Each clan receives 1 Elite designation to place on any army. The Elite status applies to both divisions within the army, but further elite status gains apply only to those divisions which qualify.
In order to become an Elite Unit, a division must engage in no less than 10 resolved battles and have been on the victorious side at least 51% of the time. Thus, if a Unit has been involved in 7 victories and 7 defeats, and then wins a battle, the unit becomes Elite and retains that title until it is eliminated, regardless of its record there after. An elite unit that is eliminated loses its elite status.
Advancing Support Units
Holy Order and Conclave both have a similarly styled unit. There is not a choice of units, but rather a choice of spells. Along with the spell listing is included a Cost. After every battle, these units accumulate Experience Points with which to purchase spells. If involved in a victory, the units gain 2 points, in a defeat, they gain 1 point.
Spells are placed within specific categories, or schools. In order to gain a spell in a given school, you must have already gained all of the spells leading up to that point within the school.
Rogue and Wanderlust support units operate in a similar fashion, with experience points spent on actions. However, these clans have all of the skills to start play and use points to increase their proficiency in said skill. A unit begins play with 2 skill points to spend on ranks in a given skill. To add a rank to a skill, you must spend double the number of skill points you are raising it too i.e. 2 skill points to raise a skill to 1, 4 skill points to raise it from 1 to 2, 6 to raise from 2 to 3, and so no with no upper limit.
Authority/Referees
There are three primary arbiters in the AWS: The Head Judge, the Referees, and the Competition Committee. The purpose of these are to ensure a fairly run war with as little conflict as possible.
The Head Judge is the overall immortal authority on the war. His rulings are final and cannot be reversed. Should a situation arise where a rule is called into question, then the ruling of the Head Judge is considered the rule until the Competition Committee can review it.
There are two referees who have two primary purposes: to fill in for the Head Judge when he cannot be present for a battle, and to represent each side in any dispute. There will be one immortal representative of each side in a given war. The referees are considered neutral overall, but will ensure that their own side does not get "screwed".
The Competition Committee is made up of the Head Judge, the Referees, and a mortal representative from each side of the conflict plus one neutral mortal (generally from the Red Robes, Holy Order Balance, an uninvolved clan, or unclanned). There will also be an arbiter, preferably of 109th or 110th level who will have a say but when only vote when a tie must be broken. In particularly contentious circumstances, the arbiter will be called upon to make an impartial ruling that will trump all others.
The Competition Committee will be called to session during the week beginning the first designated First Day of each month, when the war is on hold. They will at this time discuss rules changes, hear grievances, and review on-the-spot rulings by the Head Judge and Referees.
Why No Specifics?
You may be wondering why this guide does not include basic specific things like division combat power, clan bonuses, specific elite effects, what Support Clans can do, etc. This is because though the rules can be reused from war to war, balance is an issue that must be watched constantly. Thus, the actual breakdown of unit stats and effects are not set in stone, but instead the Immortal staff is able to make adjustments each time a war is fought. This is done in the name of balance. Prior to any war, a War Guide will be sent out to each clan with information pertaining to their clan for the upcoming war.
End of War and Breaks
Ultimately, a war ends when the immortals say it ends. It is possible that a goal will be set for each side to accomplish and when once side achieves their goal, the war ends.
It is permissible for the immortal staff to call a break. Quite honestly, running a war on Ansalon is a demanding job. It is suggested that a break last no more than 4 consecutive weeks before play is resumed.
Home | Fishing | Palanthas Library | Who's Playing NOW? | War Room
Changes | Clans | About | Races | Classes | Spells | Skills | FAQ | Immortals
Maps! | Read Ansalon's Guestbook