Mesabi

*ahem* The WTC would additionally like to introduce a new class of WTC Employee: Cultural Liaison!: We here at the Wayfarer Trading Company know that cultural customs can be difficult to understand. That’s why Judy, our first Cultural Liaison will be willing to help you understand the customs of the Corrish fleet and Red Coats currently taking holiday in your fine city. We also would like to notify you of some suggestions by the WTC: We should all be happy! Thus publication of unhappy materials like the KPA is to be restricted until the unhappy times are over. Anyone caught distributing these materials may face a small fine, or some time doing ‘Community Service.’ We should focus on Community! We know you might have friends and family in other Oleander settlements, but we’re sure they’re very busy. Thus, all communication in and out of the city will be done through the Postmaster General at the WTC. Wow! So convenient! We should all be safe. Talk of ‘divisive topics’ such as ‘War’ or ‘Battles’ might lead the community into chaos. We don’t want chaos! The WTC is committed to keeping you settlement Chaos and Conflict free. Agitators may face extended time doing ‘Community Service.’ Questions? Comments? Concerns? Judy can answer it all. Just thank your friends at the WTC. Keeping you Safe, Happy, and Secure. And Remember, there is no war in Fatu Hiva! A main reason I play the WTC as I do is of how ridiculously controlling the trade companies from the colonial era were. This is one of the main ideas I started the WTC on too! And we're brokering deals now! I think this whole situation will only bring prosperity... Also, @Darnok got this out before I told him I wanted to do a minifig version of Joo Dee!

See below: link This is what I looked at. Well, it was written down, and I was going off of what was written so.... No hard feelings. Just good to know that they're outdated! Yup! At the same time, I hope requesting these clarifications can be seen as some constructive criticism as well. I do, I'm mostly just here atm because an action I chose in game lead to some grumbling, and I want to make sure I don't cause anything bad OOC!

This is such an adorable build! I love how good it looks, despite simple parts being used. Excellent job and story! It's so cuuuute!

Thank you for the Clarification, up until this point, those rules were not publicly stated! I was under the impression that raid battles were the same as ship battles, and had five phases, and it went to whoever won three rounds. Up until now the most we've heard is the announcement, which doesn't clarify how raids were rolled for. Please don't take this as an insult or annoyance on my part, I know I have a some issues with tone. I don't have any issue with things as they are now, just more clarification is better clarification. I'm totally ok with whatever y'all go with for rules, and I thank you for the time y'all put in making them. Well, first successful invasion of a player settlement? Not like it matters, i just thought it was funny it hadn't happened yet. These rules sound absolutely fine to me, and I hope the court makes them official.

Thanks for the input Wolf! Which is where I look forwards to what the court decides Occupation to mean. I'm not sure what it entails or means, and clearly my guesses were way off! I find it hilarious that I have the first 'successful' raid. Adding that to my BoBS resume! This is a point I disagree with. By having combat be a black box in a system that does usually ~4 MCRAs a year, and is very limited in what we see, it feels far more like a dice roll than anything that we can learn from. I think the best way to have the system feel fair and balanced, is to have a publicly available set of rules, that all can understand and access. You don't even need to make things 'certain.' As a DM, it's always fun to have 'crit fail' mean DM's choice. That is my opinion, however, and I'm fine with how things are. But I think if we run into more odd circumstances where event A and event B seem the same but come out very differently, it will continue to irk folks on here. All in all, thanks for your, and everyone else on the court's work.

I very much agree that this was a bit of the system not working as intended. In a perfect world, the MCRA is run quickly, and something like this happens over a monthly turn rather than the time it took, but I know irl stuff can very get easily in the way of things, as it did here. I did watch @CapOnBOBS builds for like the last 4 months thinking, "do I say anything? I feel like I can't say anything." And honestly I feel a little bad this came as such a surprise to Oleon. These are my takeaways from the experience. First, I very metagamed this raid. The fort stats of Fatu Hiva were publically available, and I sent a fleet based on overcoming those stats. According to Bregir, I could have lost, but 1. I'm still not sure how the combat mechanics exactly work, and my analysis had shown assured victory. 2. it still would have taken some bad dice roles. As the MCRA combat system is kind of a black box at the moment, I think this might be part of the issue, when comparing Fatu Hiva to Terraversa, since King's Port is far more heavily fortified than Fatu Hiva. If King's Port has a royal fort, they would essentially have more combat power than most settlements from just that royal fort. Second, I do think clearer rules would help the game feel more fair, as we could actually see what was going on when combat happens. It would create more metagaming, but I don't really see that as an issue, though I know some of leadership does. This is another slight issue. While the Fatu Hiva raid was generated in combat as a raid, raids are thematically, "get in, get out." Fatu Hiva was an invasion and an occupation of the island, which is a lot different. I think that going forwards, raids should stay the same, (sneaky pirates, and whatnot!) but any invasions or occupations should have additional rules, announcements, and make make some use of the land combat system. This is kind of the first time a player imperial settlement has been occupied by another player faction, so these rules haven't been written yet. From my interpretation, this is the following as to what happens: The Mayor of the Settlement is now determined by the invader. New builds in the settlement can be restricted by the new mayor. i.e. forts and such really No new troops can be raised their by any faction. (as confirmed by wolf) Nothing happens to builds there, (other than forts) unless determined by the invader. You keep all the income you would normally get from your properties there, (actually changing this is basically impossible without using a relational database, which BoBS does not use!) Overall, I want everyone to enjoy the game, and I'm sorry that this has felt like an imbalance of the rules.

Excellent work Spud! She's a bit bulky, but I like the look of her. The windows on the stern look quite good in particular.

@evancelt Excellent build, and I love the stream, the building and the story! The roof looks amazing, and I love the mix of the colouring. The stream and tree look great too, and it's been fantastic seeing you improve build over build!

Good use of parts Vroski, and excellent little scene. I like the detailing of the roof, and the build is well put together.

Looking good Kai! I like the polish you put into the floors and tables. Great scene, and good to see your story continue to move forwards!

Excellent use of parts Wolf! The build looks great, and the colouring is fantastic! Great job doing that in the small scale!

Thanks for the Writeup @Capt Wolf! It's much appreciated, and It's great to see the game continue to move. It's also excellent to see my invasions go so well. I hope their are no hard feelings from the OL players out there, and I look forward to doing some builds surrounding the invasion. Please pm me if anyone wants to Collab! Also, just FYI, the WTC has landed troops on Île Sous le Vent, (see above for details!) so don't get any funny ideas!

Thank you everyone for the kind words! Thank you Vroski! Thank you Kai! I brought maybe 10% of my collection to the apartment I'm at now, so I have found myself having to come up with more innovative solutions than I would have used to. If I had all my parts, I think I would have just used clips to put those pieces on, but I think this turned out well, and forced me to be a bit more creative. Thank you Bregir! The direction I went with this build, was the ruins were just the foundation of the city area, but I agree there's several directions I could go with this. This build I took a lot of inspiration from Endor from Star Wars, but I think a more proper venetian look could be cool too, so I definitely have some stuff to try! Thank you! BoBS has quite the backstory, both IC and OOC. Newcomers and oursiders don't always get the context, so I always try to make sure that I have links or some description of the story up to the point. Well, we're playing a nautical themed game, and it's a nautical themed part... Thank you Dee! I ran out of water tiles, and the brown building kept falling over on me, so I added the additional support. I think it's probably the weakest point (both visually and literally!) of the build. LOL this is my new headcanon! Thanks! Thank you Bodi!

Location: Mesabi Landing- Flooded District Type: Small Commercial Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 When the Tsunami hit Mesabi Landing, it claimed some of the settlement as its own. However, stubborn as a herd of carnivorous mules, the residents of Mesabi Landing simply raised their businesses up. Karl Mordo disembarked from the water taxi, and walked up to the bridgeway level. Into the Flooded district Waymart he went, muttering about 'profit margins' and 'incursions into Namere.' Suddenly, Tony burst into the Waymart, rattling the door. "It's the big man's colours!" he purred, then left without saying another word. Mordo exited the store, and ran out to the bridge. Through his personal telescope, he looked out into the bay. FIN So, this build has been on my shelf since early october. I hadn't really been sure what do for a story with it, but I think that the direction I went with is ok. I had some trouble with the photography on this one, and I'm considering reshooting the pictures. The area of course, is the Flooded District (Something I created to give Mesabi Landing more varied areas after the Tsunami), but I think this is one of the first builds I've really done their. Anyways, C&C appreciated, and thanks for viewing!

Location: Wulham Type: Prize In Wulham a factory had been set up to process wool. It sat near the coast in a large, grassy plain. Wulham Wool Factory by North White, on Flickr FIN Just doing my part to get these prize licenses done. The green here is Light Green, and this is the only piece I have in the colour, so I thought it would look nice in this build.

Gorgeous build Cap! An excellent use of parts for the cobblestones, and the scene is completely full of life. I love the attention to detail, and the entire build is well rendered as well. My only critique is that the carriage stalls look a wee bit small for the carriages. But that does not distract at all from this great build! Excellent job!

Nice little Quay! You really got a nice amount of details into a small space! Great job Wolf!

Thanks for the kind words everyone! Thank you! This was kind of one of those builds where I came up with the build before setting the story there. I kinda thought an abandoned cellar would be a cool place to set a build. Thank you! As I've mentioned to you, the Count is decently hard to write, but I had fun figuring this one out! Thank you! Thanks Brickwolf! I suppose I might, but I'll hold off for the moment.

Location: King's Harbour Type: Non-property Freebuild A few months ago.... Yellowing fliers and newspapers flapped in the wind near the Cocovia Railway. Once this had been a stately manor, but the crown had ordered it demolished, as it sat directly in the path of the rails. The Crown, however, refused to let a good cellar go to waste. And thus, KH safehouse #3 sat directly under the railway. Here, the Count had been directed to go by a rather mysterious letter.... "The Crown couldn't risk our adversaries seeing us meet at the Ministry headquarters." said the Ministry of State Operative. "But we need you. The empire needs a hammer. You, unfortunately, are a hammer." "I'm going to take that statement to mean that I can't be prosecuted for any crimes committed in this venture, including but not limited too..." replied the Count. The Cellar by North White, on Flickr The operative quickly interjected. "No! Just capture the settlement! The instructions are clearly laid out in this envelope." He grabbed a small, sealed envelope from the table. "Oleon cannot be allowed to hold Terraversa. You're going to make them rethink their priorities. The crown is readying a declaration of war." The Cellar by North White, on Flickr "Ah yes, I can't wait to see what needlessly verbose statement Comrade Montana prepares." Replied the Count. "As if anyone ever needed a reason to go to war. My proposal was we just tie a note saying 'Terraversa? Not You're's! War!!!!! >:(' to a brick and toss it through the king of Oleon's window." "That would be a complete breach of decorum and etiquette!" replied the Operative. "That reminds me, I think I'm like 23rd in line to the crown." said the Count. "All I really need is for a bunch of Nobles to lose their lives, and/or their heirs to either conflict, strife, or disease, and then I could probably take a larger role in government. Unfortunately for myself, it's not like there's a major source of this at the moment. What were we talking about again?" Asked the Count. The operative's face drained a bit of colour. "Just... take the envelope" He passed the Count the Envelope. "I think I would rework the diplomacy system to be more centered around 'brick-throwing'." Said the Count. He turned, and began to exit. FIN Thanks for viewing my build! I won't be licensing this (although I figure I could!). It could be a commerce, or governmental, but that feels flimsy in my head, so I feel like I will leave this as a non licensed free build. No harm intended to @bregir per his declaration of war, writing or anything, but I thought I'd give a small poke in his direction. As for line of succession to the Corrish throne, take anything the Count says with a grain of Salt. Or maybe a pillar! C&C appreciated!

Excellent little scene Brickwolf! I especially like the flavour text.

Excellent build, and great use of forced perspective! The flags are an ingenious use of parts. Nice job and congratulations making the front page!

Excellent scene Brickwolf! I love the use of the Friends horse, and what it's pulling! Your troop column is great, and the scene fits Mesabi Landing quite well. Great job!

Nice little pier. I like the gallows, but the 'indy' whip doesn't work amazing in my opinion. The ship, colour choice, and troop column all look great though.

Day 23

4. December Looking great everyone (I am certainly outclassed here! Luckily I'm doing two of these so I can redeem myself later! ) @Ross Fisher, that snow cover looks excellent, and the build is very put together. @Fraunces, excellent tavern scene. The stained glass behind the bar looks amazing, and the whole seen really has a good, holiday cheer look. @Darnok, Thanks for putting this on!