《The World At War! and more Blog》 The World At War! and more Blog - 001 This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. The World At War! and more Blog - 002 If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. The World At War! and more Blog - 003 The World At War! and more Blog - 003 It is the beginning of another day. Another section of my ¡°amazing¡± writing skills comes for those with enough taste to appreciate it. ( As for the tasteless folk out there, you can stop trying. The blog won¡¯t be taken down just because some do not enjoy it MUAHAHA) I am writing today out of pure excitement, whether you believe it or not. I got called last night at the last minute to go to work because they had a last-minute call out. Oof, they pulled me right out of bed. I felt like crying. Anyway, enough about me, let¡¯s start with what you all are here for. World At War! I believe the last section left off right at the description of my first soldiers, but that will have to be pushed back a little bit. It has come to my attention that some of my readers might be fiction lovers, similar to myself. ( said readers seem to also be amongst the people that have jet to try playing World At War! ) Anyway, I have to clarify that there is no time dilation mechanic in the game. That is correct; one hour passes by in real life for each hour you spend in the game. We ( humanity ) have had substantial technological advancements in recent years, but time dilation is still pretty science-fictiony. ( at least that the public is aware of) The game¡¯s AI is super-advanced (compared with all other current versions of game AI). It also comes incorporated with self-learning abilities. When an adventurer hunts a wolf and fails, that wolf becomes smarter. When a beast levels up, it does not only become more robust but also more intelligent. In conclusion, low-level creatures are simple to kill. Yet, higher-level ones will learn the player¡¯s strategies and will be able to counter them. It applies to a lord¡¯s troops similarly. The difference is that the soldier¡¯s information is heald at their spawn points. Meaning the intellect level of any specific unit is based on the spawn point, not on the unit itself. ( I started with A level 1 castle, so level 1-10 solders / when the castle becomes level 2, the level cap of solders increases even if they die, they will respawn as a level 11-20 unit whatever your last upgrade was - further explanation below ) Now that that tidbit of trivia is out of the way let me get back on topic. My soldiers look like thugs. Hahaha, they indeed look like thugs having no armor or organizational skills. The only valuable thing on them is a sword. Yes, a proper blade ( made of bronze ), I believe it is provided as a bonus, considering they are the troops spawned from the main castle itself. At higher levels, these thug-looking soldiers with their wooden shields and spears ( A long sharpened stick ) should become one of the best available units to the Lords. At this moment, though, they are not much. Still, they are the only defensive and offensive measure available to me. ( a lord himself is useless - at level 1, we have no skill apart from ¡°command,¡± a passive skill that allows us to control individual units or give commands to unit spawn points, so the teams follow said command as soon as they are spawned ) Understandably, the first thing I did was make my way to the castle and give commands to my units. It is straightforward to do so; all I had to do was approach the castle and then show intent to interact. Ether pointing at it and thinking command or just thinking castle commands. ( No, I will not discuss how the system reads your thoughts, there is a clause in the contract letting everyone know this happens. So if anyone has things to hide, DO NOT play world at war! ) The moment I thought of castle commands, a system window appeared. The system window held basic information about my castle, like its current health, the number of soldiers currently spawned, and the max number of soldiers that may be generated. ( 100% - no actual values are shown for anything, for example, the castle is at 100 % health, and my soldiers are also at 100 % health, but they can each take vastly different amounts of damage) It also showed the cost of leveling up the castle and its units, but I will discuss that another time. My current castle had 250 soldiers and would gain another 100 for each level up, eventually reaching the maximum of 1,150 units at level 10. ( All structures start at level one and cap at level ten - NPC¡¯s start at 1 and cap at 100 - a spawned unit may have ten levels for every level its spawn point has, and when a unit is upgraded, it will always generate at whatever level the unit has been upgraded too on the spawn point ) Jesus, I was distracted for a minute and dumped a bunch of information, all the wail not letting you know what I ended up doing at the castle. Hey, that in itself should be considered a skill. Anyways let me get back on topic. At the bottom left corner of the castle command window, there is a button labeled command, and when you press it, you will be able to command your units. ( the other way to command units is to give direct spoken instructions to the units themselves ) I pressed the button and instructed, ¡°send 200 soldiers to guard the walls and 50 to standby in front of the castle¡±. Thus from this point onwards, whenever a soldier dies, the newly spawned ones will automatically be sent to fill the fallen soldier¡¯s position until the set command is fulfilled. The moment I gave my soldiers those instructions, a new system window appeared in front of me. It stated, ¡°as a lord, your mission is to hold the line against the invading monsters from the land of fug. Fulfill your mission and defend against the wave¡±. No sooner had the window disappeared than I could hear animal noises in the distance and soft vibrations. Immediately I ran to the walls, and from a distance, I could see a herd of rabbits? Some were rather large, about the same as a medium-sized dog ( 30 - 40 pounds ), and the rest varied in size, but the smallest I could make out was still as large as a small dog. ( 15 - 25 pounds ) There were hundreds or more than one thousand rabbits; truthfully, it looked intimidating. Some of you are probably thinking, what can be so scary about rabbits? The game producers skived on many things, but art and animation were not one of them. The dam critters looked alive - and mad with their glowing red eyes and the copious amounts of froth escaping their mouths. It could scare anyone. Plus, I am not particularly brave myself. In conclusion, I immediately left the walls and let my soldiers defend automatically. The soldiers at the border would prioritize any enemy that made it to the top of the wall. When no enemy was at the wall, they would prioritize the most significant threat within range. That was my first mistake; the moment the bigger rabbits approached, my 200 soldiers threw their spears. At my new position atop the castle, I noticed they managed to kill about 40 of the larger rabbits. While crippling another 30 or so. There is no kill notification, so that is only what I can make out from sight alone. Without their spears, my soldiers stand atop the walls staring at the few rabbits that have reached the wall but can¡¯t make their way up. The larger ones that are still alive manage to jump up the wall. Some landed on the wall, others received a shield bash mid-flight, and some made it over the wall touching down within the castle¡¯s premice. Any rabbit intercepted mid-jump became an easy kill as they fell in a semy stunned state and could not react to the follow-up stab from the bronze swords. On the other hand, those that managed to land on the wall immediately charged my units. With their swift speed and inborn agility, they became a real threat. Many defenders received leg wounds, scratches, and bites, significantly lowering their movement speed. Luckily only around 30 of the critters made the wall landing. They were soon divided, surrounded, and hacked to death.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. The rabbits that made it over the wall were met with a rain of spears. As you all might have assumed, the 50 soldiers I left waiting in front of the castle immediately attacked. Throwing their spears at the nearest threat. ( They did not throw the spears at the wall. Because the other units were close. Only on direct orders from me would they risk hearting another soldier ). They brought down forty-seven rabbits that made it over the wall. Twenty-three of which fell to the spears. I immediately ordered the fifty soldiers to engage the 24 rabbits still alive. The fight was much more challenging than the one on the wall. To begin with, the rabbits have more maneuvering space allowing them to put their strengths to good use. My soldiers, no longer having their spears, were forced to wait for the rabbits to get very close before engaging. As a result, I often saw a rabbit charge past one of my soldiers, leaving a long bloody wound on their leg and escaping before the soldier had time to react. Eventually, one of the soldiers could no longer stand due to the many leg injuries. As a result, he managed to land a lucky blow. To be exact, the rabbit did itself in. The rabbit charged the fallen solder, presumably to finish him off. Instead, the rabbit slammed snout first into the fallen soldiers¡¯ shield. The rabbit was stunned by the impact, becoming easy prey for the nearby soldiers. At that moment, the game¡¯s self-learning AI did its thing. My soldiers had a eureka moment, and half of the still-standing soldiers crouched in a forward-leaping posture. ( at this point, there were still 19 rabbits and 43 soldiers standing ) Twenty-one of the soldiers crouched, each facing a rabbit. The two extras simply supported the soldier nearest to them. In the meantime, the remaining soldiers stood right behind the crouching soldiers, ready to spring out and hack the rabbits to death. On the rabbit¡¯s next charge, their counterpart, a crouching soldier, lept shield first into the rabbits. Not a moment later, the waiting soldiers behind them sprang forward and slashed at the rabbits. Even the fallen soldiers crawled forward in an attempt to stab the dazed rabbits, some managing to do so. After that exchange, most rabbits were killed only four managed to escape. Unluckily those four rabbits managed to kill two of the soldiers that had crawled over. Marking the first troop deaths of the wave. ( No, people, I did not order the fallen soldiers to retreat, first of all, this happened in minutes. Considering all the other things going on, I was distracted. Still, the main reason was that I forgot to adjust the levels of gore shown. I, as an adult, did not have automatic restrictions, so yea, lots of blood and guts were seen. (As a first-time player, I was disgusted on top of distracted so cut me some slack ) The remaining four rabbits received injuries lowering their movement speed. This allowed the remaining soldiers to quickly surround and finish them off. As the action died down, I came to my senses. The first thing I did was call out the system menu. A quick search later and I found the gore settings, which were set to 100%, and promptly lowered them to 25%. The changes were immediate. All the guts and chunks of flesh lying around disappeared from my eyes. All that was left was the blood that had spilled on the ground. The rabbits¡¯ bodies had visible slashes but nothing more than superficial wounds. As for the bodies slashed in half, both halves grow flesh at a visible speed sealing themselves. That was creepy, but it¡¯s better than a pile of guts lying around. On a side note, while I was looking for the gore settings, I came across the Pain sensitivity settings. They were, of course, set to the maximum allowed, at 25%, which I lowered to the minimum allowed ( 1%) without hesitation. I¡¯m here to play games, not suffer after all. Once done fiddling with the system menu, I order all the soldiers not currently on the wall to enter the castle to heal themselves. It¡¯s a system setting, any injured unit that makes it back into its spawn point will be recovered in minutes. The dead units will only respawn when the wave ends. Seeing as the action had died down, I made my way to the wall. Ten of the nearby soldiers were ordered to follow and protect me when I reached the wall. What I saw from the wall was frustrating to say the least. The remaining rabbits that could not get to the top of the wall were charging and jumping, attempting to attack the soldiers on the wall. This did no damage whatsoever to the wall. Still, my soldiers did not have the weapons necessary to reach the rabbit, so they received no damage. ( you know those spears they threw earlier on ) Luckily there were still 50 spears within the wall. I ordered the 50 closest uninjured soldiers to go down and grab them. I also ordered them not to throw the spears when they returned to the wall. When the spear-wielding soldiers returned to the wall, I sent all of the injured soldiers still on the wall to the castle so they could heal up. Leaving only a little over 160 on the wall, including my 10 guards. The 50 spear-wielding soldiers, now under order not to throw said spears made their way to the edge of the wall and started to jab down at the jumping rabbits. ( The AI will most likely update the soldiers so they won¡¯t throw the spears immediately in future waves ) The monster¡¯s self-learning mechanism kicked in two hundred dead rabbits and almost four hundred crippled ones later. Seeing no hope of entering the castle and having no boss monster to command them, the rabbits scattered, ending the wave. I got a notification congratulating me for surviving the wave. This was the best confirmation that the wave was over and that it was not some monster ploy to destroy my castle. The system notification also asked if I wanted to collect the materials. ( from the dead rabbits ) Instead of accepting, I ordered the remaining soldiers with spears to throw them at the injured rabbits. Killing another forty-plus rabbit from the ones that did not manage to escape. The next order was simple. I ordered the gates to be opened and the soldiers to charge and kill the remaining rabbits. All 248 of my soldiers set forward, making quick work of the remaining rabbit. A small group of about 40 rabbits that had not gone far turned back and attacked my troops. It was a slaughter because the AI already had a way to deal with them, another 40 dead rabbits at the expense of five injured soldiers. I ordered my soldiers back and, at the same time, collected the materials through the system prompt. The dead rabbits amounted to 640 small rabbits and 204 large ones. I received 1,252 gold coins and 120 rabbit pelts, 100 small and 20 large pelts. The loot was immediately stored at the castle. ( The only currency in the world at war! is the gold coin. And I got one coin per small rabbit and three per large one / if an adventurer killed a monster, they would make 10 times the amount that a lord gets- 10 G per small and 30 G per large ). When the gates were closed, I left the walls and returned to the castle itself. On arrival, I received a system prompt stating that my dead troops would spawn in 30 minutes. That is a wave mechanic. All dead troops will spawn 30 minutes after the wave ends. That¡¯s a good thing because my castle¡¯s regular spawn rate is 1 troop per five minutes. One or two deaths would not matter, but that wait time would be scary if the number reaches the hundreds. There was no damage to my castle or the castle walls. More likely than not, this very first wave is a gift from the system to let the lord player prepare for what is to come. I, in particular, found it helpful considering the few problems discovered and the fact that we get some easy coins and materials. ( even if the materials are useless at the moment ) Finally, as I prepared to exit the game for the day, I ordered 20 of the soldiers on standby to make two groups of ten soldiers each. Then I sent them to patrol the area outside but not wander further than half a mile from the castle. ( in an attempt to kill the leftover wabbits ) I also instructed that the entire group would return and heal if any soldier received a severe injury. If there are deaths, they will return and incorporate one of the reserve soldiers waiting on standby. Newly spawned soldiers will return to the standby unit or the wall if necessary. My final command was that if the number of soldiers on standby fell under 5, all patrol activities would end until the standby unit was filled to capacity again. ( waves will never start if the lord is not present, but once it starts, it will continue until defeated, even if the lord needs to log out for whatever reason ) That¡¯s going to be all for today, guys. I had a blast of a time with the game today. It was super exciting, even with the complete lack of actual danger. I cant wait to see how things progress. If a battle with a measly 250 soldiers was this exciting, how would it be when there are a few thousand soldiers? From what I have read, the strength of the monster wave will vary, but for the most part, they are usually within what the players can handle. Only under exceptional circumstances will a wave force any one player to the limit. I was about to go at it again, but no! that¡¯s enough, I have work tomorrow. Do not worry; I won¡¯t forget to talk about the building available to me at level one or the new units I will receive. I just got too excited describing my first monster wave and ignored that today, but I will get to it tomorrow. ( PS. Thanks for reading. I might do it for fun, but I do Appreciate having readers. Remember to leave comments and if you have questions, write a comment. I will try to answer them next time ) The World At War! and more Blog - 004 The World At War! and more Blog -004 "Fairy Tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." - Neil Gaiman, Coraline Here is an inspirational quote to start the day because I have been fighting with the dragon known as procrastination. A powerful being who has dominated every individual at some point in their lives, more often than not, is a consistent threat that may resurface. ( but worry not cause today I have slaine this beast ) I have been starting and restarting this chapter for about a week. Of course, nothing came off all those attempts seeing as no chapter was posted. It matters not because now it is done, complete, and posted. ( In case anyone is wondering, yes, it is finished. I added this bit after completing the entire chapter ) Hello world, welcome to another chapter of the misadventures of Portfat. Last time we had a "nerve wreaking" fight against the evil critters from hell (WABBITS). Everyone ( my readers ), in the past week, I have made quite a bit of progress in the game. When you add my day job on top of that, quite a few things have happened. I''m attempting to get at that there may be some discrepancy in my writing. It is not me lying to you all or making things up but simply a memory failure on my part. (apologies in advance ) Now that a disclaimer has been put forward, where did the last section end? I left some soldiers patrolling outside the walls to eliminate some of the scattered rabbits leftover from the wave. There did not seem to be any deaths among the patrolling troops. At least non of the soldiers were in the process of respawning when I logged in. I also received an extra 52 gold coins for my effort in setting up the patrolling units. With 1,304 gold coins, I have more than enough coins to build a new structure. ( structure = spawn point or defensive units like arrow tower or cannons ) Currently, my castle is only level one thous I have very few supporting structures that may be built. I can make a skirmishers camp that can spawn 500 skirmishers at level one with a spawn rate of 2 units per 5 minutes. A watchtower can also be added to the main castle, and two independent arrow towers can be built. Apart from those structures, the only option available to me is to upgrade the main castle to level two so that new buildings can be unlocked. Sadly it is expensive to upgrade the castle, with 50,000 gold coins for the first upgrade. The skirmisher''s camp cost 1,000 gold, the archer towers were 500 gold each, and the watchtower was only 250 gold coins. When I considered the available options, I decided that it made the most sense to build the skirmisher''s camp. An extra 500 soldiers could go a long way, especially when considering that the skirmishers are a mid-range unit with some close combat capabilities. With my decision made, I place the skirmisher''s camp to the right of my castle, facing the land of fog. The skirmisher''s camp had a small mud hut where the soldiers would spawn and a range with 4 hay targets with a few javelins sticking out of them. It did not look like much, but what can you expect from the first few structures one unlocks. After buying the skirmisher''s camp, there was still a little over 300 gold left. I decided to buy the watchtower with nothing else that I could afford to spend the coin on. The watchtower was directly added to the main castle, increasing the castle''s height by almost half a size. The watchtower has no offensive capabilities. It is an auxiliary structure created to spot incoming waves and determine the type and number of monsters in said waves. The watchtower spawns 5 units complementary to the tower; built for speed, the spotters ( units generated at the watchtower ) are equipped with light and flexible materials ( namely linen cloths and jackets ). They don''t offer much protection, but it''s not like the spotters are meant to be fighting. They also have a slingshot and a small dagger in case some random flying creature attacks the tower. If too many creatures attack a building, it will be destroyed ( Watchtowers are more susceptible, which is probably why it''s so cheap to build ). That is one of the reasons why the spotters are so lightly equipped. ( so they can make a quick getaway and hopefully bring with them some valuable information )Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Anyways, enough about the "super-duper amazing" watchtower. Let''s look back to the skirmisher''s camp. To be more precise, let me tell everyone about the skirmishers themselves. The skirmishers are equipped with a simple wooden club, linen cloths, and 5 wooden javelins. ( the javelins are entirely made of wood, aka. sharpened sticks ) With both buildings built and after checking them out, about 13 minutes have passed. Just enough time for 4 skirmishers to spawn. They ( the skirmishers ) are very lackluster. At the very least, they are better than nothing. My soldiers will have range superiority over the monsters they may encounter. I was already nearby the skirmisher''s camp, so I made my way over to set some commands for the units. Like before ( with my original soldiers ), I order many soldiers to help guard the walls. To be exact, I set the spawn point command to send 300 skirmishers to defend the border wall. From the leftover 200 skirmishers, I sent 25 to each patrolling unit, bringing their number up to 35 soldiers. I also created a new team made entirely of skirmishers. Made up of 50 skirmishers, it became my largest patrolling unit. The last 100 skirmishers were left on standby to replenish soldiers as needed and for emergency deployments. The moment new skirmishers spawn, they are to head over to the walls because I set that command as a priority. When all the commanded units are sent to the walls, the newly spawned units will wait with the standby group until a patroling squad returns to the castle. Then they will join the patrols as commanded. The new patrol unit will only be created once the original patrols have been reinforced with the necessary number of skirmishers. Considering the more significant number of soldiers that I now have, ( will have ) the patrol''s route will be expanded further into the land of fog. Hopefully, this move will bring in more gold coins and increase the soldiers'' ability to deal with different types of monsters. That was basically my final order for the day. All that was left was to wait for the skirmishers to spawn. So, I log off the game to let some time pass. Today''s post is not as long as I would have liked, but it does include some vital information. I don''t want to write further about the game because after all my skirmishers finished spawning, I led an expedition into the land of fog. That will take some time to describe, so yea, next time. ( PS. Thanks for reading. I might do it for fun, but I do Appreciate having readers. Remember to leave comments, and if you have questions, write a comment. I will try to answer them next time ) The World at War! and more Blog - 005 This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. (I say spearhead because the remaining wolves followed right behind the dire wolf¡¯s charge.) ( including the dire wolf ) to buy me time to escape. Not long after having escaped the chaos, I was able to calm down enough to notice how stupid it was for me to run like that. I had over 500 men and was being attacked by a mere 40-something creature; if I had told my man to spit at those wolves, we would have drowned them with saliva alone. ( I really felt stupid at that point ) Thus I promptly turned around and ran back toward the fight. At least I ran towards the noise of the fighting. Even though I had not run far, the fog had already blocked my vision, so nothing was visible. ( that was my second and last stupid mistake ) In my rush to get back to try and avoid needless deaths among my troops, I ran too far ahead of my guards. ( as previously mentioned running away was the stupidest thing I could¡¯ve done, had we fought head-on, it would have been a landslide victory for us) It is a very anti-climatic way to end my first expedition, but it is what it is. The World At War! and more Blog - 006 ( for real this time ) ( yes, from Hannah Montana or Miley Cyrus if you want to be a stickler of it) So I place both arrow towers at the top of the wall, one on each side of the gate facing the land of fog. ( the arrows did not have a metalhead. The wooden shaft was simply sharpened at the end.) At the same time, arrows did not need to be restocked. The arrow tower was considered a strictly defensive structure instead of a troop summoning one. So instead of conjuring a large number of archers, they came with a never-ending supply of arrows. Finally, the archers were also equipped with a small stone dagger. You never know; there is always the possibility that something will make it inside the tower. (mainly going online to see what other lords did) As it turned out, my efforts paid off. The first thing I noticed is that there are generally two methods being used when exploring the fog. The first method is to lead your entire army into the fog and hunker down to fight off groups of monsters. Every time a group is killed, your army can advance until another group of monsters is encountered. The second method that lords used was splitting their army into many small units. The units will have somewhere between 5 and 10 such soldiers each. Then they will be spread out in a wide area and ordered to advance. This way, instead of large groups of monsters, each individual unit will encounter a small group or even a single creature at a time. Although there is always the possibility that a strong monster is encountered. The small unit would most likely be wiped out if that were to happen. ( at least that''s the plan ) Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. ( oversized for their species ) ( all of them ) were able to jump on the wall. The only good thing that has happened so far is that the archer towers first focused on the most significant threats. They could not quickly kill the jaguars, but even those monsters fell after a couple of voiles. The skirmishers reacted much the same, first focusing on the most prominent threat. After the five rounds of javelins were thrown, most of the jaguars had been killed or heavily injured. (Let''s just ignore the archer towers and the 250 skirmishers inside the castle who already threw all their Jarvis out.) So here I stand watching as the last archer tower is taken out. They managed to fare better than their counterparts. As only three regular wildcats attacked it. The archers managed to kill all three at the cost of only one archer. Sadly just as they were preparing to start firing their bows, two more cats made it into the towers hut. This time, unprepared, all the remaining archers received injuries or were killed. Before they even managed to get up from the floor, another 3 wildcats made it into the tower. Like that, the archer''s last struggle ended. ( that is where the fight is taking place. Most of the castle''s first floor is one big hall). The rest will be sent down to reinforce the formation. ( if it still stands). ( as the others held it down with their spears, one of the squires grabbed his sword and slashed the jaguars neck until its head fell of ) but it was too late. The damage had been done. All the still available skirmisher groups quickly engaged the new threat. So they could not further disturb the formation. I also ordered my 14 remaining guards to attack. (don''t want pesky cats sneak attacking us.), the rest were sent to reinforce the main hall. Good thing, too, because the skirmishers left behind in the main hall had not been able to hold on. By the time I got to the first floor, the formation had collapsed. My soldiers were being pushed back. However, we now outnumbered the remaining cats with this new soldier entering the fight. As the grand melee took place on the first floor, I went back upstairs. Initially, to take some of the skirmishers stationed there as my guards. ( This helped me noticed that I had spent more time watching the fight in the main hall then what I originally believed.) I took 10 of the uninjured skirmishers and left the rest up there. In case something else tried to sneak down. Afterward, I just had a downstairs wash to melee. Having already killed quite a few of the creatures with a semi-circular formation, my troops had a good chance of winning. And I was I thought that''s what happened in. No longer using their spears, the squires took out their copper swords and started to hack and slash. A few of the wildcats did make it to where I was. Luckily the ten skirmishers were more than enough to block the entrance to the stairway. We could not kill them because, once again, wooden clubs were not the best weapons. But the skirmishers did distract them long enough for a nearby squire to come and deal with them. ( later levels will have more troops and shorter wait times ). My walls also took very little to no damage, a few scratches here and there, but that''s about it. The castle was much the same as the walls it tuck very little damage. Then I went back to the skirmisher''s camp, which had been newly rebuilt, and gave it the same commands it had standing before. Some soldiers were sent to the walls, others were left on standby, and the rest were put in patrol groups. I fallowed the exact same steps with my squires and then logged out for the day. Some of the fights happened quickly, such as the big melee inside the castle hall. But other battles took quite a bit of time, like the first impact on the fort walls.