Sure, there are the even-rostered battles here and there, no doubt. That always leads to fun battles. Being outnumbered by 6 at the beginning of a field defense is not certain defeat by any means, and as we all know it evened out fairly shortly. You did not win that last battle by outnumbering us, no. If anything is to blame for attackers in general having a hard time it is strat's core mechanics not scaling well with the decreasing population of this mod. That said, it sure as heck didn't hurt that you've all fought together countless times, and are each individually invested in the fight. It wasn't so much HCE vs the Wardens as it was HCE vs the ragtag mercenary brigade. But that's a whole 'nother argument about merc quality, I suppose.
I, myself am not trying to belittle your victories here. Well, the ones that were actually decent battles. However, you should expect to reap what you sow, and the amount of vitriol spewed from your guys' side at the end of some battles is downright disgusting, so it wouldn't surprise me if that was indeed someone else's intent. Also, please try and point out the last time the HCE was ganked by someone else, as I am having a hard time recalling any times it has been. A gank is not being outnumbered by maybe 5 guys when you have the advantage of castle walls, or a strong defensive position. A gank is overwhelming your foe quickly so that an otherwise equal battle was over in no time at all, kinda like what happened in the last Squids' battle. And while I wasn't a part of the Asugan siege, it seems like you had 10 more mercs, and nice walls to hide behind to boot. Can't really call it a gank since you didn't sally forth and cap the flags immediately, but you minds well have since no one could hope to take a castle that heavily outnumbered, save for a massive gear advantage.
Keep in mind that at the end of the day, you were the one saying we should all agree to some guidelines in a gentleman's agreement to keep strat alive, no one else was. We mostly all agreed to go along with it, as seen in the punishment of the Berzerks for breaking said guidelines, and yet here you are, breaking your own rules, then going back and saying "Nah, it's all good now, that stuff is fine by me." Well, what if the next guy who raids you says something similar? After all, who is the no-raiding pact really protecting here? HoC has got all its important fiefs garrisoned. LL, the Squids, and the Wardens all seem to as well. Yet the HCE has far more ungarrisoned castles/cities than they have with garrisons. I had a brand new strat player approach me saying how he wanted to just raid one of your guys' castles and then take it for himself, as it "was too tempting an opportunity to pass up." I cautioned him against it, and he finally decided against that action, only to then go back re-think why exactly I had told him that. I mean, raiding is a feature implemented to keep people from stretching themselves too thin and biting off more than they could chew. Clearly, nearly all factions are guilty of doing that since the strat map is simply so large and there are so few of us. Yet really, raiding is also there to give the little guy a chance. Anyone can get some troops, all it takes is some ticks, but getting good gear? That's something that takes a lot of time and effort for one guy, or simply lots of work hours spread amongst a (relatively) large amount of people, as is the case for most factions. So there's this raiding option that gives the little guy the chance to instantly snag a fully-equipped army's worth of gear, all due to the negligence of someone else. It gives the little guy a fighting chance. Any large faction that loses a fief in such a way can easily get it back by sieging their recently lost fief, and it is doubtful that the lone wolf would be able to hold out for long. Does saying this mean I want raiding to become the new norm? No, far from it in fact. But for how long can we expect to uphold our set of guidelines if we individually go about abolishing them whenever it benefits our side alone?
