BESIEGE and ENGAGE are once again fully active after a period of intense testing / tweaking / fixing today in light of numerous loopholes and exploits being shown up (especially in the besieging process). These have now been closed and the relevant updates are as follows:

Fortifications will now always strike back when attacked by legions and it is no longer possible to \"trick\" the forts into not attacking by removing the legion it is focused on.

If two legions are attacking, the strikeback from the fortifications will be increased and focus on one of the two until it is dead, when it will then focus on the next and continue striking, then the next, and so on.

ALL fortifications in a location will be part of the strikeback but the damage they dish out is determined based on the fortification size and the number of men that are manning them. Hitting one fort and avoiding the others is no longer possible. Numbers have been adjusted to reflect this.

Fortification strikeback will continue even when the siege has been cancelled providing the legion remains within range of the forts. Fort range is approximately a radius of five rooms.

Damage dealt by bombs and rams has been adjusted to match the appropriate strikeback - in many cases this is a reduction intended to make fortifications sufficiently threatening and able to delay entry to whatever they are protecting.

The paradigm for all invasions / sieges is that in the case of a CITY GATEHOUSE, it should take 24 hours to destroy 100,000 forts. Village or non-gatehouse fortifications are 60% less resilient (therefore take 2.5 times as much damage, and 2.5 less time to destroy).

I will remind everyone that Avalon is a land of cause and effect and that any attack or engagement which is effortless and without any consequences is almost certainly a loophole. There should never be any warfare situation where you are able to attack another without any risk to yourself. Keep this in mind in future.

As always, any issues bugs queries or concerns should be reported to myself or Genesis as a matter of urgency.

Elmaethor, god of the stars

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Written and shown unedited exactly as rendered by text based game bulletin board on Avalon Online RPG and by my hand on the 30th of Midwinter, in the year 1395.