Downgrade Relations: Order 185

"'While an armed host lies before our doors, we look on you as foes and thieves.'" (The Hobbit™)

Politics are as much a part of Middle Earth Play by Mail as economy, diplomacy and military might. How nations view each other has a dramatic impact on the success of many orders. In facts, some orders, such as army combat, cannot be issued if the relations between the nations is too good. At games start, each nation has present views towards other nations. Neutrals share Neutral relations with all other nations. Good and Evil nations have Tolerant relations to others of their alignment and Dislike members of the opposite alignment.

Order 185 changes the way a nation percieves one other nation. Successfully issued, the order will downgrade the relations a nation has one notch with one other nation. This decrease can only be one step, and a nation can only downgrade with any other specific nation only once per turn. Even though this order is ranked as 'Easy' , it is "expensive" to order (from a labor use standpoint). It requires a character with command skill in the capital and is considered a 'Command Skill' order. When the order is issued, the character must specify the number of the nation to upgrade relations with. Note that using this order does not affect in any way how THAT nation views the nation issuing order. It ONLY affects the nation issuing the order.

This order is resolved before just about anything else happens during the game. Only Healing Spells and Changes of Allegiance occur before relations between nations change. This is important, because having decreased relations towards another nation increases the success of orders against that nation, and decreases that foe's ability to successfully issue orders against the player's nation. There is probably no way to tell how many orders have their outcome affected by the status of the relations between nations. Clearly, army combat can only be ordered by a nation that Dislikes (or worse) a foe. Further, having at least neutral relations towards another nation will allow armies and fortifications to stop army movement. During combat, the lower relation a nation has towards another actually increases the effectiveness of its troops!

Less than Friendly relaitons will affect the transfer of food and supplies between population centers and other nations' armies, and unless a nation dislikes another, the presence of an army will not prevent emissaries from taking a population center through influence! Decreased relaitons will enhance a nations agent and emissary orders, and weaken all opponent's emissary orders. This list undoubtably is incomplete as there are probably other, more subtle effects that decreased relations has on game mechanics.

For example, consider the Dark Servants or the Free Peoples attacking a formerly neutral nation, such as the Rhun, with Emissaries. Chances are very good that even though the Rhun changed allegiences, that it is still neutral towards most of the now-enemy team. As a result, its armies will not be able to stop a coordinated emissary attack on its capital!

As mentioned earlier, this is a costly order to issue. Consider: for a Good nation to decrease relations to Hated with all Evil nations requires 10 capital command orders! It is another 10 such orders to decrease relations to Hated with all Neutrals. For a Neutral nation changing allegiance, there will be a minimum of 10 orders required just to issue combat orders against all enemy nations. While clearly the benefits are there, for an order that does NOT have an automatic 100% success rate (I've succeeded with less than a 40 Commander, and failed with over a 55 Commander), forcing it to be issued ONLY by a commander seems excessive.

To sum up, proper use of this order will do nothing but benefit a nation. The cost of the order is one that must be budgeted for. Failure to properly use this order can actually hurt a nation to point of collapse. A player must be very diligent with long term strategy to obtain the best use of this order.

by Jeffery Doberpuhl