Cities

Eomy

Hello, i'm trying to decide on a city to start with could someone give me a rundown on each city and what they focus on whether it be rp (if so what kind) pvp etc.

Silvarien

The Help scrolls on each City give a general idea. Type in HELP HASHAN, HELP ASHTAN, HELP CYRENE, HELP TARGOSSAS, HELP ELEUSIS, HELP MHALDOR.  If you have further questions, look at someone in the city you're interested in and send them a tell. People are generally friendly, so you'll probably get the help you need. If you have any more questions after that ask us. Hope this helps!

Blujixapug

Mhaldor: teh evulz. Militaristic soldier culture, plus necromancy, demons, slaving, etc. Theocratic hierarchy with the God of Evil at the top. The Seven Truths is a Mhaldorian text that defines 'Evil' and is your intro pamphlet on How To Be A Mhaldorian. New members start at the 'slave' rank and are expected to be seen and not heard until they rank up. More fun than it seems, but requires some disciplined RP; don't expect to get anywhere in Mhaldor if you need to be a defiant, rebellious snowflake.

Cyrene: cultural refinement. Part Switzerland, part Rennfaire. Artists, artisans, knights in shining armour. They like their cider sweet and their mountaintops snow-capped. Friendly atmosphere, a bit isolated. If you like planning and participating in events like festivals, Cyrene has that. If you want to go to war and get into epic conflicts with other factions, Cyrene will probably shun you from their cliques.

Ashtan: mixing pot, think New York/Ankh-Morpork/industrial-era London, with a splash of Spartan warrior culture. Equal parts colourful characters and filthy gutters. Bit of a rowdy, disrespectful-but-it's-all-good atmosphere. Home of those who worship/study Chaos, an extradimensional energy that could destroy the world, drive you mad, or convey the godlike power to reshape reality. This city is about to have all its resident Houses changed, so it's hard to predict what will happen. Sometimes struggles with divided internal focus on on what Ashtan is actually all about.

Hashan: kind of the nega-version of Cyrene. Used to be a hive of treachery. Hashan just underwent some huge changes so I'm not sure what it's like these days.

Eleusis: half fluffy bunnies, cuddling Bambi, romping through sun-dappled dells. Half Mononoke in her blood warpaint, running with wolves and tearing out the throats of those who transgress upon the forests. Half Galadriel of Lothlorien doing elegant mystical stuff.

Targossas: Righteous armies crusading against the evils of the world. Theocratic hierarchy with the Bloodsworn Gods at the top. Military culture, with angels, clerics, paladins. Make the world a better place by purging the bad bits with fire and steel.

Faur

Blujixapug said:

Mhaldor: teh evulz. Militaristic soldier culture, plus necromancy, demons, slaving, etc. Theocratic hierarchy with the God of Evil at the top. The Seven Truths is a Mhaldorian text that defines 'Evil' and is your intro pamphlet on How To Be A Mhaldorian. New members start at the 'slave' rank and are expected to be seen and not heard until they rank up. More fun than it seems, but requires some disciplined RP; don't expect to get anywhere in Mhaldor if you need to be a defiant, rebellious snowflake.

Cyrene: cultural refinement. Part Switzerland, part Rennfaire. Artists, artisans, knights in shining armour. They like their cider sweet and their mountaintops snow-capped. Friendly atmosphere, a bit isolated. If you like planning and participating in events like festivals, Cyrene has that. If you want to go to war and get into epic conflicts with other factions, Cyrene will probably shun you from their cliques.

Ashtan: mixing pot, think New York/Ankh-Morpork/industrial-era London, with a splash of Spartan warrior culture. Equal parts colourful characters and filthy gutters. Bit of a rowdy, disrespectful-but-it's-all-good atmosphere. Home of those who worship/study Chaos, an extradimensional energy that could destroy the world, drive you mad, or convey the godlike power to reshape reality. This city is about to have all its resident Houses changed, so it's hard to predict what will happen. Sometimes struggles with divided internal focus on on what Ashtan is actually all about.

Hashan: kind of the nega-version of Cyrene. Used to be a hive of treachery. Hashan just underwent some huge changes so I'm not sure what it's like these days.

Eleusis: half fluffy bunnies, cuddling Bambi, romping through sun-dappled dells. Half Mononoke in her blood warpaint, running with wolves and tearing out the throats of those who transgress upon the forests. Half Galadriel of Lothlorien doing elegant mystical stuff.

Targossas: Righteous armies crusading against the evils of the world. Theocratic hierarchy with the Bloodsworn Gods at the top. Military culture, with angels, clerics, paladins. Make the world a better place by purging the bad bits with fire and steel.

Good thing I re-read this, I must be tired. I read, "...Military culture, with angels, CLERKS, paladins."

Edit: Silly end quotation marks, you belong in there somewhere.

Selira

Bluj nailed it.

Since you asked about whether or not any cities in particular focus on RP or PVP, the answer is that they all do, really. Hashan and Cyrene definitely do less of the PVP on the world stage in terms of inter-city conflict, but both have places for you to learn how to do so pretty well. But staying in character is strongly enforced no matter which city you go to, and all do a ton of things IC that affect the world as a whole.

Sarieno

Hashan has redefined itself from the city of whatever is current to the Court of Shadows. Court's basic premise is that because the Crown (Hashan's previous definition) consistently fell either under siege or under sway by foreign factions -we're on our own and refuse any foreign influence from controlling us, especially religious zealotry. Hashani are a people committed to 'thinking' arts like alchemy. We also have a growing segment of the population learning and applying combat, though I don't have to explain to most of the people reading this of the 'growing pains' we've had there.

Other than that, Bluj pretty well handled the descriptions.

Tl;DR - Hashan is a city surrounded by a big canyon where we do experiments and dislike outside influence.

Tael

To add a bit to Blujixapug's post -

Mhaldor: Has a pretty deserved reputation for roleplaying - other cities have excellent roleplaying too, but it's frequently easier to see the people committed to roleplaying in Mhaldor than in the other cities where most of the RP tends to happen in smaller groups behind closed doors. Also, Mhaldorian "evil" is very different from what I think "teh evulz" evokes. If you want to go there to be a psychotic, aimless mass-murderer, that's not going to fly. It's more a sort of hardcore social darwinism/LaVeyan Satanism. And, as in-game philosophies go, more has probably been written by players trying to define and work out Evil than any other in-game ideology. Evil in Achaea is not the same thing as the word "evil" normally means in real-life. It's also a lot more newbie-friendly than people usually expect - newbies tend to get a lot of attention from older players, which may or may not be your cup of tea. If you want absolute freedom in what you spend your time doing, Mhaldor is not for you - you don't choose to get involved in the city, you are, by default, involved in things.

Cyrene: Especially great if you like the "slice of life" sort of roleplaying. I also think it's very good as a "starter city" - even if you eventually go somewhere else (which you might not want to after spending time there), it gives you a nice, comfortable place to learn the game where people are mostly content to just let you do your own thing (the downside to this is that you can kind of lack direction if you're not much of a self-starter). People tend to be very friendly, though the city has a little bit of a reputation for beaurocracy and a sort of Achaean political correctness.

Hashan: Hard to say right now. I imagine it might be a good place to be if you're looking to have a real impact since it's just changed pretty radically and, historically, it's often had some of the younger (in character age) leaders in the game. If the idea of helping shape the direction things take appeals to you, that might be worth looking into.

Eleusis: Blujixapug's metaphor here is pretty perfect. I've always felt like they were a little more insular and socially separated from the rest of the world than the other cities, but they seem pretty tight-knit.

Targossas: Attracts a lot of combatants. Was, until recently, somewhat devoid of interaction if you didn't really go looking for it (tons of people just idling waiting for the next raid), though my impression is that that's changing. It is not your normal, real-life definition of "good". If you go there saying "Why can't we all just get along? Isn't that what being Good is really about?" you're going to get burned.

Ashtan: A little bit of everything. Largest population. Can be harder to find specific things - since the city itself isn't themed like the others, you need to go find the people who are doing what you want to be doing, you can't just mill around and expect people to direct you. But if you're willing to look, you can be pretty much assured that someone in the city is doing the thing you want to be doing. The one thing to look out for is that, because there's less defining factional stuff to push people into doing things, it's easier to get bored and end up inactive if you don't seek out things to do on your own and get involved. The city is huge, and typically dominated by a few larger-than-life individuals at a time, along with their entourage, so it's also a little bit harder to "make your mark" there, at least at the city level.

Tharvis

Ashtan also seems to give off the impression of a more "distant" membership and cliques. But most of what I've seen and heard of that boils down to people logging in from work and tabbing out, and with communication spam they tend to not notice someone asked them a question or whatever and thus don't reply. (which apparently gives them an 'aloof' perceived personality)

Achilles

Pretty sure Cyrene has the largest population still.  Hashan seems to have the smallest population now.

Cyrene>Ashtan>Mhaldor>Targossas>Eleusis>Hashan would be my guess.

Sarathai

Achilles said:

Pretty sure Cyrene has the largest population still.

By far, I'd guess.

Ruth

Explanations on Mhaldor already exist on this thread. They are pretty accurate so I don't find the need to expound on it.

Based on my own observations though, newly-defined Hashan sounds like a city based on the refinement of knowledge and the plundering of information through research into the esoteric or little-understood aspects of Achaea. They turn up their nose at those who claim religious zealotry, believing their faith narrows their scope of the world and restricts their actions. They are proponents of progression, seeking to reach a goal by utilizing any means they can lay their hands on.

Vayne

It's always so obvious which cities players have never really had a character in these threads. You can get a idea of what the various cultures are like but I would try visiting them in game and spending time in each to get a real feel for what they are like.

Tael

Vayne said:

It's always so obvious which cities players have never really had a character in these threads. You can get a idea of what the various cultures are like but I would try visiting them in game and spending time in each to get a real feel for what they are like.

I have no idea about the others, but there is exactly one city I haven't had a character in - Eleusis.

I imagine the bigger issue is that cities can and do change. So having a character somewhere months or years ago doesn't necessarily tell you their current situation. Targossas, for instance, has supposedly been changing since I had a character there (though I'm not sure if those changes are noticeable to newbies yet). And I haven't had a character in Hashan in several years, on top of the recent shake-up.

Ultimately, I don't think "spend some time in each city" is very useful advice. People don't have infinite free time to spend trying out all of the cities in the game. And even people with a lot of free time are very much liable to get bored if they don't commit. If anything, I think it's a lot more important to pick a city that sounds enticing, don't worry too much about it being the "best possible choice" for you, and get invested and involved. Being invested in a city is way more important than merely being a member of whichever city "fits you best". A lot of people end up liking cities that they didn't think they would like, or even didn't like at first. And if you find you still don't like the city after a while, you can always leave - and you'll get a sense of the other options as you play, allowing you to make a better second choice.

No premature optimisation! Satisficing, not optimising!

Titonus

Blujixapug said:

Mhaldor: teh evulz. Militaristic soldier culture, plus necromancy, demons, slaving, etc. Theocratic hierarchy with the God of Evil at the top. The Seven Truths is a Mhaldorian text that defines 'Evil' and is your intro pamphlet on How To Be A Mhaldorian. New members start at the 'slave' rank and are expected to be seen and not heard until they rank up. More fun than it seems, but requires some disciplined RP; don't expect to get anywhere in Mhaldor if you need to be a defiant, rebellious snowflake.

I want this to be my forum sig..

Trevize

It's kinda like choosing a color in MTG. There's some variance, but go with the theme that you like best and you'll enjoy yourself more. Crusade-esque Good, Evil for Strength, Darkness and Mystery, Chaotic Freedom, Nature Fights Back, or Blue Art?

Titonus

Daeir said:

[...]Rogue life is hard on a newbie - wouldn't recommend it outright. Or at all, honestly. I survived about a month as a rogue and was dying of boredom [...]



Rogue life is more difficult in general. Newbie or not. Having no community interactions can also leave one to roam in and out of each city relatively freely.

This big thing about achaea to remember, is, you aren't playing alone. There is great value in the interactions you have with other players, and, (in my own opinion) is the main driving force of the game.

Exelethril

Daeir said:

Eleusis is a mixed bag of people with high engagement with the game and its overall narrative, talented a large pool of dormant fighters playing other games in both group and single combat domains, along with a huge constituent of people that basically treat the city as Cyrene with a leafier flavor, much to the chagrin of everyone else. Nature as a game conflict dichotomy places Eleusis at odds with the rest of the known world - but also embraces a pacifistic view on the world that a lot of players tend to adopt instead. Friction between these two views is constant, with the more aggressive variant currently in control of the city's general direction (mostly). Smaller scale interactions are prevalent, and engagement with the city is about as far as you want it to go, giving you a fine balance of most playstyles available in the game currently all in one place. It is heavily timezone weighed for the combat aspect, though. Definitely a solid start for a new player, even if getting used to the forestal dynamic takes a good deal of time.

Zuko

HONORS EOMY

There is no such person, I'm afraid.

(svo): Eomy doesn't exist anymore, deleted them.