Feeding the Corruption

I have to disagree about being able to participate. I got a few IGMs from people saying they only have cotter towns and don't want to waste good commanders, and from new players who are interested but don't know what they can do.

To do the quest, a player needs a city with all the research finished. But we don't know how to finish the quest yet, and need help to figure it out so we can share how with everyone else. We need help with feeding the heart because it takes so freaking much to feed it until it is satiated, we need help with defending our towns for the attack that is supposed to happen, and we need help figuring things out, like the satiation threshold and what it really takes.

The Windseekers have been suspected of being involved and they have been spotted in Kumala a few times. Looking for them on the map is something anyone can do, and there might be a clue to this quest that we have overlooked in the past.

The Empirium is another faction that might be involved, since they sent the expedition party to Kumala that got lost and it was their journal that was recovered and returned. The Circle of Five is more than likely to be involved. It's also possible that Duraz Karag holds some other clue to the quest.

For players with small towns or cotter towns and don't have armies, those are perfect for sending armies to the heart. We don't want to send our best, high level commanders because they do not come back and cannot be resurrected. Making new, level 0 commanders and a small amount of troops is perfect. It's not too much of a gold hardship and that'll be fixed anyway as soon as they get eaten by the heart. You don't have to pay them if they're dead. I imagine if 100 players made 5 new commanders and 100 units in each town and sent them to the heart, it would add up to 1000s. And it all helps.

The way my alliance decided we would do these monthly feedings is we picked 1 of us (guess who got to go first!) and that 1 member is going to send either 500 to 1K units from each town with the lowest level commanders or T1s OR do a complete change of troop type in 1-2 towns and send all of the units and all 5 commanders from each city. We didn't want doing this to take too much time away from other things or cause too much of a burden or hardship on any 1 member or the alliance as a whole. We want to be able to send a feeding every month and also do the other stuff we do like war games and hunting. Some of us have towns with mixed units or the wrong type and we're going to use the feedings to clean up our towns and get them with the right type of troops. And then I also have a couple of my alt's towns in Kumala that I use solely for feeding the heart all the time, as much as possible.  

I hope lots of people sent lots of troops and/or diplos to the HoC on January 1st, and I'm checking for a newly corrupted square every day. And I also hope that we can keep doing this every month and make it a regular thing. 

There was only one time when tentacles escaped from players' towns in September 2014, and they didn't know what was about to happen. They were expecting an attack and were reinforcing with armies, but did not try anything to keep the tentacles from escaping. No one knew yet.

As far as how much and what it takes to corrupt a square, we don't know. One player said it takes 250K of attack to corrupt a square, but some of us don't agree. I've sent more than that and nothing happened, and so have others. And that's why some of us think it is possible that there are some other factors involved, like moon phase, number of players sending and not just a total number of units, or a certain number of units within a specific time period. I can see a complex algorithm for this, just like other complicated stuff in this game.

The drop ratio was calculated to be about 1 corrupted tentacle for every 20 attacks. But I don't think it matters so much anymore since the duration was extended from only 3 days to 2-3 weeks. We have plenty of time to send more missions and get more attacks and tentacles.

And just a reminder - wait to send a messenger to Duraz Karag until the heart is beating, even if you have all 20 tentacles. All of the players who had tentacles escape in 2014 sent the messengers to DK while the heart was beating. You don't have to wait to get the tentacles though.

The HoC activation thresh-hold has never been satisfactorily understood, only that no-one really knows how many troops it takes to corrupt a square.  There is a square limit which I forget, but once reached, the HoC will beat (possibly from a particular moon phase?).  Most of us used to spam the HoC with scouts when it was active, and it almost broke the server which was why the diplo mission limit was implemented.  The tentacle drop rate is very low - its also on the forum somewhere. I used to send 1,000's of missions and have got around 200 tentacles (before the diplo limit was brought in.)

I thought about blockades, but then I thought about the purpose of the task and we're supposed to get our friends to help us defend our towns. I don't see a blockade as something that we do to defend our towns. We don't normally get our friends to blockade us for defensive reasons. A blockade would have to be sent from a town that is not in the same alliance or in an alliance with a confed or NAP, so it would have to come from someone who is not an ally.

So if your friends can't blockade your town and you're supposed to get your friends to help, it doesn't seem like a blockade is what we're supposed to do.

My plan is to surround my town on all 8 squares and have thief and sab support in the town. But we don't know if it will work or not since it only happened that one time and they had no idea that the tentacles were going to escape when they did.

Yes, any units can be sent to the Heart of Corruption or any of the corrupted squares around it. The message is the same - units get consumed and the corruption spreads as a result. With trade units, although there is a limit on the number a city can have, you can start making new units as soon as they are eaten by the HoC. And you can send out new diplo missions when the others get eaten. You don't have to wait for anything to come back home.

I think putting armies around the towns before the tentacles escape is a good idea.  Not sure if a blockade is necessary. Maybe just occupation.