After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 475

Chapter 475: Rules of War
Other than Althea, there were only about ten soldiers below the level cap who accompanied her to Bright.

She wasn’t being stingy, but there was a limitation on how much external help a territory could get—and the precise amount was something they didn’t know yet. Not even the aborigines knew and she was not going to risk her own resources when she could help it.

Besides, attacking low-leveled individuals during wars, especially within the walls, was not only punishable by experience or gold… there was a small possibility of losing life, too.

She would not risk her people for that.

Still, to maximize their trip, she took the soldiers that could fight back during wars, for the most part anyway.

In Garan’s group it was only Luis, who was level 14. However, she did bring those above, though they’d be staying outside as reinforcement. This included Mao, who had just upgraded to 19, Rowan who was not far past the limit, and her husband.

There was a limit on who could cause chaos within the walls, outside was free reign.

One of the things she had learned about this world was that the Lord Token was more than just the right to create and control a territory—it was also the right to be protected by whatever ‘system’ enforced.

This made sense. How much energy would’ve been needed to apply all those rules everywhere? Having certain focal points—that was, territories—was much more logical.

Anyway, as Althea and a few soldiers went to Bright, she decided to review the rules a bit in order to avoid any penalties—which were apparently not small and certainly not worth all this hassle.

As mentioned, the rules of the territory wars were never shown explicitly and were found out after decades of warfare. There were many cases where people would just find out in the middle of the war.

Sometimes it caused losses, sometimes it saved lives.

This also meant that different people had different depths of understanding of the war, wherein some people could even find certain loopholes to take advantage of.

In any case, what she knew about territory wars was as follows:

One, territories could only attack territories of the same level or above. This was something everyone knew about. This would minimize the massacres and was a very good rule.

There were plenty of territories that had been heavily punished by failing to do this limit, though to be fair a lot of earlier losses were because they didn’t know the level limits yet.

She had gotten a couple of stories from the Aborigines. There was once a town that wanted to attack a village. They were punished by paying a thousand gold, which was far more than what they could’ve earned by winning that war.

Of course, if the level differences between same-level territories were wide, a massacre was still unavoidable.

This was what happened to Mauin Village, whose refugees had just arrived in their territory. They would comprise the first batch of official Aborigine residents—a historical move—and she felt a little sad that she couldn’t welcome them with Mathilda’s team.

Similarly, there were also territories that had attacked stronger territories. However, unless the lord was stupid, this move was limited to territories with strong town or city backers. These territories simply had resources that couldn’t be matched by typical villages of the same level.

Interestingly, this leap fight had been limited to differing levels of the same ranks. That was to say, villages could only attack villages and towns could only attack towns. After all, the requirements of different ranks were much too high.

In her case, she knew for certain that even after she had upgraded to Level 3 village, it would still take a while for her to upgrade to a Town.

As for what were the requirements to Towns, none of the aborigines were actually certain. Lords generally didn’t broadcast what they knew, whether it was about the Lord Panel or Territory Wars, though they may mention it to trusted people when they were asked.

With the history of withholding information in Xeno, this wasn’t anything surprising.

However, Gill did say that he and Cassandra would ask her cousin, the Lord of Ferrol Town, about it when they got back.

Another rule was the limitation of forces that could participate in wars. Wars would automatically trigger after a certain percentage attacked a territory.

Generally, Village levels could allow a maximum level of 15, towns at 40, and cities without any limits at all. This included allied forces as well.

Of course, citizens above this level could defend the territory, but in no way would they be allowed to commit any aggression. If they did, they would also be heavily punished. The punishment varies from gold to experience or even something in their spaces.

This was fair for most. For those with stronger forces, they could be used to defend effectively while the others attacked, which wasn’t a bad approach.

There was also another limit to outside forces allowed to join the war, with ‘outside forces’ defined to be non-residents that were sent from allied territories, ideally within the level limit set by the system. These people must also be residents of the allied territories sending help.

“This could be easily circumvented as long as the helpers would buy residency in that territory instead, right?” She asked Oslo, who also joined them.

“Yes, Ms. Althea. But while a common practice for stronger territories, it’s not much seen in others,” Oslo said, very gently and naturally suave, ignoring the sharp stare of her husband. “This is because the allied territories generally charge a lot more money, about twice the cost of permanent residency, as additional cost.”

Simply put: It wasn’t worth it.

“Are there any other limitations?” She asked. She worried for when they’d have to face an aborigine territory with plenty of allies.

“From what we know, in terms of both quantity and quality, a territory could not call on help beyond a certain percentage of the comprehensive strength of the entire territory since its establishment. This includes hiring Mercenary Teams through the Mercenary Hall.”

They knew that Mercenary Halls would become available once they upgraded to Town. It was a lot like the village center’s hiring function, except the mercenaries could use the teleportation array to be summoned from one territory to another every few days.

It was also much more expensive, and hiring many members of Mercenary teams every war was not something many territories could afford.

Comprehensive Strength was the slightly mysterious thing for all of them. The comprehensive strength of a territory seemed to include population, resources, and overall military capabilities.

This meant that Altera’s comprehensive strength was probably really good for a village. Oslo even said it was not inferior to small towns.

This meant that, in the worst-case scenario, she could call on town-level forces, simply because her current forces were around that level. Of course, this also meant she could not be stagnant, or the comprehensive level would just even off eventually.

“But as for the exact number, territories have their own ways of calculation, and I don’t think anyone has perfected it yet.”

It was because they hadn’t quite mastered what ‘overall strength’ actually comprised exactly. It was why she didn’t risk bringing too many people with her this time.

Should she build a mathematic team, she wondered?