Author: Meraki Games Team

Meet: The Rupani Military – Officer

Meraki Games Team

Rupani Spearman - Pyrrhic Victory - Meraki Games

Every army, no matter how powerful or organized has need of solid leaders to lead their forces into the fray. The militarized nation of Rupani has entire schools devoted to the study of war. Most notable is the officer’s Academy at Beih’go Bao which is known throughout Rupani (and even other nations) as the best school to become learned in the art of war. Here, promising soldiers and children of Fraehalders are taught strategy and tactics. Besides teaching the current strategy and tactics of Rupani, the past strategy and tactics of Rupani and other nations are also taught. A well wrought education will leave an officer ready for nearly anything and able to come up with the right strategy or tactic for any situation – even if faced with the unexpected or antiquated, or so Rupani hopes.

This school of thought seems to be serving them well given that Rupani has destroyed all other nations on their half of the continent.

The military officers of Rupani lead groups of soldiers into battle – be it small brigades as a Captain or the entire army as the Commander. The officers are rarely tent-strategists well-removed from the actual battle but more often than not these officers are on the front lines marching with their soldiers. The overall army is led by the General, a man or woman that won the position through trial by combat with their second in command being the man or woman that came in second place. Commanders are then appointed by the General to command garrisons and armies, with the Commanders appointing Captains as needed.

Unlike the infantry, officers do have more freedom in their equipment. Many of the officers wear the traditional breastplate and shoulder-plates, but some also wear leather armour for more mobility. Again, many of the officers carry shields with a rapier or a kampilan, but just as many carry spears when they lead spearmoldiers or longbows when they lead archers. This variance in equipment, especially in officers with multiple skill-sets, allows for a large amount of flexibility in Rupani tactics. Recognized officers and commanders often spend their well earned gold to buy recognizable pieces of equipment to help them stand out on the battlefield. Many Rupani armies had achieved victory from a rout when they were inspired by a well known Captain entering the field of battle. Sometimes these pieces of equipment are simply shiny helms or gold-gilting of armour, other times it may be a fancy pair of boots.

Meet: The Rupani Military – Spearsoldier

Meraki Games Team

Rupani Spearman - Pyrrhic Victory - Meraki Games

The Rupani Military has its roots with its spear-wielding soldiers. Hundreds of years ago as Rupani left their swamps the only weapons they could make properly were spears made from swamp reeds. The rapidly growing reeds could be painstakingly sharpened to a fine point while still retaining their durability and light weight. Able to be thrown with deadly accuracy and durable enough to withstand most sword strokes these spears have long been the hallmark of their early success – until they found and stole better weapons of course.

Even today the Rupani army starts their soldiers off with the spear – a spearwall being easier to discipline and maintain than a shieldwall. The spears are now made from oak rather than swamp reeds and utilize a metal spearhead. The land army makes the heaviest use of the spearwalls, especially when protecting archers from charging Slahor cavalry. Spear-soldiers are also often employed on ships, using their spears to keep enemy boarders away from the allied archers and mangonels and the ship’s sails while being able to more easily damage enemy sails with the sharp metal spearheads. At short range the spearthrowing soldiers can hit as accurately as an archer and often with more force. Eventually spear-soldiers will be trained in other weaponry, such as the longbow or rapier as they show they have coordination, skill, determination and bravery.

Against Slahor the spear proves most effective as they are useful against cavalry charges. Unfortunately the Slahor cavalry archers tend to avoid the spear-soldiers, even spearthrowing soldiers. They are most useful in protecting the archers from sword-cavalry so that the archers can protect them from other archers. Against Kosekya the spear also proves quite useful against their more heavily armoured cavalry – a few soldiers lost to stop a Warden is a price Rupani is more than willing to pay. Against Narsput the spears prove as useful as a sword, and often more useful as a spearwall can stop a charge just long enough for archers to route the enemies. Unfortunately for the spear-soldiers the spear tends to be a bit too long for the jungles of Narsput but it does help defend the Rupani Baos from Narsput invasion. Against Wajanderu the spear does little as Wajanderu prefers to fight from a distance. Even when closing into melee Wajanderu’s shieldwalls balk the spearwall, and with their ranged superiority they will tend to let Rupani charge and lose any possible advantage.

Meet: The Rupani Military – Archer

Meraki Games Team

Rupani Archer - Pyrrhic Victory - Meraki Games

Truly, the Rupani military is the most powerful nation when upon the open sea; their navy has rarely suffered defeat. Alongside the warriors a core piece of their army and their navy land is the archer. More than five hundred years before the game starts Rupani was still in the process of conquering the western half of the continent. One of the largest challenges was defeating the Heiꜩon, as they made heavy use of the longbow – able to shoot down Rupani archers from well outside of the range of their bows. The longbows of the now-fallen Heiꜩon slew Rupani by the hundreds: stopping charges and breaking their morale more often than not. Ultimately it was the vast size of the Rupani empire which dwarfed the Heiꜩon and led to their downfall.

Naturally, the Rupani took this technology and integrated it into their army when they destroyed that nation.

The archers of Rupani now make use of the longbow when fighting on the sea and land. On land they stand upon hills or with a solid wall of warriors and spearmen to guard them and are able to rain death upon approaching enemies. On the sea the archers are accurate enough to slay foes on enemy ships – skilled archers even use fire arrows with oil pots to set ships aflame.

Against their hated foes the Slahor the longbow proves to cut both ways. The longbow easily out-ranges anything which Slahor fields and easily cuts down the lightly armoured soldiers. However, the archers tend to be slow moving and are easily routed by cavalry which Slahor makes heavy use of. When fighting against Kosekya the longbows have a proper arc to damage the enemy forces behind their shield walls which helps offset the destructive power of the enemy donderbus. Narsput and Wajanderu prove to be the most troublesome for the archers as they both use tactics which close the range quickly allowing their shortbows and Wajan Air Piercers to wreck havoc among the archers when caught by surprise.

Pyrrhic Victory – Soundbite of Rupani OST

Meraki Games Team

Music in games is often the glue that brings the graphics and gameplay together and delivers helps immerse the player in their task. Good music therefore must should fit two criteria. First it must be recognizable – this is the music that you recognize after years of not playing a game, the first welcome home upon load and music that plays pleasantly in your head after you finish playing for the night. Secondly, music must be non-distracting – the music can’t take away from the gameplay sounds which are required to cue the player to the action, nor can the music just plain be distracting (irritating, too noisy, too chaotic, etc) that the player is unable to focus on the game they’re playing.

Pyrrhic Victory is a game of large scale – large armies on even larger maps battling to defeat or death. Each army has its own culture in the world, so each army will have its own music as well. Today we present to you all: a soundbite of the Rupani sound track.

Enjoy!

Fire Dance Part 1

Meraki Games Team

Hey everyone!

We have released the first part of our multi-part story Fire Dance – a short story taking place in the world of Pyrrhic Victory. In Fire Dance, we meet O’in, the heir to one of the four cities in the Nation of Slahor.

Part 1 of Fire Dance has been posted here: https://merakigames.ca/pyrrhic-victory/short-stories/fire-dance-part-1/ – be sure to check it out!

Be sure to come back tomorrow for Part 2 of Fire Dance.

Desert Arena - Pyrrhic Victory - Meraki Games

-Kyle

Lamenting Tree Part 3 has arrived!

Meraki Games Team

Hey all,

We’ve now released Part 3 of the Lamenting Tree by Joni. Joni has done an amazing job with the Lamenting Tree, so check it out if you haven’t yet! You can find Part 3 at https://merakigames.ca/exile-saga/short-stories/lamenting-tree-part-3/

Haven’t started reading Lamenting Tree yet? Start with Part 1 here: https://merakigames.ca/exile-saga/short-stories/lamenting-tree-part-1/

With Part 3 we conclude our first multi-part short story for Exile Saga! Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to catch the next short story, see upcoming screenshots and more for both Exile Saga and Pyrrhic Victory.

Check back here next week for our first multi-part short story for Pyrrhic Victory, Fire Dance!

The Lamenting Tree - Exile Saga - Meraki Games

-Kyle

NEW! MerakiGames.ca | Goodbye Wix, hello WordPress

Meraki Games Team

Dear People of the World,

A few weeks ago Kyle asked me to have a look into updating the Exile Saga website and making a brand new one for Meraki Games. We didn’t have one yet, so it was long overdue. Yesterday I finally got around to it and set up merakigames.ca. Definitely an improvement if you ask me, because the old www.exilesaga.com is made with Wix and though Wix has it’s advantages it makes sites heavy, slow to respond and slow to load. Though Wix is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) system it can become cumbersome to find your way through the interface when you have an elaborate site and that made it annoying to work with. Plus; the team still depended on me to go into the system to post things which caused delays sometimes. So albeit Wix had many addons it just wasn’t the promised land. As Kyle put it, Wix was inconvenient in case I walked under a bus.

Well, not anymore!

From today onwards I can happily walk under any bus I might come across because the new wordpress website allows us to post easier, be far more responsive and (definitely added value) wordpress gives us direct on-the-go data and analytics about performance. Which is excellent because I sure do love my data and though I was already using google analytics; built-in wordpress data is super nice too.

In the coming few weeks I’ll be fine-tuning merakigames.ca so if you see any changes; don’t be alarmed. It’s just me fiddling about. In time we plan on going for an entirely custom designed theme too but I’m still working on that; it’s going to need to be absolutely awesome, you see. In meantime, we’ll keep updating you here working with what we have now.

Have any questions? Feel free to drop us a note via our contact form or send us an email via [email protected]

Kim signing out, and on her way to find a proper bus. Tah-tah.

Meraki Games Web 1.0

To fish or not to fish. Because why not fish.

Meraki Games Web Design 2.0

Okay maybe a little less fish.