Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24108228-20141020170717/@comment-24108228-20141108230719

TheLastFullMeasure wrote: Added ing to this you always like to reference arms races so this is what would happen so are you still opposed to arms races if not please explain why NoBanana. I'm genuinely confused, what are you asking me to do? I understand if you don't want to use full punctuation and grammar, but I believe we have rules about at least using it to the point where its clear what you're trying to say.

Having looked at it for about five minutes, my best guess would be that your calling me a hypocrite about using "An Arms Race would Start" to criticise suggestions while this suggestion would create one of its own.

Going from this, I believe you would be best off looking at the definition of the term "Arms Race". I use this term to criticise suggestions about raiding and defending, a subject which, whenever tampered with in updates, brings up threads here from people concerned about one "Side" having the upper hand. The addition of guns has no sides. In fact, I promote quite the opposite.

With flintlocks and arquebuses (arquebus excluded from this argument as they are useless in attacking tribes, as well as obtaining when restricted to tribal life), it is both raider and defender friendly. Since flintlocks (and the corresponding bullet) can be made on over a quarter of the tribe friendly islands on the New Map (because not enough people factor that into suggestions), or two thirds if you disregard the islands that couldn't make a weapon more advanced than a stone spear previously anyway, they are a revolutionary weapon for tribal defence, allowing islands to defend themselves which couldn't previously.

Not only this, but they help raiders too, and encourage ranged combat. Most raiders of the present simply bring a good sword, set fire to the rain buildings, and kill anyone who comes anywhere near. Some also like to make themselves a set of mithril armour, but if you have mithril your only possible match is other mithrilites, bluesteelers, and a particularly skilled multi-wielder (because contrary to common belief, effectively using three weapons at once while under heavy pressure is quite difficult).

With flintlocks, the raider can spend more time to kill enemies (in particular pesky runners) a lot more easily. In addition to increasing the value of armour (a player in bento armour holding a steel sword could potentially defeat an armourless flintlock user, assuming there is no element of surprise), defenders will find themselves at a need for more ranged power, to counter the flintlocks, and then they will make longbows. Finally, bows are used by more than just multi wielders, and become a core part of combat.