The Government moved to the newly wiped US Rustinity 2x monthly large vanilla server on 7th Sept 2023 and built a large village on the north-east coast of the map. The southern border of the village was flush against the north-eastern edge of the Giant Excavator Pit. A group of bandits attempted to wall-off the Excavator, which sparked the conflict when the wall project reached the Government village. The Government fended off all four major attacks, which all involved the bandits basing their attacks from a tower.

First battle
It was common for bandits at the Excavator to fire at the Government villagers, and for the villagers to return fire from their bases. The conflict escalated on that first day as the bandits fired rockets at the Government’s community building, killing a horse. The bandits soon skirmished into the village and built a tall stone tower.

The Gov’s communication was scattered across different voice channels, and many of the village bases were further north-east (with little view of the battlefield). Villagers were busy getting up to speed so soon into the wipe, but despite these issues, the bandit tower was quickly captured, and had disappeared by the next day. The bandit group had alteast 7 members online (and reportedly “more than 30” in total). The battle had lasted around an hour.

Second battle
Atleast 9 bandits then tried to wall off the Excavator the next day (8th Sept), which included building a new stone tower (near the site of the original). Blocking the path of the wall was a Government building called Blockhouse 54, which the bandits had lost a rifle to, and attacked with explosives. The rifle was fired back at the bandits until the ammunition was spent (inflicting many casualties), and when the defender was busy eating, the bandits raided the building to recapture the rifle (the only thing worth stealing in it).

The building was quickly patched up, and the enemy lost a minicopter in a crash. They had a second minicopter, which the Government captured and rammed into the enemy. The bandits were angry at having been shot from the village buildings, but hypocritically they were the ones that started the battle by firing at the villagers from their tower. Around 15 Government members were online later in the battle; the bandits asked for a ceasefire, and retreated after it was denied – abandoning their tower which had several sentry guns (which the Government quickly captured). The battle had lasted two and half hours.

Third battle
On 9th Sept the bandits attacked the village with a minicopter and an attack chopper, damaging Blockhouse 54 again. Hours later the third battle had started properly, with the bandits making a push to capture a stone tower (ironically, built on the same spot as the original). The bandits sent a van into the village during the assault, but still suffered casualties taking the tower.

The van briefly retreated, which gave them a moment to repair it, before the driver then parked it by their fallen comrades against the base of the tower. The van was destroyed there as the Government largely took control of battle. The Gov had around 11 members online, while the bandits only appeared to commit around 5 at any one time. Blockhouse 54 was broken into again, but the attackers were quickly trapped and eliminated. The tower was also fully recaptured by villagers, but firefights continued, making this battle a particularly long one (lasting 4 hours).

Fourth battle
On Sept 10th, barely 3 hours after the previous battle, the bandits outright invaded the village, landing a pair of choppers in it and building a thick sheet metal tower. There were only a few villagers online (the Europeans had gone to bed), so the “20-man” of bandits (attacking at a more comfortable 8pm in their timezone) initially had fire suppression, but were slow in their attempts at raiding the village buildings because they kept changing targets without reaching loot rooms.

The invaders got shot at from Blockhouse 54, and blew up its wooden window room four times, but each time it was repaired and resumed fire. More villagers were coming online to wear down and ultimately repel the invasion. One bandit hid inside the village art gallery. The bandits had around six choppers; debris of destroyed choppers littered the village as the Government fired rockets at them.

The bandits lost control of their tower, and things briefly went quiet, but then two hours after the start of the battle, they made a charge towards the tower. The Government now had 15 members online, and had captured “rows of guns” from the bandits, and were successful in stopping this last attempt by the bandits to reach the tower. The server suddenly crashed, and there was a rollback of several minutes, so both sides raced to get back into the server to replay the final charge, which was won again by the Government. The battle ran on for a 3rd hour as the bandits made a nuisance raid against a pyramid base.

Aftermath
By 11th Sept the Government had “wiped out” local opposition as far as 4 grids away from the village. The war had largely ended, as the bandits now seemed to avoid large confrontations. On 12th Sept the bandits made rocket attacks to harass the village on foot and with two choppers, losing one chopper. Around 14th Sept there was a glitch attack against the village where “over 300 rockets” were fired without the sound of explosions, but the enemy made no profit in the attack, and took losses towards the end of the raid.

The bandits had consisted of two groups that had allied (after previously fighting eachother), although not all of the battles involved both groups attacking the Government at the same time. The Government retained control of their village (and by extension, the nearby Excavator). After the war, the bandit alliance broke down as conflict between them reignited. Two of the bandits made a social visit to the village on 13th Sept where they and village members reminisced about some of the battles as they hung out by the art gallery. On 14th Sept the Government built a wall around the village.

The Government villagers had been resilient through the difficulties of those first few days – dealing with frequent server crashes and rollbacks, and working out the kinks of the clan table update which confusingly existed alongside (but was separate to) the team system – meanwhile fighting off convicted cheaters (60% of one bandit group’s members had anti-cheat convictions). The villagers had often been outgunned during the war, as “we lost tier 2 kits to [the bandits], but gained tier 3 kits from them.” The President himself had stepped in help repair captured weaponry.

Categories: Raids