Talk:Gajaad

Gajaad, Donations, and the Imperial Defense Value
Posted: Nov 2nd 2006 at 6:50am EST|By: Almalexia on allakhazam.com

Gajaad, a representative of the Walahra Temple, stands in Al Zahbi's Flameserpent Square collecting bronzepiece donations. Every 100 bronzepieces earns the donor a Walahra Water, and a Walahra Turban on the 10,000th bronzepiece. Once a person has donated enough for the turban, Gajaad is quickly forgotten.

Gajaad's purpose, however, is greater than a mini-quest for a Haste +5% headpiece.

I considered his purpose within the scope of the game: donations for the sake of Al Zahbi. I figured it was just a device to justify the turban, but then another mystery crossed my mind: the Imperial defense value. If you go to any Sanction guard and say "I have some questions..." > "Besieged" > "Empire's current state of defense," he will state this value (among other Besieged data). This value represents the presence of NPCs that will appear in the next Besieged. The value seems to cap at 200. When the value is high, many and more diverse NPCs are present. When the value is low, fewer and mostly Immortals/Volunteers are present.

For months I assumed that there was no trick to the value and it naturally built up between Besieged events, but this does not seem to be the case. I checked the defense value earlier this evening following a Lv.6 Mamool attack. The value was 160. With 5 bronzepieces in hand, I ran to Gajaad and traded the coins. The Sanction guard told me that the Imperial defense was 161. Curious, I cashed my IS in Whitegate for 10 more bronzepieces. I checked the value in Whitegate before zoning to Al Zahbi-- still 161. I ran to Gajaad, traded 10 coins, and returned to the Sanction guard. The value had risen to 163. I followed up this test by having an LS mate trade coins to Gajaad while I waited at the guard. Sure enough, every 5 bronzepieces traded increased the defense value by 1 point.

I bought two stacks of bronzepieces from the AH (too lazy to cash IS or go to Al Zahbi and make change) and traded a whole 99 coins to Gajaad. Strangely, the guard stated that the Imperial defense was 168, a mere 1 point higher than the results from my previous test of 5 coins at a time (my LS mate stopped trading at 167). I traded 5 coins, still 168. 10 coins, 168. 25 coins, 168. I had an LS mate repeat 5/10/25 coins. The value would not rise over 168.

This brings in another factor: prisoners. The presence of volunteers and Immortals depends on the number of NPCs in Al Zahbi. If NPCs are missing, fewer hometown participants appear. Currently on Sylph, there are 5 prisoners: one general and four merchants. The defense value is capped at 168, and the presumed highest value is 200. Generals represent themselves in Besieged, so counting the captured general out, we're left with 4 merchants. 32(defense short of 200)/4(prisoners) = 8(defense per NPC). I haven't tested this, but I'll wager that once a rescued merchant returns to the capital, the defense will rise by 8 adding unpaid volunteers and Immortals to the ranks.

Running with the above idea, consider the number of abductable NPCs. 10 merchants, 5 generals. I rule generals out of the defense value because they represent themselves in Besieged. Assuming the cap is 200 defense, every merchant is worth 8 points of defense, and every merchant is captured, the Imperial defense will not rise over 120 with reinforcements consisting entirely of mercenaries (Qiqirns, gobs) and the Imperial army if enough bronze is donated to max the value at 120. Inversely, if every merchant is present in Al Zahbi, the Imperial defense will never drop below 80 if every mercenary is killed and nobody donates anything.

This means that players can directly affect over half of the Imperial defense value (120) by donating bronzepieces, while the remaining chunk (80) depends on the presence of NPCs in Al Zahbi before the Besieged event. There is a possibility that more coins must be donated to accomodate the 8 points that each NPC represents after being rescued. In other words, rescuing the NPCs "raises the cap" on defense by 8. I'm assuming that NPCs only represent the unpaid participants in Besieged: Volunteers, and Immortals. Based on SE's description of these two kinds of reinforcements, they aren't paid anything, whereas the Imperial army and beastmen mercenaries are paid for their services. There's also the question of some NPCs being worth more than others, or perhaps generals are worth a ton and NPCs are worth very little. This is more than I can test without the proper conditions...

tl;dr--

- The cap on the Imperial defense value is 200, seperated into two parts: hired mercenaries (120 defense) and NPC representatives (80 defense). - The 10 merchant NPCs outside of Besieged account for 8 defense each. - The 5 generals seem to have no effect on the Imperial defense. - The Imperial defense value can be raised by donating bronzepieces to Gajaad in Al Zahbi, the Walahra Turban NPC. Gajaad will accept coins even after you've obtained a turban. - Gajaad will not accept donations if the appraisal NPC, Chochoroon, is a prisoner. - Every 5 bronzepieces raises the defense value by 1 point up to the 120-point mercenary cap. There seems to be no limit to the number of times any one person can trade coins for defense. - Merchant NPCs affect the presence of Volunteers and Immortals in Besieged. Donations affect the presence of Qiqirns, goblins and members of the Imperial army. - Easy way to determine your server's mercenary defense value: 1. Determine the number of generals in Al Zahbi's bastion. 2. Subtract the number of missing generals from the total number of prisoners (if 0 are missing, subtract nothing). 3. Multiply the number of non-general prisoners by 8. 4. Subtract the value from step 3 from 200. 5. Subtract the Empire's current defense value from the value in step 4. 6. Multiply the value from step 5 by 5. This will give you the number of Imperial bronzepieces to trade in order to cap out the mercenary defense value. If the value of step 5 is zero, then the mercenary defense is already capped!