Full report, courtesy of Ghost:
It has been a long time goal since Auroria launch to not only claim a castle for PRX but to also take one by force. With the current siege mechanics in NA Archeage, it is close to impossible to take a castle by siege. It would take outstanding dedication and commitment to even come close. On Superbowl Sunday, February 1st 2015, the Eastern guilds, The Elite, and PRX, aided by Circle of Kakis, Coven Nex, Exalted, Last Resort, Plague, Something Legit, Sovereign and Supremacia would come closer to taking a castle than anyone else on the most populated server in NA: Kyrios. The dedication shown was far beyond what anyone expected. Here is our story...
On Thursday night, 3 days before siege day, a member of PRX discovered something strange about the Marcala castle owned by The White Order |TWO|, a western faction guild.
There was speculation to why the castle walls were completely gone. Was it a bug? Did Trion strip TWO of their castle? Was TWO planning on selling their castle to someone else? Or were they rebuilding from scratch. just days before the siege?
By Friday morning, 5am EST, some castle walls were built. It was evident at this point that TWO was not happy with their current castle design and their intention was to rebuild it by Sunday. It was a risky and dangerous last minute move...
PRX forums started filling with ideas. Should we camp the castle so they can't rebuild it? We would put them at a great disadvantage for whoever wins the siege scroll. But then again why try if TWO's GM, Sorcerer, ends up bidding an outrageous amount and winning their own siege scroll... buying them more time to rebuild.
Later that day Friday, 2 days before the siege, Archeage login servers suffered a massive failure. Players were not able to log in. Servers were taken down for maintenance for hours to fix the problem. By the time servers were back up, there was less than 1 hour left on bidding on the siege scroll. It was only at 500g.
Bids came in slowly at the last few minutes. Then at the last second, the Marcala scroll was won by PRX. Then came the call...
We would team up with our longstanding ally, The Elite, to siege TWO's castle in Marcala. For the next 24 hours, it was all hands on deck. PRX members, our allies, and even our enemies both from the east and west faction, would come together and work towards 1 goal: To prevent TWO from rebuilding their castle.
Our main priority was preventing the gatehouse from being completed. We used every strategy we could including a fishing boat
Reds (Western faction and pirates) showed up to help as promised.
In fact, a lot of reds showed up.
It was clear that TWO was a guild that easterners, westerners, and even pirates wanted to see fall.
TWO tried anyway. And wave after wave, TWO gathered their forces in attempts to wipe us out and rebuild their castle. We stopped them each and every time.
It became apparent. This had become #OccupyMarcala.
TWO tried other ways to get that gatehouse built, which at the time was stuck at only 75% completed. They tried sneaking in stealthers with packs.
but failed...
They also sent in the venerable White Angels
Since they couldn't get into the castle area without being detected, they tried another plan. They ported straight into Sorcerer's house right next to the castle. This almost worked since we were dozing off after long hours of PVP and down times. They were almost able to put in a lumber pack - the last piece needed to build the gatehouse. With an amazing response time, we prevailed and stopped them.
To prevent a surprise attack again, we started camping Sorcerer's house on the inside:
And outside:
It worked. As soon as they ported into that house and opened that door. it was a complete bloodbath.
We scouted other houses in the area that belonged to TWO's commanders in case they would port there. We barricaded and guarded them.
#OccupyMarcala would go on for a full 24 hours, testing the mettle of both sides. As of 12pm noon EST on siege day. The gatehouse was still stuck at 75% built.
Sunday afternoon. Siege day. With just hours before the siege, TWO finally gave up trying to rebuild. For 24 hours straight, we had prevented them from rebuilding anything. Marcala was quiet. All that remained were unbuilt castle walls and a bloody stonemason table next to their gatehouse.
And then... it was go time.
They tried to build stone packs to finish the gatehouse but without their 20 reinforcements, the numbers were in our favor and we stopped them dead in their tracks.
We proceeded to take down their unbuilt gatehouse with little effort.
We had a separate special ops raid that camped their respawn, keeping them busy.
We then proceeded to destroy their lodestone. It was working out great. We had the lodestone down to under 50%.
Then their reinforcements arrived and they abandoned trying to build anymore packs. They started manning their wall cannons, which obliterated our siege tanks. While the half built castle allowed us to quickly progress to the lodestone, there were still many cannons up at the lodestone and respawn and they presented a formidable defense. With the anti-air cannons we were not able to get on their walls to kill the people manning the cannons. And it would have taken too long to destroy the walls that had the cannons on them. The range and damage from their wall cannons were overwhelming. Our siege tanks were destroyed before we got off more than 2 shots. It was like storming the beach at Normandy. We pushed dauntlessly into the lodestone area and went all out dps on the lodestone.
We died, came back, and kamikaze'd again and again.
We got it down to 2% with just minutes left.
We got it down to 1%... then time ran out.
1 friggin per cent.
Although we didn't capture their castle, it was the most fun I've had in Archeage. Sometimes it's not the win or the loss but the path to get there. It was an unforgettable Superbowl Siege weekend for sure. Thanks to everyone that participated. It was an honor to fight along side you all. I'll see ya on the battlefield.
Congratulations to The White Order on the successful defense and persisting during the weekend. Even after being barred from their castle all weekend, having a half-finished castle to defend, seeing their gatehouse drop and the lodestone nearly die they never gave up.