Tolkeen

[Mech-Viper Prime]

You guys realize it be more easier for the coalition to plant numberous undercover teams in Tolkeen then vice versa, right?

I think not baby puppy.

Why was Tolkeen checking ids , last time I check they were taking anyone who would fight the coalition , so a number of CS special force teams could get in very easy, kitten.

[Mech-Viper Prime]

Have you ever been to Ohio? I grew up in Missouri, so allow me to describe it for you.

It's flat.

No bottlenecks, no impediments, Oh and millions of people live there. Thus the infrastructure is already in place for mass transportation of goods. Thus the so called Supply Line Problem, is fallacy. Teleport all you want, we have more trucks, people, and goods to transport. and we have guards

guarding every last part of that is not something you just handwave away.

we know tolkeen had the ability to take out death's head transports (there's a race to get to one in one of the CWC books).

we know that they could have potentially gained access to any point along the CS supply routes if they weren't too stupid to use it. heck, they could have just teleported in automated missile launchers that wait for a target and then fire, meaning that they wouldn't have had to risk even a single person.

you either defend every last bit of that supply route, or it may as well not be defended at all. the supply line is a problem because in terms of how much protection it needs against an enemy like tolkeen, it is essentially passing through enemy territory.

Depends on on the weight of the launchers, it might work or it might not

[Shark_Force]

Depends on on the weight of the launchers, it might work or it might not

unfortunately the wellington SAWS do not have weights listed in the GMG.

speculatively, they probably weigh at least 240 pounds for a medium set (which is likely the minimum needed if you want to guarantee range on CS transports, although smaller ones would work fine for hover trains i would imagine and probably are much less than 50 lbs). minimum weight assumption based on the WI-40M missile launcher, which is 120 lbs for a single medium missile with a bare-bones launcher.

though of course, if you've got LOS, you could just teleport the mini-missile version into the air near your target.

[boxee]

You guys realize it be more easier for the coalition to plant numberous undercover teams in Tolkeen then vice versa, right?

I think not baby puppy.

Why was Tolkeen checking ids , last time I check they were taking anyone who would fight the coalition , so a number of CS special force teams could get in very easy, kitten.

Yes a few could, but not many, granted a few could do ALOT of damage, but the reverse is true as well.

[Hot Rod]

If Tolkeen was as evil as said in the books, they would have sent squads & individuals along every LL in CS territory to wipe out farms with "Wave of Frost" & similar spells (start a wildfire in a drought, forest fires), make the CS pull their forces back to their infrastructure which is spread out outside the cities. 1 LLW in 1 night could 'frost' a lot of fields and be long gone (probably back to Tolkeen) before a response team even heard of it. Likewise shifting anywhere PPE was available, say, the 'burbs, summoning nasty critters for CS forces to worry about, and again, leaving before a response team even hears of it (particularly subtle menaces)...

Air elementals make great anti-air patrollers, give 'em a satchel charge to toss in the intake of any transport they encounter...

The Dragons should have been the primary anti-transport troops. They were wasted fracturing their essences & entering actual combat piecemeal, they could have also been instrumental in moving LRM/MRM units to intercept locations. The dimensional powers mentioned in D&G should have made it almost impossible to kill an adult dragon in its right mind. The dragon might lose the fight, but teleport dodge, and teleport at will means the CS (with no magic) shouldn't be able to prevent them from retreating.

No need to re-hash the Death Curse issue that would leave Prosek et al cursed right out of office.

Why is Tolkeen Evil? Simple. The CS won, so Tolkeen was Evil (Winners write the histories? No, just Handwavium here). The fact that it was on Tolkeen land, with a CS plan of complete D-Bee genocide is irrelevant (acccording to Kevin). Also, the CS shouldn't have been able to concentrate enough forces on such a powerful little kingdom due to the simple requirement of defending the thousands of acres that feed those beehive cities that house millions of uneducated and thus minimally productive CS citizens.

[Alrik Vas]

I am torn about this thread. I'm not a fan of fascism or tyranny, but I like the IDEA of the Coalition as a group that protects and looks after humanity's interestes. Seeing them win a fight was basically the coolest thing in Rifts.

However, aside luck on their side and fanatical idiocy on Tolkeen's, i still don't see how the CS won when you consider how the game system works, and how utterly silly magic and supernatural beings can be at times.

[Killer Cyborg]

I don't have the books, so I'll just ask:
What was Tolkeen's total population before the war?

[Nekira Sudacne]

Have you ever been to Ohio? I grew up in Missouri, so allow me to describe it for you.

It's flat.

No bottlenecks, no impediments, Oh and millions of people live there. Thus the infrastructure is already in place for mass transportation of goods. Thus the so called Supply Line Problem, is fallacy. Teleport all you want, we have more trucks, people, and goods to transport. and we have guards

guarding every last part of that is not something you just handwave away.

we know tolkeen had the ability to take out death's head transports (there's a race to get to one in one of the CWC books).

we know that they could have potentially gained access to any point along the CS supply routes if they weren't too stupid to use it. heck, they could have just teleported in automated missile launchers that wait for a target and then fire, meaning that they wouldn't have had to risk even a single person.

you either defend every last bit of that supply route, or it may as well not be defended at all. the supply line is a problem because in terms of how much protection it needs against an enemy like tolkeen, it is essentially passing through enemy territory.

I will point out that Tolkeen is not Omniscent. The ability to attack any given point on a supply line via teleportation dosn't give them the intel to know when supplies are actually passing through.

[Eashamahel]

I am torn about this thread. I'm not a fan of fascism or tyranny, but I like the IDEA of the Coalition as a group that protects and looks after humanity's interestes. Seeing them win a fight was basically the coolest thing in Rifts.

However, aside luck on their side and fanatical idiocy on Tolkeen's, i still don't see how the CS won when you consider how the game system works, and how utterly silly magic and supernatural beings can be at times.

I never really encountered this before, is it considered 'bad' to have wanted the CS to win? They are the fictional antagonist in a fictional world, in this case, the 'heel' going over the 'face' sets up a much better feud down the line. Tolkeen losing seems like a reasonable end, but it also seems to be the far more interesting ending as well?

One thing I don't agree with is the arguing over tactics/logistics, 'this spell does X' vs 'why not just use item Y'. There is no way everyone would ever be happy with how these fictional tactics unfolded, but as long as they occurred in a BELIEVABLE storyline, I would be willing to let it be and just go with the authors vision of the conflict. It was the unbelievability of the main story that killed it for me.

[Nightmask]

I am torn about this thread. I'm not a fan of fascism or tyranny, but I like the IDEA of the Coalition as a group that protects and looks after humanity's interestes. Seeing them win a fight was basically the coolest thing in Rifts.

However, aside luck on their side and fanatical idiocy on Tolkeen's, i still don't see how the CS won when you consider how the game system works, and how utterly silly magic and supernatural beings can be at times.

The Coalition doesn't protect or look after humanity's interests, it looks after the interests of an elite few who use the citizens as pawns to satiate their base desires and egos. There is no real difference between them and any other evil entity. If they were looking after humanity's interests or seeking to protect humanity they wouldn't have engaged in their assault on Tolkeen, had standing orders to kill any humans caught using magic (and often for having books and being able to read), or thrown away millions of lives as they did particularly of the citizen hopefuls that they considered worthless trash good for little more than meat shields to send unprepared against a powerful citystate like Tolkeen.

[flatline]

Disclaimer: I haven't read the series and everything I know of it came from discussions on this forum.

But from what I've read here in the forum, I think the reason there is so much unhappiness with the series is because players who use magic take great pride in the clever use of magic. So to see a city-state full of, presumably, clever and capable mages not do any of the myriad of things that even the most inexperienced player could have come up with was totally disappointing.

That, and they totally ruined the CyberKnight OCC...

--flatline

[Galroth]

Disclaimer: I haven't read the series and everything I know of it came from discussions on this forum.

But from what I've read here in the forum, I think the reason there is so much unhappiness with series is because players who use magic take great pride in the clever use of magic. So to see a city-state full of, presumably, clever and capable mages not do any of the myriad of things that even the most inexperienced player could have come up with was totally disappointing.

That, and they totally ruined the CyberKnight OCC...

--flatline

That's the feeling I get as well.

[Nightmask]

Disclaimer: I haven't read the series and everything I know of it came from discussions on this forum.

But from what I've read here in the forum, I think the reason there is so much unhappiness with series is because players who use magic take great pride in the clever use of magic. So to see a city-state full of, presumably, clever and capable mages not do any of the myriad of things that even the most inexperienced player could have come up with was totally disappointing.

That, and they totally ruined the CyberKnight OCC...

--flatline

That includes not using basic attacks that we see mentioned as being on the list of 'okay we break out this if this happens', including using the Spell of Legend that blights large quantities of farmland to inflict starvation problems on the CS and cause them to pull back to deal with that problem. Just that alone would have significantly impacted the flow of events.

[Alrik Vas]

I am torn about this thread. I'm not a fan of fascism or tyranny, but I like the IDEA of the Coalition as a group that protects and looks after humanity's interestes. Seeing them win a fight was basically the coolest thing in Rifts.

However, aside luck on their side and fanatical idiocy on Tolkeen's, i still don't see how the CS won when you consider how the game system works, and how utterly silly magic and supernatural beings can be at times.

The Coalition doesn't protect or look after humanity's interests, it looks after the interests of an elite few who use the citizens as pawns to satiate their base desires and egos. There is no real difference between them and any other evil entity. If they were looking after humanity's interests or seeking to protect humanity they wouldn't have engaged in their assault on Tolkeen, had standing orders to kill any humans caught using magic (and often for having books and being able to read), or thrown away millions of lives as they did particularly of the citizen hopefuls that they considered worthless trash good for little more than meat shields to send unprepared against a powerful citystate like Tolkeen.

I capitalized the word idea for a reason. The origin of the CS was what i said. It turned dark and evil over time. A relatively short time, but still. What you're stating is the reality, or the erroneous practice of the idea and how it has been twisted.

[Killer Cyborg]

Disclaimer: I haven't read the series and everything I know of it came from discussions on this forum.

But from what I've read here in the forum, I think the reason there is so much unhappiness with the series is because players who use magic take great pride in the clever use of magic. So to see a city-state full of, presumably, clever and capable mages not do any of the myriad of things that even the most inexperienced player could have come up with was totally disappointing.

That, and they totally ruined the CyberKnight OCC...

--flatline

I agree with everything you say there.

My only counter-point is that the wording and rules are vague enough that the actual working of magic varies quite a bit from game table to game table.
So while I whole-heartedly enjoy a good, intelligent "Here's what I would have tried" or "Here's how I would have run things" discussion.... a LOT (or most) of the pro-Tolkeen arguments rely on personal interpretations of the workings of magic that may or may not actually be what the author intended or would endorse (i.e., what "would" "actually" "happen").

But yeah... the Tolkeen series was disappointing all around.
There was little to no cleverness or innovations, no unusual use of existing technology or magic... just new toys on both sides, and a fairly lame overall plot.
It's not the worst thing I've ever read... but it ranks among the worst of what I've read in Rifts.

And yeah, they totally ruined the CyberKnight.

[Killer Cyborg]

I am torn about this thread. I'm not a fan of fascism or tyranny, but I like the IDEA of the Coalition as a group that protects and looks after humanity's interestes. Seeing them win a fight was basically the coolest thing in Rifts.

However, aside luck on their side and fanatical idiocy on Tolkeen's, i still don't see how the CS won when you consider how the game system works, and how utterly silly magic and supernatural beings can be at times.

I never really encountered this before, is it considered 'bad' to have wanted the CS to win?

"Wanted"...?
Maybe.
If you were all thinking, "Yeah, GO CS!!! Kill those ****ing people who dare to use magic!!!"... that's pretty prejudiced.

But I think it was pretty obvious to expect the CS to win.
And to want the CS to win simply because that would be the realistic outcome, and you're rooting for realism... yeah, I can see that.

Tolkeen losing seems like a reasonable end, but it also seems to be the far more interesting ending as well?

Yes.

[Alrik Vas]

I didn't expect the CS to win. My experience at the time told me it wasn't realistic that they would.

Guess i've just playing too many games where everyone aside me played a magic user and even with my 11 attacks per melee, sharpshooting skills, forcefields and smart tactics i had to focus on being a social character to be useful.

[Killer Cyborg]

Again, what's the population of Tolkeen?
Was the total population even near one million?

I don't know the total population of the CS... but I know that they have at least 3.2 million SAMAS pilots alone, not including ISS, and probably not including regular grunts.

Tolkeen was an Alamo-type situation. Really, they shouldn't have done as well as they did.

[Alrik Vas]

Wish i could say the population numbers.

With everything I've learned since those days (it's been like 12+ years) I'm more inclined to agree with you, KC.

[Shark_Force]

Again, what's the population of Tolkeen?
Was the total population even near one million?

I don't know the total population of the CS... but I know that they have at least 3.2 million SAMAS pilots alone, not including ISS, and probably not including regular grunts.

Tolkeen was an Alamo-type situation. Really, they shouldn't have done as well as they did.

which is why, like i said, they should have had a better plan than "oh, the CS will never get this far" for defending their cities. something like, say, taking the work-hours they put towards inventing TW cybernetics for demonic "allies" who don't care whether they live or die, and putting that towards phasing their cities into a place where they can't be harmed, for example. (and no, their pathetic excuse for a shield spell doesn't count. at 100 MD to breech it temporarily... a small squad of CS soldiers can probably get past it in 1-2 melee rounds without outside help).

or heck, they've clearly got a large number of techno-wizards and other mages willing to invest a lot of time and energy into defending the city, they really should have had a better method of defense than the pathetic excuse for a defensive plan they did have.

no, tolkeen wouldn't have had a hope in a stand-up fight. but that's the thing. they should have known that, and planned accordingly (the fact that they *ever* decided to launch an all-out offensive against the CS army was idiotic. the fact that they succeeded was dumber. and the whole march through xiticix territory with tolkeen apparently completely forgetting that the CS can bloody well fly wherever they want and not bothering with defending the "rear" half of their country was dumbest of all - the CS should have done that in the first place if it would have worked, and they should have done it by air).

tolkeen shouldn't have won the war by any means. the battle should probably still be going, the CS should still be hemorrhaging troops left and right unless they just leave, and eventually everyone in the CS should realize they're wasting their time because tolkeen is basically sitting on infinite resources, and cannot be sieged in the conventional sense (or at least, they *should* be impossible to siege in the conventional sense, *if* the people in charge weren't apparently too stupid to use the abilities they spent significant portions of their life learning).

on a daily basis, tolkeen should basically ship out a few thousand completely expendable supernatural beings (the NGR can attest to the fact that no matter how many die, there always seems to be more gargoyles and/or brodkil, and that's only a small portion of the possible options tolkeen could have gone with. various entities, elemental fragments, etc) that can be equipped with gear gained without spending significant resources (all it takes is PPE to make MDC wooden armour, scrolls, talismans, and assorted useful magical objects). and they *should* be able to do that from a nigh-impenetrable fortress city that can't be attacked because it simply isn't even there (or some other variation on that theme).

[Killer Cyborg]

Again, what's the population of Tolkeen?
Was the total population even near one million?

I don't know the total population of the CS... but I know that they have at least 3.2 million SAMAS pilots alone, not including ISS, and probably not including regular grunts.

Tolkeen was an Alamo-type situation. Really, they shouldn't have done as well as they did.

which is why, like i said, they should have had a better plan than "oh, the CS will never get this far" for defending their cities.

Yup.

[boxee]

Again, what's the population of Tolkeen?
Was the total population even near one million?

I don't know the total population of the CS... but I know that they have at least 3.2 million SAMAS pilots alone, not including ISS, and probably not including regular grunts.

Tolkeen was an Alamo-type situation. Really, they shouldn't have done as well as they did.

which is why, like i said, they should have had a better plan than "oh, the CS will never get this far" for defending their cities. something like, say, taking the work-hours they put towards inventing TW cybernetics for demonic "allies" who don't care whether they live or die, and putting that towards phasing their cities into a place where they can't be harmed, for example. (and no, their pathetic excuse for a shield spell doesn't count. at 100 MD to breech it temporarily... a small squad of CS soldiers can probably get past it in 1-2 melee rounds without outside help).

or heck, they've clearly got a large number of techno-wizards and other mages willing to invest a lot of time and energy into defending the city, they really should have had a better method of defense than the pathetic excuse for a defensive plan they did have.

no, tolkeen wouldn't have had a hope in a stand-up fight. but that's the thing. they should have known that, and planned accordingly (the fact that they *ever* decided to launch an all-out offensive against the CS army was idiotic. the fact that they succeeded was dumber. and the whole march through xiticix territory with tolkeen apparently completely forgetting that the CS can bloody well fly wherever they want and not bothering with defending the "rear" half of their country was dumbest of all - the CS should have done that in the first place if it would have worked, and they should have done it by air).

tolkeen shouldn't have won the war by any means. the battle should probably still be going, the CS should still be hemorrhaging troops left and right unless they just leave, and eventually everyone in the CS should realize they're wasting their time because tolkeen is basically sitting on infinite resources, and cannot be sieged in the conventional sense (or at least, they *should* be impossible to siege in the conventional sense, *if* the people in charge weren't apparently too stupid to use the abilities they spent significant portions of their life learning).

on a daily basis, tolkeen should basically ship out a few thousand completely expendable supernatural beings (the NGR can attest to the fact that no matter how many die, there always seems to be more gargoyles and/or brodkil, and that's only a small portion of the possible options tolkeen could have gone with. various entities, elemental fragments, etc) that can be equipped with gear gained without spending significant resources (all it takes is PPE to make MDC wooden armour, scrolls, talismans, and assorted useful magical objects). and they *should* be able to do that from a nigh-impenetrable fortress city that can't be attacked because it simply isn't even there (or some other variation on that theme).

I have to agree, Tolkeen should have really spent their time and money on mercs, and useful magic. To me it is Stalingrad during WW2 even to the point of the CS being the germans. The battle should have been one painful inch at a time.

[boxee]

Again, what's the population of Tolkeen?
Was the total population even near one million?

I don't know the total population of the CS... but I know that they have at least 3.2 million SAMAS pilots alone, not including ISS, and probably not including regular grunts.

Tolkeen was an Alamo-type situation. Really, they shouldn't have done as well as they did.

Not sure on the numbers sorry.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Disclaimer: I haven't read the series and everything I know of it came from discussions on this forum.

But from what I've read here in the forum, I think the reason there is so much unhappiness with the series is because players who use magic take great pride in the clever use of magic. So to see a city-state full of, presumably, clever and capable mages not do any of the myriad of things that even the most inexperienced player could have come up with was totally disappointing.

That, and they totally ruined the CyberKnight OCC...

--flatline

I agree with everything you say there.

My only counter-point is that the wording and rules are vague enough that the actual working of magic varies quite a bit from game table to game table.
So while I whole-heartedly enjoy a good, intelligent "Here's what I would have tried" or "Here's how I would have run things" discussion.... a LOT (or most) of the pro-Tolkeen arguments rely on personal interpretations of the workings of magic that may or may not actually be what the author intended or would endorse (i.e., what "would" "actually" "happen").

But yeah... the Tolkeen series was disappointing all around.
There was little to no cleverness or innovations, no unusual use of existing technology or magic... just new toys on both sides, and a fairly lame overall plot.
It's not the worst thing I've ever read... but it ranks among the worst of what I've read in Rifts.

And yeah, they totally ruined the CyberKnight.

Magic heck. Some of my problem is that the coalition used their technology stupidly, and that has far less variance from game to game.

the real issue though is the logistics was screwed beyond repair. Chi-Town and Tolkeen are too close geographically for the kind of trench warfare that Kevin wanted them to settle into for the first few years. a simple forced march could have taken coalition troops from the gates of chi-town to the front one day and back the next. conversly, there is no reason long range artillery encampments on the walls of chi-town (a thousand feet high i'll point out) couldn't have destroyed every forest and cover area in tolkeen before any troops got within spell range.

Not to say that tolkeen didn't use magic badly either. the real problem is kevin has no real grasp of multi-divisional combat or logistics. he couldn't get the war with the no-magic tech based entity right, what possible chance did he have to understand how magic can effect those issues?

[boxee]

To tell the truth I think the number of people in the game world went up so much that suddenly you had massive armies, the number of skelebots should never had been so high. I still think this was done so atlantis did not seem to have an overwhelming force in the game world.
It suddenly went from concentrated clusters to just millions of people in the blink of an eye. If the populations stayed true to the setting there would have been reason that war was not a good idea. Suddenly having a million samas WITH pilots changed the whole game balance.
Anyone else think this?

[Giant2005]

I don't have the books, so I'll just ask:
What was Tolkeen's total population before the war?

We aren't told figures but we can extrapolate a little bit.
According to Aftermath page 50, in 100 PA Lazlo had "A city of nearly one million inhabitants" and another 200,000-250,000 in the surrounding suburbs. We can just round that number to a million for the sake of ease.
According to CWC page 23, as of 105 PA, Lazlo was "slightly less formidable than Tolkeen." It could very well be that Tolkeen merely had more powerful magic or more experience and that is why it was considered more powerful, but I think it is safe to say that Tolkeen had at least 1 million residents based off of those numbers, probably closer to 1.5 million.

According to SB1 page 12, the CS had a population of 10 million in 102 PA with an "over 10%" enlistment rate (CWC 89). Which would mean probably less than 1.5 million soldiers. According to CWC page 44, "20% are mutants "grown" specifically for the task" which would mean that if they have 1.5 million human soldiers, they would have 375,000 Dogboys.


Going by those numbers, the war looks fairly even on a numbers front, with a slight advantage to the CS.
However, I think we would have to be insane to go by those numbers - Palladium have plenty of numbers to contract those above and that is the point. Asking for numbers in Rifts isn't a wise move, they write the numbers as they need them and they change drastically when the plot requires it.
In summary, the answer to "What was Tolkeen's total population before the war?", is simply: not enough to win.

EDIT:
I did a bit more research and the population of Tolkeen is outlined in Coalition Wars 6: Final Siege page 174.
Their peacetime population was only 890k, that number swelled to 1.3 million for war + more than 90k monsters summoned to fight and the mercenaries.outsiders pledging to their cause.
Coalition Wars 6: Final Siege page 40 tells us that Tolkeen's fighting force was "well over one million" by the final battle (many of which were just untrained civilians that were prepared to put their life on the line).
Coalition Wars 2: Coalition Overkill page 7 tells us "The Coalition has amassed nearly a million combat troops and support personnel for this crusade" page 9 tells us "Commanding nearly a million personnel, nearly another half million Skelebots". So the invasion force consisted of under 1.5 million total combatants.
Tolkeen doesn't seem particularly outnumbered, under 1.5 million and well over one million don't seem hugely different. The main difference comes into play with the kill ratios outlined in Coalition Wars 2: Coalition Overkill pages 7 "the best kill ratio ever achieved being one Tolkeenite for every slain Coalition soldier. In most cases, however, that ratio is more like 3:1, 4:1, or 5:1 in favor of Tolkeen." and 9 "For every Tolkeen defender slain the enemy claimed two CS soldiers or a dozen Skelebots".

It paints the picture that they were fairly evenly matched numbers-wise but the Tolkeen forces were far more effective, claiming many more lives than they were losing. This isn't overly important considering Tolkeen still lost but it does annoy me with respect to the lack of aid Tolkeen was receiving. Lazlo stayed out of the battle because it was unwinnable. Considering they were evenly matched numbers-wise and Tolkeen was slaughtering the CS forces with relative ease, it is safe to say that the fight seemed far from unwinnable. To claim that as their reason for not taking part in the war, suggests that they were either too afraid to fight and essentially making up excuses, or they are complete pricks. With those statistics and how certain Tolkeen's victory seemed, I am sure the that Federation of Magic would want in on the action also, purely so they could claim the victory and the fall of the Coalition as their own. Them sitting back and watching seems very out of character considering their hate for the CS and the seemingly assured victory. Although I can accept it as them wanting to stay out of the battle so Tolkeen is weakened further in the war, so the FoM can come clean up the mess and claim Tolkeen as their own in the process.

[Giant2005]

To tell the truth I think the number of people in the game world went up so much that suddenly you had massive armies, the number of skelebots should never had been so high. I still think this was done so atlantis did not seem to have an overwhelming force in the game world.
It suddenly went from concentrated clusters to just millions of people in the blink of an eye. If the populations stayed true to the setting there would have been reason that war was not a good idea. Suddenly having a million samas WITH pilots changed the whole game balance.
Anyone else think this?

I agree with both the complaint and assumed reasoning in this post.
CWC started mucking up the numbers and I too think it is to give them more of a chance against Atlantis. CWC even had one line in it that really annoyed me, something to the extent of the Coalition almost being a match for the Splugorth.
That is just crazy talk.

[camk4evr]

Disclaimer: I haven't read the series and everything I know of it came from discussions on this forum.

But from what I've read here in the forum, I think the reason there is so much unhappiness with the series is because players who use magic take great pride in the clever use of magic. So to see a city-state full of, presumably, clever and capable mages not do any of the myriad of things that even the most inexperienced player could have come up with was totally disappointing.

That, and they totally ruined the CyberKnight OCC...

--flatline

I agree with everything you say there.

My only counter-point is that the wording and rules are vague enough that the actual working of magic varies quite a bit from game table to game table.
So while I whole-heartedly enjoy a good, intelligent "Here's what I would have tried" or "Here's how I would have run things" discussion.... a LOT (or most) of the pro-Tolkeen arguments rely on personal interpretations of the workings of magic that may or may not actually be what the author intended or would endorse (i.e., what "would" "actually" "happen").

But yeah... the Tolkeen series was disappointing all around.
There was little to no cleverness or innovations, no unusual use of existing technology or magic... just new toys on both sides, and a fairly lame overall plot.
It's not the worst thing I've ever read... but it ranks among the worst of what I've read in Rifts.

And yeah, they totally ruined the CyberKnight.

You forgot to mention that not one of the CS's many enemies tried to take advantage of the fact that the CS was fighting two different wars. The Pecos Empire and Federation of magic both should have been running raids into CS territory especially after the CS forces were devestated by the Sorcerer's Revenge. Seriously, not only did both sides run around with multiple idiot balls but everyone watching the fight had a few as well.

[Mech-Viper Prime]

Was the entire siege of Tolkeen mishandled? Yes, in so many ways.

Did a book on cyber-knight needed to be in the middle of the series? No, and yes they screwed up the cyber-knights.

The siege of Tolkeen should have been play tested with actual players vs the in house staff of palladium.

This series was dragged out longer it should have been, Tolkeen shouldnt been a battle it was a speed bump.
Where were the revolting enslaved creatures rebelling against Tolkeen, every chance they got?

[flatline]

From a story perspective, Tolkeen had to lose, otherwise all the build up in the books for the CS would be totally undermined.

However, war is a numbers game and magic gives so many ways to fudge the numbers that it should have been far more interesting than it turned out to be.

The CS has more troops? Well, a fifth level air warlock without anyone helping and without need of a ley line can summon 1200 Phantoms in one hour. Even after the Phantom provides the PPE to summon the next Phantom, it will still have 70 PPE left to cast its own spells (all air levels 1-4, like lightblade, call lightning, and frequency jamming) and 75 minutes before it disappears. Plenty of time to find and engage CS forces within 45 miles of the warlock. If the warlock works 17 hours a day (not unreasonable during wartime), that's about 20,000 Phantoms every day.

Is this enough to win the war? I don't know. Phantoms aren't particularly devastating, but they fly, have MD attacks, are invisible, and cast air spells, and so dealing with this constant attack would have put a tremendous drain on CS resources. Not bad for a single mid-level warlock.

But as I said at the top of the post, Tolkeen had to lose (or at least withdraw) for the CS to remain credible. And I'm cool with that. Just do it in a way that isn't insulting to us.

--flatline

[wyrmraker]

We all knew that Tolkeen was going to lose against the CS. Handwavium and writer's prrejudice guaranteed that. The cyberknights were skewed so off kilter as to be ridiculous (Lord Coake being anti-tech? Ridiculousness on SO many levels).

What got me were the tactics involved. In a large-scale war like that, the attrition values would be much higher. And the tactics came straight out of the WWII and Vietnam. I honestly believe that no research into warfare outside of war movies was done at all by the writers. Tolkeen attempted a straight-up land war with the CS. Sad and pathetic, on all counts.

As for magic, Tolkeen should have been FAR more devastating than was written. Elementals would have been walking devastation, summoned creatures would have done massive damage, and entities would be pulled out simply to possess skelebots. And that's just while the troops were ON THEIR WAY to Tolkeen's borders. Once inside, everybody with magic would be forming up to determine plans that wouldn't put them in direct lines of fire in the field.

And I haven't even gotten into the use of Spells of Legend or spells from Palladium Fantasy. Seriously, Crimson Walls of Lictalon combines with Possessing Entities would have devastated any encampment of CS troops while shattering their morale. It's hard to invade an area when none of your troops will go anywhere near it.

[Giant2005]

I edited my previous post with more information I found while re-reading the war a bit today.
Here is the edit:


I did a bit more research and the population of Tolkeen is outlined in Coalition Wars 6: Final Siege page 174.
Their peacetime population was only 890k, that number swelled to 1.3 million for war + more than 90k monsters summoned to fight and the mercenaries.outsiders pledging to their cause.
Coalition Wars 6: Final Siege page 40 tells us that Tolkeen's fighting force was "well over one million" by the final battle (many of which were just untrained civilians that were prepared to put their life on the line).
Coalition Wars 2: Coalition Overkill page 7 tells us "The Coalition has amassed nearly a million combat troops and support personnel for this crusade" page 9 tells us "Commanding nearly a million personnel, nearly another half million Skelebots". So the invasion force consisted of under 1.5 million total combatants.
Tolkeen doesn't seem particularly outnumbered, under 1.5 million and well over one million don't seem hugely different. The main difference comes into play with the kill ratios outlined in Coalition Wars 2: Coalition Overkill pages 7 "the best kill ratio ever achieved being one Tolkeenite for every slain Coalition soldier. In most cases, however, that ratio is more like 3:1, 4:1, or 5:1 in favor of Tolkeen." and 9 "For every Tolkeen defender slain the enemy claimed two CS soldiers or a dozen Skelebots".

It paints the picture that they were fairly evenly matched numbers-wise but the Tolkeen forces were far more effective, claiming many more lives than they were losing. This isn't overly important considering Tolkeen still lost but it does annoy me with respect to the lack of aid Tolkeen was receiving. Lazlo stayed out of the battle because it was unwinnable. Considering they were evenly matched numbers-wise and Tolkeen was slaughtering the CS forces with relative ease, it is safe to say that the fight seemed far from unwinnable. To claim that as their reason for not taking part in the war, suggests that they were either too afraid to fight and essentially making up excuses, or they are complete pricks. With those statistics and how certain Tolkeen's victory seemed, I am sure the that Federation of Magic would want in on the action also, purely so they could claim the victory and the fall of the Coalition as their own. Them sitting back and watching seems very out of character considering their hate for the CS and the seemingly assured victory. Although I can accept it as them wanting to stay out of the battle so Tolkeen is weakened further in the war, so the FoM can come clean up the mess and claim Tolkeen as their own in the process.

[wyrmraker]

I fully agree with you Giant2005. Again, writer's fiat made the CS victory what it was.

[Killer Cyborg]

I edited my previous post with more information I found while re-reading the war a bit today.
Here is the edit:


I did a bit more research and the population of Tolkeen is outlined in Coalition Wars 6: Final Siege page 174.
Their peacetime population was only 890k, that number swelled to 1.3 million for war + more than 90k monsters summoned to fight and the mercenaries.outsiders pledging to their cause.
Coalition Wars 6: Final Siege page 40 tells us that Tolkeen's fighting force was "well over one million" by the final battle (many of which were just untrained civilians that were prepared to put their life on the line).
Coalition Wars 2: Coalition Overkill page 7 tells us "The Coalition has amassed nearly a million combat troops and support personnel for this crusade" page 9 tells us "Commanding nearly a million personnel, nearly another half million Skelebots". So the invasion force consisted of under 1.5 million total combatants.
Tolkeen doesn't seem particularly outnumbered, under 1.5 million and well over one million don't seem hugely different. The main difference comes into play with the kill ratios outlined in Coalition Wars 2: Coalition Overkill pages 7 "the best kill ratio ever achieved being one Tolkeenite for every slain Coalition soldier. In most cases, however, that ratio is more like 3:1, 4:1, or 5:1 in favor of Tolkeen." and 9 "For every Tolkeen defender slain the enemy claimed two CS soldiers or a dozen Skelebots".

It paints the picture that they were fairly evenly matched numbers-wise but the Tolkeen forces were far more effective, claiming many more lives than they were losing. This isn't overly important considering Tolkeen still lost but it does annoy me with respect to the lack of aid Tolkeen was receiving. Lazlo stayed out of the battle because it was unwinnable. Considering they were evenly matched numbers-wise and Tolkeen was slaughtering the CS forces with relative ease, it is safe to say that the fight seemed far from unwinnable. To claim that as their reason for not taking part in the war, suggests that they were either too afraid to fight and essentially making up excuses, or they are complete pricks. With those statistics and how certain Tolkeen's victory seemed, I am sure the that Federation of Magic would want in on the action also, purely so they could claim the victory and the fall of the Coalition as their own. Them sitting back and watching seems very out of character considering their hate for the CS and the seemingly assured victory. Although I can accept it as them wanting to stay out of the battle so Tolkeen is weakened further in the war, so the FoM can come clean up the mess and claim Tolkeen as their own in the process.

The Tolkeen series paints the picture that the two sides were evenly matched... but it's not an accurate picture.
We know from CWC that the CS retired 3.2 million suits of old-style SAMAS when the new styles came out, which means that they have at least 3.2 million people capable of piloting SAMAS armor.
Since half the suits were given to the ISS, we know that the ISS isn't included in this 3.2 million number.
Likewise, we know that the CS split their forces by fighting two wars at once, effectively halving the number of troops they could have thrown at Tolkeen.

The reason why the Tolkeen series tries to paint it as if it were close to a fair fight is simply because Palladium wanted to write books about an epic war, not a book about a powerful nation with more combat troops than the entire population of their enemy trouncing a little guy.
It's the same reason why boxing promoters try to make it seem like the underdog has a fighting chance, even when they know that he doesn't- they sell more tickets that way.
They puffed up Tolkeen, tied one of the Coalition's hands behind their back, and tried to make the war seem like a bigger deal than it was, when the outcome was already pretty clear back in 1990, when the original Rifts book came out.

[Killer Cyborg]

a fifth level air warlock without anyone helping and without need of a ley line can summon 1200 Phantoms in one hour.

Sure, when YOU are GMing things.
BUT I suspect that KS wouldn't run things the same way.
As I said, one of the problems with magic in Rifts is that everybody has to make a LOT of assumptions about how things work.
And no, I don't see any canon reasons why your plan wouldn't work... but Palladium makes so many assumptions about "common sense" that this doesn't mean much as far as the official world goes.
It wouldn't surprise me, for example, if KS assumed that we'd all understand that Summoning spells (or perhaps this one in particular) have to be cast as rituals, taking closer to half-an hour per casting than only taking 1-2 attacks, even though I'm certain that he never mentions it.

Is this enough to win the war? I don't know. Phantoms aren't particularly devastating, but they fly, have MD attacks, are invisible, and cast air spells, and so dealing with this constant attack would have put a tremendous drain on CS resources. Not bad for a single mid-level warlock.

YEah... but elementals are less reliable than Skelebots, intellect-wise. They're kind of a wild card.

But as I said at the top of the post, Tolkeen had to lose (or at least withdraw) for the CS to remain credible. And I'm cool with that. Just do it in a way that isn't insulting to us.
--flatline

I'm more or less in agreement with you; I just think that people treat a lot of their assumptions about how magic and mages work as if they were in-game FACT that could be counted on... when ultimately the game system itself is so... quirky... that none of it can be relied on.

Personally, I think that if you ever get the chance, you should ask Kevin if he sees any problem with a warlock summoning that many elementals, as you describe. Then, asking why nobody in Tolkeen thought of doing that.
In person would be best, but snail mail might work well too. PM here probably won't get much result, but sometimes he does respond to that kind of question via PM.

[Killer Cyborg]

Magic heck. Some of my problem is that the coalition used their technology stupidly, and that has far less variance from game to game.

the real issue though is the logistics was screwed beyond repair. Chi-Town and Tolkeen are too close geographically for the kind of trench warfare that Kevin wanted them to settle into for the first few years. a simple forced march could have taken coalition troops from the gates of chi-town to the front one day and back the next. conversly, there is no reason long range artillery encampments on the walls of chi-town (a thousand feet high i'll point out) couldn't have destroyed every forest and cover area in tolkeen before any troops got within spell range.

Not to say that tolkeen didn't use magic badly either. the real problem is kevin has no real grasp of multi-divisional combat or logistics. he couldn't get the war with the no-magic tech based entity right, what possible chance did he have to understand how magic can effect those issues?

Agreed.

[Giant2005]

We know from CWC that the CS retired 3.2 million suits of old-style SAMAS when the new styles came out, which means that they have at least 3.2 million people capable of piloting SAMAS armor.

No it doesn't.
All it means is that there were 3.2 million suits of Samas at the time. No mention was made as to how many pilots they had.
There are many reasons as to why they would have more suits than pilots - just look at the real world today: for every 100 citizens in the US, there are 90 privately owned firearms. That is certainly more than is required and the CS probably runs on a similar philosophy. That philosophy being that it is better to have more suits than you need, than not have as many as you need.
I seriously doubt that the CS has ever had that many pilots at any given time, and the numbers support that assessment many times over.

[Killer Cyborg]

To tell the truth I think the number of people in the game world went up so much that suddenly you had massive armies, the number of skelebots should never had been so high. I still think this was done so atlantis did not seem to have an overwhelming force in the game world.
It suddenly went from concentrated clusters to just millions of people in the blink of an eye. If the populations stayed true to the setting there would have been reason that war was not a good idea. Suddenly having a million samas WITH pilots changed the whole game balance.
Anyone else think this?

I think that the population numbers have always been wonky, but the CS has always been portrayed as being an actual, full-fledged civilization with a significant number of cities.
Sourcebook 1 listed the Coalition's skelebot production capabilities as of the book's printing at 864 per month, but mentioned that in 6 months being constructed specifically for skelebots (3 skelebot factories total), and that this would boost production up to 2592 per month (Chi-Town's contribution was only 288/month).
That was in 101 PA, so that gives them about 5 years of time to build up their skelebot army, if I have my timeline correct.
Which is about 60 months.
60 months x 2592/month = 215,520 skelebots produced from those three factories alone.
All it would take to get them past the 500k skelebots number would be the addition of another 3-6 factories during the 5-year span, and/or the conversion of other facilities to produce skelebots.
So it actually seems pretty plausible.

[Killer Cyborg]

We know from CWC that the CS retired 3.2 million suits of old-style SAMAS when the new styles came out, which means that they have at least 3.2 million people capable of piloting SAMAS armor.

No it doesn't.
All it means is that there were 3.2 million suits of Samas at the time. No mention was made as to how many pilots they had.

Those suits weren't piloting themselves.

There are many reasons as to why they would have more suits than pilots - just look at the real world today: for every 100 citizens in the US, there are 90 privately owned firearms.

A more comparable analogy would be comparing the number of pilots in the Air Force to the number of aircraft in the Air Force.
Also, keep in mind that the SAMAS pilots don't just pilot SAMAS: they're also the guys who fly around on sky cycles and use other bots.

That is certainly more than is required and the CS probably runs on a similar philosophy. That philosophy being that it is better to have more suits than you need, than not have as many as you need.
I seriously doubt that the CS has ever had that many pilots at any given time, and the numbers support that assessment many times over.

Well, perhaps you're right. Maybe the CS did have a few million more SAMAS suits lying around than were needed.
In which case, I have to wonder why the CS didn't give one of those SAMAS suits to each and every one of their 1 million man army that they sent at Tolkeen.

[Giant2005]

Well, perhaps you're right. Maybe the CS did have a few million more SAMAS suits lying around than were needed.
In which case, I have to wonder why the CS didn't give one of those SAMAS suits to each and every one of their 1 million man army that they sent at Tolkeen.

It could be simplt that those soldiers weren't trained to use a Samas, although my personal interpretation is that the CS were significantly underestimating Tolkeen and devoting those kind of resources to wiping them out would be considered a waste.
Either way, it doesn't really matter how many men the CS had at their disposal when talking about the Tolkeen War, we know how many they sent and that is the relevant part.

[Killer Cyborg]

Well, perhaps you're right. Maybe the CS did have a few million more SAMAS suits lying around than were needed.
In which case, I have to wonder why the CS didn't give one of those SAMAS suits to each and every one of their 1 million man army that they sent at Tolkeen.

It could be simplt that those soldiers weren't trained to use a Samas,

ALL CS Grunts have the skills necessary to use SAMAS.
It's something that they leave boot camp with.

although my personal interpretation is that the CS were significantly underestimating Tolkeen and devoting those kind of resources to wiping them out would be considered a waste.
Either way, it doesn't really matter how many men the CS had at their disposal when talking about the Tolkeen War, we know how many they sent and that is the relevant part.

I don't really agree.
Because people who think that Tolkeen should have done better, or even won, are basing their arguments on "But Tolkeen could have or would have done X, Y, and Z!"
And that works for the CS as well.
Anybody crying foul at Tolkeen's lack of basic strategy and intelligence should be crying foul just as hard at the Coalition's similar lack.
Anybody crying foul at Tolkeen's lack of utilization of their resources should be crying foul just as hard at the Coalition's similar lack.

But, again, even with the 1 million man army (which is pretty vague, actually), that's still comparable to the entire population of Tolkeen.
And even if every civilian fought... civilian armies are not on par with a trained military.

[Giant2005]

ALL CS Grunts have the skills necessary to use SAMAS.
It's something that they leave boot camp with.

No they don't. According to the RUE, the only pilot skills taught to all Grunts are Hovercraft, Tanks and APCs - Power Armour training is not the norm.

I don't really agree.
Because people who think that Tolkeen should have done better, or even won, are basing their arguments on "But Tolkeen could have or would have done X, Y, and Z!"
And that works for the CS as well.
Anybody crying foul at Tolkeen's lack of basic strategy and intelligence should be crying foul just as hard at the Coalition's similar lack.
Anybody crying foul at Tolkeen's lack of utilization of their resources should be crying foul just as hard at the Coalition's similar lack.

But, again, even with the 1 million man army (which is pretty vague, actually), that's still comparable to the entire population of Tolkeen.
And even if every civilian fought... civilian armies are not on par with a trained military.

I'm not really talking about people's interpretations of what should have been happening. I am talking specifically about how the CS forces were being slaughtered on a regular basis - in their best fights they managed to kill one Tolkenite for every CS solider killed. Usually the ratio was more like 1:3, 1:4 1:5 or 1:12 in the case of Skelebots. With the state of combat being so decisively in favour of the Tolkenites, either the CS were underestimating them significantly or they were well aware that the forces they sent forth were no match for Tolkeen but attacked anyway (admittedly, the latter is a very real possibility - sacrificing a few battles and troops that they could easily withhold from the public for the sake of learning more about the capabilities of the Tolkenites doesn't sound too out of character).
Then again, Coalition Wars Book 2 does have an entire section devoted to expressing the fact that the CS severely underestimated Tolkeen (The section titled: "What Went Wrong" beginning on page 9) so all of the conjecture is unnecessary.

[flatline]

But, again, even with the 1 million man army (which is pretty vague, actually), that's still comparable to the entire population of Tolkeen.
And even if every civilian fought... civilian armies are not on par with a trained military.

Go read up the American Revolutionary War.

Training is just one thing to take into consideration when deciding how well two forces are matched up against each other.

--flatline

[Killer Cyborg]

ALL CS Grunts have the skills necessary to use SAMAS.
It's something that they leave boot camp with.

No they don't. According to the RUE, the only pilot skills taught to all Grunts are Hovercraft, Tanks and APCs - Power Armour training is not the norm.

Robot Combat: Basic.
Right between Radio: Basic and Sensory Equipment.

And it has been clarified several times that OCC skills also grant the necessary prerequisites, such as, in this case, Pilot: Power Armor.

I don't really agree.
Because people who think that Tolkeen should have done better, or even won, are basing their arguments on "But Tolkeen could have or would have done X, Y, and Z!"
And that works for the CS as well.
Anybody crying foul at Tolkeen's lack of basic strategy and intelligence should be crying foul just as hard at the Coalition's similar lack.
Anybody crying foul at Tolkeen's lack of utilization of their resources should be crying foul just as hard at the Coalition's similar lack.

But, again, even with the 1 million man army (which is pretty vague, actually), that's still comparable to the entire population of Tolkeen.
And even if every civilian fought... civilian armies are not on par with a trained military.

I'm not really talking about people's interpretations of what should have been happening. I am talking specifically about how the CS forces were being slaughtered on a regular basis - in their best fights they managed to kill one Tolkenite for every CS solider killed. Usually the ratio was more like 1:3, 1:4 1:5 or 1:12 in the case of Skelebots. With the state of combat being so decisively in favour of the Tolkenites, either the CS were underestimating them significantly or they were well aware that the forces they sent forth were no match for Tolkeen but attacked anyway (admittedly, the latter is a very real possibility - sacrificing a few battles and troops that they could easily withhold from the public for the sake of learning more about the capabilities of the Tolkenites doesn't sound too out of character).
Then again, Coalition Wars Book 2 does have an entire section devoted to expressing the fact that the CS severely underestimated Tolkeen (The section titled: "What Went Wrong" beginning on page 9) so all of the conjecture is unnecessary.

If you're not talking "what ifs" and "could have beens," then everything should have happened exactly as it did.
So, no problems.

[Killer Cyborg]

But, again, even with the 1 million man army (which is pretty vague, actually), that's still comparable to the entire population of Tolkeen.
And even if every civilian fought... civilian armies are not on par with a trained military.

Go read up the American Revolutionary War.

Already have done.

Training is just one thing to take into consideration when deciding how well two forces are matched up against each other.
--flatline

But it's a major consideration.

[Giant2005]

If you're not talking "what ifs" and "could have beens," then everything should have happened exactly as it did.
So, no problems.

If you want to talk "what ifs" it is my opinion that the very moment Tolkeen lost the war, was the same moment they tried to broker an alliance with Free Quebec.
Until that point, the war was virtually won - the CS didn't seem capable of posing much of a threat. The reduction in battle lines was what was needed to even the odds.

[kaid]

I didn't expect the CS to win. My experience at the time told me it wasn't realistic that they would.

Guess i've just playing too many games where everyone aside me played a magic user and even with my 11 attacks per melee, sharpshooting skills, forcefields and smart tactics i had to focus on being a social character to be useful.

No matter how strong magic may be you are dealing with one side that has tolkeen with maybe 500k people all total and that is being very generous with outlying areas and is basically three towns in one small geographic area. The other side is a multi city multi state force that covers almost the entire mississippi river valley area with multiple mega fortresses and probably had multiple millions of citizens not even including the burb populations who could be enticed into joining the military for citizenship.

It simply becomes a size issue tolkeen is simply to small with to low of a population to survive long term if the CS is willing to pay the butcher bill to kill them. And sure magic may allow things like death cursing prosek and he may even die but in the end the outcome is certain. Now if all the magic city states and the federation of magic all joined together they may have stalemated the issue but even then if the CS was willing to pay the price knocking out a fixed target like tolkeen or lazlo is pretty much a certainty.

Prior to the CS wars most of the federation of magic capital cities had less than 50k people. Sure they can cause a lot of havock but in the end the military of CS outweighs the TOTAL POPULATION of tolkeen and the federation of magic. This is not even so much a magic vs tech matter or good guys vs bad guys it is simply a matter of numbers.

[kaid]

But, again, even with the 1 million man army (which is pretty vague, actually), that's still comparable to the entire population of Tolkeen.
And even if every civilian fought... civilian armies are not on par with a trained military.

Go read up the American Revolutionary War.

Already have done.

Training is just one thing to take into consideration when deciding how well two forces are matched up against each other.
--flatline

But it's a major consideration.

One thing to note about the american revolutionary war is the british were projecting a fighting force across the ocean away from their home. The CS projected their million man fighting force less than an hour flight time from their capital city and a distance most of their advanced warmachines could cover in the space of a few hours on the ground.

[Giant2005]

I didn't expect the CS to win. My experience at the time told me it wasn't realistic that they would.

Guess i've just playing too many games where everyone aside me played a magic user and even with my 11 attacks per melee, sharpshooting skills, forcefields and smart tactics i had to focus on being a social character to be useful.

No matter how strong magic may be you are dealing with one side that has tolkeen with maybe 500k people all total and that is being very generous with outlying areas and is basically three towns in one small geographic area. The other side is a multi city multi state force that covers almost the entire mississippi river valley area with multiple mega fortresses and probably had multiple millions of citizens not even including the burb populations who could be enticed into joining the military for citizenship.

It simply becomes a size issue tolkeen is simply to small with to low of a population to survive long term if the CS is willing to pay the butcher bill to kill them. And sure magic may allow things like death cursing prosek and he may even die but in the end the outcome is certain. Now if all the magic city states and the federation of magic all joined together they may have stalemated the issue but even then if the CS was willing to pay the price knocking out a fixed target like tolkeen or lazlo is pretty much a certainty.

Prior to the CS wars most of the federation of magic capital cities had less than 50k people. Sure they can cause a lot of havock but in the end the military of CS outweighs the TOTAL POPULATION of tolkeen and the federation of magic. This is not even so much a magic vs tech matter or good guys vs bad guys it is simply a matter of numbers.

You should read the thread.
The numbers aren't significantly different.

[flatline]

a fifth level air warlock without anyone helping and without need of a ley line can summon 1200 Phantoms in one hour.

Sure, when YOU are GMing things.
BUT I suspect that KS wouldn't run things the same way.
As I said, one of the problems with magic in Rifts is that everybody has to make a LOT of assumptions about how things work.
And no, I don't see any canon reasons why your plan wouldn't work... but Palladium makes so many assumptions about "common sense" that this doesn't mean much as far as the official world goes.
It wouldn't surprise me, for example, if KS assumed that we'd all understand that Summoning spells (or perhaps this one in particular) have to be cast as rituals, taking closer to half-an hour per casting than only taking 1-2 attacks, even though I'm certain that he never mentions it.

That tactic doesn't require any house rules to work, so I don't understand why there would be any reason to doubt it's viability.

Side question: can warlock spells even be rituals?

--flatline