Guild Wars 2

I always wanted to ask this, which race would have the superior technology in the long run lore wise?

On on hand, the Asura have gates, magitech and are generally marketed as the intellectual race. However, I noticed how the Charr are also kinda marketed as having the best weapons. What is the truth behind this?

Asura, hands down. It’s comparing steampunk to sci-fi: Steampunk certainly has charme, but sci-fi is just more advanced. The charr are a warmongering race and all their technology is basically part of the effort to be the strongest on the battlefield. The asura very much strive for elegance of their inventions and also for science for science’s sake.

NinjaChris.9340:

Asura, hands down. It’s comparing steampunk to sci-fi: Steampunk certainly has charme, but sci-fi is just more advanced. The charr are a warmongering race and all their technology is basically part of the effort to be the strongest on the battlefield. The asura very much strive for elegance of their inventions and also for science for science’s sake.

That makes sense considering the Asura focus much more on science than the Charr do, but are the Charr superior when it comes to warfare? Or do the Asura have that advantage as well?

In the long run, I’d actually give it to the charr, as they advance much quicker. In the last 250 years they’ve gone from a primitive race to Tyria’s only industrial society, and the advances aren’t slowing. Just in the course of the game we’ve seen them take submarines and helicopters from prototypes to fully functional machines of war, and members of their race are also attempting to harness electricity. By comparison, the asura have advanced very little since 1078, and most of that is in the form of refinements to preexisting technologies, be it teleportation or golems, rather than anything new. Yes, they do have lasers, but those are actually pretty inferior weapons unless employed on a massive scale- and those suffer from a similarly massive charge time.

I’d give it charr as well. Charr tech revolves around war but war tech is the main driving force behing some of RL biggest technological advancements. Add that to the organization and production capabilities the charr have and the asura are at a distinct disadvantage.

Asura on the other hand, can be compared to great achievements in historical technology like the ancient Chinese clocktower or the ancient Roman automotons and steam powered toys. But without war as a driving force behind them to develop and propogate them, they faded away to history.

asura technology depends on other societies using their tech in order for it to be of any great use because without that need, it gets lost in their ancient archives only to be rediscovered by later genius explorers centuries later. And sometimes their forgotten centuries old tech is superior to what they currently use. Their lack of organization largely stagnates their development. And as Aaron pointed out above, we see that they don’t advance that quickly.

It depends on what you consider “superior technology” in the end, since it will differ from person to person.

For weapons of destruction and war, the Charr would have it in the end, but only if they have a constant source of conflict to fuel their creative need. Their whole militaristic society needs it to survive, and without it; it would fall to shambles, along with their need for constantly evolving war tech.

The Asura, on the other hand, have already evolved their own technology to the point where it doesn’t need constant advancement for their race’s continued survival. (Minus the threat of the Elder Dragons.) They no longer have the need to constantly advance their technology. As NinjaChris said, they are at a point of where it’s science for science sake now.

So, for weaponry, I would easily give it to the Charr. But for live style improvement, I would give it to the Asura in the end.

USA didn’t win VIetnam war even with the superior technologies.

So many ways to come at this question but I’ll have to give the nod to the Asura. Each races technology is very different and as noted each have their own motivations for that technology. To compare it fully, they would have to war against each other as even the most ingenious tech is useless if it cannot be defended. And in such a war, at least for the time being, the Asura would at the very least force the Charr to back off, if not cause their surrender entirely.

The Charr have the superior military tech, more of it, and a large and constantly ready army. But the Asura have the gates. And that is huge. Their ability to move about the world in an instant would be devastating. The Charr would have to march their armies from Ascalon all the way across Tyria to battle the Asura at Rata Sum.

Their helicopters (straight out of Warcraft 3?) and tanks (that look like fat motorcycles?) are not troop transport vehicles, look rather fragile, and would require a lot of upkeep just to make the journey. They have some minor sea technology, but no way to deploy it against the Asura. They would have to march their army to a coastline, build a massive shipyard, then build a massive armada of ships that may or may not be effective by the time they get built.

Then there is the matter of negotiating with all of the different races and cities to allow them to march an army through their lands to go kill those shark faces. Many would object because they benefit from Asura tech. Kryta, even with the current peace negotiations, would never allow a Charr army to trample their land. Lion’s Arch would never allow a Charr army to ruin their trade routes. Their land route to Rata Sum is very very very long if not impossible entirely without starting so many other wars that they get themselves into deep trouble.

Meanwhile, the Asura would have so much time to organize and enact countless strategies of attrition to basically just hit and run and blast away at the Charr army with whatever crazy inventions they want to throw at it. If the Charr ever made it to Rata Sum, it would be battered and broken and in no position to take the city. While I don’t think the Asura have the army, will, or simply enough of their current technology to go on the offensive against the Charr, they could thwart them quite handily at every occasion.

A lot of this might have nothing directly to do with their tech per say, but the current state of politics and each races mindset does have a big influence on their tech. Nod to the Asura.

your theory here has a few problems
1) the charr have access to the sea and already constructed shipyard (if it still exists) in the area around mount maelstrom I believe is where warband from the gw2 book sea of sorrows came from.
2) While if asura were to ever try to go on the attack you will notice that their asura gates are monitored and ready to be destroyed if necessary.
3) the asura are united through their krewes, but they are not a united military force (their best chance at forming a defense against a charr attack would be from asura possibly former pact members, or veterans of the mist war), this is an incredibly important issue as the charr are a military culture with all the discipline and training, not all asura are prepared to fight in a war either through training, mental state, or experience.
4) the capital city of the asura rata sum is in a precarious predicament, we have already seen that in the uncategorized fractal that these floating asuran cities have a very real weak spot that a well aimed attack could end the war right as it starts. (made me think of the death star)

1. If the Charr still have that shipyard and a sizable navy then that would be their best way to attack. It wouldn’t be without difficulty though. That watery passage sandwiched between the Crystal Desert and Orr is probably still littered with Risen and other nasties.

2. Definitely any Asura that tried to gate to the Black Citadel would meet a quick end. But they would use the many gates scattered throughout the world to move supplies, move their tech, move their krewes in front of or behind any Charr army. The Charr can’t guard them all and most likely nobody but the Asura know where they are all located.

3. If anything, I think this is something the Inquest would love to see happen. Hundreds of panicked Asura all arguing amongst each other and sharing thousands of conflicting ideas on how to resolve it. It would be in the Inquest’s best interest to help the rest of the Asura (they need someone to steal tech from!). They have the advantage of having no ethics whatsoever and will use as many dishonorable acts they need to to defeat the Charr. They would be hailed as heroes and might even consume Asura society entirely. Inquest, Asura Overlords!

4. The only saving grace for the weakness of the city cube would be stopping an attack before it ever started.

As a point of curiosity, what about the Uncategorized Fractal makes you think city cubes have an inherent weak spot? All I remember is disjointed and entirely ambiguous rambling; and in any event, the Uncategorized Fractal isn’t a city cube, and likely was not designed to be floating (although everything floats in the Mists).

this quote mainly “Breach! Broken! Falling! Screaming! Dying!”

definitions
Breach = a gap in a wall, barrier, or defense, esp. one made by an attacking army.
Broken = having been fractured or damaged and no longer in one piece or in working order.
Falling = move downward, typically rapidly and freely without control, from a higher to a lower level.

these first two words in this series lead to falling screaming and dying, my guess would be a security measure was breached causing some failure in some vulnerability in an important component which was destroyed(broken) (my guess would be this component is what held up this floating city) that held up this asuran city like area, I say floating city because for something to fall it has to be above ground level or the ground would have to collapse for it to descend. Also the raving asura ends by saying abandoned, meaning for whatever reasons the fall of this “city” wasn’t documented or looked into, so we may be able to assume that nothing was adapted in Rata Sum to defend against another similar situation happening. (my personal theory is that because of the size of this “city” it was one of the greater underground cities and that it’s destruction may have been caused by primordius’s minions, this is supported a bit by the roots which appear around the structure, but could be refuted by the existence of harpies in the area which prefer higher location to make their nests)

Boysenberry.1869:

2. Definitely any Asura that tried to gate to the Black Citadel would meet a quick end. But they would use the many gates scattered throughout the world to move supplies, move their tech, move their krewes in front of or behind any Charr army. The Charr can’t guard them all and most likely nobody but the Asura know where they are all located.

3. If anything, I think this is something the Inquest would love to see happen. Hundreds of panicked Asura all arguing amongst each other and sharing thousands of conflicting ideas on how to resolve it. It would be in the Inquest’s best interest to help the rest of the Asura (they need someone to steal tech from!). They have the advantage of having no ethics whatsoever and will use as many dishonorable acts they need to to defeat the Charr. They would be hailed as heroes and might even consume Asura society entirely. Inquest, Asura Overlords!

2) The problem here is that if the charr went to such great lengths to booby trap and have a constant watch on the asura gate I would assume that they have also made preparations to destroy all waypoints in charr held lands if necessary. I just don’t see a militarily based society allowing unrestricted movement through their land.

3) I personally can’t see the inquest as heroes, I find them more along the lines of just trying to save protect or empower themselves, not necessarily the asuran race as a whole, I think this is demonstrated perfectly by Brie in path 2 of arah as she phases out of reality herself but leaves behind all of her inquest minions.

Infamous Darkness.3284:

Boysenberry.1869:

2. Definitely any Asura that tried to gate to the Black Citadel would meet a quick end. But they would use the many gates scattered throughout the world to move supplies, move their tech, move their krewes in front of or behind any Charr army. The Charr can’t guard them all and most likely nobody but the Asura know where they are all located.

3. If anything, I think this is something the Inquest would love to see happen. Hundreds of panicked Asura all arguing amongst each other and sharing thousands of conflicting ideas on how to resolve it. It would be in the Inquest’s best interest to help the rest of the Asura (they need someone to steal tech from!). They have the advantage of having no ethics whatsoever and will use as many dishonorable acts they need to to defeat the Charr. They would be hailed as heroes and might even consume Asura society entirely. Inquest, Asura Overlords!

2) The problem here is that if the charr went to such great lengths to booby trap and have a constant watch on the asura gate I would assume that they have also made preparations to destroy all waypoints in charr held lands if necessary. I just don’t see a militarily based society allowing unrestricted movement through their land.

3) I personally can’t see the inquest as heroes, I find them more along the lines of just trying to save protect or empower themselves, not necessarily the asuran race as a whole, I think this is demonstrated perfectly by Brie in path 2 of arah as she phases out of reality herself but leaves behind all of her inquest minions.

Thanks for the details because I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know if the Charr have the strongest military or not. I can see how the Asura have clearly have superiority when it comes to technology overall, but are the Charr the strongest when it comes to military and war? Or is it simply just part of who they are?

I’d say they’re the strongest- what we see in-game is only about half of their military force, and the only other race that even maintains an army are the humans, and the Seraph, while good soldiers, are undermined by the government, while the charr government (and everything else) IS military.

Asuran technology isn’t necessarily any better or worse than Charr. It’s not like theirs is future tech, respectively. It’s more the focus of the science and study of magic and the eternal alchemy, whereas the Charr focus on the science and study of physics and engineering.

If we’re talking about the long run, the reasons that the Elder Dragons have awoken is to consume the excess of magic in the world that runs on the ley lines of Tyria.

So, regardless of whether or not the dragon destroys either of those two races, if the 5 races can not defeat the dragons, there’s potentially a time limit on the amount of time they can tap into the pool of magic before they start noticing the adverse effects of a low magic state Tyria. And I think one of those adverse effects would be the collapse of Asuran society. Everything they do is closely associated with the excessive amounts of magic that’s available to use on the planet. Rata Sum could come crashing down, instantly destroying their capital city that was held up by, what I would assume is, magic.

Whereas the Charr don’t have and will never have that handicap because their society rejects the use and, certainly, the dependence on magic.

We don’t know how the Uncategorised Fractal was broken, so we can’t say how easy or difficult it is to break Rata Sum by extrapolation.

In the more general sense: the general analogy is that the asura are mad scientists, the charr are inventors. The asura can pull of things the charr can’t, but are hampered by a social system that encourages competition and secrecy over cooperation and the establishment of a coherent body of science, which means that most of what is discovered is lost and as a society they have to keep reinventing the wheel. The slow progress, even stagnation, of asura technological development can probably be attributed to this – they’re at a point where individuals and krewes cannot keep driving technology forward faster when each effectively has to start from scratch. They also have a tendency to focus on the flashy stuff that establishes them as geniuses, rather than the little stuff that doesn’t bring the same accolades but which finds new ways of applying known principles and technologies or just improves the efficiency of what they already have..

Charr, on the other hand, are more methodical in their technological development, allowing the “if I have seen far, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants” effect to occur. Short of a massive societal collapse, they’re not going to lose that, and charr technology can probably be expected to continue at roughly the same rate it has been – which means that realistically we’re probably looking at the full spectrum of modern technology appearing within a century, maybe two.

To summarise, then, at the moment asura have the most advanced stuff, but it’s haphazard rather than a united body of knowledge, . The charr don’t have the really advanced stuff, but they’re better at finding all the uses of a technology they’ve developed, and they’re in a stronger position to keep pushing forward.

Frankly, what I think the asura should really be scared of is the ramifications of a fully cooperative charr-human alliance. Humans prior to the Guild Wars seem to have been on a similar level to the asura, and things like the Watchknights have shown that while they’ve lost a lot of that, they haven’t entirely lost their ability to make technomagical devices themselves… and humans don’t have the same culture of secrecy that the asura do. If humans and charr started to combine their learnings, kind of like the Molten Alliance except that humans have a broader and more complete knowledge of magic than the Flame Legion, then the asura could find themselves well and truly marginalised within a century.

draxynnic.3719:

Frankly, what I think the asura should really be scared of is the ramifications of a fully cooperative charr-human alliance. Humans prior to the Guild Wars seem to have been on a similar level to the asura, and things like the Watchknights have shown that while they’ve lost a lot of that, they haven’t entirely lost their ability to make technomagical devices themselves… and humans don’t have the same culture of secrecy that the asura do. If humans and charr started to combine their learnings, kind of like the Molten Alliance except that humans have a broader and more complete knowledge of magic than the Flame Legion, then the asura could find themselves well and truly marginalised within a century.

That is why my Asura enjoys the Priory so much. He’s able to experiment and study with the technologies and the magical knowledge of the other races. Something he thinks the people of Rata Sum, and any krewe he might gather for a project, might “frown upon”.

So while the Charr and Asura might be major contenders when it comes to technological advancement, I wouldn’t count the Priory out. Now that they have joined to make the Pact, they will be pushing themselves with it comes to advancing their tech and magic. They aren’t limited to non-magical advances, like the Charr, or magitechnical(?, magitechnological?), like the Asura. They can pull from any type of magic or technology, from any race, if need be.

Team Priory!

Thats magic vs. gasoline. And dragons will consume magic soon (evil laugh).

Ok im going to break it down into a tech vs tech and full on war.
In tech asuras are superior over charr in direct due to they can make objects fly with magitech, they can open portals to the future, build golems, theyre tech focused but puny in statue and they lack explosive direct power.

However the charr got explosive power and engineering abilities combined with a body built for warfare. and asura/charr both got HEAVY defened captials, asuras got a floating pyramids a kilometer or somthing like that above the ground, they’re armed with skyhammers all over the place probiliary and got all strange types of devices like a engineer shield 4 mega version with whole rata sum :P
Meanwhile the charr got a huuge standby army walking around in black citadel, 2 just as defened capitials north of them, 100 times the amount of soliders and they’re more ogranized armies and a charr can prolly take about 5 asuras at once in direct force. They also got nukes and explosive power they could just unleash bombs on the asura army and they all would die while the asuras lack direct force they got many devices and can prolly take out anything with their lasers, and no they cant just teleport into black citadel with asura gates due to charr’s are stand by with explosives on the gate soon as somthing pose a threat the gate opreatur (charr) blows the whole kitten up.

Summary, asuras got higher tech but in direct warfare none would be able to conqer the other one without just drying up their army asuras dont even got an army just peacemakers which is more of a police.

Apolgiez for the text being a bit messy but hey :P

Why is everyone assuming that superior tech must mean they would win a war?

A society could have tech so advanced it was indistinguishable from magic *cough*Asura*cough*, and still be unable to fight a war because they don’t have an army. So war isn’t a good guideline.

Even so, I’ll play this game.
Asura:
-Giant, autonomous, rampaging, self-repairing, semi-intelligent war machines.
-other machines that automatically make said war machines (see: Incomp Optics)
-perfect logistics (needed for any army to do more then starve themselves to death)
-huge laser cannons (see: Fort Trinity, old Teq event)
-a floating city, the only access to which is under Asura control.
-a stranglehold on worldwide transportation that all other races rely on.

Charr:
-Guns.
-Tanks.
-Organized (aka, the only reason they’d have any chance at all)

I’m going with Asura.

there are quite a few problems with your arguments here,
one, the huge laser cannons that you mention none of them that are seen in game are owned by asura, the ones by tequatl are vigil owed, fort trinity the pact, the thing similar to one used in taking back claw island priory, the one on the glory of tyria is also pact, and to top it all off if all of these work in the same way that the one on the glory of tyria works it would be a massive failure against the charr siege weapons, as the way they described it was that it sucked in magic from zhaitan poisoned it and then shot it back into him, this same process wouldn’t seem to damage metal.

second, you do an incredible underestimation of organization in military units for a better example please look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War

third, golems aren’t necessarily made for war, and the charr war machines give them the advantage on sea and in the air (as they had working prototypes of both of these weapons before joining the pact)

fourth, birth rates as charr are felines it seems that they would larger birth rates as well as a larger population to begin with (assuming the constant warfare hasn’t killed more than are being reproduced)

fifth, could you please show me your source for perfect logistics because I had never seen anything along those lines and if true that is very interesting.

sixth, transportation this is their greatest strength if they were to go to war with any race, I wrote earlier how I believe that the charr have prepared for this in case of invasion, but even if they did the charr would only be able to prevent movement within their own territory.

seventh, wealth this is where I see an amazing asuran strength is their wealth and possible ability to hire mercenaries.

(may continue the list later)

Rhyse.8179:

A society could have tech so advanced it was indistinguishable from magic *cough*Asura*cough*.

Side note:Asura tech actually is magic. That’s a bit different than being so far advanced that it seems like magic.

Perfect logistics as in teleportation. No supply caravans, no field camps, just mobile gate crews. (changing gate attunements is difficult but possible; mobile gates that are set up and taken down like a firebase are entirely plausible in lore) Every military camp is a 30 second walk from your home base, and a flip of a switch on either side means the enemy can’t use them against you. The amount of personnel alone freed up by this is enormous, and that’s on top of being immune to the normal supply ambushes, delayed reinforcements, etc, that you’d expect in any large campaign.

As for organization, I don’t discount it- it’s why it’s listed in the first place. Seriously though, we’re talking about shooting canon balls at force fields. If the Charr have any hope of victory, it’s through sheer industrial might and numbers. An advantage that’s fairly weak when Asura can build a Golem factory that churns them out by the minute (it’s done in minutes in game at least- who knows what the actual time scale would be)- and Golems don’t need to be manned like tanks do. Also, since the Asura can simply gate back to a safe haven and close the gate behind them, actually conquering them by force would be nigh impossible.

Not counting plot-twist level magic events, like the destruction of entire continents or turning an entire ocean into jade. That would be cheating :P

I doubt the Asura could form themselves into a cohesive force long enough to invade another race, let alone the Charr. I’ll certainly grant that much- their obsessively competitive nature makes them too fractious to even bother trying. They have so many defensive advantages though that I think no one could ever achieve more then a stalemate versus them.

Rhyse.8179:

A society could have tech so advanced it was indistinguishable from magic *cough*Asura*cough*,.

Yeaaaa.. but in fantasy-world magic IS magic, every kid with magic potential can throw fireballs.

none of them would win atm but the asuras has no way to get into black citadel without getting crushed however the charr has no means of getting into a floating laser cannon by the size of new york a mile above the ground so the answer is they would exterminate the others army if the asuras got an army -.- xD

Even though you can’t always take a wiki as fact, I went to the charr page and under the trivia I noticed it said “The Industrial Age – they’re the most technologically advanced race which appears to be in a parallel stage of development.”

Infamous Darkness.3284:

there are quite a few problems with your arguments here,
one, the huge laser cannons that you mention none of them that are seen in game are owned by asura, the ones by tequatl are vigil owed, fort trinity the pact, the thing similar to one used in taking back claw island priory, the one on the glory of tyria is also pact,

A similar argument would be made for a lot of the charr tech that we see in Orr, some of which we’re explicitly told were made to work due to collaborations.

The megalasers, however, are clearly asura technology and made by asura, even if the ones we see have been seconded to the Pact. There are, also, some cases of similarly powerful weapons being used by the Inquest – the test weapon to the south of the Maelstrom zone, for instance.

draxynnic.3719:

Infamous Darkness.3284:

there are quite a few problems with your arguments here,
one, the huge laser cannons that you mention none of them that are seen in game are owned by asura, the ones by tequatl are vigil owed, fort trinity the pact, the thing similar to one used in taking back claw island priory, the one on the glory of tyria is also pact,

A similar argument would be made for a lot of the charr tech that we see in Orr, some of which we’re explicitly told were made to work due to collaborations.

The megalasers, however, are clearly asura technology and made by asura, even if the ones we see have been seconded to the Pact. There are, also, some cases of similarly powerful weapons being used by the Inquest – the test weapon to the south of the Maelstrom zone, for instance.

I don’t see this in any case other than the pact airships but I wasn’t including these in charr weaponry, I was including the submarines though which were found in the sea of sorrows book, and in the Iron Barracuda event, on the area of the charr helicopter I might have to agree with you it seems they were close to getting a working model but not quite there yet this video demonstrates this

I don’t think the charr ship in the Sea of Sorrows was a submersible, simply a ship with an engine (which was revolutionary enough back then). I may have forgotten something, but the Iron Barracuda is presented as a cutting-edge prototype.

The Pact submersibles are specifically described by an NPC as having been refined by engineers from all races, suggesting that some non-charr expertise was needed to bring it from a prototype to a deployable weapon of war.

I cannot remember where i found it but i seem to remember that the waypoints where made by the Asura. If this is true does that mean that they have the ability to set new ones up as well?

And i suppose we’ve all seen their megalasers and what they do things they are aimed at….

There’s one weapon the Charr have that may prove devastating for the jungle-dwelling asurans and that’s their ghost-fire weaponry. An out of control blaze that can burn underwater (or indeed burns best underwater) does not sound healthy for their lands.

IMO, in a Asura vs Charr total war situation, the Asura have to gain a very quick victory over the Charr (e.g. within 6 months). If the war lasts for over 6 months, the Charrs will slowly come back and eventually win the war.

Asurans are clearly “smarter”. However they are terrible at working together. We see most Asuran doing his or her own invention. And they waste a lot of time arguing over whose idea is better.

Charrs are not as smart, but they have no problem working together. And once they get one prototype working, the next step is mass production to equip all soldiers with the new weapons.

Charr knows exactly what it takes to win a war. They would pick a weapon to mass produce, and then give it out to all the soldiers within 2 months.

Asurans do not understand war. They would argue night and day over which weapon to mass produce. They would also waste a lot of time making little modification to “perfect” that weapon. By the time they finally start production, it is 4 months later.

WW2: Germany have the better tanks. Russia can build A LOT more tanks. Russia wins.

GW2: Asura have the better weapons. Charr can build A LOT more weapons. Charr will win.

It’s not quite so easy to predict, since while all that asura arguing may slow them down, the asura are also more likely to pull out a superweapon from somewhere. Keep in mind how World War 2 ended, after all.

The asura disorganisation, coupled with their gates and things, also makes them that much harder to pin down. The asura are likely to at least know where their front lines are… for the charr, all it takes is a few undetected gates and they have to devote an increasing level of resources to protecting their supply lines and production facilities. Even if the Rata Sum were to fall (and how much of a problem that would be is a discussion in itself) you’d never know for sure if you’d got all of the laboratories out in the wilds, any one of which could cause general trouble or pull out something that decisively swings the balance.

((As an ironic aside, too, an observation that can be made on WW2 history is that it’s actually a bad idea to have the best tanks. France probably had the best at the start, albeit mixed in with a lot of obsolete stuff as well, and we know what happened to them. Russia had the best (and a lot of obsolete stuff…) in 1941 and 1942, which is the period where they were largely on the back foot. Then Germany had the Panthers and Tigers… and, let’s face it, a lot of stuff that was obsolete by then – but their position got steadily worse and worse since their introduction.

Now, the truth is that there were other factors in play that had a bigger effect than tank quality – it’s not like Germany would have done better if they’d soldiered on with the PzIIIs and PzIVs – but it is still an amusing observation to make that having the best tanks was a bad sign!))

Nick.6972:

USA didn’t win VIetnam war even with the superior technologies.

North Vietnam was in total war status, determined to win. US wasn’t.

If US deployed 11 million troops as they did in WW2, they would easily beat North Vietnam.

Rhyse.8179:

Perfect logistics as in teleportation. No supply caravans, no field camps, just mobile gate crews. (changing gate attunements is difficult but possible; mobile gates that are set up and taken down like a firebase are entirely plausible in lore) Every military camp is a 30 second walk from your home base, and a flip of a switch on either side means the enemy can’t use them against you. The amount of personnel alone freed up by this is enormous, and that’s on top of being immune to the normal supply ambushes, delayed reinforcements, etc, that you’d expect in any large campaign.

As for organization, I don’t discount it- it’s why it’s listed in the first place. Seriously though, we’re talking about shooting canon balls at force fields. If the Charr have any hope of victory, it’s through sheer industrial might and numbers. An advantage that’s fairly weak when Asura can build a Golem factory that churns them out by the minute (it’s done in minutes in game at least- who knows what the actual time scale would be)- and Golems don’t need to be manned like tanks do. Also, since the Asura can simply gate back to a safe haven and close the gate behind them, actually conquering them by force would be nigh impossible.

Not counting plot-twist level magic events, like the destruction of entire continents or turning an entire ocean into jade. That would be cheating :P

I doubt the Asura could form themselves into a cohesive force long enough to invade another race, let alone the Charr. I’ll certainly grant that much- their obsessively competitive nature makes them too fractious to even bother trying. They have so many defensive advantages though that I think no one could ever achieve more then a stalemate versus them.

Asuran do not have perfect logistics. Those gates need to be constructed before they can be used, and as we can see that takes quite a while. They are stationary and cannot be moved. So they will be under constant artillery shelling from the Charr. That means these gates must be placed 10-15 km behind the front line to keep them safe. These 10-15 km must be WALKED by the Asurans because they do not have mechanical transportation (golems walks at the same speed as soldiers on foot. So no advantage there.). Charrs on the other hand will always move with mechanical transportation (their infantry will be fully mechanized.). Overall Asuran does have a slight logistic advantage, but not as much as you think.

And with the rapidly changing front lines in armoured warfare, anything stationary are at a huge disadvantage. Right after a breakthrough of the front line, tanks can advance rapidly to overrun anything behind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_France

“Erwin Rommel had breached its defences within 24 hours of its conception.¹⁴¹ This allowed Rommel to break free with his 7th Panzer Division, refusing to allow his division rest and advancing both by day and night. The Ghost division advanced 30 mi (48 km) in just 24 hours.¹⁴³”

You’re making a few assumptions and omissions there.

First, we do know that portable gates do exist (see: Edge of Destiny). There’s an event in Metrica where a gate is reassembled from stolen parts, suggesting that prefabrication may be possible even for the bigger gates. Finally, you’re assuming that the gates are all going to be placed out in the open where the charr can know where they are and shell them, when a lot of the gates in-game are actually hidden in out-of-the-way places.

Second, there is no evidence that the charr are fully mechanised – in fact, the number of times we see charr moving things around by dolyak or bull shows quite clearly that they’re not. There’s a distinction between having a mechanical component to your army an being fully mechanised – no army in WW1 was fully mechanised, and even at the start of WW1 that was something that only the British had managed. Furthermore, the same comments regarding the broken ground of Orr slowing down the advance of the Pact “tanks” would also apply to an attempted charr advance through the jungle.

Putting those together… the Battle for France you reference was so successful for the Germans because at that time nobody was expecting an army to get through the Ardennes. Imagine if, while the majority of the charr army was slogging through the Maguuma (we’re assuming for the sake of discussion that for whatever reason no other race gets involved here), the asura were simply seeking to keep them held up… while an asura force shows up out of some lab in Ascalon that the charr weren’t aware of and besieged the Black Citadel. Keep in mind that, unlike the other enemy factions, the Inquest is an official and legitimate (if shady) part of asuran society, so they’re probably going to take part in a hypothetical charr-asura total war, possibly even imparting their organisation as the core of the asuran forces. (In fact, the most likely scenario I can think of for such a war to happen is as part of an Inquest bid to seize full control of asura society once and for all.)

Now, charr numbers and mass manufacture may still win in the end, but I think it’ll be less Battle for France and more Vietnam, except with the Viet Cong striking directly at America and having the assistance of a range of the type of supervillains that tend to have titles like “Doctor” or “Professor” in their monikers. It’s not going to be pretty or clear-cut.

(Although now I’m visualising a movie of Bond Ashseven and his fight against Dr Nork, and it is awesome.)

Ugh. This topic is pointless.
Asura don’t have any army. No foot soldiers (except golems, which are pretty unreliable for military purposes, even Pact not using them), no command chain, terrible industry (Standardization? Central control and regulation? What is that?), totally shattered society, almost zero experienced officers, no military tradition at all. Only bunch of self-entitled scientists, some small specops groups (mainly Inquest ones) and numerous weapon prototypes with god-know-what-and-how-much potential issues.
I can’t even imagine asuran platoon defending in trenches for days under artillery barrage, or charging on enemy while your friends falling left and right near you, or volunteering together for guaranteed death to allow others retreat/make maneuver. Charr, human, norn, sylvari – yes, but not asura.

Rednik.3809:

I can’t even imagine asuran platoon defending in trenches for days under artillery barrage, or charging on enemy while your friends falling left and right near you, or volunteering together for guaranteed death to allow others retreat/make maneuver. Charr, human, norn, sylvari – yes, but not asura.

How I would imagine an asura responding to this argument:

“Silly bookah. That’s what golems are for!”

Now, whether golems are superior to regular infantry, inferior, or a matter of comparing apples to oranges is up to debate, but you can’t say that asura being poorly suited to act as cannon fodder (which is basically what you’re saying there) is a decisive shortfall when the asura have purpose-built artificial cannon fodder.

draxynnic.3719:

How I would imagine an asura responding to this argument:

“Silly bookah. That’s what golems are for!”

Now, whether golems are superior to regular infantry, inferior, or a matter of comparing apples to oranges is up to debate, but you can’t say that asura being poorly suited to act as cannon fodder (which is basically what you’re saying there) is a decisive shortfall when the asura have purpose-built artificial cannon fodder.

Golems was proven as unreliable by Orr campaign (even as “inferior”), otherwise they would have been used as soldiers. No sane commander will send his troops to the death (remember usual causalities during Pact operations?) if they can be replaced by expendable golems.

People seems to be forgetting to add the Inquest into the equations.

If all out war is ever declared between the Asura and Charr, the Arcane Council will most likely appoint the Inquest in solving the problem quickly and most cost effectively, and we know the Inquest won’t play/fight nicely if that happens.

Rednik.3809:

draxynnic.3719:

How I would imagine an asura responding to this argument:

“Silly bookah. That’s what golems are for!”

Now, whether golems are superior to regular infantry, inferior, or a matter of comparing apples to oranges is up to debate, but you can’t say that asura being poorly suited to act as cannon fodder (which is basically what you’re saying there) is a decisive shortfall when the asura have purpose-built artificial cannon fodder.

Golems was proven as unreliable by Orr campaign (even as “inferior”), otherwise they would have been used as soldiers. No sane commander will send his troops to the death (remember usual causalities during Pact operations?) if they can be replaced by expendable golems.

Were they unreliable, or was it that the Pact just didn’t have that many?

Keep in mind that while the governments of the other major races are all supporting the Pact to varying degrees (depending on their capabilities to do so), the 20-30 storyline for the asura shows that the Arcane Council has been trying to stick its head in the sand regarding the threat of the dragons and if anything has been actively opposing efforts to research or fight the dragons. Meanwhile, the Inquest has explicitly been an enemy of the Pact.

What this means is that, essentially, asura members of the Pact are volunteers that are going against their government – while there are golemancers among them, they didn’t bring with them the ability to produce golems at the rate that they can be produced by the golemworks of Rata Sum and the Inquest. So the Pact gets golems by the handful, and thus uses them for specialist work or for jobs that are too dangerous for conventional soldiers, but they certainly don’t have the numbers to replace conventional soldiers entirely.

Rata Sum and the Inquest, however, probably do. The fluff suggests that golems in asura society possibly outnumber the asura themselves, and have certainly taken over all menial work. Just look at the numbers of golems you see around asura or Inquest operations – often, they’re a significant portion, if not the majority, of any asura force that isn’t oriented for stealth.

And on top of that, if you think there aren’t golems being used as soldiers in Orr, you’re not looking hard enough. There are plenty, not least of which are the golem cannons on the northern invasion path. It’s just that, well, when the Pact is formed from five major races and a number of lesser ones among which the asura are probably making the smallest contribution among the five major races, the Pact just doesn’t have enough golems to let them ignore the military contribution that conventional soldiers provide.

Rata Sum and the Inquest, on the other hand, probably do. Odds are, in a full war footing asura army, the lowest ranks of living asura would all be special forces or officers commanding units of golems.

Pact may not have support of Arcane Council (btw I don’t think what Council decisions are something significant for asuran society anyway, but this is my opinion), but Pact have money, and money can hire golemancers. And yet not doing that. I see several possible reasons:
1. Golemancers are all patriotic and don’t want to work with foreigners (are you kidding me?).
2. Golems are too expensive. But if this is so expensive, how can you build big golem army for charr-asura war?
3. Good golemancers are rare and they are too expensive to hire/don’t want to work with foreigners. Combined 1 and 2.
4. Golems are just plain bad soldiers.

CHIPS.6018:

Rhyse.8179:

Perfect logistics as in teleportation. No supply caravans, no field camps, just mobile gate crews. (changing gate attunements is difficult but possible; mobile gates that are set up and taken down like a firebase are entirely plausible in lore) Every military camp is a 30 second walk from your home base, and a flip of a switch on either side means the enemy can’t use them against you. The amount of personnel alone freed up by this is enormous, and that’s on top of being immune to the normal supply ambushes, delayed reinforcements, etc, that you’d expect in any large campaign.

As for organization, I don’t discount it- it’s why it’s listed in the first place. Seriously though, we’re talking about shooting canon balls at force fields. If the Charr have any hope of victory, it’s through sheer industrial might and numbers. An advantage that’s fairly weak when Asura can build a Golem factory that churns them out by the minute (it’s done in minutes in game at least- who knows what the actual time scale would be)- and Golems don’t need to be manned like tanks do. Also, since the Asura can simply gate back to a safe haven and close the gate behind them, actually conquering them by force would be nigh impossible.

Not counting plot-twist level magic events, like the destruction of entire continents or turning an entire ocean into jade. That would be cheating :P

I doubt the Asura could form themselves into a cohesive force long enough to invade another race, let alone the Charr. I’ll certainly grant that much- their obsessively competitive nature makes them too fractious to even bother trying. They have so many defensive advantages though that I think no one could ever achieve more then a stalemate versus them.

Asuran do not have perfect logistics. Those gates need to be constructed before they can be used, and as we can see that takes quite a while. They are stationary and cannot be moved. So they will be under constant artillery shelling from the Charr. That means these gates must be placed 10-15 km behind the front line to keep them safe. These 10-15 km must be WALKED by the Asurans because they do not have mechanical transportation (golems walks at the same speed as soldiers on foot. So no advantage there.). Charrs on the other hand will always move with mechanical transportation (their infantry will be fully mechanized.). Overall Asuran does have a slight logistic advantage, but not as much as you think.

And with the rapidly changing front lines in armoured warfare, anything stationary are at a huge disadvantage. Right after a breakthrough of the front line, tanks can advance rapidly to overrun anything behind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_France

“Erwin Rommel had breached its defences within 24 hours of its conception.¹⁴¹ This allowed Rommel to break free with his 7th Panzer Division, refusing to allow his division rest and advancing both by day and night. The Ghost division advanced 30 mi (48 km) in just 24 hours.¹⁴³”

ah excellent and Erwin Rommel reference

CHIPS.6018:

WW2: Germany have the better tanks. Russia can build A LOT more tanks. Russia wins.

What? No. Fascist box tanks were awful. They constantly broke down, would go up in flames if run at too high revs or on an incline, and their guns were terrible in terms of a KE to Weight ratio.
The Tigers had to have whole maintenance battalions assigned to them because of how awful they were and the Panther could be knocked out by 1930s AT RIFLES. Not AT Guns, freaking rifles.
PzIII and PzIV were mostly fine, aside from Krupps absurd obsession with Elliptical springs for the PzIV but the Tigers and Panthers were abominations of industry magnates overridding the Wehrmacht for design imperatives.
Additionally the Germans were entirely backwards, they still relied heavily on horse transport for their logistics when they invaded Russia.

Lostwingman.5034:

CHIPS.6018:

WW2: Germany have the better tanks. Russia can build A LOT more tanks. Russia wins.

What? No. Fascist box tanks were awful. They constantly broke down, would go up in flames if run at too high revs or on an incline, and their guns were terrible in terms of a KE to Weight ratio.
The Tigers had to have whole maintenance battalions assigned to them because of how awful they were and the Panther could be knocked out by 1930s AT RIFLES. Not AT Guns, freaking rifles.
PzIII and PzIV were mostly fine, aside from Krupps absurd obsession with Elliptical springs for the PzIV but the Tigers and Panthers were abominations of industry magnates overridding the Wehrmacht for design imperatives.
Additionally the Germans were entirely backwards, they still relied heavily on horse transport for their logistics when they invaded Russia.

I was talking about a drawn-out war (e.g. lasts 3 years or more), which would be a disadvantage to the Asura. I was referring to the last 2 years of WW2, where the German Tiger II and Panther tanks were the best tanks on the battle field. But they were field in so small number (relative to the Russian tanks) it didn’t change the war. The same can be said for the Me 262, the best jet fighter during WW2. Strong, but too little too late.

At the start of WW2 Russian T-34 have better armour and better gun. It rapidly made the Panzer III obsolete. And that’s why Panzer IV quickly replaced them on the factory floor for the rest of the war. The last Panzer III was made in 1943.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_IV

“Designed as an infantry-support tank, the Panzer IV was not originally intended to engage enemy armor—that function was performed by the lighter Panzer III. However, with the flaws of pre-war doctrine becoming apparent and in the face of Soviet T-34 tanks, the Panzer IV soon assumed the tank-fighting role of its increasingly obsolete cousin. "

The Panthers during the Battle of Kursk were brand new. And as we know, the first generation of any product are usually unreliable. Later modifications and improvements will eventually fix these problems.

“The engine became more reliable over time. A French assessment of their stock of captured Normandy Panther A’s in 1947 concluded that the engine had an average life of 1,000 km (620 mi) and maximum life of 1,500 km (930 mi).²⁷”

The Germany repair crew and engineers were made before the invention of Panthers and Tiger II. The Germans were determined to retrieve and repair disabled tanks. They know from the start that Russian tanks will outnumber theirs. So they have to make up the number difference by making each tank fight 2 or 3 times during its lifetime.

As Germany starts losing, retrieving these tanks gets harder and harder, further lowering Germany’s tank amount. The German tank crew often had to blow up their own disabled or out of fuel tanks to avoid enemy capture, because these were no chance they can be retrieved.

“The casualties between the two combatant are difficult to determine, due to several factors. In regard to the Germans, equipment losses were complicated by the fact that they made determined efforts to recover and repair tanks. For example, tanks disabled one day often appeared a day or two later repaired.²⁶⁸ German personnel losses are clouded by the lack of access to German unit records, which were sized at the end of the war. Many were transferred to the United States national archives and were not made available until 1978, while others were taken by the Soviet Union who declined to confirm their existence.²⁶⁹”

As for anti tank rifles, that never worked except against very lightly armoured tanks. Not sure where you get that idea from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_rifle#World_War_II

“Later, as armour became thicker on newer models, the effectiveness of a man-portable rifle lessened. This was particularly true in Malaya, where the light Japanese tanks specially configured for jungle conflict rode roughshod over British forces amply supplied with the Boys anti-tank rifle. At first small cannons up to 20mm calibre were used, but the anti-tank role soon required more powerful weapons which were based on the application of chemical energy in the form of the shaped charge anti-tank rifle grenade. To these were added rocket launchers such as the bazooka, recoilless rifles such as the Panzerfaust, and rocket-propelled grenades. Some anti-tank rifles, like the Finnish L-39, were still used by snipers to harass the enemy, like firing phosphorus bullets at tanks’ open hatches, or to smoke an enemy sniper out of his position.”

From 1933 to 1939, Germany only have 6 years to mechanize their infantry. And Germany wasn’t on total war production until 1942, when Albert Speer takes over. So at the start of the war this mechanization wasn’t completed. Horses were still used on a massive scale. Later on production of varies vehicles increased by a lot. Unfortunately this is matched by the huge casualties of vehicles at the front lines. The German army was never fully mechanized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Speer#Wartime_architect_.281939.E2.80.931942.29

“At the time of Speer’s accession to the office, the German economy, unlike the British one, was not fully geared for war production. Consumer goods were still being produced at nearly as high a level as during peacetime. No fewer than five “Supreme Authorities” had jurisdiction over armament production—one of which, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, had declared in November 1941 that conditions did not permit an increase in armament production. Few women were employed in the factories, which were running only one shift. One evening soon after his appointment, Speer went to visit a Berlin armament factory; he found no one on the premises.⁶⁶"

The Charrs won’t have the problem. They got time to make many tanks and infantry transportation. Very few of their enemies have enough anti tank weapons to destroy tanks fast enough to stop a tank battalion advance.

Omg stop quoting wiki.
Panther was awful. It had a highly specialized gun that did didly against infantry which was the primary target on the battlefield. Awful HE shell = Awfully specialized tank.
Panther could also be penetrated by the vintage 14.5mm rifles the Russian infantry were running around in. It was such a kitten ed shock that they were losing Panther’s left and right they nearly rebuilt the whole thing from the ground up before someone slapped the engineers and told them to stop wasting steel and just throw skirts on them.

Panzer III was arguably Germany’s most successful design of that war. It had some pretty good upgradability as a tank in and of itself but where it really shined is in the massive numbers of SPGs it was retrofit into. Wanna know what tank the Germans built that killed the most tanks? Protip: It wasn’t one of the awful big cats, it was the StuG III.

Also no they didn’t solve Panther reliability problems. The things needed rebuilds after 150km of travel, that’s AWFUL from a strategic perspective, hell even a tactical one. Their steering mechanism never even reached close to what even the Americans had in their tanks and was only ever designed for the original 35t proposal, which it was still stretched for. The only thing they managed to solve after Kursk was improving the probability the thing would be moving after one action. The engines were typically fine but the transmissions, steering mechanisms, and drive? HAH!

Citing the French is pretty hilarious too. They tried, they tried their kitten dest to get those stupid things working for them postwar. There is a reason no tank developed post-war was based off the Panthers or Tigers. They basically just mulled them around evaluating them because they were relying heavily on Maybach to work out engine issues for their AMX 50 heavy tanks.

You’re missing the point, everyone and their mom had tank recovery units but to support the ludicrous weight of the Panthers and Tigers they had to dedicate far more resources. Especially to the Tigers which were so inefficiently stacked with weight it’s painful. They needed dedicated units to themselves to pull them out.

Stop with wiki crap. The reason the Germans started work on the Panther 2 armor upgrade was because the side armor above the tracks was only 40mm flat. The data for 1943 shows 17% of combat losses were due to the 14.5mm Russian Anti-Tank Rifle. It was literally because of that that you start seeing schuertzen above the tracks on Panthers as standard. Something to keep in mind that the biggest hunter of tanks isn’t other tanks, it’s the infantry. The Shaped Chargers, the AT Guns, the mines, etc. Guess what the big cats were awful at? Combating infantry. Some 80% of engagements the Sherman was involved in only involved soft targets, no tanks, as an example.

German’s were behind everyone in mechanization, they were also behind everyone in production. They stuck hard to their batch production methodology instead of moving to assembly line production. They were never going to have enough trucks and half-tracks.

On topic, there wouldn’t be a war with the Charr. Unless one of the Legions really really really felt like it had something to prove by doing something like capturing Rata Sum. In which case they’d probably get goomba stomped alongside the Asura because some dumb Asura got it into their rat brain to use a dimensional super weapon, but in typical Asura fashion it blows up in their face and levels everything Orr-Style.

Not that it matters to this thread but I would have to say that one of Germany’s most successful designs of WW2 was the 88mm AA for its versatility as an Antiaircraft and Anti Tank weapon.

Infamous Darkness.3284:

Not that it matters to this thread but I would have to say that one of Germany’s most successful designs of WW2 was the 88mm AA for its versatility as an Antiaircraft and Anti Tank weapon.

Virtually every AA gun could be and was used as an AT weapon. German commanders were just more receptive to the concept. Additionally it was the weapon used on one of the more iconic tanks of the war. As a counter to it the Russians used the hell out of their 85mm which was a much lighter gun and able to be fitted to medium tanks.