After discovering that the wilderness races were relying on the complex local terrain and secret underground passages to infiltrate behind their own front lines, the military of the civilized races immediately issued an order to all the troops on the front line to stop advancing and enter a defensive state.
At the same time, the command headquarters began to mobilize more troops from the rear, composed of races such as dwarves, gnomes, or ratmen who are good at fighting in underground environments, into the war zone, and then began to search for possible underground hiding spots near the entire war zone, especially
Land near various transportation lines.
As these legions of races that are good at fighting in narrow underground caves were organized into the war zone, many tunnels and secret camps were gradually discovered and occupied.
Most of these camps were temporarily built, and they were obviously the nails left by the enemy's orderly retreat. However, some of them seemed to have a long history, and they were probably part of the entire underground tunnel system in the large mountainous area.
It is easy to understand why there are so many underground passages here. After all, there are not many places where a large population can survive in a place with a poor natural environment like a large mountain range, and they are often concentrated in places with flat terrain.
These places are basically the places that humans must choose when they want to build cross-mountain transportation lines.
For example, this is the case for the series of valleys and valleys that humans need to capture this time. They are often areas with an average altitude of less than 500 meters, flat terrain and sufficient water sources.
An important factor in why populations like goblins, bugbears or jackals can survive here is that they occupy places with relatively high environmental carrying capacity.
Also because of the terrain of this area, the goblins and gnolls who originally lived on the plains by hunting and plundering have switched to a life based on nomadic herding and plundering as a supplement.
Although this kind of life still depends on the weather, and it is difficult to store any food. But in any case, it is better than the life of hunting or robbery where obtaining supplies is purely based on appearance.
As for races such as dark elves and gray dwarves that live underground, although they do not need much production on the ground, the problem is that the structures of basins and valleys in these mountainous areas are often syncline structures, which can gather the surrounding surface.
Water enters the areas where they live underground, and in the underground world, water is the most important material.
In this case, even if they do not need or even hate the surface environment, they have to organize people to occupy some settlements on the surface, and use various means to recruit those surface creatures as their vassals.
In addition to obtaining some surface supplies, the most important point is to protect their precious water sources.
On the other hand, for these wilderness races, this terrain also makes it convenient for them to rush out of the mountains along the easy-to-travel valleys to rob the settlements of civilized races on the plains, and bring back all kinds of trophies.
This is especially important for those races with a relatively high level of civilization such as dark elves or gray dwarves that live underground.
This is why wars that open up lines of communication will turn into large-scale civilized expeditions, because the territories needed by the civilized races are so important to these wilderness races that they simply cannot give up these lands and must do everything possible.
Means to keep out attackers from civilized races.
Similarly, for civilized races, these areas are also rare places where they can cross large mountain ranges. Apart from this area, they really can't find other places to establish passages.
As the war progressed, the civilized race entered a stage of strategic contraction. Then, in addition to bringing dwarves and other races that were good at underground fighting into the battlefield, non-human troops from other races also gradually entered the war zone.
After these races with their own advantages joined the battlefield, the pressure on the defending wilderness races suddenly increased a lot. This pressure not only came from the newly arrived high-level extraordinary beings, but also included ordinary soldiers.
For example, at the beginning, the sniper teams composed of gray dwarves and dark elves used the mountains to cause a lot of trouble to the attacking humans.
But with the reinforcements of the Elf Ranger troops from Summerset Island, the civilized races slowly regained some of their advantages in the battles in the mountainous areas.
Under such circumstances, the wilderness races can naturally feel increasing pressure. This is especially true for those races on the periphery.
Therefore, the alliance composed of these wilderness races that often broke out in wars over territory, wealth or slaves quickly held a second meeting.
Different from the first meeting organized and held after hearing that the civilized races were about to attack, in this meeting almost every city-state and every tribe sent its own representatives.
The reason why I say almost is because in the previous battles in the outer mountainous areas, many slower tribes were completely destroyed.
In the first meeting before, no one could convince anyone because of previous grievances. Some people thought that we should rely on the mountainous terrain to hold on, but the forces on the periphery of the mountainous area were naturally opposed to this approach of sacrificing their territory.
Not to mention the forces that go out to rob every day and only face militias and mounted police in some poor areas all year round. They think that intelligent races are nothing more than that. After they obtain sufficient equipment, they can defend those areas and even launch counterattacks against civilized races.
"Take the St. John Fortress and seize the St. John Plains." This was the slogan shouted by the wilderness races at that time. They believed that they were completely able to defeat the civilized races and obtain unprecedented benefits outside the mountainous areas.
And the reason why they have the confidence to shout such slogans is because these wilderness races, which have two main channels for human smuggling and the underdark region, are completely different from those races on the plains.
Taking the most common goblins as an example, the goblins on the plains are just like the goblins Lawrence saw when he was a child. They are just small-scale tribes with few people and little equipment. A stick with nails on it is considered high-end equipment.
But the goblins in the Great Mountain Range are much more generous than that. In addition to providing each combatant with a set of leather armor and metal weapons, they can even form a group of professional cavalry with tusked boars as mounts.
The same is true for other races. In addition to using local resources to manufacture their own, they can also import various weapons, ammunition and magic props from civilized races through smuggling and robbery.
Under such a premise, they naturally felt that they could give a head-on attack to the legions of civilized races on the outskirts of the mountainous area.
As a result, the first meeting broke up unhappily, and a large number of people chose to build fortifications on the outskirts of the mountainous area and prepare to launch counterattacks at any time.
Only a small number of wiser forces chose to huddle in the mountainous areas and use the complex terrain of the mountainous areas to make various preparations to meet the attacking armies of intelligent races.
Facts have proved that a small number of people are right now. When faced with the fierce artillery fire and three-dimensional large-scale attacks by the regular armies of civilized races that are completely different from the security forces in various places, the defense line built on the periphery of the mountainous area and regarded as impregnable by the wilderness races is only
It only lasted a few days before it was breached.
After the defense line was broken, the pursuit of the defeated army by the civilized races caused several powerful forces to almost lose their blood. If it were not for the obviously rugged terrain after entering the mountainous area and the intervention of the wilderness races that had not attacked before, that one
There may not be many survivors of the huge wilderness race army.
But even so, the power controlled by this group of wilderness races was suddenly reduced by 40%. It even included multiple established standing legions including elite troops such as gnoll wolf cavalry and heavily armored hobgoblin infantry.
annihilated.
For these populations that are already lacking in supplies, it may take more than ten years to slowly make up for this loss.