Draft 0.0 Military units

[ConjurerDragon]

p. 118 Mustering Military units:
As has been already explained a regent can muster any type of unit, green,
standard or veteran only dependant on if he has the money and a
province/holding of sufficient size. If not he has to muster a cheaper
combination of unit/equipment/training and train them up.

However the province/holding size restriction to availability of units is so
that high-quality expensive units are only available in high-level provinces
- or trained up in long training rounds.

This leaves areas with underdeveloped civilization at an disadvantage, e.g.
Elves, Rjurik, Vos and even Khinasi (except in their capital province).

However I would expect the elves to field better equipped and/or better
trained troops and would not expect a newly started elven regent hiring
green units and spending valuable actions to train them up to match the
veteran units his anuirean neighbour just hired in one action.

Could the rule be adjusted, so that e.g. elves and Rjurik and Vos as
"Masters of the Wilderness" use the SOURCE level as a bonus to the rule what
units are allowed to muster, not only the in most provinces low law holding
level?
bye
Michael Romes

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[doom]

On Wed, Feb 12, 2003 at 08:35:42AM -0800, Michael Romes wrote:
> However the province/holding size restriction to availability of units is so
> that high-quality expensive units are only available in high-level provinces
> - or trained up in long training rounds.
> This leaves areas with underdeveloped civilization at an disadvantage, e.g.
> Elves, Rjurik, Vos and even Khinasi (except in their capital province).

As far as fielding organized standing armies in short periods of time, yes
underdeveloped civilizations are at a disadvantage. They would need more
"training time" to organize a unit.

> However I would expect the elves to field better equipped and/or better
> trained troops and would not expect a newly started elven regent hiring
> green units and spending valuable actions to train them up to match the
> veteran units his anuirean neighbour just hired in one action.

Certainly elves have excellent units, but one might expect that these
units are not built up "in a rush". Furthermore, elves can/do have some
provices with high level... but not as many as the Anuireans (for example).
This might faithfully represent the comparative easy by which the Anuireans
and the elves raise units... elven units are very dangerous... but they
aren`t raised at the same scale as units in human nations.

> Could the rule be adjusted, so that e.g. elves and Rjurik and Vos as
> "Masters of the Wilderness" use the SOURCE level as a bonus to the rule what
> units are allowed to muster, not only the in most provinces low law holding
> level?

It seems counter-intuiative to allow "underdeveloped" nations to muster
veteran warriors with heavy armed/armor and special training on the
basis of the source potential of the province. The addition of "native
units" should already account for this. A unit of Rjurik nomads (for
instance) might not directly under a regent`s control, but if a common
enemy threatens, they could probably be "convinced" to fight at the
regent`s side.


- Doom

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[ConjurerDragon]

On Wed, 12 Feb 2003 12:19:45 -0500, Dr. Travis Doom <doom@CS.WRIGHT.EDU> wrote:
>Certainly elves have excellent units, but one might expect that these
>units are not built up "in a rush". Furthermore, elves can/do have some
>provices with high level... but not as many as the Anuireans (for example).
>This might faithfully represent the comparative easy by which the Anuireans
>and the elves raise units... elven units are very dangerous... but they
>aren`t raised at the same scale as units in human nations.

Wouldn´t that be simulated by the limit on mustering no more than province
level troops every season - for regents of lowlevel provinces, best example
Rhuobhe (2/9) that means mustering not even Cavalry (level 2 law, muster
cost 2,5) and endless numbers of actions training the mustered units up to
the expected fearsome elven warriors. Highlevel provinces can muster huge
numbers of units in one season, lowlevel only few.


>> Could the rule be adjusted, so that e.g. elves and Rjurik and Vos as
>> "Masters of the Wilderness" use the SOURCE level as a bonus to the rule what
>> units are allowed to muster, not only the in most provinces low law holding
>> level?
>
>It seems counter-intuiative to allow "underdeveloped" nations to muster
>veteran warriors with heavy armed/armor and special training on the
>basis of the source potential of the province. The addition of "native
>units" should already account for this. A unit of Rjurik nomads (for
>instance) might not directly under a regent`s control, but if a common
>enemy threatens, they could probably be "convinced" to fight at the
>regent`s side.

Allowing source value as bonus to the quality of unit you can muster, would
allow that races that live in harmony with nature (Elven, Rjurik) or have
mastered nature (Vos?) to muster hardy, experienced units that reflect their
live in the wilderness. Why would e.g. Rjurik Infantery (2E Version +1 Hit
compared to Anuirean Infantery) be only available where a larger city or
settlement is, when Rjurik lifestyle means that they live also scattered
through the lowdeveloped provinces?

I would for example not expect in a province 10/0 to find tough Veteran
forestfighter Rjurik warriors (weak through live in city) but Veteran
Knights very likely.

In a province 2/3 on the other side I would expect in Rjurik to find
experienced Rjurik warriors (up to 5 GB muster cost of single unit) while
only low level units for the same province in Anuire.

Please note that this would only affect the quality/training of the units,
not the number - the law holding would still limit the mustering number to 2
per season in both cases.

However the civilized nations (Anuire, Brechtür, Dwarves, Khinasi) would
muster their quality/elite units from highly developed provinces, while the
naturelife nations (elf, rjurik, Vos) would muster them from lowly
developed, rural regions.
bye
Michael Romes

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[ryancaveney]

On Wed, 12 Feb 2003, Dr. Travis Doom wrote:

> As far as fielding organized standing armies in short periods of time,
> yes underdeveloped civilizations are at a disadvantage. They would
> need more "training time" to organize a unit.

To organize a unit from a bunch of individuals, yes. But this should be
(especially in D&D) to some degree balanced by the fact that as an
individual the average Rjurik or Vos is much more likely than the average
Anuirean, Brecht or Khinasi to use combat skills in the course of their
everyday lives, and to own their own combat equipment. The very strong
impression given by the regional guidebooks is that while the average
Anuirean, Brecht or Khinasi is a farmer living in a civilized area who can
depend on the local authorities for protection, the average Rjurik or Vos
is a hunter living in the wild protecting himself from vicious wild
animals and monsters. Just in terms of the skills and equipment they need
to feed their families and keep themselves alive every day, though the
average Anuirean, Brecht or Khinasi adult has no levels in any class but
Commoner or Expert, I think most adult Rjurik and Vos must have at least
one Ranger level if not more. One could also make the argument that since
familial (clan and tribal) warbands conducting raids are a primary means
of combat resolution among the nomadic peoples, they are more constantly
training for open warfare than their more settled counterparts.

This ought to lead to bonuses in some military areas and penalties in
others: in particular, Rjurik and Vos should have a harder time than the
more settled races raising cavalry and heavy infantry, but should have a
much easier and cheaper time raising light infantry and archers.

> Certainly elves have excellent units, but one might expect that these
> units are not built up "in a rush".

Again, given that this is D&D and individual combatants generally vary far
more in skill and quality than is normally found in RW human armies, I
think it needs to be kept in mind that elven units are not formed from raw
recruits, but rather mostly veterans -- although they have not seen
service in some time, they have fought in many previous campaigns, and
been mustered out again to civilian life afterwards. Elves, dwarves and
orogs should have the equivalent of a modern "reserve army" system in
which a high proportion of the citizens not currently under arms have had
formal military training earlier in their lives and are ready to be called
back into service on fairly short notice. For dwarves and orogs, this
comes from being constantly at war -- as opposed to constantly engaged in
personal violence, like the Rjurik and Vos -- so it leads naturally to
more and cheaper heavy infantry (especially as so much of it happens
underground). For the Sidhelien, it is something of a mix of the dwarven
and Rjurik experiences: through immensely long lives, old soldiers can be
called up again and again while still in perfect health, yet their
cultural mores and fighting style are far more suited to irregular missile
troops than regimented heavy infantry.

> This might faithfully represent the comparative easy by which the
> Anuireans and the elves raise units... elven units are very
> dangerous... but they aren`t raised at the same scale as units in
> human nations.

Except that in emergencies they could be. I very much like the variant
rules proposed in the various original regional supplements and the
nonhuman PSes which allow the elves and dwarves access to a large number
of high-quality units which can be raised cheaply or freely almost
instantly, but only to resist an invasion of the realm by an outsider.

> It seems counter-intuiative to allow "underdeveloped" nations to
> muster veteran warriors with heavy armed/armor and special training on
> the basis of the source potential of the province.

I agree that source level is not a very good proxy, and that certain forms
of heavy troops and training should not be readily accessible to the less
civilized peoples. However, there should be some recognition of the fact
that these societies, being more used to personal combat and relying
heavily on such skills in their day-to-day lives, are able to put a much
higher proportion of their smaller population under arms effectively,
giving them roughly the same size army as a more populous and more sedate
realm. This goes even more strongly for the nonhumans -- dwarves and
orogs ought to be able to muster almost the entire adult population into
heavy infantry units due to their experience of constant underground
warfare, goblins and gnolls almost the entire adult population into
irregulars and wolf riders due to that being their primary day-to-day
livelihoods, and elves almost the entire adult population into archers to
reflect the enhanced chance to be a "retired" veteran and much higher
incidence of personal magic use.

The one place where I can see mustering from source level is actually for
the elves. Since they are immortal, they should be very unwilling to
enter combat personally -- they may be better at fighting than most of the
other races, but they also have much more to lose. Given their very
strong ties to magic, they should be perfectly capable of obtaining large
numbers of charmed or summoned troops to fight for them. It makes sense
to me to tie raising this kind of unit to the source level. To a first
approximation, it makes sense to me to treat a unit of elves as actually a
mixture of elven leaders and nonelven troops of this kind, and have the
number of those raiseable in a given time constrained by source level
(which produces grunts) rather than province level (which produces officers).

> The addition of "native units" should already account for this.

It`s a start, but I don`t think it does quite enough.

> A unit of Rjurik nomads (for instance) might not directly under a
> regent`s control, but if a common enemy threatens, they could probably
> be "convinced" to fight at the regent`s side.

Sure; but from a given number of average people available to answer the
regent`s summons, in Vosgaard a much higher percentage of them would be
fit and self-equipped for military duty than in Anuire.


Ryan Caveney

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