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  1. #1
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    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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  2. #2
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    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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  3. #3
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    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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  4. #4
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    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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