Pointless asside: The Screed Co

[James Ruhland]

>
> >>
> >heh! little do you know. The Big 'G' has way more than 30 units in this
> >game. And as I pointed out before, it'll take more than raw recruits to
> >beat the G.
> >
> Depending on the campaign, the Gorgon could very well also have a HUGE
(and
> I mean HUGE) stockpile of gold bars stored up for his bid for the Iron
> Throne. 30 companies is just his standing army, so that he can save
cash.
> Besides that, he can also summon hordes of undead, and has loyal allies
to
> boot. If you want to mess with him, you'd better be more prepared than
> Emperor Mike was, and he had the whole of Anuire behind him!
>
The Gorgon's got a special phrase for thouse who thinks he's only got 30
units.

He calls them "fresh meat."

[craig@finance.econ.usyd.]

At 07:43 PM 28/5/98 -0500, you wrote:
>
>>>
>>heh! little do you know. The Big 'G' has way more than 30 units in this
>>game. And as I pointed out before, it'll take more than raw recruits to
>>beat the G.
>>
>Depending on the campaign, the Gorgon could very well also have a HUGE (and
>I mean HUGE) stockpile of gold bars stored up for his bid for the Iron
>Throne. 30 companies is just his standing army, so that he can save cash.
>Besides that, he can also summon hordes of undead, and has loyal allies to
>boot. If you want to mess with him, you'd better be more prepared than
>Emperor Mike was, and he had the whole of Anuire behind him!
>
Sorry I may have missed something but where did this figure of 30 units
come for. I'm working from memory here but I thought that he had a lot more
units according to the Book of Awnshegh.

Craig

[Jim Cooper]

James Ruhland wrote:
> The Gorgon's got a special phrase for thouse who thinks he's only got 30
> units.
>
> He calls them "fresh meat."

Naw, I think he just calls them "dead meat" ....

:D

Darren

[Trankel Al Ker]

At 11:08 PM 28/05/98 -0700, Jim Cooper wrote:
>James Ruhland wrote:
>> The Gorgon's got a special phrase for thouse who thinks he's only got 30
>> units.
>>
>> He calls them "fresh meat."
>
>Naw, I think he just calls them "dead meat" ....

In spanish we would say: "BOLIS"... ;)
Trankel Al Ker
Lord of the Brotherhood of the Black Tulipan

[Alain Pouliot]

The gorgon have 41 units if you look in the book Blood ennemies. More? I
can easely call for more unit from Kiergard, Markazor and Mur-Kilad. I
think he have a lot of gold bar for mercenary too!

snag

- ----------
> From: Jim Cooper
> To: birthright@MPGN.COM
> Subject: Re: [BIRTHRIGHT] - Pointless asside: The Screed Continues
> Date: 29 mai, 1998 02:08
>
> James Ruhland wrote:
> > The Gorgon's got a special phrase for thouse who thinks he's only got
30
> > units.
> >
> > He calls them "fresh meat."
>
> Naw, I think he just calls them "dead meat" ....
>
> :D
>
> Darren
>
>> To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the
line
> 'unsubscribe birthright' as the body of the message.

[prtr02@scorpion.nspco.co]

- ----- Begin Included Message -----
Alain Pouliot wrote:
>
> hahahahaha. A little guilder and a couples of friends can muster 200 units.
> Roesone, Boeruine, Talanie, Avanil, Ghoere, Mhoried, Tuornen, Dhoesone,
> Tuarhievel, Baruk-Azhik, Endier, Ilien and Gorgon's crown have only 163
> unit together!!!!!!
>
> How can you do best????

I havn't replied to this before now but an army of 200 units in war time
is possible if a nations entire income (including trade routes) is used
to fund the effort.
In the case that has been mentioned by James (of which I am the DM)
there is not exactly 200 units on each side. I won't give away the exact
numbers but it is lower than that.
Now as for the army that he was talking about on his side.
He controls a guild that controls all (and I mean all) the guild
activity out and inside Taeghas. As well as guilds and trade routes in
Avanil, Diemed, Ilien, and whats left of Roesone. This brings in around
100+ GB a turn and that money can support the 70 units he spoke off,
with virtually nothing left over though.
Add to that Mieres with its guilds, trade routes and provinces and you
get another large portion of income which can maintain more units. And
then you add the IHH, Diemed, and Haelynil (southern Roesone) to the
list, along with Medoere (now controlled by Diemed) and the OIT and you
have one big alliance.

Now if you look on the map and actually look at the territory these guys
control and add in the trade routes, guilds etc then it covers a fair
bit of Anuire so if they want to put their entire efforts into creating
armies then 200 units is not out of the question.

As for their enemy, Ghoere. He has control of all the temples, guilds,
and trade routes in his kingdom which bring in a lot of money.

- ----- End Included Message -----

I'm in agreement with the posted % of population mustered arguements.
The fatal error in these calculations is that a 40,000 man army supported by
a 600,000 population would be possible- but only for a very short time.
Certainly no more than a season or two. The agriculture-based economy would
fail if the army were fielded during a planting/harvest season. The 40,000 posted
as a possible number for a militant citizen/soldier state should INCLUDE LEVIES.

If you're mustering every able bodied citizen, most of which have some basic
training, the BR muster system begins to break down. The 40K number should
include your kingdoms max levy muster. It should not be entirely made up of
"professional" units. Also, the 40,000 is all the effectives you have. James'
war of attrition strategy should not work. If they have an army of 20,000/100 unitsand lose 5,000/25. They can't "replace them faster than Ghore"- There's noone left
to replace them with! Assuming James and his allies are mustered to the 15-20%
level like the superpower Ghore with 40,000, I'd agree the 20,000/100 unit army is
possible, but it's not sustainable.

What's the point of all my hooey? BR doesn't take into account the limits of the
"manpower" or "human(iod) resource" pool. Without introducting a lot of
complicated production/muster rules what's the best way to do this?

are you ready???


do you have a guess???



YES! YES! That's it! Reduce the number of trade routes! I won't go on too long-
gawd knows I've ranted enough about this already. This campaign show blatantly that
the Trade route rules, as written are far too liberal. The amount of money
generated by the routes (with some help from some of BoP more unbalancing spells)
allows for "unrealistically" large armies. The BR economic and muster rules are
simple to keep administration from getting in the way of adventuring and fun.
They're open to abuse by clever players- almost every existing PBeM game shows this.

We've (or at least I've) hashed this over a couple times. A few of the details and
finer points could still be discussed, but the main point is clear. Published
TR rules generate too much money/power because they're too easy to create. The 200+
unit army is simply a symptom of the economic disease.

Who cares? Well personally I find 100+ unit standing armies unrealistic, munchkinny, and most importantly, not very fun.

*yawn* "a thousand archers died?"
"oh well, I'll just move up my 10 infantry companies I created with the modify unit
action. They're all armed with Hackmasters +12!"

'nuff said.

Randax, Patriarch of the Anti-Munchkin Church of Birthright

[James Ruhland]

>
> Must be hell for the DM, keeping track of that many units. I have
> trouble enough with our small, normal-sized armies.
>
It might be, but he's a really good DM. 8-)

[Andreas Kjeldsen]

> Who cares? Well personally I find 100+ unit standing armies unrealistic,
> munchkinny, and most importantly, not very fun.

Must be hell for the DM, keeping track of that many units. I have
trouble enough with our small, normal-sized armies.


Andreas Kjeldsen
morkitar@dadlnet.dk
ICQ# 12703652

-

[craig@finance.econ.usyd.]

At 11:07 PM 29/5/98 +0100, you wrote:
>> Who cares? Well personally I find 100+ unit standing armies unrealistic,
>> munchkinny, and most importantly, not very fun.
>
>Must be hell for the DM, keeping track of that many units. I have
>trouble enough with our small, normal-sized armies.
>
It depends upon where you are. According to the rulebook, Anuire is a
Renaissance region culturally and therefore the large countries should be
able to raise armies the size of their Earth equivalents. Renaissance
France had an enormous standing army, easily 20,000 men.

Craig

[Alain Pouliot]

- ----------
> From: craig@finance.econ.usyd.edu.au
> To: birthright@MPGN.COM
> Subject: Re: [BIRTHRIGHT] - Pointless asside: The Screed Continues
> Date: 31 mai, 1998 21:32
>
> At 11:07 PM 29/5/98 +0100, you wrote:
> >> Who cares? Well personally I find 100+ unit standing armies
unrealistic,
> >> munchkinny, and most importantly, not very fun.
> >
> >Must be hell for the DM, keeping track of that many units. I have
> >trouble enough with our small, normal-sized armies.
> >
> It depends upon where you are. According to the rulebook, Anuire is a
> Renaissance region culturally and therefore the large countries should be
> able to raise armies the size of their Earth equivalents. Renaissance
> France had an enormous standing army, easily 20,000 men.
>
> Craig
>
> Fine but the sytem of birthright dont give the pc a chance of having a
very large army (100+). Except if you like monty haul.....

Snag
>> To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the
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> 'unsubscribe birthright' as the body of the message.