> 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!
>
If I recall correctly, the Roman Republic lost quite a huge army at Cannae,
but were able to muster more Legions to replace their losses.

>
> 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.
>
I made similar arguments months ago, saying that the TR rules should be
revised (less income per TR), and taxation modified upwards (somewhat), to
reflect the balance of a agriculturally-based economy (wealth/money, or
rather "resources", which is what a GB represents, not just a pile of gold,
comes from the land. Trade is/was good 'cause it was a source of cash, but
most income of any state/realm should come from the pesantry tax base).
I think Randax here was one of the few people who agreed with me at the
time.

>
> Who cares? Well personally I find 100+ unit standing armies unrealistic,
munchkinny, and most importantly, not very fun.
>
I have already said I agree. Only reason we have such a force (or at least
the only reason I've bothered to muster more than I used to have, which was
in the circa 15-20 unit range) is to fight this Big Badguy NPC dude.
Which, btw, we just fought the 1st battle of that war, and we lost that
one.

> *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!"
>
Modify Unit is no longer available in this PBeM, btw, which is one of the
things that has lead to the prevelence of "mass" armies. Before that rule
went "buh bye" I created 3 elite units (units somewhat better than the
ImpLegion, but no stat over 6, and which cost a fortune to maintain), 5
units equivilent to ImpLegion (Imperial Legion, btw, I would argue isn't
even as good as Elven Knights, so IMO this wasn't overly munchkiny), which
cost a bunch to muster and more to maintain (2 of them died in battle and
can't be replaced).
Of course, I had what I thought were creative plans to tactically maximize
the effects of these few units, applying "force multipliers" and a (what I
thought was) a well thought out battle doctrine. But what you do with your
base units to make creative use of them/maximize their effectiveness is, I
think, what the game is all about. It's hard to be that creative when
you're talking hundreds of units.
I was then looking forward to makeing some Cataphract units (basically a
unit which would be similar to Elven Cavalry), and a "special operations"
unit evolved from Scouts, which would have had Missile 5 and some other
minor but IMO nifty little bonuses (+1 Defence vs. Missile attacks, which
would have given them a whopping Defence: 3 vs. Missile attacks, and
ability to move freely through any terrain and fall back without penalty
through friendly units, and had 2 Hits).
Inother words, they would have been somewhat better than Archers, but
would have cost as much as Knights to Muster & Maintain (and would they be
3 times as good as Archers?).
IMO, that's what Modify Unit should be for: making neeto units, but not
units armed with +12 Hackmasters.
Oh, and then there was my "Roman Elite Infantry" I posted awhile back;
again, I'd hardly call that a "god" unit. Something that again had some
interesting/what I thought were "neet" little effects, but not something
that would by itself dominate the battlefield.

Getting back to TRs, again; both myself and Randax made several
suggestions for revising/repairing the TR rules for Birthright: The New
Era, and I hope they do something like that (again, IMO, tax rates should
be increased; but tax rates aren't too bad, because they are "flat", I.E.
each province can only be taxed once a Turn, while you can make so many TRs
that things quickly get out of control).
For thouse who are interested, here were my suggestions:
TR income= [Province (Origin) + Province (Destination)] /3.

I.E. a TR from Endier (6) to the Imperial City (10) now generates 8 GB.

Under this rule, it would generate 5 GB. This might actually still be too
high, in which case I might recomend the following:

The 1st Turn a newly created TR generates income, it generates "windfall"
profits (to signify the popularity of newly available goods). It generates
income equal to the current rules (average of the two Provinces).
After that, it generates 3 GB per Turn, no matter what (and, it is thus
likely that if the Guilder is taxed on both ends, he'll only get 1 GB per
Turn from his TR; which is really a gouge, and perhaps this is too low to
make TRs worthwhile; anyhow, further debate on this is also welcomed.)

Strict caps on the # of TRs that a provence can be the destination for also
helps, but still leaves lots of room for abuse.

Taxation: keep the current table, but add +Province Level to the roll.

I.E. Endier (6) Moderate Taxation would be:
d8+7
instead of
d8+1

This gives landed rulers the "boost" they need. Something should I suppose
also be done to slightly boost Temple income, but only slighty.

And "Exploratory Trade" should either be wiped out completely, or something
along the lines of the revised rules Darkstar created should replace them.

IMO, at least in a PnP campaign (it would be hard in a PBeM, I suppose),
anything like Exploration, including a exploration mission seeking profit
(which is what Exploratory Trade is), comes under the catagory of
"Adventure" and should be role-played as such, and any profit should be a
matter of how much swag the characters bring in for themselves on the
adventure (dickering via role playing or whatever), not a matter of
virtually guaranteed profits through the aplication of massive RPs.
Or, failing that, the trade rules from the old D&D Gazeteer Minrothad
should be used. At least that puts a cap on, and to a large degree
randomizes, any profits (actually, the Trade Rules from Minrothad are
really just a slightly modified variant of the Trade Rules from classic
Traveller, if you're familiar with the one but not the other).