How big is Cerilia in miles?

[Gwrthefyr]

I forgive you for getting catty. Welcome to my thread. I will say your last post was much better than your previous, thank you for those details.

Besides the ridiculous bit that precedes (if I have no indicator that I'm female it's exactly to avoid the kind of sexist comment this here is: I did not get "catty", I simply remarked on something that annoys me), male is only a default for people who are too lazy to use the proper neutral pronouns.

For the rest I'm using anachronistic but much more advanced societies to illustrate my point: if I still had my direct data on the italian wars and the french wars of religion I could find the exact numbers, but they're even lower. It has nothing to do with the capacities of an individual but the capabilities of an organization. An army is not an adventuring party, it's a large nomadic horde, even if temporarily so.

And no, there is no unit that compares to the roman legion in its makeup or training if we go by canon, they're typical medieval units.

[Thelandrin]

Men can be just as catty as women and I would prefer that people keep it to a minimum.

[Mirviriam]

Men can be just as catty as women and I would prefer that people keep it to a minimum.

Agreed, the first two who I bumped in to on here before the server wipe were dudes & I used the same word "catty" for them. Though, I reread Gwrthefyr's posts in the thread & that's what finally prompted me to bring it to attention(note most/all threads in question have been under the edit gun). I had four ideas of what to put here, but in the end it looks like we lost all but the regulars already. So plainly seems best. If you're here to help us understand Gwrthefyr, then do it & leave the extra adverbs or negative/belittling commentary on some other forum. We can all wipe out the thesaurus, we just don't bother. We don't need forum trolls or gremlins.

As to the roman thing: I'm thinking all collapses don't happen at the same time, that's why the last strong hold of the old order - The Imperial City should be using old uniforms & traditions or training methods - as time goes on, they cling more to their tradition. The old guy running the city has enough real power to make it too expensive for it to be worth subjugating the city - maybe that's why, they can hold till someone else arrives to rescue. It's just one place I think the cannon is off. Like I said before, my opinion.

[Michael Romes]

I did a ruck march with 35 lbs ruck 16 miles in 4 hours and im no He-man so a trained infanty unit could do 25 miles a day no problem

It should have lots of problems compared to you.
Really Trained infantry is a rarity as long as no standing army exists beyond an enlarged bodyguard. And standing large armys are a novelty compared to medieval times.

Then nowaday you have roads to travel. Roads not even in the sense of Autobahnen or tracks covered with tar - but at least regularily maintained and repaired roads. That too is a novelty compared to medieval times. Someone in a PBEM once suggested the books of Paksenarrion as a good read to me - and in those an army travels across roads which turns to a muddy nightmare with mudfilled holes as deep as a man as soon as it starts pouring rain.

Equipment is another factor to consider. What you carry in your backpack nowadays usually is light. At least I don´t carry a waterproof mantle made from heavy wool or such stuff. There are no really lightweight synthetic materials whatsoever in old times.

[AndrewTall]

There are two ways of looking at the design/etc for any new mechanic.

1. Look at history, and extrapolate forward/sideways to come up with a mechanic with the desired level of realism and simplicity - that's how Gwrthefyr appears to be approaching the question

2. Look at the existing mechanics and work backwards. That seems to be how Mirviriam is looking at things.

In the first approach, logistics are key. In the second they are irrelevant as the existing mechanics didn't want that level of detail/realism so simply ignored them.

Neither approach is wrong, both simply suit different styles of play and different people. Both are quite capable of being constructive and useful.

The end result, whichever method is chosen, should however be consistent with making the game more interesting and fun, while not turning us (well everyone else) into accountants.


I prefer the first approach, and want to end up with a system that allows for:

* random spanners in the works that might slow/stop an army as obstacles PCs can overcome or which they can inflict on enemies.
* relatively slow movement to encourage positioning and scouting to give low level PCs adventure opportunities.
* give an advantage to defenders in their own realms (good maps/local knowledge, known places for supply) to reduce the risk approach to domain play.
* realism, so that PCs can plan and have a good idea of whether 'x' will cause 'y' or 'z'.

So I'd incorporate logistics where interesting, mainly as matters of justice, or other random events, and slow armies to a nice easy 10 miles a day to keep the math easy. Particularly crap armies do 5, extra-ordinary ones do 15. Unrealistically simple, but perfectly viable.


Delays that haven't been mentioned:

* Nobles and others have rights over land, to avoid making enemies armies must often win the right to cross land, trade in cities, etc - there isn't a lot of surplus in a medieval world and a large army can lead to famine or strip every horse/etc from a community even if it pays for what it takes, meaning that even friendly people may refuse to sell all goods that the army needs. Simply taking what you want is highly risky - even in your 'own realm'.

* If you are lucky enough to have an organised baggage train, it is heavily laden carts of food, clothes, weapons etc - perfect for every bandit to raid, every landowner or church to tax, etc, etc - it must be properly camped each night and rest point to stop it being looted one way or the other, and it probably has to detour around a hundred petty manors where the lord is unfriendly in addition to avoiding bad terrain - no baggage cart is going to travel in a remotely straight line, so it may move a fair distance but only have net movement of the amounts suggested above.

* If you are feeding off the land, the army is generally either small or very slow. You can have point-to-point rapid travels where armies know that they can get food at 'X' and then simply load up with the day or two they need, move like the blazes and then rest at the other end without ever worrying about supply - but that's only safe inside the realm usually.

* Slowing the main army you have diseases such as epidemic typhus which was the scourge of many armies (it probably changed the course of a number of wars) - troops may not even move at all for days on end if stricken by typhus or a host of other diseases. Clerical healing may cure the leading officer reducing the delays due to lack of command, but most troops are loyal to 'their lord' and will be hard for the general to move if the minor lord is struck down - and clerical healing can only cure a very small number of people from illnesses.

* You also have internal dissent in the army. Every feudal lord knows best, some will take the chance of moving through 'friendly territory' to settle old scores, or when moving through other territory to crush competition for their workers (rival weaving villages for example) or expand their territory - the army may have to stop often to deal with the diplomatic outcomes.

* Hostile forces. If moving in hostile terrain most armies will be at least slightly cautious. Modern armies have exceptional abilities of communication and visibility. Only a mage can provide either of these abilities to a birthright army. Most armies rely on scouts, who must physically travel to a place to look for enemies and then return to tell the tale, or tales from bribed locals who are unreliable. An army could sit still for days or weeks while waiting to find out where 'the other' army is before risking moving across hostile terrain.

I'd add that a modern army is, by medieval standards, ridiculously healthy and extremely well fed. Pay is not something I feel I have a right to comment on as it is still far from good for most soldiers, but was so bad that it was routinely the cause of mass desertions in the past.

[Mirviriam]

I loved that part of the new robin hood movie, where Richard the Lionheart is sacking his way back across France with that tiny little army!

As for technique - I don't care which direction you work - so long as no one attacks anyone...this community is not big enough to survive such foolishness.

If someone can build a full argument for the historical side, they'd make great level three rules. Once we have a web play system, adding in other Editions & level 3 rules wouldn't be far behind. I have no idea how long, but coming up with a more realistic game of role play in fantasy settings is where I eventually seeing birthright going. I doubt it will carry the name, but a child none the less.

[Green Knight]

After a lot of think I decided upon some figures for my own games.

These are averages - representing a 'typical' medium-sized army that's fairly well-supplied, well led etc. and moving through non-friendly, but not necessarily openly hostile provinces.

From this base number I can work out endless permutations - some of the common, like terrain and infrastructure, others applied on the fly as campaigns play themselves out.

Assuming provinces of 50x50 miles.
Assuming 8 day weeks
Assuming 1-2 rest days per week of marching

The average infantry unit would have Speed 2 - i.e. it can move two plains provinces in one week. Since almost all armies will contain infantry this is also the speed of armies on the march - the baggage train and camp followers can keep up this pace.

That's 100 miles in one week. 12 or so miles per day on average.

I find this to be a reasonable base figure - and it also has the advantage that (given the above province sizes) of making speed matter. You can't be everywhere in Anuire in just one war move.

[AndrewTall]

I came across a post on the web on the subject of soldier's loads a while back and wiki'd a summary of some parts of it:

http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/ind...ldier%27s_load

Based on: Battlefield Mobility And The Soldier's Load by Major William L. Ezell, USMC

[Rowan]

I'm curious, Greenknight: with a 2500sqmi province, what did you do with populations?

I prefer a larger Cerilia, both in terms of landmass and population, for various reasons, but note that even in ancient times, population density tended to be quite a bit higher than what is often assumed by the Province Level = Population crowd.


Regarding marching distances, this has been a good discussion.

I wonder if good abstractions can be made for some of the major factors identified. One might assume, then, a base of 6 miles/day (maybe 4 if artillery is included, 8 if only cavalry). That would yield about 50 miles in a week (2 provinces by normal BR standards, 1 by GK's)
1. Small forces without baggage trains can move faster than large ones with (double move?). Presumably these could move maybe a week without the baggage trains and then need to resupply by pillage, or maybe they could live off the land (forage); either way, the capacity of the land to support them would be limited (say, 1 unit per max province level by terrain)
2. Large forces with baggage trains but traveling on roads can obviously move faster (this is already nicely built into the standard BR system, where roads double movement rates)
3. Well-disciplined forces move marginally faster than not (I'd say these would simply gain bonuses to discipline checks to reduce the effects of forced marches, or would gain initiative over opponents)
4. Forced marches fatigue troops quickly, but can cover greater ground (double?)

Thus, over plains terrain, we have a variance of 4 miles (artillery included in large armies, conventional baggage trains) to 32 miles (cavalry only, either on roads or small forces without supply trains, forced march in either case). Most commonly, between 6 and 12 miles per day (2-4provinces per week at standard size).

[Green Knight]

I'm curious, Greenknight: with a 2500sqmi province, what did you do with populations?

I prefer a larger Cerilia, both in terms of landmass and population, for various reasons, but note that even in ancient times, population density tended to be quite a bit higher than what is often assumed by the Province Level = Population crowd.

Since the area increased by a factor of 2.5 it was natural to increase the population by a similar amount. I did not radically alter the pop/sq. mi.

I did, however, increase the province LEVEL in most parts of Cerilia, especially in the more civilized parts, so that indirectly caused an even greater shift in population.

Anuire = Lvl 11
Ariya = Lvl 10
Ilien = Lvl 9
Endier = Lvl 8
Calrie = Lvl 7
Caercas = Lvl 6
Rural provinces in Anuire = Lvl 4.6 (with just a few lvl 3 thrown in at the fringes).

Endier, for example, has a pop of around 180.000 people.
Alamie, 530.000.