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  1. #1
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    Force Level Limits

    One of the things that I have always disliked about the BR rules was the ability to field endless numbers of high-powered troops, mustering 6 knights every turn as long as you have the cash. Being a student of history, this bothered me, as even the richest most knight-heavy medieval army consisted mostly of mere foot soldiers and archers.

    To solve this problem, I assigned percentages to each troop type, but that then presented the problem of a percentage of what? So I started messing around with the idea of a troop capacity for each province, based on its population level. I no longer recall the rationale behind the numbers I came up with (it was 6 years ago or so), but here is what I came up with:
    P-Level/Force Pool
    0/1
    1/4
    2/6
    3/8
    4/11
    5/13
    6/15
    7/18
    8/20
    9/22
    10/25

    Sorry about the crummy presentation, but I don't know how to make a table present properly on here, I tried a couple of times and gave up

    Under this system, I no longer apply the province/holding level requirements for mustering troops, as that is determined by the force pool and percentages.

    What methods have others used to get around this issue?

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    At 02:19 PM 2/19/2011, arpig wrote:

    >What methods have others used to get around this issue?

    Have you looked at War & Conquest?

    Gary

  3. #3
    Ehrshegh of Spelling Thelandrin's Avatar
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    Currently, in our game (Empire's Twilight), we're using a system that limits your forces either by province levels (for lords) or by temples/guilds (for priests/guilders). We also limit knights and other specialist units even more severely.

    Ius Hibernicum, in nomine juris. Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Birthright-L View Post
    At 02:19 PM 2/19/2011, arpig wrote:

    >What methods have others used to get around this issue?

    Have you looked at War & Conquest?

    Gary
    Yes actually, but I don't recall there being anything about this particular issue in it.
    In fact I have adopted a lot of War & Conquest for my own home-grown combat system...but that's for another thread at another time.

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    At 04:46 PM 2/19/2011, arpig wrote:

    >>>What methods have others used to get around this issue?
    >>
    >>Have you looked at War & Conquest?
    >
    >Yes actually, but I don`t recall there being anything about this
    >particular issue in it.

    I mention it because in the system the various special qualities of
    troops have a level requirement. "Table 1: Military Unit Components"
    in that text (p10) has info on the requirements and then "Table 2:
    Special Qualities" has level requirements for the military unit to
    which those qualities are going to be attached. One option presented
    is that the DM could use Table 1 to show the number of available
    slots for special qualities. That is, an army(4) has a single
    "elite" slot available, so the regent can purchase just a single unit
    of heavy cavalry (which is what I use instead of the term "knight" as
    that has so many social/cultural ramifications.)

    Gary

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    Yeah, but there's no limit to the number of Army (4) units a regent can field.

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    At 09:28 PM 2/19/2011, arpig wrote:

    >Yeah, but there`s no limit to the number of Army (4) units a regent can field.

    In the W&C system a regent can only muster troop levels equal to the
    population levels of the provinces he controls or in which he
    controls holdings. From the rewrite of the Muster Troops action
    (which I just call "Muster") on p9: "The total levels of each type of
    military unit created in a province cannot exceed its permanent
    population level." So, a regent can only muster units of a size
    equal to the population levels of the provinces in which he has an influence.

    Gary

  8. #8
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    True, that in a Province [4] a regent can only muster an Army [4], but unless I missed something, he may do so every domain turn. Thus there is no limit to the number of Army [4] units he can raise...that is the issue I attempted to address.

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    At 09:18 AM 2/20/2011, arpig wrote:

    >True, that in a Province [4] a regent can only muster an Army [4],
    >but unless I missed something, he may do so every domain
    > turn. Thus there is no limit to the number of Army [4] units he
    > can raise...that is the issue I attempted to address.

    It`s the _total_ levels--of each of the four types of military
    units--that can be raised in a province, not the number of levels
    that can be raised every domain turn. So, a regent who controls a
    province with a population level of 4 can raise an Army(4), a
    Levies(4), a Mercenary(4) and a Navy(4) from that province, but not
    any number of Army(4) units. At least, not based on that
    province. He`d have to have influence in a second province in order
    to muster more troops. Once he has 4 levels of any of those four
    types of military unit he cannot raise any more of that type.

    Gary

  10. #10
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by arpig View Post
    What methods have others used to get around this issue?
    Here are my guidelines:
    There is an optimal army size at 2% of the population. Up to this figure, a realm can purchase normal units. Beyond this point, only levies (or for Rjurik and Vos, irregulars) are available. For the regular units between 0 and 2%, three quarters of them are regulars and one quarter are elite.

    So a normal army has three normal states:
    standing army - using the data in source books
    optimal army - up to 2% of the population one quarter of which is elite
    maximum army - as much as an additional 3% of levies (or irregulars)

    What constitutes "elite" varies and is somewhat subjective. Each kind of unit has a natural affinity. Trying to muster units with an affinity to your domain is easier.

    So a realm of 200,000 could do 3,000 regulars and 1,000 elites, plus another 6,000 levies.

    For a given Anuirean realm, normal infantry, normal pikes, poor archers, normal cavalry, and normal irregulars would be available as regular troops. Knights, elite infantry, normal archers, normal scouts and any named units would be elite.

    Rjurik do less cavalry and pike, but more archery.
    Brecht do less cavalry, but get normal pikes.

    and so on.

    Realms with less density will have fewer of the expensive, heavy units.

    Domains recruit from their followers, guilds are significantly more urban, so lots of pikes some infantry, and the elite are normally scouts.

    The standard approach then informs where each of these units calls home. So you can tell what units are unavailable if territory is captures, warded, in rebellion, or otherwise denied.

    With the ease of high quality scanning and printing, there is no reason not to have unit cards (whether warcards or some alternate) printed up in advance.

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