Military Deployment

[geeman]

Lee Hanna writes:

> Just a thought: perhaps a unit on "Patrol" might require (slightly?)
> increased maintenance costs, since they are putting wear on their boots,
> uniforms and saddle gear; dragging rations around with them, and so forth,
> rather than sitting about the castle.

Absolutely. In fact, there should be other factors that effect the
maintenance value of various troop types. I have a few rules for creating
troops that have training/mustering options such as "forager" that allows
troops to live off the land which not only reduces their maintenance, but
allows them to operate away from a base or supply line without suffering any
damage. Standard troop types must have access to resupply either from
friendly provinces or by pillaging. There are all kinds of specialties that
troops might have that influence their maintenance costs. Troops
specifically trained to patrol might be better able to avoid the cost of
living in the field, for example.

I also allow castles to reduce the maintenance costs of companies that
remain in their garrison by about 1GB/domain turn. One company per level of
the castle. The catch being, of course, that those troops cannot sally out
of the castle during that turn.

Gary

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On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Lord Rahvin wrote:

> Ryan Caveney wrote:
> > True. But you need an awful lot of mounted riders going constantly back
> > and forth to keep a pair of eyes on every mile of the frontier of the
>
> So? Why not just assume every province has these, either as part of the
> definition of a province, or of its level, or of its law holdings?

Because I want to make their absence easy to denote. I want to make the
ungarrisoned province the default, so as not to have to make special note
of interior provinces that have had their scouting garrisons removed. I
want to make all military units explicit, so as to enable realms in dire
straits to pull all their border guards to go fight elsewhere, or simply
disband them in order to save money (because surely the presence or
absence of this war card`s worth of troops should have a financial effect
one way or the other). I really like each province having a specific list
of the military units which are quartered in and regularly patrol it alone.

> It would be a similiar assumption to that of every province having a
> certain amount of common guards for the streets or tax collectors to
> collect all the taxes.

This is assuming that provinces necessarily contain law holdings. The
rules already provide for this infrastructure as well, and specify that it
is to be accounted for separately. You think your way is easier, I think
the rulebook way is easier (though in other cases I often don`t).

> It adds a lot to ease to bookkeeping and it`s not that far a stretch
> to say that if one unit is needed to watch a province, then every
> province has enough watchers to perform its basic function.

And if a full-size law holding is needed to collect severe taxation
without a loyalty change, it`s not that far a stretch to say every
province has one? There is a big difference between what a ruler would
like to have, and what can actually be obtained. The basic function of a
province is to sit there and generate RP. It can have other things in it,
for an extra cost in both resources and complexity. I prefer to have all
military resources listed explicitly, so as to avoid notations like "the
Basilisk owns three provinces, and negative three units of border patrol".

> And yes, a single unit deticated to patrol would be able to be
> deployed to anywhere that hundreds of slower-moving men are invading
> -- at least in this alternate system.

I think that`s just too powerful, and assumes a degree of magical command
and control that I would want regents to pay dearly for.

> If you`d like, I suppose you could add a somekind of patrol check to
> do it, in addition, perhaps with the DC based on the size of the
> realm, and the modifier based on the realm`s law holdings and military
> set to Patrol.

This is a good idea. I`d do the same even in the standard province-based
garrison system: a couple of fast units should be able to sneak past a
single unit of slow guards with little trouble. Racial modifiers should
also be applied: any number of elves should be able to sneak past any
number of humans patrolling a forested province, and similarly dwarves
should be able to pass at will through humans guarding mountains.

> But I don`t think it would be a good idea to discourage the
> use of the Patrol mechanic, or it would kind of defeat the purpose.

=) I would discourage all use of the Patrol mechanic.

It`s an idea that`s very appropriate to BattleTech (as is the fast=weak,
slow=strong dichotomy), with its futuristic communications networks and
sensor systems, but one I think that is out of place in D&D.

> with the exception of Scouts and possibly Light Cavalry, it still
> seems like all units that would be faster would also be better in battle.

As a further scary thought, the unit (as I have said before) that should
be by far the fastest strategically is the Legion of Dead -- on the
battlefield, they are no faster than regular infantry, but on the march
they should be able to go about six times as fast. Using the war cards as
is, it is also one of the strongest units.


Ryan Caveney

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[Birthright-L]

On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, D20Modern Moderator wrote:

> There also has to be some reason to attack one province over another,
> and currently there really isn`t one.

Sure there is!

I also fail to see how your patrol system changes this in any way.

> I`d rather have some provinces actually worth more than others somehow.

Province level, and the levels of holdings contained therein, already
reflects this. Some provinces are worth much more money than others, and
striking at that money also tilts the balance of military power in your
favor: stealing some of your rival`s tax base increases the size of the
army you can support and decreases the size he can; in addition, in doing
so you increase the number of units that you can raise in a season and
possibly add a unit type you couldn`t before, and reduce the enemy`s
capacity similarly.

There is also geographic worth, in terms of how the changing frontier
affects the two (or more) sides` abilities to move troops efficiently from
one part of the realm to another. Geography can also have an economic
consequence, in terms of access to the sea, or to a new terrain type for
making trade routes.

Fortifications will also cause significant changes in operational
planning, depending on the strategic goal.


Ryan Caveney

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[geeman]

Ryan B. Caveney writes:

> On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, D20Modern Moderator wrote:
>
>> There also has to be some reason to attack one province over another,
>> and currently there really isn`t one.
>
> Sure there is!
>
> I also fail to see how your patrol system changes this in any way.

I think he`s talking strategically/tactically. If you look at a province
map as a wargame it`s probably easier to visualize. Without some sort of
mechanic to "patrol" particular provinces it makes more sense to go straight
after the higher level provinces first for the reasons you note. A patrol
mechanic could be used to make those provinces more defensible, less
vulnerable to attack and reflect the costs/difficulty of a spearhead attack
rather than a war of attrition. With the current system there`s very little
reason not to dive right into the more "valuable" provinces, making a
"border war" something less than an all-out land grab. Castles and
fortifications, of course, do slow that process but by themselves there`s
not a real need to perform a piecemeal military action, which a system of
patrol could be used to reflect.

As for how it could be used to reflect that... if a unit is set to patrol a
border province and it has some sort greater than normal effect then one
could "blockade" a frontier province and/or patrol the more valuable
provinces in a way that made them demonstrably more difficult to take than
other, less valuable ones.

Gary

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On Thu, 31 Oct 2002, Gary wrote:

> Making the province rulers more militarily influential seems like a
> good idea to me.

I think they`ve already got what they need. Having empty provinces
represents the potential for military power; raising troops based on
province level and supporting them with taxes is the actualization of
military power.

> In the present rules the military role of provincial rulers is
> something that really only gets reflected by their access to various
> troop types. Rather a shoddy reflection of the province ruler`s role
> in the military life of his domain.

And in province taxation, which represents the wealth needed to keep a
large army on hand. The fact that access to this money is controlled by
law regents simply demonstrates that the system is reasonably well set up
to model both effective military rulers and ineffective ones. Don`t
assume into existence additional support structures that make every landed
regent necessarily effective. Keep anarchy, incompetence, bad luck, and
being undermined by a more powerful neighbor possible.

> A player could very easily say "I`ll send the royal guard to patrol
> the border" and we should have some sort of mechanic to describe what
> that actually does other than just placing them in a particular
> province at the edge of the domain.

Why? If they`re just going to make a circuit of the whole country in one
big column, it`s a purely symbolic gesture -- which might have a game
mechanic as a small diplomatic bonus/penalty with a neighbor, but not as
increased scouting effectiveness. If they are actually to control passage
in and out, they must be concentrated in a relatively small location. If
you want to watch the whole border very tightly, you need either a small
country or a very big royal guard. Maybe let their elite status enable
them to patrol two provinces, or count as two units in the one they`re in.
Don`t give them more effectiveness than this unless every six-man patrol
has a mid-to-high-level spellcaster assigned to it, or a pretty spiffy
magic item (e.g., one that allows Sending (Wiz 5) at will to anyone
holding a similar item). The only regents on Cerilia I can envision
having the kind of communications necessary to do this are the Sidhelien,
and to a lesser extent the Magian with his Riders and the various
necromancy spells that allow seeing through individual undead.

> Should command and control issues be handled by the
> relative skills of the regents?

It needs to depend on the skills of the individual unit and sub-unit
commanders as well, which is a "national doctrine" sort of thing. I might
envision Rjuriks or Khinasi being slightly better than Anuireans at
small-band operations in general, but there should be essentially no
difference between Anuirean realms.

> The time scale of such a battle, for instance, needn`t be defined like
> the BR battle rounds are (5 minutes each) at all, so the "initiative
> order" of units as they appear on the battlefield could represent
> hours or even days.

Comparing those two scales, it seems to me that you want to fight several
small battles with different units in each one, rather than one battle per
province per war move. Since each war move is only a week, and I suspect
much of that time is spent just trying to find the other side so that you
can fight them, I think I prefer the current system, clunky as it is.

> Using such a system one could determine which units can appear on the
> battlefield at what time.

I might use this if I changed it to be "which units can appear on the
battlefield at all", if it was intended to represent being on the other
side of the province when battle was joined, but in a small scale contest
with just a couple of potential units on either side, that might make
things too random (even if more realistic, though I`m not sure about that
either).

> Such a system could be used to reflect a commander of fast,
> maneuverable or otherwise sneaky/specialized troops performing hit and
> run tactics and raids.

I think this already exists. If your troops are faster enough than the
enemy`s, you can move past them, pillage, and move back out before they
ever manage to be in the same province as you for a battle, though it
takes three separate war moves to happen. Adding the detection check, as
I think is a good idea, would increase that possibility.

Real counter-marching pursuit and evasion is a day-to-day or week-to-week
thing in the middle ages, not a minute-to-minute or even hour-to-hour one.
There certainly was a lot of marching around trying to catch an enemy who
was trying to get away or get past, but rather than modern-style "meeting
engagements", there tended one night to be a realization on the part of
the evading commander that his opponent could probably force battle on the
morrow, so it would be best to form up for battle in the morning. A
continuously interdicted march-battle as at Arsouf was massively atypical;
most field campaigns were several weeks or even months of marching around
each other, until a suitable spot for battle was reached, often
accidentally.

> It could be used to reflect the way troops are brought up in a set
> piece battle.

The reserve already accounts for this, if it is acknowledged that the
"friction" (as Clausewitz put it) inherent in moving thousands of men
around in a small area renders the official five minutes an excessively
short amount of time for a war card round.


Ryan Caveney

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[geeman]

Ryan B. Caveney writes:

>> Making the province rulers more militarily influential seems like a
>> good idea to me.
>
> I think they`ve already got what they need. Having empty provinces
> represents the potential for military power; raising troops based on
> province level and supporting them with taxes is the actualization of
> military power.

I`m not sure I follow how that dichotomy expresses the military influence of
a province ruler any better than it does that of any other type of regent.
If the taxation of provinces is the actualization of military power isn`t
the revenue generated by guilds, trade routes and temples also an
actualization of military power?

>> In the present rules the military role of provincial rulers is
>> something that really only gets reflected by their access to various
>> troop types. Rather a shoddy reflection of the province ruler`s role
>> in the military life of his domain.
>
> And in province taxation, which represents the wealth needed to keep a
> large army on hand.

Province taxation doesn`t differ much from the revenue collected by guilds
or temples. In fact, guilders can collect quite a bit more revenue than
provinces given their more ready access to trade routes and various GB
generating domain actions. So using revenue as the basis for military
capability makes guilders at least as influential as provincial rulers.
Arguably much more influential given their much greater capacity to generate
revenue.

The only thing that BR does to limit this is to allow the mustering of
certain troop types only to provincial rulers unless the province ruler
gives permission to the other regent--a prohibition that is a little
artificial IMO. Lots of folks house rule that temples can muster units of
knights, for instance, without the permission from a provincial regent, and
I`d suggest that logically the restriction doesn`t make a whole lot of
sense. Mustering troop types of just about any type should be without
restriction to anybody with deep enough pockets. I could see a few
limitations as to particular advanced troops, but in general the standard
restrictions don`t really make a lot of sense.

> The fact that access to this money is controlled by
> law regents simply demonstrates that the system is reasonably well set up
> to model both effective military rulers and ineffective ones.

Law holdings don`t exactly _control_ money generated in a province, and even
the GB they are able to skim from other regents doesn`t amount to much. A
few GB here and there... not something that is going to very much influence
the relative ability of the provincial ruler to have a role as a military
leader of the region.

> Don`t
> assume into existence additional support structures that make every landed
> regent necessarily effective. Keep anarchy, incompetence, bad luck, and
> being undermined by a more powerful neighbor possible.

I don`t think this patrol function would prevent any of those things from
existing at the domain level. In fact, I don`t think they`re very
accurately reflected in the current rules, and such a system would actually
aide in potraying the relative anarchy, incompetence, bad luck and influence
of neighbors on other regents. How are those factors more accurately
represented without a "patrol" status?

>> A player could very easily say "I`ll send the royal guard to patrol
>> the border" and we should have some sort of mechanic to describe what
>> that actually does other than just placing them in a particular
>> province at the edge of the domain.
>
> Why? If they`re just going to make a circuit of the whole country in one
> big column, it`s a purely symbolic gesture -- which might have a game
> mechanic as a small diplomatic bonus/penalty with a neighbor, but not as
> increased scouting effectiveness.

A rule like this would simply have a different status for troops that were
"on patrol" in a province as opposed to garrisoning those same areas.
There`s a pretty obvious difference between actively policing and guarding a
region and staying at home in the castle, and something like this could
reflect that.

Also, there are certainly symbolic gestures involved with troops making a
circuit around the country, but the symbolism has a pretty direct
relationship to the readiness aspect of those troops, which is largely
domestic. A diplomatic effect is a much more modern influence in which
intelligence services are much more capable of reporting on troop movements
and status. I don`t think I`d have patrolling units have any particular
effect on domain actions themselves apart from a role-playing.

> If they are actually to control passage
> in and out, they must be concentrated in a relatively small location. If
> you want to watch the whole border very tightly, you need either a small
> country or a very big royal guard. Maybe let their elite status enable
> them to patrol two provinces, or count as two units in the one they`re in.
> Don`t give them more effectiveness than this unless every six-man patrol
> has a mid-to-high-level spellcaster assigned to it, or a pretty spiffy
> magic item (e.g., one that allows Sending (Wiz 5) at will to anyone
> holding a similar item). The only regents on Cerilia I can envision
> having the kind of communications necessary to do this are the Sidhelien,
> and to a lesser extent the Magian with his Riders and the various
> necromancy spells that allow seeing through individual undead.

I don`t think this option really conveyed the sort of over-reaching
influence on the system that you`re suggesting. The original suggestion was
that units in a province respond immediately to an invading force (which is
how it works now) with an additional group of units that could be placed "on
patrol" which would also be able to respond to an invasion if their movement
rate (or some other number representing their ability to respond) could
place them on the battlefield in time. Such a "rapid deployment" force
isn`t such a big deal. It could be costly, might require special training,
could have limitations on it`s range, etc. but the it`s not going to be so
drastic an influence. A war move is a week and provinces are 30-40 miles
across on average, so the kind of communications required could be a few
riders.

What is a reasonable range for such patrolling units? That`s debatable.
Personally, I don`t think I`d extend it much more than a province or two.
That would be enough, however, to cover most domains. In fact, even
allowing a unit to respond to invasions in adjacent provinces would quite a
bit of the provinces in most landed domains.

>> Should command and control issues be handled by the
>> relative skills of the regents?
>
> It needs to depend on the skills of the individual unit and sub-unit
> commanders as well, which is a "national doctrine" sort of thing.

Sure, but we abstract that sort of thing into the power of the regent and
his domain as a matter of course in BR, so why should that be a problem?

> I might
> envision Rjuriks or Khinasi being slightly better than Anuireans at
> small-band operations in general, but there should be essentially no
> difference between Anuirean realms.

I think that depends a lot on the strategy of the leader rather than the
culture.

>> The time scale of such a battle, for instance, needn`t be defined like
>> the BR battle rounds are (5 minutes each) at all, so the "initiative
>> order" of units as they appear on the battlefield could represent
>> hours or even days.
>
> Comparing those two scales, it seems to me that you want to fight several
> small battles with different units in each one, rather than one battle per
> province per war move. Since each war move is only a week, and I suspect
> much of that time is spent just trying to find the other side so that you
> can fight them, I think I prefer the current system, clunky as it is.

I don`t want to conduct more than a single "battle" in a war move, but I do
think the large scale combat system of BR is (and should be) assumed to be
abstracted enough to represent more than one actual skirmish in a single war
move. A system of "initiative" for bringing up units on some sort of
"patrol" wouldn`t change that, though it would give a less abstracted feel
to large scale combat by giving some sort of order of battle sequence to
events.

When it comes to this particular issue, I think the way I`d reflect it is to
have a special training type for various troops that allowed them to respond
to incursions in adjacent provinces. Maybe two provinces in the case of
cavalry. Being "on patrol" would probably make a unit have a slightly
higher maintenance cost. That seems like the simplist solution.

Gary

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