Fantasy Arms Race, Round Two

[RangerWickett]

Ooh, this is cool. You guys are rocking with these ideas. Let's see, as referee, I'll decide a few things.

1. The Cresians do not develop metallurgy. They don't do much mining yet, and that's just for things like gold for temples, or other light metals that can be hammered into shape pretty easily (forgive me; I'm not a historian). So they won't develop bronze.
2. The foreigners will return, and we'll get to their tactics in a sec. Their next attack comes in a matter of a few months, toward the middle of Autumn.
3. We're not going to have any cultural divides quite yet. The Cresians's dislike of fire is enough to keep them from using it widely as a weapon, but not enough to have a schism over its usage.
4. Both sides have bows, but historically bows weren't used much as weapons until much later in history. They were usually used for hunting, or so I understand it.
5. To clarify, the ships of the invaders are rowed, not wind-driven, so they can't have come from very far away.[/list=1]
   
   I too like the nifty society we're coming up with here. You should all feel free to use it yourselves, as we develop more information about it. The hillfolk won't factor directly into this scenario, though they are still around somewhere, probably more primitive than the Cresians are.
   
   The Return of the Invaders
   On the 4th day after the full moon, in the 10th month, a large cluster of ships, enough to hold a thousand men, is spotted coming in from the south-west. A brave priest of the Field Father rides with a group of warriors in a fishing boat to meet the fleet, and from a close distance he uses his magic to shape a hole in the bottom of a boat, rendering it useless and killing about half of its 50 crewmen. Another ship rides up beside the Cresian boat, and after a brief fight all the Cresians are killed.
   
   The plan created by the priestesses at the high temple gives the coastal village folk the direction to avoid being slaughtered. Elderly, mothers, and children flee inland along well-beaten trails, while warriors form up ranks and prepare for their first ever battle in formation. Protected with shields and armed with spears and knives, several different Cresian coastal militias wait near their villages. No single unit has even 100 men, but each group has a few magic-users to assist them.
   
   As the Cresian fleet lands on the coast, devoted field priests wait in cabins built in the boughs of the trees nearest the coast (the newly planted trees intended specifically for guard towers are years away from being large enough). The priests rush to be close enough to use their magic, which causes the coastal reeds and sea grass to entangle the disembarking crew and even stop a few ships before they can quite reach shore. Then assisting priestesses summon water snakes (to fight in the water) and wolves (to fight on the shore).
   
   The plan is then for the priests to take refuge again in the tree forts, and fight to the end with what warriors they have with them, but many priests are caught by surprise when magic-users among the foreigners create intense, invisible thunderbolts, which knock over priests and briefly stun them. A few priests manage to escape, but most that ventured out to try and slow the invasion's advance are caught and killed. Without magical assistance, the tree forts cannot defend themselves well, and they are quickly burned down.
   
   As each group of foreigners advances inland to the first villages, they see the lines of Cresian soldiers standing on flat plains. The foreigners sometimes charge, sometimes advance slowly, but always their formations are disrupted by entanglement spells and creatures summoned behind their flanks. While their enemies are in disarray, the Cresians attack. Each fight goes differently, but overall the Cresians lose, but only after trading favorably with enemy soldiers. The surviving Cresians fall back further inland, and the foreigners make camp in the different villages they took control of.
   
   However, after a few more days, being hit by quick moving groups that strike with summoned monsters and then flee, the invaders decide to send in their own 'strike teams' with bards and warriors, but the newly trained wolf maidens use the blessing of howling magic to deafen enemy soldiers, and ruin the enemy magic. The invaders eventually realize that they're again losing too many men, so they retreat again, setting fire to everything as they leave.
   
   
   
   I'll post more tomorrow, but that's the end of round two, part two. The invaders go by the names of the Jonga, and they come from a sea-faring nation on an island to the west. For the next part of this round, you must decide on how the Jonga will retaliate. They have few clerics and no druids, but bards and wizards are their specialty.

 

[Sixchan]

After much planning, the Jonga come up with a plan. After some searching, they find a lightly wooded area not too far inside the territory still held by the Cresians. Under cover of darkness, they move into that area. Despite the dark, the Cresians still notice them, of course, but any battles would be foolish in so little light.
As morning comes, the Cresians prepare for a large battle, preparing Entanglements and summoning spells that have been so successful before. They approach the light woods, and get ready. But just before they attack, the Jonga cast Web spells in the forest, trapping the Cresians in a deadly trap. The Jongan bards and clerics then cast Silence on the Cresian spellcasters. Their spells gone, and their warriors trapped, the Cresians are brutally slaughtered in this battle, at least. And if there were no survivors, this same tactic could be pulled off more than a few times before the Cresians figure it out.

 

[F5]

This is Fun!

The Jonga fall back to their island kingdom, nursing their wounds. They've never faced a foe like the Cresians before, but ever since their crown price was killed by the Cresians' demon-wolves, they have vowed to conquer this dangerous people.
(It's a bit of creative license, I know, but it explains the foriegners' body that was brought back by the Cresian hunting party).
They have always brought their bards along to inspire their warriors in battle, but for this enemy they try something new. Instead of using their magic to effect their own troops, they try using the songs on their enemy. With their songs, they reach out to the Cresians' minds, confusing them as to who is friend and who is foe, and whipping their primal wolf-natures into a frenzy (call it Charm and Suggestion-type spells). Their own men are deafened by the priestess' howling, so they are unaffected. Chaos breaks out in the Cresian ranks, as they begin fighting amongst themselves.

The Jonga's other advantage over the Cresians is their greater numbers, so their mages find a way to make their numbers seem even greater. They weave new troops out of shadow and illusion, and move them in along with their real troops. These illusionary legions can't actually inflict any damage on the Cresians, but they draw their attention and their spells, and by the time they realize the deception, their forces are already split, and the real Jonga strike.

 

[ajanders]

Jongan Attack!

One major difference between the Jongan's and the Cresian's is in the way the cast spells. The Cresians recieve whatever gifts the Dog-mother and Field father give them: they are cleric/druid types who don't create spells, they get favors.
The Jongan wizards, however, can research anything they want. So the first thing they'll likely do is start reverse-engineering any interesting magic effect that's been used on them, which would be the summoning spells.
Figure any ship coming near the Cresians now is going to bring along the capability to summon something that either swims or flies to intercept even the smallest of boats.
After that, they'll go with what they know has worked well twice: fire. They'll develop offensive fire spells that can work at range and flaming enhancements for their weapons: even temporary ones. They might begin to summon their own fire elementals, even.
They'll develop magical protections for their mundane troops like resist fire spells: also spells that allow one to breathe, see, and fight comfortably in the smoky enviroment near a large tactical fire.
Eventually, they'll start working on magic to provide at least limited control of fire directly, causing it to burn in a direction they desire...or at least not burn in the direction they desire.
Bards will start working on their new countersong power, using that to counter howling magic where possible.

On a mundane level, since they're aware that battle against the Cresians means their formations may be easily disrupted, they'll likely start equipping their soldiers in such a way that they can fight as individuals...or much smaller formations. Their army might start to modularize in the following fashion:
*Two soldiers make a pair, not expected to do much but stand back to back and try to hold their ground, attacking anything that comes near them.
*Two pairs make a post: one pair stands in close combat and attacks anything that comes near, one pair uses javelins or missile weapons to harass or interdict local terrain.
*Two posts make a squad, competent to actually attack a small objective.
etc, etc, etc.

The Jongans will also make sure their weapons can be used against plants as readily as people, eschewing blunt or stabbing weapons for something with a good sharp cutting edge. Gone are the maces and copied spears, back come the swords and the "cutting edge" of new weapon technology, axes. Personal body armor will be developed to an even higher standpoint than it was already: look for bronze breastplates, bracers, and greaves, but designed to protect the back as much as the front.

Making a dispersible modular army with flexible formations will place a formidable strain on the Jongan command structure, which is already deaf from the Howling magic.
The Jongans will either have to ensure that every soldier knows the battle plan two levels up so they can operate on their own or get some magically enhanced communication. Magical telepathy might be too powerful, but the message spell is likely to be invented.
But the mundane solution of informing the soldiers of the plan is likely to be simpler to do, since the wizards are busy reverse-engineering summonings already.

If their geology allows it, they might move along the metallurgy track, starting to use iron or steel.
Given that they smelt and have formidable intellectual specialists, they might start developing alchemy, with a heavy emphasis on incindiaries and defoliants.

When they attack, they'll take advantage of their sea power to land wherever they want: like a nice sandy plant-free beach. If they can't find one, they might take their new fire spells and make one. Or two. Or half-a-dozen, giving them lots of choices.

 

[Tonguez]

Re: Jongan Attack!

*Two soldiers make a pair, not expected to do much but stand back to back and try to hold their ground, attacking anything that comes near them.

The Story of Lone Wolf and Cub feature an episode in which a pair of Ninja tried to defeat itto Ogami. They were trained to work as a pair by which one of the pair would act as decoy and in fact allow himself to be killed at which point his partner would leap over him and kill their victim.

That tactic may be a bit too drastic for the Jonga but they idea of a pair is cool.

In fact I think ajanders come up with a perfect profile of likely Jonga tactics from its modular squads through to its fire-based magics.

So I wont add anything else until we get to the next turn

(ooc consider this a baump too)

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

The Big Plan

This is lots of fun!

I would point out that bows do see heavy use in some cultures very early in history. Notably in India and China, but there are many others.

I can't help but think that the Cressians are kind of doomed. I had hoped they would get more time to prepare, reform, and regrow. They must have lost a significant portion of their magical might, though the ones that remain will be pretty dang tough and presumbably the gods will start raising up priests. The massive fires are going to make the whole culture crazy. Maybe next time they will play their magic hand a little more conservatively.

Hmm, well the Jonga have learned that the Cressians are very magic reliant and becoming more organized and guerrilla patterned, but that they still have superiority in the field and sea and the use of fire, as well as superior arms.

There's no way they can develop whole new weapon industries given their time frame.

'Technologically' I see them working to develop effective alchemical tricks: fire and smoke pots and horrible scents to use against enemy animals, but mostly I think they will work to retrain their men and focus on magic: summoning and fire spells will be a big deal for them, but also illusion, detection, and long range communication spells.

The first thing I see them developing is skirmishers. They are taking unnecessary casualties from not giving their shock formations protection until they are in combat. The next time they deploy their troops they will use a well developed skirmish line to disrupt the inferior Cressian formations, draw out and target magic users, absorb berserkers, and generally allow their formations to get closer to the enemy before being hit.

These men wil be lightly armed and armored, trained to run, fight in dispersed formation, use terrain, make heavy use of missile weapons, firepots, and smoke screens and will probably count more than a few arcane spell casters of minor ability but unusual toughness in their ranks. This would be where the offensively minded bards would increasingly find service.

They will also work to develop scouts/commandoes. I don't think there is any way they can develop really effective wilderness troops, but they can train people who are good at stealth, observation, communication, speed and evasion, dirty fighting, espionage, and basic pioneering.

The scouts will be in charge of scaring out ambushes for marching heavy formations at the very least and for creating deep defensive zones for encampments, but I have other plans for them as we shall see.

Most importantly, the Junga develop a Big Plan:

The BP goes as follows:

Realizing that they suffered from an overprepared enemy in the last venture and will have to use a lot of green troops, the Junga decide not to underestimate the Crecians again.

Using their newly trained light troops, new knowldege of the enemy, the cover of darkness, and the now devastated Crecian coastline, the Junga plan to send small teams of vicious troops and their best combat veteran spell casters into the Crecian nation ahead of the next invasion.

The first few will be sent in from insertion points lying well away from the old battlelines and be equipped with the most gifted bards. They will sneak in months in advance and sound out the Crecian defenses while maintaining a very low profile. The ones with the best bards will question charmed individuals using knowledge of the language from prisoners of the second invasion.

With this information, a much larger group of small forces will be inserted into Crecia a short time before the actual invasion and use lots of illusion magic to disguise their presence. This force will have three tasks:

1.) To disrupt coastal defenses immediately before the invasion.

2.) To impede the Crecians' ability to organize effectively: sink boats, ruin food stores, assassinate officers, and use what they know of the local religion and culture to frighten and discourage the enemy, but not in such a way as to make it impossible for them to form an army.

3.) Identify and acquire soft targets: In particular the Junga will want to know where the population is dissapearing to, they do not want to be without hostages this time around, and where supply caches are located.

Three invasion forces will be created

The first invasion force will make some use of holes in the coastal defenses to land without confusion or delay, but immediately works to goad the Crecians into a field battle by capturing several villages worth of people and threatening to burn valuable areas. Their mages use their most frightening and horrifying spells on non-military targets. They will also attempt to disguise their true numbers in order to appear more vunerable.

The second invasion force will be an engineering force, landing when fighting has died down, and immediately working to build fortified camps, secure supply routes, kill zones, prison camps, watch towers, and other artifacts to lessen the ability of guerrillas to operate against the Junga army.

The third invasion will be a reserve force prepared to operate out of the ships in order to flank the enemy, they will be equipped with many veterans and heavy troops.

The initial Junga strategy is to lure as many of the Crecians as possible into a pitched battle against their first force. The Jungans then use their reserve force to force the Crecians to fight on two fronts if possible, but otherwise to simply double their numbers suddenly.

As soon as the main Crecian battle force has been destroyed the Jungans will work to quickly garrison as many villages and strong points as possible.

Whenever possible they will capture Crecians, use bards to convert the population, and place their own 'priests' into the old temples who will institute familiar but improved rituals. Priest of the old order will be 'found' and destroyed in the most humiliating manner possible. Information and movement will be tightly controlled.

This will only be in the area they determine they can control and reinforce properly, and with those civilians they determine to be cooperative. These areas will be promised a new life under the occupiers if they behave.

The rest will be taken to the main army as it uses them as a human wall in its march to destroy the main temple. Once this is done, they retreat to the control zone, and seperate into a reserve force to deal with any new or vulnerable Crecian threats and a force dedicated to preparing the land for long term colonization.

Once things have calmed down, they plan to enslave the rest of the population and create a colony for veterans of the war and the surviving families of fallen from the first and second war.

Their new colony will be protected by a ring of artificially created barren land and fortified outposts through which their patrols can move easily and across which their wizards can project power. Any hint of an organized Crecian army brings swift retaliation. Small tame villages of Crecians are kept as productive hostages, and they often raid the interior for slaves.

The Junga never trust the forest or swamp in their new land, becoming aggressive clear cutters and relying heavily on the sea for sustenance. Their main export to the mother country becomes Crecian slaves and exotic animals.

The Crecians could beat this plan, but if they don't then what remains retreats into the interior and becomes very disorganized for a time, but also becomes even more rooted in the wilderness and learn even stronger techniques of stealthiness and warfare with light weapons but strong arms. They effectively bide their time, as the Junga become ever more confident.

 

[F5]

Dr. Strangemonkey, remind me never to declare war on you...

Another thing that occurs to me: many of the Cresian tactics involved Entangles. Part of the role of the expeditionary scout parties will be to put themselves in place in the interior of the Cresian lands for the actual invasion, and when the main body of the Jungan army is ready to move in they use their fire spells and firebombs to torch the undergrowth. The resulting massive forest fires cause three things:

1) No rose brambles to trip up their formations

2) No tree cover for the Cresians' hit-and-run guerrilias

3) The fire-hating Cresians' morale will be hurt by the fires, and their forces will be split between fighting off the invasion, and fighting the fires. The Cresians may also find themselves cut off from erstwhile reinforcements by huge walls of fire (a trick that the Jungan fire mages make careful note of. "Hmm...'Wall of Fire'. I like the sound of that.")

 

[Tonguez]

Dr. Strangemonkey, remind me never to declare war on you...

I must agree F5 the Dr.'s scenario was just horrible and shockingly brilliant in its execution.

However I do think we are assuming that the Cresians will remain much more passive than they really are, especially consioering that this is the third invasion attempt they've had to face. RW is it perhaps time for Round 3 The Cresian response?

The two things I think we have neglected so far is
a. The Plainsfolk have a nomadic heritage and can withdraw to the hills enmass (refugees maybe but live refugees nonetheless) and with Druids, Clerics and Ranger making up a large part of the population food and health shouldn't be an issue
b. The Cresians should IMHO go on the offensive and instead of waiting for the battle to come actually make a preemptive strike against the Jonga homeland. Druids have access to weather control that will decimate the Jonga naval fleet and even destroy their structures (although the Hurricaine needed might be too high level - except that these are desperate times) ...

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I've been trying to think of what the Cressians might do in between the second and third invasions.

Their guerrilla strategy worked very well for them last time, but they lost a lot people in the first pitched battle and much of their coastland and delta has been pretty fire devastated.

If I were them, I would probably move many of the population centers away from the coastline and reinforce my strongholds.

In the devastated land, the remaining, but more powerful, priests of the field god would use plant growth to reconstruct and reengineer the delta. Lots of secret trails, canals, pits, and briar patches combined with regular dead breaks to limit the spread of fire and obstructions in the waterways to make all but the smallest ships moving around impossible. Probably use similar techniques to rough up the coastline. They may also trap villages that the Junga occupied in their last invasion.

The new coastal defenses will probably consist of strong points in isolated areas with the watch towers being built to be easily evacuated.

The best thing they could do, however, is try to find allies. With their long communications with beasts the concept of going out and making some arrangement with a giant or dragon might not be that foriegn to them.

Even if they can't however, I would have the Cressians planning to delay the Junga in the Delta, but to surprise them on the plains.

Most plains areas are riddled with irregularities in the terrain, that only the Cressians are likely to know much about, using these they can continue to wage guerrilla warfare against the Junga, but more importantly they develop ways to use their now very experienced light troops with missile weapons and their animal adavantages.

When the Junga hit the plains, the Cressians plan to soften them up by attacking supply trains and subjecting them to constant raiding on their first day of marching. On the second they plan to assemble an army from their scattered forces, and subject the Junga to lots of hit and run tactics. They will try to prepare their heavy formations ahead of time, so as to avoid the disruption of their last pitched battle, but will avoid commiting them until they feel they must or the Junga have been sufficeintly softened.

The major aspect of their plan, however, will be to use the Junga's eagerness to close against them, the plain will be heavily trapped along the likely Junga path of attack, and units of powerful clerics will operating independently of the main body.

These clerics will operate against the enemy in a variety of ways, taking care to remain hidden and protected, until their big push. Gathering together hordes of animal allies ahead of time, the Druids will send them against the Junga rear in a concentrated shock action stampede.

If they can break the Jungans here, great! If not they will try to save as much of the army as possible by dispersing it, and then attack the Junga army again when it is besieging their main city.

Should that fail they will dissapear into the interior and bide their time.

 

[ajanders]

In all fairness, after the second invasion, the Cresians will do a few things of their own.
I'll wait for our esteemed moderator to shape how we move forward before elaborating, but I don't think the Jongans will get a third free shot against a defending enemy. The Cresians will likely go on the offensive somehow.