Dr. Strangemonkey
First Post
I too am curious.
Just returned from Heart of Darkness style Trip to a little sister's Volleyball Tournament.
When I made my suggestions for market centers I had in mind the sort of temples and pyramids favored by the Mayans or people of Angkor Wat, Khmer?, so Ziggurats of some sort seem to be a common theme. Makes particular sense given the Cressians original astronomy based magic.
RangerWickett mentioned huge and impractical walls. I think that's a great idea for their capital city. Such things are a fairly common feature of people who rule through mobile armies, Bulgars and Persians and such. Herodotus describes Babylon as having impossibly huge walls.
I would like to suggest that a portion of the walls be heaped earth and the top be living wood. Some sort of special highly decorative tree that functions as a sign of Cressian imperial power.
I think the Cressians are clever and adaptive enough to avoid lots of Jongan revolts, their society never seemed to great anyway, but I do think that some portion of their culture will be integrated into the Cressian culture in a big way.
As for the gods:
I would like to suggest that they do exist, but that they are really much more concerned with their own interests and the worshippers they have a relationship with than each other. Possibly with the exception of a few pantheons. This would allow for war with divine support but without much divine intervention. Proper prayer would be a 'technology' that people would have to develop. Thus the Cressians might be better at divine magic than their neighbors not because they have more faith necessarily, but because they are superior masters of religious ritual.
Even without the other nations, there is still a lot to do with the Cressians. I don't think I've ever seen a write up for a large druid supported army formation.
Given their tradition of Guerrilla and mobile warfare and strong 'officer' corp, I would like to make the basic suggestion that the Cressians are likely to fight in waves rather than a battle line. The main formation would be organized into three or more battles and a reserve. The first battle would engage the enemy initially, the second battle would engage to relieve the first, and the third would engage to attack any resulting weaknesses in the enemies disrupted formations.
The technique is very similar to the Swiss and Theban orders of battle. I could also easily see the Cressians fighting battles very similar to the German tactics in the Teutonoberg Forest. Using the terrain and large numbers of light troops to disrupt and surround enemy formations while flying units of elite troops attack and withdraw from weak points in the enemy line until elements of the enemy can be isolated and eliminated. That's only good for the defensive, however.
I also think they are likely to use skirmish lines and illusion to screen their own troop movements with a big emphasis on information warfare.
Just returned from Heart of Darkness style Trip to a little sister's Volleyball Tournament.
When I made my suggestions for market centers I had in mind the sort of temples and pyramids favored by the Mayans or people of Angkor Wat, Khmer?, so Ziggurats of some sort seem to be a common theme. Makes particular sense given the Cressians original astronomy based magic.
RangerWickett mentioned huge and impractical walls. I think that's a great idea for their capital city. Such things are a fairly common feature of people who rule through mobile armies, Bulgars and Persians and such. Herodotus describes Babylon as having impossibly huge walls.
I would like to suggest that a portion of the walls be heaped earth and the top be living wood. Some sort of special highly decorative tree that functions as a sign of Cressian imperial power.
I think the Cressians are clever and adaptive enough to avoid lots of Jongan revolts, their society never seemed to great anyway, but I do think that some portion of their culture will be integrated into the Cressian culture in a big way.
As for the gods:
I would like to suggest that they do exist, but that they are really much more concerned with their own interests and the worshippers they have a relationship with than each other. Possibly with the exception of a few pantheons. This would allow for war with divine support but without much divine intervention. Proper prayer would be a 'technology' that people would have to develop. Thus the Cressians might be better at divine magic than their neighbors not because they have more faith necessarily, but because they are superior masters of religious ritual.
Even without the other nations, there is still a lot to do with the Cressians. I don't think I've ever seen a write up for a large druid supported army formation.
Given their tradition of Guerrilla and mobile warfare and strong 'officer' corp, I would like to make the basic suggestion that the Cressians are likely to fight in waves rather than a battle line. The main formation would be organized into three or more battles and a reserve. The first battle would engage the enemy initially, the second battle would engage to relieve the first, and the third would engage to attack any resulting weaknesses in the enemies disrupted formations.
The technique is very similar to the Swiss and Theban orders of battle. I could also easily see the Cressians fighting battles very similar to the German tactics in the Teutonoberg Forest. Using the terrain and large numbers of light troops to disrupt and surround enemy formations while flying units of elite troops attack and withdraw from weak points in the enemy line until elements of the enemy can be isolated and eliminated. That's only good for the defensive, however.
I also think they are likely to use skirmish lines and illusion to screen their own troop movements with a big emphasis on information warfare.