Fantasy Arms Race, Round Two

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Oh man, the classical period... ...noone ever wants to do the Assyrian and Babylonian empires.

I mean, how big a skip we gonna have hear when only one power has good iron and there has gotta be a good conflict coming in the next century at least, even if all the powers do think they have thrown the Auselen into the sea.

The Ta'jinn v. Cressians both have maneuverability edges in the right terrain. The Ta'jinn are superior in any sort of open terrain because they're used to fighting in flying formations, but the Cressians are consequently much better in rough areas thanks to very broken up formations.

Hadn't realized speed was that close between the armies, however, I didn't think the Barbarians and deltanes represented the majority of the Cressian forces. We might have seen them gain an increased role as a result of the conflict and a possible increased professionalization on the part of the Cressian forces.

The bombing thing works pretty well except that the Cressians are very aware of the vulnerability to fire as a result of the Jongan conflict. They now design their cities with plenty of fire breaks and waterways. They're still very distrustful of fire, but they are also a lot more savvy about how to deal with it.

This last round didn't see nearly the level of spell development we saw last time. As far as I can tell the only really new developments were more divination and illusion spells from every side.

I'd like to posit that the Stempans pick up turning as a result of dealing with zombies in their territories.

 

[Morgenstern]

Stempa did indeed have iron at the outset of this conflict. Given that Cressia does not care for fire, and the Ta'jinn smithing technology tends to be fairly small and portable fine for silver and bronze, not so good for iron) I would sugest the Stempa jealously guards the secrets fo manufacture for their supperior arms and armor (making smiths, miners and smelters sort of a state secret), but sells such items to the other two empires in small quantities at high prices to finance their reconstructions efforts. This also continues to provide a huge incentive to hire Stempan merc units: commanders of Cressia and Ta'jinn might have an iron weapon or breastplate, but the Stempa "Iron Guard" (or whatever) are whole units of iron equiped soldiers- soldiers that include human swordsmen, goblin picket/scouts, and Ogre heavy infantry (I'm sorry, does the idea of a vaguely disciplined, iron-plated, battle axe or large kopesh weilding OGRE fail to scare the piss out of any common troop available in this age?). The crunched up remants of Stempa banding together and forming a more complex and solidly united system of governance is also a great idea (citizens of individual cities are elected by their peers to go to the big meet of all surviving cities, and an informal senate begins to brew...).

I like the idea of an exchange of forces between Cressia and Ta'jinn. The (brilliant) introdction of Ta'jinn bombers whould probably result in at least one Cressian city getting savagely scorched. This could provide the impetus for the reparations after the war. The "Pact Army" of a Ta'jinn tamarch may actually be the first step towards a more fuedal system inthis world: this army is at the service of Cressia, but it has it's own commander(s) and will need a formidable amount of space and/or suplies to remain active- Cressia may have to assign some land within their borders to the Ta'jinn commander's care (still tended by the expert Field Father clergy) so that he can feed his force. The concept of the first 'county' is born...

A sort of olympics, where each country can send champions to strut their stuff is also plausible, with inital efforts being non-competitive displays (we can do this!) turn into closely controlled sports (we can too, see!) with probably fairly militant based events- marthon/forced march, aerial acrobatics, maybe some swimming in the river and equestrian events. But this is mor world building than actual tactics (the focus of the thread).

We do need a list of advances, and I think we can still play this as a Cressian vs Ausel conflict, with some few Stempa and Ta'jinn units remaing involved. The 500 BC timeframe sounds good to me, noting that certain groups are a bit more advanced within their specialties- Stempa and their iron, Ta'jinn navigation and communication, Cressian horticulture. Everybody has some flavor of magic to draw on, but Ausel is flat out the superpower in the arcane category.

I'm uncertain whether we should just nail down the setup for a following round here, or play the full round here just to keep this thread fresh...

Always a pleasure,

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I agree on Cressia with Ta'jinn and Stempan units and communities as the protagonist in the next example.

Let's say that the whole area, with the exception of Auselen views itself as a single cultural unit centered around Cressia, something analogous to the Greek sphere in the Eastern Mediterranean or the Sumerian States and City States. The Khanate is still out there, but considers Cressia a solid ally and allows the Cressians to pretty much run things in that area of the world though they keep in contact and still do a lot to maintain their Tamarch.

Lower Cressia consists of Cressia proper, the Jongan isles, and some other territories that the Cressians have been able to expand their true culture into over time.

Upper Cressia consists of the territories of the Cressian Stempan allies and the Concord. This area maintains a distinctly Stempan feel, but the Oracles have been brought into the Cressian hierarchy with very little problems. They maintain a strong sense of their own borders but also feel free fully participatory in the culture and soveriegnty of Cressia as a whole. There are a lot of ancient analogies for this sort of relationship, but I like to think of them as a more culturally divergent and independent version of Quebec. The Concord now dominates the majority of Stempa. The many independent cities very much realize that if they want to get business done they must go through the concord and eventually Cressia. Actually, a better example would be pre-Bruce Scotland only without all the bitter sort of William Wallace types around.

Lesser Cressia, or the Empty Quarter, consists of the empty quarter and a signficant portion of what had been the sparesly populated near border of the Khanate. Now populated by the resident Tamarch and a bizarre melange of the three other cultures. The inhabitants refer to themselves as the new people and to the communities as the colonies. They have strong ties to both the Khanate and Cressia, but feel that in most things the Cressians and the Hierarchy are perfectly able to act with the Khan's authority. The local Tamarch has actually become a more or less permanent fixture and well the practice of transferring units into and out of the Tamarch is not unknown and certain portions of the command structure are still very Ta'jinn in nature the majority of the officers and the rank and file are chosen by the locals and the Cressians and then approved by the Khanate. All requests for transfers out and in must be similarly approved. As a result of the permanent presence of the Tamarch the local culture has become very militant. Those who serve in the Tamarch are granted special privileges and have greater wealth resulting in a true aristocracy of military merit. The Tamarch itself has absorbed fighting elements and tactics from all three cultures and then adjusted them to the unusual land of the region creating one of the most innovative and various permanent fighting units in the world.

Portions of the Tamarch are always in action in both Cressia and the Khanate.

The Games, hailed and seen as a great meeting of the cultures, occur in the empty quarter outside of the memorial city of (someone come up with a name here, some combination of the names of the ravaged Stempan and Cressian cities). The memorial stands as a monument to the war, the subsequent treaties, and the expulsion of the Auselen from the Empty quarter. The hierarch, chief oracle, and Khan meet here from time to time and all maintain a premanent diplomatic force and beauracracy headed by a council of a bishop, seer, and uncle authorized to interpret treaties, call meetings, act as the political lords of the Tamarch, and organize the games.

 

[Robbert Raets]

I really like Dr. Strangemonkey's description of the colonies & resident tamarch.

What about the Stempan Military? Have the city-states integrated their armies into a single Legion? How big should the units be and how is the racial division? 50/50 goblinoids/humans with a small number of Ogres? 35/60/5?

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Yeah, I can easily see the house guards of the oracles being united into a single organization and then expanded into the Concord legion. Large garrisons would be housed in each of the major cities and encamped around the oraclur enclosures. Individual cities would still have military might, but the Legion is seen as the national and more prestigious force. As the concord has developed and quelled internal conflict, the urban militaries now function primarily as mercenary organizations training and hiring out young men and soldiers to other nations and for work in the wilder parts of Stempa. These troops then function as reserves for the nation and the pool that the legion recruits many of its combat units from. One advantage the legion has over other military organizations in Greater Cressia is it's experience with police work and occupation. As the militant arm of the Oracles they are in charge of enforcing the laws of the Concord and saw their first extended actions in the Concord's work to pacify the empty quarter.

 

[The Goblin King]

Here is a quick map. Sorry there are no other features. I will put them in but I just wanted a rough idea of where everything was. I did not know how big to make the region. What do you think?

 

[Tonguez]

Nice Map

However I'd personally put more water between Auselen and Cressia probably placing it where you currently have Madziz

So more blue and move Madziz around closer to Kalariand

I also wondering if the Ice is too close to fertile Cressia - then again I may be getting the scale wrong (but that makes Ta'jinn huge if I am)...

 

[s/LaSH]

Map critiques: (Other than these, it's pretty cool.)

I always thought Stempa was where Ta'jinn is, and vice versa.

The ice wouldn't be that close to Cresia, in truth. Cresia's supposed to be similar to northern Italy, which is around 1500 miles from the arctic circle. Worlds are big things, and so far we haven't seen much of this one.

Other than that - reduce the ice, and we've got a fairly good map.


So it looks like the war's died down, right? The technologies we've acquired from it are:

Both Cresia and Ta'jinn have an air force now. The Ta'jinn griffins have spellcasters/bombers as riders, while I think the Cresians mostly use archers.

The deltanes are no longer used as shock troops, as both sides have figured out that they're vulnerable to certain special weapons. They're still awesome in small conflicts, and in a straight ground troop conflict the deltanes will win against vastly overwhelming numbers.

Two cities have been destroyed, a Stempan city by earth elementals, and a Cresian city by firebombs. The Stempans can't bring themselves to abandon their philosophy of heavy fortifications, and instead research ways to enchant their fortresses to resist magic, on the way becoming the supreme manufacturers of magic arms and armour. The Cresians establish aerial defence forces in all their cities, with regular patrols over the countryside, incidentally creating a really efficient system of disseminating information, cementing their government's ability to govern a large area effectively. And they start building these huge overhead stone shield things.

The Auselen discovered how easy it is to prey upon peoples' weaknesses to turn a profit. They also discovered how much havoc one or two really powerful creatures can wreak in a combat situation.

The Cresians still don't really object to the idea of zombies. After all, there haven't been any insane necromancers threatening to destroy the world, no plagues of undead rampaging through communities.

We never saw one thing, however: Call Lightning. It's a signature druid spell, only 3rd level, and capable of wreaking lots of havoc. Can we assume that the Cresians developed it in the last weeks of the war, and were threatening to use it on Ta'jinn interests? A vertical stroke can strike behind city walls, after all (long range). That would give the Stempans reason enough to sue everyone for peace, I'm certain. (It also gives the Cresians a weapon equal to the Ta'jinn bombers, and can blast earth elementals into little bits.) A staggered bombardment of even minimum caster level druids... well, that's five 5d10 20ft-wide blasts apiece, over a 50-minute period. Get ten level 5 druids, and you can unleash one blast every minute, ravaging quite a big area. Get sixty druids, and you can unleash one staggered bolt every round for the best part of an hour - at one spell expended per druid. Isn't that a great weapon?

The Auselen won't be pleased at this, of course. Maybe they're the ones who taught the Stempa to make enchanted walls? Planning to ignite a new conflict in a generation... but I have a great idea for something to interfere with this. Hehehe.

 

[The Goblin King]

Both Cresia and Ta'jinn have an air force now. The Ta'jinn griffins have spellcasters/bombers as riders, while I think the Cresians mostly use archers.

The Cresians establish aerial defence forces in all their cities, with regular patrols over the countryside, incidentally creating a really efficient system of disseminating information, cementing their government's ability to govern a large area effectively. And they start building these huge overhead stone shield things.

I was thinking along those lines. There would finally be a reason for a druid to have lots of small animal companions. Eagles that are trained to follow intruders but not engage. When they see something being dropped on a city they go into a dive and catch it before it hits the ground. Also, Giant Eagles exist. The next logical step is for the Cressians to have a few Rocs. As far as I could tell, it would be possible to mount Rocs with a fighting platform similar to what indian elephants used.

 

[s/LaSH]

I like the roc idea... I was considering the idea of war elephants earlier, and the rocs make more sense, making this a very weird version of the Bronze Age indeed. They'd probably need Auselen held to engineer or find these beasts, though.