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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4122577" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I have used several similar solutions, but I have pretty extensive mass combat experience with D&D worlds and I've always found that whatever magic is available is generally the decisive element.  This isn't so bad when the PC's are the source of that magic, but when its NPCs it grates - and it further grates when it suggests that certain specific tactics (pike formations and massed heavy cavalry) are simply unfeasible and largely have to be written out of your world's history.  I recognize that historically effective fighting forces were generally much more mixed arms than romantic conceptions of them tend to be, but even so it tends to make armies of my world much more uniform than I would like them to be.  All of them have to have sizable effective massed missile and skirmisher screens simply to deal with the possibility of enemy spellcasters.  The Welsh all longbow army survives as does the Mogul light cavalry, and Byzantine Cataphracts (in at least the mixed bow and lance form), but the classic Spartan heavy Infantry, Imperial Roman legion, and Polish Hussars are in trouble.  I have sorta solved the problem by having a few legendary mercenary units who have cobbled together enough magical items to fight in close formation (the Black Swords being the most notable), but still - its a constraint I'm unhappy with.</p></blockquote><p></p>