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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SHARK" data-source="post: 322926" data-attributes="member: 1131">Greetings!Chapter X: A Taste of Defeat____________________________________________________Page 110; Quote:"Gomphi, a town in Thessaly, had gone over to Pompey after the news of his success at Durres, and Caesar decided to make an example of it, to ensure the cooperation of other Greek communities. A little rape and pillage wouldn't do the damaged morale of his men any harm, either. Surrounding the town, he sent his legions against the walls. They began the assault in the early afternoon. As the sun was setting, they broke into the town. Caesar gave his troops permission to plunder Gomphi. It was destroyed, and every one of its inhabitants killed.____________________________________________________End Quote.How's that to wake up to in the morning! Damn. Just wiped that little town off the face of the map. No UN to complain to there. Oh, wait...Rome was the UN...ah, well, it certainly was a different time, then, wasn't it? It is interesting that in towns later encountered, they opened their gates, and cooperated with Caesar. Who says that being ruthless doesn't gain cooperation? Here it seems that Caesar had just had enough of these towns playing games with loyalties, and decided that this town would pay the price for their waffling. Hmmm...interesting implications for when player-characters are in command of forces in the field and they come upon towns that waffle back and forth...what do they do? If you have a paladin order a town "Plundered" so that he can make an example of the town in order to achieve a greater strategic cooperation with nearby towns through the campaign, that isn't going to feel good, or very "chivalrous"--but then again, I have often argued that many of the philosophies that surround paladins are not the ideas of the original ruthless and noble, Knight-Templars, which paladins are clearly based off of, but yet then combined with much of the philosophy from tournament society of some two-three centuries later, where "paladins"--such as they were, were really restricted largely to the neat tournament field where all of these little rules and regulations applying to the paladin could be neatly applied, because everyone else that the paladin encountered in such phony "battlefields" operated by the same standards. Such, it seems, where much of the philososphy comes from, rather from the real mud, slaughter, and difficult decisions that have to be made by everyone involved in ferocious war that is unchained in the real world, rather than the tournament world.In game terms, I don't think that Caesar was a Lawful Good paladin by any means, but what if a paladin was put in a similar position of desperate command? What if there were Lawful Good paladins serving in such an army, where the army's supreme commander--in this case Caesar--gives the order for you--a junior commander, and a paladin--to "Plunder the city!" The men under your command--including you--are to rape, plunder, and slaughter the entire population. That's certainly a point of tension for a paladin, now isn't it?<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Caesar continues though to maintain his luck, and to take advantage of every little thing, to begin adding up to victory. The thing that astonishes me about Caesar, and this is one of the reasons that he is always victorious, is that he is always seeing the opportunities, and exploiting them ruthlessly. There is no device, no strategy, no exploit, no atrocity, no matter how daring, how dangerous, how savage, or how difficult, that he will not pursue if it will lead to victory. Lesser commanders don't do this, and that is why often even when lesser commanders have better position, more equipment, more troops overall, or any number of other advantages, they still end up losing to Caesar, or a commander like him. Pompey doesn't think like Caesar, and so he will not exploit the same opportunities that Caesar will. You can see it in the whole way Pompey operates in his command. Pompey is like an old, regal father playing a grand and noble game, whereas Caesar is like a young, hungry lion, leaping from the shadows, and climbing the mountaintop to the ultimate victory. Very different personalities, and the limitations of Pompey can be seen when compared to Caesar's more ruthless exploitation of every resource, and of every opportunity.Semper Fidelis,SHARK</blockquote>

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