Pre-industrial Fantasy STGOD OOC/Rules Thread:

[Zwinmar]

That is good, I was a bit worried I was going overboard with the military contingent. I am attempting to keep it more along the lines of the way I envision they wanted to implement the fort structure during the Indian wars without them being medieval style castles, though the similarity in function does remain.

[Eternal_Freedom]

You can see why I used my Telepath idea for long-distance communication, to avoid having to have such setups. My original plan was for networks of semaphore towers but telepaths fit better in a fantasy setting imho.

Obviously border forts are still present and in probably greater than usua; numbers, but "inland" outposts are rare except around cities and large towns.

[Simon_Jester]

E_F:

Long distance communication isn't such a crippler as long distance travel. There are plenty of precedents, stretching back to ancient times, for fast moving relays of couriers (look up the Americans' Pony Express for one of the last such networks) that can move messages at the speed a horse can run. Not walk, run. Because, like a relay race, each individual leg of the relay is done by a different horse who has time to rest before the next few-hour sprint. Which means the message travels at about ten miles an hour, all day, every day. Maybe a bit more. Even in a fairly large pre-modern country, this means you can get messages from the capital to the border within a few days, and that is normally good enough.

The real issue is that there is effectively no way to move anything big faster than a man can walk. Canals, rivers, oceans, and lakes provide the best means to move long distance cargo (pretty efficient, but canal and river boats are slow). Overland transportation involved either "get out and walk" or "have an animal walk for you." No large number of animals is likely to be able to keep up sustained movement of more than a few dozen miles a day (except perhaps for some hellatough horses), nor is any human likely to be able to.

Also, animals need lots of food and have limits to what they can physically carry. Heavy loads have to be put in some kind of wagon and pulled by strong draft animals, who are in general going to move slower than a man can walk.

But again, I like it this way. It lets us have information, communications, individual characters, and small groups free to move relatively quickly (as in, "cross half the continent in a month of hard riding" quick, or "cover 200 miles in a few days" quick) while armies and big piles of cargo take much longer spans of time to do the same thing.

That lends itself to interesting gameplay.

That is good, I was a bit worried I was going overboard with the military contingent. I am attempting to keep it more along the lines of the way I envision they wanted to implement the fort structure during the Indian wars without them being medieval style castles, though the similarity in function does remain.

Well, all you really need to do is work out the size of your army and subtract any large formations you put in specific places as a reserve or to counter specific threats.

Then you take that number of soldiers available for patrol duty, look at the approximate size of your territory, and then divide. That gives you, in military terms, the ratio of force to space.

Eyeballing it, it is not unreasonable that you would have this ratio of force to space for heavily garrisoned territory. I'm not sure you could manage it across all of your lands without using basically your entire army for the purpose (and/or watering down the point value of your individual soldiers). But then again, you realistically don't have to; there will be parts of your lands that are so uninhabited or unthreatened that you don't need a garrisoned frontier fort every thirty to forty miles. I'm not up to doing the math right now, but might be in a week or two.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hmm...I did speculate during my original OOB concepts about using a variant of Biomancy to boost the endurance of my Dragoon's horses. I may incorporate that within the EMpire on a general level, combined with selective breeding to give me war horses that can run at full sppped for longer than most and pack horses that can reliably pull carts for considerably longer than might be expected. It gives me a boost to travel speed but not as much as, say, a train would.

[Simon_Jester]

[shrugs]

Ah well. I for one am proud to stick with real-world constraints on travel speed; the only supernatural or preternatural enhancement to transportation found in Ohio is that the Erie Canal (connecting the site of OTL Cincinnati with Lake Erie) has effective nighttime illumination, permitting barge traffic to continue safely at night. This was done using a scaled-up version of the same rites the star-priestesses used to provide light for the route march in my second and third story posts.

As a side effect, the canal is mildly sacred ground to the Ohioan religion, which could make travel along it... interesting for the wrong kinds of magical creatures and artifacts. Since as far as I can tell it is the only practical major inland freight artery connecting the Mississippi River basin to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence, that might have consequences at some point.

[Obviously passengers don't need the Canal, but heavy cargo kind of would]

[Dark Hellion]

First story post up. Jokingly, everyone should realize I am going for the diplomacy victory this game. But honestly, I plan on randomly helping people for very little reason. Or even helping both sides in the same conflict. My vision of the dragon prophecy is something completely ineffable and on scales way beyond the games time, so the dragons helping someone may be to trigger something 10,000 years down the line which is totally meaningless for the game but is meaningful to immortal great wyrms.

[Simon_Jester]

Heh.

I will note that while Xazonar is no match for a true, paragon dragon in any possible way, it's enough of a magician that it can probably tell when someone is looking at it, even across a great gap of time and space, unless that someone takes unusual pains to avoid being noticed.

Will amend my next chapter accordingly.

In fact, you have arguably already interceded in the humans' favor, although not in any way that will alter the outcome of the battle. I will give Xazonar a few bruises for you, free of charge.

Next chapter will be up shortly and is nearly finished. This is the kind of thing that happens when you send a triple-digit-point being up against an Ohioan army.

I will also note that though they have nothing like the comprehensive, prescient vision of the great dragons, the Ohioans are not without their own supernatural sources of information, as referenced in my very first story post. Appropriate measures have been taken to ensure that this battle is not effortless or easy for either side, although the correlation of forces may appear to favor one or the other for the moment.
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In addition to that, just a few OOC replies to your IC post.

One, whether you consider the Grand Army of the Ohio to be an army of light is mostly a matter of opinion and relative terms.

They are based, this is the fundamental thing that drives them from a literary perspective, on the idea of tapping into very human forces against inhuman ones. Their inhuman enemy may be death-magic, or demons, or exploding shrapnel shells*. It doesn't really matter. But they counter it with forces that are fundamental to the human spirit- mutual loyalty and trust, faith in a higher power, reverence for their ancestors.

A less social animal than homo sapiens could never do what the Ohioans do, not the way that they do it.

And the very real power that they tap into by doing it- well, is a fairly decent one as such powers go.

In that sense, we can reasonably call them an army of light.

...

On the other hand, this doesn't necessarily make the Ohioans good people as such, any more so than historical 17th or 18th century soldiers were.

Given the opportunity to do so easily, they would probably treat, say, the Aztecs in this game about as badly as the historical Spanish treated the real Aztecs. Maybe not exactly as badly in all of the details, but on a comparable level.

Those Spanish conquistadores were, with at most a handful of exceptions, all praying men. Men who routinely, publicly rejected the Devil and all his works. Men who believed in death as the only proper penalty for evil magic. Men who believed that pride, envy, wrath, greed, lust, gluttony, and sloth were all gross vices that should be rejected by any decent, upstanding person.

And yet... well, it is a matter of brutally public record, just what tortures and wickedness the Spaniards inflicted on the infidel and the heretic.**
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*Anyone who doesn't consider an artillery barrage an inhuman and evil thing, a horror as grim as anything from most stories of dark magic... They haven't read enough Siegfried Sassoon.

**Conversely, given a bit of time to brace themselves for a battle against what they would see as the Devil himself... I believe that a real Spanish army from that era would probably acquit themselves as honorably as the Ohioans are against Xazonar and his minions. They would have, in my honest opinion, marched forward praying to God Almighty and the Virgin Mary, as the Ohioans pray to the Living Stars, and done their best to do exactly what the Ohioans are doing, until their flesh and spirit could bear no more. Exactly as the Ohioans are doing.

[Simon_Jester]

I will note that there are some minor inaccuracies in my post regarding the position of the Ohioan field artillery in the skirmish of Frostbringer 20th. This is because of some facts about 17th century artillery tactics which I didn't learn until a few days ago, and neglected to update in my draft of the chapter.

For the record, the two demi-batteries of field guns are located on either side of Colonel Blanchard's center battalion. Therefore, the left hand demi-batterie is located on the far side of a pike company from Delatour's 8th Company, while the right-hand one is three company widths further down the line.

I tried to edit to reflect this, but due to the massive slowness of the Internet connection I am using at the moment, I couldn't get the changes in during the edit window. Has there been any word from the mods on why it is no longer possible to go back and edit posts in the STGOD subforum? In my experience it causes far more good than harm to make that possible.

Also note that all chapters up to this point were supposed to have titles, some of which I neglected to enter and obviously cannot now fix. They were:

"A Regiment at Dawn"
"Into the Night"
"When the Devil Drives"
"Beasts and Bayonets," and
"Amen to Artillery."

The next will be titled "Faith and Phantoms," followed by "Cold Steel and Courage." Both are (almost) already entirely written, and I MIGHT post "Faith and Phantoms" tomorrow morning, but at this point it seems unlikely I'll get to it before the night of the 3rd.

[The Romulan Republic]

A glimpse of my peoples' government in exile, and the response to Jub's raid set in motion.

[The Romulan Republic]

Okay, looking at the map, I've got other coastal powers to the north and south of me. Anyone interested in trade? Negotiations? Hostilities?

[Jub]

My latest story post is up, and I'm not even sorry about the cliffhanger.

No spoilers, but I will say that Smiling Rushes has been touched by powerful magics from both Gitaskog and one of Dark Hellion's dragons.

[The Romulan Republic]

It'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

Edit: Once I get my people a bit more established on the coasts, I'm thinking of sending some trade/diplomacy missions up and down the west coast.

[Raw Shark]

Okay, looking at the map, I've got other coastal powers to the north and south of me. Anyone interested in trade? Negotiations? Hostilities?

Yes, probably, and maybe?

So where I'm going with my current story is an exploratory border incursion by invisible mercenary wizards. Anybody who wants to claim credit for that OOC and take up the reigns, please feel free; otherwise I'll blame it on the pseudo-Cordoban city states.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm actually tempted to take it.

Not that they'd be part of my government or anything like that, but I've been playing around with the idea of some of my people having gone rogue necromancer. I suppose in the years my people were wandering the continent, some of them could have got that far south.

But if someone else wants to take it, they're welcome to.

Edit: To elaborate, Raw Shark, how did you intend for this to play out? Just wondering weather what you have in mind would be compatible with my people.

[Raw Shark]

I'm just stirring the pot while I recover from the holidays and work out my OOB. I intend for it to play out like, "Oh crap, I need to commit more forces to the Northern border," unless anybody wants to turn it into some kind of espionage thing.

Just for the record, I'm kind of rooting for AMT's evil Texan wizards here, but he hasn't posted in a while so I'm not sure if that's still a thing. The Aztecs are not especially opposed to necromancy, and have a small but thriving population of undead-Aztecs.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, as I said, if someone else wants to take it they can, but here's what I tentatively have in mind:

Basically, one or two powerful elvish necromancers (tens of points apiece), some minor acolytes/apprentices (no more than ten points or so apiece), and a small horde of cheap zombies/mind controlled fanatic berserkers. Maybe some summoned spirits as well.

They'll hit a small town or something, intending to "liberate" its population from your faction's tyrannical reign, because your culture and mine are not terribly comparable and they're operating on an "ends justify the means" type philosophy. But being hypocrites, they'll probably just pretty much enslave whoever they liberate themselves, and console themselves with the knowledge that they're the lesser evil.

[Raw Shark]

It'd sound a lot more plausible if we were next-door neighbors. As it is, we're talking about a thousand-mile raid down the coast to liberate one town. Does not compute.

Trade between two western coastal powers with no potential border disputes and widely-differing local products is extremely likely, on the other hand...

[The Romulan Republic]

It'd sound a lot more plausible if we were next-door neighbors. As it is, we're talking about a thousand-mile raid down the coast to liberate one town. Does not compute.

Agreed.

However, I have had the idea that in keeping with my people being "Wanderers", their might be small nomadic groups of them scattered around all over the place, outside my main territory. With the permission of those who's factions would be affected, of course. And I did say these guys would not be sanctioned by my government.

How would people feel about that?

Regardless, though, its just an idea. If their's an alternative you prefer, that's fine.

Edit: I'll add that if anyone started breaking out the mass mind-control and necromancy, they'd want to get out of my territory sharpish before a contingent of Rangers, Healers, and Scholars showed up on the orders of the Crown to deal with them. Might even get the Guard sent after them if they caused enough trouble.

The people I'm describing would be my faction's version of domestic terrorists, basically, not accepted members of society.

[Raw Shark]

The Aztec Empire feels the same way about wandering Elves as it does any other immigrants: Play by the rules or else. If there is anything positive that can be said about this shit-show, it's that we're pretty blind to species.

[The Romulan Republic]

Okay, I'll definitely have a few of my people living in exile among your Aztecs then.

Anyway, to elaborate again on some of the terminology for my faction:

Rangers=raiders/patrols/skirmishers/scouts, armed primarily with bows and melee weapons. Some guns and limited magic. Clans have their own Ranger militias, but their is a Royal Ranger contingent too.

Order of Scholars (Scholars)=mages.

Order of Healers (Healers)=exactly what it sounds like. Healing magic.

The Guard=elite heavy infantry, mainly used for protection of key buildings and individuals but occasionally committed to offensive action.

[Simon_Jester]

I personally always liked the idea that the Orions don't even perceive Ohioans' supernatural defenses, which are not easy to detect or analyze*. So they're all like "fuck, I don't know, is it magic, is it just massive dumb luck, are they too stupid to know they're supposed to be dead?"

In many respects, Orion is already better equipped to tackle Ohioan armies than most, because they don't rely on overtly magical weapons against them. A cannonball is a cannonball, and while making sure it hits the target may be harder than normal, it remains a cannonball.

You saw what happened when Xazonar threw bolts of lightning, compared to what happened when it threw rocks. The rocks are/were doing one heck of a lot more damage.

And the Ohioans remain the people who persist in stacking up their infantry formations six or eight ranks deep and arming half of them with spears, whereas you by now will probably have adopted something rather more progressive like the two-deep formations used by British redcoats to improve their ability to fire while maneuvering.

So if you treat it as just a straight-up fight, the odds are actually rather favorable, unless the Ohioans do something unusually cunning or spectacular- and "cunning or spectacular" is a weapon available to you too.

*(Xazonar is a really powerful wizard with a number of senses humans simply do not possess, which is why it's the ideal character to provide exposition on how the thing works)
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Anyway, "Faith and Phantoms" is ready to go as far as I can tell, so I'll post it.

For anyone who reads this before that- this post is the climax, but not the end. There will be a falling action in which a few more things that may be of interest happen, and that one I know I'm not posting for a few days.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I had considered that, and I do like your reference to Orion in the latest story post.

A question, are we accepting that "silver bullets are highly effective against magical targets" as a general game convention? Or was it just against Shadow-Lords? A my last story post indicated, I am working on anti-magical ammunition, so if its just silver I have to use that makes it easier.

[Esquire]

It's a useful bit of flavor that needn't have any practical effect; with supernatural threats as common as they are, a standard musketeer's combat load could simply be 35 lead and 5 silver bullets, or something.

[Esquire]

Ghetto edit: and Orion's superior refineries lead to purer silver rounds, preserving your antimagic advantage.

[Raw Shark]

I personally think it'd be a little boring and easy if it was just silver. Not that I'd be especially opposed, mind you, with all the silver that we mine down here and all, but the only thing I'm not going to vote against as an everything-killer is fire, because fire.