Pre-industrial Fantasy STGOD OOC/Rules Thread:

[madd0ct0r]

I was thinking of the large ship canals linking the lakes actually. Sailing ships suffer on those because the range of suitable winds is so small. They can't tack in a confined space. Good money to rowing tugs otherwise.

[Simon_Jester]

Aaand your reply inspired a two thousand word storypost, Maddoc.

It's not really competitive with draft animals for inland canals. Impellers are considerably more expensive and harder to maintain than early steam engines, frankly. The idea of using impellers to run ships up a river along something like St. Sault or the Detroit River at least makes sense, but quite frankly you'd probably do better to run a tow rope to a galley, and Ohio has plenty of galleys and knows how to build more.

The main reason the Empire has commissioned a number of impeller sets (not many) is for a specific project they have in mind, and one that might well not pan out.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hang on:

"There were a pair of copper... things... that one of the wizards told him were bottles with no inside and no outside."

Have your Mages built Klein bottles? If so, the Imperial Academy would be very interested in studying them.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, there are Klein bottles and a governor with four-dimensional weights (that tend to snap off the three-dimensional chain).

If you should ever chance to find out about them, we can talk.

Authorized Ohioan magic uses complicated alignments of runes and very little of the individual wizard's act of will. This makes it as controllable, predictable, and watch-able as possible, which is necessary since Ohioan wizards are so tightly monitored. It's a very orderly school of magic that they've developed, though.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hmm...now I must think of a convincing way to have someone from Orion hear about such things.

[Simon_Jester]

That's the fun part.

Oh hey, Esquire, I assume there'd be no problem importing high-quality rare wood from your country, would there be? They've got some nifty trees in Louisiana.

[Imperial528]

I'd refrain from referencing explicit cultural names so closely inspired by real life. Make up your own, since if there are Normans it begs the question of "where are Normans from?" in a way that there being... Greenbearers or whatever... doesn't.

But that can wait; your description works about as well if you replace them with [Ethnicity A], [Ethnicity B], and so on.

It's best to think of them as lowercase N normans, as with any ethnic group I have mentioned, since I'm using the word more as a descriptor than saying they are actual members of the named ethnic group.

So they're already a member state of your confederacy? Is that correct?

Yes. They've been members for around a hundred and fifty years, about half the age of the union itself. Note that Davinium and the mage states have been cooperative powers for some time before the creation of the confederation.

Question: where are these guys, exactly?

The Ohioan border on Lake Erie terminates, oh... somewhere comfortably to the east of OTL Cleveland, but no further east than OTL Ashtabula, Ohio. I'll let you decide where, actually.

How close are they to me?

They're the bit to the top left of Kingdom A: http://i.imgur.com/Dkl0Jnt.png

Mind, I forgot about the lower part of Ohio's border so it is inaccurate, at least compared to the main map.

[Eternal_Freedom]

And Maddoctor and I present the (sadly delayed) Battle of Anrakis, plus a hint at what my Psychomancers actually do

[Esquire]

That's the fun part.

Oh hey, Esquire, I assume there'd be no problem importing high-quality rare wood from your country, would there be? They've got some nifty trees in Louisiana.

Of course not, my merchants are more than happy to take the gold of infidels.

[madd0ct0r]

And Maddoctor and I present the (sadly delayed) Battle of Anrakis, plus a hint at what my Psychomancers actually do

yup. this is not the era of a calvary charge

[Eternal_Freedom]

The Thin Red Line lives on.

[Dark Hellion]

Got my story post up. I left the two sides of the battle intentionally very vague so if any two factions want to use it for a story jump off go ahead.

[Simon_Jester]

yup. this is not the era of a cavalry charge

Depends on the circumstances. Cuirassiers are still viable as shock cavalry, it's just that they have to be used correctly. A brute force assault into prepared defenses ain't it unless you have on your side powers beyond what the rogue cavalcade had going for them.

The Thin Red Line lives on.

That it very much does; should we ever cross swords I will pay appropriate honor in my own fashion. Should I take it as canonical that your men have red uniforms?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Some units on parade do, which is where the term comes from. But we are an early proponent of issuing uniforms that vaguely match the colours of the terrain.

[Esquire]

We've got red uniforms - some, anyway - but tend more towards thick columns than thin lines.

[Simon_Jester]

In my heart I am slightly disappointed to hear that from E_F, about the actual redness of the thin lines, but it is in keeping with the Orion idiom, so there it is.

Ohioan uniforms... there IS no nationwide uniform color, and most soldiers simply outfit themselves with whatever clothes they see fit.

[madd0ct0r]

Got my story post up. I left the two sides of the battle intentionally very vague so if any two factions want to use it for a story jump off go ahead.

definetly not a hyenork reaction

[madd0ct0r]

Hmm, Dark Hellion - are the dragons deliberatly targeting people or cities that are close to triggering industrialisation?

[Simon_Jester]

It sounds more like they (or at least this particular one) are regarding the eventual rise of industrial technology as inevitable but see the horrors of 20th century warfare (and, I believe it is implied, industrialized genocide) as horrific things that are rightly to be mourned.

Note that Zarrintaj didn't attack or destroy either side in this battle. She defended herself when attacked, and she broke up the battle, but she didn't target or destroy anything.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hmm, Dark Hellion - are the dragons deliberatly targeting people or cities that are close to triggering industrialisation?

If they are then Orion is probably their future target. Eeep, better get the R&D guys working on an anti-dragon mount for my cannons.

In my heart I am slightly disappointed to hear that from E_F, about the actual redness of the thin lines, but it is in keeping with the Orion idiom, so there it is.

Ohioan uniforms... there IS no nationwide uniform color, and most soldiers simply outfit themselves with whatever clothes they see fit.

Sorry to disappoint, but red uniforms in snow? Just not practical dear boy

When we're on parade though, uniforms are red - think the guys on guard duty at Buckingham Palace for instance.

In fairness though, the "right uniform colour" is a relatively recent thing, within about 80 years or so. Prior to that we were proper Redcoats in battle, hence where the term came from in-universe.

[Simon_Jester]

Sorry to disappoint, but red uniforms in snow? Just not practical dear boy

The Ohioans would cry out something like "Eliminate the red trousers? Never! The red trousers are Ohio!" and charge machine guns while wearing brightly colored uniforms.

Then, by the grace of the living stars, they'd manage to succeed anyway a significant fraction of the time anyway. A lot of them would be dead, but they'd carry the position surprisingly often.

(that part is where the ".5" in my "1.5 points per man" comes from)

The Corps of Sharpshooters does wear competently low-key and camouflaged uniforms, and is better at what they do than what you would expect from Ohioan sharpshooters, although frankly what you would expect from them is "not very much."

In fairness though, the "right uniform colour" is a relatively recent thing, within about 80 years or so. Prior to that we were proper Redcoats in battle, hence where the term came from in-universe.

To us, you have become chameleons.

Historically, the transition from red to khaki happened around 1900, with other nations making similar transitions later on. And the transition to 'situational' uniforms was a few decades after that (three to five).

[Eternal_Freedom]

Chameleons? Heh.

Yeah I know it's ahead of history, but it's what Orion does

[Simon_Jester]

Right.

The main reason I'm communicating this is because I can easily imagine a situation where the Orions simply wear khaki, and maybe issue a white overcoat to be worn in Canadian winters because Canadian winters are brutal enough to justify an overgarment like that.

Note that pure white is actually NOT necessarily great camouflage for winter warfare, because while things are often snowy, there's still stuff like rocks and bushes and trees poking up (which are dark) or specific areas where the snow is dirty or has been blown off a surface...

[Eternal_Freedom]

Fair points. I'll adopt that idea in a shameless fashion

[Simon_Jester]

Yes. Khaki (or grey, or something like that) is a perfectly adequate 'don't stand out too much' color by itself; green works too. No need for multiple uniforms even if camouflage is a concern, because in a setting like ours, your soldiers aren't realistically going to be fighting in cities or deserts very often.

Plus, even if you wanted to camouflage your troops, it wouldn't do a lot of good, because they're still musketeers who stand in large blocks in the open firing smoothbore muskets. They're going to be pretty damn visible targets anyway; the best you can do is make it harder to count them and judge range to them accurately from a great distance, or something like that.