Pre-industrial Fantasy STGOD OOC/Rules Thread:

[The Romulan Republic]

If Crazedwraith is dropping out, we'll make that faction an NPC, and let the Ottomans and whoever else is in the area decide what to do with it.

[Esquire]

I'm actually on the other side of Zwinmar's Thyrsians from the goblins.

[Simon_Jester]

You can have Ozark goblins!

[adopts Appalachian goblins]

Many Ohioans are, frankly, bigoted against the goblins (and, for that matter, the human hillfolk), but some know them and know how to get the best advantage out of their unique talents (goblins, hillbillies, and goblin hillbillies alike).

[Beowulf]

Question aimed at whom?

It's a follow-up to a response that I got from Beowulf a couple of days ago. He's still in it as least as much as I am.

On a related topic, though, I think it's about time that Zixinus and I dismantled and divvied up Texas.

I responded... but if you want more info, hit me up on AIM, and we can hash over some stuff.

[Raw Shark]

I responded... but if you want more info, hit me up on AIM, and we can hash over some stuff.

...and so you did. I'm a stressed-out drunk with a lot going on, sorry. Story post forthcoming.

[Esquire]

You can have Ozark goblins!

You make an excellent point, sir. As of right now, the Ozark goblins were a major obstacle to northern expansion in the mid-to-late 1500s before we were able to smash the more troublesome clans and buy off the rest. After a hundred years of (reluctant, force, and uneasy) coexistence, the region is mostly pacified, but the Bey of the Ozarks always sleeps with one eye open, just the same...

[Simon_Jester]

Relatively minor storypost, doing it partly for the atmosphere- I like to convey that travel takes time and is physically demanding in a premodern society. And Delatour has the advantage of pretty good roads, too- he's riding along roads that double as the towpath for some of Ohio's more significant canals.

[Raw Shark]

Did AMT ever tell us what he was calling Texas in this continuity? If not, I propose that we call them the Amtlanders, as we rid ourselves of their sorcerous depredations.

[Esquire]

Hmm... Amtlan... sombrero-wearing insectoids? Like this guy?

[Raw Shark]

Potentially... all I know from what I recall of the description is that, put mildly, it's full of wizards that have some bad habits and make other people somewhat uncomfortable. I'm sure we could get plenty of mileage out of that.

[The Romulan Republic]

So... anyone still active on the west coast besides me? I'm sending expeditions up and down the coast, with an eye to reconnaissance first and trade second.

[Raw Shark]

I have a substantial presence on the deep south of the west coast, and probably some pseudo-Polynesian trade, but have established that there are not-small Sahuagin and Kaiju problems there.

[The Romulan Republic]

Hmm.

I doubt my elves will make it that far south. The ships in question are small, coastal vessels, only about a dozen crew. The goal is more to scout out their immediate coastal neighbours and maybe conduct some small scale trade.

However, for the sake of a good story, I could come up with something. Maybe a storm sweeps them off course and they survive the trip with the aid of some benevolent ocean deity or entity, then have to do an epic Odysseus-style trek back home.

Yeah, I could work with that. And I'd love to see my people interact with yours'.

[Zwinmar]

If it is alright with you guys I intend to have my points for each season going into building up the infrastructure; roads bridges, etc..

[Simon_Jester]

In past SDNW games we didn't actually charge points for doing that. Our basic rule was that if you can't specifically use it to hit someone over the head or otherwise inflict injury, it doesn't cost any points and is just part of normal economic activity.

If you specifically wanted to have "I have better infrastructure than you so nyah nyah" be your hypothetical justification for winning a battle against a PC opponent that you would otherwise lose, then I'd say you have to spend some points on the infrastructure.

Otherwise, normal economic activity shouldn't cost anything either. My nation is in the process of digging the Erie and Michigan Canal; I'm not spending points on it unless TRR tells me to.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I am about 50% done with my Excalibur history post, so yay for long train rides with no wi-fi.

Since Imperial528 hasn't been here in a while, can I absorb him in a short-ish war?

[Simon_Jester]

Hrm.

'528 is still an active forum participant even if he has never been particularly active in this subforum.

Seizing all of Imperial528's confederacy would put us in direct conflict, I think. We have accepted as canon that we don't have direct borders against each other.

That confederacy is also, frankly, too big and too decentralized to be casually conquered in a single campaigning season. Seizing a portion of it, say one particular member state... less pressing conflict.

All things considered, let's try and get in touch with him on at least a minimal level and talk about it.

Besides, '528 isn't the guy whose state is nominally provoking you- wouldn't you be busy with them in this campaigning season?

[Eternal_Freedom]

My Navy will be busy against the Chesapeake, probably along with my Marines, and my Siege Regiment is off to Detroit. That still leaves my 20 other Army Regiments free to pursue a land campaign, especially as I envisage the "war" against the Chesapeake to be almost entirely at-sea: I'm thinking that as hostilities emerge, I use my newly-expanded Battleship squadrons, supported by my large numbers of frigates and sloops to enforce a near-total close blockade, keeping them bottled up neatly without actually having to fight.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, I'd like to hear some others speak before I say more, but I may have comments on strategy later tonight.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Thanks, this is of course only a rough outline dreamed up by an armchair Admiral that spends too long reading history books on Age of Sail naval warfare, so apply pinches of salt as needed.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, honestly, tangling with two nations in the same weight class as a "PC nation," even if we rule them to be NPC states... doing both at the same time is a recipe for overextension and disaster. For instance, look at this map of the Adirondack Commonwealth (I can't remember if that's the name of the whole confederacy or just one of the component states, but roll with it).



Kingdom "C" (with its capital at the site of OTL Albany) includes the site of OTL New York. It's also canon that the Commonwealth has completed the historical Erie Canal (along a route that would pass through Kingdom A and C), making them your main competitors for freight traffic headed into and out of the North American interior via the Great Lakes. So New York is going to be a major commercial seaport in this timeline, as historically. And Kingdom B is centered around the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers, including OTL Philadelphia, which was perhaps the greatest seaport of North America in late colonial and early post-independence times.

So the Commonwealth almost certainly has a substantial naval presence and you likely do NOT want them combining with another enemy you're already fighting a naval war against further south. Sure, you can probably keep the southerners' fleets bottled up in the Chesapeake and a few other key harbors like the Norfolk area without too much trouble; that's what the British did in the War of 1812 and the Revolution. But can you successfully contain both those guys and your opposition on the mid-Atlantic, while avoiding a potentially disastrous combination of the enemy fleets? Bear in mind that while your fleet is probably not stronger than the historical Napoleonic RN (individual ships more dangerous, but lesser numbers), your enemies may when put together have force numbers comparable to what the French and Spanish had put together during the same war. Your version of Trafalgar might not go very well.

Conversely, if you're fighting what is largely a naval war against the southerners, then they are free to lend landward support to the Commonwealth's armies. And even if you can interdict their traffic out in the deep blue ocean, it will be difficult and risky for you to try and establish control of the Chesapeake Bay... without which you can't really stop them from shipping arms and troops and supplies up the bay, onto the Susquehanna, and portaging or going by canal over to the Delaware and straight up to the heart of their territory.

So you don't want to deal with either the Commonwealth's armies having major land support from the south, or the Commonwealth's navies arriving to help out their neighbors to the south.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hmmm...good points. I suppose I will have to stick to beating down the Chesapeake faction for now.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, let's just say that if you try fighting both, I shall extend my services to Imperial as an assistant worldbuilder and field-marshal and see if I can make things a bit rough, because fighting two big countries at once should never be easy.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I don't want to fight you Ohioans...yet, you're too damn lucky. I need time to have my Academy finish their anti-magic-cannonshot research.

[Simon_Jester]

I didn't say anything about Ohioan intervention.

I just said I'd volunteer to help Imperial528 organize his own country's response to your actions, bringing into play my knowledge of the history and geography of the period, so that you're not in a boxing match against a powerless sock-puppet opponent.

I'm already doing essentially this against myself in order to make the Detroit campaign into not-a-walkover. I've deliberately gone out and researched more about the terrain around the city than I wanted to know; I expected the campaign to be easier before I knew what the lay of the land in that area was right.

Did you know there were malarial swamps in northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan in the early 19th century? I sure didn't!