Questions

[DM Juan]

I reduced the number to purposefully make it harder to steam-roll military through a domain, occupying everything instantly. People don't have to fight to the death, either. Each War Move, you could opt to try to completely disengage if you wanted.

[CI - Charrek Ironfist]

I suppose it was a good response to the "Fulgar gambit" of turn 1 last game.

[BB - Bronzebeard]

Crystal Theory required
Mine: Crystal Seed/Materials
(3 Materials per Mine level)
Seeded Mines generate Crystal Materials, which means they no longer generate GB

I believe the Seeded Mines no longer generate GB is new? I may remember wrong, but I remember one of the selling points to guilders was seeding the mines did not effect GB production.

[MS - Meaghan Smith]

It's not new, although I don't know if it was really clear that once seeded the mine no longer provides precious metals/minerals permanently. Some may have thought you could alternate turn to turn.

It is pretty reasonable though, we shouldn't always know the long-term impact of a new technology or magic.

I know Juan has considered next game might have two types of Mines (Crystal and Gold/Gem) to easily differentiate.

[WM - The Waste Mage]

Next game needs more rounds of battle per war move. Naval battles don't take 3 months+. They happen over one or two days, with a few weeks perhaps of positioning before both sides commit to the fight.

We should see sides disengaging during one warmove of battle probably as their defeat becomes inevitable.

And a clarification of naval rules like how unengaged ships can attack. Can they hit enemies engaged with friendly ships without risk of hitting allies? And what powers and spells are possible in a naval battle and how visible they are to those they are used against. And do higher tiers count as better boarders etc. And if ships are engaged in a sea battle who has control of the sea zone as far as blockade and can units be offloaded during a sea battle without greater risk to those ships as they would have no mobility. And if a portion of ships offload units during a battle are they counted during that turn’s fighting. And can leader bonuses be added to a ship without boarders? I would think to hit and movement but does it make sense that it can add a boarder bonus to a ship with no units on board?

[TH - The Hunt]

Right, I thought it was impossible to cast realm magic at sea. And since it's impossible to cast arcane spells without a local source, no arcane spells in sea regions either. Seems like both happened this turn, despite that.

We already know about boarders. Levies, irregulars, scouts, and cavalry are worth 2 boarding counters, while infantry, archers, knights, and raiders are worth 3. So levies are the most cost-effective... their lack of discipline, armour, and formation training not being much of an issue for shipboard combat, I guess.

Sea zones can't be 'occupied', so a blockade just means that a fleet is there and willing to stand its ground (so to speak) if an enemy sails into the sea zone. Neither has control of it, but just like on land, those moving in to a contested sea zone don't get a second chance to move until after their enemies in the province get a chance to decide whether to engage or flee. If their enemies are already engaged, their decision to engage may be meaningless, but the fleet that wants to get past them will still have to disengage, as if retreating, before they can move on. I don't know how retreating voluntarily after a battle starts works.

Ships can't offload units during a battle because to offload units, they have to move into the target province, and they can't move to a new province until either the battle is over, or they've withdrawn from it successfully. They can then either move along the coast or back into the sea zone, or stay put to offload units. Unless the port (province) they arrive at is blockaded, a (sea zone) blockade just means they can't return to the open sea.

A more aggressive blockade could pursue and interdict any ships attempting to move down the coast, too, but that'd limit the blockade fleet's options, and might force them to split up and give their enemies a chance to fight a third of the fleet (or less) at a time.

Leader bonuses can be applied to any ship. Every ship has a boarding count. Even coasters, which can't carry units.

[TH - The Hunt]

What I just said about the ship movements is assuming the blockade fleet are the 'defenders', meaning either war was declared on them, or they're losing the war so far, as measured by how many provinces of theirs have been occupied compared to how many they've occupied of their opponents. In this war, the blockade fleet were the aggressors, in game terms, since the Meadowlands declared war first.

Assuming it works the same way it does on land (in the book), the difference is that while the defender gets to choose to fight or flee when the aggressor or their allies move in, when the defender or their allies engage them, there's automatically a battle... unless the aggressor's units hadn't moved yet, in which case they get to choose. This gives the aggressor more initiative, but it gives the defender more options. Specifically, options to panic and run away a lot.

So an aggressive blockade fleet that really wanted to catch a navy that was hiding from it would have to surround it, or chase it until it couldn't move anymore. They couldn't just take it straight on.

[TH - The Hunt]

About ending battles, and getting away from them once they've begun:

If three rounds of battle pass without either side being defeated or withdrawing, the province remains contested, and both sides remain in the province. (We see this happen a lot!) The battle doesn't necessarily have to resume, but either commander can decide to resume it, so it usually does... it only wouldn't if neither of them wanted to continue. So it's easier to retreat before a battle starts than to withdraw after it's dragged on for a while.

If one side decides to withdraw (or routs), then after pursuit damage is inflicted, either they return to the sea zone/province they arrived from (if they moved in) or they're pushed back into a friendly province (if they were holding position). If there's no friendly province for them to retreat to, then they're either destroyed or captured. Unoccupied sea zones might count as friendly provinces for naval retreats, if they don't that makes holding position away from one's own coast very dangerous.

[JB - Jontinius Bruin]

You are 100% correct there are no sources at sea, so no realm spells. I didn't use a realm spell. I in fact am unable to cast realm spells at all as a Bard. It was the power of my blood that let me enact that effect, akin to Shireen blasting Undead but different. I am The "Ally of All".

[TH - The Hunt]

Nifty! I assume you're referring to the mass defection thing.