Raid Action

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YK - Yuri Khavlor
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Raid Action

Post by YK - Yuri Khavlor » Fri Jun 05, 2020 6:19 am

[+] Raid Action
Raid Action
Base Cost: 0GB
DC: 5 (Base)
- Province Level (Larger provinces are easier to raid as they are richer)
+ (2x Fortification level)
+ Terrain Defense Modifier (not racial modifier)
- Lowest move in raiding units (The faster the raiding units can move the more likely they are to avoid patrols)
+ Highest move in defending units (Fast moving defenders can catch raiding units)
- # of raiding units with the Scout special (Trained scouts are good at avoiding defenders)
+ # of defending units with the Scout special (Scouts are good at spotting raiders)
+ 5x Watchtower level (Spots incoming raiders)

Note: Max # of units that can raid are 2x Province level.

Success gets you 1GB + 1GB per 5 you succeed by per raiding unit. GB's are stolen from all province/holdings equally with excess theft allocated to Province>Guild>Temple>Law (i.e. 6 GB is stolen, each type of holding loses 1GB (total 4GB) and then the excess is allocated to Province and Guild). You may only steal 2GB per unit you send.

You may opt to Raid for resources instead. You can gain 1 Resource produced in the province per 5 you beat the DC by, but no more than 1 resource per unit sent. The target loses GB per resource stolen as per the above breakdown. Note: 1 Resource is sufficient to use for a build action, or for a train action (ie, 1 wood could be used to help build a Granary if you have alternative access to stone, or to train 1 archer).

You can raid a trade route. This works exactly as above, except the party that loses the GB is the owner of the trade route. You still attack in a province along the route. You may, if targeting a trade route, raid for any resource that it brings along the chain.

Failure deals 1 hit per amount you fail the action by. You deal no hits to the defenders.

NB: You cannot raid for unavailable GB. Further, if you steal resources and the target(s) do not have sufficient GB to cover the cost of the raid, instead loyalty will drop per unavailable GB.

Each successful Raid lowers loyalty 1 step.
The original published rules do not have rules for raiding. From my perspective previous versions of raid were used to force units into lopsided battles without a chance for reinforcements (Especially naval). Leading to changes and the current version primarily used for loyalty hits rather than wealth accumulation.(superior to agitate in almost every way, especially when combined with a successful Espionage Theft.)

Resource raiding was added to this version, was it even used?

I have never been a fan of the action being a zero-sum proposal. Real pillaging a province does not rob a regent's treasury, I don't see how raid should do anything except maybe impact the taxes for the next season. It makes little sense to me, that loyalty drops if the treasury is being raided and not the populous. It makes little sense that the regent's treasury is emptied if it is the populous losing their wealth.

I would propose eliminating Raid as an action, and replaced with an additional option for Declare War, and Warfare Adventures.

1) Declare War
The declare war modifications allow for chevauchée tactics used to reduce resources available to the enemy and undermine the loyalty a support from their own lands. A raiding tactic used to draw the enemy out of their fortifications to engage in battle. It allows for quicker hit an run tactics to damage opponents without the need for thoroughly occupying then pillaging the entire province or holding.


Units can spend war moves to raid a target holding. This allows for a free contest action against unfortified holds, using the number of units using their war move as a modifier for the action.
Units can spend war moves to plunder a province reducing its loyalty and performing a light taxation on the province (less 1 GB per level of Castle). Any GB received in this matter reduces the amount received from the next collection of tax, or pillaging whichever is first. A province can be plundered once per season.

A plundered province would a lose loyalty, but not a second time if occupied.

*** In case I needed clarification, if the holding and province is being actively defended by a garrison they would need to be defeated before undertaking this action.

2) For those pursuing Viking style raids in search of wealth and glory, might be better represented as an adventure-style action. Balance and modifiers might need to be tweaked for hits to make this viable, given most units are destroyed by 3 hits. Perhaps the introduction of unit-level 'advanced potions' or magic banner/pennants might be introduced for this purpose.

Adventure Raid:

EPL = APL + Average Tier + ( 1 per unit type) + (1 per unit) + 2 (Potion of Warfare) + NWP Bonus

Hits
+1 hit per defending unit garrisoned in the province
+1 hit per terrain appropriate defending unit
-1 hit Healing NWP
-1 Hit Herbalism NWP
Stone skin potion reduces hits assigned to adventurers only.
Standard: Exploding D6

Treasure Roll
-1 per level of Castle fortification
-1/2 level of holding fortification
APL = Average Party Level is calculated as usual.
Standard GB & RP
Standard No Magic Items
If would otherwise roll for:
Minor item: Targeted province loses loyalty DC = 10 + Province + Law - GB&RP rewarded
Major: 2d6 2-4 Matter of Justice, 5-7 Great Captain, 8-10 Brigands, 11-12 Diplomatic Incident
Great: 2d6 2 Regent Captured 3-5 Lt captured 6-8 Important NPC captured (ransom or diplomatic incident) 9-11 2d2+ GB stolen & minor 12 2d4+1 GB stolen & major

Maximum units that can be used for the raid is:
-- (Max = The Regent/LT taking the action's number of WP from levels)
-- or (Max = Chosen DC , with +1 or +2 if Warrior class)
-- or (Max = 5, additional units do not improve success but can share hits)
Types of Units (Max +1 per unit, Max +1 per type)
-- Primary Melee (Irregular, Infantry, Pike)
-- Primary Missile (Scout, Archer, )
-- Terrain Appropriate (ie. Mounted vs plains, oared vs rivers, sail vs coastal, Elf/Halfling/Scouts any, Dwarf vs mountain, goblin vs forest)
-- Heavy/Elite (Med/Heavy Infantry, Knights, Ogres, Engineers)
-- Specialized (Reavers, Scavengers. Drakkar, longships)
Last edited by YK - Yuri Khavlor on Fri Jun 05, 2020 8:54 am, edited 2 times in total.
YK - Yuri Khavlor
Lord Mayor of Lyssan
“Nature is not cruel, but pitilessly indifferent. The hardest lesson for one to learn, is to admit that things might be neither good nor evil, but simply callous -- indifferent to all suffering"

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CSF - Flint
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Re: Raid Action

Post by CSF - Flint » Fri Jun 05, 2020 8:30 am

Raid action currently is very broken and I would definitely like to see it changed, I am not sure either of those options is much better.

Option 1:
Costs:
Aggressor spends one action, requires military (req. military not a balancing factor since if you dont have military you wont be a realm for long anyways)

Results:
Free contest
Resource theft

Assessment:
This is contest plus a theft action rolled into one with zero risk.

Option 2:
Costs:
Aggressor spends one action, requires military (req. military not a balancing factor since if you dont have military you wont be a realm for long anyways)
Potential hits? This is a bit vague but allowing units to also take hits might not be a negative since 5 more units is 5 more places the hits could be allocated, reducing the overall lethality even more since it will be less likely to stack hits in a single place.

Results:
Adventure rewards (GB, RP)
Very likely Loyalty loss
Moderately likely action tax with random event
Rarely also captures characters and even more resources

Assessment:
The gains are on par with current adventure action, potential for abuse with the 5 levies you brought with you making it easier to complete harder DC's of adventure at relatively lower cost. Where it exceeds current actions is the magical item rule penalties for your target, which far outstrip current action alternatives. One action would gain you a significant GB/RP return (1 action equivalent), very likely loyalty loss equivalent to agitate (2 actions equivalent) with the potential for forcing random event (2 action equivalent plus resources) or worse, regent loss (2 actions plus significant resources)
Anytime a player can spend one action to gain resources and cause another player to lose resources and another action (potentially 2) we are looking at at minimum an imbalance, likely a situation ripe for abuse.

Thoughts and Suggestions:
Action economy is at the heart of the mechanics of the game, whatever rule we come up with cant be worth more than 1 action equivalent. Compare the returns to other actions which already exist as a litmus test for power balance (agitate, adventure, contest, theft, declare war, etc. All seem to intersect here.)
I recognize that 'making an enemy' is a cost, but it is only paid once, perhaps not at all if already hostile.
If the only counterplay is a large scale player eliminating invasion is that a play pattern we want to encourage? (see skelk raid abuse this campaign)
If we are adding rules we generally want it to solve a problem or add something enjoyable to the game. What is raid accomplishing for us?
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YK - Yuri Khavlor
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Re: Raid Action

Post by YK - Yuri Khavlor » Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:01 am

TA - Niall Cole wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 8:30 am
Raid action currently is very broken and I would definitely like to see it changed, I am not sure either of those options is much better.

Option 1:
Costs:
Aggressor spends one action, requires military (req. military not a balancing factor since if you dont have military you wont be a realm for long anyways)

Results:
Free contest
Resource theft

Assessment:
This is contest plus a theft action rolled into one with zero risk.
Free contest with limited results and chance of failure vs All holdings automatically reduced to 0 after 3 war moves to establish occupation.
Light taxation & loyalty drop vs Heavy taxation & multiple loyalty drops
A small penalty to income (not theft) vs all income lost until the occupation ends.

The option offers a less powerful, but faster way to do what is being done already

Zero risk?! It requires marching armies into someone's province and winning a battle.
Last edited by YK - Yuri Khavlor on Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
YK - Yuri Khavlor
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CSF - Flint
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Re: Raid Action

Post by CSF - Flint » Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:07 am

I misunderstood, I thought the first suggestion was an action you could take independent of the current war system. Does this suggestion require occupation or just that there are no defenders in the province?
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Re: Raid Action

Post by YK - Yuri Khavlor » Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:11 am

It is is an 'occupation light' recommendation. Quicker and less effective than a thorough occupation.

My understanding units would not be able to take such an action, unless the provinces defenders are killed or withdrawn.
YK - Yuri Khavlor
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“Nature is not cruel, but pitilessly indifferent. The hardest lesson for one to learn, is to admit that things might be neither good nor evil, but simply callous -- indifferent to all suffering"

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Re: Raid Action

Post by WB - Water's Blessing » Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:36 am

The point of a raid action was/is to create a tier of military activity below the "declare war" threshold that wouldn't immediately result in all-out warfare. To that end, raid seems at least somewhat successful -- occasional raids do not seem to elicit the same sort of reaction that a "declare war and occupy" move would, but heavy raiding will.

The problem with any action that requires declare war is that we, as players, do not handle the idea of limited war very well. Once we start fighting a war, we usually go for the kill. Raid is supposed to be that sort of limited war route, and the different mechanics are meant to prevent an immediate escalation to all-out fighting. It's also supposed to be useful for simulating bandit and pirate activity. Any move away from the raid action would need to help prevent the outbreak of wars, which I do not think this proposed rule change would do.
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Re: Raid Action

Post by TH - The Hunt » Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:39 am

What's this about a free contest action? I don't see that in the rules text.
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Re: Raid Action

Post by CSF - Flint » Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:40 am

Raid only counterplay right now is all out war, if the desire was to avoid it, it is having the opposite effect.
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Re: Raid Action

Post by TH - The Hunt » Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:43 am

No... You can defend against it, you can destroy the raiders in the staging province alone, you can use a non-military response, you can agitate (possibly for free) to prevent the raid from doing more than economic damage, and you can just absorb the losses. For a large realm, all-out war is likely to cost more than tolerating the raids would.
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Re: Raid Action

Post by WM - The Waste Mage » Fri Jun 05, 2020 11:05 am

Just change watch tower to a single level building. Make it slightly more expensive. If province with a watch tower is raided all your units in that province can meet the raiders in a real battle if you choose to do so. Gives the ability to end the raids or slow them down when the raider loses a bunch of units in a battle. At first raiders will have a free hand... but should slowly die out as realms get stronger and built up.

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