War Rules

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DM Juan
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Re: War Rules

Post by DM Juan » Mon Sep 16, 2019 7:59 pm

Yes, of course.

Combine making all the money, with being able to train the most units the quickest... ;-)

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TH - The Hunt
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Re: War Rules

Post by TH - The Hunt » Mon Sep 16, 2019 8:04 pm

It's nice to have the best army, but history is littered with examples of 'superior troops' getting broken and annihilated due to terrain, logistics, tactics, or weather. And armies that clearly could have won if they'd tried, being defeated by their own poor morale. There's many examples where these defeats were not temporary setbacks for the armies that suffered them, they were the turning point of the war, or the end of their campaign. So... nah. History would have been pretty boring if the ones who won just kept winning.
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MS - Meaghan Smith
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Re: War Rules

Post by MS - Meaghan Smith » Mon Sep 16, 2019 8:32 pm

Those tend to be the outliers, not the common. Best trained, best equipped, and best led win more often than not.
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TH - The Hunt
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Re: War Rules

Post by TH - The Hunt » Mon Sep 16, 2019 8:40 pm

Heh. When it comes to judging the 'best', it takes a special sort of person to look at the armies who fought and say 'the one who lost was better'. Or to accept that opinion. It's easier to be objective about which one had the most expensive training and funding behind it. Which, more often than not, ended up being an invasion fleet that never managed to land intact...
"The Hunt rides. The Hunt protects."

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MS - Meaghan Smith
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Re: War Rules

Post by MS - Meaghan Smith » Mon Sep 16, 2019 8:58 pm

You're right. Everyone should ignore better troops going forward. Please ensure all troops are only of levy quality and no leadership. All ships should be of Longship or Barge quality and without leadership as well.

Again, the outliers are the lesser trained, equipped, or led winning (even in those instances there tend to be other factors involved). For the vast majority of history, battles were and are won by the better trained, better equipped, and better led.
Meaghan 'the Smith'

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"What has been built cannot be destroyed, save by those without vision, heart, or inspiration."

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TH - The Hunt
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Re: War Rules

Post by TH - The Hunt » Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:34 pm

Unless the weather was bad. Or the field was muddy. Or it was cold. Or something else went wrong.

If this was a rule and not just a guideline, the world would be filled with intercontinental empires, and history would be full of battles between them... until one of them inevitably conquered the whole world. It's not realistic and it's not good game design if it works that way, unless the game is simply supposed to be over quickly. It's not just 'outlier cases' where upsets occur, there's whole categories. Like 'don't fight a land war in Asia'. They don't say that because Asia is full of rich, well-equipped armies, they say that because 'winners' lose when they try to invade the continent.

I's not very useful to say an army is 'better led' or 'better-equipped' when any assessment of these traits is going to be revised in hindsight, based on how successful it was. The reason the best armies are most likely to win is because armies that win are more likely to be considered the best armies.
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MS - Meaghan Smith
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Re: War Rules

Post by MS - Meaghan Smith » Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:52 pm

Let's use circular logic (or use the term to define the term)...that's always helpful.

I'm not going to take the time to dissect the rest. Any decent study of history shows the gaps in your statement.
Meaghan 'the Smith'

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"What has been built cannot be destroyed, save by those without vision, heart, or inspiration."

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TH - The Hunt
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Re: War Rules

Post by TH - The Hunt » Mon Sep 16, 2019 10:07 pm

Mm, well if the best army is the one that wins, it follows that the decent study of history is the one that agrees with you. It's much easier to judge the quality of something based on the outcomes it reaches. Trying to predict what outcome it will reach based on its initial qualities is much more work and much less emotionally rewarding; only in hindsight can you be certain, after all.
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JB - Jana Boulderbrew
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Re: War Rules

Post by JB - Jana Boulderbrew » Tue Sep 17, 2019 12:03 am

History is written by the victors. The authenticity of many things we "know" is dubious.

Games always have to find a balance between simplicity and authenticity. Generally the better army wins. However, sometimes you do roll a fumble on your attack.... That is how those freak occurrences are modeled.
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SG - Sigrun Godefroy
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Re: War Rules

Post by SG - Sigrun Godefroy » Tue Sep 17, 2019 2:35 am

It might be helpful for in the future adding some modifiers that can give a boost to defenders if they are weaker units, like an on home ground advantage

making the generals be important to the battle can help too.

because while the better army generally wins, there is a hilariously large amount of smaller armies winning threwout history, ranging from farmers using the terrain to win a battle outnumbered 12-1, the hilarious amount of maulings the ottomans got in the balkans from smaller armies. stonewall jackson and his crippling of the unionist army, the hussite wars in general. even napoleon was often out numbered and out gunned but managed to win alot of the time.

but we do need to strike a balance

the main problem is that if you lose one battle it's often game over, you also can't use guerilla or scorched earth tactics to buy time, or even raid supply lines. The game it's self is set up for the larger army to generally win with little counter play except get better troops faster.
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