NationStates Jolt Archive

Here is what The Test of Time is: A Past Tech RP Earth that uses all the old ways of fighting. You create your own nation and treat it just like any other NS Earth.

What the Test of Time is not: Fantasy. There is no magic what-so-ever in this. I dont want any LOTR beasts here.

How Nantion Stats are Figured: To get your Test of Time nation stats, just take your regular NS stats and divide them by 100. That will give you your stats. An examaple is a nation with 3 billion people would have 30 million people in The Test of Time.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I really want this to be a fun RP. Nothing too serious, but still in line. All tech and military units are subject to my approval as well. We also ask that nations under 6 months old to submit a sample of their writing. This is to ensure quality. Sorry if it causes any inconvience.

People Signed Up:
USSNA - [Admin]
Doomingsland - [Mod]

I'm interested in joining, with a Roman Empire theme.

Wow, that's ironic, I'm doing a Roman Empire theme, too...

It's like rai-eeee-ain on your wedding day... Wait, that's not ironic. Nevermind.

Ok, Imperial China, and if no one goes for ancient Japan and Mongolia, I'll incorporate aspects of those into it too.

Guys, you dont have to claim a specific country. You can be the brits with Samurai archers or whatnot. Think of it like II only a few hundred years back.

I know. Just trying to have a little variety in the themes of the nations. It'll be a tad bit more interesting than half a dozen people playing with a Roman theme, right?

I wish to join with a Norse like nation of thier stature, but they posses Roman displine and training. Also I wish to know can my people have a average life span that is three or four times longer then average humans? If not I will accept normal lifespan.

That goes into the fantasy realm, in my opinion, Scan. But then it's USSNA's opinion that counts here.

is a Goblin subrace acceptable, this nation is under 6 months old but I am a puppet of several nations, originating from Spooty which is 8 months old this coming wednesday so do I have to submit a piece of writing?

is a Goblin subrace acceptable, this nation is under 6 months old but I am a puppet of several nations, originating from Spooty which is 8 months old this coming wednesday so do I have to submit a piece of writing?
No Goblins, that's in the realm of fantasy.

No to the goblins, and the long life spans.... well maybe a few of your leaders can be like in their 60s 70s or even 80s. But nothing like 2-3 times the average life span.

Meh, bump.

i'm interested. not sure exactly how i would theam it. i'll try and steer away from rome though .. anyway, my nation is under six months, but i'm not sure what you want for a sample. i don't do charicter based so well, at least, not if i have to deal with more than one or two charicters, but when describeing tech and battle manouvers and such like, i am quite good, i think. so yeah, tell me what kind of sample you want and i'll try to come up with something. just gotta remenber to type it up in word and spell check it, or you'll often end up with a load of incoherant drivle.

other question: how far back are we going? for example, english longbowmen and french knights would pretty well destroy roman legions, though they may have trouble with the tortoise, and most midle ages european armys were quite good at seigecraft, wich the chinese never mastered, while the roman era chinese had a lot of strageic genious to go around. then you got romes standing armys compaired to china's vertually untrained pesants, compaired to midievel europes half trained foot troops, and elete knights and so on.. so.. yeah, ancient or medieval, basicly? i lost my point in this paragraph :(

You can go back as far as you like. And I think your wrong about the archers and knights defeating romans. Give them the tortise and when the kights try and charge in all they get are shields. Roman legion were about the formation, medieval warriors were about the individual warrior. But either side has weaknesses.

It is going to be interesting how this weill pan out.

BTW you can go back as far as you like. Just nothing MT like cannons and guns.

BTW you can go back as far as you like. Just nothing MT like cannons and guns.

"Nothing MT" is a little relative, since 1000AD isn't MT, but by then, the Chinese had long known about gunpowder and had either developed or were in the process of developing guns, fireworks, rockets, bombs, and cannons (cannons came about another couple hundred years later, which were used to defend the Great Wall against the invading Mongolians with). So, the Chinese were using cannons while the European knight hadn't even developed into the "shining armor" visage that we invision in fantasy books nowadays.

But yes, I understand what you mean ;)

As for the knights vs legionary tortoise formation, the knights would win, hands down. The tortoise formation is good against arrows or other light projectile weapons, like stones and javelins and stuff. But I think we can all agree that it can't stand up to a direct hit from a catapult. Now, when you're talking about a knight, you're talking about a heavy cavalry with a big warhorse. If you've ever seen a warhorse, you'd know those things are frickin' huge. If you've got several of them charging at you at top speed, decked out in armor? Now it's not exactly the same thing as being hit by a catapult, but I'd say it's a lot more similar to that than getting a few dinky arrows thrown at you.

There's also little that the legionaries could do in that formation to counter a charge from heavy cavalry. The tortoise formation is extremely slow, so you can't run away in that formation very easily. It's so cramped inside the tortoise that individual mobility of the soldiers is virtually nil, meaning they can't even stick their shortswords out the gap between the front shield and shield on top of it (not that a shortsword could do much in that scenario anyway), so the charging cavalry has nothing to worry about from them.

In fact, there's a historical case that proves the tortoise formation is worthless against heavy cavalry. In the Battle of Carrhae against the Parthians, whenever the legionaries were in normal formations, they got attacked by horsed archers. So they went into the tortoise formation, since that's designed to protect them from light projectiles. But when they did this, the Parthian cataphracts (heavy cavalry) charged, forcing the legionaries to break their tortoise formation lest they be slaughtered. Of course, when they broke the tortoise formation, the archers fired again.

Heh heh, that's why I wanted to have a Roman theme, since I know their strengths and weaknesses fairly well. But the Chinese are cool too, and very underplayed. (By the way, scholars estimate that certain Imperial Chinese dynasties had standing armies of professional soldiers numbering one to two million people. In fact, the Forbidden City itself had thousands of professional soldiers stationed there.)

No to the goblins, and the long life spans.... well maybe a few of your leaders can be like in their 60s 70s or even 80s. But nothing like 2-3 times the average life span.Okay, just thought is was wirth asking. Alright, I will have a people who's average lifespan is between 45-55 years, but I wonder is that apporaite for the time period this rp is in?

actually, if i remember rightly, the tortoise should be able to withstand anything short of a trebuchet landing on top of it. they used to test the strength of them by rideing chariots over the top, if i remember rightly, but it certainly didn't protect the rear or the right flank. not sure about the left. it was specificaly designed to advance under fire from ranged weaponary. knights would pretty much destroy them, as would mongol horse archers and so on. however, against foot troops, the legions should Always win, near enough, because most other forces focused on the individual warrior, generaly armed and armoured to make him as powerful as posible. this resulted in two handed weapons, poll arms, and so on, meaning that at Least 3 roman legionarys could generaly face each individual warrior, as the warriors friends could not stand with him due to the arc described by his swinging weapon. the legionaires, on the other hand, had short swords and large sheilds, allowing them to take the hits, so they could fight a lot closer togeather, useing their swords primaraly as stabing weapons.

heavy cavlery, on the other hand, would destroy the legions, as it was more heavyly armed, armoured, faster, and generaly fought almost as close togeather, at least in it's initial charge.

however, for all this debate about the legions, apparantly the roman cavlery was more significant in decideing most battles? i read that somewhere, i don't know.

heh. yeah, still not sure what kind of sample you wanted?

humm.. this reminds me: the Maori warrior, armed with taiahu [wooden, hardend in peat swamps.. very nasty.] and.. i forget the name of the other weapon at the moment. short greenstone sword, evectively. no point, one continuous edge the whole way around. had a cord in the end of it that went around the wrist so if the warrior droped it, it would just fall to the end of the cord and stop. greenstone is a type of jade, possibly better than iron for strength, but definatly worse than steel.

anyway, this warrior, it is thought, is the most leathel in melee combat ever. anywhere. when New Zealand was colinized it was stated that the only defence against these guys was a loaded gun. if it wasn't loaded, they were on you, you were dead. bayonets, swords and riffle/musket butts weren't enough to stop them.

they have been tested against french fencers, german infantry [dureing world war two. don't ask me how it came about, but it did] and japanese martial artists of various sorts [in styles that use weaponary] and i do not know of a single case where they lost. so, yeah, expect to see them makeing an appearance.

on an interesting note, the maori also became experts at fortifications. they were able to build things of wood and flax and dirt that would withstand HOURS of british cannon fire, and were very difficult for the british infantry to take if they got up to them [by this point the maori also had guns, however, amunition was very limited, so where possible they still engaged in melee combat. it should also be noted that there were maori and europeans on both sides of most engagements in the New Zealand wars, however there are few better labels, because in a lot of cases even "governement" and "rebel" was inaccurate, or at least easyly applyed to both sides]

... and once again, i've ended up going off at a tangent. but any way, that's my two cents... or possibly two dollars, there's a lot in there :)

Have you guys ever heard of spears? It has been proven that no matter how well trained a horse is, it will not charge into a wall of spears. The Romans even brought about the demise of the chariot.

A tortise with spears sticking out would be effective against calvary. Cavalry no matter how well armed should not be used in a frontal assault on a well disiplined force. They should attack from the flanks and rear.

Anyway. Within the next few post. Tell me if your in so I can update the list.

Yeah, pikemen are good against cavalry. But if we're talking about the real-world legionaries of Rome during the height of the empire, then they didn't use spears. They used the pilum, a javelin designed to pierce standard shields and then bend, making them useless afterwards, which each soldier carried two of. These, however, were not designed to keep hold off cavalry as a pike was. Of course, you can still use them for that purpose, but they won't be as effective.

As for using it in a tortoise formation, well, you can either create a wall of spears, or you can go into the tortoise formation, but not both. At least, not if you want either to be very effective. Remember, the tortoise is a very tight formation. Soldiers in it don't have much room to breathe, let alone position a wall of spears, which requires a fair of amount to space to be done correctly. Even if done, probably the only ones who could position their spears are the legionaries on the outsides of the formation, so that there is only one layer of spear per space inbetween the shields (phalanx formations, which are very good at keeping enemies at bay, require overlapping layers of spears from soldiers standing one behind the other, typically 4-6 meters in length, sometimes even 8, compared to the pilum's 2 meters). Since there is a lot more gaps in the shields due to the spears, the tortoise formation is no longer as effective at blocking projectiles (that was the whole point of it, to seal off as much exposure between the shields as possible to prevent any projectiles from getting through). So, sparse pila sticking out of a tortoise makes for a very shoddy wall of spears and a less effective wall of shields. If it could've been done effectively, the Romans would've done it. Since they didn't...

One of main roles of heavy cavalry is a frontal assault. In the middle ages, after a volley or two of arrows from the archers, a line of knights would charge with their lances. Few things could stand up against a solid line of knights with really long, really pointy sticks pointed right at you. Add into that the fact that you can literally feeling the ground shaking under you from the 2000-pound horses (that's not including all the armor and the knight). Exact figures aren't known, but a charging warhorse could probably reach 30mph, maybe even faster, since warhorses were trained for short-distance, fast-acceleration sprinting rather than long-distance, steady-paced racing. The enemy soldiers, if they weren't in some form of a phalanx formation using some form of a pike, would be mauled and trampled, and their line would be broken. That's one reason why knights were so deadly in their charges.

Historically, lots of battles involved frontal charges against disciplined forces. The Battle of Issus, for example, between Alexander the Great and Darius III. Darius began the battle with a heavy cavalry charge against the Macedonian phalanx under the command of Parmenion. Later on, Alexander led a direct cavalry assault right into the midst of Darius' forces. Sounds stupid, right? Well, he managed to get close enough to Darius to scare the crap out of Darius, resulting in Darius' immediate retreat.

Speaking of Alexander, he's the reason why chariot warfare started to decline in that region (although the Etruscans continued to use chariots, which they probably got from the Greeks). When enemies came in with chariots, his men would just open up and let the chariots go right through them, then attack the chariots from behind. That's why the Romans didn't use them for warfare, but rather for racing and processions.

Heh, I think maybe I shouldn't play. I fear I might turn this into a lot of OOC debate about the effectiveness of unit A vs unit B. I could mod if ya want, but you probably hate me by now ;)

well, i know I"M interested! i've lernt more in these last two pages than possibly the sum total of every history unit in any subject i've ever taken at school. though less than i learnt from reading random books.

anyway, if you'll take me, i'm definatly in.

heh. this is deffinatly going to be easyer than MT or PMT, i can see that already. we acutally have historical referances for the effectiveness of most unit types against most other unit types, with some obvious exceptions. or at least some exceptions that will become obvious if they ever occure in the RP.

tactics, on the other hand, have potentual to be Very interesting, as does anyone who desides to be Zhuge Liang level creative with the seige engines and so on. [ok, at least as creative as he's protrade in romance of the three kingdoms and al related games, i'm aware he probibly wasn't THAT great IRL]

oh yes.. this is going to be interesting.

Well that is one of the fun things about an RP of this type, we can debate if unit A can defeat unit B. Give reasons and continue. And no I dont hate you. I like this open ended atmosphere.

I think as soon as we get around maybe 10 people we can start. But that might be a while.... lol

The illustrous armed forces of the Blessed Chris will join, and fight in a manner dictated by its Lord High Imperator when he can bothered to decide

looks to me like it might be a Long while.. i'd actually like to participate in an RP that isn't just embasy exchange soemtime in the near future. everything that looks any good wants proof to previous experiance... and everything else is garbage. on the up side: Romance of the Three Kingdoms VIII. .. umm.. yeah. it's set in the era we're dealing with here. that is all. this has officially been a very long winded bump.