NationStates Jolt Archive

appart from that paint sucks when you have anything else available? not really :D

i'm guessing Phil has something better available :)

You are correect sir. MSPaint is for images that you will print out, like designs and such. You need a web-based application like Macromedia Firefox(I Use the MX version). On MSPaint you won't notice its piwely but my program has a much wider color scale and therefor the pixels show up. It's really annoying when you have to go around with the pencil and color single pixels. :P

Reallydrunk, how big is the armyof yours actually? How many men-at-arms are currently visible to Ralish/Madnestian troops, how many knights have charged on either side, how much cavalry do you still have in position? How many archers are shooting, how many and what does that "artillery" actually include?

I would like to see these numbers just to get a bit clearer view on what's actually happening there, before posting further. :)

Reallydrunk, how big is the armyof yours actually? How many men-at-arms are currently visible to Ralish/Madnestian troops, how many knights have charged on either side, how much cavalry do you still have in position? How many archers are shooting, how many and what does that "artillery" actually include?

I would like to see these numbers just to get a bit clearer view on what's actually happening there, before posting further. :)

Ok, in total my forces are somewhere around 6 thousand strong including my new arrivals...1 more lord is still a half days ride from the border, there are still three lords in the south who have not came to support us yet aswell. Each lord brought his own forces to assist in the fighting, i have forces being trained lower in the north aswell, 250 being outfitted for the trade which they are best qualifyed...all my new recruits are volunteers.

My visible troops would be.. 13 knights(Nobles)..14 including Locke himself, i have 500 infantry on the field, 600 heavy cavelry, 150 cavelry and the rest are behind the lines prepared for movement when i feel right....i have musted the majority of my forces here, this is where we make our stand/point. There are 300 heavy cavelry on each side, 150 cavelry up the middle, 500 infantry up the middle.....

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/7531/yeoldemapwt9.png

New map.

Ok, RD. I Think I'll wait Ralish's response before posting anything else at this point...


And Philanchez, I have thought Madnestan to be a bit thinner from both sides. It seems like it's getting fatter and fatter with every map version you guys make :p
But other than that, GUTWG!

But my cavelry just crashed into your warriors...

No responce to that?

Awwhhh....last time i cheaked he had around 4-5 thousand strong and he just lost around 2.....plus what ever happens to perish out of those 1500 men or so....

You have got enough heavy horse bearing down on you right now alone to crush another force it's self, plus the supplys have been burned, the morale is low.....

The first mistake by letting Locke draw The Ralish in.. it was costly....Angermans spys are all about causing trouble...fear must be spreading like wild fire....

imagine....

My reserves are also visible!...including more heavy horse, if you need to be refeshed on how they look please see my pictures on the front page...

And the others are watching my men trampel those who run, turning around at their last moment begging for mercy which none will be shown in this case...not to say Osteians show no quarter because those taken prisoner will not be harmed...

Yeah, you crushed into my warriors, but if I'd respond to that, you would immediately write a reply about your further moves, to which I would have to reply, and so on and so forth... we have 3 writers taking part in this battle, and I think that the best way is to have us all to post the actions of one's men before the others continue. :)

I will hold off on further posts realizing that we do have three writers taking part, i just want to see my effect...

:)

Anyone remember me? I am interested in this RP(the old one rocked till it stagnated).....could someone update me on your decided rules, map, time and also a brief description on whats going on. I normally find the opening post is out of date for this sort of thing and im assuming this has been going on awhile.

Frozo!! it's me reallydrunk....

Ok, now for fillin you in, and the last one was great....

Medieval times, everyone has made a factbook...any tech in the time is avalible, no guns, magic.....

Osteia is fighting for it's independance against The Ralish, others have military ambitions at this present time aswell....

Alliances are being formed, trade....the normal stuff.....

Good to see you..

Oh, sorry, Angerman! I've got more threads than I expected I'd have to look at. I'll search out the ones you're talking about and try to respond ASAP.

Back soon.

(Damn wine is making this difficult!)

One, is the battle in my factbook...

Lol, umm wine....i can't wait till this weekend, downtown again.....

Gotta love it...

perhaps, Ralish, you should do this Before getting drunk? *laughs*

umm... i said Northern finland, Phil, now i don't have Any of finland :confused: :(

i'm ment to have the southern half of it. is it just me, or is Aridiris getting bigger? it would make sense if it were creaping north, seeing as how the Ralish doesn't really seem to have much up there... but south it's headed into what is probibly the 'heartland' of the empire.


and it still think the Ralish is too thick south of terra incognitia... infact it also seems to be getting thicker every time...

anyway, that bit about finland was kind of important... it contains my only significant port!

edit: you know, my spys would have been working amongst Madenstines men too... though piossibly in lesser numbers and to lesser effect... given how far they are from home, would not the burning of supplies cause Them plenty of problems? there are a lot of them, after all....

During this conflict with the Ralish i only intend to extend my borders a little bit, not too far..just gain a little bit more land for my own, most importantly independance.

There could have been a peaceful resolve...

Now my men will fight till the bitter end, we are gaining support as we go along...

:)

oh yeah, Frozo, i've been trying to keep the front page as up to date as possible.

this RP is mostly following the same 'rules' as the one Aust started, only with [hopefully] fewer glitches and hickups.

and i'm reminded that my factbook needs updating [still/again]

more stuff that should go in it keeps cropping up *laughs*

Hey, Frozo, nice to see you again.

I've posted my attack on Frisia now: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/newthread.php?do=postthread&f=1230

You can put it under the war threads.

Also, as per RP with Osteia, Iceland and Greenland have joined the Empire. I still have to do the Madeira and Canaries though.

Yup, yup,

I hope given my points made in the Osteian factbook you(The Ralish) will consider not having 20,000 men on hand....given the statisics i have seen most of them would not even be worth putting on the field at all, civilians with anything that could be used as a weapon...

Common...

I don't mean to complain but, how the hell would you support such a force in one area....or see the need to place it there....

It's insane...

Also...

The result of my oil fire was much more grave than you had described, i waited untill the majority of your force was WELL inside where i wanted them to be, and you said when they were retreating they looked back? who in the right mind would look back when they had broken ranks and ran...all one would be thinking is..

**Too much confusion, must run...going to get trampled!**

The results of your men turning back were faaar to great and organized for this given situation.....it would have been more like a dozen men joining the charge, others would be bent of escaping....

given what they just seen...who would want to turn back...really...

plus the Madnestans would have already been engauged by the time it took you to organize another attack, the cavelry was bearing down on them hard....they were well into the charge before they even moved.....

I suggest you reveiw these given facts and face reality...

Im just not speaking in my own favor, i have went over everything so far...it just don't work...

Aramil, I posted a response in my factbook.

you've both been guilty of a little minor GMing, actually.. forces hitting without the chance for reaction, and so on...

but yeah, Ralish, you really arn't takeing the factors into account properly... leaving asside the rediculousness of that army, given that it's only really been a few days since Osteia actally got moveing, it's more likely that the retreat from such a fire attack, even a mostly faild one, would have disrupted madenstines lines, and been chopped appart, especially if it's made of peasants. the odds of even a Guardsman turning back to fight at that point are probibly quite low.

as for your planned counter invasion...

i'm not foolish enough to pull my border defenses for an attack, and i have not even really Begun to call on the pesant militia. my attack force is half my standing army, and the rest is made up of personal troops of nobles from the interrior and north.

have fun actually getting anywhere with that :) oh, but there'll be much fighting, which shall be fun enough, i suppose :D

sudden shocked thought:

Please, God, don't let this turn into another bambino seige.

it looks depressingly like it might be about to go that way *sigh*

If others who have read the thread have any input feel free to post it, i want to know the opinion of others on this matter.....

Please if you have the time reveiw actions made by both partys, The Ralish aswell as myself....

I hope it will help the situation...

My attack was flawless, i caused complete and utter chaos then struck hard while everything was in a clusterf**k

Eh, what're you talking about? Border forces? Across tens of thousands of kilometres? If we could do that, your invasion would have ended in abject slaughter on the river. You're attacking an Empire that is as if ten or twenty countries, my forces come only from each area big enough to support them.

There's been nowt to make Guardsmen break, yet. They'll break when they're broken, not before.

I dunno, maybe some people need to read-up on how ancient battles actually went, and think about scales and resources.

I'm entirely confident of my positions so far.

It won't let me edit that post to clarify that the first bit was directed at Angermanland!

It would be impossible to launch a counter attack of that scale...even with your allies who jumped in...your men running would have disrupted and slowed it, then be crushed under my hooves....

yes my cavelry comming from the left, 300, would have been overwhelmed but i planned to back that up with my center and right.... who would close around them,

Then my reserves were sent in....

i had this planned out and it half went as i expected before certian events took place, the field was mine!...

:)

Nothing personal Ralish, strictly gaming....

Caladonn, you're war thread doesn't seem to want to load. might want to check up on that.

frankly, peasant soldiers are rubbish... they fight, charge, flee, etc on the actions of their generals.

if their general charges, they will Follow... if he dies, they'll flee given half a chance or even less.

especially when facing an enemy with supperior equipment and training [which, according to the Ralish, is an advantage we All have over him... equipment, at least]

.... this is why i'm Very much loath to call on the peasants to do anything but defend their homes, and why my attack force is small, and why Ostiea should be soundly beating the Ralish in battle, though the madenstine troops may get the better of him, mabey.

of course, things such as the english Archer Society and solid low level leadership, as well as a substantual veteran cor Will mitigate the problem to a large extent.. but only where those things apply. an archer society doesn't do jack for the random guy with a sword or spear, a veteran cor does nothing for a unit with none in it, and low level leadership does not a thing if the leader is incompitant.

you see? things like this are important in such a free form RP.

I think that you've watched too many Hollywood films, mate. Casualties in reality are much more in line with the ones I've described, and the oil I well considered.

Since it must be largely oil from olives and maybe surface wells, it isn't much, and since the front must be thousands of yards wide and tens of hours old, and is clearly at the foot of hills on each side...

You're lucky you caught even one man in the flames. As it happens you caught a large part of two thousand, and broke them. Now the foreign mercs are leaving few options for retreat in the described terrain.

20,000 men is a tiny portion of our available potential. Our men aren;t gathering half as fast as Angermanland and Caledonn and so on are sending messages across thousands of miles, by the way..

Eh, what're you talking about? Border forces? Across tens of thousands of kilometres? If we could do that, your invasion would have ended in abject slaughter on the river. You're attacking an Empire that is as if ten or twenty countries, my forces come only from each area big enough to support them.

There's been nowt to make Guardsmen break, yet. They'll break when they're broken, not before.

I dunno, maybe some people need to read-up on how ancient battles actually went, and think about scales and resources.

I'm entirely confident of my positions so far.

border forces, in this case, being the marc lords. the advantages of a decentralised society, you know :)

none of them are Big, but they're there. and i did keep a good half my army back for other potentual useages.

edit: reguarding pesant soldiers.. that's actually historical truths, for the most part.. admitidly chinese as much as european, but *shrugs*

if they're directly defending their homes, they're a bit less inclined to run away, but no more effective at fighting trianed soldiers.

reguarding messages:

mostly we're makeing use of fluid time.. i'm deliberatly being as careful as possible to take the travel time into account... but without specific numbers there's only so much i can do.

anyway, most of the house of shadows stuff is independant action with similar goals in mind, rather than being co-ordinated and controled. Zachius, for example, knows the Osteians are dissastisfied, and may be able to be tilted towards helping Angermanland, but he does not know that Hera has already acted on thhis, nor has he had the opertunity to do anything about it.

so, yeah.. Trying not to cause problems like that.

besides,a message takes exactly as long as it takes to get from a to b

the gathering and deploying of armys takes Much longer.

Sooo.....what now?

I don't even know what to post?!.....

Ok, given the last post involving the 20,000 men....

i will be forced to retreat back across my border, i have no choice...stay and die..or live to fight another day...

my biggest question really is how that army got orginized, something that big and concentraited, Ahead of time, WITHOUT my spys hearing a word of it [not the worst problem] and, more to the point, how they did it Nowhere Near any sort of barricks/garison/etc... [as, seriously, doing so in such a place would be easily heard of even without my spy networks, And would have lead to the Osteian army avoiding it like the plague.]

And how they managed it in the short space since they actually found out it would be needed [which, incidently, would have been not much less than the time from when the first few Osteian lords began looking hostile untill the battle comenced.

Well, I think that it's incredibly unlikely that half a dozen kingdoms on our borders would revolt at once, but I can't possibly argue against that, as it would totally ruin the RP, wouldn't it?

The Alshorian Empire is fighting tooth and nail. We are shocked by all this aggression, and think that you're all maniacs or something. Our people are defending their homes. And we're largely based on a pre feudal society. Remember Alexander? The Persians? The Hittites? The Gauls? That's the sort of civilisation from whcih we're drawing troops. We do outnumber ...well, frankly, we outnumber all of you combined, and by a wide, wide margine.

But nobdy's really tested our depth. The Osteians may even lose their frontier battle... but they will cost the Empire. Don't you see it that way?

And then Angermanland is attacked by a major horde as he attacks the Empire... but both of those things cost the Empire.

Just have a little patience! Rome doesn't... collapse in a day! It takes a generation of over-stretch. That's what we're facing now, in the Ralish Empire. Don't panic just because the Ralish look like winning a battle or two.

Think of your naton's history! Have you not lost battle after battle with the Alshorians, before now? Yes, you have! But only now are the Ralish victories Phyrirc!

Please, just a little patience, people! :) You can't all win on the first try against the greatest Empire on earth! Think in real terms. You're each landing one of the thousand cuts that kills the biggest giant of them all. It's like trying to bring down the USA- Vietnam alone doesn't do it, you need more. It's coming.

Ahh, so true...but...i have given up the arguement, therefore if my men can just retreat in shame i would be greatful...

You have your victory,

I may have misjudged just how quickly everyone else wants the Empire to fall.

If you'd all prefer, I could make-up a series of old battles in which the Empire had beaten your nations, and then lose the new fights you're bringing up, now.

There, we fell back...

numbers defeated us my friend, numbers....

:)

You will get yours...

Osteia had fallen subject to your empire once ours crashed...nothing anyone could do, the lords were glad just to get somthing...

I may have misjudged just how quickly everyone else wants the Empire to fall.

If you'd all prefer, I could make-up a series of old battles in which the Empire had beaten your nations, and then lose the new fights you're bringing up, now.


Oh, im fine with falling back as long as my men are simply pushed back and not being chased down like dogs...

I will simply put up a line of defence...

Well, I think that it's incredibly unlikely that half a dozen kingdoms on our borders would revolt at once, but I can't possibly argue against that, as it would totally ruin the RP, wouldn't it?

The Alshorian Empire is fighting tooth and nail. We are shocked by all this aggression, and think that you're all maniacs or something. Our people are defending their homes. And we're largely based on a pre feudal society. Remember Alexander? The Persians? The Hittites? The Gauls? That's the sort of civilisation from whcih we're drawing troops. We do outnumber ...well, frankly, we outnumber all of you combined, and by a wide, wide margine.

But nobdy's really tested our depth. The Osteians may even lose their frontier battle... but they will cost the Empire. Don't you see it that way?

And then Angermanland is attacked by a major horde as he attacks the Empire... but both of those things cost the Empire.

Just have a little patience! Rome doesn't... collapse in a day! It takes a generation of over-stretch. That's what we're facing now, in the Ralish Empire. Don't panic just because the Ralish look like winning a battle or two.

Think of your naton's history! Have you not lost battle after battle with the Alshorians, before now? Yes, you have! But only now are the Ralish victories Phyrirc!

Please, just a little patience, people! :) You can't all win on the first try against the greatest Empire on earth! Think in real terms. You're each landing one of the thousand cuts that kills the biggest giant of them all. It's like trying to bring down the USA- Vietnam alone doesn't do it, you need more. It's coming.

actually, due to a combination of factors, if you look at it.. you're lucky if my guys have even fought the occasional border war with yours...

their explination for how you got the territory you currently have which they clame, for example...

i have no problem with you getting togeather large armys on a battle field...

but i DO have a problem with the fact that you somehow manage to do it when the battle it's self is so close to the first inclination that you would need them.

i seem to remember that, from some numbers i pulled out of somewhere right at the begining... if i wanted to uterly strip my land of it's workers and defenses, i could mobalise some several hundered [mostly peasant] troops.

humm... pre fudal, huh? *thinks* that would mean that... most of your guys, even thepeasants, are better than our pesant soldiers would be, though probilby [except for the Very elite] worse than our traind soldiers.

i dunno, i just really expected the first few battles would be fairly small while you got organized, Then we'd start having to work for it... strikes me as mroe likely and logical, seeing as how the place has been relitivly peacful untill just recently.

thus why Hera recomended Locke swing his lines, and thus his borders, from a n east/west axis to a north/south one and have Terra take the other land behind: it would have given them a narrower front to deal with.. when you [reasonably] got orginized and came back.

also i would have thought, given the nature of the empire, that the very lords who are rebelling would have been the first ones you would normaly have called on for troops in this area, thus forcing you to pull the bulk of your forces from further away... at least logicaly.

that was my thinking, anyway. ahh well, Zachius shall continue his attack... and my defenses shall be... interesting. especially given my stated dislike for castles and walls *laughs* i think my guys will be working over time to find advantage :)

there are, however, still supply issues. even in your own lands, supporting forces that large is a challange.

with an army that large, my burning of supplys Would have been a disaster. if nothing else, it would have stripped the buffer for accidents from a day or two, to nothing at all, meaning if a wagon doesn't make it, someone doesn't eat. ... there's just no way an army that big can be supported solly from the land within a days travel [what would be required with no stockpile if anything disrupted the supply lines]

you know, i think i just found a weak point.....

Fear my insane writing Power!

BWAHHAHAHAHAAH.

seriously.. check out the war thread..

Terra, did i write things that long in the old PT rp? or have i got worse since then? *laughs*

Hey, Frozo, nice to see you again.

I've posted my attack on Frisia now: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/newthread.php?do=postthread&f=1230

You can put it under the war threads.

Also, as per RP with Osteia, Iceland and Greenland have joined the Empire. I still have to do the Madeira and Canaries though.

ayup.. that thread very much gives a blank page. not even forum stuff on it.

on the other hand, it doesn't generate "does not exist" or "cannot find" messages, so there's Something there :s

I tried to appeal to reason warning about everybody and their dog immediately declaring war on the Ralish. At the time 2 or 3 wars were unavoidable: Osteia and the Ralish, and Angermanland and the Ralish with myself playing a part. Caladonn and the Ralish I think might have still been up in the air.

If I might add an opinion not being directly concerned with the war in Italy. I was actually surprised when so many of the Ralish's forces initially fled. I didn't think that would cause such a massive breaking in the ranks. I would have expected a hasty retreat under the protection of the trees until the fires died down.
However, routing armies are fully capable of reorganizing themselves. Many solidiers in a rout are running because everyone else is running. Why would you want to be the one guy standing on the field while everyone was booking it? Once they've fled back behind the lines, they aren't going to run endlessly into the hills never to be seen again. If the rest of the army isn't fleeing, they'd likely stop or be stopped, notice the battle is not lost and possibly regain the courage to return, although still demoralised. Especially when 18,000 more men are reinforcing them.
As for supplies. If this battle has only been for one day, the lose of supplies wouldn't be felt until the next day, as the fire broke out during the battle. An army may march on its stomach, but solidiers don't think about food when fighting for their lives. The lose of supplies, I imagine, would prevent the army from pursuing the retreating Osteians for a while.
As for the Ralish's army size. Considering that the battle is on Osteia's northern border, the Ralish could draw armies from such heavily populated at the time places as south France, south Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Balkans. An huge army is not too inconceivable, but 20,000 would be straining capacity given the time.

Though as Madnestan said, everybody should have waited for each writer's reaction before posting again. The RP is pretty messy and hard to follow chronologically. It wasn't three writers, Caladonn and Angermanland were in there too.
Speaking of which, Angermanland, the Ralish, let me post a short reply before moving on. At least in my area. Whatever is going on with this counter invasion likely doesn't concern me. My forces wouldn't move on the enemy outside of our borders unless given permission. Seeing how the Ralish army isn't moving to protect Aridiris and you (the Ralish) said "And they waited for men from Aridiris to be dispatched and to bring-about Imperial peace," can I assume that that permission is coming with those messengers you sent to Aridiris?

I'm trying to RP the conflict between my nation's two rival powers: the official rulers of Aridiris as sanctioned by the empire and the disinherited heir to the pre-occupation throne. The outcome will largely be determined by how Angermanland and the Ralish play this out. I personally don't have any specific goals in this other than RPing what should happen as opposed to what I would like to happen. An independant Aridiris isn't my goal, it's one of my character's goals. If find this change in my expectations (ie. an army not being sent to me) delightful.

Angermanland, did I read that write? You're sending an army of five hundred to meet with my rebel king? That's not very discrete. I thought for sure you'd send one of your ever-present spies, or a message to the temple as I asked in the letter.

Oh man, the imperial officials in Aridiris are suspicious enough of him as it is. The shit's really going to hit the fan when a five hundred man delegation from the invading army to the north meets with him.

Woo, arguments.
I'm not too bothered about how fast the Ralish Empire falls. I just looked around from my territory, saw what potential I had for expansion, and decided on the Pyrenees. If that leads to invasion from three directions and a humiliating peace treaty making us an Alshorian vassal, so be it. I'll just play everything out the way it plays.
The fact that my characters sincerely don't want that means I'll have to try my best (fairly) to stop that. Far more likely is a stalemate on my prewar borders, given my far better ability to raise defensive than offensive forces.

actually, Aridiris, warning against everyone going after the empire, when pretty much everyone borders Only the empire, or near enough, was always going to be futile... and if anything else it makes large armys harder to justify.

anywho.

on those five hundered men... what can i say? they don't want to lose Soma Kyo :) add to that the fact that the spys arn't 'official' and as such can't really sign any documentation, while Soma can sign on behalf of Zachius on behalf of the yePrinse...

basicly, they're very wary of the possibility of a trap. the total lack of [visable] reaction is worrying them.... to the point where they're stopping to hold a religious cerimony [one of few, and a freaken elaborate one, at that] before makeing a decision.

anyways, i suspect you may be right about the retreating men... on the other hand, you're not exactly 'off the field of battle' when your so called allies are perfectly ready to charge through you, cutting you down as if you were an enemy, to get past :p

at any rate, when an empire falls, it tends to be to a greater power [useually a coalition, but not always] and/or internal decay and stagnation...

the Ralish really is suffering from this effect. save myself and Osteia , who had internal reasons for the wars we have enacted, pretty much no other nation would start a war with the mighty Ralish untill it fell appart under it's own weight, without the support of the others.

... you know, i had a point when i started out *blinks* wonder where it got to...

edit: my earlyer comment about the 'bambino seige' was in referance to a battle where random defenses kept mysteriously appearing where needed, despite the fact that they could not have had time to set them up, troops effectivly 'teleported' past their own traps and/or moved en mass to guard a gate from two spys on the inside when it was being left totaly alone and another gate was being hit very hard, etc.

thsi kind of thing is why i tend to insist, and try to provide myself, as much information about the battlefield/armys/ etc as possible before we start, even if it is secret in charicter.

for example, those 18, 000 reenforcements of the Ralish's? we should have knowen of them, as readers and authors, some time befor they actually showed up. possibly even at the start of the battle, or before. oh, it's highly likely the Charicters wouldn't know about them, especially if they're being hiden and so on, but it would have avoided the whole argument, or at least reduced it and ment it was had Before things happend, rather than after it was impossible to fix.

umm.. yeah, that wasn't my point either, but it's significant. ish.

Well, some could have allied with the Ralish. Kalmaar could have gone to war with you, Angermanland. Or, even more likely, other powers could have secretly supported you or Osteia while staying officially neutral. Not everyone has to start a war at the beginning of an RP.

Anyways, what's done is done.


for example, those 18, 000 reenforcements of the Ralish's? we should have knowen of them, as readers and authors, some time befor they actually showed up. possibly even at the start of the battle, or before. oh, it's highly likely the Charicters wouldn't know about them, especially if they're being hiden and so on, but it would have avoided the whole argument, or at least reduced it and ment it was had Before things happend, rather than after it was impossible to fix.

You're right. I hadn't thought that those 18,000 literally appeared out of nowhere. It would be best if we declared our numbers OOC before battle. I actually thought we were already doing that. That's why I've been open about my numbers the whole time.

Speaking of numbers, with my next post the perceived numbers of the Angermanland army will have more than double its actual size. Originally the 10,000 was an exaggeration from the reports. Diua added 5,000 to the number scare to the governor, not realizing how grossly inaccurate it would be. Just having a little fun:D .

woo! being over estimated is always good...

ummm....

'cept when it results in being seriously outnumbered and still having to fight. that's bad.

I added a somewhat rushed RP to progress the story. Mainly word getting to the northern capital, orders for troops to be raised sent, and word being sent to the south and the Ralish informing them of what's happening.

I don't think I could realistically exceed 7,000 and have them at the border within the amount of time I expect you to arrive. Also keep in mind that my numbers could split along lines of loyalty to the empire and loyalty to the rebel king, should you agree to his offer and he rise.

Coming to a battle and seeing less than half of the enemy as you expected might actually be a morale boost. At the same time, "where's the other 8,000?" might make a lot of men worried.

err, actually, 7000 is a rough number.. it's more like 6 and a few hundered, plus almost a thousand assorted followers and hangers on... supply peeps, the useual followers, the traders required for the plans, wagon drivers, etc etc. thus the catch all tearm "logisticians" :D

now i have to knock togeather some religious cerimonys... and then a meeting or something... and stuff...err... yeah.

meanwhile, my system is running hot, so i'll shut it down for now. mabey i'll come up with something by tommorow :)

my start: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=11735503#post11735503

Frozo, where are you in the map?

Having barely returned from one absence, I want to give fair warning:
my university Freshers week begins on Sunday. I can therefore not guarantee posting at all, let alone coherently :D in the week following Sunday 1st October.
I'll try not to bog anything down by doing that, e.g. finish up the siege in the Pyrenees beforehand, so my forces rest in place for a while, sort of thing.

No idea....... Probably throw myself west of angermanland. Hm whats the climate like there......

Terror i thought freshers was last week?

Depends where you are dude; Edinburgh was 11th-17th September, along with much of the rest of Scotland.
A lot of English universities it's on now.
A few (Bristol, Durham, Oxbridge, some London colleges I think...a few others) it's early October.

Oh I see. By the way anyone I get placed next to expect terrotorial conflicts. Maybe not Anger......we were allies in the old rp.......and it would be unfair if i popped out of nowhere and attacked him......so maybe in the future.

I call a godmode on The Ralish, for having troops appear out of nowhere....

Thats all i have to say, now i must respond to his post chasing my men down with 20% of his army.

He godmoded and tryed to wipe out my entire force present even after they retreated...you took the field, that is a cheap dirty move....

But you know...after just having those troops appear, i expected somthing like that...

hey, Frozo, there isn't any unclaimed territory west of me.

perhaps you're thinking east?

unless you mean souther finland...

which is mine.. they just stuffed up the last map update :P

or nothern finland, which is pretty much worthless.

Oh I see. By the way anyone I get placed next to expect terrotorial conflicts. Maybe not Anger......we were allies in the old rp.......and it would be unfair if i popped out of nowhere and attacked him......so maybe in the future.

If there was any space next to me, I'd say bring it :D

Unless you become a Ralish vassal in northern Germany, of course...then there's space.

I call a godmode on The Ralish, for having troops appear out of nowhere....

Thats all i have to say, now i must respond to his post chasing my men down with 20% of his army.

He godmoded and tryed to wipe out my entire force present even after they retreated...you took the field, that is a cheap dirty move....

But you know...after just having those troops appear, i expected somthing like that...

is this More random troops? or the same 18 000 we already complained about?

is this More random troops? or the same 18 000 we already complained about?

Oh the same ones, i was just upset at the fact he had to chase down the men i had on the field in retreat aswell...

Im letting that battle go..it is lost, ive lost over 2000 men......

but, by chasing down my retreating forces....revenge will be taken...

Im sure you will be unprepared when i destroy your whole army for this region, good luck in northern Osteia my friend....

Hey, I'm wondering: where do I start a factbook thread on this forum, for this RP? I'm interested in joining, but I need to clarify some thing too. Also, is all the stuff happening in those personal threads (and those war threads)? Or is there another single major thread?

Thanks.

There are many branches of this fourm, the factbooks serve as a place to carry out diplomatic relations, war....what ever...

it all happens in the smaller threads.

just post a thread in the international incidents forum, then post a link to it here.

i'll stick it on the main page, and off we go *shrugs*

Hey, I'm wondering: where do I start a factbook thread on this forum, for this RP? I'm interested in joining, but I need to clarify some thing too. Also, is all the stuff happening in those personal threads (and those war threads)? Or is there another single major thread?

Thanks.

In International Incidents, up by the top, put a new post. Then give us a link here and put a claim in for some free territory.
At the moment, yes, it seems to be factbook threads and war threads.
And my advice would be to border at least one nation besides the massive green one (Ralish). He has too much to do already.

I was THIRD?! what!? that's the last time I try...

I'm not too sure what the problem is, here.

The Osteians began to gather armies.

Being as Osteia is a client of the Empire -the whole reason for the fight in the first place- the Ralish were quickly informed of this unsettling event. Boats going across the Adriatic, and riders in relay the standard methods of spreading word, collected mostly by the Alshorian temples in conjunction with other sources.

As the Osteians gathered their force and marched north, so the Ralish gathered forces from the well-peopled lands Aridiris has already mentioned.

The Ralish force then settled on the border, but, you'll remember didn't do very much for quite some time... partly because it was still mustering and bringing the wandering mercenaries together. In the end, the Osteians had to go to some lengths to get us to come and fight them.

20,000 men were described, including 800 Guardsmen. They were gathering in the trees and on the rear face of the hills at which Azaria had chosen to place the border- a luxury of Imperial supremacy.

2,000 men including 200 Guardsmen advanced on the enemy's left flank, and were attacked heavily, suffered casualties, and began to panic in poor visibility. Most of them retreated back towards the hills in which they knew their allies to be strong.

Only 300 stood, and they started to take massive losses because of their discipline. Eventually, they broke because there did not seem to be any point to standing.

As the remains of the 2,000 retreated, the 1,750 independent mercenaries came charging down, convincing or forcing many of the routers to turn back and fight, which they were prepared to do now being away from the confusion of the smoke and flames and able to see that things weren't so bad as they'd individually imagined.

Behind the Madnestians and those convinced to turn around (I think that some were killed for fleeing, and of course others were already dead or wounded), 2,000 more infantry (mostly local peasantry) were sent down from the hills to exploit any opening resulting from this counter-attack.

At this point, the Ralish had lost over 1,000 men dead, wounded, or fled, and the Osteian cavalry were breaking-up the last of the first force's resistance, when the 1,750 mercenaries charged, backed-up by 2,000 light Imperial troops. 16,000 men including 600 Guardsmen had only moved-up close enough to be immediately visible but as yet unengaged and beyond bow-range.

The Osteians moved in their cavalry reserve to attack the Ralish and Madnesians already engaged, at which point the 200 Guardsmen and their remaining peasant support were broken.

The Osteians then began to retreat as the size of uncommitted Imperial forces became evident, and their own reserves were already engaged.

The Ralish already fighting, along with the mercenaries, tried to destroy the rearguard largely by virtue of having a good 4,000 men deployed forward.

At this point I have to say that my last post was a bit poor quality, because, well, I'd been offered wine and I took it!

The Ralish moved their reserve forces forwards so that a mere 300 archers would be insufficient to disrupt the entire effort, hoping to obliterate the rearguard and chase the rest of the army down. However, as this large force would have been many hundreds of yards behind the main Osteian force, even if the rearguard broke immediately our large infantry-based force would be unlikely to catch the enemy before they get to their castle.

Light cavalry was sent to run people down, but that wasn't very clearly presented in my last post, so sorry about that. It would be a very small cavalry force, as the army is mostly locally-raised and though we can always find mercenaries and peasants, and the local Guardsmen detachment, acquiring cavalry takes longer for the Empire (except possibly in distant Crimea and such places). More to the point, I expect that this light cavalry would end-up only being able to run-down the rearguard itself, assuming that is broken by the massive size of the infantry force, and the main force would still get away.

In ancient battles, this is the point at which the vast majority of casualties occur. The Ralish had up to here suffered more casualties than the Osteians, but neither had really lost all that much. We'd a couple of hundred dead, and several times that many injured, some by smoke and fire, some by cavalry weapons, some by trampling in the brief panic, most by arrows. I doubt that the Osteians even had a hundred dead when they began to retreat, but at that point their rearguard faces total overwhelming, and most will -unless something else happens to change the situation- be butchered or captured really after the battle is over.

Then both sides have problems yet to come. We haven't enough horses to catch the main force before it gets to the castle. The Osteians are going to put far far more men in the castle than it is likely to be able to sustain if we lay siege, and they may be tempted to come out and fight again, only with a large part of their army having been knocked-out in the retreat. We have a large army that will be difficult to sustain even for a siege that will be shortened by the excessive size of the garrison, especially in light of the sabotage efforts against our supplies.

I'm sorry that post was so long, but if someone calls godmod I've got to clarify my position (and apologise for the poor quality of my last post in the thread, for what it matters).

Ah, see, Osteia's new post seems to be more or less in keeping with what I'd believed to be happening. This just makes me more confused as to the nature of the problem.

Are you actually offended that we would try to crush your retreating army? Is that not the done thing in the age of chivalry? Well, if so, more fool the warriors of the middle ages- as I've said before, the Alshorians are still of an ancient mindset, when most deaths in battle came after one side broke. My first wave of peasants and militia broke after only taking a few-percent casualties, and, had it not been for the mercenaries and reserves coming at that point, we would have expected most of the retreating men to be chased down. In battle we maybe would have lost 5%, and in flight 20? 50? 80%?

Even if the Osteians were attempting an orderly retreat, we wanted to force it to become a rout so that we could crush the rebels' strength. Looks like we'll get a sort of half success on that.

That's the way most ancient battles go... wasn't supposed to upset anybody :(

Ok, that makes me understand a little more and makes me lighten up a bit....

Agreed both sides have suffered losses in this first battle, it's bound to happen..the numbers just kinda caught me off guard a bit...

And if Castle Locke was layed siege to, supplys can be brought in from the sea with the assistance of my allie Caladonn who has agreed to support my effort.

It was just a painful defeat, it also made my men want to fight even harder to acheive victory in their next battle.....

If you would...please have a look at Castle Locke on the front page of my factbook you will see how it is layed out....

Maybe i didn't realize you were taking losses aswell, that may of been what triggered me...

Lets just continue to Rp,

Don't worry about it, it was mostly the number that was all of a sudden thrown at me..

Sorry about the RP I posted, something went wrong with that... here it is again: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=11732874#post11732874

In regards to men, I was a bit confused that the Ralish suddenly had 20,000 men when it seemed like he had a fair amount less, and then there were suddenly 1,750 mercenaries as well... I don't think it was a purposeful GM, just that we were all unsure of the numbers... I think this should show all of us to post reasonable numbers of our forces and their location before the battle- you'll notice in my attack thread, I have specifically 20,000 men in the expeditionary force.

Anyways, I think the first battle in Osteia went ok... the Caladonnian and Osteian forces have retreated to Castle Locke, which I believe now has around 17,500 men, counting Osteia's men from the battle, my men, and his reinforcements... I don't really think Ralish will want to attack those odds, but we can't really succumb to siege either since I have 20 warships off the coast, and 30 merchant vessels.

Also, in regards to the whole 'why is everyone picking on the Ralish' thing, I felt that I wanted to assert my nation in the beginning of the game; I didn't really want a war, and considering the small area in question and the significant resources I could bring to bear, I thought the Ralish would heed my request for a small portion of his extreme northern land. However, now that he's refused, I can hardly think that he can complain of having to fight too many people at once; I could have easily been bought off, and Osteia simply wants independence, in which case Angermanland and Terror Incognitia would be alone and probably easily cowed/defeated. I think it's safe to assume that with the odds changed that much, Philanchez would look somewhere else for expansion. Of course, now the Ralish is fighting five nations to defend territorial extremities hundreds of miles from their homeland, and there isn't any sign of it letting up...

while i'm still a Little dubious as to the size and of the Ralish armys and how fast they were raised, it does seem reasonable enough, for the most part.

the biggest worry is things just appearing, effectivly out of no where from a story point of view.

well, that and the speed at which it was implied that the "Horde" to invade me was being raised at :p

anyways, the explination resolves the bulk of the problems from my point of view as well.

i also realised something.. when you talk about "peasant soldiers" Ralish, do you mean litteraly, like china or the worst of the middleages rabble, or do you mean as in Citizen soldiers such as the greeks used, or the roman auxilarys? [which are more like what it sounds like you're talking about]

in the first case, most of my comments about troop quality stand... in the latter, your troops behaviour makes more sense.

i still think the loss of your supplies is [or very shortly will be] a major disaster if you try and press forward though.

all that aside, i best get to posting, no? :)

Good to see that things are sorting out. I recommend we state troop numbers and reinforcements before all battles to make it clear.

Interesting ritual there, Angermanland. I'm always interested in religions. Maybe I don't have to mention this, but remember "the gods" don't actually exist. In a way, any visions your people have that aren't entirely coincidental is god-modding. Staying awake for over a day, without food, in the heat, and eating cold leftovers from the night before (some of which might not be fresh), surely you'd get some interesting "visions", though. :D

So, the map. The newest map Philanchez posted didn't fix some of problems solved by my last map and brought up some more. I assume, Philanchez, you went back to your original map after becoming frustated with my overly pixelated one? Sorry about that.

What should we do? What free program would you recommend?

And for the new people. Let's have some names and locations. Be as specific as possible in terms of geography. It's kinda hard to border the Ralish, but yeah try to border at least another nation. That's actually a little difficult too.

I won't be posting any RPs tonight. Seems like a good time to wait for messengers to complete their tasks.

I'm glad the immediate problem has been sorted.
I assume the mega-justification that came in above stopped you from posting in the war, Ralish? If so np. I'd rather wait till tomorrow for that than have the argument dragging on here.
I may post the next pisode in the Exciting Life of Cwicflaed (TM):D but otherwise there's nothing for me to do...as yet.
Has Kamasha disappeared?

not so much cold left overs as regular army rations. heh. hard buscuite and things of that nature.. probilby not Quite that bad if it's only a day old..

my gods are an interesting lot... they won't activly meddle in the lives of various people, nor give them information they don't have access to anyway. in part because I don't have access to it, and in part because i know full well it would be game breaking.

mostly they're in there for humor and wit, some wisdom, and insperation. and an excuse for me to be poetic and cryptic.

as for visions, well, they shouldn't be too bizare, all up... they have been up for less than 48 hours, and i've done that before and slept soundly enough, not a single dream.

admitedly, i'm lucky if i can go Six hours without some form of food, let alone 36ish...

think of things like the kessen games.. the gods and spirits tell the varioius caricters things in visions and dreams...

but it is up to the men to make it happen. "all this shall be yours one day, if you follow the rightious path" kind of things, without actually saying "oh yeah, and be careful of so and so, he's out to get you" or anything like that.

sorry, i flick from one thing to another here.

meanwhile, my ritual delayed the army by a full two, possibly three, days [most of one to set up/rest up, one to enact it, and another one to recover/pack up/get moving again]. what ever shall happen in that time, i wonder?

also, jolt is being a bit weird about actually telling me when threads update.

you're right about troop numbers, Aridiris. ideally one works these things into the narative, but failing that simply stating them oocly would work.

actually, quite a few players seem to have gone quiet... though that could just be because i check/view /post several times a day *laughs*

out of curiosity, could anyone work out what the prayers actually said? even roughly? i'm curious :)

hey, Frozo, there isn't any unclaimed territory west of me.

perhaps you're thinking east?

unless you mean souther finland...

which is mine.. they just stuffed up the last map update :P

or nothern finland, which is pretty much worthless.

Yeah East is what i mean. Silly brain when will you learn......
To russia I come. Do we have a active map editor?

two, i belive, Frozo :)

might want to define your boundrys a bit better than that though.

Perhaps i should move my claim to iceland and southern greenland....not sure yet. I reckon i can get a good balance of land to farm and frozen countryside (it is Frozopia after all) between them. But do you mind calladon? If not i will probably go as south as you Angermanland and then West enough into russia to support 3 million, not too big though.

Good to see that things are sorting out. I recommend we state troop numbers and reinforcements before all battles to make it clear.

Interesting ritual there, Angermanland. I'm always interested in religions. Maybe I don't have to mention this, but remember "the gods" don't actually exist. In a way, any visions your people have that aren't entirely coincidental is god-modding. Staying awake for over a day, without food, in the heat, and eating cold leftovers from the night before (some of which might not be fresh), surely you'd get some interesting "visions", though. :D

So, the map. The newest map Philanchez posted didn't fix some of problems solved by my last map and brought up some more. I assume, Philanchez, you went back to your original map after becoming frustated with my overly pixelated one? Sorry about that.

What should we do? What free program would you recommend?

And for the new people. Let's have some names and locations. Be as specific as possible in terms of geography. It's kinda hard to border the Ralish, but yeah try to border at least another nation. That's actually a little difficult too.

I won't be posting any RPs tonight. Seems like a good time to wait for messengers to complete their tasks.

Use a file transfer site and download Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004. Try to find one that comes with a read-me file that contains a Serial Number. If you can't then go on Google and type in "Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 Serial Number Hack" in quotations. That should get you a serial number generator.

Thanks Philanchez. I'll get on that after work. I keep thinking your name is a shortened Phillip Sanchez.

Frozopia, the map has dual editors, for better or for worse. Myself and Philanchez. If you post some territorial specifics, one of us is bound to see it and add you in when we've worked out some kinks.

Caladonn has been eyeing Greenland and Iceland I believe, but hasn't formally taken them.

Caladonn has been eyeing Greenland and Iceland I believe, but hasn't formally taken them.

actually, i think he has got the agreements made to bind them into an empire.. check his thread. that or he's only really a single post away from it.

Yeah he has, i rp'd it....

That settles it then. Snooze ya lose.

I recommend that he takes status as a Ralish vassal in northern Germany...but then I would, no matter your political stance.
As long as the Ralish is happy with that, of course.

Yeah, sorry Frozopia, but they're really my only area of expansion... I've already RPed the joining, and I can't really get rid of it now.

Why don't you claim eastern Russia, central Asia, India, or somehwere in Africa?

Thanks Philanchez. I'll get on that after work. I keep thinking your name is a shortened Phillip Sanchez.

Frozopia, the map has dual editors, for better or for worse. Myself and Philanchez. If you post some territorial specifics, one of us is bound to see it and add you in when we've worked out some kinks.

Caladonn has been eyeing Greenland and Iceland I believe, but hasn't formally taken them.

Close. Its a combination of mine and my freind who introduced me to NS' last names. Phillips and Sanchez respectively.

My Osteia thread is showing a data base error...?

Im sure it will be fixed, just thought i would let everyone know why my reply is not there..

Just to clarify, Ralish troop disposition was referenced before the reserves moved up. I can only think that someone at some point misread 2,000 and 20,000 as being one and the same, or something.

I'm reading threads and writing posts, right now. Don't know if much will be done tonight or tomorrow morning, depends how my night goes :)

On the Ralish armies, I should probably say a bit, eh?

Next post will be a long one about the armies, and I'll put it in my factbook as well. As I say, still reading and writing replies and things! I seem to be having trouble with Osteia's thread, which won't open for me. I don't know why, as yet. Will keep trying. Oh, Osteia's getting the same problem. Weird.

Well, back soon to post some replies.

1) The Alshorian Guard
15,000 men of Alshor (Anatolia, more or less), all of citizen status.

Most are prepared from childhood, and, even so, some do not end up in the AG when they mature. Those who do are religious fanatics and hard-core nationalists with four thousand years of tradition, which they now are starting to see as under the greatest threat in more than three millenia.

Most of them are spearmen and skilled archers, and may be deployed in either function as the generals require it. Famously they carry large baskets containing kit and weapons, which can be placed down on little folding legs and used as sort of pavise shields.

Though most fight as spearmen with secondary short swords, they are perhaps most impressive as archers. Training from childhood is the only way by which a man can draw an Alshorian bow, which is a compound weapon evolved over several centuries and using materials gathered from across the Empire to find the perfect balance. Unlike the famous Hunnic horn bow, this weapon is full-length, like, well, an Anglo-Welsh longbow. The Hun, of course, couldn't have a full-length bow and expect to weild it effectively from horseback, so the lower portion was shortened, making the bow less powerful and less accurate than the Alshorian equivalent. However, one of the most deadly Alshorian weapons is the mounted archer- using stirrups and a ridiculous degree of practice, the Alshorian Guard's mounted warriors can use full-length bows in the saddle, standing-up to operate the weapon. An Alshorian Guardsman can reliably hit a man-sized target from hundreds of yards, and need not -visibility allowing- operate as a mere skirmisher or artillery component. Frankly, if this RP continues to the C19th, Alshor will still be using these foot and mounted archers to wipe-out musketeers and the like, and, at the moment, they're the men known to most nations as the ones they couldn't resist.

Since conquests stopped, they rarely leave Alshor/Anatolia.

2) The Imperial Guard
Non-Alshorian citizens of the Empire who, by immitation of the Alshorian Guard, wish to elevate themselves in the provinces. These too tend to train from infancy, but increasingly the Empire accepts proven veterans and heroes of past battles, even foreign mercenaries who wish to become Imperial citizens. Everyone looks up to them... except for the Alshorian Guard, who are actually beginning to feel moral problems as the Imperial Guardsmen seem to deminish the value of the title Guardsman. You might equate it to the SS Divisions raised towards the end of WWII, which included first non-Germans and then those who would be considered racially unpure according to hardline Nazi doctrine maintained in the core of the SS. Still undeniably hardcore, but the first visible crack in the previously total confidence and unity of the once-unstoppable Imperial military.

These units exist in every province of the Empire, but their size depends on the wealth of the area and the size of its population and citizen population. For example, 800 faced the Osteians, and that meant the whole strengh of Guardsmen in what might now be known as Switzerland, Slovenia, and extreme southeast France. Far less than that many are ready in what we call Pyrennia, probably more than a thousand are in the Balkans, a couple of thousand in Germany and Denmark combined, hundreds more in the rest of the Eastern European territories and south of Anatolia, several thousand in Persia and such, and not much more than a couple of hundred north of Aridiris.

Maybe 25,000 men in all.

That's 40,000 elite and semi-elite standing forces in an Empire that certainly contains tens of millions of subjects and over 10% of the world's population.

3) Militia and men-at-arms
The Empire maintains large granaries and armouries defended by palisades and other moderate static defences along its trunk roads. Weapons kept here are below the quality of the Guardsmen's own, and may include captured weapons and others made by subject craftsmen from whom the Empire periodically decides to buy arms in order to modernise stocks- lately this has happened rarely, due to financial constraints, and the weapons are starting to date against extensive platemail and such armours.

Militia and men at arms are semi-active, and supposed to receive tax-breaks for their service, which has allowed some enterprising sorts to achieve business success when off-duty... or, as Azarian control slips, even in underhanded fashion when on-duty.

These forces are across the Empire, and are larger than the Guard. They can be raised quickly, but only a minority amongst them are on-duty at any given time: a small district may have two hundred militia/men-at-arms, and perhaps 8, 10, 12 will be at the granary/armoury/message-post, one or two on each of a couple of signal fires, and the rest off-duty, doing their ordinary business, called-upon when there's a disturbance or a message comes through to ready for war.

They tend to be professionals rather than subsistence farmers, and so are also lacking in areas like Pyrennia, which remains under-developed. There are tens of thousands across the Empire: almost every artisan wants in, because he gets a tax break (not total exemption, but corruption is growing) and -since we've had generations of stability- doesn't usually expect to have to do much for it!

Peasants, bandits, angry-mobs, unwilling conscripts and the like are rightly afraid of the militias, who have much to lose -so much to protect by fighting when the need arises- and semi-decent equipment. Their training is vastly inferior to that of the Guardsmen or even to the knights of Osteia and so on and so forth. So far they've been reliable medium infantry and the richer of them have provided some light cavalry, but their breaking-point is bound to be short of the Guard's.

4) Peasant levees
Almost every man has a sling, a hunting bow, a wood-axe, an old/improvised spear, maybe a sword-like weapon used in reaping, or at least some tool that can be turned to fighting. Skill in combat varies from region to region, man to man. Some peasants know how to handle themselves, some would sooner wet themselves in public than be on the field of battle.

So far, the peasants have been fairly willing to fight for the Empire, because it has brought them relative stability and security, and they really aren't badly treated, though they are clearly on the bottom rung of mainstream society.

This is changing as order starts to break-down, and will change further once the Ralish start losing battles: people don't mind so much being asked to fight when they expect to win, but when the outcome is less certain in advance, these amatures are more likely to run.

Potentially, the Empire can raise hundreds of thousands of these men... it just can't put them all in the same place at the same time, and it has to let some of them go in certain seasons. Usually, they take longer to raise than the previously described types.

In the Osteian battle, a lot of peasants were brought in from surrounding country, which is fairly well peopled, and was close to the scene of battle from north, east,and west. In the attacks on Pyrennia, far fewer peasant levees are available, and putting together an army of them won't happen over night, nor will bringing it to the scene of battle across a thinner strip of Empire in harder terrain with worse roads and less impressive granaries.

5) Differences in the Rus (the northern territories)
Here, the people are more independent. They accept Imperial rule partly because the King doesn't often countermand the orders of their minor Khans. They call King Ralish Khagan Ralish, and consider him the figurehead that units their tribes and keeps them from having to fight with one another all the time.

These are people who live in the saddle, wandering about with their livestock, happy that the Empire supports them in maintaining large borders relative to a small population, which they need to live semi-nomadic lifestyles (there are cities, such as Kresh on the Crimean peninsula, which is a major trading port across the Black Sea from Alshor, and brings in many goods destined for Angermanland and Scandinavia).

The nomadic portions of these populations have men who're all skilled riders and archers, and all have their own spears and/or swords. Some in the Empire actually think that the effort spent subduing these hardy people was a defeat for Alshor relative to the ultimate prize. Still, they're good soldiers with no particular animosity towards the Empire at this time, so long as they aren't pused-around too much.

Once the Khans receive word via Kresh, they will indeed be trying to attack Angermanland in its southwest, just picking up and riding like a good horde should.

6) Mercenaries
Mercenaries wander the Empire. Some hire themselves out as assassins, heavies to assist local tax collectors, and other dastardly things while no war is on.

Most are from the Empire, but a minority are foreigners trying their luck.

The Madnestians have a large contingent of mercenaries in the Empire's pay, though they too are increasingly able to hire-out their services locally to settle... labour disputes, old scores, or just to provide protection to rich men.

Over-all
In an army of the scale such as that gathered against Osteia's rebellion, the breakdown may be roughly as such (rounding off from the specific example, a general example of that sort of size):

1,000 Imperial Guardsmen provided the core, some marching with the lesser troops to encourage them against breaking while most waited to strike as shock-troops to force a breakthrough once the enemy was engaged.

4,000 mercenaries, allowed to do as they wish. Potentially out of keeping with any grand strategy in the battle, their freedom is considered a wild-card element... and if they dash off into a trap, in pursuit of spoils, then at least the trap falls on them and not on any part of the strategic army, revealing it, and, as a bonus, ensuring that those who do not survive need not be paid!

5,000 militia/men-at-arms supporting Guard-lead assaults, holding the line, generally doing most of the work.

10,000 peasants to give better forces something to play-off, and to follow-up and exploit break-throughs and such created by plan of Guardsmen and militia, or by chance of mercenary action.

humm... this would seem to imply that your pesant troops really ARE pesants, rather than citizen soldiers...

and as such my whole big rant about how much peasant troops suck becomes highly relivant again.

though the numbers now make more sense.

i'd be anticipating that that horde which is coming towards me is highly disorginized and basicly run on an "as it happens" kind of basis?

meaning, i may well have a hope? hehe.

The horde heading for western Angermanland is more of the 5th type, being men of the Rus, as the Ralish call them.

It's not a horde in terms of... well, being a ridiculously great number of men. It's a couple of thousand, basically the strength of the Crimean and immediately surrounding minor Khanates. But it's those mounted nomad warriors.

Potentially more a major raiding force than anything else. Barbarians on the side of Empire. Hey... the Byzantines helped the Khazars to build an entire fortified city against people like you ;)

It won't really be getting anywhere until some way after the current 10th day stuff in the east, though.

In the northeast, you presently have a quantitative advantage, prior to activity from Aridiris. So far as the Empire's concerned, the discouraging factors for you, traditionally, have been that you'll struggle to pacify the Ralish Rus once you've conquered their lands, and that we could muster a real Imperial force in Alshor (Anatolia) to arrive weeks or months later and make you regret ever invading. Now, a lot depends on what forces must be sent elsewhere.

heh. my methods of pacification are a bit different from the traditional "crush them all!" aproch.

probibly the biggest change for the locals will be actually having a say in the rulership of thier nation! [or at least, their more imidiate area]

that and being able to follow old religions and customs the empire stomped on, if there are any...

heh. my methods of pacification are a bit different from the traditional "crush them all!" aproch.

probibly the biggest change for the locals will be actually having a say in the rulership of thier nation! [or at least, their more imidiate area]

that and being able to follow old religions and customs the empire stomped on, if there are any...

Actually, I RP'd that the empire didn't stomp on our religions and customs. And it seems that the same could be said of the Rus, as the Ralish calls them.

It struck me after reading the Ralish's description of his military, that my people are basically slightly more settled versions of the Rus. We must be related somehow. Linguistically, if not culturally. Maybe they migrated there in the same migration that brought my people to Aridiris, but didn't settle. Or maybe they came in a later migration. Hmmm! Interesting!

I'll get working on an update that addresses some issues in both of your posts, Angermanland and the Ralish, tonight.

The Ralish, you stated that Angermanland has 15,000 men. Can I assume then that enough time has passed then for my messengers to get that (false) information to you? This would mean that all other messengers I've sent so far have arrived and that armies have been raised and ready to move.

I got work to do!

Angermanland, let me know when you are ready to have our representatives meet.

Edit: typing... typing...

Ralish, I'd like to get the actual positioning of Madnestians in your armed forces and empire. The locations of the units. I think it'd be more logical if you decided it, for those guys are after all under your formal command, despite the fact I RP their actions. I consider them to be a rather important part of the Imperial Army, but I can't of course really decide that.
After hearing where the Alshorian Great Staff has positioned them, I could start RP'ing them a bit... and know if any battalions are taking part in the other two campaigns (Arish VS Caladonn/Angermaland fronts). The number of Madnestian troops was something like 18,000 alltogether, right? If that's ok. They are hired in "battalions", some 1,200-1,800 men each, or (Wolf)Packs (=companies) of some 100-150 warriors.

EDIT: Oh, and btw, perhaps we should come up with some sort of a "Mercenary Market" taking place somewhere in your Empire, annually maybe, to where thousands of Madnestians travel to offer their services, and Alshorians decide how much they'd perhaps need for the year and choose those packs/individuals they test/decide to be the best. Or something. If you want to hire more because of the massive war that seems to be starting, you can just send a delegation to Durruti (the sort-of capital) and the tribes will be eager to send men to there.

they can meet whenever... Soma theorticaly left as soon as possible the next day [their meetings are generaly in the evenings]

the reason i gave her a smaller force of light cav was for the speed so it would happen asap, you see.

given the nature of things, Aridiris, it's as likely to be my guys trying to put the fear of Lady Death into the Ralish's men as your reports.

there are so many parralell information channels flowing around that area right now, all with different goals and information... all intersecting arround the place...

i'm amazed it wasn't 50 thousand by the time it got to the Ralish troops *laughs*

at any rate, the Ralish is a large empire. they're bound to have screwed up Something :) be it the governance set up like in your nation, or the religion, or whatever.

hehe. i tend to think of most empires being kind of borg-esque. some interesting mental images right there :)

I've written several RPs here telling the story up until the time I think has elapsed since the Ralish's post. They are mostly dialogues giving information as I don't have time to write actual stories.

Most of them should theoretically occur after our meeting if it is to happen that quickly, but I've been writing them as if the meeting hasn't happened.

I can change that. I'll post the one that happens before the meeting, with the information you're looking for.

why does that post ^^^^^ confuse me slightly?

Confuses me as well. Oh well, Rocaiia or whatever it's called will be mine :D

And my defences continue mustering against an expected Ralish counterstroke. We shall see how well that goes, deciding if this war is a gain or a loss for me...

why does that post ^^^^^ confuse me slightly?

Because it's badly written? Basically, if we my rebel king and your representatives are meeting, we should RP it before I post all the crap I've written to catch up to the last two posts.

then let us get it done with all haste :D

gives me a reason to stick around for a bit

*investigates this new development in his war*

humm...

post the next bit *laughs* i'm anticipating a fairly uneventful trip. they'll avoid anything significant and be avoided by anything that's not untill they meet someone apropriate and relivant.

Now, I'm confused....

must be catching.

my point is, i have no response to that... theres a bit of sceenn setting to be done, either icly or otherwise, before i can have my people turn up...

either i need to know oocly what they're going to see so i can put it in, or i need you to do a sceen setting post of some sort for what Soma and her escort are about to run into.

I was imagining you'd send a messenger ahead of you as to not raise alarm and we'd meet halfway on some field outside the border. We don't know you're coming or expecting to come like this at all. If we got reports that a two hundred man force was moving towards the border, we'd go out to fight it.

What you can expect is really nothing, unless you cross the border, in which case I could describe the town or the camp or some border patrols. I'm not sure what you're looking for.

where ever the apropriate people are, there headith my envoys :)

so... there.

i anticipate some sort of border type person would see us and report it...

all the heraldry everywhere does make my guys kinda distinctive, and given the stupid reporst you've been getting about many thousands of guys, i doubt two hundered and two people, under a flag of truce once they identified you no less, would really constitute a threat, no?

ahh, i'll work it out once i know what i'm dealling with. you'll know they're comeing long before they get there anyway.

Your little envoy is about the size of my whole garrison there, so it's not too unbelievable that people might get worried. We will definately prepare for a fight seeing you coming, flag of truce or no.

So you've sent a messenger ahead of you? I'll receive him them and come out to meet you, which should give you enough info.

Is tomorrow okay though?

fair enough. i'm probibly too far gone to post anything worth reading at this point anyway.

tommorow it is. or, you know, whenever.

Ok my specifications:

"If not i will probably go as south as you Angermanland and then east enough into russia to support 3 million, not too big though." In Russia, next to angermanland. Im useless with distance so use your judgement. I suppose I will go east till i just touch madenstan, but i wont go south enough so there will be a no-mans land between the 3 nations if u understand.

So Angerman am I gonna recieve a messenger from you? Or the Ralish? Is someone gonna buy me to their side? Im willing to help anyone in the war in exchange for land or riches :P.

I think you're replacing West with East, but otherwise ok...

My brain is decaying, dont blame me, blame the brain.

Ralish, is there an invasion coming, or am I going to just get away with hitting the Pyrenees? (Not complaining, heh).

And Frozo, how am I meant to separate the two?

And seriously, is Kamasha dead? Cos the whole point of striking south was to link up with a potential ally, if he's gone my strategy suddenly needs to change...argh.

So Angerman am I gonna recieve a messenger from you? Or the Ralish? Is someone gonna buy me to their side? Im willing to help anyone in the war in exchange for land or riches :P.

given that i've made posts about 'mongol' raiders comeing from the east....

either something interesting's going to have to change, or something... so yeah, no messengers going east from me... but i'd be happy to recieve some.

Angerman! Receive my diplomats already please!!!!!!! I'm sure they've had enough sex and booze already...

dude... check the thread. so far as i'm aware, i sent a messenger to come get them... umm... a day or two back?

i'm waiting for you [and Caladonn, but i can dealy him untill After i talk to you if he takes too long]

Yeah, sorry, I was only on the Computer yesterday while Jolt was out... so I'm a bit behind now...

Ralish, I know you've got a lot to do, but I'd appreciate some response in my war thread...

EDIT: Anything that helps the war effort is good for me, so I'd be willing to chip into a 'get Frozopia on our side' fund.

*sigh* congratulations, Phil. your ambasidor is dead.

that was worth doing, wasn't it? the messenger was [like as not] a 12 year old kid. he'd only take you as far as the entry way. the vast bulk of the palace staff don't know who you are, you just totaly bypased the point where you would pickup your escort, and atempted to enter, unnanounced and without the official guard/paperwork/whatever, the offices of a monarch... in a palase where in there are many armed guards.

leaving aside the fact that the yePrisne himself has never seen you before.

unless you want to go back and edit that... diplomatic incodent off the port bow and then some :eek: [potentualy] interesting RP, but very not helpful on a strategic level.

this strikes me as highly familiar, actually.

Hm, perhaps these mongols just rode through my lands unopposed.....although that would be very unFrozopian. Perhaps they attacked long before the Frozopians spread south? Or they attacked from that triangle of land that is still neutral.....

Well I shall await a messenger for the moment, the new King is keen on making new allies (and wars, the bloodthirsty bastard). I guess I await the Ralish/Calladon/any other nation.

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=501399
Here's my info guys. I can add more later.

Er, I kinda figure he was already waiting for me sorry.

Oh no the Mishin remind me of a certain "Han Empire" (not the real one, the old RP one).

I wasn't here for an old rp one, so I have no idea what you get from that lol.

Whatever I guess I am now part of this?:confused:

Frozo, from what I've been planning Caladonn doesn't really have much knowledge of areas beyond Angermanland... If you want to send a diplomat to Caladonn, however, he'll certainly be well recieved.

Interesting, Madnestan. Might have to think about that! I'd imagine that a mercenary market of that sort might be held outside Azaria (we wouldn't trust that many foreign soldiers inside out capital, about which we are very paranoid, as it is our... Mecca, our Lhasa, as well as our London/Paris/Washington/Moscow), which is fairly central in the Empire. Well, at least until people start biting pieces out of our borders!

To be honest, I'd imagine that, at the moment Madnestians are all around the Empire. For one, we don't want them all in one place, just in case, and, more to the point, our forces are becoming desperately stretched even before all the fighting broke out (I suppose that's why the fighting broke out!): every major district has an Imperial Guard detachment, and perhaps the Madnestians hired for that year/season/whatever would be attached to them, since each group of Guardsmen is usually only a few hundred strong at most. Combined with a couple of hundred mercenaries, that suddenly becomes a more formidable force.

Then you can pick and choose when there's a fight that you have time to get involved in, without having to wait for me to say, "oh, yes, you've got mercenaries there!"

We can spread 18,000 men through the Empire if most of them are in wolfpacks. Alshor will be an exception: the only Madnestian mercenaries there will be the ones who haven't yet been hired, and who are searching for commissions from the King or the interest of wealthy merchants, all of whom make pilgrimages to the capital at some point (as a Muslim may add Al Haj, is it? After he has visited Mecca? So a citizen of the Empire may advertise the fact that he has visited Azaria, and any merchant who does so will tend to have an advantage when doing business with people who want to look like good subjects/citizens).

Hehe, I'm glad to see that people other than myself are confused by posts other than my own! Are we all alcoholics, or is it just me?

I would like to engage the help of the new Rus kids, but if I keep in character, I can not have the present King Ralish put any faith, respect, or interest in the people of the Rus. After so many centuries of total domination, some Ralish really are great big racists. It will come back to bite them in the arse, but, for the sake of RP integrity, so it must be!

Incognitia: Well, the King, when he hears of your offence, will demand an invasion, and expect the speedy subjugation of your entire civilisation. Unfortunately, Osteia is worth a lot more to us than Pyrennia, which is the poorest part of the Empire (due to massive under-investment so far from Azaria- I think this is the most distant part of the Empire), and it contains thousands of fully armoured knights. To be honest, fighting Osteia -and now its allies from Caladonn- will in itself be a massive struggle for the Empire. Incognitia might be in the best position of all those who've attacked us. Perhaps you stand to gain the least in Pyrennia, but you're also the least likely to be smacked-down for it.

We'll try, but we have to get through a lot of other enemies, first!

Caladonn, hum, if I'm behind, that must be one of the thread-links I have stacked-up in my Word document to address tonight! Sorry, mate! I'll get right on it.

Anyways, at some point, can someone get my link on the front page?

Assuming that I will be considered part of this RP:

The Mishin Empire certainly already has deep, though unnoticed, trade relations with the West, especially the Ralish, since that is the main source of trade, and that is where the trade routes go. Madnestan would probably be making money off the tolls...

Anyways, at some point, can someone get my link on the front page?

Assuming that I will be considered part of this RP:

The Mishin Empire certainly already has deep, though unnoticed, trade relations with the West, especially the Ralish, since that is the main source of trade, and that is where the trade routes go. Madnestan would probably be making money off the tolls...

sorry, i wasn't actually online. timezones, things to do, blah blah blah.

you know, i think i said something a while back about avoiding chinese hegemony. the Han empire refured to in the previous RP basicly took the same area you're claiming.. it was so big, with so many people, that no one could touch it, and it couldn't really expand, so there was no point in any RP involving it... and it just sort of.. stopped. this when most of the nations in the game were located in or around the pacific!

so yeah.. i'd request an adjustment in the borders and so on, but i'll put your thread up :)

Er, I kinda figure he was already waiting for me sorry.

oh.. he is... but the palace compound is.. very large. and unautherised people arn't aloud in without escort.

partially to prevent them getting lost, mostly so they can't sneak in and do in the yePrinse (it's happend before when someone wanted to depose him and couldnt' get the nessisary support.) or otherwise cause trouble.

at any rate, it's only a single post more each... well, and fixing that one a bit so they don't get made dead...

and then i notice that you already changed it. hehe. sorry. [not sure if this posted or not before i hit the stop button]

you realy don't go in for narative, discription, thought, or extrenuous dialog, do you? yeash.. i may make huge posts, but they don't all come out of nowhere :p

one liners are bad for RP. however, this one doesn't get them killed :D all good, i'll see whati can do with it.

Hm, perhaps these mongols just rode through my lands unopposed.....although that would be very unFrozopian. Perhaps they attacked long before the Frozopians spread south? Or they attacked from that triangle of land that is still neutral.....

Well I shall await a messenger for the moment, the new King is keen on making new allies (and wars, the bloodthirsty bastard). I guess I await the Ralish/Calladon/any other nation.

ugh. jolt's being glitchy as anything. i never said those mongols were THE mongols :D

at any rate, the point was that diplomacy was [and is, for the most part] on you, as no one in europe really think's there's anything worthwhile beyond the Urals, at this point, except perhaps to the south.

on the other hand, my guys would be willing to Listen to you... the Ralish are likely to send envoys home in a sack. actually, past experiance would indicate it may well be in Multipul sacks. each.

but yeah. hehe.

i'll be interested to see the next updated map :D

i don't think a war on my side would gain you any Land, sadly. then again, a war Against me from that direction wouldn't be a lot better :P

unless you went south after the wolfmen.. or perhaps came around the souther of the Urals and hit the Ralish there.. that might be worth something.

certainly it'd stop anything from over There comeing to help defend what i'm takeing :D

Anyways, at some point, can someone get my link on the front page?

Assuming that I will be considered part of this RP:

The Mishin Empire certainly already has deep, though unnoticed, trade relations with the West, especially the Ralish, since that is the main source of trade, and that is where the trade routes go. Madnestan would probably be making money off the tolls...

sorry, i wasn't actually online. timezones, things to do, blah blah blah.

you know, i think i said something a while back about avoiding chinese hegemony. the Han empire refured to in the previous RP basicly took the same area you're claiming.. it was so big, with so many people, that no one could touch it, and it couldn't really expand, so there was no point in any RP involving it... and it just sort of.. stopped. this when most of the nations in the game were located in or around the pacific!

so yeah.. i'd request an adjustment in the borders and so on, but i'll put your thread up :)

Sorry, what's the new chap after?

I am really, really drunk... as most nights on which I bother to come on-line!

Honestly, in this age... don't over-estimate the Chinese.

200 or 300 million is the population of earth.

About 34 million is probably the population of the Ralish Empire, ignoring Osteia and possibly Aridiris. A couple of million are in the Americas, a couple of million in Africa, a couple of million in Alshor's existing enemies. China can't have many more people than the Ralish. We won't be afraid of them, anyway. Persia is ours- we'll meet them on the Silk Road and sort something out.

Remember, we're the late Byzantines plus half the western Roman Empire, and Syria, and so on... We have half a dozen of the world's eight biggest cities.. .and one of the others is in Spain.

true, Ralish, but compaired to your population, You're overstretched and imploding.

if i remember rightly [which i may well not :p] China has had quite some time to get it's self orginized [it's been around as an empire for over a thousand years already at this point], it's population isn't quite so concentraited into citys as yours must be, it doesn't have all but ignored fronteir regions [well, i suppose it might... but *shrugs*] etc etc. and as i said before, there was the whole million man army bit... back when rome was still a power!

[it may not have been a litteral million, but lets not quibble :p]

anyways, my point is this: dont' Underestimate it either. if it actually gets orginized and moves, it's quite powerful. probilby still has the capacity to grow without screwing it's self up too badly at this point, too. *shrugs*

heh. the old Han ended up being all of china, and most of india as well... that was rather scary.

edit: dude, turn up sober for once :p

oh yeah... where's that road with the granerys run from and to?

that might become significant later, so a map showing where it actually goes would be useful.

I tried to set the scene for our meeting Angermanland. I had to change it some after reading your lastest post, but no biggie. I hope everything jives.

Sorry, what's the new chap after?

I am really, really drunk... as most nights on which I bother to come on-line!

Honestly, in this age... don't over-estimate the Chinese.

200 or 300 million is the population of earth.

About 34 million is probably the population of the Ralish Empire, ignoring Osteia and possibly Aridiris. A couple of million are in the Americas, a couple of million in Africa, a couple of million in Alshor's existing enemies. China can't have many more people than the Ralish. We won't be afraid of them, anyway. Persia is ours- we'll meet them on the Silk Road and sort something out.

Remember, we're the late Byzantines plus half the western Roman Empire, and Syria, and so on... We have half a dozen of the world's eight biggest cities.. .and one of the others is in Spain.

Dude, your existing enemies includes my 12 million :p Still, you're probably right. China could be an interesting influence on things, though to my mind an Indian empire might be more interesting.
If we're not likely to get invaded, I might leave a decent pause then become more active in aiding Osteia and maybe a supporting thrust to assist Caladonn - after all I just raised a fyrd of 120,000 men, of which maybe half will be available to deploy after a bit of training to get them back into the swing of things. Even if I keep back most for defence, 10,000 each into northern Germany and Italy, bolstered by housecarls, will have...an influence.

Welcome oh Esteemed Infinus. I might be too far away for meaningful contact, but we shall see.

Oh, and someone should tell Kiri(Hok Tu), after all he's still got Japan.

Ingognitia, I suggest you tone down those numbers a bit... 120,000 men and 12 million people are just too much for that pesky piece of France you have there.

honestly, guys, pre-black death etc, midievil europe Did have a pretty decent population. i'm not sure, but i think it's sometime in this era that london hits 1 million, for example. yeah. just in london.

some how, Ralish, i think your estimates of how many of who are where might be a bit low.

and i think most of the [farmable, anyway] country side is fairly well populated by pesants.

on the other hand, i'm thinking Terra's population might be a little on the high side, too. so *shrugs* meh.

also, with those 120,000 men, that's about 1 % of the population, and even then, 100 000 of them are tied up with local and border defense, if i'm remembering/reading rightly. so, proportonally, it's not bad.

i think if i call up absolutly everything i can [which means we're loseing so badly i'm calling up basicly the entire adult male population between 16 and 40 and probibly not paying them either] i get roughly 350,000 including my regular army. out of a population of two million. normaly it tops out around 51 000

anyway. france, in ites entirety in this era could mobilize, under ideal curcumstances and i've i'm remembering rightly, over a hundered thousand men all up. probibly around two, certainly less than three. Terra has something like 2/3rds of france [according to Aridiris's maps, anyway. Phil chopped off a fair bit of his territory to make yours look tidy or something :S] so the army numbers are not too unreasonable, if they are unreasonable at all... and if the army numbers are about right, then the population numbers probibly are too. that's taking into account that he's got one of the more hevily populated regions of europe, and the part of france he has includes Paris. and he has britony as well [which wasn't part of france at the time]

reguarding your meeting, Aridiris, i give it 5 '*snerk*'s, and an escaped chicken :D though i would have actually sent the riders with written messeges. most of them wouldn't speak the imperial tounge, for one thing! guess you got... 'lucky' :D

i shall respond to it in a moment.

Ahh... I assumed that the Alshoria language is more or less the lingua franca in this RP. While lowly messengers in general might not speak it, random people probably could. You'd be surprised at the sort of people you'd find around the world that speak English in occupations you normally wouldn't associate that with.

Oh yes, I don't care what happens to this character Letsi, but the chicken... surely she'd make an appearance again.

it occurs to me: Zachius, in angerman, would be pronounced "Zah-ch-hi-us" witht he ch being almost an sh.. hehe. i love quirks like that.

oh yeah: i posted in the war thread, jolt no longer e-mails me about updates [despite being set to] and i'm not sure if Soma Kyo speaks the Aridiris language or not, though she does speak impreial without an accent pronounced enough for me to bother typing it :D

I always figured that if two characters can understand each other's language it would be written in English, otherwise, perhaps gibberish. Diua can speak the Imperial language fluently, but native Alshor could tell he's from Aridiris.

I'll get on a reply.

Right, justifying my population figures.
The modern borders of France, in the early 1200's, contained 16 million people.
Almost 1/4 of Europe's population at the time.
In my opinion my additional territories outside France are roughly equivalent to the French parts I don't hold.
Therefore I've taken off 4 million because we're a century or so earlier, and to allow for any other losses.

Now, calling up 1% of total population when anticipating invasion is not too bad (the 120,000), which adds to 10,000 already in action in the south, and maybe 8,000 other 'standing army' about the place.
Of the 120,000:
Up to 20,000 will be used actively and offensively, supported by maybe half the uncommited housecarls (24,000 men in two field armies).
Another 40,000 will be kept mustered, near major settlements in border shires, ready to respond to any invasion.
The remaining 60,000 will, after some training, be dispersed, just kept ready to respond to a call. Some will be used to repair fortifications, etc, the rest sent home to their farms.

Basically, my 12 million is fully reasonable...historically. If it's considered unreasonable in the RP, I can cut it, but I'll need to be persuaded in terms of the RP, not in terms of historical accuracy - and at the moment I don't think it's unreasonable in the RP, as at most I'll be deploying a total of 34,000 men in three armies...where Caladonn, of 2 million, has I think 14,000 men (4,000 in Osteia and 10,000 in Denmark, if I remember right).

heh. i do accents for flavourness.

the really good speakers of a language i use english for.

those who can speak and understand, but have a thick acsent or something like that, get 'accented' speach.

when a person who doesn't speak or understand the language at all is spoken to, i use the language it's self when i can [yay angerman! woo for invented languages that no one actually speaks, but one could if one wanted!!] or english with narative emphasis on the fact that they didn't understand.

Right, justifying my population figures.
The modern borders of France, in the early 1200's, contained 16 million people.
Almost 1/4 of Europe's population at the time.
In my opinion my additional territories outside France are roughly equivalent to the French parts I don't hold.
Therefore I've taken off 4 million because we're a century or so earlier, and to allow for any other losses.

Now, calling up 1% of total population when anticipating invasion is not too bad (the 120,000), which adds to 10,000 already in action in the south, and maybe 8,000 other 'standing army' about the place.
Of the 120,000:
Up to 20,000 will be used actively and offensively, supported by maybe half the uncommited housecarls (24,000 men in two field armies).
Another 40,000 will be kept mustered, near major settlements in border shires, ready to respond to any invasion.
The remaining 60,000 will, after some training, be dispersed, just kept ready to respond to a call. Some will be used to repair fortifications, etc, the rest sent home to their farms.

Basically, my 12 million is fully reasonable...historically. If it's considered unreasonable in the RP, I can cut it, but I'll need to be persuaded in terms of the RP, not in terms of historical accuracy - and at the moment I don't think it's unreasonable in the RP, as at most I'll be deploying a total of 3*10,000 man armies...where Caladonn, of 2 million, has I think 14,000 men (4,000 in Osteia and 10,000 in Denmark, if I remember right).

heh. my population's the same as Caladonn's, mabey very slightly bigger. my full fighting force is 50, 51 thousand [2.5 %, roughly] men if i call up Every trained man of age. that's litteraly the upper extream military size i can have iwthout pretty much everything else in my nation crashing, and it is putting a Little bit of strain on it.

thus why i currently have a bit under 7 thousand out and about and another 7-13 thousand around the place in the form of the other half of my standing army, the marc lord's troops, and misilanious potentual reenforcements and 'would be rapid if they didn'thave to walk' response teams. all up, 1% of my population or less is currently active as soldiers.

i did say i have 2 million, not 3, didn't i? if i said three then the percentages get smaller, obviously.

in RP terms.. the lack of recent wars [middle ages europe was almost one Big war, it seems :p] due to the Ralish empire hanging around probibly would result in everyone's population being a bit lower than the historical.

if i remember rightly, growth Rate increases during/after wars, and after plagues and famins and the like [useually, anyway] provided there is sufficiant population left for there to be noticeable growth at all, obviously.

for example, i'm reasonably sure i'm the most likely one to have fought a war any time recently, 'sept mabey kama... whatever his name is :p [yay my shocking memory :D] having mostly land borders and having not all of them bordering the Ralish empire. and yet my population is at the Low end of the scale. not to mention i think historicaly it was bigger than i have set it at.

the Ralish, on the other hand, have probibly been pretty stagnant for centuarys [or at least a lifetime and a bit] so while it's population would have been large, it's growth rate would be on the lower end.

i dunno what i'm trying to say anymore :S i'll stop.

Growth rate jumps, but the base population falls...I'm not sure if anyone entirely knows how those two factors balance out, apart from having a nation that's always fighting with population moving in fits and starts, and a nation always at peace with a much steadier progression.
Short of much more evidence I'd assume it balances out.

Sorry I took a while to reply. I was hungry so I went to the store.

I didn't put in an accent when I had a guy speak your language, because really, I don't know anything about it. Just assume that it was accented and probably not very good :D .

Wow, looking at these numbers makes me thing.

I have my potential military "man"power at around 250,000. This is the amount of men and women in the age range to fight in wars. Obviously with would be entirely impossible to raise and maintain. The only people left behind would be children and the elderly! I might as well just pick up the whole country and leave.

That doesn't have to matter...as long as your terrain is defensible enough.

No nation could send enough of a force to attack you, except maybe Ralish, and he'd need to be virtually free from other commitments.

And with the right society type, you can regularly deploy 10,000 men overseas - at least in campaigning season.

Actually, my population is 4 million... probably a bit higher with Iceland and Greenland now part of the Empire.

Basically, my army is pretty small (5,000 in peacetime, 25,000 in wartime), but well-trained and logistically supplied to be able to conduct overseas operations against potentially larger peasant armies. Still, they're not too good at prolonged campaigns, since most of my forces are really amphibious marines.

Right now, I have 4,000 men in Osteia (These are the troops that are more used to non-amphibious warfare, from garrisoning and such), 1,000 men in the Southern Islands (Really just a force to impress, with sailors and leavings and such), and 20,000 men in Denmark (That's my major effort, with many ships in Caladonn comandeered to provide them transport).

That's my regular military, so the Icelandic and Greenlandic troops have been spread out between the three regions as garrison troops- Caladonnians don't like to raise peasant armies, due to the high costs required to maintain that many men, and the low results since, man for man, their quality is so much lower than normal troops.

I could potentially raise perhaps 45,000 more reserve troops, but I definitely couldn't send anyone else overseas (My navy and merchant marine is pretty full), and they'd be pretty useless just defending Caladonn.

Screw it, if no ones heard of me, time to make a name. Ok sorry Anger, but I will shortly be pushing east (WEST YOU IDIOT BRAIN WEST!), sorry make that west. Lets hope you dont see me coming.

Screw it, if no ones heard of me, time to make a name. Ok sorry Anger, but I will shortly be pushing east (WEST YOU IDIOT BRAIN WEST!), sorry make that west. Lets hope you dont see me coming.

hehe. i think i'll see you coming :p

i get raids and annoyances from that dirrection All the Time, so there's border guards and a reasonable garison over there too. at a [large] stretch i could probibly fight a two front war ... but only so long as the Ralish is Well distracted in other parts of the world. heh.

and when one of those fronts is defensive and consists mostly of a few mountain passes... well, i don't think it'll be too big a worry, do you?

The Mishin definitely have about the population of Ralish...and are stable and well guarded (except for the province that is bordering Madnestan, it is relatively understaffed and lowly populated. I am prepared to lose land if it will make you guys feel better--I don't plan on taking all of India for sure, if I even reach that far.

The Silk Road definitely is a big part of trade in my empire, and probably trade with whoever's Japan.

I plan on being a nation of not so much war, but technology. As of now, I believe my armies can use primitive firework-type rocketry for signals, in place of bonfires or smoke signals.

P.S. Most of my army, probably 60-70% is located in the small but newly acquired regions of RL Manchuria and Korea, which are very unstable.

Welcome, welcome, a thousand times welcome.
And I think this time round, for you, conquering India would be boring and kinda pointless, but really wouldn't worry us as much as when the guy playing China did it and we were all in the Pacific...
I might send an insane, long-range trader who can get really screwed up when he tries coming back through Alshor.

wouldn't need to be Too insane, if it were profitable. just adventurous.

good grief, my spelling sucks. if you can imagine, this is an Improvement on what it was like not many years back :eek:

seems it's always around noon, local time, that jolt screws up. i'll have to keep that in mind.

you're right about china not being quite such a disaster this time, Terra, but it's still gonna be kind of... inactiveish, not being in a position to contact much of anyone.

though, on the other hand...


ROCKETS!!!!!

so shiney! i can garentee Pi or some other equily piromanical techy type person will get down there at some point :D

The Mishin Empire certainly also awaits to get involved in foreign struggles, via small contingents and...*rocketry* shipments...maybe some crossbows or primitive cannon...

good grief. between the last time i checked my e-mail [After the last time i posted] and now, i got 18 e-mails from jolt saying there were new posts.

there was exactly one new post.

... mabey it's makeing up for all the ones it missed earlyer...

The Mishin Empire certainly also awaits to get involved in foreign struggles, via small contingents and...*rocketry* shipments...maybe some crossbows or primitive cannon...

you know, i belive cannon were a european invention. italian, i think [though i wouldn't garantee tha last half of that] certainly hand cannon and, later, guns were.

on the other hand, i think the rapid fireing balista was a chinese one, so fair's fair :D

now, i don't know where i got this, but i belive Combat rockets were actually korean or indian in origon, not chinese.

What's wrong with Osteian factbook? It says "Database error" every time I try to open it...

Cannon were indeed a European invention. Regardless of where rockets were invented, China definitely had them.
And I'm now liking the trader idea. One heavily escorted merchant convoy, coming right up. Angerman, if you want it to have come through Angermanland on the way and picked up some people, lemme know :D After all we two need some contact with each other as well.

given locations and the fact that you're currently at war with the Ralish [as am i] you're proiblby going to run into caladonn controled territory, Kalmar territory [or at least waters they control] and my own, or sail the whole way around africa.

so yeah, why not.

we can go through the Frozopian territory.. mabey head off a war :D

... i really Don't need to be fighting to wars, much as i could if i had to.

many possiblitys.

What's wrong with Osteian factbook? It says "Database error" every time I try to open it...

it's been glitched for a while now. no one know's whats wrong, that i know of.

... at least it's an excuse for Osteia and the Ralish to start a war thread to continue their .. umm... war :D

i'm still trying to find a way to load rockets onto hawks.

probibly wouldn't work i guess.. but ...

mabey some sort of pod, like the javalins? give it a tube to focus the exhaust, it might even increase accuracy or something. 'course, said tube would have to go at least as far back as the tail, and would have to be quite lite and none too flamible.

though, more important than that [and proiblby more practical too], is the possiblity of explosive bombs. hehehe. shrapnal! let us drop explody thingys on the enemy's heads!

so many possiblitys. Pi's been fiddling with a simialr idea to gunpowder, you might notice? i belive there was referance to something somewhere.. it went 'boom' but was far too unstable/unrelable to use.

oh! battering ram, only with a rocket rack instead of the front part, and a vent tube down the center instead of the ram! that'd be awsome! TANK! *manic cackleing goes here*

ok, a tank with appauling accuracy, pathetic speed, and utterly horrendous manouverability, but still :D

so many possiblitys for gunpowder that no one really explored! and all technologicaly less sophisticated than the musket [and quite proiblby the cannon too]

bizare thought: rocket assisted javalins....

like normal javalins, slung out of the javalin slings as useual.. but with a kind of firework wrapped around the shaft, designed to give it an extra push... that'd be interesting. that wouldn't even take any technological development from the signal rockets beyond thinking to attach them togeather.
BWAHAAHHAHAAH! i shall rule the world! none shall stand before me!

assumeing i survive long enough to try this out, of course.

explosive balista bolts.

i can launch something like 5 bolts a minute, for two minutes, between reloads out of my smaller balista [yay rapid fire mechanisem!] pack the inside of the shaft with explodyness and possilby nails and things, rig up some sort of fuse lighting device to the rapid fire mechanisem...

boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom

'course, the combination of mechanisems would probilby be unreliable and dangerous.

better to use the bigger balista, load, light, and fire each shot one at a time. slower, but bigger boom and less explosions before launch or failed explosions.

sorry, my brain's working overtime on this now.

Hm ok right now Im thinking about the boarders, and the accessibilty to both the ralish and angermanland. Do I ask the nations what to expect? (which is easy) Or look up the actual routes I would have to take in RL (which is soooooo hard). I dont suppose you guys can tell me?

I cant see why we would attack a caravan convoy, unless we had reasons to mistrust/dislike the nation (reasons which we dont yet have).

BTW add me to the map someone.

What's your territory again, Frozopia?

All I can tell is east of Angermanland.

Nevermind, I found it.

I will be putting up a new thread this afternoon.....

Damn thats shitty...

Ok, Frozopia, you're the white bit on the map. Let me know if your borders are all screwy. A put you east of the Angermanland, touching Madnestan but with a no-man's land between you, Angerman and Ralish. As I think was what you wanted.

Howcome I don't get onto the key of the map :p

I go to university tomorrow. I may, or may not, be able to post much in the next week. I'll try to check in when sober, unlike Ralish ;)

OK I have lunched my army toward to toopoxia. Remember that I did not write that 250 000 soldiers marched. Only that 250 000 men marched. So please don't bully me about that. (I am going to let lotz of my men moving into conquered territory.

The maps cool, but make my boarders touch anger. I just meant for there to be no-mans land to the south. Otherwise its perfect.

OK I have lunched my army toward to toopoxia. Remember that I did not write that 250 000 soldiers marched. Only that 250 000 men marched. So please don't bully me about that. (I am going to let lotz of my men moving into conquered territory.

Ok, I return, having more time than expected, just to say this:
To raise and concentrate 250,000 men on your border without a single post is bad RPing practice.
I've not seen anything from Toops lately, but if I was him I'd be extremely pissed off by that, no matter if they're only marching or not.
It can all be Secret In Character if you want, or purely OOC, but you have to tell people what's going on.
I'm far from perfect at RPing, but I've been raising and building up defensive forces to deal with the Ralish for quite some time and multiple posts.

So with respect : edit what you posted.

Oh, also, 250,000 men in one army is impossible in these times. 40,000 is the limit of the logistics, as far as I can tell, and that's pretty hard.

Ok, I return, having more time than expected, just to say this:
To raise and concentrate 250,000 men on your border without a single post is bad RPing practice.
I've not seen anything from Toops lately, but if I was him I'd be extremely pissed off by that, no matter if they're only marching or not.
It can all be Secret In Character if you want, or purely OOC, but you have to tell people what's going on.
I'm far from perfect at RPing, but I've been raising and building up defensive forces to deal with the Ralish for quite some time and multiple posts.

So with respect : edit what you posted.

I completely agree with Terror. Also a secret gathering of so many men is impossible.

Direct quote from Whar Godmodding is. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=367578) (RPing guidelines, written by Euroslavia.)

As a random note, war threads where troops are being deployed should ideally start with troops being readied for combat rather than departing [or worse, arriving] on the first post. It gives your opponent time to prepare, spy on you, and do all those other things that happen in real-life.

Ok, I return, having more time than expected, just to say this:
To raise and concentrate 250,000 men on your border without a single post is bad RPing practice.
I've not seen anything from Toops lately, but if I was him I'd be extremely pissed off by that, no matter if they're only marching or not.
It can all be Secret In Character if you want, or purely OOC, but you have to tell people what's going on.
I'm far from perfect at RPing, but I've been raising and building up defensive forces to deal with the Ralish for quite some time and multiple posts.


point take, I'll edit

So with respect : edit what you posted.

Oh, also, 250,000 men in one army is impossible in these times. 40,000 is the limit of the logistics, as far as I can tell, and that's pretty hard.

ok point taken. I'll edit. However if you see what I am up against you will see that I cant lower my numbers. He has a population of 26 000 000 people! And I newer said anything about a 250 000 men army. Actual I said that the 250 000 persons consist of many civilians ready to settle in his territory (even if I sometimes may have minor difficulties explaining myself )

and just a small BTW his total army is 828,485 soldiers. God dame look at his nation. Its half of egyt god damit :D

weither they're soldiers or not, they still need feeding. so the logistics thing still stands.

also, i think Toops gave up on his egyptian nation for some reason, so i Think you could probibly get away with lowering the number to something sane....

goood gray!... you know, if i'd noticed it, i would have objected to those numbers quite a while back. that's mental :S

how'd i miss him having such a large population?

ayup. i'm thinking pretty much all of our players need to read that thread. it's not just about godmoding, it seems, but good RP in general.

i find it amazeing how much of the good stuff i do/bad stuff i don't do just naturaly.. of course, not even i am perfect :D

edit: the link to "what logistics are" is very shiney too.

actually, i think those shall go on the front page.

lol yea no one is perfect. I'm going to assume he has left the RP and just rp the invasion of 25 000 men. Try to keep the fight fair and hop fully win. If no one volunteer to RP his part, that is.

i think that'd work... he was hunting for a way to kill off that nation without just vanishing .. before he just vanished.

familaiarness indeed. with added bonus bad spelling.

25,000, across a whole border...that's cool.
Still should have been some build up though (note for next time, huh?)
And I agree, if I'd noticed he was claiming 26 million people, I'd have complained.

Ok Frozopia, I'll extend your borders to Angerman. Your specs were a little confusing. You said a no-man's land between the three nations. I assumed that the three nations was you, Ralish and Angerman since you specificied touching Madnestan. Anyways...

And I didn't notice Terror wasn't on the colour map.

Is there any point keeping Toopoxia on there?

On armies: The Ralish Empire is, as we know, stuck in the past, and remembers battles in which both sides fielded tens of thousands of men, in rare cases that went down in legend even close to 100,000 men a piece, while we were conquering Persia and parts of India (Tudkaha, as the Alshorians call those lands). We could still do something like that -not quite on the scale of old, but in the same sort of range- if it weren't for the fact that our forces are being sent to so many different and isolated fronts. But we choose not to, anyway, as it isn't really in keeping with Imperial doctrine. Today, large Ralish armies may be around 20,000, and it is conceivable that 40,000 might appear in a critical battle in the right part of the Empire.

However, in the Middle Ages, at least in the west, nobody really did that sort of thing anymore, except, rarely, perhaps France, or rare coalitions of nations/rulers.

Half of most Ralish armies are ancient-style light troops anyway, who fitted-in better when we were fighting late bronze age and iron age enemies, not people with platemail and longbows.

Er, yeah, anyway, the thing is, even with the Empire's 'modern' large armies of up to 40,000, they can rarely stay in one place for long unless inside a well-connected part of the Empire, and, in the field, they can't even double-back and march over land they just came from: it will have been stripped bare when they passed through, and going back would mean facing starvation.

Same will, presumably, apply to anyone else with thousands and thousands of men in their armies.

Well, I was away yesterday and earlier today, so I've a lot to catch-up on, again. I think it might be time to start losing some major territory just so that it's not so much work to keep up with things!

Lol on territory loss.

And you're right on armies - though in the early modern period armies of 60,000 were sometimes gathered, the norm was 40,000 or less, and until about 1500, 10,000 men was a very respectable army, capable of defeating most forces in the field...given the right leadership and tactical situation.

And I've already broken my self-imposed rule of not posting while drunk, so I'll stop here and go to bed. (Dunno if you can tell guys, but.)

Hey guys...so wait, who left, Foopoxia (or however he's spelled)?

*Whines* I want a monopoly on gunpowder! (Wahhahaha! :( ) And MY rapid-fire crossbows and ballistae!!! *EndWhine*

And please don't mind if I have cannon -- they aren't good for much anyways at this time perioud -- horrendously slow firing rate and high error rates, bla bla.

Sorry about the whining.

About the map, that's not how I quite pictured my empire, but I think it's good enough and a good job with the map overall. :)

Hey guys...so wait, who left, Foopoxia (or however he's spelled)?

*Whines* I want a monopoly on gunpowder! (Wahhahaha! :( ) And MY rapid-fire crossbows and ballistae!!! *EndWhine*

And please don't mind if I have cannon -- they aren't good for much anyways at this time perioud -- horrendously slow firing rate and high error rates, bla bla.

Sorry about the whining.

About the map, that's not how I quite pictured my empire, but I think it's good enough and a good job with the map overall. :)

If you hadn't mentioned you touched Madnestan, you would have been much smaller. I would have liked to avoid Tibet.

Anything you want changed, don't hesitate. Though I will grumble silently to myself.

the dude in egypt.

cannon didn't show up untill the late middle ages... this is theoreticaly Early middle ages.

you could have them, i suppose, but you'd really have to take some sort of hit to some other area of your nation to justify it...

for every weakness a strength, and every strength a weakness.

example: i have odd [and theoreticaly good] tech... and good horses and iron working. as well as a nifty spy networky thing going on.

on the other hand, i have no navy, one of the lowest populations, and a chaotic system [which hasn't become relivant yet, but may well do] which is leaving the yeprinse in a very precarious position when it comes to keeping his throne, and i picked a fight with the biggest empire in existance.

i also don't use bows as a military weapon, nor trebuchets, or build castles.

on the other hand, my army Does build roman/maori esque temporaray fortifications

so yeah, it's a case of keeping it in balance... you can justify gunpowder without having to weaken anything easily enough, being china...

but cannon? too soon, and in the wrong place.. you'd pretty much have to take a hit. now, if Osteia sorted out his indipendance then got hold of the gunpowder idea, it's possible he'd have an easyer time of justifying cannon, and not have to take as big a hit, but he'd Still be getting them far too early, and have to do Something to justify it.

all my ideas were gunpowder extentions of why my guys already use or would see int he process of aquireing the powder, or develope directly from those things.

cannon, muskets, and the like, are an entirely new technology.

Wow, Toopoxica did do some ridiculous stuff... still, he doesn't seem to be around anymore anyway.

Kamasha, as your ally, do you require any assistance against Egypt? I've got 20 warships in the Mediterranean right now, they have a total of around 500 marines that could help out.

I'm thinking that perhaps a joint Caladonnian-Kamashan road could be built across the Sinai Penninsula... Longships and Cogs don't really have any problems going over long distances (Some traveled from Norway to North America IRL), so concievably ships could go one leg between Caladonn and Egypt, and another between Egypt and India, and possibly China... the trade possibilities are quite good, and they'd nicely circumvent the Ralish's Silk Road monopoly :)

Hey, also, any chance the map could be updated? Iceland and Greenland are under Caladonnian control.

Also, Osteia, just a head's up, I'm ready to RP the Canary/Madeira Island conquests now, if you want. Also, as the third Mediterranean power (With Kamasha and I, not counting Ralish), would you mind if I perhaps took a few bases there, such as Minorca and Malta? If Kamasha agrees to the joint Sinai road thing, then I'll need a secure way to get between Gibraltar and Sinai.

EDIT: Also, according to Ralish I now have the Danish Islands...

realising, of course, that there is no cannal there at this point :D

which isn't to say it's not doable.

there is a second way around the Ralish silk road, but it goes through about 3 or more different nations.. at least one of whome is at war already, and may be about to be dragged into a war with another of them...

and it's all cold and stuff.

Hey, also, any chance the map could be updated? Iceland and Greenland are under Caladonnian control.


EDIT: Also, according to Ralish I now have the Danish Islands...

Is that what you meant by the Danish Islands? As for the rest of Greenland, and North America, etc. I'm going to need the orginal map if we're going to add those. Does anyone have it?

think i should remove toops' thread from the front page?

infact, his philipean islands replacement seems to have gone west as well?

This certainly won't be a canal, but just a road over the isthmus... then we can build ports at either end, and construct some new ships on the Red Sea side.

thought as much. it Is a good idea.

meanwhile, i've randomly gained more of finland than i should have. again.

the part to the north that sticks into the .. what is that, arctic sea? something else? anyway. the westen end of the angerman border in finland is in the right place... but it should be [almost] a straight line accross, ending at the western most point of that ... bit of sea that sticks in and makes the bit of land i don't want whatever you call it...

so helpful, arn't i?

oh, somewhere along the way, i think Frozopia asked about attacking me or something? i dunno. anyway, any army coming through there would have to either go through mountain passes or go around the urals to the south.

Aridiris--I didn't mean to have Tibet, so just return that portion to neutrality, so it's a thin line between a small bulge bordering Madnestan and a large bulge as Mishin proper.

As to cannons, sorry, I suppose I meant metal barrels with gunpowder in them. Which self-destruct most of the time. Ok, they don't exist yet. But I WILL invent them! You will see!!! (Evil laugh...)
And Mishin's weakness....hmm...well, easily divisible since the army is far away from anywhere at anytime at any need. I donno, I don't have cannons no more, so this isn't important.

I'm so glad everyone likes trading all of the sudden (more riches for me! Evil laugh...).

thought as much. it Is a good idea.

meanwhile, i've randomly gained more of finland than i should have. again.

the part to the north that sticks into the .. what is that, arctic sea? something else? anyway. the westen end of the angerman border in finland is in the right place... but it should be [almost] a straight line accross, ending at the western most point of that ... bit of sea that sticks in and makes the bit of land i don't want whatever you call it...

so helpful, arn't i?

.


Argh! I thought I was giving you back the territory in Finland you lost after the last map change.

How's that? The western end of your border is right and straight line across to the western point of that "bit of sea" (I don't know what it's called either).

Aridiris--I didn't mean to have Tibet, so just return that portion to neutrality, so it's a thin line between a small bulge bordering Madnestan and a large bulge as Mishin proper.



Do you still want to touch Madnestan?

Edit: Hey! One hundredth post!

Wouldn't we all like to touch Madnestan?

Yeah, I still want to be bordering Madestan, but make the border with Mad. a little longer, please....just thin out the area between China-proper and the border, so it is shaped like, I donno, a ladel with a large handle-end? (with the bowl of the ladel eastwards aka China proper)

Here's T'ang dynasty. I was envisioning the western extension of my empire to look like the western extension of the T'ang. Mine would grow larger right before bordering Madnestan though.
http://www.artsmia.org/art-of-asia/history/tang-dynasty-map.cfm

Do you still want to touch Madnestan?

Edit: Hey! One hundredth post!

Wouldn't we all like to touch Madnestan?

ummm.....

i'm gonna go with 'no. probibly not.' but you never know *shrugness*

woo! my borders are right again! finaly :eek: i am shocked!

and now we can justify mongols without assuming they came through Frozo's teritory [well, have beena ble to for a while, but i only just thought of it]

though.. the map used to show up all right when i stuck it on my desktop... now it's all blurry.

why's that?

ahh well, 'tis good enough :D

Yeah, I still want to be bordering Madestan, but make the border with Mad. a little longer, please....just thin out the area between China-proper and the border, so it is shaped like, I donno, a ladel with a large handle-end? (with the bowl of the ladel eastwards aka China proper)

Here's T'ang dynasty. I was envisioning the western extension of my empire to look like the western extension of the T'ang. Mine would grow larger right before bordering Madnestan though.
http://www.artsmia.org/art-of-asia/history/tang-dynasty-map.cfm

How's that? It looks a little funny to me. Like it's reaching to touch Madnestan.




though.. the map used to show up all right when i stuck it on my desktop... now it's all blurry.

why's that?

ahh well, 'tis good enough :D

Beats me. The map is longer now. I'm using the program Philanchez recommended, but doesn't mean I'm using it well. :p

Thanks Aridiris! Just how I wanted it to look: like it was reaching or stretching out across the deserts there. :)

Now I'm very content.

The maps good now thanks, sorry about my confusing specifications :P.

Anyways tomorrow i will make the first post about preping my armed forces for an assault on Angermanland. We will probably attack in the south, so that we benefit from the warmer climate and the easier routes that can be taken. I pretty much expect my troops to get through the boarders unopposed: It is a very large boarder after all, and I will make efforts to prevent my opening troop movements quiet. Upto the point my soldiers start concentrating on your boarder, the invasion will probably remain a mystery: There is no need to raise an army, it will consist purely of my standing army. After that god knows.

Angermanland is their only one key city i need worry about?

Please note this isnt a full scale invasion, merely an territory grab (probably till I touch the ralish again on the other boarder). Of course if anger provides any reason for me to doubt his strength, then I will go all out guns blazing.

it may be a wide border [if you come from my east.. my southern border is actually pretty narrow :P ] but it is right on the Urals, so i'm thinking you'd have to come through specific passes. it's also been the sorce of various raids and banditry and so on, so there are at least Some defenses in place, it has marc lords the same as any other...

and it's the closest border to my capital where there's always a garison and there would be more than useual because i'm already at war.

unopposed my foot :P

in theory there'd be some form of defense at pretty much every pass through the mountains... no real citys, but some midsized towns, the occasional garrison fort [litteraly a palasade around their tents and supplys, with a platform for javalin troops to cast from and a couple of towers] you're probilby not going to run into individual armys over 500 men untill the main force in the capital gets going.. then you can expect to run into ten thousand or more all at once.

remembering i was mobiliseing a secondary force to follow up my invasion of the Ralish.. guess where that is right now? :P

According to this map on Wikipedia, the Urals have a huge gap in the middle of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ural_Mountains_Map.gif

Wow slow down. I spent the night with some friends and now your all written like three pages. To much to read ;) yes I would be happy if someone offers help so that I may defeat Toopoxia. But first all Kamasha officalas (me will go on hollyday). They will be back by next weekend ;)

According to this map on Wikipedia, the Urals have a huge gap in the middle of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ural_Mountains_Map.gif

so they do. i did not know that. why they're called the urals on both sides of that big a gap, i do not know.

actually, if you trace a line due west from the sothern end of that gap untill you hit the point where three major rivers join.. that's where my capital is. south and west of the large blue word 'Volga' [56 north, 49 east]

logicaly, i should have a fairly significant town/city/thing about where Perm is, shouldn't i?

i never did give a lot of thought to the internal geography of my nation beyond that it was flat, had lots of rivers, and had the urals on it's eastern border [that, and where the borders and capital are]

there's a harbour town that's not on this map, and most of my folk are mear farmers and farm workers.. i did say there was a university town in the north somewhere, i guessing that's somewhere in the 65-70 N, probibly 50-55 E

still, there's a significant force in Angerwraith that was gearing up to ride the river southwest. going north east would not be much more difficult or slower, especially as they would not be taking the bulk of the building materials with them!

my 'mongols' came through the narrower gaps in the north, i'm thinking... so i don't know what you'll hit, but you'll probibly run into my main army around Perm [on that map] ... i havent' decided exactly what's there yet... probibly a significant town, but that's all i've got so far.

oh, that and that the wall layout would be the very similar to one i discribed for some border town somewhere... layers of maze like building and walls, forcing you to go side to side on the way in rather than straight forward, but no complete encircling wall or gates.

I guess I will take the gap further south (orenburg area) and shoot south. TBH any garrison foolish enough to oppose my force in the early stages of the war will deserve to die, and I will find little difficult doing so with my large force. To maintain momentum i will probably avoid any towns: after all this stretch of the map isnt even my target, till I get further south.

So orenburg it is, the gap looks large enough around there.

Let the battle begin!
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=11759304#post11759304

Ewwwww! What's with all that "Wanna touch Madnestan!" -stuff? It's getting kinda freaky! :p

Anyways, Frozo and Mishin, I have written my Madnestians to live on three things;
1.they serve as mercenaries,
2.they raise cattle (sheeps mainly),
3.they loot, pillage and harass their richer neighbours' villages.

This is where I need you guys to share a bit of history with me.
Is it OK if I write my Wolfmen to occasionally raid your border villages, and write it to be a centuries-old tradition? Main direction for these raids is the South, the Rich India which isn't part of any empire at the moment (so I play it to be in some sort of an organized anarchy) for it isn't claimed, but your nations are still on the list.

Fine with me. I might be recruiting some of your mercs soon, they could be useful in the up and coming conflict. What kinda men could I hire and how many?

hey, if raiders come up and hit me, it gives me an excuse to have decent border defenses :p

oh, and frozo? you smell funny :D

anyway, you're most likely to just run into 20 man mounted patrols unless you deliberatly go after one of the forts.

wish you'd pointed out that gap to me earlyer... i Would have sent traiders and diplomats through.. infact, we'd have been hard pressed to justify Not doing so.

working on my post now. then i'll put the thread on the front page.

So I guess the Osteia thread is dead. Have you guys moved on to somewhere else with that?

Are we waiting for something in our war thread, Ralish and Angermanland? Who should post next?

I think I need to move some events along to catch up in time. I'm thinking extra reinforcements should arrive and the north army would start heading west to meet up with the Ralish.

Fine with me. I might be recruiting some of your mercs soon, they could be useful in the up and coming conflict. What kinda men could I hire and how many?

Several thousands, propably. Depends on how much do the Ralish hire this year. They're our main employer, so if there's reason to believe that you would go to war against him, no clan will allow any warriros to serve you.

About the type of warriors, check my factbook. The link can be found in the first page.

EDIT: Castlemen aren't available.

sorry guys, i've been having a weird day. jolt thinks i've read things i haven't and so on and so forth...

working on it :D ... umm, if the Ralish hasn't posted sinse i last did, i'd say it was his move. i'm sorta out of ideas without something to key off. his total inaction in the area my army's in has been... off putting :p

anywho. i'm on it now [in between debating politics with a friend of mine]

apparantly, i was the last one to post anything ICly in any of the threads i'm involved in.

Madnestan, I wish you wouldn't raid my lands, since the land near you is desert and the first settlement is a small city with walls. Anyways, I was thinking more of the trade routes going through your lands...you could raid those (which means they'd be heavily escorted and used to it by now, to some extent) or collect a tolls or something. I wanted to be on good terms with you...if you don't mind...

ok, at this point, things are getting confusing. i'm not as familiar with the geography of the area as i should be, allt hings considered.

if it is at all possible, could we get some maps of the area of Ralish territory where the fighting is/will be [labled, so i know what you're refuring to and where your guys are, oocly only of course, for working out when they run into each other and so on] and... perhaps if Frozopia could copy that map on wiki [or use the generator it was created with] and mark where his stuff is?

in all honesty, i don't even know exactly where most of My stuff is, because, like i said, i have no maps *shrugs*

this kind of thing is Realy going to matter in the type of wars we're fighting, i think, and in battles in the open field. seiges, it's less of an issue for.

edit: Ralish, is your last post indicating that my guys will arive and have the opertunity to besige you befor you get the chance to do something about it? if so, maps are less important, [though knowing where you are would still help] at least for the moment. we could pretty much assume they got their, and that they'd be in pretty good shape.

Well, it's hard to say where borders are, as our map isn't sufficiently precise, but, typically, where I'm not 100% sure, I tend in cases such as this, the Empire drew the borders, as Aridiris -a subject domain- couldn't really do much about it.

It can be hard to find maps tha cover clearly the areas we're using, as a lot are, well, based on modern borders and areas of interest, which are not the same as ours. However, in this case, looking onthis map (http://www.history.upenn.edu/coursepages/hist086/material/caucasus.gif), I am assuming that the Ralish are on the Kuban (look top left) just before it bends to the east-west axis, with that stretch on their left flank and the Aridiris border on their right flank (probably the border's not very well demarcated at this time, eh?).

As to the preparedness of the force: most is on the left bank of the river, a small detachment on the right, towards which you'll presumably approach unless you go north of the river and we miss eachother entirely! (It is pretty close to the border, so I suppose that would be possible)

In theory, a fast-moving force might catch part of the army while it's trying to evacuate the part of the granary/armoury that's on the east (right) bank, and take a small quantity of plunder from there. It'd probably still mean a fight to actually cross the river, though.

i had a big long post here.. then i realised: i think your whole army is within Aridiris's borders, and as such would never make contact with my troops before they reach crimea to set up the western border there.

fishmonkeys... with Frozopia diverting the releaf force, you're going to end up behind my lines... this is not cool. not cool at all....

my entire army is north a bit from there, you see, 'cept Soma and her cav, which was still way to the east, and would be heading northwest at such an angle that you'd be pushing it to claim that scouts from your main army saw her outter picket...

crimean war with endangered rear, here we come :eek:

ahh well, at least the Crimia means there are Crimean war maps of the general area :D

True :)

It seems like a lucky hit for the Ralish... but then we don't yet know that Aridiris is betraying us, which could prove to be a significant intelligence flaw, and attacking Crimea will probably at least stop the raids into your southwest, for now.

Besides, we don't know that Frozopia will be friendly to the Empire just because we have a common enemy! This could get messy.

... half the point in this war happening Now was that it would all be taking place in the Empire...

Frozo really killed that one dead. thanks frozo...

the plans shifted when Aridiris had a lot of his guys switch sides.

originaly i was gonna build a 'great wall' accross the mountains in the middle of his territory, or mabey to one side or the other depending how things went...

theoreticaly, i no longer need that... meanwhile, all the materials and crew are still available.

hehe. what remains of our mutual border will be well fortified if i get given the time, Ralish :D

incidently, i have no interest in crimea. if you trace a straight line from the corner of my south western border and my southern border as of right now and extend it [roughly] directly south east untill it hits the sea, that's where i drew the new lines on the Angermanland maps.

well, that and the Aridiris border.

We haven't betrayed the empire yet, the rebel king still needs to gain formal control of the army, and I thought I'd even things out and give the side still loyal to the empire a little advantage. I've kinda stacked things against them. Had to be fair, you know,.

I'm a little confused as to where the armies are and where they are headed myself. I more or less guessed with my post.

my main army is a little north of the map the Ralish posted, heading west [and possilby a little north] towards crimea. Soma and her troops are moveing as fast as they can [cross country march style... a horce can't maintain a charge speed for THAT long :P] in as straight a line as they can [though not perfectly] to rejoin them before they reach what will become the "new" border.

hehe. actually, half the reason my army is so willing to turn off like that is that [so far as They know] there's ment to be another 7 or 8 thousand men following down behind them.


oh, and i have a plan to help your Royalists with their plot against the Imperials, Aridiris. Raling will have much work ahead :) you know, if he'd been introduced with a normal Angermanlandij name rather than a cover name it would probilby be something like "Ralig" or, more likely, Ralij... which sounds far to close to the Angerman pronounciation of "Ralish" [they say it like the sauce, partially just to piss off the Empire, partially because that's how it comes out :D]

hehe. sabotage Ho!

time for a House of Shadows post in the war thread, i think.

oh yes... Angermanland should not be "Famous" for it's spys.

infact, this war is the very first time anyone would have EVER had the opertunity to connect the House of Shadows with Angermanland. and even then, it would have been in Osteia, where Hera actually broke cover. on purpose.

they've always been cautious to hide behind veils of internal political intrigue or the greed of rivals before now.

AFTER this war, they'll be famous, in a way, yes. before? not at all.

on the other hand: the wonders of the House of Shadows orginizational structure being to rear their ugly heads...

for every up there is a down.

The spies seemingly constant presence gave me the impression that people were at least aware of them.


I thought the reason why the army turned like that was because they reached a deal with my guy Diua.:D Something this new general is not aware of.

I always assumed Raling or.. Reling (?) was just a fake name anyways.

My army is about 2 or 3 days behind yours, I'd say.

yes and no. as i said, the vast bulk of the networks are made up of locals... excepting the spy masters themselves, those parts of the network IN Angermanland, and a few traders, there isn't an ouhAngermanlandij amongst them.

thus why they useually only do passive information gathering... no one really like sto think that they're activly working against their country or lord or whatever unless the system is activly screwing them or they're a real devious bastard with a lot to gain...

useually, anyway.

and as you may notice, they turned When Soma and her troops split off to come see your guy. the whole army was marching west and mabey a little north the whole time she was comeing south, then talking to him, then comeing back.


incidently, Soma's dismount with the blades? it was partially just showing off, but it was mostly the only way i could think of to draw two onehanded blades and throw them to the ground in such a way that they landed pointed towards her own troops without it being all awkward and unwealdly.
leaving asside the fact that eel blades are double ended :D

the name you made up for the spy IS fake, but that cover identity is so dead now that it's only Real use is so that no one finds out his Reall name when he's not doing something that requires him to be sneaky :)

anyway, my guys turned so soon as to be in a better position if you made a faverable deal... the turned so soon Partially incase it was a trap of some sort

the reason they were Willing to is because they expect reenforcements... that and the original plan had them going that way eventually anyway, so it was a time thing :)

move and counter move, plot and counter plot... JOY :D

yes and no. as i said, the vast bulk of the networks are made up of locals... excepting the spy masters themselves, those parts of the network IN Angermanland, and a few traders, there isn't an ouhAngermanlandij amongst them.


Kinda seems a little far-fetched, if you don't mind me saying. But not too much so to be impossible... I think...

actually, in an empire like the Ralish, it'd be freaken PIE provided i didn't try and directly infultrate the mid or higher burocracy.

places like Osteia and so on... it'd actually still be pretty easy in someways. their loyalty is to individuals, not an abstract entity, and as such, if it did not cause problems for whoever the person was personaly loyal to, they'd be reasonably willing.

Caladonn would probbibly be a bit harder. it's small, and the loyalty would mostly seem to be to the institution that is the state. but, in such relitibly open societys, Greed useually works well enough.

as for Aridiris. hehehehehehehe. you've got so much internal rubbish going on, they'd be having a Field day if they'd ever bothered infultrating it in any depth.

you can see how it goes, no? unlesss the place has an active AND effective internal intelligence net of it's own, with better communications and an effectivly facist style lockdown on it's citizens movements and so on, there is a way to infultrate the low levels of Anyone.

It's not the fact that they can infiltrate that's far-fetched, it's the fact they are so unorganized and yet so effective and spread out over a vast area. Networks of locals, not a single one of your people among them?

not what i said :p

for example, i've mentioned 3 of probilby something like fifty or more of the spymasters operating in europe. every single one of them is ouhAngermanlandij. they are Orginized, it's just they're very centralised on their relivant spy master, and the spymasters are a very decentralised net.

they're very orginized in some senses, and less so in others.

example: the mayhem that results from underlings following the last order without direction becuase their spymaster's been cut off from communication wiht them.

i fully expect to lose the bulk of my agents in Crimea if Hera or someone else doesn't take up the slack...

each spymaster doesn't actually control That many recruited locals. each of Them is the real hub/nexus for the area, and there would generaly be another layer of cuttouts before you got tot he people on the ground.

the actual 'agents' on the ground doing the job don't generaly even know who they're working for, most of the time.

and this is why they either go so totaly crazy or stop doing anything at all when what they get is a very vague order to cause military problems.

what you've got to realise, is that this isn't one big massive spy network. it's many seperate smaller ones, who's leaders are all brotherhood members. not all members are spymasters etiher. Zachius, for example.

I don't know. Just seems a little too much for a nation at this time. And their ability to keep their existence secret while employing locals. Information gathering is relatively easy, but sabotage?

But as I said, it's not too far fetched. If I'm suspending my disbelief on gliders dropping malatov cocktails on people, I can handle this. ;)

hehe. the biggest reason i can justify the house of shadows is that it's a rogue orginization.

it works int he interests of Angermanland [as they see them] and it Intersects the system in several places, but it's not Part of it. that make sense?

as for the gliders... the only dubious thinsg about them are the piolets surviving the launching process. the entire rest of it was prefectly possible at this tech level with the resorces available :D i'm just not sure how well a guy would survive being shot straight up out of a balista [admitedly on a platform], nor if the human body would be able to pull off the 'flip and open' manouver required to lock out the wings at the top of the arc of fire. appart from that little detail, everything else is garanteed workabubble.

of course, even an Elite hawk unit would have some pretty horrific failure rates, even before you get to casualtys from the Enemy shooting at you :(

Hm Im rubbish with maps. Just read back to where I said, roughly some gap in mountains (damn i suddendly gotta go, cant remember now).

jolt sucks. it sucks so, so much :(

anyway.

Frozo, part of the reason i asked is because you've got three, mabey four options for ways to go through that mountain range without getting jammed into little narrow passes. if you're not going around the south or going way north, that cuts it down a bit, but i think there are still at least two.

and one of them is so big that weither you went down one side [and which] or the center makes a significant difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ural_Mountains_Map.gif

Look around orenburg. Through there, the significant gap between the moutains slightly north east to orenburg and the moutains Southeast. This turn would be as sharp as possible to the south, if you know what I mean.

Ok so my men are marching through the gap anger, your move.

And jolt is terrible.

actually...

doing that basicly has you cross my borders, go south through some farmland and oppen steppe, mabey run over a village or two, then straight out my southern border and on to the Ralish or Madenstine...

unless you take out a garrison post along the way [which would slow you down a bit] you'd be Gone again before any of my armys caught up with you, and all i could really do is wall up the borders or attack in turn.

is that what you were going for, or is there more to it than that?

edit: actually, now that i look again [silly different projections on different maps] you would litteraly cross my border, then turn around and go back out accross the Same Border, though a little to the south west. i Really don't think that's what you were going for :S

I was hoping to draw you onto some suitable ground on which to destroy your main force. But if you dont take the bait I guess I will have to give chase. I cant remember if you said there were any key garrisons/towns/cities in the south I should worry about? If you didnt take the bait then perhaps i would spend time destroying these.

well, there are the useual garison forts and marc lords and their retainers. if you toasted a border fort then just went away again... i'd like as not just build better border forts and things and then come deal with you once i'm done with the Ralish. border raids are pretty much nothing compaired to a war with a massive great empire.

edit: unless, you know, you crop up with some weird new weapon or something, and/or start interfearing with your ability to fight that war.

edit again: especially considering the army in question is half the size of the maximum total force i can raise to fight on all fronts. my ruler is not stupid enough to attempt to fight it with forces too small unless he must.

damn it! another one! edit: also, if you're comeing throught he gap you say you are, you must be comeing up almost on top of your south west border there, meaning that if you follow the plan you describe, you'll come out in the nomansland between you and the Ralish. all that aside, i can't really react to something i don't exactly know is comeing. which i don't. there's a long list of reasons for that.

so, untill you cross into my lands and actually run into something [and it will be either a small town or a border fort. not even the marc lords build Castles in Angermanland. for various reasons].. i can't really do anything.

i'm thinking what you'll most likely run into first is a town of my standard border design. probibly a thousand, two thousand people? mabey three at the outside. two layers of wall in the style i generaly use for these things, and a garison of about ... 500 trained men, was it? as well as random pesantry and the like.

so, yeah. can't do much untill you turn up there or something.

Ugh... I couldn't get on at all yesterday, the forums were down both times I tried to log on...

Anyway, it's true that Caladonn's a relatively small, centralized, and I suppose reasonably content society, but the fact that we're cosmopolitan and currently allied with Angermanland means that you really won't have much trouble building a spy network. Caladonnians aren't too averse to a bit of extra cash to tell someone who's allied with their country what they're doing, and the diversity of large trading centers like Calad means an Angermandij person would go pretty unnoticed. Of course, if relations sour between us, that'll get more difficult, but for now you should do fine.

Also, Kalmaar, I think we should coordinate our attacks more... how many men are you sending south?

that was pretty much my point, Caladonn. given enough information about a place's structure i could easily getting spys into just about anywhere. very nationalistic totalatarian states in times of war are a challange, but not impossible. places like Caladonn and the Ralish are Easy.

well, you know, for actuall Spys, anyway. not for me personaly *laughs*

I've got the main army, landing in southern Jutland(currently off the coast of Pomerania) with 18,000 men. The Cult of Thor is on the Ralish border with 3,000 men.

that was pretty much my point, Caladonn. given enough information about a place's structure i could easily getting spys into just about anywhere. very nationalistic totalatarian states in times of war are a challange, but not impossible. places like Caladonn and the Ralish are Easy.

well, you know, for actuall Spys, anyway. not for me personaly *laughs*

I'd have to the easiest. Come on! Give me my due! DUUUE!!!

I'd have to the easiest. Come on! Give me my due! DUUUE!!!

actually, it's just as easy to argue for you being the hardest, what with all the plotting going on :p on the other hand, the shear dislike for your rulers would make it much easyer to aquire sabatours should the need arise :D

on the other hand... who's to say i'm not partially responsible for the current situation, humm? *laughs*

i can legitimatly claim partial creadit for any internal friction in any nation! woo! go me!

well, any European nation, anyway.

Your invasion gave my rebel king an opportunity, so you are definately partially responsible. Blood is on your hands Angermanland!!!!

hehe. that too. but it was going to be blood, blood, and more blood one way or an other.

and i can safely say i'd rather it be more of your people than more of mine spilling it. though i'm sure there'll be plenty of both :D

humm... Osteia, you still reading this?

any hope of, umm... remakeing your thread so we can pick up where we left off? or getting it fixed, or something?

it'd be nice, as that particular war was sort of critical to the over all well being of those nations who are not the Ralish. well, most of them.

and our dear friends in would-be-Japan and China have been very quiet too. perhaps we should deliver a swift kick to wake them up? *laughs*

Hm ok. I guess I will have to begin an assault on one of these towns, create a supply/military base for my forces. Obviously I would not go so far south into no mans land (probably west then).

Ok change of plan. Im gonna swing north and attack the capital city, sending a messenger first with the following terms:

Lands to be given to Frozopia: http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g161/MasterC_2006/demandednewlands.png

Sorry about poor quality.

Gold tribute to be paid to Frozopia over 10 years with bulk gold payed at start (or whatever you have in equal value e.g. timber, iron). Hard to gauge for the current time, so just imagine alot but not rediculous amounts that would bankrupt you (any advice on this quantity would be nice).

Full Military protection for both sides, including the expulsion of the Ralish. This is a two way agreement.

All advanced technologies of Angermanland to be shared with Frozopia. This is a one way agreement.

Military base + supplies to be provided to the Frozopians where needed in future.

Free access through Angermanland for the armies of Frozopia.


Refusal of these terms will result in Frozopians befriending the ralish and destroying every last soldier of angermanland. Citizens will also be duly punished.

I think Angermanland is too efficient and advanced for its location...and for the time....just my opinion :)

I just needed to break silence.

Frozopia, given what Angermanland went to war with the Ralish over... you gotta realise how utterly daft those demands are :D

not to mention such a border makes no sense [based on terrain features]

also, it would have been somewhat more logical to put that in an IC post when the messenger reached my yePrinse. seeing as how you're going to have to anyway :p

and the time you've spent fluffing around is probibly enough for me to have gathered a couple of thousand more skilled fighting men... and mabey a few thousand [or even tens of thousands, but probibly not] random 'pesant with leather armor and spear/farm impliment' type guys. [absolutly crap, but they'll make up numbers]

ok, what do you mean by efficiant and advanced, anyway, The Esteemed Infinus?

it's got to have one of the weirdest and not exactly most efficiant political systems in existance [if i actually RPd the whole thing, which would take ages] i have yet to have the chance to fight, the hawks are an eccentricy of my and about on par with the Ralish and his steam powered temples. perfectly possible, no one did it.

the spy system has issues. my guys got hold of the equivilant of the art of war somewhere along the way :p weither they wrote it themselves or whatever is also rather irrelivant.

my armor is not any better [tech wise] than Osteia's, and most of my guys wear less of it

the town design is cheaper and more practical than building normal walls....

the rivers being used for infrastructure is what was Done in this area... they didn't build a lot of roads in part because of them [and partially because of the mud and stuff at some times of year]


oh yeah... location doesn't have a Lot to do with being advanced.... france should be more advanced than Terra's playing it as [i think] africa and the middle east should have the best tech [by way of the Arabs] but those who control those areas havent' got it... Ireland, and to a lesser extent england should be pretty crappy tech wise, and Noone should have longbows... but neither of those are true.

basicly, if all the little nations were playing true to tech level for the centuary... the Ralish would be steamrolling all of us.

i have no idea what you mean by efficiancy. so far as i can tell, china reached this level of efficiancy [then lost it again :p] and infrastructures many times over. the area i'm RPing [admitedly a few centurys later] reached and lost it a few times over... they're still restricted to the speed of a mounted man or carrier bird [or occasionaly signal fire] to send messeges

if it seems 'too efficiant' at all, it's partially because so much of it is handled at the low levels and because RPing all the details would be a pain in the arse and bore everyone. not to mention being vaguely irrelivant.

at least, so far as i can tell. fell free to enlighten me.

and now my guys begin to make use of their specialty... with a home team advantage no less...

hehe. what was it? the amiture speaks of tactics, the deliant of stratagy, and the master of logistics? ... or were the first two the other way around.

nod a godmode either, before anyone objects... go read the art of war sometime :D

if i'm going to have to fight an army that outnumbers me a bit more than 2 to 1, i'm gonna damned well make it work to my advantage :D

edit: oh yeah... if you'd actually attacked a border town or something, i would have lost the battle.. actually, more like 'i would have lost the massicar' but *shrugs*

now, if you'd tried this trick with added spy and betrayaly goodness before i went to war wtihthe ralish [or, more importantly, before you came marching into my territory :p] you could quite possibly have won the war without too much trouble.

but, you didn't :D

Imo what you've done so far is pretty weak. Just run of the mill guerrilla type warfare to attack the supply line, 95% which is still protected by the majority of the Frozopian army considering we have been within your territory about a week. I think you will find these efforts more costly for your own troops. It shall be interesting (if some what amusing) to see peasants attacking a convoy as group of heavy cavalry ride them down. After this you may wish to rethink accepting those terms.