The medium-sized landswap experiment, open to all.

[Legolas]

Not a very catchy title, I know
But I can't (or won't) make up a better one until the game is taking some kind of shape.

By my knowledge, the idea is quite new for this forum, so please bear with me.
So what's it all about?
Well, it's basically an attempt to devise rules for fighting on a larger scale. We've had battles in the past, but they consisted mostly of bands of player characters wading through opposing armies to get at eachother, without the numerous troops providing any real contribution to the fight. Because we'll probably see some more of them in the future, I figured we might as well be prepared for it.
What I need to test and balance those rules I've come up with, I'm going to need players. Well, that was the uninspiring bit.

How does it work?
The first two or three players will get to design their own forces. These can be as large or as small as they like, of any race, with any kind of weaponry. Riding dragons or horses or housecats, or flying pigs for all I care, as long as they are either ground or air based. Tunneling troops and naval troops haven't been covered yet.
Major spells or queer technologies on a large scale, weapons of mass destruction and characters with all sorts of special abilities aren't allowed either. You can have veteran troops if you like, or mage councils with lesser spells, but no individual characters will be fighting. It's kind of squads only.
Depending on the size of the force, players will get a land to match it. New players will get smaller lands of their own, with their own armies, which will be smaller in size. The aim is to beat all opposition, and you achieve this by capturing and holding all of your rivals' castles. Other than that, you can try to grab more land. This will allow you to increase the size of your force as you draft common folk into the army. At the same time, you have to keep some troops in reserve to protect your own nation, although they'll be reinforced by farmers or city guard in the area to give defenders a slight advantage. Don't worry too much about that, I will take care of the details and act as your local news source through PMs.
Since armies will vary in size, you can also agree to form an alliance. Negotiations will go through me as well, just PM me if you want to join up with anyone (although you'll need to learn of their existance first).

But that's all for later. The first thing which needs to be done is to pick your own armies. Once there are at least two players I can draw up a chart of the terrain and you can start expanding (or you could just continuously battle eachother, but without rewards, where's the fun in that?).
The style of play will be very much like that in the Octacon and Pit of Rapisidere threads, as it will be a player versus player fight. Before each battle I'll ask for tactics from those involved, then describe the main movements in the opposing army and ask if there's anything you want to change. After that, the fight will take place and to the victor go the spoils. I'll be rolling the dice myself to make sure everything's fair.

Back to army creation, I meant what I said. Anything is possible. That's because I look at the equipment, mounts etc, and rephrase it to a general class. After that, I can apply bonusses whenever I feel the squad deserves it, and penalties the same way.
A group of infantry can be 100-500 men in size, cavalry and flying troops 50-250 men. This translates to 1-5 'squads' per group.

A small army of humans would consist of
2 squads of lightly armoured longbowmen with extra daggers
4 squads of medium-armoured longswordsmen with shields
3 squads of lightly armoured pikemen
3 more squads of pikemen with identical equipment
2 squads of greatswords with heavy armour
3 squads of knights on horseback with heavy armour, shields, lances and longswords
1 squad of elite knights with the same equipment as the other knights

The quality of the weapons and armour is scaled and goes from common to good to exceptional. In the above example, all would have comon equipment, but the knights and greatswords would have good equipment. The elite knights have exceptional equipment.

Larger armies would have more or more exotic troop types.
You can post initial armies here, as the different nations will have a certain reputation before we begin and all will know what the army roughly consists of.

I realise it's going to take some getting used to before everyone's comfortable with the system, but that's why this is the experiment. If you have any questions, just hit the PM button above my post.

Now, whaddaya think?

[Calaethis Dragonsbane]

I'll join cous. sounds fun

[SecretMaster]

Uh, this might be a stupid question but... Are we using swords and shields or modern weaponry?

[Calaethis Dragonsbane]

Heh, I asked the same - I believe cous said (earlier on msn) Medieval.

[chi master]

I'll join!

[Lord Starshadow]

Count me in too. I have an idea for my kingdom as well. I can PM it to you if you'd like. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Legolas]

In theory, the rules could be adapted to a modern setting. However, they are designed for a medieval setting and that's the way I'd like to try them out first. Magic is not strictly a part of them either, however, a squad of hedge wizards can use the same rules as a group armed with heavy missile weapons. If teams of wizards were chanting to make a protective wall around a unit, that can count as increasing the unit's armour quality. And so on.

Kingdoms themselves will be designed by me, but will be large enough to support the army. For example, for every squad of mounted troops your kingdom will have fields, whereas flying mounts come from mountain regions. Units with better equipment come from towns or castles, whereas common fighters hail from villages. The armies, for now, determine what your realm looks like.
And this you can design yourself.

Of course, this may be a little hard without pointers. You don't want to create a force only to find out it's extremely small or way too large, so you'll need something to go by.
I'm not really worried about sizes yet, as I expect smaller forces will ally to fight off a larger foe, compensating in that way. New armies will also be subject to stricter rules, but I will first need a couple of nations to act as the main realms so I have a framework to build around.
The small army in my first post is just that. This is about the size you can expect from the smaller nations new to the world.

Basically, you can go about army creation by making one unit at a time.
Units consist of anything between 1 and 5 squads. This is the equivalent of 100-500 men. There's a point-based system which will mean that, if you are working towards a points limit, you can have either more lesser troops, or fewer with more and better equipment.
The units each have armour classed from light to medium to heavy, and of a quality ranging from standard to good to exceptional. The men can also take a shield with them. Armour can have strengths or weaknesses against different types of weapon.
Heavier armour makes units slower and lets them fight after more lightly armoured units strike.
Weapons come in short, medium and long range categories, and have the same standard-good-exceptional quality. They can be ranged weapons or melee weapons, and units can carry several different ones. They can also wield several different ones at any one time. Weapons come in blunt, piercing and slashing types, or any combinations of two of those. Some armour types are especially sensitive to certain weapon types.
On a charge, units with longer ranged weapons strike before those with shorter weapons do, even if they are more lightly armoured.
Units can be mounted, and mounts can be killed. Mounts come in fast and very fast types, and may also fly fast or very fast. Because they can be killed, they have their own defense rating, which depends on the kind of animal you are riding. Elephants will be more resilent to damage than horses, for example, although barding may help the horses survive a bit longer.
Aside from that, I may grant units attack or defense bonusses depending on a unit's special abilities. Dragonriders will get an attack boost, for example, as their mounts fight as well. Units being charged by dragonriders while hiding in the forest will get advantages in their fight as well, because of the trouble dragons will have flying around in there.
The above is an indication of what I need to know for each unit, however, you can also just tell me you want crossbowmen with extra shortswords and I can work out the details myself. For more unique units I may need some extra information.

So far for individual units, but how large should the army be, I hear you say. Well, very roughly and assuming you want a regular army without anything special, representing an equally regular kingdom, you are at four times the size of the 'small army'. Remember that you'll have to split your force up into smaller ones if you want to be able to attack AND defend succesfully.
Four times the size would mean you have no flying units, some 1600 horses, 1200 men with exceptional equipment, some 2800 men with good equipment and about 4800 troops with standard equipment. For the initial armies you can take whatever you like, with this as guideline. Of course you can have some flyers as well, or a lot of them if you want to live in an especially mountainous region. If you have a theme to work around, it'll be a lot easier but you'll likely have less balance.

I'd like to see some lists, either posted or PMmed, and if nessecary I'll give advise on things to change. I wish I knew exactly how it'd work out, but I don't. Just try something and we'll see how it fits in.

And by the way, until we get started, everyone can be in control of a 'large' nation. The smaller ones are for the late joiners, although you can of course opt to have a smaller army and nation just by selecting a smaller force

Cous found the first flaw in the plan yesterday when he talked of regular units with wings rather than winged mounts, but I've patched that, so you can pick avariel if you like

[Calaethis Dragonsbane]

A question Cous - what sort of races will be allowed? And if it IS loosely based DnD races, elves, dwarves, humans, gnomes etc - will there be any limits? I can't image any Balors, for example, siding with *good* elves, or for that matter, any elves siding with dwarves unless they had a common foe - certainly not in the same kingdom... just a thought - will talk to you over msn about a possible army - by, another suggestion - I think that flying creatures, say, Avariel for example, should be restricted from mounting flying units - or have a restriction or two about them... although... hmm... I wonder if a dragon would act a little like an "aircraft carrier"... hehehe...that'd be fun... 15 to 20 Averiel per dragon, and jump off it [img]tongue.gif[/img] erm, will talk to you later about "carrier" units cous .

[Legolas]

Pick any race you like, pick any combination you like. If you took an elf army over one of humans, there'd be little difference, although I could say you only got 80 elves per squad instead of 100, and give the elves a reroll for archery under certain circumstances, which humans would not receive. If you want goblins, you may get 200 per squad rather than the 100 humans.
Any race goes, D&D or otherwise, as long as I have a rough idea of strengths and weaknesses to work with.
The system was designed to be easily adaptable so there are a lot of different possibilities, rather than have a totally balanced system with only a limited few unit types to choose between. That's why, on unit selection, I won't place any restrictions. If you think avariel shouldn't be mounted on pegasi, don't mount them (it won't get you much benefit anyway, other than a greater chance of survival if the pegasus is shot out of the sky). If you think elves and balors shouldn't ally, don't take both. Because of the many possibilities, I can't hope to cover all, and instead trust you yourself will come up with combinations you think fair. Of course, if your different units seem to be really stretching logic, I can just ask you to rethink it.

And carrier units will have to wait until the naval combat expansion hits the shelves, as that's where we'll see a lot of that sort of thing

I understand it's still all very abstract, so I'll try to help the armies get started some more.

You are the general of the entire army. All you need to worry about is what forces to recruit, and which areas to attack. Aside from that, you can advise the ruler in matters applying to war (e.g. diplomacy).
Your total army will, at best, consist of 100 squads. 1-5 squads make a single unit, so that's between 20 and 100 units. When creating the force, try to design them to fulfill a purpose. For example, have one defensive force to guard your land consisting of foot troops, and another one consisting of mounted or flying troops to enable a faster response. A third and possibly fourth force would be your attacking force(s).
You'll only face armies of other human players, so you can expect to face between 5 large and 25 small units. Your defensive forces should ideally be a little smaller than this, as they'll get help from the surrounding countryside in the event of an attack, and new levies will take place closeby, ensuring that you can halt an attacking army before it drives too far inland. This will allow you to field more attackers than a 50/50 split would, so you'd stand a better chance during assaults.
Of course, once we get started you can swap units between forces if you like, and use an offensive army defensively. For the list of troops, you can use the undivided force.
You can pick any race you like, and field uits of both airborne and ground based cavalry, as well as infantry (including archers and units of lesser mages). That is all for now, as siege weapons and characters will not be allowed. You can have 'heroes' lead your units in battle if you like, but they won't give the unit any special benefits. Individual powerful mages or clerics either won't have an impact (one unit of one squad is 100 men already, imagine the size of an entire army) or are non-existant. Don't bother picking them
If you have ideas for your army but aren't sure about numbers, equipment or anything else, send a PM. I can't help if I don't know what the problem is [img]smile.gif[/img]

CD's working on a force consisting mosty of mounted elves, and I hope to have it up by Monday

[ 03-07-2003, 02:54 PM: Message edited by: Legolas ]

[Legolas]

Another thing is the map. It'll be a simple map with squares and letters indicating the type of terrain. Armies and their moves are hidden, although I will inform people of anything happening around their piece of realm through PM (This is also how I will aquire strategies for fights, meaning that when you create a unit, you don't have to commit it to a single purpose. Giving units several different weapons and a shield at the start enables you to use them for several tasks depending on the opposition. When I PM for strategies, I'll also inform you of the layout of the area so you can keep that in mind. Not all areas of the same type are identical).
The different areas are:

Mountains - rocky, and/or hilly terrain, sometimes with enormous peaks. This is where flying creatures live, and are tamed. Mountains provide the flying mounts for one squad of troops each
Fieds - stretches of land where animals and different foods grow and are grown. They provide the ground-based mounts for one squad of troops each.
Villages - small settlements supporting up to 3 squads of troops with standard equipment each.
Towns - settlements surrounded by a wall, which support up to 7 squads of troops with standard and/or good equipment.
Castles - fortified areas where the king may live and hide, which support up to 4 squads of troops with equipment of standard, good or exceptional quality. Lose all your castles and there's a good chance you will lose the game; especially if you don't have any allies to help you recapture it within the time limit.
Woods - crowded with trees, which can be cut down to construct a new field, village, town or castle*, or kept for additional shelter or nature's sake. It used to be forests, but the F was already in use [img]smile.gif[/img]
Plains - nearly flat, open land with little shelter. Not very useful, but rather something to fill the empty spaces.

*only if the king agrees

As you can see, the land is related to the size of the army, which means I can't assign them before I know what the army looks like.

CD suggested posting forms for the units, but although I have them here on the computer, they are a bit bulky to use in a thread. I may post one so you'll see what info I need and how it is processed, just use the general description of the unit and keep the details here, or put something up on the internet. I'll think about this and let you all know later on.

BTW, Lord Starshadow, did you send that PM yet?

[ 03-07-2003, 07:08 AM: Message edited by: Legolas ]