tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842087556081043371.post2701946258044960159..comments2022-04-01T16:46:42.462-05:00Comments on Board Enterprises: The Best Laid Schemes of Mice and Men or Why you need to know what the loser wantedBoardEnthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15462361536278304286noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842087556081043371.post-62800308345918208372016-05-04T11:40:03.953-05:002016-05-04T11:40:03.953-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Hujrot Johaasnenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03487362358984672065noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842087556081043371.post-60365854369268535342016-05-04T11:39:53.113-05:002016-05-04T11:39:53.113-05:00This article reminded me of the Black Company, by ...This article reminded me of the Black Company, by Glen Cook. He mentions a number of the issues you bring up, especially in the first of the Books of the South.<br /><br />I would recommend that book as a good read before attempting large scale campaigns...Hujrot Johaasnenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03487362358984672065noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842087556081043371.post-75527239777462976992016-05-02T22:59:03.336-05:002016-05-02T22:59:03.336-05:00Love the comparisons! What you’ve reminded me of ...Love the comparisons! What you’ve reminded me of is something I read about the late Middle Ages: If you give the feudal knights land - they are established and extremely difficult to remove. If you hire mercenaries, you can cut off their funding at a moment’s notice and they have nothing. Landed feudalism gives the king officers who can run a coup, but paid military (call them mercs or not) is far easier to remove. I’m not 100% sure how that all figures in, but it sure seems to fit your modern day example of when you have land taking issues (local warlords) vs. military strength issues.BoardEnthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15462361536278304286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842087556081043371.post-59895737800809029602016-05-02T18:03:58.695-05:002016-05-02T18:03:58.695-05:00Also, after reading The Royalty lately, I figure t...Also, after reading The Royalty lately, I figure that a guy like Volasar (Vosalar?) who runs the mercenary company/poor barony, descended from the Maer Hendricks, could be a great example of say, like a Canadian Forces leader cum politicial that, while the mission technically failed, could use his excellent track record as a boost to his reputation. Interesting character, that guy.<br />What I like most about the templates in The Royalty is that you did all of the psychological motive/side motive/ and ambition capacity, as well as little details that could mean a lot more if one wanted. It's an excellent piece of work. Thinking even about the Edward/ Caitlyn /Roberto dynamic is this such a great place to start with a small kingdom.<br />It's the kind of detail that we don't get with GoT; the characters are a bit too predictable and uni-directional. The are playing their roles as expected, almost in a Tolkein-mythic fashion. The humanity is not there, with all it's fork-in-the-road anomolies and changing principles that make the way you create NPCs so much more realistic. <br />Caitlyn of Forsbury would not have been half as dumb as Caitlyn Stark, nor Edward as Eddard Stark. Volasar (sorry, spelling) would make a greatly more dynamic Jamie Lannister.<br />Anyway, just wanted to point these out. These latest posts have been great sparks, as I have made a lot of my initial setting designs but have had trouble coming up with the proper dynamic relationships to populate the setting with.<br />Thanks, as always.<br />A.Nova Scotia Dreamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00442827914256027088noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842087556081043371.post-84955655428859197732016-05-02T17:48:51.771-05:002016-05-02T17:48:51.771-05:00As I was reading this article, it occurred to me t...As I was reading this article, it occurred to me that I could combine a real life example of a similar attack and retreat and translate it into a game history for the continent that I am working on.<br />I thought of Afghanistan; well, what little I know of the recent conflict there. Canadian troops were brought in to help out and got to use Yankee hardware, so it was a big mission for us here. Our entire armed forces; Navy, Air Force and Infantry is smaller than the LAPD in numbers...though we have very well trained soldiers and manufacture world class small arms, as well as having trained often with Yankee exercises. Canadian soldiers blend seamlessly with Marines. So, to sum up, a lot of anecdotes and a bit of the reasons why we were at war got dribbled down to the public. Our guys also got some good tough commands, like Kandahar and Helmund, and saw a lot of action.<br />The effort seems like a long, difficult conflict right from the beginning; the target a half a world away in very tough mountainous terrain, with supply lines difficult to safeguard and infrastructure next to negligible. An air campaign of tactical and surgical strikes seemed like it would do the trick. However, ten years later the war was still uncertain...local warlords were handed control as long as they towed the line, and Canada, for one, lost a lot of money on infrastructure that just got lost to corruption and laundering. Like Irag, their was a lot of hardware that got into the hands of the enemy. The only things allegedly gained were maybe control of opium trade and a strategic few airbases in central Asia. Now, after the war, it seems like things maybe aren't much different there, and Al Qaeda easily moved it's base of operations elsewhere. Turns out that they were not so much landowning barons, but unlanded mercenaries, and this caused a bit of a strategic problem during the conclusion of such a war fought abroad by both sides.<br /><in setting terms, I like this as a template; A powerful nation with heavy airpower (say, griffinriders) is attacked by forces from a far away province in the far away mountains across the sea. Victims send holy hellfire to the place, but the enemy seems to dissipate into the background, like elves almost. The victim nation becomes an aggressor on this new soil and fights hard to win hearts and minds, but ultimately the culture clash is unbridgeable. They leave, after expending heavy losses, but do find a valuable cashcrop, and so keep relations with their once-enemy nation. Meanwhile, the original baddies take up residence in deserts and among desperate people who are swayed by religious rhetoric into funding them and keeping their whereabouts a secret. They become like a secret society; eventually flaring up more conflicts against the embassies of the powerful nation that the damaged years earlier. So, the big nation tries to spread out and cover every little donkey corral in every desert, as well as instituting martial law at home and tearing up their own constitution. This leaves the regular people pretty PO'd. It also doesn't help that this big nation experiences a depression, social unrest, and unregulated in-migration of unskilled poor folks. <br />There's so much here, and so many points along the way to set up bad guys who profit from both sides. The failure of a war campaign never looked so rich in possibilities!!<br /><br />A.Nova Scotia Dreamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00442827914256027088noreply@blogger.com