COMMUNITY - FORUMS - GENERAL DISCUSSION
A Brief Hypothetical

In my In-Character Journal, I wrote a short hypothetical of a simple, but realistic scenario I'm sure many Elyrian military leaders will see in some form or another.

Given the information below, what's your course of action?

~En.


MagesCipher218-219

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218

You are at war.

Weeks after intercepting an enemy courrier carrying a encrypted message, your intelligence network reports they have deciphered the code. The report indicates two major pieces of information.

In six days, a village in your jurisdiction will be attacked.

In nine days, a key enemy city will be vulnerable.

The village is of little strategic value, economically or by locale. The enemy city however serves as a fortification to a dozen more.

The motion of reinforcing or evacuating the settlement will likely reveal the leak in their intelligence. The attack on the village will be averted, but at the cost of relinquishing the chance to attack the city.

12/29/2017 4:41:32 AM #1

“Invincibility lies in the defense; the possibility of victory in the Attack.”~ Sun Tzu

The village can be rebuilt and the survivors potentially compensated.

If resources are diverted to protect them, and the counterattack isn't made, then there will surely be another attack that your intel network may miss, and another village, if not more, will be lost because of it.

This of course, is assuming that the intel network is reliable.


12/29/2017 4:58:17 AM #2

How exactly did the enemy courier 'accidentally' get captured? How sure are my intel officers of this translation? How did they translate it? Can we cross-reference with any older stolen messages? How strong is my force? How strong is the enemy force? How many men are coming to attack the town? How many men will be needed to attack the town? What's the terrain like between the town and the city? What's the nature of this war? Am I fighting offensively or defensively? Do I have direct orders to defend the town? Do I have allies who should be made aware of this information? Are we sure there is no way to defend the town without alerting the enemy?

The problem with these hypotheticals is that there's too many 'maybes' for me to answer with any confidence. Literally any answer in here could be the perfect move or an absolute disaster based on, basically, some RNG.

12/29/2017 6:20:31 AM #3

you send some of your worst spys at the city that is supposed to be vulnerable telling them that you will attack there in 9 days

at the same time you openly make preparations to defend the village and attack the city after that

last part you arrange for the enemy courier to escape after "accidentally" hearing all of the above

in six days you defend the village

and in 9 days you take your army and attack ... wait for it .... the enemy Capital while they are rushing to defend or set a trap at said city

you don't win wars by taking 1 city but you do by taking the enemy Capital


12/29/2017 6:49:43 AM #4

Hire some mercenaries to act like bandits to kill those attacking the village while your main force attacks the key enemy city.


3/16/2018 8:02:01 AM #5

Overall, defending the town is a no-go as a leader. Even if it takes no damage you lose far more than you gain. Your people may love you, but I doubt they'll suddenly decide to all take up arms for you or are trained to do so.

That said, directly going off the information above, taking the City is better. If nothing else just to deny the enemy. Though, personally, I see the best choice to do both in a rather horrific manner. Let the enemy attack the village while you watch from a hidden vantage point with a small group of men. Prior to the battle prepare the town to be burnt down. If the attacking force is large, burn the town down with enemy and citizen alike trapped inside. If the force is small then leave it continue to attack the city.

As others have said: Battles are not won by taking cities. The only way to guarantee that a battle ends, though, is if you make sure that there's no one left to fight it.


Count Alberic Sevaros of Brightstone. Vassal of Highever within the Kingdom of Tyria. Baron of Tempete

3/16/2018 8:14:08 AM #6

I may be missing the point but I kind of think most high level discussion between military leaders will be done out of game for the specific reason that its instantaneous and it can be intercepted.


3/16/2018 1:18:28 PM #7

Posted By Xonth at 04:14 AM - Fri Mar 16 2018

I may be missing the point but I kind of think most high level discussion between military leaders will be done out of game for the specific reason that its instantaneous and it can be intercepted.

The point here isn’t so much to have a realistic discussion of military tactics. As others have pointed out, there are simply too many missing variables that could be of use to making a tactical decision. Instead, the hypothetical is meant to condense the content down to its most simple form so people answering might have a better figure of themselves.

There have people whom have chosen to defend their settlement, some whom have chosen to attack the enemy and others who want to have their cake and eat it too. There isn’t a wrong answer here, but the question is tied to my family’s in-character lore, so I always do have an outcome in mind.

Ultimately though, this is just a page from my weekly Fan-Media post. Thanks for taking the time to look at it!

3/16/2018 1:28:36 PM #8

Sounds like an example pulled from WWII and the British town of Coventry.

In a very unlikely hypothetical listed for military purposes I would respond like Churchill did. Let the town burn in order to help win the war.

3/16/2018 6:45:23 PM #9

Posted By Malais at 09:28 AM - Fri Mar 16 2018

Sounds like an example pulled from WWII and the British town of Coventry.

My inspiration for this hypothetical. Kudos!

The other one of these I did was a bit more original.

3/16/2018 11:17:52 PM #10

Ambush the force that is sent to sack your town, CDG them all.

Scout the enemy settlement said to be vulnerable and attack it if you want...but a day early or a day after the nine day period.

Anyone who allows a messenger to go missing then sticks to the plan is an idiot.


3/16/2018 11:52:24 PM #11

Thinking about a Kypiq settlement here...

Don't evacuate, let them come. Have scouts in the surrounding forest to inform the troops of any noise in the forest. Ambush them before they reach the city.

As soon as the courier was apprehended, I would have already sent a small troop to keep tabs on the 'vulnerable' city to see if in fact the info is good. When/if the city is vulnerable, I would order my small kypiq troop to commence sabotage as stealthily as possible inside the city. Poison water/food stores, burn granaries, kill livestock, etc.


Kypiq proprietor - Weaver/Tailor/Designer - Broad Leaf Forest

3/17/2018 6:35:40 AM #12

Posted By Mhaura at 4:52 PM - Fri Mar 16 2018

As soon as the courier was apprehended, I would have already sent a small troop to keep tabs on the 'vulnerable' city to see if in fact the info is good. ...

The message wasn't decoded until several days after the courier was apprehended, so this action would not have been possible. I get what you mean, however.

Per the Coventry parallel, the purpose of allowing the German raid to reach Coventry was to preserve the knowledge that the German code had been broken. The WWII situation is not the same as the situation in the example. The British were intercepting a vast number of German radio messages, so preserving the secret that the code had been broken would increase the chance of decoding future message of much greater strategic importance. In the example scenario, vast numbers of couriers are probably not being intercepted. The Germans could count on the British intercepting messages, and relied on their code to preserve the information.

Codebreaking of the Enigma variety requires the collation of a large number of messages, and cross-referencing their decoded contents to make sure of the actual messages versus the potential scams. This opportunity does not seem to present itself with only a single captured courier, so the code would probably have been simple enough to decode with the sample of a single message. With such an easy code, and only a single verified instance of use, the code might actually be a ruse to attempt to ferret out the code-breaking ability of the target.

Based on the above analysis, I think I would announce publically that increased enemy courier activity had been noticed, and one courier captured, but that no specific threats had been identified. I would publically advise increased vigilance and perhaps an increase in patrols in the areas near the point of capture and other observed activity (if any). I would focus spying on the designated enemy city around the designated date, if it were possible to do so without cutting back on other efforts, along with several other enemy points of interest in the vicinity, with the admonition to avoid detection and capture. Then, I would wait to see what happened. If the events that happened matched the message, then I could be somewhat certain that the message had been legitimate.

If an attack did happen, whether or not at the designated village, I would step up anti-courier activity, both to disrupt enemy communications and to get more messages to validate the continued use of the code and get more information on enemy activities.


3/18/2018 1:43:06 AM #13

Answer the OP want , Pick 1 of the 2 in the above scenario. I will evacuate the town & charge for the city.

My answer if the scenario is not simplified to the point the OP is trying to make:

Both option seems to lure my troops away from my current position. There is no way a capable enemy will sacrifice a fortified position for an unimportant town-- Therefore, the message has to be a mean to make me move my troops.

The most likely action of the enemy is to make a sharp push at my camp while my men is away, either at the town / his city. If I lost my camp, I will lose all the supplies and even if I defended the town, I have to retreat. The worse, if my troops fight to a stalemate at the city, I will get surrounded and annihilated.

My move: I will send a message to the town to tell them to evacuate, and inform them that I am moving to strike the enemy city. The courier would of course be intentionally captured and notify the enemy that I have fallen to his trap.

Next I will move most my supplies out of my camp, keeping only 2 days of rations everyday. The supplies will be moved to another new built temporarily camp somewhere else.

Then, I will order all the non combatants to disguise as soldiers to head to the enemy city. My troops will be set into ambush position outside my camps. My camp would be guarded by decoy troops.

When the enemy strike at my camp, the decoy troops will quickly be destroyed and routed. Roughly when half of the enemy troops are inside my camp, I will set my own camp on fire and make a sharp thrust to separate troops outside and inside the camp. Surround and destroy enemy troops outside the camp.

If possible, I will order the non - combatants force sent away earlier to return to make a surround. Since they are not good at fighting, I will leave gaps in their formations so that enemy may try to route through those gaps, instead of fighting them straight up.

After the battle, I will move on to either siege the city or just by-pass it, cuz it is no longer a threat.

People I intentionally sent to the grave : 1) the decoy troops, 2) non- combatants that may get destroyed when disguised as soldiers. 3) and don't forget the courier sent to be captured.

I love all of them, but I have to send them to die because this a cruel world and that is the way to save the soldiers under my command, and those I love back at home.


Never argue with an idiot, cuz he will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

Vice mayor of Lux Verloren

3/18/2018 3:27:30 AM #14

Just spitballing here, but...You remember that scene in Blazing Saddles where they go and make the fake town...And yeah, yeah...Maybe we should go make a toll booth too... Yeah, that's the ticket.


We Are The Many... We Are The One... We Are THE WAERD !!!

3/18/2018 10:49:05 AM #15

I would protect the village.

There is no point trying to expand your lands if you cannot manage to protect those you already have. I think it is crucial to remember that by controlling your lands you are saying to those people that you agree to protect them in exchange for their contributions to your coffers. If when it comes down to it you people know they are nothing but pawns then not only are you fighting an enemy from without you are building your own enemy within.


Author of the Elyria Echo the first, and least up-to-date, CoE fan site.