Elyrian war tactics

Posted By Matriarch at 6:35 PM - Sun Mar 18 2018

Sun Tzu's Art of war?

Never read it, maybe should or i might end up "rediscovering history" with my threads hehe

Posted By Nubz_Unite at 6:53 PM - Sun Mar 18 2018

I think CoE will be utilizing either Ancient tactics or Medieval tactics. I believe a lot of the current mechanics of CoE make modern tactics difficult and not very useful to implement. Most wars will be fought for land burning buildings and cdging all the citizens you come across will make it more difficult to hold that land afterwards and if you have a reputation of doing that the enemy might be more willing to fight because they have actual property at risk. Based on the facts that there will be barons within counties and what not I would assume that medieval warfare we become most prevalent as the game system already has the systems in place for that to grow.

Yes, but that is the idea, you force the enemy into tight positions by damaging the property, you can avoid your intended conquest if you want, but that is just a point, for example: Empire A Adopts this modern warfare tactics, And wants City B from Empire C, Assuming that Empire C intends to fight a medieval war you could prepare beforehand and send some Spies to this City B, search people willing to switch sides, either by threats, blackmailing, bribes, or mutual gains, after that, enter into war With empire C, Send a phony atack with a small amount of forces that loses immediately and retreats, but willingly, while it distracts the enemy, send a garrison to the City B and using your contacts, occupy the city, set up an urban battle while being well stacked in archers and arrows, Lure the enemy in by sending a messenger to the enemy letting them know that the city has fall, if they come forth, let them into the city, barricade the streets, snipe from the houses, take all the advantages you can from that tight space to fend them off, this will make your inferior numbers count more, then you can close in with the rest of your army and encircle them in a double siege, if they try to attack somewhere else use your army to defend that place, so even if they dont fall, you still have the city. This just a plan that comes to mind, where you damage you enemies production, not necessary by destroying it, but by taking it without a fight, you don't have to the same things, just think in the same way, after reading a resume of the book Matriarch named, i see the point in the reference, as he talks about wining before the fight, and that kind of what you need to do

Posted By Turlorn at 7:10 PM - Sun Mar 18 2018

I'm leaning towards the medieval kind of decentralised armies in CoE. A standing and professional army like the Roman legions would simply be too expensive for any king to maintain.

Maybe we'll also see highly trained and skilled mercenary bands that use Landsknecht tactics in battle.

Cutting an invading army off from its supplies is also a viable tactic, imho. There might even be guerilla warfare and plundering of the lands of the (more powerful) agressor.

Regarding Sun Tzu's Art of War: there's an audio book on youtube for you to enjoy. :)

yeah i saw it, i'm going to listen to it, a lot of people have talked me about it, and i'm kind of hyped about it hahaha

yeah sure, i expect the elyrian world to be a rather harsh place, but, you could have a part of the system, the least expensive part, for example, instead of making barons counts and dukes the officers and generals depending on power, you could make an army with standing generals that would organize the bigger plan, having people for logistics and stuff, with maybe 5 or 6 people you could be done, and then have all your officers be the nobles and the mercenary leaders, so they will already have a connection with the troops, this would give you the organization advantage, you still giving the nobles power over their own troops, and having to pay just for a small number of people. and about the supplies, its actually the one that i'm least confident about as medieval armies either foraged, traded or raided for the food they needed, its not that common for equipment to brake. and many times they went of to foreign lands and couldn't possible have the logistics to send supplies, so all medieval armies are like commandos, but a more modern or imperial army would be susceptible to supply cuts i think

Posted By Poldano at 04:48 AM - Mon Mar 19 2018

Posted By sebadevida at 3:19 PM - Sun Mar 18 2018

... instead of making barons counts and dukes the officers and generals depending on power, you could make an army with standing generals that would organize the bigger plan, having people for logistics and stuff, with maybe 5 or 6 people you could be done, ...

That sounds like a General Staff, and it was a Prussian military innovation of the 19th century. Before that, logistics and battle planning were responsibilities of each individual leader, although larger entities like duchies and kingdoms sometimes maintained logistics facilities.

... and about the supplies, its actually the one that i'm least confident about as medieval armies either foraged, traded or raided for the food they needed, its not that common for equipment to brake. and many times they went of to foreign lands and couldn't possible have the logistics to send supplies, so all medieval armies are like commandos, but a more modern or imperial army would be susceptible to supply cuts i think

We actually don't know much about the logistics of medieval armies, because logistical details aren't much mentioned in medieval chronicles. It could be that they lived off the land as much as possible. I vaguely recall that Crusaders carried large quantities of money to buy food in the distant countries of the Byzantine empire, because it was considered improper to steal food from fellow Christians, so trade rather than theft was a preferred policy there. The Chevauchees I mentioned previously were explicitly raiding parties, so theft was the norm as was destruction of what couldn't be stolen. There is speculation that some of the strange (i.e., apparently stupid) tactical and strategic decisions made in those times were for logistical reasons that we just have no record or knowledge of.

We should not assume that equipment didn't break. A safer assumption is that leaders were prepared for breakage by taking spares of smaller items and the artisans and supplies to repair larger items. There were indeed baggage trains at the time; attacks on baggage trains were parts of many battles, in particular Agincourt which was previously mentioned in this thread.

Edit: Bringing artisans along means that there will be opportunities for characters with a wide range of skills to be brought along on military ventures. If an army is missing some key skill that no leader thought of, then the venture will fail at great cost. This is not a tactical point, but is a logistical and perhaps strategic point.

ahh very nice comments boths of them, yes, all of that seems very reasonable and its just at what i aim, i mean, the idea was that this kind of tactics were used, so we should used them, but you explained better than i could, regarding the logistics, those kinds of supplies sound like they would go with the army rather than brought from behind, i think i would be harder to attack a supplies cart that is with the army that one escorted from a city.

about the equipment not braking that really was a mistake from myself, but i meant that i think most equipment won't be completely replaced, and i think we would agree as you said that they would carry the means to repair said equipment, so no need to bring full sets of armor and swords regularly from home(as an example)

Posted By chipla at 12:25 PM - Mon Mar 19 2018

Some time ago I wrote a series of in-character articles for the Nirathi Royal Herald regarding martial affairs. The influences of the work should be fairly obvious.

Really great addition, i bet that any kingdom that follow the roman tactics would be a force to be reckoned with