New NESes, ideas, development, etc

[Communisto]

Your pricing scheme is off. “Lancers” are much more expensive to train and maintain than any kind of foot soldier, the reason being horses can carry heavier loads (and thus heavy cavalry tends to be more heavily armored than foot), it takes an investment of time and money to learn how to ride and fight from horseback, and lastly the horse itself is expensive to breed and maintain (for example as an individual animal would need approximately twenty pounds of fodder a day to stay at peak condition). Based on the last two, even light cavalry would be as expensive if not more expensive than infantry. I also think there are better naming schemes out there (such as the one in the NES Military Guide), but that’s just me being picky.

fixed it

In other words, you do not “get” runes when you cast that magic, runes is the means by which you cast magic

I don't see how this is a problem? Maybe I'm missing something.

On more general notes, your rules, as I see them, are deficient in two ways. First, they don’t cover everything that you need (for example, you mention having magic users, heroes, and MP but don’t say how you get any of them).

Yes, I do. MP are gained by spending economy to increase it. Heroes spring up as your nation accomplishes things or is faced with a great threat. Actually, there are no magic users per se. As in, you don't train them like you do soldiers. Rather, because they are rare and individuals, they're automatically considered part of your army.

Secondly, the rules will encourage a war game NES (which might be what you want, though I feel the need to point this out in case you don’t). The reason I say this is because all the things listed in your rules revolve around the military. The player has no options to spend their money and see an effect (and most players won’t spend in an area that won’t get them anything in return) in any area outside the military sphere.

Well, they can spend their money on building roads, projects or whatever. But I can see where your coming from, any suggestions on how to remedy it?

Thanks for the input, strategos

 

[Birdjaguar]

Yes, I do. MP are gained by spending economy to increase it. Heroes spring up as your nation accomplishes things or is faced with a great threat. Actually, there are no magic users per se. As in, you don't train them like you do soldiers. Rather, because they are rare and individuals, they're automatically considered part of your army.

Those are the kinds of things that need to be fully explained in the rules.

 

[Communisto]

Those are the kinds of things that need to be fully explained in the rules.

I thought I had, though I guess not clearly enough. I'll try and fix up the rules later.

 

[das]

I don't see how this is a problem? Maybe I'm missing something.

Well, runes are a means for the projection of magical power (including possibly Flame or Demonism magic), rather than a magical power in and of itself. So it's more of a confusing misnomer; you are looking for some sort of protective, perhaps metal-related magic that is applied via runes.

In other words, "one of these things just doesn’t belong".

 

[Communisto]

Well, runes are a means for the projection of magical power (including possibly Flame or Demonism magic), rather than a magical power in and of itself. So it's more of a confusing misnomer; you are looking for some sort of protective, perhaps metal-related magic that is applied via runes.

then its basically just a matter of naming? Couldn't I just say that runecasting is a method of magically improving weapons, fortifications and armour and is a form of magic in itself?

 

[das]

It probably couldn't hurt to describe the foundations of magic theory in your world, generally speaking; that should give a good idea of what is possible and what isn't, as well as how it works, which is useful for stories and tactics alike. Is magic basically homogeneous in nature and projected by different means with different effects dependent on the means? Even then, Runes doesn't quite fit in with, say, Demonism; Demonism is described as controlling imps - with what? Incantations? Magically-binding contracts? Runes actually sound like a pretty good way to control imps, thematically speaking (branding them with magical runes of control, that is). Likewise with Necromancy: how (or, rather, with what) do you raise the dead (and keep them alive after that)? I suppose Flames are more obvious if it just involves projecting magic through (magical?) fire, but even then that is uncertain.

Runes just don't fit in; it sounds more like Fortification magic projected through Runes or something like that. I suppose it is a matter of naming, but names are supposed to be descriptive and precise. Not sure if that's exactly what the Strategos had in mind, but this still is odd.

 

[The Strategos]

Strategos, I CANNOT TELL YOU ENOUGH how much I want you to mod that TL.

Go make a preview thread. Scoot.

I won’t, for the following reasons:
1) The map is terrible. As the one who made it, I have no reservations saying that. If either I could find someone to make me a 1450 map or if I could find a good 1450 map so I could make one, the chances of me modding this would rise significantly
2) I am not going to start anything until I turn in my rough draft for my thesis on January 15
3) There are still some things I want to work through on my philosophy of how I want the game to be run and what aspects I want emphasized and the impact said philosophy would have on the rules.

Actually, the description specifically says "Ingrain your weapons and armor with low level protective runes", so one does "get" runes (though the magic is probably the extra damage/whatnot from the runes so yeah I'm posting without thinking).

I don't see how this is a problem? Maybe I'm missing something.

It’s a matter of what the schools arising in the game revolve around. Do the schools revolve around the means of magic, so that one school teaches the method of runes, another of chanting, a third of using animals; do the schools revolve around the result of the magic, so that one school teaches ice, one fire, one preservation, etc; or do the schools revolve around both.

Right now, you have it set up that schools revolve around the result of magic, save for that one that revolves around the means, “runes.” To be consistent, you either need to remove runes, so that all schools revolve around the result, or add in other schools that revolve around the means.

This is the difference between the two ways to set up schools (and here I use a historic example, because frankly, I know quite a bit about historic magic while next to nothing about “fantasy” magic): Take the runes example. Historically runes can be used to summon, bind, protect, enhance, curse, etc., etc. In other words, the means of runes can result in many different kinds of magic. If you just intended “runes” to have one particular kind of result, then just call the school “Enhancement” or “Preservation” or “Binding” or whatever result you intended, and let the player determine whether they use runes, speech, amulets, dance, or what have you as the means. If, however, you intended “runes” to be used like it was historically, as a means not a result of magic, then either get rid of it for consistency sake or add all the other means of magic as school.

Well, they can spend their money on building roads, projects or whatever. But I can see where your coming from, any suggestions on how to remedy it?

Thanks for the input, strategos

It completely depends upon what kind of NES you want to run. What decisions would you like the player to make and what areas would you like them to focus on? You can easily say players “can spend their money on building roads, projects or whatever” but what player will spend money on building roads when there is do difference between building roads and not building roads (neither an acknowledgement in update nor a change in stats)? Last time I read your rules, they focused on two things: magic and military. Thus, your players will focus on two things, magic and military. Now that is completely fine if the kind of game you want to run is one where everyone is always at war. If, however, you want to run a different kind of game, perhaps one where a player can internally improve or engage in conquest, or one that focuses on diplomacy, or internal intrigue, or whatever floats your modding boat, then dependent upon your answer, you will get different remedies.

 

[flyingchicken]

Any of you guys know where the original draft of the Symphony D.-written rules used in stazNESX, JSNES03, etc happens to be?

 

[Azale]

Any of you guys know where the original draft of the Symphony D.-written rules used in stazNESX, JSNES03, etc happens to be?

Why does chickensworth wish to know?

 

[flyingchicken]

Chickenschwartz is currently the in the process of compiling rulesets (and updates and random articles over the Internet) so that I may mod better, of course!

I'm looking for rulesets in general and that ruleset in particular (and its derivatives and contemporaries) because it will be press-ganged (maybe with a few modifications here and there, based on other rulesets like Dis's and das's) into PHASE II of my NES, which will require a proper ruleset as it will be in "Interesting Times."

---

P.S. Dudes, I bet others have been interested in this and have done the thinking: How much more expensive/difficult is it to raise and supply an army of gunpowder-totting foot soldiers compared to their contemporaries (bowmen, British bowmen, crossbowmen, brutal melee weapons dudes, blah blah blah) in the time from the 14th century CE to the 18th century CE, considering various guns and the emergence of various manufacturing technologies?

 

[Azale]

Good, that's the phase I've been waiting for. I will rummage around my documents to see if I have the original ruleset intact.

 

[Birdjaguar]

P.S. Dudes, I bet others have been interested in this and have done the thinking: How much more expensive/difficult is it to raise and supply an army of gunpowder-totting foot soldiers compared to their contemporaries (bowmen, British bowmen, crossbowmen, brutal melee weapons dudes, blah blah blah) in the time from the 14th century CE to the 18th century CE, considering various guns and the emergence of various manufacturing technologies?

In brief, because I do not have time this morning: In Europe, the standardization of firearms began in the mid 1500s and that reduced the cost of equipping armies and made ongoing support cheaper and easier. But, it also slowed the rate of innovation. Equipping 100 men with a new and improved gun was a simple and common practice in 1550. When your army was 20,000 men all using indentical wheel locks, re-equipping them with flintlocks was a major and expensive change. Training and drill practices would have to be relearned too. I'll try to add more later.

 

[Dachs]

I also would like to add to Birdjaguar's statement the fact that nobody switched straight from all-melee and all-archery armies to gunpowder weapons. They became part of a unified whole, in a path that can probably best be started with el Gran Capitan, Gonzalo de Cordoba, and his creation of much of the framework of the tercio; arquebusiers fought in the army alongside pikemen, swordsmen, and so forth. Gustav II Adolf probably developed the best known variant, in which the gunpowder soldiers would make up a few ranks of the army, which would fire in turns (one of the ranks would fire, while the others reloaded; if there were sufficient numbers of men, two ranks could fire at the same time, one kneeling in front and the others standing in back), and at the same time create a sort of 'rolling barrage' by leapfrogging past one another during the reloading process...but at the core of Gustav's army was his pike corps, which formed the shock arm of his infantry, and an essential guard for the gunmen, who would have been terribly vulnerable otherwise...

Anyway, when thinking about equipping all this stuff, remember that in most cases, up until about 1700 in Europe, non-gunpowder infantry was still part and parcel of the army, probably even the greater part of the soldiery.

 

[North King]

Actually, I would argue the mixing in of gunpowder forces into a combined arms army started with Charles the Bold in the 1470s (the tercio was an overrated unit, on the whole). Don't currently have access to that source right now, so I can't really quote figures, but IIRC something like 5-10% of his army was arquebusiers. As for when the changeover took place, we can look at the figures of the Spanish armies in the Netherlands: in 1571, the ratio was 2:5 guns to pikes, by 1601, it was 3:1. Most of the accelerated rearmament can probably be attributed to the tactics and training manuals developed by Maurice of Nassau; in his armies, the relative "depth" of formations began to thin out. Of course, it reached its height with the Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus, who finally put soldiers in a line rather than in the standard "chessboard" arrangment.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Birdjaguar]

In Europe:

Prior to the dominance of firearms:
-Weapons & armor were made by craftsmen
-Wars were financed by debt and paid for by plunder & tribute
-Horsemen dominated the battlefield

As firearms replaced melee, we see these changes:

-Firearms and cannon were less frequently crafted and more likely manufactured lowering costs
-Iron replaced bonze and brass for cannon reducing costs by 90%
-Standardization became more common
-Cheaper infantry replaced expensive horesemen and knights
-Taxes began to be reliable enough to finance small national armies
-National armies replaced mercenaries and regular pay reduced the need to plunder
-Borrowing and financial institutions became more sophisticated
-Overseas trade and "imported" wealth funded wars and armies more and more
-Siege warfare of the 16th & 17th C was more expensive becase of expensive fortifications and and the need for larger armies
-Wars became less "decisive" and winning did not necessarily mean conquest and take over
-winning might give you possession of lands not part of some nations homeland

It is a complicated business and when you add religion, colonies, and political factions into the mix it just gets messier.

 

[flyingchicken]

Good, that's the phase I've been waiting for. I will rummage around my documents to see if I have the original ruleset intact.

I will be most grateful! I'm going to shift to IT sooner than planned since the collective ADD (myself not excluded) prevents people from appreciating even the most minimal time and effort it takes to build a world from near-scratch. Seeing STATS go topsy-turvy and winning WARS are what satisfy, though that might change if this next update gets old players' and new players' attentions.

(TO MY ABSENTEE PLAYERS WHO MIGHT BE READING THIS RIGHT NOW: The update is now at 2,900+ words, covering eastern Persia to Anatolia, with an ECONOMY in recession of input from you guys--YOU COULD STILL ADD SOME MORE BEFORE I POST IT VERY SOON)

stuff about gunpowder weapons

Yeaaah, I do know that there wasn't this magic switch where you put in big, shiny gold coins that turned all the Warriors into Musketmen, and I do know that guns meant cheapness because manufacturing became less manu-; I'm looking for comparative costs of arming and supplying, perhaps via intelligent (I might be qualified) and informed (I am definitely not qualified) guesstimation.

Not to discount Birdjaguar's statement of "I'll try to add more later", of course!

 

[North King]

In Europe:

Prior to the dominance of firearms:
-Weapons & armor were made by craftsmen
-Wars were financed by debt and paid for by plunder & tribute
-Horsemen dominated the battlefield

-Hussite Bohemia deliberately mass produced weapons, IIRC. This, however, was indeed an exception.
-On the contrary, debt was pretty much important throughout history. Moreover, what financed wars varies more according to which country you're asking about than which time.
-Simply no. There were tools for every battlefield, and especially in the late Medieval period, before the dominance of firearms, infantry were starting to dominate many battlefields. Cavalry could be downright useless sometimes. And depending on when you put the period of the "dominance of firearms", you could be talking about a period where cavalry had already lost their "dominance" even on the generic battlefield: for example, the 14th-15th Centuries had few gunpowder weapons, but were still largely dominated by infantry. It is a common fallacy to assume that gunpowder spelled the doom of the knight just because their weapons could pierce armor: it's much more due to the increase in discipline among infantry that the knight went into decline.

As firearms replaced melee, we see these changes:

-Taxes began to be reliable enough to finance small national armies
-National armies replaced mercenaries and regular pay reduced the need to plunder

When? Only in the 18th century did this become true, considerably after the period when firearms replaced melee weapons. Well, with the exception of France, which was largely dominated by native soldiers through the period, but they were something of an exception in more ways than one.

-Siege warfare of the 16th & 17th C was more expensive becase of expensive fortifications and and the need for larger armies
-Wars became less "decisive" and winning did not necessarily mean conquest and take over
-winning might give you possession of lands not part of some nations homeland

All three of these aren't really changes at all.

Siege warfare had always been expensive, long, and tiresome, except for a very brief period where cannon could plow down old-style castles. Before that, the medieval castle was difficult and costly to assault; after that, the brilliant gunpowder fortresses could deter any artillery bombardment and mow down enemies with their own cannon.

Wars were never particularly decisive in the West until the Napoleonic Wars. Note how there were about four or five major battles in a hundred years of war between England and France. The vast majority of that time period was spent raiding regions and besieging castles (coincidentally reinforcing the above point). This still didn't change going forward: battles were far outnumbered by skirmishes and sieges.

As to the third point, again, they never really had. Medieval states were resilient for a reason.

 

[Birdjaguar]

-Hussite Bohemia deliberately mass produced weapons, IIRC. This, however, was indeed an exception.
-On the contrary, debt was pretty much important throughout history. Moreover, what financed wars varies more according to which country you're asking about than which time.

Which is what I said:
-Wars were financed by debt and paid for by plunder & tribute
I guess my point was that in was in this period that plunder and looting was displaced by an increasing reliance on government revenue to fund wars. Now for a long time Spann was a gross exception and military strikes for pay were common. None-the-less the trend still stands.

-Simply no. There were tools for every battlefield, and especially in the late Medieval period, before the dominance of firearms, infantry were starting to dominate many battlefields. Cavalry could be downright useless sometimes. And depending on when you put the period of the "dominance of firearms", you could be talking about a period where cavalry had already lost their "dominance" even on the generic battlefield: for example, the 14th-15th Centuries had few gunpowder weapons, but were still largely dominated by infantry. It is a common fallacy to assume that gunpowder spelled the doom of the knight just because their weapons could pierce armor: it's much more due to the increase in discipline among infantry that the knight went into decline.

As usual, the answer to every question is "it depends". Cavalry had been in decline for a while as you say, but gunpowder weapons changed warfare sufficiently to make them even less useful as siege warfare took a more central position in the mid 1500s.

When? Only in the 18th century did this become true, considerably after the period when firearms replaced melee weapons. Well, with the exception of France, which was largely dominated by native soldiers through the period, but they were something of an exception in more ways than one.

Yes, but the process began earlier. There are very few quick jumps in all this. The process that changed European armies from knights and men-at-arms to lines of well-drilled national armies of musketmen was slow and convoluted and took place at different paces in different areas of Europe. Each change started somewhere and spread to other palces as they were capable of handling it. And as I said:

As firearms replaced melee, we see these changes:
-Taxes began to be reliable enough to finance small national armies
-National armies replaced mercenaries and regular pay reduced the need to plunder

As warfare changed in the 1500s and early 1600s everything about how war was financed, conducted and managed changed along with it. State bureaucracies had greater and greater influence as standardization, drill, increased army size, taxation of trade and commerce became more important. By the 18th C all was in place to make it common place.

All three of these aren't really changes at all.

Siege warfare had always been expensive, long, and tiresome, except for a very brief period where cannon could plow down old-style castles. Before that, the medieval castle was difficult and costly to assault; after that, the brilliant gunpowder fortresses could deter any artillery bombardment and mow down enemies with their own cannon.

We can quibble, but let's not. Siege warfare did become more expensive as larger armies, more cannon and more elaborate defensees were required to win or survive a siege.

Wars were never particularly decisive in the West until the Napoleonic Wars. Note how there were about four or five major battles in a hundred years of war between England and France. The vast majority of that time period was spent raiding regions and besieging castles. This still didn't change going forward: battles were far outnumbered by skirmishes and sieges.

As to the third point, again, they never really had. Medieval states were resilient for a reason.

OK I'll concede that the decisiveness of war saw little change from from the earlier medieval period.

Now in game terms, should this historical "nationhood" preservation be encouraged or should France be allowed to "die" and actually become part of England or Spain or even Russia? Language and culture alone would make such a merger less likely.

 

[flyingchicken]

Now in game terms, should this historical "nationhood" preservation be encouraged or should France be allowed to "die" and actually become part of England or Spain or even Russia?

Totally depends on the mood and style of the game, hob view slay. EDIT: I'll add the nature of the annexation to that.

 

[Thlayli]

EU2 style annexation ftw. Major reputation hit, it's difficult to do, and one can create vassals out of occupied territory.