That makes sense to me. If you really want pneumatics “to happen” I think they need to be prominent off the battlefield too. I would expect pneumatic engines in factories, pneumatic explosives in mining, and pneumatic pumps (perhaps in the canals?).
Part of the reason I think chemistry is a more logical path is we already know it is significant part of theurgy and it stands to reason there are many secondary techs that benefited for government research into making aether in larger quantities and more efficiently.
Ammonium nitrate fertilizer and a fuel oil like “greek fire” will explode if mixed. Oil of vitriol and water as well if mixed rapidity enough. There are bombs I expect they discovered on accident in their labs and would be relatively safe to transport. In theurgic vision I would think that would appear innocuous until mixed. You could make shells or mines that keep them separate until mechanically triggered for example.
Your idea for fortresses make sense to me as well. I would expect to see casement style defenses on the Halassur side of the line of contact with the Hegemony due to the impact of Theurgic warfare.
Such defenses would be relatively secure from air attack and human waves but vulnerable to poison gas (which can be mitigated as well).
Once I’m settled in at my new job, I’ll get back to work on my 6 canon guides (and the necessary variants). Looks like “Noble Knight” will be the most protean of my builds, it can work about the same with High or Low Anarchy, Cosmopolitan or Homelander, and able to max out Combat and be a nonpareil strategist, or gain Charisma and lean into the Inner Voice part of the build.
My canon variant of the build has Simon, who pairs well thematically with a Compassionate Aristocrat. It can be done as High Anarchy, which makes the Winter easier, but I’m not sure if Kalt would tolerate being partnered with this build for long.
Did I? Can’t find that offhand, but regardless of what I said, my intended meaning was a Theurge-crafted reservoir. Not in a super blood-expensive permanent-enhanced-telos way, like the Plektoi spears; just drawing out the metal into the right shape, without seams or uneven thickness that might lead to failure under pressure. The kind of Theurgic craftsmanship that also allows them to make beautiful objects or elaborate distillation equipment out of glass.
Once the Theurge in the manufactory has made a high-quality compressed air reservoir, the rest of the rifle is assembled by hand, and the reservoir can be filled in around 10-15 minutes by hand-pumping, allowing around 20 shots before a refill is needed. (If you’re in a position to get off all 20 shots against a Theurge, you’ve got excellent enough cover that you might even be able to refill; although if you haven’t brought the Theurge down in 20 shots, you’re probably screwed regardless.) More like a Girardoni than a modern air-bottle airgun.
I’m really not sure about that. Canal and mine pumps, sure – but the pneumatic engines are a big enough tech step up from rifles that I don’t think they need to exist in the factories. (Though they might work well as a G5 tech advance for a high-INT player trying to diversify out of Theurgy as many ways as possible.) And explosive mining in the gameworld uses miner’s powder – since there’s generally no need to fear a Theurge spotting it and attacking when used for that purpose.
You’re absolutely right that the well-established alchemy of the world fits well with chemical solutions to problems, and I like the suggestion of chemically inert substances that are only explosive when mixed. Let’s say those new, far more devastating shells were invented, tested, and rolled out against Halassur along with human wave attacks forty years ago, as part of the horrific surge that the Halassurqs remember as the War of the Secondborn.
Since shells can only be borne to within target range in Halassur by ship or in limited quantity with flying Theurges, this would have led to a shift in Halassurq defensive resources to focus even more intensively than before on naval interdiction, magically enhanced ballistae in coastal forts, and high altitude air patrols.
Answering a question that open-ended would take me away from writing for too long. Sorry.
Sorry, I was totally unclear there. I was imagining two possible games, “Choice of the More-or-Less-Peacefully Disintegrated Empire” or “Choice of the Militarily Defeated but Not High-Anarchy Empire” – not as a single game where you could pick a playstyle somehow modeled on those two historical examples. I can’t imagine what a single “Gaidar or Yoshida” game would look like either.
As a flipside of deliberately revealing that hypothetical relationship:
Throughout G3-G5, how much active effort will have to be spent by “secretly romancing Phaedra” MCs to keep said romance a secret for a prolonged period of time?
And could MC plausibly end G5 with MC’s partnership with Phaedra (on both professional and personal levels) still remaining a complete secret to the wider known world?
(or does this secret romance count as another example of “will inevitably be revealed” hidden stuff, like being a Secret Theurge, and/or trying to hide the use of Plektosis from Seraccan allies)
How time-consuming/efficient would it be for MCs to collect already-fired Ventisputori bullets, in order to melt down into metal for new bullets? (especially if post-Hegemonic faction control over rare metals became disputed, and MC wants increased longevity for existing resources)
How feasible might it to be to convert Aekos’ Floating Palace into a theurgic version of Star Wars’ Death Star, e.g. an orbital platform that allowed multiple Theurges to pool their combined might/resources into firing focused Xaos storms (or Xaos lasers?) into distant target locations of their choice?
(assuming that said palace was deliberately kept intact as possible by MC and allies after the Siege of Aekos)
Or would military-minded MC be better off investing in the standard Theurgic arsenal of individual Theurges and Plektoi mounts/hounds?
With so much hassle over the potential fallout of poaching Aveche away from Erezza (my biggest feared consequence being the loss of Cerlota’s allegiance), the prospect of appeasing both Shayardene homelanders and Erretsin homelanders (by merging Shayard and Erezza, and then declaring Aveche the union’s new capital, thus mutually belonging to both Shayard and Erezza) sounds more appealing by the day. Long live the Xthonic Empire (or Holy League) of the Coast!
And Havie, another question:
If Cerlota didn’t have MC’s input to consider (or in general, goes her separate ways from MC after one too many irreconcilable differences in worldview are demonstrated), what is Cerlota’s default preference for post-Hegemonic Erezza?
At the very minimum, we so far know that she will not tolerate any breakup of the current Erretsin archonty borders (e.g. guaranteed to become very upset with any Homelander MC who tries poaching Aveche away from Erezza), but what about Cerlota’s vision for Erezza’s potential future borders beyond the current Erretsin archonty?
How plausible might it be for Phaedra to be kept around as a largely defanged/ceremonial Thaumatarch who is dependent on the support of her “Ennearchs”, aka Homelander MC’s top Wisards, to stay alive and nominally in charge of the post-Kleitos Hegemony?
Or is Phaedra more liable to instead pull off a “I’m Taking You With Me” grand suicide stunt at this point?
Alternatively, in a different sort of playthrough (e.g. in which the Shayard-Karagon diarchy dream became a reality), could Homelander MC negotiate in good faith for considerable (if not disproportionate) Shayardene representation on Phaedra’s post-Hegemony cabinet of Ennearchs?
Once the Hegemony inevitably collapses (or half-collapses, in gameworlds where anarchy was kept low and/or MC formed a pact with Phaedra), what will MC’s capacity for asymmetric warfare be, Iran style?
More specifically, can religious soft power be manifested by creating proxies/religious militias in other post-Hegemonic states?
(similar to how Iran’s Middle Eastern influence is largely exerted through proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and various Shia militias in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen)
If (Cerlota) were convinced that (a Westeros-inspired feudal contract between Shayard and Erezza) really was the only way to strengthen Erezza against Halassur, rather than just being opportunistic exploitation by the big soft western neighbor, she could get behind it.
Let’s be clear: she will not easily be convinced of this.
@Havenstone:
How powerful is the following suggestion for sweetening the deal?
Special terms for pledging fealty early (and peacefully) to Shayard: If Erezza agrees to become Shayard’s junior partner, Erezza will get Dorne-like treatment compared to the other non-Shayard provinces (e.g. Erezza’s leaders get the privilege of calling themselves princes/princesses instead of archons, and in general, get more privileges than the average Hegemonic archon/provincial governor).
And what if the resulting Shayardene-Erretsin empire/merger’s ruling family was a dynasty shared between House de Syrnon and the most influential Erretsin family (amenable to Cerlota’s worldview)?
I know it’s difficult to answer this question, and I’m sure there are some things that haven’t been decided yet, but could you give me a rough idea of what the fifth game will be about?
Also, on a different topic, what do you think about the idea of creating a game set in another era (for example, the Industrial Revolution) as a side game or a game after the 6th?
Girardoni was a curiosity and phased out for good reasons. One of them was air leakage, that can be fixed in the XoRiverse world by theurgically wrought air container, leak free. But I can’t really imagine how you could increase the kinetic energy. Higher poundage modern crossbows, done with largely the same technology as in medieval times (but better materials) have roughly the same kinetic energy after 50 yards as Girardoni has at the muzzle (which is the highest? Certainly higher than at 50 yard?). Again, I’m not an engineer so I had to look this up and use a kinetic energy calculator but why would anyone bother making a super complex novelle mechanism when they could achieve the same result making a slightly better crossbow?
Plus hand pumping a rifle is difficult to immersively narrate in a fantasy novel, I imagine.
I also agree with cascat that the step from airgun to other pneumatic tech isn’t that big of a step. It’s basically the difference between propelling a projectile or propelling an affixed object on a rail.
I would imagine that it would be theurgically cheaper to land the palace somewhere safe, then construct a new fortress using mundane means and have that fly as a platform, it being smaller would also be more feasible
The crossbow will have better singleshot performance, but the air rifle will beat the pants off of it in any scenario where you want to fire more than once.
The Girardoni air rifle had a spring-fed magazine that let you reload the weapon with rapidly with a motion of your thumb. A soldier with one of those could fire a shot, reload and recock, and fire another shot within seconds of the first, and they could do all that without ever having to stand up from a prone position. A soldier who knew what they were doing could fire the entire 20ish round magazine off in about a minute.
This has huge advantages in a combat situation, especially if all you want to do is sneak up(or wait in ambush), dump a lot of shots into a group of theurges, and run away.
I’ve been giving this cavalry limitation some thought, and I think @Havenstone’s rationale for its lack of utility is correct but for a different reason than the one he provided (vulnerability to theurgy). The main thing cavalry could threaten in the IRL battlefield was supporting fires. Line infantry always had a means to resist a direct cavalry assault and cavalry was always vulnerable to the fires they threatened (artillery or archers). In this setting however the supporting fires are airborne. The thing that the shock value of cavalry needs to be applied to are invulnerable to it. That leaves horse archery and mounted cavalry.
Horse archers are no more a threat to theurges than dismounted ones and because theurges can fly a horse archer’s speed doesn’t confer the same advantages it did IRL. I think there is a case for mounted infantry, but obviously quite expensive in exchange for an indecisive advantage.
The reason I don’t by the vulnerability argument on its face is that everything is vulnerable to theurgy, just like everything is vulnerable to artillery. The reason cavalry became obsolete as an arm of decision wasn’t its vulnerability it was it lack of capability. Infantry protection of artillery progressed to make artillery not vulnerable to horse cavalry. The reason we still refer to certain armored vehicle formations irl as cavalry is it still provides that shock role of threatening the enemy rear in particular its artillery park.
I’m kinda even struggling to justify the cavalry roles, like the light cavalry ones used for reconnaissance and skirmishing when the Theurgy could do that too.
Economy of force is the main one that occurred to me. Hector’s force for example was used to raid our logistics in game 1 because we were unable to effectively respond and it wasn’t an economical use of the limited theurges available.
Even so isn’t all of that more mounted infantry than “proper” cavalry?
I can certainly see a role for mounted infantry, particularly when moving to blood tax instead of slave caste harrowing due to how much more economical it would be, even if it is a little slower and I can also see horses being used by police/irregulars, one of the compromises my mc might be forced to swallow particularly on a more federal model where the rest of the cabinet and the various governors have some actual political muscle of their own.
But actual knights and massed cavalry do seem easily countered by theurgy in this world.
Could still be viable against foes without proper theurgic response, like rebels, abhumans (their type of “theurgy” doesn’t seem suited to countering cavalry) etc.
In fact I would find it more reasonable for local government or alastors to deploy cavalry than for a regular army.
cavalry one main advantage is speed witch can be leveraged for tactical or strategic advantages. In game world nature of conflict makes cavalry, redundant not existing technology these is very important, because as rebellion starts to gain momentum it is highly likely that nature of wars will change at least for some theaters.
in our world there where 3 different factors witch made cavalry obsolete
1)better weapons - creation of rapid firing weapons because of witch single infantry man become more deadly than any horsemen. having trenches with barbed wire as default strategy which also made any shock tactics impossible and despite these successful cavalry charge where still made during ww1. The Battle of Beersheba,
2)saturation of battlefields - during ww1 army’s grew to gigantic sizes which where unseen until then. these meant that army’s could effectively cover whole frontlines so cavalry could not outflank enemy. these factor is dependent on army’s size vs size of frontline. in all previous wars these wasn’t case, for most human wars army’s always tried to stay concentrated which gave opportunity to cavalry to engage in flanking maneuvers.
3)existence of more efficient modes of transformation - how creation of IFV and tanks and modern vehicle’s made cavalry’s role redundant on battlefield is easy to see, but biggest culprits in my opinion are trains. trains facilitate quick and most efficient way of transportation for troops and material on long distance. without them sustaining big number of troops becomes impossible so army become constrained on size. breakthroughs on frontlines become more devastating because there is no way to quickly transport large amount of infantry to plug the gaps and whole war change’s face. which in turn dramatically increases cavalry’s viability in war as reserve or for exploiting breakthrough.
ww1 had every factor witch made cavalry’s role on battle as redundant or obsolete and despite that there were still some successful uses of it.
In game world broadly none of these factors are true. main reason why hegemony and empire aren’t using cavalry isn’t because cavalry become obsolete on battlefield but rather because they are engaged in siege-trench warfare. they are fitting on relatively small piece of land with ton of soldiers and whole frontline is supported by most efficient anti cavalry weapons(theurges) there is no place for maneuvers and even if breakthrough was achieved enemy can always reinforce it.
also basic solider is no better equipped to deal with cavalry then any medieval counterpart.
these condition will drastically change as rebellion gains momentum.
theaters of wars will expand while simultaneously forces which each side can muster will decrease drastically which in turn will create opportunity’s for cavalry to outflank enemy. blood economy will collapse which in turn will destroy mass transportation and significantly decrease effectives of theurges. all of these factors give cavalry opportunity to be used as tactical or strategic asset.
hegemony can use its blood to supply and transport its troops and resources on battlefield but will it be able to do it as whole country goes to rebellion?
even if it could every troop and supply transported by theurges is less blood witch can be used on directly on battlefield. if two side’s had same everything side with cavalry will always have strategic advantage and can in most cases try defeat in detail or at least make enemy’s logistic job nightmare.
on tactical level even despite all advantage’s which coming civil war will give cavalry it wont be enough to make it effective tool on battlefield . if it is used without theurges support. on other side with theurges support it becomes very deadly weapon on battlefield.
you want to destroy enemy logistical center with cavalry? enemy theurges can always find and neutralize them. if one theurges fly’s over your cav force with special vison he can always detect enemy theurges and give warning to rest of troops to get ready for engagement. now if you also have theurges dispersed in cavalry who aren’t using there power enemy must engage not only your cav but also unknown number of theurges. cav + theurges will always beat only theurges. these means that enemy wont be able to stop any cav raids on there logistic center’s.
on battlefield we must never forget importance of surprise and habit of army’s to always fight last war. i don’t think that there exist any hegemonic general witch will take enemy cavalry charge seriously. most probably will sent few theurges to neutralize them because these should be default tactic and it works basically always. now what will happen if whole first rank of cavalry was theurges and they started throwing fires on enemy’s theurges and infantry? what will happen is that enemy enemy theurges will die and there frontline will shatter which can then safely routed by rest of cav.
now if next time enemy expects same tactic you can just not allocate any theurges for cav and when enemy ready’s for cav charge enemy other flank is getting burned by your theurges and your cav will never engage.
all of these is without talking about one of most important aspect of cav which is taking routed enemy as prisoners.
while cav may be effetely used in war’s to come it doesn’t mean that it will be.
biggest reason is that there doesn’t exist sufficiently big units or any. there is no tactics or strategy how can it be used and there are no man trained for such fight’s.
even in best case scenario everything must be done from scratch which wont be easy.
only way i can see it happening is with very high com mc who has noble support.
in any other case it should be impossible.
everything above is just speculation and greatly depends how rebellion evolves.
