Gunpowder was definitely the tech that made plate got out of fashion on the battlefield, but much later than one would expect. We still had cuirassiers up to and through the Napoleonic Wars. Like modern bulletproof vests, just because it wont stop everything especially the biggest things doesn’t mean it is useless or impractical.
Since high velocity projectiles that aren’t theurge powered are harder to come by on the Hegemony’s battlefield’s and cavalry is rare I would think melee infantry might tend toward heavy armor. If they didn’t I’d suspect that to be a matter of scaling and emphasis than pure battlefield logic. Meaning the state chooses not to invest in armor for infantry because it prioritizes numbers and focuses its efforts at eliteness on theurges. Mobility its somewhat compelling but on the operational level. The more you can lighten the kit for your PBI the more kilometers you can do a day on march.
Shame! Although speaking of which - will we be able at some point to reveal our identity to them and get them to join our side (covertly or not) or at least make some “truce” between MC and de Irde?
And I just want to say it is pretty based. Yet another victory for Laconnierbros (actually one of rather few victories)
No one would be left homeless in Irduin. And you will have a choice of different alibis that let you pretend to be a functioning member of society, drawing on your skills.
Absolutely, but they were heavy cavalry, right? I’d thought plate armor was always more associated with cavalry, and that those infantry who had adopted it were also among the first to abandon it – not so much because they were coming under fire that plate couldn’t impede, but because heavier armor impeded their battlefield role in a world where drill and mobility were becoming ever more important.
In a gameworld where cavalry is significantly rarer than airborne attack, I feel like even melee infantry might default (on tactical as well as operational grounds) to a lighter-weight, less cumbersome armor that offers good-enough protection against enemy infantry’s missiles and blades while not totally impeding your tactical response when the Theurges pitch up.
But thanks for offering the emphasis on operational grounds – always grateful for your help in qualifying/justifying my half-assed military worldbuilding.
Absolutely. There will be Irduiners who can end the book as full-on members of your rebellion; I’m not yet convinced the de Irde will be among them, but they can at the least be sympathizers.
How will social and natural science technologies be handled in this game series? I know this topic has been discussed at length, but before we do that again, I want to summarize with you what we know so far.
When it came to the “push of pikes” infantrymen seemed to generally put a premium on head and chest protection the world over. The classic Terico pikeman was wearing a steel helm, breastplate, faulds, and gorget well into the 17th century. This obviously where matchlocks are comprising up to two thirds of the formation. Armor isn’t as much of an impediment to tactical mobility as you might think even full plate. There are plenty of videos on youtube of guys doing all kinds of acrobatics in full plate. The stereotype of the knight so heavy he falls off his horse and can’t stand is patently false. I think the biggest tactical risk of plate or any heavy armor for that matter is heat exhaustion.
Again I think the driving consideration here was the expense of armor as mass mobilization became the norm. Extremely wealthy states like Spain could gain a tactical edge by armoring their infantry even in early modern wars.
I stand most definitely corrected. Cheers, mon frere.
While we’re on matters military, it’s mid-month, and I’ve posted an excerpt over on the writer’s thread in which you get to question a visiting Phalangite. It’ll cover some familiar ground from past discussions on the thread, but hopefully will still be enjoyable.
In the later games, there will be some opportunities to invest in useful innovations, as one of several things a player can choose to spend state capacity on. It will be harder for high-anarchy plays, especially when it comes to social innovation; there’s less scope for blue-sky thinking or experiment when the world is falling apart all around you. I’ve not yet developed a comprehensive list of possible innovations, and don’t plan to for another game or two yet.
I got it. By the way, I would like to introduce something that I happened to find while searching the Internet for another purpose.
This is a PDF database of books on human technology written mainly from the 19th century to the early 20th century. (It’s the most comprehensive I’ve ever seen, covering everything from sewage treatment to criminal evidence law.)
It may be a little too new to use in this game, but I’ll post a link in case it’s helpful.
@Havenstone Would it be right to assume - based on the latest excerpt from Irduing you have posted on April Writer Support Thread - that there is a split in the Laconnier faction or maybe a potential for one? It seems that right now the more broad movement of Traditionalist faction is focused on petty squables and other intrigues pointed at the other nobles that they are conflicted with, usually due to personal reasons like in de Irde vs de Wrase matter.
If there are some cracks on this basis - will our MC be able to influence and maybe even slightly change the faction? And are there some subfactions you can tell us about? This is only a speculation of mine but I assume that at least there is a “vigour” group among the Laconniers that focus on actual sedition and the fight against Hegemony (like Abelard and his doings in the Rim), and apart of that there are apparently more “static” group(s) that prefer to stay in Grand Shayard and don’t do much besides larp and abovly mentioned petty intrigues.
Also, last thing to add, will we see a reaction from these phalangites we talk with to the High Crack battle?
Someone should kill that Phalangite traitor and everyone who thinks like him, those that side with Karagon over the blessed de Syrnon monarchy will pay for their mistake.
What even are anti theurge tactics aside from tree nets and mass arrow spamming. Flying bulletproof bastards are so strong they can just wipe out a squad with a fling of the hand
God even thinking that the federation, yikes. Ignoring their low pop their higher quantity of theurges is probably a big reason why they still alive with their less centralized power XD
I remember playing the first one and having 0 idea wtf was going on, the sky was purple or some shit and there were poison fogs or something like some alien planet stuff
What actually is the cosmology of the planet and universe. Flat or round, what kinda star system, etc. after learning infinity saga and Petri dish theory I’m now obligated to check all these for cosmic horror
@Havenstone If we have Dilek and Cerlota both accompanying us into Irduin, can we force them to pretend to be related and make them scream? I assume they look close enough for that to work and be a way to assuage suspicion of two seeming foreigners (or folk from the far side of Shayard at least) arriving.
Would there be any situation in which it’s imaginable for Errezzia to agree to a dual monarchy with Shayard in which there’s essentially a completely different set of Royal ministers composed solely of Errezzianos that have actual control over their internal affairs and the joint monarch not having anything more than a ceremonial role with respect to decisions affecting Errezia proper? On the other hand there would be a customs union and a unified military/foreign policy.
I don’t think the concept of personal unions really exists in the world at the moment. You’d be making multiple social inventions at once to allow the structure you’re suggesting.
I think dualism is more like finding a new way to use tools you already have than inventing a completely new set of tools. I don’t think it’s any more trailblazing in the world than a republic larger than a city state would be or creating an early parliamentary system.
Pretty much any movement can be sidetracked into personal squabbles. But there’s also a plausible strategy that runs from “make the other nobles afraid to cross us” through “make them afraid to betray us” to “enjoy a far stronger platform for our most seditious activities.” Abelard’s mother Luse is much more ocucpied with inter-faction politics, with the goal of making the majority of the Shayardene nobility ashamed and afraid to take an anti-Traditionalist stance. That includes indulging some personal revenges on Houses that have shamed major faction members.
Abelard himself has little patience for all of this, which he thinks risks distracting the movement from the real enemy.
That’s a possible conversation, yes.
In general: missiles from concealment, in as high volume as you can manage. Drill (ideally with magi from your own side) to reduce panic under fire, while retaining mobility. Don’t rout; try to stay engaged with them from concealment to run them low on blood, so they have to withdraw before they’ve totally wiped you out. Erjan talks about this in Ch 1.
If you don’t have concealment, and you don’t have Theurges yourself…then run, dodge as much as you can, and expect to die. From a general’s perspective, if you’ve got a big enough human wave doing that, it can still be a successful tactic, wearing down the other side’s blood supply enough for you to have the advantage when you hit them with your own magi. But for that to work on a consistent scale, you need an infantry with the ideological single-mindedness of Khomeini’s basij:
That’s not the spirit in which the average conscript from the slums of Grand Shayard is going to receive a human wave attack order.
All gameworld civilizations know their planet is round, as Westerners broadly did from Plato and Pythagoras onward. The cosmology is one of concentric spheres, with elements drawn to particular “levels”–the empyrean of fire being the highest that’s widely known about, with Theurges believing in a still-higher sphere of aether in which the stars are set.
Ha! Love it. Too good to pass up.
I can imagine it, but I’m not sure it’s a likely outcome. Having a unified military-foreign policy with Erezza would I think require common policies in a lot of other areas as well, since supporting a credible defense against Halassur is likely to be very expensive no matter how you go about it. Sharing those costs (in money, aetherial blood, soldiery) isn’t easily done with a light governance footprint or major variance in “internal” policies. Meanwhile, the institution of monarchy has a hefty amount of historical legitimacy in Shayard that it simply lacks in Erezza; convincing the Erezziano that the best way to lead a joint Shayard-Erezza realm is under a Shayard-born monarch wouldn’t be easy.
I’m not saying no – we’ll see how the story develops…
Definitely good points. On the other hand, I was thinking Erezza might have trouble settling on a head of state internally, and it’s going to be in a really dicey strategic position coming out of the Hegemony’s collapse. If a still unified Shayard is in existence at that time as a newly independent realm, it seems to me it will have a good amount of leverage in negotiating with Erezza. That could manifest in a lot of different ways though.
human wave will be main tactic if my max charisma mc has anything to say about it. why use your charisma to get peaceful end for conflict when instead you can inspire man to die by thousands for you. it has add benefit that it will help with coming famine.
now that i think about it you can already do it on small scale in first game.
And you will have a choice of different alibis that let you pretend to be a functioning member of society, drawing on your skills.