Slitherine

Both campaigns involving Blathergut and Morbio end in a mutual truce for the remainder of the spring campaigning season.

Both withdraw from the other's territory. War is not declared over but will continue in the summer season.

Defense of Egypt:
Blathergut 61 040 with 4 762 casualties (19/59) and Morbio 48 040 with 7 370 casualties (19/46).

Invasion of Morbious:
Blathergut 61 040 with 11 967 casualties (32/59) and Morbio 48 040 with 9 704 casualties (23/46).

Both battles were hard-fought and honourably conducted. I look forward to meeting my opponent on the field of battle again!

Map

Still need the names of the provinces from Armenia, Carthagenian, Arrakis and Cavenanter.

Thanks.

Ponders, whilst floating in the bubblebath pool of the palace, with Lady Gaga look-alike slavegirls (any period!!) bubbling and scrubbing him, where else to hurl his as-yet undefeated armies...being impatient to wait for summer...

But then thinks...will be away on a religious pilgrimage most of next week, so maybe let the boys rest...will content himself with the Kapadapa Kampaign for now.

Is getting bored with the bubbles...

...ponders a visit to Carthage...since nothing seems to be happening there...

The Legions march:

The North Front: War with the Nervii continues...

The East Front: DOW on the haughty tyant of Armenia (do not bother naming your lands, as Rome shall do it for you)

The great god has been notified and challenges to be sent with haste..

TheGrayMouser wrote:Yikes I am confused... I'd rather not read thru all 14 pages of this thread..
Did the Panthers invade Parthia? or is it a clerical error? Divene mandate?

Armies are about to march

I believe its a typo. 18 (the other member of the Triumverate with 10 & 11) is at war with Parthia.

Phew...

iversonjm wrote:

TheGrayMouser wrote:Yikes I am confused... I'd rather not read thru all 14 pages of this thread..
Did the Panthers invade Parthia? or is it a clerical error? Divene mandate?

Armies are about to march

I believe its a typo. 18 (the other member of the Triumverate with 10 & 11) is at war with Parthia.

Yes it is a clerical mistake. Probably just use to typing my number now

Even though our lands are currently being
spoiled by the sweaty feet of Romans
and the stale odor of Pantherites , we feel
the necessity to name our lands of the
great Armenian Empire as follows

Outer Haik
Outer Nuneh
Outer Aralez
Inner Tork Angegh
Inner Vahagan
Inner Anahit
Capital Persepolis

Tigranes the Great
Emperor of Armenia

pantherboy wrote:
Now awaiting the Hyperboreans desire to continue or not.


All hail our majestic lord,

Pantherboy King of the Jungle

It is holiday season in Hyperboria, hence the troops' desire to head for the coast. We are withdrawing from Gaia Hesperis temporarily, though we shall return.

Peter I have a suggestion for modifying the resignation rules. I feel it is unfair to allow someone to withdraw without material consequences. I believe a player should suffer additional casualties at the time of withdrawal. Currently they will lose National Morale but they were going to lose this anyway and it allows them to artificially survive an encounter. For me it detracts from my hard labor to encircle troops and then see them vanish when in all reality they would of been annihilted with no rout path or light foot waiting for them to rout away and pick them off at 25% a hit. From my knowledge i don't know of any ancient armies doing fighting withdrawals once engaged. Usually they would just rout and if no exit existed like at Cannae then they would be wiped out. The greatest number of casualties was usually inflicted once the enemy gave up and turned.

i propose that any army that resigns sustains casualties equal to 10% of the remaining enemy force. This also stops people blocking with small armies and retreating. If you have high national morale then retreating has little impact but if you lose troops then it may encourage people to fight on. Also if a player doesn't like the map then they have the choice to sustain casualties and try again for a better map but with a smaller force. Otherwise you theoretically could have 2 players constantly resigning because of the map and each time they do it they award wins and losses to each other which means no net shift for morale.

I have a number of other examples to support my argument should you need them.

Cheers,

Steve

Steve's proposal makes sense, both from a historical and gamesmanship point of view. While I think I could come up with a few historical examples of ancient armies disengaging (and many more of armies simply refusing battle and retiring before it began), there are many, many examples of attempted disengagements turning into routs.

I do, however, think there should be some mechanism for refusing battle against hopeless odds (albeit with a risk of consequences), as that was done historically. A way to do it might be to have a random system that caused you to lose somewhere between 0-20 AP when you resign. If you resign immediately (refusing battle) you might get a positive modifer and would just lose stragglers, but if you resign in the heat of battle you might end up with your army broken as a result.

There should also be consequences (which there may be already), like an attacker who resigns is forced to discontinue his campaign (i.e. can't fight another battle until next season) or the defender who resigns cedes the province.

Must admit I have just taken advantage of an early resignation (yes, against you Pantherboy!) which I wouldn't have done if there was a greater penalty. New thing for me as I never resign in stand alone battles, always fight to the bitter end.

The issue that I would raise is the matter of counter-invasions as I believe historical examples of these were fairly rare. Even if both sides were planning attacks, whoever seized the initiative would often force the other party into a defensive campaign, which if successful could then result in a counter-invasion. To reflect this how about if we limit the chance of a counter invasion happening to maybe 33%, increasinging to 50% if the area was previously owned by the counter-attacker and 100% if the initial invasion of the other area(s) in the defender's land by that same attacker is successfully stopped.

I think that resigning in enemy territory should be higher casualties/less morale loss and in home territories it should be lower casualties but a big hit on morale... I resigned on my away match with pantherboy but not on the home leg

My own 2 drachmas worth:

I think batles should be more decisive
Maybe something like this

1st limit # of Field armies that can be max 650 points
example you can always have 1 Field army , 1 additional for every 3 territories (thus everyone start w 3)
thus you can only actively attack 3 nations at once, (or defend vs 3)
What happens if all your field armies are preoccupied and you are invaded? You could raise a "regional army" of say up to 400 points to defend hoping to bleed /delay the invader until a field army can become avaialble
However if the regional army loses the battle, the territory is lost. The winner occupies that region at same ap's he had remaning at end of battle. If defender is unable to bring a Field army to contest the occupation at the end of the season , then the attacker keeps the territoy , ap's go back into the treasury and if that territoy is counter attacked later it will be as normal, ie can raise a full field army each if have one to spare....

Resignations: maybe only the defender can resign a battle, and then only on the ist turn (if he doesnt like the composition of the enemy army or the terraign) A second battle could be set up and again, only defender can resign, on the ist turn, however at this point the territory is automatically lost and national moral should drop significanty.
I dont feel the attacker should ever be able to resign, after all you just sent your army into faroff lands to fight

I dont think either side shouldb be able to resign during the course of the battle simply to reduce casualties...After all this is ancients not Napoleonics where a comander could sacrifice a division or brigade as a reaguard to extricate his army
losers usually suffered 30-50 % of their army, the remains usually evaporated as they make thier way back to homes, become bandits or just go awol. i cant think of any ancient battle where a shattered army reformed to fight again a cuple weeks later...

Concerns:

1. Sometimes the maps generated are beyond silly. No army would offer battle in that terrain. Not sure how to get around this though without restart after restart...but sometimes armies did that...position...position...finally battle.

2. I like the idea of 3 armies possible but to then allow up to 6 enemies to attack probably won't work. Maybe only 3 areas can be invaded at any one time?

3. Maybe just no resignation of battles. (I like the negotiations but I can see how it will keep happening.) They go until they end (25 turns???). This way, if you didn't want to fight, you'd have to hold/defend until dark so-to-speak. But the other player who wants to fight still has time to try to damage the opponent. This way, if when it starts, you don't like something, you have the option to delay/hold back but you can't get away free or easy.

Blathergut wrote:Concerns:

1. Sometimes the maps generated are beyond silly. No army would offer battle in that terrain. Not sure how to get around this though without restart after restart...but sometimes armies did that...position...position...finally battle.

2. I like the idea of 3 armies possible but to then allow up to 6 enemies to attack probably won't work. Maybe only 3 areas can be invaded at any one time?

3. Maybe just no resignation of battles. (I like the negotiations but I can see how it will keep happening.) They go until they end (25 turns???). This way, if you didn't want to fight, you'd have to hold/defend until dark so-to-speak. But the other player who wants to fight still has time to try to damage the opponent. This way, if when it starts, you don't like something, you have the option to delay/hold back but you can't get away free or easy.

responses
1 I dont doudt that although i have never had the misfortune to play on a map so bad that it was unplayable

2 it could be problematic but the idea is that even if engaged in a 4th invasion, you can still defend just w a regional army that has a cap 300-400 ap's Would make going bananacakes and intiating 3 agressive wars at once very risky.... Would also open up an operational/strategic layer.. Ie all your field armies are busy, opponent attacks a territorial army forcing one to make a choice bring a field back home or likly lose you own land defended by provinicals.... Of course the attcker knwoing he is facing a territorial army might be parsimonious and bring a smaller field army to batttle.....

3 i like the idea of no resignations once after the fight starts.... Negotiations are for once the battle is done, VAE VICTUS!

Of course these are just ideas i was thinking of and not married to any of them, poor Peter will return to find sedition in the ranks!

If we have seven provinces of which three are outer areas that must be taken first, how can six armies invade one nation? Seems to me that three would be the max, making a limit of three field armies reasonable. You would then have to choose between invading or maintaining a strong defense.

The suggestion of a smaller territorial force of 400 pt. is also good, but I would go further and say no guard troops can be used until all the basic types have been recruited. Also, provinces with towns should have additional garrison troops available that increase with the number of town upgrades.

Deeter

deeter wrote:If we have seven provinces of which three are outer areas that must be taken first, how can six armies invade one nation? Seems to me that three would be the max, making a limit of three field armies reasonable. You would then have to choose between invading or maintaining a strong defense.

The suggestion of a smaller territorial force of 400 pt. is also good, but I would go further and say no guard troops can be used until all the basic types have been recruited. Also, provinces with towns should have additional garrison troops available that increase with the number of town upgrades.

Deeter

Hmm, would "outer" provinces increase in numbers once a player starts expanding?

I like the idea of no elites in a territrial army, just dont know if the dag is flexible to allow this to any great degree
I better be carefull w what i wish for as i might find myslf defending w a pile of Penal Legions

Ya...more territories...more opportunities to be attacked. Would make some sense.

But also, more territories should increase somehow the amount of troops/armies you can have.