Proposal: Recruitment and marching times

[M. Laveur]

It's become fairly evident to me that we need more complex battle guidelines if we want to feel like it's fair for everyone. Here's some additions I can think if:

Recruitment times

1) Recruiting troops now requires time. Levies are the only troops that can be created immediately.

For the rest, it takes this long:

Mercenaries are available immediately as well.
1 real life day for basic troops
2 real life days for professionals, elites or AOR troops from your region.
3 days for troops brought from Essos or a region that's not where your character is when he recruits them (i.e. Westerland lords can hire Westerlander knights in 1 rl day, however if they recruit Umber Axemen from Casterly Rock, it will take 3 days to be recruited.

Marching times

To march between regions, we should also take into account the time it takes for troops to get there.

To march inside 1 region (i.e. From Winterfell to the Dreadfort or from Riverrun to Harrenhal) it takes half a day.

To march to a neighboring region, it takes 1 rl day, and 1 more day for every different region you must pass to before reaching your objective.

Example:

A Westerlander army want to travel to KL. They call their levies (ready in no time) and then some Armoured Spearmen (take 1 day) and some elephants from Essos (take 3 days). Once the army is assembled (3 days after the recruitment was posted) it takes 1 day to go from the Westerlands to the Riverlands, and another day to travel from the Riverlands to the Crownlands.

Total time: 5 days, which in game is about 10 months.

Adjustments to the travelling times may be done as well.

Forced march

A man may force his troops to march between regions faster than it would be healthy for his troops, decreasing the time for arrival by half. However, when the troops arrive they will have a penalty in all their combat rolls due to the exhaustion (-1 for every region they passed by). Troops will require a day of rest for every region they past by (1/2 a day if they stayed in the same region) to eliminate their penalty.

[Gandalfus]

Oppose the recruitment times. It does not take more than three months to get from north to south.

[Adamat]

This is exactly what i've been thinking about, including the "Forced March" thing. I think the recruitment times are all right, as the men would need to be trained as well.
Good proposal overall, support.
+rep for stealing my idea

[Gandalfus]

But this isn't an interactive history game. It will make the game more complicated than it should be IMO.

[M. Laveur]

Oppose the recruitment times. It does not take more than three months to get from north to south.

A single person may travel all of Westeros in maybe a month, iirc. An army of 10,000 men though, would go much slower, moving troops, supply wagons etc. Travelling from North to the Dorne, for example, would take 6 months. Doesn't seem unrealistic in my opinion

This is exactly what i've been thinking about, including the "Forced March" thing. I think the recruitment times are all right, as the men would need to be trained as well.
Good proposal overall, support.
+rep for stealing my idea

thanks!

But this isn't an interactive history game. It will make the game more complicated than it should be IMO.

Well, take the Ashford thing for example. Steelheart hired 45,000 troops out of nowhere. I also hired some 10,000 men and began marching immediately after. He should have had more time to prepare and definitely shouldn't be able to hire 45,000 troops just like that, and hiring during a siege should be limited (that's a different topic, though).

In general I think that, yes, it's more complicated, but it's less likely to cause problems.

[Adamat]

Naw. Otherwise, if i were, say, Pentos, and a dothraki army appeared at my gates, i'd hire a of Falconguard Vale Pikemen, who would instantly arrive. So that system is flawed.

[Gandalfus]

AOR units should only be recruited if your from the AOR where they can be hired. So that wouldn't work.

[Adamat]

Oh, sorry. Still, i don't think it's right i can spawn thousands of trained men in an instance if attacked.

[Trot]

You can't you can only rp with the people there at the time of the attack

[Gandalfus]

Yes. Good point trot.


That's technically diss allowed, then. They have to be hired a day before the battle starts to take effect. And read my last post about AOR's. that's the whole point I didn't include them - and they would come by ship anyway, since its faster.

[M. Laveur]

Yes. Good point trot.


That's technically diss allowed, then. They have to be hired a day before the battle starts to take effect. And read my last post about AOR's. that's the whole point I didn't include them - and they would come by ship anyway, since its faster.

Unless you have a fleet already you should probably go by foot, and then you'd have to rp a disembarkment and all. This proposal does not include ship movements but they can be handled as well by dividing seas into regions as well or something.

And I don't think the rules really state that you must wait a day, so it should probably be added

[Dirty Chai]

The disembarkment problem was all over the Ironborn battle event.

[Adamat]

Steelheart. 'nuff said about the topic.

[Gandalfus]

Battles are an RP thing, yes? This isn't a strategy or alliance game. I'm more focused on the RP, whereas this just
Complicates things .

[Dirty Chai]

Battles are an RP thing, yes? This isn't a strategy or alliance game. I'm more focused on the RP, whereas this just
Complicates things .

I find this point is the most important.
And thus, I oppose the notion.

[Gandalfus]

Battles are an RP thing, yes? This isn't a strategy or alliance game. I'm more focused on the RP, whereas this just
Complicates things .

[Ganbarenippon]

I can see both sides of this. I think that RP is the most important point here the battle should be a good story, just like the books! I think the recruitment time idea is a fine one, but perhaps just too complex right now. It's easier to keep it as you can only fight with the men you have under arms one day before + levies. That being said, if you aren't getting enough out of the battles maybe something simple could be done so...

I like the movement idea better. But why not just have it so that each army can move from one province to the next in one day? For example, from Sunspear to The Tor = three days. Again simple, and by no means perfect, but it might give players some of the depth they crave without needing to overcomplicate things for the already overstretched mods. Or perhaps if the opposing forces submitted their proposed routes to the mod then you will be told when your armies will meet on the field. This would add a nice Role Play element to the marches of various armies, (the reactions of the various Lords whose lands are being trampled on, the use of scouts [basically just the spy system] to get intelligence on the enemies movements, the various Wardens instructing their vassals to assemble in certain areas, having to avoid the lands of rivals etc.) Much more than that and I think we would need a completely separate battle mod. which would mean having to wait for that mod to be online before you could get much done!

[M. Laveur]

Okay so, 3 things:

1. The rules about not being able to recruit once a battle thread has been posted are not really stated anywhere in the game rules. Although it's perfectly obvious to assume it should not be allowed, I believe it should be stated.

2. The rules about needing to wait 1 day after posting that you're recruting before being able to use them in a battle are, again, not in our rule set at all! There might be rules that seem quite obvious for veteran players but for a 1st time campaigner as me, this needs to be added to campaign / recruitment rules.

3. @Garbarenippon: I think your proposal about marching times is kind of close to what I said, with the exception that I also added 1/2 of a day for people travelling inside one region (unless I'm missunderstanding something, as I have no idea where "the Tor" is).

I don't really understand what's so complicated about that alone. The forced march might make it complicated I give you that, however I would hapily leave it out of the proposal to have a marching time for all campaigns and avoid teleporting armies.

The way I picture it is:

I post, in the Fielded Armies thread: Army X marches to castle Y (2 regions apart = 2 days marching)

Then, I'm giving the guy there 2 days to prepare and meet me in the battle.

The movements can be easily regulated by the community since if someone's cheating, well, the other would be expected to take notice. Only then would mods need to be involved.

[M. Laveur]

Funny how I make a comment stating that it's, in fact, not that complicated, and instead of addressing it you just requote your early statement, as if that's suppossed to convince me...

[Gandalfus]

Battles are an RP element... This would seem complicated to a new player or prospect player