When people talk about Summerdale being over and done with, they really don't realize how slow warfare in Battlemaster is. This is especially true for the vast majority of folks who haven't realized that the whole bonds vs. physical gold taxes change made sustained offenses impossible beyond a week or two. Because of that narrow window, even when we collossaly screw-up, (like we've done several times before) they still don't have enough time to land a truly finishing blow on us.
To explain, your army expects to be paid in physical gold about once a week, or you start getting desertions, morale failure, and honor/prestige losses. Luckily, you collect taxes about once a week. Supposedly back in the day, you got those taxes in physical gold. Now instead you get 'bonds' for taxes, paper IOU's that need to be cashed at your capital's bank. So unless you've stockpiled a few weeks worth of taxes, every week you need to race your army back to the capital for payday. Magnify that effect across an entire kingdom, and now you understand why Morek had to pull a complete 180 out of Summerdale the first time we suicided against them at Torrent's Breath about a month ago.
I'm not familar with how capital moving works, but as you can see, unless their capital city advances with the army, they're going to be constantly doing weekly shuttleruns between the increasingly distant frontlines and homeland. They've been on the frontlines for almost a week now, which means they have to break it off soon or watch their armies wither in the field. That gives us a chance to rebuild, for a few days until they catch up where they left off.
As long as we stop killing ourselves, we actually have the advantage:
1. Our capital is closer, less time away from the front for banking and recruiting.
2. Militia is much cheaper than an offensive army.
3. Fortifications and defense greatly favor the defender in combat.
Granted, saving Storms End and Storms Keep is off the table for the near future. But I'm willing to bet Nifelhold will stand thoughout June. Once that falls, we can relocate the capital to Valkyria (General Amalie's Dutchy.) Then we can have a nice little slugfest in Western Summerdale for at least a month. THEN we could go full Alamo at the very appropriately titled Valkria... or swear vassalage to Astrum, doubling their playercount, and creating an epic World War on Dwilight between "The East and The West." Full Armageddon could be a beautiful thing.
But like I said, we get to see the action unfold for weeks if not months, so we've still got quite awhile before we get to that point. And in the meantime we gain OOC and IC experience, so there's still plenty of reason to stick around with Summerdale for the next few months.
TL;DR version: Offensives in Battlemaster are the Eastern Front, NOT D-Day. As long as we don't insist on maintaining a bizarre emphasis on kamikaze attacks (battle casualties are tremendously one-sided unless its a super-close match,) we can drag this campaign out all damn summer while actually making Morek and Libero bleed worse than we do.
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Topic: Battlemaster a Roleplay medieval low fantasy game (Read 167562 times)