Can we still send a message to our wife she has a right to know what's unfolded so far right? she is in-charge and good news will raise production hopefully.
We're supplied by sea now with ships of the Duke's navy and whatever captured longboats, so a message to Marna about the sack of the raider settlement and the prisoners that may arrive soon would be good. Shall we execute the prisoners duly for Joral's treachery?
Anyway, I read the update and didn't see that surprise coming either. Great turn of events. We should continue what our forces actually do best, which is scouting ahead of the Duke with light cavalry. We just got quite a reputation in the Duke's eyes as a hard-charging bad dude, and let's barrel forward with the same momentum.
This is a major victory. Whether they are resupplied from minor villages along the coast bringing in extra food to the main settlement, or from shipments from the homeland itself, it will no longer have an agreed-upon place for the enemy army to meet the shipments. They can't easily establish a new pick-up point. Confusion ensues. The enemy is worried. The enemy feels insecure. The enemy feels restless and frustrated by sitting outside the capital and accomplishing nothing for so long. The enemy feels angry at Gergal for allowing this defeat, and the deaths and misery of their families. And soon the enemy will feel hunger.
Ebbor is right. They can supplement their diet with forage and plunder, but that means sending out forage parties to bring back food... 22.5 tons of food a day or more. That's many small bands roaming the countryside. They tend to be infantry, and we are cavalry scouts. We can ride down the forage parties that roam the countryside, and make them scared to even attempt finding food. Our place now is as close to that enemy horde as we dare to push, skirmishing and limiting the distance that they dare to send foraging parties. If there are any untouched areas nearby the horde, we need to get into those places and bundle the peasants off toward Torchester, carrying what they can and burning the rest. We range around the south and west of the horde, denying forage and burning fields, killing whatever game we come across purely to deny it to the enemy.
As the enemy runs out of food, it will begin moving of its own accord. Duke needs to do nothing except sit comfortably inland somewhere with excellent defensive features, foraging simply to deny those things to the enemy while also receiving boatloads of supplies from Torchester. Wait for the enemy host to eat itself out of its current encampment. Cattle must wander around the pasture when they graze. The horde has the option of going double or nothing--wandering further upstream into the unknown with enemies behind them, or of returning to the coast in the spot where other raiders used to rendezvous with them.
That path is blocked by a small army led by the Duke. A simple thing to crush like a bug, unless the Duke has prepared his ground well. I daresay he will.
I don't know about this plan. Will our little force be able to distract the whole enemy army? It seems to me like their army will overwhelm our force and we'll suffer heavy casualties, and there will still be plenty of men left to screw up the river crossing.
There won't be enough food left near the river crossing to keep a large group there. I bet it is already picked clean and supplies are dwindling now. This horde will soon have to break the siege and start moving, or starve.
Author
Topic: Lordship: A Suggestion Game (Read 327910 times)