Topic: Hive Race: The League (Read 25709 times)

Iituem · « **Reply #225 on:** August 17, 2017, 05:29:50 am »

Once I get a tiebreaker on the National Effort deployment I'll run the turn.

Jilladilla · « **Reply #226 on:** August 17, 2017, 06:11:48 am »

Oh we're already on this part? I thought we were still on discussion!....

Either way, move the Aphrokema to Front 1 or leave it at Front 2. Someone tie break it.

(Iituem, when we redeploy the National Effort, do the currently existing units automagically move to their new front or do they need transport capacity for that (if it's over water)?)

Iituem · « **Reply #227 on:** August 17, 2017, 06:17:12 am »

They automagically move, at least over distances this small. If it was more significant I might play with it, but the Aphrokemae can just teleport there for now. But yes, End of Turn approaches because the other side have decided on their actions and you have limited options right now anyway.

Tack · « **Reply #228 on:** August 17, 2017, 06:20:46 am »

National effort to front 1

Jilladilla · « **Reply #229 on:** August 17, 2017, 06:42:29 am »

Welp... That's a tiebreaker... Let us hope that RNGesus neglect was endemic throughout the entirety of this particular Arms Race, and not specific to just us.

Iituem · « **Reply #230 on:** August 17, 2017, 07:14:58 am »

Year 303

This year sees the first real deployment of mages in combat, as the League fields spellcasters in more appreciable number. The scholars, clad in simple robes with silver-thread highlights, move into battle casting spells from nothing more, it seems, than willpower alone. Their effects are most apparent up close; when League ambushers strike Hive drone parties before they can join the main force, these mages confuse and distract the minds of the drones, interfering just enough with their connection to the Hive to allow the skirmishers to get the jump on them. When main battle is joined, they prove themselves worth the weight of a dozen trained spearmen each, as their spells of confusion weaken the attacking drones and they cast spells to make the company of spears around them strike hard and true.

There is just one problem; they are students, garbed in cloth. While these mages have a degree of natural protection from sheer numbers (that is, there are terribly few of them, so they use the massed ranks of slaves like meat shields to protect them), in the major phases of battle - under attack from spitter bombardment, in the brutal melee - they tend to get horribly murdered when drones inevitably find them. Some sort of protection may be in order.

It is unclear what, if anything, the Hive has done this year.

The second front just continues to hold at Dromio, even after the aphrokemae move to the first front, thanks in large part to the remaining hoplites. Despite the best efforts of the Hive, they cannot take Dromio's solid stone walls.

The first front sees the line pushed back, chiefly due to the effects of the spitters and the lack of defensive fortifications. The brutal long-ranged acid attacks prove ruinous to the massed slave ranks, as ever, and it is enough to push the force back to the hill fort of Oracuse in Western Menotos. Even with the aphrokemae they just don't have the numbers to hold the plains. With this, the Hive is able to recover the lost scholar's tomb, destroying their research and recovering the ancient drone to be dissected and its genetic wealth absorbed. [+1 Die this turn to the Hive.]

The First Front is pushed back to Western Menotos and the Hill Fort of Oracuse, a Rank I Fortification.

The third front sees the continual retreat of League forces back through no-man's land to the Nippan Woods.

The Third Front is pushed back to the Nippan Woods.

League Opportunity: The Hated Thanetonians

Back when the League was formed, almost all of the city-states of the Hadean Archipelago came together. Yet there was one that did not, the distant (so distant that it is off the map) and much reviled state of Thanetonia. Long an enemy of nearly every single other city in the Hadean Archipelago, it was generally agreed by both League and Thanetonians that the respective other party could go suck eggs as far as working together was concerned. For the last three years, then, nothing much has been heard from them.

This has changed. A proud, obnoxious 'centurion' of Thanetonia has arrived with an offer. Thanetonia will commit a sizeable portion of its standing army, 100 hoplites and 300 spearmen, as well as the 8 biremes they have sent to carry them, to a single Front of the League's choosing. In return, they demand not merely acceptance into the League but a seat on the ruling council, special privileges and ample land for all of their soldiers in League territory. The demands are not only unjust but heinous; scandal has rocked the ruling council over their play.

League: Accepting the Thanetonian demands will provide a much-needed injection of force, but at the cost of the League's honour and unity. This will result in a major increase in corruption, enough to re-set all the work done in straightening out the militia. But can we trust the Thanetonians not to betray us? And how much does the Hive know of their plans?

Current Reinforcement Strategy: We are reinforcing Front 1, Front 2, and Front 3 as equally as we can, based off the number of cities devoted to supplying each side. Front 1 is receiving our National Effort, the Aphrokemae. Of the 12, 346 men we can raise for war, only 5654 reached the front this year. We have a total naval transport capacity of 2130 men, split between our three fleets. Our three fleets are reinforced equally from our shipyards.

It is now the Design Phase. You have 5 dice remaining.

Spoiler: Front Report (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Map, 303 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Current Status (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Budget (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Current Units (click to show/hide)

Tack · « **Reply #231 on:** August 17, 2017, 07:25:36 am »

Quote

Freedom for Service
Our slave soldiers are a constant drain of resources, not having the training or equipment to be useful, and having morale issues which ruin their ability to hold territory.
Under a new scheme, instead of conscripting slaves for the war effort, eligible slaves will be offered their freedom after the war concludes. Those who do join will be given spears and large wooden shields, and be given the most basic of training on the move as to how to use them.
Slightly less slaves might join the war effort, but this means the sub-par fighters will be staying at home to breed new soldiers, and a significant improvement in the quality and acid-resistance of the current ones.

I vote the Thenatonians can go get screwed.
They can either help us curb the menace now for free, or get eaten when they're too much to deal with.

Alternatively, it took us three rolls of 1 to fix the corruption.
We could potentially solve it with another dice.

Jilladilla · « **Reply #232 on:** August 17, 2017, 07:46:08 am »

....Well that went both worse and better than I thought it would...

We lost ground at Front 1, the one front I was hoping we'd hold, but we've made a major breakthrough there: We're actually killing more workers than they're reinforcing for once!

Also in good news: Front 2 held, and it too has made the same achievement that Front 1 did!

Our third front though.... Is basically non-existent... I'd suggest at minimum re-allocating at least some of Fleet One's reinforcements to it. (...We're now at +3 transports per fleet.... And 1931/2100 timber... We're going to need more wood too...)

(Speaking of wood, how long do additional resources take to kick in, Iituem? I was assuming every resource number we claimed on the map gave us +300 capacity, but we haven't gotten anything from the timber we claimed up north, we're still at 2100 timber capacity... Simple clerical error or do we need to do something else to exploit it?)

Anyway, my suggestion for a Design this year:
Enchant Armor
Building off of our enchantment knowledge, this spell strengthens and reinforces the armor of the target, although 'armor' is perhaps misleading, as it will enhance the effectiveness of anything worn by the target, even simple cloth, although cloth will not be strengthened to an extent to where it could be considered as a replacement to even unenchanted bronze armor. Perhaps in the future we shall be able to do so, but for now it lies outside of our expertise.

Casters of this spell will be told to try to maintain it on themselves first and foremost in combat, to attempt to not get eaten away by lucky acid blobs.

As to the Thenatonian's, I agree with Tack, help us out for normal League membership privileges, or go away and pray we can deal with this. Also, we spent 3 dice fixing the corruption, we are not backsliding on it! (Tack, that last one had a +2 on it, I would suspect that it would go away if we took the deal.)

Terenos · « **Reply #233 on:** August 17, 2017, 07:49:59 am »

Yeah. 3 rolls of 1. 3 dice pretty much wasted. The only reason we stamped out the corruption was GM pity. We can't backslide on this. Its too great a cost.

Front 3: The Nippan woods will fall, and with it, a huge amount of our timber. We either must settle more timber (West of Borolis would be the best bet), or improve our technology regarding its acqusition. Or, make sure we're actually getting what we claimed up north.

Enchant Armor sounds good, But I'd also say we could consider:

New Spell: Heal.
Nothing terribly fancy, just using magic to help our bodies heal. Keep people fighting longer, or cut down on our horrendous casualties.

Iituem · « **Reply #234 on:** August 17, 2017, 08:07:44 am »

Oops. You should have extra timber already. I'll fix that.

Edit: Fixed! You have 3000 timber now.

Madman198237 · « **Reply #235 on:** August 17, 2017, 08:09:21 am »

Alright, so here's this proposal again. We're getting creamed for our manpower. Slaves are literally melting away and wasting lives and manpower. Let's make them into an ARMY, shall we?

Quote

Macedonian Phalanx
Combining troops and tactics, a new "pikeman" unit is developed, and given a twenty-four-foot bronze-tipped pike, held with both hands, to keep enemies at a distance. The soldiers are "armored" in what amounts to a set of wicker baskets, that are easy to dispose of should any part of the assembly get hit with acid. They fight in a phalanx formation, several ranks deep. The first four ranks level pikes at the enemy, forcing hostile forces to advance through the wall of pikes in order to strike. This distance protects the soldiers from melee enemies, while the wicker armor will protect from the acidic spit of the hostile forces. Somewhat, anyway.

The pikemen for the Phalanxes will be drawn from our former slave units, as volunteers, promised their freedom on completion of a term of service. Any slaves who do not volunteer will be put to work making the weapons and armor suits for the phalanxes, to ease the burdens of production. Those slaves will serve an additional five years after the war is finished before being released, and will be the first to be conscripted in an emergency situation.

Former spearmen will be trainers and commanders for our new pikeman units, as they have experience and are generally better than former slaves for positions of command. This will also ease the burden of training. Individuals will not be skilled, but they will be drilled as a large group, further reducing training time.

Jilladilla · « **Reply #236 on:** August 17, 2017, 08:24:06 am »

Quote from: Terenos on August 17, 2017, 07:49:59 am

\Front 3: The Nippan woods will fall, and with it, a huge amount of our timber. We either must settle more timber (West of Borolis would be the best bet), or improve our technology regarding its acqusition. Or, make sure we're actually getting what we claimed up north.

It'd still be a net loss when we lose Nippan Woods, and punt our max timber production under our current timber usage, so we'd need to spend a die to get more now to stop that from happening... A good thing we don't have anything in great need of revisions at the moment, yeah? (We could redirect Kroton's and Sybylos's reinforcements to Front 3 to try to stop it, but that would leave Front 1 without much in the way of reinforcements...)

As for Heal, it's a good idea, yes. But our main issue with magic right now is our mages getting slaughtered, all the apprentices we sent to reinforce got cut down... And quite frankly, I would fully expect spells to be botched when being eaten away by acid, or for it to not matter in the end when they're overrun (Although to be fair, a stronger robe wouldn't help with that issue either...)

(Sorry, another question, Iituem, how much of Epidaea's reinforcements are being shipped off to Front 1 right now? With 710 capacity, it should be mostly ok for now, and further transports less helpful than they would be elsewhere...)

Terenos · « **Reply #237 on:** August 17, 2017, 08:32:19 am »

If we colonize one of the 2s, we'll still be able to handle our timber concerns. We could also try spending a die to revise timber gathering (if thats possible, if not, we gotta colonize)

And yes, Enchanting Armor would probably be better. We may want to devise a dedicated healer at some point in the near future.

As for Madman's suggestion ... Even 1 training = We cannot field these troops due to an lack of training. The limiting factor for troops in the field is not manpower. It is training. Now, I do say that we may want to take this turn to drop another training camp somewhere. But for now, we are limited to what we have.

Iituem · « **Reply #238 on:** August 17, 2017, 08:47:17 am »

Quote from: Jilladilla on August 17, 2017, 08:24:06 am

(Sorry, another question, Iituem, how much of Epidaea's reinforcements are being shipped off to Front 1 right now? With 710 capacity, it should be mostly ok for now, and further transports less helpful than they would be elsewhere...)

710/782. Fleet 1 is approaching the point where it may be carrying more or less full capacity.

Jilladilla · « **Reply #239 on:** August 17, 2017, 08:57:26 am »

Hmm... We could also forgo a Design and just spam Training Camps (Kroton is a good candidate for one, it doesn't need transports to reinforce the front and it is behind multiple lines of forts... It'll take the Hive quite a while to overrun it even if we utterly fail to slow them down), the Academy, and colonize the woods to make it so we only lose 600 timber capacity rather than 1200... We're not maxed out yet at Epidaea so we can afford another full round of normal ship allocation, for the sake of future proofing. But we really should redistribute those boats next turn at latest.

(Sorry Iituem! Yet another question, this time about the Academy. The description implies that the training boost would be universal? Or is my sleep deprived mind horribly mistaken and it's just local?)

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Author Topic: Hive Race: The League (Read 25709 times)

Iituem

Re: Hive Race: The League

Jilladilla

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Iituem

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Tack

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Jilladilla

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Iituem

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Tack

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Jilladilla

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Terenos

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Iituem

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Madman198237

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Jilladilla

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Terenos

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Iituem

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Jilladilla

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