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[NUKE9.13]

Planar Courseways
When a Mage trained in Planar travel is asked to explain the recession to a layman, they quickly reach for the nearest pieces of parchment to poke holes in. However a lesser known concept is that the interplanar medium has a number of things in common with a block of stone. Forging a fresh path between two points is like using your hands to push water from one side of the block to the other. (Easiest when there's not much water, you're really good, or have a lot of help). But, imperceptibly, the water will have carved a slight groove in the stone, and other many successive attempts, there will be a channel that makes moving the water child's play. These courseways thus no longer need the great apparatus of the PTN to be realised, instead a sorely trained Mage can follow in the steps of those gone before to make a connection.
((Aim here is to gain a small bonus from a region we have had a lot of PTN focus on, even when we're looking somewhere else))

You, uh, suffered from a bit of autocorrupt here, I think.

Also MoP, Spin's colonies proposal?

[Kashyyk]

Sigh, just a tad. All sorted now though. Have another revision.

Tradition of Service
Battles are won and lost on the discipline and cohesion of the forces on the field. Thankfully the devout followers of Kaynan have a tradition of regular military training with their own arms and armour. Local Lords muster their levies in the free space between sow and harvest for regular drills, led by their professional warriors. These focus on maintaining a strong formation, be it in column whilst marching, in a shield wall across broken terrain, or any other situation where confusion and distraction is abundant. They may still lose a 1 on 1 duel, but when it comes to companies of soldiers, they know how to keep their fellows safe by never leaving a gap in the wall.

[Doomblade187]

Basic Training: by implementing simple training camps for all levies, we aim to instill in our Spearmen and Slingers the importance of formation and how it can save their lives in the heat of battle. This should improve their organization and compat effectiveness overall.

Okay this is funny kashyyk just wrote mine but better. I support it.

[Man of Paper]

The act of colonizing territories is wildly different than trading, so kitting and training the boats and crews properly alongside gathering settlers that’ll keep a colony alive is going to be Very Hard. Be careful though, because founding colonies is usually a rather expensive endeavor, and you may not want to lean too heavily into influence designs outside the influence (that is, magic) lanes.

I’m going to have to veto courseways, at least for their intended effect. I don’t want to go down a path that gets too granular, not to mention the question of balance when it comes to impacting difficulty levels. I feel confident in saying that the tools you have on hand are the most I feel comfortable with giving you for difficulty reduction. It also adds even more I have to keep track on, and more clutter for every strategy phase votebox.

Tradition of Service is Very Easy. It’s a basic training regimen that doesn’t impose too heavily on your wimpy dudes.

Basic Training is the same for the same reason because it’s the same thing.

[Kashyyk]

In light of 'Tradition of Service' being Very Easy, have one with a broader reach.

Sworn Warriors
Every follower of Kaynan is ready to serve, be it spreading Our word, offering the grain from their fields, or taking up arms against the heretics of the West. Every adult knows how to march with kit, how to move and fight in formation, and how to use the weapons of their social class. In this case, the spear and the sling. Of course, they aren't professional soldiers, but they each know that to survive a battle they must act as one.

Further, each common soldier is expected to provide their own arms and armour on the field, and if unable, their Lord will provide for them. This means a bare minimum standard of:
- A long war spear, approximately 10 ft in length
- A sling and shot
- A cuirass and helm of metal or thick leather, lacquered for weather resistance (issued armour tends to have many adjustable straps)

All but the poorest common soldiers (and stingiest Lords) will also provide upper leg Armour in the form of Tassets attached to the cuirrass, and large pauldrons that cover down to the elbow. Combined with the helmet (typically flared, wide-brimmed or even conical) this presents an armoured silhouette that will deflect most ranged weapons. Wealthier individuals will carry a Sidearm, and have Armour that extends further, made of metal, but any more than that and we are stepping into a higher strata that is an as-yet undesigned unit.

---

The whole pauldron thing is actually one (of the several) reasons why Medieval Japan never used shields. Their huge pauldrons and broad helmets did much the same job when presented in their typical side on combat stance, iirc.

[Man of Paper]

I’d give Sworn Warriors a Hard for being a realistic overhaul of your fighting forces through training and equipment

[Kashyyk]

Combat Carracks
With no real trading partners over the seas, the engorged cargo hold, extended blue water endurance and complete lack of arms and armour makes the Carrack wholly unsuited to its current task. The cargo hold is refitted for troop transport, the hull is made from treated hardwood, the deck is rearranged to allow for multiple rowboats, and the fore and aft castles cleared to make space for companies of ranged troops, and perhaps, later, engines. A Squadron of Carracks still can't take a fortress, but with a larger payload and faster deployment, the carried soldiers can more effectively raid hostile coasts and harrass enemy shipping.

[NUKE9.13]

I like the Tradition of Service proposal. The Sworn Warriors proposal is also good, but I feel it may be better to focus on training. Action economy would dictate we combine training and equipment, but that's only if we never expect to design better equipment in the future. I think establishing a strong foundation of experienced warriors that we can slot new equipment onto to create effective units is better than getting a bit of equipment and a bit of training.
As such:

Tradition of Service in the Riven East: The East is not a peaceful land. Never truly united under a single ruler before the advent of [Avatar], it has long been a land of clashing kings, duelling dukes, combative counts and bellicose barons. War is the natural state of affairs; the local word for 'Peace' is best translated as 'Truce'. While many have opined on the hardships of war and its detrimental effects on the region's economy, this does work out to our benefit now. With internal conflict (mostly) stamped out in favour of unity beneath [Avatar]'s banner, we are left with a large population of experienced warriors to draw upon for our armies. They may still be farmers first and soldiers second, but rest assured every recruit has seen battle before, and has been trained over the years into something resembling a disciplined warrior. Even if we run out of veterans, the ingrained martial culture ensures a steady supply of capable novices, as local lords muster levies in the lull between sowing and harvest to drill them in formation and basic combat, an activity which none would question the necessity of.
In all, the levies at our disposal are significantly more experienced than might be expected. They are capable of marching and fighting in formation, improving strategic movement and tactical cohesion. They are used to the horrors of war, improving their morale. And they can wield their weaponry with a reasonable degree of skill, making each one more likely to kill and less likely to be killed.
Equipment... we'll deal with that later. For now, let us just be grateful for this experience windfall.

---

E: Mind you, this game does have a magic focus. Spending too much effort on mundane troops wouldn't be a great idea, which would make a training+equipment revision more viable. Still, experienced warriors will be needed to carry magical equipment into battle.

[A_Curious_Cat]

Carracks of Exploration:

A group of carracks are converted to exploration vessels, and sent out in small groups (1-3 vessels) in search of new trading partners.  To this end, in addition to a capable and talented crew (including cartographers and oceanographers) and their supplies, the vessels will also carry capable and talented diplomats and trade negotiators, as well as a wide assortment of trade goods (although less of each than would be on a normal carrack).  The primary purpose of these vessels would be to open new trade routes between the Kaynan Empire and foreign lands.  Once established, normal carracks can be dispatched along these trade routes carrying cargo that is both larger, and more tailored to the trading partners along the way.

[Man of Paper]

Combat Carracks is Easy, as it is a project with a very focused goal using simple solutions to fix simple problems.

Tradition of Service in the Riven East is Easy, since the training is looking for better results than the first Traditions of Service, but it doesn't tack on the Weapons and equipment of Sworn Warriors.

Carracks of Exploration is Normal, since your people are going to need to go further away to find places willing to trade. You also need to be careful about expectations with regard to the returns you get from influence projects outside the Magic Planes.

[Maximum Spin]

I think we should probably give up the carracks as a bad job or convert them to magical purposes somehow.

[A_Curious_Cat]

I think we should probably give up the carracks as a bad job or convert them to magical purposes somehow.

How would we do that?

[Doomblade187]

Ship go fast.

^not a design, but hey why not?

Carrack Merchant Marine:
Our carrack fleet may have failed at finding trade partners, but they haven't failed at moving arms and armor. By harnessing the fleet to gather and organize material from all over the empire, we aim to give our troops a standardized kit of high quality gear suitable for war.

Carrack Fire Support:
By tapping into the magic of teamwork, we aim to increase the firepower of mages traveling with our fleet. By carving a formation onto the bow of each ship and inlaying it with materials that don't obstruct the flow of magic, we aim for the impact of mages traveling along raiding parties to be increased.

Alternatively we could just give them fire cannons.

[Maximum Spin]

I think we should probably give up the carracks as a bad job or convert them to magical purposes somehow.

How would we do that?

I'm trying to think of an idea that isn't using magic to shrink the ships so we can put them on a catapult, fling them at the enemy, and return them to normal size in midair, but I just keep thinking of that instead for some reason.

That would be way too high level of magic though, based on the costs we were given before.

[NUKE9.13]

You joke... hopefully, but we could work towards air magic, eventually allowing us to make skyships. Also lightning guns, alchemical fire, and antimagic. Wait, no.

Anyway. I agree with Spin- we should take the hint from MoP and accept that the Carracks are not going to be useful for generating wealth, at least not in the near term. Utter Failures happen- let's just be glad that I'm not the one running this game, since MoP tends to be rather generous with his Utter Failures (for instance, the Carracks are still marginally useful as transports).

I was thinking about mundane-troop upgrades. While I'm torn between just training at Easy, or training+equipment at Hard, it did occur to me that the fighting on both fronts will start in relatively confined conditions- the Deep Swamp and the Underlair. Long spears probably won't be ideal in those environs, so I think if we do equipment, it should include a sidearm of some sort as standard issue.
Either way, I think upgrading the foundation of our mundane forces would be a solid move- even if they're mainly going to serve as chaff, having better chaff than the enemy never hurt anyone.

For our second revision, I'd like to either start advancing our magical knowledge (eg with one of the Arcane Bolt variants I proposed), or do something influency. MoP clarified elsewhere that we will be contacting a species this turn (I thought that only started next turn), so it would be immediately useful. Although given the Planar Diplomats proposal was a high Normal (as a design), I'm not sure what we could do to improve our diplomatic ability with a revision. The profits from the PTN could be used to bribe planar denizens, but by the sounds of things the profits are pretty paltry right now.