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[Taricus]

Grenades aren't useful on cavalry though

[Shootandrun]

You're not going to use shields, Ardas? What's the point of making tercio-roman units, if a few bowmen can make a breach in the line?

[filiusenox]

Grenades aren't useful on cavalry though

Caltrops and thin but strong wire will take down any horse.

[Elfeater]

You're not going to use shields, Ardas? What's the point of making tercio-roman units, if a few bowmen can make a breach in the line?

I think they are using shields.

[Taricus]

Grenades aren't useful on cavalry though

Caltrops and thin but strong wire will take down any horse.

Can't exactly lay traps in a pitched battle though, can you

[Ardas]

You're not going to use shields, Ardas? What's the point of making tercio-roman units, if a few bowmen can make a breach in the line?

They won't. That is the point. Please have a look at the actual tercio that the spanish used in 16th century. They had no shields but pikes and swords. And they were facing off enemies who had guns later on and still won.

Its about having a disciplined unit that will advance forward and smash the enemy line while being able to fight off cavalry. A proper armour and pikes at an angle do deflect arrows and protect tercio from enemy fire. Alexander's phalanx also used pikes only and still had no problem with defeating persian archers. Don't think about it in rock-paper-scissors way. Look up historical experiences of how the war was waged.

[Elfeater]

Taricus, you have one and a half regiment sitting out side, I think you now have a use for my men.

[Shootandrun]

You're not going to use shields, Ardas? What's the point of making tercio-roman units, if a few bowmen can make a breach in the line?

They won't. That is the point. Please have a look at the actual tercio that the spanish used in 16th century. They had no shields but pikes and swords. And they were facing off enemies who had guns later on and still won.

Its about having a disciplined unit that will advance forward and smash the enemy line while being able to fight off cavalry. A proper armour and pikes at an angle do deflect arrows and protect tercio from enemy fire. Alexander's phalanx also used pikes only and still had no problem with defeating persian archers. Don't think about it in rock-paper-scissors way. Look up historical experiences of how the war was waged.

Two things:

-The actual tercio that the spanish used had arquebuses (I know my military history too). Yours won't, and that's a world of difference.
-'Proper armor' costs money. More costs mean more upkeep. More upkeep mean less regiments. If you have few regiments, you'll only have one strong army, while we need many armies, or at least troops able to fight alone (unlike your forces).

[CyberGenesis]

You also need to remember that 11 Untrained Regiments will beat 5 trained simply because of the way the system works in this game. Tactics allows this to change, but you still need to succeed the rolls.

These troops i could probably find a way to fit in, but they'd obviously suffer on defense just as archers only gain Str in attacks. Hmmm...interesting to say the least

Also: I like what nuke came up with for the cannonry, but it'll need to be tweaked a tad obviously to avoid breaking a large siege in 2 rounds

EDIT2: Whoever keeps editing the Player Accounts without being logged in, i'm going to kill you. Where did Kathos get men and money from anyway?

[Ardas]

Fair enough, I haven't thought about it in game terms. But then organisation and upkeep of permament regiments in this system makes them obsolete. Granted its done for the sake of simplicity, but then having a trained regiment is no better than raising peasant levy and sending them off to fight. There are quality and upgrade modifiers, but they don't seem to make sufficient difference.

With regard to combat itself, I thought about the opponents that will be faced most likely. It will be a unit of either separate spikes or separate swords or cavalry. In a mixed unit like Tercio, both infantry and cavalry can be tackeld and defended against, and the addition of guns is simply in response to enemy fire. You had blocks of swiss infantry pikes before tercio and the existence of archers did not stop them from winning. But then again, you have the bloody combat modifiers in here...

I was simply trying to push military technology a bit forward, but that seems hard to do in the existence of the game rules (especially about having to lose at least one regiment even when winning).

Overall, maybe my idea isn't going to make any bloody difference, mainly due to the game rules. And people over-ephasising gunpowder, even if its not there.

[Terenos]

I think..Actually, the best way to move military technology forward is perhaps by creating the professional type army through a series of upgrades. The upgrade system is quite versatile, and barely touched right now.
I mean, a peasant levy is your basic str 1 regiment, but its upgrades that changes this. Maybe by creating options in the upgrade tree, you can create your professional-type army base, and then move forward from there. I was exploring this also in the technology area I'm creating. Say theres a field, Military Technology/Training. Now down this field, unlocks would add various additional upgrades, and slots for more upgrades for your troops. Course thats yknow, simplest level of what I'm thinking here. But I feel it could work.

[Taricus]

Kind of what I was thinking. If a professional army has more slots for upgrades they do have an advantage over levy units...

Though the base unit may be more expensive as a flat cost, maybe the upkeep could go down?

[NUKE9.13]

Man, see. Mechanics, dammit.

You gotta have them, or there is only chaos, and people complaining that stuff isn't fair (and they'd be right).
They've gotta be simple, or every battle becomes two hours of complex tables and dice with more than six sides.
But if they're too simple, then they become a joke, a mere question of having superior numbers and more money.

Where's the balance? How much flexibility should the rules allow? What happens when people want to do things for which there are no rules?

D:

Spoiler: Here's an idea. Which might work, possibly. (click to show/hide)

Anyway. The current battle system, one feels, inherently relies on peasant levies making up the bulk of the force. The minimum of one loss of strength per round (without using tactics) means that the best strategy is 'throw waves and waves of peasants at them until they hit their pre-set kill limits'
Question: Why was the 'one point of attrition per round' rule made? It seems silly. Yes, as a battle drags on even someone who is unanimously winning will suffer heavy losses. But one (standard) regiment per round? That seems highly excessive. Seems to me that it would be better to change that.
Something like what we have for personal combat: loser loses a point of strength, both lose a point on a draw, winner is unharmed.
To reflect the build up of fatigue, injuries, and minor losses, both armies lose a point of strength every two rounds.
Holding fortifications could increase the attrition timer, and generals could have traits aimed at doing that as well. The 'conserve troops' strategy would be changed to do that also, and there could possibly be a 'staying power' upgrade for troops. As a result, Hardy troops, well led and holding fortifications would suffer much less attrition than the attacking horde of unled peasants, even if the peasants had a higher total strength than them. This also removes the need for the 'Asymmetric Warfare Ruling', which I doubt actually worked.

Also you may note I have been saying 'lose strength' rather than 'lose a regiment'? That's actually what the rules say. In addition to reducing attrition, allowing some losses to be taken from intangible bonuses (general's strength bonus, terrain bonus) or fortifications (which would be damaged), would make superior armies (who aren't wiped out) more capable of recovering after a battle. Units which had more than one point of strength in the battle (and are not siege weapons- siege weapons are OHKO) could be given a chance to take the damage, but have enough survivors to keep fighting- [damage taken/strength in battle] chance of surviving, requiring [damage taken/2] ducats to bandage up, fix their armour, and replenish losses. 

And one more rule change, which actually works against my previous idea of 'less losses': the general should not be able to always choose exactly which regiments are lost. It makes sense when every regiment is just a peasant levy, identical to their comrades but for who owns it.
Instead, tactics! A 2+ tactic (Soak Up) per point of damage you want to be certain of soaking up with intangible bonuses or fortifications. A 1+ tactic (Risk Unit) per unit to send into the riskier parts of the battle. A 2+ tactic (Reserve Unit) per unit to hold back from dangerous situations (siege weapons are automatically Reserved). A [2+2/-1 depending on how the enemy general deploys them]+ tactic (Target Unit) to target an enemy unit specifically (defenders in a siege cannot Target units).
After a battle is done, the strength lost over the course of the battle is tallied up, and the long and arduous process of figuring out who died begins. If all your strength was lost, your army is wiped out entirely, and the commander has to deal with escaping the victors. Easy.
However, if not all strength was lost, then the fun begins. Firstly, the Soak Up tactic soaks up damage with the Non Unit Strength (intangiable bonuses or fortifications). Then any Targeted Risked units are destroyed (even if there isn't enough damage). Then, randomly pick from Risked units and Targeted units. Once those have ran out, randomly pick from units which weren't Reserved and any remaining NUS (NUS counts as one unit which remains in the draw until it is depleted). Once the units (NUS does not count as a unit) have run out, randomly pick from Reserved units, any Injured units (units with more than one strength which were already damaged), and any remaining NUS. Once those run out, you've wiped out the army, and wasted your time, because if there was enough strength to do that you could've wiped them out to begin with :/
It's not actually that complicated.
And it makes tactics a lot more useful, I think. Even if the fancy tactics don't appeal, most generals will always want to hold back their valuable units and send the peasants to be slaughtered.

In conclusion: Three proposed rule changes:
-Reduce attrition to once every two rounds, with modifiers able to reduce that even further.
-Allow damage suffered to not actually destroy regiments, by letting various bonuses soak up damage and stronger regiments having a chance to survive.
-No longer allow complete control of lost units to army leader. Does involve a bit of extra work, but on the plus side gives tactics a reason to exist.
The effect of these changes is to make battles less deadly, especially for high-quality troops, in a reasonably sensible way.

So, does this sound like it would work? Is it on the right track, but needs tweaking? Is it completely the wrong idea?

[Ardas]

If speaking in terms of game rules/traits, then Ligorian infantry would be a single unit replacing both pikemen and swordsmen.

They would have the following bonuses at the point of recruitment that would all combine to represent what I have in mind:

Pike/Reach: +3 Str vs Cavalry-capable units.
Upgrade Cost: 1 Ducat
Upkeep: +1 Ducat/year

Disciplined: +1 Str when defending.
Upgrade Cost: 0.5 Ducats
Upkeep: +0.5 Ducats

Heavy Unit I: Str +1.
Upgrade Cost: 1 Ducat
Upkeep: +1 Ducat/year

Thats how I envision this unit. Of course when you want to train up one unit to have all of this from the start then an appropriate level of military tech has to be researched by me to allow 3 slots to be inserted. Also the unit would cost 3.5 d to recruit and 3.5 d to upkeep per year. Of course that is quite crippling, but I was hoping that my research would also lower the costs of recruitment/upkeep to a manageable level. If Ligoria was to found a royal armoury+forge complex I would think that could also lower recruitment cost for all units, with all armor being produced and stored on the spot (another branch of military organization tech to be potentially researched).
All of the above would reflect the difference between the early professional army and the medieval levies that so far dominate Storm Coast.

All that stuff I wrote about arms and training of the unit is essentially flavour stuff and it simply visualises what I had in mind. I don't want to call the "tercio" IC, since thats a quite specific spanish term, but calling them "Ligorian legion" has a nice ring to it and also reflects upon thier regimental organisation and level of training.

As per Nuke's proposal: I think you are on the right track. The tactics bit may be somewhat demanding to work out when you calculate which unit was lost and what unit soaked up damage, but the battles themselves will have more flavour and will reflect on the shift from peasants to professionals. 

[filiusenox]

Huh, that sounds like a lot of work on the gm's part, and maybe on the player's part as well...
This sounds like it would be complicated on small 1 vs 1 or 1 vs 5 regiment skirmishes, but it sounds like it would work...I think...