Medieval Tech OOC thread (Spaces available!)

[The Four Heatons]

Anywhere you can fit me is fine.

I'd use paint or the like to put a claim, but the majoirty of my computer is Dead at the moment.

[Frozopia]

Here is a start to my factbook. --->Link.

Frozopia, actually this is Mike, a friend of Thrashia's. He gave me the account after I lost my old one, when I was known as Parlim way back when. He mentioned to me in passing when I caught him at the pub that he was too busy to do much these days and told me about the RP. I mentioned interest so he gave me an old account of his, aka Oda. But I've gone back and read all the old PT rps, back when Thrashia was known as the "Han Empire"? That was a pretty good rp from the read-through I gave it.

Oh yeah I think I remember you telling me this before. Still, should be good to have you onboard. And yes that was, for all its flaws, an epic RP .

Anywhere you can fit me is fine.

I'd use paint or the like to put a claim, but the majoirty of my computer is Dead at the moment.

OK I'll have a proper look at the map tonight to decide where you'll go.

@Dashret and Isurioth: The climates we chose are an integral aspect of our nations. In many cases they defined the nation. Due to the constant shifting claims, and the roleplaying convenience offered by being close to each other, it gave us a screwed up continent. Big deal. We accepted that from day one (I told Angermanland from the beginning not to bother with any of this climate-mapping nonsense. We both knew it would probably never work. I'm beginning to wish he had listened to me).

There is a big difference between that necessary system which benefited everyone and some silly super-awesome tower which has come into existence for no other reason than the fact Orth just wants a big, urgh, dick to wave around.

[Oda noh Nobunaga]

*nods* Indeed it was rather epic. Also, if you like Frozopia, I can edit in some extra islands to the map, like I did by adding the "Land of Nippon" for my nation? It might require some people to change their history a bit, but it shouldn't be too bad.

[Dashret]

@Isuroth
I said that I had no objections to your tower. No need to throw a tantrum.

I personally wouldn't mind a Florida climate. I'd have to change some things. Retcon my civilization to be more like the Aztecs, which would necessitate some changes to history, but there you go.

I'm actually not entirely sure that would be the case, though. Dashret isn't surrounded by mountains. About 2/3 of the northern side is covered, with a large gap about where the north and western ranges would join. eastern edge only has a short range of mountains, the rest is just cliffs of varying heights. Not especially tall ones, either...

Oh god. I just realized.

I've made Mordor.


@Froz
Not to sound ungrateful, but you could've spoken up earlier >_>

[Isurioth]

So be it.

Though without threats or complaining I would just like to point out that this map makes more sense then ours does at the moment.
http://mapwow.com/?lng2=-3.8671875&lat2=66.08936427047087&zoom=2

[Angermanland]

.... (I told Angermanland from the beginning not to bother with any of this climate-mapping nonsense. We both knew it would probably never work. I'm beginning to wish he had listened to me)...

no you didn't. you said it was madness. in exactly the same way you said mucking around with languages was madness. indicating it was a big, complicated project that didn't interest you

there was no statements to the effect of it not working, just it being very difficult, and all i was actually after was figuring out where the trade winds would go anyway. [which, it should be noted, everyone ignored and just made up to suit themselves anyway, And i don't think ended up particularly clear on any of the maps Orth made that i remember looking at anyway.]

I'd Already given up on making anything on the continent work, because it's an utter nonsense.

[Angermanland]

@Isuroth
I said that I had no objections to your tower. No need to throw a tantrum.

I personally wouldn't mind a Florida climate. I'd have to change some things. Retcon my civilization to be more like the Aztecs, which would necessitate some changes to history, but there you go.

I'm actually not entirely sure that would be the case, though. Dashret isn't surrounded by mountains. About 2/3 of the northern side is covered, with a large gap about where the north and western ranges would join. eastern edge only has a short range of mountains, the rest is just cliffs of varying heights. Not especially tall ones, either...

Oh god. I just realized.

I've made Mordor.


@Froz
Not to sound ungrateful, but you could've spoken up earlier >_>

it probably is surrounded by mountains, actually, given that everyone ['cept me and some of the island nations who figured the sea was good enough.] put mountains on at least one border, usually more, the result was that even when people tried to be reasonable and leave borders without mountains, someone else put mountains on the other side of that border.

[Dashret]

@Isuroth
I said that I had no objections to your tower. No need to throw a tantrum.

I personally wouldn't mind a Florida climate. I'd have to change some things. Retcon my civilization to be more like the Aztecs, which would necessitate some changes to history, but there you go.

I'm actually not entirely sure that would be the case, though. Dashret isn't surrounded by mountains. About 2/3 of the northern side is covered, with a large gap about where the north and western ranges would join. eastern edge only has a short range of mountains, the rest is just cliffs of varying heights. Not especially tall ones, either...

Oh god. I just realized.

I've made Mordor.


@Froz
Not to sound ungrateful, but you could've spoken up earlier >_>

it probably is surrounded by mountains, actually, given that everyone ['cept me and some of the island nations who figured the sea was good enough.] put mountains on at least one border, usually more, the result was that even when people tried to be reasonable and leave borders without mountains, someone else put mountains on the other side of that border.

Did Zoogie have mountains on his northern side? I recall him mentioning that area was plains at some point. I'd have to go look at his factbook.

Speaking of Zoogie, did he die or something?

[Frozopia]

@Isuroth
@Froz
Not to sound ungrateful, but you could've spoken up earlier >_>

Ok, but I'd prefer people resolve their own problems.

I think Zoogie is busy atm, might be worth tging the guy.

[Dashret]

I see...


Anyway, Anger, I'm working on the OP for our past-war topic. I'm mostly trying to consider how the Dashreti military would be organized. Basically I'm thinking a mix of Rome and Egypt...a mid-sized corps of highly trained and organized 'Legionary' style soldiers forming the core of a huge army made up of auxiliaries and more traditional Dashreti units.

Initially I'm thinking they would have evolved from the Pharaoh's bodyguard, as the only real traditional equivalent of a standing army at this point. This gets expanded and militarized by a Pharaoh who uses it to conquer the rest of the continent.

Equipment wise, I'm thinking about halfway between hoplite and Roman legion. Bronze armor/helmet, an Egyptian-style poleaxe serving as the primary weapon, with a shortsword/khopesh serving as secondary armament. These would be backed up by, of course, the famous Dashreti archers. Not QUITE the level of discipline/training the Romans had, but they'll have some formal training and be led rather than just unleashed

This would basically compose the 'first professional army' mentioned in the timeline and would most likely be the instrument by which Dashret expanded over so much of the continent.

[Angermanland]

shiny, shiny.

tricky bit for me is figuring out how to un-awesome my guys properly.

it's a hastily assembled coalition, most likely, at least in the first battle, with resulting horrible coordination and mismatched units

*ponders* I'm tempted, very tempted, to give at least one of the smaller states in it the two handed swords the Romans ran into in northern France. [the ones that resulted in them putting iron rims on their shields and such...]

it should be interesting

[Daemonicai]

Sorry if I haven't shown myself in a while, I've been very busy in the real world and what time I did use for NS, I used on my RP Globus Empires.

Anyway. I'm thinking of trying an intro RP, but I can't really see what to do after about 1494 years of seclusion and forgotten peoples. I'm thinking of having my 'chief magician' (Chief Scholar) travelling abroad to get new chemicals. What do you think?

Also, gonnes were used in the Hundred Years War of the 1300s, so would they be used here? I think they were pretty rare though.

[Angermanland]

Sorry if I haven't shown myself in a while, I've been very busy in the real world and what time I did use for NS, I used on my RP Globus Empires.

Anyway. I'm thinking of trying an intro RP, but I can't really see what to do after about 1494 years of seclusion and forgotten peoples. I'm thinking of having my 'chief magician' (Chief Scholar) travelling abroad to get new chemicals. What do you think?

Also, gonnes were used in the Hundred Years War of the 1300s, so would they be used here? I think they were pretty rare though.

we've got a 'no gunpowder' thing going on.

it'll have to be invented ICly, and even then it won't happen unless we get a major plot point come up that would make it make sense [probably involving Ambers alchemists, among other things] and Then it'd take even more of the same to get the gonnes.

so... no. not yet, anyway.

[Angermanland]

Dravkany.

get the fuck out.

now.

[Frozopia]

Drvarska, I have a few problems with your last post in A bloody Peace.

Please read:

Dragola

Many of the Archers who were first to leave the gates, fell to their death from the incoming arrows by the Frozopian Longbowmen. The Longbow, a tool that was unknown to be used by the Frozopian Army came to surprise the Dravkan captains but surprises were expected when it came to a foreign army invading their homeland.

Fine, although you said before:

"The Thane had summoned his Archery and Pikemen captains to ready their troops to provide a covering barrier to protect the retreating men heading for the bridge and fleeing to the West. Their first procedure is to release them first and allow them time to get into formations, pikemen were to form a phalanx whilst archers lined up behind them to weaken any enemy that were to approach them."

You are send out Pikemen and archers. Both types of units are getting cut to shreds out there. Not just a arbitrary small number of archers as selected by you.

However, behind the walls a greater ballistic objects was loaded onto the six trebuchets. A large circular object made from a thick layer of glass and a dry grassy exterior contained a large quantity of oil, the dry grass was ignited and would spread a spray of fire once upon making contact with the ground or rain upon the victims below if it were to hit a tree. The men who manned the trebuchets adjusted their range to the approximate range from the treeline by the coloured markers set out before the arrival of the Frozopians. Some trebuchets contained small clusters of these "oil bombs" whilst others had one large primary projectile. The Captain of the Trebuchets stood back observing the loading actions and checking his men who were preparing for a constant rate of fire before being notified the order to engage from the nearby observing Thane.

We removed many of the markers remember, especially those around my force on the eastern gate. Also glass is crazy expensive and unnecessary for what your trying to achieve.

Besides this, you are using Trebuchets! You couldn't hit a barn door with these things, no matter the situation. They are primarily fixed target siege weapons.

Lastly: What you have set up here requires a lot of planning and preparation. You really should have stated this before during the sally preparation. Particularly if the longbowmen come as a surprise, it seems very convenient to have all these fiery weapons available.

"The Trebuchets are ready, my lord."

"Unleash fire onto them..."

"UNLEASH HELL!"

The Captain hallowed over the loud rush of men nearby and the trebuchets propelled their deadly cargo towards the Frozopians. Some of which many fell short due to the poor range settings of Dravkan war machine technology but this was also an advantage. The fire spread about in front of the Frozopian archers tossed up thick smoke as the fire ignited the grass around it, it was hard for the Frozopian Longbowmen to aim through the thick white smoke at the approaching Dravkans who had bought themselves some time clearing the gate way and allowing their men to rush through hurridly rather than marching slowly into battle. The oil bombs that did however reach the enemy would have made a victim who fell to its power wished he never was born as the oil sprays into their torso and face causing pain beyond the extent of their knowing. At a distance, the Dravkan soldiers could make out many little figures alight running around in terror. Some of the soldiers who witnessed this might of power looked aback in distate and terror as it was a terrible and shocking way for a man to fall in battle. The advancing Dravkan Archers formed up in range with the Frozopian forces and prepared to counter attack to provide cover with the remaining Dravkan Army. Once through, the pikemen formed a defensive perimeter in front of them to shield them from approaching Frozopian infantry.

Considering the inaccuracy of trebuchets, as noted above, what you are doing here is essentially godmodding my losses and actions. I never gave orders for my infantry to advance.

My Longbowmen do not even have to aim. Hell Longbowmen don't really aim in the traditional sense. They look, because they draw the bow past their eyes. Here they have a narrow gateway to fire into. A slow moving pikemen formation advancing out of it. They cant miss.
As I told you before, your infantry are probably stalling in this gateway and dying. They have 600 Longbowmen firing at them. A Longbowmen can put 4, 5 maybe 6 arrows in the air before the first one hits. Thats thousands of arrows striking home in mere seconds. Against lightly armoured pikemen and archers in a narrow gateway...There is no other outcome than dying here man.

To the Northwest, General Marius was leading his light cavalry company of 200 South to flank the approaching Frozopians had ordered his infantry to meet them head on and to hold out until he approached them from the South. Outnumbered they still will fight to protect the retreat and lives of their own countrymen, the Dravkan soldiers marched with swords and pikes raised before they would meet the sight of their enemy. They would hold a first line of Pikemen in a phalanx whilst behind the swordsmen remained in reserve if any Frozopian broke through the wall of spears as they march towards them, once General Marius makes his charge they would break out into a full scale rush towards the enemy on two sides.

The Dravkans still marched on to break through the Frozopians and retreat to the King's Army and to one day return...

This is going to end badly...

[Drvarska]

Fine, although you said before:

"The Thane had summoned his Archery and Pikemen captains to ready their troops to provide a covering barrier to protect the retreating men heading for the bridge and fleeing to the West. Their first procedure is to release them first and allow them time to get into formations, pikemen were to form a phalanx whilst archers lined up behind them to weaken any enemy that were to approach them."

You are send out Pikemen and archers. Both types of units are getting cut to shreds out there. Not just a arbitrary small number of archers as selected by you.

There is not even a hint of me stating that a "small number of archers" have been killed. Yes, you have achieved as I have written "many" so there is nothing wrong here and before with the discussion of the thane it is meant for the archers to be released at first but you went along with both so fine I have played along with this as it is difficult to haggle and discuss these specific details through OOC. Secondly, I did mention they were in a rushed march meaning jogging not just strolling out if it was a ceremony, war time permits many units to rush around and in this case they had to rush to establish this defensive perimeter, this would not exhaust the troops which would have to run 100-250 meters at most to halt and face the enemy afterwards.

We removed many of the markers remember, especially those around my force on the eastern gate. Also glass is crazy expensive and unnecessary for what your trying to achieve.

Besides this, you are using Trebuchets! You couldn't hit a barn door with these things, no matter the situation. They are primarily fixed target siege weapons.

Lastly: What you have set up here requires a lot of planning and preparation. You really should have stated this before during the sally preparation. Particularly if the longbowmen come as a surprise, it seems very convenient to have all these fiery weapons available.

I have read back on the posts and all I found was one of your men noticing the markers when you were huddling in a group discussing how to flood the area whilst I was sitting and observing, didnt mention you specifically running out and picking them out of the ground, markers can be stakes nailed into the ground and would take some effort to remove. If you had mentioned this in detail I wouldve actually flung something back at you if you tried to do so. Ok now, the Trebuchets were there from the very start as I have mentioned before that this town was used to mobilise the Army to initially invade you from the start before you turned the tide. I have mentioned from a while back that the Trebuchets were assembled and there were six of them ready to go and they were initially ready to attack so it was simple to use them and the only possible way to prevent these Longbowmen of yours.

Considering the inaccuracy of trebuchets, as noted above, what you are doing here is essentially godmodding my losses and actions. I never gave orders for my infantry to advance.

My Longbowmen do not even have to aim. Hell Longbowmen don't really aim in the traditional sense. They look, because they draw the bow past their eyes. Here they have a narrow gateway to fire into. A slow moving pikemen formation advancing out of it. They cant miss.
As I told you before, your infantry are probably stalling in this gateway and dying. They have 600 Longbowmen firing at them. A Longbowmen can put 4, 5 maybe 6 arrows in the air before the first one hits. Thats thousands of arrows striking home in mere seconds. Against lightly armoured pikemen and archers in a narrow gateway...There is no other outcome than dying here man.

Wait! What? I have not mentioned that your troops are advancing only that they remain at your positions, there is no godmod involved here. I have only responded what you have conveyed in your first post of attack that most of my troops were all killed and formed a massive pile at the front gate so nobody could squeeze past. I am using a similar depiction of how you portrayed the opponents losses, we may discuss this further but will take much longer and evolve into a much heated argument which I would rather not be apart of as I find this RP very interesting and engaging.

This is going to end badly...

As many times as you say this, there was pratically no choice to either:

(A) Hold my troops at Dragola straving for weeks whilst you build two massive dams that would flood the entire town so evey man will either be crushed by the power of the sudden wave, drowned in the flood or crushed to his death from the weakend walls or buildings. This would either result in my re-enforcements retreating or attempting to slow down your process of construction.

(B) Attempt to break out, avoid being destroyed and loosing Dragola which is a primary location for mainland trade of Dravkany. Attempt to save as many men as possible with the assistance of the re-enforcements to retreat back into the Dravkan Highlands and regroup with the King's Army and many other foreign armies who will close in on you from all fronts.

Im not sure about you but I prefer B.


Theres my yarn for the day, hate to see RPs turn into many questions such as this.

[Frozopia]

Remember your men have to "rush" over the defences set up by yourself. I.e. the ground dug up in front of the gate, the narrow width of the gateway. They are going to be slowed down regardless. Now add opposing, rapid archery fire to that...

"The advancing Dravkan Archers formed up in range with the Frozopian forces and prepared to counter attack to provide cover with the remaining Dravkan Army. Once through, the pikemen formed a defensive perimeter in front of them to shield them from approaching Frozopian infantry."

Isn't going to happen.

Merely observing the markers should be explanation enough. Yes they might be stakes driven into the ground, but I've been besieging the town for weeks now. Plenty of time to pull them out, reguardless of any retaliation.

And you're missing the point. Trebuchet fire is horribly inaccurate. It generally isn't used against infantry. When you describe swathes of my men getting set on fire by such a horrendous weapon, then it becomes god modding. You'll be lucky if ANY of it strikes my line. The reason I described your losses as bad as they was, because its the only foreseeable outcome that I could imagine.

And the option you forgot was to withdraw those 3000 men. They are down the drain if this goes badly as I think it's going to.

Anyways I'll do an IC post now. And by the way, I'm not annoyed and I hope you're not either. I think we can both take our ego's out of these discussions.

[Dashret]

A further proposal for immersion...

Assuming a lot of cultural bits are taken from Dashret, would it make sense that the Dashreti (certainlynotegyptian) calender system was in use in many places? The names might be different, but it could be a fun little touch, and make people feel a little less wary of dates. We could use the 'modernized' version which has a 365 day year to avoid throwing off the dates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_c ... d_calendar

Basically each year would be three seasons, with four months. Akhet/Winter/Flood Season, Peret/Spring/Planting Season and Shemu/August/Harvest Season.

So basically the calender would be, as in the link above, something like '1st Akhet, 2nd Akhet, 3rd Akhet, 4th Akhet, 1st Peret, 2nd Peret, etc. etc.' Albeit with local names.

[Isurioth]

In the areas of your influence then I have no problem with that. In the areas in my former sphere of influence they would most likely use mine.
The Orth calender uses weeks of ten days with a special half week to take up the missing days.

We have three seasons of twelve weeks which are roughly spring, summer, and autumn. Orithena's climate doesn't really have a true winter much like California.

I have been thinking and been told, "You really have to tone it down." a lot since my last post. Would you find the following an effective replacement for the giant tower?

The hallowed spire is just a steep rocky hill that has been completely covered with buildings and has a very tall tower at the top. Aestheticly there is no transition between the buildings and the tower on top making the whole think appear to be one structure.

Also, I have been talking with Frozopia. I am going to be invading some of my neighbors. Would anybody like to be them? I have mini factbooks you could work from. The threads would be politics and war heavy.

[Dashret]

That makes sense. I would imagine that the Dashreti calender would be popular on most of the continent, excepting possibly Angermanland and Zoogiedom, while the Ortheni calender would be used elsehwere (the islands? Is there a map of the historical extent of the Ortheni Empire?) I don't imagine the Orth, given your description of their attitude towards their colonial possessions, would really care what sort of calender they used, just as long as it didn't interfere with their slaving and would only impose one if it was needed.

In terms of the tower, provided it confines itself to the ~50 meter height range (if it's a freestanding tower without structure under it), I don't have a problem with it. Anything taller than that's going to require something like a cathedral underneath and will give you quite a small tower on top.

[Dashret]

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=20957&p=783819#p783819

The Striking of the Falcon, the first battle with Angermanland.

For my part, if anybody wants to take possession of auxiliary units from their territory, go right ahead. It'll make things more interesting and throw a bit of the unexpected into the battle.

For the record, 'Ma-Ten-Set' is Malistance

[Fiduses and Diuses]

Included with each message was a basket, containing the head of some raider or, where possible, a well known leader who had been captured, his eyes put out, his tongue ripped from his mouth, and his ears and nose cut off. This was, where possible, to be hurled dramatically at the feet of the village elders, town leaders or local rulers, at the end of the speech. Presuming the messenger had not yet been stoned to death or eaten.

Or kicked down the town's dark and bottomless well?


Goes back to lurking awaiting Terror Incognitia response and plotting the unification of the clans...

[Isurioth]

That makes sense. I would imagine that the Dashreti calender would be popular on most of the continent, excepting possibly Angermanland and Zoogiedom, while the Ortheni calender would be used elsewhere (the islands? Is there a map of the historical extent of the Ortheni Empire?) I don't imagine the Orth, given your description of their attitude towards their colonial possessions, would really care what sort of calender they used, just as long as it didn't interfere with their slaving and would only impose one if it was needed.

In terms of the tower, provided it confines itself to the ~50 meter height range (if it's a freestanding tower without structure under it), I don't have a problem with it. Anything taller than that's going to require something like a cathedral underneath and will give you quite a small tower on top.

We didn't care. However the calendar was necessary for material shipments. If we need X amount of stone by the feast of Apert then we have to ship it by the middle of the sixth tenday in Growing (Summer) to allow for possible variances in the wind.

[Angermanland]

"and so the Army of the Pharaoh marched on, closing with the North day by day."

Dashret, question:

the north?

i mean, admittedly, i think you have to go north a bit, but if this thread is to be about the main battle of a campagin between us, you'd, at the very least, be going east. quite possibly south by the time we actually get to said battle.

are you planning to write more before i post? or should i work up my bit now?
if the latter there'll probably be something of a timeskip. armies taking months, and messengers weeks, to get anywhere and do anything on this sort of scale.


all of which is somewhat irrelevant if you were going to do more of the campagin than just that one large battle, i suppose.

[Dashret]

@Anger
'North-Eastish' didn't sound as good

Anyway, yeah, your go. I just wanted to set the mood, so to speak, the details are up to you. I admit to negligence in studying the geography of anybody but my neighbors

Timeskip is fine.


@Isuroth
I see. A ten week calender would throw dates off, though. Calculating YA for the Otheni dates would be a pain >_>


@F&D
This.
Is.
ANGERMANLAND!