Distant blockades work best when the blockading force doesn't have to march a couple of days in the snow to reach the place they're blockading, and when "area denial" weapons like land mines are a factor, which they aren't in this case.
Damn, missed that. Yeah, I'm good with the plan, whether we focus on the officers or their rank and file.
Should we focus on the officers, it might work because we can make a focused effort on fewer individuals. Fewer individuals to bribe, cajole, and befriend, and their men are likely to follow suit.
The thing is "A Matter of Allies" (my choice) focuses mostly on
our soldiers, who we already have a relationship with, not the Hirpini soldiers. Conversely, "A Matter of Allied Officers" focuses on the Hirpini officers.
On the other hand, I feel that the Hirpini soldiery and our legionnaires would be more susceptible to our speechcraft, and honestly, if we're going to be besieging Nola for awhile, then we might as well bring the Hirpini onboard comprehensively as quick as we can.
I agree, but at the same time I want to strike a balance between cementing the Hirpini and keeping our own legion's morale and character solid. It's going to be a
tough winter under the Pompolussan Strategem, especially if (GODS FORBID) the Samnites have another Gemino or two's worth of guerilla whupassery to throw at us.
[X] Plan Digging In
My only problem with the plan was that I thought the Blessed by Mars option was about consulting the augury. Since it's instead codifying the worship of Mars in the legion I'm going to vote for it. I like all three siege actions a lot and while I'd prefer to expand the journal I can see the merit of studying logistics and finance.
As I understand it, we're still keeping the journal on military affairs, we just aren't expanding it to include our sophomoric maunderings about philosophy and politics. Which is probably just as well; I suspect Atellus' views on such matters are still a bit groanworthy and juvenile.
No need to feel insulted because I gave someone else my opinion on his suggestions.
Curse the toneless Internet... I'm not actually feeling insulted, I just think that you should feel encouraged to propose or support an alternative plan. Personally, I like the idea of corresponding with
both our patron (the preeminent lawmaker and high priest in Rome)
and Cicero (the preeminent statesman of our generation).
Besides, yeah, why not write Proserpina. Maybe ask her about our sister's suitors, see what there is on the market.
We could, to be fair, do worse.
I got to ask why people are voting to wait winter out. All it does is put off the fight till spring.
People probably don't think the walls can be taken by storm before the winter starts.
The thing is, that explains voting
against Mercator's strategy, but not voting
for Carcellus' strategy over Pompolussa's. Carcellus' strategy effectively abandons the siege over the winter, and it's going to be hard for us to increase our army's strength as fast as the Samnites increase theirs. They can recruit from the countryside, smuggle/bring supplies into Nola, and maybe even try to send negotiators to the Hirpini (either the Hirpini army auxiliaries, or the Hirpini homeland) to persuade them to abandon our cause. About all we can do is try
not to lose the Hirpini.
So all things considered, I think keeping the bulk of our forces forward-deployed to continue prosecuting the siege through the winter is pretty necessary.
[] Plan Digging In
Roman aggression has served us well up to this point, but Roman persistence is what we need here.
Ave!
Both of the plans starve them out over the winter. One focuses on having a permanent camp while the other focuses on cutting off the roads and supply lanes. The permanent camp carries the risk of of our own supply chain getting disrupted (or backstabbed by the Hirpines), while the other puts a bit less pressure immediately in favour of harrassment (and potentially luring out the people at Nola into a pitched battle outside the city)
Firstly, our small forces cutting the enemy's roads and supply lines are vulnerable to being snipped off by the main Samnite army in Nola, or even by the guerillas, if we're not careful. Remember, our road-blocking forces will be much closer to Nola than they would be to our winter camp near Benventum. Meddix may well, under the right conditions, be able to march out of Nola, hit a cohort-sized force that's encamped to block a road into Nola, and return to the safety of Nola's fortifications before Sertorius even finds out the cohort has been attacked, let alone has time to mobilize and march to its aid.
Furthermore, our road-blocking forces will still require supplies and
those will be highly vulnerable to guerillas, especially since we'll need several road-blocking forces spread across multiple roadways to cut access into Nola. Instead of having a single line of supply bringing one heavily guarded convoy at a time into a main supply dump in our winter siege camp, we'll have multiple lines bringing smaller convoys into multiple smaller camp/outposts.
While the Pompolussan Stratagem has a significantly higher chance of successfully starving Nola out over the winter, the Carcellan Stratagem has a good chance to cause more of Meddix's subordinates to flee the city with their men. This could open up the possibility of storming the city against a much weaker garrison come next spring. Moving the legion back to Beneventum also allows us to react more quickly to any other issues arising throughout Samnium. Right now Samnium is pretty much pacified and it's last viable army is sitting behind walls. If we keep the rest of Samnium happy and Meddix doesn't come out, then his men will start to abandon him.
Waaait. Let's stop and think about this one for a minute.
Samnium is pacified, its last viable army is behind walls. We have said army bottled up inside Nola,
What happens when we loosen the cork in the bottle?
Will Meddix continue squatting passively behind his walls, while (you predict) his subordinates desert him? Or will he move, maneuver, rally the countryside to recruit more men, and act against our small blocking forces? I'm pretty sure I remember him being the product of the Samnites critting their "roll up a badass hero" roll. I'd bet on him being at least as tough, smart, and resourceful as Gemino. Which means that like Gemino, if we give him a chance to act against us freely, without using overwhelming force to physically pin him in place, we're in trouble. He's going to wriggle loose and start kicking us in the flanks and rear.
Basically, Samnium is very likely to wind up
de-pacified in short order if Meddix has reasonably free access to the countryside.
Which is why the plan doesn't station a cohort there, but guards the roads and uses the cavalry and the allies to keep up the harassment and prevent food from going in.
Who's guarding the roads? We can't scatter the whole legion through the countryside; the blocking forces covering individual roads into Nola can't be much larger than a cohort if we're simultaneously keeping the bulk of the legion in winter quarters at Bovianum. If they're
smaller than a cohort, they're all the easier for the Samnites to snap up and destroy, while our main body is far away and impeded by weather from reaching Nola in time to protect our little detachments.
In essence, we'd be opening ourselves to having a Fabian strategy used against us. To weaken the Samnites we
must sustain troops in the immediate area around Nola... but if we sustain fewer troops, those troops are more vulnerable to counter-action, until eventually sustaining those troops becomes... unsustainble.
TBH, I'd much rather finance be journal writing,
@Simon_Jester. Any way to convince you to change it to that in case my plan loses?
If I were convinced that journal writing was more popular I'd go for it. I'm not... entirely convinced.
ATTENTION EVERYBODY:
If enough people weigh in on whether the last entry in "Digging In" should be studying finance or expanding our journal, I may change my plan if my otherwise-current plan would conflict with that decision.