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Elysian Odyssey (EU4 Quest - Byzantium in the New World)

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ALanos said:
While a retaliatory raid might be seen as a sound option it would not erase the paranoia and perceived weakness of the throne if we fail. A campaign will be better since we already have the professional soldiery of the dynatoi and the Old Republic used to be militia armies before allowing any such patrician to buy an army for the Senate. We need the throne to be firm and we need a triumph to glorify our deed and say that the emperor is a true successor to Caesar, Constantine, and Justinian.
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A campaign is only better if we can successfully prosecute it, and there are certain factors such as the terrain, logistics, and the relative inexperience of our troops which would hamper any kind of campaign of such size. Also just because militia armies have been used in the past doesn't mean they're guaranteed to succeed here as even the armies of the Republican era faced defeat against determined foes.

But, supposing we do conduct a successful campaign, what exactly will do once we have conquered the region? The army we are commanding is a militia, so I don't think we really have the means to even occupy the Potawatomi.

@Sayle What happened to Chief Mumagechee? Is he dead?
 
me.me.here said:
I'm dubious of the usefulness of our cavalry when employed against a group squashed up against the river with less room for oblique maneuvers, so I'm thinking we should hold off
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Sayle said:
This was a fatal mistake. Instead of attempting to break free, Mumagechee kept his men back until they were thoroughly engaged, allowing less than fifty meters of space to retreat. This is likely to have been to persuade his forces to fight rather than flee, but it had the side-effect of negating the Roman cavalry who suddenly lacked the ability to maneuver.
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Eeyup. Someone should really pick up that phone, now.

Minor amounts of salt aside, this is really the point we should start thinking about our strategic goals. What do we want at the end of this campaign? At this point things have generally shaken out that we have the relative military power (and enough tactical skill not to fuck things over too badly) to pick a given goal and go for it - so now's when we should be trying to figure out what we want the geopolitical situation to look like when the dust settles.
 
Fair enough. The goal of sending him back into his lands without losing anything serious was achieved. Now we just need to learn the lesson. Let´s do what we did the entire time. Build up and concentarte on ourselves. Yeah we could attack them in their lands, but for what? High losses, even more moral damage and no gains that we couldn´t acheve over time. Let´s learn from this, improve and destroy them in one feel swoop, if at all.
 
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Personally I want to go for the retaliatory raid so that we can both gain back some measure of political prestige while also potentially driving back the borders between us and them, hopefully neutralizing enough of the enemy forces so we have enough time to address the deficiencies of our military come the next time something like this happens.
 
Sayle said:
He survived with the rest of his army.
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Yeah, with him still in command of the enemy forces this makes any military campaign into their territory rather dicey as he's shown himself to be a rather canny and somewhat competent commander. Then again if we leave him alive, I won't be surprised if round two of this occurs as it was his ascension which partially precipitated this invasion.
 
I'm actually thinking we should let things go - the 2400 Roman citizens we lost was a little under 3% of our population. A retributive raid is going to add even more casualties on top even if we don't have another painful tactical mistake simply because fighting to protect their home would give the Potawatomi warriors something to rally around (and there would likely be reinforcements that couldn't be projected for offensives if we chased them).

Frankly, the Potawatomi are smaller and slower growing than we are - so the just shy of 4k casualties we've inflicted is a painful enough blow on it's own. Our militia will also benefit from time due to regular training sessions we're subsidizing, so on the balance of things being aggressive doesn't really earn us much.
 
me.me.here said:
Eeyup. Someone should really pick up that phone, now.

Minor amounts of salt aside, this is really the point we should start thinking about our strategic goals. What do we want at the end of this campaign? At this point things have generally shaken out that we have the relative military power (and enough tactical skill not to fuck things over too badly) to pick a given goal and go for it - so now's when we should be trying to figure out what we want the geopolitical situation to look like when the dust settles.
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Let's start by making the obvious explicit:
-We want Elysia still intact.
Any campaign plan which does not leave Elysia intact at the end is a failure, even if it accomplishes lesser objectives like killing Chief Tamagotchi. :redface:

Beyond that, here are some strategic goals for brainstorming.
-We want a kind of overall victory, to maintain our legitimacy and prestige.
-We want to maintain a strong army, so the other tribes don't try their luck.
-We want to increase Elysia's hegemony. (Subpoints: territorial control, count of subjects/slaves, valuable loot in our possession.)
-We want many Elysians to survive.
-We want Mumagechee dead.
-We want the Dynatoi placated by giving them opportunities to lead and be recognized in triumphs.
-We want to end on a course of steadily increasing power, as opposed to merely a good outcome in this one conflict. Don't hock the future.
 
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Even though we did triumph in the end and drove the enemy back, politically we will lose some political capital if we don't do anything to retaliate. Even though a raid has some risk, it is much less than an actual protracted campaign as all we are really doing is quickly striking the enemy's nearest settlement in retribution, declaring it a victory and then going home. We have to show both nearby actors and our own citizens that there are consequences of invading Elysian territory.
 
The sensible thing would be to return home to turtle, but conducting a "quick" raid might be a good way to seize some "easy" glory.

Of course, there's no such thing as anything quick or easy in war and the last thing we want to do is provoke other tribes into attacking us, instead of merely being warned off from invading Elysia.
 
In my view a retaliatory raid would serve as a way of warning off the other nearby tribes as it shows that we are willing to strike back if attacked, with a successful raid acting as deterrence.
 
@Sayle Could you perhaps be cajoled into posting a little IC advice from the Emperor's court, so we get an idea of the social environment?
What does our sakellarios think about our logistical capability to prosecute a campaign, how supportive is the current Patriarch of war, are the Dynatoi mourning any significant losses that they want vengeance for, and so on?
 
me.me.here said:
I'm actually thinking we should let things go - the 2400 Roman citizens we lost was a little under 3% of our population. A retributive raid is going to add even more casualties on top even if we don't have another painful tactical mistake simply because fighting to protect their home would give the Potawatomi warriors something to rally around (and there would likely be reinforcements that couldn't be projected for offensives if we chased them).

Frankly, the Potawatomi are smaller and slower growing than we are - so the just shy of 4k casualties we've inflicted is a painful enough blow on it's own. Our militia will also benefit from time due to regular training sessions we're subsidizing, so on the balance of things being aggressive doesn't really earn us much.
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Just going to point out that those are casualties, not fatalities. The majority should be fine given time to heal.
 
Exmorri said:
@Sayle Could you perhaps be cajoled into posting a little IC advice from the Emperor's court, so we get an idea of the social environment?
What does our sakellarios think about our logistical capability to prosecute a campaign, how supportive is the current Patriarch of war, are the Dynatoi mourning any significant losses that they want vengeance for, and so on?
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I mean you can keep 6000 men raised (or could) indefinitely, so logistically you're fine. You're in a defensive war, nobody is criticising you. People die in war. That's kind of the point. The idea that the nobility has a vengeance boner because people died in battle is weird and would be pretty unusual.
 
Sayle said:
I mean you can keep 6000 men raised (or could) indefinitely, so logistically you're fine. You're in a defensive war, nobody is criticising you. People die in war. That's kind of the point. The idea that the nobility has a vengeance boner because people died in battle is weird and would be pretty unusual.
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Oh I didnt think they would have a vengeance boner from that but more that the native barbori had the sheer audacity to attack us.

Either way guys I think we should indeed attack them. Though our goal should NOT be to wipe them out but just take a chunk of their lands for ourselves. Remember we outnumber them now and have cavalry while they don't AND we have much better equipment and we have the advantages of momentum and the choice of battlefield. we just need to make sure to only fight them on our terms and if we can't do that then we just need to take a nice chunk of their lands for ourselves and build a few forts there for defense before setting up a walled town.
 
UlseDovThur said:
Just going to point out that those are casualties, not fatalities. The majority should be fine given time to heal.
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Assuming that 50%+ of our casualties are going to recover (period, let alone recovering to a non-crippled state) is wildly optimistic for current conditions. The Byzantines were better than most of their contemporaries at medical care, but that just means we are likely to have decent hospitals, not that our battlefield medicine is going to be saving limbs on the regular. Plus, even assuming only the 1/5th that were explicitly called out as lost in battle are dead rather than recoverable in some way, it's still ~1600 people or 2% of our population. The hit we've taken to our population will probably disappear within 5 years or so (one turn, effectively), but successive battles will likely inflict equivalent amounts of damage and take successive turns to fully recover.

Wars are tremendously costly in this time and age, especially if we're fighting to the hilt with major battles rather than skirmishes.
 
Sayle said:
The idea that the nobility has a vengeance boner because people died in battle is weird and would be pretty unusual.
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I agree as phrased, the nobility wouldn't worry that much about people dying in battle in general. When I asked I was speculating, maybe some particularly important Dynast died and his son is all "Vengeance for my father!" or something, but I guess not. Shrug. Thanks for answering! :)
 
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[X] Conduct a retributive raid into Potawatomi territory.

I don't think a full campaign is in the cards but I want to show that people cannot just attack us and expect to go back home once beaten. You attack us we will retaliate.
 
[X] Begin a general campaign into Potawatomi territory.

remember we don't need to take all their lands even just 10-20% of them would be a large enough portion to weaken them a fair bit and empower us enough to ensure they are unlikely to try another war anytime soon.
 
[X] Set a watch on the border and return to the capital.
-[ ] Direct the Office of Exploration to look south and west. There is no need for conflict with the barbaroi yet.
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We literally just laid down directives to avoid fighting the natives because it just wasn't worth the candle. Conducting a significantly longer and more costly campaign in order to seize a small amount of clay when we've got a fair amount of room elsewhere for expansion makes no darn sense - especially since from a native perspective it's way out of proportion and will lead to piss-poor relations and further conflict.
 
This feels really jarring. We had 500 heavy shock infantry in full maile with daneaxes that are going to ignore leather or light shields. Even the militia should have had the benefit of superior shields and iron helmets- the two most important pieces of defensive equipment for a soldier.

This fight was literally the first interactions the native had with massed heavy cavalry- cataphracts no less. Narratively this feels like such waste, and I'm still sort of baffled they weren't used more. All of them should still be bowmen IIRC and the natives had no easy means of guaranteeing a retreat in good order since the only prayer they have against cavalry is a dense hedge of spears. And have next to no experience with cavalry to evaluate their threat. This seems arbitrary and undeserved. I'm not against the natives being threatening but any argument that starts with 'the natives took advantage of being pressed into a close order melee' against Varangians amongst other things is head scratching. It's just poorly presented and articulated, if that's how the odds went- whatever, but you could have done a much better job justifying it. The Byzantines are the beneficiaries of a literal millennia of experience in tight formation fighting. The natives are the beneficiaries of millennia of loose order tribal skirmishing and extensive experience with the local lands and navigating it. We pitted strength to weakness and just bounced off for no explicable reason than numbers, which are a notoriously poor gauge of success with actual medieval and older combat because of the immense difficulty of command and control leveraging thousands of people in a chaotic environment.

We need some show of force to indicate to the tribes that attacking us invites reprisal, and it should be fairly clear to everyone that they struck first. I'd settle for a punitive campaign but that's likely to lead to long-standing feuds and skirmishing. That and it would likely involve us massacring a bunch of natives for the sake of it, kinda counterproductive in winning acceptance.

[X] Begin a general campaign into Potawatomi territory.
 
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