Voting is open
also the battle post-mortem convo scene is me speaking directly at you you silly questers ohhhh it's a horror movie let's split up (love you all)
Well, what would have happened had we stayed together and got our entire unit ambushed? This was a difficult ambush we walked into. Glad to be alive.

Leaving the infantry without scout support was definitely a goof on my part, though. Happy to see that the GM didn't forgive me for forgetting my principles of patrolling. My bad, all.

[X] No.
[X] No. They are Christians.
[X] Hold him for ransom. Get him talking, be generous.

I'm good with making Stas a reluctant warrior. The kind who fights because it is his duty, not because it is his passion. Let us save the bulk of our career for creative and constructive pursuits.

Plus, it'll make confession easier for us.
 
Last edited:
Sert. on POW treatment
[X] Yes.
[X] No. They may be useful.
[X] Hold him for ransom. Get him talking, be generous.

What matters, is that we won.

Now, a few words about the POWs and their fate at the time.

Obviously there were no camps or anything similar. The Tatars and their Ottoman overlords loved taking prisoners to sell them as slaves for profit. Christian nations didn't practice slavery in the same way, but the fate of a captured soldier depended on his social status. Nobles were obviously held for ransom when possible (indeed, promises of ransom were good enough to keep them alive and to not sell them even among Muslims), yet that wasn't always the case. Aristocrats, rich men, high ranking officers etc. were usually kept in relatively good conditions, not for ransom, but to trade them for their own prisoners or as a bargaining chip. Their families would obviously use their magic to get them back safe and sound and could hamper the war effort to make it happen, so that a treaty is signed. Regular nobles could be held under the same conditions, ransomed or paroled until officially exchanged, if they were deemed harmless enough. The common soldier was usually impressed into the victor's forces, sent to some faraway colony or for hard labour (Siberia, Americas, mines, etc.) or outright killed later. They could also be settled on the victor's property as subjects to work the land as peasants. This last one was quite popular among the nobles of the Commonwealth, since it gave them more hands. How did the Lipkas came to be in the first place? Settled exiles, volunteers and POWs from Lithuania's skirmishes with the Tatars of course.

Muscovites on the other hand had a universal rule for anything, if none of the above was to their liking: just dump them to Siberia, far away from home or any chance to escape and have them fight and conquer the locals in the name of the Tsar, as well as for their own survival.
 
Last edited:
[X] Yes.
[X] No. They may be useful.
[X] Hold him for ransom. Get him talking, be generous.
 
Well, what would have happened had we stayed together and got our entire unit ambushed?

The bridge option was a semi-obvious bad idea, but I would've done a dice roll to see if it worked or not. Cortes expedition managed to build that trebuchet kind of, after all.

Tabor option = a more organized melee -- muscovites enter in from the trail in a "funnel" as they did in the update, but in this case meet your troops fully assembled and so cannot overrun the top of the trail. I was considering have the fighting run out into the fields to become a semi-pitched battle. The most "strategic gameplay" option, and practice for a Renaissance wargame I may or may not run hehe.

Hold position = a clunky yet sneaky infantry attack in the middle of the night. motif of individual wagons becoming hardpoints against an advancing wave of torchlight and screaming. it was gonna be cool.
 
[X] Yes.
[X] No. They may be useful.
[X] Hold him for ransom. Get him talking, be generous.
 
[X] No.
[X] No. They are Christians.
[X] Hold him for ransom. Get him talking, be generous.

I'm good with making Stas a reluctant warrior. The kind who fights because it is his duty, not because it is his passion. Let us save the bulk of our career for creative and constructive pursuits.

Plus, it'll make confession easier for us.

My pitch for steering Stanislaw in this direction is that it fits his 'rebel against sin' streak. He tried for a long time to figure out how to square his duty to lead and kill with the Christian love he knows to be good and right. I find this internal conflict to be compelling. Even if it is out of character for a Average Nobleman of the Period, even if our peers will look at us askance here and there, I think taking Stanislaw in this direction will make him a more interesting character.

And our confessor will approve as well.
 

Scheduled vote count started by Rolman on May 1, 2024 at 11:40 AM, finished with 26 posts and 19 votes.
 
Voting is open
Back
Top