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Army of Liberty: a Fantasy Revolutionary Warfare Quest

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Dutch said:
Having looters, even officers, shot in front of the troops is the typical response for unauthorized looting. Sometimes after a commission of provosts acts as a military court.
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Presumably harsher punishments will include some judicious executions after a tribunal, and this being customary would explain why Raka is pushing for harsher punishments in the narrative. It's still going to cause a huge morale drop for both obvious reasons and the fact that, in the soldiers' perception, a lack of orders NOT to loot is the same as permission to loot. Ultimately in my mind responsibility for this comes back to Guillory not actually doing his job as a general.
 
I think we should ship off the loot to the Convention; it would be the best use of those resources, especially since most of our neighbors seem to have cut off trade with us or are at war with us.
 
Personally prefer shipping off the loot and drilling them hard should be the minimum disciplinary action they deserve.

And if them thinking no orders not to loot is the same ordering them to loot, then I also kinda want to tell them their due reward for doing so is us shipping the loot back home and drilling them even harder.

Admittedly, that's just my emotions flaring from idiots making us look like liars.

I highly doubt any more towns are gonna surrender to us in the future, assuming they somehow hear of this shitshow.

Edit:

OH.

You know what.

The next time we find a fortified location or town that refuses to surrender because we're "duplicitous liars" while citing Daurstein, we're gonna tell VI that they retroactively volunteered to soak up bullets and cannonballs storming the place after the shitshow in Daurstein.
 
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Allowing the loot to leave and the VI be relatively unpunished is a terrible strike against our reputation and honor. We made and agreement with Daurstein and the breakage of it by another party is a direct insult to us and the Vth. I reccomend the harshest possible punishment. If Guillory refuses to enact pushishment as is his responsibility we should use our influence to demand his dismissal.
 
Blegh, so we've had our starting reputation with Guilory and Daurstein ruined? Damn it all...

Photomajig said:
Out of curiosity, how did @Chimeraguard calculate that the new elven unit raised would start at 7/20 Regular? I'm curious, because my notes disagree with what seems to have happened the last time this was calculated (multiple-experienced recruits going into one new Unit) - I'm not sure how I should even calculate it, right now.
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So, I set the unit up with 200 Trained, 350 Regular, 450 Professional.

If we take Trained at the Base, then 350 Regulars push them 35% of the way from Trained to Regular, or 3.5 XP (for Elves.) Meanwhile, 450 Professionals then add 45% progress from Trained to Professional, which is 13.5 XP.

That's a total of 17 XP, taking the 10 needed to promote to Regular and setting them at 7/20 of what's needed for Professional.

If we use Regular as the base, then 45% of the way from Regular to Professional is 9 XP, subtracting 20% of the way from Regular to Trained is -2 XP, for 7/20 XP, or the same results. Same if Professional is the base and we subtract XP from the ratios of less experienced troops.
 
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Chimeraguard said:
Blegh, so we've had our starting reputation with Guilory and Daurstein ruined? Damn it all...


So, I set the unit up with 200 Trained, 350 Regular, 450 Professional.

If we take Trained at the Base, then 350 Regulars push them 35% of the way from Trained to Regular, or 3.5 XP. Meanwhile, 450 Professionals then add 45% progress from Trained to Professional, which is 13.5 XP.

That's a total of 17 XP, taking the 10 needed to promote to Regular and setting them at 7/20 of what's needed for Professional.

If we use Regular as the base, then 45% of the way from Regular to Professional is 9 XP, subtracting 20% of the way from Regular to Trained is -2 XP, for 7/20 XP, or the same results.
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Er, on the plus side our Drilling went alright and Chastain came in clutch, so there's that?
 
Nerdorama said:
Presumably harsher punishments will include some judicious executions after a tribunal, and this being customary would explain why Raka is pushing for harsher punishments in the narrative. It's still going to cause a huge morale drop for both obvious reasons and the fact that, in the soldiers' perception, a lack of orders NOT to loot is the same as permission to loot. Ultimately in my mind responsibility for this comes back to Guillory not actually doing his job as a general.
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In his defense, did we ever tell Guillory about the arrangements made with Daurstein?
 
Myxlplykx said:
Allowing the loot to leave and the VI be relatively unpunished is a terrible strike against our reputation and honor. We made and agreement with Daurstein and the breakage of it by another party is a direct insult to us and the Vth. I reccomend the harshest possible punishment. If Guillory refuses to enact pushishment as is his responsibility we should use our influence to demand his dismissal.
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For the sake of a good appraisal, I will point out that a punishment will be doled out in either case. Guillory did mention disciplinary action:
Photomajig said:
He nods. "The officers of the units involved in the initial entry into the town will be dismissed immediately," he says, "as will be any identified as having participated in the looting. There will be corporeal punishment for any of the rank-and-file witnessed murdering civilians or setting fires. And nobody's leaving formation without my say-so anytime soon, you can be assured."
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Dismissing the officers and corporal punishment isn't nothing, though not enough to satisfy the people affected. This would be considered decisive and appropriate punishment by most people in the 21st century, but norms around punishment are rather different in this time, plus the need to leave an impression among the city folks. I am not going to comment on the ethics of maximum punishment here, but I think any option that doesn't involve letting the units involved keep the loot will likely set a precedent that we aren't going to approve random looting.
 
@Photomajig , DID we forget to tell him about that? It feels like something that would have come up at some point in the last few weeks, but... just checking.

Like, he rode to meet us before the battle outside of Daurstein, so surely he'd have learned something about that?
 
I'm just...miserable now. Our working relationship with the general of the other army we're supposed to be cooperating with to fight an ene,y army we expect to outnumber our combined force is trashed because he sees us as a micromanaging meddler, and all the work we set up to get Daurstein to surrender without a fight is ruined.

Max Casualties on Drill and nonexistant foraging gains would have been a blessing from above compared to this. I don't think there's any way to look at this March other than a complete and utter disaster.
 
Chimeraguard said:
In his defense, did we ever tell Guillory about the arrangements made with Daurstein?
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Maybe, maybe not. In fairness, this did seem to have been outside of his direct command and the units in question were informed about the agreement we made. Really, an untouched enemy city they were marching beyond itself should have tipped them off that the city was probably not overlooked by us. This was parts of his army acting on "revolutionary fervor" (being extremely ill-disciplined idiots and in a mood to make a buck), I don't think we can accuse the General himself of anything there.
 
I think we just send the stuff back to Daurstein, stem the bleeding there and just, like, try to be more careful from now on? Yes, that'll get us to 5 Morale with them, but Guillory is probably going to get them Drilled up to 5, and that'll be a bog standard unit of generic troops, which is, like, the best we can hope for now.

Let's just not make any more demands of him, we messed up, he seems to have messed up worse on another matter but one that he cannot exactly take back, and so let's focus on our own command.
 
Chimeraguard said:
Which just makes even it worse because this was completely avoidable and now our relations with the VI Army General are trashed by an action that was invented of our own initiative in exchange for...nothing.
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I mean it's an annoyance but I don't think it's worth too much misery, really? This is not a fatal blow to our relationship with Guillory. Probably not even a serious one. It's a small misstep, helpfully paved over by the VI. Army almost immediately demonstrating that yes, they really do have serious disciplinary issues. And it's a fun little narrative moment, frankly.

Not trying to single you out in particular here but like, this thread has a tendency to catastrophize over setbacks and...it really doesn't seem that bad! Our trajectory is still very much upwards overall.
 
What exactly is the state of Arné's military justice system?

Because our choice of punishment seems rather weird.

Let's take an otl military revolt in Nancy (1790) that prompted reforms in military justice.

Two French and one Swiss regiment revolted against the assembly over issues of pay, then later fired on troops loyal to the assembly. Result. The two french regiments were disbanded. Of the leading figures of the revolt (officers and enlisted men) 23 were shot and 41 were condemned to become galley rowers for 30 years.

After that there was a short period of lenient punishment were most forms of corporal punishment were abolished, replaced by extra work duties or time in the brig for most offenses. Including punishments for officers applying the wrong punishments to their men. The first French military courts also show up here.

Then in 1791 we get to punishment happy-fun-time where the punishment for treason is death and pretty much all military crimes are classed as treason.

So either Guillory's punishments should be harsher, in case of 1790 or 1791. Or more lenient in case of the period in-between.
 
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Red Rationalist said:
@Photomajig A somewhat relevant question for this turn: Could we get a list of the units of Guillory's army? Knowing that would probably be necessary next turn to plan our battles, and I am assuming we would have seen their real force, rather than their strength on paper due to them arriving in camp.
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I'll get them up soonish.

The Laurent said:
@Photomajig , DID we forget to tell him about that? It feels like something that would have come up at some point in the last few weeks, but... just checking.

Like, he rode to meet us before the battle outside of Daurstein, so surely he'd have learned something about that?
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Yes, you let him know. He claims to have shared that information with his officers, but the trouble seems to have started with rank-and-file soldiers anyway.

Dutch said:
What exactly is the state of Arné's military justice system?

Because our choice of punishment seems rather weird.

Let's take an otl military revolt in Nancy (1790) that prompted reforms in military justice.

Two French and one Swiss regiment revolted against the assembly over issues of pay, then later fired on troops loyal to the assembly. Result. The two french regiments were disbanded. Of the leading figures of the revolt (officers and enlisted men) 23 were shot and 41 were condemned to become galley rowers for 30 years.

After that there was a short period of lenient punishment were most forms of corporal punishment were abolished, replaced by extra work duties or time in the brig for most offenses. Including punishments for officers applying the wrong punishments to their men. The first French military courts also show up here.

Then in 1791 we get to punishment happy-fun-time where the punishment for treason is death and pretty much all military crimes are classed as treason.

So either Guillory's punishments should be harsher, in case of 1790 or 1791. Or more lenient in case of the period in-between.
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The pre-Revolutionary period was known for brutal but inconsistent punishments, including torture and execution meted out by arbitrary fiat. That has been scaled back a lot, so we're in the inbetween period. Guillory is not looking to execute anyone, and corporal punishment such as lashing is pretty rare right now. I mean, it's not 1:1 with OTL, but it's closest to the inbetween era.

Military courts are to be set up by generals if they care to, but they can essentially just decide judgements on their own.

You've probably brought harsher punishments into the Fifth Army, given your drilling, though presumably not in any arbitrary system of terror.
 
Honestly, to me it really matters that some of Guillory's men actually killed civilians. Such actions go against the very ideals of the Revolution, and they more or less knowingly broke orders as well. I am surprised executions are not immediately in order, if nothing else in order to make sure no such thing happens again.

So in other words, the killers and instigators should absolutely be punished harshly. I know it is not the optimal play to tank the morale of our allied army, but I still feel like this kind of stuff should not be tolerated, at all.
 
If people are up for returning the goods then Im game.

I also wanna make it clear to VI that they fucking made fools of Durand and her troops after they worked hard to preserve lives in Daurstein. And VI just spat on all that hard work.
 
[X] Return the loot to Daurstein. It won't be possible to return everything or to guarantee that all of it goes to the rightful owners, but it'll certainly show the people of Daurstein that you are a woman of your word. The VI. Army will not be happy. Local opinion improves. VI. Army's Morale decreases by 3.

I don't think we can afford more than this, even though they frankly do deserve a harsher treatment.
 
Might as well put it to good use and take it away from the 6th army.

[X] Ship the loot to Loutharc.
Edit:
-[X] Write-in Name:1st Love Guard(Infantry)
-[X] Write-in Name:1st Steel Guard(Infantry)
 
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My mind tells me this makes further campaigning extremely difficult, but I will vote with my heart this once. Idealism is a precious thing to keep in these times. In theory this is a possible cause of action, though it pushes the 6th into an auxiliary force until they have won 3 battles or plenty of time for reorganization. I will warn any other voters considering also voting for this that this means playing our next campaign on the highest difficulty for the sake of ethics.

[X] Return the loot to Daurstein. It won't be possible to return everything or to guarantee that all of it goes to the rightful owners, but it'll certainly show the people of Daurstein that you are a woman of your word. The VI. Army will not be happy. Local opinion improves. VI. Army's Morale decreases by 3.
-[X] And demand harsher punishments. You'll not be satisfied with Guillory's planned dismissals and disciplinary actions. You need heads to roll for this. Something visible, so that Daurstein's people will know the perpetrators have faced justice for their crimes. Local opinion loss averted entirely. VI. Army's Morale decreases by 5.

Well, hopefully this is a learning opportunity for all of us. Raka might actually recognize the need for a code of conduct prohibiting looting to keep her promises. Regardless of how this develops, this incident promises to shed some interesting foreshadowing for our not! Iberian campaign and sister republics.
Also, the custom naming of our new units - I think I am actually fond of a naming custom naming convention. How would people feel about naming those after the campaigning area they were raised in? This would give us indication of their age on campaign while still having them stand out from the usual number salad. And it does avoid the issue of running out of things to name regiments after. I would propose calling these the 1st Elven Regiment of La Durance and the 1st Human Regiment of La Durance, respectively.

-[X] Write-in Name: 1st Elven Regiment of La Durance
-[X] Write-in Name: 1st Human Regiment of La Durance
 
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[X] Return the loot to Daurstein. It won't be possible to return everything or to guarantee that all of it goes to the rightful owners, but it'll certainly show the people of Daurstein that you are a woman of your word. The VI. Army will not be happy. Local opinion improves. VI. Army's Morale decreases by 3.
-[X] And demand harsher punishments. You'll not be satisfied with Guillory's planned dismissals and disciplinary actions. You need heads to roll for this. Something visible, so that Daurstein's people will know the perpetrators have faced justice for their crimes. Local opinion loss averted entirely. VI. Army's Morale decreases by 5.
-[X] Write-in Name: 1st Elven Regiment of La Durance
-[X] Write-in Name: 1st Human Regiment of La Durance

Yes, my brain says this is a terrible idea. But my heart wants to make sure justice is done.

Also if we do end up losing the upcoming battle due to this we can always blame Guillory.
 
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