Army of Liberty: a Fantasy Revolutionary Warfare Quest

[Red Rationalist]

Also, we now know the factions, by the way! Honestly feels like the way to go would be to triangulate between Liberationists, Consulars, and Levelers as much as possible for the moment.

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More politics? Gib me!

Reading trough the factions, I'm actually shocked how progressive they are. Democracy is two years old, and the majority of the assembly supports universal suffrage or near universal suffrage. I would have expected far more advocacy for class-franchise given that the revolution had been prominently supported by the poor nobility. Plus a lot of support for wealth redistribution on the left flank, which is good to see.

In regards to political intrigue, I think we are in a very good position to screw the constutionalists over. If the evidence of the king inviting a foreign army in where to leak during election season, especially with a public facing general giving technically politically neutral statements about being shocked by this betrayal of the king, the constitutionalist outlook would be very bleak indeed. With the resulting pushback, the liberationist would likely form the new political center, given how people's instinctive reaction is to desire punishment for a betrayal.
Speculating at the election outcome, I would expect a lot of the more political savy constitutionalists to defect to the consulars causing them to grow decently, with the consular and liberationists forming a working alliance for now. I don't see the levelers growing all that much given their internal division and general anti-war posture, people will want military intervention against the foreign supporters of the volunteer army. This could change over time especially if a declared war starts to drag on, but war is fairly popular when it begins.

 

[Nerdorama]

Hm. Tricky.

1. Attack their unprepared army with our unprepared army
2. Give ourselves some drill but cede the initiative
3. Cede a lot of initiative in return for getting the army we want instead of the army we have

I'm iffy on the middle, Mauvais Plain option. It lets the enemy finish mustering, doesn't give us any particular terrain advantages, and only gains us one Army Action. It's a plan cooked up by civilians in the capital and has nothing to do with the strategic realities on the ground. It's a conservative plan and, therefore, something the enemy will expect and be prepared for.

Also it's literally called the Bad Plain. Come on.

Really thinking we either Rush or Turtle here. Rush would push our Drill all the way down to 1, which sounds like even more of a trap than the Mauvais Plain does when I look at it in context. As an alternative to the expected Mauvais Plain+Drill compromise, let's look at what we can do in Vaud.

[X] Plan: I said no rush 15 min
-[X] Withdraw to the Vaud River.
-[X] Intense drill. There's no time for rest or leisure on this march. The troops need a taste of discipline and grueling drill. Lose Munitions equal to number of Units (-14). Gain +2 Drill. Lose 2d100 troops as Casualties.
-[X] Recruit locals. It's a fact of war that an army bleeds warm bodies constantly, in and out of battle. We could try recruiting from the local population to fill our ranks. Gain Reserve Manpower. Recruitment in hostile territory has an Influence cost. Available in La Durance: elves, humans, hobgoblins, halflings, dwarves, devils, nymphs.
--[X] Hobgoblins. Gain 5d100+100 Reserve Manpower.
--[X] Halflings. Gain 5d100+250 Reserve Manpower.
-[X] [-50 Influence] Acquire intel on enemy forces. Gold, well-placed friends and clever agents can usually yield useful intelligence on the enemy movements and disposition. Learn enemy Units, their XP rank and equipment.

This covers all our weaknesses by bumping Drill up twice and starting to build up our ZERO Manpower reserve. This is a weak influence gain plan, so I am only using what I consider the barest amount of influence and getting intel.

Alternatively:

[] Plan: Halfling rush kekeke
-[] Force march north and surprise them on the Via Peregrina.
-[] [-50 Influence] Acquire intel on enemy forces. Gold, well-placed friends and clever agents can usually yield useful intelligence on the enemy movements and disposition. Learn enemy Units, their XP rank and equipment.
-[] Requisition equipment. The Army provides only what it sees fit. Pulling a few strings, greasing a few palms and making a few new friends should get you shipments of better arms and armor for your Units. An Unit requires one March turn of time to train with new equipment.
--[] [-50 Influence per Unit] Canard Rifles. Rifled Canard muskets are far more onerous to fabricate and maintain, but they offer greater range and accuracy than smoothbore muskets. Wounding +0, Range 200m/300m/500m.

Do the ambush, with intel, and use the potentially greater expected influence gain to start upgrading our equipment away from muskets.

 

[The Laurent]

More politics? Gib me!

Reading trough the factions, I'm actually shocked how progressive they are. Democracy is two years old, and the majority of the assembly supports universal suffrage or near universal suffrage. I would have expected far more advocacy for class-franchise given that the revolution had been prominently supported by the poor nobility. Plus a lot of support for wealth redistribution on the left flank, which is good to see.

In regards to political intrigue, I think we are in a very good position to screw the constutionalists over. If the evidence of the king inviting a foreign army in where to leak during election season, especially with a public facing general giving technically politically neutral statements about being shocked by this betrayal of the king, the constitutionalist outlook would be very bleak indeed. With the resulting pushback, the liberationist would likely form the new political center, given how people's instinctive reaction is to desire punishment for a betrayal.
Speculating at the election outcome, I would expect a lot of the more political savy constitutionalists to defect to the consulars causing them to grow decently, with the consular and liberationists forming a working alliance for now. I don't see the levelers growing all that much given their internal division and general anti-war posture, people will want military intervention against the foreign supporters of the volunteer army. This could change over time especially if a declared war starts to drag on, but war is fairly popular when it begins.

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I think in a weird way the 'racial' character of the old regime and the throwing in of gender politics has broken and cracked that (for now).

As far as it goes, I think you're underestimating the appeal of the Levelers, or rather I think that a lot of their land proposals have more legs than you'd think. Though I guess it depends on how things go.

But yeah, ideally we'd want to make sure the information is widely spread.

Alternatively:

[] Plan: Halfling rush kekeke
-[] Force march north and surprise them on the Via Peregrina.
-[] [-50 Influence] Acquire intel on enemy forces. Gold, well-placed friends and clever agents can usually yield useful intelligence on the enemy movements and disposition. Learn enemy Units, their XP rank and equipment.
-[] Requisition equipment. The Army provides only what it sees fit. Pulling a few strings, greasing a few palms and making a few new friends should get you shipments of better arms and armor for your Units. An Unit requires one March turn of time to train with new equipment.
--[] [-50 Influence per Unit] Canard Rifles. Rifled Canard muskets are far more onerous to fabricate and maintain, but they offer greater range and accuracy than smoothbore muskets. Wounding +0, Range 200m/300m/500m.

Do the ambush, with intel, and use the potentially greater expected influence gain to start upgrading our equipment away from muskets.

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I'm opposed to the "Weak Influence Gain" plan and also worried about this one here specifically because it drops our Drill to 1, which seems like the kind of, "We start getting major problems" level.

 

[Nerdorama]

I'm opposed to the "Weak Influence Gain" plan and also worried about this one here specifically because it drops our Drill to 1, which seems like the kind of, "We start getting major problems" level.

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I'm interested to see someone write up a Mauvais Plain plan, then, because that's the only option that isn't either of those.

 

[The Laurent]

I'm interested to see someone write up a Mauvais Plain plan, then, because that's the only option that isn't either of those.

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Honestly just as advice, if we're going to be doing the rush-down we might as well add some trained recruits with Influence actions to replace the lack of reserves/the lost numbers? Because at that point, 20 points for 400 troops (one of each race) is pretty cheap, and sure it puts us at 30... but in that plan we're specifically rushing down for the Influence gain from a surprise victory, since our Drill will be at dangerous numbers.

 

[NSchwerte]

Asking for troops with influence is usually better than raising them yeah.

Raising hobgoblins would give us 5d100+100(~350) green reserve manpower, while putting the marsh action on letters and requesting reinforcements gives us 500 trained manpower.

If we are going to rush down we almost certainly want these reserves, because we will go into battle understrength otherwise

 

[Red Rationalist]

As far as it goes, I think you're underestimating the appeal of the Levelers, or rather I think that a lot of their land proposals have more legs than you'd think. Though I guess it depends on how things go.

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It does depend on who is actually politically active. While their proposals have a lot of sway for the urban and rural poor, that doesn't really matter if the poor are generally politically inactive and the levels don't have the campaigning infrastructure to mobilize the lower classes as a political force. I'm more pessimistic regarding that given just how young the revolution and elections are, but I'm open to being positively surprised.

1. Attack their unprepared army with our unprepared army
2. Give ourselves some drill but cede the initiative
3. Cede a lot of initiative in return for getting the army we want instead of the army we have

I'm iffy on the middle, Mauvais Plain option. It lets the enemy finish mustering, doesn't give us any particular terrain advantages, and only gains us one Army Action. It's a plan cooked up by civilians in the capital and has nothing to do with the strategic realities on the ground. It's a conservative plan and, therefore, something the enemy will expect and be prepared for.

Also it's literally called the Bad Plain. Come on.

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Having previously defended the middle option, I think there are broader strategic considerations that make turtling less of a good idea. Currently, the revolution right now needs to look strong. This is both to deter neighbouring powers from considering intervention, and from preventing internal unrest from occurring thanks to the republican government being seen as fragile. There is also the material fact that allowing the enemy army to fully make use of foreign support increases their ranks, and will have more well-trained units flee the battle, with the potential concern of the enemy army reforming from the more well-trained units withdrawing behind the border. Turtling does make winning the battle decently easy, but I'm concerned about the popular perception of the battle being "the republican army is scared/ incapable of battling enemies outside of defensive terrain", especially since we were previously a quite aggressive tactical commander. Additionally, the halfway point puts us in a better position to intercept other incoming armies, thus deterring foreign intervention somewhat.

So In summary: Just because the civilians favour one plan doesn't mean their cause of action is the worst military option.

 

[The Laurent]

Asking for troops with influence is usually better than raising them yeah.

Raising hobgoblins would give us 5d100+100(~350) green reserve manpower, while putting the marsh action on letters and requesting reinforcements gives us 500 trained manpower

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I'm sure narratively we're just doing "other people's money" when it comes to asking for troops with influence, which means there will be a limit for that as things get bigger. In other words, we're taking troops FROM somewhere, and it feels like there will be a time when that's going to be a problem.

But that time isn't now. The revolution has one major ongoing military threat, so we can borrow troops from elsewhere to face it.

 

[NSchwerte]

[] Plan: It will be bad for our enemies!
-[] Offer battle on the Mauvais Plain.
-[] Intense drill.

-[] Requisition experienced recruits.
--[] [-5 Influence per 100] 100 Regular Humans
--[] [-5 Influence per 100] 100 Regular Hobgoblins
--[] [-5 Influence per 100] 200 Regular Elves
-[] [-5 Influence per 100] 200 Regular Halflings

[] [-50 Influence] Acquire intel on enemy forces.

This is my current proposed Mauvais plan, 45 influence left after all

 

[NSchwerte]

The rushing option honestly feels like it would be thought up by an untested general who is not completely in their role. We would drop down to 1 drill, where our troops can't even march in formations and forcing them to rush forward at a pace that will kill some of them.

Low Drills also explicitly have the negative consequences of possible slowdowns on the marsh - it would be very possible that we rush forward but without our supply being able to catch up we are slowed down and meet the enemy in mauvais anyway

 

[Nerdorama]

[] Plan: A more regular charge
-[] Force march north and surprise them on the Via Peregrina.
-[] [-50 Influence] Acquire intel on enemy forces. Gold, well-placed friends and clever agents can usually yield useful intelligence on the enemy movements and disposition. Learn enemy Units, their XP rank and equipment.
-[] Requisition experienced recruits.
--[] [-5 Influence per 100] 200 Regular Humans
--[] [-5 Influence per 100] 200 Regular Hobgoblins
--[] [-5 Influence per 100] 200 Regular Halflings
--[] [-5 Influence per 100] 200 Regular Elves

Something like that for a rush plan, perhaps? Note: not changing my vote

 

[NSchwerte]

[] Plan: A more regular charge
-[] Force march north and surprise them on the Via Peregrina.
-[] [-50 Influence] Acquire intel on enemy forces. Gold, well-placed friends and clever agents can usually yield useful intelligence on the enemy movements and disposition. Learn enemy Units, their XP rank and equipment.
-[] Requisition experienced recruits.
--[] [-5 Influence per 100] 200 Regular Humans
--[] [-5 Influence per 100] 200 Regular Hobgoblins
--[] [-5 Influence per 100] 200 Regular Halflings
--[] [-5 Influence per 100] 200 Regular Elves

Something like that for a rush plan, perhaps? Note: not changing my vote

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IMO definitely an improvement.

I still don't think that rushing is the superior option because of the terrible logistics involved but if we do we definitely want to invest into reserves.


While rifles are nice I honestly don't think they are worth it at the moment. It's 50 effective influence to make a single unit out of 14 a bit better(we get 10 influence worth of muskets back), We could raise an entire new regular cavalry regiment for that and still have influence left over.

If we have an elite Halfling infantry unit giving them rifles can be worth it, but not for normal trained infantry

 

[Nerdorama]

IMO definitely an improvement.

I still don't think that rushing is the superior option because of the terrible logistics involved but if we do we definitely want to invest into reserves.


While rifles are nice I honestly don't think they are worth it at the moment. It's 50 effective influence to make a single unit out of 14 a bit better(we get 10 influence worth of muskets back), We could raise an entire new regular cavalry regiment for that and still have influence left over

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To be honest given I spent two of my Vaud actions on cheap recruiting my only excuse for that first plan is I didn't have coffee yet.

 

[Random Member]

[] Plan Drill Baby, Drill!
-[] Withdraw to the Vaud River.
-[] Intense drill.
-[] Intense drill. x2
-[] Manufacture munitions.
-[] Requisition experienced recruits. [-5 Influence per 100 Regular.]
--[] 100 Humans
--[] 100 Hobgoblins
--[] 200 Elves
--[] 200 Halflings
-[] [-50 Influence] Acquire intel on enemy forces.

If we withdraw to the river, we should double down on drilling.

 

[NSchwerte]

[] Plan Drill Baby, Drill!
-[] Withdraw to the Vaud River.
-[] Intense drill.
-[] Intense drill. x2
-[] Manufacture munitions.
-[] Requisition experienced recruits. [-5 Influence per 100 Regular.]
--[] 100 Humans
--[] 100 Hobgoblins
--[] 200 Elves
--[] 200 Halflings
-[] [-50 Influence] Acquire intel on enemy forces.

If we withdraw to the river, we should double down on drilling.

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If you want more munitions, doing letters and buying logistical support with influence will get us an extra 50 supplies too


We don't know the magnitude of influence loss from sitting at Vauld instead of fighting the enemy as ordered, but if we assume that it's -50, then we could make up for that with an march action.



That would mean that the comparison is:

Vauld	plains
2 actions	1 actions
Extra elites/training	normal army
Good defensive terrain	plains
? Weak reputation for the republic ?	? Raka known for following orders ?

 

[NSchwerte]

Hobgoblins: 1550
Halflings: 3000
Elves: 3100
Humans: 2000

Sum: 9650 Troops

2d100 ~ 100 casualties ~ 1% casualties


Expected losses from forcing stuff:
Hoboblins: 15
Halflings: 30
Elves: 31
Humans: 20

If we take Saintonge as baseline, 6 units could sustain around 700 casualties in a battle. Doubling that for our larger army, that means 1400 casualties.

Replacing these would be 70 influence worth of requested reserves



@Photomajig if we are in the campaign and running out of reserves, can we still request more with influence?

 

[The Laurent]

Hobgoblins: 1550
Halflings: 3000
Elves: 3100
Humans: 2000

Sum: 9650 Troops

2d100 ~ 100 casualties ~ 1% casualties


Losses:
Hoboblins: 15
Halflings: 30
Elves: 31
Humans: 20

@Photomajig if we are in the campaign and running out of reserves, can we still request more with influence?

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In theory if we wanted to we could get slightly fewer reserves (100 of each, instead of extra Elves and Halflings) and then also give our Offensive Genius CO some of those upgraded rifles? Though he will also presumably be spending at least some time doing melee charges, but regular fire ALSO gets the offensive bonuses.

 

[NSchwerte]

In theory if we wanted to we could get slightly fewer reserves (100 of each, instead of extra Elves and Halflings) and then also give our Offensive Genius CO some of those upgraded rifles? Though he will also presumably be spending at least some time doing melee charges, but regular fire ALSO gets the offensive bonuses.

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I am absolutely opposed to buying rifles. It's 50(!) Influence to make a single unit a bit stronger by increasing their range. Especially as Kleber wants to charge people anyway.


@Photomajig could we requisition veteran reserves and replace our trained artillery crews with them

 

[Nerdorama]

Yeah in all honesty I want rifles, but we have more important things to spend influence on right now (mostly making up for our nonexistent intelligence and manpower pool). Discerning "Want" vs. "Need" is even more vital in a strategy game than in real life.

 

[NSchwerte]

Rifles are great but there is a reason they are not standard issue(cost) and I don't expect that we will find great success trying to change that with our own army.

It may be a bit callous but trained manpower is cheaper and having another 1000 friends with muskets besides you will do more for your survival chances than having a better weapon

 

[Photomajig]

@Photomajig if we are in the campaign and running out of reserves, can we still request more with influence?

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The Army will also provide some replacements for your campaigns - generally you'll start with some Reserves ready in your pool. This campaign has unfortunately kicked off with a mad scramble to get anyone available into a formation and into La Durance, so no-one has yet organized reinforcements for the Fifth Army.

The state of running military campaigns is, uh, a bit chaotic in Arné right now.

@Photomajig could we requisition veteran reserves and replace our trained artillery crews with them

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Ah, I somehow did not think about this nice little loophole. I suppose I'll have to make separate Influence tiers for infantry, cavalry and artillery recruits. The answer is no for now and at this cost, I'm afraid.

 

[The Laurent]

Hmm, @NSchwerte , I wonder whether we might add slightly more to our Reserves, to be honest, in your plan now that I'm thinking. Like if this is a one-battle-and-done campaign, we'll be fine, but I do have to wonder about the possibility of a second force or so on among the foreign nations/etc.

Plus, obviously, paying for the losses after battle might be better done up front, at least in part, since it will effect our XP gains.

 

[NSchwerte]

The Army will also provide some replacements for your campaigns - generally you'll start with some Reserves ready in your pool. This campaign has unfortunately kicked off with a mad scramble to get anyone available into a formation and into La Durance, so no-one has yet organized reinforcements for the Fifth Army.

The state of running military campaigns is, uh, a bit chaotic in Arné right now.

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What I mean is, if we fight this battle and win, but there is another battle following it for whatever reason, will we be able to spend influence to get more troops for our reserves to replace casualties or would the logistics mean that it doesn't work?

@Photomajig with requisitioning additional troops, would demons have the same cost as other units?

Hmm, @NSchwerte , I wonder whether we might add slightly more to our Reserves, to be honest, in your plan now that I'm thinking. Like if this is a one-battle-and-done campaign, we'll be fine, but I do have to wonder about the possibility of a second force or so on among the foreign nations/etc.



Plus, obviously, paying for the losses after battle might be better done up front, at least in part, since it will effect our XP gains.

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Yeah, I do worry what happens if we don't have reserves after the battle and don't manage to get more in time.

I don't know whether the price for reinforcements may go up too in the future forcing us to go into the less efficient local reserves, so stockpiling some soldiers would be nice too

 

[Photomajig]

What I mean is, if we fight this battle and win, but there is another battle following it for whatever reason, will we be able to spend influence to get more troops for our reserves to replace casualties or would the logistics mean that it doesn't work?

@Photomajig with requisitioning additional troops, would demons have the same cost as other units?

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Yes, you will always have a March turn after each Battle in a campaign and you will always be able to use Influence during them. Certain options may be disallowed depending on your circumstances, though. There's no real reason why you could not get reserves with Influence in this campaign, but it's a different matter when you're encircled, halfway across the world, et cetera.

I'll add a clarification to that part of the actions, but minority races are generally harder to acquire. They might cost more, or there might not be any such recruits to have! Elves, humans, halflings, hobgoblins and dwarves are generally always available. In this case, there are no experienced devil recruits in the Revolutionary Army to get!

 

[NSchwerte]

With us getting another marsh turn after whatever happens with the battle, we should wait with buying reinforcement for that turn.

We don't have green manpower that could dilute xp of units when reinforcing after all, so we just want to spend 20 influence on the replacement for drilling casualties.

[X] Plan: It will be bad for our enemies!
-[X] Offer battle on the Mauvais Plain.
-[X] Intense drill.
-[X] Requisition experienced recruits.
--[X] [-5 Influence per 100] 100 Regular Humans
--[X] [-5 Influence per 100] 100 Regular Hobgoblins
--[X] [-5 Influence per 100] 100 Regular Elves
-[X] [-5 Influence per 100] 100 Regular Halflings
-[X] [-50 Influence] Acquire intel on enemy forces.

That would mean my Mauvais Plan would have 55 influence left. But I am not sure if we want to necessarily spend everything we have - a nice puffer of influence means we can decisively take advantage of opportunities or make up for setbacks.

If we lose the fight and don't have influence to dampen the blow I expect that it would be a quest over and I think we should always keep the possibility of defeat in mind