- Pronouns
- They/Them
I know the tally, but this wasn't plan voting, which means I'm confused at what actually won.
Behind the Serpent Throne (CK2)
- Thread starter The Laurent
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
I know the tally, but this wasn't plan voting, which means I'm confused at what actually won.
- Location
- Germany
Another vote count and analysis, this time by task, not by plan:
Well, the first three items are pretty clear:
There is also a majority for placing the Hanin with the cannons and using magic to protect them from counterfire while they shoot the enemy to bits, hopefully.
Most people also want to move some cavalry to the right, but there are differences in the details. A plurality (namely three) voted for:
[X] Move all the cavalry to the right, but hold them back for now. Ideally I would like to hide them behind the hills where our cannons are placed.
Well, the first three items are pretty clear:
- [X] Don't be fooled. Move as he moves, and advance forward. Force this into a general engagement, and his plan is foiled.
Number of voters: 7
Zeitgeist Blue, Gingganz, Neptune, veekie, CeBrudras, noliar, Random Member - [X] There is nothing more demoralizing than being killed from a distance without being able to respond. Rouse up a large number of spirits at one area of high engagement that will catch the bolts and arrows, making it a one-sided action. (Hint: Deploying the Hanin correctly would increase the efficacy.)
Number of voters: 6
Zeitgeist Blue, Gingganz, Neptune, veekie, CeBrudras, Random Member - [X] Write-in. Hanin with the cannons.
Number of voters: 5
Zeitgeist Blue, Gingganz, Neptune, veekie, Random Member
There is also a majority for placing the Hanin with the cannons and using magic to protect them from counterfire while they shoot the enemy to bits, hopefully.
Most people also want to move some cavalry to the right, but there are differences in the details. A plurality (namely three) voted for:
[X] Move all the cavalry to the right, but hold them back for now. Ideally I would like to hide them behind the hills where our cannons are placed.
Turn 12: The Battle--Part 12
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Turn 12--The Battle, Part 12
"This battle is going well," Qing'lu said, approaching Kiralo without even a bow, his face set into a polite mask which showed nothing of the emotions that were churning beneath his facade. He was with the reserves, commanding from behind, or more accurately observing. Thinking and watching, another line from him to the court.
Qing'lu, of course, was too important to ignore, and while Kiralo had been rushing, now that the decisions had been made, it seemed to have calmed him down. It was not a hard decision, all things considered, though he was aware that it could have negative consequences.
If he was wrong, and the Hanin were not in quite the right place, then that was a waste. What if Jinhai didn't push his feint hard enough on the area? What if he abandoned it to focus on a push at the far end of the army?
But if he did attack, then he was going to pay for it, with the cavalry behind the hill, along with the Hanin, and the canon.
And if he did actually manage to flank Kiralo's forces, then the Rassit could always charge in to disrupt it.
Armies would be marching soon. "Maybe."
"Maybe it's going well? You know as well as me how badly it could be going. How badly it isn't going. If you win, you should take as much credit as you can. I'm here, and I'm going to be grabbing for what I can, so should you."
"I know that as well. I simply don't want to make too many assumptions." Kiralo rose from where he was sitting. "I need to check something, make sure that we have protection from any magic he tries to use. He has to be getting desperate, and a trick is his only way out."
"Cs-Chao says hello," Qing'lu said. "He says that Kueli is the most impressive horseman that he's ever seen."
"Good," Kiralo said. "I need to talk to Cs-Ayila."
"You know, the men speak. They think you're sleeping with the girl. I suspect this is a dirty lie."
Kiralo didn't smile. But it was an amusing enough assumption, considering the truth of the matter.
*******
Ayila was staring at the sky. "I can feel it?"
"What?"
"Magic. He's going to attack, and sooner than you think. He can't wait too long, he can feel it as well as anyone else."
The young girl wasn't making sense, but she was not making sense in an intense enough way that he had to assume that she had information that he didn't. "What do you mean by that?" Kiralo asked, as Ayila began to shift back and forth.
"I mean that you are a warrior. He is a warrior. The air is thick with spirits that will feast tonight, that will party amid the dead and buried, that will drink deep." Ayila shuddered. "Can you hear it? History is shifting in some small way. And the spirits know it."
"Perhaps so, but he could still win," Kiralo said.
"It wouldn't be history if he couldn't. If we win, though, hopefully I can continue on my journey. Would you help, then?"
"Ask me at the end of the day, and I'll give you an answer," Kiralo said.
*******
The armies moved forward and spread out. It was clever, or at least, it was the kind of thing that might have fooled someone else. An advance at all fronts, but with Jinhai's forces massing as if they were going to try the hills one more time. But that was just going to be a feint, or maybe even just a demonstration, marching against the enemy and then retreating back.
Mages were pulling out scrolls and beginning to set up the area, and Kiralo had an idea for how to turn a feint into a slaughter.
How to make the enemy bleed and pay for every inch they gained. He was going to be defensive, primarily, but he had an idea for how to go on the offense.
If he could just get it all to work right then the war was all but won. If he couldn't, then it was just another lost opportunity, and there would be chances in the future.
That was confidence speaking, Kiralo knew that. It might even be arrogance speaking, but he was a good commander, and he'd won battles before. The enemy could only keep on losing for so long. An army's breaking point was subtle and hard to tell, and men had fought long past the time to retreat or surrender before.
But would they fight when all else broke?
Kiralo remembered a few encounters early in his career, and early in stories. A feint could turn into a real attack if the enemy was weak, but there was more to that. There was the fact that the inverse existed.
He had to time this perfectly. The armies were marching, slowly and carefully to meet, and now they were extending, clearly ready for Jinhai's feint. But that didn't mean the feint was any less necessary. It just meant that Kiralo would have to watch for the moment.
"I'm going ot the front."
"What? Sir?" one of the clerks, Irisho, asked.
"Yes. Not to fight. But I need to monitor things, and I have a few orders to give."
He took a breath. This would either fail or succeed, and either way he knew that it would matter.
********
The second half of the battle is what drew most of the attention from the historians and scholars of the subsequent periods, for it is what decided the course of the entire war. We have focused on trying to make the battle seem real, and yet what can we say about this that will not give you the wrong impression.
It was slow, the way the armies moved forward. Cautious, even worried. Jinhai massed his troops as if he were going for an attack on the hill, but he extended his flank leftwards. It was a clever move, because he used smoke and dust to hide the forms of the army, and he gathered together Mages and spirits in the area.
In fact, one of his cleverer tricks was for nothing: the gathering of spirits that could assume the appearance of other spirits. These trickster spirits would give the impression that there was a gathering of spirits of war in exactly the right place. All of which should have fooled anyone.
But Kiralo wasn't fooled. Arrows met arrows, bolts met bolts, and then a partial shield came up around the hill. Spirits started catching some of the arrows and bolts from a distance, and the cannons of the enemy found themselves being bounced off course, but not all that badly.
The exchange was lobsided, and there was a long pause for a cannon duel of sorts, the results of which were inconclusive.
Inconclusive, but certainly bloody. It is impossible, from buried bodies, to see the lines of combat and action, because people were buried where they fell, and fell everywhere in no particular order, but we have reports of heads rolling, of gore slicking up to a person's knees for one moment, trapped by spirits.
We have reports that the fighting was hard, and more furious for the fact that it was just a feint, that it would soon end. From an outsider's perspective, the fighting on the far right of Kiralo's forces might have seemed a feint for the stronger push against the hill.
Then Kiralo came forward. One of the classic chronicles has him say this.
'I go not as a barbarian would, to fight. No, as Csirit over masters all nations as the highest and the greatest, so do I desire to over-master this battle, to control the very time and flow, as the Empire controls the best of humanity, and the Gods the whole of the world.'
Judging from his life and opinions, it was unlikely in the extreme that he said anything like this, let alone such a long speech, which was no doubt put in his mouth for moral edification.
But what was known was that when the enemy came again for the feint, it turned out that this was just the beginning.
Whereas before the duel had seemed only slightly one-sided, now not a single blast of the cannon got through to the Imperial forces, and yet the enemy was committed.
And Kiralo was not done.
And neither was Niu, the general that had been put in control of the cannons. Legends say that he personally aimed each cannon, ordering until his voice was hoarse. Legend cannot be true, for what man could do that--
"By the gods, by the gods, left, left a little. Aim it right for that traitor there! You can see him, can't you, or are you blind?" Niu said, testily. "We perform under the eyes of the Gods."
But despite this ridiculous story, the fact that he exercised effective leadership in aiming the cannons is notable, as is the fact that the Hanin under Captain Yegrin, were just as cleverly placed to come out behind the hills at the right time to unleash their fire alongside the archers and the cannons.
And then on came the Rassit and the rest of the Cavalry, riding out from behind the hill long enough to pour arrows into the stricken enemies from a distance that would seem unlikely, considering the less advanced technology of the time, except that we have found the bodies riddled with arrows, we have found the proof of the immense devastation, far greater than any body of horse-archers should have been able to achieve.
The enemy broke almost before they reached the line.
...and then. And then Kiralo did something rather unexpected.
He held the hill, after all, and he could have stood and let the enemy crash and retreat, and dragged the fight onwards. He had reasons to do so, that much was certain. It was almost roughly nine, and with each passing hour, the chance that Hari-Nat would arrive and end the war increased.
But instead, his men attacked.
The enemy feint turned into an Imperial march.
How much of a march?
[] Local forces around the hill push in.
[] They push in… with the reserves as well.
[] A full push from forces massing, including the reserves and the left flank of the Imperial forces, which is not all that hardly pressed at the moment.
*******
A/N: The more you commit to this, the more it could do, but also the more threat there is that something could go wrong, or that it could take too long to shift all of those forces forward. But the less you do, the more chance it is that this will be a footnote in the battle, rather than a potentially battle-ending breakthrough that could shatter Jinhai's forces.
Also, man, we've been on the same battle for two months...
"This battle is going well," Qing'lu said, approaching Kiralo without even a bow, his face set into a polite mask which showed nothing of the emotions that were churning beneath his facade. He was with the reserves, commanding from behind, or more accurately observing. Thinking and watching, another line from him to the court.
Qing'lu, of course, was too important to ignore, and while Kiralo had been rushing, now that the decisions had been made, it seemed to have calmed him down. It was not a hard decision, all things considered, though he was aware that it could have negative consequences.
If he was wrong, and the Hanin were not in quite the right place, then that was a waste. What if Jinhai didn't push his feint hard enough on the area? What if he abandoned it to focus on a push at the far end of the army?
But if he did attack, then he was going to pay for it, with the cavalry behind the hill, along with the Hanin, and the canon.
And if he did actually manage to flank Kiralo's forces, then the Rassit could always charge in to disrupt it.
Armies would be marching soon. "Maybe."
"Maybe it's going well? You know as well as me how badly it could be going. How badly it isn't going. If you win, you should take as much credit as you can. I'm here, and I'm going to be grabbing for what I can, so should you."
"I know that as well. I simply don't want to make too many assumptions." Kiralo rose from where he was sitting. "I need to check something, make sure that we have protection from any magic he tries to use. He has to be getting desperate, and a trick is his only way out."
"Cs-Chao says hello," Qing'lu said. "He says that Kueli is the most impressive horseman that he's ever seen."
"Good," Kiralo said. "I need to talk to Cs-Ayila."
"You know, the men speak. They think you're sleeping with the girl. I suspect this is a dirty lie."
Kiralo didn't smile. But it was an amusing enough assumption, considering the truth of the matter.
*******
Ayila was staring at the sky. "I can feel it?"
"What?"
"Magic. He's going to attack, and sooner than you think. He can't wait too long, he can feel it as well as anyone else."
The young girl wasn't making sense, but she was not making sense in an intense enough way that he had to assume that she had information that he didn't. "What do you mean by that?" Kiralo asked, as Ayila began to shift back and forth.
"I mean that you are a warrior. He is a warrior. The air is thick with spirits that will feast tonight, that will party amid the dead and buried, that will drink deep." Ayila shuddered. "Can you hear it? History is shifting in some small way. And the spirits know it."
"Perhaps so, but he could still win," Kiralo said.
"It wouldn't be history if he couldn't. If we win, though, hopefully I can continue on my journey. Would you help, then?"
"Ask me at the end of the day, and I'll give you an answer," Kiralo said.
*******
The armies moved forward and spread out. It was clever, or at least, it was the kind of thing that might have fooled someone else. An advance at all fronts, but with Jinhai's forces massing as if they were going to try the hills one more time. But that was just going to be a feint, or maybe even just a demonstration, marching against the enemy and then retreating back.
Mages were pulling out scrolls and beginning to set up the area, and Kiralo had an idea for how to turn a feint into a slaughter.
How to make the enemy bleed and pay for every inch they gained. He was going to be defensive, primarily, but he had an idea for how to go on the offense.
If he could just get it all to work right then the war was all but won. If he couldn't, then it was just another lost opportunity, and there would be chances in the future.
That was confidence speaking, Kiralo knew that. It might even be arrogance speaking, but he was a good commander, and he'd won battles before. The enemy could only keep on losing for so long. An army's breaking point was subtle and hard to tell, and men had fought long past the time to retreat or surrender before.
But would they fight when all else broke?
Kiralo remembered a few encounters early in his career, and early in stories. A feint could turn into a real attack if the enemy was weak, but there was more to that. There was the fact that the inverse existed.
He had to time this perfectly. The armies were marching, slowly and carefully to meet, and now they were extending, clearly ready for Jinhai's feint. But that didn't mean the feint was any less necessary. It just meant that Kiralo would have to watch for the moment.
"I'm going ot the front."
"What? Sir?" one of the clerks, Irisho, asked.
"Yes. Not to fight. But I need to monitor things, and I have a few orders to give."
He took a breath. This would either fail or succeed, and either way he knew that it would matter.
********
The second half of the battle is what drew most of the attention from the historians and scholars of the subsequent periods, for it is what decided the course of the entire war. We have focused on trying to make the battle seem real, and yet what can we say about this that will not give you the wrong impression.
It was slow, the way the armies moved forward. Cautious, even worried. Jinhai massed his troops as if he were going for an attack on the hill, but he extended his flank leftwards. It was a clever move, because he used smoke and dust to hide the forms of the army, and he gathered together Mages and spirits in the area.
In fact, one of his cleverer tricks was for nothing: the gathering of spirits that could assume the appearance of other spirits. These trickster spirits would give the impression that there was a gathering of spirits of war in exactly the right place. All of which should have fooled anyone.
But Kiralo wasn't fooled. Arrows met arrows, bolts met bolts, and then a partial shield came up around the hill. Spirits started catching some of the arrows and bolts from a distance, and the cannons of the enemy found themselves being bounced off course, but not all that badly.
The exchange was lobsided, and there was a long pause for a cannon duel of sorts, the results of which were inconclusive.
Inconclusive, but certainly bloody. It is impossible, from buried bodies, to see the lines of combat and action, because people were buried where they fell, and fell everywhere in no particular order, but we have reports of heads rolling, of gore slicking up to a person's knees for one moment, trapped by spirits.
We have reports that the fighting was hard, and more furious for the fact that it was just a feint, that it would soon end. From an outsider's perspective, the fighting on the far right of Kiralo's forces might have seemed a feint for the stronger push against the hill.
Then Kiralo came forward. One of the classic chronicles has him say this.
'I go not as a barbarian would, to fight. No, as Csirit over masters all nations as the highest and the greatest, so do I desire to over-master this battle, to control the very time and flow, as the Empire controls the best of humanity, and the Gods the whole of the world.'
Judging from his life and opinions, it was unlikely in the extreme that he said anything like this, let alone such a long speech, which was no doubt put in his mouth for moral edification.
But what was known was that when the enemy came again for the feint, it turned out that this was just the beginning.
Whereas before the duel had seemed only slightly one-sided, now not a single blast of the cannon got through to the Imperial forces, and yet the enemy was committed.
And Kiralo was not done.
And neither was Niu, the general that had been put in control of the cannons. Legends say that he personally aimed each cannon, ordering until his voice was hoarse. Legend cannot be true, for what man could do that--
"By the gods, by the gods, left, left a little. Aim it right for that traitor there! You can see him, can't you, or are you blind?" Niu said, testily. "We perform under the eyes of the Gods."
But despite this ridiculous story, the fact that he exercised effective leadership in aiming the cannons is notable, as is the fact that the Hanin under Captain Yegrin, were just as cleverly placed to come out behind the hills at the right time to unleash their fire alongside the archers and the cannons.
And then on came the Rassit and the rest of the Cavalry, riding out from behind the hill long enough to pour arrows into the stricken enemies from a distance that would seem unlikely, considering the less advanced technology of the time, except that we have found the bodies riddled with arrows, we have found the proof of the immense devastation, far greater than any body of horse-archers should have been able to achieve.
The enemy broke almost before they reached the line.
...and then. And then Kiralo did something rather unexpected.
He held the hill, after all, and he could have stood and let the enemy crash and retreat, and dragged the fight onwards. He had reasons to do so, that much was certain. It was almost roughly nine, and with each passing hour, the chance that Hari-Nat would arrive and end the war increased.
But instead, his men attacked.
The enemy feint turned into an Imperial march.
How much of a march?
[] Local forces around the hill push in.
[] They push in… with the reserves as well.
[] A full push from forces massing, including the reserves and the left flank of the Imperial forces, which is not all that hardly pressed at the moment.
*******
1d100=63
Magic Trick #1: 1d100+12+5+10=32, reroll, 78
Farthest Right: 1d100+5+5=55 vs. 1d100+5-5=79
Center-Right: 1d100+5+5+9 vs. 1d100+8=58 vs. 62
Cannons!: 1d100+5+10+10=65
Kiralo (Timing): 1d100+15 (Military)+5 (Training)+5 (Morale)+3 (Rolls up to now)=125
Magic Trick #2: 1d100+27+10 (five degrees of success)=134+63=197
Cannons (Assuming Direct Control): 1d100+12+10+5+5 (What?)=84
Hanin: 1d100+10+10+10=76
Rassit: 1d100+10 (Veteran)+20 (Superb)+12 (Kueli)=224
Light Cav: 1d100+5+5+9=105
Magic Trick #1: 1d100+12+5+10=32, reroll, 78
Farthest Right: 1d100+5+5=55 vs. 1d100+5-5=79
Center-Right: 1d100+5+5+9 vs. 1d100+8=58 vs. 62
Cannons!: 1d100+5+10+10=65
Kiralo (Timing): 1d100+15 (Military)+5 (Training)+5 (Morale)+3 (Rolls up to now)=125
Magic Trick #2: 1d100+27+10 (five degrees of success)=134+63=197
Cannons (Assuming Direct Control): 1d100+12+10+5+5 (What?)=84
Hanin: 1d100+10+10+10=76
Rassit: 1d100+10 (Veteran)+20 (Superb)+12 (Kueli)=224
Light Cav: 1d100+5+5+9=105
A/N: The more you commit to this, the more it could do, but also the more threat there is that something could go wrong, or that it could take too long to shift all of those forces forward. But the less you do, the more chance it is that this will be a footnote in the battle, rather than a potentially battle-ending breakthrough that could shatter Jinhai's forces.
Also, man, we've been on the same battle for two months...
slybrarian
Creature of Fable
- Location
- A Far and Sunless Land
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] They push in… with the reserves as well.
I guess if we're gonna do this, we may as well go big. But not, like, super big.
I guess if we're gonna do this, we may as well go big. But not, like, super big.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Also remember. Niu is a prim and proper bureaucrat sort of general. In his civilian life he goes to the bathroom in triplicate.
Sometimes people can surprise you.
Zeitgeist Blue
Currently Made of Metal
- Location
- Manila, Philippines, GMT +8
[X] They push in… with the reserves as well.
Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
[X] Local forces around the hill push in.
overcomitting is bad
overcomitting is bad
The whole history bookish narration is still really cool.
[X] They push in… with the reserves as well.
So far we have been very disciplined about preserving our reserves, but I think now is a good moment to put them to use.
The troops on our right probably arent all that fresh anymore despite the small rest and this easy counter to Jinhais flanking, so a push just with them probably wont do much either.
[X] They push in… with the reserves as well.
So far we have been very disciplined about preserving our reserves, but I think now is a good moment to put them to use.
The troops on our right probably arent all that fresh anymore despite the small rest and this easy counter to Jinhais flanking, so a push just with them probably wont do much either.
[X] They push in… with the reserves as well.
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
[X] A full push from forces massing, including the reserves and the left flank of the Imperial forces, which is not all that hardly pressed at the moment.
Highland charge!
Highland charge!
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[X] They push in… with the reserves as well.
Middle ground is safer here, Jinhai might still have a trick or two left but we need ti bleed him.
Middle ground is safer here, Jinhai might still have a trick or two left but we need ti bleed him.
[X] They push in… with the reserves as well.
This the moment to commit. However, If Jinhai has left any defensive tricks they'll be on the left where he knew he'd be weakening himself. Our left is doing plenty by fixing their opposite numbers while we roll things up on the right. As the panic spreads along the line that flank will start winning and advancing organically - no need to take extra losses by rushing.
This the moment to commit. However, If Jinhai has left any defensive tricks they'll be on the left where he knew he'd be weakening himself. Our left is doing plenty by fixing their opposite numbers while we roll things up on the right. As the panic spreads along the line that flank will start winning and advancing organically - no need to take extra losses by rushing.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Vote closes tomorrow.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Vote closes tomorrow, remember. Also, I almost wish I had the energy in me for a rant about how, "Crits aren't actually as important as people make them out to be." Like, there's a reason why, despite the crits he's been getting, he's currently losing. I pay attention to other factors, after all. For both sides, actually. So it is sometimes annoying for people to go, "Why's he keep on critting and also not instantly folding when we crit" while forgetting that his crits haven't folded your army either.
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
I still say that he'll never expect a full push with everything we have, especially after we've been playing pretty conservatively in the rest of the battle. We can end it now!
Our left is battered and we no longer have reserves behind it. If they push and fail they could break. It's unlikely but it's possible at that end of the field. Right now the left is well positioned and holding comfortably. Our attack on the right will suck in reinforcements from and spread chaos down Jinhai's line. At that point we'll have a decisive advantage on the left and that's when we push there.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Alright, vote closed.