- Location
- his hidden lair
I'm going to assume that as the Imperial Bodygaurds they're going to be provided with some of the highest quality available equipment. For the prestige of it if nothing else. The funds for the Varangians or the Imperial Court to outfit them were obviously there, and it's not like the metalsmithing was beyond our smiths. There is no feasible situation that the prestigious guards of the Imperial Household aren't going to be tied into the splendor and pageantry of court. A mail harness seems like an obvious first-step when you're paying these men enough silver to literally line their tunics with it. So much of being a body guard is rooted in appearing intimidating and omni-present so as to curtail any ideas in the first place after all.
There is no discernible reason they aren't heavy infantry well armed and armored, with solid morale and a firm belief in their own superiority in discipline. All of these things count for a lot. And if these things weren't present. We should have been told. We've paid for them, supported them for the most part and ensured their loyalty. The fact it has no narrative impact besides '500 Varangians that can't even be arsed to be mentioned in a fight' makes any of our choices with them involved less meaningful.
I'm well aware these aren't the same native american cultures of OTL. The only part I explicitly stated they'd have inferior works would be metal helmets, and presumably all the advancements in shields that the military pressure cooker of Europe provided. And that they do not particularly have a culture that supports discipline in formation fighting in such a way that doesn't actually all that well leverage their numbers.
I'm sort of confused on the assertion of the natives numbers have the most bearing on the deployment of the heavy cavalry, even if I was outright wrong on the nature of it. The natives didn't try and wrap around our flanks or turn them or what have you. They just made the densest hedge of spears they could while trapped against a river's edge and having a huge skirmisher and mobility inferiority given they have nothing that can outmaneuver cavalry. There wasn't any reason for us to not to skirmish and bombard them with missiles. If humans could ford the river where they were, horses likely could handle it about as well if not better, and even if they snuck away in the night the cavalry could have harrased them on the march now that their general position was identified.
The problem is, this wasn't nullifying our strengths so much as the natives making a defensible but untenable stand, and us throwing ourselves against the closest thing the natives could make to a rock. Time clearly favored us, both in knowing their relative position and having a mobility advantage, and because we could have just shadowed their army until the rest of our muster arrived now and crushed them with overwhelming force.
When you run a primarily narrative focused quest like this, you require the voters trust that you're going to resolve events fairly based off our choices. This can be through either transparency in how our previous choices affected this outcome, engagement with the voters on the results and what that entails, and just general exposure and precedent for being fair about these things. You opened our first battle with explaining our emperor was reasonably competent, and then proceeded to hand him the idiot ball. None of our choices to further fund and equip the militia or the Varangians were mentioned as having any bearing. The Dynatoi's support and heavy cavalry was immaterial because the natives fought like Dutch versus the flower of French chivalry. Your modern historical account doesn't even bother to explain why the natives had the wherewithal to adopt a close order hedge of spears in the face of cavalry charge when this should have been the first large mounted charge in the history of the New World. In my case, you've taken most of the interest and budding trust in your ability to tell a compelling and cooperative story and squandered it for no discernible reason. Were our choices poor? Was it just the odds? Was there a poor roll behind curtains? Was the point to prove we could make all the right choices and still lose? If we face a setback, we need some kind of feedback on what caused that setback. How can we make informed choices if we don't have any inkling of how our previous choices impacted where we stand?
The battle was handled poorly. You and I could debate about the state of the Varangians, or the culture of the natives, or whatever- but the lack of feedback for the players to process and the absence of the impact of our choices should be evident. I don't actually want to harangue you with thousand word long arguments when these sort of things can and should be a simple hundred words describing them in the actual update.
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