Large scale battles

[denizsi]

So what do you think are the keys to winning a large scale pre-gunpowder battle when commanding an army and how to have it governed by character stats in an RPG?

I'm trying to pin down the personal factors beyond the logistics and external factors in a battle, to tie into stats so the things that precede the battle itself, which can modify some of these factors, are out of the scope since those are more managerial issues. The issue here is how commander's sole presence and skill can guide the outcome of a battle in the moment of battle.

Ultimately, whether the player can lead an army to victory must be entirely up to the player as guided but partially limited by his character's skills, much like single or squad level combat in regular games.

Now this also depends largely on the level of involvement in battle management and the degree of abstraction vs. simulation. Will the player be able to command even the smallest individual groups in an army or play highly abstracted mini games ala Risk or anything in between? For this thread alone, I'm limiting it to the former where you can command, at the very least, the smallest group of units as the lowest ranking captain or the entire army and all of its elements as the commander, depending on your rank.

Reading on history leads me to come to the following conclusions (in no particular order) :

Your reputation
Charisma/Ability to inspire men
Tactical repertoire and imagination
Ability to read the opponent's tactical scheme
Ability to asses opponent's condition
Ability to asses your own men's condition

There are many historical accounts where an army's morale and willingness to fight is drastically reduced due to the reputation of the opponent commander and how the former was intimated into giving up early or simply not fighting effectively or vice versa, an army drawing confidence and courage due to the commanding officer's reputation or simply the reputation of single accomplished and experienced individuals doing the same in locally smaller scopes. There is also the case of particular units in the army having their own reputation also as a demoralizing or encouraging factor, like Caesar's 10th legion, Varangian guards or Swiss mercenaries.

Apart from past and renown accomplishments to serve as reputation, there's also the individual charisma. Again, historical accounts are aplenty, military leaders intervening in moments of crisis to inspire their men and winning against odds. So I think that this personal magnetism factor should be incorporated if there are other character stats covering the same sphere.

This should be straightforward enough from a reality viewpoint, the order of battle, the formations as it was often what won battles, breaking enemy lines without compromising yours and having the element of surprise when necessary. The problem is I have no idea how to determine what tactics would prove more promising in what situations so as to be able to make a clearly defined but also dynamic order of preference based on situations and how to tie these into the stats, not to mention how to account for improvised free-manipulation of armies stat-wise.

There's a certain expansion for The Riddle of Steel, dealing with large scale warfare, named Flower of Battle which I'm sure is full of nice ideas but I've yet to read it. Perhaps it should provide a basic prediction of how your opponent expects you to move, the accuracy of the prediction based on your stats, so that you can look into ways to circumvent that AND a further prediction, again based on your stats, of how your opponent would react to any particular move? Sounds kind of nice to me on paper but open to lots of exploits. Note that this is intertwined with assessing enemy tactics.

Ability to assess your and opponent's men should also be straightforward. Using and replacing units based on their "battle-load", knowing when to relieve certain units, spotting when the enemy lines are losing efficiency, whether they are well supplied and refreshed or starving etc. Stat-based perception/observation checks on men's encumbrance, health, morale and motivation should do it, I guess.

What are your ideas? Anything you find stupid up there? How would you do it?

 

[spectre]

It's all fairly general, so I won't comment, unless you'd show me how it all looks in action.

One thing, you have this:

Ability to read the opponent's tactical scheme
Ability to asses opponent's condition
Ability to asses your own men's condition

and it needs moar deception, like this

Ability to read the opponent's tactical scheme andobfuscate your own
Ability to asses opponent's condition and obfuscate your own
Ability to asses and obfuscate your own men's condition

When implementing all this, I think you're going to stumble upon the problem of player knowledge at some point. Stuff like predicting patterns, tactial repetoire etc. are a prime example - the player competence in this field will be usually higher than in game stats dictate, so if you take some options away, it will result in a lot of fuuuu.

 

[PorkaMorka]

One thing to keep in mind is that a leader without smarts or charisma could still inspire his men by fighting directly in the battles with his retainers.

Even Kings did it.

 

[soggie]

Depending on civilization, massed warfare can be vastly different. In ancient china for example, infantry clashes are not that important. Instead, captains would challenge each other to single combat, and often when a captain is cut down in combat most of the troops would flee without even bothering to engage in combat.

Leaders don't always become leaders because they were charismatic, or even had any leadership qualities. Many are promoted to those ranks just by the virtue of knowing one of the generals personally, and some are even promoted just because somebody along the pecking order had the misfortune of dying and leaving an empty space behind. Stupid leaders who can fight well in one-to-one combat can win victories too simply through brute force, or dumb luck.

 

[denizsi]

Ability to read the opponent's tactical scheme
Ability to asses opponent's condition
Ability to asses your own men's condition

and it needs moar deception, like this

Ability to read the opponent's tactical scheme andobfuscate your own
Ability to asses opponent's condition and obfuscate your own
Ability to asses and obfuscate your own men's condition

Indeed, thanks and yes, player knowledge is the big issue. In a more abstracted mini-game, this could be done away with easily but where's the fun in that.

One thing to keep in mind is that a leader without smarts or charisma could still inspire his men by fighting directly in the battles with his retainers.

Even Kings did it.

Yes that too, though it depends more on the culture and customs I guess. It probably worked with most tribal monarchies but, for instance, I can't imagine the average legionnaire in ancient Rome giving a flying fuck whether an inapt and clueless consul joined them in battle or not in the face of imminent defeat.

The higher the PC's skills, the more he can do, and the better effect he has on his men. For example, a PC with say a 100 in skill "Commandment" (or whatever it would be called...) can tell so and so group of men to flank the right while the rest of the army attacks from around this hill while the archers stand on the hill and shoot at them, etc... and a PC with like a 40 could only do about 1 or 2 simple commands. Charisma could also have an effect on morale, like you said, or possibly even PC reputation can have an effect on the other army. If it is known that you torture captured subjects, this might make the enemy more reluctant to surrender and etc.

The problem with that is realism or rather suspension of disbelief (I hate that term). I wouldn't buy the reasoning that the military authority of a character commanding a grand army, whether an incompetent leader assigned there through politics/whatever or a military genius who rose to the position, would be practically limited by his skills rather making use of the same resources in less/more efficient ways as per their skills. Otherwise, that might be a reasonably gamist compromise, though it sounds more fit to various ranks (ie. increasingly more options as you rise in rank and command more units).

Leaders don't always become leaders because they were charismatic, or even had any leadership qualities. Many are promoted to those ranks just by the virtue of knowing one of the generals personally, and some are even promoted just because somebody along the pecking order had the misfortune of dying and leaving an empty space behind. Stupid leaders who can fight well in one-to-one combat can win victories too simply through brute force, or dumb luck.

Well, dumb luck still means unpredicted external factors turning in your favor and even overwhelming brute force can still be dealt with with smaller forces under good command. Not to refute the points but they are not exactly relevant here.

 

[PorkaMorka]

Yes that too, though it depends more on the culture and customs I guess. It probably worked with most tribal monarchies but, for instance, I can't imagine the average legionnaire in ancient Rome giving a flying fuck whether an inapt and clueless consul joined them in battle or not in the face of imminent defeat.
.

Good point.

I was thinking particularly of medievals but you're right it wouldn't apply to all cultures.

 

[spectre]

Yes that too, though it depends more on the culture and customs I guess. It probably worked with most tribal monarchies but, for instance, I can't imagine the average legionnaire in ancient Rome giving a flying fuck whether an inapt and clueless consul joined them in battle or not in the face of imminent defeat.

A clueless consul no, but if a general is "the man of the people", who drinks and gets merry with the whole lot then it will have an effect on morale.
As you said it already, it all should be based on stats, and not everyone is cut to be the leader of men.

Overall, strategy, tactics and morale should be all taken into account and form a complex system.
If one cannot into strategy, it is possible to substitute with charisma and fighting on the frontline.
Or, combine the two for an awesome effect.

But I am a bit tron here, fighting on the frontline would work in Medieval times, yes, but as we move on to Napoleonic Wars, it is obvious the general should stay the fuck out of personal combat.
This is where fraternizing with troops and caring about their well being comes in.

 

[JarlFrank]

Well, generals in the musket-era (or at least commanders of divisions) preferred being behind the frontline but still among the men. Usually in a position where they could inspire their guys but still not get shot easily because they're not the first in line.

 

[Topher]

http://www.youtube.com/user/beastsofwar ... KOAipC2omo

It's 45min long but covers everything you're talking about. It goes over how you're generals stats affect combat, how they affect the passing of orders, moral... pretty much exactly what you want but already done. Granted it's for a table-top war game.

If nothing else you could expand on what it's got.

 

[denizsi]

Thanks! Downloading, will watch & comment later.

 

[Erebus]

One thing to keep in mind is that a leader without smarts or charisma could still inspire his men by fighting directly in the battles with his retainers.

It's a good idea, but such a behavior should be risky : plenty of battles have been lost because the general of one army got himself killed and his troops lost their will to fight.

The stats that have been suggested sound good. Maybe you could add a few stats reflecting the commander's organizational skills : how to position and coordinate his troops, how to manage logistics, how to communicate his orders once combat has started, etc.

 

[soggie]

Rommel was a brilliant tactician but a questionable strategist. It was well known that he was pretty bad when it comes to logistics, which cost him the Africa campaign. Eisenhower on the other hand, wasn't much of a tactician but more of a politician and strategist. Two completely different leaders, but both capable in their own ways.

 

[laclongquan]

Larce scale battles are not done much in RPGs, so it's hard to say. Now let's squint our eyes and pretend Shogun a RPG. I know, I know, but bear with me here.

The battle got 2 sides with around 10 contigents on each sides, with the generals being 1 of each. The map is large with river, mountainous, and some flatlands.

1st thing is that if the defender doesnt get defeated in 30 days the battle is unconcluded and get dragged into next month. 2nd is that troops get paid by koku which is magically transported from central warehouse in central keeps into troops in faraway places. If you dont have enough to pay, they abandoned you in a heartbeat.

3rd is that generals have their own level of reputation and can have positive effect on nearby troops. They also can effectively rally routed troops.

Now, let's see:

In a pregunpowder large scale battle, the key to win (if you are attack side) is that you reduce defending troops and force them to route out of the province. Best way is killing lots of troops nearly at once along with general so that he doesnt rally troops.

Make full use of terrain: hold high ground for your archer, flatland for your calvary/mobile troops. spearman to protect archer and keep enemy immobilized while calvary run and thrust in flank. if they get killed lots at once they get demoralized and may route, in that case the horses must harry them and dont let them stand and rally around the general. If enemy has horses of their own, horses on horses to suppress that capablity, and in that case you should have bigger and plenty of horses to do the job.

What does that tell you? Pregunpowder battles rely on horsemen, both light calvary and heavy (cataphract, dehgans, etc). They got the mobility factor that no other units can give.