The Raising of Armies in "Interregnum".
THE ARMIES which a player raises at the beginning of each game year are the tools which he uses in his objective of winning the game. Armies may be large, medium or small depending on the purposes for which the controlling player wants to use them. Armies may consist of knights only, or of mercenaries only or of a mixture of the two. Further, mercenaries are of three basic types, i.e., pikemen, missile troops (bowmen and crossbowmen) and siege specialists. It is therefore likely that during the course of any one game, players will see a variety of armies being raised, both in terms of size and in terms of composition.
THE very first point of which a player must be aware is the fact that armies are raised during the April turn of each game year, that these armies are unlikely to be modified (unless one is using Optional Rule H or unless one re-deploys) and that this remains so until the armies are disbanded later in the same game year (but note Optional Rule L, "Winter Quarters").
SECONDLY, at least one male family member or one son-in-law must be assigned to each army as its commander in the April turn. At the beginning of the first game year, no sons in law will be available, which means that one starts the game with a "pool" of just five possible army commanders for each faction/player. If a player succeeds in marrying off all of his female family members, he will ultimately have a possible maximum of ten army commanders. Even this absolute maximum can be permanently reduced however if commanders are killed in battle, and no son in law is available as a family commander until the game year following his marriage.
THIRDLY, each faction/player has an absolute maximum of three armies which he can use in any one year. If Optional Rule W is not being used, he will have a maximum of two armies for practical purposes.
FOURTHLY, there are economic constraints. At the beginning of the game, each player has a cash reserve of M100,000, and for practical purposes, this is the maximum amount of guaranteed, regular, annual income to which he will have access. For the whole length of the game, the amount of this regular income is unlikely to vary very much. A player may be able to add to it in a modest way by gaining control over Imperial Towns. He may even be able to add to it more dramatically if he can activate Richard of Cornwall and elect and crown him. (As a historical personage, Richard of Cornwall did indeed have huge sums of money which he was happy to disburse to anybody who was prepared to support his bid for the German crown.) A player may, from time to time, be able to add "one-off" windfall payments to his treasury, e.g., by leading armies over the Alps or over the Odra (Oder), or by smashing large enemy armies in battle, but these are not regular payments and cannot be guaranteed. Of course, the converse is also possible. Serious damage to one’s fiefs/family estates as a result of hostile action on the part of one’s opponents, or worse, the permanent loss of a large fief/family estate because one has had to pawn it will reduce the "guaranteed" regular annual income. The wise player therefore must be aware of these points and should not live in the hope that he will be able to supplement his regular annual income to any great extent.
FIFTHLY, in any one April turn, a player will only have access to a limited "pool" of troops. The size and composition of this pool will naturally vary as the game progresses, depending on the degree of the controlling player’s success in gaining (and retaining) permanent and temporary allies. A player’s feudal estates/fiefs provide a pool of 2,000 knights and no mercenaries. If he is very successful in gaining and retaining allies, this number can, in subsequent April turns, be increased very considerably, not only in terms of the number of knights available, but also in terms of the number of mercenaries. Individual contingents of mercenaries can be of considerable size. Both "permanent" and "temporary" allies can however be lost, so that there can never be any guarantee of a steadily rising upward curve as far as the numbers in one’s troop pool are concerned.
GIVEN the foregoing five points, it follows that in any one April turn, the first question that a player should ask himself is how much money he has available to spend. This is because, of all the constraints which I have enumerated above, the question of the amount of money which one has available for all actions in the forthcoming game year is the single biggest limiting factor. Although raising troops is the most important aspect of this factor, it is not the only one. The other factors are also of considerable importance, but, in a sense, money is at the root of the game, and really, nothing can be done by the player who has no money.
SO, under normal circumstances, a player will not spend all of his money in raising troops, as he would naturally want to keep some of it back for other purposes. Most notably, players will keep aside a percentage of their treasury in order to cover the cost of marriages and to cope with unwelcome results of the "change of offers" die-rolls. It would also be wise to keep some money in a contingency fund, just in case one of the player’s fortresses is successfully attacked by an opponent. In such a case, the owner of the fortress would have to pay a sum of money were the opponent to decide to release it or to destroy it. It follows therefore that even at this early stage, there are already practical limits imposed upon the limited amount of money which one has available to decide on how many troops one should raise for the forthcoming game year.
FOR THE purposes of this section, I have assumed that Optional Rule U ("Accelerated Army Groups") is being used. If this is so, then, in crude terms, there are two types of army. One of these is the type which my own group of players terms the "marriage army", but which I shall hereafter refer to as an "escort group". The escort group is small, often consisting of only one commander and just fifty knights (i.e., the smallest possible contingent). Its small size allows it to move at double speed, makes it cheap to raise, cheap to maintain in the extended campaigning season from September to November inclusive, and cheap to disband. Its chief raison d’être is its double move, and indeed, because its degree of military impotence is as stunning as it is, it would be pointless raising such an escort group at all unless Optional Rule U is being used. Where, however, Optional Rule U is being used, it has considerable and very useful advantages. It has four basic functions, two of which are non-military and two of which are of an auxiliary military nature.
THE first of these is to act as an escort group for the female family members when attempting to take advantage of marriage opportunities. When performing this function, an escort group will typically accompany all or most of the unmarried female family members belonging to its faction. These female family members must naturally be assigned to the escort group in the April turn of the year in which it is raised. On occasion, one will find that a player will raise more than one escort group in an April turn with the aim of allowing himself greater flexibility in reaching places where marriages arise, but this tends to be rare.
THE second function is to act as a rapidly moving delegation, aimed at reaching Frankfurt on the Main in order to secure the election of a king. Here its rapidity of movement can allow it, with careful handling, to outflank or outrun enemy armies which deploy so as to attempt to prevent this.
THE third function is to act as a back-up in sieges against blocking fortresses or against fortresses which have a river crossing, but the drawback here is that such an army is naturally weak, so that a hostile army may be able to reach it before the siege is over. If the escort group is defeated in a field battle in these circumstances, the siege will naturally be broken.
THE fourth function is quite an interesting one. Enemy commanders who are captured in military conflicts are assigned initially as prisoners to the army which captures them. Now, such an army is likely to be large (i.e., at least 1,000 knights, and probably larger in size). As such captives can never be assigned to armies which are in reserve, it follows that, if an army which is controlling one or more such prisoners has to be disbanded, the prisoners will have to be released at that point for a fixed ransom of M10,000 each, unless in the turn that the army is to be disbanded, they can be imprisoned in a fortress which is under the control of the player who currently holds them captive. In addition, such a fortress must be in the same area of movement as the army which is escorting the captive(s). Obviously, the best place to imprison enemy captives is one’s most secure fortress. One should also bear in mind that it is likely that an army, on gaining a military success which will allow it to be disbanded without costs, will not be in an area in which such a suitable fortress is located. It could however, perhaps earlier in the game year, have transferred control of such captives to an escort group by a process of redeployment, and the escort group could then take the captive(s) - at double moves - to a suitable fortress. Note here that redeployment, in addition to redeploying troops from one army to another, also covers the meaning of an army splitting into two or three smaller ones. One can therefore, by a process of redeployment, actually create an escort group, provided of course that one has a contingent of the right size and a spare commander, which can be split off from the original army, and of course, one must also have an unused army counter to spare. As far as secure fortresses are concerned, a good example may be that of a Premyzlid player sending captives to Prag or Wien.
CLEARLY therefore, the advantages of raising an escort
group are considerable, but its use also involves considerable problems.
These are centred on the inescapable fact that an escort group is extremely
weak from a military point of view. In fact, it is so weak that it cannot
reasonably hope to have a military success of its own unless it can corner
and defeat another escort group in a field battle, but the likelihood of
this happening is so remote as to be virtu-
ally unthinkable. It follows therefore that care must
be taken in calculating its moves with due regard to the relative positions
of enemy battle armies. Should an escort group be trapped by an
enemy battle army, it is almost certain to be heavily defeated. This would
mean that all unmarried female family members who are being escorted by
it will be sent back into reserve for the remainder of the game year. The
escort group would have to be disbanded at a cost of M50 per knight and
its commander(s) - if he/they survive - will be captured and will have
to be ransomed for at least M10,000 each (or they may even remain captive
for the remainder of the game).
SUCH a risk may be particularly worth taking if the escort group is being used as a delegation to Frankfurt on the Main to secure the election of a king. The risks may in fact not be so great in this particular instance because the rules of the game forbid such a force to be attacked while in Frankfurt, and of course, the town can be exited from either the north or the south.
PERHAPS the function which exposes it to the greatest danger is that in which it acts as a back-up force in a siege directed against a blocking fortress or against a fortress which controls a bridge across a river. Ideally, an escort group would not be used for such a role, but the limited supply of cash and troops available to most players at the beginning of most game years usually precludes the raising of two large battle armies (to say nothing of such fortresses where three army groups are required for a siege), so that this often cannot be helped. Obviously, the easiest way of breaking such a siege is to attack and defeat the (usually) smaller back-up army.
THE second type of army group is that which I shall term a "battle army". In complete contrast to an escort group, a battle army is large. For practical purposes, its size should be such that it is capable of carrying out at least a storm attack (without benefit of a "softening up" siege) against a small town, the intrinsic garrison of which is 400. This means that a battle army should be equivalent to not less than 1,200 knights. If the controlling player has extra funds available in an April turn e.g., by having saved money from the previous year or by having extra cash as a result of having led an army across the Oder or the Alps, he may be able to raise an even more substantial force. So, in one sense, the larger a battle army is, the better, although there may be other constraints, such as one’s task card which could cause one to avoid raising too large a battle army.
OF course, a battle army is capable of carrying out all of the functions of an escort group, with the possible exception of acting as an escort for prisoners who are being delivered to a secure fortress. Its main differences are the fact that it cannot move at double speed and its size which gives it functions which no escort group can carry out. Its main functions are as follows:-
FIRSTLY, it engages in direct military action. It will conduct sieges, storm attacks and field battles against opponents’ fortresses and armies, and it will conduct sieges and storm attacks against the fortresses of neutrals when intervening in feuds.
SECONDLY, it is the sort of army that one will lead over the Alps or the Oder in order to hire it out to the Italian Communes or to the Teutonic Knights in order to gain large sums of extra cash.
THIRDLY, a battle army (in this case consisting of at least 1,000 knights) will be required when escorting an elected king to his coronation in Aachen.
FOURTHLY, it should be used in order to escort male family members to locations where marriage opportunities arise. Readers might reasonably ask why an escort group cannot fulfil this particular function. Of course, an escort group can certainly do so, but I would not recommend such a course of action, in case the escort group is trapped by an enemy battle army and then smashed in the ensuing field battle or storm attack. Were this to happen, one could lose one or more male family members permanently if they do not survive the survival dice-rolls, and if as is likely, the opposing army wins with an "A" or a "G" result, all surviving male family members who were in the escort group would be captured. In fact, I firmly recommend that an escort group should not have more than the one required male family member commanding it for precisely this reason, and it therefore follows that I regard it as a function of the battle army to escort male family members to their weddings, unless there is some really overwhelming reason for doing otherwise.
OF the two types of army which I have mentioned so far, it is the battle army which is the more important despite the fact that it lacks the flexibility of a greater range in movement. The fact that it is required for a king’s coronation, the fact that it is required for going over the Alps or the Oder to gain large amounts of cash and, above all, the fact that it is the only instrument available for intervening in feuds, so gaining allies and more troops as well as being a most vital means of obtaining concealed opportunities cards should make this obvious. This, in effect, covers most of the core methods of fulfilling the requirements of the task cards.
THE PROS AND CONS OF MERCENARIES.
AN ESCORT GROUP will consist purely of knights because this allows for a small contingent which can satisfy the requirements of Optional Rule U. A battle army has no such stricture, and from the second game year onwards, one sees battle armies which contain a greater or a lesser proportion of mercenaries.
THE only drawback of mercenaries is that they are
weak when compared to knights in a field battle in open terrain and in
which knights are involved. In such a case, mercenaries are rated at only
20% of their face value, i.e., when facing knights in a field battle in
open terrain, 500 mercenaries would only represent 100 points of troops,
while 500 knights would represent 500 points of troops. Mercenaries however
cost only one tenth that of an equal number of knights. So in a field battle
in open terrain, 500 mercenaries will have the strength of 100 knights,
but while the 100 knights will cost M5,000 to raise, the 500 mercenaries
will cost
only M2,500. An identical remark applies to both maintenance
during the extended campaigning season and to disbanding armies where they
do not achieve a military success. It follows therefore that, notwithstanding
the fact that mercenaries are weaker than knights in field battles which
occur in open terrain, they are always more cost-effective.
INDEED, the cost-effectiveness of mercenaries increases when they are engaged in a field battle in difficult terrain (forests, marshland and alpine areas) because their military strength in this case is exactly equivalent to that of knights.
FURTHER, depending on their type, the cost-effectiveness of mercenaries increases even more in sieges or in storm attacks, whether as attackers or as defenders. Mercenaries are of three types, viz., pikemen, missile troops (archers and crossbowmen) and siege specialists. In sieges and storm attacks, pikemen remain only as effective as knights, but while knights are always rated at 100% of their face value, missile troops in sieges or storm attacks are rated at 150% of their face value, while siege specialists are actually rated at 200% of their face value!
FOR the most part, mercenaries are obtained through alliances with towns and cities. There are also some mercenaries which are obtained through concealed opportunities cards (see Table I and Table II). Of course, this means that in the first game year, all players will be confined to raising armies consisting only of knights, but during that same first game year, players can, and indeed should start making efforts to gain alliances which will provide mercenaries, which are useful, no matter what task card a player has.
FROM the second game year onwards, it is therefore likely that one will see the appearance of armies which have a proportion of their troops as mercenaries. Such a battle army, if put together carefully, can be an extremely potent instrument for carrying out effective and cheap attacks against fortresses. They are, of course, equally effective and cheap as defenders of fortresses.
MERCENARIES are therefore clearly a very attractive supplement to any player’s battle army, and all players can and should attempt to avail themselves of alliances which provide such troops. My paper entitled "Overview" has already touched upon this point, particularly by giving emphasis to the importance of the role which mercenaries will play in the case of PTC 168. The problem is probably that feuds involving towns are likely to be less common than those involving nobles only, and as it is definitely within PTC 168’s interests to ensure that it is he who gets the lion’s share of alliances which provide mercenaries, players may easily find themselves getting involved in a real clash of interests with their opponents in the game. In these notes, however, I do not want to become too involved in details about specific task cards, a subject into which I have already gone in some detail in "Overview".
GIVEN therefore that a battle army is one of a player’s
most important assets, it follows that, within such constraints as are
applied by his current cash reserves and his needs to obtain marriages
etc., a player must in April, take great care in deciding the size and
the composition of his battle army (or possibly even battle armies).
This is particularly true from the second
game year onwards, as it is possible that the player
may have some access to mercenary troops. Unless there is a specific and
good reason for it, I would not recommend that any battle army should consist
entirely of mercenaries (mainly because of the danger of finding themselves
faced by an opponent’s army which has a large number of knights in open
terrain). I believe, however, that mercenaries, which are cheap and which
can provide very useful capabilities, should be used in battle armies to
augment a strong core of knights. Indeed, I believe that mercenaries can
be used very extensively in this manner, and that there is no reason why
the mercenaries in a battle army should not outnumber the knights, provided
that the total resultant strength points in the battle army in open
terrain conditions are sufficient to cope with hostile battle armies.
SO, what then is the ideal composition of a battle army? Actually, it is impossible to give a truly definitive answer to this question, because so much depends upon variable circumstances in any one April turn, but some general comments can be made and pointers can be given towards the answer, provided some reasonable and logical assumptions are made.
THE first thing to remember is that the chief function of a battle army is to attack fortresses. It is true to say that every player, including even PTC 166 and certainly even PTC 167 will find it important to intervene in feuds. As far as feuds are concerned, each will involve a pair of fortresses. Most of the fortresses on the board are small, by which I mean a castle or small town. There are also a number of medium sized towns. Large towns are comparatively rare, and there are only four cities. Obviously, players will want to ally themselves with cities or with large towns wherever possible. The fact that castles and small towns are as common as they are means that most feuds will be likely to involve at least one small town (although on rare occasions a feud will take place between larger fortresses). When a player intervenes in a feud, he attacks and, if successful, destroys the fortress of one side in order to obtain an alliance with the other. Generally speaking therefore, players will tend to attack the smaller of the two fortresses.
NO matter which of the fortresses is attacked however, the player will have to have an army which is capable of carrying out the attack. Attacking a castle without benefit of a softening up siege (i.e., a direct storm attack) will require a minimum of 300 troop points. For a small town, the minimum number of troop points rises steeply to 1,200. A medium sized town calls for a minimum of 2,700 troop points, a large town will require 4,800 and a city will need no less than 7,500. In practice this means that players will hardly ever find themselves in a position where they can conduct such a storm attack against large towns or cities (although these can, with the right planning, numbers of troops and available time be vulnerable to siege and storm attack). Clearly then, an army with the equivalent of 1,200 points of troops should be the minimum envisaged for a battle army, and anything less than this will probably be ineffective. Costs, however, are a problem. To raise an army of 1,200 knights will cost the sum of M60,000. To raise 2,700 knights will cost M135,000. This would be the figure for storming a medium sized town without a siege using knights only, and this figure is greater than the player’s regular annual income. It is here that mercenaries come into their own.
SO, how about an army of 1,000 knights supplemented by 1,600 siege specialist mercenaries? To raise such a force would cost only M58,000. If such a force were engaged in a field battle in open terrain, its effective points value would be 1,350 because the mercenaries would be worth only 20% of their face value. This however would still be greater in terms of its points value than the army of 1,200 knights. But in a siege or storm attack against a fortress, the effective points value of this mixed force of 1,000 knights and 1,600 mercenaries would be 4,200! In fact, this would be just 600 points short of the number of troop points required for a storm attack without a siege against a large town but with a siege, it could take on even a city.
PLAYERS should therefore read the rules covering sieges and mercenaries with care and understand how to make the calculations which will show them how effective a mixed (i.e., knights and different categories of mercenaries) battle army will be in different attack and defence situations. The foregoing example is just one run up at random, but it should be clear how cheap - relatively speaking - it is to raise such an army. The army given as an example actually contains 2,600 troops and it has the strength to siege any fortress on the map (although a small back-up escort group may also be necessary in the case of a fortress with a river bridge etc.). Its cost effectiveness, when compared with one of an identical size which consists entirely of knights, is amazing: M58,000 compared to M130,000 and the army consisting of 2,600 knights would be incapable of carrying out a storm attack against even a medium sized town unless this were preceded by a siege.
FORTRESSES, ARMIES AND GEOGRAPHY.
FORTRESSES EXIST in the five categories of castle, small town, medium sized town, large town and city. Respectively, they have intrinsic garrisons of 100, 400, 900, 1,600 and 2,500. A glance at these figures shows that, in terms of its intrinsic garrison, any fortress is significantly stronger than one in its immediately preceding category and significantly weaker than one in the immediately following category; for instance, a large town is very much stronger than a medium sized town, but it is much weaker than a city.
Added to this however is the further fact that even within
a single category, some fortresses are stronger than others because they
benefit from the natural defences of a river (where the fortress controls
a river bridge) or from being in difficult terrain, or they may be blocking
fortresses. Some fortresses have combinations of such extra defences, and
these are in fact less uncommon than one might think. Conducting a siege
against a fortress with a river crossing is more difficult than normal
as the fortress must be besieged from the fortress side of the river by
an army which alone must match the minimum numerical criteria for laying
the siege, while yet another force (which may be insignificant in size,
e.g., as low as 50 knights) must be on the other side of the river in order
to hold the bridge. A similar rule applies to blocking fortresses. In the
case of some fortresses, conditions for a siege are even more difficult
as the fortress may have two river bridges (e.g., Münden) or
it may be a blocking fortress which also has a bridge. (There are some
good examples in the Rhineland, and Wien is a rather fine example.) Here
three
armies
will be required to lay and continue a siege. Fortresses in difficult terrain
have the advantage, under the standard rules, of being
completely unassailable unless the attacking force has
either mercenary missile troops and/or siege specialists in its make-up.
Alternatively, the new Optional Rule Y can be played, in which an army
consisting of knights only can besiege and/or storm the fortress, but the
fortress is considered to be upgraded by one category for the purposes
of that particular conflict.
SIEGES can therefore be quite difficult. Yet another difficulty with sieges is that they take time and the fortress might not surrender on demand. (This sort of surrender only applies to neutral fortresses.) These are the main reasons why most players tend to prefer a storm attack without a siege, especially if the fortress concerned is a castle or a small town, notwithstanding the greater number of troops required and the fact of more difficult odds in the attack.
OF course, all fortresses are vulnerable to storm attack. (This vulnerability becomes rather theoretical when a large town or a city is the target.) Where the fortress has a river bridge, a storm attack cannot be launched across the bridge however, but must be made from the area of movement in which the fortress itself is located. Rivers do therefore continue to provide a modicum of defence even against storm attacks which are made without a preceding siege.
THE foregoing points lead to yet another one which is actually very important. Hitherto, I have discussed intrinsic garrisons only, but provided they are available and one has the money to raise them, there is absolutely no limit to the number of faction troops which can be used to augment the intrinsic garrison of a controlled fortress.
THIS means that even a castle can be strengthened by augmenting its intrinsic garrison to the point where it becomes stronger than the intrinsic garrison of a city. Taking what I have said earlier into consideration, obviously, in an ideal situation, the cheapest and most effective way of doing this would be by means of mercenary troops, particularly if these are missile troops and/or siege specialists. For example, although Münden is probably too hard a nut to crack if one were planning a siege against it (because of the two river bridges which will therefore require a siege with three armies), it is very vulnerable to a storm attack from the south. It is, however, a very important fortress from the point of view of strategy as it is one of the fortresses which controls the north-south "route" in the centre of the board. It follows therefore that the Ascanian player (of whose estates it forms a part) should give serious consideration to strengthening it in this way. Other fortresses have importance to their owners. Wiesbaden is a fairly ordinary Rhineland fortress, but in a five player game, it is part of the family estates belonging to the Wettin faction. Its geographical location makes it extremely important to the Wettins, who should think of strengthening it in a similar manner.
CLEARLY THEREFORE, there is the possibility of having yet a third type of army in addition to the escort group and the battle army. This third type of army would be purely defensive in nature and would be raised solely for the purpose of protecting a vital fortress, in which it would spend most or all of the campaigning season until the month ofSeptember. There would have to be, in the vicinity a neutral (or even hostile) fortress which is small enough for this army to attack successfully in September - or in August if it is safe to do so - in order to allow it to disband without payment to the troops or costs for disbanding. Such an army could be termed a "supplementary garrison". Naturally, it should consist solely of mercenaries and preferably of missile troops and/or siege specialists.
ONCE again, Münden can serve as an example. Were Münden protected by 1,600 siege specialists, it would have an effective defensive strength of 100+1,600+1,600 = 3,300 strength points. This means that a storm attack against Münden without the benefit of a preceding siege would compel the attacker to have an army of 9,900 strength points; a proposition which he would hardly bother to think about, let alone hope to attain. And the cost of raising this supplementary garrison? A mere 8,000 marks!
EVERY ARMY, be it an escort group, a battle army or a supplementary garrison, must have at least one commander, who has to be either a male family member or a son in law. Such commanders can be lost permanently in the course of the game by death in battle. They can also be lost temporarily or even permanently, by being taken as captives. One begins the game with just five such commanders i.e., one’s male family members. With marriages to one’s female family members, further commanders are obtained in the shape of sons in law and so the number of possible commanders can be augmented to a maximum number of ten. The sons in law are represented as commanders by their wives’ counters. The problem is that a degree of loss of such commanders through death in battle is perfectly normal during the course of a game, and a player who loses none of his commanders is exceedingly fortunate. A player can indeed count himself lucky if he loses only one or two. An army which loses all of its commanders must be disbanded immediately. Army commanders, like troops, must be assigned to their armies in the April turn. They are likely to remain with the armies to which they have been assigned until the army is disbanded later in the game year unless they are lost through death, or leave the army through marriage or re-deployment. (With the marriage of an army commander, his counter leaves the army and goes into the faction’s reserve for the remainder of the game year.) Note that where commanders are captured, their army, to which they were assigned, will have lost heavily in a battle and would have had to be disbanded anyway. Not only can army commanders die in battle, but they can also die in leading an army over the Alps or the Oder. They can also become the victims of assassination attempts, although in this case they would have had to have been in the reserve. Where a male family member is lost through death for one reason or another, he is lost to the faction for the remainder of the game. Sons in law however have a greater flexibility which is denied to male family members insofar as, if a son in law is lost, his widow can re-marry and so a new, replacement son in law can be obtained.
IT is therefore necessary to plan ahead for the possibility
of such losses, but one should bear in mind that even with careful forward
planning, Fortune (who is represented in the game by a set of dice), can
deal nasty, and even unexpected, blows. (I remember the case of a Premyzlid
army with three commanders which attacked a small town very early in a
game
year with complete and utter success. Not one of those
three commanders survived the survival dice rolls.)
COMMANDERS will therefore be exposed to the danger of loss. This exposure to such danger cannot be avoided but sensible planning and avoiding unnecessary risks can go some way to limiting the degree of danger. The problem is that the game system is balanced in such a way that the total avoidance of risks to one’s commanders is not possible. To an extent, players will have to decide for themselves what they consider to be an acceptable risk in a particular set of circumstances, and the number of commanders in any army can be one way of lessening the overall risk to the army of having to be disbanded before the controlling player wishes to do so. As far as the numbers of commanders in an army are concerned, my own recommendations are as follows:-
THE EFFECTIVE RANGES OF ARMIES.
WHILST THE sizes of the armies which one raises are restricted by the number of troops one has available and the amount of money one has in one’s treasury during the April turn, the range at which an army can operate from the location in which it is raised is restricted to a large extent by the game calendar and the rules which state firstly that one must pay on disbanding an army which has failed to obtain a military success in the month in which one chooses or is forced to disband it, and secondly to pay troops in any of the months of September, October and November if they do not have a military success in the month in question. The payments involved are high, and effectively penalise the player as they are equivalent to the amount required to raising the army in the April turn. An army which is disbanded without a military success in, say, September will cost its owner twice the amount that it cost him to raise it in April, i.e., one April equivalent for disbanding it and yet another April equivalent for paying the troops, whilst simply failing to obtain a military success in say, September, without disbanding the army will cost one April equivalent for paying the troops.
FOR practical purposes therefore, one can say that an army is usually safe from financial penalties during the campaigning season which lasts from April until the end of August, unless of course it fails to achieve a military success and is forced to disband in the same month. In practice, the campaigning season does not include the month of April because this month is given over to raising troops and organising one’s armies. In April no movement takes place and no actions, whether military or non-military can be carried out. Effectively, this means that the campaigning season lasts just four months (turns).
AN escort group can move two areas per month. This gives it a maximum range of eight movement areas and four actions during the campaigning season. A battle army moves only one area per month. Here, the maximum range is four movement areas and four actions for the campaigning season.
AFTER the campaigning season, there follows the extended campaigning season of September, October and November: six extra movement areas and three possible extra actions for an escort group but only three extra movement areas and three possible extra actions for a battle army. Of course, unless it manages to defeat another escort group in a field battle, an escort group will have to be paid for in each of these months during which it remains active, and a payment will almost certainly have to be made when it is disbanded in addition. By definition, an escort group is unlikely to have a military success. A battle army is on safer ground during the extended campaigning season to the extent that it is probable that it can obtain a military success in each of these months, even if this merely consists of storming a castle. One must note however that, whilst a player may be able to cover the costs of maintaining and disbanding an escort group during the extended campaigning season, failure to obtain a military success for a battle army during this period will result in quite severe financial "penalties". In particular, woe betide the player who fails to obtain a military success for a battle army in November!
PROVIDED a battle army is not forced to disband during the campaigning season, the main problem facing its controlling faction will be to decide whether to keep it active after the end of the August turn. In my own experience, players tend to aim for a military success (even if it only means crushing a castle) in August and then to disband the army in the same month. Those who fail to obtain such a success can try again in September and hope for the best. Even if such a player is successful in September, he will almost certainly disband the army in that month. Generally speaking, players avoid keeping a large army active in the field in the extended campaigning season simply because of the financial risks, which can easily be big enough to destroy any chances of winning the game. My own recommendation is therefore that maintaining a large active army in September, October and November is dangerous, and probably not worth the risks involved.
THIS naturally leaves one with the problem of a limited range of movement for one’s battle army/armies. One must therefore make efforts to circumvent this problem by attempting to form alliances with nobles in areas which are quite far removed from one’s home base; i.e., by intervening in feuds where the potential ally is far removed from one’s fiefs. If one is successful, one will be able, in a subsequent April turn, to raise an army in the ally’s fortress. So, for example, the Premyzlid player will find it useful to obtain allies in the Rhineland or Ascania, and in areas on the left bank of the Rhine or the right bank of the Danube. Carefully chosen allies can effectively increase one’s potential range in this way. Always bear this in mind. For instance, because of the sheer density of neutral holdings in the Rhineland, many marriages and many feuds emerge in this area. Hence the importance of Wiesbaden to its Wettin owners: hence the importance to any player of obtaining a base - or better even, several - in this area.
CONCLUSION.
THE foregoing points are intended as notes rather than as an essay, and may not cover all of the important aspects of raising, operating and disbanding armies in the game. Clearly, any player should make an effort to be as flexible as possible. True, the fact that once an army is raised, one has but very few possibilities to make changes to it during the course of the game year, but as the game progresses and one obtains more allies, one also obtains a wider range of troops and a wider range of bases from which to launch one’s armies across the face of mediaeval Germany.
K.E. Van der Schyff.
London: 17 April, 1999.
TABLE I. Mercenaries Provided by Alliances with
Towns.
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In the addition to the above: 1. the towns of Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck and Stralsund are Hanseatic towns which provide no troops, but which permit sea movement instead. 2. The town of Augsburg offers 500 missile troops, and those of Köln and Straßburg each provide 800 siege specialists, but the cards of these three towns are not used in the standard game.
TABLE II. Mercenaries Provided by Alliances through Concealed
Opportunities Cards.
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TABLE III. Neutral Lay Nobility.
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TABLE IV. Neutral Clerical Nobility.
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(Minor corrections February11th 2001)