Quote from: robertliguori on May 19, 2023, 09:10:43 AM
There is enough weird stuff in D&D, I feel, that the general marginal value of a common soldier is low in the best of circumstances, and can well end up negative; my default assumption is that D&D armies are small but elite

This was true IRL too. Knights were the adventurers of their day; mail/plate & warhorse the magic items.

Quote from: S'mon on May 19, 2023, 06:46:17 AM

Quote from: SHARK on May 19, 2023, 02:59:26 AM
AND, an added dynamic, is by embracing such, you then really get to grapple with adventure scenarios and problems that a simple FIREBALL cannot solve.

A few fireballs can solve smaller army-related problems pretty well. 

BTW I've been working on a tactical mass battle system for D&D, inspired by Eric Diaz - http://simonyrpgs.blogspot.com/2023/05/diaz-freeform-mass-combat-system.html

Greetings!

That is looking like a pretty nifty mass combat system, my friend! I think I like it!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I have coincidentally spent perhaps three weeks now working on a draft for army recruitment and mass combat. I initially started from first principles, researching how classical and medieval armies were commanded and controlled, but I've been drawing from Commands & Colors as well as One Page Rules for the actual combat system. Although the actual battle rules only occupy around 6 pages, the whole chapter's become a 32-page monstrosity that's taken up a good sixth of my book's total size, which is a bit amusing for something that was at first only meant to be a relatively light diversion. It's a heavy topic! You need a lot of space to do it justice.

It really helps if you don't have PCs capable of becoming gods (which also helps tremendously with keeping the campaign setting coherent). My home system and setting assumptions cap out at a relatively low power and upper levels don't give much of a benefit, so no single PC will likely ever take on an army by themselves.

Greetings!

I'm always reminded of the fact that when the Emperor Qin--the first Emperor of the Chinese Empire--sat upon his great Dragon Throne, confident in the Mandate of Heaven, the Emperor Qin commanded a professional army of 1,000,000 soldiers. These soldiers were all armoured in iron mail, shield, helmets, keen iron swords; the halberd; war-axe; spears and javelins; crossbows and longbows. They had all served in the campaigns to crush many other mighty kingdoms, and had been fighting for 20 years and more. By the Emperor's orders, an entire industry of armies of craftsman had been established to create and supply his armies with all the sinews of war, day and night. There were strict quality standards established on the mass production of every kind of armour, weapon, and supplies of war.

The Emperor Qin commanded armies also of labourers and craftsmen alike. Over 1 million Chinese labourers worked to build the Great Wall of China. Almost overnight, the Emperor organized hundreds of thousands of *additional* labourers to form up into caravans, bringing food supplies and water to the massive labour force constructing the Great Wall. Working in relays and toiling for 16, 18 hours a day, for several *years* to keep the construction crews safe and well-supplied. The Emperor Qin had the Great Canal built, entirely transforming interior river-borne travel and trade for the empire, forever. Vast Imperial Libraries were established, with hundreds of thousands of books written, and gathered from scholars allover the empire. Then, mass copies were made and distributed to smaller libraries. Entire MOUNTAINS were dug into, moved, and levelled. Gone. By the Emperor's will. Whole rivers had their courses changed, again, by the will of the Emperor. In just a few years, entire cities and mighty fortress-citadels were raised up--again, merely by the command of the Emperor. All of this occurred in the first century A.D.; long before the "Middle Ages" of Europe. The Emperor Qin had entire armies of light horsemen and heavily-armoured horsemen, using swords, axes, lances, and shields--again, long before Europe.

Similarly, the Emperor Chandragupta, of the Gupta Empire in 400 A.D., commanded a vast army of some 400,000 profeessional troops; 30,000 armoured horsemen; 3,000 armoured War Elephants. All of these troops likewise were armoured with fine mail and shield, great 7-foot longbows for the archers; and spear, javelin, swod, axe,mace,and Halberd for the rest. All were vigorouslytrained, and finely-equipped in every supply of war. The mighty Gupta Empire repelled and crushed mighty Hun invasions from the north, while simultaneously fighting and conquering powerful Indian kingdoms across central and southern India.

Genghis Khan and his descendents marched an army of 200,000 Mongolian warrior into Peria, annihilating the entire Middle East. That was merely *one* of many Mongolian armies. At the same time, vast Mongolian armies were matching through China, and conquering the Jin Empire, and then, the Song Empire, province by province. All the while yet *another* huge Mongol army of over 100,000 troops were conquering Ukraine and invading Europe. Poland, Hungary, the Balkan states, all of them were on their knees before the Mongol conquerors. In Turkey and the Anatolian region, the feared Seljuk Empire? The Mongol armies ravaged and destroyed in swiftly, and reduced what was left to being vssal states, groveling and begging on their knees. All of this going on, virtually at the same time. The Mongols crushed and annihilted the Tangut Empire; the Jin Empire; the Song Empire; the Kwarazam Empire; the Abassaid Caliphate; the Sejuk Empire; the Kievan Rus; The Empire of the Volga Bulgars; the Kingdom of Poland; the Kingdom of Hungary; the Kingdom of Bulgaria; and many other states and kingdoms.

I think it is beneficial and meaningful to look at what was going on--and what was kingdoms and empires were truly capable of--long before the later Dark Ages of Western Europe, or just staying stuck on some hamlet-sized fiefdom in England, France, or Germany. Beyond such a limited scope of the geography of Western Europe, and the narrow view of a limited Medieval time frame, both concurrently, and centuries beofrehand, there was far more going on in other pats of the world.

It is kind of sobering to consider that the Emperor Qin, for example, had already lived through--and annihilated the Chinese "Medieval Era" before his victories to unify the realm of the seven kingdoms, and establish the Qin Empire. Landed, country-estate holding, hereditary nobles had been changed entirely, and put in their place. They would bow to a new system--the Empire. This, again, was all systemically accomplished within a similar context to the Western European Medieval Era, 1200 years beforehand.

I tend to think that such vast authority, such vast wealth, such vast organization, and also the vast armies of common, ordinary soldiers which made all of these migty empires possible--serves as a kind of magic all their own.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK