Long Distance Wars Impossible?

[Perth]

Just got this from the Player of the Morek General:

Out-of-Character from Helm Altenahr   (56 minutes ago)
Message sent to: Adrian Solostus, Julius Galvez, Kale Perth, Mathias Ridder, Norgard Kaltenthal
Players of allied Generals,

The rules for long distance warfare are broken. They need to be fixed.

This is what happened when we attacked Aurvandil with troops set to Mercenary so they should have been ok at long distance fighting:

"Your men are fed up and lonely, far away from home and quite unhappy about it. Every evening, they complain loudly and yell at you that they want to return home. Morale of your troops falls 60 points."

This is crazy! 60% loss of morale in one turn with mercenaries means that war simply cannot be carried out at distance even for one turn!

Also, once I landed I can't embark because no provisions. This is ok as a rule, but it compounds the problem of low morale by stopping a retreat by sea.

"Low morale combined with the danger of starving at sea due to low provisions causes your men to refuse the boarding command."

Thats why I've called off the attack before we lose more troops needlessly. Morek is unable to fight at that distance dammit! I've lost 2 whole armies and tried different tactics but it just isn't possible. I'm not going to lose another army.

Mohammed Qureshi

Is Long Distance Warfare really intended to be basically impossible?

No intention to seem like sour grapes here or anything. This is not a complaint simply because my character's side is having a hard time. I'm just honestly curious if, on an island the size of Dwilight, you are really only intended to be able to fight realms in your own relative proximity?

[Scarlett]

Is there no way to steal provisions via looting? Or buy them in a town where you control the field? (I ask because I don't know - I haven't fought much on the islands with provisions)

[Vellos]

Provisions aren't really the main issue– the main issue is morale.

I've wondered this myself.

Both in terms of gameplay and realism, mechanics that set such hard upper limits on long-distance wars don't make sense.

[Lanyon]

Maybe the distance armies can march from home should have to do with the Marshals/TL's leadership ability. Like Alexander getting his troops to march to india for example.

[Chaotrance13]

If memory serves, I believe that regarding this issue the Devs said that Mercenary was not designed to be a cure-all for long-distance warfare - in other words, if the distance was still quite large, then you would still suffer significant penalties. As such, I think they said that they weren't going to touch it (at least not at the moment). There should be a thread on it in the Development forum or the Feature Requests forum.

[Scarlett]

You can certainly make a case that a medieval army would not fight a war half a world away. The Crusades were exceptions to that (well, and the mongols) but they cost a fortune.

I'm not sure it makes sense to lose 60% in one go. Speed up the pace, sure, but your average medieval soldier didn't have much notion of distance anyway, certainly not when ships were involved. If you were paying them double as mercenaries they'd be more likely to complain about their contract being up than that you'd crossed a magical boundary beyond which they would desert.

[Tom]

Is Long Distance Warfare really intended to be basically impossible?

Yes. It is very much intended that you fight your neighbours and that long distance wars are quite hard.

As in most of these stories, I am fairly sure that we are only getting part of the picture. I would be surprised if the morale penalty went from zero to 60% in one turn. Probably sea travel is involved. And don't forget that Morek - Aurvendil is probably the largest distance you can have in the entire game as well.

[^ban^]

Is Long Distance Warfare really intended to be basically impossible?

As far as I know, yes.

I don't like it much either.

[Lorgan]

Where is the time that your men were happy to be far away from home? :)

[Perth]

Where is the time that your men were happy to be far away from home? :)

When their pockets are full of gold and loot and their bellies are full of food.

[Chenier]

And the angry in-laws far away. ;)

[Penchant]

Yes. It is very much intended that you fight your neighbours and that long distance wars are quite hard.

As in most of these stories, I am fairly sure that we are only getting part of the picture. I would be surprised if the morale penalty went from zero to 60% in one turn. Probably sea travel is involved. And don't forget that Morek - Aurvendil is probably the largest distance you can have in the entire game as well.

What is the distance based off of? Nearest realm border? Capital of realm? Center of realm? I am 90% certain I have been in Chesney as a D'haran with a mercenary unit and they were complaining about being two far away, that's only 250 miles.

[Chenier]

What is the distance based off of? Nearest realm border? Capital of realm? Center of realm? I am 90% certain I have been in Chesney as a D'haran with a mercenary unit and they were complaining about being two far away, that's only 250 miles.

The effects were tweaked after that first campaign a bit.

[GoldPanda]

This is pretty much the only reason certain realms are still alive.  :P

[Tom]

I've gone through the database because I'm a fan of truth.

First: Yes, this drop really happened. At least once to one person. There was also one case of 67 points, one of 52 points, and one each of 48, 47 and 46 points.

Second: At least for the 60 points case posted here, the character affected is currently a distance of 2128 miles or 3425 km away from his capital. That is almost precisely the distance from London to Jerusalem (2245 miles). Or in other words: It's a distance that happened twice or so in the history of medieval Europe.

Third: To answer the initial question more specifically: Yes, war over that kind of distance should definitely be as close to impossible as we can make it without drawing a "you shall not pass" line on the map.