Long Distance Wars Impossible?

[Indirik]

They are risking death, for what?

God and Gold. What other reasons do they need?

To be honest, though, I am ambivalent on the long distance warfare thing. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing.

[MediumTedium]

We will NOT make wars across distances like this easier. Period.

I will, however, look into the massive morale drops. I agree that 60% in one turn is a bit on the heavy side. We might cap it at 40% or so. Or maybe add a "soft cap" beyond 30%. I'm open to discussing that.

If i may say anything below 30% of long distance morale drops would be same as removing it all together.

[Chenier]

If i may say anything below 30% of long distance morale drops you can potentially remove it all together if u make it too low.

In one turn...

10% sounds like a reasonable cap to me. 30% mean that you land in some doughnut, you are down to 70%. If you want to fight a city, you then battle the doughnut, and you are down to maximum 40% (plus battle penalties), and then when you attack the city, you are left with pretty much 0%? Otherwise, you could just land, and then head straight back home, and your unit will kill itself without a battle anyways. 60% is ridiculous. But so is 30%. A single battle is pretty much impossible with 30%, unless low morale ceased to cause units to disperse and instead only made them less effective in battle.

[MediumTedium]

So 5 regions away from my Capital i loose drops 3-6 points and you want to make it for ex 20+ regions away from capital to enemy region only 10 morale drop? Then lets make it there are no distance penalties and travel time is instant. Wohoo

[vonGenf]

If i may say anything below 30% of long distance morale drops would be same as removing it all together.

I think he meant 30% per day, not 30% overall.

[MediumTedium]

I think he meant 30% per day, not 30% overall.

10% is still low for that big distance from Capital. Plus Tom said its game mechanic to make long distance wars almost impossible. 10% would make it too easy.

[Chenier]

So 5 regions away from my Capital i loose drops 3-6 points and you want to make it for ex 20+ regions away from capital to enemy region only 10 morale drop? Then lets make it there are no distance penalties and travel time is instant. Wohoo

Morale penalties are cumulative. So why would they need to be exponential, or even linear as well?

You talk as if these penalties were the only thing making long-distance warfare hard. They aren't. It takes a lot of time and a lot more gold to fight far away.

To me, it just makes no sense that units revolt on their own, just because of distance. I never asked that they be useful abroad, or that it be cheap. It's just units revolting on their own that I have issues with.

[MediumTedium]

Well how else would you make some penalties to long distance wars? Only up the cost of it? Realms with big money would clearly have huge advantages then over less richer realms.

[Vellos]

Well how else would you make some penalties to long distance wars? Only up the cost of it? Realms with big money would clearly have huge advantages then over less richer realms.

WIth all due respect, that's a bit nonsensical.

Of course rich realms do, and should, have some advantage. That advantage should obviously diminish with size.

IMHO, I like the idea of making "mercenary" create a "fixed morale drop," but have escalating price with distance from home.

So you might be able to preserve your morale at 70% or so... and be paying 4x or 5x as much per day for your unit. And maybe still an increased battle-penalty (mercs don't actually like fighting, obviously, especially far from home).

Which means that a realm would be able, for a long-range campaign, to field 1/4 or 1/5 its normal CS. It would deteriorate rapidly after battles and be fiendishly expensive to maintain, and no realm would be able to field a massive army of conquest at a very long range. We'd be seeing long-range armies of 3-5k CS. Which seems totally plausible. A large coalition of several big realms, which was able to work out lots of diplomatic hurdles, coordinate lots of different people and different interests, and agree upon a target, should, generally, have the capability to strike at it.

Realms should not be able to sit in the corner of the continent and yell insults at everyone else, then sit there smugly while vast armies desert in anti-war protests immediately after landfall.

[Azerax]

what is the reason behind the morale loss?  If you look back at any campaign in history, they usually lasted years, and desertion wasn't really an issue until they started to lose.  Distance isn't really an issue, it's winning battles that did.

[Tom]

what is the reason behind the morale loss?

Making long-distance wars very hard to do. ;-)

[Azerax]

so the medieval simulation theory  goes out the window since it doesn't apply to this.  ok.

[Bedwyr]

With all due respect, this is a load of bologna.

Anything begun with "all due respect" has none.

Second of all, there were 14 crusades. Very few of them involved setting up puppet realms along the road. Off the top of my head, I'm unaware of any crusader state that would fit such a description other than perhaps Edessa.

Please refer to my point that few actual states were set up, but military occupation and domination certainly occurred and resulted in benefits that in Battlemaster can only be obtained in-realm.

Third, let's be clear: they were able to march to Israel, and fight multiple battles and sieges. Even if we adjust for BM tactics which are very different (campaigns don't usually feature more than just a very few major battles), morale losses should not be so crippling as to force armies to withdraw before entering combat.

They also had (relatively) nearby logistics bases they could use.

We're not talking about a vast overland journey here. We're talking about a journey by ship through friendly, inland seas (certainly friendly than the Medieval Mediterranean for most of the way). The army should not be deserting at first landfall, or even soon after.

You think being cooped in in a boat over any distance is good for morale?  It's absolutely terrible.  Being stuffed into conditions more crowded than any field camp would ever be, a significant percentage of them seasick, and even the friendliest of seas have storms to exacerbate all of those problems.

I fully grasp the importance of these types of mechanics: I'm just suggesting that maybe the specifics need revisiting. Yes, mounting long-range campaigns should be a major task of great expense which can only be carried out by powerful, stable realms. A realm that could field 20,000 CS on its border might only be able to field 5,000 CS on such a campaign. But such a thing should still be possible. As of now, our multiple attempts to make it work on Dwilight suggest that... it kind of isn't. It really doesn't matter your settings, your preparation, your provisions or whatever– your army is going to start deserting you very, very soon after landing. Certainly before you could ever finish a TO and hold off an army trying to break that TO.

Per Tom, it's not supposed to be possible.

[^ban^]

Making long-distance wars very hard to do. ;-)

What is the reasoning behind this? Why do we want them to be difficult?

[Dante Silverfire]

What is the reasoning behind this? Why do we want them to be difficult?

1. Long-Distance wars allow large powerful realms to prevent conflict amongst other realms far away from their true sphere of power. This limits inter-activity and allows a single concerted power base to ruin fun interactions between others.

2. A coalition of forces can engage in wars which gain them nothing except hurting other realms or players. With a limitation placed upon what distances they can reasonable engage in conflict, they are forced to consider conflicts much closer to home, and more realistically applicable to their characters and their own realm's ambitions.

3. To discourage gang-bang politics.

(Just some of my thoughts, and from what I've drawn of Tom stating elsewhere, all kind of meshed together)