The war from the beginning should have been close to a stalemate, maybe favoring Arcaea a little, but not much. Zonasa's long refit times really hurt Aenilia as well as Kindara's relative inaction. Although combined Aenilia and Zonasa may have been stronger than Arcaea, Arcaea benefited from her position close to the front. When Zonasa was on her long refit, the Aenilians didn't stand a chance. I think they could have done a bit better in defending themselves and I really expected them to put up at least 10k CS in defense of their regions, but alas, 5k CS was all the Aenilians could really muster. A real pittance compared to the days of Orphen and Tharion when just the regions of Nahad, Idapur, Ornaz and Erahol fielded 15k CS. Ah... those were good days. Anyway....
On to the point. It's true, there were a lot of mistakes made in the last conflict, on both sides really. I wouldn't claim Arcaea's tactics to be great by any stretch. They were simply more effective than Zonasa/Aenilia's. They could have sacked Idapur long before but stuck to attempting TOs of Nahad and destroying production in Ornaz. With Ipsosez producing food (well, until a replacement Duke couldn't be named anyway) Aenilia was always going to be able to feed herself. Plus, at least early on, Arcaea stretched a bit and left herself exposed to counter attacks. Some of the early victories Zonasa scored could have been a bit more level I think.
But as far as Zonasa's errors, I wouldn't pin any of them on anyone or anything in particular. Just with every trip north it seemed something would go wrong. On the early trips, Zonasa did not have a very defined goal. It was unclear what the war was really about (as Jenred was quick to point out, the premise for the war was dubious at best). So Zonasa marched north for the sake of marching to aid her allies in Aenilian (who kinda had grounds about defending Arcachon, although Zonasa really didn't care about Arcachon. Pretty weak stuff, but meh)... which doesn't provide much direction at all. Erandi wanted the conflict to go in one direction (Zonasa staying in Aenilian territory and simply defending against Arcaean onslaughts), but of course that would be a foolish tactic for the Arcaeans and it was quickly apparent that Zonasa would have to go on the offensive, even if she didn't have much of a reason to. Conveniently, Jenred and Arcaea gave Zonasa a reason when they assaulted Nahad. Throughout all the campaigns it was nearly impossible to get the Aenilians on the same page. Xarnelf was suceptible to overly-ambitious marches and doomed assaults (marching 4k CS of Aenilian troops against 8k CS of Arcaeans a day before Zonasa's armies arrived being one example). Just a simple mismanagement of resources...
So Kindara never really did anything. I mean, they 'marched to the defense of Aenilia'. Which is what Zonasa always wanted to do, but given that Arcaea used those stalemates to shuffle nobles from the front into refitting... it really hurt Aenilia/Zonasa more than helped. Erandi tried to explain this to Tissaphernes, but to no avail. Unfortunate.
On a later campaign, Xarnelf went with a small cadre of nobles and assaulted Talex, which effectively left Zonasa doing the babysitting of Aenilian territories instead of sacking the city, wasting an entire campaign. The next time around, Zonasa was poorly organized due to an apparently popular weekend to be OOC away from the game. It seemed everyone missed a turn or two or four and the last assault on Talex just ended up being incredibly rushed and disorganized. Pretty bad luck and a little communication would have gone a long way. Oh yea, and the Aenilians failed to show up for that one too. Oh well.
Lessons learned: When moving in large groups, always take things slow. Also, when evenly matched, attack as far away from the enemy's capital as you can. Make the enemy stretch to defend herself. Marching on Larmebsi did wonders to destabilize Arcaea's Southern regions (Talex, Hupar, etc...), but given Arcaea's quick refit times due to the proximity of their capital, it was clear Arcaea would always come back to defend her regions before any lasting gains could be made. And finally, this is probably the most important lesson learned: Have an endgame in mind before marching to war. You can't plan a course of action if you don't know where you're trying to get to.
Your thoughts?
