*Duval's Guide fell off of the forum, so I have reposted it (I saved it a good while back). Something went wrong with the title, but the mods will change it ASAP. Thanks guys.
GeraldDuval

Posted 16 February 2008 - 09:46 AM
This guide is made for those of you crazy enough to try and undertake RPing an army, a navy, a group of soldiers…anything. Obviously each and every RP is different. There are varying amounts of realism, so please feel free to pick and choose what you would like to follow. This isn’t meant to be a be all end all guide, merely a general primer. DO NOT look for tips on tactics, strategies, or suggested styles of fighting.

In this guide I’m going to say some things, especially about weapons and the mindset of soldiers some might find silly, controversial or downright wrong. However, this guide is not the place, and neither was it intended, to hash up old pointless arguments like can an arrow really pierce chain mail, the effectiveness of a cavalry charge, etc. If you have a very strong opinion about that kind of stuff, PM me, I love history arguments. Now, onto the guide.

The Golden Rule

***Soldiers are normal people, and normal people don’t want to die!***

If you only read one thing in this whole guide, It should be this. Your men are not mindless killing machines, they are brothers, fathers, sons, shopkeepers, clerks, farmers, coopers and the occasional gentry. Just like it's hard to imagine your local barber or your cousin to go off and start hacking through orcs left and right, its hard for your men to do as well. Like everyone they are goverend by rules like fear, hunger, fatigue, hope, thirst, desire etc., etc.. Your army should be as much of a living, breathing, complex character as your generals or knights.

Before the battle
Equipment - When you create your army and start to describe what type of equipment they wear, think long and hard about the environment. Campaigning though Skyrim? Furs and heavy blankets might be a good idea. Wandering around the Alik’r? Probably could lose some of that hot armor. Now, part 2. Yea, it’d be awesome if you had a whole army equipped in enchanted ebony armor with claymores, bows and silver poisoned arrows. Imagine though how much that would cost to outfit a couple thousand guys. My wallet aches just thinking about it. Rare armor is rare for a reason. Give the bulk of your men normal kit.

On the march - Human beings are reasonably sensible. Time and again simple soldiers prove that an army on campaign is an army that can travel light. During Sherman’s grand march through Georgia (God save the Union [img]file:///C:/2d19accad46c967d2559d15e102f/Documents/Word%20Documents/Other/ES/RP%27s%20and%20FF/GDs_abraisive_guide_to_Battle_RPs_files/tongue.gif[/img]) one of his bummers was kind enough to keep a good diary. In it he explained that he cut his blanket in half to save some weight. Now just stop and think about that for a second. If a pound and a half of extra blanket is that burdensome to merit chopping it in half, do you really thing your TES army feels like carrying around a pike, a longsword, and a shield and a crossbow on top of a suit of dwemer? Not likely. This brings me to another good point. Tents. Forget everything you’ve ever seen at a reenactment or in the movies. Big tents are heavy, difficult to dry and way to much effort to set up. Sure a general or a lord knight will get a spiffy tent, but by and large the PBI (Poor bloody infantry) will have to make due with shelter halves or even nothing at all.

Baggage - again, not the glorious thing that makes for a good movie or dramatic painting, but still vital. If you are going to carry around food, and tents and ammunition, and the inevitably necessary medical supplies, it has to be carried somewhere. The army is usually followed by a long line of carts, mules, spare horses, wagons, camp followers, sutlers, etc. This baggage train will also contain your vital pay chests that allow you to keep such a large army together. To lose your baggage train is basically the death knell of your campaign, no food, no supplies no money. It’s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman%27s_March to campaign without a baggage train, but it puts a huge strain on your men.

Rough terrain - ever read a history book and been amazed how simple things always prove the biggest problem? The English army was nearly trapped in France during the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt campaign because of a river. The French army at the same battle were massacred because a muddy field made it hard to ride horses. The Takeda army was destroyed by the Oda at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nagashino because of a bamboo fence. The Army of the Potomac was decimated at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fredericksburg because of a hill and a wall. Get the point? What is easy for one person to get by, alone is next to impossible for an army of thousands. This goes for forests, rivers, swamps, thick undergrowth, sand, mud, etc. There is a reason why battles are usually fought in big open fields and why armies like to march on roads.

Mobilizing - Hurry up and wait. Anyone who has ever been in the army or worked with an army knows exactly what I’m talking about. If you want your men lined up, ready to march at 7am, you’ve got to wake them up at 4 or 5. It takes time to gather people and get them ready to fight. Ideally you’ll know there’s a battle soon, and they can prepare the night before.

Basic needs - Food, water, shelter. Without your army will be in some serious trouble. I really hope I don’t have to say much on this.


The Battle
Taking casualties - please be fair in this. It is my own personal belief that the more willing you are to take damage, the more willing other RPers will be to receive yours. So do take casualties, and do it in abundance. Now the general rule for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualty_%28person%29is a 1:4 ratio. That is, one man dead for every four injured. It fluctuates through time, sometimes being higher, sometimes lower, but 1:4 is a good mid-line ratio. There should be far more hurt people than dead people. This can have a serious effect especially when you take into account that for every wounded man, there is at least 2 others caring for him.

Hurting the enemy - Character control is an easy thing to distinguish. Army control (?) is a bit hazier. There is a dangerous grey area as to what is acceptable to say about the enemy army. Tread lightly. IMHO it’s ok to say you kill a single soldier in your post. It’s less so to say you’re hacking left and right, loping off arms and legs and killing scores. It’s absolutely bad and verboten to say things like, “My men were carving their way through the enemy center” or “for every one of my man that died, I killed three of theirs”. just like for a one on one fight RP, it’s enough to say we aimed and fired, or the men were fighting like this HOPING to kill twice as many.” Ideally you should PM the person your fighting and work it out in the background.

Surrendering (the S word) - People in the army are just that, people (or elves, or beasts) and with a few exceptions, you should see the golden rule. If you are in a hopeless fight, try surrendering. I guarantee that your opponent will be surprised. At the very least this will give him a headache as he now has to care for you and your men. It also brings up an excellent chance to interact with the other side. Surrendering is not dishonorable or cowardly, it is a normal part of a military on campaign. In the middle ages, it was commonplace for knights to surrender (or in their terms, yield) because of the golden rule; that was the whole point of fighting. If you got lucky, you captured someone rich, and ransomed them away. One good prisoner and you won ye olde lottery.

Prisoners - Unlike the movies, spitting in the face of your captor is probably not a good idea. If you ever get the chance to read a published diary, you’ll understand how terrifying the experience is. You are at the complete mercy of whoever captured you. Outright defiance is akin to hanging a bright neon please kill me sign around your neck (see golden rule). You want to be defiant? Keep your dignity, have your men march better than the enemy. Parade your captured soldiers as if they were the emperors personal guard on coronation day. Don’t do anything that could be taken as outright defiance or rebellion.

Last Stands - Don’t, just don’t. They are so common in war Rps, that its a cliché now. The gallant last stand, where the men fall, facing the enemy, valiant to the last are touching and noble deeds in real life, but they are very, very rare. Forgive me for sounding like a snob, but leave heroics to real heroes.

Withdrawing - There is nothing wrong with pulling back. Let me repeat that, there is nothing wrong with pulling back. Out numbered? In a bad position? Leave, simple as that. Why stay and fight if you have no hope of winning? See golden rule if it‘s still unclear.

Withdrawing in the face of the enemy - Difficult, extremely difficult. This is right up there with having an army march on two different roads and come back together as the most difficult military maneuver. A withdrawal can VERY EASILY become a break, or rout. Imagine being there, under constant attack, scared tired and thirsty. You’re going backwards anyway, why not just run to safety? Please see the golden rule.

Breaking/routing - like surrendering, this is rarely seen in War Rps, and like surrendering, this is much more common in real life than we’d imagine. There is a difference between cowardice and panic. Think of the Spartans. History’s most [censored] badasses right? “This is Spartaaaaaa” and all. They even broke, ran terrified from two hundred [censored] couples (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theban_Sacred_Band, IMHO, one of the best fighting units in history). Go on Wikipedia and look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leuctra. Does that change anyone’s opinion of their fighting ability? No. Everyone has a breaking point, some are higher than others, but it’s still there. If you are pressed hard on two sides and under a constant and heavy missile/spell fire, chances are your guys would prefer to get the hell out of there rather than wait to die. Again, see golden rule, and last stands.

Reforming - Complete and utter routs do happen, where men scatter like grass in the wind, never to come back. More often than not, though, soldiers will break and run in panic, but after they reach a safe distance, they will calm down reform, and try again.

Weapon effectiveness - Who doesn’t love a good battle scene in a movie? Swords and axes hacking through armor with ease, in a Icelandic Saga-esque orgy of violence. Really though, if it was that easy to hack through armor would people even wear it? What’s the point of carrying 90 pounds of crap if bjorn turbo-nord can axe you like he was slicing bread. Chain mail can stop most sword slices, and some stabbing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_armor. There are http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/MUHLBERGER/FROISSART/INGLEVER.HTMout there that describe what it looked like for 2 real, honest to god knights to go at it with sword and shield. Most blows just bounced of. These fights could seriously last until both men were too tired to continue. My point is, calm down with the whole cleaving people in twain bit. Armor actually should do the job it was made to do.

Fatigue - It’s a universal rule throughout every army across the world and through time, everyone is tired. The TES world has certain things that we don’t have in real life, fatigue potions for example. This will allow your TES armies to go just that bit farther when doing manual labor, marching, etc. However it is not a replacement for rest. Yes I know in the LOTR rings the orcs ran everywhere and never got tired. This is not LOTR, and you cannot do that. Nothing annoys other Rpers more than seeing a post saying that you’ve taken your army at a dead sprint, across difficult ground, through the woods and over a river to have them attack up a hill. People can’t do that. Even if they could they would be in no shape for the grueling physical demands of battle.

Arms of Service
Cavalry - First off, for this guide, and in reference to what I’m going to talk about, Horses are exactly like people (see golden rule). They get scared, they panic, they can be tired hungry and thirsty. Just because your knight isn’t tired from riding around all day, doesn’t mean that poor horse isn’t. He’s been carrying your fat, lazy armored ass through hill and dale.
While men can be trained to ignore fear and charge into a mass of men, horses are smarter than us it seems, because they tend to not do that as much. I won’t get into the specifics of a cavalry charge (if you want though, I suggest John Keegan’s Face of Battle. His study of what actually happens in a charge is an eye opening read) but just know that horses wont really jump headlong into pikes, spears, or other generally pointy bits. Lances work because the point is so far ahead of the animal you can spear someone before the horse comes to it’s senses. There are usually four possible outcomes to a normal cavalry charge. I have them in order from most likely to nigh improbable.
1) the infantry gets scared and just runs the hell away. 2) The infantry stands, and the horses go around. 3) The infantry, through negligence or accident has a gap in their lines that the cavalry exploits, which usually then leads to outcome 1, or 4) a horse gets killed, collapses into the line, and then leads to outcome 3 then 1.
*exception* There are special kinds of horses called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destrier that have been trained to ignore the pointy bits. These things are basically Clydesdale sized pit bulls, they bite, kick and run people down. They will charge headlong into a pile of infantry. These animals are, however very expensive. Think of them as the Mack trucks of the battlefield. present but in limited numbers, ideally only the rich knights, or lords should have Destriers. Due to the downright mean temperament trained into these horses, they are impossible to ride around for most normal trips. Battle only. Expect to have a spare horse to ride to town, unless you want that mean bastard to start biting guards and trampling children.

Artillery - Right away you should know most artillery does not work like in the movies. Explosions are stupid. Those trebuchets, onagers, catapults, ballistas, or even cannon if you’re a redguard will all do the same thing. Giant stones bounce in a straight line. (god forgive me for using a movie to prove a point) Remember in the movie the Patriot, where mel gibson and heath ledger (rip) are watching the battle from a house. The cannon ball bounces around, taking of legs and heads and stuff? That’s a surprisingly good depiction of how things work. Imagine you were five years old again, throwing rocks at a bunch of GI Joes. You knock over a couple in line one behind the other. On water, it’s the same thing. Stones or iron balls shot at a low angle will skip across the surface, things at high angles will simply sink.

Navy - Naval battles are slow, painfully slow compared to land battles. They also usually have fairly simple tactics. This is a necessity because most ships are driven by wind. If you turn this way and that and dodge around, you’ll usually spill the wind from your sails and be dead in the water until your crew can readjust. Also, ships are surprisingly difficult to sink. Almost everything on an old wooden ship will float. The usual outcome of a naval battle is that the ship is either captured or burns. At the battle of Trafalgar, one of the greatest naval battles of all time, only one ship actually sunk. The rest were, you guessed it, captured or burned.
Now onto fire. Fire is a ships worst enemy. They are basically giant floating matchboxes. Ships can catch fire with surprising ease. The ropes to the rigging are tarred, most planking is filled with tar and hemp fibers to make it waterproof. These things will burn if you look at them wrong. Very, very dangerous stuff.

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ADDITIONS

Types of equipment
Pikes
I’ve noticed that Pikes seem to be popping up as more and more popular in battle Rps. They are simple and very effective. The clashing of two Phalanxes or http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/9351/pikeblocknu4.jpg (I know the difference, but for this guide I’ll use the term interchangeably) is a horrid and violent affair. Now, there are two styles of Pike fighting: Push and Point. They are exactly what it sounds like. Now I wont go into a detailed description of the effectiveness of pikes on different units, but just keep this in mind, the pike keeps the enemy far away, and as long as the enemy doesn’t break into the formation, they can’t hurt the pikemen.
Push style = An excellent account of what really happens when two pike blocks come together and hold their nerve can be found in the description of the Battle of Langside. Pike heads get caught in flesh, clothing, and armor, pushed down into the ground or thrust up into the air. Once the points became immobile, The pike blocks ended up “pushing each other to and fro with their spears.” According to my sources , pike fighting, while extremely dangerous, was not very fatal. Men received ghastly wounds, but most survived. The real massacre began when one side or the other broke.
Point style = Less common than Push style is Point. This involves actual fencing with pikes. In period accounts of the English Civil War, one reads examples of the front few ranks becoming disabled, their pikes broken, dropped or stuck. These men then usually drew short swords and rapiers and went about a http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/5760/badwargw0.jpgon their knees while the two pike blocks pushed overhead. They cut pike shafts, tried to pull the enemies away, and generally caused problems. (God help me, this makes two times) But, for those of you who don’t like reading, an excellent depiction of pike fighting can be seen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je-c81wwrpAwith Viggo Mortenson. It’s on you tube, and shows the true horror of what the Swiss called “http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/9804/landsknechtsoldier14861tf6.jpg”.
Pike blocks and phalanxes do have a very serious weakness, they cannot operate on rough terrain. In a formation that requires unity to survive, crossing a stream, walking through woods or climbing a fence might as well be a death sentence in the face of the enemy. Loose groups of men cannot and will not be able to defend themselves with a pike, it’s all or nothing.

Arrows
Alright, now get ready. I’m going to express my own opinion about the effectiveness of missiles against armor. This is up there as being controversial as whether or not “Feudalism” is a real thing or not. Everyone who wants to send hate mail, please PM me. OK? Everyone clear on the rules?
In general, arrows are a very effective weapon. On the battlefield they can wound, disable and kill knights, soldiers and horses. However, unless at close range and using specially Bodkin tipped arrows, one cannot penetrate armor. (oh god, here comes the hate mail) Arrows are light weapons, and usually fired at an arc. At long ranges, the momentum is spent and it does not have the force to break chain mail or plate. At close ranges, they can cut through chain mail with ease (remember the bodkins) and sometimes can pierce plate. There are medieval accounts of mailed knights being literally pincushion with arrows, but sustaining no wounds. Most of the French dead at Agincourt who died from arrows received those wounds in the joints of the armor, where there was only simple mail, at close range.
Now, on top of that, http://www.centenaryarchers.gil.com.au/images/arrow-heads.jpgses. You give everyone bodkin arrows, expect a lot of wounds, but few deaths. You give everyone broad heads, you’ll wreak havoc on the infantry, but the Knights will soak up arrow fire like a sponge and keep coming.
Unlike in Oblivion, it’s rather difficult to carry around 300 arrows on your person. Even with a quiver archers will most likely be limited to between 15 and 30 arrows. Like in real battles, you will be forced to scramble around, back and forth to the baggage carts to retrieve more.
As for flaming arrows. I know they look awesome in movies, but no. They don’t work in real life. The rag attached to the end makes an otherwise precise weapon imbalanced, the speed of it flying through the air is usually enough to put out the flame mid flight too. I don’t care what you saw in gladiator or Total war, real life doesn’t work like that. If anyone can dig up PRIMARY sources that talk about the effective use of flaming arrows, I’ll change my story. Outside of that, flaming arrows, like explosions = stupid.

Swords
I think this area is pretty much common sense. I’ll only comment on a few things I think are underrepresented. First off, swords, like every thing else in life have varying levels of quality. A knights hand crafted sword, fitted to his height, weight, balance and fighting style will be more robust than a normal foot soldiers. If said knight rides up to said foot soldier, there I a chance that that PBI’s sword will shatter. Swords are not axes, crowbars, hammers, or any other kind of tool. They are swords. You use one to cut firewood, to open a lock, or anything else it’s not made to do, it will break. Block with the edge, it will chip. Use it too much, or if the sword is too old, it could snap. Get the point? (haHA! Punny!)

Battlefield confusion
As the name says, a battlefield is very confusing. There are a number of factors that come into play which cause problems. Noise and smoke are the two biggest. Noise, is rather obvious and wont be discussed. Smoke however can come from a number of different sources. Ever driven down a dirt road in a car or on a bike? You know that trail of dust kicked up? Imagine that coming from the feet of ten or twenty thousand guys. Unless it rained the day before a battle, your men will probably kick up at least some dirt. If you’re in a desert, or in the middle of a dry spell, expect that dust to become a fog. This can cause men to be confused, to attack allies (Green on green) charge when they shouldn’t or retreat if they’re winning. Yes I know it’ll hurt your cause if you portray this part in an RP. However, if you go about it in a mature fashion, it brings a ton of interest and character to the RP.

Screens
In games like Rome: Total war or Cossacks, you’re given a top down perspective of the battle. That’s not what you would see in real life. Try this out, just to get a taste. Open up one of the Total war games, go to options and change your perspective to the thing called general cam. Now play a skirmish. Hard isn’t it? Not having an all seeing eye complicates things a great deal.
Hand in hand with this part on perspective is something called a screen, almost unheard of in almost every battle RP I’ve ever played, from TES through world war 2 (sigh, I miss the old DoD Forum RPs). A screen is where you place a line of skirmishers, cavalry, whatever in front of your men. Those skirmishers kick up dust, the horseman even more so. The enemy only sees who’s in front, and it’s very hard to determine the amount of men one is facing. Again, it takes a mature Rper to pretend you can’t see something in someone else’s post. Yea we know your opponent is massing on your left, but does your character know that? Not likely. Not likely unless you use…

Scouts
How else will you know what is going on in front of you or around you if you don’t send out scouts. Usually mounted and on good horses, these men are the eyes of your army. Without them sending back information, how will you general know what’s in front of him. Imagine that war is a huge, expensive game of blind man’s bluff. Your scouts would be the hands you have stretched in front of you to keep you from running into a tree.

Moving through a line of men
Unlike in videogames, this maneuver is actually extremely difficult one to pull off in real life. Say you have some skirmishers out front. Enemy cavalry is menacing, and the skirmishers pull back. Where are they going to go? You’d better have a gap in your lines to let them through, otherwise they’ll force their way through your men and create gaps. Now, go to the cavalry section and read what happens when there are gaps in your line. it’s the same thing for retreating men. The bad thing about retreating men is they’ll probably be freaking out, and claw their own way through your line. On a battle field, panic spreads like chickenpox in kindergarten. Better to mqke room for those pqniced men rather thqn hqve them fight their way through.

The push
This one is simple physics. The more men you have one behind another, the greater force and momentum is present. Like the Thebans at Leuctra, and the French army during the Napoleanic period, a huge mass of men will push aside a thin line. If you have five hundred men in a three deep line, and the enemy had five hundred men in a five wide column of a hundred rows, That column will put a significant dent in your line because for each man fighting there’s a hundred pushing on his back. This becomes especially important for Pike blocks (See push style) The French used this simple tactic to dominate all of Europe and beyond. The only way the British were able to defeat the great columns were by stopping them with musketry before they reached the thin red line.

Prolonged fighting
sometimes battles lasted all day, and into the next. Fighting is difficult and tiring, after extended hacking and stabbing, the poor bloody infantry would get tired. There were and will be lulls in the fighting. It’s entirely possible for the men to remain behind their shields, catching their breath and staring at the enemy a mere two or three feet away. Sporadic and unplanned breaks have happened. After a brief rest, or once an officer sees the men not doing their job, fighting may flare up again. (they are on the clock after all…) Hardly would make a good fight scene in LOTR or Alexander, but it happens. The longer a unit is engaged in prolonged fighting the less likely it will be to attack or advance. The physical and mental stress of fighting wears down ones willpower (the real kind not the skills kind).

Just a few things:

1. Concerning plate armor. The complete heel to crown shiny plate armor people think of when they think of knights probably wouldn't exist in a non gunpowder setting of TES. That is to say that sort of complete plate armor only came out to be used in reaction to small arms fire. I know in TES they have plate armor this and that but if we follow reason there's really no argument why it would be used. When fighting against non gunpowder melee weapons, a composite of linen, leather and mail could do just as good of a job much cheaper and weigh less.

2. Most people didn't wear super cool armor. It depends however on the period. If you look at the Roman Empire's army that was a STANDING military where people trained regularly and their job was to fight and be professional soldiers. Most nations did not have standing armies. Later in the medieval period (TES sort of setting) an army was usually composed of core nobility (the guys with the cool armor) and whatever levied peasants they could force into fighting + a few professional troops/militia part time soldiers.

3. Confirming flaming arrows did exist and were actually used. I've heard some people say that the arrow wouldn't be as accurate. You don't need accuracy with an arrow when you are shooting into a crowd of people.

If we follow reason, it is in there, so we monkeytruth why. This one is fairly easy, MAGIC. When a mage can throw a wall of hailstones at you, smack you with fire, etc, you need every part of your body covered. Still, as you say, this stuff is very expensive. Only the richest few should be able to afford to outfit themselves with total protection.


Great guide btw, really a lot of help.

Agasint spells, I'd say coverage matters more than material as far as armor go - leather doesn't burn easily, it doesn't transmit frost (or heat) well and with some padding undrneath can soak the impacty of hailstones without too much trouble. Lightning would probably work better. A full metal armor will probablty act somewhat like a faraday cage, with the lightning grounding through the metal and the padding under the armor keeping the sparkly metal from the wearer's skin. Agasint forst or cold, the combination of a metal skin and the underlying padding will shurg off short term exposure. Lingering damage will fare better as they have the time do damage the armor and reach the flesh..

Oblivion and Morrowind's poison spell or direct health damage will be the weapon of choice against armored opponents as they will bypass the armor.

People rich enough to buy full plate armor are rich enough to enchant it so that it can resist some magic effects or improve their abilities.

It's difficult to tell, but it seems that enchantment is another echelon altogether. For a start, in a modern Rp set, in, say, Skyrim, enchanter services are hard to come by. Enchanted weapons and armour in the Lore often seem to be hand-me-downs, or prized trophies. We can imagine that enchantments, or at least powerful enchantments, are a very expensive thing indeed, and only worth shilling out for on a piece of equipment that is likely to be in constant use. Imagine the costs of enchanting every single piece of full plate armour!

Things like this might explain why even among nobles, not all would have enchanted items, and these would normally be WEAPONS. Conversely however, if we are imagining a militia from, say, High Rock or a Great Dunmer House, it might be the case that enchantments are very easy to come-by and would be far more widespread. Look at House Telvanni, for example.

Basically, the same type of thinking suggested in the OP is in order: If you are going to outfit a certain army with a type of equipment, it should be because it makes sense for this equipment to be used, because it would be cool/awesome.

Skyrim isn't a province renowned for it's magic but I doubt even the wizards of Great House Telvanni can equip militia with quality enchantments or Morrowind wouldn't have been conquered by the Empire. Diffrent things carry diffrent enchantments and only rare materials can absorb large amounts of magica. Also larger soul gems are expensive and powerful enchantments are hard to forge. Magic can be used in other ways such as creating illusions that hide the army or allow soldiers to walk on water and cross rivers with ease. The more conventional fireball battle also happens but probably only for brief moments since casting powerful spells is taxing and weak ones may have a hard time bypassing shields. Heavy plated armor knight types such as the ordinators should be in low numbers and serve as an elite force that is probably used against mages.

Correct if I'm wrong, but doesn't every dunmer guard in Morrowind carry an enchanted weapon? Every Telvanni Guard is also a fairly powerful mage.

The way this should be understood in the lore, is that Morrowind is a more sparsely populated, harsh land than Cyrodiil, and with much older citizens to boot. The make-up of Morrowind's armies would be that they were much smaller, but well equipped, and more knowledgeable of their own terrain. Don't forget Resdayn's achievements in the Battle of Red Mountain.

However, even the armies of Morrowind where only able to keep the Cyrodiilic Empire at bay due to the leadership of three Living Gods. And even then 2920, The last year of the First Era shows Morrowind very much on the back-foot. I think the real reason Morrowind survived so long was due to the Tribunal, and due to the very difficult terrain of Morrowind. Similar reasons to why Argonia was never conquered by force by the Septim Empire. As the OP says, terrain is everything.

Why was there no reason to wear plate armor? What kind of history have you been reading? Plate did better against arrows than mail (especially heavy tipped). Plate and mail could NOT stop gunpowder weapons. There were good reasons to wear plate armor if you had it. It wasn't there to just look cool. They didn't have plate made to combat fire arms...

Flaming arrows were used, yes. Cloths wouldn't work on them, so they lit the wood just below the head (after oiling it). They weren't as effective and sometimes they didn't work, but there were instances when they did.

I think if we pester Duval enough, he'll change eventually change it.

Not every guard. The imperial and redoran ones didn't. Also ingame guards are always a bit overpowered. I agree that telvanni would have a larger number of wizards and that most of their soldiers weapons and armor would be enchanted. Ordinators are elite troopers so again knowing a few spells is apropriate. On the topic of Morrowind however the maps show us that the terrain isn't that inhospitable in most of the province. However the Tribunal probably made up for it and this brings us to another wizardly point: power. There are going to be very few Fyr-like wizards around (and the tactics around these are simple: run), but there will be a large number of mid level wizards that will be stopped either by high quality enchantments or other wizards and in this case expensive armor is either going to be able to withstand a hit or it won't matter while the grunts aren't going to be protected but will have enchanted weapons so they may deal some damage.

I'm saying plate armor came out of a desire to deal with gunpowder weapons. And plate armor DID guard against bullets. All briast plates that were made were actually tested by a close frontal shot and that was it's "proof" hence the term bullet proof. Was like a quality check.

As for mail, it was much more effective at stopping arrows than people imagine. They have these crappy videos up on the net of someone shooting some 90 pound bow from 10 feet away in some crappy unriveted mail links as "evidence" that arrows went right through. But anyone that's studied this issue knows for one that almost all mail armor was riveted meaning no you couldn't "push the rings apart." Secondly even if that did somehow happen you had layers of leather and linen cloth to go through. The weakness of mail armor was blunt damage but again that is where "soft armors" came into use that were used in combination.



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Aside from that I want to mention that people shouldn't use "ingame" examples of what is plausible. "All the guards in morrowind had enchantments." That's nice but that's a game mechanic aspect.

Plate armor wasn't invented to stop gunpowder....it was invented way beforehand.

I'm not saying mail wasn't effective. It was. Plate was, however, more effective.

Plate armor all by itself, no it wasn't. The ancient greeks had solid bronze briast plates. The Romans for a time used lorica segmentata. But the "knightly plate armor" you see was in reaction to gunpowder weapons.

This argument would be much smoother if people cited their sources. Looking at you, IB and Wooly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years%27_War

Plate:



Plate was used highly in the hundred years war (yes, in which hand cannons originated). The invention of plate armor was not a direct response to the invention of hand cannons. Hand cannons did not match the reload speed or accuracy of crossbows, and were quite inferior. The Battle of Castillon, where artillery was the "first deciding factor" of any battle, was the LAST battle of the hundred years war, which concludes that plate armor was invented beforehand and not directly to counter the invention of primitive firearms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Castillon

Once again wooly, the claim isn't that plate armor itself was a response to gunpowder, but the knightly plate armor that you see, however was. At least that is what we were discussing and if further specification is needed I will do my best. During the 1400s you already saw more and more use of effective handguns. And from then on plate armor became heavier and heavier to the point where it was almost useless and fire arms were too capable. Then you had the half armor styles and so on and so forth.

Also the notion that the Milanese Crossbowmen were anything less than professional soldiers, probably one of the best of their time is incorrect. Their loss at Crecy was more due to French tactical incompetence rather than their own fault.

Then what sources should we use, when the in-game examples are also backed up by the books? You are trying to restrict Tamriel's setting WAY too much - we are dealing with an Empire that had a fully-functional Space Station here, not some Bloody Peasants arguing about the violence inherent in the system where kings are chosen by sword-tossing, lake-dwelling broads.
A "composite of linen, leather, and mail" offers next to NO protection against an Orc, Nord, Redguard wielding any weapon, the claws of a Cathay Raht (Much less the claws of the larger Khajiit such as the Pahmer and Senche strains), or any race wielding an Orcish, Dwarven, Elven, or Skyforged Steel weapon. Full plate armor was developed because the stupidly overpowered people of Tamriel need stupidly overpowered armor to survive. Also, the fantastic rate at which a Skilled Blacksmith can churn out new arms and armors makes cost much less of a concern.

Calling TES' setting "Late Medieval" is a GREAT injustice to the setting. The Empire and Aldmeri Dominion have demonstrated a level of military sophistication of 20th/21st century militaries, in terms of organization and force deployment. The only place that has Feudal, non-standing armies is High Rock. Even the Stormcloaks are a sophisticated private army.

And Duval's totally off on the Flaming Arrows issue - Rags were rarely employed except in emergecies when fire needed to be propogated from a distance. A pitch-augmented arrowhead was MUCH more effective and common.

I think Scow2's approach to the lore is exactly right here. The best method is to pay almost religious reverence to the lore we are given (setting aside things such as scale, or the effects of level-scaling), and then try to synthesise this with common sense and the real art of warfare. TES is not the real world. This is a place where the Empire won a major victory over Morrowind by arming an entire force in heavy armour and allowing them to water-breathe, attacking the Dunmer force from under a lake. Even here though you see a great example of how TES warfare should be handled. This wasn't something the Empire could simply "do" because of magic, they needed and entire detachment of Alternation mages, that was visible to the other army, to be able to pull off such a feat. The entire make-up of the army had to change, and such resources where only available because this was the Cyrodiilic Empire at full muster.

Use the lore as much as possible, but make it work for you, make it fun, interesting, and make it make sense. A golden rule is that writing a war in an RP is not about winning, or showing off how cool your army is, but helping craft an interesting story for everyone.

The enchantment example. Everyone in Morrowind seems to have an enchanted weapon, unlike in other cultures. Okay, make it work for you. They have more enchantments because the Dunmer are a naturally magic-orientated society, being merish, and are more likely to hold onto ancestral weapons due to their staunch traditionalism. But then common sense is applied, you don't want to make a Dunmer army too powerful (lore tells us that each Province can beat any other, for example the dumb, not overly populous Nords have time and time again defeated every other people..), so keep in mind Morrowind is more sparsely populated, with little martial tradition since joining the Empire, and the only ones able to afford proper arming would still be retainers in the Great Houses. Perhaps make them fearful in combat, but counter-balance this with divisions breaking up in the Dunmer ranks on House-Lines. The Hlaalu line looks more ready to fight the Indoril line than the enemy! And so on. Make the lore work for you.

Everything about the make-up of your army should be to make it at interesting, or at least compelling foe for all the other players. The "who wins" arguement ultimately is agreed between players or decreed by the OP anyway, right?

If you are talking about that thing MK put on the forums, that isn't really lore. We were talking more about armor and equipment. In TES you have situations where the weapons and armor present simply wouldn't exist side by side. You have various ranging equipment ranging from Roman Legion times to the late medieval and renaissance period. And when people make certain RPs about the combat it's essentially the equivalent of someone doing a World War One RP where some of the characters are using smoothbore rifles, others are using AK-47s. Or if you want to use clothing examples, someone would be wearing Victorian era clothing and another 1970's bellbottoms. This comes from a simple issue, that even though the writers for the lore in TES have made a very nice story line for us to enjoy, few if any of them have had really any particular study of medieval equipment. And this doesn't just go for military stuff but also economics. The banning of slavery would have ended any major power in a pre industrial era.




Right because we all know making armor takes a matter of the seconds of you looking at the "smith" and clicking on it right? Come on again you are using game mechanics. Contrary to popular belief you can not become a better smith by making ten thousand iron daggers which you could do in a matter of hours game wise. And a composite of linen, leather and mail offers very good protection. Claws would do didly squad and "Orcish, Dwarven, Elven or Skyforged Steel weapons" are still bound by the same mechanics of cutting, piercing and blunt trauma.





I am simply calling it "Medieval" because you have the whole knights and kings situation going on. Rather than looking at a natural progression I think the writers took tid bits of different regions and eras and put it together. That is how you have "Roman" Imperials and "Fuedal" Bretons all together in the same era and time.

The Roman Legion was, indeed, complex. However, the armor may have been upgraded to fit protection against gunpowder, but it was originally brought into place because of stronger bows and arrows.

Stronger anything really. But in some instances composite armors are more effective than plate. And while plate armor is invulnerable to slashes, that is not to say the same about stabbing.

One other side note I want to bring up, warhammers and axes in TES are stupidly big and would be ineffective.

So, because you cannot wrap your head around the schizo-tech world the creators of TES have laid out, you think everything should be restricted to whatever was around in the 13-1500's? Sorry, but the world of Tamriel is far more interesting when it doesn't mirror history to that degree. This is fantasy, where symbolism trumps "realism".

And the space-station thing has nothing to do with MK - There's an entire game based around it.

Your last sentence is completely off-base. For starters, the Square-Cube law and Conservation of Energy do not quite apply (A whisper moving mountains, for example)

Furthermore, on the forging time of weapons: No, the "Click to spam" doesn't represent blacksmithing in TES, but the large quantity and variety of armors for sale from the Blacksmiths (Who outright say they're the ones who've crafted it.) does imply that it doesn't take as long to make as it did in real history. Some of the armors and weapons are second-hand, but a lot are also freshly made. Symbolism > Realism, again.

Only in High Rock do you have the whole Knights and Kings situation going on. In the rest of the world, it's quite different. Epecially in Black Marsh, Elsweyr, Cyrodiil, Morrowind, Alinor, and Valenwood. While all the provinces and lands have "Kings", those have been around in every culture since biblical times, and are still around today (In case you missed the no-longer-recent Royal Wedding)


Actually, the plates themselves are impervious to stabbing. The only reason it's considered effective is because it's possible to aim a thrust at the weak point in armor - which generally requires you to tactically disable the armored warrior first. Or, if you're an Orc, you can just hack him open with any Axe or Sword of Orcish, Elven, Dwarven, or better craftsmanship and laugh as it punches through flimsy steel as though it were paper.

And yet, they are brutally effective in Tamriel. Maybe you should re-assess your understanding of Tamrielic combat? If Composite armors were effective, and Massive Weapons weren't, then why are there no composite armors in TES, and why are Massive weapons so brutally effective and common? While some things can be dismissed as "gameplay mechanics", the actual designs of weapons and armor, conversations, and in-game books can be safely taken as Canon.

Again - This is fantasy, where Symbolism trumps Realism.

I'm going to dismiss the massive weapons as gameplay mechanics, myself. They look alright in the game engine's slightly cartoony depiction of a world, but they would look disgustingly out of proportion in the real world.

How about we dismiss nine of the ten races as "Gameplay Mechanics" as well? I don't see how the game engine's depiction of the world is "cartoony", even slightly so. Or how about all the schools of magic? Certainly spells are nothing more than "Gameplay Mechanics".

"Gameplay Mechanics" are issues that would either be not fun to play, or too time-consuming to try and implement with the limited resources (Unrealistic fauna behavior, speedy-crafting). The appearances and scales of weapons and armor are certainly neither.