Shireroth

I missed the day of low tech recwars.. when you could run around with a sword and a band of merry archers and have a good time of it.. where battles were epic and worthy of song... when you fought.. man to man....woman to woman.. and if you got lucky.. man to woman to woman... I recall the great battle where Stone killed Letifer... and was then bested by Raynor X as he saved Mari Greenwood(mistake...) from being used as a rituatal sacrifice to appease a demon or something... When I had a small band of crossbowmen.. and di a running leap at Stone.. landing it right in his chest.. and then we did battle.. blow for blow.. oh.... what a battle that was...

Now it's modern... ranged.. dishonorable... Not worthy of song...

Now.. it's all magic and giant robots and I blow up this with my planes.. and I bomb that with my artillery.. drudgery... No.... Recwars in Shireroth are not what they used to be...

Especially since it's mostly, let's gang bang the capital....(both sides...)

I think we need a few... well... not rules.. but.. understandings about recwars in Shireroth in the fiture... which may be a job for the MoMA.... which I need one of...

Well, it's not like you can't just have a RecWar using only Medieval tech. In fact, that's what our Military Ranking War (determines what rank in the Tokian military we have based upon skill, strategy and victory) in Toketi will be - Medieval tech only, no magic. Well, except for the magic used to make it an illusionary war where no one actually dies and we can enforce the technology limits...

His Niftiness makes a valid point.

I missed the sword-to-sword thing, wandering straight into a civil war that wasn't, but was , but wasn't, but really was. Now inventing Aircraft Carriers on-the-fly can be fun for a week or so, but it gets boring.

Any more, the temptation to through photon torpedoes around gets too great.

(Excuse me, but I've got to teach a tree-demon sprout how to steer a battleship.)

I run important wars in a medieval style since it requires more skill than saying "here comes a few cruise missiles..."

I much prefer the medieval style as well. There is just no chivalry in high-tech battles. Where is the knight in shining armor riding out to do noble battle or rescue a maiden in distress. Modern warfare scenarios--I have had my fill of modern warfare since we watched it each day on TV during Viet Nam. I agree we should go back in time if at all possible for our recwars.

These days, a knight is a tank commander and the shining armor is a camo-painted tank...

It just isn't the same. No one is going to go around singing balads of the tank that blew up a regiment of the enemy. Besides, the clothes are better in medieval settings. And horses are a lot prettier than tanks.

watched it each day on TV during Viet Nam

There was one song I remember from those days--

The Ballad of the Green Beret-

..Put silver wings on my son's chest, make him one of America's best...

Sad times.

We both lost friends then... And now our children are losing theirs.

No, I've had all of war I can take. That's why I bowed out of the one here.

...Don't get me started...

Mmhmm. Medieval recwars- I can imagine- would be a laugh and a half. Maybe we should organise an inter-Shireroth one some time soon?
Anyway, what I want to know is- will the Elwynn Sluice be taken off the MCS map now?

OK--Who's up for a jousting tourney? And would there be any dragons to slay?

I totally agree, Erik. Medieval all the way. The last international recwar, besides having far too many disputes, also had far too many situations where one person says "here, I launch a lot of missiles. There's very little you can do about it ... oh, your town was destroyed and 100 000 slain. So sorry, must dash, going to rain missiles on the capital ..."

But if you want slightly more structure, you need a basic ruleset. Perhaps something less detailed than SNARL, but more advanced than just "whatever units they want."
And with magic, if you want it, either set a VERY strict level, have a list of approved spells, or not at all.
Considering it's Shireroth and all, I'd think you'd want a little magic for Wizards. Probably something along the lines of basic healing magic and fireballs. With maybe a few bigger spells only being able to be done by one or two units per army ...

The other question is - Catapults or not?

But yes, I must agree, war where you actually have to look someone in the face before you stab them is much better, if only (for a start) because it means you know you're going to be attacked because someone is actually within 100 miles of you ...

Well, in the past things kinfa just worked out.. cause winning wasn't the goal.. just a good story... and the best ones we laid out who would "win" among those that needed to know.. bascly the leaders of the two sides.. most battles were small and didn't REALLY matter.. and th big ones happened between the main people, and other just augmented them. I lay several of my own charcters

The lack of magic and missiles helps to keep things together... and most were reasonable with what they did.. I was fond of calvary myself...

Strangely enough, for me the best wars have been the magical ones. As long as, like you said, the goal wasn't necessarily to win, but to have fun (perhaps since all the nations using our magic system are allies, that helped...), we had epic battles and drama aplenty.

Like the time when the head mages in Toketi and Novatainia had to assemble seven magical Orbs into an ancient altar to save Gralus from a Demon invasion. Or when a Tokian with a personal score to settle with the Demon leader engaged him in a fight to the death that lasted about four pages on the forum... ...of course the Demon wormed his way out of being killed by using an imposter, but he got himself killed eventually by killing some unnecessary innocent who had imbibed Holy Water or something like that...

Ooo, or the awesome final battle between myself and Andreas over the Hand of Fate that we stole from some Daemon trees, where he totally annihilated my force with a magic sword that caused an Armageddon of destruction for miles around, but it turned out the force was a decoy illusion, so when my real force arrived, they were able to split open the earth and swallow not only Andreas' army but also about fifty dragons that another Tokian combatant had under his command... yes, there were little disputes, but since it was all in good fun, they really didn't matter.

Now, we're hoping for something fun like this in our upcoming War of Guilds, and there's a lot of interesting stuff going into preparation for it (I can't say what, though, it's all secret)...

Anyway, in my experience, the magic has been a force of unity to make the battles more reasonable. Not more realistic, mind you, but keep everyone having fun. It sort of balanced out the modern technology - no way was a simple missile strike going to win a war. In the same way, a single spell can always be thwarted in some way. (If you have a fair magic system that doesn't have unbeatable spells... we've worked hard to keep ours fair.) You have to be ingenious, you have to outsmart the enemy. If it's just modern technology, it's victory by superior firepower...

Medieval eliminates that in some ways, so if you RecWar in that era, you don't need magic as much to keep things going... but it can still be fun to have wizards along...

There is just no chivalry in high-tech battles

May I point out there was never any chivalry in low-tech battles either. Certainly the nobles would have a belle guerre and any taken prisoner would expect only the finest treatment until such time as they were ransomed but any peasants taken would usually have their throats cut on the field of battle, unless of course they were sold into slavery and it is debatable as to who, in such circumstances, would have got the better bargain. Chivalry was a fiction intended to justify serial adultery and class distinctions amongst the combatants where the commoners of both sides might get massacred as despised foreigners but the knights and barons all belonged to an elite brotherhood held together by mediocre leys about the unfortunate stupidity of Roland and infidelities of Lancelot.

Too true, chivalry was in essence more of a unifying ideal to forge power against the King and the People. It was a mass movement of the aristocracy. There have always been attempts to regulate or gentrify war, the simple fact is that the only thing more vulgar than war itself, is a romanticizing of it.

Anyway, what I want to know is- will the Elwynn Sluice be taken off the MCS map now?

Rather depends. I suppose it should since reconstruction will not occur overnight. Perhaps it would be appropriate to annotate both of the Elwynn dams as ruins, until such time as that situation is corrected.

You have to be ingenious, you have to outsmart the enemy. If it's just modern technology, it's victory by superior firepower...

As opposed to victory by superior 'mana' I suppose.

The boss incidentally comments on the drudgery of recwarfare. I don't think that really corresponds to the tech levels involved. While a war is fought the actual mechanics of warfare have to be acted out. Whether its an artillery barrage or the loosing of arrows from a company of Elwynnese longbowmen these are in their own way impersonal actions. I think if we glorify the commanders charging at each other and knocking the snot out of all and sundry we are in danger of falling into the "Jeremy trap" of expecting rash impulsiveness to yield dividends. Now the present civil war, barring sense of humour failures by me and Max was generally successful - yes it did feature a whole lot of devestation in the capital - but that is rather the point of a civil war, to dispute the centre of power. In its own right that war was quite fun, even the reactions of myself and Max to various incidents must have been amusing to each other and or various third parties.

What recwars really need is a focus for the narrative that can be sustained independently of the course of the war. That is to say recwars should operate on two levels. One - the overall war, the grand strategy, the movement of forces that is more like a conventional wargame but which makes for a turgid narrative and a second level that involves actual characters people really do care about. Nick and Braden (sp) were the best at this with their travails as naval infantrymen but Max came somewhere towards second place with his quirky characters and their unpronouncable names - even if he did have an unfortunate habit of ignoring geographic obstacles . I had a host of secondary characters but these were mostly ciphers used as a means for carrying out various objectives in different locales.

The other issue is continuity. A lot of people would like a mediaeval setting however Shireroth has been, for as long as anyone can remember, a fairly advanced society - albeit one entertainingly riven by anachronisms. A sudden default timeshift to the Dark Ages would be ultimately pointless and negate the work of various people - Scott in Hyperborea for instance or Max, just to point out that this isn't just special pleading on my part, although that does form a part of it.

Really the solution is looking for is contained in a stripped down version of SNARL - manpower limits and bonus points for good narratives - which has a certain amount of room for magic and creative anachronisms.

I think the problem with modern recwars these days is the level of writing tends to be quite poor. There's a reliance more on tech than story, which is effectively what the point is. It's literary jousting.

I think many of Ardashir's arguments are well-stated. Wars should be reasonable and well-written and planned, with technology appropriate to the period in which the lives in Shireroth actually happen, and limited rather than total warfare. "God-modding" is not appropriate in recwars and puts an end to things in an unrealistic way. As much fun as medieval warfare might be, I guess more modern battles are more appropriate. And as much as I dislike it, wanton destruction and loss of life are part of any war, even one waged for fun. I also think more coordination on IM could make things work together better.

I am in complete agreement with Carol's response. Another thought that occurred to me whilst is that after a battle or any significant engagement the parties to the fight should convoke a 'Court oo determine the casualties and if need be the outcome in a reasoned and fair way. Any complications or disputed interpretations should then be referred to MoMA for adjudication.

hypatias mom wrote:I think many of Ardashir's arguments are well-stated. Wars should be reasonable and well-written and planned, with technology appropriate to the period in which the lives in Shireroth actually happen, and limited rather than total warfare.

Agreed, except perhaps on the "planned" part. No one likes participating if they already know the end... typically the "losers-to-be" will just quit then and there. In Gralus we had to go to great lengths to get in a planned war - three of us created second (secret) accounts to be the enemy (the judge was in on it too), and only let people know most of it was planned AFTER the war.

Then again, it's often fun to RecWar where you have no idea what's going to happen - let individual creativity flow. Same thing in the Expeditions (sort of roleplaying journey things) we do... the planned ones can get stale quickly...

hypatias mom wrote:"God-modding" is not appropriate in recwars and puts an end to things in an unrealistic way.

I don't think anyone will disagree with you there. We get very angry at god-modding. <-

hypatias mom wrote:As much fun as medieval warfare might be, I guess more modern battles are more appropriate. And as much as I dislike it, wanton destruction and loss of life are part of any war, even one waged for fun.

Which is where the magic comes in! Whenever we want to do a "for fun" war, we put all the participating generals in a spell that creates a replica of the landscape in which it is to be fought in their minds, along with the troops they need, so that no one actually dies and nothing actually gets destroyed. Much goodness.

I also think more coordination on IM could make things work together better.

I've been pushing for that a loooong time... but it usually can't work out because of schedule (or even time-zone) differences. Sometimes, though, for one-on-one or complicated stuff, I do talk to people via whatever IM thing suits them (Kopete supports pretty much anything...). And in the duel Tournament I'm holding in Toketi, it's all supposed to be done via IM if possible... takes too long and gets too hard otherwise...

Which is where the magic comes in! Whenever we want to do a "for fun" war, we put all the participating generals in a spell that creates a replica of the landscape in which it is to be fought in their minds, along with the troops they need, so that no one actually dies and nothing actually gets destroyed. Much goodness.

As we are conducting a narrative based cultural and geopolitical simulation we are already at that stage old bean, sans magic.

Also - I would personally like to see 'magic' become more a type of psychological warfare. Something that can unnerve the raw and inexperienced as opposed to something akin to deity of the week hurling at poor unfortunates.

Agreed, except perhaps on the "planned" part. No one likes participating if they already know the end... typically the "losers-to-be" will just quit then and there.

I am not in favour of outcomes being decided in advance but rather to have a brisk and sensible audit after the battle, as per the court of chivalry idea, to determine losses and tactical outcomes for either sides - a matter of honour for either side to resolve but which could be referred upwards to MoMA. The alternative would be to have wildly varying casualty estimates issued by either side... much as in the real world but the difference here is that it is the estimate which determines the material fact.

I also think more coordination on IM could make things work together better.

It is difficult to coordinate this across the English speaking world (+ Japan and Holland) but it is certainly something to aspire to. Some of the decisive battles of the Jaris War were planned or indeed fought over MSN (Battle of Karaman Isle, Battle of Norfolk Isle) with the narrative coming afterwards from the victorious party.

I disagree. I don't think the technology level hurt this war at all. Indeed, I think it helped. The most memorable moment of the war was undoubtedly Maksym bombing that dam. That's something he probably couldn't have done if we'd been medieval.

No, the real problem here was that the war was contrived and confusing. There was no real good reason for the war starting. People wanted a war and used the comment about Port Nevermore as an excuse. This got some people confused and upset because they thought the rebels were misunderstanding the Kaiser's offhand comment. There was no real way to explain the invasion in game, since no one could come up with a practical explanation of why the Kaiser would invade his own city with paratroopers and then leave the next day one really took the casus belli seriously, no one really knew which side to go on, and many people just decided to sit it out.

And then the Kaiser himself tried to join the anti-Kaiserial forces...or something. Now people supporting the Kaiser didn't know which side they were on. So everyone just bombarded the capital, on general principle. And since no one was defending the capital, not much happened. Maksym took the helpful step of deciding he was on the side opposite everyone else, but in the absence of anything more complex than that, there wasn't a lot of room for anything subtle.

Now, looking at the wiki, it looks like the old really good recwars were mostly about deposing Kaisers or choosing new ones. And from what I can tell, people really meant them. When there was a really bad Kaiser who people wanted out, they rebelled against him - which makes sense! The people who liked that Kaiser would then protect him - which also makes sense! I assume complicated things could happen like Kaisers promising people power in exchange for their support, or betrayals, or tense power-sharing negotiations, or something.

It's the difference between "This important Shirerothian issue would work really well as a recwar inspiration!" and "So...we're having going to have a recwar or something now, anyone wanna join?"

That was one of the things I was saying last week--everyone just wanted to go to war and were having a dandy time at it. I think everyone was so glad something was happening they jumped in with both feet, but, as you said, there were no clear-cut issues left after a couple of days, so their was no clarity to the form and sides taken in the battles. That said, however, it was a lot of fun and most people did join at some level..

Out of context:

hypatias mom wrote:That was one of the things I was saying last week--everyone just wanted to go to war and were having a dandy time at it.

Now I wonder if real wars sometimes start like that, too. :-P

I wouldn't doubt that is sometimes an element, but there is a critical difference. Here no one really gets hurt or killed--except for their feelings. I think most people think about consequences before they go to war.

Neike Taika-Tessaro wrote:Out of context:

hypatias mom wrote:That was one of the things I was saying last week--everyone just wanted to go to war and were having a dandy time at it.

Now I wonder if real wars sometimes start like that, too. :-P

July 1914 - over by Christmas and all that.

Yeah--the "war to end all wars" and all that. We all know how long that lasted.

One problem, of course, is that we're arguing from three very different war experiences.
Bayen is arguing from the magic system we know. Which does indeed work great. But Aradashir, arguing against it is no good until you actually know what it is. Rest assured on two small points - mana duels is no problem on one on one level. Army vs army, year, but if someone has 5000 Archmages and the other only 1000 normal mages, the person with Archmages should win the magic bit, unless they're an idiot ...
The Babkhans are arguing from a SNARL based war system, where you have actual units determined at the start, and they are actually lost in battles. Much more structured than the Shirerithian method, where, I gather, people just come with as big an army as they want. Now, admittedly, in international wars, this tends to break down, but it can work ... more on that later.
Finally, the Kaiser is arguing from the Shiritihian tradition of everyone just leaping into war with whatever they want. Which I gather did work in the past, but people like the Gralans and Babkhans are too used to SNARL to see how it would. In that, it makes more sense to have some overall winner determined, but not so in the SNARL method.

However, the one thing with your code of Chivalry, Aradashir, is that it takes a long time and means a lot of work for judges. Still, it would be good in international wars to save disputes ...

But the neat thing about Tokidoki, and I think the same is in Shireroth, is that we generally all get along rather well. When you know and respect someone as a friend, that's when you can have good recwars - because you can agree on what reasonable damages are. If you're all friendly, and agree the war is friendly, instead of trying to win at all costs like some International wars, then it really can be a recwar. Even at our worst points in magical battles we've still been able to agree damages between the combatants, even if we have to break it down into individual events and argue the finer points of giant flying monsters vs guns for 20 posts ... in the end, we still propose a loss, agree on it, and move on. Though that one was hampered by the fact they thought I was an arrogant demon invader, and I'm sure if they knew they were fighting me, they would have been slightly more reasonable in working things out quicker, but that just reiterates what I said about respect.


All that being said, it doesn't help if, in modern weapons, some people know vastly more about it than others, and what they know (even when true) goes against conventional wisdom, as it makes it hard to dispute properly. The neat thing about medieval warfare is that everyone knows what an Archer or a Knight is, where as when someone tells me they bombed me with an F-22 as opposed to a Valkyrie, it doesn't mean much to me, and it's tiresome having to look Wiki up every second post ...
So if we allowed modern weapons, I'd advise that they either be clearly explained in orbat, or used as more "standardised" units - like this is a bomber plane, this is a fighter, rather than this is a particular plane that flies at this altitude and so these guns can hit it but these can't, because that's just too detailed for Shireroth, and detracts from the story of the Recwar, which is where the real fun comes in. For that reason, I'd also adivse on no Nukes, or even ICBMs or the like, as dropping huge missiles on someones city just isn't nice. At least a giant army invading you can fight back against ...


Final thought - maybe if some like Medieval and some like Technology, and some like a mix, we should take up Yvain's idea about those zones of thought or whatever they were ... Nobles before any war, agree whether their area is in a strong magic zone, where electricity and gunpowder mysteriously fail and only medieval weapons and magic work, a weak zone, where both work equally well (and boy, I'd love to properly try out some Krakens vs Battleships, and some Vampires vs men with guns and not stakes ...) or a strong anti-magic zone, where magic fails mysteriously, but technology works fine. That way, we can account for Shirithian Regional Abnormalities, and still have both Medieval and Technological areas ...