SKM Development: Matters of the State, More War

Before I get into some nitty gritty, I have to explain a change I decided to introduce. I mentioned earlier how I intended for troops to provide a ‘security rating’ of sorts, but I never quite detailed how that was going to be calculated. Also, the thought occurred to me that certain troops are better at certain things and worse at others.

So..

Alright. Security Rating is right out. We’re calling it Defense Rating right now (DR). Every troop type, and fortification, will provide a DR. Our DR for our entire realm is equal to 20% of the total number of families, rounded up. So, 7 hexes of 100 families each, gives us a required DR of 140.

That part is easy. We just need to make sure our fortification and available patrol troops equal that. And if they don’t equal that, then what we incur isn’t just unhappiness, but an increased chance of banditry (which is represented by just having part of your subsistence, tax, or resource income go down the can). I’ll work on the details to that when I unpack events.

Now, the other part is well, figuring out how our troops do in a fight. How do our peasant’s fair when they’re rolled out against say, a group of giant black widow spiders, or made to attack a neighboring kingdom?

And thus, I discovered, we need an Attack Rating or AR. This pleased me because I realized that an AR vs DR was an understandable thing. An AR higher than a DR could allow for some simplicity in realm vs realm combat, with some rolling on the side based on our stats like shrewd, thew, and the like, to modify the results when our leader is well, leading his troops.  Basically, the difference between AR and DR determines the extent of how likely defeat or victory is, and then we add on a modifier to overcome that difference (or exacerbate it). That’s a later post’s topic though.

Right now, we’re just focused on figuring out two things. Upkeep costs and AR/DRs. I’ll worry about hiring costs later when I unpack the army further, since army prices need to be competitive against patrol forces.

Alright.

Spook hates numbers, but they’re vital to a RPG system. So he hopes he didn’t mess up. I didn’t even consult with the ACKs costs for individual units because as stated previously, they’re well, taxes. Also, the ACKs stuff gets tricky.

Firstly, we’re going to start with some limited troop types to start with.

Seven in fact.

Melee: Peasants. Light Infantry. Heavy Infantry

Mounted: Cavalry & Knights

Ranged: Archers & Horse Archers.

Other categories might get added later, or through tech trees. When we make tech trees.

Peasants

Peasants are untrained shlubs. Their AR and DR are both abysmal.

.2 AR / .2 DR

0.5 gp/mo upkeep

These little jerks are our first decimal on the list to start with. They’re cheap. They’re however pretty damn inferior, especially when we arrive at..

 Light Infantry

LI are our ‘standard.’ They’re a lightly armed man-at-arms. Reasonably trained. Equipped lightly. Professional enough of a soldier.

1 AR / 1 DR

2gp/mo upkeep

Yes, one light infantry man is worth 10 peasants, and only costs what it costs for 4. This will be balanced out later with a higher recruitment cost for them.

Heavy Infantry

Bigger, tougher. These are your tough guys.

AR 3 / DR 3

5gp/mo upkeep

They hit harder. They punch firmer. But they’re expensive. Also, as we’ll find out later, they’ve a hidden fee in their already higher upkeep requirement, but yes, one of these guys is worth a little more than 2 LI and you have to pay for that.

Cavalry

Cavalry will be faster than the other units (when I work out how many hexes I want them to cover in war). They’re lightly armed and armored, but have a horse, and that momentum helps them to run people down or take them out with spears. HOWEVER, when defending, they’re basically just light infantry.

AR 4 / DR 1

8/mo upkeep

Knight

A knight is like a medieval tank. One of these guys is worth about fifty peasants, and it shows. However, they’ll have Role Play issues associated with them, and a greater commensurate recruitment cost. And yes, you could conceivably defend a realm with a population of 700 people with 14 of the guys. Just don’t lose any.

AR 10/DR 10

20/gp month upkeep.

You can see why you’d want one though, they give the best AR and DR values of every unit.

Archer

Archers, despite people’s modern day opinions, were not renowned for their accuracy. What they were renowned for was being devastating in large numbers, and for making attacking fortified locations an absolute horror show.  They do however require a little more training, and a bit more upkeep as they have to expend their arrows in most cases to use their bows.

AR .5 / DR 4

Upkeep 3gp/mo

They cost a little more then our Light Infantry, but defend locations a lot better. Having an entire army of archers might make it hard for your kingdom to be assailed, but well, it’ll make it harder to expand outward unless you have enough of them.

Horse Archer

Ostensibly a specialty unit. The horse archer is currently only available to the kingdom of Kn’saara. As such it’s a good jumping off point for us to examine what future research-unlock troops might look like.

AR 1 / DR 4

6gp/mo upkeep.

Somewhat superior to the basic archer. A little pricier on upkeep. As stated though, they will have superior movement. So it’s not a massive upgrade, but..

Ok, that should be good as a jumping off point. We'll finalize recruiting new troops later, but the upkeep values should let me figure out some stuff about strongholds.