I’ve tried
in several places to make a difference between the Patrol forces and the Army
forces. Patrol is essentially the old ‘garrison’ force of ACKs, they exist principally
to provide for the stability of the realm. They get paid in a gold piece upkeep
cost (as we indicated last time) and are basically a kingdom’s ‘standing army.’
These are the career military guys, or trained mercenaries, hired thugs, town
guards, and so on.
The Army is
a force that gets raised, and generally should be raised uncommonly. As we
previously established, you can raise a military force of men equivalent to the
number of families you have without problem, and can double that number while
incurring some issues for production.
We also
decided that the army and patrol forces, have different upkeep requirements. I’ve
decided to toss that though.
Instead, I
decided to find a way to represent the necessity of a supply line. An army on
the march is hungry, and a military force requires an upkeep when it leaves the
environs immediately surrounding the realm’s hexes. When it’s within those
hexes, it’s assumed the soldiers can grab food at local bars, at their family
farms and so on.
The supply train
allows for the main home hexes to provide for the army, but only out to a
number of hexes equal to the leader’s Ministry score. The train can be modified
on each of the five ‘turns’ for military movement in a month. Beyond that, the
force has to start relying on plunder or commandeer actions to provide for their
monthly upkeep.
When deploying
a force outside of the controlled hexes , the ruler must indicate which hexes
the supply line is projected through, but can only path it through a number of
hexes equivalent to their Ministry score.
We’ll refer
to the upkeep costs required once they
are beyond their supply train as the ‘campaign upkeep.’ The supply train
can also be interrupted if an enemy force lands uncontested on a hex the supply
train passes through, in which case the supply line is considered “cut” and the
military force will requires ‘campaign upkeep’ if the train isn’t restored by
the end of the month.
As far as
specific campaign upkeep costs go, it represents both the requirement to keep
the soldier fed, as well as their desire for more ‘booty’ as the risks of being
far from their civilization sets in.
Peasants:
.5
Subsistence, .5 Resource.
Light
Infantry:
1
Subsistence, 1 Resource
Heavy
Infantry:
2
Subsistence, 2 Resource
Cavalry
5
Subsistence, 2 Resource
Archers
1
Subsistence, 1 Resource
Horse
Archers:
5
Subsistence, 2 Resource
Knights
8
Subsistence, 10 Resource
They still
have to get paid as well.
Failure to
meet these requirements results in the units becoming increasingly demoralized,
and if the subsistence requirement is not met for 2 months, the units will
begin to disband as they either desert or die of starvation. Knights will typically insist their Resource
requirement on Campaign Upkeep be filled preferentially to other units.
Cavalry and
Horse Archers can be cannibalized (representing eating their horses) to produce
1 Subsistence per unit so cannibalized, but it transforms them into the
equivalent of light infantry and archers respectively, and immediately
demoralizes them. Expending their equipping cost in Resource will restore them
to their prior status.
A unit
interrupting another units supply line, gains the resources that would be
supplied equivalent to 50% of the subsistence requirement of what would
otherwise be the force’s campaign upkeep.
What this
means is that if a force interrupted the supply line heading to a unit
containing 100 light infantry, 50 heavy infantry and a knight, the force so
interrupting would gain 104 subsistence (which is still subject to monthly
spoilage), but preying on another enemy’s supply line might be a way to stave
off your own subsistence woes.
Tied in with
this fun is movement.
Heavy
Infantry requires two movement actions to move one hex.
Light Infantry,
and Peasants can each move 1 hex per movement action.
Cavalry,
Horse Archers and Knights can move 2 per movement action.
You may
remember that a force moves equivalent to its slowest unit. Keep that in mind
if you’re bringing heavy infantry.
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