SKM Development: Waging War

Combat between units. Now we’re getting into more gritty mechanical stuff. And this is really where my lack of skill comes to the forefront.

Firstly, we decided that everything happens on a month by month basis. However, having only one action to declare in a month is kind of well, sucky, so let’s decide that each month contains five combat ‘turns.’

On a turn, a unit can either battle, move, restructure, engage in combat, defend against engagement, scout, retreat, be routed, be mustered, sack or conquer.

Battle is an involuntary action, if two opposing units share a hex on one of the five action count downs, they will battle.

Movement is the movement of your force. An army moves as fast as its slowest unit.

If two belligerent units stumble into one another, say by blind movement, this results in both forces fighting at disadvantage.

Restructure means that you can choose to adapt your force’s composition, say by breaking all your cavalry off, or by merging together separate groups of peasants and the like. Units can only be restructured together when in the same hex.

If attacked while restructuring, you can choose to immediately reintegrate the units together, or have a free movement of one unit while the other stays behind to fight.

Engage in Combat / Defend Against Engagement is when two belligerent forces encounter one another. Engaging is when you launch an attack. Defend Against Engagement is when you prepare to receive an attack. Defending requires two consecutive actions be declared as ‘Defend.

Engaging a hex that has no unit it in, puts you at disadvantage for the rest of the month.

Engaging more than once per month, except against a routing enemy, puts your force at disadvantage. Unless, your military unit is entirely cavalry and/or knights, in which case you can engage twice.  

Defending grants you an advantage. 

Engaging a force that has chosen to defend puts you at disadvantage (they’re still at advantage for defending).

Scout gives you details on one of the hexes surrounding your force (from a military perspective). Armies with at least five hundred infantry or one hundred cavalry are immediately detected by units in adjacent hexes, although scouting is still required to get specifics on number and composition.

If you choose to scout on the same turn that a unit in the hex you are scouting launches an attack, they are put at disadvantage.

Routed is involuntary movement imposed on you when your force breaks and falls into a disorganized retreat. The force falls back a number of squares equal to twice its movement away from its enemy, typically towards its own territory. If the force had individual units within it that had a better movement (such as cavalry), they break away and form separate routing forces. You are unguarded while routed.

Routed units who encounter non-routed units can be restructured so long as they are within a hex adjacent to the non-routed unit. If they are not restructured, they continue fleeing even if they pass directly through an allied unit.

Mustered is the act of raising the military unit.

Attacking a unit that is mustering or which mustered on a preceding action, puts them at disadvantage and grants advantage to the attacker.

Patrol forces are always considered to be raised. In the event of bandit plunder attacks, they are considered to be present for immediate specific deployment from any  hex possessing a stronghold.

Sacking involves one of two options. One is Plundering, and one is Commandeering. A hex being sacked does not contribute its resource or tax to its regular owner. Sacking puts your force into an ‘unguarded’ state as they are spread out looting, threatening farmers or running around terrorizing peasants. You cannot sack a hex that has an undefeated stronghold in it.

Commandeering means that the enemy unit within the hex forces the populace to essentially pay the unit’s monthly upkeep. They take the necessary subsistence or resource requirement from the hex itself. A hex forced into a ‘cannot feed its own people’ state by this doesn’t destabilize immediately though, as they know that they’re being robbed and not mismanaged, but if they suffer for too long they may destabilize.  

Plundering means the military force is robbing the people. Bandit and raider events are always considered to be ‘plundering.’ A plundering force takes twice the regular generated subsistence, resource and tax value from the hex at the cost of 2d10% of the population being lost (they are either driven off, or killed). If a hex is plundered for six turns consecutively, it is depopulated. Bandit events will never occur to the same hex on six consecutive turns, as this would depopulate a hex, and they view the populace as a resource to be cultivated.

Conquering entails that the unit leaves behind sufficient forces with a DR to ‘protect’ the hex, for purposes of claiming it and establishing control. This results in a hex becoming ‘contested’ between two belligerents. The one who actually provides for the hex’s security requirement is considered to be its owner for purposes of family assignments and income. Two opposing forces’ DRs are considered to cancel each other out (IE: A hex has 200 families, so a DR requirement of 20. Army A has a DR of 40. Army B has a DR of 51. This means Army B is supplying 11 DR to the hex, but that’s insufficient to control it.)  Contested hexes must have forces dedicated to their defense, and these units cannot be used to represent security elsewhere in a realm.

Also, to defend against conquest or conquer a hex, a force must be in a hex. If opposing forces are both in a hex, they resolve their DR for control after their battle.

Now, this is where I am a mild jerk water because these actions have to be decided essentially simultaneously. So two opposed players would need to be doing these actions at roughly the same time. They are however, done sight unseen, like playing Battleship.

Now, Spook, you ask, what is advantage and disadvantage? And for that, I answer.. it’s one of those modifiers to combat.

Advantage to attack increases your AR by ½.

Disadvantage to attack decreases your AR by a third.

Advantage to defense doubles your DR.

Disadvantage to Defense halves your DR.  

Being Unguarded cuts your AR and DR to one quarter of its usual value, rounded down.

Let’s take a closer look at this in a bit, since I want to unpack it more in my brain.