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Old 11-12-2015, 03:23 PM   #11
legine
 
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

Well it comes basicly down to the morale standad. If players apply todays standards it will be dissapointing if you apply an other standard. So I would not to much worry about.

If you check the romean army or the old chinese, they applied high disciplin. There is even one ancient book which is still valid in todays military teachings.

So i think you have to decide what kind of army they lead.
I'd orient myself on the disciplin value you base it.
Something like rome Legion or Sparta I'd give a 16.
a romean standard stroops 14 or 15, auxileries maybe 12, pressed troops 10 and less.
I would assume this values for fresh people. If there are arguments to reduce I would reduce by 1-4 points. depending on severity.

For each failed point I would assume 1% or if thats not working failed point sqared. that would mean miss by 10 and you loose the commnd of that particular unit.
With that there is some chance something happens, and the severity is of course higher if you have less trained troops.

I would also concider my next steps in the campagne. I think it is important not only to simulate but to tell a story. And the story tells you what limits you put in. Maybe more then 10% does not suite in the story, but causes enough trouble to be interesting.

For me it is really the question what do you want next. And that massivly influences the severity of the role.
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Old 11-12-2015, 03:32 PM   #12
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Realistically low tech armies rarely have the logistical backstop to make the prevention of looting and the atrocities associated with looting feasible unless the city surrendered without a fight.
This is a good point. The level of control when the fighting officially stops would make a huge difference. With an orderly surrender, there is a clear "end" to the fighting. But if the city is taken by storm, violence against civilians would be easier to lose in the surrounding violence of the battle, and others would be too busy to put a stop to it.

Perhaps use the "Pursuing a Retreating Force" rule after the and treat the city as the logistic force (losing 1dx5%)?
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Old 11-12-2015, 04:20 PM   #13
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

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I have no idea, but wouldnīt the last part mean that the more MPs you have, the fewer atrocities will happen ? How many professional, trained, and reliable troops does the commander have who might be deployed as MPs ?
He has 300 utterly reliable men who have 10+ years of experience as paramilitary guards in a post-revolutionary city where each neighbourhood was more or less independent, many of them were controlled by gangs or violent revolutionaries, and these guards emerged out of a security collective on behalf of the Artisan's Guild, defending their own quarter from the chaos. Having essentially been a paramilitary unit that was adopted wholesale into the PCs force, they have 3 months of intensive training in Savoir-Faire (Military) and Soldier by teachers with Teaching 15+, in order to function as Military Police.

There are also 300 militiamen* and 200 hoplites who all come originally from Shussel, the city being seized, who are brought along as guides and to interface with the local population. These presumably have a low chance of random atrocity against actual locals and ought to have at least decent discipline, but they can't necessarily be trusted as MPs without having some other troops along, as they might not have much respect for the rights of enemy combatants.

These 800 troops weren't used for combat duties during the invasion, so they could essentially be on full-time security detail from landing onwards. After the battle comes to an end, there will be a stream of new troops coming ashore, without having actually fought, and some of them might be used as security as well, if needed. But most of them will be assigned to preparing defences against the field army outside the city.

Among those troops are around 700 highly professional men in the direct employ of the PCs. Their duties upon landing were to establish quarters for everyone, so they'll have acted as traffic cops of sorts while the confusion was sorted out. After they went into their own quarters, sailors from the offloading ships would have taken over that role. Say around 500.

While they bore much of the brunt of what hand-to-hand fighting took place before enemy forces that didn't make it to the inner keep surrendered, the 570 Marines might be used as security troops once hostilities cease, but only if a situation develops to make it necessary. Otherwise, it is far preferable to allow them to rest.

*Who have actually been full-time soldiers now for 2+ years.

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Originally Posted by Pomphis View Post
How well and regularily are the troops paid ? Looting will be almost necessary if itīs necessary to get food and beer. And then it becomes much more likely that somebody gets killed for resisting. And once you kill, I assume raping also becomes more likely.
The locally-raised troops are paid a decent wage by local standards, while the full-time professional mercenaries brought from abroad are paid astronoically by local standards and very well by any standard. Payment is prompt, in coinage that has hithertoo always been accepted by local merchants, and access to beer, wine, erotic entertainment and plentiful food has been exemplary.

There are benefits to having a guy with Accounting 20+, Administration -25, Economics 20+, Finance 20+, Freight Handling 20+, Merchant 27, Propaganda 20+, Psychology (Applied) 20+ design and operate your system of military logistics, procurement, managment and finance. Granted, he can't run it full time every day, but he has chosen capable lieutenants and there are multiple people involved with Administration 20+.

For that matter, the PC acting as Commander in Chief has Administration at over skill 20 and is superb at a wide range of planning and managment skills. He just tends to focus on strategic managment, not day-to-day logistical issues. It's extremely important to him that his men have no rational reason to molest civilians and that the commissary supply all the physical requirements that the men need for good morale and health, but he mostly gives General Orders directed to that goal and leaves a competent staff to implement them.

None of this can alter the fact that a very good wage, regularly paid, pales into insignificance next to the riches that could be realised by capturing a magical item from an enemy officer and managing to somehow sell it on the black market for even a tenth of what it is actually worth. A good bounty is paid to troops that turn in such valuable loot, of course, with the invidual who captured it getting a nice bonus and all his comrades up to the regimental level sharing in the prize, but the bulk of the value still ends up in the coffers of the new government and the mercenary company that the PCs are running.

But stopping looting is an unrealistic goal anyway. The PCs will settle for encouraging the rational among their soldiers to avoid violence against civilians and focus on schemes that involve smuggling out valuables to sell on the black market. It's not as if the average Status -2 to Status -1 civilian is very likely to be hiding items of fantastical value, like the enemy priests or aristocrats might be doing.
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Old 11-12-2015, 04:38 PM   #14
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

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Realistically low tech armies rarely have the logistical backstop to make the prevention of looting and the atrocities associated with looting feasible unless the city surrendered without a fight.
There is a significant attempt here, at least, to do so. It is being done by extremely competent commanders and their staff. They are devoting around 20% of the troops that enter the city to military police duties, as opposed to combat duties, and naturally all the troops were briefed extensively on expected norms of behaviour and consequences of deviating there from.

The city surrendered after the port was seized and artillery and dropped incendiaries broke a counterattack. Actual hand-to-hand fighting never involved more than around thousand men of the invanding army and happened only near the docks. Nevertheless, even twelve hours after landing, there is still chaos, confusion and, every so often, the potential for violence as some hiding members of the former occupying force who have either not heard of the surrender or don't agree with it are encountered. So there is plenty of scope for atrocities, should anyone desire to commit them.

Everyone is extremely busy preparing to defend their new acquisition. The 300 troops devoted to military policing duties started at dawn and it's late afternoon now. The commanders have attempted to have around 1/3 of them rest at a time, but it's unlikely many have gotten much sleep. So as it gets dark again, I imagine that the level of security starts to decline sharply, as the MPs are tired and the south wall is going to be attacked, which ties up much of the rest of the troops.

There are 500 others who will be in a quasi-MP role as well, because of their status as expatriate locals and also because they are not as well equipped as the front-line mercenaries and therefore not as vital to the defence. They are not trained guardsmen, however, but just militia and soldiers who over the past year of living next to refugee camps have often had to contain riots, guard food shipments, oversee potentially subversive civilian labourers and perform other MP-like tasks. How much good they can do during the night, however, is up for debate. Especially if the army outside the walls attacks.
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Old 11-12-2015, 04:58 PM   #15
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

I would be tempted to use general reaction rolls for effects, modifying them by the effort.

Basically take the different groups in the army and assign the local different groups an effective reaction bonus/penalty then map the thing on the NPC reaction chart and use the corresponding %.

Basically reading the reaction chart it would seem that if it i known that abuse is not tolerated and that it is actually policed you can shift the thing from 9-: He may become hos tile if there is much profit in it, or little danger.
To 6-: acts against them if he can profit by doing so.

So on a +0 total reaction modifier it would go down from 37.50% to 9.25% for the affected troops. Different % values for different reaction modifiers but the end results on the table would be the same.

The effects of effort could use the indirect influence rules in social engineering p.61. Counting the troops used as military police(if they are themselves honest, that might require further campaigns) as money spent on the campaign with the other troops being the target audience. On success you would likely shift them from 9- to 6-, epic successes with skills as high as given for your PCs: likely a success by 10+ could shift the thing all the way to 3- and success by 20+ could give 0-
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Old 11-12-2015, 05:04 PM   #16
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Realistically low tech armies rarely have the logistical backstop to make the prevention of looting and the atrocities associated with looting feasible unless the city surrendered without a fight.
I'm sceptical too. Low-TL armies didn't avoid looting. At best they may have attempted to ensure that the looting took place in an orderly and civilized fashion, so that it was efficient and didn't cause the important civilians or nobles back home to become upset

And I'm not aware of there being anything analogous to military police, in any low-tech armies. Insofar as there was discipline, it'd have been kept by NCOs (Roman-style) or clergy.

But this is Icelander. He tends to think things through, rather than go for D&D Land, so there's probably an underlying ice(lander)berg of thoughts and rationales that we don't know about, that makes such a thing rather more plausible.
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Old 11-12-2015, 05:30 PM   #17
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

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I'm sceptical too. Low-TL armies didn't avoid looting. At best they may have attempted to ensure that the looting took place in an orderly and civilized fashion, so that it was efficient and didn't cause the important civilians or nobles back home to become upset
Private looting is inefficient and counterproductive. It enriches scruffy soldiers, who then probably desert to boot, at the cost of alienating the citizens of the new country being created.

All looting must be organised, and incidentally, should be referred to as 'seizing enemy supplies'. After all, all land and buildings captured will go to important people on the PCs' side and all civilians become their citizens.

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And I'm not aware of there being anything analogous to military police, in any low-tech armies. Insofar as there was discipline, it'd have been kept by NCOs (Roman-style) or clergy.
Praetorians began as personal guards of the legate, who could be used as enforcers of his decrees. Lictors, of course, were ceremonial in nature, but that didn't keep them from being effective if a magistrate ordered the to detain someone for pubishment.

Various royal guards and household warriors have functioned as enforcers of the commander's will and keepers of discipline in armies throughout history.

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But this is Icelander. He tends to think things through, rather than go for D&D Land, so there's probably an underlying ice(lander)berg of thoughts and rationales that we don't know about, that makes such a thing rather more plausible.
The armed forces directly employed by the PC aren't especially low TL. They are essentially TL4, with TL4+1 and TL4+2 in various fields due to magical communications, transport, cartography and intelligence. Their allies are TL2-4 and much more likely to be indisciplined, which is why I wanted to use historical incidence of atrocities on low-tech armies as a benchmark for them.
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Old 11-12-2015, 06:07 PM   #18
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

Given the powers the PCs are able to bring to bear to discourage atrocities I would think atrocities would be close to nonexistent.

After all, they are being led by figures of Legend, and if the figure of Legend says 'you don't do this stuff or you will be killed', you don't do it and you don't let your friends do it

There will likely be plenty of complaints and grumbling from some of their soldiers about these stupid orders, but soldiers are well experienced in following stupid orders that make no sense
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Old 11-12-2015, 06:18 PM   #19
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

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Given the powers the PCs are able to bring to bear to discourage atrocities I would think atrocities would be close to nonexistent.

After all, they are being led by figures of Legend, and if the figure of Legend says 'you don't do this stuff or you will be killed', you don't do it and you don't let your friends do it
For their long-time soldiers, that might be true. New allies, though, might not let the fact that they are being led by charismatic and apparently competent people about whom there are many implausible legends stand in the way of stupid behaviour. And for a coldly rational sociopath, it's going to be obvious that even a preternaturally acute commander-in-chief is not going to be able to find out what happened in every alley of a city under siege that's bustling with activity.

For warriors of the anti-slavers or some of the allied hoplites, there are plenty of opportunities to sin. If they can trust their immediate comrades not to blab and don't happen to have a vigilant officer near them, the odds of being caught in the act while looting, raping or murdering the odd civilian are fairly slim. After all, in a city designed for more than 100,000 inhabitants (albeit holding less than half that, many of them slave workers of the enemy), 300-800 people acting as guards/MPs won't cover anything but the most vital areas. There will be a lot of civilian areas essentially unguarded.
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Old 11-12-2015, 06:30 PM   #20
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

People who are wise enough in being idiots not to get caught conveniently enough will not need to be hanged

The idea of 'wise enough in being idiots' makes my mind hurt a bit though

So I think you will have very few people to be hung, those who decide to be criminals in the first place, and do it in such a way to be caught

The same people in this day and age who share videos of their crimes on youtube and facebook
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