Province Size?

[tinkthank]

Sorry, I should have made myself more clear.

There is one other option, of course, which is purely for RPG purposes, but which I am bringing up because the dev team has let slip the "aging" principle for dom3....

*Turns represent 1 week, not 1 month.* (Or even: 1 day)

[Chazar]

The german version of the Wikipedia article about the battle of Kadesh says that one of Ramses II major mistakes was to have the divisons of his army marching 10km apart from each other and states that this meant a whole day of marching at that time, thus preventing the latter divions (who were just marching along the path of the previous devision) to reach the battle!!! The army consisted of 4 mixed divisions, each counting 5000 men. Well, you never know about wikipedia's truth, but I believe that one so far...

One should also consider that heavy rain, snowfall, etc. might furthermore prohibit marching at all!

Then I think there was a delay due to wait for short-range scouting: Where can the army pass? Where are suitable places for the night? Could there be places for ambushes?

The lack of proper roads poses another problem: An army of 5000 cannot march like ducklings one after the other along a mere trail. So how do they cross smaller rivers (I suppose Dom2-Maps show only major rivers, but not smaller brooks which already present a problem in the absence of big bridges!) or hills??? I thought armies of those times were sometimes even required to breach their way through smaller forests, no?

I am not speaking of mountain or forest provinces, since I suppose that "plain"-terrain type entails terrain having some smaller woods, smaller rivers (floodplains), dales and hills, but not a real huge wild forest without any trails! Likewise I imagine mountain provinces to be like the alps. BTW, how long did it took Hannibal to cross the alps?

I am no military expert and neither am I a historian, but by the considerations above I doubt that a roman army could traverse the breadth of england or german in a single month. Thus I guess that this all severly limits the size of those provinces even further. Also, not all provinces are of the same size, so some are easier to traverse than others, despite having the same terrain modifier. Who is an experts for mediaeval warfare here?

[Hakko]

I got this little bit of info from this site:

The first thing the soldiers were taught to do, was to march. The historian Vegetius tells us that it was seen as of greatest importance to the Roman army that its soldiers could march at speed.
Any army which would be split up by stragglers at the back or soldiers trundling along at differing speeds would be vulnerable to attack.
Hence right from the beginning the Roman soldier was trained to march in line and to keep the army a compact fighting unit on the move.
For this, we are told by Vegetius, during the summer months the soldiers were to be marched twenty Roman miles (18.4 miles/29.6 km), which had to be completed in five hours.

I presume this speed was over a Roman road, rather than rough terrain. It also mentions that a legion was expected to begin a campaign with 16 days' rations, which, along with other equipment, weighed in at somewhere between 66 and 93 pounds (30-41 kg). So, theoretically, in sixteen days, a legion cold march ~480 kilometers (300 miles) without resupply. I imagine that actual pace was slower, since sustaining that kind of speed over that long would probably kill the unit as a fighting force.

[Chazar]

Impressive! Maybe strat move should change during summer and winter. That would make a nice complex addition to the game. Maybe non-storm-fliers should be grounded in winter as well...!

[Agrajag]

Chazar said:Maybe non-storm-fliers should be grounded in winter as well...!

That doesn't make much sense, winter isnt a perpetual storm, its just really cold (and possibly rainy or snowy or windy etc.)

[Arralen]

Thinking about it, most of Dom2 troops resemble that of the 1000-1250 era. From http://www.battle1066.com/:
"Harold quickly assembled his housecarls and fyrd and in a legendary march of nearly 200 miles, covered in five days he made camp about 20 km south west of York around or in Tadcaster. .... He was three hundred miles from Hastings with a depleted if not defeated force. How was he too defend the country now? Whatever went through his mind, he decided by the 2nd October to march south again. In a historic march he arrived in London on the 6th October 1066. Harold stayed in London only until the 11th October 1066 before marching towards Hastings with his men. On the 13th October 1066 he camped on Caldbec Hill, 10 km north of Hastings. Here the most famous English battle would be fought."
York => London ~330km
London => Hastings ~100km
So Harold marched his troops ~750km within three weeks (and they shurely wouldn't have marched any more during the rest of the month). But this is deemed "legendary", and nothing a sane commander would have attempted without the necessity to counter an immediate threat.

mmh, what about a "forced march option" in DOM3, which lets the troops move further per turn, but let them start a battle with 10 points fat.?

[bone_daddy]

I like the forced march idea. Adding weather effects is also good. Weather shouldn't prohibit movement, but should certainly slow it.

[Kristoffer O]

It took me 72 days (three days of rest included IIRC) to cover the 1000 miles from Le Puy to Santiago de Compostela carrying about 10-15 kg. I bought food every day and slept in pilgrim shelters. Roads were good and straight and the few times we travelled on old roman roads pace slowed down. Rain also had a very strong effect on how fatigued you were at the end of the day. 8 hours in good weather or 9 hours marching in constant rain has tremedous effects on your morale

We travelled about 15 miles a day. I would imagine an army would travel about 5-10 miles a day. Break camp etc takes time. Carrying supplies is a chore. You get the picture.

There is no consistency of scales in Dominions. To build or besiege a fortress in months is silly. A population of a couple of thousand inhabitants in a province that takes a month to cross is also silly. An army of 300 units is also silly. We wanted to incorporate many features in the game. This is not possible unless you break some conventions. The current compromise tries to give some semblance of realism, but it is more intended to make for an interesting game than an overly realistic simulation of mythical warfare

[Reverend Zombie]

Chazar said:
Maybe non-storm-fliers should be grounded in winter as well...!

Or maybe allow them to move, but only TOWARDS THE EQUATOR of a given map. Assuming the earth isn't flat.

[Endoperez]

tinkthank said:
Sorry, I should have made myself more clear.

There is one other option, of course, which is purely for RPG purposes, but which I am bringing up because the dev team has let slip the "aging" principle for dom3....

*Turns represent 1 week, not 1 month.* (Or even: 1 day)

Well, the game already has seasons and years (3 turns/season, 12/year)... It seems you have quite long weeks (or days) in there!