Because of affiniities. Uniformity of arms would be much weaker than mixed weapons in the land. Especially amongst trained troops. Forcing people with affinities below 50% to use spears might work against unskilled scrubs like goblin scouts. But once they face warriors they'd be at a serious disadvantage against groups of enemies trained for affinities. Having a bunch of groups trained with different weapons and armor types won't look good and it will make resupply + repair difficult due to the limited standardisation. On the flipside, they'll have far more skilled warriors than the opponents spearmen.
It will be interesting to see if a unit trained at the barracks will have the same weapon or a mixed unit. The advanced units are of the same type, archers.
affinities are overrated. up to lvl 20 weapon means more than technique. or skill. we beed strategy and a shield wall. with spears. Actually helms, armour and shield wall is what we need. this is why our armies use same guns. thats why roman legions used shield and spear and sword. and sling. formations and everyone using same tactics. Outweigh those who are noy skilled enough. though to be fair if u cant meet limited requirements perhaps a mage route or archer would be better suited route. Or assasin..etc...
A skill level 20 swordsman is doing an extra 40% damage per strike. Thereas your skill level 0 spear guy is doing base damage. Similarly the skilled warrior will be packing way more defense for his armor skill and his shield skill. Anyone with a reasonably high affinity can reach skill level 20 with a month or two of training. Uniformity of arms has its advantages, but they will be hammered by any skilled force in the land. Especially once they start grouping people with similar affinities.
For example: Grunt the level 10 spearman wearing light armor with no skills vs Grunty the level 10 spearman wearing light armor with level 20 skills. grunt spear Attack 7-10 light armor Average of 8 defence. grunty spear Attack 9.8 - 14 (+40% skill bonus) light armor Average of 11.2 defence (+ 40% skill bonus) This fight goes to skilled poke 95 times out of 100. Grunt can only do damage with a crit or by hitting soft spots. Grunty does damage on every hit or at worst is damaging base pokes armor lowering its durability.
We this is pretty good actually, what we see here is that a civilian conscript, can hold his own vs a professional warrior for a while. And he with a friend can kill that warrior! I'd bet we would have better weapons and Armour, due to Forge and enchantments! Shieldwall will grant a better defence, cumulative one, plus a defensive wall highly unlikely bugbears will use formations and shield walls, or to a high extent. here we will lose maybe 20%? but a random shaky line will be surrounded suffer massive loses We are comparing a trained fighter vs total noob/adventurer farmer! which is perfect. If we only would have farmers. say MV has 1000 citizens right. Then we have about 500 decent wariors when 2 farmerAdventurers = 1 warrior. Now we have 200 guard and 0 farmer warriors vs 450- 2000 bugbears this is a problem. thats why we need to get at least every citizen to like lvl 8-12 in a combat technique from the dungeon. Sunday Dungeon diving. Current army, is based on affinities and everyone is training/fighting with their best weapon. So like a warband +-, with weak points in the shield wall: Human, Elf, dwarf, gnome,human => 2m, 1.8m, 1.5m, 1.2m,1.9m => here we have a situation where not only ppl from the left do not protect your left.. but also create weak points in the shield wall. If shield wall brakes your troops will be surrounded and everyone killed. But the main benefit from this setup is formations, shield wall protects you from left, right, top, back so you get at least a + 40% defense buff. Also if we would go Makedonian route, which requires greater training then shield wall would have at least 6 spears protecting a single shield a lethal weapon. So say we have a militia of 200 with random weapons. Like a warband at best, but prob more like a mob. Remaining 800+- could be transformed into conscript militia(400 effective fighters) to hold the walls. And thats why standardized formations are the best, its because of the defense buff and holding the wall. no breakthroughs. perfect defense. A warband is a great tactic, for mobile warfare on bad terrain, highly mobile, fast, units. Would lose in an open field to a roman legion though. But even with a warband we have a bunch of different races, different weapons, not everyone is using a shield. this is a mess. Also realistically we will have at least 10% better weapons + enchantments. We will have troop with at very least lvl 6-20 in a combat skill. Plus, potions, spells, healing, formation bonuses, defense bonuses etc.. But in a shield wall even if get warn down u just step back and somebody else takes ur place. we will wore out the enemy. God, this is a mess of thoughts..
The armies of other nations regularly beat the shit out of the romans. Mostly because the romans weren't that much better at military affairs, despite their professional armies. They were far better at administration, building and farming than their competitors, allowing Italy to sustain a massive population. We see this with the battles of Heracla and Asculum, from which we gained the term phyrric victory. The greeks won both battles overwhelmingly, but the greeks couldn't replace their loses the way the Romans could. Its the real world version of sprites vs goblins. The Sprites keep winning convincingly but can't replace their loses. The goblins keep losing battles, but they have the numbers to replenish their armies over and over. The way i'd go about building an effective fighting force is to put together smaller groups, squads and perhaps companies of a hundred in time though that's a way off. You still have a mixed group, but that's inevitable then you have races with such fundamental differences in physique and magical ability. Sprites and elves will mostly be archers and casters (as a race elves have high average magical affinities), thereas dwarves have the staying power for a powerful shield wall. Kindir would make for decent skirmishers. Humans make for good generalists, a mobile force able to beef up the shield wall. Richter has around 1050 people. 100 are pixies who should focus exclusively on speed and their blasts unless they are life pixies in which case they should act as supremely mobile emergency healers. My guess would be a third of the remainder are children or elderly. Might make for decent slingers but I would but them in the meadow so they are out of the way. Of the 700 that remain i'd guess 200-300 are already in the guard. The five hundred that remain are herbalists, alchemists, cooks, miners, smiths, builders and other crafters. Levying them means those things won't be done, grinding the village to a halt. That's fine for an assault or siege. But they won't be a match 2 to 1 against a trained bugbear soldier. Not that anyone would allow them to focus on one bugbear at a time.
Right so a highest martial affinity skill fighter should win vs same skill lower affinity right. But we will have a lower skill either way weather its spears, maces, axes.. prob no time to change all to spears.. However we should have better weapons, armour, mages, healers, archers, potions, general buffs. Truly it does not matter weather its a sword/spear/mace/axe you are using as long as you can fight in a shield-wall for cumulative shield wall bonus. Though different weapons are used at different ranges. Roman legions used sling for far away enemies. Throw range spears with lead. Close shield range short spears, close combat swords. Maybe a way would be to organize multiple shield groups: axes, swords, spears.. grouped by type. Just look at these beasties:
Heracla " The phalanxes made seven attacks, but failed to pierce the legion. It had met a foe that was stronger than any it had ever encountered. The Romans made seven attacks, yet they could not break the phalanx, and the battle hung in the air. At one point, the battle became so pitched that Pyrrhus—realizing that if he were to fall in combat, his soldiers would lose heart and run—switched armor with one of his bodyguards. This bodyguard was subsequently killed, and word spread through the ranks that Pyrrhus had fallen. His force began to waver, and the Romans gave a thunderous cheer at the turn of events. Grasping the magnitude of the situation, Pyrrhus rode forward, bare-headed, along the lines of his men to show he was still living. This show of bravery strengthened their resolve. A massive cheer went up from the Greek line, and the battle raged on. Unable to make any significant gains in action, Pyrrhus deployed his war elephants, held in reserve until now. The Roman cavalry was threatening his flank too strongly. Aghast at the sight of these strange and brooding creatures which none had seen before, the horses galloped away and threw the Roman legion into rout. (The Romans subsequently called elephants Lūca bōs, 'Lucanian ox', after the location of this first encounter.). Pyrrhus then launched his Thessalian cavalry among the disorganized legions, which completed the Romans' defeat. The Romans fell back across the river and Pyrrhus held the field. " Pretty much bigger Roman army decided to cross a river, Egypt had the high ground. Not sure if They were facing 50% of romans, but the position was crap for Romans. Also War Elephants.. Hanibal was literally slaughtering the Romans for 20 years, then lost the war. No support from cartage and no way to take Rome(big walls)... Great tactician though. Now the second battle: Asculum Elephants and also engaging the phalanx in the plain land.. this is a terrible tactic. long spears has a longer reach. also no way to flank. Phalanx are the best way to defend a narrow city streets or fight in lines in plains now in a forest or hills they would be slaughtered. But we are fighting in a forest in a Fortified position more or less:
isnt the example we are talking is also having grunt with a better weapon and amour than grunty? and probably a unit vs 1 person 4 times too.
I think Ricthers barracks will be a lot like a ludus. He will likely have someone similar to a Lanista running the program as well. Not that I believe they will be as hard core with wiping or beating its trainees. Not that uniform ranks couldn’t be trained there. I just fell that the MV is a hodgepodge of peoples and weapons as well. Rank and file formations would do well practicing against a greater diversity of weapons and defenses. Gladiator style training with a variety of weapons would seem to be more fitting for dungeon divers.
WHAT???? The Romans were Regularly beat by other nations????? So then how is it that the Romans conquered the known world? Not only did they conquer it but they held it. Well I suppose that’s the reason they only ruled the Mediterranean for a THOUSAND YEARS.
And then make coherent units out of the hodgepodge. Make a unit of guys with spear affinity who are trained with said spears. Same for sword and board, et al. When they go into the dungeon they can make more balanced teams. When they fight a battle they’ll be grouped up appropriately.
Its true that having significantly better gear could make up for the skill difference. The village has some excellent gear for their elites made from powerful metals, imbued with the power of gemstones and enchantments. But for the most part people make do with more mundane enchanted steel, weapons not that much better than what the trolls and the bugbears have been shown to wield. A bugbear who can add +40% to his defense and attack could more than make up for a difference in gear. On a sidenote. When I put grunt up against grunty I assumed all else is equal, not that grunty is wearing rags and has two peg legs. Counting on always having massively better gear than your opponent seems like a losing strategy, where at best you throw away your edge in gear to match their edge in skill.
I already made it clear one of the main reasons they grew big was their population base. The romans had the numbers and resources to suck up their loses and keep swinging. I never said they were bad warriors, but it wasn't their main strength. Take a look at their list of major battles. Many of them were devestating loses that would have crippled a lesser nation, but the romans kept going. For around 500 years, followed by half a millenium of steady decline. That's only the western empire, the eastern half lasted a millennium longer. If you are going to argue against my points, come with an argument. Its clear they were big and lasted for a decent amount of time. So were many others. That's not an argument for them being good at warfare.
Conquering the known world by brute force, laying siege to unbreakable fortresses, and they are poor soldiers. You also think the Roman Empire has such a vast amount of Romans? You do remember only Romans had citizenship if you weren’t Latin you weren’t anything. You might also want to look at the Italian province the Romans came from Latinia. Fighting for Rome could get you Citizenship but it had to be a full Career. Also if Rome had such a numerical advantage over the rest of the world why did they conscript so many troops from foreign lands? As far as battles won and lost you need to consider these people ruled the entire known world by force and force alone. They didn’t use engineering feats such as the aqueducts to conquer the world. A point in fact when the Roman Empire fell a lot of combat knowledge and war machines were lost. Edit: There is no need in arguing a point when something is so evident.
Romania fell because of Emperor stupidity(multiple Emperors to be exacts). Also there were multiple battles where Romans won the battles, but in most cases it was either due to brilliant tactics or strategy.
Just build an arena, add helmets and shields and basic Armour.. and let them wrestle! for like a mo. or 6. Until mastir wrestler and strong. then let back in with wooden weapons for training. then real weapons vs beasts
Indeed, there is no point in arguing about established fact. Most historians would agree that while the romans had decent armies, their true strength was their economy, their infrastructure and their massive population compared to their opponents. Now please find just one instance of me saying the romans diden't have decent professional armies. They were however the only ones that could keep raising armies as well as replenish those armies. They had a level of manpower that none of their opponents could match. They lost battles and sometimes badly, but they almost always carried through and won the war. When they diden't it was because of political troubles at home, not because their military power had been broken. As an example of Rome's economic power and engineering capability lets take Rome 200 AD. The city had a staggering population of 1.2 million people, orders of magnitude larger than any city before it and only overtaken by London 1600 years later (In 1825 London had 1335000 people). At a time when most cities were struggling to keep less than 100.000 people alive, the Romans managed to feed and shelter ten times that without showing much strain for it. They were unmatched builders. Most of their opponents had populations in the tens of thousands to a few hundred thousands. It usually took multiple large tribes to face the romans in the field. If you don't agree come with a counterexample, just one instance of a power in the ancient world having comparable population, infrastructure and economy to what Rome built.
