Greetings, fellow members of the Immortal Blood timeline and political roleplayers all! Seeing as how we already filled four pages of Gerald's guide with our debates, I figured we might as well continue or interesting and useful discussions here. So, as the title says, discuss all things war RP here

Please keep in mind that this is not the Timeline, so any specific comments regarding Immortal's RPs should be taken there. This is simply for debating any ideas regarding such RPs, from battlefield strategy to political alliances, and beyond. Any suggestions or ideas are welcome, but be prepared for constructive criticism. The normal forum rules apply, of course, so no flaming or baiting, and try to keep the discussion on topic.

I believe we were discussing the in's and out's of magic in a war setting, specifically battlefield tactics regarding the use of spellcasters. To help things along a little, here are a few key points from the guide's discussion:

• How many mages an army could realistically contain.
  
• The use of less skilled mages within the infantry ranks, as battlemages.
  
• The use of more skilled mages as support troops to the infantry or missile troops, offering healing and other "buffs".
  
• The use of skilled mages' offensive magic, such as destruction spells.
  
• The ideal location for said skilled mages, and how to protect them from possible attack.
  
• Anti-magic tactics, especially for a less magically inclined army (such as Nords or Redguards) fighting a more magically inclined army (Altmer or Dunmer).
  
• The use of magic for defensive tactics, such as shield spells.

Also, we were breaching the topic of war-beasts, particularly Senche-raht and even dragons.




Now, on a relevant note, I am a huge fan of the Total War series, and frequently use mods from Total War Center. Such mods as Stainless Steel, Broken Crescent, and even Third Age: Total War (a Lord of the Rings inspired mod) are most excellent and I would highly reccomend them to anyone who owns Medieval II: Total War. However, it has come to my attention that no one has ever made a Tes inspired Total War mod, something I would very much like to see. I have already submitted my thoughts on the topic at the TWC forums (which are currently down for technical difficulties), but I would also like to hear what you all have to say. I am not advertising for the creation of a mod team or anything of the sort, just asking what you would like to see in a Tes TW mod.

I, personally, believe that the best location in Tes for such a thing would be the Illiac bay, before the Warp in the West. It is the prime location lore wise, as it has many competing political factions, and a wealth of information on everything from terrain to unit types. For those and many other reasons, I suggest the creation of a Daggerfall: Total War mod. I speak to you all of this because I know how much you love acting out wars in much the same area, and I know you all have substantial knowledge very relevant to such an undertaking, knowledge that would help to make Daggerfall: Total War one of the best mods out there.

Of course, there is one large thing missing from our plans: the modders themselves. I have little to no experiencing modifying anything, let along Total War games, but what I do know is where we can find some There is a literal army of modders at TWC forums, many of which are more skilled than even the TW developers themselves. I'm completely certain that out of all those people, a good portion would be avid Tes fans, with enough free time and creativity to make this dream a reality. On top of that, there is a whole host of modders for Tes games already, and once more I am certain that at least some of them are avid TW fans. All we need to do is find the right people for the job, supply the ideas, and guide the project as the Illiac Bay comes to life on our computers.

There has already been one attempt at a Tes: TW mod, someone tried to use Rome: Total War to create Morrowind, but it failed because the location was simply not suitable for a TW game. In fact, much of Tamriel is not suitable for a TW game, but High Rock and northern Hammerfell are the perfect exceptions. They are already in a more or less medieval setting, with plenty of factions and whatnot already fleshed out. The biggest problem I can see, concept wise, is the implementation of magic into the Total War engine. It would take some amazing and creative scripting to do, but given what Third Age: Total War has already done I am fully confident it is more than possible. I won't go into the details, but I can already think of several ways to pull it off.

However, I don't want to clutter up any more of the discussion thread with this idea. As soon as TWC is back online, I highly suggest anyone interested make an account there and join me in the Bethesda game section. We can make a new thread, to be used as our base of operations while we assemble a mod-team, then move into our own sub-forum once we have a team together. I've put together a mod team in the past, for an Oblivion mod, but I believe this has ten times the potential that mod ever did.

Thank you all for listening to me ramble


Now then, back on topic, let the tactical debates begin

Nice way to give me some credit for starting the original thread at the total war center



Bah. I'm not giving away my tactics.

First and foremost.
The Mage-On-A-Hill-Tactic cant just be brought down by the charge of some heavily armoured cavalry.
Why?
1. That armour wont protect against Lighting.
2. That armour will only help over-encumber you, just add some burden to it and "Poof!" they wont go anywhere.
3. The mages are protected by mundane means. For example, spearmen, archers, swordsmen and other infantry.
4. There wont be any Minas Tirith charges in any of the normal RPs, unless you introduce some new Nomad faction from Akavir, perhaps. In Minas Tirith the Rohirrim propably numbered a good and well force of over 10 000 riders. No faction in the TES universe can do that. It is impossible. This means that you cant do any "Mass-Charges-Which-Cant-Fail-Since-There-Are-Like-Millions-And-Millions-Of-Riders-And-You-Cant-Kill-Them-All-At-Once." (Also those Orcs were using spears which wasnt long enough to be effective against any horse)
5. The Cavalry may be protected by magic means but that wont save them from the fury of the main mage bulk.

Secondly.
I hope that your modding project will work good, also, test out the Europa Barbarorum mod. They aim for a more realistic game unlike the game which was released as Vanilla, they have suceeded too.
I myself have no idea how to mod, unless there exists a Construction Set and therefore I will propably only be for help about ideas, lore and some units here and there.

The Nord solution is simple. They shout at you so loudly you stop moving and your ear drums explode.

THough as for mages, it seems to me mages have been nerfed by the culture of this fan-fic forum. Perhaps it's a side-effect of adventure rp's, where mage characters were put into traditional party dynamics and greater things were left to villains? Or perhaps it's a cumulative effect from the forum's history of war rp's? I just find it odd that mages seem so weak in the world that gave us the ancient Divayth Fyr and his opposite gender clones, a space station, Walk-Brass, and crashing gates by shouting at them.

@darkom, I remember seeing pics and a website for a TES mod for Rome, but I don't know what became of that project.

If the mages are protected, then that is where the normal battle is.

The thing is, the Mages have so much mana. The cavalry are fast, there are a lot of them. Your mages are going to get destroyed. I know from experience.

Wow, quick replies


My apologies, I had forgotten. I didn't want to drag anyone else into this until we had a bit more commitment. So for the record, yes, Wooly and I have already collaborated and brainstormed a bit. But this isn't some grand scheme or anything, I just heard about it yesterday afterall.



Thank you, I've already tried EB and liked it very much, I just prefer Medieval myself, usually with Stainless Steel or Third Age. Though Broken Crescent is fun too, I'm waiting for the 3.0 release (a long ways off, unfortunately) before I commit to a big campaign there

I'm not sure either, which is why I have no intentions of leading the actual project. Once we talk to some real modders and see how much interest there is we can move on to the actual building stage.



Yes, I'd heard of Morrowind for Rome as well, but it failed due to the poor choice of location. The Illiac is much better suited for a TW game than Morrowind, for many reasons.

TWC is still offline But if anyone is interested enough to help brainstorm, and plays TW, please feel free to PM me. I have plenty of ideas that I haven't talked about here Thanks.

A potion of Racer plumes and Coda flower, and your cavalry harmlessly pass by under the mage's feet.

I think it may have been 2920, but that gives a pretty good example of how critical mages can be in a battle. Vivec misplaced his assortment of mages, which resulted in the Reman Empire defeating him.

Doesn't 2920 also show us how mages can circumvent obstacles like water bodies? why find a bridge, when you can walk under or on top of the water?

Exactly.

For the sake of war rps, I believe it is alright to "nerf" magic. But to be clear, in lore magick is something so powerful that it can lose an entire war for you if you misplace your mages, or go up against a people who built a walking god, and all the other really weird things magick can do in the TESverse.

The cavalry arent very fast. You will have to decide, either you have fast cavalry with some chainmail or you have you slow uber-heavily armoured cavalry. If you chose the first one there will be less mass on the impact making it easier to hold the line against a charge. But you will also reach the mages or their bodyguards faster which will save you from some casualties afflicted by magic.

It is also not a certanity that the battle will play out near the mages.
Think of it. You have set up camp, the enemy are close. There is a big field with some hills overlooking from around it. There the battle is to take place. You position your mages on the hill, leave them with some defence (I dont mean some hundreds of soldier here, I mean perhaps some thousands, you will also need to protect the camp and the supplies), then move your main army forward to confront the enemy. Either the enemy will flee as soon as possible or a battle will start. They wont have time to move the main forces to the place where the mages are positioned. That would get them squeezed between the main army and the mages and their protection. Eventually leading to perhaps a complete slaughter when you cut of any routs to escape.

Personally, I disagree. I think the rpers here could handle magicka unleashed, and all the consequences it entails(edit: the preceding sentence isn't directed at anything you said Verlox). Now, I don't have a problem with war rp's limiting the number of mages available (making the accomplished mages something scarce that can only be deployed in dire situations adds an interesting element), but I personally disagree with actually limiting magic itself. If I have troops with thu'um for example, I expect to be able to do some gate-crashing.

I DO think it is powerful.

Yet, I believe because of its power, its EXTENSIVE use is limited. There are few mages who are skilled enough to go to war. You'll have about 10% of mages be elite (of those at the battle).



That's called a flank, genius.

You're going to spend thousands of men to guard 100 damn mages with LIMITED magicka for the entire battle, while I kill your other soldiers? You don't have an infinite amount of men.

You're not always going to have a hill either. You'd be surprised how much faster "slow cavalry" are than normal men.

Oh, are you serious? You really mean that? A flank? Mara, that is amazing! But here it is slightly more than just a flank it is a complete encirclement (there! Found the word I was looking for!).

Sure, it is limited but I think you are trying to make it look less powerful than it is.
This isnt people who throw away 30 fireballs, kills one in each hit and then are out of magicka. These are people who can make the earth shake and crash beneath your feet, people who can get the lightning to hit in the middle of the enemy army and then spread to the next soldier when he touches another soldier, leading to a giant domino brick killing (the magic would eventually stop but still)!

One powerful mage could propably kill 500 soldiers alone in the best of circumstances.

If we have 100 mages whose magicka is lower but still potent then I think it is likely that 5 000 soldiers (50 each) would die at the hands of those mages. Ofcourse, they got other stuff to do than to kill people, heal people, shield people, protect themselves and all that stuff but to protect such a force I wouldnt mind using up to atleast 5 000 soldiers. They could later be sent in when needed as reserves too.

Now, nighty nighty...

They aren't that powerful. Lightning doesn't chain react either (at least magical bolts).

If you have all of your men on some hill, my men are going to be in LOOSE formation. Your mages are going to miss. They aren't all that powerful. Shots miss, etc.


You are acting like you have 100 [censored] nerevaraines on your side. Quit being arrogant.

It would if the mage wanted it to.


Thanks for the info, I'll be sure to keep that in mind.


That's not for you to decide.


Everyone on Nirn has the potetial to reach that kind of power.


.... :laugh:

Bring it on Verlox.

If you whip our ass, Duval will get all the credit anyway.

:unsure2:

And just what is that supposed to mean?

Yes...

The seeds of paranoia have been planted.

No, I'm serious. Just what did you mean by that?

It was a joke.

My point is, magic doesn't always win, despite some of your view's.

If magic always wins, then why are men ruling the whole damn continent as of now, while the elves aren't? Magic doesn't always work. Races like Bretons (at least in game) are immune to it 50%. Slaves rebelled and kick elven ass.

The Redguards, along with the Bretons (magic users) couldn't beat the Nords in The War of the Bend'r-mahk.

Camoran Usurper used magic for his entire army, and even though he did damage, he STILL got his ass kicked in the end.

My point is, if magic is so powerful, then why are the men kicking so much ass?

Wooly if you continue to antagonize people i'm going to kick you out of the RP again. Knock off the trash talking. It's a freaking internet role play with elves and goblins. ffs grow up.

Anyway, I would like to bring up the point that the enemy has mages too :mellow: If you kill 5,000 and I kill 5,000, it's the same as neither of us ever having those 5,000. And if you make it an arms race of who can get the most mages, I will inevitably use counter-mage tactics. Notably finding a crew with Atronarch birthsigns (I still like that idea) and/or Bretons. Or silencing your mages. Or using a diversionary infantry assault followed by a main flanking maneuver. Or battlefield assassins! Speaking of which, I've always been curious as to the legitimacy of those. I've heard Hungary and some Middle Eastern countries used them, but I never really looked into it. Is anyone better informed than I am?

I think there are some.

However I haven't seen them used to a great extent. Definitely acceptable though. Just doesn't always work (as most things don't).

Well, if anyone had them I would think it would be either Bosmers or Argonians. Maybe Morrowind for the presence of the Tong.

Does anyone else have any anti-mage strategies that haven't been named? I'd really like to hear them, so I can properly counter them later Ah, kidding, I probably won't know what to do come battle time. Hopefully I can tag onto someone's coat-tails and rain fire and arrows down from above.


PS For anyone that cares, the TWC forum is going to be up tomorrow morning, I just saw a post on another forum by the main admin there.