Re: Rules Discussion

[Haneastic]

IIRC colonial cities have an income of .5

Right you are!

[TLS]

IIRC colonial cities have an income of .5

si

[TLS]

Rules Clarification 1/22

Naval Yards and factories, though consisting of 10,000 and 50,000 reserves, respectively, cannot be mobilized to provide that same number of units, just as militia. The yards employ a substantial number of men too young or too old to fight, not to mention if they were willing to be combatants they probably would have elected to join at the very least a militia. Similarly, the installation likely does not have enough weapons to arm every single worker--mallets and hammers and saws are deadly, sure, but even in the age of gunpowder often insufficient. In the event that a city hosting a Yard or Factory is besieged, and the defender seeks to utilize some of that manpower, the moderator, at his discretion, will decide if anywhere from 1/4 - 1/2 of the manpower can emergency mobilized as militia combat units.

However, the Navy keeps its spare cannons (and there are some) at naval yards, so that should count for something, which is why I usually in previous games gave it a value in militia equal to its numbers

NOTE: I moved this from the Naval Units page. Please only use the Rules Discussion thread for Rules discussion. I don't want the rules themselves to get clogged up with discussion.

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The presence of naval cannons and other spare weapons are enough to arm some units, but it's a combination of 1) some of the cannons are simply too large to be moved, 2) the mobility of even the smaller cannons is more problematic, since they're designed for use on ship decks, 3) there is a lack of small arms, and 4) there is a question of the willingness of the men involved to fight. I am not inclined to give people the full use of those units, and I think that planning a defensive strategy around "well I can throw 50,000 militia if my Naval Yard is attacked" is gamey and unrealistic--it essentially makes those positions unassailable due to the sheer mass of cannon-fodder. Rotterdam shouldn't be an invincible fortress because the Dutch can draft 20 militia brigades instantaneously out of it. The 1/4/-1/2 ratio is, I believe, reasonable--it is enough that the yards are not valueless, but not enough for you to be able to rely on simply throwing aging dockworkers against an invasion.

[TLS]

Post-war Evaluation:

As I mentioned in Chatzy, now that the big war is over I'd like your inputs, thoughts, etc on what is working, what isn't. We're basically 4 months into this so I think the limitations of the system--be the formulaic, the way our PC base is spread out, failures on my part, etc--are becoming apparent and this will be a good place to breathe and go over. Everyone except Han, basically, has fought a major war now, and we've all hopefully been paying attention to see where the system is and isn't in need of improvement. GB has formulated some thoughts on FB or in Chatzy, but because Chatzy isn't permanent this should be the main discussion area, so come up a with a list of what you'd like to see and I'll try to synthesize and integrate them.

[Haneastic]

Others have their own ideas so I'll just add my 2 cents on two of the big ones so far:

-Eliminate militia as a unit and replace it with a defensive value for each city. That might better reflect town watch/militia, and prevent armies from marching outside their borders with large militia hosts to act as cannon fodder (as has been done). I would suggest a 2 or 3 tiered rating for cities, perhaps giving ports and capitals top defensive value, cities with craft centers/resources a secondary value, and remaining cities a tertiary value (perhaps allowing third-rate cities to simply surrender when faced with an overwhelming force). You could then add light infantry back to the rotation.

-I’m not opposed to making all ships outside PatRons individual ships, but since I’m building a bunch now I’d like to see a way to transition. Perhaps simply having four types of ships- Heavy Battleship, Battleship, Cruiser, and PatROn, without getting into the 1st-7th rates we had before

[Kilani]

I'd like to keep militia, as they're useful for representing not just hastily formed or barely-drilled troops, but also tribal / lower tech level levies, etc, as well as representing colonial defense forces (historically, a lot of empires in this era relied on militia in the colonies in North America or as a last-ditch line of defense in Europe). Historically, the Brits relied a LOT on their militia for home defense, even if they would've been just about useless.

Also helps us represent the Indian wars and other small conflicts.

Very much in favor of transitioning back to single ships, but I like Han's suggestion - heavy battleships/ships of the line rperesenting 1st/2nd rates and battleships for 3rd/maybe 4th rates. Frigates/cruisers and patrons for the smaller stuff, possibly with the addition of a heavy cruiser/frigate when we get later on in the century, representing the heavier ships that the Americans and French started using.

[Galveston Bay]

My suggestions thus far
Fortified Cities
All have a base defense strength, variable on size.  They retain this strength unless taken by storm or forced to surrender after a siege.  This represents militia, trained bands, the urban constabularies and police, guards for rich people etc, and fortified cities of course also have artillery and walls.  

If taken, that city has no defense value for 10 years.  Partial damage is ignored.  It either falls or it doesn't

Old World Cities
Major Capitals (Berlin, Paris, London, Rome, Vienna etc) 5 points
Ports 4 points
other cities 3 points

New World Ports 2
New World cities 1
Due to size and their young age, their defenses are more to repel pirates and local natives rather than actual armies.  

Cities can hold up to 25,000 men in the New World, 100,000 men in the Old World (although no one is happy).   These crowded conditions however can make armies and populations vulnerable to disease outbreaks, so to avoid the risk of attrition half that number is more realistic (so beyond 12,500 in the New World or above 50,000 in the Old World armies are subject to attrition)

Revised fortifications and bases
This is an era were fortresses were everywhere, and we have to much mobility in this game.  Entire campaign years were spent taking just one fortified city or fortress.  So they should be plentiful
So
Fortress, still acts as a depot and supply base.   Defensive value 2, can also hold 2 brigades and can be placed in  city (adding +2 to its defense value).   If abandoned you get 1 garrison brigade (instead of the infantry battalion at present).  Cost 4, but maintenance falls to .25

On that note, our armies are too small.  Bavaria was fielding an army of 45,000 men in the OTL War of Spanish Succession, while France started with 200,000 men and it expanded to 255,000 men even after including losses.  A lot of those troops however are holding down fixed points and battered regiments and new ones are rotated in and trained full strength regiments are rotated out of fortresses.   So a brigade is probably closer to actual garrison size and having them be a garrison brigade is appropriate as they lack draft animals and wagons to move and their artillery is fixed mounts.

This is an era of relatively cheap labor, and most of the fortresses are primarily great big ditches, earthen embankments, with relatively few stone/brick buildings and positions (most of that it hold the embankments up) and the buildings are chiefly wood.   Look up a Star Fort for what they generally look like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastion_fort

A depot is basically a parade ground, some barracks and about 200 men to train troops, count supplies and maintain wagons and animals.   They should be cheap, but not free, as prior to this armies were quartered in peoples houses (which no one liked, especially civilians).  Cost 1, no maintenance.   If approached by enemy forces the men flee and can reestablish a depot the next summer after they flee.  It is simply a matter of taking over some land and having civilians put up buildings.  These are not fortifications and have no defensive value.   Ideally you should have a depot for every brigade in your army that isn't in a fortress during peacetime.   A Brigade of any kind can establish a depot by sitting still for one season and for game purposes, just assume all brigades go to a depot when peace comes.   When the brigade moves, the depot is abandoned unless that 1 point is spent to man it.   Arguably this could be even cheaper (.5 points to build)

Light Infantry-  these are not skirmishers (those are later) nor riflemen.  They are simply infantry that have smaller artillery pieces than Infantry brigades (4 pounders vs 9 or 12 pounders) and also have fewer wagons and animals.   Cost 3, maintenance .10
The Russians, Turks, and for that matter Swedes should have more troops and they had trouble coming up with the large number of heavy guns that Infantry had.  This also takes into account infantry campaigning in the New World, Africa and Asia, where roads are even worse than Europe and East Asia (or non existent)  They can move 15 miles a day instead of 8 miles a day due to having fewer and lighter wagons (more carts, few wagons) and lighter guns.  They are however not as offensively capable as infantry (less firepower from artillery), so while an infantry brigade has a combat value of 4, movement of 1, Light infantry has a combat value of 3, movement of 2.   You can form a light infantry brigade from 3 light infantry battalions

This next suggestion is from a game called "Soldier King", set in this era.   At discretion, the referee can promote a Cavalry or Infantry or Light Infantry Brigade if it performs well in a battle to Guards.  This gives a +1 to its combat value until it is shattered or peace comes and everyone falls back into lazy peacetime soldiering habits.   This represents units that are particularly effective due to leadership or simply just because they are a particularly tough group of men.  This adds a bit of flavor to the game.  Players should give these units names, even if they don't name any other units, again for color.

Finally, regarding militia.  After one year they should promote to light infantry if they remain in active service.  If they survive a battle they should also be promoted.  This is due to more training or surviving the brutal on the job training of combat.  

I will get to the navies later today

[Kilani]

For "active service" I think we need to define that as actually being in a campaigning army; if they're just garrisoning the home front, they're not really going to be getting that much better unless there's an actual enemy at the gates. Otherwise Britain would be full of light infantry and historically the homefront militia in Britain was mostly for people to wear fancy uniforms and puff their chests out, even during wartime.

[Galveston Bay]

Others have their own ideas so I'll just add my 2 cents on two of the big ones so far:

-Eliminate militia as a unit and replace it with a defensive value for each city. That might better reflect town watch/militia, and prevent armies from marching outside their borders with large militia hosts to act as cannon fodder (as has been done). I would suggest a 2 or 3 tiered rating for cities, perhaps giving ports and capitals top defensive value, cities with craft centers/resources a secondary value, and remaining cities a tertiary value (perhaps allowing third-rate cities to simply surrender when faced with an overwhelming force). You could then add light infantry back to the rotation.

-I’m not opposed to making all ships outside PatRons individual ships, but since I’m building a bunch now I’d like to see a way to transition. Perhaps simply having four types of ships- Heavy Battleship, Battleship, Cruiser, and PatROn, without getting into the 1st-7th rates we had before

Rates were used as they were accurate for the period, but there isn't a lot of difference between a 1st and 2nd Rate other than their handiness in the wind. The 3rd Rate was the primary bulk of ships of the line because of their toughness and handiness and speed and cost. So generally about 1 1st or 2nd rate for every 6-9 3rd rates is normal. 4th Rates were useful as convoy escorts and expeditionary operations (raids) as they provide firepower and a lot of marines but are relatively expendable compared to a 3rd rate.

There are two types of frigates.. heavy frigates (5th rate) which you can think of as a heavy cruiser, and frigates (6th rate) which were the common type of general purpose escort, destroyer, raider, and scout. Think of a 6th rate as more like a destroyer. Heavy frigates are expensive because of construction (they can be as tough as a 4th rate ship of the line and carry the same caliber heavy guns) and their large crews and sail area. Indeed heavy frigates were the fastest ships of the era because of their advantages of length of hull (long relatively narrow hulls compared to a 4th rate or larger) and long is good when it comes to sailing, plus of course all that sail area. So they should be costly, because they were, and 1:3 (1 heavy vs 3 regular) frigates in the current CruRon reflects that.

Brigs, sloops etc, are ll technically not rated at all, but I called them 7th Rates for classification purposes. A frigate can run these ships down (again that advantage of length and sail area) but these ships are handy for general escort, patrol, scouting, coastal patrol because they are cheap, relatively fast (they can still outsail a ship of the line) and all warships except a 1st or 2nd Rate can run down any merchant ship.

As to transition... I simply had everyone get whatever the type of ships made up their squadrons as individual ships (except Patrons, we really don't need to keep track of every Brig and Sloop, so groups of 6 is more than adequate)

So a HvBatRon is 1 x 1st Rate, 2 x 2nd rate, a BatRon is 2 x 3rd rate, 2 x 4th rate, Cruron is 1 x 5th rate, 3 x 6th rate, and a PatRon becomes 2 PatRons.

Regarding naval combat
It is weight of broadside, not number of guns that matters. A ship of the line is carrying guns running from 18-32 pounders, (with the lower guns on the gun deck, the lighter guns on the main deck), hence the 2 and 3 decks of guns they have (the lightest guns are on the top deck, the part exposed to the elements). They are built of massive amounts of trees. A Brig on the other hand has fewer beams and is thus lightly constructed, and usually carries 6-8 pound guns, while a frigate has 8-12 pound guns and only the heavy frigate will have 16-24 pounders. But none can stand up to the broadside of even the smallest liner for any length of time.

So a +1 damage to every difference in rate. A 1st rate gets +6 damage shooting at a PatRon, while a Patron can only inflict 1 point of damage (and these are crew casualties mainly). A frigate inflicts half damage, while a heavy frigate can inflict full damage, assuming of course it survives the +1-4 extra damage that big ship of the line is going to do to it in return. Ships of the Line however do not get a damage bonus against each other or a penalty in damage inflicted.

Light ships run away from Ships of the Line for a reason The ship of the line is called that because it can stand in the line of battle. Everyone else is a support ship in comparison

[Galveston Bay]

For "active service" I think we need to define that as actually being in a campaigning army; if they're just garrisoning the home front, they're not really going to be getting that much better unless there's an actual enemy at the gates. Otherwise Britain would be full of light infantry and historically the homefront militia in Britain was mostly for people to wear fancy uniforms and puff their chests out, even during wartime.

I can see that as reasonable

[Galveston Bay]

After reviewing the individual ships rules (naval combat 1720 in Gunpowder Empire) I would revise downward the maintenance costs but not the building costs. Reduce maintenance by about half for all ships in those rules

Otherwise, for the Royal Navy to have the historical 132 ships of the line and about 70 frigates and a similar number of brigs, it would cost the British of that timeline about 75 points a year to maintain the fleet, plus another 5 or so for the various shore installations, which seems to high.

[Haneastic]

One thing I'll add is I think we should make sure any changes are easy to follow and implement. I know TLS has said battles can be time consuming to work out, so we should take care to avoid adding a lot more time-wise to TLS' plate.

Limiting combat will help make years/turns go quicker if they can online fight one major battle per season (though to be honest I think most campaigns seem to only have 1 but action per season)

[TLS]

Couple points I'll just throw out there now. Keep the suggestions and feedback coming!

1) I'm not inclined to do the "multiply all points by 10" thing. It's partly just a matter of I'm so used to thinking in terms of the relative point values we have that it seems needless to me, and I don't particularly mind the fractions bit. But I'll think about ways to make those fractions less complicated (if I can realistically find a way to make it so that increments of .1 or .25 are all we ever need.)

2) I'm not opposed to the individual ships concept, but also don't think we need to try to mimic exactly the real numbers from RL. I'm interested in relative sizes being right, not numbers. So I don't care if the English don't have 130 ships, say--also, as an aside, I consciously made England poorer this game, and I actually think the fact that France's army was small is because GB chose to invest a lot, perhaps too much, in his navy considering France is traditionally a land power--but I do care that certain countries which should have large navies, or larger armies, can have them. I'm also worried about manpower hits caused by the ships as they currently exist; the Dutch navy IRL did not have 100,000 men in it like it does now, with a comparable # of ships as they have now. But cutting both manpower costs and ship costs will lead to an inflation in navy sizes.

3) Han is absolutely right in that the more complicated this gets the longer it will take for me to game things out. I was already unhappy with my ability to game out these turns because I needed to dedicated 6-8 hours per meaningful turn (Spring-Fall, basically--Winters were usually only 3-4 hours, with colonial combat). That's about 15 hours a week of work on this game during a war. This isn't to say I'm opposed to changes--I'm the one who threw this out there! But it is a conscious trade-off. Thus some of the ideas above strike me as perhaps overly complicated--particularly the suggestion on factoring in the ratings gap for ships is perhaps too much, but the gist of it (it should be almost impossible for a sloop to meaningfully damage a Ship of the Line, while a 1st Rate Battleship should be able to basically obliterate a Frigate with a single broadside) is definitely valid and will be integrated.

4) No one has explicitly said this, but to head it off: I really don't want to have to delegate tasks to players because of conflict of interest reasons. The fact I had to manage so many NPCs in this war was highly problematic, and if GB were another player with a shorter fuse he could well have been frustrated and felt the Mod was beating him up. I'd like to ensure as many players are in the game to avoid that situation recurring wherever possible.

5) Logistically, 1714 will go under the current rules, I'm aiming to roll out the new ones for 1715. I will make sure I think out how to convert things over to the new system where applicable so no one's current efforts are wasted.

[Galveston Bay]

I spent the weekend reviewing Divided America, Age of Discovery, and NapoleonicE20

Of the the three, the best 19th Century rules (for ease of refereeing) was Napoleonic E20 and had the easiest modern combat system to run too.   Although we may have gone overboard on the economic complexity in the 20th Century in that one.

In NapoleonicE20 we had BatRons (3 points to buy, 1 point to maintain, representing 4 ships of the line, 1 Hvy, 3 regular SOL),(For this game I would keep that purchase cost, drop the maintenance to .5) PatRons (representing about 4 frigates and 4 sloops/brigs cost 2 maintenance .25) and merchant fleets (which should cost as they do now).  Instead of making us keep transports, I simply stated 1 point to move a corps sized (5,000 man) unit anywhere that year as long as you State has a merchant fleet, and as they are vague in size, you don't suffer an income penalty.   (This also had the advantage of easy scaling up when merchant ships and corps got bigger).

So instead of making the naval game more complicated, I suggest we do that instead, although naming your Patrons and BatRons would be nice for ease of play (helps the referee and player keep track and ensure he hasnt moved or not moved the proper number of ships) and for color.

That game had 5,000 man units as the basic ground and naval combat unit, so upgrade all brigades to infantry divisions (just keep the same costs and maintenance)(later moving up to 10,000 and then 25,000 man corps)
combat 7, move 1 (50 miles a week), cost 5, maintain .25

Smaller units would be
the fortresses (build 4, maintain .25) which function as they do now (supply source, control an area, and as a depot) and can hold up to 2 divisions or 10,000 troops plus the 2,500 man garrison. combat 10, does not move

depots are eliminated, now units can only be raised at fortresses, cities, and ports

brigades - if an infantry division is shattered it becomes an infantry brigade with combat of 4, move 1 (50 miles a day).

light brigades - the standard unit for Frontier / Colonial /Expeditionary campaigns and for armies that can't afford a light of artillery cost 3, maintenance .1, combat 3, move 2 (100 miles a week, half that in wilderness)

Cavalry only comes brigades (which are called divisions but are actually half the manpower of division).  cost 4, maintenance .25 (and there should be lots of cavalry) combat 5, move 2 (3 if only using roads or in the Steppes, Desert or Great Plains of North America/Pampas of Argentina)

Light Brigades can be moved at a cost of .25 points as long as your nation has a merchant fleet available

Keep the suggestion of fortified cities- see previous suggestion regarding their value.  Note that even a combat strength 7 unit has trouble dealing with the bigger Old World Cities by itself, while a city with only its basic defense strength should be worried about an army of 2-3 divisions

Use 10 sided dice to determine combat outcomes and damage, not D6 (to reflect the more powerful divisions above)

HQ unit- represents the armies logistical train (wagons, lots of wagons), artillery park (centralized artillery reserve), engineers and sappers, construction troops, sutlers, and of course the staff.  Replaces engineer units.  1 HQ supports up to 50,000 men (including itself).  A division sized unit (5,000 men)(about double that number of civilians trailing along in this era)
Cost 5, maintenance 2, only 1 can be created for every 50,000 men in your Army.  
Combat 5, movement 1.   An army with an HQ has all of the abilities of an engineer unit and gets a +1 bonus to its infantry divisions and brigades (has extra artillery).  Cavalry does double damage when it hits one however, so keep it protected with your cavalry reserve.

For Wilderness, just use fortresses and trading posts/outposts/villages and towns, as all of the civilian places have militia.  Give all of the civilian items a nominal defense strength of 1 (trading posts, outposts and villages, 2 for towns) against Natives and Pirates only (which is all they are designed to defend against anyway and most of the population in a wilderness area is armed to the teeth anyway).  

Keep garrison brigades, they are used to keep your nobles and commoners (or your occupied peoples for nations like Turkey) from revolting and provide a policing role.   cost 2, maintenance .1, combat 2 (6 for policing purposes), movement 0

eliminate the 1,000 man unit, if a brigade is shattered it has to be rebuilt, while a division shattered becomes a brigade

so now units are 5,000 men or 2,500 men

Drop damage points on ships.  Results are undamaged, damaged, shattered, captured or sunk
Sinking occurs on a 6 or more on d10 with catastrophic loss (blowing up) only on 10 on d10 roll.  Otherwise a unit is captured.  Damaged units must return to nearest friendly port and are available next season, while shattered naval units must return to a naval yard and are unavailable for 2 seasons (avaible on the 3rd season after being shattered).   Captured units are not available for use until 2 seasons have passed (so on the 3rd season after capture).  This represents the fact that repairing wooden warships is something its own crew can do a lot of the time, with only really heavy damage (like the loss of masts) requiring time in a naval yard.

Ships can still attack ports, but they only generate a combat strength of 3 for BatRons, 1 for PatRons, when attacking Ports and Fortresses (remember fortresses add +2 to a defending cities strength).   So you need a big fleet to dare to take on a port and its still likely to see a lot of ships out of action or even lost.  It should be risky from here on in to do that until the steam gunboat shows up

BatRons get a +1 to damage and to hit when fighting PatRons however a PatRon can refuse battle (runs away).   Although if the PatRon is defending a merchant fleet this is rough on the merchant fleet as it has to surrender to the BatRon without a fight.

Fireships are no longer a thing by this point in history (you rarely see them again) so can be ignored

[Galveston Bay]

Regarding communications
Assume any nation with a merchant fleet has a dedicated mail service to its colonies.. even so

From Europe
1 week Europe to North Africa (or Constantinople to its European and Middle Eastern territories) or one European capital to another in a neighboring state
2 weeks Moscow or Constantinople to outlying territories (such as Persia, Caucasus region)
or a European capital like Paris to somewhere like Warsaw or Constantinople
3 weeks to North America (including sending the courier to the port to take his dispatches across the sea)
3 weeks to the Caribbean
4 weeks to Brazil/Mexico/New Orleans or New Orleans to distant places like St Louis or Quebec to Chicago
6 weeks to South Africa or Peru/Chile
8 weeks to India or California/Texas
12 weeks to the Philippines/Dutch East Indies or Moscow to places like Omsk

some places are not reachable during winter (anywhere in the Great Lakes, anything east of the Urals) so messages don't get there until spring

[Galveston Bay]

More on sea travel
so to move a division (5,000 men) requires 1 point in Napoleon E20, which is a bit high. Instead .5 for a division, .25 for a brigade. Your maximum sea lift is however many merchant fleets you have (or your allies are willing to let you use). So potentially France, with 15 merchant fleets, could move 75,000 troops in a year for a cost of 7.5 points. This represents the major effort and strain that would be for that kind of massive invasion force

Now these units being moved can be intercepted by enemy warships, which is why you need escorts.

Naval combat explanation
Each Batron attacks its opposite number, so a fleet of 4 French vs 4 Dutch BatRons sees each unit attack its opposite numbers. If you have numerical advantages, say 5 French vs 3 Austrian, 3 French BatRon attack 3 Austrian BatRon, and the 2 extra French Batron can attack enemy PatRons (unless they choose to avoid battle) or enemy land units being moved (1 BatRon attacks 1 brigade or division if a division is being moved as a whole unit). Thus it is important to have an adequate number of escorts when you move armies to avoid the bad guys shooting up transports and drowning soldiers.

Regarding time scales
Battles should be one day for each round of combat, these are after all seasonal turns. So 3 rounds of combat would be 3 days of fighting, which is not abnormal at all

[Galveston Bay]

regarding the firepower of divisions vs brigades
a brigade has a firepower of 4, a division 7, which is less than the sum of its parts. But note that a brigade does not have the ability to get shattered and remain on the board (as it were) while division becomes a brigade. This is because a certain part is unavailable in battle due to linear tactics of the day and larger does not mean more efficient. But it can take losses

[Galveston Bay]

questions that came up in chat

Le Roi France joined the chat 19 hours ago

Haven left this message 18 hours ago:

TLS, just to clarify, should I break down my garrison brigades in the Americas into militia regiments? Or are those not included in the brigade restriction?

Spanien: I dunno, I think Garrisons are classified as Militia and are actually just a bunch of security forts

Spanien: I am prolly just going to keep 1 for every million or something and shift the rest to militia

Spanien: Breakdown 1 Garrison (equivalent to 1 militia brigade) is 4 militia regiments, right?

Haven left this message 18 hours ago:

Think 3

Spanien: k, 'cause it was 4 inf regiments to form a single infantry brigade in the last war

Haven left this message 18 hours ago:

Don't quote me, I could be wrong

Haven left this message 17 hours ago:

Yup, I'm wrong. Says 4 battalions per brigade.

Spanien: ah, neat

Spanien: Well, reworked stuff, dunno if I am doing it right, but the New World Army is certainly smaller, weaker, and cheaper

Spanien was timed out 16 hours ago

PAX QUÆRITUR BELLO left this message 4 hours ago:

For sake of clarity, I didn't have depots before because fortresses counted AS depots; can I assume those depots still exist?

Lefty left this message 3 hours ago:

They still do, right?

Ireland joined the chat 3 hours ago

Ireland: I'm pretty sure they are yes

Ireland: Also Abbs the reason it was 4 battalions to a brigade was due to cost. You needed to cover the upgrade cost, and thus that was important not the manpower

Last message was written 3 hours ago

[Lefty]

Regarding Historical characters, how should we handle them? Should we go case by case? Or should we make posts offering positions for these people?

Specifically, I'm looking at Maurice de Saxe's life and trying to figure out what he's up to. At this point IRL, he spent most of his time outside of Poland due to all the chaos, and did stints in the Imperial (under Eugene of Savoy) and Russian (under Peter the Great) armies before being recognized by his father, King Augustus of Saxony and marrying a rich subject (and then making her bankrupt). I'd obviously love to have him serve in the Polish army since he's probably a Great Captain, but I don't want to assume. It wouldn't surprise me if he fought with someone during the Lateran War or even with Eugene in South Africa, but I could also make a case for him staying with his father since Poland has been more stable this TL.

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