Panther Claw Academy/Marshal Guide

In General

• Keep your army in shape, if they have nothing to do, let them train and help individual nobles recruit to their maximum, get a higher share from their lord if needed.
• Use the general military protocol in the general bulletin during peace times and occasionally underline and explain the orders it contains.
• During War times, even if you have no specific order for the army besides to wait, update them every day none or the less. This keeps an active focus in your army to respond as quickly as possible and be reminded of the current situation and targets.
• Use your Standing orders wisely for line settings, current orders and other information you wish them to be reminded of.
• Always use formatting to make the standing orders clear just like the orders you give out.
• Pro actively take a stance in your responsibility for the size and quality of the army, those who don’t follow orders should be reported and those who cannot follow orders should be helped or put to a different task, like region maintenance, for repetitively less active nobles a military career might not be the best thing, the life of a Courtier, Diplomat or Trader might be better for them, guide them there. It is wise to keep a log, so you get to follow your troop leaders better.
• Every noble in Fallangard is obligated to serve the realm in everyone's career. The careers of nobles, who do not directly or indirectly strive to serve the realm to their best abilities have no place in Fallangard’s armies.

Giving out Orders

• Always make sure you send out your orders as far ahead as possible. This way every individual troop leader can plan their attack on time and will not be hindered by inactivity or longer or delayed travel times.
• Always guide and help in your order these troop leaders to plan on arriving in time by giving examples and a standard explanation.
• Use strong, to the point, format and wording.
• Underline the importance of correct line settings, include the settings and try to include if a Marshal will be using a specific formations if there are no settings needed.
• Occasionally Include a quick motivation, explanation of strategy and if we succeed what we gain.
• Always repeat your order every half day(if you can’t let your vice marshal do it) and update travel times etc.
• Be consequent in using the same terms in all your orders, like half day full day(one or two turns) and make sure everyone understands them.

Your Strategy

Strategy will always be actively discussed and or updated in the Military matters council of Fallangard. The General will give the marshals an overall strategy for different situations and underline the most likely situations. Your task is to react as roughly outlined, set out a detailed plan and make sure your army preforms these tasks as best as possible. You will have to use the right line settings, formations behaviour and army movement to the right situation which will be outlined below if not already explained above.

Always make sure you understand the mechanics of warfare, every aspect of troop leading and how things work in detail, this includes the layout of the battlefield, with one neutral line between the two sides fronts. Depending on the enemy you face (intelligence gathered by scouting's and or intelligence from the general) you react. Every trait has its strengths and its weakness, use them as best as you can and make sure you understand the effects by using the academies library and guides in a proactive way. When you can't find the answers ask for it.

Some outlining of situations depending on army compositions and the best strategies for them:

• Using an infantry heavy army we make sure we use our advantage in close combat as quickly as possible, backed close by our archers. We bring the cavalry in depending of how much overkill we suspect. Remember that the more overkill you do, the higher the reduction of hits caused will be. So too much overkill is bad. Your target should be to just reach overkill. By doing so, you will inflict the panic penalty on the enemy units, while wasting only a few hits. Depending on the amount of Cavalry and ff Overkill is already assured, bring the Calvary in on the 2nd or third round of close combat, otherwise bring the cavalry in at the same time as your infantry so they cause the overkill.

• Cavalry can be used to break an enemy heavy infantry army before your infantry can come in and deal the overkill thanks to the distorted enemy line and the extra casualties already inflicted by cavalry and archer fire. Cavalry can also charge in even sooner, if you are fighting almost archers alone, cavalry can break through lines and continue quickly onwards to pursue the archers behind the enemy's infantry. Cavalry can travel two lines per round if not engaged in Combat and deal an extra charge damage upon there first round of close combat.

• Using a heavy archer based army or being in the minority, you seek to delay close combat as much as possible. A great field strategy is to set up small units of archers and some small units of infantry on the first lines with the rest of your forces in the rearguard and most infantry on the back line. This way the enemy receives the most damage from archers, loses the most morale and fights the least effective thanks to overkill, cavalry will also be stopped every fighting round from travelling two lines per round, preventing them to charge effectively(the first line is already dead that round).

You can also effectively charge forts with archer heavy armies, by attacking there walls with your infantry in the rear defensive and archers on the back/middle line (four or three lines away from there walls), you keep firing on the defenders without any close combat loses. The enemy will not engage you from there walls until all your infantry is defeated, then they will move forward and leave there fortification. Archers damage depends on the range from which they fire and the weather conditions.

• Overkill is a very important tool to win a battle and should be used to your best abilities. A whole article can and has been written about it which can be read here: Overkill

It is very important that every Marshal understands this concept to its fullest and keeps asking question about the part of doubts that remain. We should be sure about the decisions we make.

We must always understand that war will take casualties and that those are but to be seen as numbers and tools to win. We do not let our actions be decided upon moral or ethical values but the pursuit of victory only. For the King.

Region maintenance and destruction

As a Marshal or Local lord it is important to understand what factors influence the peasants morale, loyalty and control. How to destroy/disable or take over a region.

Region statistics, what effects them how and the right applicable methods

Below shows every aspect of your region individually explained, we try to be as complete as possible, but it is most likely not.

Production

Production is the percentage of efficiency at which the region produces thus how much it yields in terms of gold and food, it is not the ultimate indication of how much your region will eventually produce for the Lord and his knights, it still depends on the level of control and taxes how much gold is profited. Weather and seasons will also have an effect on food. The percentage shown can fluctuate within 5% in any larger, busier realm and will usually bounce back to 100% relatively quickly. Production is subjected to population, a region which is not fully populated cannot reach 100% production. There are eight different descriptive levels of production: Stopped, Plodding, Crawling, Slow, Good, Busy, Thriving, and Booming.

Overall effect:

• State of Morale

Positive effects on Production

• Family Investments
• Civil work

Negative Effects

• Battle in the region
• Looting

Morale

Morale is the happiness of the population in the region. Higher morale can increase production, loyalty and increased resistance to invaders. Lower morale can cause unpatriotic sentiment to take root and may make the population more likely to resist your rule. There are six descriptive levels of morale: Bleak, Depressed, Stoic, Content, Cheerful, and Joyful.

Overall effect:

• Taxation
• Lords religion compared to populations religion

Positive Effects:

• Hold Merciful courts and occasionally just courts
• Civil work
• Rulers Presence for Monarchies and Theocracy
• Protesting of Peasants
• Preaching of calmness by priest

Negative effects:

• Insufficient food
• Looting
• Holding harsh courts and sometimes just courts
• Drafting extra recruits
• Preaching doom by priests
• Religious violence
• Brute police work

Loyalty

The loyalty to the realm. Higher loyalty means more difficult takeovers (if you are invading) and increased acceptance of the realm's rule. If loyalty is low, then many options such as holding court will not work. Loyalty will increase as the region rebuilds infrastructure through police work, civil work, heroes telling tales and other work. Alternatively, brutal subjugation of the people with harsh courts and military rule makes sure that fear keeps the regions in line. There are seven descriptive levels of loyalty: Hateful, Disdainful, Indifferent, Friendly, Loyal, and Worshipful.

Sympathy is an estimate of how many people in that region like your realm and would not mind your rulership over them. A higher sympathy allows for friendlier takeovers to be performed faster with fewer men. On the other hand, low sympathy will force you to use harsher means to take control of the region and more men will be needed to secure the country-side for a long period of time. Almost nothing can be done to increase sympathy towards your realm besides waiting, but looting the region or allowing a TO to fail will surely cause it to fall. The descriptive levels of sympathy are the same as those for loyalty.

Overall effect

• Morale
• Taxation
• Control
• Diplomatic stance of the regions peasants towards other realms compared to the diplomatic policy of the regions realm.
• Lords religion compared to peasants religion
• Distance to capital

Positive effects

• Just courts
• Diplomacy actions by diplomats
• Preaching loyalty by priests
• Police, Civil work or Heroes telling tales

Negative effects:

• Insufficient food
• Diplomacy actions
• Brutal Looting/Looting
• negative diplomatic actions by diplomats
• Preaching by priest
• Protesting peasants
• Religious violence

Control

There are five levels of control: core, main, province, occupied and rogue. These change according to the population's desire for independence. Rogue means the population has risen up and taken to governing themselves, and are under no realm's rule. Occupied is the lowest form of realm rule, and indicates strong desire to be independent. This continues all the way to main and core, where the population is fully integrated within the realm and harbour no desire for independence.

Control determined how efficiently taxes are collected from the regions produced gold.

Overall Effect:

• Loyalty
• Distance to Capital
• Taxation

Positive effects:

• Harsh courts
• Police work

Negative effects:

• Merciful courts
• Looting

Protocols for Region Maintenance

Always try to achieve as high taxation as possible, work from every angle and take every effect into consideration, this includes changing your religion or that of the peasants as well as your realms diplomacy or the view of the peasants on other realms. Lords without any religion have a general disadvantage in region maintenance. If your pushing your regions maximum abilities, let it take time for the population to adjust at least for three days and then start observing the taxation effects of your new setting. Every region has its own max depending of your or others constant attention or not, always keep this in mind.

If one of your regions stats is dropping, find out what causes it from the list above and work to improve it. If the trouble starts to get serious, drop taxes considerably below 10% and invest your full time in improving your region.

Under enemy Occupation

If your region is attacked by the enemy which shows signs of staying(looting or takeover) while your army is not able to defeat them, sell all food and drop taxes to an absolute minimum. This will keep morale high which increases the chance of peasant militias constantly forming to prevent the enemy from looting and makes the takeover more difficult for the enemy. Meanwhile the lack of food will seriously damage the morale of the enemy army and even cause some casualties due to starvation. This makes it easier for your realms army to defeat them and drive them out.

Building Recruitment centres and Militia

When building recruitment centres, the cost will depend the amount of centres already in place. The successes of building centres depends on population and the amount of centres in place and your sheer luck.

Building militia takes an hour for every 50 men you recruit. Make sure you place militia responsible and in coordination with your General. Mixed infantry or ranged special forces are advised to be used on Walls and for rogue protection (for the later 1 to 1,5 K is usually enough). Militia gradually reduces in numbers over time, with smaller units losing men the quickest, it is always advisable to keep your individual militia units considerably above 25 men.

Protocols for destroying regions

Always fight your battles on your targeted region as much as possible. Engage the enemy where you want to engage them and only when you are certain it will give you the desired effect.

Once under your military occupation, use priests and diplomats to change the view of the population towards targeted realm negatively (in case no religious followers, convert), it is useful to keep a priest and diplomat always close by. When the regions loyalty starts to go below indifferent, the diplomat should focus on badmouthing the allies of the targeted realm and then praising its other enemies(preferably who are not looting in the vicinity). Diplomats can have a very powerful prolonged effect on the region when given the time and safety of your army. Order your army to damage the region as much as possible through pillage and Maraud, lowering morale, destroying crops and other statistics as quickly as possible until the region is in a occupied state of control and all stats in absolute low. The constant battles against militia will be the main effect of reducing the regions population, these battles will also further directly hurt production.