User:Danaris/Proposals/Blockade

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There are many ways in which BattleMaster fails to accurately model reality, but one of the most frustrating ones for me as a strategist is the total inability to control what happens in a region you control militarily.

Thus I propose a new option: Blockade. It would prevent traders or caravans from passing through the region, prevent recruits or taxes from going to the capital from the region, and give significantly increased chances of capturing any enemies or neutrals in the region. (If anyone else can think of other things it should prevent, I'm open to suggestions.) Ideally, it should prevent taxes and recruits from going through the region at all, but as I don't know if the code knows what route taxes and recruits take to get back and forth, that might be more trouble than it's worth (though I would say it would be worth quite a lot...).

Functionally, it works much like the takeover option. You need a certain number of troops to be able to successfully maintain a blockade, it shows up on the region page similarly ("Blockaded by Realmname"), and everyone in your realm in the region automatically helps with it. However, there are a number of important differences.

  • Maintaining a blockade takes a lot of time and effort, and as such, anyone in the realm of the blockading force who stays in the region for at least 1 turn automatically starts blockading, which means that they gain fewer hours (2 less? half normal? only 2?) per turn as long as the blockade is being maintained. Morale losses also increase slightly over normal sentry duty.
  • Blockading also acts as if you are patrolling the streets, though at reduced effectiveness. However, with an entire army patrolling the streets, even at *very* reduced effectiveness, infiltrators will have quite a hard time even getting through.
  • If you don't have enough people to maintain the blockade, it doesn't always get broken the way a takeover would—if you have (say) more than half the number needed, it simply becomes ineffectual. Some food can get through, some taxes, etc. If you have few enough, though, the locals will simply run you out of town, perhaps wounding or killing some of your men in the process.
  • A blockade can only be initiated by someone in some sort of military command position, and can only be stopped by removing enough people from the region that it collapses, or by someone else in a command position ordering it stopped. (Command position being marshal, General, or Ruler)
  • Multiple realms can join in a blockade to increase its effectiveness (for instance, to be able to capture highly skilled infiltrators or to be more or less certain of capturing unitless nobles entering the region). Each realm's force must separately be ordered to blockade (and to stop).
  • Combat effectiveness is dramatically reduced for a blockading force, as they are so busy maintaining the blockade, they will not be as able to get to the battlefield and into formation quickly.

This feature will allow not only real sieges, where a city can be starved into submission, but control of trade routes—if, for instance, you blockade the bridge between two large areas, you can ensure that any traders have to pay well to get through—or simply have to sell their food to you and let your traders take it to the other side.