Total War: Surrounded Empire

Off Topic
1

(WIP)

For those who’ve played the Total War franchise of computer games, and stared at the Empire strategic map too long, I present this rambling speculative imagining for your entertainment and/or commentary. The setting of Empire LARP as a Total War game, here abbreiviated from (Total War: Surrounded Empire) to TW:SE.

Using generically the units and mechanics of the Total War: Warhammer series, probably with extras.

Playable factions: All the Imperial nations are playable, and you play as, functionally, the Egregore :stuck_out_tongue: There’s always been a tendancy for the TW character to be a “national guiding spirit” and this fits. You pick from a choice of three Egregores, each with a slight buff to your nation.

All the nations start off with at least one province (except the Imperial Orcs) and one+ campaign army.
They also start off in full Military Alliance with all the other Imperial nations, and this can’t be broken.

The provinces in TW:SE will be, by the standards of TW games, fething huge. The smallest (such as Holberg) will have 5 counties, the largest (such as the Barrens) will have 11. They might not all have 4+ building slots though. This allows for some large but poor areas (Semersuaq) and some small dense ones (League cities).

Here’s a silly level of detail: Each county you have the option of assigning to the control of a group (House, Hall, Spire etc), who then get a little flag over it on your map. Each group may has a tiny buff dependant on how many counties they control; magical covens, economic income, army replenishment, offensive or defensive battle, Eternal relations, Piety, growth of the province…. This allows you to select which groups (pick your favourites!) have wide lands in your Empire, and which buffs you want…. frequency of groups with each buffs is also a nice way to flavour the Nations at this level: (eg the League get a lot of economic buff groups, but few for offensive battles.)

Currencies:
Thrones (the cash, raised from owned land, battles, trade. Spent on buying bourse resources and building up provinces)
Bourse resources: All four, spent on advanced buildings and armies.
Imperial Influence: How much sway your nation has across the Empire. Gaining such would be do-able without too much effort. But there’s a lot of places to spend it. Examples of ways to build Imperial Influence: Buffing your allies, sending your armies to fight where asked, building some wonders, trading, acts of faith…. I’m thinking of frequent RP situation pop-ups which let you choose one way or another. Spent on the Anvil screen.

As well as the classic big campaign map view, and the RTS battles, you’d also have:
The Anvil screen.
Which is where you’d be co-ordinating with the other Nations. It forms the basis of the turns of the game, and ticks 4 times a year.

Covens from the groups go into buffs (or debuffs) on deserving targets.
The Archmages can be asked to get blessings/curses from Eternal Realms, depending on how they feel about you and the Empire in general.
Bourse resources can be bought and sold, prices depending on what other nations want to sell/buy (for cash, needed for building lots of things.)
In the Synod, you can trade in the piety generated from your groups for buffs or Influence.
And (as with military alliances in TW:WH), you can ask other nations to send armies to various places. Other nations will want to keep armies in their own territories unless at full strength, and commit them on their borders if possible. It costs a lot to get armies committed far from home.
(I’m leaving the Throne vacant for now….)

The military game would work thusly: Wherever you’re invading an enemy territory or defending an Imperial one, there’s a theater of war. You assign armies to existing theaters or start new ones. You can then trigger a battle in one of the extant theaters. Winning this gets all Imperial armies in the area buffs.

This is the RTS section, and is also the game version of an Empire Battle. Yes, one per season. No nation wieghting, and no limits :stuck_out_tongue: For how this works, see the “building an army” post below.

Imperial armies can be moved, assigned, improved, replenished and given pre-set orders on the campaign map. They each have a trait specialising them to one thing or another.
The armies fighting in the theatres of war is auto-resolved, and casualties assigned based on numbers, orders, buffs, etc on both sides.

2

Nations:

Each nation gets various troop types, buffs, and win conditions. The usual one is “hold four complete provinces and deal with ancestral enemy”. Deal with is either wipe them out of have a peace treaty lasting 10 years (which is 40 turns).

Dawn:
Lots of aggressive heavy melee infantry. Available in medium and heavy armour, weapons loadout for sword&board, or great weapons, or specialised monster hunters.
(I’m thinking using the Brettonian knights as foot troops for the look and stats, with more experienced Dawnish troops going up through Knights of the Realm, all the way to Grail Knights).
Dawnish troops may charge without orders.
Dawn gets a bonus on Summer relations, and on covens on the Anvil screen.
Win condition: 4 complete provinces and the Druj.

Wintermark:
Steinr medium to heavy infantry, Suaq hunters and missile troops (spear, javelin, bows) and Kallevessi tricksy units (buffs, debuffs).
(I’m thinking of the Norscan models for these)
Wintermark troops get a buff if there’s a good mix of the three peoples.
Win condition: 4 provinces and subdue either the Jotun or the Thule.

Varushka:
Heavy infantry with sword&board, great weapons. Light skirmishers with dual axe and bow.
(Kislev infantry models)
Varushka gets a bonus on Winter relations, and their troops have high morale. Varushkan units can be hired by Wintermark at half-price, and vice versa).
Win condition: 4 provinces and either the Thule or the Druj.

League of Cities:
Heavy pike blocks, light skirmish mobs, and crossbowmen units.
(use the Wahammer Empire models)
The League gets bonus cash on trade relations, can upgrade their cities 2 more slots and a tier higher than anyone else.
League units can be purchased for battle for Thrones instead of Imperial Influence, as mercenaries.
Win condition: 4 provinces, 4 cities at top tier, and a ridiculous amount of cash.

Urizen:
Sentinels (heavy melee infantry) and battlemages (short range glass cannon type missile troops).
Urizen gets a bonus on all Eternal relations, can hire engage Archmagi and Eternal mercenaries half price, and all their groups count as covens as well as anything else.
(This allows the Urizeni player to throw out magic across half the Empire, build a shed-load of Imperial influence doing so, and then demand substantial military support)
Win condition: 4 provinces and either the Druj or the Grendel.

Marchers:
Heavy pike blocks, medium melee infantry, archers.
Marcher units are slow moving but tough.
Marchers provinces get excellent growth rates and army replenishment. They can sell on surplus growth for Imperial Influence (“This season the Breadbasket goes to…”)
Win condition: 4 provinces and the Jotun

Highguard:
Medium armour melee, hybrid bow/sword light troops, heavy armour troops, and super-heavy armour troops.
All Highguard groups generate piety as well as other aspects. They can build chapels/churches/cathedrals of the Way in other nations provinces.
Highguard can spend Piety as Influence in Anvil.
Wind condition: 4 provinces and the Druj, and seven cathedrals built.

Imperial Orcs:
Heavy melee infantry, medium infantry with great weapons. Their troops are hard hitting and tough.
Starting with no provinces, the Imperial Orcs start with two large armies (yup, it’s the Legions) and buildings attached to those. They get bonus Influence from helping other Imperial nations in theatres of war, and can purchase territory for Influence.
(this does mean that the IO player has a small pool of basic troops for their battles, despite having no groups holding counties at the start.)
Win condition: 3 provinces.

Brass Coast:
Medium melee troops, fast light melee skirmishers, fast light archer skirmishers.
Brass coast armies can convert to fleets to move over oceans, raid areas of sea for income, and attack from the sea.
The Brass coast also gets access to distant trade routes for extra cash.
Win condition: 4 provinces and either the Jotun or the Grendel.

Navarr:
Medium melee troops, medium spear troops, fast skirmishers, fast archers. Fast moving a bit fragile, the Navarri are invisible in woods, ignore terrain issues, and sometimes do venom damage :slight_smile:
Their campaign map buff is the Trods, which they can build in any Imperial held territory to generate passive Influence and massively increase the speed of Imperial armies using them.
Win condition: Eliminate all Vallorn on the map.

3

Building an army:

(This is, to be fair, what set me off on this flight of fancy. So many Winds have had raids into an area met by wandering Navarri and some Dawnish Knights Errant….. it’s as if they get everywhere….)

This is what you fight the battles with, and while you get some units for free (your own nations) others will need to be purchased for Imperial Influence (but see the League).

Imperial Assets:
These represent troops you can grab from your friends, and are unlocked by a building chain available to all nations. First for your neighbours, then for pan-Empire, then for better troops form each nation.
Without the building, all you can grab is (1 each of) Dawnish Knights Errant, Navarri spears, Navarri bows.

Let’s say that your groups (if they have 2 counties or more) generate troops. What sort of group, how powerful they are, produces you a unit for the battlefield. But that’ll just get you a one nation army.
With the building chain above you can buy troops from other nations. Price varies a lot, so you might get buffs either way depending on other actions. If it’s in their territory, or fighting in a region alongside their armies, they’ll be cheap. If it’s nowhere near where they normally fight, it’ll be expensive.
(EG: The Wintermark player picks to fight in Hordalant, invading the Jotun alongside 2 Wintermark and 1 Marcher armies. They have all the allied troops unlocked. They get all the Wintermark units they want, Marcher units at a discount, and the Navarri troops cheap. They can buy in extra troops from the other nations, but it’ll cost, especially for the Dawnish, Highguard and Urizen troops.)

Eternal Mercenaries:
Hired depending on relationships with Eternals. Summer and Winter will provide troops fairly easily, Spring and Autumn with effort, Day and Night rarely.
(Given that these are wierd things from beyond reality, they might have the TW:WH rules for daemons….)

Ogres: No, you may not. :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Barbarians, foreigners, and others.

Barbarians:
The Thule, Grendel, Jotun and Druj all start off at war with you and the rest of the Empire. It IS possible to get peace treaties with them, but it’ll cost. Various RP conundrums will pop up to alter their opinions.

Thule:
Swarms of zombies (husks), high morale medium orc troops, and supporting battle-wizard units.
The Thule will use all the magical and Eternal tricks the Empire has available, are willing to make peace and even trade if paid enough, and will push constantly and gently at the borders.

Jotun:
Medium orc troops, heavy armoured orc troops, and human spear units.
Jotun forces get bonus numbers when defending their own lands. They get Eternal buffs but nothing magical. Your reputation with them is dependant on how you conduct the war; fighting a “clean” war can improve your reputation even while beating them. If a treaty can be made, they will hold it for the duration.

Grendel:
Medium orc troops, orc crossbow troops, beast handlers (warbeasts!) and generic human mercenaries.
The Grendel armies share the Brass coast ability to turn back and forth into navies. They get access to magic and Eternal buffs. They will retreat if outnumbered, and return with friends. Their armies tend to scatter themselves across various areas though, lacking strategic concentration.
Treaties can be made with the Grendel, and they’ll keep them, and will become more expensive every time.

Druj:
Medium orc troops, orc spearmen, orc archers, and a lot of venom using troops. Also warbeasts. All with low morale.
The Druj will move as a large swarm if they can, all their armies clustered. Their armies are numerous but fragile. They get access to Eternal and magical buffs. Druj lands inflict substantial attrition when moving through/into them.
The Druj will cheerfully make peace treaties for a cost, and have a 30% chance of breaking said treaties every turn.

Foreigners:
Other nations may be traded with if adjacent. The league can trade everywhere not adjacent, and the Brass Coast get the overseas foreigners as well. No military interactions, but they may pop up requests and missions, and failing/completing them affects the value of trade with them.

Vallorn:
The Vallorn start off holding large chunks of the Navarri forests, and zones in the Druj and Thul lands (Yes, I’m ignoring the Axos one). They have no armies that can be fought. Instead they act as a corruption mechanic, doing more and more attrition divided between armies in the area as Vallorn level increases.

The Navarri trods reduce the speed at which Vallorn corruption increases: surrounding and covering a forest with trods will reduce the rise to 0%. The Navarri armies take half attrition form the Vallorn corruption, and the Navarr can build structures to further try to reduce corruption levels.

In order to reduce the Vallorn level, an army needs to camp in one of those counties for a turn or so. The blight-hearts are the vallorn capitals, and do enough attrition every turn to wipe out 2 whole armies a turn.

A forest with a Vallorn heart in will start at 100% corruption at the heart, slowly rise the levels in adjacent counties, then at 50% there rise in countries adjacent to them, and so on. When there are no counties left at less than 50% corruption, the effect will start to spread into one adjacent province.

This means that the Navarr player will be frantically holding on to at least a foothold in every forest, covering the board with trods, sending an army in every so often to beat the vallorn level down, and saving up Imperial Influence to get a bunch of other armies in to make offensive progress.

Note that any army (including barbarians) is effective vs the Vallorn.

5

How play proceeds:
Every turn you’ll be looking at the resources you’ve got from last turn, building up your provinces, heading to Anvil to try to get the results you want from the Military Council/Synod/Conclave and buying/selling at the Bourse. Deciding which theatre to buff with a battle, and then triggering such. Assembling an army out of your national troops and all others you can grab. Fighting the battle. Taking the result, and ending the turn to see the theatres of war play out, further issues pop up, and armies move about.

Misc:
Venom does extra damage against most opponents and double damage vs Vallorn.