Scenes you'd like to see

They probably have bigger and better weapons, professional pikemen, arquebus and cannons.


Not to mention better resources in terms of money. And "There are three things needed to win a war, money, money, and yet more money"

Well, Who really said anything about them needing fresh water? Please correct me if I am wrong, but I have never ever read anything stating that the Xen'vi have to drink Fresh water... Just saying...

I have gathered that most forms of combat here would be irrelevant or useless on this planet. For one Gravity would make it difficult to use thrown explosives, as the debris would fly almost 120% farther than one could throw it. Hand to Hand combat would be tricky, as those are their genitalia, and it would be somewhat awkward to grapple with one of the other gender, and try to kill them with your genitalia. Most forms of combat would involve more or less their feet now if they used knifes and stuff it wouldn't be so awkward, (though this might actually be a problem because I am horrible at Biology and may have overlooked something important.) Other minor problems would be gravity and atmosphere.

I could give almost one thousand sources that won many wars and few battles but the victor was the "weaker" Most people say it was heart, but it seems to just happen. One of the most famous examples I know of is the American Revolution. Mainly every successful Revolution, but there are few accounts where this has happened between two factions. (Mainly because usually the factions are about equal in power.

I hadn't taken any of that into account. That's probably going to screw up a few things.

TemporalV01D wrote:

Geek is right on the Iga-leader thing.

*hasn't posted here before?*

Given the differences between the Iga'Vi and the Valiero'Vi in their styles/etc. of fighting, the Valiero's victory would depend on an extremely lucky ambush and the Iga's victory would hinge on not being caught in an unexpected place.

Yeah, the Valiero'Vi are much more "Charge in mass at those @#$% and send some horses to flank them. Then hope to Spode that our guys have bigger swords then their guys."

Iga'Vi are more "Get a bunch of pikemen, stick some musketeers infront of them, stick some cannons beside them, and then watch as those guys charging us find out that we have much bigger swords."

Basically the Valiero'Vi are more "Glorious Melee" compared to "Tactical firepower".


Which is why in the little descript of the battle I'm writing up ends with mass casualties for the Valiero'Vi, complete surrounding and capture of 30% of their forces, loss of a large portion of the armies main command (and mounted soldiers) and a complete annihilation of any organized and professional force in the field for the Valiero'Vi leaving them to depend on city walls and less then professional militias.

I was thinking more along the lines of "look, they have a bigger army, let's wait until they have an unsustainably long supply line, cut it, and ambush them" somewhat like a combination of Russia and some random country that uses ambush tactics.

Perhaps, but what if the Iga'Vi leader ship has quick and readily available information on the enemies' movements? They can cut off the Valiero'Vi and force them into a pitch battle which, given the nature of the Valiero'Vi according to my interperations is what the Valiero'Vi are probably looking for.

I wasn't aware that we were talking naval battles. On land, my given tactic has been proven to work. On water, it would be entirely too easy to bypass, especially given the wide range of technology levels on Novusvita.

Leadership


Perhaps somewhat my fault.

Anyways looking at the map it's my understandig that the Oijaha'Vi live in mountains/caves, mountains equal hard terrain to pass a very large army through.

Which looking at the map leads me to believe that the area of land available for large scale flanking is funneled. This of course is assuming that the battle takes place on the borderlands and not deeper into Valiero'Vi territory where a fast enough army could possibly out paced word of mouth in friendly country,

So it depends a lot on where the battle occurs. But even with the supply line cut the cut off army could likely eek out a poor but possibly livable lifestyle by pillaging farms, towns and probably cities if the defending army isn't working to defend key points of the map. Which could be difficult to do while also attacking baggage trains.

Considering the military might of the Iga'Vi and the agricultural nature of the enemy territory they'd probably live off the land (Think Sherman's March) while ransacking every major city on the map until they get their pitched battle. The problem with an ambush of thousands of soldiers is that you can't move and position large numbers of men quietly. Realistically some idiots going to load his Arquebus when he's not supposed to and accidentally shoot himself in the foot which will make at least one, probably more very loud sounds.

It can be done with 15 hundred stick armed Swiss peasants but other then that I find it exceedingly difficult to ambush when dealing with ten's of thousands.

LichenDragon wrote:

It's an example, the Xen'Vi being land animals are probably tied to land
by the need of some nutrient not available in the oceans.

Okay, they'd by pretty easy to siege and wipe out quickly then since all one needs to do is cut off the shipments of water.



I'm really being a bit of a idea crusher lately haven't I?

Water-filtering sea-plants?

And your first point hasn't stopped us from building ships and planning far-future ocean cities for ourselves. That, coupled with the Aari's adventurous nature doesn't bode well for your argument.

And stop using siege as an argument. They haven't faced a direct attack on their territory (the Iga'vi are more interested in claiming land) in over a century. They don't really see the need for siege-proof cities.

Spoiler:

And yes. You are being an idea crusher. -_-

Perhaps I should make it a rule that, though constructive criticism is encouraged, I still have the final say and that must please not be disputed unless it really is a crap idea I've got.

Edit: And what Balu said, which probably means that I don't need the filter-plants anymore.




I like what you guys have said about the war, so far.

When you sink their awesome floating capital there has to be a reference to Atlantis. Because it was in the ocean. And it was a city. And it sunk.

What, whos floating capital, because only Aari seem to have floating cities, and I wasn't thinking that capital was floating.

How do you sink a vast volcanic island...

Also, LycanDragon, because you keep using Malta as a reference, from the proportions of the map and slight distortion from the Mercator projection, I am pretty sure this island is just over half the size of Madagascar. Although, this comes mainly from an estimate, it is larger than Malta.

I have a plan on why they would drink saltwater, but this requires many many many assumptions as to the composition of the planet and the rarity of certain resources in nature.
The reason is, They must drink salt water because it contains high amounts of Phosphorous, an essential element of life.

The Aari have a floating capital city.

As my Spartan last stand, as to are future oceanic cities we have modern tech. and efficient supplies.

But if you're making an Atlantis/artificial Island I'm much more for it. It seems much more plausible then a raft of ships floating around as a city.


And Malta is extremely small, only 300 km² and is one of the world's smallest countries.

Salt is a very nasty thing for a water based animal to have too much of. That's why even animals like Galapagos Iguanas have to continuelly snort it out and some salt marsh plants store salt in special leaves and then drop them.

And I expect that phosphorus will be a common mineral in the ecosystems already without having to drink salt water.

But once again an Atlantis style city is fine by me.

An Atlantis city would be awesome. Maybe it's like... a giant ship in the middle surrounded by rafts and stuff.

EDIT: I'm... um... 1/4 Maltese. Or something like that. Just thought i'd share that. Malta is cool.

Congrats, your ancestors slaughtered thousands of Ottoman Turks in one of the most dramatic sieges of the 16th century!

I see it as a Tenochtitlan sort of design but with out the island center and mass human sacrifice. Lots of rafts fitted together loosely and connected by ropes, chains and some sort of rope bridge.

Now how much are waves going to disrupt the structure though. Because even if anchored by many anchors the waves will probably still have a very large effect. This can't be simply explained away with the gravity is different so the waves won't do anything. Even if normal oceanic waves will be relatively mild swells storms (they'll occur, otherwise the planet would have to be so different then Earth that humans would moon bounce around or be squished or have their tissues wasted away), we need to find ways to solve those issues.

And with sinking it, perhaps an ungodly rogue wave in a colossal storm or from being hammered for hours (perhaps says) by an invading navy.

Infact, I want some politics. Who's doing what? Are the Jay'Vi allying with the Valiero'Vi against the Iga'Vi or is so and so betraying so and so, etc.

What's happening so I can plan out things in my mind accordingly.

About the waves: Given the fact that the gravity on Novusvita is somewhat lower than on Earth, you'd expect the tides to be greater and for the waves to be larger. Really, the effect would be slight, and the addition of a third (the second moon) and a fourth (the third sun) major object affecting the tides would mute out most of it except for a few very select situations, such as both moons aligning or the suns aligning, etc.

LichenDragon wrote:

Congrats, your ancestors slaughtered thousands of Ottoman Turks in one of the most dramatic sieges of the 16th century!

I know, right!

Hmm, I remember Balufire (by the way, it's Lichen, not Lychan, and when you say my name just say Lichen) saying that the slightly lessened gravity would weaken the waves. I'm no expert on those fields of science.

But either way the waves would tear to shreds any large raft-like structure in open water.

I'd expect this structure to perhaps be build with in a group of islands, possibly connected in some places to land in calmer equatorial waters. Perhaps volcanic waters. *hint-hint*



Compared to the professional soldiers the Maltese were blood thirsty in defending their homes. At one point Muslim slaves repairing a section of fort walls called out to the Sniping Arquebus to have pity on the slaves. The some Maltese women heard the slave and thought he was signaling where the weak points in the walls were to the Ottomans. They overran the slaves and brutally massacred them.

But the fact is is that while somewhat brutal the Maltese people probably served as one of the things that saved the island from the Ottomans with their courage and will power that the professional defenders had not expected from civilians.

LichenDragon wrote:

I'd expect this structure to perhaps be build with in a group of islands, possibly connected in some places to land in calmer equatorial waters. Perhaps volcanic waters. *hint-hint*

Such as a rather large lagoon filling the caldera of a previously inactive volcano. *nudge-nudge*

LichenDragon wrote:

Compared to the professional soldiers the Maltese were blood thirsty in defending their homes. At one point Muslim slaves repairing a section of fort walls called out to the Sniping Arquebus to have pity on the slaves. The some Maltese women heard the slave and thought he was signaling where the weak points in the walls were to the Ottomans. They overran the slaves and brutally massacred them.

But the fact is is that while somewhat brutal the Maltese people probably served as one of the things that saved the island from the Ottomans with their courage and will power that the professional defenders had not expected from civilians.

Well... I didn't know about that slave massacring part.

Anyway, the Maltese did quite an impressive job of defending, outnumbered 8 to 1 (or something).

The Maltese, Italians, Knights of Saint John, Spanish and Mercenaries did an impressive job.

Still 8-1, most of us would have said screw this and surrendered. But considering the whole "If you're captured you're either tortured and killed or sent to the galleys which were a slower yet still horrible death" policy in the Mediterranean at that time....

Have you read on Fort Saint Elmo? Every single defender died fighting to the death even when gunpowder and supplies ran out and half the fort was basically already in control of the Ottomans.

We need an off-topic thread for this....

We do need a topic for this.

Talking about history is FUN!

Aparently nine defenders survived by swimming to Fort St Angelo, across the harbour.

I need to go back to Malta. I was only 7 when i first went there, I didn't really realize all of the historic stuff I could have learned. I recall eating dates, raw hamburgers, getting food poisoning, riding a dolphin, looking at parrots and walking through the ruins of some place.

Probably Saint Elmo.

And most of the escapees got away before the final stand, since troops and supplies were ferried across a bay by boat for most of the siege. Which on the Ottoman's part sort of screwed up their siege because the idea was to starve and deplete, but that doesn't work when the enemy gets reinforcements every couple of days.

The Maltese were excellent swimmers and they were the last ones to escape after the Ottomans placed cannons around the bay to stop boats.

At some point in time you said that the Iga'vi were like the Ottomans. A Siege of Malta-esque battle between the Iga'vi and perhaps the Aari'vi would be a great scene in the book, I think.