Military Council design

OOC Explanation

This is an additional OOC explanation to try to make crystal clear how war and battles happen in Empire. The Empire has approximately twenty armies at its disposal with a maximum strength of 5000 men each. These armies are sent on campaign by the general issuing a single order at each event, instructing them on where to go and whether to attack or defend for the next three months.

Between the events Profound Decisions will compare the deployment of the Empire's armies with the deployment of the barbarian forces and will calculate - with no random factor - the rough outcome that is going to result.

This outcome forms the basis for the prediction produced by the Imperial Civil Service (using divination magic) for the generals. In effect, they are told what the outcome will be if they do not intervene in anyway. They then have a set of battle options to intervene, which will affect this outcome. The better they do on their battle, the more objectives they achieve, the more positive the impact on the outcome of the military campaign that their armies are engaged in. In effect the random element of the clash of armies is the represented by the dynamic impact of the battles the players fight.

An analogy that one of the authors of the system used was that of Sharpe from the novels by Bernard Cornwall - Wellington is on campaign with his army in Spain - his army of thousands spends months manoeuvring and fighting battles with the French - but the outcome is always critically affected by the actions of Sharpe and his small band of elite soldiers.