A bunch of silly newbie questions

Mike wrote:Sooo . Thanks for looking that up and the other info . So this sounds like 100 guns a side instead of 25

You can actually have up to 200 per side. I inherited one in G8. It sits alongside a city, with a citadel & another 200 cannon. 1,000 cannon in all.

My predecessor was a man who lived by the term 'defence in depth'

A single citadel or fortress is normally compact so I think Montelambert fortifications appeared in the game rules as a way to build a long heavily fortified line to protect a mountain pass or riverbank rather than as additional protection for a town. It would need to be a huge town (like Paris or London) to justify a wall of that kind of length.

Ref Montelambert fortifications with their masses of guns and high and relatively thin walls I view them as a specialist defence against Naval attack. Also can be used to dominate key water ways like the Baltic narrows or the Dardanelles and to close Alpine passes and the like were their is no room to build a proper fortress or conduct a proper siege.

In other circumstances view them as about as much use as the Cavalry Galleys.

If you go the whole hog with 21,000 gunners plus equal number of support troops since gunners on their own are not that handy. Most foes are just going to snigger and blockade you from outside of cannon shot. Basically if you abandon the open country and your harvest in favour of hiding behind walls you will eventually be starved out and your EH will crash even more rapidly.

Also while they may suffer heavy losses due to the very heavy counter battery fire any land attacker so just going to keep pounding away at base of the high thin wall's of a Montelambert fortress and all four floors are going to come down with fairly dire results. As for mines and mortar fire.........do you really want to be on the fourth floor a relatively fragile building full of gunpowder when a heavy mortar comes throught the roof?

Have never seen a full set of Montelambert fortresses in action in game but my feeling is that a well equiped land attacker who has skilled engineers will just pick off Montelambert fortress one at a time. Esp after the first one is taken out and the attacker can start to attack them from an inside the city position. Russian ring of normal fortress with 100 FC each but no Infantry defenders had similiar problem in one game when the Swedes charging quickly to get in below the guns and forcing the gunners to surrender once inside the fortress.

The central citadel of Montelambert design or standard like Edinburgh castle is a stand alone position with all round fire so it can fire on the interior of the city (handy for putting down revolutions) and unlike normal bastions other Montelambert forts can also fire into the interior. But your foe has cover and you will be blowing your own city to bits which may not be very popular.

I would however stress that the above is pure theory and the design may work great even with cynics like me and Papa getting sniffy about it. So who is going to be first to build and attack a full set of Montelambert fortress.

Just as an aside, thinking about falling walls, are moats really that effective?  Set your SA up to pound away at the walls and where are bits of wall going to go other than into the moat and fill it up and provide a kind of bridge to get over?

I suppose a moat doesn't have to be immediately under the wall . You could have it an enough distance away . Just been looking up the Montelambert forttess again couldn't find much but it would appear his grand vision was never tried though some fortresses based on his idea . One was in New York harbour . I can't remember the name .. and i only just looked at it but it was under polygon fortresses on Wikipedia .

The polygonal fortress article is interesting as it seems to explain why they were considered an improvement on Vauban.

If I've understood it properly, the problem with all the bastions (sticky out bits) was that although they could provide supporting fire to protect other bastions, Vauban's method of digging zig-zag approaches and protecting them against defending fire meant that given time artillery could be sited to destroy them. That then created an approach to enter the fortress - so the method worked and was widely adopted.

A polygonal fort (or Montalembert fortification) was designed so that however the zig-zag approaches were dug, they would come under heavy fire so enemy guns could not be sited. It wasn't just that they were taller (that allowed more guns and as Stuart pointed out led to thinner walls), but that the bastions were replaced by something called Tenaille, which is rather clever (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenaille ). A tenaille was a solid structure (usually earth), an obstacle of various shapes and sizes positioned at vulnerable points outside the wall.

It had 2 purposes:
1. it prevented enemy artillery hitting the bottom of the walls because it obscured the line of sight.
2. it forced an attacker through often a narrow passage.

This second point is important, because in Montalembert's system, the defenders were required to mount an active defence through defensive gates in the walls hidden behind the tenailles - the attackers would lose men to artillery, then be funneled through the narrow passage to get round the tenailles, shot at by muskets at very close range, then the few who were left would be counter attacked as the defenders stormed out of the defensive gates, to push the attackers back.

Bastions were more of a passive defensive feature, whereas under Montalembert's system fortifications were to aid active defense. Vauban also expected an active defence, but did not design his fortifications with this as a priority because under the conventions of the time once a breach had been made, it was expected that the garrison would be permitted to march to another location to avoid the need to storm the town. Warfare (at the time of Vauban) was limited, a point which was in earlier versions of the rules, but seems to be sometimes forgotten.

I don't know in the game whether tenailles are available as a separate construction or as a research development. The article does mention the siege of Drogheda 1649 and the difficulties the tenaille caused Cromwell, so they should be in period and therefore permitted.

There could also have been a financial factor which influenced which fortifications were built (and this is where the game does seem to be at variance with history) - bastion (Vauban) fortifications were very expensive; Montalembert fortifications were cheaper (because they didn't have to plan bastions). The reason Montalembert fortifications were not widely built in the 1700s was because towns were growing rapidly and kept outgrowing planned fortifications, and that artillery continued to get more powerful so a smaller Montalembert fortification didn't protect the inside of the town from being shelled by the enemy. In that sense, if fortification is viewed as a way to protect towns (rather than to make it difficult to capture them), it failed.

A Montalembert fortification could also be considered slightly beyond period, but it is in the rules so must be permitted. Would I build one? No - they look incredibly ugly compared to Bastion fortifications. If an attacker is going to stick to the campaigning season and the slow pace of warfare in 1700 then a modern Vauban fortification (with retracements or similar extra bits if necessary) defended by a garrison willing and able to mount an active defence should be enough to hold off all but the largest and most determined attackers for a season. The fortress will have done its job of tying up huge numbers of the enemy, forcing them to use up a lot of supplies and take heavy casualties to attrition.

Although taking important towns can help achieve war aims, no gain can be banked until the peace is signed. Indeed the harder it is to take a particular town, the more its value will be recognised during the negotiations and the less willing a player will be to give up an impregnable fortress. Of course if your fancy multi-layered fortifications are defended by 8 men with battalion guns and a dog, and it falls after 3 days, perhaps you should spend more on the men to man the fortifications and less on the masonry. For many positions, the capital is by far the largest and most important town and is worth the extra fortifications, and capitals are rarely given up in peace negotiations. In most of the wars I can remember in games, the peace resulted in the transfer of a few colonies or perhaps a province rather than outright annexation (at least of an active position). I'm sure some will disagree, but is it really worth sacrificing army after army trying to take a heavily fortified town if it is only going to be given back to its original owner as part of the peace?

Think I'm gonna get my war department to " build whatever defence you feel appropriate for the city of xxxxxx "

Mike wrote:Think I'm gonna get my war department to " build whatever defence you feel appropriate for the city of xxxxxx "

Given how some of my orders have been carried out, I look forward to reading of your cities being protected by walls made of straw

I got one of my guys to "take map and plan a new border " during a peace settlement . So he took a map alright and rode a 100 miles with it to the new proposed border . Whereas I meant take a map , (from the university library perhaps )and plan a border .

I'd be interested to get your thoughts on this vague thought Mike, but did you have any trained and employed administrators?  

I have this personal hypothesis that if your orders can be misconstrued, the chances of them being so are reduced by having trained administrators

Well that's certainly worth a try . No , had more or less just started and had nothing developed .. The peace treaty was necessary for that reason .

Mike wrote:I got one of my guys to "take map and plan a new border " during a peace settlement . So he took a map alright and rode a 100 miles with it to the new proposed border . Whereas I meant take a map , (from the university library perhaps )and plan a border .

Tricky things border's - two historic methods were to either survey on the ground and try and base the border on a physical, religious or language frontier which tends to take ages and result in a really untidy frontier with lots of messy wriggles on the map.

Or you use the method adopted at the Congress of Berlin in 1860 to carve up Africa and draw lots of nice strait lines on a school atlas with a ruler. This looks better but people do tend to moan a bit when they find their farm house is in one country and their field in another. Or they have to cross an international border to go to their local Church etc.

Rivers would seem to make good borders but annoyingly they seem to move around and people on one bank very rarely differ in language or religion from those on the other bank.

Truely, a border mapper's lot is not a happy one! Classic example Britain - one Island, surely according to lots of English, Danish, French, Welsh, Scots, Dutch and German Kings sat mostly in London the simple solution is to have the border were your feet get wet. But 1,000 years later many Scots and not a few Welsh are still not with the program.

Jason2 wrote:I'd be interested to get your thoughts on this vague thought Mike, but did you have any trained and employed administrators?  

I have this personal hypothesis that if your orders can be misconstrued, the chances of them being so are reduced by having trained administrators

I don't know if this can help but..

One of the first steps proposed by my council of ministers to come out from a persistently low HH has been to increase the staff of trained admins. I was surprised about that, because i would have put my money on a tax reduction.

I'm trying the trained staff way to increase productivity, and also to increase the chances of avoiding famine using trained farmers and vets. I still believe in the long run might be a cheapest solution for huge nation, if compared to night soil man (since i have almost 55 towns) for example, or introducing potatoes.

Nexus06 wrote: (since i have almost 55 towns)

I've counted 62 towns on the maps Richard has supplied and another map came out in the paper with one or two more. These still are no where near adding up to the overall population on the tax return, so I think you're right as the farmers and vets etc are a defined amount and an easier target to reach. I partly wonder if the idea of units like night soil men would give a bigger boost once in place everywhere or just something to give players something to aim for than just building bigger armed forces?

Not sure if I want to ask for a geological and mapping survey to identify all of the towns alongside a population count for every town/city or not - tempted though.

Marshal Bombast wrote:

Nexus06 wrote: (since i have almost 55 towns)

I've counted 62 towns on the maps Richard has supplied and another map came out in the paper with one or two more. These still are no where near adding up to the overall population on the tax return, so I think you're right as the farmers and vets etc are a defined amount and an easier target to reach. I partly wonder if the idea of units like night soil men would give a bigger boost once in place everywhere or just something to give players something to aim for than just building bigger armed forces?

Not sure if I want to ask for a geological and mapping survey to identify all of the towns alongside a population count for every town/city or not - tempted though.

Well,

an idea could be to conduct a census, just to map the population of any named town. But i do really have doubts regarding that, since the issue is how you handle a huge position.

I mean, if you run a small one, like Hannover for example, or even UDP if you want to consider a major nation (not taking into account colonies) then night soil man can be a thing, the challenge is to recover the necessary amount of recruits. But a huge one like Russia, do we really need to invest in all 62 named towns? i mean, many of them are probably like starving wooden villages placed in frozen swamps. Is there a return?
Surely a huge nation should have been split into parts to be better administered. But i think the splitting should have been done after placing enough administrators and secure borders and tax collection. Then apply the division and conduct the census to assess correctly the taxis revenue.

On the other hand, was considering agriculture. As we all know historically Russia meant starving. The agricultural production was less than minimal, and only in the southern part of muscovy it was possible to raise something like an extra supply, thanks to the black belt.
But was the point to push any extra option into increasing that production, or would have been wiser (not easier) to move war against Crimean Khanate or Sweden, and seize the fertile baltic lands, or souther Ukraine and Caucasus?

Nexus06 wrote:

Jason2 wrote:I'd be interested to get your thoughts on this vague thought Mike, but did you have any trained and employed administrators?  

I have this personal hypothesis that if your orders can be misconstrued, the chances of them being so are reduced by having trained administrators

I don't know if this can help but..

One of the first steps proposed by my council of ministers to come out from a persistently low HH has been to increase the staff of trained admins. I was surprised about that, because i would have put my money on a tax reduction.

I'm trying the trained staff way to increase productivity, and also to increase the chances of avoiding famine using trained farmers and vets. I still believe in the long run might be a cheapest solution for huge nation, if compared to night soil man (since i have almost 55 towns) for example, or introducing potatoes.

Best way I have found to help improve food security is the development of hardy grain and/or hardy potatoes.

On the subject of potatoes this can be risky if you get a famine before building up food stocks.  I totally killed one position by avoiding effects of a famine by wide spread introduction of potatoe seed for next years harvest so seed grain could be used as food this year.   Then getting a second famine the next year!

If you do introduce potatoes it may be best to do it on a fairly small scale to start with on newly cleared land or in the colonies if you have any.

PS If anyone wants to "find" extra towns a good war will normally flush them out normally when they get captured by the foe.  But you can also get your map cluttered up by "villages" just because of a battle

@Nexus

My thoughts were more for which towns would benefit a larger population from upgrades like sewers or hospitals but I see your point. As the towns don't all have population stats you could well be right about their being small but with some towns in the 100's of 1,000's an upgrade or night soil men unit might be significantly better there than just in an administration unit. Part of me was wondering in game how many towns there were to determine how many units I would need, but that might be a double edged sword. An administration unit of territory might be cheaper on the turn payment. Besides I'm sure nightsoilmen can always be turned into infantry at a later date when food security is better positioned.

@Stuart

Thanks for the benefit of your experience, I'm partly playing around with different approaches to see what might work best and interestingly have already followed the advice in the supplements along the lines of what you suggest this time round. I hadn't thought about the small villages on the map more for above reasons but I'd hate to get my maps too cluttered.

Regular readers will know I am a big fan of night soil men, but I do appreciate that with larger positions the number you have to have can be a bit baffling. I was lucky that as the Papacy (already suffering famine) my first order was to 'ask advisors to identify the towns I would need to raise Night Soil Men in to gain permanent chance of increased harvest.' This brought back a full list irrespective of size or what was on the game map. The next turn I raised night soil men in these towns. I guess game maps do change over time especially if you are at war or build something in a town not previously on the map. Marshall - you may be right that my high morale night soil men may be turned into infantry later, but that is certainly not my intention - they are far too valuable for that. What I like about night soil men is that it is the one guaranteed way to permanently increase chance of a good harvest. Grain inspectorates may help in the very long term once you have surplus grain to sort and improve that way, but as Stuart points out it helps if you have spare land to be able to conduct small scale planting. The Americas is ideal, but unless you are going to start land clearance (only available in some countries, it is expensive and takes a year) you could struggle to do enough to make a difference. Chopping down trees on small colonial islands is probably a bad idea as it means you will have to import wood for such basic things as cooking.

In G7 I had mixed results with potatoes - I tried it on the royal estates (not in the wider countryside) because of the risk it would backfire, and had a surplus which I was able to use to offset the grain stolen by invading armies. The trouble with anything which might fail (like new grain or potatoes) is that it makes any subsequent famine worse, and for really large nations you can be hit with a 20% population drop at that time which really wrecks the economy and tax take for several years.

Not sure on the trained administrators point - my orders didn't seem to be done any more smoothly despite having trained administrators.

I think a lot of Historians( Jason please help me on this one)  Judge towns to be places with a population of 2,500 or more.

Do sometimes wonder that some towns of 1,000 souls or less, end up with a Watch unit, Fire brigade & Night Soil men & town criers plus 100 FC which means everyone in the city is doing at least two jobs & that the garrison is actually bigger than the population its defending!

J Flower wrote:I think a lot of Historians( Jason please help me on this one)  Judge towns to be places with a population of 2,500 or more.

Do sometimes wonder that some towns of 1,000 souls or less, end up with a Watch unit, Fire brigade & Night Soil men & town criers plus 100 FC which means everyone in the city is doing at least two jobs & that the garrison is actually bigger than the population its defending!

Good point. Politically I think a town has a charter of some kind, but that isn't always very helpful. I certainly found that problem in some Scottish towns where very few have a population above 10,000. Perhaps I need to invent a multi-purpose night soil men/watch/firefighting unit with their own artillery? Perhaps mounted elite night soil men armed with a fancy musket, a bucket and battalion gun section?

J Flower wrote:I think a lot of Historians( Jason please help me on this one)  Judge towns to be places with a population of 2,500 or more.

Do sometimes wonder that some towns of 1,000 souls or less, end up with a Watch unit, Fire brigade & Night Soil men & town criers plus 100 FC which means everyone in the city is doing at least two jobs & that the garrison is actually bigger than the population its defending!

That's a bit of a difficult one to answer.  These days historians tend to look at the function of the settlement rather than its size to say if they consider it to have been a town or not.  i'll not bore you with too many of the details   but a historian or archaeologist would look for evidence of industry taken place on a reasonable scale, trade, some sort of evidence of an admin function for the local area. if you like the shorthand is evidence that a significant part of the population are engaged in more than just agricultural work.  They would also look for evidence of prestige buildings (which covers a whole range of possibilities, both secular and religious) and of course things like charters.


Having said that, I think it's fair to say you would expect an urban area  with a population of over 2,500 to be a town (at least prior to 20th Century) in Western Europe at least.  I think in India and China (for example) historians would consider a village could be up to 10,000 depending on  what was happening there but that's due to the comparatively large historical populations

I agree . I see no reason why a 1000 man strong fortress cannon unit cannot assign 500 or 250 to keeping the peace in a town until called upon and of course you can have understrength units of you clearly make it ordered as such .

@Marshal Bombast

I think i'm having a number of points on the table.

One of the major challenges of Russia is surely how to handle famine, as food supplement is poor to say at least.

Historically Russia managed to push south and west to seek for grain lands. But for the sake of discussion i'll consider those options unavailable.

I see that is to be expected that many of the towns are to be of less than 2,500 inhabitants. Historically i think Russia was a northern part of some trade tows and many scattered villages (were hunting and fishing was a concrete supplement to poor harvest) so i expect the number of "true towns" to be smaller that the 55 or 62 depending on maps.

Southern Russia should be about the same situation, with some trade towns and many scattered "Cossacks".

given that, you think it is possible to use recruits to increase the Town population? Would this be usefull in order to support HH or a better way is to assign them to a internal trade?

regarding administration, reading this thread i've come to the conclusion that a "roadmap" to develop administration in huge nations could be:

1. Trained admin to increase efficiency in government running. (this save 25% of Gov.Run.Cost).
2. Invest in Custom and excise and tax collector.
3. Introduce administrative division
4. Train further admin to meet the new amount of admin required for the increased complexity of the administration.

This has been historically done almost in every medium to big country. Sweden for example, Great Britain, France, UDP. Wonder if, since a significant number of recruits are required, this could bring some level off efficiency in the government, and witch?

instedad, the god guy guide to farming might be:

1. Night soil man in every named town (i think you have a point that a good number of named towns are scattered villages, but rules state that, in order to work, night soil man are to be raised in all named town of a said nation).
2. Discover hardly seed grain
3. train farmers

then things get quite confused.

1.farming tools (there are a number that can be discovered) are to be provided to population. This should bring benefits, but introducing for example improved ploughts in my russia has caused a reduction of production and hh damage

2. Farming mission to help introduce the Norfolk system?

3. introduce potatoes?

Mike wrote:I agree . I see no reason why a 1000 man strong fortress cannon unit cannot assign 500 or 250 to keeping the peace in a town until called upon and of course you can have understrength units of you clearly make it ordered as such .

Agree that for many smaller smaller locations it seems a bit over the top to have a full 1000 man fortress cannon unit with 100 FC.

As alternative you could build a Stone Fort (£15,000 takes six months) which takes up to 25FC and can contain up to 5,000 men or/horses and use it as a base for a 150 stone Squadron of Dragoons or a Lt Company who in peace time act as local police unit to stop smugglers and the like.  If being really historic many the artillery could be stood down (Cantonment system) with gunners being local trademen and the like who only get called out in war time.

Basically this type of set up costs 400 recruits or less rather than the thousands of a standard garrison and while of very limited use against a major attack it can stop cavalry and seaborne raiders by just slaming the gates in their faces.

Plus it can provide info on what you are being attacked by and in my expience troops/horses pick up sickness levels if left at sea while the Navy takes time to secure their anchorage.

Does a fort go around a town or is it built beside it .