Creating individuals in regiments-worth the effort?

A slightly different question for you.

I suspect some of you have heard of Kit Kavanagh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Davies under one of the names she went by. The short version is she enlisted in the British army (or should that be armies?) at the end of the 17th Century disguised as a man and again at the beginning of 18th, in an attempt to find her husband (who may have been press-ganged or may have volunteered to join up). She has quite a career, both before being discovered and afterwards

At the stage G10 is at, she was serving in the Royal Regiment of Scots Dragoons (Royal Scot Greys), in disguise of course-no one knew she was a woman.

Is it worth creating her in-game? Of course, she would have to be in disguise but perhaps it could offer Richard the chance to have a little 'hidden joke' in news reports, etc? or is it more "Scramble" than "Glory"?

Individuals in regiments ?! Some of us have enough to do just finding a General/Commanding officer for each formation yet alone individual rank and file/junior officers.

Think in Glori its probably worth while having a No2/Cavalry commander for armies and perhaps a No3/Artillery commander for armies so if your general gets killed someone is around to take over.

In scrabble (and this will probably work in other games) if you send a Herald etc.......Richard normally gives them a name shortly before he does something nasty to them and such characters tend to remain on your list.

Sir Thomas Hardinge gained a valet (James Thoroughgood) when someone dropped a greenhouse on him & I think Captain Darcy gained a whole squad of names just before he and they vanished. While Bismarck has had loads of Mistresses with names shortly before they we shot, blown up, posioned, taken captive by the Reds etc.

Basically getting a "name" in scabble is really bad for your health, probably the same in other games as well.

Stuart Bailey wrote:Basically getting a "name" in scabble is really bad for your health, probably the same in other games as well.

Has anyone tried to pre-empt Richard ? Say by creating personalities like "Sid the bullet dodger" or "Fred the poison flusher" or is that tempting fate to much.

Jason I must admit that the 1700s is not my normal war gaming period and am learning as I go, however I was reading a book on the American Civil War and it had references to females in the army, With one union officer writing a letter home to his wife in which he stated that tonight one of his Sergeants had given birth to a baby girl, the most amusing was a private who fought through the entire war and attended the regiment reunions for 11 years always smartly dressed in her uniform then one year she turned up in a dress which caused much confusion with her fellow veterans who never new he had been a she.

One Grain.

I think it depends upon your aims. Richard will likely go along with the roleplay, but will likely also feed the roleplay with issues and challenges. So I think all-in it would be a mild disadvantage to the unit, but much more roleplay/fun potential if you want that. Hard to know.

At the start, I roleplayed a lot more with my ministers but it seemed to only generate grief for me, so I quit doing it. Though perhaps the issue was that in the long-winded conversations my order objective got lost...

I think as Kingmaker has said, roleplaying tends to work better with ambassadors. I've done that a bit in game 8 with my french ambassador who is a patron of the arts.

one grain of grain wrote:

Stuart Bailey wrote:Basically getting a "name" in scabble is really bad for your health, probably the same in other games as well.

Has anyone tried to pre-empt Richard ? Say by creating personalities like "Sid the bullet dodger" or "Fred the poison flusher" or is that tempting fate to much.

Jason I must admit that the 1700s is not my normal war gaming period and am learning as I go, however I was reading a book on the American Civil War and it had references to females in the army, With one union officer writing a letter home to his wife in which he stated that tonight one of his Sergeants had given birth to a baby girl, the most amusing was a private who fought through the entire war and attended the regiment reunions for 11 years always smartly dressed in her uniform then one year she turned up in a dress which caused much confusion with her fellow veterans who never new he had been a she.

One Grain.

It's surprising how many women there seem to have been in the ranks sometimes Have you read Terry Practhett's "Monstrous Regiment"? Takes the idea to the extreme

Thanks for the comments guys...think you're right, on balance maybe not the best idea I've had this week

Jason wrote:It's surprising how many women there seem to have been in the ranks sometimes Smile Have you read Terry Practhett's "Monstrous Regiment"? Takes the idea to the extreme Very Happy

No can't say I have read that book by Terry Practhett. I did remember that some of my info came from a lecture on youtube from the Gettysburg National Park Service by Ranger John Nicholas on the "life of a Civil War Soldier" in it he mentions that 240 women served with the Confederate Army and about 400 on the Union side, another interesting fact he mentions is after the Gettysburg battle 28,000 Muskets were recovered from the battlefield of those 24,000 were found to be loaded, of those 12,000 had more than 1 round loaded, 6,000 had between 3 to 10 rounds loaded and 1 musket was found to have 23 rounds loaded in its barrel, it seems the poor fellow kept forgetting to fit the firing cap on before pulling the trigger.

Also I do remember a number of women served in the ranks in Napoleon's Armies including one who became quite famous, she enlisted so as to serve with her husband and stood beside him in a number of battles and continued to serve after her husband had been killed.

One Grain.

I’d love to try to contribute to the discussion.

I’m currently involved in one singe game, into a building strategy with little “neightboughs” around. So letters are little and since you invest and wait for the ROI, somehing has to be done. I do not have a colonial empire therefore the running of current business is little but not none. Introducing single characters seemed to be a good idea, someone to roleplay with, but i have to agree that Richard has always been honest on that point. Every character has his own set of ambitions and objectives, and they are not always yours. Richard himself trhown in the game some characters to take care of, so i really feel no need to put others on mi side. I think it’s a nce idea but i would move on

I like putting characters in place, usually with at least one weakness as it helps save Richard from making someone up for me lol. It starts to give me a feel for my court/country, and can give other players something to work with if they interact with them at times with surprising results for everyone concerned.

Also I think one of the supplements says that Generals/Admirals tend to be slightly better at leading in the field/ocean, if made as an individual/personality.

Marshal Bombast wrote:

Also I think one of the supplements says that Generals/Admirals tend to be slightly better at leading in the field/ocean, if made as an individual/personality.

Think named generals and admirals get better if they spend time on campaign. But its not as simple as spend six months drilling and a regiment gets better since Generals/Admirals also get better/worse due to results (probably reflects troops faith or otherwise in them) and they also develop traits.

So if you order a General to act in a defensive manner or make a all out attack early on and it works you can find yourself with either a very cautious commander or a very rash one.

G2 Rumelian Cavalry Commanders seemed to corner the market in Pycho Head Bangers......1500 Lancers V 45,000 and guess who attacked? So far in G10 I have doubts about the commander of the Moldavian Cavalry in Spanish Service (who the Moldavians do not want back) & the the Duke of Genora who seems a perfectly able and brave commander but with the "Macho......always knows best and treats orders as general hints" trait.

But the real Characters in G10 seem mostly English and Scots. Partly I put it down to some having been on so many different sides/lists that they are giddy with all the twists and turns. But King James III has wondered if characters linked to certain position get given certain common traits. In the case of Jacobite Irish/Scots commanders this seems to be all of them being rashly brave almost to the point of stupidity.

Not wishing to be picky, but I think you're mixing up G7 and G10 Stuart

I like to name officers and formations as it makes the writing of stories and such so much better. I would must rather read of the 2nd Battalion of the 34th Foot being the unit that stood in the gap rather than just one battalion of the 94 present making that stand. Just makes for a more compelling story if you will.

I name regiments, which generally have more than one battalion to them, but don't go as far as naming each of those. The regiments feature a named character as the commanding officer.

I also name the commanders of military forces.

Other than commanders of Regimental or Divisional/Army level, I don't bother. Too much book-keeping for the GM, is my thinking.
The only exception I can think of would be if I planted a spy in a unit as a private soldier.

But, if I wanted to create a character that I can have a bit of fun with roleplaying, then I can see the use of creating a private soldier and then creating written articles for the newspaper. I've done similar in the past, though the character was an officer. But, ultimately, such created characters are not your personal representations in the game, so you don't have full control over stating what they will or won't do during a game turn.

Anyone use the Swashbuckler RPG to help them determine character attributes ?

Jason wrote:Not wishing to be picky, but I think you're mixing up G7 and G10 Stuart

My error.........should have said G7.

In G10 the the only reason British Characters may be a bit giddy is due to the marked drinking culture which seems to be a feature of G10 Britain.

Stuart Bailey wrote:

Jason wrote:Not wishing to be picky, but I think you're mixing up G7 and G10 Stuart

My error.........should have said G7.

In G10 the the only reason British Characters may be a bit giddy is due to the marked drinking culture which seems to be a feature of G10 Britain.

 

I guess I can't really argue with that

Thelittleemperor wrote:Anyone use the Swashbuckler RPG to help them determine character attributes ?

I used to always assign one of the numbered character attributes to characters, when the then-used edition rules book which included them was in play. To be honest, most of my named characters don't have any information to them other than a name. With Rozwi, for a long time the only named character with any information other than a name was my mining specialist, who I mentioned was skilled with gold (to help narrow the field of mineral investigation and extraction purposes). I've since give a few of my newer character a brief description, but haven't used the Swashbuckler rules nor the numbered pre-generated character attributes from the older editions of the La Gloire du Roi rules books.

With my Shantung China, I've given years of birth to a number of my named characters and, possibly, a specific interest or practice has been assigned to members of my character's immediate family (like a wife who practices the tea ceremony to please her husband). But I've tended to not give any of my The Glory of Kings characters strengths or weaknesses, to be honest. My main Chinese character, and one of my other employed characters, have a specific personality trait and preference of mind that I've stated, which can be used for roleplaying and, or, by the GM in how that character will respond to a certain situation...Which could be called a disadvantage, possible, or maybe even an advantage given the right circumstances.