Typo

I agree with you. It's "legacy code". In the original drafts of Domains at War, units were 100 troops each, so units were trained in groups of 50. Historical research and the niceties of scaling suggested to me that units of 120 troops each were a superior choice, but I didn't update the training rules. 

Since we're doing a re-print of ACKS, I can fix this retroactively in the core rules, too.

 

That just made my day. I figured that was the issue. Are you considering any alterations of the stronghold building measurements? I distinctly recall an awkward passage in D@W about cutting standard 100ft*X lengths of wall into 60ft(?) hexes.

DaW Battles, page 16 - “If the army does not route, the commander with the next highest leadership…” should be rout, rather than route?

Also curious about the difference between being command-grade in Battles vs Campaigns (5th/7th vs 3rd/5th for lieutenant / commander).

One further question would be ‘how useful were cavalry during historical siege assaults (both for offense and defense)?’ I imagine they were quite useful for sallying (and countering sallies), but their use in offensive assaults sort of depends on what a breach means - one can run a horse through a hole in a wall, but not up a scaling ladder, and I’m not sure how well cavalry would do atop a wall on defense either. Is defensive cavalry assumed to be in courtyards and kill-zones, or what? The assault rules do not seem to consider this case.

It feels like there’s room for a counter-intel hijink to help root out enemy perpetrators, or is the intent that this is done by infiltrating a spy into the enemy army and carousing for valuable information to learn of an enemy spy? (Love the use of ‘perpetrator’ here as the noun for someone performing hijinks, by the way)

Good and Ill Omen refer to a “Campaign Events” table; I presume this is the Vagaries of War table?

Battles page 18 - “but if destroyed our routed counts”, our should be or.
Battles page 22 - “must not be adjacent to any of the enemy unit(s) which h had threatened it” should lose the ’ h ’
Battles page 23 - “Threatened units may not missile attacks.” This sentence a verb.
Battles page 32 - “Routed will suffer casualties” should probably be ‘Routed units will…’

Battles page 39 - “A low wall stays broken ground, only now its rubble” should use “it’s” instead of “its”
Battles page 54 - “A cloudkill, dispel magic fireball, wall of flame, or similar effect…” needs another comma between magic and fireball (although a fireball that also dispelled in the effected area would be pretty sweet…)
Battles page 55 - “Any units of less than 3HD that are contacted by the unit take 1 hit and…” One uhp?
Battles page 61 - “Creatures with this special ability deal one extra point of damage during charges if they hit with at least one attack with their attacks.” seems to have two endings to the sentence.
also page 61 - “Units with more than 1 HD or less must make a successful saving throw versus spells or fall prey to dragon fear.” More than 1HD or less?
Battles page 65 - Should the shp for the first two types of tower be per story?
page 66 - “The tyrannosaurs receive 2 attack per round against the structure”
Battles page 71 - “Units occupying any story of a fortified structure gain a +2 bonus to shock and morale rolls and a +4 bonus on saving throw versus Blast.” should be saving throws
Battles page 74 - the Siege Tower table has movements listed as 1/-/-, while the text says it should be -/1/-

(Ah, the campaign leadership qualifications are at company scale. Sense is made)

Battles page 93 - Elven Light Infantry have a 2 in the Missile Attacks column without any further data; should this be “2 spear 9+” ?
Battles page 102 - “Likewise, units with mounts that are not trained for battle (such as riding houses) are always Irregular Mounted.” Are riding houses related to the sheep on the housing table?
Page 108 - “Calculating a mixed unit’s number of attacks is a multi-step process.” should probably be “Calculating a behemoth mounted unit’s number of attacks is a multi-step process.”
Page 112 - “topped on either end by vast 5,000 feet pillars” 5,000-foot?
Page 114 - The Division Commander entry for the 1st Division of the Aurans should be Palatine Komnarius, rather than Palatine Ulrand.

I really apologize if the manuscript was editable to readers in gdocs and these have been fixed already…

Fixed!

Fixed!

Campaigns, page 18: "when Darius raised his armies, each took three seasons (9 months) to arrive." -> shouldn't this be "whan Darius raised his armies, each took one season (3 months) to arrive", since the season is the unit here?

APM: Remember that it takes three time periods for the entire army to arrive. In one season, 1/2 the army would arrive.

Fixed the other typo.

D@W Battles, page 16 - “If the army does not route, the commander with the next highest leadership…” should be rout, rather than route?

APM: Fixed!

Also curious about the difference between being command-grade in Battles vs Campaigns (5th/7th vs 3rd/5th for lieutenant / commander).

APM: Could you point out where you see this? In an earlier draft, lieutenants were 3rd level and commanders were 5th level, but after I carefully reviewed the demographic implications of ACKS, it was clear the requirements needed to be 5th and 7th level. Any mention of 3rd level lieutenants is therefore “legacy code”.

One further question would be ‘how useful were cavalry during historical siege assaults (both for offense and defense)?’ I imagine they were quite useful for sallying (and countering sallies), but their use in offensive assaults sort of depends on what a breach means - one can run a horse through a hole in a wall, but not up a scaling ladder, and I’m not sure how well cavalry would do atop a wall on defense either. Is defensive cavalry assumed to be in courtyards and kill-zones, or what? The assault rules do not seem to consider this case.

APM: You are right, the rules do not address this. I hand-wave it on the assumption that cavalry are relatively elite troops and so even if dismounted they are still quite effective. I will think about whether I can offer an elegant way to handle this with more realism but not much complexity.

t feels like there’s room for a counter-intel hijink to help root out enemy perpetrators, or is the intent that this is done by infiltrating a spy into the enemy army and carousing for valuable information to learn of an enemy spy?

APM: That would be one way to do it. You can also glean info about spies from interrogating captured prisoners, which comes about from successful Recon Rolls, and having infiltrated spies increases your Recon Rolls.

Good and Ill Omen refer to a “Campaign Events” table; I presume this is the Vagaries of War table?

APM: Yes. I’ll fix. Thanks.

Fixed!

Fixed!

 


also page 61 - "Units with more than 1 HD or less must make a successful saving throw versus spells or fall prey to dragon fear." More than 1HD or less?

APM: More

Battles page 65 - Should the shp for the first two types of tower be per story?

APM: Looks like the tower shp are all messed up. I'll fix.

Battles page 102 - "Likewise, units with mounts that are not trained for battle (such as riding houses) are always Irregular Mounted." Are riding houses related to the sheep on the housing table?

APM: Yes. In the Auran Empire campaign setting, it's common for peasants to dwell on top of beasts of burden, in small saddle-mounted yurts. More affluent folk live on larger beasts of burden. The wealthiest and most powerful live in riding houses mounted on the backs of mastodons. Or, I made an egregious typo.

Thanks so much for fine eye for detail.

 

The SHP and units per level of the towers are now fixed.

 

Round tower, stone, 30’ high, 20’ diameter

1/3 hex

1/3 stories

3

7

250/story

Round tower, stone, 40’ high, 20’ diameter

1/3 hex

1/3 stories

4

7

250/story

Round tower, stone, 40’ high, 30’ diameter

1/2 hex

1/2 stories

4

7

400/story

Round tower, stone, 60’ high, 30’ diameter

1/2 hex

5/6 stories

6

7

400/story

Square tower, stone, 40’ high, 30’ square

1/2 hex

1/2 stories

4

6

400/story

Square tower, stone, 60’ high, 30’ square

1/2 hex

5/6 stories

6

6

400/story

 

Hi Alex,

I have been writing comments in the Google doc for Battles; would you prefer that I use this thread instead, to have all the findings in the same place?

Thanks.

I tend to check the forums daily and the google doc less frequently, so putting them here is easier; but if you've already put them in the Google doc, you don't need to replicate your work! Thanks for alerting me.

Good to know. I will use the forums moving forward.

One area which I didn’t document when building a roster spreadsheet was the unit with small inconsistencies in the spelling of equipment. If I recall correctly, there were some “spear and shield” and “spear & shield”, and also “pole arm” and “polearm”. Sorry I didn’t capture the exact locations.

Hmmm… re-reading it, I think what confused me about the example was the plurality, which referred back to to the previous example box. I took it to mean each portion of an army mustered at a single time, rather than the totals for two separate calls to arms. All clear now.

On page 13 (or 9 on gdocs):
“In campaign battle, the officers are usually PCs and/or major NPCs and monsters drawn from the campaign. However, not every character can serve as an officer:
A PC or NPC must be at least 5th level to serve as a general or commander in a campaign battle, while a monster must have at least four or more Hit Dice than is average for creatures of its race.
A PC or NPC must be of at least 3rd level to serve as a lieutenant in a campaign battle, while a monster must have at least two more Hit Dice than average for a creature of its race.”
It’s correct on page 84 of the manuscript, though, in the Epic rules section, which has company commanders at 7th and company lieutenants at 5th.

“Cavalry are elite” works for me; I could also see subtracting like .5 BR from cavalry during assaults, or something similar.

OK, if that's the reference, I think I've fixed it in the latest draft. Thanks!

Unless I’m missing some context, there’s some disagreement between the BRs of troops on page 19/20 of D@W:C and page 49 - specifically the higher value units.

As a request, it’d be super handy if the tables on page 19/20 could have the same “A/B/C” type designations that their counterparts have in the Battles book for the various types of infantry/cavalry/bowmen/etc.