Logistics and differences in training [long]

From: Mikko Rintasaari <rintasaa_at_mail.student.oulu.fi>
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 15:05:33 +0200


Me:
>It's much more effiscient to train good enough
>spellcasters in a couple of years, than to take the whole decade to train
>a magician that can stand up to the orlanthi priests toe to toe?

Martin:
:But Mikko, the Imperial spellcasters get old too, and comparing a 20 year
:old sorcerer to a 30 or 40 year old priest of Orlanth, is apples and
:oranges. What about all the old Imperial sorcerers? And given their
:support mechanisms, healers, food, shelter etc, they can actually live
:on average longer than the Orlanthi and have less risk of dying. Thus their skills
:grow over time.

That would of course be true, but do the Imperial magicians stay in the army for life?? I certainly tought not. Wan't there something that the magicians of the Lunar academies had to serve a _term_ in the army? I assume that this term in no more than four years. What would be the point of going to the academy to study advanced magic, if all you get to look forward to is twenty (20!) years as a magical howizer campaining in foreign lands.

I'm sure the Empire has lots and lots of powerful magicians, but aren't they free citizens for the most part. I just don't see the most powerful priests and wizards wanting to stay in the army.

Me
>Why should the empire try to train their _unit_ magicians to be that >tough on the individual level?

:Because their unit magicians are trained only partially in being a unit
:and mostly in being magicians. The Minor and Major classes are PART
:TIMERS, they are reservists. Even the specialist schools like the Spell
:Archers have a lot of part timers and apprentices. What is frightening
:about them is that they have a LOT of these schools and can raise more
:than the DP game shows, whereas the Sartar magicians are the priests
:their people and their loss is a tragedy to their people.

I agree. The Empire has a vast advantage in the numbers. Response times can be somewhat slow though. If the Sartarites smash a unit of magicians, it will be some time until a replacement unit arrives on the frontier.   What is the offiscial word on the number of the schools? The new Glorantha book seems to say that there is just a single university in the Empire, in Glamour.

: If four or five
:minor classes are destroyed, its a disaster for the university they came
:from but it will not affect daily life in Peloria one whit. Whereas if
:the magicians of the Colymar are wiped out, then the tribe is truly
:FUBARED for yonks both mythically, socially and economically. This is
:the true weakness of the Orlanthi - their culture allows almost everyone
:to fight and this means they can oppose an Empire of vastly greater
:resources and appear to have equal strength at the critical points, but
:in truth their strategic depth is entirely lacking.

For a Finn this sounds very familiar again. In WWII Finland fielded almost a million fighters, from a population base of four million.   The luxury of the empire is that it can afford to lose warriors, and especially, magicians with much greater ease than the Orlanthi. Even so, the lunar magicians are important citizens, and if the losses start to mount, there will be fewer bright lads and lasses that want to go through the training.
  Also the Heortling culture seems to have a great resiliency. A generation after a tribe is decimated in battle, the new bloods are ready for a rematch. They don't have to uphold a sorcerous tradition with a huge number of books and devices. Their God's and ancestors instruct the young if fathers, uncles and mothers aren't there to do it.

: They are brittle and
:loss to them is utterly serious, whereas to the Empire it is recoverable.

I think this goes both ways. The Empire can absorb small (percentially) losses without a problem, but their society is not nearly as ready to accept gruesome losses as the Orlanthi are. If the war drags on the Empire will turn it's attention elsewhere, or try a different way to reach their goal, I think.

Excellent post Martin! I just hope this is not boring 90% of the digesters. For me this is exactly what I need (My campaign is in the year 1600, and the empire's Western border is more open than in the offiscial timeline)

        -Mikko, the Adept

I think I think... Therefore I think I am.


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