Alright, so any of you have ideas as to how the guild will run/function, besides what we already have?

Well I believe we should run similar to that of the real barbarian tribes that existed. Introducing 21 century ideas. I will research how barbarian tribes actually operated to get an idea.

Yeah, but don't forget that we are going to be "civilized" Barbarians, or you could also say organized.

Bthizle1 the Barbarian culture might be a bit more "civilized" than you think. To give you an idea of Barbarian culture I've found a interesting website. Even if you just give it a quick look you might see some helpfull info. Here are two pieces of information obtained from the link.


"Barbarian men and women were skilled craftsmen and were able to fashion delightful toys for their children, including wooden dolls, warriors, animals, and small, crude, but effective games."

"Contrary to popular opinion, most barbarians were not sword-swinging adventurers. There were warriors, of course, mainly in large communities headed by a drighten (warlord), but these served as guards for their tribe and in waging raids on other tribes."




http://www.crystalinks.com/barbarians2.html

Yes, what the romanas call "barbarians" (because they can't speak latin well, or something like that), where indeed very organized. We might even learn something from the real barbarians. :)

Oh, I do know that there were many organized and civilized "Barbarians" It is just that the stereotypical Barbarian is somebody that is un-educated etc....So we will wear nice armour, maybe even similiar to the romans. I plan on wearing something much like the greeks would have woarn in to battle.

Well I think a good idea would be to have the clan devided into seperate castes.

Each specialising in certain areas. So builders farmers and blacksmiths, in other words our members who can help us with profit. Then we could have the religous caste who does the whole pray to god thing. Then theres the warrior caste, these are the guys who do guard duty and have the most important roles in battle. Then theres the leadership caste, thats you guys, who run the clan. Hire NPC's make descisions on alliances and who to attack.

Everyone inside the clan will be able to fight so if needs be we can call many men to arms. But we should mainly leave the serious fighting to the warrior caste. This gives us a flexibility in our approach to things as different parts of our clan will be able to do different things meaning that even when not at war we have a source of making money. And when we do go to war we can attack in numbers with many NPC's because we will be making plenty of money in peacetime so we will be able to hire soldiers.

That is similiar to our old idea at DOA. It consisted of dividing up the guild into basic occupations. So farmers would stick together, solderiers, smiths etc....We may have something similiar to that, but it is to soon to be sure about it.

Indeed, the 'barbarians' were allot less uncivilised then the Romans like to think. The majority of Roman technology was copied. Especially from the Hellenistic world, although Carthage also was a major influence.

The Celtic and Germanic cultures of Central Europe never really left the Romans with allot of new techology. Their lasting threat however did thrive Romans to excel, even when most of Central Europe was occupied. In a way - you can thank the barbarians of Central Europe for the ingenuity of Roma, as they were a driving power behind Rome's strong will to survive. :D

Having said that, the Celts and Germanics were certainly not uncivilised. Their climate however, did mean their societies could advance less fast then the Meditereanan ones.

My idea? Think Spartan governemnt style. Everyone is in the military. They can have other jobs, but the army comes first. We live like the Corinthians perhaps? Nice civilized culture, only barbarians because we are not Latin. For warefare, we should depend heavily on high quailty weapons and strategy. Not on just sheer strenght.
I may have more later.

The idea of everyone knowing how to fight is a must have if we want to be able to send armies to fight without worrying about our cities defense.
:sensei

That is why we must train like the Spartans. :sensei

Of course everyone's going to be a soldier of some sort, but I'd say only the ones that want to become the elite warriors will be trained like the spartans. The other ones, like me, that do all the work in the production branch, will have enough to do, so I don't think they need so many weapon training.

in combat it would be wise to seperate enemy individuals and attack them from more than one side with 2 or 3 of ours.

Indeed, for such tactics to prevail we must have the best training and weapons, as well as some numerous advantage.

I go with the idea of everyone being in the military. We won't be constantly at war with the Romans; in peace-time, everyone does his job in our town, and when I say everyone, I really mean everyone. Even the councillors.

I think we should train so that we can adapt to different kind of fighting depending on the enemy.
We should master the phalanx, the hoplitetactic and fight like a legion.

If we do choose Germania, hte phalanx would not be good for the Terrain. Alas, the only terrains it could work on are Greece and to the east of that. The Legion is what we must master. How to fight like the legion.
Many of the barbarian tribes fell to Cæsar because they were unorganized. They charged into battle and were slaughtered by the Roman Legionarries. We must not do this, we must fight like them. Perhaps better than them.
Also, Spears cannot be looked down apon. We need infantry with Spears. They have their uses.
However, we must avoid pikes. By this point in time, I beleive they would be useless.
This is just my opinion. :sensei

Germanic terrain in that area will suit the guerilla's way of warfare very well. Dense forests with the occasional secluded roads and village makes for a perfect place to ambush enemy columns and patrols then fading away into the forests and back to our camps.

A strong archer contingent will be useful as it will allow us to kill without being seen and without taking casualties. Many small groups of archers continuously harrassing an enemy column killing ten men per attack for little or no casualties in return can destroy even the most organised enemy. If when the enemies morale is sapped we then launch an all out attack from all sides on foot and with horse and we have a lot of running men and a lot of weapons and armour to sell.

I agree with your idea's zelda12, I think light skirmishes against a legion on the march will be devastating. However it is the organization which worries me, we need to train our Guild to follow orders during the heat of combat, this is will be crucial to success.

That will be challenging, and the fruits of our labor will prove most valuable, once the game comes out this should be one of our top priorities. Hopefully we can get our clan gov. organized enough to set someone up as our tactical commander and members to train our troops. It should not be problem, we are the elite. :sensei

Light skirmishes will only work if we are on the defensive side and on our own lands.
But what about when we are on their land ??
Open farmland.
We need to train on how to fight as a unit taht can adapt to different styles when needed.
We will have better use for that.
Besides guerilla warfare takes no training what's so ever.

In open fields a stong mounted and archer force will be essential in my opinion. If we use archers to pour death from afar on the enemy causing casualties, and fixing them in place, very few men will risk running when by so doing they lose the protection of their comrades shields and bodies.

Whilst this is occuring the cavalry go round the fland then drive of any enemy cavalry. Then they sit there beind the enemy lines. Having cavalry behind your lines infantry in front and arrows falling from on high makes an enemy very nervous. Then the infantry advances. Once the infantry is engaged the enemy will be wholly concentrated on that. Meaning the cavalry will have free reign to smash into the backs of the enemy. Meanwhile the archers are fulfilling their battlefiled roles of looting the dead and dispatching the wounded to the afterlife. Then they can charge in. It should be sufficent to rout the enemy and allow the cavalry to stretch their horses legs.

An organised infantry and cavalry will be essential. The ability for the cavalry to stop chasing the enemy cavalry and wait will be needed. The infantry will need to be able to fight as a team, being able to catch an enemy blade thats looking to kill a comrade with your shield is a good atribute.

You are forgetting one thing.
Horses are very expensive and only for rich people.
A barbarian faction's strongest asset is the infantry and something we must focus on.
Archers are only good for softening up the target for the infantry.

Etruia has an division of archers. Except they are going to be equiped with chain mail armor, a dagger, and a helmet. So an archer can double as a melee combatant, if needed.

Archers are only usefull in masses, so many very expensive NPC's. This way of warfare won't be cheap, and also hard to manage. Why not ambush them from the side with normal infantry? As long as we keep our lands safe, we should be happy. Conquering land can come later.

Indeed.
The battle at Teutoburger Wald pops into mind.

I bow to my brethrens insight. :sensei

I do think that if we are going to be elite we should be able to afford horses and archers in sufficent numbers. But we won't need these tactics or troops for some period, if we begin in Germania inferior then we will be in dense forests and so we will be able to rely on skirmishing and ambushing. If and when we march on Rome then we will be rich enough to afford horses and NPC's in significant numbers.

This should be moved to the "Tribal Council" forum.

I agree with Zelda's last comment. being in Germnai will be densly forested and cavalry would be put to ill use there ... both by barbs and romans ;). Also I think Tye has mentioned that Germanic horses were not good quality, actually bad quality. Skirmishers would be good.. though they too will be limited on thier attacks... but they will be allmost impossible to catch in the woods. Instead of getting Cavalry ... .why not have spearmen (for peasents and noobs) and have pikes or such for the Elite.

Archers also will not be of good use in the homeland but once we get clearing the forest we could tacticly make it "appeasable' for the romans.... a death trap of sorts.

Germanic cavalry was highly valued and was often used to form the cavalry of Roman armies.

I believe they came from a different area from where we are starting.