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How Can the Churches lines be destroyed so fast in AST

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Re: How Can the Churches lines be destroyed so fast in AST
Post by Randomiser   » Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:56 pm

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GloriousRuse wrote:Charis has 75M people? To be clear, that is the entire population of Europe on the eve of the 30 years war. Charis and Chisholm, a decade ago from AST, were renaissance era agricultural societies.

So what do the Harchongese have? All of a sudden, putting 1.3M men in the Mighty Host seems pretty paltry if we’re just giving away later industrial population numbers.

If those are the true numbers, I rescind my comments on population loss and only wonder how it is that no one else can throw more bodies...


See the Safehold portion of the FAQs (in the 'menu bar' at the top of the page), 'Grab Bag 2 of Questions, Part 2 (Posted Sun Apr 15, 2012)' at the bottom of the 3rd screen, for a set of numbers on the various populations and army sizes at a reasonably early date in the books.
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Re: How Can the Churches lines be destroyed so fast in AST
Post by SilverbladeTE   » Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:35 pm

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Safehold has vastly better medical, sanitation, manufacturing, farming and transport systems than anything Earth had until the mid 1800s or more.
Thus, far greater populations than you might expect
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Re: How Can the Churches lines be destroyed so fast in AST
Post by Isilith   » Thu Jan 31, 2019 8:18 pm

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Question, we know Windswept Island is part of the Charisian Empire, and it is a pretty large chunk of land... but, who owned it prior to the formation of the Charisian Empire? Charis? Emerald?
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Re: How Can the Churches lines be destroyed so fast in AST
Post by isaac_newton   » Fri Feb 01, 2019 2:07 pm

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Randomiser wrote:
GloriousRuse wrote:Charis has 75M people? To be clear, that is the entire population of Europe on the eve of the 30 years war. Charis and Chisholm, a decade ago from AST, were renaissance era agricultural societies.

So what do the Harchongese have? All of a sudden, putting 1.3M men in the Mighty Host seems pretty paltry if we’re just giving away later industrial population numbers.

If those are the true numbers, I rescind my comments on population loss and only wonder how it is that no one else can throw more bodies...


See the Safehold portion of the FAQs (in the 'menu bar' at the top of the page), 'Grab Bag 2 of Questions, Part 2 (Posted Sun Apr 15, 2012)' at the bottom of the 3rd screen, for a set of numbers on the various populations and army sizes at a reasonably early date in the books.



Thanks for ponting me to those!
- all sorts of interesting issues covered - including Langhorne'c clear involvement/direction of the INITIAL bombardment system that took out Alexandria. [question about 'why Kau-Yang' was suprised by the bombardment system.
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Re: How Can the Churches lines be destroyed so fast in AST
Post by Isilith   » Sun Feb 10, 2019 7:20 am

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Isilith wrote:Question, we know Windswept Island is part of the Charisian Empire, and it is a pretty large chunk of land... but, who owned it prior to the formation of the Charisian Empire? Charis? Emerald?



Anyone?
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Re: How Can the Churches lines be destroyed so fast in AST
Post by DMcCunney   » Sun Feb 10, 2019 11:43 am

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Isilith wrote:
Isilith wrote:Question, we know Windswept Island is part of the Charisian Empire, and it is a pretty large chunk of land... but, who owned it prior to the formation of the Charisian Empire? Charis? Emerald?

Anyone?

I'm not certain it was actually "owned" by anyone, though geography would make the likely owner Emerald if it was.

Ownership implies something worth owning. While there may be people living there, there likely aren't a lot, and they will be largely engaged in subsistence farming, fishing, and the like. There aren't known natural resources that would make it something worth claiming by others to get access to them. Why would anyone bother to assert ownership?

It may be part of the Charisian Empire now because it falls within the Empire's geographical area, but that's a formality, and likely has little effect on anyone living there.
______
Dennis
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Re: How Can the Churches lines be destroyed so fast in AST
Post by phillies   » Sun Feb 10, 2019 12:57 pm

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evilauthor wrote:
supersonic05 wrote:I’m sorry if this has been discussed before, I tried searching. But this is really bothering me.

I am currently rereading At the Sign of Triumph; the Army of the Center and Mighty Host of God and the Archangels entrenchments/lines keep getting obliterated by Artillery. From what I know of WW1 this did not happen often, or if it did only in a very small area and no were near fatal. If I understand the description of the guns and trenches they are not as good as there were in WW1 but better than what was used during the Siege of Petersburg. At the battle of the Somme, The British did a 7-day preliminary bombardment on the German lines, that failed to cut the German barbed wire or damage the defenders' dugouts. While Charisian artillery seems to be able to destroy the Churches trenches within hours. I know the balloon core helps a lot, and the other side not being able to do it own recognizance or attach Charisian’s.
What the different either in Trenches or in Artillery that allows Charisian artillery to destroy the Churches lines at will?


It's because of the balloons. With up to 50 miles of uncontested observation (two days travel by foot!), the balloons made artillery batteries practically immune to counter attack and the artillery could basically destroy at their leisure anything and everything the balloons could see.

In WWI, no such lopsided spotting ability existed because both sides could field airplanes to shoot down the other side's aerial observers, or at least get those observers too busy fighting for their lives to spot for artillery.


On the Franco-German front, for much of the war one side iirc the allies had total air supremacy, so the other side's artillery was mostly useless.

On the Russian front there were observation balloons. They worked, up to the quality of the artillery. My late grandfather, who was an officer in the Imperial and Royal Army, described heading up a road behind his lines, with a Russian balloon off in the distance. A large Russian shell dropped well behind him. Then a second dropped, considerably closer. The third was quite close and he broke into a run. He and friend made it to cover barely in time. He was then advised that the Russian balloon had been using the large artillery pice as a sniper weapon against anyone using the road.
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