Things I learned in Bronze TvT

Look, I suck at SC2.  I know it.  I'm in bronze, that's what that means.  But, man, this stuff is just...I don't know.

1. Best opening build ever?  3 reapers
2. When that gets crushed, build four banshees.  Cloak is for pussies
3. Under no circumstances should you attack the mineral line when using those banshees.  That's for pussies.  Go for the command center so that way your opponent can stim up some marines and crash your birds.
4. Do not attack again after that.  Ever.  Turtle power!
5. Cluster the hell out of your tanks.  That way, when your opponent is dropping, he can drop marines one at a time on that group so your splash damage kills half your line.  Genius!
6. The natural is for morons.  Build over in a disused start location.  Defending both at the same time is easy.
7. That drop sure did a lot of damage.  I know how to stop this:  turrets at every location physically possible along the perimeter of my ninja expand.
8. Remember that barracks for the reapers?  Because I sure don't.  No need to have any sort of force to move at all, sieged tanks are the best.
9. Reactors are for pussies. 
10. My opponent has set up outside my little enclave with a few siege tanks, a couple of dozen marines, and a handful of vikings?  I know how to break this!  Battlecruisers.
11. That didn't work?  I'll try sending my 15 tanks on the ramp to siege up.  Nothing can go wrong.
12. He's landing vikings to finish off my buildings?  I know, I'll use lift-off/land micro to save them because my non-existent units can't!
13. If you've lost three full mineral lines, have one base left at all, it's 40 minutes into the game, and your opponent is knocking on your last base's door, don't GG.  He might get frustrated with the time of the game and quit.
14. When your opponent has killed your last CC, and your last SCV, and your last unit, say "Faggot."  and quit.  You showed him!

Yes, this was culled from four consecutive TvT games.  Let me tell you, none of this is an exaggeration.

Quick Estimation of Turbolaser Power

Last post I talked about photon torpedoes, and came up with a range (and a pretty wide one at that) for their max yield. This will go somewhat quicker.

The basis for comparison that I am using is the asteroid that is vaporized by a single turbolaser blast in the asteroid field. As in "not there" any longer--and this is a legitimate claim, just watch Empire Strikes back. Also note that this is well below their actual yield per shot--the bolt continues onwards after vaporizing the rock.


So, let's estimate the size. 20m diameter seems about right (if you think this is too much, please let me know). That gives a volume of 4200 m^3 (a little less, but not too much.) At irons density of 7.87 g/cm^3, this gives 33*10^6 kg of iron. Now, just like last time, I'm going to assume initial temperature of 11 Kelvin (as I did for the asteroid in Pegasus, to be wholly fair). In order to vaporize, it first must increase temperature by 1800 K, melt, then increase temperature by 1323 and then vaporize. Molar heat capacity is 25 J/(mol*K), heat of fusion is 13.8 kj/mol, heat of vaporization is 340kJ/mol. At 55.845 g/mole, we have 5.9*10^8 moles of iron. This means 2.7*10^13 Joules to increase temperature the first time, 2.0*10^13 to increase temperature the second time, 2*10^14 Joules to vaporize, 8*10^12 to melt, for a total of ~2.5*10^14 Joules/shot., .1 megaton.



But, as has been pointed out elsewhere, this is quite low--the asteroid in question is a diameter of 80 meters (using the Millennium Falcon as a point of reference), which would require 16000terrajoules of energy to vaporize--which is 40 megatons.)

Review of Civilization IV

Yes, this is way late, but this actually will serve a purpose for newer things that I will get to in my own, loveable, and roundabout way.

Civilization IV is objectively not a good game.  I am not saying you cannot like it--if you want to like it, go ahead, that is your right.  But it is not a good game, and it in no way represents a net improvement over Civ III.  That might seem harsh, but I am going to give you my many, many reasons for this statement.

Let's start with the good.  They absolutely made diplomacy more transparent, which was quite good--you knew why they hated you, and how much they hated you because of things you did.  Same with liking, but the AI never really liked you all that much anyhow, and I'd rather just avoid people senselessly attacking me rather than being friendly with me in Civ games, so that's a plus.  Also, new tile improvements were cool, the idea of dynamic governments via civics were cool, great people were cool, non-generic promotions were cool, units having strength and total HP rather than offense/defense stats and a variable HP count, all good.  Still with the units, adding units that had bonuses versus classes and specific other units, also good, as well as the idea of collateral damage and "flanking" to whittle down the stacks of doom.  Adding religion in was good.  So why do I say the game was objectively bad?

Every single thing I said was done really, really poorly.  Terrible, in fact.  Let's we go in the order I mentioned everything.  Okay, the diplomacy wasn't bad overall, except that they put emphasis on religious similarities and differences actually influencing behavior in states.  Historically speaking, this never really has anything to do with anything at all on the policy level--Catholic lords never had a problem going to war with each other when they had the opportunity to expand their power and their coffers, nor did any other person. Religion only seemed to ever be used in stoking passions, rather than a fundamental cause.  But that's pretty minor.  Otherwise, seeing exactly how people think of you, what you did to upset them, and how much it did upset them is really nice--I wish that Civ 5 had a bit more of that in it, honestly.

The tile improvements were pretty damn cool, having more than just roads, mines, and irrigation.  But what was absolutely terrible was the fact that there were simply too many.  There were, what, 12 different tile improvements by the endgame?  How the heck are you supposed to have an idea on how to optimize, or even set a priority, for a given city with that kind of absolute mess?  Then you have to factor in that these all change over time, and with various civics, so your city might dramatically change as you change governments, and given that some tile improvements (I'm looking at you, cottages) changed as they were used, this made planning a nightmare.  Civilization is a turn-based game, which means all you do is plan.  Planning shouldn't be made harder, it should be made simpler.

Civics were also completely bungled.  Their value was not at all in proportion to when they became available in game, as some that were unlocked later were absolutely worthless compared to earlier civics.  Also, their advent made hurrying production absolutely impossible unless you had one of two civics, neither of which was actually all that good aside from allowing production to be hurried.

Now for the units and all that entailed:  where to begin?  Well, in all honesty, it boils down to one thing:  absolutely no transparency whatsoever.  Too many concepts, which made too many promtions (again with the too much stuff to plan for) made the idea of optimizing a unit even for a specific role almost impossible.  What did first strikes do?  Was it at all better than going with a straight combat bonus? Who knew?  How could you? Why all the different promotions for literally every terrain type at all?  Good lord, you'd literally have to have plains, hill, and forest/jungle specialists, just to do well!  Counter-units were never good in offense, which meant that you had to carefully select which unit to attack with, and hope that they didn't have that unit's counter in that stack.  Then you had to contend with damage.  Now, it always told you what your odds of killing and your odds of retreat, giving a total "unit not die" probability, and that was good.  But you never, ever, had any idea on how much damage this could mean you inflicted or would take, meaning that you couldn't reasonably estimate how much damage your cavalry that would likely withdraw before killing the foe would do.  Since this was a turn-based game, not being able to properly plan is a problem.  This was compounded by the absolutely too many different units throughout most of the game.  Every unit had a counter, which meant that there had to be more and more units.  It started to simplify a bit around gunpowder, but only a little.  It wasn't really all that straightforward until you got to a modern army.  Even then, it's still a bit spotty.

Finally, religion.  Okay, this was just god-awful.  Everyone starts as pagan, but simply having one of the five approved non-Pagan religions in a city made that city objectively better than one that was pagan.  This would be less of a problem if it wasn't for the founding/spreading problem.  The first to get a tech, even by a turn, gets the associated religion.  Everyone else?  Tough luck, hope you beat the others to it.  This, again, wouldn't be so bad if it were not for the fact that having a religion made your city objectively better.  Then, you had to contend with spreading this religion.  It wasn't necessarily fast, and settlers from cities, even cities that founded a religion, never brought their religion with them--which is patently absurd.  This meant that if you wanted your city to not objectively be worse off, you had to have a missionary with you.  This was problematic, since you had to build a specific building for that religion to build missionaries, and that building could be made obsolete (as in, can never ever again build) by technological advances.  That's right, you could technologically advance and screw your ability to set up foreign colonies properly or even change state religions.  Good job, team!

But, really, I dislike the message it sends--you having a religion is better than not having a specific religion, and everyone is better off if they just find some sort of god.  That is a highly offensive notion to anyone who ever thinks for his self and doesn't allow religion to be the focus of his life.  Thomas Jefferson would be appalled by the notion of the game.

This brings me to my main point:  Civ 5 has an expansion, Gods and Kings, coming out.  They're adding religion in.  Now, they did everything that I complained about better in Civ 5, so maybe they won't bugger this one either.  I am still leery though--religion already passively exists in the form of culture and the piety policy track.  I'm a bit wary of all this, but the initial information seems to not be terrible, overall.  Still, I'm not so certain.

Quick Estimation of Photon Torpedo Max power

Since my last post caused some controversy about how powerful Federation weapons are, and photon torpedoes in particular, I thought I'd take a few minutes while I have a bit of a break to take a rough estimate of the power that photon torpedoes have.

This will be an upper bound estimate. I am going to use "Pegasus" to determine this yield because, really, it's quick and straight-forward, and I'm going to use some loose parameters, but I should be on the proper order of magnitude here, and that's what I'm looking for.

Start with the 5km wide asteroid. Yes, I know it is not solid, but this will overestimate the yield of a photorp. That gives a volume of 6.4*10^10 m^3 of nickel-iron. Assuming iron's density of 7.874 g/cm^3, this yields 5.1*10^14 kg of material.

Now, I'm interested in the gravitational binding energy. This is the minimum energy necessary to blow this mass apart. Now, I do know that in an actual destruction, it won't be scattered to infinity, and I'm also neglecting to include the mass that may be vaporized or melted in the process. Again, I don't think that this will be a terribly large difference, but if you want to go through the time and effort to prove me wrong, go ahead. Please show your work!

This energy is 3GM^2/5r--G being the gravitational constant (6.67*10^-11 m^3/(kg*seconds^2), M being the mass in KG, and r being the radius in meters. So, quick calculation: 4.25*10^15 joules. Sounds like a lot? Well, a kiloton of TNT is 4.184*10^12 Joules. The gravitational potential energy of that asteroid? 1 megaton. And it's supposed to take 250 warheads to take it out? That's pretty weak.

Well, suppose that I melt the thing instead. Melting point is 1811 k, and the heat of fusion is 13.8kJ/mole and the heat capacity is 25.1J/mole. Iron has an atomic weight of 55.845g/mole. So we have 9.22*10^15 mole of iron. Space is pretty close to 0K, so I'm going to use a temperature difference of 1800K for this calculation. This yield 5.44*10^20 joules of energy, or about 100 gigatons of energy.

If it took 250 torpedoes to do this (the payload of the Enterprise), then we have 400 megatons of explosive yield per torpedo. That's much better. However, this is probably a gross overestimate. The asteroid would be blown apart far earlier than this--the gravitational potential energy is much lower, so it is not unreasonable to believe that huge sections would be blown off with each torpedo.

Of course, there is a third possibility: that Riker is just a moron, and it would take far less than 250 photorps to destroy it. It wouldn't take 250 modern nukes to blow that thing to dust.

I'll let you all draw your own conclusions.

(Edited because I erred greatly--I used the heat of vaporization instead of the heat of fusion!  That's a huge energy difference.)

An analysis of the Federation vs the Galactic Empire

I will begin this by saying, simply, that while I do enjoy both Trek and Star Wars, I am by no means a great expert in either. I certainly am more familiar with Star Wars, and I will admit that I am slightly biased towards it. So, if I make errors here, please feel free to correct me.


I'm going to start with describing the Federation. My fist assessment of them is, basically, semi-inept scientists put into a conflict scenario. Why do I say semi-inept. Well, they can treknobabble their way out of some situations, I'll admit, and they do have some truly innovate and exceptionally talented crewmembers. I cannot possibly deny that. However, all that said, they have a very civilian mentality towards, well, everything.


First, let's take a look at their flagship, the Enterprise. It's filled with non-combatants and children. That second part is kind of key. Also, no one has small rooms that you'd see in a combat vessel, or even anything other than a luxury liner. Honestly, those rooms that everyone has are absolutely gigantic. For a place where space must be at a premium, they certainly did not skimp with their quarters. I'm sure they have great food recycling programs (i.e. poop to food via replicator tech), because they simply have to. No room for anything, really. It's a very civilian operation, which is alright if their missions were not frequently "Run here, deal with this crisis where people will be shooting at your ship and may be able to take it out." As you can imagine, this is not exactly responsible behavior. Even if it was just an exploration vessel, that's still very risky--a few hundred families bite it if that ship goes out, and given that they often go into unexplored territory with ancient dangers and hazards, it's all but inevitable that there is a massive loss of civilian life on that ship.


Now, let's look at their security/internal weapon systems. They use phasers. To be honest, this is a bad, bad policy. Why? Well, for one, they don't seem to have consistent effects on various types of materials. Sometimes, on some settings, they do well, other times, they are barely effective. They have a small power plant, which means if they increase power to do more damage against a target, they have fewer shots. It has to be limited power supply, because their overloads are about as effective as a modern hand grenade (give or take). Also, they're not exactly the most well-designed weapon. It's not shaped like a pistol, and it takes that function. Pistols have their grip and design for a reason, and it's not looks. It is function. It fits the hand, it's easy to aim, and it's easy to maintain ease of firing. The phaser has none of that. It fits the hand badly, and has no real way to aim well. If you watch the firefights, and have any actual experience in any armed service, you'd see that any squad with any actual combat tactics would clean them up in no time at all.


While I'm on the phasers, I have another beef: why don't they have shotguns for shipboard security? A good, honest, 10-gauge shotgun with shot or slug. It would do wonders for shipboard defense against the Borg, or any boarding action, really. Any security situation, a shotgun would do well in. Even if they didn't want to kill someone, non-lethal rounds could be used. Even if we hadn't developed them in 1989, I don't see why they couldn't have imagined them for the show. Combine replicator/transport tech into their chambers, and you never have to reload and can switch out rounds on the fly. Seems reasonable enough.


Since I just mentioned it, their transportation tech is sorely underused from a tactical perspective. We know that it is quite possible to duplicate people with it, each with the same memories and skillsets of the original. Given how it's supposed to work, this is, to be honest, quite feasible. So why is it that there isn't a dedicated squad of assault troops, volunteers all, who transport clone into combat in shipboard actions, wreak all kinds of havoc with targeted sabotage in enemy ships, even to the point of critical overload of reactors? You'd have no net losses of your own, and your enemies would suffer catastrophic losses. The Borg don't do this, the Klingon don't, no one does. But it is quite highly possible to do so. I could understand ethical limitations on this (creating clones to die, but that's pretty much what a two-way transport via transporter is anyhow), but Klingons certainly don't have that kind of limitation.


Even if the idea of using it to replicate assault troops for boarding actions is repugnant, it could be used for highly ethical purposes. Just keep a log of people who transport down on away teams. Hey, look, Tasha Yar isn't dead any more. Data is a unique resource, and they want to make more. There are ethical concerns with taking him apart to do so, but Data seems to have no objections to a replication via transport. That would either enable research into creating more sentient AIs or it could simply negate the need for such research--every ship could have an android to serve as officer. But that aspect is never used. It's kind of baffling, really.


Another baffling thing is their use of the holodeck. It seems that, every so often, it goes horribly wrong, and nearly destroys the ship somehow. So the first question is "If it does this every so often, why do they let people use it at all?" The second question is "Why haven't they weaponized this at all--Picard was willing to to take out some Borg once, so why isn't this standard practice?" The third question is, "Why isn't this extremely powerful training tool used heavily for training of various types of espionage and combat missions?" Think about it--you can have a fully realistic combat experience, minus actual death of personnel, whenever you needed it. One would think that there would be at least a team of agents who used it routinely for such things, given the number of problems that the Enterprise deals with.


All in all, they seem to be, basically, civilians who are only half-heartedly transitioning into a military position. And, to be fair, that fits their supposed character--explorers and scientists, exploring a galaxy that is still new to them. They're still learning from everything, all the time. And their domestic problems are largely settled, I'd imagine--they have replicators and holodecks, so it's hard to imagine anyone would truly lack a basic necessity. And those things can't be that expensive, since they are apparently in every crewmember's luxurious cabin, no matter their rank. If they were, then the Federation would be, well, bordering on corrupt military dictatorship, and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt there.


They are quite successful, however, and there is a great reason for this: their enemies are utterly incompetent morons. The Borg, for instance, have a time machine. They want to beat the humans. So they use it to go back to a few days before the launch of the first warp drive, which would be noticed by the Vulcans and then they'd be integrated into galactic society. That plan is moronic. They have a time machine. There is a much better time to hit earth, hard, and irrecoverably--it's called "before the pyramids were built." Seriously, there would be little to no resistance when they show up literally from nowhere and proclaim themselves now in charge of Earth. Most such peoples would worship them and gladly let themselves be assimilated. Problem completely solved. No pesky humans, and a planet that has had no real mineral or environmental exploitation is now in their grasp. Simple. But they can't do this, at all. They had the imagination to use a time machine, but why give the humans even the slightest chance to succeed? Heck, here's a more salient question: Why did they go to Earth, then use the time machine? They could have used the time machine, then gone to Earth, thus avoiding the huge Federation fleet that damaged and nearly prevented their whole operation. Something just seems off here.


And the Klingon! Strength and honor, but sneak attacks via cloaking tech are okay. Sure, I get that. Ambush is legitimate, and I have no gripes with that. But I do have gripes with them using the bat'leth. That's not exactly a practical weapon for a humanoid (please note the lack of weapons like that in human history, and realize that it's for a good reason). Okay, it's a sacred thing. But why use it at all? They're supposed to be hard-core, but they just seem to be, well, kinda bad at combat. Despite near total militarization, they never really seem to be able to get anywhere.


The Romulans? Sorry, but they have battleships, actual battleships, that can cloak, but they can barely make headway either. They supposedly have this great covert ops program, but they never seem to be able to get even a small raiding fleet anywhere deep into anyone's territory. They get caught in pretty small nets. Look, space is big. Really, really, really big. Our nearest neighbor? 4 light years away. Given warp-drive technology, they could take a non-direct route, and totally avoid almost any picket. Instead of the perimeter of a circle to defend, the Federation and Klingon Empire have a sphere to defend. That area goes up dramatically, and there simply is no way to practically defend it. A raiding fleet could do immense damage, and could force an opponent into guarding certain lanes heavily, and hanging around their outposts exclusively. This is a classic guerrilla campaign. But they can't seem to be able to do this. Yes, their infiltration was caught by an innovative technique, but the point is that they shouldn't have even been at risk of that in the first place.


So the Federation's enemies seem to be, more or less, pretty much worthless, which is why the Federation is still viable--their foes are just less competent than they are.


Now, how about the Empire? The Empire has one truly glaring weakness, and it's called "The Emperor." Really, that man just doesn't understand how a trap works. He uses himself as bait, and actually shows up. Then he has his whole fleet of capital ships not fire at the enemy fleet so he can have some fun. Even if the rebels never took down the shield, that still cost him quite dearly because rather than quickly and utterly annihilating the Rebel fleet, he loses many valuable capital ships--including the Executor. So, that's a big drawback.


But, tech-wise, it's clear that they are better off, from a military standpoint. They have actual rifle-gripped weapons, and that makes a difference in boarding actions. Or ground combat. They have all sorts of ground combat weapons, and they're really good with them. My previous bit on Stormtroopers should attest to that.


Now, they do lack transporter tech, but that may be for religious/ethical/practical reasons. It's not a great combat maneuver, really, given that large ships tend to have large crews and the transport limit is pretty small. Given that thick armor makes good scans harder, it would be all but impractical in their ships. Plus, you are sort of killing yourself and hoping your clone does well. So there may be an ethical or religious consideration there.


But their ships are larger, pack more firepower, and have larger crews. Their crews are military, and do seem to have combat tactics down. Their engagements occur at longer distances than is typical in Trek (maybe a few dozen km or so in Trek vs a few hundred km as point blank in Star Wars). They use fighters as screens and for various other supporting roles. They clearly are a militaristic group, and are good at it.


Before anyone mentions Ewoks, let me point this out: The Ewoks joining, at all, was literal divine intervention. Imperial scouts certainly noted their xenophobia, and counted on the rebels being unable to effectively join with them, which would serve as a good secondary threat to taking out any incursion force. If Threepio hadn't happened to look just like a God to them, then it would have been game over for the Rebels. They'd not have been able to count on them in any fight.


But, even barring that, it's not fair to say "LOL stormtroopers get taken out by teddy bears! HAHAH DERP!" because, really, that's not exactly what happened. Outside of mechanical traps vs the AT-STs, they were of very limited direct effectiveness against the Stormtroopers. Their primary use was surprise against an already engaged foe. That's pretty huge, even against disciplined elite. It creates a new front to fight against, and it distracts them quite dramatically. Their attacks against the Stormtroopers show this--mostly, they drive them from cover, or ruin its effectiveness, and that really is a huge factor in any legitimate firefight.


Overall, the Empire has an extreme advantage, in sheer combat ability and experience. But, let's consider this thematically. Star Trek is about moral dilemmas that an exploring population faces. That is the core theme here. Star Wars? That's about massive conflict, across the galaxy. And since moral certainty is part of this, then ethical considerations don't appear. In a conflict mode, the Empire would probably win, all things equal.


This is in no way to say that the Trek isn't fun, or worthwhile, but I am saying that, in the end, a war would see the Federation probably losing.

Warfare, Dungeons and Dragons Style

Warfare is one part of the underlying fabric of the Dungeons and Dragons universe. It provides a political backdrop, where more than just the heroes smiting random creatures dwelling in random holes goes on. The world's face is changed by warfare, on occasion. So, fittingly, in 3.5 Wizards of the Coast published Heroes of Battle, which talked about this exclusively. Good book, overall.


However, it mentions two possible methods to examine warfare--either as "medieval" or "modern" inspired", with medieval being more traditional, with formations, set-pieces, and so forth where modern has all the fantastic elements being used much like we'd see on a modern battlefield--sorcerers leading squads and giants stomping and smashing their way in. Wizards teleport into garrisons, open their gates in daring commando raids. Sounds pretty sweet. The question is, however, is this "realistic" for D&D?


What I mean by "realistic" is, given the standard population and distribution, can a nation actually afford to, or build, such an army? Well, let's take a look at the basics and make a few assumptions here. I do not know, as I write this sentence, what will be concluded.


Before I do that, however, I'm going to make a guess: it would require a vastly different population distribution to even begin to pull off. To begin with, the idea of a "modern" inspired battlefield has fireballs exploding commonly, so formations are just a good way to get killed. But does that jibe with history? Not really. Historically, firepots and other catapulted weapons like that could inflict great devastation on men in the field. These weapons did exist, but they were somewhat inaccurate, so their use close in was limited. However, other factors such as the terrain and guarantee of hand-to-hand combat meant that the risk was worth taking--when someone is trying to stab you in the chest, it's nice to have only one direction to worry about that coming from. In fact, standing shoulder to shoulder with the other soldiers didn't really disappear until WWI (sort of) and really left for good in WWII. A big reason for this is that weapons that were capable of long-range, accurate, fire were not commonly available until then--and had not been really adapted to. You were most likely to inflict damage if a number of other men are standing shoulder to shoulder with you shooting in the same direction. Of course, that meant that your were a better target, but there's always tradeoffs. Now, the advent of rifling made standing shoulder to shoulder really deadly, as Pickett's Charge will attest, but until rifled weapons were widespread and commonplace, that's an unlikely scenario. Lee assumed that rifled weapons were not yet mass produced (they were, and that was why the charge failed). That's the key here--in order for these kinds of weapons to make an enormous impact, they must be commonplace enough that they can be used readily. A single man with a rifle can hit a few select targets, but a hundred together can devastate incoming forces with lesser arms. And that is the key--are magical means of sufficient quantity to be so fearsome as to wholly change the face of warfare? That would probably depend on the campaign setting--if wizards are quite common, and magic is within the grasp of the common man, as gunpowder weapons were as armored men disappeared from the field.


At first blush, barring a high-magic setting, this really seems not to be the case. A peasant makes 3 gold a month, and a scroll of even a simple spell is in the hundreds of gold, putting magic well beyond the financial means of 90% of the population. So it doesn't seem that it will be terribly common on the battlefield. But this may be a mistaken notion.


So, let's look at casting spells then. In order to cast fireball, a wizard needs to be 5th level, or a sorcerer needs to be 6th. I'm going to take a look at the number of wizards/sorcerers of that level or greater in a given settlement, and then I'm going to make a few assumptions. They're going to boil down to one conclusion: that this represents the total number of mages available for war at any given time. I do know that, of course, there will be at least 3-4 times as many in the world, but they simply are not available for drafting like this outside of the most dire of circumstances. Unless they owe duty to a lord, getting them to show up would be quite expensive, to say the least, and not necessarily likely. Drafting any skilled tradesman would be hard, as the guilds would not stand for this, and it's hard to imagine that wizards guilds would be much different. However, certain wizards would certainly owe the state their training, and so could be required to show up under certain circumstances. Sorcerers are more independent, so are less likely to be forced into service, but many might show up for whatever other reasons. I'd imagine similar for wizards. Being academic, I doubt that most wizards would have plenty of battle spells handy--most don't spend their time fighting in dungeons and otherwise risking their necks. I'd also imagine a cap to the power of a wizard showing up. I doubt that a level 20 wizard would show up to any battle, period, unless his tower was threatened, and that army would be foolish to even attempt such things. But, overall, I think that the overall numbers of wizards/sorcerers should closely resemble the city population.


So, with that determination, let's take a look at what we get:


From a large town, we have a 75% chance of a wizard being available to cast a 3rd level spell, and a 50% chance of a sorcerer. Small city, we have 2 guaranteed of both, with a 7/16 chance of one additional, which includes a 1/16 chance of two additional for wizards, and no additional for sorcerers. A large city will have 5-6 of both,and a metropolis will have 6 of each. That's not very many. Given the relative scarcity of any settlement classified as a city, even if this is just 10% of the total number of wizards/sorcerers of that tier available, there simple aren't more than a few dozen, at most, that could be called up for a battle. Even if we allow for half of all casters to be called, it's still only five or six dozen across the whole kingdom.


Then we have to consider the limitations of casting. Across all those 60 (again, tops) casters, we have maybe 140 castings of mass-combat worthy spells (I discount low-tier spells with single targets because against 10,000 or more on the field, these aren't much use). And that's all the spells available. These spells represent various choices on the part of the wizard in preparation, and on the sorcerer in initial selection. They have a vested interest in not dying, as does the army, so I doubt that they'd use all of them on offensive load, or even friendly buffing. Of that, I expect maybe half to be considered "ready" for use at any moment. So, again, tops 70 castings. Then consider the other casters on the opposing side. They'll have similar numbers, and probably will be looking to counterspell some of the more dangerous and obvious spells--only a great fool would not order some wizards to ready an action to counter incoming spells. So this further drops the usefulness.


Again, this is across all forces. Not just for battle A or whatever--every group of various size will have mages with it, depending on the size of the force. Maybe, at most, a dozen mages will accompany any contingent, and that is being very generous.--So, of all that, expect 3-12 castings of a level 4 or higher spell, total, available, for any battle. That's just not impressive.


One could counter with "well, they have wands and scrolls", but let's look at the cost of such consumables. A level 1 wand, with 50 charges, costs 750 gold, and a level 5 scroll of fireball (minimum for creation) is 375. That's a lot of money, enough to equip a number of lesser warriors or a knight in full armor. And, don't forget that these are expended. After the battle, there's less of any of those left. That armor? Yeah, that's still there, and can be recovered and refitted for a new recruit with relatively little expense for lighter armors. Heavier armors will certainly be the personal property of the owner, and go on to his heirs--and refitting them will be simpler than others.


Also consider what the loss of these means. Loss of a scroll to the enemy is disastrous--they now have another potent asset that can destroy large numbers of your forces. Loss of the armor? Well, some men are better equipped, but likely not enough to tilt the battle. Remember, the posit here is that wizards and sorcerers would tilt the battle with their power moreso than a handful of warriors (and I will not disagree with this premise, it is quite accurate as far as it goes), so granting that to the enemy is major. These supplies are easy to carry and conceal, which makes them a prime target for theft and vandalism. That means more resources to guard and secure them, which means their combat expense is much higher.


Then we have placement. They'd have to be scattered, otherwise enemy mages will simply engage in ferocious counter-battery fire, and that will be the end of the mage cadre. Wizards and sorcerers are not the hardiest of folk, and a handful of fireballs at them would effectively end them.


All told, while these would be potentially devastating, it's just hard to see them being the decisive factor outside of extraordinary circumstances--such as exceptionally powerful mages show up unexpectedly, or enemy mages are not present, etc.


Heroes of Battle does mention the cost of equipment (like I did above), and said that arming a 1st level sorcerer with a wand of magic missile and a fireball scroll would be no more expensive than a knight, and potentially much more devastating. Well, let's look at that. A knight with full-plate armor will be of at least 3rd or 4th level, and therefore have 20-50 hp. That sorcerer? Maybe 8 or 9, and that's a stretch. His AC? Maybe 14, again, tops. The knight? 20, at least. So who would you trust with expensive and dangerous assets like that? The green sorcerer, or the trusted veteran? I wouldn't give the sorcerers such weapons, at least not at that level. That's just ludicrous.


Now, with all that said and done, what do I think about modern-inspired warfare? Well, if you want it, go ahead. But you'll need large, industrial, populations to support is, just like you need large, industrial, populations to support a modern army with artillery support. It can fit in with your world as much as you want it to. Just make sure that the background fits.

Why Indiana Jones was a Terrible Hero, Part One

I might catch a ton of flak for this one, but oh well.


First of all, I don't mean that the first three movies weren't fun and entertaining, or that Indy isn't a bad-ass.  That's not the point at all.  What I mean, however, is that Indiana Jones only made things worse in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade.  That's right, Indiana Jones nearly handed over the free world to the Nazis on a silver platter, and really the only thing that kept them from using divine artifacts was direct divine intervention.  God effectively covered Indy's ass, and let's be honest, if He is going to smite the living hell out of those who would abuse Jewish and Christian relics, I don't think that Indy needed to get involved.


Let's take a look at the Raiders of the Lost Ark.   First, the opening reveals that Indiana Jones is, basically, a thief who steals priceless artifacts from under the noses of people who actively protect them for money.  So we're pretty shaky on his moral grounding here, and movies, like all stories told to children or young adults (the groups that this movie was horrifyingly aimed at, considering later actions) do serve to send moral lessons.  They convey the idea of what is good and right.  We know who to root for, and how to feel about them.  Indy is the hero, and he's a big damn hero.  Who steals from natives. 




Then, he gets a commission from the US government to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant because the Nazis, who in 1936 aren't really on the threat radar of anyone to this level, were trying to get it.  So first, he goes to an old flame in the ass-end of the world.  This "old flame" is a much younger woman who he hasn't seen in some time.  As in "she was certainly under-age when he boinked her" some time ago.  And, given the looks of the female students in his classes (which he apparently can just randomly abandon at whim, with no negative consequence whatsoever, another great example of morality), he may have, um, plundered their tombs as well.  You know, young, impressionable, girls smitten with a rugged adventurer.  And he's their teacher.  Or father's friend/colleague.  This dude's MO is pretty shady, let's be honest.  And, the first thing that his old flame reminds him of?  That he just walked out on her after he got what he wanted and decided to move on to something else.  Just like his classes!  Thus far, we have thief, ephobophile, and highly unreliable character.


That's a weird point in the internal consistency--this guy bails pretty quickly on commitments.  Why did the US government hire him?  He's supposed to be good, but his record is pretty much losing to Belloq.  Why didn't they hire Belloq?  Oh, the Nazis did already.  So they hired the guy that gets everything he finds stolen by Belloq.  Swell move there, OSS.


So, he goes to her, gets her to give him the only thing he really wanted (the amulet, not her post-pubescent womanhood) on the condition that she tags along.  In the process, Belloq basically follows him to this artifact to take it from him.  Then he goes and finds out that Belloq somehow has a copy of the amulet, and is digging in the wrong spot.  In other words, if he left right then it would be years and years before Belloq even figured out that he was digging in the wrong spot, if the Nazis even bothered to fund it that long.  Already the officers in charge were complaining about how long it was taking and the lack of results.  Do you think that they'd keep funding that dig after a few months more of bupkiss from the supposedly accurate amulet?  Of course not, they'd have assumed they had a bad lead, or whatever.  So if he did nothing at this point, the Nazis never would have had the Ark.


But he goes and digs up the Ark.  Like 100 meters from a Nazi encampment.  If the goal is to keep them from getting this thing, maybe that's not a great idea.  But I suppose his paycheck is pretty important too.  Then, in the twist no one could possibly have foreseen except everyone but Indy and Sallah, Belloq steals the Ark from him right after he gets it.  Does this guy not learn from his mistakes, or what?


So now, he has to get it back.  And he does, by killing a bunch of German soldiers.  And, since 9 years later, everyone finds out that these guys were going to start killing Jews in a bit, he is sort of vindicated by history.  But, basically, he kills a bunch of security guards for doing their jobs. 


Then, he puts the Ark on a ship.  And, rather than deep-sixing the Ark so that way the Nazis can never, never, never get it, ever, he just keeps it on board.  And then, the Nazis take it from him.  Again.  So, he stows away on a submarine, somehow, for a few days or weeks.  How he manages this, I will never know, since those things have no unused space whatsoever, but I guess he's just good at the first part of stealing part of being a thief.


Then, he's about to blow up the Ark.  And he refrains.  Not because the Nazis will kill Marion, not because his shot will certainly do it anyhow, not because destroying God's Covenant might piss him off, but because he can't destroy history.  Even though he doesn't want the Nazis to use it to smite the whole world. 


But, in the end, it doesn't matter.  The Nazis open it, and all die horribly.  And, given that this movie is sort of targeted at kids and young adults, this is pretty disturbing.  But this does render his every action moot.  If he had stayed at the University, banging his students, nothing would have changed.  The Nazis either never would have found the Ark, thus not being a threat, or would have brought it to Hitler and his senior staff, and opened it in front of him in 1936.  This would have been awesome for the Jews, because basically, the Nazi party would have imploded, since everyone who was capable and in a leadership position would have been destroyed.  That's a good thing.  Indiana Jones succeeded at preventing God from smiting Hitler in 1936.