How to start a war? http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017 Nialon The leader of both sides are brothers. The younger one wants the other's throne, but he still cares about his brother and he's willing to fight fairly for it. So he won't just assemble a massive army and attack out of the blue. Right now I have him giving his brother three months until they battle. But there's a lot of things I want to write before the war starts so I can get my characters fully developed. Three months isn't a very long time. Plus the armies have to be assembled and stuff and there is a lot of travelling done. I don't think three months is very realistic. I don't know how to solve this problem. I'm seperating my book into three sections and the first ends at the younger brother's victory. I want the sections to be a reasonable length. How can I make more time before the war actually starts? It's really bothering me and I can't focus on anything else. :( Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:07:52 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124225 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124225 Dennis Dunjinman So it's war? As much as I do love a good game of war, is it necessary? Can the guy just challenge his brother to a duel or one-on-one hoops and not put all those lives at stake in civil war? Can the brother just abdicate and say "You win, I didn't want the throne anyway"? Also consider if your world has to walk on foot or if they can use other modes of transport to get them there faster. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:23:26 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124239 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124239 Deamsickdev Perhaps that timing began, from the younger one's perspective, in an idealistic hope that it would be over quickly or much more easily than really possible. Does he know a lot about war? Is he a veteran of one? Or is he somewhat that knows intellectually what it will require, but not about having to put it all together in a practical way? Also, does he have any advisors that might tell him otherwise? Also, why three months? Can you just retcon a new date? Is there any particular reason that it has to be three months? If it really has to be three months, perhaps something gets in the way. Sabotage. A new conflict within his circle of allies. A monsoon or a drought throughout the kingdom. Some dangerous magical event that happens to distract them all. Plot twists could help with this, or at least ninjas. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:47:38 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124258 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124258 Nialon No, it has to be war, haha. They're both too stubborn for anything else. The armies would be travelling on foot and horseback. Each one is on oppossite sides of their country so I guess they would meet somewhere in the middle. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:01:38 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124274 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124274 AlahraNadal Honestly I dont think 3 months is too short a time. To be realistic, all of this must have been going on for a while. The brothers each have their followers so probably small fights in small villages are already breaking out and have been since theire is such a divide in the country. Civil war must already be coming. The 3 months for the brothers could be a last chance deal that the younger offers the older in hope of avoiding the war between them. So maybe the younger tells his men to hold back the rebellion for 3 months to give the king a chance to step down before they are forced to fight each other. An offer of a peaceful switch in power since it sounds like the majority of the country is actually on the younger brother's side. So actually not that much needs to be going on during those three months other than your characterization. the people are already incensed and ready to go. They will need to have a plan for their immediete strike once the 3 months are up and will prepare for that plan, but other than that...this should have been coming for long enough that it's not an issue... Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:08:51 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124287 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124287 Nialon He's never been in a war, but he has a pretty good grasp on what it would require and how he would go about leading one. I'm not surely why I used three months...it probably just seemed like a good idea at the time. I think I just want both sides to know that they'll fight on a certain day. Giving them a certain amount of months would solve that problem while creating a deadline that would add tension to the story. I'm not really sure how long it takes to prepare for war, so I guess that was my first mistake. And I'll keep the magical event idea in mind. There's something that I have planned in the last section that might fit into that perfectly. Thanks for the help! Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:17:27 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124299 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124299 cadaughtrey Honestly, the length of time doesn't matter. I mean, if younger brother just goes, "Three months from today, my armies will attack. Prepare yourself.", what exactly do you expect to happend in those next three months? The best solution to me is to do a "Three months later...." type of thing instead of tying to come up with filler to take up pages. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:25:03 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124308 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124308 lasalle202 How will your character get people (with the ability to raise military troops) to support him? Most laws of succession are pretty clear about identifying who is the rightful king (to avoid exactly this kind of incident), and rarely would your younger brother have the standing to be able to declare himself heir and king and have people believe him and follow him. The brother who is king would be pretty silly if he just marched his troops out to randomly meet his opponent half way. Long supply lines are the bane of any army and so the king or his generals would wait, causing the claimant to the throne to march farther, and then meet the troops at a place where they have additional defensive advantage. (while sending a few fast moving troops to get behind the approaching army and harrass those long stretched supply lines) In the time of the typical "castleland fantasy" historical period there are very few standing armies, and so hte "war season" is very short. The troops are made up of people who have to plow and plant the fields in the spring and be back by fall to harvest, otherwise the population will starve. And trying to move large numbers of troops through winter snow is even more risky. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:30:42 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124313 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124313 lasalle202 [quote=Nialon] Right now I have him giving his brother three months until they battle. ... Three months isn't a very long time. Plus the armies have to be assembled and stuff and there is a lot of travelling done. I don't think three months is very realistic. [/quote] and so why do you have the 3 month declaration? And you can also look at real life examples such as the Gulf War and the War against Iraq. In each of those cases, Sadaam was given X amount of time to do "something", the state time passed but war did not immediately begin. There was the additional time while troops and equipment were moved into position. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:48:36 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124479 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124479 Nialon I forgot to mention that Cale, the younger brother, was banished from the kingdom in his late teens. He's been on his own, travelling around in different parts of the country for about fifteen years. Basically he's been building up followers that would fight for him and he plans to banish anyone still loyal to his brother after the war is over. Cale was assumed dead and his return comes as a bit of a shock. There hasn't been a war in over fifty years, so everyone is pretty much unprepared for it, which is why Cale eventually wins. I suppose I'll have him launch a series of attacks to capture major cities and then go for the capital. Then I'll have the length that I want and still have conflict. I think that will work. Thanks again for the advice! Bouncing around ideas really helps me figure things out. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:36:11 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124580 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124580 larelmian Hmm . . . so little brother has probably been building up his forces for years already. Now he shows up and declares war. He might hope his brother will nicely surrender (though he won't) or he will give him a chance to come out and fight fairly. This is also a wise move on Cale's part if he can get the king's army out of the fortifications, because throwing yourself at a castle wall is tantamount to suicide. This is why starving them out was a much more popular option, until either food supplies ran low on one side or another. Now big brother has probably already been gathering his forces, since if he has any kind of spy network, he'll know someone is gathering an army together, even if he doesn't know his own brother is behind it. Does this make sense? Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:24:30 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124977 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1124977 Kimberly Dawn Borrowing from my History teacher... But you need long-held reasons on both sides beyond the brothers' control. They have to be the catalyst rather than the root cause. Here is the order given to me... Long Term Causes- 20 years or more before the actual events also known as the preconditions. Short Term Causes- Dysfunctions that cause the war within the societies. Precipitating Events- That where the revolutions becomes the inevitable. Also known as the catalyst. Triggering Event- The final straw where the conflict breaks out. The War itself-The actual events of the fighting. Critical Period- 20 or more years after the war. The key questions to ask are: Is the war a success? Is the country better off for having cgone to war? Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:19:53 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1125191 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1125191 Raksab Define "fight fairly." You mean gather a bunch of peasants and order them to kill each other? Even if the peasants agreed, I wouldn't define that as a "fair" way to settle a dispute. On the other hand, maybe your characters do... By the way, making commoners fight in war has some risks, and it isn't by any means a universal practice. Some kingdoms have a professional, elite fighting class (eg knights, samurai, Turkish mercenaries) who have nothing to do except sharpen their fighting skills and fight, and maybe practice courtly arts. They are supported by the food and labor provided by commoners. and they may have high-quality (often heirloom) equipment. This was how it worked in medieval Europe and feudal Japan. The downside, of course, is that if your enemy doesn't practice chivalry, or if he comes up with a weapon that can make a peasant equal to a skilled knight (longbow, rifle), the system falls apart. Or if the peasants just decide they're tired of feeding those knights who sit around and don't do any work, the knights are in trouble. Or if the knights get soft and don't keep up their training, they'll be useless when the war starts. You'll also have to keep a sharp eye on the knights in case one of them decides he wants to be king himself... In other kingdoms, all the citizens (men at least) are expected to be soldiers, and when it's time to fight, they go fight, leaving the women and slaves to run things at home. When the battle's over, they come home and go back to farming. This is how it worked in the ancient Greek polis (eg Athens). The downside to this system: while the citizens are away, the kingdom can be conquered by somebody else, or the slaves can revolt, or if all the men die in battle, that's it for the kingdom. If you run low on soldiers and use slaves to bulk up the army, you'll need to grant them some new rights. If you leave women in charge at home, they will probably need extra rights too. A democracy is almost essential for this system, because if all the men are soldiers, and they fight frequently together, they are all more or less equals. If you do draft peasants into the army, you'll need to either be a really fast talker, or threaten them (which may require paid guards to keep them in line), or bribe them. If you have money, great; they'll probably stick around as long as the money keeps coming, provided you also feed them. If you don't have money, you'll have to string them along with promises of glory and loot, which won't work forever. This is how the European Crusades went. If the loot doesn't show up sooner or later, or if the guards lose control over the draftees, the army may turn against you. Additionally, the army will not be composed of expert soldiers, which means you'll have to train them in a hurry, the equipment they bring will be of dubious quality (unless you can supply equipment, which gets VERY expensive), and they might not perform well in the crunch. You'll need pretty clever tactics and strong leadership to make use of these amateurs. Once the army is prepared, they may demand new civil rights, or even stage a coup in favor of whoever promises them what they want... Thu, 09 Feb 2012 03:45:15 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1125815 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1125815 Nialon That makes perfect sense! In fact, Cale's brother has already been ordering a bunch of weapons to be made just in case there was a war. And it's great that you mentioned it being a surprise that it is Cale. I think that would be a nice touch. Thanks. :) Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:26:49 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1126179 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1126179 Nialon I was vaguely aware of what things led to the war and how things would be afterward, but that adds a lot more structure. I should probably pay more attention in history now, haha. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:32:44 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1126186 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1126186 Nialon Originally I was going to have Cale tell his brother when he would attack so they could have one huge battle for the throne. Cale considered this fair instead of attacking out of the blue, which is what he would have done if he wasn't fighting his brother. Since I've decided that Cale will just attack cities until he reaches the capital, the fairness aspect is pretty much gone. :) The only thing he won't do is kill his brother. Everything else is fair game. The king does have an abundance of knights, but they're waaaaay out of practice. Plus the kingdom was already running low on food, so they'll be stretched pretty thin. By the time the king decides to try and recruit the peasants it's already too late. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:50:14 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1126204 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1126204 lasalle202 from a "believability" point of view [quote=Nialon] I forgot to mention that Cale, the <strong> younger</strong> brother, <strong>was banished</strong> from the kingdom in his late teens. Cale was <strong>assumed dead </strong>. He's been <strong>on his own,</strong> travelling around in different parts of the country for about fifteen years. [/quote] given the above statements, Its is hard to see how this one is possible: [quote]Basically he's been building up followers that would fight for him [/quote] Monarchies are not democracies. Someone who is the younger brother and been banished and presumed dead is going to have a HUGE problem attracting people willing to support him against the rightly crowned king. Such activity is treason and punished by death (even suspicion of treason). While it would probably take a long time to carefully sound out potential allies to join the cause, each month that goes by in the conspiracy is another month in which someone accidentally spills the beans to the wrong ear or gets cold feet or finds out that their bitter enemy has also joined the cause or is suddenly granted a new title by the king and changes allegience You are going to have to carefully plot this out so that the rebels joining Cale have sufficient and believable reasons for doing so. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:14:39 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1126389 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1126389 Nialon All valid points. I should have give more details about the situation. There's four main regions in the world, one of witch Cale's brother rules. There is very little to no communication between them. Cale was banned from his brother's region and travelled around the other three. He's a very persuasive speaker and has enlisted a large group of followers, most of them wanderers and outcasts like him. He set up his stronghold right on the edge of a region that no one travels to because of superstitious reasons, ensuring that no one becomes aware of them. Is that a little more believable? I know that there are some problems I need to work out but I'll deal with them in the future. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:39:00 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1127104 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1127104 lasalle202 hmmm ... I had been going under the impression that he was making contact with various dissafected lords and getting them to commit their men to his force. it sounds like you are talking more of a peasant uprising that he recruits each of the soldiers individually / via rallies? that might be more difficult - NONE of the lords anywhere are going to want to have armed "free" peasants on or crossing their lands- setting a bad example that the dont want their own peasants to emulate. And where does your exiled king get weapons and supplies for his army? or are you in a time period other then "generic medieval castleland"? if you are instead modelling say the French Revolution or Sparticus in an imperial Rome or something, that might change the prospects of your rebel. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:01:21 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1127154 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1127154 lasalle202 but then again, there's Robin Hood. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:03:35 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1127158 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1127158 Raksab If you are in a hurry to get to the capital, invading other cities is not the way to do it. It's a great way to take over a kingdom piece by piece, but unless you have some special shortcut for defeating fortified towns, it's going to take a long time and cost a lot of resources. Medieval towns and castles have walls around them for a reason! There's a good chance an invading force will run out of men (or horses, weapons, money, medicine, time, water, food, allies, or favorable weather) before it runs out of enemies. Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:35:07 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1128433 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1128433 stingray306 Make sure that if you're using the "three months to prepare," really emphasize on the rush and stress the kingdom went through to prepare the armies and battle-plans, and craft all the weaponry and armour. It's a lot of work. Another thing to think about: Is it a really big deal? Or is it more of a selfish game? Does one of the brother plan to cheat behind the others back? Or do they both want to play it 100% fair? Is one brother a betrayer? Or are they both loyal and fair? In my opinion, it would be neat if the brothers were opposites, one more fair and weak, and the other a tiny bit more rambunctious and cunning. It would make a fantastic rivalry! Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with your novel. :D Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:01:06 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1153822 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/fantasy/threads/50017?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1153822