Desertion?

**Epistolary Richard** · 10-20-2005, 16:04

Unfortunately the game system simply doesn't allow us to include this kind of feature as there's no command we can use to reduce a unit's size. If we simply renamed 'plague' as 'desertion' then we couldn't stop settlements from catching 'desertion' and having citizens 'desert' and it would all get very silly. Sorry.

**metatron** · 10-21-2005, 00:46

Originally Posted by Epistolary Richard

Unfortunately the game system simply doesn't allow us to include this kind of feature as there's no command we can use to reduce a unit's size. If we simply renamed 'plague' as 'desertion' then we couldn't stop settlements from catching 'desertion' and having citizens 'desert' and it would all get very silly. Sorry.

Urban decay?

Aren't there modifiers to the chances of contacting plague? You could make it extremely unlikely and call it "gold rush" or something.

**bodidley** · 10-21-2005, 01:15

Another problem with simultating desertion with the RTW engine is that the movement speeds are relative low, so you might lose half your army to desertion when trying to get to the other side of Gaul! Also, there is no way to measure what the morale of the army is in the field, so an army might be winning battle after battle and sustaining few casualties, while another army is heavily outnumbered and far away from the nearest friendly base, and both armies would suffer the same levels of desertion.

**AlhazenAl-Rashid** · 10-21-2005, 01:30

you might lose half your army to desertion when trying to get to the other side of Gaul!

What's wrong with that? It was quite a feat that Caesar's men followed him as long as they did.

**bodidley** · 10-21-2005, 01:40

Think of it this way: where would they go? Any army with any kind of discipline at all can travel a few hundred miles and put up a fight without completely falling apart. It is many years long campaigns that wither away at the morale and "attendance" of an army.

**AlhazenAl-Rashid** · 10-21-2005, 01:52

I disagree completely, especially before the institution of a standing professional army that Marius created, and even moreso with cultures that did not, perhaps, have the discipline of Roman soldiers. Most fighting men don't want to be there in the first place, and its easy to slip away.

**bodidley** · 10-21-2005, 02:51

Caesar's campaign in Gaul took place after the Marian reforms, and there is more to desertion than just slipping away. If you are in a strange place, you don't speak the language at all, the local people may be hostile, you have little or no money, little means of feeding yourself, and a very slim chance of ever seeing home again, then desertion would be quite difficult. Temporary armies with less formal training would still take more time before desertion seriously sapped their ranks. There were many invasions of Italy by Celtic and Germanic peoples, for example, and those did not simply melt away to desertion. While desertion certainly was a problem, there would have to be a serious morale crisis for an army to lose half its ranks in a single campaign season.

**GoreBag** · 10-21-2005, 02:52

It can be rationalised that the upkeep cost ties into the effort of maintaining a full-strength force, which would include small reinforcements due to desertion.

**Steppe Merc** · 10-23-2005, 21:40

Originally Posted by AlhazenAl-Rashid

I disagree completely, especially before the institution of a standing professional army that Marius created, and even moreso with cultures that did not, perhaps, have the discipline of Roman soldiers. Most fighting men don't want to be there in the first place, and its easy to slip away.

Wait, warriors didn't want to fight? Sure, some conscripts wouldn't want to, but it would be impossible to have only conscripts desert (if desertion was possible at all, which is isn't). Elites did not desert. Often they would just not show up, or rebel, but not desert.