To many large societies

[tsofian]

In canon 3rd edition there is a lot of the USA that is under the control of powerful cultures. Texas, Kentucky, Maxwell's Militia and others. Is this too much? Does it leave enough "howling wilderness" for game play?

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by tsofian

In canon 3rd edition there is a lot of the USA that is under the control of powerful cultures. Texas, Kentucky, Maxwell's Militia and others. Is this too much? Does it leave enough "howling wilderness" for game play?

The Republic of Texas is pretty loose and mostly small villages. The Army there is the only large and coherent organization. Lonestar is barely functioning as a State above the village level. All it really has is good Law and Order and the Army to keep the villages safe. The Universities and Oil Industries serve themselves.

Maxwell's Militia isn't a functioning State only a Warlord with a territory of less than 50 square miles.

The KFS is a fully functioning State with all the trappings of a fascist government run by robber barons. It is Fascist in the Spanish Model not the NAZI model. Give your loyalty to the State and the State give back with work, health, and are for you when your old or sick.

[Project_Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by tsofian

In canon 3rd edition there is a lot of the USA that is under the control of powerful cultures. Texas, Kentucky, Maxwell's Militia and others. Is this too much? Does it leave enough "howling wilderness" for game play?

They're mostly pretty fragile, maintaining equipment they'd struggle to move to the right location or repair never mind replace.

Texas has at most a couple of thousand troopers to cover a vast geographical area and moving their M1s must be a nightmare.

Whenever one encounters Maxwells Militia they seem to be a handful of skilled and experienced soldiers, long separated from their command structure. With maybe at most a broken down old tank.

Kentucky maybe the big exception in that they can move, repair and supply a pretty impressive military establishment. Not only that but their combination of light armoured medium armoured gun cars, turbo prop ground attack aircraft and plain old trucks n' Jeeps seems actually purpose designed for the Mad Max style world they're living in.

The weakness of Kansas is they're defending a rotten, corrupt slave owning imperial dictatorship of privileged families. So they seem to do little, the invasion in Fall back seems more the actions of boredom and spite rather than a serious plan of conquest.

Perhaps though if they were to be hit hard, say by the actions of the various teams in Fallback. Then that might inspire a survival of the fittest revolution with the surviving families putting the industry on a full-time war and vengeance footing. Then they might become a threat to every thing that's left of civilisation?

[Matt W]

Originally Posted by tsofian

In canon 3rd edition there is a lot of the USA that is under the control of powerful cultures. Texas, Kentucky, Maxwell's Militia and others. Is this too much? Does it leave enough "howling wilderness" for game play?

Well, let's look for areas in the USA that aren't around any "big states"

Logically, anywhere close to the Great Lakes or near the bigger rivers (Mississippi, Colorado, etcetera) can be part of a trade network, or just valuable because the soil is fertile.

The East coast hasn't been mentioned in any modules. Why not have Manhattan as a (swampy) wilderness?

[ArmySGT.]

The Northeast isn't covered and that is both good and frustrating. The Appalachian mountains are very well set up for survivor groups (family clans) still living in 1989 with farming and 18th century skills. It from there that I explain the spread of musket making post War.

The Southeast and Florida is wide open too. I have been trying to find a sea level simulator that would show the sea levels in a Ice Age. The sea level in Final Watch is several meters lower and would dramatically change the shore line everywhere. Finding one with higher sea levels is easy.

The northern Great Plains. It was already low population density to begin with. I suppose this is now the Amerind Empire mentioned in Prime Base and entered on the Black Hills of South Dakota. Devastated in the nuclear exchange the area is food and energy independent given that water wells, oil wells, gas wells, seed starting, and live stock remain... difficult givens for sure with the megatons of nuclear hits.

The Central Great Plains isn't touched except for the Oilers entry. That doesn't really explain much. Traditionally this area was hard to homestead as it lacks rivers. The Army corps of Engineers made many reservoirs after damning rivers and creating miles long though narrow lakes. These make for difficult to pass terrain features. This area has oil, salt, and livestock while it was low population density and low manufacturing pre War. This area suffered from the fallout carried from Colorado.

Texas, New Mexico, and Nevada have their entries in Lonestar and Desert Search.

The Pacific Northwest has its entry in Final Watch with little spoken of outside of Seattle. The wild card is Oregon. The nukes land on Portland, Salem, and Klamath Falls plus the massive hydroelectric dams on the Columbia river. It has no fall out from surrounding States. Logging, farming, ranching, are robust here as is fishing and clamming along the coast.

California. The war has to be even more devastating here than other regions. The area relies upon Interstate 5 and Highway 101 for north south travel. These major arteries pass through enormous urban areas that will be nuked and roads hoked by survivors trying to flee in any direction. There are few ways over the Sierra Nevada mountains or around them. North on I-5 into Oregon or east on I-80 to Reno... except that junction is Sacramento a confirmed nuclear strike. Highway 101 the "coast Highway" has to cross a bridge at San Francisco bay another confirmed nuclear strike. I-15 leaves from the extreme south of alifornia for Las Vegas, Nevada for Los Angeles..... with refugees meeting in the middle fleeing from either to only die in the desert out of gas.

Hawaii, apart from the nuking of Pearl Harbor and Ft Shafter on Oahu and the nuke on Hilo at the Big Island; the population suffers from overpopulation. Without food imports from the Main land the population suffers starvation.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

The Republic of Texas is pretty loose and mostly small villages. The Army there is the only large and coherent organization. Lonestar is barely functioning as a State above the village level. All it really has is good Law and Order and the Army to keep the villages safe. The Universities and Oil Industries serve themselves.

I've looked through this module and really doesn't give much information at all about how advanced the Republic is or is not. I certainly never saw it as a group of villages. It has a University that can conduct basic research and sends out fairly large and seemingly well equipped field teams. They have a state government that includes a class of career politicians, so it seems like there are enough resources to support that sort of thing. There are only so many things you can cram into a module of such size (typical of products of the time). Unless there was a 100+ page source book on the State of Lesser Texas those answers aren't answered in canon.

But I always felt that the Republic had to have enough population and industry to support the Army, if only as sub contractors. Someone has to be building diesel engines, making cordite and high explosives, refining POL, machining screws and even casting track segments. Yes a lot of this is done within the Division itself, but unless the Division has a huge number of people who do industrial work there has to be an infrastructure outside the unit doing a large part of this.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by tsofian

But I always felt that the Republic had to have enough population and industry to support the Army, if only as sub contractors. Someone has to be building diesel engines, making cordite and high explosives, refining POL, machining screws and even casting track segments. Yes a lot of this is done within the Division itself, but unless the Division has a huge number of people who do industrial work there has to be an infrastructure outside the unit doing a large part of this.

Every trooper has a Trade or is an Apprentice. They go into Garrison for the Winter and on Campaign for the Summer. During the Winter things are repaired or made for the Summer Campaign. As a 19th Century style force they only operate in the Field for about five months out of the year. Only a few Company sized elements that a divided into Platoons are out Patrolling or aiding Sheriffs in winter.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Every trooper has a Trade or is an Apprentice. They go into Garrison for the Winter and on Campaign for the Summer. During the Winter things are repaired or made for the Summer Campaign. As a 19th Century style force they only operate in the Field for about five months out of the year. Only a few Company sized elements that a divided into Platoons are out Patrolling or aiding Sheriffs in winter.

That means the industrial plant will basically sit idle for half the year, as the soldiers that operate it are out in the field.

The lack of winter campaigns also goes against history and would be very poor military art for the First Cav. The American Indians HATED winter fighting and one of the ways that the historical campaigns developed was winter attacks on indian encampments. There is no reason why the Cav isn't tearing up the savages all winter long. If the horse cavalry of the 19th century could do it against the tribes in the west why can't the better armed and equipped cav in Lonestar do the same?

The idea that the savages have been pushing back Texas for decades makes no sense. The savages are melee warriors and the Texans, including civilians, have repeating fire arms. I don't see any way the savages can push into Texas. I do see the Cav hammering the savages, ESPECIALLY, in the winter. I'd think that the savages would fear winter storms because the cav would use them as cover. Many savage villages were overrun during snow or rain as the first they knew was when the cav tanks rolled out of the precipitation spitting death.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by tsofian

That means the industrial plant will basically sit idle for half the year, as the soldiers that operate it are out in the field.

The lack of winter campaigns also goes against history and would be very poor military art for the First Cav. The American Indians HATED winter fighting and one of the ways that the historical campaigns developed was winter attacks on indian encampments. There is no reason why the Cav isn't tearing up the savages all winter long. If the horse cavalry of the 19th century could do it against the tribes in the west why can't the better armed and equipped cav in Lonestar do the same?

The idea that the savages have been pushing back Texas for decades makes no sense. The savages are melee warriors and the Texans, including civilians, have repeating fire arms. I don't see any way the savages can push into Texas. I do see the Cav hammering the savages, ESPECIALLY, in the winter. I'd think that the savages would fear winter storms because the cav would use them as cover. Many savage villages were overrun during snow or rain as the first they knew was when the cav tanks rolled out of the precipitation spitting death.

Savages? The Brotherhood has firearms and working vehicles........ they are the descendants of survivalists that have built a warrior kult.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Savages? The Brotherhood has firearms and working vehicles........ they are the descendants of survivalists that have built a warrior kult.

They only have those because they took them from the Republic of Monterey. It clearly states they have no idea how they work and the vehicles are crewed by captured and enslaved soldiers from that nation. In canon they have no heavy industry.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

The Republic of Texas is pretty loose and mostly small villages. The Army there is the only large and coherent organization. Lonestar is barely functioning as a State above the village level. All it really has is good Law and Order and the Army to keep the villages safe. The Universities and Oil Industries serve themselves.

Just looked through Operation Lonestar, The lesser state of Texas has a population of 5 million. This is about the same as the population of ALL of Texas in 1920. So there is no way this is a land of small villages.

The Brotherhood has 1 million in total population of which 100,000 are warriors. This is their level of technology

"Thus medicine, forging, husbandry, agriculture and myriad other skill either declined or disappeared. ... Only those technical skills which related to small arms and ammunition maintenance and production were preserved."

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by tsofian

Just looked through Operation Lonestar, The lesser state of Texas has a population of 5 million. This is about the same as the population of ALL of Texas in 1920. So there is no way this is a land of small villages.

If you take a typical description of a village having between a few hundred and a few thousand people and look at an almanac for 1920 Texas, you will see a great majority of the municipalities do indeed fit this description.

https://texasalmanac.com/sites/defau...Hist%20web.pdf

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

If you take a typical description of a village having between a few hundred and a few thousand people and look at an almanac for 1920 Texas, you will see a great majority of the municipalities do indeed fit this description.

https://texasalmanac.com/sites/defau...Hist%20web.pdf

The same can be said for the 2000 census data. The Census data also indicates 30 cities with over 10,000 residents and several over 100,000. The module does say "there are no cities as we know them". This is hard to reconcile with a population of 5,000,000 in an area half the size of the original state of Texas (maybe even less) and the lack of any urban centers. It can be looked at one or two ways. Maybe the population is much lower or perhaps the level of urbanization and industrialization is higher. I personally chose to increase their technology. They have trains (come on there were trains in Texas before the Civil War).

5,000,000 people is enough to support a lot of industry and technology.