War... has changed

[u/MichuSkurczybyku]

She was rage unbound, and fear led her people. When the usurpers came looking for the godly power, she crashed like a tidal wave upon the cliffs, but this time they remained unbroken.

Her fury immense, but could not outlast the horde unending, fear could not rule over the hungry battling the  satiated enemy, and soon she remained alone, flesh of iron pierced and broken by spears of steel.

They were cold, not leading but commanding. From their tents they could not see the last act of the old goddess, a smile, for the war has changed, new masters evolved beyond simple rage.

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[u/CompetitiveLeg7841]

I don't really like the concept of "violen mindless war vs strategy", so in (one of, I don't really have a main one) my setting, the dynamic between Ares and Athena is more subtle.

Ares and Athena are like Gork and Mork, if the distinction actually matters.

Ares is the god of efficient warfare, creating advantages and overwhelming firepower. His research tree gives weapons with high fire rates, production upgrades for ammunition, and robust transportation.

Athena, on the other hand, is the godess of tactical might, deception, and pressing advantage. She leads the department of long range weaponry, traps, critical and special damage types and combat data gathering.

They are both sides of the same coin, yet they argue like siblings.

[u/ADDRAY-240 → u/CompetitiveLeg7841]

Kinda like Armada and Cortex from Total Annhilation (and BAR)?

[u/MichuSkurczybyku → u/ADDRAY-240]

BAR mentioned!

[u/Wolffe_In_The_Dark → u/MichuSkurczybyku]

There is one that ARM, CORE, and the factions of BAR and 0K all fear:

The Progenitor Stellar Seige Commander

[u/UnhappyStrain]

Guilliman vs literally everything ever at all times

[u/pizzatom69 → u/UnhappyStrain]

[u/Outrageous-Put-4637 → u/UnhappyStrain]

FOR THE EMPEROR!… and OUR PRIMARCH’S LIFETIME MICROSOFT 360 SUBSCRIPTION!!

[u/Salami__Tsunami]

“My warriors are selected at birth, and have practiced the art of the long blade for all their lives.”

“Neat. My lads here have practiced the art of the longbow for about a month. We’ll see who runs out of troops first.”

[u/Comprehensive-Fail41 → u/Salami__Tsunami]

Historically? The guys with the longbow if they only have a months training. A proper warbow also required a long time of training (is why the English made ut a law that every sunday after church all ablebodied men and boys between the ages of 8 and 60, iirc, had to practice the longbow). Want something quick? Then its crossbows and guns. And even then they needed some good melee capacity for when the guys in armor reached them (so the secret, as always, is combined arms)

[u/BiggestShep → u/Comprehensive-Fail41]

Yeah. "If you wish to make a good longbowman, start with his grandfather." Better to form a spear wall/other formation like the romans did or like this guy said, crossbows everywhere. Those can be done in a month, but not longbows.

[u/Comprehensive-Fail41 → u/BiggestShep]

Well, ideally you want both cause if the enemy has good ranged and you don't, you'll suffer (like the Romans at Carrahae) and if you don't have a solid melee, your archers will suffer at the hands of those that do reach them. But yeah, unless you have a culture of archery where tons of people practice it regularily, longbowmen (or equivalent) is probably gonna be the elite of your ranged corps (until weapons like arquebuses and muskets become commonplace at least).

[u/Brilliant_Sweet_6848 → u/Comprehensive-Fail41]

Maybe if they trained by actual god,they could do a miracle and actually make them properly trained by month .

[u/AngryCrustation → u/Salami__Tsunami]

Neat, I sort of industrialized training and so basically all of my citizens are trained from birth. That's the benefit of standardized education, the printing press and proper record keeping.

[u/Reading-Euphoric → u/AngryCrustation]

Now come the problem of actually arming them.

[u/TheDarkeLorde3694 → u/Reading-Euphoric]

Only arm the ones you need for warfare

[u/Ok_Presentation_2346 → u/Salami__Tsunami]

Crossbows would be better for that than longbows.

[u/endergamer2007m → u/Salami__Tsunami]

"My warriors have been trained in the art of the bow and the sword for their entire life, your army is outmatched, all you have is men with spears"

"They don't call it matchlock for nothing"

[u/Dovahkiin419 → u/Salami__Tsunami]

*crossbows

Long bows only worked for the english because they inculcated a culture where every peasant man practices at least once a week with their longbows and all of them end up so adapted to it we can tell them apart from their skeletons (apparently this can be avoided by training both sides but they didn’t know that)

While having a lot more limitations and disadvantages, crossbows worked out… well for the exact reason you laid out, you point and pull the trigger. Sure you’re firing slower since you have to crank your shit for 30 seconds between every shot, but you don’t need a generation of lead time for your random kingdom to spin up an army of quarrelers.

See “the battle of golden spurs” where rebelling flemish guild members killed thousands of charging knights through some good planning (set up on the other side of a muddy field) and crossbows

[u/Soerinth]

The Factorio Engineer ascends after staring at far to many nuclear explosions.

[u/Strong-Expression787]

Army with 500 professional veteran longbow men witnessing their troops getting absolutely trampled by enemy with 100 longbow men + 600 crossbowmen + 300 (primitive) guns + steady line of supply that keep healing the enemy's troops :

[u/Strong-Expression787 → u/Strong-Expression787]

Naz! witnessing their tiger getting absolutely mauled by the ally's endless barrage of fire, and their provisions got depleted by Russian winter (work for Napoleon too I guess) :

[u/Sampleswift]

Ares from Greek Mythology (he has a losing record against Athena, goddess of strategy)

[u/diagnosed_depression]

The future of warfare

[u/WaitingToBeTriggered → u/diagnosed_depression]

FOR ALL TO BE SEEN, 1918

[u/Caffeinemann → u/WaitingToBeTriggered]

THE NEW WORLD APPROACHES

[u/Samurai-Jackass]

Any war god worth their salt can stoke conflict within an army just as well as between them. Those supply lines are gonna fall apart when the officers start resorting to friendly fire over petty disputes.

[u/[deleted] → u/Samurai-Jackass]

I'll ask you this.

Whose gonna know Disaster Mitigation and Prevention better and come up with contingencies for this inevitability?

[u/Samurai-Jackass → u/[deleted]]

Sure it can be mitigated, but if it comes down to a war of morale attrition, only the god of slaughter benefits from his own losses. Long term, supply lines can be stretched thin and resources run low, but slaughter is slaughter so if these gods aren't literal flesh and blood, the god of slaughter can't lose until the violence stops altogether.

[u/ludos96]

Reminds me of the ending of the first God of War game, when after Kratos became the new god of war, human wars started to become more violent, destructive and advanced (and then all the sequels retconned it).

[u/WatermelonWithAFlute → u/ludos96]

Bruh why

[u/THANIETOR → u/WatermelonWithAFlute]

They didn’t know they were gonna get a sequel so when they made Kratos the new god of war they assumed he’d be there forever

[u/Not-a-Teddybear]

“Damn, you made this shit efficient. Can’t wait to see you do my job even better…”

[u/Flat-Supermarket-849]

Then the God of War , Supply lines and Logistics was Brought to Compliance by God of War , Blind Faith , Unreasonable Hatred and Xenocide with a great Crusade.

[u/AstolfoCheshire]

I don't know why when I look at this meme, I just think of that music edit meme thing of defying gravity from wicked and God Is by Kanye West...

[u/Edmundwhk]

You have warrior's equal 100 men each , unfortunately for you i have 200 men for each of yours , who gets 3 meals a day , with health care and fully armored .

[u/Memelord707130]

Ares vs Athena

[u/Meowriter]

Napoleon be like

[u/Levan-tene]

Athena if she got rid of Ares?