Over time, The Concord will engage in war and conflict with forces ranging from hostile supernatural beings, to hostile nations of great power. The War and Conflict system provides the rules and expectations for how this functions from a game-perspective. In the end, the War and Conflict system is designed to communicate the nature of fantasy war to the players involved so that they can make meaningful and informed decisions, which in turn forward the story of the world and the characters involved.
It is our hope that we can give the weight and importance that commanding such a war would have while still providing a chance for player expression and making the Major Confluxes at each Summit important. We also don’t want the War fighting experience to be so dense that it is impossible for someone thrown into it to come to grips with it, or so shallow that characters don’t get a chance to fight with their own style.
A Note
For the sake of brevity, a ‘force’ refers to an army or fleet where the two are affected by the same rules. In circumstances where they are not the appropriate army or fleet term will be used.
‘Commanders’ will refer to generals and admirals in circumstances where armies or fleets are affected by the same rules. In circumstances where they are not, the appropriate general or admiral term will be used.
Core Concepts
Regions and Territories
The world of Concord is divided into regions and then into territories.
A region is a large area that is geographically contiguous and contains a shared history or social importance. Regions are the building blocks of nations and form the basis of the realms of The Concord. Regions are made up of territories, generally between 2 and 6 depending on the size of the region.
Territories are smaller areas that have a unifying terrain. Multiple territories come together to form a region. It is territories that are the area for military campaigns. Your character's investment will also belong to a single territory. Territories may contain a number of features such as fortifications, settlements, rivers, and other similar features.
Oceans are handled similarly, with the exception that control over whole ocean regions is not possible at the scale and power of the Concordian world. However, you will find that ocean territories are larger than land territories, demonstrating their lack of surface-level-terrain difference and allowing fleets to move swiftly across the map.
A nation controls a region by controlling more than half of its territories. In circumstances where control is split equally, the nation that controlled the most territories most recently retains control.
Some regions have only a single territory. These small regions have their own custom rules when it comes to titles and what controlling them looks like, but in terms of warfare, they are identical to other territories.
Seasons
There are two campaigning seasons in Concord; the Winter Season and the Summer Season. During the Autumn Summit, The Concord and its foes plan for the Winter Season, and during the Spring Summit they plan for the Summer Season.
While the campaign seasons are identical as a base, there may be any number of traits, terrains, or statuses that may be affected by the season.
Movement
Forces move across the world of Concord by moving from territory to territory.
Moving into a territory has a movement cost and each army or fleet has a number of movement points to spend on movement.
It is moving INTO a territory that costs movement, not out of it.
If a force doesn’t have enough movement points to move into another territory, or elects to stop, it stops moving.
Movement points are reset to their base value each campaigning season with no remaining points being stored. In this way movement points represent the ability for a force to move over time.
If a force enters a territory that is a part of another nation, or contains an army or fleet belonging to another nation, their movement ends and a campaign begins.
Nations are able to engage in diplomacy to grant access to their territory and free passage of their forces, but this is not the default. It is important to note that The Concord is one nation, made up of five realms, as such an Iron Valley army wouldn’t stop movement when it enters the Madre Campo, which is a part of Lerona Mere, as they are all a part of The Concord.
A force that begins the summit sharing a territory with a hostile army may move out of that territory to an adjacent friendly territory, but afterwards follows all standard movement rules.
As the enemies of The Concord begin their attacks before The Concord can respond, it is possible that a Concordian force may find itself under attack before it has a chance to move. This provides that force a chance to act, but not to slip behind enemy lines and ‘counter-cap’.
Forces that are defeated in a campaign, but not destroyed, retreat to the last friendly territory that they travelled through. If that territory is not accessible, they will instead retreat to the nearest friendly territory adjacent to the territory they had their campaign in. If there are no such friendly territories available, the force is destroyed.
This represents the army being encircled and destroyed. This is a difficult tactic to pull off, but has great rewards.
A force that undertook a failed attack into enemy territory in the last season may not undertake an attack this season.
Marshalling assaults is a difficult and resource intensive operation, much of which are lost when an attack fails. As such attacks should be taken with the utmost care. This is also the mechanic that ensures that The Concord is not constantly on the backfoot due to the enemies of The Concord acting first.
Fleets that are defeated in a campaign, but not destroyed, retreat to an adjacent territory.
Fleets are far harder to pin down on the open seas, and have an easier time escaping from unfavourable campaigns.
Currently, the Concord has no ability to move armies within its fleets, so dedicated are they to aggressive shipbreaking and boarding. However there are a number of islands in and around The Concord. If the War Chamber is interested in landing on an Island, they can request a plan be drawn up. They are limited to requesting one amphibious landing per summit, and a plan will be presented to them in the following Summit.
Campaigns
When a force enters a territory that contains an enemy force or an army moves into a territory that is a part of another nation, their movement stops and a campaign will take place over the following season. This campaign represents a series of battles, skirmishes, and manoeuvring that makes up approximately six months of fighting.
Campaigns in Concord are affected by a wide variety of factors, and it is the task of the commanders and the War Chamber to take these factors into account, as well as those factors they may not know, and make the tactical decisions that their characters believe are the best. This may not be the decision that is the best for The Concord.
In general, a campaign’s resolution is made up of Claim and Casualties. Claim and Casualties are calculated independently but draw upon many of the same base figures such as force strength.
Claim
Claim represents the strategic successes of the campaign. Actions such as securing territory, capturing important locations and settlements, outmanoeuvring the enemy, and generally obtaining a favourable position.
The nation in a campaign with the greatest Claim wins the campaign and secures the territory.
As noted above, the defeated forces retreat as per their circumstances. If a tie occurs, victory goes to the defenders.
A nation’s Claim is the sum of the Claim Value of all its forces in a campaign.
By nature of how campaigns play out, these will either be armies or fleets, not both. Although fleets can support armies and armies can suffer casualties while being transported by fleets. In both of these circumstances they do not add to the overall claim strength of that campaign.
A force’s Claim is the sum of its strength and any modifiers.
Claim can be modified by orders, traits, statuses, terrain, and other similar effects. Claim is always modified by flat amounts, rather than percentages.
A force’s Claim can be negative.
Casualties
Each force will also suffer and inflict casualties over the course of fighting. Commanders will need to anticipate casualties to plan future campaigns as well as the survival of their force overall. They will also need to seek out opportunities to try and exploit enemy weaknesses to destroy them.
Unless explicitly stated, armies inflict casualties on armies, fleets inflict casualties on fleets.
A nation’s inflicted casualties is equal to the sum of the casualties inflicted by its forces.
Through this one side fights the other, as opposed to individual forces targeting and fighting each other. This reflects the varied nature of six months of campaigning resulting in many mixed encounters.
A force’s casualties inflicted is equal to 20% of its force strength which is then modified by the forces ‘Casualties Inflicted’ modifier.
A positive casualties inflicted value indicates a force that is acting with aggression, violent tactics, or dangerous weapons. A negative casualties inflicted modifier represents a force acting with restraint, conservative tactics, or poor quality weapons.
A force with strength 5000 and a casualties inflicted modifier of +50% will inflict 1500 casualties (20% of 5000 is 1000 and an additional 50% of that is 500, resulting in 1500).
If the casualties inflicted modifier is negative, it will reduce the number of casualties inflicted. So a force with strength 5000 and a casualties inflicted modifier of -50% will inflict 500 casualties (20% of 5000 is 1000 and removing 50% of that results in a value of 500).
A force's casualties inflicted modifier can reach a maximum of -100% but there is no positive limit.
A nation inflicts its total casualties on its foe which are then divided equally among their foe’s forces. This is the base casualties suffered. Each force then modifies its individual casualties suffered by its casualties suffered modifier, which may be positive or negative.
Having a positive casualties suffered modifier represents a force that is acting recklessly, lacks medical supplies, or is vulnerable. While a negative casualties suffered, value represents a force that is acting defensively, is well supplied, or is otherwise protected.
A force's casualties suffered modifier can reach a maximum of -80% but there is no positive limit.
By nature of warfare, if the enemy wishes you ill there will be some ill of it.
Following a campaign, all forces are rounded to the nearest 100.
If an army takes a defensive order and does not engage in a campaign, then it recovers 1000 strength.
A force that is reduced to below 20% of its maximum strength (1000 for standard forces, or 1500 for large forces) is destroyed.
Campaign Conclusions
Once claim, casualties, and any special circumstances are considered, control of the territory is granted to the victorious nation and the defeated nation retreats as per the movement rules. This will then form the basis of next season's campaigning.
Orders
As a part of commanding their force, Commanders give their Force an order. What orders are available to them vary depending on whether they are an Army or a Fleet, any special orders they have access to and other circumstances.
Orders represent the tactics and style of combat a force will employ over the campaigning season. Not only does this affect the arithmetic of war, but it will grow the story and reputation of this army in the world as how they comport themselves will matter greatly in the eyes of both allies and enemies.
The orders available are listed on the Army or Fleet pages.
Terrain
Each territory has a set Terrain. These terrains have movement costs to move through them as well as set modifiers to casualties and claim. Some Terrain types also have special effects.
A list of terrain types can be found on the Campaign Appendix page.
Traits
Traits represent factors that might affect a force or a territory ranging from great boons to dangerous circumstances. Each force has a single trait by default, representing the nature of that force. Each force's listed traits can be found in their entry on the ‘Army’ or ‘Fleet’ subheadings. Forces and territories may gain or lose traits as the story progresses.
A list of traits known ot The Concord can be found on the Campaign Appendix Page
Investments
Personal Investments (Naval or Military) that support a force add to the forces strength for the purposes of claim and inflicting casualties. They do not add to the forces strength for the purposes of suffering casualties.
Intelligence
As a default, The Concord will be aware of the movements and strengths of enemy forces. The Concord will not know the traits, statuses or orders of enemy forces, however these may be discovered through Confluxes, Spy Network actions, and other opportunities.
A Simple Example - The Berehaven Skirmish
What follows is a simple example of a campaign.
The Concord is attacking the territory of Berehaven with one army, ‘The Valleys Own’. Berehaven is being defended by one Zekartaal army, ‘The Blade of the Weald’.
Berehaven is a territory with the forest terrain and no other traits or statuses.
The Valleys Own is a large Concordian army with a strength of 7500, with no current statuses and a trait that is as follows:
“While defending territory belonging to the Iron Valley, the Valley’s Own suffers 10% less casualties and gains 250 bonus claim.”
As this is not a defensive campaign for the Valleys Own to in territory belonging to the Iron Valley, their trait has no effect. The Concord is interested in taking the territory, so The Valleys Own has taken the ‘Strategic Attack’ order.
The Blade of the Weald is a standard size army with a strength of 5000, with no current statuses and a trait that is as follows:
“While taking part in a Campaign in Forest terrain, the Blade of the Weald inflicts an additional 10% casualties.”
As this campaign takes place in a forest territory this trait will take effect. The Zekartaal are interested in punishing the Concord, so has taken the ‘Bloody Defence’ order.
All factors for this campaign are as follows:
| Strength | Casualties Inflicted | Casualties Suffered | Claim | |
| The Valleys Own (Base) | 7500 | - | - | 7500 |
| Forest | - | +20% | - | - |
| Strategic Attack | - | -20% | - | +1000 |
| The Valleys Own (Final) | 7500 | - | - | 8500 |
| Strength | Casualties Inflicted | Casualties Suffered | Claim | |
| The Blade of the Weald (Base) | 5000 | - | - | 5000 |
| Forest | - | +20% | - | - |
| Bloody Defence | - | +20% | - | - |
| Trait | - | +10% | - | - |
| The Blade of the Weald (Final) | 5000 | +50% | - | 5000 |
We have enough information to calculate the results of the campaign.
The Concord’s higher Claim allows them to win the strategic campaign, winning the territory.
The Valleys Own inflicts 1500 casualties with no modifiers on the Zekartaal Forces.
The Blade of the Weald inflicts 1000 casualties +50% for a total of 1500 on Concordian Forces.
As there is only one force per side the amount of casualties are assigned entirely to that force.
The Valleys Own suffers 1500 casualties and has a casualties suffered modifier of 0%. They suffer 1500 casualties and end the campaign on 6000 strength.
The Blade of the Weald suffers 1500 casualties and has a casualties suffered modifier of 0%. They suffer 1500 casualties and end the campaign on 3500 strength.
When the campaign is over, The Concord has claimed Berehaven and both armies are damaged. The greater size of the Valleys Own carried the day and heavily damaged the Zekartaal force. However the Zekartaal forces fought above their weight class and still did heavy damage to the larger Concordian army. The Zekartaal army retreats and the banner of the Valley flies over Berehaven.
There were a number of sub-optimal actions taken during this campaign for the sake of demonstrating the system (for example the Concord wildly overcommitted to claim where they didn’t need to). But hopefully it provides an example of the order of operations for a campaign.