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Old 16th November 2018, 05:37 AM   #24
Helleri
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Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Boulder Creek, CA.
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Assembling and moving any army anywhere is't so much a matter of determining what supplies one needs to keep everyone and everything happy and healthy. Then supplying a little more than that.

It's more about figuring on the bare minimum and usually having a fair bit less than that. It's not about how much a healthy elephant usually eats and drinks per day so much as it is about how long you can march an elephant without that before it bucks and kills it's riders and goes feral. Or how far you can march a man on just enough food and water to keep him uncomfortably moving.

It's also going to be about when to move and when to rest. It might be better to get an early start in the morning while it's still cool, and bring everything to a halt an hour or so after dark. Taking the hottest part of the day to rest and the slimmest hours of the night to sleep.

It's not often that an army moves, fat and well fed. It's usually arduous and not at all good times. The promise of sacking a city and finally having a night wear one eats to their content can push a man that 10 more miles instead of turning back after 30 miles having already been covered.

That's another thing. You spend your supplies early if you can. Keep everyone happy until your too committed to turn back and survive. You get them past the mid point before you wrench down on the rations and they pretty much have to keep going. Just because it's easier to get there and get the thing done than to turn around once past the mid way point.

And places will get sacked as the army moves along. Even their own villages will dread an approaching army that is intended to defend their lands. Because there goes the family farm.

Deciding to mobilize is partly a decision about how much your own people can tolerate before you must call it quits. As well as what you can feasibly accomplish within that narrow window of time. And if those potential victories will return enough on your investment to leave everyone a little better off than they were before it all went down.
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