Hey tg, itt we build a fortress. I'll start

Hey tg, itt we build a fortress. I'll start.

>An order of knights, known for their cavalry charges and wooden wings are a garrison here, with a force of 18000 strong.

>for sieges and fast deployment, they build big ramps to leap over the walls

>Walls are not very tall, they are, however, very thick, making it possible to place heavy artillery in the battlements in order to support the cavalry charges

>wearing jaguar skins and feathered serpent's wings they worship a sun god and perform blood sacrifices of prisoners captured during cavalry sallies on top of the main tower of their fortress in full view of the besiging forces

The fortress has several Wells, that provide good water during a siege.

>These bodies are then left on the ground around the besiegers camp during further sallies, to weaken morale and spread disease

The fortress itself is maintained by a sizeable population of Serfs, and other people loyal to the knkghts. including a community of Ratfolk that patrol and maintain the caverns beneath the fortress, and consume the corpses outside the wall if the decay becomes an issue.

There is a ritual all in the fort must do once every week, it is a dance known as the Macarena and must be performed in full battle armor alongside ones horse, which also dances

Hopeful bump.

Nigga, you just went full retard.

Watch this:
The fortresses' richest population, however, is the several thousand wizards & witches who, along with minor and major healings, provide the residents (both human and equine) with summoned food & water/beer/wine (usually from enemy camps during the siege) as well as banishing waste matter (again, both human and equine) from the premises (usually into the enemy camp during the siege) to create a healthy atmosphere in the fortress itself.

Too much magic.
Why have cavalry at all when you got thousands of mages?

>Why have cavalry at all
Good question.
Care to provide an answer?

There are numerous, recruitable Monsters with quite capable Anti-Magic Fields. You need to remove them from battle or even magical atom bombs can be rendered useless

OTOH, maybe living beings are highly resistant to magic, and can't be targeted directly.
Also, with fortress having thousands of casters, presumably the enemy has thousands of them, as well ...

You can organise 1000 knights. 1000 wizards respect no authority, hate each other, run to subdimendions if in danger

Not if they're patriots or some kind of military order ... possibly really talented knights, perhaps?
They'd need to learn - what - 4 spells?
Summoning, Banishment, Healing and ... Fireball? Or Earthquake?
Summoning and Banishment are both a kind of Teleportation, so basically 3 spells.

Actually, forget the military order: how about just military?
Mage support squads anyone? Every Company gets one!

>when the caster wank goes so far that you just recreate the shitmess of war that is Eragon

Mages can beat Infantries

Infantries can defeat Monsters

Monsters can defeat Mages

Oooh! Dragons!!!
18000 knights riding Dragons!!!!!
Now, should it be Fire-Breathing Dragons (TM) or Acid-Spewing Dragons (C) ... no, wait: how about Ghost-busting Dragons (R)

I prefer Malazan style squad mages, where shitty mages with no real power get assigned at a squad level for stuff like minor healing and illusions (when half of them are actually high mage tier assholes on par with weaker gods, it just becomes bullshit though)

>Malazan
Haven't read it, actually.
I stole my idea from 'A Practical Guide to Evil' actually.
The Dread Empire's Legions of Terror use it like that & it struck me as a good idea.

>shitty mages with no real power get assigned at a squad level for stuff like minor healing and illusions
Yeah, that's basically how it works there, too.

>when half of them are actually high mage tier assholes on par with weaker gods, it just becomes bullshit though
That DOES break it all down, yeah.
APGtE only has about a dozen of high mages (and tons of 'Legion' ones).
Elves, OTOH, are almost nothing BUT Mages. Fortunately, most of them only 'Legion' tier.

Yeah, that can be another tier of Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors - along with the usual ones.

In Malazan's defense, I'm probably being unfair: most the squad mages really are shit. It's just that the broken ones are really fucking broken