Strategic Force Projection

[kalos72]

So my group wants to start to go about and clear a large section of hills in their area of influence. There are few actually, the foothills of the Sword Mountains, The Crags and the Starmetal Hills to begin with.

They have the army, magical support and the like but they are not wanting to tie down all of their forces to secure the area, thinking more long term.

The ideas came up to building towers at strategic locations(maybe magical items instead of fixed?), frequent flying patrols to scout and identify evil strongholds and the like, maybe stone flyers/bound earth elementals to scout the Underdark, divination to help find the bad guys, possibly walling off the area, building adventurer camps and pay for evil minions ears?

If your resources were pretty open, how would you do it? They really want to clear it and keep it clear long term...

ADDED: They are also looking for ways to clear the Mere of Dead Men, maybe make it clear land or possibly other ways to utilize a swamp for their city/empire? The old elven ritual of cleansing (Age of Renewal) perhaps...but what to do with all that water?

[John Longarrow]

Historically the best way is to build keeps in the area starting from a known strong point and following strategic avenues. Each keep will normally grow a town around itself over time as people move into the area both for commerce with the keep as well as for the protection the garrison offers.

It is a slow process but as inhabitants move in and garrisons patrol their surrounding areas groups of bandits and humanoids get pushed out. Strong points (read powerful monsters) are normally cleared by large groups of mid level characters and very powerful individuals are dealt with by the high level characters establishing their territory.

This will keep your troops tied down for a while as you build up your keeps. This is a decades long task. Very few non-evil methods work for clearing large areas quickly.

Now if your evil, there are quick ways. Poison, disease, free ranging undead, ect... Make it so no one wants to be there!

[kalos72]

I was thinking of using alot of effigies for scouting and random patrols, while leaving the big fights to the army.

I am looking for a good effigy creature that has some detect/track evil and holy attacks like the Silvereye Marauder construct....that would be nice!

[John Longarrow]

They don't have an Int. You couldn't use them for patrol since they would need specific handlers to get them to do anything useful.

You'd be better off having effigy creatures for shock troops and use your living ones for patrols. Living beings are also cheaper in the short term. 1000 gp can get you a lot of troops and keep them around for a couple years.

[kalos72]

I suppose if I was putting up towers, I could "lease" them to certain mercenary groups, with official oversight of course (/wink), and let them patrol the area.

Effigy mounts then perhaps? The cost is very effective when compared to what you can get, young gold dragons anyone?

Another topic came up, portals. I know the dangers but one simple trick I read once, not sure where, was to simply have the receiving end put a stone or something IN the portal when not in use and it would prevent the portal from opening. Anyone here that one before?

I guess it make sense, if there is a physical obstruction to the portal, how could anyone come through, or even the portal open I guess.

[John Longarrow]

I suppose if I was putting up towers, I could "lease" them to certain mercenary groups, with official oversight of course (/wink), and let them patrol the area.

Inviting non-aligned armed groups into your area is not recommended. First, why would they "lease" anything? If they are not being paid by you, they'll pretty much take over the area to finance themselves. If they ARE being paid, you would't be leasing it to them.



Effigy mounts then perhaps? The cost is very effective when compared to what you can get, young gold dragons anyone?

Gold Dragon effigy mounts are very useful. Expensive but useful. If you have the kind of money to make them you'll probably want to just hire groups of light cav instead though. One keeping an eye from high is a great tool but not cost effective for fighting. A dozen light cav with bows is more effective at doing presence patrol. They can actually fight an enemy instead of trying to scare them off.

If you are trying to take over the area be prepared to sink money into troops to defend it. If you have this kind of money don't worry so much about making expensive defenders, just hire effective troops in numbers. This has the added advantage of drawing civilians into the area to support said troops (farmer, bar keeps, smiths, what have you) to help build up your population. Hired troops are going to spend their gold SOMEWHERE, may as well be where you can tax it.



Another topic came up, portals. I know the dangers but one simple trick I read once, not sure where, was to simply have the receiving end put a stone or something IN the portal when not in use and it would prevent the portal from opening. Anyone here that one before?

I guess it make sense, if there is a physical obstruction to the portal, how could anyone come through, or even the portal open I guess.

Better is to have the portal lead into a redoubt that you have lots of weapons trained on. If its open to where your troops are and gives not protection, let the enemy try coming in. They enter a kill zone. If you can kill them fast enough, no one is going back to warn everyone its a trap... :belkar:

[kalos72]

No they would be paid, the "lease" was my attempt at saying that they would use the tower as a home base for as long as they were patrolling the area.

I am thinking its better to just use my troops for the initial clearing.

[kalos72]

Has anyone seen this before:

Originally Posted by kalos72 View Post
Another topic came up, portals. I know the dangers but one simple trick I read once, not sure where, was to simply have the receiving end put a stone or something IN the portal when not in use and it would prevent the portal from opening. Anyone here that one before?

I guess it make sense, if there is a physical obstruction to the portal, how could anyone come through, or even the portal open I guess.