What does ISTP mean?

How long it will take the Andunians to get there - Where exactly is the capitol and the destination on your map? I can't seem to find it. But... I'd say maybe a few days, depending on how weary or fresh the army is.

How big can both armies be without seeming fantastical - Maybe somewhere in the middle thousands? The Andunians could be double the size of Shirdan's army, for the Dreadful Promise part.

I haven't done a lot of deep war scenes, but I hope it helps.

For the battles you could use battles in history all over the world. There's bound to be something, and add a little twist to it, perhaps, to keep things unexpected.

Hmm... maybe doing something that goes against regular habits? (For example, someone who doesn't talk very much, might talk to himself) Or maybe getting irritated a lot quicker than they usually would. Not frequently, of course.

Dunno if this helps. What you have planned sounds exciting!

What lost you, Inesdar? :P

Zoey, those are some great points, especially about Faulkner's "problem". ISTP is a personality type that means Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving. You can see what it means here. He doesn't talk a lot, so talking to himself could be a good thing. (or a bad thing -- depends on how you see it )

I'm glad it helped.

Lady E.,

Its amazing how many things you have to learn to write fantasy.

There is no real set boundary that I have found for army size, though I think they are generally in the middle to high ten thousands, and the very low hundred thousands at times. It depends a lot on context, like, how large the nations fighting are, how easily the land can support a host of fighting men, how important the war is to the different sides, and whether either nation has conquered dominions that can be levied for soldiers.

When the Britons opposed Suetonius's Roman army, the Britons mustered at an estimated 230,000.

When Austria, France, and Russia allied themselves to crush and divide Prussia their joint forces amounted to quite a bit over 400,000.

This certainly doesn't mean that the Britons had less reason to fight than the allies against Prussia, - every British man able to fight rose up against Suetonius - but that Briton was smaller.

So, basically, it depends on context.

How quickly the armies travel realistically has pretty much the same answer. A pack of Arabian camelriders sweeping round through an empty desert in the wet season to a surprise attack will travel a good bit faster than a legion of Romans slogging to winter quarters through a swamp. Add a baggage train and they might not get there till spring.

There are, of course, the more apparent things to be taken into account for context, like, whether it is the dry season or the wet season, in the more tropical climates; whether the host is mainly composed of cavalry or infantry; whether they are trying to go fast or slow; whether they have baggage to slow them down, and things of that sort. But another thing is the commander.

Daun, one of the generals in the seven years war, was a very slow general, and consequently his army was slow. Frederick, his opponent, on the other hand, would manage to get his Prussians from one place to another with astonishing rapidity. A commander counts for a lot.

So thats some stuff I've found, hope it helps. I was trying to do some research for the numbers in our G. A. Hentys and ended up reading at least four of them almost all the way through. I always get stuck when I try to do research in books, they suck me in. Catch a few paragraphs out of some of my favorite battles, and then it just, kind of, ends up with me reading the whole thing. Research is fun.

About Faulkner. Well, I really like your idea, and, being an ISTP myself, I asked Mama what could change about my personality to make me feel off. She said that it would probably be talking more in a group of people and displaying my feelings more readily. (Note: remember, more ready to show emotion is more than just irritability.)

Another idea Mama and I came up with is to take the queen's personality type, line it up with his, and then adjust the balance of the letters where they do not correspond slightly towards her.

I hope this helps you!

And Mama says I'm concise.

Could re-share the map? When I click on the link, it shows a general error screen.

One of the things that helps me a lot when describing battles and troop movements is looking at the civil war. Even though it happened in the 1860's, they still used outdated methods in battle and didn't really have any transportation technology greater than what medieval people had (horses, wagons). So really their troop movements and armies should correspond fairly well to what I look for in a fantasy book.

And as far as troop numbers...General Lee's army consisted of 50,000 men by the battle of Gettysburg, while Meade had around 100,000 men at his disposal. It's really up to what you intend to use the men for. Maybe the Andunians have a brilliant general and a strength in numbers, but after their general is killed even their man-to-man advantage doesn't help them win the battle. This is how Lee won so many battles in the Civil War the South had a great commander (Lee) while the North failed to have a consistent, strong, general.

Hope this helps, at least a little bit.

eruheran

They had trains which they used a lot, as well as artillery.

They did use trains, I guess, but not always. The South, especially, had very little rail lines. And artillery isn't really transportation; it would actually slow an army down since then you've got to keep that artillery stocked with ammo, which means more supply trains.

eruheran

Yes, but in battle they used artillery extensively.