Warfare's Final Frontier

Chapter 4 Preparing a Strategic Plan

Everything went dark for a few moments, then all of a sudden a bright flash appeared and Baron was standing in the middle of an empty camp surrounded by forests. He looked down and came to the realization that a window named troop composition popped up in midair and on it pictures and costs of each troop member. In the corner, it had many statistics: food (rations), morale, trust (between the armies and strategists), performance (of the army), etc. After browsing for a bit Baron finally decided on his troop composition, he had chosen to go with 1k cavalrymen, 4k infantry, 2k archers, 1k mounted archers and 2k shield troops.

(BM) "Yue Fei said that I had an entire day to formulate a strategy to win the game, best to use the time to my advantage.

He looked around once more and realized that he was no longer alone in the camp, many thousands of men had appeared out of the blue and stared at him. Who are the people who created such a magnificent simulation? Baron thought to himself as he slowly walked up to the front of the army and tried to touch the soldier closest to him.

Lieutenant Ben (LB) "Attention hut" as soon as these words fell from his lips every one of the soldiers behind dismounted, and knelt down before Baron. "Hello general, I am to be your lieutenant, the one in charge of relaying orders to the men below me. My name is Ben, we are all under your care."

(BM) "Ah, its good to meet you, Lieutenant Ben, I am Baron Magellan." My goodness, these guys are even more realistic than I thought, do they have some algorithm deciding their actions? Baron mused to himself as he reached forward to touch the plate armour of Lieutenant Ben. When he made contact with the armor he felt a sense of surprise.

(LB) "Sir?" Ben asked in confusion when Baron made contact with his armour. What was one supposed to do in this situation? He couldn't get mad at his commanding officer because there should be a certain mutual understanding between the two.

(BM) "Apologies, I had to..... confirm something," Baron said as he waved the matter away.

(LB) "Alright then..... does the esteemed general need us to do anything before we siege the city tomorrow?

(BM) "For now just have the men rest up, once you finish with that task meet me in the large tent," Baron said as he pointed to the largest tent within the camp.

(LB) "Your orders are my command" Ben quickly said before he turned around and ordered the troops to begin settling into the already prepared camp.

Baron proceeded to walk into the large tent, and once inside he found that there was a long table with a few items placed on top. The thing that caught Baron's interest was the map. He took the map and studied it carefully after a while he concluded that this map included his current location, the city he needed to siege, and a general outlay of the land. Now Baron knew why Yue Fei had said that one day of preparation is not enough time, it was because checking the surrounding terrain for advantageous warfare alone cost a great deal of time not to mention the actual strategy itself. He immediately began to circle a few points of interest on the map. A few moments later Lieutenant Ben walked in.

(LB) "Greetings, general Baron, is there something that you need?." He said in admiration.

(BM) "Yes, greetings Ben, there is indeed an assignment for you ."

(LB) "What is it general?"

(BM) "I need you to bring me to these 8 spots on this map, as well as the city we will besiege, I need to study the terrain and the walled city to better understand just how I can use these to my advantage.

(LB) "Yes sir, allow me a few moments to gather the fastest horses and a few of our elite troops to accompany you."

(BM) "Good, you are dismissed, I will be at the front of the camp in 20 minutes so don't be late."

(LB) "Of course sir" Ben replied respectfully before taking his leave.

Baron once again studied the table but didn't find anything else particularly useful. Pausing in fear Baron thought to himself did Yue Fei also receive a copy of the map? Did that mean Yue Fei knew where he was at the moment? He quickly dismissed the idea, if Yue Fei does, in fact, know his location he could always take down camp and move locations to another place to set up camp. After all, a map is a map it can't actually track his movements. Still, though, just who is it that made this game? Could it be that these troops of people that were in this camp actually real, and had free will? A few more minutes passed before Baron remembered what was important.

(BM) "Either way, Yue Fei will tell me anything I want to know, so its best to just focus on beating him first." Grabbing the map Baron quickly made his way onto the front of his camp where his lieutenant had already made the preparations. Staring up into the sky Baron frowned upon the realization that there seemed to be a few storm clouds passing by in the sky. The 30 or so group of horse riders then set out to scope the land.

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Since Yue Fei was already accustomed to the Death Match game he had already set out with some of his men to check out their surroundings before Baron even managed to finish picking out his army composition. Yue Fei had chosen to not go too hard on Baron and decided to make his army somewhat simple. He had chosen to bring in 1k archers, 6k infantry, and 3k cavalry.

After scouting around for a few hours Yue Fei returned to his walled city and locked himself in his room and started to concoct a strategy in which to defeat Baron with.

(YF) "Know your enemy and know yourself," Yue Fei said aloud as he recounted Sun Tzu's famous line. "Although I may not be the best strategist in the Chinese community, defeating a greenhorn like Baron should be a simple task." He said as he reviewed what he had seen today, and went over the map in his hands one more time. "It seems like much of the geography in this map has densely packed trees, that's a good cover for sneaking troops around in, good for whoever takes the initiative to set up an ambush. Looks like there are only seven points of interest around the city that the both of us must be careful of. His main objective was to defend the walled city, and it is better to not divide up his army so early into the game. Yue Fei diligently proceeded to make a strategy he believed would beat Baron then he suddenly yelled "Lieutenant En" towards the door.

Lieutenant En (LE) "What is it, Sire?"

(YF) "Gather the officers, I will discuss the battle plans for tomorrow with you guys."

(LE) "Let me call them now." En replied as he walked down the hall to the other officers' rooms and knocked while shouting "let's go, the general has a plan."

(YF) "Alright so everyone listen up this will be the battle plan for tomorrow, since there are four walls I will be sending 3 officers to each wall while I will be making commands from the central tower. All of you should send a messenger to me if any interesting developments occur on your side of the wall. As for who will lead each wall, you three will be assigned to the south wall, you three will be the north wall, you three...

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Back at Baron's camp, he was also formulating a strategy to best Yue Fei. He racked his brain to think of something, anything that could give him the edge in the upcoming battle, but the few solutions he had were risky and not very reliable. Baron dismissed Lieutenant Ben and all the other officers a long time ago, he quietly imagined hundreds of battles in his mind in order to find a way to beat Yue Fei. Baron took a few breathers here and there when he suddenly happened to see a window that he had set aside after he had chosen what his army was going to be comprised of. He saw that the person at the very top of the list was him, and compared to the normal soldiers his stats were as strong as 50 regular troops.

This caused him to remember what Yue Fei had said about instantly losing if the strategists are taken out. After this discovery Baron continued to think of stratagems that he could set up now that he knew that he could help his soldiers on the battlefield instead of being a tabletop strategist who only saw the battlefield and his soldiers as pieces of a chessboard. Only just before dawn broke did Baron call a meeting to discuss the battle plan. The half-asleep officers slowly walked into the big tent one by one. After they came in though, no one dared to look sleepy as a stern-faced Lieutenant Ben stared all of them down.

(LB) "Attention hut, general all officers are accounted for. Whenever you are ready we will begin the strategy meeting."

(BM) "Good, now that you all of you are present I will tell you of how we are going to win," Baron said with a smile creeping up his face.