Cohorts and War

A Cohort is an abstract representation of military forces. A Cohort consists of the personnel, munitions, transport and equipment to be a self-sufficient military presence, but little danger on its own, as the greatest armies in Space of Thrones can consist of dozens of Cohorts supported by the leadership of Scions and Generals.

Each player will have command of a certain number of Cohorts, starting at a minimum of two for Knights and weaker Lords, with no upper limit on the potential a Monarch can command (though most will start with eight to twelve).

Combat in Space of Thrones is simple. Whenever an army of Cohorts uses an Assault order to move into an occupied Demesne, or crosses paths with another army while executing an Assault order, Combat is triggered. If both sides have Scions present, the highest ranking controller on each side may briefly conduct diplomacy with their opposite number. If diplomacy fails, Combat ensues.

The relative strengths of the two armies are compared, including the bonuses from any Scions or Generals present and the army with the lower score loses, retreating to an adjacent, unoccupied Demesne, suffering casualties equal to the amount by which they were bested, minus the bonus provided by Scions and Generals.

EXAMPLE: A medium size Avalonian army spies an empty Vedic Demense just across the border and the King of Avalon decides to invade. He issues an Assault order to the three Cohorts he has present, and tells his Lady vassal to move her three Cohorts and have her two vassals move their four Cohorts to support him. He has a Scion in command of his Cohorts, as have each of their vassals. With the Cohorts and Scions, the Avalonian army has a combined strength of 14 (10 for the Cohorts, +4 for the Scions)

A Vedic army is camped in an Demesne adjacent to the target of the Avalonian aggression, outside the range of the Avalonian army to detect. With thirteen Cohorts collected from the realm, the Vedic Queen is confident she can rebuff the Avalonian assault without employing Scions or Generals (as she can only see the 10 Cohorts, not the attached Scions). She and her vassals issue Assault orders for their Cohorts, targeting the same Demesne as the Avalonians.

In turn resolution the two armies clash in the contested Demesne. Not expecting a full four Scions to be reinforcing the Avalonian army, the Vedic army loses the battle by two, suffers the loss of two Cohorts (with no Scions or Generals to soften the blow) and retreats back into the province she attacked from.