Other thoughts...
- Pikes are designed for large, set-piece battles over mostly open terrain. Their largest advantage is that they enable a set of men on foot to successfully oppose mounted, armored men (pike in the middle ages). They're also good for when your overall weapon tech is limited - spears are quick, easy, cheap, and reasonably effective (greek phalanx). In both cases, the first especially, they do better in large, blocks of inherently poor maneuverability, marching in cadence. If it breaks down to a skirmish fight, the pikeman becomes far less effective, as he is effectively unable to defend himself - pike blocks work by defending each other.
Tactically speaking, if she can get into broken terrain, then the phalanxes will either slow to a crawl or break up and become far less of a threat.
More than that, though, this basically doesn't make sense as an island army. The fact that we don't have much cavalry -and that the cavalry is by nature lightly armed and armored, means that long pike isn't all that effective to begin with. Islanders would tend to have small stretches of land with ample cover - their biggest landblocks are likely volcanic - and thus would not be able to defend effectively with pike, and would have difficulty training as well. Long pike aren't all that useful on a boat either, because you can't spare the manpower to have a phalanx standing by, you hardly have space to form a proper one up on ship, and you don't have the time to form them up in the space between giving in to the inevitable and actually being boarded. The less said about the idea of trying to prosecute a boarding action with long pike, the better.
So...dogs...
Actually, wardogs as you're describing would make sense as a bandit resource. A small group of raiders, who wouldn't be all that inclined to armor anyway, could make good use of the overwhelming mobility advantage, the tracking, and the extra threat. Feeding them would be a problem, but if you were successful enough, evil enough, and reckless enough, you could feed them on fallen foes.
They *don't* make sense as an *islander* resource, given the difficulties that you yourself mentioned in making tactical use of them. They're not much good in naval combat, and they're too expensive over time to be worth it for defense. If you're breeding them, you're doing it for the raiding parties inland, and that runs into some serious supply chain issues. For that matter, supply chains aren't going to be real friendly to the islanders in general, if they're intending to punch all that far inland. You don't usually want to invest too much of your precious hold space on chow-wagons. If it's an islander assault, then either it's pretty close to the water to begin with or they've managed to get some local supply source. Raiding local farmland works, though it does tend to get you noticed pretty quick.
Then there's the other problem - marching. Transporting hundreds of men across country in that sort of a tech-level generally involves days of marching. Being able to march for days and then fight involves a training regimen of, well, marching for days. Where, when, and why would an islander army train in such a thing. Why would the islanders even bother with an army in the first place, when Marines are far better suited?
I like the writing so far. The microplot, the characters, it works well. It's the exact nature of the opposition that baffles me.
Thoughts on quick fixes:
- Have the road they're on be within a days march of the water.
- Have the wardogs belong to some other nation with which the Island Nations have some sort of a working reationship, that lives halfway across the globe. You still have the dogs, it still would take a lot of resources to bring the things in a boat, it would take even more resources for their original owner to part with them, and you don't have to explain why the islanders are breedign wardogs. A bit of livery or an obvious difference in ethnicity will make this one easy to introduce.
- Have the islander Canonical Weapon be something other than a pike. Was ther some reason you wanted pike? I could probably come up with a good way to cover that reason.
------------------------------
Of course, in the time it took me to write that, new response has come in, so... response to response...
- If you're going with Ancient Greek, then that answers some of the phalanx issue. Phalanxes are still poor at anything other than Flat, though, and most island combat will be in the form of establishing beachheads, unless the islands in question are Quite Large. (if they're large enough that one island might have two different, potentially mutually hostile armies, that works. If they're large enough that you could sail in on one of them and land an invading force before the ruler got defenders in your way, that kinda works. If not... not so much. Having massive protein surpluses does mean that you *could* have wardogs, but I still don't see why you'd bother.
In terms of the fearsome fighting potential of phalanxes, you can skirmish them effectively enough with just about any sort of light troops. Running a phalanx properly means that you have a Very Large Spear (one-handed) and a Very Large Shield (the greek plan) or you have an Even Larger Spear (two-handed) with a modest shield. Tack on the traditional armor beside that and you just aren't going to be moving very fast. Even without cavalry, or even chariots, you can flank them pretty well with light infantry.
Beyond that, though, phalanxes just aren't that hard to put together. You need the armor, shiled, and spear, but a basic version of those is pretty easy to make - certainly well within the skill of any civilization capable of forging decent swords. You need a decently well-fed soldier, who you can train the dickens out of, but this seems to be a world with a moderate food surplus. You need a soldiery who will stand and fight and die in preference to running away. That's it. If phalanxes are so overwhelmingly powerful by comparison with everything else, why isn't anyone else using them?
For that matter, why are semi-piratical island nations so focused on dominance in set-piece land battle anyway?
Okay, growing late by internal clock. Coherence failing. Just a few concerns to throw at you.
- Pikes are designed for large, set-piece battles over mostly open terrain. Their largest advantage is that they enable a set of men on foot to successfully oppose mounted, armored men (pike in the middle ages). They're also good for when your overall weapon tech is limited - spears are quick, easy, cheap, and reasonably effective (greek phalanx). In both cases, the first especially, they do better in large, blocks of inherently poor maneuverability, marching in cadence. If it breaks down to a skirmish fight, the pikeman becomes far less effective, as he is effectively unable to defend himself - pike blocks work by defending each other.
Tactically speaking, if she can get into broken terrain, then the phalanxes will either slow to a crawl or break up and become far less of a threat.
More than that, though, this basically doesn't make sense as an island army. The fact that we don't have much cavalry -and that the cavalry is by nature lightly armed and armored, means that long pike isn't all that effective to begin with. Islanders would tend to have small stretches of land with ample cover - their biggest landblocks are likely volcanic - and thus would not be able to defend effectively with pike, and would have difficulty training as well. Long pike aren't all that useful on a boat either, because you can't spare the manpower to have a phalanx standing by, you hardly have space to form a proper one up on ship, and you don't have the time to form them up in the space between giving in to the inevitable and actually being boarded. The less said about the idea of trying to prosecute a boarding action with long pike, the better.
So...dogs...
Actually, wardogs as you're describing would make sense as a bandit resource. A small group of raiders, who wouldn't be all that inclined to armor anyway, could make good use of the overwhelming mobility advantage, the tracking, and the extra threat. Feeding them would be a problem, but if you were successful enough, evil enough, and reckless enough, you could feed them on fallen foes.
They *don't* make sense as an *islander* resource, given the difficulties that you yourself mentioned in making tactical use of them. They're not much good in naval combat, and they're too expensive over time to be worth it for defense. If you're breeding them, you're doing it for the raiding parties inland, and that runs into some serious supply chain issues. For that matter, supply chains aren't going to be real friendly to the islanders in general, if they're intending to punch all that far inland. You don't usually want to invest too much of your precious hold space on chow-wagons. If it's an islander assault, then either it's pretty close to the water to begin with or they've managed to get some local supply source. Raiding local farmland works, though it does tend to get you noticed pretty quick.
Then there's the other problem - marching. Transporting hundreds of men across country in that sort of a tech-level generally involves days of marching. Being able to march for days and then fight involves a training regimen of, well, marching for days. Where, when, and why would an islander army train in such a thing. Why would the islanders even bother with an army in the first place, when Marines are far better suited?
I like the writing so far. The microplot, the characters, it works well. It's the exact nature of the opposition that baffles me.
Thoughts on quick fixes:
- Have the road they're on be within a days march of the water.
- Have the wardogs belong to some other nation with which the Island Nations have some sort of a working reationship, that lives halfway across the globe. You still have the dogs, it still would take a lot of resources to bring the things in a boat, it would take even more resources for their original owner to part with them, and you don't have to explain why the islanders are breedign wardogs. A bit of livery or an obvious difference in ethnicity will make this one easy to introduce.
- Have the islander Canonical Weapon be something other than a pike. Was ther some reason you wanted pike? I could probably come up with a good way to cover that reason.
------------------------------
Of course, in the time it took me to write that, new response has come in, so... response to response...
- If you're going with Ancient Greek, then that answers some of the phalanx issue. Phalanxes are still poor at anything other than Flat, though, and most island combat will be in the form of establishing beachheads, unless the islands in question are Quite Large. (if they're large enough that one island might have two different, potentially mutually hostile armies, that works. If they're large enough that you could sail in on one of them and land an invading force before the ruler got defenders in your way, that kinda works. If not... not so much. Having massive protein surpluses does mean that you *could* have wardogs, but I still don't see why you'd bother.
In terms of the fearsome fighting potential of phalanxes, you can skirmish them effectively enough with just about any sort of light troops. Running a phalanx properly means that you have a Very Large Spear (one-handed) and a Very Large Shield (the greek plan) or you have an Even Larger Spear (two-handed) with a modest shield. Tack on the traditional armor beside that and you just aren't going to be moving very fast. Even without cavalry, or even chariots, you can flank them pretty well with light infantry.
Beyond that, though, phalanxes just aren't that hard to put together. You need the armor, shiled, and spear, but a basic version of those is pretty easy to make - certainly well within the skill of any civilization capable of forging decent swords. You need a decently well-fed soldier, who you can train the dickens out of, but this seems to be a world with a moderate food surplus. You need a soldiery who will stand and fight and die in preference to running away. That's it. If phalanxes are so overwhelmingly powerful by comparison with everything else, why isn't anyone else using them?
For that matter, why are semi-piratical island nations so focused on dominance in set-piece land battle anyway?
Okay, growing late by internal clock. Coherence failing. Just a few concerns to throw at you.