Morning, folks. After a frustrating and aborted L5R session nobody was into - admittedly I was dead tired - I spent some time chatting on the way home with another player about this campaign, other campaigns, and things we'd like to play. Fresh off things like 300, having made Lion L5R characters just for kicks, and generally wanting to do something different, I've agreed to start prepping for a broad, big scope, semi-old-skool campaign of gods, generals, and war. What we've settled is as follows...

• The world is most comparable to a fantasy setting on the cusp between Bronze and Iron Ages.
• Each of the PCs is a general of the world's first empire, the nobility of a client city-state with a couple thousand troops at their command.
• Though far from immortal, they are Bronze Age heroes in the mythic style, a match for any thirty common soldiers.
• While a fantasy setting it will be heavily human-centric; if there are non-human races they will be reclusive and alien.
• The PCs have been tasked by the emperor to expand the empire's borders, but thanks to limited communication are given autonomy in the field.
• Other than their loyalty to the empire and desire to live, the PCs are under no obligation to support each other. Betrayals, 'miscommunications', sabotage, assassinations, all manner of one-upsmanship to claim more glory, slaves, and tribute than the next guy.
• I, personally, would like magic to be rare, ill-understood, and heavily reliant on theme. I am not adverse to a sorcerer-general, but he won't be throwing Meteor Shower at any time. When magic can get around a problem facing the whole army, it will require a gambling trade-off; a magic bridge across a swamp might be crafted from the bones of, say, 75% of their upper estimate of losses to just travel it.
  
• The armies will need mechanical representation, both on the field and off. Any action these armies take should be dice + modifiers, so that even getting to the battle on time isn't assured.
• It's easily possible there will be seasons of war and seasons of occupation, changing the campaign of war and offering the chance to engage in imperial politics.
• Other things are going on, but the PCs are movers and shakers. If they want there to be a coup for the imperial throne, they'll have to start or support one.

Having established what I know is true, I have questions that possibly you smart, history- and strategic-minded folks can help with. I figure I'd get moreanswers on tBP (maybe, my threads die quick deaths 'cause I don't play Exalted), but better answers here.

• To avoid having a glut of NPCs, the only constant and important ones will be each general's command staff; I'll sketch out their captains, but those guys die only a little less easily than common soldiers. What positions, off the top of your head, will they need people to fill (other than the requisite body servant to dress them in their panoply, of course)?
• Are there any technologies I might take for granted they won't have at all, or technologies I wouldn't expect that they would have? Imagine for this question's sake I could hold my own in a Roman game (be it Republican or Imperial) run by someone that isn't, say, Pundit (who knows more Roman history than I was sure existed, and I dig on Rome).
• What problems beset armies this size in this era, other than the obvious need for sanitation, food, and drinkable water?
• Other than 'yet another battle', the occasional monster, and preparing city-states for conquest by infiltration, sabotage, and negotiation, what make good sessions/adventures/challenges for a game of this sort? Would setting up something with multiple characters be a better idea? There's a half-formed idea in my head where each player makes the general they'd like to play and their city's politician in the imperial capital, then I shuffle the politicians around so no-one's playing their own. Scheming and dealing to garner support for a different general/city-state than you normally play would likely encourage less insular planning.
  
• The importance of the sea and sea travel is as yet undefined; do you think it would make a fun addition or yet more things to think about?

I'm probably going to modify the L5R roll and keep system for this, since we're playing it now and it strikes me that there are interesting tricks available in it if I abstract properly.

An example: Say you need to reach a total TN of 120 to have enough ships built to cross a narrow bay. Each roll accumulates points towards this TN, but takes, say, two weeks. Assigning companies of soldiers to help your engineers gather wood and move heavy things gives you more dice to roll, but the number you get to keep is dependent on how many shipbuilders of what skill level you have.

Plus, it's got a mass combat system that boils down to "flow of the battle's victory + options for dramatics" to inspire my own work.

So...any thoughts? Suggestions? Further questions? Something I haven't thought of at all? Advice from long-time strategic players? Cruel words for my utter disregard for narrative structure?

Whoa. Break this down into half a dozen threads, I think.

Second, have you looked at Paul Elliott's Warlords of Alexander?