Posted 10 March 2015 - 08:44 PM
Your premise is flawed, sir.
The large Clan presence in the IS at the moment is not necessarily an indicator of their numbers, just their ability to effectively govern and manage a large number of territories. Heck, even the lore suggests this in the sense that the Clans often had back-alley deals with Comstar such that once they'd taken over a planet its governance was often easy, with Comstar facilitating. Not to mention that the Clans' caste system must have been significantly more effective at governance than the IS's corrupt, bloated feudal system - the Inner Sphere was anything but efficient.
Basically, owning all these planets is not a consideration of the number of warriors, but the strength of their logistics.
Then agian, we might consider how they've taken these planets. And it hasn't always required numbers. Consider the following points:
1. There are IS factions without attack paths to the clans. These factions are a pure drain on the resources of the other IS factions that they attack. This does not harm the clans, but benefits them. It is somewhat mitigated by the clans' ability to attack eachother, but the ferocity and frequency of such attacks has calmed in recent weeks as a few bloodfeuds were effectively settled. I expect such infighting will recommence shortly and recur in cycles, but the clan focus lately has aided their fight against the Inner Sphere.
2. IS troops suffer major morale penalties against clan forces. This actually fits perfectly with the lore. And the reasons for it even fit, too - IS troops were often scared of the clans because they couldn't handle the mixture of discipline, focus, and the sheer might of the clan 'mechs. Lots of the whining I see on the forums lately has to do with the perception of clan 'mechs being overpowered and the perception that a lot of clan players are more skilled pilots (on the basis that more of the highly skilled diehard players have gone mostly with the clans). This basically fits with the story - don't forget that Tukayyid was a major upset, the first real hard clan loss, and that they were seen as unstoppable killing machines before that.
3. The clans appear to have somewhat more common 12-man drops against IS than the reverse. I can't be totally certain of this because I have not played IS significantly in CW, but the overall appearance to me is that the clans have somewhere in the range of 10-25% more organized drops than IS. Again, this fits with the lore - the clans were ultra-organized to compensate for their lack of resources, while the IS armies were often significantly less organized, with nepotism in the officers' ranks being an issue, 'mechs that were hundreds of years old, issues fielding the appropriate weapons for their 'mechs, and a lot of backstabbing and other intrigue that the clans mostly avoided by living so lean, by having their backstabbing happen face-to-face and rarely involving collateral damage - something the Inner Sphere had a lot of trouble avoiding, as evidence by the Succession Wars and their accompanying decline in technology, all brought about by sloppy warfare and Comstar interference, from which the clans were naturally exempt.
I mean, sure, CW isn't perfect. But we're doing a surprisingly good job of sticking to the lore, even if it's only by accident. Which means we've all earned the Funkmaster Seal of Rhythmic Approval.
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pbiggz, on 08 March 2015 - 10:33 PM, said:
