- #1
Arcane Society (Secret Spell Society?) that basically a collection of stray magicians.
[collapse]The author does seem to only have superificial knowledge at many stuff he touched upon and this is where immersion will fall apart for some. They could do a bit more digging, but "eh, good enough" feels strong.SpoilerMy first gripe were the way the technologies being introduced. Musket for better or worse, was invented far after cannon and have hand cannon and arquebus as preliminary inventions. It is far difficult to create a smaller barrel back then due to the lack of know-how on steel making back in the middle ages - this is why damascus steel was very famous. The first cannon were made out of bronze - and author acknowledged it after MC making his first musket - for it easier to handle and withstood gunpowder's punch much better than a pig iron product.
From doctrinal perspective, musket at best is a direct replacement for crossbows. Archers require a dedicated training for most of their life to strengthen their arm muscles. The training-intensive archery tend to be unpopular as most of the populance back then are busy with farm works. Crossbows on the other hand despite being a much more complicated machinery, it allows minimal training as long as its the light version or we put a c*cking device into play. It may reload much slower, but once reloaded all you need to do is to aim and pull the trigger. Musket make life much easier by dropping the often cumbersone device and lighter on the logistics despite their susceptibility to moisture.
If you compare this novel to something like Release That Witch, you will realize that Roland invent muzzle-loaded smoothbore cannon before dabbling firearm. Additionally, he literally used Anna as precision tools to aid in firearm productions.
[collapse]Despite its fault, it offers some fresh stuff that often missed in other army building novel: morale. The author give MC his first failure by having his army comically charged and subsequently routed despite all of the discipline training.It is also a fine detail that MC did not just chug his knowledge at his subordinates. He invited multitude of talents from across the continent to aid in realizing his vague ideas. It is something that other "inventor" novel always skip over. It would be a great hurdle for a single leader to micromanage every single research, construction, and administration. It is a great way to show that our MC is a human.Characterization is totally bland, so far we have 2 kind of character: 1) the important ones; 2) yes, men. The yes men are people that acknowledge saying they are genius or shocked in realization as they get their rear beaten by the important characters. It would be much more enticing if each and every character have their own agendas and quirks.Writing can be polished for a bit, for some reasons the Princess always came up a few chapters after MC perspective even though she contribute little to MC's story. Sure the chaos in the royal capital do increase demand for a certain resource but the effect was glossed over on MC side - business as usual. Additional context would be best to be set on extra chapters or on its own "section" within the volume instead of going back and forth for no good reason.The pace, what pace? I'm at lost at how fast they do stuff in 3-4 months. Events often happen too quickly or too slow messing up the sense of distance and time. I do wonder if folks magically have better stamina after 1 month of training and protein-laden foods.Translation is good and I mean it.All in all, its an OK time waster but don't expect much.