trials by fire is easiest the best lesson normally learn in blood, military exercise is not bad, and please never do anything like tournament but if you want real advice you need to give more information. why a sudden change in doctrine? Has anything changed? human wave tactic becomes somewhat obsolete when gunpowder was invented and become totally useless when machine gun and TNT become toy that every army have. what kind of world is that? magic? sci-fi? modern? why nobody thinks quality over quantity sooner, before MC arrived? what type of recruit program they have? are they professional army? conscript? If they take years to train why they waste soldier's life like that? if they use conscript and human wave tactic still works, what benefit they can bring (except human life just think about USSR with an incredible pool of manpower and you know soldier life is the last thing they concerned). are they a fortress of logic and reason or a beast hungry for honor and glory? I need to know more about your novel to make a good advice
Well no tournament for sure, depending of how much face slapping you want and shameless, you can have the general send the mc to cause trouble in the others generals camp, I know this have plot holes but meh it all depends on you
@daggerincoat, @elairz, @deandadiktus, @RainMorga, @Tredysis, @CaRL, @Suijin, @Romashk, @Inv, @wraith, @Moongod, @HighlyRounded & @EricBannen, thanks for the suggestions. So I've reached the decision to let Mc join the soldiers on their daily run and let him save their lives. I'll think about the details tomorrow as i'm about to start writing a chapter (One i've already drafted). It will let Mc show off and also change the other's perspective slightly. Then he can fly away.
Well, you could have some other situation where it's 1v1, not necessarily limited to colosseum situation. Narrow valley, hallway, passages or caves all heavily restrict how many soldiers can walk abreast. Chuck a powerful enemy there, and the army has two choices: waste a bunch of soldier's lives (which they wouldn't be doing no matter how many are joining, training and feeding soldiers costs a lot, and if people who were going to join hear that they're just throwing lives away why the heck would they join?), or follow MCs suggestion and send him out to deal with it.
for starters, have him fail. make the MC think to find a middle ground. forcing his ideals on an army with more years of experience is pathetic wish thinking.
military in past was not voluntary, but conscription. and voluntary joining was desperation to survive. so down goes your idea
@Suijin, @Jinxs The proper setting this time. Setting: The army is an army of ants(Army ants). They are having a population crisis(Silimar to earth). The ants can talk and have intelligence (I've created a bug's world). only one commander is seeing it as a crisis. They leave death behind and destroy the world, making such that they have to wander like nomads in search of food. Now our good commander wants to show the army, especially the other commanders, that the world is not their backyard. He took some steps to make the army look at other being/creatures as intellectuals, but he was made the bad guy for it. He lost his rights etc,etc.. He made a deal with his friend from the other colony(Where mc resides) to send him with him (Because mc saved his colony from a crisis) so he could save his army too. But the other commanders don't feel him. They who have survived the ways of the army ants: being put on the front and told to fight monsters of great strengths (LIke scorpions etc) So these commanders think this is the only way the army can work. No need to gain individual strength, numbers suffice because new ants are being born in the hundreds every second. Problem: I'm stuck.
Depends on the situation. You can't conscript if all your people are dead. You can't conscript beyond a certain point because you need farmers to get the food for your armies. You can't conscript if your people rebel against you, and quelling them would make absolutely everything worse. You can't conscript if everyone flees the country. Morale is, and always has been, an important part of warfare. No army that believes it will lose can win.
What're you stuck on? an appropriate enemy? How about a small bird: impossible to attack or defend against (since it can fly) but if there was some sort of super ant not too outrageous to be dealt with. You can have the ants try and swarm around the bird, only for it to lift off, occasionally doing a dive to snag a couple of ants to chow on, when super ant (or whatever he/she/it is) comes in and blows its brains out (or however his/her/its powers work).
I'm still thinking whether this arc needs to be there or not. ...................................... I don't
they are having a population crisis. (i presume overpopulation) they have unstable food source. and breed faster than rabbits. while your mc is trying to lower the death count of the army. which would be bad for many since for starters they lack a stable food source, meaning more mouth to feed. priority on army is horrible idea. have him fail for starters, try to have him find a way to help with food and population after failing on preventing what you claim is needles death. that way he will have a motive, a cause that will drive progression. not just basic JP MC guy who gets his way
I don't get the main goal of your story. Even if mc or all the army ants become stronger, why should the commanders change the strategy? Its not clear, is there a large part of the world that is unexplored? or is the planet filled with ants?
I think what they are aiming for (and I could be wrong) is that since they have no farming, all food has to be procured by fighting. So they run into a scenario where they need a minimum amount of soldiers to hunt for food while at same time the food they procure isn't enough to sustain the army. Kind of like you need 100 ants to defeat a scorpion that can feed only 95 ants. Thus your army isn't sustainable in the long term. By increasing their individual strength, they would be able to hunt the scorpions with 10 ants, thus becoming net positive.