In my campaign the party is going to be involved in basically a world war, so I wanted to make a pretty simple number system to determine the power of each of the armies. Here's a summary:
There are 4 things that represent the armies total power
-Numbers: The most finite of the factors. After a battle, depending on how it went, it will be reduced to reflect the number of casualties the army suffered.
-Moral: Will rise and fall depending on the armies current situation and the hope they have to their cause.
-Equipment: Represents the overall quality of the armies weapons, armor, ships, siege tools, ect. Can be increased by buying new supplies and getting them to the army.
-Skill: The armies overall skill of its soldiers in battle. Can be increased by having the army train with it's general which only requires time, through the army cannot do anything else, and the higher the armies moral, the less time it will take.
Circumstance Adjustments: These are outside factors that are affecting the army, whether it be the bonus of being in a fort, an ambush, ect, or the direct result of the actions the party has performed to influence the army. From a simple speech before the battle to improve moral to assassinating the opposing armies general before the battle.
Generals: Each army must have a general to command it and may ony have one. Each general is unique and gives the army either stat bonus or some other kind of buff.
Supplies: Just gold and food. Food is needed to support the armies. Each point of food is worth so many points of numbers in relation to feeding them. Gold, is used for basically everything.
There are not alot of rules, almost everything I can think of that isnt listed, which isnt much, pretty much falls under special Circumstance and I just decide what fits. The real problem I'm having trouble with is how the 4 stats (Numbers, Moral, Equipment, and skill) should work when the armies fight, since they dont have an overall power score. Any ideas on how they should interact? Or how to combine them into an overall score? Thanks guys.
In all honesty I would never stat this up. I understand the want for the epic events held on in the background, especially when the PC's might actually make a small difference. However every time I've stumbled down this path it ends up just getting bogged down into needless statistics that are really only there for me as a DM. This easily gets cast aside as soon as I realize the only person interested in the clash of forces they'll never see is me because my viewpoint is global rather than local.
Focus on the events the PC's are likely to actually encounter. Say they go and decide to infiltrate enemy territory to disrupt some supply lines. All you need to do is prep that mission, that encounter. Overlarge the PC's aren't going to be everywhere at once, they won't make a huge difference to the war. However their experiences in it are important, if they prowl a particular section of territory maybe after a few raids they might overhear trumped rumors about themselves, or recover communiques that they're prime adversaries, etc. Focus small and only use the war itself as the setting piece. It will save you a lot of hair pulling and crunch.
You might run a mission timer. EX: The allied forces are pushing the offensive in 4 days, they need as much damage done to supplies, fortifications, etc. as possible before they launch the assault. If the PC's do their job then the allied army advances as planned. If they fail maybe it's a slog or the offensive gets stopped entirely. Know how it's going to progress if X or Y happens but that's all you need.
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single die roll War:
3 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 81
abandon d20 altogether; use d100
each stat goes from 1 to 3 generally, with 20 increments of 0.1
thus, you can convert CR into some number between 1 and 3 (example: CR 13 equals 2.3)
now, all you have to do is figure out the CRs of your four Resources (Number, Morale, Equipment, Skill)
multiply these four stats together to obtain that army's working Army Score
once two or more armies go to War, roll d100 for each side
If an Army rolls lower than it's Army Score, it retains that % in resources as a result of the conflict (adjust new CR's for Number, Morale, Equipment, Skill).
If an Army rolls higher than it's Army Score, it loses twice that % in resources.
After determining casualties, compare the numbers to see who wins (gains control of the land under conflict). Any army exceeding it's Army Score is automatically out of the running. Of those remaining, highest roll wins. An army that wins can immediately recoup half it's losses by virtue of gaining (or regaining) control of the land. If nobody wins the War ends in Stalemate, and control of the land under conflict is unresolved.
to determine how long a conflict lasts, multiply each participating army's roll together - the product is it's duration in days.
So the mass combat rules aren't going to work for you?
Beyond that, the rules are tweaked/expanded by Legendary Games in Ultimate Battle. This includes 'command boons', special benefits granted by that particular army's commander.
And even further, expanding to siege warfare, and air and sea combat in Ultimate War.