Dragging time

[Nalaris]

When the conquistadors came to Mexico, their leader (his name escapes me at the moment) burned their boats to make the men fight like mad; there could be no retreat and no surrender. This would've lost the war under the Cantr system. That seems stupid to me.

[Mafia Salad]

Why fight the system when you can take advantage of it? It is the way it is right now, so make the best of it. When it changes again, make the best of that. Its that simple. If your characters are on the short end of the stick, have them figure out a way to turn the stick around.

[Nalaris]

I'd rather use a realistic system, even if it puts me at the short end of the stick.

[El_Skwidd]

Cortez's burning of the ships wasn't exactly a great tactical maneuver. A general looking to win a war normally doesn't burn his ships. In a war it's important to pick your battles so as to conserve your troops and supplies. Burning ships is the opposite of conserving troops and supplies. It's almost like burning them.

If you're looking for a suggestion that makes burning ships a reasonably good wartime tactic, then I can't really see a logical one. I can see where the inspiration to fight harder comes from, but keep in mind that Cortez may well have lost his battle too.

[Wolf]

Cortez's burning of the ships wasn't exactly a great tactical maneuver. A general looking to win a war normally doesn't burn his ships. In a war it's important to pick your battles so as to conserve your troops and supplies. Burning ships is the opposite of conserving troops and supplies. It's almost like burning them.

If you're looking for a suggestion that makes burning ships a reasonably good wartime tactic, then I can't really see a logical one. I can see where the inspiration to fight harder comes from, but keep in mind that Cortez may well have lost his battle too.

Well, if it's the ships of the enemy that you're burning, preferred with the enemy still on those ships...

And the conquistadores, now there's more to them that could have been said here.
Didn't a small group of conquistadores end up wiping out an army of natives in what's now Peru or Colombia?
(I forgot which it was, and who lead that group of conquistadores.)

I guess it would take a lot of thought before people want things to change (as has already been pointed out).
Especially if at some point cannons and other big weapons such as trebuchets were to be made available, most of those who'd be screaming the loudest to end the whole dragging-thing and to make combat more realistic, would probably suddenly find themselves screaming to bring it back to how it was because half their town got wiped out by two volleys.