Re: Bugs to be fixed...
 

IMHO
AP longbows would be waaay too powerful - I think they were AP in Dom1, and they were too powerful... Give'em some more damage if wanted, but AP should be reserved to heavy clumsy weapons like Xbows
OTOH I'd rather have all bow/Xbow range extended (at least to prevent archers from rushing to front !) than some reduced

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

Always good to leap into the fray very late in the process... (and this is going to be LONG)

First comment, remember that this is a game, not a sim. While many of us would like it to be one (at times, me too!), it is really about having different tactical options and using them as best as they can be used.

Summary of suggestions:
Shortbow 0 AP, -2 precision range short
Longbow 4-6 AP, -2 precision range longer
Crossbow 10-12 AP, 0 precision longer yet
Arbalest 14-18 AP, 0 precision longest
Slings (cheap) same as before
Slings (elite) 10, maybe 4 AP, -3 precision, between short and longbow range
Blowguns - put back at original, up the poison (curare/paralysis?)
New- Tien Chi'n repeating xbow -2 AP, 0 precision, 20 range, mild poison.
rate of fire: 1 or 1.5/1 (fast reload, easy cocking)
====
Important notes: Longbowmen and the Slingers (elite) are elite and should
use the mechanism of having a high resource cost - they should cost as
much as a knight. Not because their equipment is expensive but because their training is expensive! There should only be a few available per turn. The other troops are militia or conscript quality.

Details (or why I'm shoot my mouth off (and maybe foot, too)):

AP - actually, any of the really pointy toys should be AP. Afterall, "AP" is nothing more than a mechanic to describe the physics of taking the force of the weapon and applying it to a very small area. Spear wpns in a charge or vs. a charge should be that way. Picks and the like are AP. All of the bow weapons are AP. Now, modelling that in the game correctly is going to be amusing.

Bows: actually, bows are AP only at close range and after that, they are going too slow to really pierce the heavier armors. However, the arrows inflict rather nasty wounds once they penetrate due to the instability of the flight path causing the wound to be ... complicated. The game can't support this level of modelling, iiuc. Also of note, different arrows were used for different targets. There were bodkin points for heavy armors, broadleaf points for no armor or v. light armors, and intermediate designs for other cases. This also complicates the game modelling problem.

XBows: they ARE long range, they ARE AP at all times. The xbow outranged the longbow. The quarrel is aerodynamically more efficient than the arrow at all points in the flight. IIRC, there was pretty much only one type of point for the xbow. This implies that it didn't really matter much what was used, it would hurt. (and I'm pretty sure the medievals checked this out - there are too many other examples of design improvements in weapons for that to have skipped.)

However, the biggest problem I see is that the troop recruitment methods are broken for distinguishing between these three troop types. Of the 3 - shortbow archers (sba), longbowmen (lbm), and xbowmwen (xbm), the lbm took a hideously long time to train. Recall that the ones used at Agincourt et al were the best of the best, sir! As such, they were HIGH morale, HIGH precision, and few in number. But, there is no mechanism in the game to model this. The sba troops were often levies, or issued bows on short notice, and the bow is a difficult weapon to master. They were lower morale, low precision, and expendable. The xbm were usually similar to the sba except that the xbow is v. easy to learn. So they should be low morale, high precision, and cheap in gold but less so resources. In game terms, one should only be able to recruit a few lbm per turn, while easily able to get many more sba or xbm. The only way I can see to model this is to up the resource cost beyond what the actual material costs are. Note, the national xbm (Marignon, for ex.) probably should be higher morale, better trained, etc. - they're not rabble given the death-dealer.

Another example of how "elite" the lbm were: they could pull a 150-200 lbs bow. This has shown up as distortions in their skeletal structure. The typical shortbow used for war is ~60 lbs. That takes loads of training. These guys were serious about bows. After Agincourt (iirc), the French tried to field their own lbm but failed. They didn't have the infrastructure designed to turn out vast numbers of archers that could then be culled down to those few that were superlative.

I would suggest going with AP 0 for short bows with a precision of -2/-3, AP 4-6 for the longbows with a prec. -2/-3 but the lbm are more highly trained!, and the xbows getting AP 10 or 12 and a prec of 0. Plate was pretty much only good for keeping the quarrel from coming out the back of the armor. The other projectiles operate under pretty much the same physics but just have lesser force behind them.

Slings: they are actually MUCH more dangerous than DomII models them. They are longer range than shortbows. They were noted for causing spalling to plate armors. For flexible armors, they were quite nasty as well. Note, the Rhodian and Balaeric slingers were much like the lbm - they were highly trained units and much sought after. Once the supply was wiped out, they pretty much disappeared from the battlefield. Professional slingers did NOT use random rocks found on the battlefield but instead used either cast lead or ceramic bullets - including incriptions and taunts cast in. If one wanted to mod "historical" slingers into the game, I would propose a range between shortbows and longbows, 10 pts damage, maybe 4 AP, precision of -3, but again, the troops are highly trained so the effective precision should be much higher. Gold cost would be moderate but the resource cost should be high - there are not that many of them.
------ of note: once the numbers of these professional slingers began to fall, the Romans opted to train new ones to use one swing around before launching their missiles. Previous accounts put the number at 3. Prowling the various sites that discuss slinging in modern times, folks claim to not be able to gain any advantage from doing more than once through the arc. I would put forth though that if the ancient slingers did 3, they meant to do 3 and that 3 gave them some advantage. Note that they were trained from a very young age to sling, unlike these modern blokes. The reason for the dropping of the number of swings by the Romans, as I understand it, was to make up in volume what they had lost in accuracy from using troops of poorer training.

Last bit: what of adding the repeating xbow for Tien Chi'n? It would be about as dangerous as the shortbow for impact, shorter range, maybe higher rate of fire, and with a mild poison? Troops were conscripts - point, shoot, run if out of ammo http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Just to be complete: Blowguns are probably silly in the context of a sim, but fun as a game mechanic. No army ever fielded them. Why? They suck as weapons. The darts have horrible aerodynamics and the muscles used to propel them are rather weak. The physics of the blowgun are ugly for power projection. Practically, they are extremely close range and mostly used to shot vertically since they have huge, arcing flights. Personally? Leave the blowguns as is. Maybe make the poison more deadly? Mimic curare (paralysis)?

Sources: I'm doing this from memory with the following books and articles being source material. If called for, I can try to dredge through and find out why I wrote a particular bit.

Thomas Hardy - Longbow
Ralph Payne-Gallway - The Art of the Crossbow
2 Scienterrific American articles - one on bows and one on crossbows,
from the late '80's, early '90's (someone
borrowed them from me... grrr.)
Osprey's Military History books - oh, lots of 'em
oops, blanking on the author - The Medieval Art of Swordplay
Arthur Ffoulkes - The Armourer and his Art (iirc)
emails w/an honest to god, working plattner - "So, what about a longbow
arrow hitting your plate?" "Oh, it'd go right through it!"
Several books on ancient warfare - various authors have noted that the
various descriptions of the orders of battle have placed the slingers
BEHIND the sba (e.g. - Trajan's Column). They also describe the wounds
from the slings. Not pretty.
"Rocky" Russo - lecture series. He's also the author of "Achtung, Mustang"
(which is not relevant other than to give him some bonefides) - a WWII
air combat game, and "The Art of War", an ancients - renaissance
minis game. He also actually TESTS his work using replicas - as in
shooting xbows, throwing martio barbellae, and the like. Wish he had
a website...
Prime Mover: A natural history of muscle (have forgotten the author)

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

English Longbowmen wheren't a chosen few, they where some bizarre form of conscripts. Longbows won battles by volume of fire, not precision. (very much like machine guns)

Do not use weapons with negative prec in the game. Due to the (not fully known) mechanics of battle calculations, those weapons tend to hit nothing - not even remotedly the square they are targeted at, and generally empty squares. (Try with slingers). Upping the prec of the archers themselves does not really help.

Crossbows do not outrange Longbows:
- Aerodynamics of the shorter, thicker bolt are actually worse then that of a Longbow arrow. Problem with Longbow arrows was(is) that they allowed very small tolerances only, before the deviation in flight path gets to big. Additionally, bolts are much sturdier than arrows
- Longbows where used for balistical mass archery. The thick crossbow bolt looses too much energy when fired in a ballistic arc. Crossbows where fired straight at the nearby enemy, from the second or third row of the shield wall.

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

Are you sure all that armor-piercing stuff wouldn't unbalance the game? It is, after all, a game, not a sim. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

This would make almost any ranged unit work against armor. The Ulm is said to be the weakest nation because it only has its troops going for it, and the only thing that supposedly makes them special is their armor.

Also, you wrote up '0 AP' as the damage for short bow. Does that mean that the strength of the shooter is added? Is it added for longbows, too? What about slings?

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

re: English Longbowmen wheren't a chosen few -
I will dig up the refs for you. King Edward used less than 10% of those that came to serve when he went to Agincourt, iirc. But, as said, I will dig up the ref. And, yes, in general, bow fire was massed fire. The reason that the xbow was shot in a flat trajectory was because it COULD be shot that way. A flat trajectory comes from a fast moving object, nothing else (short of lift).

re: Do not use weapons with negative prec in the game.
ok, hadn't played with that. I was just considering how hard it is to learn how to shoot a bow properly, as well as the sling. If the xbow was taken as a base, then the others were worse... and since I was looking at it as the ave guy was 10s all around... newbie mistake, obviously.

re: Crossbows do not outrange Longbows:
pretty sure you are wrong on both counts but I'll dig up the Sci. Amer. articles. I need to get new copies anyway. Arrows are even worse than you suggest. Straight out of the bow, they wobble and bend. The path is more or less straight but the arrow flexed quite a bit. Hence, a real need to match the mass of the point, the wood and flex of the shaft, and the pull of the bow. Also, the arrow HAD to flex or it would not shoot true. I _believe_ it began to precess later in flight, but that may be me confounding information.

re : Additionally, bolts are much sturdier than arrows
very true.

re: - Longbows where used for balistical mass archery. The thick crossbow bolt looses too much energy when fired in a ballistic arc. Crossbows where fired straight at the nearby enemy, from the second or third row of the shield wall.
again, I will get the article for you and post the aerodynamic results.

re: 0 AP or low AP
as I recall the damage rules, the weapons would be: wpn base damage + str (if used) + 2d6. I was basically trying to suggest a way to model all the bows the same and still have the xbows do what they did best, which was piss of the knights since they could now be killed by poorly peasants. Well, that it was harder to ransom some dead guy than a live captive. The suggestion might not work out right.

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

Ref: Scientific American January 1985 pg 104-110

examples: (from Payne-Gallway, actually) 85 g bolt shot 420 m from a 550 kg pull medieval crossbow. Longbows attained lengths of ~275 m. Article authors cite another historian claiming 2x pull weight xbows were common, fwiw. (note to self - find that guy's book)

Wind Tunnel Test results (so this is science and not conjecture):

Drag/Mass ratios and range (calculated from an 80 m/s start)
(the numbers are approx. since I had to eyeball a graph)

Arrow: >1.5 range ~210 m
bolt 1: ~.75 range ~250 m
bolt 2: ~.72 range ~320 m
bolt 3: ~.70 range ~420 m
bolt 4: ~.68 range ~520 m

bolts 1 & 2 were medieval designs, bolts 3 & 4 were roman. Just to make it clear, the higher the d/m number, the worse the aerodynamic performance.

note: 80 m/s is a rather high speed for an arrow (from the authors of the article). Typical numbers are usually in the 60 m/s range (from me remembering what Hardy's book, which isn't nearly as handy as a journal).

Upshot: xbows flew further and hit harder. They could be fired ballistically just as easily as a bow and would have to be for the bowmen to hit targets farther away. Close shots are flatter just because the bolts flew faster.

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

Thanks for the information! I'll have to digest it a while...

I'm suspicious of xbows being fired ballistically, though. You say "Could be fired ballistically." Was there any evidence that they were or weren't? Of course they could be, but with a bow, you pull back the string and kind of have a feel for that arc, as a function of your draw and angle. Firing a crossbow ballistically is like firing a handgun ballistically - possible, but never done (aside from corrections of a few feet of drop, generally calculated by the scope) since you only have control over a single factor, angle. At least, that's how it would seem to me...

I'm particularly surprised at the terrible arrowodynamics (get it? A pun!). This might be mitigated a bit by firing in high arcs, thus storing some energy as potential (immune to drag) for much of the flight, as opposed to firing flat, where the energy is always kinetic (and thus vulnerable to energy loss from drag, proportional to v^2 IIRC).

Anyway, I'll muse over this new stuff... chew on it like cud... maybe build my own longbow out of balsa wood and piano wire, and extrapolate from there... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

By the way, Wombats - the combat simulator has the att/def roll bug fixed now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Thanks for noting the problem!

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

but that's how rifles and (some) artillery work today. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

you know one statement of the three laws of thermodynamics is "you can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game"? same with arching flight: yes, you can reduce *instanteous* drag with the high trajectory, but the time of flight is much longer than a flat trajectory, so drag works *longer*. i'd have to dig up the drag-corrected ballistic equation to figure out what the actual numbers are.

there's also the little problem that for fin-stabilized projectiles, their ability to stay pointed in the right direction goes up as v^2 also, since that term is in the equation for lift. so, there goes their precision. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

I know, field artillery is like that, but they do a bunch of calculations before firing... and rifles have adjustable scopes that account for drop over distance... and medieval xbowmen had neither calculators nor scopes. The only crossbow I've ever seen with a scope was in Deus Ex, and I put it there myself http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I think it would be very hard to fire a crossbow accurately with more than a minor (<5 degrees) arc... and any arc-firing requires more training than direct firing, which would defeat the point of cheaply raising masses of untrained crossbowmen. Assuming, of course, that crossbows were used by cheap masses of poorly trained soldiers, which could be another false premise on my part.

Your point on the longer trajectory negating a lower velocity is interesting... it would take several complex integrals to figure out how much energy ends up being saved, if any, by firing at a 30-degree angle or so. It would be much simpler to model in Excel (in .01 second intervals), given the drag formula. I did something like that once, to find the ideal angle to launch a water balloon for max distance, but I have a pretty poor memory...

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

i imagine if you had to train levies to fire crossbows ballistically, you'd do it the way the napoleonics did with muskets: drill a few angles for likely ranges (maximum, half-max, short) and figure that will do well enuf.

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

I think gameplay should be way more important than realism. This is a fantasy game, after all.

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

Old question re: age of longbows
From Hardy's book, Longbow - arrow heads date back to 50,000 yo. However, bows don't preserve well. Cave drawings show "longbows" in scale but can the artists' sense of scale be trusted??? There are two Mesolithic fragments that have right proportions and geometries to be from a longbow. Various other Stone Age sites have uncovered bows ~175 cm in length, others between 177 and 200 cm. These are ~2,500 BC to 1,600 BC. Hardy goes on at some length about the "pre" history of the bow. Basically, a bow of some length has been around for quite some time, although the date of _the_ longbow's use in England has an unclear lineage.

Important note re: crossbow range - I'm using STEEL bows. If you count only composite bow xbows, then yeah, range is less than the xbow but greater than the lesser selfbow. Steel bows were fairly common about 50 yr after Crecy and available by Agincourt but the rate of fire of a crossbow is VERY poor, the moreso for the stronger pulls. The rate of fire is about 1/2-1/6 that of the bow. They were great for defense or other fortifide positions. Additional note, when used in the field, they often had either mantlets or pavisses to hide behind, or even had ~kite shields strapped on their backs. (Payne-Gallway and Hardy)

re: numbers of longbowmen and are they elite?
I admit that this is based more on peripheral arguments than on % numbers. Firstly, the strength required for using the bow was outside the casual norm and that this str requirement was unique enough to leave its marks in the skeleton. This implies that they had the time to practice their art enough to make a consuming activity. Secondly, ~20% of the English archers were mounted - this implies wealth and decent amount of it, hence, again, enough free time to make training possible. Third, there is at least one example of a longbowmen (probably one of the Black Prince's guard archers) getting his own coat of arms, and other honors (the family name is noted as part of Jodrell Bank in Cheshire). Fourth, longbowmen received higher pay than regular footmen. It was not as high as mounted knights, though. Fifth, "by 1590 Sir Roger Williams was complaining that 'out of 5,000 archers not 500 will make any strong shootes', and 'few or none do anie great hurte 12 or 14 score off'." Lastly, since this is long and circumstantial, Henry V left England with 2,000 knights and men-at-arms, 65 gunners, and 8,000 longbowmen. The army of conquest that Henry could muster had only 8,000 archers out of how many that were in England? It was his choice and I doubt he picked weenie ones.

re: range
From Hardy: (velocity and range, 70 lb bow)
Lozenge Bodkin 46.5 m/sec 180 yd max (sigh, let's mix units)
Long Bodkin 43.6 m/sec 170 yd
Broadhead 38.7 m/sec 150 yd

extrapolation to 150 lbs, still Hardy, ranges should be ~300 yds

re: blowguns
I found the refs in Steven Vogel's "Prime Mover". He _calculates_ a maximum range of 28 m with an impact speed of ~13 m/s, and thus an impact momentum of only 2% that of an arrow. Actual reports from his anthropological colleagues gave measures of 17 m to 30 m. Gotta have the poison.

re: ballistic fire
I think that's just a bias. In both cases (bow and xbow), you train with it and get to see the projectile in flight, hence learning its flight characteristics. I venture that the xbow is easier since loosing an arrow is a non-subtle art all its own whereas firing the xbow is much more easily mastered - it's a trigger! One usually doesn't fire a handgun "ballistically" because there's no need to learn (use a rifle or call in uncle arty) and it's difficult to learn since the bullet is smaller and travels too darn fast, hence you can't see what you're doing.

re: balsa and piano wire
mmm, bad choices. Balsa has low compression and tensile strengths. Piano wire easily cuts fingers when being drawn. However, since it is very light, geek-like muscles can heft it without sweating, and the piano wire could be tuned to play a one-note song. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

re: combat sim fix
Cool!!! Maybe I'll find the ambition now to balance out my ... uh ... mod.
if you can call it that. ... I have no sense of propriety. I'll leave it at that.

I'm quitting for a bit. Thanks for reading, all.

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

yup. it's mighty hard to realistically model gods on the battlefield. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

the main reason for bringing up realism is folks were asking how weapons "should" work. but another reason is that it provides justification for changing game balance. for example, if you agree with wombats' idea that many pointy weapons should be armor piercing, SCs become relatively less powerful and some regular units become relatively more powerful.

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

Sabercherry: "arrowdynamics"

Thanks, great pun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I used to have:

"Incorrigable punster.
Please do not incorrige."

as my sig.

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (painlessly short)
 

One last post before my brain explodes.

Arralen, you might be confusing the aerodynamic efficiency of the arrow with the energetic efficiency of the bow. Hardy's book has values of around 80%+ for the longbow. Iirc, modern, compound composite bows are closer to 90%+, while the crossbow is much lower but I can't find any relavent numbers right now. One rather biased source put it at 10% but that's too low considering extent numbers for ranges and projectiles. Xbows may have been capable of storing lots of energy but they really didn't deliver any where near all of it to the projectile.

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (painlessly short)
 

energetic efficiency of the bow
I'm not confusing it with the aerodynamic efficiency of the arrow. In fact, I thought to leave it out of the discussion, but I found a nice comparison which should make it easy to understand: "Barrel Length" .. the distance over which the missile is accelerated by propelling forces.
With a X-/bow, it roughly equates to the length of the arrow minus some "overhead", which is 80cm with the Longbow and 25cm with the X-bow. Equations are most likely non-linear ...

That's shurely a 55kg-Xbow. And 110kg-Xbows where shurely not common before 1475.(Steel Xbows in general date from 1350 and later).
And think about the reloading time: I would rate such a Xbow as a last try to keep up with a)the very heavy armors and b)firearms. And it shurely would have been used in siege warfare only - much to heavy to use it in the field...


aerodynamic efficiency
Can you scan & email me that wind tunnel results? Or give me a link? Think there's some fault in those numbers or the interpretation ...
E.g. using 80 instead of 60 m/s may have greater impact on the results than one would estimate because of special aerodynimc effects (boundary transition etc.)
Because of the differences in energetic efficiency of Long- vs. Xbow, I doubt both sorts of missiles start with the same "muzzle velocity".
=> Normally, something long&slender has always less drag than something thick&short, as long as it points into the direction of flight.

Furthermore, there's a mixup:
A longbow's efficient range is roughly equal to it's maximum range, because of the energy-storing effect of the ballistic trajectory and the lift-generating effect of the long arrow. (Similar to the lift effects on modern olympic throwing spears)
A X-bow bolt, because of the higher drag at high velocities, loses too much energy before it can store as potential energy, respc. loses much more of it's velocity within the first meters of flight.


volume/mass fire
You can fire a X-bow ballistically. But
load time is way to high for volume fire. A longbowmen can fire his 12 arrows within a minute. It takes a minute to fire a heavy crossbow and reload it...
So apart from the initial volley, there wouldn't be any volume to speak of. But without volume, you'll actually have to aim for a target ...

pre-historic "longbows"
Where long bows, but not longbows in a strict sense:
"At least two Neolithic longbows have been found in Britain. One was found in Somerset. It was identified as Neolithic by radiocarbon dating in the 1950s, much to the consternation of some archaeologists at the time. A second was found in southern Scotland at Rotten Bottom. It was made of yew and dates to between 4040 and 3640 BC. A reconstructed bow had a draw-weight of about 23 kg (50 lbf, 220 N) and a range of 50 to 55 metres.


addendum
found it in your post:
From Hardy: (velocity and range, 70 lb bow)
Lozenge Bodkin 46.5 m/sec 180 yd max (sigh, let's mix units)
Long Bodkin 43.6 m/sec 170 yd
Broadhead 38.7 m/sec 150 yd
extrapolation to 150 lbs, still Hardy, ranges should be ~300 yds

But 70lbs = 31,75 kg, which is on the lower range for a longbow, 100lbs (45kg) or even more seemingly where common. Range will not scale linearily, though.
But as you can see from the numbers above, "muzzle velocity" wasn't anywhere near 80 m/s but maybe 55m/s at best. Aerodynamic effects could be quite different ...

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (painlessly short)
 

Which is only relevant if the applied force is the same. It is much, much higher in the xbow, hence the need for very stout bolts.

Yes, they are. Acceleration is a squared term. Friction is as well. Your point?

By this logic, a 55 kg draw weight xbow can out shoot a 90 kg draw weight longbow. That's aerodynamic efficiency far beyond what's been measured and makes the longbow much less efficient than the crossbow.

I'm skipping the rest of your comments because they are based upon similar logic.

Re: Bugs to be fixed...
 

The whole reason for me posting was to weigh in was because various comments that desired a sim approach. I felt that some of the suggestions for the sim side were not accurately describing various phenomena and I wanted to add information from various knowledgable sources. I am not an expert on these subjects but I am moderately well-read.

Sim: xbows blow away everything else in terms of sheer hitting power. At least the steel variety. The pre-steel ones score over the traditional bows in being MUCH easier to train peasants to an adequate level of skill. They are cheaper to stock and the bows are more durable than regular bows. Reload rates sucked but then, if you kill them first, you don't have to parry.

Sim: pointy things - all of the pointy weapons are armor piercing in effect. They plant an enormous overpressure on the armor causing a point failure. The longbow and composite bows had enough force to let them pierce plate when using properly designed arrowheads. These bodkin points did a good job at piercing various armors but were inferior to a broadhead for inflicting wounds (we're neglecting sepsis here). The xbow did it by sheer force. Afaict, there were no bodkin point quarrels. One design sufficed for all applications.

Thus, my recommendations for a sim that longbowmen and composite bowmen have higher resource costs to reflect their long training times. Their projectiles should be AP but of low value to simulate the fact that the resulting wounds were of lesser severity. Even short bows should be AP but without the draw weight behind them, they couldn't do all that much. Spears and lances should be AP when used in charges. By precise definition, so should spears in static melee but the impact velocities probably don't make it worth defining that way, at least not for human wielders.

One obvious "flaw", as it were, is that the battlefield is so short that the effective ranges of the various missile weapons are ... modififed. This truncation results in the combatants starting very close together resulting in the effectiveness of bow fire being compromised. This could be hacked but I'm not sure if the game would support that???

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

Not sure we're going anywhere with this way OT discussions about bolt aerodynamics. What we just need is missile weapons that are tactically different and balanced in the Dom rules frame ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

Yeah I am with PDF here. As interesting as the discussion is in the general, historical sense, this thread is about SC's rebalance mod. So the question to be considered is only:

Is a 9 AP damage bow too powerful within the scope of the Dominions 2 archery system?

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

I plan to diversify crossbow into "light crossbow" (9ap, 25 range, less accurate), "crossbow" (10ap, 30 range, more accurate), and "heavy crossbow" (11ap, 35 range). The stats, names, and number of types are subject to change... but this will make it easier to balance the costs of the indy crossbowmen. Arbalests will remain unchanged.

This will also affect longbow considerations...

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

Are you sure so much variety existed ? To me there was Light and Heavy type, the heavy being also called "Arbalest" (French name). And anyway I'm not sure that minor differences between the types are worth the effort...

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

Range 25 and range 35 have a HUGE difference, but I don't think the middle one is needed. I would make one "heavy crossbow", which is still weaker and more expensive than arbalest, and "light crossbow", which is much weaker than even the "heavy crossbow".

Of course, I'm not going to do the balancing work, and if Saber Cherry needs the third one, then I trust that she knows what she is doing.

Re: Bugs to be fixed... (LONG)
 

Much more variety than that existed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Just like with guns or hunting knives today... a class called "Medium Crossbow" would be about as specific as "Assault Rifle" or "Antipersonnel Mine," each of which has hundereds of types with wildy varying characteristics. Crossbows were pre-mass production, so they would be even less standardized. AFAIK, of course.

v7.31 released.
 

Hi!

I just put out v7.31, which has some very minor changes. Incidentally - I have not done this previously - I just realized it would be better (confusion-wise) if I put the name of the version in the filename, so it displays in the mod preferences screen, and people don't accidentally overwrite an older version that they are using for a current game. Therefore, the latest file name is "Recruitable Rebalance 731.dm"

If you downloaded it before I changed the filename (it appears exactly 1 person did), please download it again http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Sorry!

v7.31:

Ulm Black Plate units increased to 14g (to better reflect their runic armor and sealed helmets).
Ulm Black Knight / Templar increased +5g (same reason) to 70 and 100g.
Ulm Guardian increased +2g (same reason).
Longbow / Man elite longbow gain +1gcost (to 13g) since AP longbows are super good. I may change them back to non-AP eventually, depending on feedback.
Tien Chi Celestial Masters changed back from 2 air to 2 water. I had changed them to better enable casting of national spells (fly and celestial soldiers) but with Zen's magic mod, the change is not needed, and it prevented them from casting acid spells.
Slightly reduced Celestial Master price (250g S&A, 240g normal)

Re: v7.31 released.
 

Did someone finally abuse the crap out of them in your test games? I'll be honest I did try a test game with them as soon as you made them and I was able to clear the map at a pretty silly rate http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

As for celestial masters, I really like the little mod I made for them ( of course! ) where I chanhed the cost to be in line with Scott's formula and where I gave t'ien Ch'i 50 gold 1S casters to act as communicants and magic duel sponges. Worked *very* nicely.

Re: v7.31 released.
 

Wellll... longbows have not been particularly abused in the test game (Man is ranked about 3 or 4), but I played around with them a bit, and found them exceptionally strong. That, combined with comments in the test game thread and this thread, made me think that 9AP, 40 range, at 12 gold is unbalanacing. At 13 gold, they come closer to parity with cheap xbows. 13g is not a final solution, more like a patch to make them less "uber" while pondering a final solution http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Fortunately, only Man - a somewhat weak nation, due to capitol-only troops and mages - has the ability to abuse longbows, since they natively only occur on grasslands (as far as I can tell). So it's not a very important issue, especially once storm, Staff of Storms, and Arrow Fend come into play. However, I want to rectify it by v8, and I'm considering a poll on the ideal cost and damage of longbows. Especially considering that the scientific data presented in this thread portrays them as being substantially weaker than most crossbows.

Re: v7.31 released.
 

Well I've felt for quite a while that crossbowmen are the most cost efficient non-sacred troops in the game. So I'm not sure using them as a balance point is super.

OTOH I do find the new longbowmen fun to use I know I ( personally ) would break even if I was in heavy armor if a bunch of guys were shooting arrows at me!

How did you addition of the flail attribue to the lowbowmen work? Were they useful units? They would probably no longer break HC but they would be pretty decent against infanty.

Re: v7.31 released.
 

I won a game recently, Marignon (me) versus Machaka, fielding almost nothing but crossbows and Witch Hunters, and without using flaming arrows or wind guide. So you may be right about that. On the other hand, I rarely see other people use them unless they are playing Marignon. And they're essential as a last defense against SCs, as far as I can tell.

#Flail works for missile weapons. I tried it out on AP longbows, and they annihilated indies instantly. Not a good modding change http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I did not try 14 non-AP plus #flail, but it would probably be similar versus medium infantry, though less effective on heavy cavs. Regardless, I see no reason why longbows should hurt people if they hit the shield. Arbalests, maybe... boulders, Jotun javelins, and castle ballistae, probably. And I plan to make those changes, after testing to see if boulders already ignore shields.

Anyone have any opinions on changing Arbalest to 11ap or 12ap + ignore shield? That would make it more useful against most enemies, and less lethal to Ulmians. In other words, people might recruit them instead of Sappers...

Well, I'll start a poll on longbows and crossbows tomorrow http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Overpriced commanders
 

Nice mod. I don't agree with everything (I've always liked Jotun Woodsmen), but it's a really impressive effort all the same.

Some suggestions/points:

The Lord Warden: At 130 gold, this unit is absurdly expensive. He's a good fighter and an OK commander, but not nearly enough to justify the cost. The Warden is already a rather pricey sacred unit (Tuatha are cheaper and better) and there's no justification for having a commander version which costs more than 3X the price of the basic unit. He might well be the most expensive infantry commander in the game. Hell, 130 gold will buy you an top of the range cavalry leader.

The Mother of Avalon is the same price, has the same leadership, is also sacred and stealthy and is a mid-level mage. She's also a much more useful addition to a stealth force.

T'ien Chi Light Cavalry: It's always bothered me that these guys don't have a hoof attack. Granted, they might not be riding trained warhorses, but I like to think of hooves as an intrinsic mounted bonus. Maybe a lesser hoof attack for light cav, versus a warhorse hoof for the heavy cavalries.

Conquerors of the Sea: The mages are priced fairly for this theme, IMO. However, the sailing commanders are dreadfully overpriced; 75 or 100 gold for a commander with rubbish equipment, average stats, and ok leadership? Granted, they have the sailing skill, but Vanheim gets that for nothing. Compare an admiral (100 gold) to a Vanherse (160 gold). The admiral has better leadership, but the Vanherse is vastly superior in every other way, including upkeep!

Re: Bugs to be fixed...
 

I looked into this for quite some time to prove that medieval x-bow where more powerful than medieval longbows. However, I found that that wasn't the case. Because of the inferior engineering and material medieval x-bow where made from, they where limited to a very short draw length, and the quarrel never even remotely approached its maximum velocity. Because of the respective weight of the missles, both end up being nearly the same. The difference from my historical research, was that longbowmen where actual troops, who carried swords, wore light armor, and could really fight. They fired faster, and hit more. A x-bowman, was just a conscript with an x-bow.

Today's x-bow have an incredible draw length. The bow goes from nearly straight to "V" shaped. This increased draw lenght allows the projectile to reach incredible velocities. Far superior even to compound bows. That was not the case in medieval times.

Re: Bugs to be fixed...
 

I also found this:

"Surprisingly, a good slinger hurled a stone as far and accurately as a good archer. Roman military texts recommended archery target practice at about 200 yards. Slingers are known to hurl their projectiles even farther, as much as 440 yards (quarter of a mile)."

Sling stones ranged from golf ball sized pieces of lead to rocks the size of a tennis balls, and where tooled round. Slinging was a sort of game to ancient people, who made their own stones, and practiced for fun.

Also,
"As for accuracy, one ancient writer noted that the best slingers "would wound not merely the heads of their enemies but any part of the face at which they might have aimed." Experiments demonstrate that missiles leave a sling in excess of 60 miles per hour. One Roman writer noted that opponents in leather armor were in far greater danger from sling missiles than arrows. Even if the stone did not penetrate the armor, it was capable of inflicting a fatal internal injury."

I couldn't find information on the effectiveness of armor on slingstones, but I'd just assume slingstone aren't AP.

Re: Overpriced commanders
 

Thanks for the suggestions! I've never played Conquerers of the Seas http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

With regards to Woodsmen, when and how do you use them? Even with Nature-9 / Earth-4 I prefer other Jotun infantry... and for stealth armies, Vaettir are at least as good as unblessed Woodsmen, IMO. I'm really starting to think giving Woodsman commanders 10 leadership and Holy-2 would be ideal, because even having dropped Woodsman units to 45 gold, I still can't think of a use for them...

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>200 gold, 54 res, 4 holy of Woodsmen versus 200 gold, 150 res of Vaettir:

'4*JO Woodsman' versus '25*JO Vaetti' in 40000 bouts.

~ Attacker's Deathmatch Statistics ~

Score: ---------------------- 82
Wins: ----------------------- .00%
Losses: --------------------- 100.00%
Kills per battle: ----------- 4.13
Kills per round: ------------ 1.46
Deaths per battle: ---------- 4.00
Life expectancy (rounds): --- 2.35
Life expectancy (battles): -- .83
Avg. Rounds Elapsed: -------- 2.85
Avg. Rounds to Win: --------- .00
Avg. Rounds to Lose: -------- 2.85
Hit Rate: ------------------- 56.41%
Evade Rate: ----------------- 32.94%
Damage done per swing: ------ 12.41
Damage done per hit: -------- 22.00
Damage taken per hit: ------- 4.00
Total damage taken per life: 35.79</pre><hr />

Re: Overpriced commanders
 

Big Daddy: Thanks for the additional information about projectiles! Although, some of the stuff about slings is pretty hard to believe. Where did you find the information; do you remember? And by the way, I know very little about slings, though in RPGs they tend to differentiate between "staff slings" and "normal slings." Do you know which were being described, or if the difference is an artificial one invented in the 20th century?

Re: Bugs to be fixed...
 

Concerning Staff Slings
http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/nikolas.l...taffsling.html
that's what I read from it (someone should check vs. historical sources)
- staff slings do more damage (due to heavier projectiles), but do not necessarily shoot further
- normal slings may carry a shield (AFAIK, historically they didn't, but would be nice in DOM http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )

Concerning BigDaddy's post:
That's basically what I said before. Nice to see that someone checks the sources instead of re-telling misconceptions from Hollywood Movies ... Didn't have the time to dig anything up myself besides the Wargamers Research Groups Tabletop Rules.

Btw., those roman texts speak about shortbows, o.c., which are roughly equal to slings.
Concerning the range, one has to be careful that not effective and maximum range is compared - what I believe is the case with the above figures.

It's very obvious, however, that slings and bows (longbows too) where used for "mass archery", not for sniping.

Xbows where used in siege warfare and as sniper weapons against (and from) infantry forming a "shield wall".


Here's a pic from the "Maciejowski-Bible" (ca. 1250 A.D. ; Piermont Morgan Library, New York), which clearly shows:

- usage of iron pot-helmets and full chain (which even covers the hands) by knights and infantry.
- the Xbow-man only has (darker) leather cap and no chain mail, he's protected by a heavily armored infantry man with shield
- the Xbow is not pressed against the shoulder, it doesn't have a rifle stock.
- Xbow is used to snipe at single defenders, obviously successful

.
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...03-xsniper.png

Re: Overpriced commanders
 

With a water-9 bless and sloth scales. This turns their light equipment into a bonus, since they can be produced for few resources, and they get less fatigue. Quickened, they'll always strike first with enormous force, obliterating most indies. They can be used for flanking as well.

Despite it being the percieved wisdom, I've never really been tempted by a nature bless for them. Possibly because the Son of Niefel is so cool.

They're less useful as the game goes on, but the water bless stays handy forever, pumping up the Jotun Herses and with battle shrouds, boosting the Gygjas as well.

Re: Overpriced commanders
 

Arralen: Thanks for the research and the picture! The link is really well done, too.

Sandman: I'll have to try that sometime. As far as Gygjas go, don't you think it's odd that the Vaettir descriptions refer to them as sacred, and yet they are not sacred?

And also - I'm playing Jotunheim right now, and can't find a good use for Gygjas or Skrattis (though I have many vaetti hags, and uses for all of them). Both of them are very expensive to build and hope for good randoms (like 2 death). What do you do with Gygjas? Cast Crossbreeding?

Re: Overpriced commanders
 

Jotunheim is a big mystery for me also .
The scratti can at least be used for blood hunting + they can summon IDs with the +1 water ring and a random blood sorcery .
With random blood sorcery the scrattis can then forge blood boosters also and do the blood only spells like horde from hell and fiends .
So the scrattis are useful but expensive .
For gygias i have found no use at all . So if i play Jotunheim i normally chose utgaard instead of base Jotunheim .
Seithkonas and Nornas are more useful then vaetti hags and gygias .

Re: Overpriced commanders
 

The second site is the one sighted. I could have sited the third, but I think its velocity figure is suspect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sling_%28weapon%29
http://christiananswers.net/dictionary/sling.html
http://www.slinging.org/

And yes, longbows fired 400ms, as did x-bows, and surprisingly slings. The accuracy of the sling and longbow is rather more suspect at this range though. I think the sling was inferior, because it didn't penetrate metal armor well. My instinct (as someone who understands physics) is that the sling was likely as effective as described. A roman text describes excising a sling bullet. You'll see it sited on one of the websites.

Slinging was cultural. So, those cultures that used slings often practiced with them, and the male population at large was skilled and accurate. Longbows, hard to use, were trained from childhood to very young conscripts. By the time they reached adulthood, they were excellent troops all around (better than most any other non-elite troop), but expensive. X-bows were the great equalizer, because they where very easy to use.

Re: Overpriced commanders
 

I couldn't find anything about historic ranges for heavy crossbows. They where never widely employed, and because of targeting issues (they had no scopes after all) the range of the other weapons was really already adequate.

I assume they fire somewhat farther, but likely not alot. The short draw lenght would still really limit any medieval x-bow.

Re: Overpriced commanders
 

One thing that would really help would be adjusting long/short distance accuracy. At the moment, crossbows can only be accurate or not accurate, while being accurate in short range but fastly becoming less accurate when the range increases would seem to work well for them. Longbows might be less accurate, but wouldn't suffer as badly from increased distance, because they are fired in an arc(ballistically?) anyway.

Re: Overpriced commanders
 

On a slightly unrelated topic, for Saber Cherry: I was considering hosting a game with limited research, as there were a few players who expressed an interest in "not being able to go beyond level 4 in research", as in the demo. Your null mod would be very useful for the purpose (though there remains the matter of magic items).

Such a game would really be better with a unit-balancing mod like yours, however. Do you believe your mod is ready enough for this kind of setup, or that it would benefit from this sort of test field, or should I wait for the results of the current "uncontrolled lab experiments"? (That is, the MP game using the mod)

Gygjas
 

Gygjas are a bit of a lottery, compared to the Utgard witches, but they have loads of hitpoints, and are also cold-immune, so you'll have fewer flukey mage deaths, which in turn makes mage-booster items a more reliable investment. Gygjas also have lower encumbrance, stategic move 2 and forest survival.

With their toughness in mind, I'd mainly use them on the battlefield, laden with items, casting whatever suits their magic picks. Exceptions to this would be a blood-3 gygja who might as well stay at home doing blood stuff and astral gygjas if there was a magic duel danger. When not fighting, they'd be forging items or casting spells the vaetti hags couldn't.

As a final note, I always seem to recruit Gygjas in pairs, so they can cover each other's weaknesses.

Re: Gygjas
 

Alneyan - A series of mods that remove spells over levels like 4 has been made, but I don't know where you could get it. It was announced on the forum, so Arryn or someone might have it, though.

Re: Bugs to be fixed...
 

Could you toss the source for this quote at me? I know I've read it as well but can't recall where now. As regards to penetration, I do remember someone else claiming that a sling could cause spalling on a bronze cuirass. Again, not worth that much without a reference.

Re: Bugs to be fixed...
 

hmmm, that would contradict what Payne-Gallway has claimed for his experience in actually firing some bows from around that time, in terms of range. I do realize that medieval metallurgy was no where near a modern standard. Some sources claim that the shattering of the steelbow could seriously injure the user. That's probably seldom a modern problem. As for the two being nearly the same in practice, could be. My only real argument is with the recruitment scheme.

Aye, that would be the biggest advantage, afaict for the xbow. It was given to a peasant and he could actually hit something and do so with enough force to hurt the target.



[/quote]Today's x-bow have an incredible draw length. The bow goes from nearly straight to "V" shaped. This increased draw lenght allows the projectile to reach incredible velocities. Far superior even to compound bows. That was not the case in medieval times.

[/quote]

... and because I'm feeling combative, can you list your sources for your assertions regarding the effectiveness of the xbow? Actually, it's also that I like reading up on such things.

Re: Overpriced commanders
 

Where does this idea come from? I'm really puzzled by it. Given that the quarrel was an aerodynamically efficient projectile, it's going to have better ballistic characteristics than an arrow. The only reason I see "sniping" being a common usage for a crossbow would be the slow rate of fire - if you can't shoot often, try to make each shot count.

Re: Overpriced commanders
 

I don't understand why a crossbow suddenly needs a scope to fire at distant targets. The quarrel arcs out into the air, just an arrow, just as bullet. As for ranges, Payne-Gallway has fired one to 400 m. This matches up with the known draw weight and aerodynamic efficiency of the quarrel. If you would like, I can repost the literature references so you can peer at them yourself.

The short draw length is only relavent in considering quarrel design and the rate of fire. Once the bolt is accellerated to its 60+ m/s, it doesn't matter. The fact that the old designs did this in such a short span meant that the quarrel had to be particularly stout. The rate of fire issue is related because an efficient bow means that it can have a lower draw weight for a given effective power and can therefore be recocked faster. A man can only put out so much work in a given period of time.

Re: Overpriced commanders
 

The sling sites where sited earlier, after saber cherry asked for them.

Here's one of many comparisons showing a typical xbow vs a longbow.

I found it by typing:
longbow crossbow

into my search engine. I read the same thing repeatedly in my search to prove crossbows superior. If you look, you will too.

http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval...oss_l_v_c.html

The draw length IS VERY IMPORTANT. I won't go into this in length, its covered on this site and many others. With much less draw stregth current crossbows fire quarrels 2-3 times faster (138fps to 320fps). Hee hee, I said V-shape (meant U shape). A medeival xbow is like ")" a modern crossbow is like a "U".

Scopes and sights are only important for accuracy, so you're right the heavy crossbows must not have been widely used for some other reason. Though the one on the quoted sight is 740lb draw (suspect).

A crossbow, it seems, can penetrate armor at somewhat longer range.

Did I miss anything?

Re: Gygjas
 

From what I recall, someone mentioned the feasibility of doing such a mod, but AFAIK, it's not been released. Or if someone actually went through with making it, I never saw a thread where it was made available. Else I'd be hosting it as I do so many other files.