Recruitable Unit Rebalance Version 7.51 Released.

[BigDaddy]

wombatsSAR said:

. . .Sim: xbows blow away everything else in terms of sheer hitting power. At least the steel variety. . .

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.

[BigDaddy]

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.

[Saber Cherry]

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

Thanks for the suggestions! I've never played Conquerers of the Seas

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...

Code:

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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

---

[Saber Cherry]

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?

[Arralen]

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 )

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

.

[Sandman]

With regards to Woodsmen, when and how do you use them?

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.

[Saber Cherry]

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?

[Boron]

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 .

[BigDaddy]

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.

[BigDaddy]

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.