Recruitable Unit Rebalance Version 7.51 Released.

[Endoperez]

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.

[Alneyan]

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)

[Sandman]

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.

[Endoperez]

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.

[wombatsSAR]

BigDaddy said:
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)."

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.

[wombatsSAR]

BigDaddy said:

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.

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.

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.

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.

[wombatsSAR]

Endoperez said:
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.

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.

[wombatsSAR]

BigDaddy said:
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 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.

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

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.

[BigDaddy]

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?

[Arryn]

Endoperez said:
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.

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.