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Jan 30, 2004
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I remember reading somewhere that CK will model troops like English longbowmen and Mongol light cavalry in its battle system, or something along those lines. Also, that composition of the raised troops will depend on the region. Does that mean that if you raise a levy in Welsh you will get Longbowmen instead of archers, or archers but with better stats, or just that in Welsh you will get archers, as opposed to infantry and cavalry?
 
Quartz Arrow said:
I remember reading somewhere that CK will model troops like English longbowmen and Mongol light cavalry in its battle system, or something along those lines. Also, that composition of the raised troops will depend on the region. Does that mean that if you raise a levy in Welsh you will get Longbowmen instead of archers, or archers but with better stats, or just that in Welsh you will get archers, as opposed to infantry and cavalry?

The screen showed earlier would indiciate that there are seven unit classes (archers, medium infantry, spear/pikemen, militia, horse archers, medium cavalry, knights). As the battles aren't the focus of the game (like in M:TW) it wouldn't be very neccesary to model longbowmen/mongols as anything but extra skilled archers/horse archers.

And I suppose that's roughly how the system works, though you would probably get SOME infantry and cavalry too. Every Welshman wasn't an archer you know. ;)
 
actually, i hope u can get the province to produce only one type of unit if u so wish, for example if i want only cavalry for fast movement, i could try to increase the number of nobility in some province. Otherwise, even if its mostly cavalry, but a few infantry, the whole unit will be slowed down by the few footmen, which would kinda suck. i certainly hope theres some kind of control over this.
 
Im pretty sure you can do somthing like this by increasing the power of certain parties, as that picks the type of units raised when you call them..
 
anti_strunt said:
The screen showed earlier would indiciate that there are seven unit classes (archers, medium infantry, spear/pikemen, militia, horse archers, medium cavalry, knights). As the battles aren't the focus of the game (like in M:TW) it wouldn't be very neccesary to model longbowmen/mongols as anything but extra skilled archers/horse archers.

And I suppose that's roughly how the system works, though you would probably get SOME infantry and cavalry too. Every Welshman wasn't an archer you know. ;)

Since the screen also clearly showed which weapon was used it should be extremely simple to simulate welsh archers by just giving them the longbow (and since longbow was a difficult weapon you could give it extra hitting power to simulate skill of user).

Basically what you were saying - I just wanted to point out that weapon/armor combo is seemingly in as a differentiator..
 
Quartz Arrow said:
actually, i hope u can get the province to produce only one type of unit if u so wish, for example if i want only cavalry for fast movement, i could try to increase the number of nobility in some province. Otherwise, even if its mostly cavalry, but a few infantry, the whole unit will be slowed down by the few footmen, which would kinda suck. i certainly hope theres some kind of control over this.

Armies raised in feudal Europe were very rarely only cavalry, so you probably always get some minimum of infantry too. But you could always simply put all the infantry in a separate army and let the cavalry race ahead to whereever...
 
QA,

The region-based system appears to mean that you won't raise armies, other than mercenaries and possibly household troops, but call your vassals to host. They'd decide the composition.

Concievably, this means the Welsh would send a greater number of archers, the Knightly orders a greater number of horseman, etc.
 
Quartz Arrow said:
i dont think u can put horses and footmen in separate armies because regiments raised by ur vassals are indivisible.

Well, that would hardly make sense. Once the army was assembled it was organised by troop type, archers, infantry knights etc in their own units, not the duke of York's troops here and the count of Something's there... I certainly hope that's not true!
 
anti_strunt said:
Well, that would hardly make sense. Once the army was assembled it was organised by troop type, archers, infantry knights etc in their own units, not the duke of York's troops here and the count of Something's there... I certainly hope that's not true!

That may be so that when the army was fighting the troops were divided by type - but if the Duke of York left you can bet he took all of his troops with him. And he surely wouldn't let his valuable troops get out of sight for the entirety of the campaign...

This is another reason for why kings would want to use mercenaries or later 'national' armies - but even then the EU ability to divide armies into inf and cav was more of an exploit since most nations used combined arms (even the Poles)
 
Nikolai II said:
simple to simulate welsh archers by just giving them the longbow (and since longbow was a difficult weapon you could give it extra hitting power to simulate skill of user).

Gah!

'Long bows' are a modern and meaningless term. 110-pound ash/yew laminated 'long' bows have been found in bogs from the iron age(Vimose in DK). Some norwegian yew bows from around 1170 are of the same strength as the regular Mary Rose bows and so on and so on.

English longbowmen were special because:
1)They were fielded in large number
2)They were well trained for battlefield archery(french archers were better shots individually)

In the middle ages a bow was a bow; a 'hand' bow or 'self' bow against the 'lock' bow or 'cross' bow.

The different types of bow make absolutely no differense to the power of the arrow. The thing that matters is the draw strength and thus the propelling power for the arrow. A 110-pound 'long' bow, 'self' bow or composite bow firing the same type of shot with an archer equally skilled with his weapon are equally powerful. The problem is that it takes ages to become proficient with any bow, and hours to be acceptably good with a crossbow(or later musket).
 
"Long bow" did take more than skill, it took strength as well - just as the skeletons of knights can be recognized because their right arms are about an inch longer than the left then longbowmen are recognizable for the deformations upon chest (and maybe arms too? don't remember).

So "long bow" would have longer range that most bows since most bows had less pull, perhaps 80-100lbs whereas longbows had 80-150lbs. To be able to pull that much you needed regular exercise and a good diet, but being able to master that pull would lead to having both range and penetration superiority..

I guess that majority rules in which weapon a unit is 'using' only welsh units should have longbows.

Then perhaps a law could be enacted (strengthening yeomen, upsetting nobility, cost?) that demands that all free men shall spend a day a week for weaponpractice and that archery is the only sport in which it is legal to compete - and that law would make more counties use longbows..
 
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Nikolai II said:
So "long bow" would have longer range that most bows since most bows had less pull, perhaps 80-100lbs whereas longbows had 80-150lbs. To be able to pull that much you needed regular exercise and a good diet, but being able to master that pull would lead to having both range and penetration superiority..

As stated, the word is a modern term unapplicable to medieval times. The Mary Rose bows have an average draw strength of somewhere between 100 and 110lbs(est.), with a single spectacular example going up to 170lbs. The Vimose bows, from the 4th century AD, have draw strengths of (est.) between 90 and 110lbs(with the biggest at 130lbs), which in all likelyhood means there was someone capable of firing them. Of course a professional archer would be able to pull bigger bows, but the english longbow was not a special weapon or a new invention. It was simply a strong bow, made for a strong archer. The 'long bow' term is modern. Medieval english bowmen simply called their weapon 'bows'. The construction of straight bows, after one developed from flatbows to 'D' or round bows, changed little. The same can be said of composite bows and other laminates.

The training protocols for bowmen value the following qualities: ability to pull a strong bow, ability to follow the file leader(who did the aiming) and ability to fire as many arrows as possible in the shortest possible time. It wa this kind of training that made the english' archers special.

As for it being a welch speciality, it is true that the Welch had a reputation as archers, but 90% of the bowmen in 14th century english armies were not welch. They were englishmen, lowland scots and ocossionally foreign mercenaries.
 
What was the average strength for a horn bow...or maybe that isn't it, the kind of bow that is turned back upon itself....eh?
 
Endre Fodstad said:
As for it being a welch speciality, it is true that the Welch had a reputation as archers, but 90% of the bowmen in 14th century english armies were not welch. They were englishmen, lowland scots and ocossionally foreign mercenaries.

We can discuss the qualities of an English bow compared to a French bow all we want (boy I have read some long and usually boring discussions on that subject... :D ), but fact is Welsh and later English archers were known to be unusually good archers, so archer from there should get a bonus of some sort.
 
Well, I think it was just that so many people had the bows and used them since childhood...meh..
 
I have to say I totally agree with Endre posts, and just to reinforce his position I would like to add that "Welsh" archers are probably a myth, and that while long bows and arrows are frequently found in archaeological sites in England, Ireland and Scotland, they are conspicuosly absent in Wales.

Regarding bow performance, different arrows were used for different purposses, but I don´t expect CK to enter in such deep details. Overall however we have not to forget that the main factor in a bow performance was the archer, not the bow in itself.
 
Snall said:
What was the average strength for a horn bow...or maybe that isn't it, the kind of bow that is turned back upon itself....eh?

Composite(compound) bow is another common term for it, being made of bone/horn, a little wood and some sinews and glue iirc. (Although I think you meant 'recurved'

A quick search on the subject states (right or not) that the pull for 'mongol' bows was 80-160lbs, i.e. equalling that of the (nonexisting?) longbows, so I'm inclined to believe Endre as far as 'a bow is a bow and made to fit the man using it' :)
 
The first use of the longbow in England was not till the mid 13th century. Two hundred years after fighting the Welsh. Up till then the Normans had used the crossbow same as the continent had been doing. At the battle of Poitiers the Welsh fighting for England put a leek in their hats to differentiate themselves from the Welsh who also fought for the French crown that day.