Equipment

[Andrew]

Classifying archers ruins the surprise though, and means you know more precisely what you're going up against.

[WVH]

Which also brings me to my suggestion- can we separate archers into classes?

I would agree with the archer suggestion.  Scouts should be able to tell if archers are cloth/bow or if they are heavy armored with swords/bows.  Would those not be what Battlemaster considered mixed infantry?  I realize that the real world use of heavy armor with archers was minimal... other than breast/back plates and helms.  Anything that restricted arm movement would restrict how many shots could be fired.

Add in a short sword however and you have a unit that can fire off a couple of shots then act as reinforcements for the infantry.

But what is a better name than mixed infantry?  *edit* Velites? That refers to use of javelins but could be adapted to any ranged/close combat combinations?  It would at least give an idea to the other side to expect more ranged weapons in battle.

[Weaver]

I think javelins are easy enough to conceal, after all, these guys are supposed to bring wagons and stuff for logistics. But an archer deployed in heavy armor is easy to distinguish from a dude in peasant clothing and a ranged weapon. Maybe by the same logic, it would be hard to tell if they are shielded or not, since they could carry the shields on the transports or on their back.

[De-Legro]

Ah, I see. That makes it a lot more intuitive. I myself was always under the impression that shortswords only mattered if the combatant lost his main weapon, or that it, for example, doesn't affect anything in the ranged phase. Very interesting. I would very much love to be part of the theoretical project to gather this data and start an in game war academy of sorts. I recently found out that horses, which surely you can remember I hated, are actually... kinda good. Kinda really good. Damn good.

I long operated under a doctrine where I ignored horses. I liked my heavy infantry, cause they don't care if I am charging walls, defending walls, beating up people. Minimal archer support. I think in 20 battles more or less. I never captured a noble, or killed one. Hurt, yes. Then the first time I field cavalry, and voila.

I would very much like to test pure cavalry and pure archer armies, to see what exactly they can do against the standard combinations of infantry to figure out what exactly is going on. I do think that it is possible with enough soldiers, to find out about all the details equipment provides.

Which also brings me to my suggestion- can we separate archers into classes? I did know that Archers with a shortsword are crazy good, but I always figured it was up to their experience. I also knew about archers with a shield performed quite a bit better than pure archers. I think it is a difference big enough that it warrants classing archers as heavy or light. Maybe even add a sort of 'assault' class for archers with shields, or just call them 'pavise archers'.

I got a bit off the rails there- how do you suggest we start this project to accumulate the data we need?

My problem with such testing is we end up with too many "optimal" forces. Take archers for example. While shields might not seem logical, they are plentiful and once you know of the advantage they confer it is hard not to take them.

[Weaver]

They already take a ton of time to recruit. I ain't putting shields on my archers even if it made them all the Emperor of Mankind or Primarchs. That or an Atlas mech.

They should be happy if they get armor at all.

[Tom]

Everything in the game is a trade-off. When I have lots of time and no war in sight, I recruit with good equipment. When there is action, I recruit minimum equipment troops, send them into a battle or two and then retrain the survivors with better equipment after.

Oh, and I'll add "armored archer" as a class.

[Weaver]

Awesome! That should work.

[Roran Hawkins]

A little input about archers from a historical point of view from an amateur historian;


Archers generally could be divided into two categories; levies with bows and professional archers. The former are what you probably have in mind; people who can shoot bows that you draft for war that will run at the first contact with the enemy. The latter however are professional soldiers. Professional light infantry that excell with their bows or missile weapons, but are not a one trick pony for sure. They often had very good quality armour and would not shy away from a melee fight, provided that it was not standing up to a cavalry charge on a flat open field. The most commonly cited example would be the English longbows descending on the French dismounted chivalry stuck in the knee-deep mud at Agincourt like packs of wolves after firing their arrows point-blank into their ranks.


I know for example that in the English armies of around 1370-1410 there were generally speaking only archers and men-at-arms on the payroll, aside from knights and nobles. The archers were paid the least, but still a respectable sum (would have to look it up again to give numbers, sources and more context in general). The men-at-arms were paid a bit more than that, and were expected to bring varying forms of 'heavy' equipment. It should be noted in this case that very often archers would try to join the payroll as men-at-arms for the additional income by gathering the necessary armour and equipment, which they would undoubtedly also use.


In history there's often been both and mixed forms of these. Not all professional archers were necessarily well-equipped or heavily armoured (a quick glance at Arabic and Eastern cultures in general), nor all unprofessional ones were shy from melee combat (town militias in some cases).


Translated to M&F; Would these be easy to distinguish? Well, how easy would it be to distinguish professional soldiery compared to relatively unwilling men on campaign? Remember that actually fighting is such a little part in a soldier's life, and that wearing armour on the march is something only done when fearing ambush or when deep in enemy territory, making that argument moot in most cases. Recognizing a professional fighting force from a less organised one however, is not too difficult.




Disclaimer; take my words with a grain of salt. An amateur historian is me.

[De-Legro]

A little input about archers from a historical point of view from an amateur historian;


Archers generally could be divided into two categories; levies with bows and professional archers. The former are what you probably have in mind; people who can shoot bows that you draft for war that will run at the first contact with the enemy. The latter however are professional soldiers. Professional light infantry that excell with their bows or missile weapons, but are not a one trick pony for sure. They often had very good quality armour and would not shy away from a melee fight, provided that it was not standing up to a cavalry charge on a flat open field. The most commonly cited example would be the English longbows descending on the French dismounted chivalry stuck in the knee-deep mud at Agincourt like packs of wolves after firing their arrows point-blank into their ranks.


I know for example that in the English armies of around 1370-1410 there were generally speaking only archers and men-at-arms on the payroll, aside from knights and nobles. The archers were paid the least, but still a respectable sum (would have to look it up again to give numbers, sources and more context in general). The men-at-arms were paid a bit more than that, and were expected to bring varying forms of 'heavy' equipment. It should be noted in this case that very often archers would try to join the payroll as men-at-arms for the additional income by gathering the necessary armour and equipment, which they would undoubtedly also use.


In history there's often been both and mixed forms of these. Not all professional archers were necessarily well-equipped or heavily armoured (a quick glance at Arabic and Eastern cultures in general), nor all unprofessional ones were shy from melee combat (town militias in some cases).


Translated to M&F; Would these be easy to distinguish? Well, how easy would it be to distinguish professional soldiery compared to relatively unwilling men on campaign? Remember that actually fighting is such a little part in a soldier's life, and that wearing armour on the march is something only done when fearing ambush or when deep in enemy territory, making that argument moot in most cases. Recognizing a professional fighting force from a less organised one however, is not too difficult.




Disclaimer; take my words with a grain of salt. An amateur historian is me.

What is your point? In M&F Heavy Infantry can be green levies as well. We look to equipment as something we can measure for a general sense of effectiveness, there is no reason Archers should not be categories in a similar method to infantry. One might question if armour is the defining category though, or if the type of bow is more important.

[Roran Hawkins]

What is your point? In M&F Heavy Infantry can be green levies as well. We look to equipment as something we can measure for a general sense of effectiveness, there is no reason Archers should not be categories in a similar method to infantry. One might question if armour is the defining category though, or if the type of bow is more important.

I lost my point halfway through as well. I think it was about scouts discerning heavy from light archers.

[De-Legro]

I lost my point halfway through as well. I think it was about scouts discerning heavy from light archers.

They discern light/medium/heavy infantry, light/heavy cav. I think it is well established that our scouts are capable of discerning the armour of their opponents from a reasonable distance.

[Tom]

Experience is largely underrated in comments that I read, but is actually quite important, especially for high-level equipment. With a spear and shield, yeah ok. But if you are equipped like a knight without the training vs. an actual trained knight - big difference.

[De-Legro]

Experience is largely underrated in comments that I read, but is actually quite important, especially for high-level equipment. With a spear and shield, yeah ok. But if you are equipped like a knight without the training vs. an actual trained knight - big difference.

I am more then happy for other realms to continue to do this.

[Weaver]

Tom: Do the various things we can equip on soldiers affect only two stats, in the way of offense or defense, or are there more? Perhaps knowing just the names of those stats could help us pick our equipment better. Recall when I said that people pick shield cause it seems to be the cheapest and best choice. I know you mentioned that a heavy infantryman can't catch a horseman, like a Noble. And I noticed a greater amount of surrenders when attacking with Archers, and sometimes with cavalry too.

Is that just my imagination, or are there more 'stats' or abilities running under the hood?

[Tom]

There are a couple more stats that are dynamic during the combat, like morale or number of attacks dealt, all the small parts necessary to run a simulation somewhat realistically. For example, the reason you see lone nobles escaping from 500 men is that they simply can't all attack him at the same time. So the first row catches up with him and gives him some slashes and then he runs away. It's not like he would wait until surrounded.

As said in another topic, shields really are good. I use them a lot myself. But they are not superior to every other choice, it all depends. Mass javelin attacks have shown to be really devastating, while a few javelins are less effective.

In addition to stats, there are also a lot of individual effects. The game actually looks at your equipment to determine if you get away or are caught up with and attacked during the pursuit phase. It also looks at your ATTACKERS equipment. Horses are really, really good in pursuit, both when you want to get away and when you want to catch them. But also if you throw away your weapon or equipment depends on what it is. Shields drop more easily than short swords because they are so cumbersome.

So there is quite a bit going on. I think I should write up a short surface summary without too many technical details - once I find a bit of time.