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Mackyownsa said:

Orion said:

As soon as I started reading some of these replies, like: "I didn't know you could block a couched lance with a shield!" I started cracking up. Not only can you do it with a shield, you can do it with a weapon. The problem is, since there isn't an incoming attack, you randomly pick a direction to block. You just gotta get lucky and block a "bottom" attack (same as a sword or lance thrust).

Many people will disagree with me, simply because they either haven't done it, or just believe it can't be done.

It can.

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Uh, obviously 'we' are able to.  But a computer player doesn't block because of a couched lance.

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Please take note that he directed his post to the people who have mentioned that they didn't know you could use the shield to block a couched lance. The AI is never mentioned by him... So no need to come down on him like that.

Btw, I have couched a few shields, but only a few. I have hit them often enough but mostly they don't break, which can really be a pain since the enemy will often enough turn and direct his attention to you. Sitting still on your Heavy Charger with a lance in your hands is never a good thing, especially not when there is infantry around.
And I have even experienced an enemy parry my lance a couple times... That was how I found out about that. Naturally I raced online and asked questions and felt pretty stupified that a lowly Steppe Bandit could parry my Great Lance charge. But whenever I have tried to pary couched lances I end up dead or near it... I'm just notthat good at parrying it seems.

Professor Jumbo said:

one of them keeps yelling SOOOOPAAH GAAAI!!!! 

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Exchange the 'I' to a 'Y' and it is actually even funnier...


As if I'm the only one that has thought that.

Yeah... I can wait... I don't mind such small delays. Actually they are sort of comforting, they tell you that there is serious work being done, and that is always good.

Of course I might begin to get suspicious it the delays keep getting extended. But I have been here long enough to know that that is not how it goes, so I'm perfectly satisfied.

Well, one could easily imagine the ageold game idea of a noble requesting your aid to get his beautiful daughter home. That should be easy to implement.
But currently the people outside fights are horribly stagnant and boring. Such a quest at the given time wouldn't not really be much fun... Aside from the interesting differences from usual quests (fighting in winding stairways should be good fun).

I understand that comment to be something like "It is a serious attempt at looking historical, it just isn't."

But I would however say that Gladiator is 'more' accurate than Gibsonheart.

Yup, agreed.
When we became farmers we laid the seeds for war.

We bunched up very large groups, we began needing the land, much more than before (back then we could 'just' move to another place), and we also began owning stuff much more.
So if your farmland is less fertile than the next town over there... what then? Should they just sit back and relax while you labour day in out? In most cases it would be a simple 'yes'. But once in a while enough people would say 'no', and war would be the result.
Before there wasn't much incentive to going to war. There wasn't really anything to steal from the other tribe/pack, at best it could be a revenge for them killing what you believe is your game. But since you all migrate with the animals it is hardly something that was considered 'yours'. It would take a lot more than simple hunting the same ground to get the groups to fight.
They would of course fight... it is in the human nature to fight at times. But it wouldn't be war per se, and it would have been like that for ages and ages.

And a little nitpick.
Art came before the bow. A long time before it. Bows aren't considered older than ca. 10,000 BC (interestingly enough the same time the first agrarians came about), while art is more than 35,000 years old, perhaps as much as 45,000 years old.

Yes... lets make crossbowmen even better... They are after all so weak that they can barely beat Dark Hunters alone.

No. Pavises have been suggested a few times, and while perfectly historical I don't think they would be a good addition to the game currently. One could also easily imagine the AI having trouble with the pavises when used.

Well, who wouldn't like to be some 'famous' mercenary company?

Imagine the terrible and fearless Zendar/Catalan/White Company, Varangian Guard, Condottieri, Almugharvars, Landsknechts, Free Lances (guess where the term 'freelance jounalist' coems from) or any other such name. It would be nice indeed. At least I think so.

Yup... But if we don't get that tutorial we might not find out how the stab or overhead strike is done...

Also, how many here took some time to learn that you can un-aim the crossbow and un-nook the arrow by rightclicking? Well, lets just say that I was almost finished with my first crossbowman before I accidentally learned it. It mgiht have been faster with a bow, but still I was at times annoyed that aiming the crossbow was sort of locked until I shot it.

A minor thing to be sure, but still worth the time to be taught when you are new.

Are you currently working from Mongolia?

It isn't terribly often that I get to 'meet' mongolians so the curiosity is definately piqued.

Ah... a nice little tactic, if it hadn't been because the legionary himself would have buddies to his sides, actively engaging the spearmen. These spearmen would have trouble to change to a new target. A target that might very well pull out of range as soon as the shield is lost (and thus not kill the falxman, or perhaps just enough time to do that).
Also the legionary could do the opposite, and actually pull the falxman closer. It depends on who does what first. If that happened the spearmen, even if they were able to strike, would have one of their own blocking their venue of attack. Meanwhile the legionary would make short work of the defenseless falxman.

Generally warriors did not spend a lot of time on liberating their own equipment from troubles. Such as the Helvetii that didn't take the time to remove the pilumheads from their shields (which can as easily be said of the Germans and Gauls in the same campaign).

Do not forget that getting your weapon caught in something, was not good. Quite a few shields are speculated to be designed to actually snag the enemy weapon so that the attacker would be open to a strike. I don't know if this is a fact, but it has certainly been speculated on a lot, and does seem to have a basis.

Now I ask, where do you get the spearman/falxman combo, as anyting other than the flaxmen stiffening the more general spearmen, while the spearmen provided the falxmen with some defensive strength. But would hardly be much different from anywhere else, and could as easily be accidental. As a lot of cultures had leading individuals in the society lead less well armed persons into combat. Hence giving them a sort of swordman/spearman look to outsiders.

Well, the arms-race, if you can date it to that (I doubt that people began using bows becasuse another tribe was more powerful with them), was started long before. From the pointed heavy rock in our early ancestors' hands, to a club, over the heavy spear, to the thrown huntingspear, to the atlatl... And a lot in between.

Wow... You learn something new each day.
Today I have learned that flails can look a bit crazy, but still be historical.

Yes, using ranged weapons is easy enough. But it is the tutorial itself that is fun.

It is a great challenge, without being impossible, to go through the melee tutorial in the cellar. I like to go to the champion level before doign anything else, at least I try.

Nice flail indeed, it looks very vicious.

However, I would like to know if it is a historical flail. For the spikes seem a bit long and thin. Easily able to snag on the owner (making using it a bit harder) and more likely to break/bend in striking something solid.

I'm not saying it isn't historical, just that I would like to see the background for this version.

Eogan said:

Tarrak said:

But even braked clay bullets were dangerous... very dangerous. The most feared Aztec weapon, among Cortez' men, was the sling. It killed men through their helmets at least, don't know if it killed through their breastplates though (doubt it).

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Err... I thought that was the Atlatl.

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Could be... But the sling had several advantages over the Atlatl which makes it less likely to me.

But we could of course just demote it (the sling) to "one of the most feared weapons". I could easily have messed that up for "most feared weapon" since I'm a bit of a slingophile.

brasidus said:

(which I have a hard time believing as it would be rather hard to get people to be in the first line then).

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Are you familiar with the Napoleonic or U.S. Civil war where men would satnd for over a half an hour refilling ranks as cannon splattered large swathes through them??
Warfare brings out inherantly unnatural behaviours.

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Of course I am... But the ACW is particularly known for its crazy lossrates for some units. However a lot of units didn't suffer much, even for the losers (or those who suffered the worst losses). Also, at that point it was only slightly more safe to stand in the third rank than the first because of the cannons (which were the real killers).
Even in WWI the units that went over the top tended to not get wiped out. They suffered bad losses, but the majority of the soldiers were able to return to their trenches. Localized it mgiht eb really bad, but then in other places the survivability would be much greater. Meaning it would be a chancy game, not a dead fact.

However getting to grips in a melee between two armies of medieval troops would be a different animal alltogeher. There the deeper rows would be fairly safe (unless the enemy pumped arrows/javelins/whatever into the grind). Meanwhile the frontlines seem (from reenactment) to be much more lethal. To the point that standing there was equal to death or debilitating wounding.
That also brings the interesting point of many very long battles not really having that many losses... How is that possible if the melee was wild and deadly from first contact.
I mean if they truly were that deadly, most battles should be over in a matter of minutes, not hours or even days (sometimes).

Btw, the Talhoffer series you presented was cool in that it showed a duel. However, how fast did they go through their moves? And even if it was fast it seems to be more like a minute than 3-5 seconds. And a minute is long (to me at least). Also in a duel each opponent would have a much greater ability to maneuver around each other. Focussing on the other combatant only. In a battle you would have to contend with more than one enemy (even if they seem to be occupied you can't be certain that their weapon might not end up in your face) at a time and not being able to move about too much.

Defensive formations such as shield walls seems terribly redundant if people went crazy in battles. In fact they seem downright stupid.
I know that such formations later vanished, but it still doesn't seem as if losses become proportionally higher in general (until reliable guns came along). So perhaps battles weren't really that deadly for the individual soldier in the front rank, if still somewhat dangerous in general.

I don't know why these things don't add up, I have my ideas of course but since I don't reenact I won't blurt them out as I might have a lot of things wrong about that.

kid_a said:

So why don't lances break? Seems that was just something that was a normality during battle.
There's just no way that little popsicle stick's going to stand up to the repeated skewering of 15 dark knights.

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There is a line for durability of weapons in the code, but it seems that it isn't used right now, or perhaps it can't be used... I don't know. But it is clear that armagan intended for weapons to fail after some time it seems, and for some reason he hasn't been able to implement it.

Just want to point out that the little LotR guy is not wearing what I would like to wear, or even see. That is why I say cloak/cape as I would prefer something a little shorter (not to the ground). It was just the principle itself I liked.
Some loose tunicsleeve (as was terribly popular in northern Germany and Scadinavia in the late 1100s, or one of the many various cloth coverings for armour could be grabbed as well. No doubt it happened, but still people used them for the visual effects.

And I believe Destichado made a good point.

Ezias said:

Kekkuli said:

why are we fighting about this.. bow and sling are two totally different weapon and both have its owns uses and advantages and disadvantaged

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hehe, exactly what i was about to say.

I seem to recall being told that the Roman legions under Caesar had some units the were exclusively slingers -- and they were very prestigious as well. (Please correct me if I'm wrong btw).  An arrow might bounce off a persons helmet, but I think that a cast lead bullet (what i was told they often used, and it was almond shaped) is much more likely to stick -- denting the helmet into the head, and oftentimes cracking the skull. I would think that a cracked skull will take you out of the action.

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Yup, lead was among the most common materials used for bullets.
The famous 'Take that' bullet is in fact of lead. It is called that because it has been stamped with the words 'take that' in ancient Greek. While other lead bullets carry such comments as 'catch' or 'ouch', whatever the slinger could think of that could fit the bullet.

The Greeks hated the slingers more than they hated archers. Slingers could kill a hoplite though his aspis and his helmet. If said hoplite wore bodyarmour behind the shield is less certain (wearing armour was not a certainty from around 430BC-370BC as mobility became a huge issue), but shields were indeed broken by slings. How many shields have been broken by arrows?
Also the wounds the bullets would cause were absolutely horrible. They would bury themselves inside the body, dragging the skin with it, causing it the wound to cave in on itself, effectively closing it. It was generally feared, not just because it was more lethal, but because it caused more debilitating wounds in general.

Also, one should not forget that a small lead bullet (rather small) in a relatively flat trajectory, is terribly hard to spot, while a nice long arrow will be rather visible against the background of the sky, even more so if the arrows are shot in volleys. The flatter trajectory of the bullet of course increases the chances of a hit in a formation of enemies (miss the first rank? No probs, the next or the one after that will take it).

But even braked clay bullets were dangerous... very dangerous. The most feared Aztec weapon, among Cortez' men, was the sling. It killed men through their helmets at least, don't know if it killed through their breastplates though (doubt it).

The real problem the sling face was the need to 'feel' the weapon. There is no obvious aiming with it as there is with short and recurve bows (longbows not included). So in general slingers need more practice than their archer counterparts. And the room needed for the sling didn't make that better in times when compact formations became more and more important, while skirmishing before battles became less and less important. And the sling was the ultimate skirmishing weapon (the Balearic and Rhodian slingers continually outskirmished their archer/javelineer opponents)... So it is understandable that the sling declined in use, though it did see some use in the medieval period, especially the staff-sling.

However only an idiot or complete novice would injure himself or allies with a sling, just like an archer. That, however, is not a point that is worth mentioning. It is like saying a rifle is bad because of it's inherent danger to friend and user alike. Or a sword... or anything really.