The musketman unit

[Strategist83]

Originally posted by Dr Zoidberg
The longbow was used in battle as late as 1642 during the english civil war.

The classical medieval knight disapeared after the gunpowder made it entrance in the 16th century. It was also affected by the change in society as the knight was a product of the feudal system. As Europe gradually became a continent of nation states the knight was rendered obsolete.

Am I the only one who finds the musketman to be rather weak in the game? With just nine strength and no defensive bonuses, it is only marginally better than the longbowman at defending cities and is in fact no better at all if the city is situated on a hill (due to the 25% hills defense bonus). Granted, the musketman fares better in open terrain, but is still cut in half by knights - which is contradictory to history itself, if we are to believe Dr Zoidberg.

I am almost tempted to simply skip the musketman altogether and go straight for the riflemen or grenadiers who are right around the corner anyway.

What do you think of the musketman unit?

[Badtz Maru]

I think it would be good for them to have a bonus vs. mounted units. I think they should also be significantly cheaper than longbowmen since they required a lot less training.

[GeoModder]

Muskets cheaper then longbowmen? Granted that the latter had to almost train a lifetime, but the first guns themself were far from cheap.

[drtechno]

Umm.. I don't think musketmen should have a bonus against knights or mounted units as mounted cavalry should be able to rip through early musketmen because of 1) shock effect of mounted troops 2) reload time on the early musket meaning that you got off maybe one inaccurate volley before you got slaughtered by mounted units 3) inaccuracy and short range of the early musket 4) given points 1,2 & 3, getting the musket men to hold the line without retreating (when facing a mounted charge) would be very difficult.

I agree with the relative cheapness factor relative to mounted units tho.

[Zoid]

Since musketmen could some serious damage against knights IRL I´d think it´s only fair that they get a bonus against mounted units. But musketmen were only really sucessful in large numbers. After all it took some time to reload the musket and if you missed, the knight(s) would have time to advance on you and turn you into shish kebab.

I don´t think this can be solved adequatly in the game so maybe that´s why you have to stack your musketmen with pikemen. That´s how it worked IRL.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by GeoModder
Muskets cheaper then longbowmen? Granted that the latter had to almost train a lifetime, but the first guns themself were far from cheap.

The vast majority of the money spent on training a soldier goes towards training, not equipment. It took years of training to be effective with a longbow. England was able to field a lot of them because the law required that members of the yeoman class practice with them regularly.

Here's what I was able to find regarding the prices of Medieval and Early Modern military gear. Note that a musket cost 16-18 shillings in the mid-17th century, which was a lot of money but nowhere near the cost of most armor at the time. It's a little less than a month's pay for a typical infantry grunt in the late 16th century (I couldn't find pay rates for mid-17th century but I'm sure it's not much higher).

Today it costs over $50,000 to train a soldier in the US army, and that only takes a couple of months. It took a lot longer to train someone to use a longbow.

[Proteus_MST]

Re: The musketman unit

Originally posted by Strategist83


Am I the only one who finds the musketman to be rather weak in the game? With just nine strength and no defensive bonuses, it is only marginally better than the longbowman at defending cities and is in fact no better at all if the city is situated on a hill (due to the 25% hills defense bonus). Granted, the musketman fares better in open terrain, but is still cut in half by knights - which is contradictory to history itself, if we are to believe Dr Zoidberg.

I am almost tempted to simply skip the musketman altogether and go straight for the riflemen or grenadiers who are right around the corner anyway.

What do you think of the musketman unit?

AFAIK (although doing a little bit more damage) muskets were much less accurate than longbows and therefore could use only on relatively short distances (and even longbows could, with Bodkin-Arrowheads penetrate a platemail without much problems [especially as, in terms of saving weigth the thickness of the platemail was limited and was thickest only at some vulnerable spots whereas at other places the armor was much thinner] and the protection of other forms of armor, especially chainmail against Bidkin-Arrowheads was only minimal).
The only real advantage was, that the amount of training top master the musket ware minimal compared to the amount of training you needed to be fast and accurate with the longwbow (which is why in england the men were trained from childhood on in the art of archery [and which is why an english king forbade some sports [AFAIR soccer] because he believed it kept his citizens from training archery).

So I think that it is O.K., that musketmen aren´t that far away from longbowmen in terms of strength.

[zombielordzero]

historicly speaking:

what you guys are forgetting is that the crossbow (at its height) out-ranged both the longbow and the early musket, and was far more accurate, but took a long time to reload. the crossbow was what made knights obselete ( knights (expencive) charging crossbows (cheep) ment dead knights) only when the flintlock and rifleing came into play did the musket finaly out-class the crossbow.

and lets not forget the only weapon to be banned by the pope was the crossbow (because a pesant could kill a knight/lord in the best armor anyone could build)

[Zoid]

It wasn´t a single thing that made knights obsolete, but rather a combination of things. The crossbow was one of them. And IIRC it was only forbidden for peasants to own crossbows.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by zombielordzero
historicly speaking:

what you guys are forgetting is that the crossbow (at its height) out-ranged both the longbow and the early musket, and was far more accurate, but took a long time to reload. the crossbow was what made knights obselete ( knights (expencive) charging crossbows (cheep) ment dead knights) only when the flintlock and rifleing came into play did the musket finaly out-class the crossbow.

and lets not forget the only weapon to be banned by the pope was the crossbow (because a pesant could kill a knight/lord in the best armor anyone could build)

Jep, the rate of fire of a crossbow was its main disadvantage.
In 1 minute a trained longbowmen could release 10 arrows, whereas a crossbowmen would only have a rate of fire of 1 bolt /minute.
Also the standard tactics for longbows was barrage fire, devastating a large area with indirect fire (rather than having each archer targetting an individual enemy), whereas a crossbow is rather a direct fire weapon and couldn´t be used this way.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Dr Zoidberg
It wasn´t a single thing that made knights obsolete, but rather a combination of things. The crossbow was one of them. And IIRC it was only forbidden for peasants to own crossbows.

It was banned by the pope to use them against christs (no matter if it were soldiers who used them or ordinary peasant).

But it was allowed to use them against heathens (therefore every soldier who wasn´t christian ) making them a good weapon for the crusades .

[Zoid]

Right. I knew that now that you mention it...

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by Badtz Maru
The vast majority of the money spent on training a soldier goes towards training, not equipment. It took years of training to be effective with a longbow. England was able to field a lot of them because the law required that members of the yeoman class practice with them regularly.

I know my history, thank you. In fact I said precisely this regarding the longbow men.

Originally posted by Badtz Maru Note that a musket cost 16-18 shillings in the mid-17th century, which was a lot of money but nowhere near the cost of most armor at the time. It's a little less than a month's pay for a typical infantry grunt in the late 16th century (I couldn't find pay rates for mid-17th century but I'm sure it's not much higher).

I was more thinking of the very first guns, those in the 15th and perhaps early 16 century. Those could only be afforded by the nobleman then (aside from nations arming their soldiers of course).
For the rest, granted that the cost decreased enough to field them enmass later on.

[zombielordzero]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST


Jep, the rate of fire of a crossbow was its main disadvantage.
In 1 minute a trained longbowmen could release 10 arrows, whereas a crossbowmen would only have a rate of fire of 1 bolt /minute.
Also the standard tactics for longbows was barrage fire, devastating a large area with indirect fire (rather than having each archer targetting an individual enemy), whereas a crossbow is rather a direct fire weapon and couldn´t be used this way.

and yet in-game the longbowman doesnt have this ability (barrage). if this was put in, it might just make stacks of death less of an issue, and give both the long-bowman and room for a crossbow unit their own place in anchient era warfare

[GeoModder]

Longbows were defensive in nature. You can reflect that ingame to the promotions you give them, on top of their inbuilt abilities.