Archers

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Austin
re: Agincourt.

The bowmen did NOT win this battle singlehandedly by massed arrows mowing down frenchmen as if they were machine guns or something, that's a common urban legend.

What really decided that battle was the fact that the French tried to cram a whole bunch of men into a small space. The English cleverly picked a defensive position bracketed on either side by forest that was just big enough for their army. The French tried to squeeze a much larger army into the same space, and their men wound up getting in each others way so much that the English could easily pick them off.

The effect that the arrows did have is it encouraged the Frenchmen in the rear ranks to try and press forward (along with the natural desire of a medieval man of war to get into the fray). This meant the men in the front ranks facing the English were getting tripped up by the men behind them, and the English could spear them with their lances as they floundered around.

Re-run Agincourt in an open field and the English would have been destroyed.

Austin

Yes, yes, yes I know!

The Archers helped demoralize the oncoming knights through the bottleneck. When the English light infantry raced forward and slaughtered them, the rest of the French retreated and everyone behind them ran away also. I'm not advocating every one of the 5,000 French casualties had an arrow through their chest... I was simply stating that the main cause of the English victory was the weather, terrain, and troop types.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Zurai001
They were far from synonymous. Only the English ever fielded longbowmen, and because longbows required far more extensive training than crossbows or shortbows, they never fielded very many. Almost the entirity of the English longbowmen troops were drawn from Welsh hunters who had been using a bow since their childhood. Everyone else used crossbowmen; less effective, much cheaper and more plentiful.

What I meant is synonymous in the way they were used, not what they were. They were used for the same purpose, only the English Longbowmen had much greater range, and penetrating power.

[The Rook]

It's obvious either you can't read, are stoopid, or both.

As I said, I am not debating military history. We are talking game mechanics. You created this thread. You were looking for opinions, or so I thought. Maybe you were just lloking for a pat on the back so we can all see how much of a genius you are.

Yes, if you can fire an arrow 1500 yds away, you could probably hit the trench. Of course, me being smarter than you would put something over the trench to render it useless. You would then have to go get a proper bombardment device to kill me.

Try looking up bombard in the dictionary. If you STILL can't understand why arrows are not bombardment devices, then I give up.

As far as your "you play your way, I'll play my way" remark. Read my very first post on this thread. I was not in the least beligerent until you rolled your eyes at me. So quit your whining. 75% of the people on this forum are "well-versed" in military knowledge. It's not a big deal really. You don't get a cookie.

[Jon Shafer]

Yes, I was looking for opinions. Not "this is the way things work if you don't agree you're stupid".

Look up "bombard"? Okay, I did.

Definition of "bombard", courtesy of Dictionary.com:

bom·bard Pronunciation Key (bm-bärd, bm-)
tr.v. bom·bard·ed, bom·bard·ing, bom·bards

To attack with bombs, shells, or missiles.

Definition of "missile":

mis·sile Pronunciation Key (msl, -l)
n.

An object or weapon that is fired, thrown, dropped, or otherwise projected at a target; a projectile.

Hmmm. Can we agree that an arrow is a projectile?

Just because I included a smiley doesn't mean I'm trying to pick a fight. When people are trying to teach me how the battle of Agincourt went, then I feel free to respond telling them that I already know how it went. I wasn't even talking to you...

If you want to be immature and flame go ahead. I don't really care, I asked for opinions. I didn't ask for someone to teach me about their interpretation of game mechanics. You have your opinion on how it should be, and so do I. Are you incapable of accepting that? Do you have to "beat me"? Look, I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm trying to defend my position. If you aren't able to argue over something like this without flaming me, then please quit responding.

[Catt]

Imbalancing for the Human Player?

My biggest concern when modding is to avoid creating imbalances between human and AI -- particularly mods that will only be effectively utilized by the human against the AI.

So my question to those of you who have modded the archer and/or longbowman to be bombard units -- has the AI used them as bombard units effectively, or is this just another arrow in the quiver of the human player's tactical options (so to speak ).

Catt

[The Rook]

Originally posted by Trip
Yes, I was looking for opinions. Not "this is the way things work if you don't agree you're stupid".

Look up "bombard"? Okay, I did.

Definition of "bombard", courtesy of Dictionary.com:

bom·bard Pronunciation Key (bm-bärd, bm-)
tr.v. bom·bard·ed, bom·bard·ing, bom·bards

To attack with bombs, shells, or missiles.

Definition of "missile":

mis·sile Pronunciation Key (msl, -l)
n.

An object or weapon that is fired, thrown, dropped, or otherwise projected at a target; a projectile.

Hmmm. Can we agree that an arrow is a projectile?

Just because I included a smiley doesn't mean I'm trying to pick a fight. When people are trying to teach me how the battle of Agincourt went, then I feel free to respond telling them that I already know how it went. I wasn't even talking to you...

If you want to be immature and flame go ahead. I don't really care, I asked for opinions. I didn't ask for someone to teach me about their interpretation of game mechanics. You have your opinion on how it should be, and so do I. Are you incapable of accepting that? Do you have to "beat me"? Look, I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm trying to defend my position. If you aren't able to argue over something like this without flaming me, then please quit responding.

You WERE talking to me, you directly quoted me, and it had nothing to do with the battle of Agincourt. Smiley's are just like body language. They carry meaning, and if you dont mean what they imply, you shouldn't use them. Putting that aside.

An arrow could be defined as a missile, yes. But, so are bullets. Musketmen, riflemen, and infantry should have bombard values too then. Spit balls are missiles too, so you could make a unit of school children with bombard values. Your argument seems to be that because longbowmen arc their arrows, they should have bombard values. As the dictionary points out, bombardment has nothing to do with arcing.

The weapons that Civ3 gives bombardment values to are all weapons that have greater range and damage than arrows. even the fabled longbowmen at Agincourt were firing at units that could have enganged them if it weren't for other factors. That is why Archers need pikemen to protect them.

IMHO archers in Civ3 function as intended.

I am not trying to convince you you are wrong. What I am saying is the developers defined bombard to be units that carry some weight behind it. This is obvious in the fact that bombardment can destroy terrain improvements. Arrows are not effective at doing that.

You can change your archers if you like, but you asked for opinions and I gave you mine. That's all I have to say.

[hetairoi22]

Definition of "bombard", courtesy Mirriam Webster Dictionary

Main Entry: 2bom·bard
Pronunciation: bäm-'bärd also b&m-
Function: transitive verb
Date: 1686
1 : to attack especially with artillery or bombers
2 : to assail vigorously or persistently (as with questions)
3 : to subject to the impact of rapidly moving particles (as electrons)
synonym see ATTACK
- bom·bard·ment /-m&nt/ noun

See, it really helps to look in the right dictionary

[Zachriel]

I think we're being "bombarded" with too much information.

[Jon Shafer]

Bad joke aside...

It is true that there is no really good way to simulate Archers' bombardment in Civ, but I feel that this gives the best feel of realism. Maybe Archers couldn't really destroy roads with arrows (fire or not), but units can't really move infinitly with railroads for free either, can they? A better way would be to change things to "ranged fire" and "melee attack" or something, but that's waaaay to complex to ever see in Civ. Maybe a better way would simply to give Archers a bombard range of 0, and leave it at that. However, I feel that detracts from the "softening up" purpose of Archers and Longbowmen.

And @ hetairoi22. Ya don't keep searching for a definition of a word until you find the meaning you want. Sheesh ya bum. Reminds me of the old saying: "Figures don't lie, but liars will figure."

[Zachriel]

The softening up can be simulated easily by moving the archer's movement to after the attack. If the archer is in a city, it would attack the adjacent enemy unit, then the spacebar could end the turn, rather than the archer moving out into the open. In open combat, the archers attack from within the stack and postpone their movement, the footmen clean up any enemy survivers and move into the newly opened map square. Finally the archers follow.

[Jethro83]

I don't mind the idea of archers providing bombardment. I think that maybe bombardment should be divided into two categories. The bombardment of units, and the bombardment of terrain/city improvements. Both archer and catapult should have both abilities, but one does it better than the other.

The archer should have stronger bombardment against units, and weaker bombardment against improvements. The catapult should have stronger bombardment against improvements and weaker bombardment against units. The longbow should probably then upgrade into a field cannon at Metallurgy, while the catapult upgrades into the Trebuchet at Invention, and then the Trebuchet should upgrade into a bombard cannon at Metallurgy. Then both should upgrade to Artillery, and then both categories merge.

Just my opinion about bombardment.

[The Rook]

If you could convince Firaxis to make terrain destruction optional, then I could see having bombard for archers. I dont agree with the multiple rate of fire, and higher movement rates though.

I think my biggest beef with the archer/bombard idea is the "softening" up aspect. Arrows are great for softening up units in the open, but they are poor at softening up entrenched units. Bombarding a city with an archer could have some effect, if they were using fire arrows, but historically, how effective were flaming arrows? I am more inclined to beleive that flaming arrows find more use in Hollywood than they do in the history books. I am not an expert on historical archery though. Still, flaming or not, arrows can be defeated easily by a good solid fortification, and this makes bombardment inappropriate for them.

[Jon Shafer]

Perhaps the XP will give more options. *Crosses his fingers*

I can sooner see Archers firing off a quick volley doing 1 or 2 points of damage to a unit, then directly engaging it and destroying it outright. The destruction of improvements I feel is an acceptable side-effect, being that units can pillage them away anyways. Oh well.

*Gets back to modding Aanar's great Europe map*

Let's hope the XP and editor are better than they are now.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Trip
Yes, I was looking for opinions. Not "this is the way things work if you don't agree you're stupid".

Look up "bombard"? Okay, I did.

Definition of "bombard", courtesy of Dictionary.com:

bom·bard Pronunciation Key (bm-bärd, bm-)
tr.v. bom·bard·ed, bom·bard·ing, bom·bards

To attack with bombs, shells, or missiles.

Definition of "missile":

mis·sile Pronunciation Key (msl, -l)
n.

An object or weapon that is fired, thrown, dropped, or otherwise projected at a target; a projectile.

Hmmm. Can we agree that an arrow is a projectile?

So, we should also count every gunpowder unit as a bombardment unit?

The Civ3 designers obviously weren't using such a broad definition when they designated abilities...

[nato]

Well, giving archers bombard is just an attempt to give combat more variety and interest, using existing tools.

But bombard wasn't intended to represent arrows, so as the Rook points out very well, it is not at all a perfect fit.

Bombarding archers work great in the field against units ... but then they can destroy terrain improvements and hurt units fortified in fortresses, which clearly archers should not be able to do.

So it is just a question of which is more valuable to you:
1. More interesting and maybe even more accurate field combat
or
2. Stricter realism - archers should not be able to destroy terrain improvements and hit units in fortresses

Its a trade off, and each one has a benefit. If bombarding archers adds a lot of fun for you, it is worth the loss of realism in that archers' arrows are now doing things they shouldn't be able to. If super-power-arrows destroys the realism of the game to you, then the extra fun of bombarding archers is not worth it.

So both can be correct.

And to heck with Agincort! Its about to go on my list with Rorke's Drift and Marc Antony culture flipping as annoying aberrations...