Archers

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by zulu9812


The main reason why the Zulus won at Isandlwana was this: the Zulus leaned that by turning their shields at a 45 degrees the british rifleman coudn't penetrate those shields, since the thickness increased with the diagonal slant, stoppong a bullet until close range - by which time it was too late.

I would say they lost the typical way. They didn't take their enemy seriously, didn't sense the danger they were in, and consequently didn't prepare. Hubris was the cause, as is usual in these sorts of cases. (In Civ3, local decisions of the commander, weather, and other intangible factors, are accounted for by the randomizer.)

[Austin]

Originally posted by Zachriel


I would say they lost the typical way. They didn't take their enemy seriously, didn't sense the danger they were in, and consequently didn't prepare. Hubris was the cause, as is usual in these sorts of cases. (In Civ3, local decisions of the commander, weather, and other intangible factors, are accounted for by the randomizer.)

The British defeat at Isandlwana required a whole host of factors coming together just right to produce the effect it did. Change something as simple as where the NNN infantry were placed and it could have easily become a Zulu masscre instead.

Austin

[Austin]

Originally posted by Trip

Ahhh, okay, sorry. It seemed posts were coming in a flurry at me so I replied to everything I saw.

I don't know if the English could have won. Archers made up 4/5 of their entire army. Even with the conditions what they were, the French would have eventually reached, and overwhelmed the English forces, who they would outnumber 10 to 1. The archers were pivotal in demoralizing the troops that charged forward, making them retreat, and subsequently, all the troops behind them followed suit.

The key thing was the constricting/bunching effect of the French Army due to the small size of the battlefield. As long as the English have enough men to cover the width of the field they'll probably be able to replace this. You might have to give the archers swords, but the point is that it wasn't the presence of arrows that made the big difference at Agincourt.

Austin

[Austin]

Other than longbows, which had a very short time period where they dominated it doesn't appear that the archer in general was an overwhelming military unit. It was most often employed by armies that shrank from direct pitched battle, usually because they lacked the social organization/technology to form shock battle style military units, and in most cases when the two military forms fought it was the archers that lost.

For an excellent in depth look at this, read two books by John Keegan.

"Face of battle" has an excellent chapter on Agincourt, and "History of Warfare" is an excellent treatment of warfare in general.

For every Carrhae there are a dozen battles where bowmen were quickly dispersed and wiped out if they were used as the primary fighting force. Hell the archer armies of Sumeria were easily butchered by Aryan, Assyrian and Egyptian chariots!

So archers probably fit in best in Civ III terms as a somewhat weak unit that you use if you don't have the resources to make a formed shock style army like a Roman Legion. They were best used as supplemental/attritional forces. And if you don't have other troops to guard them on defensive, they are easily destroyed.

With that in mind I think Civ III has the archer unit right. It's a weak unit that only really gets built if you don't have ironworking and/or access to iron. At best I would give the archer a zero range bombard to represent that you'd get a couple of volleys off if attacked and you were defending in formed positions.

The Longbow more or less same deal. Giving it ranged bombard capabilities is making it way too powerfull. If you could give it bombard that only targeted units that would be acceptable.

Hell the Longbow is ALREADY a 4 attack unit! What more do you want?

Austin

[The Rook]

Austin, quite simply...

You da man!

You back up what I have been trying to say with a little more historical knowledge than I can provide.

Someone brought up the 0 range bombard, and I wasn't sure what they meant by that. I get it now. With 0 range, the bowmen get a free attack on incoming enemy, but no offensive bombard attack. I can buy that. I might even mod that in my game.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Austin
The British defeat at Isandlwana required a whole host of factors coming together just right to produce the effect it did. Change something as simple as where the NNN infantry were placed and it could have easily become a Zulu masscre instead.

Austin

None of those factors would have mattered if they had been prepared. Frankly, the British should not have lost with the firepower available to them.

Here is a good article with new research debunking the so-called ammo theory: http://www.kwazulu.co.uk/archaeology.htm

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Austin
For an excellent in depth look at this, read two books by John Keegan.

"Face of battle" has an excellent chapter on Agincourt, and "History of Warfare" is an excellent treatment of warfare in general.

. . . .

Hell the Longbow is ALREADY a 4 attack unit! What more do you want?

Austin

Keegan is excellent. I agree that the longbow are plenty powerful.

[nato]

History of Warfare does have a lot of stuff in it that made me think of civ! Its a good one.

4 is a good attack yes. I just think it would be cool if archers were a little more interesting, add a little variety.

As it is, I never build archers. I hate an unused feature! It just goes to waste. Like colonies ... so many features we would like to have, it is a real shame not to use one that is actually there. So a little bombard might make them useful.

I understand the idea that archers are there if you don't have iron. I have never, ever, seen a game where there was not tons of iron (and horses also) laying around. Iron should either be much rarer, thus letting archers have their original function, or archers should be changed, thus giving them a new function.

Basically I think archers are like colonies ... they didn't work out in practice. They should be changed so that they are not just wasted programming effort.

[Austin]

Originally posted by The Rook
Austin, quite simply...

You da man!

You back up what I have been trying to say with a little more historical knowledge than I can provide.

Hey thanks!

Someone brought up the 0 range bombard, and I wasn't sure what they meant by that. I get it now. With 0 range, the bowmen get a free attack on incoming enemy, but no offensive bombard attack. I can buy that. I might even mod that in my game.

The only problem I have with that is the question of if you give it to archers, then realistically you should give it to any unit that has ranged weapons, which means just about everything after gunpowder, which kind of derails the game.

Of course archers and longbowmen are so weak on defense that maybee it doesn't really matter, as nobody would preferr an archer for defense instead of a musketman even if the archer did have 0 bombard.

Austin

[Austin]

Originally posted by Zachriel


None of those factors would have mattered if they had been prepared. Frankly, the British should not have lost with the firepower available to them.

Here is a good article with new research debunking the so-called ammo theory: http://www.kwazulu.co.uk/archaeology.htm

Nope, it was one hell of a screw up.

Austin

[Austin]

Originally posted by nato
History of Warfare does have a lot of stuff in it that made me think of civ! Its a good one.

4 is a good attack yes. I just think it would be cool if archers were a little more interesting, add a little variety.

As it is, I never build archers. I hate an unused feature! It just goes to waste. Like colonies ... so many features we would like to have, it is a real shame not to use one that is actually there. So a little bombard might make them useful.

The purpose of archers in CivIII is to provide a weak alternative offensive unit if you don't have any iron. This goes perfectly well with actual history, as only very weak and/or primitive civilizations relied on archer armies.

The advent of the chariot and later horse back troops doomed the archer armies historically, and in civIII the same thing happens (since archers are a one move unit with a 1 defense).

As far as colonies go, they are a cheap way to allow you immediate access to a far off resource, instead of building a city. If you have some dye in the middle of a jungle, and you don't want to waste a settler building a useless jungle city. Or you need iron RIGHT NOW and you don't have time to wait for your cultural boundary to expand.

The big problem people seem to have is that colonies get absorbed by cultural boundaries. Well look at the flip side of this, if they didn't get popped they'd be one hell of a resource denial exploit. Just send a worker into an enemie civ's turf, and plant them on any resources that the other civ has not yet claimed. If they don't get popped by culture, then either the civ never gets the resource, or they have to declare war on you to get a resource that might be located in the centre of their empire and a million miles away from yours.

I understand the idea that archers are there if you don't have iron. I have never, ever, seen a game where there was not tons of iron (and horses also) laying around. Iron should either be much rarer, thus letting archers have their original function, or archers should be changed, thus giving them a new function.

I've had a game or two that has happened to me, no access to horsies OR iron unless I kick somebody for it. Without the archer unit I'd be doing my kicking with warriors, which won't get you very far.

Basically I think archers are like colonies ... they didn't work out in practice. They should be changed so that they are not just wasted programming effort.

Well for the reasons I gave above, I think they work just fine for their purpose. Muck around with them and you could easily disrupt game balance.

For example, right now you have to choose between building bombard units (like cannons) that can bombard, but are useless for direct combat (and have to be guarded), or direct combat units like swordsmen that often run into problems when assaulting a city (thus neccesitating those bombard units).

Giving archers bombard capability other than 0 range would in effect make them combined direct combat AND bombard units. This would make them in effect two for one specials. You could build and support a couple of longbowmen for the cost of one cannon and one knight. One cannon and one knight let you do one bombard and one assault. The longbowmen can both bombard on one turn, and then both assault the next, effectively doubling the capability of an army.

This would turn Babylon into an unstoppable mincing machine early on, as their bowmen would combine both offensive AND defensive AND bombard capabilities into one unit! A stack of 6 bowmen could march up to a city, have the defensive moxy (plus the defensive bombardment) to survive a counter attack, hit the city with 6 bombards, and then next turn hit it with 6 assaults!

Give archers bombard capability, and I'll do an early rush strategy with Babylon and sweep the board unless somebody else rushes me with a big pile of horsies. And the bowmen have a '2' defense, and a defensive bombard shot giving them an edge anyways.

This totally overturns history, where the collection of empires that made up the "Babylonian" civ had their bowmen armies destroyed by horsies and chariots.

A later longbow rush would be almost as bad, but not as bad since you'd also have to build defensive units to guard them. They would still combine direct assault and city busting bombardment though.

Austin

[zulu9812]

Originally posted by Austin
The only problem I have with that is the question of if you give it to archers, then realistically you should give it to any unit that has ranged weapons, which means just about everything after gunpowder, which kind of derails the game.

Of course archers and longbowmen are so weak on defense that maybee it doesn't really matter, as nobody would preferr an archer for defense instead of a musketman even if the archer did have 0 bombard.

Austin

Dude - I've just spent the last few days explaining why longbowmen were like artillery and musketmen weren't. Sheesh. Anyway, Archers weren't primarily defensive forces. They were used to soften up the enemy before attacking.

[MiloMilo]

Has this thread come back around to archers yet? Good.

yes: they are next to useless. They need help. I gave archers and longbowmen in my game ZOC, which has seemed to work well. It's a less dramatic and unbalancing change than making them a 2-move bombard unit, but gives the same effect, i.e. lightly peppering a passing regiment with arrows and then running away.

I also upped the defense value for longbowmen to 2. Not a huge change, but it has worked out very well. A longbowman in jungle or mountains can stave off an attacking knight... which seems reasonable, given that horses shouldn't do too well in those terrains. It gives them a kind of 'forest runner' feel. I should also mention that the AI is very adept at making use of this change, and uses longbowmen extensively now, to sometimes devastating effect. It has helped to counter knights' overwhelming superiority.

I also like the idea floated about giving them zero-range bombard... it would make them even more special. As for why gunpowder weapons shouldn't have it also: well, given the attack forces, they wouldn't have the same value. Wild musket shots aren't going to deter advancing cavalry, you need cannons. Whereas properly positioned archers can surely help defend against swordsmen and knights. No?

[Random Passerby]

I do find uses for archers and longbowman far more often than I'd like to. Sure, I always see lots of iron, but half the time it's in the enemy's territory... and of course the AI civs don't put high priority on connecting surplus resources, so though there's more total iron in the world than there are civs to use it I still can't buy any because each civ only has one source of iron that they've bothered to connect!

For that matter, I do often use longbowmen even if I have iron and horses (although I like to play as India, so that doesn't even matter much). They're cheaper and more expendable than knights, and half the time I get access to them earlier (sometimes considerably earlier, if none of the AIs bother getting Chivalry).

As for bombardment: I don't think it's such a sin to contemplate universal projectile-weapon bombard--or, heck, possibly universal bombard abilities, the rationale being that non-artillery bombard represents hit-and-run skirmish attacks or massed fire, depending on the circumstances. Archers and longbowmen, having a sizable range advantage for their time, would be among the best units at this, with bombard ratings that could whittle away quite effectively at enemy units' hitpoints. Bombard ratings wouldn't rise as quickly as attack/defense ratings from there, however, so riflemen and infantry would have little effect on each other and other contemporary units... but would still be able to tear earlier units to shreds without risking damage at all. This would also lend more of an advantage to superior numbers than simply being able to soak up more casualties; as it stands, if you attack an infantry unit it doesn't matter if you have 5 cavalry or 50; the extras are there to contribute to later battle, but they can have no possible effect against that particular infantry units. This could lead to balance problems, but hey, it's worth tinkering with.

The only real problem I have with this whole scheme is the scale, which unfortunately there's not much fix for. One possibility is simply increasing movement rates (and movement costs, for mounatins and forests and such) to make the average tile represent a smaller area of land, which also helps avoid stealing traditional bombardment units' thunder; although it's a stretch, if the base ground movement were 2 it wouldn't be too bad to give the same range to catapults and increase it as you get more advanced artillery units, giving radar artillery some truly terrifying capabilities. Culture levels should also be decreased for this, to avoid the phenomenon of units being able to strike two cities deep into an enemy's territory from just outside the border.

Anyways, just more food for thought. Strictly gameplay musings, not realism.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Austin
Nope, it was one hell of a screw up.

You're right about that !

Kinda like the Titanic. It took many interrelated events to sink the Titanic, but ultimately, it can be traced to negligence. Why bother with lifeboats if the ship is nearly impossible to sink? And why bother to take make elaborate preparations for an improbable and certainly impossible spearman attack?