The lack of compound bows in the game

[Crandaeolon]

Hiya all

First post at the .org, took my sweet little time indeed. Brace yerselves. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

This would belong in the Dungeon, but I'm such an infrequent poster that I might get to post there around the time Total War IV comes out.

Anyways. As far as I know, all the footarchers in the game use the same SBOW missile type. There shouldn't be any other stats that affect missile performance than the stats in the projectilestats file, right? Currently, the LONG type is exclusive to the Longbowman and the MTLG type is used by all cavalry archers.

Simply put, all this means that the compound bows that give these soldiers an advantage thanks to their range, accuracy and penetrative power don't exist in MTW. (The above quotation is from the description of Trebizond Archers, IIRC.) I'm wondering if it was an intentional abstraction, that the devs felt there wasn't enough of a difference between shortbow and composite bow effectiveness, or if it was cut for other reasons.

I'd personally prefer to have the composite bows modeled in the game, so I'd like to ask the expert modders here for ideas, help and/or a finished solution to this.

The jury-rig fix I was thinking about involves using the MTLG (mountedlongbow in the stats file)
missile type for all compound bow units, including the horse archers, and upping it in accuracy to the level of other bows. Perhaps an armor mod value of 0.75 or thereabouts would simulate the greater power of the composite bow when compared to the short bow. The other stats of the various missile types could be tweaked as well, as Kraxis and undoubtedly many others have done. Also, I feel the effectiveness of cavalry archers should be increased; and, as they have to come to a stop to fire their shots, there's little reason why they should be less accurate than foot archers.

I already did a lot of tweaking with the projectilestats file, but I'm not going to bore you with the exact modifications in this already pretty long post. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

There's also the problem of deciding which units should have these compound bows. Most of them are pretty obvious, but it might be necessary to make some compromises due to balancing reasons (and yes, I'd like to have a reasonably balanced game even if they're only my personal SP stats... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif). Ah, one quick question: do actual unit (or in this case, missile) stats affect the auto resolve combat?


I'd like to hear comments on this. Could it work? Would it be worth it? Has someone already done this?

-Cran

Edit: the term compound might be misleading, as it usually means modern compound bows. The game uses it, however, so I stuck to it except for a few instances when I used the term composite, which should be the more correct one.

[KukriKhan]

Copied that and posted to the Dungeon for you, here:
http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin....1;&#top (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=5;t=2564;r=1;&#top)

Welcome to the Org ShadeCrandaeolon. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

You can post your replies here, and we'll move them for you.

[Crandaeolon]

Thanks for the welcome, Kukri.


Quote[/b] ]
Erado San:

Do you think compound bows existed in the Middle ages?


Err... yes. The compound, or composite, bow is believed to first have appeared around 2000-1500 BC in the steppes of Central Asia. Also, the prophet Muhammad was reputed to be an expert archer (and yes, using the al-Islam compound bow) and there's a well-known quotation attributed to him: Angels attend no sport save archery. So unless there was some terrible cataclysm that mystically erased the memories of traditional Islamic bowmakers, there's a fairly large chance those bows existed in the Middle Ages.

Here's a copy-paste from Cariadoc's Miscellany about the making of the bow:

To make a bow is the work of a year. The core is made of wood, most commonly in five parts, although some use more or less. These parts are the grip, the two limbs, and the siyahs. The parts are spliced together and glued with great care; when the bow is complete, one cannot see where one ends and the next begins. This work is done in autumn, and then also the horn is sawed and fitted to the core. In the winter the horn is glued to the belly of the bow and bound there, and the glue is permitted to dry for some months. In spring the sinew is applied to the back of the bow. During the summer the bow is strung and shaped, and at the last painted.

Did this post answer yer question, Erado? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Crandaeolon]

Am I just confused or is there no way to edit my posts? I'd like to make a couple of modifications to make it clearer, but... oh well, hopefully it's understandable enough. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[KukriKhan]

I pasted your reply to the Dungeon, as-is. There is no Edit link on your date/time line (top of your post)?

You'll be posting on your own soon. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Gregoshi]

ShadeCrandaeolon the making of a compound bow is a very long and labour intensive process. Do you know if they were made in sufficient quantities to make a big difference?

[Crandaeolon]

Quote[/b] ]
There is no Edit link on your date/time line (top of your post)?


Nope.

Edit: Scratch that. Now that I'm a Senior Patron, the edit link is visible. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif


Quote[/b] ]
the making of a compound bow is a very long and labour intensive process. Do you know if they were made in sufficient quantities to make a big difference?


I'm fairly sure that the weapon was widespread in the saracen and moorish forces. Also the vast majority of warfaring peoples in the Central Asian steppes had adopted the composite bow as their chosen weapon for ranged combat. (I believe the skill of making those bows was an essential part of their warrior code, I also think that most horsewarriors and Muslim archers made their own bows. Can't remember any references for this, though, so I put this in parentheses.)

It's true the process of making one such bow was fairly lengthy, but a lot of of that time was required because the glue used in splicing the parts together had to dry thoroughly. One could, of course, start assemling new bows while others were drying. I suppose the bows were quite durable as well and didn't snap as often as ordinary shortbows.

I'll be doing some more research if I can find the time, but of course I'd like to hear the opinions of the many history buffs that I know frequent these forums. (I've been lurking here for a _long_ time, and I've witnessed the horrors of the myth of the cavalry charge and other threads... :lol)

[rasoforos]

arent desert archers using those bows? i think i saw something like that on their description....

[KukriKhan]

Thanks for the heads-up on the no edit option 'feature' for Junior Patrons ShadeCrandaeolon. You'd think I knew that. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

I'm guessing the confusion on bows is in terminology: my archer-buddy at work informed me today that compound bows are a modern invention (featuring separate bow parts) vs composite bows that have a venerable history back to pre-historic times, esp. in Asia and the Middle-East.

[Spetulhu]

Here`s some sites with some info on bows...
http://www.centenaryarchers.gil.com.au/history.htm
http://www.ping.be/olivier_picard/history/egypt.htm
http://www.intoarch.com/Articles/article/10/1/
http://www.applink.net/wolfpack/archery.html

Searching for bows on the net is a real bother since you`ll catch about 90% roleplaying-related sites http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

edited because I was instaposted http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[Gregoshi]

Hehehe. We don't allow the Junior Patrons to make mistakes. We are evil. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

Well, ShadeCrandaelon, if each warrior made their own, then they could be quite common amongst those warrior types. Making your own weapon is a very cool idea.

Good luck with your composite bow mod.

[GameDesigner]

It's hard to get a read historicly on how much weapon quality effected the effectivness of missle units. Of course it was (and is) a factor. But other factors like training, discipline, and morale were also major factors. It seems that most of the time that the casalties caused by missle units were more of the annoying nature rather then of the slaughtering nature. There are some obvious exceptions Crecy and Agincourt leap to mind but they involve a weapon in the hands of very well trained forces being helped by some of the stupidist opponents in history http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif.
As to puting the Composite bow in the game, it is, at least by implication. Horse archers needed to use recurve bows which are composite by definition. SOme of the other archer units may be implied to have them most notably the Desert arches noted above. Individual weapons aren't always used to identify unit types. I can see why you'd expect it to work that way since there are crossbow and arbalest units. The difference is that a composite bow is just another kind of bow that differs in degree of effectivness, not in fundamental tactical doctrine.

[Crandaeolon]

I agree with you, GameDesigner. The bows surely weren't, at least usually, weapons of mass destruction. And, I have never intended to drastically change the effectiveness of missile units in the game, actually I've put a general 15% boost to the stats of missile units, which still preserves the game's spirit very well IMO. That 15% is actually far less than in the Clan Society -endorsed stats, and those stats were created by some of the most experienced players in the community. (Multiplayer mostly. I play a lot of MP, too.)

Some units that I believed to not be in balance were modified with a heavier hand, like arquebusiers, and arbalesters I actually weakened somewhat.

One major reason why I wanted to include the composite bow is the relative weakness of the Turks. They have several footman archer types, but no arbalesters. (As a side note, the Turks are definitely at a disadvantage in MP.) By adding a bow which is somewhere between the shortbow and the longbow in effectiveness, I believe I have improved both the balance and historical accuracy of my single player campaigns.

As for how much weapon quality affects the effectiveness of missile units, consider the difference between longbows and shortbows. A simple, single-piece shortbow simply can not have the range and power of a longbow, no matter who shoots the bow. The power of the composite bow is still being debated, but all (or at least 95%) experts agree it is closer to the longbow than the shortbow. Some (a minority, I believe) even claim that the composite bow is superior to the longbow. According to these scholars, the Turkish composite bow was the finest bow in the world before advanced twentieth-century materials were invented.

I always type more than I intend... sorry 'bout that, folks http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Also, this thread has a sibling in the Dungeon. Please check that out as well if the subject interests you, and post there if at all possible.

http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin....;t=2564 (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=5;t=2564)

[GameDesigner]

I wasn't arguing that there wasn't a difference in quality but rather that weapon quality is only one factor when determining a unit's effectivness. Long bows are an interesting case since they were a weapon that required a specifci way of life to support it. During the hundred years war the French mad sporadic attempts to encourage long bow use but were unsuccessful. This was due in large part to their unwillingness to create the equavilent of the English Yeoman. Many historians credit the English yeomanry as being a chief cause of the rise of democracy in England probably not an intended consequence of Henry II

[Crandaeolon]

Quote[/b] ]I wasn't arguing that there wasn't a difference in quality but rather that weapon quality is only one factor when determining a unit's effectivness.
And I did not argue against this, for the record... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif


Quote[/b] ]
Long bows are an interesting case since they were a weapon that required a specifci way of life to support it.

Yes, that is a very fascinating piece of history I'm sure most already know this, but lots of English skeletons from the era have a distinctive twist in their spines because of the frequent drawing of the powerful longbow... talk about repetitive strain injuries http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Musashi]

Just on the topic of the actual modding you're talking about... Have you thought about using the ninjastar projectile type? It's not used by any of the units in the game currently, so you could give it stats somewhere between shortbow and longbow and then set all the recurved bow using units to that projectile type in the units file. I was planning to do this myself except that I'm not sure what the code for the projectile type is to put in the units file.

Perhaps a modder with experience on Shogun would know? (I'm assuming the projectile type is a holdover from Shogun and thus would be in the units file in Shogun. I don't actually own Shogun so I can't check on it).

It would be nice for Trebizond Archers and the rest of the recurved using troops to have a mechanical difference, I must agree. I've been modding the projectiles a bit myself, tweaked arquebus accuracy up to 0.1 from 0.01, still trying to decide if I like it where it is now or still need to tweak it slightly, and I doubled the range of javelins, so that jav units can sometimes actually get a volley off before they are overrun http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

I'd be interested to know what specific changes you've made actually, as I'm contemplating going back in and tuning all the ranges to more accurately reflect reality (Increasing long and shortbow ranges, and the suchlike).

-Musashi

[Musashi]

D'oh. I just went to read the thread in the Dungeon and discovered that Jagger had already put my idea out there, with the added bonus of actually knowing the code to use in the units file.

Someone thank him for me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

-Musashi

[KukriKhan]

Heh. We'll pass that on, Musashi http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Welcome to theOrg.

[Crandaeolon]

Quote[/b] ]I'd be interested to know what specific changes you've made actually, as I'm contemplating going back in and tuning all the ranges to more accurately reflect reality (Increasing long and shortbow ranges, and the suchlike).
Hmm. I did make a note file that lists all the changes and reasons for them as I tweaked the stats, but it's very chaotic in nature as I intended it for personal reference only. I suppose I could post it here and edit it a bit to make it less incoherent. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

But, I have some urgent work to do, so it might have to wait a couple of days...

[Musashi]

Thanks for the welcome KukriKhan... I think I'm going to go work on turning the ninjastar projectile into a recurved bow now http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

-Musashi

[Gregoshi]

Using those woodworking skills you are learning, no doubt. Right Musashi? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif If it doesn't work at least you'll have a nice set of end tables. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif