Regarding Voicemod and some suggestions :)

[Shigawire]

Hi there. This mod looks promising.. I have been involved with the RTR mod at TWC, mostly working on the VoiceMod, also giving some historical advice.
Now RTR seems almost dead since Gaius left incognito.. The Latin translations are complete, and the Latin battle-commands will be recorded now in January.
I am considering the possibility that it might be best to also make a Voicemod entirely for EB, so that any unit-names will be corrected etc.. if you change the names of some units or even add entirely new units, our list of latin commands will have to be looked over again.

The other languages are also being worked on, including Ancient Greek. We only need more Hellenic volunteers that can agree to speaking Ancient Greek instead of Modern Greek. A lot of Greek people have trouble accepting the plosive nature of Phi and Chi, rather than the fricative they are most used to.

If you would be interested, Voicemod can be made for EB. There are some blank spots that have to be filled in, and maybe the people here can aid me in this endeavour?

The next post will be about slingers and archers..

[Shigawire]

Now for some suggestions on the historical realities of archers and slingers..

First, there needs to be a distinguished difference between composite bows and regular bows. Composite bows have a noticably higher range.

Second, the range of slingers contra the range of archers is quite erroneous in Rome:TW. Default range of archers is at 120, slingers' range is at 80.
In real life, expert slingers could and can fire farther than a regular bow.
There are numerous sources in history on this.. among them is Xenophon.


Thank heaven they did not come upon us in any great force, but were only a handful of men; so that the injury they did us was not large, as it might have been; and at least it has served to show us what we need. At present the enemy shoot and sling beyond our range, so that our Cretan archers are no match for them; our hand-throwers cannot reach as far; and when we pursue, it is not possible to push the pursuit to any great distance from the main body, and within the short distance no foot-soldier, however fleet of foot, could overtake another foot-soldier who has a bow-shot the start of him. If, then, we are to exclude them from all possibility of injuring us as we march, we must get slingers as soon as possible and cavalry. I am told there are in the army some Rhodians, most of whom, they say, know how to sling, and their missile will reach even twice as far as the Persian slings (which, on account of their being loaded with stones as big as one's fist, have a comparatively short range; but the Rhodians are skilled in the use of leaden bullets). Suppose, then, we investigate and find out first of all who among them possess slings, and for these slings offer the owner the money value; and to another, who will plait some more, hand over the money price; and for a third, who will volunteer to be enrolled as a slinger, invent some other sort of privilege, I think we shall soon find people to come forward capable of helping us. There are horses in the army I know; some few with myself, others belonging to Clearchus's stud, and a good many others captured from the enemy, used for carrying baggage. Let us take the pick of these, supplying their places by ordinary baggage animals, and equipping the horses for cavalry. I should not wonder if our troopers gave some annoyance to these fugitives.


The strength of the sling against armor as well as the range and accuracy is noted by Diodorus Siculus on his account on the Battle of Eknomos 311 B.C.
In the year 311 B.C., The Greeks under the generalship of Agathocles of Syracuse, was at war with Hamilcar of Carthage. At Eknomos, Sicily, the battle at one point was going badly for the Carthaginans until Hamilcar brought forth 1000 Baliaric slingers. Diodorus, the Sicilian-born historian writes:

But when Hamilcar saw that his men were being overpowered and that the Greeks in constantly increasing number were making their way into the camp, he brought up his slingers, who came from the Baliaric Islands and numbered at least a thousand. By hurling a shower of great stones, they wounded many and even killed not a few of those who were attacking, and they shattered the defensive armour of most of them. For these men, who are accustomed to sling stones weighing a mina, contribute a great deal toward victory in battle, since from childhood they practise constantly with the sling. In this way they drove the Greeks from the camp and defeated them.

Their equipment for fighting consists of three slings, and of these they keep one around the head, another around the belly, and the third in the hands. In the business of war they hurl much larger stones than do any other slingers, and with such force that the missile seems to have been shot, as it were, from a catapult; consequently, in their assaults upon walled cities, they strike the defenders on the battlements and disable them, and in pitched battles they crush both shields and helmets and every kind of protective armour. And they are so accurate in their aim that in the majority of cases they never miss the target before them. The reason for this is the continual practice which they get from childhood, in that their mothers compel them, while still young boys, to use the sling continually; for there is set up before them as a target a piece of bread fastened to a stake, and the novice is not permitted to eat until he has hit the bread, whereupon he takes it from his mother with her permission and devours it.

Titus Livius also notes on the balearic slingers' range, forcing a fleet to withdraw:

There are two Balearic Islands, one larger and richer in arms and men. It has a harbour also, where Mago-and it was now the end of autumn-believed he could winter comfortably. But an attack was made on the fleet, just as if the inhabitants of the island were Romans. The sling, now their most used weapon, was then their only one, and not a single man in any other tribe so excels in the art of using it as do all the Balearic islanders in comparison with other peoples. Accordingly such a volley of stones, like the densest hail, was rained upon the fleet now approaching land that, not venturing to enter the harbour, they headed their ships out to sea. Thereupon they crossed over to the smaller of the Balearic Islands, fertile in its land, not so strong in men and arms.

Also noteworthy, Assyrian reliefs show slingers attacking cities from further away than the archers. Perhaps this is because the archers were used to shoot straight at defenders on the walls, while slingers dropped stones into the city, or perhaps it is just another clue to the greater range of slings.


Larry Bray held the world record from 1981 to 1992. He was able to launch a rock some 430 meters.. Here is his equipment and the red rock:
http://www.claycritters.com/sling/Larry%20Bray%20-%20world%20record%20sling%20equipment.jpg

In 1992 David Engval broke the record with his fancy 'Cestrosphendon' with a record of 477 meters:
http://www.claycritters.com/sling/Engvall%20Sling%20Dart.jpg

Here are some lead bullets made by other modern slinging enthusiasts:
http://www.na-ryby.com.pl/sling/Sling_and_projectiles.jpg

The range of the english longbow of war was at 200 yards (180 meters) for armored targets, 250-300 yards for less armored targets. The arrow is a weapon that loses energy the farther it goes. The lead bullet has a life on its own and is just as deadly at great ranges as at short ranges.
Archers can optimize their archery for "flight archery" which is the Formula 1 of archery. They lighten their arrows and generally make their arrows useless for anything other than distances - useless for war for example.

What I am most interested in are the historical implications of such a throw; if a man in our decadent consumerized world can do it, with presumably less training than an ancient Balearic slinger, then I would guess that an ancient slinger could sling at minimum the same distance.

If EB wishes to be truly realistic, the erroneous range difference has to be accounted for. There are ways to do this without ruining game balance and without overpowering the slingers.

1.designate two kinds of bows, regular and composite.

2.make sure the eastern composite bow has at least 1.7x greater range over the regular bow.

3.make sure the range of a lead-slinger is 2x that of the regular archers.

4.Slingers were unable to operate in close formation, and often only the front 3 ranks could fire. Make sure slingers operate in very loose formation - I've set it to 2.2x3.5 in close formation. The net result of this is that slingers are quite unwieldy and almost useless in tight spots such as streets in cities.
If it's possible, it would be even better if you could make sure they can ONLY fire in loose formation, and unable to fire in close formation.. but I doubt it's possible.

5.Archers are the only units with fire projectiles - though historically this is not true, slingers also used incendiary projectiles, but if archers are the only ones with fire projectiles, they will be key units when defending against the siege machinery of an enemy assault.

6.Melee attack and defence skills need not be decreased for slingers, as in truth they lose a lot of their melee potency when they are in loose formation. And so, loose formation solves two things: unwieldyness, low melee.

7.Decrease the formation-widths of archers to 1x1 instead of 1.2x1.2. This will increase the firepower-per-sq.meter making them even more useful in cities.


Another thing which has to be fixed is the silly slinger animation. Slingers never circled their sling around their head as you see in vanilla RTW.. the only times they did circle their sling was when they wanted to test and get a feel for the projectile's weight. The actual movement however was ONE swift movement:
http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/nikolas.lloyd/weapons/anisling.gif


The next post will include some suggestions on the historical realities of siege warfare.

[lt1956]

Hello, you sound like the guy to ask. How do you add your own music to the game. I tried editing the music text and have added the correct folders and even unpacked the sounds and deleted the imx.

All failed. it keeps playiing standard.

Any help would be great as I will not play the music rtw came with I dont think its roman enough.

Lt

[khelvan]

How appropriate, we're having quite the debate about Cretan bows currently, and one of our initiatives is historical balancing of missle units. So this discussion will be welcome.

On languages, I do believe that we have at least one member trained in Classical Greek.

Edit: Shigawire, I have attempted to send you a PM regarding EB, but your stored messages are full, and I cannot do so.

[[cF]HanBaal]

If EB wishes to be truly realistic, the erroneous range difference has to be accounted for

Hello my norwegian friend ~:) (i'm ol' Barca from TWC ~;) )

Excelent article on archers vs slingers and you could also have mentioned the slingers' economic/durability side as well as the difficulty for the defenders in identifying the coming projectile's trajectory vs an arrow easily identified trajectory. Finally, in slingers vs archers duels the slinger can always use a shield even when reloading, which should also be reflected in their defense against missiles as I shown some time ago in a thread about this same topic.

Anyways, I have good news and bad news Shigawire.... in the current EB internal release, Balearic Slingers already have more range and power than even cretan/eastern archers...the bad news is that that diference is minimal -->10 meters and 1 'power'.

I still believe their merc high costs/upkeep/rarity should justify a more historical depiction in their stats....

[khelvan]

On the bright side, the discussion of historic balancing of the missle units has only been debated seriously after the latest release. Additionally, no one is ever tied to any particular position so much that it can't be changed if we discover a better way to do things.

[Shigawire]

Hi Khelvan, I noticed in my email that someone tried to send me a PM in the guild 4 times.. I only had 5 PM's in my inbox, I did not know the limit was so ridiculously low. I like collecting old PMs.. :)

Hello Hannibal you old schmoozy. ;)

As for the slingers and archers, I think that more discussion is justified.

Now on to my next post:
Suggestions regarding siege warfare and the historical realities of the era (270 BC->)

The main points that I will argument for in this text are the following:

1.the Onager did not exist yet, or was called 'scorpion' and was very exotic.

2.the heavy artillery in existence and widespread use at this time was the "Stone Projector"

3.Rome should be significantly handicapped in the production of siege artillery early on. Carthage and the Greek civilizations should have a clear head-start in the production of siege artillery.


1.The Onager
The Onager being in the time period of RTW is a simple forgivable mistake on CA's part. The Onager was first mentioned by Marcellus Ammianus in 347 AD, and archeological finds suggest it was first being first used around 100-150 AD. What is clear though, is that all siege artillery referred to in classical texts are of the projecting ballista-type, not the Onager. There are speculations among scholars however that the "onager" was once called the "scorpio" - and the "scorpio" is indeed mentioned long before Vitruvius made his little arrow-firing machine. Though that is speculation.. more on this later.

-

2.The Stone-projector
Now, the ballista on the other hand is completely omitted from Rome:TW - even though it was the one artillery used most extensively. The weapon is today called "Stone Projector". In Greek the smallest stone-throwers were called: ΚΑΤΑΠΕΛΤΑΙ ΠΕΤΡΟΒΟΛΩΣ (katapeltai petrobolos), in Latin: BALLISTA. The brother of the 'Stone Projector' was the 'Spear Projector' known in Greek as 'ΚΑΤΑΠΕΛΤΑΙ ΟΞΥΒΕΛΕΙΣ' or in Latin as 'CATAPULTA'. Another name for the Stone-projector was the "ΚΑΤΑΠΕΛΤΑΙ ΛΙΘΟΒΟΛΩ" (katapeltai lithobolο) - often referring to much larger stones.

Originally, the Romans had different names for the two machines:
Catapulta for the arrow-projector, Ballista for the stone-projector.
But after ca 85 AD, they abandoned the 'euthytone' design.
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/war/CatImages/Frametypes.jpg

And after the obsoletion of the euthytone frametype, the words 'catapulta' and 'ballista' started flowing into eachother.. until in the 2nd century AD, the name 'ballista' had become synonymous with both the 'catapulta' and 'ballista' - that is why when we hear the name 'ballista' today, we immediately think of the spear projector and not so much of the stone-projector. Today, the words 'catapulta' and 'ballista' have completely switched meanings. When we hear 'Catapult', we immediately associate the word with a stone-projector, and when we hear 'Ballista', we immediately associate the word with a spear-projector. In ancient times, the meanings were quite the opposite.

Greek mastery of artillery

Diodorus Siculus writes that in 399 BC, the catapult (katapeltikon) was invented under the patronage of Dionysus I, tyrant of Syracuse. However, the weapon did not suddenly arrive out of the blue. In a work entitled Ctesibius' manufacture of missile weapons (Ktesibiou Belopoiika), the Roman engineer Heron of Alexandria explains that the catapult was inspired by an earlier mechanical weapon, the 'belly shooter' (gastraphetes).

The beginning.. the Gastraphetes (on the left)
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/uploads/post-11-1092855210.jpg

340 BC, the 'Katapeltai Oxybeleis' - arrow-projector
http://198.144.2.125/Siege/OtherSiegeEngines/Full/GreekCatapultaPic.jpg

Here is one of the largest Stone Projectors ever made, this one is one machine out of 3 inside the first floor of the Helepolis siege tower of Demetrius 'Poliorketes'. 3 talents = 80 kilograms per stone.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/uploads/post-11-1092855053.jpg

First manifestations of artillery actually manufactured by Romans

The Roman Scorpio
http://198.144.2.125/Siege/OtherSiegeEngines/Full/RomanCatapultaPic.jpg

The Romanized 'Ballista' , 50 BC. Notice the sharp 45° AOA.
http://198.144.2.125/Siege/OtherSiegeEngines/Full/BallistaPic.jpg

Here is the small Roman cheiroballista. It's almost like a Scorpion, except it fires stones.
http://198.144.2.125/Siege/OtherSiegeEngines/Full/CheiroballistaPic.jpg

The 'Onager', 350 AD
http://198.144.2.125/Siege/OtherSiegeEngines/Full/OnagerPic.jpg

Here is something more manageable than the 3-talent projector of Demetrius, but clearly shows formidable medium/heavy siege artillery in use at 69 AD.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/uploads/post-7-1104633570.jpg
(too big to make a direct link)

I believe we should model this weapon and replace the Onager with it.. and if need be, the Onager could be a weapon that comes later on in the game.. with more advanced buildings and whatnot.

-

3.The unwarranted Roman engineering-supremacy
in RTW, the Romans are given carte blanche on one more exotic artillery than any others (the scorpio), while in reality Rome was internationally quite weak in the field of siege artillery for a very long time. Not until 70-50 BC did Rome begin to actually manufacture their own siege artillery. Indeed, they lagged behind the other powers else even in the use of siege machinery. Not until 200 BC did they begin fielding such basic contraptions as the siege tower, a hundred years after the Carthaginian and especially Greek civilizations had utilized some rolling behemoths of truly epic proportions.

Carthage and the Greek civilizations were notoriously able in the field of siege engineering. Siege towers, heavy artillery, medium artillery, they had it all long before Rome. It is often asserted that, where machinery is concerned, the Romans displayed little inventive genius. Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, the Roman architect-engineer who wrote a work 'On architecture' (De architectura) around 25 BC, laments the fact that so many of his sources are Greeks and so few Romans.



But Rome did indeed utilize siege artillery long before 50BC, so where did Rome get all its siege artillery? They seized it! They seized it from anywhere they could. They seized a great deal of artillery from Carthago Nova, Syracuse and many of the Greek cities. Roman stocks of artillery would have been further replenished with the booty from campaigning in Greece during wars with Macedon (200-196 BC), Sparta (195 BC), and the Aetolian Confederacy (191-189 BC). Mural artillery was becoming increasingly common in towns of the Mediterranean world, as engineers took their knowledge wherever people could pay for it. Catapults mentioned on board ships at this time were probably supplied by Rhodes and Pergamon, Rome's naval allies against Macedon, but the 'catapults, ballistae, and artillery of all sorts' that appeared in the triumphal procession of 187 BC in Rome were surely booty seized from the Aetolians. We even know precisely how many pieces of siege artillery were seized from Carthago Nova in 210 BC, which gives a strong indication of which pieces of artillery were most used and which ones were less used:
'120 catapults of the largest sort, 281 smaller ones, 23 large ballistae, 52 smaller ones, and large and small scorpions'

Now, don't forget and confuse the meanings. Remember:
Catapults = arrow-firers. Ballistae = stone-firers.
The smaller machines are often the more numerous, while the larger machines are often in smaller numbers.

Now, here we can again see the mention of a 'Scorpion'. 210 BC, long before Vitruvius made his little arrow-firing contraption in 50 BC. Also worthy of note is the small amount of "scorpions" : 2. One small and one large. Could this be an indication of its size? Could this be a precursor to the Onager? Mayhap, but even so it still seems to be very rare and exotic, while the stone-projector clearly deserves a dominant role.


Conclusion: I think Rome should be given a weaker position in the construction of siege machinery, be it artillery or engines. Greeks and Carthaginians should be given a clear head-start. Indeed, they should be able to produce it all at the beginning of the game. I no longer believe in the game structure set up in Vanilla RTW where you have to somehow 'earn' your way to the catapults by being a good boy and building the right buildings. Historically, these machines were available from the beginning. The same applies to Carthage being able to produce a Quinquireme from the beginning.


More on siege warfare. I don't think any of us will be able to mod any of this, but I feel I should tell you anyway:

Preparations prior to siegetower employment.
Prior to siege towers being put to use, it was common practice to prepare the terrain in front of the wheels. This was done by working on the terrain with shovels under rolling shelters called 'turtles' (greek: 'chelones', latin: 'testudo')
Under these machines they could fill ditches, even the ground to make it very flat, and they could even switch the axels of the wheels 90° to move sideways as well. This took many weeks, and so the path of the siege-tower would be evident to the defenders long before it actually came. Defences would therefore be prepared well beforehand when the siegetower did come.

The method most often used by Romans to capture cities was to build a mound of dirt up to the walls and simply walk over it. Similar to what was done by Octavius at Massada. This was most often done by the Vinea. Small houses on wheels used to work under. Similar to the Greek "chelone" which was used to prepare for siegetowers.

Romans also had something for assaulting walls from ships, called a 'sambuca' (a see-saw). This was used when taking Syracuse for example.

BBL, thats all the suggestions I could muster right now.

[sharrukin]

Khelvan say;

"Lt1956, siege engines have not received the attention they deserve, yet. We know what we're going to take out (Onagers, for instance, well outside our time frame) but they have been left for last in our list of units to change, below even the navies. So I can't tell you at the moment exactly what we will be doing to change them"

[[cF]HanBaal]

Suggestions regarding siege warfare and the historical realities of the era (270 BC->):

wooooh another master post by one of my favourite 'historians' ~;)

As Sharrukin said (quoting Khelvan) the 'siege machines alterations' for this mod are still to start... though I believe it is not so much due to its lesser importance but more due to the inexistance of someone assigned to mod/investigate it as Khelvan words led us to assume... or so I believe. RTW's historical inaccuracy regarding this subject, as you so nicely demonstrated, sure rise the importance for this historical mod to cover it.


=====



Conclusion: I think Rome should be given a weaker position in the construction of siege machinery, be it artillery or engines. Greeks and Carthaginians should be given a clear head-start. Indeed, they should be able to produce it all at the beginning of the game. I no longer believe in the game structure set up in Vanilla RTW where you have to somehow 'earn' your way to the catapults by being a good boy and building the right buildings. Historically, these machines were available from the beginning. The same applies to Carthage being able to produce a Quinquireme from the beginning.

You know what....I couldn't agree more! There was/is a mod for MTW called 'Fall of Rome' that I used to play and the detail I liked the most was that you already started with (big) stacks of weak+elite troops to better recreate the HISTORICAL development for the factions ca. each period's starting year. I must say those were the most entertaining campaigns I ever played in the whole TW series, even if the mod was somewhat weak in the other aspects (few units, buildings etc). Returning to the ol' TW campaign default setup of "being a good boy and building the right buildings" besides being totally unhistorical, it's a TOTAL WA..ste of time :P

[Wikingus]

To return to the topic of voicemod;

I know latin and ancient greek (although I didn't have to use it in about a year, so I'm very rusty, but I still have a few books around), if that would prove to be of some help.

[khelvan]

Shigawire can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that we're certainly ok in the ancient Latin department now, though perhaps we can still use another speaker for ancient Greek. Slovenia wouldn't happen to be located near ancient Dacia, would it? :)

[Wikingus]

No, not really:)

The only relatively important things happening here in the Roman era were the battle between the Christian and pagan Roman armies, which finally established the dominance of christiandome, and the birthplace of Romulus Augustulus, the last Emperor of Rome.

Regards,