New Unit: Barbarian Archers

[Aide de camp]

New Unit decription from totalwar.com

Quote[/b] ]
Barbarian Archers

Barbarian Archer warbands are composed of fierce, lightly-equipped men who can strike quickly and use terrain to its best advantage. They usually carry a small bow - not the compound bow favoured by more civilized peoples - and a good selection of hunting and war arrows, designed to cut arteries and pierce armour respectively. They also carry short swords, allowing them to fight hand-to-hand when they must, and they are not armoured, unless an individual has been lucky enough to strip a fallen enemy of gear after a fight. These archers are at their best in wooded country where their keen eye, loose formations and stealthy tactics give them the edge. They can also support charging infantry hordes by expertly unleashing a rain of arrows to dispirit a well-formed enemy line. However, any Archers caught in open ground by heavy troops or cavalry will be in trouble unless they can withdraw to more favourable ground or behind a wall of friendly spearmen. Archers should be used to break up enemy formations, so that heavier troops can do the real killing
http://www.totalwar.com/community/images/barar.jpg

[Basileus]

dont like the look of the units in rtw but we will see that might change..they look so fake in a way http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Quote[/b] (Basileus @ July 11 2003,17:54)]dont like the look of the units in rtw but we will see that might change..they look so fake in a way http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif
And the units in M/STW don't?

[khurjan]

what tribe is he representing??

didnt know barbarians can aford suit of armour be it leather or chain mail or scaled which was more common http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Kongamato]

Quote[/b] ]not the compound bow favoured by more civilized peoples

Perhaps they mean composite bows? If I remember correctly a compound bow is a fairly recent invention that utilizes pulleys and cams to improve performance.

That concludes todays nitpicking

Nice unit.

[DrHaphazard]

Is it just me or the do the faces for the newest units look odd? It looks like they have heavy eye shadow and then dark lines going out from their nostrils.

http://www.totalwar.com/community/images/falx.jpghttp://www.totalwar.com/community/images/barar.jpg

Maybe its just cuz these barbarians have lighter hair that they look strange...

Greek Archer
http://www.totalwar.com/community/images/greeka.jpg

[Hakonarson]

Quote[/b] (Kongamato @ July 11 2003,15:26)]
Quote[/b] ]not the compound bow favoured by more civilized peoples

Perhaps they mean composite bows? If I remember correctly a compound bow is a fairly recent invention that utilizes pulleys and cams to improve performance.
No - hte modern use of "compund" to mean pulley style bows is just that - modern.

Compound and composite are synonymous for ancient bows, and mean the opposite of "self" - that is they refer to bows made of multiple materiels to more efficiently store and deliver the eneergy of hte archer to the arrow.

Compound bows usually use a dense material such as bone on hte inside of hte bow's curve, as this resists compression, and a stretchy material on the outside to resist tension - such as animal sinew.

As oposed to self bows which are made from a singel piece of wood.

Oh and the unit - jeez what a beat up of a bunch of poor and/or young warriors

Anyone with any competence or wealth woudl be fighting in the warband - these guys are the REJECTS in virtually every society - too poor for "real" fighting Tho' that's not to say they would be sent away as long as they can hit the side of a colloseum at 25 cubits - but making them out to be snipers is a bit rich

[Basileus]

Quote[/b] (Big King Sanctaphrax @ July 11 2003,14:08)]
Quote[/b] (Basileus @ July 11 2003,17:54)]dont like the look of the units in rtw but we will see that might change..they look so fake in a way http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif
And the units in M/STW don't?
the thing might be that i expect more from RTW graphicly wise then i did with MTW capish http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[shingenmitch2]

Bas,

Those will be a huge upgrade over STW... remember they're 3D and we've got literally thousands of them running around. They can only afford to give each a limited number of polygons to build the figure. Don't expect to see the detail of a 3D figure that is part of a fight-game that has at most 40 figures on screen at once.

[Nowake]

Quote[/b] (shingenmitch2 @ July 16 2003,22:06)]Bas,

Those will be a huge upgrade over STW... remember they're 3D and we've got literally thousands of them running around. They can only afford to give each a limited number of polygons to build the figure. Don't expect to see the detail of a 3D figure that is part of a fight-game that has at most 40 figures on screen at once.
Yes, but the other units don't look so bad, so why do these two?

[shingenmitch2]

Well I guess that depends on what way they look bad to you.

Are u referring to the texture mapping--the actual artistic ability on the rendering of the faces? Which is a problem with the illustrator.

or are you referring to the roughness of the figure and lack of smooth shapes? This is probably just the limitation of the game engine in an attempt to not blow peeps 3D graphics cards http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif.

Personally, both look pretty good to me, although I think these faces might lack a certain subtlety.-- my guess is that the texture illustration needs to be done like the way you paint a tiny lead figure -- because they will be (for the most part) rather small on screen, you need to over-emphasize highlight and shadow. Another reason this might be done is to help mask the true lack of 3D detail on the figure.

My only gripe is that they should have thrown a few more polygons at the Greek aspis shield to round it out a bit more, the octagon just isn't working for me.

[DBS]

At the risk of sounding a pedantic bore, I am struggling to think of a barbarian grouping, within the bounds of RTW, that made much use of bows.

Celts/Galatians did not - maybe a few individuals - bows were for hunting not warfare: where was the heroism in killing at long range?

Ditto Germans, Iberians, Celt-Iberians and Dacians.

Ligurians, Illyrians, Numidians and Moors much more in favour of javelins.

I am not saying none whatsoever, but please, weight unit selection so that AI barbarians only have one or two units of archers in an army of 20. Its bad enough having rebel armies in MTW with half a dozen units of handgunners in the 1300s...