Crossbows in the Early era

[The Yogi]

My 2 cents is that there should be for Catholic factions. We know there were crossbows used in the 2nd half of the 11th century from two sources:

- William the Conqueror had a unit of crossbowmen at Hastings in 1066

- In the "Alexiad" Anna Comnena mentions that weapon in the hands of the crusaders passing through Constantinople (1098?) on their way to the Holy Land.

Btw, its apparent from her comment that she isn't familiar with the weapon, so apparently the Eastern Romans had forgot about Crossbows by the 11th Century - which is striking since the weapon is mentioned by Vegetius in his 4th century military manual "De re militari" as a "manuballista" ie a hand ballista.

Since the Byzantines would have known of the Crossbow if the Turks or Arabs had used it against them, we can deduce that they didn't have them either.

From this evidence it would seem to me that Catholic factions should have access to crossbows from the start and Byzantines and Moslems should have them from the High era onwards. Unfortunately, that means making separate Byzantine and Moslem Crossbowmen units, so perhaps the easiest thing would be to have ordinary Crossbows be a Catholic only unit and let Moslems and Byzantines have Arbalests only.

I've modded my MTW:VI that way and it works for me (since I only play SP), I can recommend it.

[katank]

well, even the picts in the VI campaign had pictish crossbows so it's really present many places.

if you mod in the pictish x bows and make them catholic only and early only it would most likely be better than denying muslims and orthodox regular x bows.

The use of x bows was not as widespread though and I think it's primarily for balancing reasons that you can't build them in early. making them catholic only would likely unbalance the game a fair amount as I imagine since not only do they have AP, they also have better lethality and the relatively low build reqs means that there's a lot less reasons to build vanilla archers.

they are present though in a few units in lithuania and livonia which you can bribe and thus give you a few x bows but wouldn't unbalance the game.

did you notice more competitive catholic factions after modding in x bows?

[son of spam]

Wes modded xbows in for the french and the italians (genoese sailors), I think. They don't seem that OP but maybe that's because medmod made a lot of other changes too. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/handball.gif

[Tribesman]

Wasn't there a Papal edict or something that banned the use of crossbows against fellow christians ?

[katank]

yep, wes did make x bow available but so were longbows and a ton of other stuff. the x bows also had ammo, lethality, etc. reduced so it's no longer quite so powerful. He changed a ton of stuff about the projectile stats.

yeah, there was a papal edict against use of xbows and stuff about humane ways of warfare but I think that's later when all the brave knights (most famous of which was richard the lion hearted) were getting killed by the x bows and they thought it was a cowardly and cruel weapon to use.

but kings knew better and realpolitik ruled. x bows work and so we continue to see them bolt mow down charging knights and other armoured troops, esp. when we move to arbs.

[The_678]

It seems to me that all you guys are forgetting about Mounted X-bows. I know the Germans have them and I think the polish and russians get them too. So yes there are X-bows in early already but only for a few factions. I find them mighty useful when playing as HRE in early to have my Mounted X-bows do some very wide flanking and kill enemy generals/kings. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[katank]

yeah, italians, polish, hungarians get them too.
them, along with jinettes are nicknamed "battlefield assasins" or jedi eliminators as they are so effective against royals and can easily kill kings and princes that wouldn't otherwise die in melee.

me love bolt and jav troops. those darn RKs don't stand a chance under 3 or 4 volleys from several units. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

[econ21]

Yes, historically crossbows should be in early - although to maintain a role for archers and match their historical diffusion, I would give them higher tech requirements - eg say they need a castle.

More importantly, I would shunt arbalesters back to the late period. In gameplay, they make crossbows redundant and historically, more powerful crossbows were developed to counter plate. They also should be affected by rain - the strings were NOT metal.

In game terms, I really like mounted crossbowmen and arbalesters are perhaps my most effective unit (4 together can quickly machine gun down a single unit of knights or halberdiers).

[The Yogi]

Quote[/b] (katank @ Mar. 09 2004,16:28)]if you mod in the pictish x bows and make them catholic only and early only it would most likely be better than denying muslims and orthodox regular x bows.

(...)

did you notice more competitive catholic factions after modding in x bows?
That is an excellent idea Will see if I can manage, we could call them "Early" or "Feudal" Crossbowmen or something like that.

I'm not very familiar with the Pictish X-bows since I haven't played the Viking Invasion Campaign much, but perhaps the Early Crossbowmen could use the same type of smaller, lighter crossbow that the mounted crossbowmen have? That would make them less of an early überunit.

I didn't notice any great difference in how well the catholic factions do, but I'm only in my first thus modded campaign.

BTW, Crossbows are powerfull, but not a good substitute for archers in flat country, since they cannot fire over the heads of other troops. Unless the formation gets very drawn out, not many can fire at once. On a hill they're devastating though.

[NewJeffCT]

Quote[/b] (Simon Appleton @ Mar. 10 2004,05:58)]More importantly, I would shunt arbalesters back to the late period. In gameplay, they make crossbows redundant and historically, more powerful crossbows were developed to counter plate. They also should be affected by rain - the strings were NOT metal.
I agree - by the time you can actually build crossbows, I usually have a few bowyer's guilds and just build arbalesters instead.

What I would like would be fuzzier era changes. Instead of immediately being able to build Arbs, Pavise Arbs, Chivalric Knights, Chiv Sergeants, Janissary Heavy Infantry, etc starting in 1205, I would like maybe crossbows and pavise crossbows to come in to play 5-10 years before 1205 and then the 'better' units maybe 5-10 years later - maybe Arbs in 1205 and Pavise Arbs in 1210 or 1215?

I believe the crossbow was invented in or around China a good thousand years before it became widely used on the European battlefields... I could be wrong, but I know it was a long time migrating West.

[squippy]

Quote[/b] (NewJeffCT @ Mar. 10 2004,07:32)][quote=Simon Appleton,Mar. 10 2004,05:58]
I believe the crossbow was invented in or around China a good thousand years before it became widely used on the European battlefields... I could be wrong, but I know it was a long time migrating West.
Yes, used in China as early as 280BC.

[The Yogi]

Is mentioned in Hellenistic Era (around the same time as in China) as well, as a "Gastraphete", ie a weapon coked with the belly.

[Hurin_Rules]

There was an official ban on crossbows at least as early as 1139 (the Second Lateran Council). In fact, however, it had very little effect and was basically ignored.

Just FYI.

[Seven.the.Hun]

crossbows, only use them as mercs really, sometimes they just get in the way, but they can be very useful

[The Yogi]

You learn something every day...

I've now modded in the Pictish Crossbowmen into the Early period (as Frankish Crossbowmen, to indicate that Dark Age feel) and made a special light crossbow for them (and mounted crossbowmen) to use.

I learnt in the Dungeon that we can have only one new type of projectiles, using the Ninjastar entry in the PROJECTILESTATS file. Most seem to have decided to use that one to make a Composite bow, for all eastern archers, both mounted and unmounted used a reflex type of bow that was nearly the equal of the Longbow (although much smaller).

However, I'm of the opinion that the current horse archer bow (erroneously named Mounted Longbow, LOL, no Longbow could ever have been fired from the back of a horse) could well be modded to depict the composite or reflex bow, since no mounted archer since the dawn of history ever used anything but a reflex bow.

The only disadvantage would be that the lower accuracy of a mounted archer can not be represented (as both foot and horse archers used reflex bows) but since horse archers usually were extremely well trained and frighteningly accurate, that doesn't misrepresent them that much.

So I redid the Mounted Longbow into a Reflex Bow (longer range, slightly greater speed and marginally greater lethality than shortbows with the same accuracy) and assigned that to some foot archers as well; Trebizond Archers, all the Turcoman, Ottoman and Mameluk types but not (for balance reasons) Desert Archers.

This leaves the Eastern Armies with a definite firepower advantage over Catholic armies, balanced only by that unique western unit - the Frankish Crossbowman, using a slightly smaller version of the standard crossbow (the modded Ninjastar). Same weapon went to mounted crossbowmen.

Now I'm off to try it all out http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-party2.gif

[katank]

nice job with that http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif it's an excellent modding idea and I hope my idea for pictish x bows work out.

I disagree on the mounted archers not being able to use longbows though. The mongols had two sets of bows for mounted and dismounted use. I believe even their mounted version was equal to the power of longbows. they definitely had superior archery technology although giving all HAs that would be unfair and unrealistic.

[The Yogi]

Quote[/b] (katank @ Mar. 10 2004,16:27)]nice job with that http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif it's an excellent modding idea and I hope my idea for pictish x bows work out.

I disagree on the mounted archers not being able to use longbows though. The mongols had two sets of bows for mounted and dismounted use. I believe even their mounted version was equal to the power of longbows. they definitely had superior archery technology although giving all HAs that would be unfair and unrealistic.
Thx

I'm sure that the Mongol bow was as powerful AS the longbow, but it wasn't a longbow. A longbow is as tall as the man who fires it. It has to be, because it's a simple bow, not a recurved bow like the mongol one so it has to be longer to achieve the same power.

Clearly, the eastern reflex bow is by far the more advanced of the two. The long bow has only the advantage of firing longer, heavier arrows.

BTW, I should prolly edit Longbows to be available to all Catholic factions in the High period. I've heard they've found one in Germany and the latest theory in vouge here in Sweden is that we used them to defeat a Danish Knight army in the late 12th century (shortly after the Third Crusade). But should prolly increase build conditions, for example could add third level Town Militia as a prerequisite (representing the need for formalised regular practise of Longbowmen to be).

[katank]

maybe you can again copy the unit and make it lower reqs for the english or at least some advantage as otherwise the english lose a big advantage that they had.

I believe that the mongolian bow of the dismounted type was also quite large though not quite as large as the longbow.

guess that would be cheating too in that they technically dismount before using that bow.

interesting theory in sweden that you speak of. Is the longbow in fact a generalized nordic weapons then, not simply restricted to the english and welsh?

slightly off topic but interesting nonetheless.

[The Yogi]

English faction can build Longbows cheaper and has access to Welsh longbowmen - should be advantage enough, methinks.

As for the Longbow in Sweden - in later middle ages it certainly wasn't used to any great extent that I know of - but the one account that we have from that battle (can't remember the name right now) tell of how the charge of the Danish Knights was stopped (and the Knights themselves massacred) by a concentrated volleys of archery fire, ie very much like the great battles of the 100-years war.

Does this mean longbows were necessarily used? No, but the fact that it was Knights that were moved down - broken by a single volley, as the account would have it - suggests it.

One of our more selling writers - Jan Guillou - has popularized the idea that a Swedish Knight returning from the crusades thaught the Swedish peasants how to use Longbows against the Danes, but I'm not convinced.

To begin with Longbows weren't used (to my knowledge) in the Third Crusade, Richard the Lionheart relied more on spears and crossbows. Second, it takes years of training to become proefficient with a longbow, so its not a weapon that can be introduced as a response to an emergency.

[Ironside]

Longbows was used by vikings so it's possible that we had some experience with them 150-200 years later. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-yes.gif