Why the rush to gunpowder?

MTW2 is a great game but does anyone else think that gunpowder units are available way too early in the game? In my current campaign, I am building the first available gunpowder units around the year 1250. These are bombard cannons. In the unit description, it states that the first of these were used in Europe in the mid 14th century (thats mid 1300's) and gained widespread use at the end of the 14th century (late 1300's). So here I am making them 150 years too soon.:thumbsdown:

The other historical events like the Mongol invasions seem to happen at historically accurate dates, so why not gunpowder? Frankly, I think the game would be equally great if they had ended the campaign at 1400 and left out gunpowder altogether.

Are specific dates that units or buildings become available moddable?

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Originally Posted by IsItStillThere

MTW2 is a great game but does anyone else think that gunpowder units are available way too early in the game? In my current campaign, I am building the first available gunpowder units around the year 1250. These are bombard cannons. In the unit description, it states that the first of these were used in Europe in the mid 14th century (thats mid 1300's) and gained widespread use at the end of the 14th century (late 1300's). So here I am making them 150 years too soon.:thumbsdown:

The other historical events like the Mongol invasions seem to happen at historically accurate dates, so why not gunpowder? Frankly, I think the game would be equally great if they had ended the campaign at 1400 and left out gunpowder altogether.

Are specific dates that units or buildings become available moddable?

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I'm actually a bit urked myself ATM in my campaign i have modded it to be 6 months a turn so it could be my fault but I'm sure what I'm about to complain about should be tied in with some kind of key event not through the tech tree which this appears to be.

https://img148.imageshack.us/img148/825/hmmwtfip6.jpg

Since the late 13th century the Venetians have been fielding full stacks of those ships that are from the 16th century and its really urking me off as I'm only able to build Gun holks which don't stand a chance.

The game is about re-writing history. Gunpowder has indeed been around for probably a few thousand years, but only came to prominence in those times. It doesn't mean that your leader can't be a bit more adventurous and have a bit more foresight with this "new" invention.

Heh if you thing bombards are bad, a prepared player can start pumping out musketeers a few turns after the gunpowder event... :laugh4:

Assuming he already has huge walls. Best bet is to take Constantinople as a faction that actually gets gun powder. Cheers to Cossack Musketeers!

all ive ever used are the bombard units, how are the other gunpowder units?

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Originally Posted by zulukiller

I'm actually a bit urked myself ATM in my campaign i have modded it to be 6 months a turn so it could be my fault but I'm sure what I'm about to complain about should be tied in with some kind of key event not through the tech tree which this appears to be.

Since the late 13th century the Venetians have been fielding full stacks of those ships that are from the 16th century and its really urking me off as I'm only able to build Gun holks which don't stand a chance.

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Well wordems, if you changed the time progression, things are gonna be out of wack... and secondly, if you're a northern european power, such as the English - basically, you should stay off the water as much as possible until you get Carrack tech.

In the early, early, early game - you could've sunk Dhows... if the Pirates didn't catch you first, lol - that's about it. After that, don't get near the waves until shipbuilding is about putting lots of big guns on board.

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Originally Posted by Test112345

all ive ever used are the bombard units, how are the other gunpowder units?

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Bombards pale in comparison to the other gunpowder units. Bombards have an attack vs buildings of 180. Basilisks are 330. Bombard ranges are only a little greater than a trebuchet. Basilisks can reach just about across the map (I'm stretching it slightly, but only slightly). Musketeers outrange longbows. Muskets have a higher missile attack than longbows. Muskets have the AP ability just like longbows and crossbows. Muskets seem to kill more per volley than longbows, but fire a bit slower. Muskets cause units to break and rout at close range.

In the progression of artillery, bombards give way to culverins or cannons for most factions, which are longer ranged, more damage and more accurate. Those get supplanted by basilisks, which are the granddaddy of medieval artillery. There is a reason it costs 1000 to recruit and 400 to maintain. Some factions have special pieces, like serpentines (light cannon intended for use against field troops, it's quite accurate and good range but doesn't hurt a building any more than a ballista does) and mortars (indirect fire weapon, can drop shots over walls onto troops behind). Not all factions get everything. I think the Turks only get Grand Bombards.

In missile infantry, the first thing you get are handguns, which aren't terribly good but the troops are well armored. They look like they do better in melee, honestly. Those give way to arquebusiers, which have longer range but no armor. They are fairly accurate, do good damage, but long range missile troops like longbows, Venetian Archers, pavise crossbows, etc outrange them. Only about 4 factions get musketeers by default, but those are the best.

Take a look at this screenshot for an idea of the range of high end artillery. See the routing troops on the mountain? The last one just moved out of range of my two culverins...

https://img244.imageshack.us/img244/...rinsuf1.th.jpg

I actually find mortar the best long range anti-personnel. Bombards, etc. are too inaccurate. Ribaults are short range. Dunno about serpentines yet.

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Originally Posted by PaulTa

The game is about re-writing history. Gunpowder has indeed been around for probably a few thousand years, but only came to prominence in those times. It doesn't mean that your leader can't be a bit more adventurous and have a bit more foresight with this "new" invention.

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The Chinese invented Gunpowder in the 9th century. A book from 850 titled "Classified Essentials of the Mysterious Tao of the True Origin of Things" contains a recipe for gunpowder, and appearantly was happened upon by Taoist alchemists trying to make an immortality potion. :book: By 904 the Chinese have made military rockets.

Also it's not that early to have gunpowder coming along when it does. Muslim scholars had a gunpowder recipe around 1100. Weapons using it are developed in Islamic and Christian areas of europe by 1250.

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Only about 4 factions get musketeers by default, but those are the best.

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Standard Musketeers are quite good, but not the best. Turkish Jannisary Musketeers are by far the best gunpowder infantry in the game, being basically good at everything and doing crazy damage.

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actually find mortar the best long range anti-personnel. Bombards, etc. are too inaccurate. Ribaults are short range. Dunno about serpentines yet.

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I agree, mortars are by far the best anti-unit artillery there is. They may not have quite the range of the other guns, but for some reason they have almost 90% accuracy vs troops, and an large AoE attack. They can be fire over walls and usually take out S.Towers, large artillery, and rams in one shot.:2thumbsup:
I honestly think they are a bit over the top.

Serpentines too, are great, they are like ballistas with massive range and incredible accuracy. In a bridge battle they simply rip away lines and lines of men.

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Originally Posted by lars573

a recipe for gunpowder... happened upon by Taoist alchemists trying to make an immortality potion

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I bet THOSE alchemists never reached immortality! :skull:

With the default time scale, I feel that everything is a bit rushed. They seem to have slowed down the tactical battles a little bit, which is good, but the speed of events and the constant attacks from your neighbors seem to have increased the overall pace of the game.

I guess that's what we get from all of those threads talking about how people got bored and never played all the way through a campaign?

holy crap...you need to have the highest archer building and then convert them using gunpowder, right?you get whatever their gunpowder counterparts are?

jease man...the problem is that i went through every round and i saw no countries i fought using any gunpowder weapons besides the handgunners. it seems like you can just make regular units and do fine against anyone. or do countries get better militaries as you get better too...im playing on m/m so that may be it too. wow...thats such a long range.

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Originally Posted by Blackboots

I bet THOSE alchemists never reached immortality! :skull:

With the default time scale, I feel that everything is a bit rushed. They seem to have slowed down the tactical battles a little bit, which is good, but the speed of events and the constant attacks from your neighbors seem to have increased the overall pace of the game.

I guess that's what we get from all of those threads talking about how people got bored and never played all the way through a campaign?

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thats part of it (although i DO enjoy slow-buildup-turtle type campaigns)
the other reason is that the devs think that the majority of campaign players dont even get the late era units. so their solution? speed it up which imho is pretty bad. there SHOULD have been an option for fast-slow playstyles.

Early handguns and arquebuses were believed to have been invented in China around the same time as well (12-13th century), according to some recent archeological finds. The armies of the late Ming Dynasty include war wagons (against the nomads), heavy siege artillery, and pike-and-shot formations. Make of it what you will. Unfortunately, nobody takes Chinese historians seriously, so you end up getting those stupid fire lances and rocket launchers every time you play a game with Far Easterners involved. Or those ridiculous repeating crossbows. Or archers with exploding ammo. Or rocket-assisted catapult stones. Or pretty fireworks.

Anyway, I've discovered that putting musketeers on skirmish orders bypasses the load in ranks thing and the individual men actually fire quite fast, about 8-10 shots a minute. The problem with load in ranks is that the lines keep bumping into each other so they never get to fire.

Musketeers are built from the highest level barracks (royal barracks), so don't bother with the archery ranges if you're teching to them. Teching fast, but still with attention to other stuff like churches and trade buildings, you can get your first royal barracks several turns before turn 81 rolls around and brings gunpowder with it. After that you can basically shoot any army to death except longbowmen (and maybe, once the formation problems are fixed, even them).

Cannon of all descriptions can destroy virtually any structure with one or two hits. Grand Bombards do the most damage, I think, but are a little more inaccurate than basilisks.

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Make of it what you will. Unfortunately, nobody takes Chinese historians seriously, so you end up getting those stupid fire lances and rocket launchers every time you play a game with Far Easterners involved. Or those ridiculous repeating crossbows. Or archers with exploding ammo. Or rocket-assisted catapult stones. Or pretty fireworks.

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My understandin was that these where used in Chinnese armies, just not allways at the time periods the games say they where. Besides the games tend to try and go for unique over somthing that just looks like a carbon copy of european warfare.

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Originally Posted by Test112345

holy crap...you need to have the highest archer building and then convert them using gunpowder, right?you get whatever their gunpowder counterparts are?

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No, actually the gunpowder infantry are built in cities. The Militia Barracks (the one that gives you militia pikemen) enables Hand Gunners once the gunpowder discovered event occurs. There are two barracks above that: the Army Barracks (12,000 florins and 6-7 turns build time) and the Royal Barracks (15,000 florins and 8 turns). Before gunpowder they don't really do anything except possibly increase the recruitment pool of the earlier troops. After gunpowder, the army barracks enables arquebusiers and the royal barracks enables musketeers. You can build the barracks before the event, so you'll immediately be able to start recruitment when it happens, but the recruitment pool takes time to fill up.

The cannons are a separate line of buildings: gunsmith, cannon workshop, cannon foundry, royal armory. They can be built in cities or castles.

Does the royal barracks do anything for factions without access to musketeers? I never noticed.

From what I understand, Chinese warfare after the adoption of gunpowder (Ming thru Qing dynasty, although you have grenadiers and bombards as early as the late Song) was surprisingly similar to European warfare. Heavy lancers, musketeers, pikemen, 'sword-and-buckler' men, field and siege artillery, extensive fortifications (war wagons and fortified cities). More unique elements would be archers continuing to serve alongside the gunners. Maybe someone better versed in this stuff would know more.

Factions who don't get musketeers cannot build a royal barracks. It's one way you can tell them apart. Byzantium doesn't even get to build an army barracks, since the only gunpowder troops they get are bombards.

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Originally Posted by Blackboots

I bet THOSE alchemists never reached immortality! :skull:

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Well trying to find a potion was a step up from previous immortality formulas. Which consisted of drinking mercury and eating jade.

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Originally Posted by dopp

Early handguns and arquebuses were believed to have been invented in China around the same time as well (12-13th century), according to some recent archeological finds. The armies of the late Ming Dynasty include war wagons (against the nomads), heavy siege artillery, and pike-and-shot formations. Make of it what you will. Unfortunately, nobody takes Chinese historians seriously, so you end up getting those stupid fire lances and rocket launchers every time you play a game with Far Easterners involved. Or those ridiculous repeating crossbows. Or archers with exploding ammo. Or rocket-assisted catapult stones. Or pretty fireworks.

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I've seen what is pirported to be a hand held bronze cannon from around the Yuan period. But going as far as an Arquebus might be stretching it.

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Originally Posted by lars573

I've seen what is pirported to be a hand held bronze cannon from around the Yuan period. But going as far as an Arquebus might be stretching it.

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No arquebuses during the Yuan, right. The Ming is later (14th century onwards).

And there is not guarentee that the Mings used Arquebus's right from the start. There is also no guarentee that the Mings and Qings used native ARquebus's. They could have come from Central asia or the middle east to China.

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The game is about re-writing history.

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True, but it would be nice if we could do that in a realistic context.

This isn't civilization...insane teching isn't what its about. Units like Cossack Musketeers have absolutely no place being in a MEDIEVAL strategy game. Its laughable when you think about it.

Its OK though, there are a lot of great elements to the game and its still a lot of fun...these issues should be fodder for the modders anyhow:book:

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Originally Posted by SMZ

Well wordems, if you changed the time progression, things are gonna be out of wack...

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Eh? I thought things still happened in exactly the same year if you changed the time progression. I thought they just (obviously) took longer to happen?

There are some interesting pictures of Chinese gunpowder weaponry at this site: http://club.it.sohu.com/r-kaogu-104108-0-17-0.html

A lot of the weapons on the site are described as being Ming-dynasty in origin, including an interesting looking 'Pavise' firearm. I'm also intrigued by the 'poison globe' grenade - early chemical warfare.

That said, I'm not aware that the Ming dynasty ever got the hang of massed formations of soldiers with firearms. I suspect that gunpowder weaponry in China remained in a supporting role, given the availability of huge amounts of manpower who could be armed with sharp pointy things. Cannons and similar never got beyond the bombard stage of technology either until the mid-to-late (18th century) Qing, to my knowledge, and were not much used on the battlefield.

I'd always thought of the Qing as using mainly halberdiers and horse archers, with a few units of musketeers in the late 18th to mid 19th centuries, but I'm happy to be corrected by someone who knows more than that.

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Originally Posted by Quickening

Eh? I thought things still happened in exactly the same year if you changed the time progression. I thought they just (obviously) took longer to happen?

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Nyet. Most of the game events are set to happen a certain number of turns after you start. A few are tied to dates, but the majority are based on number of turns.

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Originally Posted by Musashi

Nyet. Most of the game events are set to happen a certain number of turns after you start. A few are tied to dates, but the majority are based on number of turns.

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Oh for f**ksake.

Thanks for the info. Now that is annoying.

Actually, as I understand it, it's set to a certain number of years after the game starts. If you alter the start date you also alter the dates of the set events, but changing the timescale does not. The event "World is Round" that triggers the availability of the new world happens between

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

320 and 328

years after the campaign starts. If that was turns, the default timescale would have the campaign end before it happened. 1080-1530 is 450 years, 225 turns at the default setting. I've played all three of my campaigns at 1 year per turn instead of two, the first two going to just past the year 1300, and didn't have that event.

Ah, my mistake then. For some reason I was thinking those were turn offsets.

:sweatdrop:

So... playing at 0.05 timescale keeps everything the same? I keep hearing different things and I just can't get my head around it.

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Originally Posted by Beefeater

There are some interesting pictures of Chinese gunpowder weaponry at this site: http://club.it.sohu.com/r-kaogu-104108-0-17-0.html

A lot of the weapons on the site are described as being Ming-dynasty in origin, including an interesting looking 'Pavise' firearm. I'm also intrigued by the 'poison globe' grenade - early chemical warfare.

That said, I'm not aware that the Ming dynasty ever got the hang of massed formations of soldiers with firearms. I suspect that gunpowder weaponry in China remained in a supporting role, given the availability of huge amounts of manpower who could be armed with sharp pointy things. Cannons and similar never got beyond the bombard stage of technology either until the mid-to-late (18th century) Qing, to my knowledge, and were not much used on the battlefield.

I'd always thought of the Qing as using mainly halberdiers and horse archers, with a few units of musketeers in the late 18th to mid 19th centuries, but I'm happy to be corrected by someone who knows more than that.

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I know very little about early modern Chinese warfare, unfortunately, since very little research has been done in this area (what with the little matter of a century of civil war making records difficult to access), but it is my understanding that late Ming armies used musketeers and cannon extensively. You certainly do not hear of older siege artillery after the adoption of gunpowder (except for those stupid rocket launchers). Whatever the.. shortcomings... of local gunpowder technology, the introduction of European-style firearms following the Japanese invasion of Korea would have helped things along quite a bit. Qing armies were to a large degree musketeers with a healthy sprinkling of pikes and composite bowmen, at least by the reign of Emperor Kangxi.

This isn't just Medieval Total War any more, it's also Early Modern Total War. Teching is the greatest part of the game for me. Access all your best units too early and the game becomes boring later on. Might as well play original Medieval (which was great, but gunpowder troops were a huge waste of time). People are already complaining that M2TW doesn't add much compared to previous games, they had to include additional content.

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Originally Posted by Quickening

:sweatdrop:

So... playing at 0.05 timescale keeps everything the same? I keep hearing different things and I just can't get my head around it.

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I don't think the timescale can be set that low. The events file (descr_events.txt, it's not even packed) lists the events by years from the campaign start. It's not clear on that point, but it pretty much has to be. Here's a snippet from the file:

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;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;; EVENT LIST ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
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event historic first_windmill
date 50

event historic earthquake_in_aleppo
date 58
position 257, 73

event historic science_alchemy_book
date 64

event historic first_european_paper
date 72

event historic first_rudder
date 100

event historic first_magnetic_compass
date 102

event historic first_wheelbarrow
date 120

event historic science_maths_zero_europe
date 122

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First windmill date 50? 50 turns? 50 years? 50 turns would put it at 1180 if playing the default timescale, 1130 if playing 1 year per turn, 1105 if playing 6 months per turn. I didn't pay attention but 50 years is about when it shows up in the game. I've had the mongol invasion warning show up in

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1208

in both the games I've played so far. This is what the game says about that event:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

; ------------ CORE GAME EVENT --------------
event historic mongols_invasion_warn
date 128 144

If that was turns, it would be more than a century off.

I've read that you can't set the timescale lower than 0.25 (4 turns per year), but I can't confirm that. I would think anything lower would just be ridiculous. As it is, even playing 1 year per turn I've won two campaigns in the early 1300s, well before the Timurids arrive and before becoming able to go to the new world.

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Originally Posted by dopp

I know very little about early modern Chinese warfare, unfortunately, since very little research has been done in this area (what with the little matter of a century of civil war making records difficult to access), but it is my understanding that late Ming armies used musketeers and cannon extensively. You certainly do not hear of older siege artillery after the adoption of gunpowder (except for those stupid rocket launchers). Whatever the.. shortcomings... of local gunpowder technology, the introduction of European-style firearms following the Japanese invasion of Korea would have helped things along quite a bit. Qing armies were to a large degree musketeers with a healthy sprinkling of pikes and composite bowmen, at least by the reign of Emperor Kangxi.

This isn't just Medieval Total War any more, it's also Early Modern Total War. Teching is the greatest part of the game for me. Access all your best units too early and the game becomes boring later on. Might as well play original Medieval (which was great, but gunpowder troops were a huge waste of time). People are already complaining that M2TW doesn't add much compared to previous games, they had to include additional content.

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Thanks Dopp, that's very interesting ,and spurred me to look into this more. There is a fascinating paper on the use of firearms by the Qing in the public domain (see link below). It appears to be an early draft as there are large segments missing - and the author's romanisation of Chinese sounds is a bit dodgy.

http://www.oslo2000.uio.no/program/p...1b-dicosmo.pdf

Among the more interesting conclusions:
*Early modern firearms (both small arms and artillery) in China were principally adaptations of the excellent contemporary Ottoman designs, with some input from the Japanese experience.

*Enterprising Chinese generals discovered the concept of the 'battle-wagon' independently of, and around the same time as did, the eastern Europeans - this may be linked to the fact that both groups would have been fighting against mounted nomads.

*The founders of the Qing were indeed mounted nomads, and fought the musket- and artillery- armed Ming either without or with very few firearms of their own. However, they quickly adapted to use captured Chinese firearms.

*At the time of the Qing invasion (early to mid 17th century), available firearms were muskets and culverins. These were supplemented by early grenades and, later, portuguese-style cannons.

*Once established in their control of China, the Qing did not promote further developments in firearm technology. This may be due to the absence of any significant external threat. Without improving their firearms, the Qing were still using musket and culverin based armies (and, one presumes, Chinese halberdiers i.e. pikemen as the main body of their forces) in the late 19th century.

Interesting stuff.

I read a paper some time ago (before college I never bothered with sources) on the Jesuits introducing new cannon casting processes to the Qing (this would be 17-18th century). Cannons were sometimes known as "Frankish machines" in China.

By the 19th century the principle weapon seemed to have been the matchlock musket but you still get a good number of chaps carrying polearms, swords, bows, crossbows etc. Cannon are based on European designs but gunnery is poor.

Quote from the blog for update 2 that just spoiled my day:

As a teaser for Update 2, we’re currently playing with some of the fixes and tweaks and have to say, you will absolutely love the more aggressive Scotland and Mongol campaign AI, more naval assaults, an even more consistent less powerful cavalry charge, less devastating gunpowder units and last but not least, stronger 2-handed axe men and billmen.

Looks like firearms will revert to short-range, kill nothing toys like in MTW. At least they were armored and could fight back then...