Working on a naptha archers mod

[Accounting Troll]

In another topic I mentioned that I would love to see naptha archers in the game, and I thought that the only way this would happen is if I did it myself by modding the range of naptha grenades and creating three new units that shoot naptha grenades from bows.

I was wondering if anyone had any view on what the building requirements should be for the three new units. This is what I was thinking of:

- Byzantine Naptha Archers.
As the Byzantines invented greek fire, they should have the earliest access, requiring a seige engineer and a bowyers workshop. This unit is only available to the Byzantines.

- Arab Naptha Archers.
After being on the receiving end of greek fire, the Arabs developed their own incendiary weapons, so their building requirements are seige engineer and bowyer's guild. This unit is only available to the three islamic factions.

- Naptha crossbowmen.
The catholic factions learned about greek fire during the crusades, so they should be last to build naptha units, requiring a seige engineer and a master bowyer. This unit is available to all factions except the rebels, Byzantines and the three islamic factions.

Also, the formulae for incendiary weapons tended to be a closely guarded secret, resulting in very centralised production. Should I make greek fire only available to build in a province with a unique structure such as the Chancellor's Palace?

Range should be half of that of a vanilla archer, as the incendiary component means that the arrows would weigh more. This means that naptha throwers now have impressive range - I was thinking of renaming them to naptha slingers and restricting them to the Golden Horde and the Byzantines.

Anyone got any thoughts?

Incidentally, I haven't put in any new graphics as I don't have the ability to put in graphics of the same standard as the originals.

[oblivious maximus]

Quote[/b] (Accounting Troll @ April 06 2004,11:00)]As the Byzantines invented greek fire, they should have the earliest access, requiring a seige engineer and a bowyers workshop.

Are you sure about this? Greek fire must have been around loong before the Byzantines or East Roman Empire.
I remember reading quite some time back that it is even believed that Ancient Egyptians may have been the first to use it.

[GoldenKnightX2]

Greek fire has been around longer than eastern roman empire, much longer.

[gaelic cowboy]

What about naptha catpults and ballista ha ha ha ha flee little insects from my wrath

[katank]

yeah, why not give em range of siege cannons?

but the naptha archer idea seems cool. although why the heck would the byz build naptha archers if they can get the uber ranged naptha slingers?

[Accounting Troll]

The version I read was that in the 6th Century, an Egyptian architect fled from the advancing Muslems to a more secure Byzantine province, where he invented Greek Fire. Maybe he just took the credit? Does anyone know where I could get some information about this?

Owing to some hard-coding in the projectile stats file, all units that use naptha have to have the same range, so I have to find a workaround to those naptha throwers with Herculean stregnth.

I thought perhaps a unit of naptha archers would have more men, better morale and less inclined to accidentally set themselves on fire?

[Accounting Troll]

Actually, I think I've just worked out how to issue bows to those naptha throwers in battle.

Mounted naptha archers anybody?

[katank]

mounted dual machine gun napthas with ONLY longbow range and travels faster than steppe cav, sure sounds good.