THERE IS NO CROSSBOW PROBLEM! (Anti-disinformation post)

[Varyar]

If we're going to compare archers and crossbowmen I'd be much more interested in comparing Rate of Fire than anything else.

[Lord_hazard]

If we're going to compare archers and crossbowmen I'd be much more interested in comparing Rate of Fire than anything else.

Agreed, but has anyone ever actually made a rate of fire test?

[pevergreen]

Yes, do a search.

[TevashSzat]

The thing that has people saying that crossbow units are better is that if it is one on one, crossbow vs. normal archer, the crossbow unit especially the pavise ones will take less casualties and kill more simply because they have a huge pavise.

[dopp]

That's the pavise at work, not the weapon. Making the archers uber to counter the pavise is a pretty lame solution since it overpowers them against everything else.

[Von Nanega]

That's the pavise at work, not the weapon. Making the archers uber to counter the pavise is a pretty lame solution since it overpowers them against everything else.

I agree with this post. I modded LongBows way up one time and it needed to be put back to almost vanilla because I was wasting all other troops with the horrendous power. Longbows are an interest of mine so I have been trying to fix them up. My fix to them was to add skill, to reflect a lifetime of training and use, then .5 more missile attack and .5 more range.

[JCoyote]

Yeah the only real issue there is that crossbows generally shouldn't be doing parabolic fire, and archers should have a bit better range, or at least longbows should, over all versions of crossbows. I could go either way on a peasant archer knowing how to land an arrow in a formation with long arching fire, but for longbowmen that was their stock in trade.

The balance, of course, is the superior armor penetration of the crossbow. Even given bodkin heads, the longbows shouldn't be getting quite the bonus against armor the better crossbows get. I think there should be a spectrum, where the as the AP goes up, the best longbows' AP matches the entry level crossbows, and the best crossbows' AP matches entry level firearms.

And really, later crossbows should be similar to gunpowder for armor penetration... the advantage of gunpowder being the shooters don't get physically exhausted from firing like they can with the various bows, and can carry more ammunition...

(Just wondering, is ammunition amount hard coded, or is it allotted individually based on unit types? Seems like about 30 for everyone.)

I kinda think there should still be some rebalancing and adjustments to the missile infantry. There are a lot of balancing factors that can mitigate some changes... like archers and longbows have the lowest infrastructure cost, by highest unit cost, etc. Firearms should really have the highest infrastructure cost of all, but inexpensive unit costs once achieved. With crossbows somewhere between. Which does make sense; firearms aren't hard to make, but developing all the industry required to make usable ones in any quantity is far from easy in a medieval world... but once there, watch out.

[Lord_hazard]

Yes, do a search.

I did i couldnt find any threads about rate of fire.