Give me a break!!!!

[Musashi]

Except that the troops who went to the americas were only lightly armored. They weren't wearing advanced plate. They had lots of exposed areas, and those obsidian swords of the Aztecs are devastating against exposed flesh.

[JCoyote]

Except that the troops who went to the americas were only lightly armored. They weren't wearing advanced plate. They had lots of exposed areas, and those obsidian swords of the Aztecs are devastating against exposed flesh.

Well that's historical. But the question is one of, if instead of sending what was the current trend in continental warfare, they had sent plate or mailed troops instead? My only reservation would be sending heavier troops like that through the hot, humid jungle. A lot of the conquistadors were wearing breastplates designed to at least deflect musket fire. Obviously that was overkill for what the Aztecs had to fight with. Using lighter pieces more spread out would have certainly worked better against them.

[Stlaind]

I'd like to see you justify how a nice strong breastplate protects heads, arms, groins, legs, necks..... ya know, just the few essential places given how people have arteries going just about everywhere.

[JCoyote]

I'd like to see you justify how a nice strong breastplate protects heads, arms, groins, legs, necks..... ya know, just the few essential places given how people have arteries going just about everywhere.

I didn't. Read it again. I said it would have worked better if they had armor less tough in any one spot but more spread out... like previous generations had. Because it DIDN'T protect those areas when it was just a breastplate.

[Stlaind]

I didn't. Read it again. I said it would have worked better if they had armor less tough in any one spot but more spread out... like previous generations had. Because it DIDN'T protect those areas when it was just a breastplate.

Ah, posting while only paying half attention and damn near asleep is a bad thing. Forgive me.

Still, my point does stand (just not pointed at you)

[Snoil The Mighty]

Except that the troops who went to the americas were only lightly armored. They weren't wearing advanced plate. They had lots of exposed areas, and those obsidian swords of the Aztecs are devastating against exposed flesh.

Good thing about that armor too (for the conquistadores that is)-I'd happily take homefield advantage in the form of a sweltering jungle with 98% humidity against clanking guys in 60 lbs of hot metal (or whatever the weights were by that time). Homefield advantage+religious warrior fervor would, to me anyway, echo a great line from Fight Club; "Skinny guys fight til they're hamburger". But, to echo my previous post on this thread:

I'm not at all upset the Aztecs are pretty buffed, history or not. This is a game with a historical basis and setting - not a direct replay of history. We have the history channel for that-THC for short. If it was supposed to be completely accurate, the Turks would have to be massively nerfed everytime they got to Vienna for instance. Historically it just turned out to be their Achille's Heel. But in-game, I can march Jannisaries down the Rhine-yay! Or more to the point of this thread, the Spaniards get to the New World and 15 turns later (30 years), you get all the NW settlements because smallpox worked it's bio-warfare magic, instead of pitched battles with fanatic jaguar warriors. It's a game first, and the New World is a bit of a "side mission" anyway. You can win the game for all factions, long and short, without ever producing an ocean-going vessel. There's enough historical flavor in the game that I enjoy and feel immersed in the setting when playing (and I don't speak for eveyone but it works for me), yet I get the fun of also dictating a new history with my own actions. And the Aztecs being tough makes it much more fun to take their chocolate and sell it at outrageous mark-up back in Europe

[Lord_hazard]

Except that the troops who went to the americas were only lightly armored. They weren't wearing advanced plate. They had lots of exposed areas, and those obsidian swords of the Aztecs are devastating against exposed flesh.

Your right. Personally i wouldnt walk into a hot moist jungle wearing full plate:)
But i think the reason they made the "primitive" warriors so good is something as simple as to balance them to the late units they will face.

[Booga]

If you're so obsessed with the efficacy of Spanish plate armor, consider that the Aztecs had a weapon called the atlatl - mostly just a stick that simulated an extra length of arm and so could add leverage to a thrown spear. Supposedly they were so powerful that they could send a dart not only through armor, but all the way through a man. Consider that it wasn't a terribly complicated weapon to use, thus you could arm thousands of commoners with it - much like a crossbow. That would give any conquistador pause ;)

[dopp]

That's in the game as "Arrow Warriors". Massive arrows, javelin stats and AP.

Eh, the Spanish had a similar weapon though, they called it a musket. Also pretty straightforward to use, so much so that they had to restrict its manufacture to the crown in order to keep revolution at bay.

[Bob the Insane]

I don't know for sure but is it not rather toasty in what is now mexico? Would it be feasible to run around and fight in full plate armour without expiring from heat exhaustion?

[Stlaind]

I don't really think it's too much more toasty than say the parts of the middle east that feature prominently in the crusades.

That's not to say it isn't unwise though.

[dopp]

There are several historical accounts of prominent crusaders expiring in the heat.

The humidity and fungus would be a killer though.

Edit: Looks like the Aztecs fought the Spaniards from range instead of trying their luck in melee, and it doesn't look like they fought particularly well either. The total number of Aztecs is probably exaggerated, but I wouldn't doubt the casualties (if you take the lower estimate of 1,000 Aztecs killed or injured and subsequently killed in the retreat).

[Stlaind]

Was that because of armor or idiocy involving water though?

[dismal]

Here is an account of Cortez defeating the Tlaxcala. Cortez had about 500 men versus about 40,000. The natives army seems to have relied on pelting the Spaniards with stones from slings and arrows that the armor seems to have had little problem stopping. It was estimated that 2 Spaniards were killed.

The troops advanced more than a league on their laborious march, without descrying the enemy. The weather was sultry, but few of them were embarrassed by the heavy mail worn by the European cavaliers at that period. Their cotton jackets, thickly quilted, afforded a tolerable protection against the arrows of the Indian, and allowed room for the freedom and activity of movement essential to a life of rambling adventure in the wilderness.

At length they came in sight of the broad plains of Ceutla, and beheld the dusky lines of the enemy stretching, as far as the eye could reach, along the edge of the horizon. The Indians had shown some sagacity in the choice of their position; and, as the weary Spaniards came slowly on, floundering through the morass, the Tabascans set up their hideous battle-cries, and discharged volleys of arrows, stones, and other missiles, which rattled like hail on the shields and helmets of the assailants. Many were severely wounded before they could gain the firm ground, where they soon cleared a space for themselves, and opened a heavy fire of artillery and musketry on the dense columns of the enemy, which presented a fatal mark for the balls. Numbers were swept down at every discharge; but the bold barbarians, far from being dismayed, threw up dust and leaves to hide their losses, and, sounding their war instruments, shot off fresh flights of arrows in return.

They even pressed closer on the Spaniards, and, when driven off by a vigorous charge, soon turned again, and, rolling back like the waves of the ocean, seemed ready to overwhelm the little band by weight of numbers. Thus cramped, the latter had scarcely room to perform their necessary evolutions, or even to work their guns with effect.

The engagement had now lasted more than an hour, and the Spaniards, sorely pressed, looked with great anxiety for the arrival of the horse,-which some unaccountable impediments must have detained,-to relieve them from their perilous position. At this crisis, the furthest columns of the Indian army were seen to be agitated and thrown into a disorder that rapidly spread through the whole mass. It was not long before the ears of the Christians were saluted with the cheering war-cry of "San Jago and San Pedro," and they beheld the bright helmets and swords of the Castilian chivalry flashing back the rays of the morning sun, as they dashed through the ranks of the enemy, striking to the right and left, and scattering dismay around them. The eye of faith, indeed, could discern the patron Saint of Spain himself, mounted on his grey war-horse, heading the rescue and trampling over the bodies of the fallen infidels!

The approach of Cortes had been greatly retarded by the broken nature of the ground. When he came up, the Indians were so hotly engaged, that he was upon them before they observed his approach. He ordered his men to direct their lances at the faces of their opponents, who, terrified at the monstrous apparition,-for they supposed the rider and the horse, which they had never before seen, to be one and the same,-were seized with a panic. Ordaz availed himself of it to command a general charge along the line, and the Indians, many of them throwing away their arms, fled without attempting further resistance.

Cortes was too content with the victory, to care to follow it up by dipping his sword in the blood of the fugitives. He drew off his men to a copse of palms which skirted the place, and, under their broad canopy, the soldiers offered up thanksgivings to the Almighty for the victory vouchsafed them. The field of battle was made the site of a town, called in honour of the day on which the action took place, Santa Maria de la Vitoria, long afterwards the capital of the province. The number of those who fought or fell in the engagement is altogether doubtful. Nothing, indeed, is more uncertain than numerical estimates of barbarians. And they gain nothing in probability, when they come, as in the present instance, from the reports of their enemies. Most accounts, however, agree that the Indian force consisted of five squadrons of eight thousand men each. There is more discrepancy as to the number of slain, varying from one to thirty thousand! In this monstrous discordance, the common disposition to exaggerate may lead us to look for truth in the neighbourhood of the smallest number. The loss of the Christians was inconsiderable; not exceeding-if we receive their own reports, probably, from the same causes, much diminishing the truth-two killed, and less than a hundred wounded! We may readily comprehend the feelings of the Conquerors, when they declared, that "Heaven must have fought on their side, since their own strength could never have prevailed against such a multitude of enemies!"

http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toc...&division=div2

[MilesGregarius]

Here is an account of Cortez defeating the Tlaxcala. Cortez had about 500 men versus about 40,000.

Numbers are impossible to take at face value. Enemy numbers are almost always grossly exaggerated, either honestly do to excitement in the moment or in order to claim a greater share of the glory. In pre-industrial armies, any claim of above 10,000 has to be taken with a serious grain of salt due to simple logistical limitations,


Friendly numbers are often underestimated do to the exclusion of all those without "name", i.e. only knights and nobles count. Spanish armies also included numbers of slaves, often Moors and other Africans, that fought, but not being property, not free men, would not have been counted.

The natives army seems to have relied on pelting the Spaniards with stones from slings and arrows that the armor seems to have had little problem stopping. It was estimated that 2 Spaniards were killed.

Even (especially) if the higher number of 40,000 is accepted, the VAST majority would have been peasant levy whose primary role, against Spaniard and native alike, would have been to provide missle support for a small number of melee fighters. It's unlikely they would have been trained, inclined, or even equipped to engage their own melee warriors in close combat, let alone Spaniards on horseback.

And from what I've read of Spanish accounts, the Spaniards actually feared slings more than any other Mesoamerican weapon because, as a concussive weapon, slingstones could still knock a man senseless even if his armor was not penetrated.

[Ulstan]

They had lots of exposed areas, and those obsidian swords of the Aztecs are devastating against exposed flesh.

There was no exposed flesh. Neither the aztec warriors nor the Conquistadors were running around fighting naked. The conquistadors had padded, leather, and metal armor and the Aztecs had their cloth armor which, while effective against obsidian weapons, did virtually nothing against crossbows, spanish swords, musket balls, etc. (Of course, hey, neither did plate armor tbh).

There is little doubt that the armor and weapons of the conquistadors was vastly superior to that of the Aztecs. There is almost no way they could have won, otherwise, and had the Aztec weaponry been superior, you can bet the Spaniards would have armed themselves with it after their first battle. The Aztec troops and weapons were nearly wholly ineffective against the conquistadors, for a variety of reasons.

CA thought this would make poor gameplay, so the changed the Aztecs in MTW to be a lot more powerful and more challenging than they were in real life. The game is not really a 'historical simulation' but the new world is one of the least historical parts about it. Just accept that it's a fun little side show with a 'new world flavor' :)

If you're so obsessed with the efficacy of Spanish plate armor, consider that the Aztecs had a weapon called the atlatl - mostly just a stick that simulated an extra length of arm and so could add leverage to a thrown spear. Supposedly they were so powerful that they could send a dart not only through armor, but all the way through a man. Consider that it wasn't a terribly complicated weapon to use, thus you could arm thousands of commoners with it - much like a crossbow. That would give any conquistador pause ;)

If the atlatl had actually been that good Cortez entire tiny band would have been annhilated in the first volley of missiles from the Aztecs. However, we read that the Aztec missile volleys (of which the vast majority of their 'soldiers' were equipped for) were surprisingly ineffective.

Regarding the numbers issue: Yes, Cortez did have a few hundred men vs many thousand, most of the time. However his men were all superbly trained armed and armored, and the vast bulk of the enemy forces were extremely lightly armed and were not the 'warrior class' of their society that ran around in the armor and obsidian clubs, etc. That number was much smaller. They didn't do terribly well vs the Spaniards either, but once *they* were defeated the lesser Aztecs pretty much decided things were unwinnable.