Ammunition

[helenos aiakides]

I was merrily playing as the getai, and i was using archers and they seemed to run out of ammuntion very quickly. This didn't seem right so i checked the unit card and it says they ownly have 15 arrows.
Althought i am no historian, surely they would of carried more than 15 arrows, especially on foot, as foot archers have fewer arrows than HA

[mucky305]

The EB team has done alot of research to make sure the stuff in this game is historically accurate or as close as possible, so I don't think you'll get far there. However, you can modify the ammo count in the EDU file. It will be one of the numbers on the stat_pri line. The legend at the beginning of the file will tell you which one. Change it to whatever you think it should be.

[Foot]

Let me think... A horse and a man carrying arrows, would they be able to carry more than just a man. My God that is a difficult one!

Foot

[helenos aiakides]

yes, i suppose so
you could be tactfull, im sorry if i offended your judgement, but if you are going to be mobile on a saddle i.e parting shot etc you want as few hindrances on the saddle as possible, so it would be reasonable to assume that they would carry arrows on their person, not on the horse. Even then you should have as few lumps as possible on you. But that is not question i am asking, i am just asking how eb makes there decision concerning ammunition.

[tapanojum]

The EB team does research to bring hard facts rather than basing things off what they think it would be like

[Cyclops]

I'm no expert but I find the EB numbers very acceptable.

I saw the film Mongol* where they showed rather traditional looking HA's (albeit from 1200-1500 years after our period). Their quivers were either little purses or flatish box-looking things IIRC with the arrows nicely spaced for ease of retrieval, and only held maybe 15 or 10 assorted arrows. Obviously in war they'd carry more.

What the devs have to build in is things like extra arrows stowed away, arrows reused off the battlefield (I believe this was common practice, attested in later battles such as Crecy) and supply camels loaded with extra ammo (cue Surena worship). Not to mention Bartix boomerang arrows.

The numbers seem to do that well: toxotai get to pepper their enemies for a while, then they get to run like the cowards they usually are. And don't give me your indians and Bosphorans or I'll come after you with Irish heavies.

It seems like common sense that a HA carries more than a foot archer unless he's a well supllied/supported professional.

(*one funny thing about Mongol was they way the depicted Mongol Heavy cav weilding twin serrated scimitars, I thought there was a D&D crossover happening with Drow Rangers taking the field).

[helenos aiakides]

I don't think this question is about carring capcity, i think there is another rationale for limiting some archers ammunition.
I can't think what though

[Che Roriniho]

similar subject, but shouldn't Slingers have a hell of a lot of ammo, as opposed to just... 35, I think? Surely they could just pick pebblesoff the ground and use them?
Sorry if this sort of thing sounds moany, but it's a testament to the quality of EB that people are complaining about something so small as to how much ammunition people are carrying!

[tapanojum]

Mongol was a bit confusing of a money, they jumped timezones/ scenes a lot. Or maybe that was just my pirated version >.<

The duel wielded heavy mongolian cavalry was pretty badass, but it was a bit funny to watch!

[Foot]

similar subject, but shouldn't Slingers have a hell of a lot of ammo, as opposed to just... 35, I think? Surely they could just pick pebblesoff the ground and use them?
Sorry if this sort of thing sounds moany, but it's a testament to the quality of EB that people are complaining about something so small as to how much ammunition people are carrying!

The shot that slingers used cannot readily be found on any ground. Slingers make their own shot, they don't pick up stones from the ground (besides, in many types of terrain stones are just not that common). One of the most important elements of a sling is the quality, shape and material of the shot used.

slinging.org/ for all information you need on the subtle art of flinging a rock at speeds to kill a man.

Foot

[Che Roriniho]

The shot that slingers used cannot readily be found on any ground. Slingers make their own shot, they don't pick up stones from the ground (besides, in many types of terrain stones are just not that common). One of the most important elements of a sling is the quality, shape and material of the shot used.

slinging.org/ for all information you need on the subtle art of flinging a rock at speeds to kill a man.

Foot

Thanks foot! I stand corrected!

[Chris1959]

Remember battles in EB are a "compacted" form of reality. If you have the timer on several hours of fighting is over in 45 mins, usually less.
A full on 40 unit battle on huge units will involve approx 5000 figures, hardly a real Cannae at 100,000+.
So amount of ammunition carried is a representation rather than an actual, I don't think maany of us would like to sit through an hour+ or so of desultory skirmishing.

Remember 99% of projectiles fired miss!

Take a more modern example, at Waterloo I think it was the Connaught Rangers spent the entire day under French artillery fire and sufferd almost 600 casualties. Thats 600 men in 9 hours, about 60 an hour, so every 3mins or so a French ball killed or wounded 3 men. Not that dramatic in itself but a staedy trickle of losses all day.

I also read along time ago in the 80's the US Army did a study into the effectiveness of small arms fire. In WW1 it took 50,000 rounds to inflict a fatallity, in WW2 100,000 and in Vietnam 500,000!
One could argue if the US had offered any NVA deserter a $100,000 ago and ammo is $1 the NVA would have collapsed and the US saved an absolut fortune.

[polluxlm]

Remember battles in EB are a "compacted" form of reality. If you have the timer on several hours of fighting is over in 45 mins, usually less.

I think that's the answer we've been looking for.

[helenos aiakides]

Yes, that makes perfect sense, thanks for answering my question

[Col.Kurtz]

The shot that slingers used cannot readily be found on any ground. Slingers make their own shot, they don't pick up stones from the ground (besides, in many types of terrain stones are just not that common). One of the most important elements of a sling is the quality, shape and material of the shot used.

slinging.org/ for all information you need on the subtle art of flinging a rock at speeds to kill a man.

Foot

I was once read in the Anabasis of Xenophon that they indeed used stones and alike found on ground, it was only when they realized, that the eastern archers would outrange them, that they took their Rhodian slingers and had them made special projectiles made out of lead and could therefore oppose them..

[HayGuy]

Regardless, a find common wherever slings were used in armies people have found piles of manmade sling bullets out of lead or hard baked ceramic.

A best I would say that slingers scrounging for ammo should have a greatly reduced rate of fire and combat stats (if that is even moddable) to account for a unit of 60+ guys looking for appropriate ammo.

[Foot]

A best I would say that slingers scrounging for ammo should have a greatly reduced rate of fire and combat stats (if that is even moddable) to account for a unit of 60+ guys looking for appropriate ammo.

Impossible. The only way to represent slingers' ammunition is to just represent that which he brought with him. Which is what we've done.

Foot

[Cambyses]

There are also plenty of examples in history of ranged troops literally throwing rocks at the enemy when they run out of ammunition. (Some of these examples even come after the widespread introduction of gunpowder...)

But such a thing would surely be impossible to represent in the game.

Like it or not EB (or any other game for that matter) can never be a literal representation of ancient warfare. There are too many variables. You just need to read about Hannibal's campaign in Italy to get an idea of many of the things that could never be implemented in EB...

[Col.Kurtz]

..Or like this "Waraeger"-guy working with his buddies for Constantinopel, fixing little inflamable branches on little birds, that would have their homes in the roofs of the city these guys were besieging-

[Cyclops]

...You just need to read about Hannibal's campaign in Italy to get an idea of many of the things that could never be implemented in EB...

Yeah if only someone would mod in flaming pigs...oh wait...

They could at least have had a Carthaginian "torch-carrying bull" unit to go with that.

There's an incident in the great Northern war where a Swedish warship gets stuck on an ice shelf off Finland IIRC and the Tsar's hussars rushed out and captured it.

There's another incident where some Napoleonic French Generals (possibly Ney?) strolled over to chat with some Austrians guarding a bridge and bamboozled them while a column of grendiers stormed the postion.

Fancy modding something like that into Empires. I wonder what the "special ability" button would look like.