Sap Points.... I'm just curious, what did they actually do....

**gamegeek2** · 04-29-2010, 02:03

In reality, you'd probably have slaves doing it back then.

**Cute Wolf** · 04-29-2010, 09:35

Originally Posted by gamegeek2

In reality, you'd probably have slaves doing it back then.

maybe we should made Apeleutheroi trainable for that very job... sapping walls.... just take the sapping ability from all other units, save the lowest levies such as akontistai, and lugoae.

by the way, did they really just set a fire underground, or set an explosive?

**Ludens** · 04-29-2010, 14:12

Originally Posted by Cute Wolf

by the way, did they really just set a fire underground, or set an explosive?

Explosive? Oil and fire, more likely. Anyway, were there many instances of sapping in antiquity? AFAIK the Romans and Hellenes mostly relied on rams and projectile throwers.

**Cute Wolf** · 04-29-2010, 14:31

I have read some refrence of sapping works, but only dated in Medieval period... that's why I'm curious if the soldiers of antiquity could do the feat without proper exsplosives.... I can think of the mechanism behind fire burning under the walls, and gas-exspansion that led to tunnel collapsion (and finally wall collapsion)... but who had the good Idea for the first time?

And do the sapping ability are remnants of Vanilla that RTW left, as Ludens allready points out?

**Ludens** · 04-29-2010, 14:43

What they would do before the advent of explosives is set fire to the wooden beams, which supported the tunnel and the wall on top of it. When the beams collapsed, the tunnel would cave in and the walls were suddenly standing on this air. I doubt gas explosions were used: they did not have a means to transport gas and mining gas does not accumulate in such shallow tunnels. This is speculation, you understand: I know very little of sapping warfare.

**Cute Wolf** · 04-29-2010, 15:07

no, I meant not exsplosive gas-exsplosion, but the burning process itself caused gas exspansion, pernetrate the ground, and causing less cohesion between soil particles (gas absorbtion physics)... of course, this will led the way of tunnel collapsing...

**Conqueror** · 04-29-2010, 20:30

The Persian siege of Dura-Europos seems to have involved mines dug underneath the walls, and even an attempted counter-mining operation by the besieged Romans. Granted, that was 3rd century AD so well past the EB timeframe.