artoo

Its collecting ideas for like Western Han expansion mod. Atm, I think we should settle with eastern Han, ie probably have to reduce cav unit roster a bit, and also there are no props for heavy armored cav the Western Han used. The Han as in master branch are pretty complete, I won't add game play features there. I am thinking for eastern Han: * archer cav(skirmishers) * dao cav (sword) * Ji cav (halberd)

Would there be ideas how to gather horses for cav units? Each cav unit costs 1 horse. Garrison a horse in the corral with a trickle? Add simply horses as starting animals? each civ has a different starting horse trickle in the corral? Horse loot for enemy corral and stables? could be expanded to any other war animal used, elephants, camels... Any ideas? Horses can be traded, technically 2 subclasses, war and work horse. This would make such a cool campaign or scenario against the Xiongnu. This is not in the master branch, just testing ideas.

Such thing could be coded. I guess it would need a garrison event to change props and remove the unit. One wagon would do the foundation, the fort, each garrisoned wagon would be added as prop. Anyhow, just thinking loudly.

I was thinking, that if wagons are props, it could be assembled quite unusual. For example not constructed, but indeed like 6 wagons produced and added until complete. The wagon fort could become steadily stronger with more wagons added.

Related, specialized unit in here ... the princess, kind of special worker, introduced as diplomat unit, that can only be built one at a time until upgraded to a building.

@Lopess Very nice, looks Are the wagons props?

My current proposal to balance archers and crossbows and ranged siege would be to introduce sub classes. Light, medium, heavy for siege. Probably light and heavy archers and crossbows for infantry(and/or cavalry), ie different ranges and damage. A heavy archer could defeat a light crossbowman, but the heavy crossbowman has no infantry match in terms of range and damage. I find it pretty difficult as is now to add crossbows in a balanced way without sacrificing too much of accurate implementation, ending up with a re-skinned archer as crossbowman, that has no differences to archer. Picking up on the idea of having like an additional resource horse(I know only 4 resources in game UI supported), it could coexist with upkeep. Say you have to have enough horses to make cavalry units, eg horses could be traded, would give the corral an important function. Would like to limit the access of the Han to mass cavalry to accurately implement the cav and horse breeding program to defeat the Xiongnu. The horse breeding could be controlled by giving a horse trickle to corral, that varies for each civ. Horse based civ could have higher horse garrison for corral and higher trickle than eg Han.

Yup, hasn't to be the archer to deliver the fire. The Han Palace guard archers have the ability to switch back and forth between fire(or poison) and default arrows. The blade of the Palace guard swordsman can be switched to poison blade. Special forces.

More like a mobile Roman siege camp, but in terms of defensive firepower, much stronger. The Han simply copied the Xiongnu tactics, they had almost no cavalry in the beginning, but used more advance technology. Mentioned on the Han thread, 400.000 horse mounted Xiongnu against only 10.000 cavalry units in whole Han China. Infantry and hundreds of thousands different types of crossbows on Han side.

Point would be, depending on battle, situation, archers can be used in more close combat shooting heavy armor piercing arrows, along with archers behind them shooting lighter long range arrows to prevent advance for example. They used different arrows, ie archer is not archer, depends what arrows and bow type used. This becomes more relevant if crossbows are added. The crazy part, the small size crossbow replica in the earlier vids measured close to 60m/s or 190 fps projectile speed. The replica in part 3 had 120 pound draw weight, ie ~60kg, and the measurement of this one is not known yet. If the average crossbow used and deployed was at 6 stone class, 180 pound draw weight, then that's a range of >250m, with heavy bolts maybe 200m or so. Performance of these mid size crossbows is comparable to a Mongol Bow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_crossbows 76 kg or 168 pound, makes it a soldier suitable for a 5-6 stone crossbow.

A few balancing questions. Given the 1-10 stone unit system for crossbows along with the table above, with an average crossbow at 6 stone, how should crossbow infantry units be balanced? The table's smallest crossbow still outranges anything with 170m. Archers have iirc by default a 60m range, with upgrades 70m, depending in height, a bonus may apply, so maybe a 100m for archers is max. Currently, the crossbows have the same range as bows, and also a +10% range upgrade, but that's not enough based on the data.

Nice, ancient warfare was pretty much mechanized too. Hollywood did create a wrong impression with their films. I think fire arrows should be a feature all civs should have. Doesn't take a genius to use arrows to set buildings on fire, all of them used them. I also think, archery was far less static on the battlefield like shown in films.

I mean more siege units, the bedded crossbows of the Han, or torsion weapons of Romans and Greeks. 450m range, outranges archers, tower ~5:1, and bows all have same stats, while they should probably have different stats in terms of range and damage(arrow weight) Its long range artillery for the bigger ones, would probably require new classes for siege units, let alone the damage. A 3m long bolt arrow could pretty much cause big damage on buildings and troop concentrations, ie wipe out multiple cav units at once.

Sounds good. Whats more to worry, if the weapons tech of various civs was accurately implemented, it would cause quite a problem. Look at the range and and draw weight,450m & 340 kg they give on wiki. Bow length (cm) 70-145 99 122 58-91 80 Tiller length (cm) 60-70 25.5 95.5 Power stroke (cm) 46-51 41 10-18 16 Draw-weight (kg) 68-340 55-90 20.5 36-90 90-270 180-680 Range (m) 170-450 230 91.5 340-411 Lock mechanism bronze vertical trigger bronze block and lever rolling nut – bone, antler rolling nut rolling nut – metal Spanning device winch, stirrup (12th c.), belt claw (late) claw & lever stirrup (12th c.), belt claw (12th c.) winch winch pulleys, gaffle, cranequin, screw, cord pulley (15th c.) Crossbow material composite composite wood composite steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_siege_weapons

Turns out, the Romans, Greeks are also not as sophisticated in game as they were with weapons technology. Like the Xanten Manubalista find iirc 2007, estimated officially early imperial. I often find myself in disagreement with official dating.

Here are some example drawings, but don't ask what dynasty or period they are, its all bit unclear from sources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_crossbows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_siege_weapons There is already this present , so It think this kind of thing, maybe slightly bigger with longer bow arms mounted on a wagon, or tower, wall etc

I sadly can't find any drawing of such Han wagon fort, or even a full Han military camp. From the wiki description, it sounds like the ancient equivalent of a heavy APC or so, or like a Toyota pickup with MG mounted positioned in a circle. From the descriptions I read of crossbow usage, I think they had those large field artillery crossbows mounted on a wagon, pulled by horse. These are too big, stationary use for defense.

Should apply to Champ units generally, professional soldiers you pay.

Yup. It is 400.000 Xiongnu riders vs 10000 riders in whole Han empire. Btw, I was thinking to better differentiate civs in game, what if there was a resource horse? It would naturally limit the use of cavalry for more infantry based civs and put much emphasis on cavalry civs, Persians, Xiongnu ...

Little snippet from a very interesting read on Han cavalry. https://www.academia.edu/43316371/Cavalry_in_the_Han_Dynasty_How_did_rulers_change_their_military_policy_to_deal_with_the_threat_of_Xiongnu

@Lion.Kanzen @Lopess Now I remember why I picked Wei Qing as hero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_wagon Just shows how so much more sophisticated ancient cultures were than officialdom give them credit for. This is like a tank on the ancient battle field, or crossbow tactics are the same as line tactics with firearms. First line shoots, steps behind next two lines, two guys reloads, while other lines fire.

Give a bit time, I absorbed too much data with Han very rapidly, its atm overlayed with the historical archery sessions I had. I get back to you.

If you consider the vast distance from Han home to the Tarim, its probably safe to conclude the poor Han soldiers didn't travel on foot carrying these heavy crossbows. Just imagine you have to carry this for I dunno, 4000+ km along the Silk road, with big mountains, Steppe and desert. Emperor: "nope guys, no horses and wagons today, but I want you to get them"

I read the Han used wagon forts too in their campaigns against Xiongnu, in the Tarim basin region. What I read, the Han mounted heavy crossbows on the wagons. Would make sense if you want to defend against mobile horse mounted enemy.

Yup, but for the props, non buggy Xiongnu would be sufficient, just they are present to use, ie no bugs. I kind of have this in mind ... Never ceases to amaze me, what incredible love to detail Mr AlexanderVzla had with the Xiongnu models.