Thalatta

Why not use a function for how many gatherers to have for any possible stone number? If I’m not wrong, the present behaviour seems to be: 5000 stone: 24 gatherers. 1000 stone: 12 gatherers. 500 stone: 1 gatherer. Which indeed seems too low for 500 stone. I managed to find something nice. As a very simplified model, since the amount of stone is proportional to its volume, and the number of gatherers G are proportional to (a fraction of, if sunk in the ground) its circumference, then naively one would have G=AS^(1/3), where A is some constant, but that’ll never work. Let's then include a "worthiness" factor 1-e^(-BS), meaning that the less stone there is, the less efficient would be to deal with its logistics proportionately (gatherers will soon need to be relocated anyway, for example, besides minimum upfront costs and infrastructure, etc), thus less gatherers than expected would be assigned to it (exponentially, going inversely, that is, the complement of exponential decay). The final formula is then G=AS^(1/3)(1-e^(-BS)), which for the initial conditions G(5000)=24 and G(1000)=12 returns A=1.4036 and B=0.001931. This means that G(500)=7, which might seem high but it’s because the initial conditions (24 and 12) are somewhat weird to begin with. One can check that for some extreme cases the function still behaves nicely: G(100)=1 and G(50000)=52. I’d propose to use a function like this but change one initial condition to G(1000)=10, as such one gets A=1.4064 and B=0.001242, resulting in G(500)=5. In conclusion: a very simple (non-linear) formula predicts 7 gatherers for 500 stone, but if for 1000 stone the number is tweaked from 12 to 10, one manages a more poll-friendly 5 gatherers, and can use that formula for any stone value to get the corresponding number of gatherers.

Previously I proposed that since Khosraw I Reforms fixed harvest tax, it could make Fields trickle metal. Also they “further elevated the figure of the sovereign above the nobles and centralized power around him”, which could be a Hero bonus and champion penalty. For my take, I'm getting quotes from the book I mentioned: The Two Eyes of the Earth, by M.P. Canepa (I went through all of it). I write down first Aura, then Bonus, then Tech. I only declined Auras in the first person, but do whatever. As usual, it’s your decision what exactly they would entail, and I’m not sure about what’s possible. “Additional” ideas I leave mostly without hints, since maybe they are unnecessary. Ardashir I Overthrower: capture bonus ("After his successful usurpation Ardashir", referring to the Parthians). Inheritance: capture resistance bonus (“Believing these regions to be his by inheritance he declared that all the countries in that area including Ionia and Caria, had been ruled by Persian governors (...). He asserted that it was proper for him to recover for the Persians the kingdom which they formerly possessed”, this was really big for him, plenty of mentions regarding his “rightful inheritance”). Holy Fire: temple tech (“Ardashir I increased the cults of the temples and ordered the fire of Ohrmazd, which was on the altar at Bagawan to be kept perpetually burning”). Shapur I Shamer: attack bonus (the defeated Romans regarded the terms of a peace treaty “shameful”). Indemnisation: loot bonus (“Philip sued for peace and paid a large indemnity to Shapur I”, leading to “his official formulation of Rome as tributary and subject”). Humiliation: enemy Hero penalty tech (he captured Valerian in battle, a first for a Roman emperor, although “despite the assertions of certain extremely hostile Roman texts that speculated on his fate, in the reliefs Valerian is not humiliated, and he keeps his insignia of office”). Additional: Universality (“he expanded his father’s claims of dominion over Ērān, to ascendancy over Ērān ud Anērān (literally, “Iran and Non-Iran”)”). Shapur II Persuader: bribing bonus, or occasional automatic conversion? (“Ammianus devotes a chapter to the defection of Antoninus, bodyguard of the dux of Mesopotamia, to Shapur II”). Recognition: champion bonus (“the Armenian commander in chief Mushel so impressed Shapur II with his chivalrous treatment of his captured wife and attendants that the Persian king of kings honored him at the royal bazm as if he were in attendance”, and at another instance he “gave the Roman defector Antoninus honorific headgear along with a designated place at the royal banquet table and a seat in the council of the king to mark Antoninus’s integration into the Sasanian court hierarchy”). Glory of Iran: Hero bonus tech (“created a province called “Shapur, the Glory of Ērān””, they were big in personality cult). Khosrow I Autocrat: capture resistance bonus for CC under Hero aura, penalty if outside (“Both empires saw increasing centralization at the expense of local power bases, with sixth-century contemporaries Justinian I and Khosrow I responsible for intensifying this movement to autocracy in their respective realms”). Royal Gifts: discount on resource transfer (“Roman-Sasanian diplomatic exchange reached its apogee in the sixth century with the long coeval reigns of Justinian and Khosrow I”, and this “included objects that were given and received as gifts, throne room rituals, as well as the entertainments, culinary displays, and sundry other activities with which the two courts regaled each other’s envoys”). Maritime Silk Route: sea trade tech (“Peaking with Khosrow I’s control of all coastal areas from the Red Sea to the Indus, the Sasanians soon dominated the Indian Ocean sea trade. Under Kosrow I, the Sasanians began to expand into Sri Lanka and even markets in Southeast Asia”). Additional: Sanctuary (“after Justinian effectively closed the Athenian Academy in 529, prohibiting the teaching of law and philosophy there and pagans from teaching anywhere, six prominent philosophers led by Damascius traveled to Ctesiphon to seek refuge at the court of Khosrow I”). Additionally, he liked hippodromes. Khosrow II Pious: regeneration bonus (“after his victory over Bahram Chobin, Khosrow II spent a week at the site circumambulating the fire while reciting the Zand and Avesta”). Royal Hunt: hunting or ranged bonus (“The Sasanian motif of the “royal hunter” was an exceptionally powerful, not to mention popular, image”, “The side relief panels of Khosrow II’s (...) are the most extensive sculptural representations of the hunt, and the dynasty’s last. On the right panel, mostly unfinished, the king of kings hunts deer in an enclosure with a bow. The left panel depicts the king of kings hunting boars…”). Monumentality: whatever-statues/monuments-do tech (“Monumental rock relief sculpture fell out of vogue as a medium of triumphal expression for the Sasanian kings of kings, not to return until Khosrow II’s final brilliant reprise of the genre two centuries later”). I like that there's some thematic sense: Ardashir I captures and keeps, Shapur I is aggressive, Shapur II charismatic, Khosrow I a trader, and Khosrow II is more versatile.

I’ve already written on historical shield and armor changes in Thoughts on the Spartans. “your unit starts off with "no armor" just a shield and weapon... and then you decide which ones you want to give which units, at a loss of speed”: we’ve already talked extensively about armor evolution, so it should be beyond clear to you that, from an historical standpoint, this just makes no sense, at all, and what happened was closer to the opposite of this.

Although I've argued for the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus for the Achaemenid Wonder (being much taller), along the Hanging Gardens as a starting Wonder (both being among the seven Wonders of the Ancient World):

I think Sparta and Thebes populations were comparable, but full Spartan citizens were abysmally less. Maybe forget that extra population penalty, and deal with it by limiting more the number of Spartiates as one progresses. Neodamodes units should kind of become a necessity. All this has been proposed already by me and others before me, and aligns well with reality.

Tribes: mostly wooden cheap buildings. That doesn’t mean they don’t have their identity, like German mobility, Iberian defenses, etc. They should deal with their lack of manpower with Confederations. Although these categories serve to structure and simplify things, incorrect generalisations should be avoided: Gauls would be good at fighting in formations, for example. City-states: They should deal with their lack of manpower with Leagues (and Mercenaries). I’d avoid such unspecific names like “Civic Pride” (could apply to us!), I proposed @Emacz to change Hoplite Tradition to Hoplite Reform, since that’s how the literature calls that. I’d indeed remove the awfully named Will to Fight, and add some interestingly named necessary equivalent tech wherever needed. City-states indeed did not expand like empires (or republics and kingdoms), and I was a bit put off at the beginning when building more CCs with them. They should be colonies, and not do all what the original CC does. I think this is something that has to be reviewed for all civs, since some do have structures like this. I’m against “all proposed city-states already have the theater to expand original area”, Sparta didn’t have such a thing, I’ve already proposed to remove it. Regarding the Spartans in particular: they were eco driven regarding agriculture, their lands were among the most fertile of the Greek, and should have a population penalty on top of the lower population just for being a city-state. Spartan trade could be penalised for many reasons, as Sekunda states, “the age at which a Spartan adult was allowed to live at home with his wile is not entirely clear, but he was not permitted into the marketplace to converse with his fellow adults until the age of 30”, while Cartledge says “overseas trade in essentials was relatively unimportant” and “relatively restricted”, although “Sparta became much more accessible with the opening up of local economy in the Hellenistic period”. The use of iron ingots is not a myth, but “there is no evidence that the retention of iron spits as a store of wealth and standard of value prevented internal economic exchanges”, and “there were many good reasons why Sparta had not coined previously. The metal would have had to be imported, whereas the iron used in Sparta’s traditional spit-money was present locally in abundant supply”. In any case, regarding an encompassing name for a civ bonus (actually, penalty) to penalise trade, Cartledge goes into great extents to argue that it’s not because of austerity but self-sufficiency, for which I’d name it Autarkism, given the passage “Sparta through its control of the Eurotas and Pamisos valleys was extraordinarily autarkic in essential foodstuffs; and its possession of abundant deposits of iron ore within its own frontiers may have been a contributory factor in the decision not to import silver to coin”. Of course, I’ve already proposed many of these things on:

The categorisation cannot be clean cut, because it mixes forms of government with sizes, which is related to how heterogeneous they were. Taking what they were for the most time (Macedonia was an Empire for a very few years): Tribes: Britons, Gauls, Iberians, Germans. City-states: Athenians, Spartans, Thebans. Kingdoms: Macedonians, Ptolemies, Kushites. Republics: Romans, Carthaginians. Empires: Seleucids, Persians, Mauryans, Han.

I agree civs should be grouped somehow at some point, or things will become unwieldy, and it would be nice if they share some common important characteristics. That’s also why I supported the Confederacies idea for tribes, and proposed the Leagues one for the Greeks.

Ha, it’s THE god, that book says “Ohrmazd”, which is just another name for Ahura Mazda, the supreme god of Zoroastrianism. But I realise I made a mistake, since when I wanted to check which one was which, I just looked fast on Wikipedia, and it’s wrong! That book and other sources (https://www.livius.org/articles/place/naqs-e-rustam/naqs-e-rustam-photos/naqs-e-rustam-investiture-relief-of-ardasir-i) state that Ardashir I is the one on the left! But no issue, here a coin with Ardashir using the crown we want (from https://www.vcoins.com/de/stores/pashiz_coins_ltd/282/product/sasanian_empire_ardashir_i_2234240_ar_drachm_ctesiphon_ex_john_c_huntington_collection/1872615/Default.aspx, and which is apparently the crown of Ahura Mazda):

By googling images of "<king's name> crown" one can see plenty of Sasanian coins and representations (consider some kings had many crowns). The crowns of Ardashir I (not the simpler Parthian one, check the famous Ardashir Investiture Relief, he's the one on the right left, page 60 in https://archive.org/details/TheTwoEyesOfTheEarth/page/n83/mode/2up), Shapur I and Shapur II look quite similar, like the ones of Heroes 3 (EDIT: no, but will work out anyway), 5 and 2 (without the little "crescent" on top), which I'd assign in that order since Ardashir I was the father of Shapur I, and Shapur Il came way later. Then Khosrow I looks like Hero 1 and Khosrow II looks like Hero 4. Choosing some favorable representations for this choice: Ardashir I, on the right left (Hero 3, EDIT: not because of this, check follow up post) Shapur I (Hero 5) Shapur Il (Hero 2) Khosrow I (Hero 1) Khosrow II (Hero 4).

Doesn’t matter, the power in the game would be the combination of bow and arrow. So, for the first point the consequences were ok, just badly explained, the second point would have been wrong, except in very specific combinations of armour and distance, and the third point was somewhat misleading, but maybe acceptable.

As I’ve already explained to you some time ago (and quoting from The Great Warbow, from Hastings to the Mary Rose, by M. Strickland and R. Hardy, which, although in a Medieval setting, is illustrative for each weapon): -Longbows weren’t necessarily more powerful than composite bows. Actually, the latter were more efficient, delivering more energy for a given draw weight. Usually, composite bows have lower draw weight (the thumb draw being a factor, apparently giving a bit more accuracy), but their power was comparable across a broad range: “a composite bow with a draw-weight of 59.5lb shot the same arrow as fast as a replica medieval yew longbow with a draw of about 74lb” (both of these numbers are below average for their respective warbows, but the comparison stands given a proportional scaling). A different thing is the power of the arrows, for which the longbows would have an edge, given their arrows were heavier, making them usually more armor piercing: “In the same decade in which Gerald of Wales was writing of the formidable penetrative power of the Welsh elm longbows in Gwent, Saladin’s close aide and confidant Beha ad-Din remarked on the effectiveness of the Frankish infantry’s armour against the Turkish bows during the Third Crusade”. -Longbows didn’t necessarily exceed the range of composite bows. Actually, the latter had greater maximum range, as expected from similar bow power but lighter arrows: “Western chroniclers were particularly struck by the range of the Saracen bows”, but both had comparable effective range, taking the previous point into account (although what is effective would depend on the actual units being targeted). -Longbows didn’t so clearly have a slower rate of “fire” than composite bows. Mainly, that has absolutely nothing to do with weapon size, but with variables like length draw and weight draw. For example, “the longbowman could shoot ten a minute and more, though Stanley says that with the heaviest bows he does not like to try for more than six a minute”. Thus, what could be done with a longbow is comparable to what was done with a composite bow, although if longbowmen sacrificed accuracy, and they wouldn’t be able to sustain that for long (all because of the higher weight draw), which wouldn't be much of an issue since they’d run out of arrows quite fast, as I’ve discussed before. In any case, this point is not as incorrect as the other two (given also that it’s much harder to properly source, and if one also considers much better trained composite bow users), but would depend more on the archer's training and technique, and, as with the previous points, on particular bows and tactics. Their advantages and disadvantages relate to other things I’ve also already told you (simplified in simple bows having lower performance, longbows lower mobility, and composite bows lower affordability, besides what I’ve just mentioned). If you keep asking AI of course you’ll get the wrong answers, because it uses misconceptions from other games. Redoubling on something I told you: many civ characteristics should be determined by not having all Storehouse techs. One of the reasons some would make composite bows is not having a lot of appropriate wood (this is connected with that they would also be horse cultures, more viable on treeless landscapes). Thus, they should not have all wood techs, and their bows should cost less wood, but more food (sinew, horn, animal glue) and metal (manufacturing cost), and more training time if that also considers manufacturing time.

Surely his quiver has internal subdivisions (at least three) allowing him to subgroup arrows. Then, at 1:25 you can see that his arrows have two-feather fletching, which determines the orientation of the nock, since the feathers must sit horizontally when the arrows are nocked. When grabbing multiple arrows in one hand, the feathers just sit in parallel layers on top of each other, correctly orienting their nocks. That’s why he can nock four at the same time so fast a few seconds earlier. He has a bit of a harder time with five, but I think it could be achieved with practice, and maybe a few extra adjustments in equipment. In addition to all that I mentioned before, the lethality of an arrow “has very little to do with the KE it possesses“, but that it “comes from broadhead design and durability, arrow design and durability, and the penetrating power (momentum) it carries” (https://cervicide.com/arrow-speed-vs-weight-which-matters). And of course, composite warbows would shoot arrows much harder than on these videos. Still, I’m not convinced that this was indeed what the Sasanians were doing, instead of just holding five arrows to shoot them in fast sequence, but at least it would seem more plausible than one initially would think. Certainly “physically possible”, hard to say if "physically makes sense".

I missed this, but here you have some dude on YouTube doing it, imagine what a Sasanian archer could do And now I think it makes more sense than I was previously assuming (still not sure if enough): shooting 5 arrows can be thought of as shooting an arrow 5 times heavier (not really, it’s more uncomfortable, but let’s say so for the sake of simplified physics). Then, assuming (more on this later) that the bow transfers the same energy to the arrows in both cases, we have E=K=mv^2/2=5mu^2/2, where v is the speed of the single arrow, and u the speed of each of the 5 arrows. This means that u=v/sqrt(5)=v/2.24, which tells us that, while the kinetic energy is divided by 5, the speed u and, in consequence, the momentum mu (also important when evaluating delivered damage) get just a bit more than halved. On top of this, regarding the assumption that "the bow transfers the same energy to the arrows in both cases", this is actually even better, because bows transfer energy to heavier arrows more efficiently (for many reasons, one being that more mass accelerates slower, thus the energy transfer time is increased). In conclusion, if a Sasanian archer can do it comfortably (even more than in the video), the shots might be good enough, particularly 1) from close range against 2) a mass of 3) not heavily armoured people. Furthermore, 1) there’s a horse archer tactic that consists in closing in the distance quite a lot to increase the time (thus number) of effective volleys that can be performed, 2) the source I mentioned states that they were fighting against an army of 100 thousand, and 3) that they were the Abyssinians (and some allies), for which Stuart Munro-Hay in Aksum: An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity states that "no personal armour has yet been found, nor are there any surviving representations of soldiers, except from one most unusual source", in which "Persians are shown mounted or on foot, fully clothed with tunic and trousers, and armed with bows. Their adversaries wear only a small kilt, and what seems to be a sword-belt diagonally across one shoulder" (I'm not saying that they had no armour, but I’d guess most of the 100 thousand didn’t have heavy armor). I don’t know, I just gathered what I know, saw, thought, calculated, and found, and it does seem that shooting 5 arrows at the same time in certain situations might not be as ridiculous as it sounds (after all, a footnote in C. E. Bosworth's translation of History of the Prophets and Kings by Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari states that "it is presumably related to the banjakiyyah of al-Jawaliqi, al-Mu'arrab: a volley of five arrows, mentioned in a context which speaks of the Khurisanians").

I guess the question is, when this happens, can you still play? I imagine it would be nice to keep doing so while listening to some dialogue.

It is physically possible to do it with both a bow and (some kind of) crossbow, the only question is if it physically makes sense, because indeed the energy would be distributed, so it wouldn’t work against somewhat armoured troops. I doubt a crossbow able to do that was invented at the time, and for a bow, it’s a shooting technique, although holding 5 arrows in one hand could also work (but it’s just a variation of what they were already doing of holding at least a couple of arrows on that hand). I guess the case for barbed arrowheads, put forward by A. Siddiqi, comes from the whole quote: "When I give you the order to shoot, let fly at them swiftly with a five-arrow volley (bi-al-banjakan). The people of Yemen had never seen war arrows before this occasion", which seems to me puts the focus on the arrow themselves, although if taken too literally.

@wowgetoffyourcellphone, nice list. The first person that comes to my mind as an important character at that time is Mani, the founder of Manichaeism, which would become a major religion for a few centuries (would make an important Hero priest). There are a couple problems with this: 1) he was born in 216 under the Parthian Empire, which was succeeded by the Sasanian Empire when he was still a child (I wonder what’s the exact criteria in these cases, but to me it makes more sense to have him with the Sasanians), and 2) the religion would eventually be repressed by the Sasanians, although at the beginning they were receptive to it since it had many similarities with Zoroastrianism, but that started to change around 270, with more intense persecution after 290. I’m not sure how much you are into mutually exclusive techs and alternative history, but all this is a gold mine with that. Other immediate Sasanian concepts that could be used as techs: -Just looking a bit back I see that the “Panjagān was either a projectile weapon or an archery technique”, some have said it could have even been a type of arrowhead. I consider the last one, although the least fanciful, the most probable, but most experts disagree with this, probably the archery technique is the most preferred, and to me is a close second. From the sources, and the lack of evidence, being some kind of weapon seems the least probable. -Seven Great Houses of Iran: the Parthian aristocratic clans of the Sasanian court. More of a civ. bonus since it comes from before. Maybe some champion bonus, but Hero penalty, if no member of those houses would be a Hero, like Rostam Farrokhzad (otherwise I think at some point Hero categories would be nice to have, to deal better with certain bonuses and penalties, as I’ve had this problem before with something else). -Dehqans: came later, minor landowners. -Khosrau I Reforms: fixed harvest tax (which dehqans collected). Both of these could be consecutive Field techs, the first one a normal bonus, the second one to trickle metal. -I don’t know if buildings can be upgraded, but for Fire Temples (for civs that have Zoroastrianism as the/a main religion), there are 3 levels (Atash Dadgah, Atash Adaran, and Atash Behram), depending on the grade of the fire they hold (which depends on how it was originally produced, for which they identify 16 different forms, when all are combined and consecrated, that’s the highest fire degree, which is quite complicated to do, nowadays there are only nine Atash Behram, eight in India and one in Iran). -Maybe the Ayvān-e Kesrā could be the Wonder.

Good catch. But, you could have a unit of left-handed slingers, as was the case of the Judean Benjamites (although the source is the Bible): "Among Benjamin’s elite troops, 700 were left-handed, and each of them could sling a rock and hit a target within a hairsbreadth without missing".

Just in case, the Manchu bow is a bit different since it has string contact, as shown in the video I sent, which I did just to explicitly show parts of the bow like the bridges, which the Sasanian doesn’t have.

@guerringuerrin, no worries, there's zero frustration from my side, just wanted to make sure I was doing what one is supposed to do. Regarding PRs, as I’ve said before, since there’s a lot of work, I didn’t want to overload, similarly as to a thread per point, I wouldn’t want to spam (I’m already posting too much lately anyway). My intention with a poll was not to force the developers to do anything, but to gauge support and increase visibility of simple things that I think could be helpful for many or polish some details (and that have nothing to do with gameplay), which otherwise just get lost in this thread.

Ok, I gave it a go with some other generators (maybe there’s a limit on what can be done for free). Gemini, after prompting “sasanid bow”, “indian horse archer with that bow”, and “don’t show other warriors, has to be Gupta, so look like indian, no helmet but turban. The bow is great”. Then I gave it your picture and the Sasanian (another spelling of Sasanid) reenactor one, and after a bit of tweaking: Then, Adobe Firefly, after just stating “Gupta horse archer, that is, the bow has to be sasanid”. It even has a shield with the Garuda:

Thanks for your answer. Separate threads for many of these details seems too much… for example, alongside 3), these seemed well received and don’t seem controversial (if so, I thought it would be good to know with a poll), besides being apparently easy to implement: 1) loading screen having a “press any key to continue”, 2) double clicking idle worker button to select all of them, 4) Continue Campaign appear only under Single Player, 5) Campaigns must have different names, 6) Restart and Load game options during a game, 7) option to hide full health bars. There are a few more like this, I was going to gather those with more chances of going somewhere after my next 20 points. I’ve seen polls regarding way more controversial things, so I’m really not sure what should be the next step to have a better grasp of everyone’s opinion, how to move from "too early" since those were posted in January

If the units are in a blob, it’s almost impossible to do that to end with a specific number of units selected, BUT instead of a selection box, clicking also works. One still has to manage to hit the unit, which can be a bit cumbersome if the blob is moving. I think CTRL+right click on portraits should remove a random (or some other criteria) unit from that selection, or at least I keep wanting to do that. But what you said is indeed useful.

The lack of this is really annoying sometimes... How do you all deal with the situation of having a mass of units but wanting to select just a specific number of them? Also, should I do a poll regarding many of those proposed points? Many on that list don’t seem that controversial (not so much on the follow up list I made).

Interesting, looks like a Scythian bow. Makes sense the AI being biased towards the most generally known types of bow. Which generator are you using?