Civ: Germans (Cimbri, Suebians, Goths)

[real_tabasco_sauce]

2 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

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j/k, it looks great. The fishing animation is natural.

 

I didn't do that part XD

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Any comments? If not, I'll go ahead and make the new icons.

[Stan`]

For rigged meshes prop points should be added to the armature unlike normal meshes.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

19 hours ago, Stan` said:

For rigged meshes prop points should be added to the armature unlike normal meshes.

Oh, so that's how I could have added oars while keeping the sail & sail animation?

[Stan`]

Yeah.

[Ultimate Aurelian]

On 17/05/2025 at 12:08 PM, Genava55 said:

But it has to be consistent and coherent with other civilizations. Too often, there's the immature temptation to want to put everything in every new civ, and this quickly becomes absurd and unbalanced. The Kushites underwent a similar development.

There might be enough justification for a heavier elite infantry.

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Here the greatest part and most valiant of the enemies were cut in pieces; for those that fought in the front, that they might not break their ranks, were fast tied to one another, with long chains put through their belts.

It is not described what weapons they had; but swords are possible.

We know the Cimbrian cavalry used swords.

Quote

. Their horse, that were in number fifteen thousand, made a very splendid appearance. They wore helmets, made to resemble the head and jaws of wild beasts, and other strange shapes, and heightening these with plumes of feathers, they made themselves appear taller than they were. They had breastplates of iron and white glittering shields; and for their offensive arms every one had two darts, and when they came hand to hand, they used large and heavy swords.

But also the women of the Ambrones, so they don't seem to be only for cavalry.

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Those that got safe over, not daring to make head, were slain by the Romans, as they fled to their camp and wagons; where the women meeting them with swords and hatchets, and making a hideous outcry, set upon those that fled as well as those that pursued

 

[Genava55]

1 hour ago, Ultimate Aurelian said:

It is not described what weapons they had; but swords are possible.

Sure but why the Germans should have elite swordsmen and other civs not? 

It is the comparison and the coherence across the different rosters I am referring to. 

[Deicide4u]

46 minutes ago, Genava55 said:

why the Germans should have elite swordsmen and other civs not? 

Spartans have an elite swordsman, they were the precedent.

Carthaginians, Romans and Seleucids all have advanced infantry swordsmen in their rosters.

I don't think it's an issue, but perhaps it's better to give them a swordsman champion? One with a weapon similar to the famous Zweihander, just to be cheeky. 

EDIT:

See

https://riseofnations.fandom.com/wiki/Solduri

Edited Thursday at 17:39 by Deicide4u
Added example

[Genava55]

1 hour ago, Deicide4u said:

One with a weapon similar to the famous Zweihander, just to be cheeky. 

This unit has been removed from the Britons due to a lack of historical accuracy. No zweihander.

[Ultimate Aurelian]

1 hour ago, Deicide4u said:

 

I don't think it's an issue, but perhaps it's better to give them a swordsman champion? 

That is what i was thinking, yes.

[Obskiuras]

The Germanic tribes is a spearman faction, it should have a elite spearman unit.

Edited Sunday at 19:23 by Obskiuras

[Duileoga]

On 11/07/2025 at 7:10 AM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Any comments? If not, I'll go ahead and make the new icons.

Buenos días o tardes:

-Creí que no los pueblos germánicos no llevaban velas en los navíos hasta varios siglos más tarde.

 

Dsiculpen las molestias*

[Duileoga]

On 15/05/2025 at 9:49 PM, Genava55 said:

If we accept the rock art is sufficient enough evidence, we must at least accept it is a minority of the boats. Most don't have sails.

 

[Ultimate Aurelian]

Is not the rock art from the bronze age?

It's possible they would have abandoned the sail at some point (the Nordic bronze age seem wealthier and more connected than the later iron age cultures) and it was reintroduced later.

[Genava55]

45 minutes ago, Ultimate Aurelian said:

Is not the rock art from the bronze age?

It's possible they would have abandoned the sail at some point (the Nordic bronze age seem wealthier and more connected than the later iron age cultures) and it was reintroduced later.

The issue with sails is that they are a weak point on boats and ships, especially for warfare. The Nordic Bronze Age collapsed and the trading network changed considerably with the transition to the Iron Age. Sails could have been used only in long distance trading during the Bronze Age for example. And indeed during the Iron Age, the context changed. 

Finally, rock arts were mostly located in Sweden and Norway, not in Denmark.

[Ultimate Aurelian]

9 minutes ago, Genava55 said:

The issue with sails is that they are a weak point on boats and ships, especially for warfare. The Nordic Bronze Age collapsed and the trading network changed considerably with the transition to the Iron Age. Sails could have been used only in long distance trading during the Bronze Age for example. And indeed during the Iron Age, the context changed. 

Finally, rock arts were mostly located in Sweden and Norway, not in Denmark.

Tacitus says the ships of the Suiones did not have sails, the over all description is similar to the Hjortspring boat.

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the form of their vessels differs from ours in having a prow at each end, so that they are always ready to advance. They make no use of sails, nor have regular benches of oars at the sides: they row, as is practised in some rivers, without order, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, as occasion requires

It's possible sails might have spread through Celtic influence, but this is pure speculation.

 

[Genava55]

Yes I know.

And as I mentioned there, the consensus is mostly supporting a late adoption of the sail:

 

"The question of when the sail was adopted in the Norse homelands and how this affected the beginning of the earliest overseas voyages has been hotly debated. Some scholars support the idea that sails were used in Scandinavia long before the Viking Age, while a mid to late eighth-century date has been the generally accepted opinion (see Bill, Reference Bill and Klæsøe2010; Westerdal, Reference Westerdahl, Barrett and Gibbons2015: 18). One of the two vessels discovered at Salme in Estonia in 2008 and 2010, dates to around ad 750 and is the earliest evidence of a combined rowing/sailing vessel used by the Scandinavians (Price et al., Reference Price, Peets, Allmäe, Maldre and Oras2016). For Norway, the use of sail is not archaeologically attested before the Oseberg ship which was constructed in ad 820 (Bill, Reference Bill and Klæsøe2010: 27–28), although it is unlikely to have been the first sailing vessel in Norwegian waters. Nevertheless, the introduction of the sail and developments in shipbuilding technology during the Viking Age in this setting should be regarded as improvements and adaptions in response to new uses rather than the result of revolutionary inventions (Barrett, Reference Barrett, Anderson, Barrett and Boyle2010: 290)."

Source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-archaeology/article/earliest-wave-of-viking-activity-the-norwegian-evidence-revisited/C2A3AB5F0C962CFB700EEAF24970BE49

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I was under the impression that a mix of sail and non-sail boats would be ok, given the previous reception. We have the scout ship as a somewhat faithful recreation of the hjortspring boat, and the fishing ship uses oars instead of a sail. For the merchant ship, it makes sense that sails would supplement trade vessels. As for the arrow ship, it needed a bit more distinguishment from the hjortspring boat, otherwise the ships would be difficult to distinguish quickly.

I think there is a degree of plausibility in the use of sail which we can justifiably represent, while keeping a sort of replica of the real hjortspring boat for history enthusiasts to appreciate. Rock art shows a diversity of hjortspring-style boats, some complete with masts and/or sails, plenty of ship settings have single rocks denoting a mast, and north <-> south trade existed.