more citizen infantry variety

[LetswaveaBook]

In the game citizen soldiers make up the bulk of your army, yet there are 4 factions (macedonians, athenians, carthaginians and ptolemies) that have only 2 types. In addition, 3 more factions(britons, gauls and persians) do have multiple ranged citizen infantry but only 1 type op melee citizen infantry. For 5 factions it is like you get a spearman as nearly all others and we add 1 type of ranged unit to. I would like there to be a little more diversity. It this something which bothers more people?

What unit type I would like to be added is an citizen soldier axeman. If I am correct, the most common melee weapons types would be pole arms, swords and then axes. So it does not seem strange to add an axeman. In game the infantry axeman could function as the poor mans swordsmen. I would like to hear what our historians have to say about axes and if they ever were a main weapon (possibly with a shield or not). I have to admit that I have been looking through tinted glasses in the hope for spotting some historically plausible axeman references as I would like an option for an extra unit type.

 

[ChronA]

The promotion system is part of the problem here. In the real world there is a lot more difference in the tactical capabilities between a raw conscript swordsman, a veteran swordsman, and a fully armored, professional swordsman, than there is between a swordsman, an axeman, and a maceman. Without embracing fantasy tropes, It is difficult to conceptualize an axeman type unit that would not just be a reskin of a swordsman.

[Yekaterina]

17 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

What unit type I would like to be added is an citizen soldier axeman. If I am correct, the most common melee weapons types would be pole arms, swords and then axes. So it does not seem strange to add an axeman. In game the infantry axeman could function as the poor mans swordsmen. I would like to hear what our historians have to say about axes and if they ever were a main weapon (possibly with a shield or not). I have to admit that I have been looking through tinted glasses in the hope for spotting some historically plausible axeman references as I would like an option for an extra unit type.

 

Please suggest cost, stats etc. 

[Dizaka]

Axe is mostly slash damage.  There is little pierce/buldgeon damage.  This makes axe units appear to have the same stats as swordsmen units.  Could be substitutes for civs that don't have sword.  These units could cost 10 stone vs 10 metal.

Either way, I would suggest axe be slash / buldgeon (bash) damage so that these units could take down buildings more-so than swordsmen.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Dizaka

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

Actually coming up with more infantry types ain't difficult, for example:

A "something" hillman, basically a levy with poor morale and bad equipment, a "trash" unit only "good" for the early game:

3.5 hack   3 pierce   1.5 vs cav    90 health   40 food/wood cost  900 repeat time

 

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Axes derive most of their advantage from concentrating the mass at the head, making them generally better at penetrating through armour.  The issue is that that amount of weight makes them more cumbersome to use.  I would suggest a unit with higher damage output but with worse melee defence capabilities.  

[Lightning38]

In terms of 2 handed axes, they are the natural predator against shields, the axe head could also potentially if of longer variety go around the shield and hit something from around. Also shields being wood and axes being axes... Perhaps a bonus vs shield infantry? Axes are more extreme in the sense that their minimum and maximum damage are far from each other. A dangerous weapon/tool, however not for professional soldiers as a soldier would want stability over damage.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

1 hour ago, Lightning38 said:

In terms of 2 handed axes, they are the natural predator against shields, the axe head could also potentially if of longer variety go around the shield and hit something from around. Also shields being wood and axes being axes... Perhaps a bonus vs shield infantry? Axes are more extreme in the sense that their minimum and maximum damage are far from each other. A dangerous weapon/tool, however not for professional soldiers as a soldier would want stability over damage.

I would disagree with the last statement.  Axes were often used by professionals throughout history.  I would agree with the points about shields.  Being two-handed is also not the only qualifier to being well suited against shields.  The head could easily work as a means of catching weapons and shields in such a way as to displace them and create an opening.  The general way I could see that reflected could be through a decent cancellation of armour when attacking.

[LetswaveaBook]

2 hours ago, Lightning38 said:

In terms of 2 handed axes, they are the natural predator against shields, the axe head could also potentially if of longer variety go around the shield and hit something from around. Also shields being wood and axes being axes... Perhaps a bonus vs shield infantry? Axes are more extreme in the sense that their minimum and maximum damage are far from each other. A dangerous weapon/tool, however not for professional soldiers as a soldier would want stability over damage.

I am not a historian, but the two handed axe also makes you very vulnerable. If there is a soldier with a long spear, you do not have the best ways to defend from that.

Two handed axes were used by the English housecarls of the viking age, known as the english long axe. The dane axe is also well known. However there remain some difference between the units. The housecarls were an elite group and only used them because they had armor that protected them and thus they did not need a shield. Also the type of warfare really affects the efficiency of the weapon. It seems difficult to me to fight a phalanx with two handed axes. However these two handed axes are not an overly complicated design and if the ancients wanted them, they could have produced them probably.

On 12/08/2021 at 7:14 PM, Yekaterina said:

Please suggest cost, stats etc. 

We all ready have kush axe champs and persian axe cavalry and there exist allready a template for them. I would model them to have similarities with the axe cavalry in therms of attack.

Stats: 6 hack attack, 1.5 crush attack, repeat time 1s, 100 hp, 4 hack armor(axes make parrying more difficult), 5 pierce

cost: 50 food, 45 wood, 5 metal.

These stats put them in infantry combat between spearman and swordsmen. If you compose an army of 2x axemen, you spend as much resources as an army of x swordsmen and x spearmen. You would get similar combat effectiveness apart from lacking the cavalry counter. In return you get crush damage to destroy buildings.

I think it would be nice to give an axemen infantry to some Celtic faction, as the lack CS swordsmen. That way they get an extra unit against siege and with some purpose against buildings (in combination with slingers). Also I would like to give them as a mercenary to either or both Macedonians or Seleucids. Seleucids have the "problem" of difficulty to get access to mercenaries and placing a new mercenary in the barracks might help with that. The 'stronger' sword mercenary would remain in the colony.

However I do not like to add things just because of gameplay reasons. It also needs to have some historical connection. However it is not unlikely that there would be a Celtic tribe that used battle axes more than others.

[Player of 0AD]

I don't like changes of the game, but if axemen will be a thing then conclude their stats just from the champ axemen (kush). There is a pattern which describes the relation between champs and citizens. (Usually melee champs have 200% attack/health and +3 armor or sth like that)

[KKaslana]

Perhaps we can add infantry crossbowmen (non-champions) and gastraphetes operators. They will be good counters against cavalry archers and camels, who are quite unopposed. 

Sometimes, Iberian players spam houses in front of their walls to waste the time of enemy rams, meanwhile, there were many discussions about palisades interfering with the siege weapons' pathfinder. These inspired a new unit: siege engineers, who can walk through gaps in enemy structures to their vital buildings, then construct a siege weapon in situ, assuming they are not killed by the enemy while walking and building. I think this unit would be a fun addition to the game. 

Infantry axeman certainly sounds interesting, although I am not sure historically which civs actually used such an unit, except for Kushites and Bactrians. Nevertheless, they can be an interesting addition to the Millenium AD mod. 

[Yekaterina]

2 minutes ago, KKaslana said:

Perhaps we can add infantry crossbowmen (non-champions) and gastraphetes operators. They will be good counters against cavalry archers and camels, who are quite unopposed. 

Give it to Han Chinese? I guess Athenians and Macedonians can benefit from gastraphetes on the go. Give them hard 1.5x counter against cavalry archers?

1 hour ago, LetswaveaBook said:

think it would be nice to give an axemen infantry to some Celtic faction, as the lack CS swordsmen. That way they get an extra unit against siege and with some purpose against buildings (in combination with slingers). Also I would like to give them as a mercenary to either or both Macedonians or Seleucids. Seleucids have the "problem" of difficulty to get access to mercenaries and placing a new mercenary in the barracks might help with that. The 'stronger' sword mercenary would remain in the colony.

Agreed, will patch with stats 

6 hack attack, 1.5 crush attack, repeat time 1s, 100 hp, 4 hack armor(axes make parrying more difficult), 5 pierce

cost: 50 food, 45 wood, 5 metal.

I suppose the 2 handed axe units can be for Millenium AD

 

There are template files for axeman, but they are used rarely. There are also champion axe, cavalry axe and hero axe. Maybe we switch some heroes to axeman as well. 

 

[Dizaka]

7 hours ago, KKaslana said:

Perhaps we can add infantry crossbowmen (non-champions) and gastraphetes operators. They will be good counters against cavalry archers and camels, who are quite unopposed.

  

7 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

Give it to Han Chinese? I guess Athenians and Macedonians can benefit from gastraphetes on the go. Give them hard 1.5x counter against cavalry archers?

 

Issue with non-champion xbows is that Persians originally had non-champion chariot archers.  Now those units are nonexistant as all chariot units are champion units.  I think this kind of change might be going against previous changes, but idk.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

I am in agreement about adding some other unit types. Although I have no new ideas on that front. I think another way that we can make the units feel more distinct would be to shake up the uniformity of the blacksmith that we currently see across almost all civs (with exception of the +20% for swords and the accuracy upgrade for archers).

I think there are a number of ways to do this, but I would be in favor of adding some unique upgrades that give a more exciting twist to the unit, it might be a trade-off tech or might not be depending on the civ or unit. I think these upgrades would be unlocked after the 3rd tier of the most pertinent current blacksmith upgrades.

My ideas of new blacksmith techs so far:

1. For example, britons or gauls could get a heavy shot upgrade on their slingers that reduces range but adds 1.5 to crush damage, and this would be unlocked after researching the p3 ranged damage upgrade.
2. Another idea could be for Macedonian pikes, they get an increase in pike length over other pikes in the game, researched after p3 melee damage increase.
3. Another option for gaul slingers could be faster movement speed, but a bit less armor.
4. Another for seleucid skirmishers, slower movement speed but greater armor.
5. Perhaps a cool option for sword units called "broadsword" could be reduce pierce armor but increase hack attack.

The point is to introduce some differences between the "same" units of different civs.

Often, the thinking of what units to produce is hardly more complicated than "melee+ranged". I think we should try to work to a point where the blacksmiths upgrades series looks a bit different for all civs. Tell me what you think of the idea. At least this idea does not require new artwork

[LetswaveaBook]

8 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Often, the thinking of what units to produce is hardly more complicated than "melee+ranged".

I agree that this is undesirable.

On the other hand, I do not want to introduce a " mostly fantasy" unit like the Mauryan Visha Kanya champions. In many fantasy games we see more weapon diversity, but I have failed to see any references of axes being used as main weapons in the Hellenistic period, apart from the axe cavalry and the Cantabrians. I have seen some mentions of axes being used by "barbarian tribes", but I did not find anything that points out if that was as a main or side arm. So maybe there is from a historical point of view no reason to add more axemen.

 

If there are people that would say that for certain factions it makes historically sense to add axemen, then I would welcome some statements.

Edited August 19, 2021 by LetswaveaBook
needed to add the Cantabrians

[Gurken Khan]

8 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

At least this idea does not require new artwork

Please do not belittle the work of icon creators.

But seriously, longer pikes, broader swords and bigger projectiles could be represented on screen.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

In many fantasy games we see more weapon diversity, but I have failed to see any references of axes being used as main weapons in the Hellenistic period

I agree. Axe units would be very rare. I don't see the justification for including them as a mainline unit, except in the rare cases you mentioned. Same goes for maces and clubs. They're just rare specialized units, essentially.

 

10 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Often, the thinking of what units to produce is hardly more complicated than "melee+ranged".

An easy way to differentiate is with bonuses. See: Delenda Est.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

3 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

Please do not belittle the work of icon creators.

Well I suppose my writing was not very respectful, I give my apologies for that. What I meant to emphasize was that we don't need entirely new units to have unit diversification, we can also work with what is already there.

3 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

But seriously, longer pikes, broader swords and bigger projectiles could be represented on screen

This would be really cool.

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

5 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I agree. Axe units would be very rare. I don't see the justification for including them as a mainline unit, except in the rare cases you mentioned. Same goes for maces and clubs. They're just rare specialized units, essentially.

 

An easy way to differentiate is with bonuses. See: Delenda Est.

0 AD devs don't like "hard counters", but as 4 or 5 of the melee classes have split damage I think bonuses should be more widely used. For example how do you make a range counter unit that is resistant to ranged dmg but doens´t fare well in melee? Sure you can  buff the pierce resistance but then these units become stronger against pikes and spears.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

40 minutes ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

0 AD devs don't like "hard counters", but as 4 or 5 of the melee classes have split damage I think bonuses should be more widely used. For example how do you make a range counter unit that is resistant to ranged dmg but doens´t fare well in melee? Sure you can  buff the pierce resistance but then these units become stronger against pikes and spears.

Exactly why pike and spear units seriously need their pierce attack removed. This issue has been apparent for several alphas.

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

10 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Exactly why pike and spear units seriously need their pierce attack removed. This issue has been apparent for several alphas.

And then they'll accuse you of wanting to make 0 AD into a AOE clone ahahah

[LetswaveaBook]

I think if we can justify is, it would be nice to introduce melee infantry that is not a spearman, swordsman or pikemen.

 

I ran into a story of an axe being used and it tells that it is not super rare or pure fantasy, but it does not tell much else either.  The Athenian Cynaegirus had as the story goes his hand chopped off by an axe when trying to board a Persian ship. I could see axes being used by pirates or crew members of ships (similar as the vikings did), but that would need more verification.

Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynaegirus

[ChronA]

I don't think anyone doubts that axes or maces were used in ancient combat. The problem is figuring how to systematize them for gameplay in a way that is not superficial AND also relatively faithful to history.

Maces were/are more effective than bladed weapons for straight-forwardly defeating body armor. Axes have some utility for hooking shields, weapons, and body parts that swords lack. However there are special techniques for very effectively dealing with armor and shields while using a sword: grappling, pommel strikes, etc. It is all a matter of training. And once you are trained I don't think there was a big difference in the overall effectiveness of these weapons.

If there were, don't you think the Romans (for example) would have regularized their adoption? E.g. in each contubernium requiring 3 men be equipped with axes to defeat enemy shields and 2 with maces to dispatch armored opponents. These kinds of mixed arms arrangements with exactly that kind of logic were not uncommon in the late medieval period and renaissance. 

[Dizaka]

@LetswaveaBook

Possibility of citizen-soldier light xbow at: 

 

[Huffman3829]

All Soldiers in Ancient Egypt (more so the Ptolemaic Dynasty than the Kushite Dynasty) used Axes as Secondary weapons, meaning that all men had an Axe with them to use if their Spear broke, or a Sickle like Sword called a Khopesh. Spears would be the primary weapon, not the Pike as shown in the Game. (Pikes were used almost exclusively by the Ruling Classes.) Swords were rare in Combat compared to the Spear and Axe, and the Axe was used as a Counter-Infantry weapon, I'm guessing against Swordsmen. It would be strange if an Axeman fought against a Spearman, for the Spear would kill the Axeman before he could even swing. They would have an advantage over the Swordsmen, though. The Britons and the Gauls alike used Axes for the same purposes as the Egyptians, and used them as a Secondary weapon. Shortswords used more often as a Secondary weapon than the Axe.. Although some would fight exclusively with the Axe, it was most common to use a Spear. The Spartans also fought with Axes, though rarely. Remember, the Celts and the Spartans fought with a Militia Force, so the weapons used would vary. As ChronA said, the Romans also used Axes, but on occasion only. It was a smaller Axe called a Pilum, and was thrown at the enemy to cause disorder among the enemy, much of a similar use to the Plumbata . Actually, most Ancient Armies had some Axe units, but they would be very rare, as Axes would only be used in specialized combat. The Chinese Imperial Guard (Han Dynasty) used only Axes and were famous for using very large ones, like this:

 

So yes, it does make sense Historically, because all the Civilizations I discussed in the latter paragraph have used Axemen in their Military. Of course, 0 A.D. doesn't have the Han Chinese as a Civilization, but I just wanted to share that interesting morsel of information. In case you wanted to know, my two favorite Ancient Civilizations are the Hasmonean Dynasty Jews and the Brythonic Celts. And my favorite Weapon/Tool is the Axe. That is the main reason why I wrote this is to get some Axemen into the game. Although there are some Axe units, like Kushite Temple Guards, and Hyrcanian Axe Horsemen, I just wanted some Civilian Infantry. Thank you for reading.

Edited October 1, 2021 by Huffman3829
I forgot to add why it is Historically accurate to add Axemen into the game.