The Medieval Weapons Mod - adding history and logic to the civ4 middle ages.

The civilization series has always done many things well. The medieval period has never been one of those things. From the very beginning in civ1 the units appeared in odd, ahistorical orders with odd relative strength values, missing or anachronistic units, and general logical and historical flaws.

Civ 4 is of course no exception to this. The first units you get in the medieval era are generally longbows. In reality of course longbows didn't show up in wide use in real life until the hundred years war, generally recognized as the end of the middle ages and just prior to the introduction of gunpowder. Similarly pikemen are flash in the pan counter units when pikemen ruled the battlefield for centuries and were only phased out in the 1700s when musket technology developed to the point that pikes were less viable and the invention of the bayonette finally rendered having separate pike units pointless. In the thirty years war there were not knights in shining armor riding into battle next to musketeers as you might see in civ3 or 4, there were however huge pike formations.

In order to remedy this I've changed units as follows:

Aztec Jaguar -
Now replaces axemen, loses bonus to city raiding but gains bonus vs melee as normal axeman, costs 5 shields more than axemen but doesn't require iron. - this seemed to be just a much better fit for the jaguar unit than being a swordsman replacement for both flavor and balance purposes.

Pretorian- Strength decreased to 6, gains +10% attack vs cities, +25% attack vs archers. The roman legion consisted of well disciplined soldiers who were skilled in many forms of combat, especially against missile using enemies. They dominated the world around them during their prime. They were not however on a level with medeival pikemen or heavy infantry in terms of weapons, armor, or combat capability by any means. For balance purposes their overall strength has been reduced but their capacity to attack cities and combat archers has been increased.


Crossbowmen - Remain as is. Crossbowmen were among the first and last types of soldiers used in the middle ages. While often out of favor with the major powers, crossbows provided an easy way for a smaller power without access to large numbers of knights to equip peasents and yeomen with a weapon capable of causing significant damage.

Macemen - Now available at feudalism, require metal casting instead of machinery. Heavy infantry was among the first widespread type of unit used in the middle ages. As armor and weapon technology progressed units such as norse huskarls and similar units began to come into fashion. These well organized and equipped heavy infantry would be the mainstay of medieval armies until armor,weapon, and riding technology progressed to a level where fully armored knights were practical. This is reflected in game by introducing them along with crossbowmen as the gateway units to the middle ages.

Knights - Now availible with civil service. Require horseback riding, feudalism, metal casting. Mounted knights came to be the dominant military force in the high middle ages for a number of reasons. One was the introduction of the stirrip, chain mail, and the lance, which would make fighting in the saddle much more viable. Another was the feudal beurocracy which developed in Europe, allowing kings to reliably muster knights to fight wars and knights to have a reasonable expectation of payment for their services through land grants. In game this is reflected through making knights available at civil service and require feudalism.

Longbowmen - Now availible with civil service. The longbow was entirely a reaction to knights as the english kings and nobility realized that they simply could not put enough knights in the field as their french opponents in the hundred years war. The solution was to require farmers and peasants to train in the longbow from birth. As longbowmen were a direct response to knights, it only makes sense for them to become available at the same time.

Pikemen - Now available with guilds. Require metal casting. Strength changed to 8, price increased to 70, bonus vs cavalry reduced to 75%. It was the pikeman, not the knight, who was the champion of plutocracy at the end of the middle ages and it was the pikeman, not the knight, who would continue to fight on for centuries after the renaissance dawned. The increased strength means they can compete with musketeers and will be better at defending against mounted units than anything until riflemen come along and finally retire the last melee weapon.

Cannon - now availble with gunpowder. Require metal casting and engineering. Strength reduced to 8. The cannons rang over europe far earlier than did the musket, and to have them not be availible until destroyers is silly. Putting them at gunpowder removes the rather odd cavalry+catapults scenario present in the original game.


This is my first real mod, so feedback is welcome, I've tried very hard to keep things balanced making sure a defensive counter for a unit becomes availible with or soon after the unit keeping any one unit from running away with the game, but my playtesting has been limited so I'd appreciate comments on how things seem to work out. Ed - and of course I forgot to mention but all of the unique units should also follow the above progression, if I happened to miss any please let me know.

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Edit: I've added the following changes for the reasons detailed in the thread:

Praetorians: bonus vs archers changed to bonus vs melee
Spearmen: Base strength = 5, bonus to cav = 50%
Axemen: Base strength = 4, bonus to melee = 85%

AI: Unit roles edited to match above.

At the advise of woodelf I'll stop changing things now until this has been playtested some .

I like your mod. I would disagree on the praetorian guards and the pikemen

http://www.livinghistory.com.au/images/praetorian.gif

and

http://www.lunsfords.fsnet.co.uk/gallery/upton/drill/pikemen.jpg
http://www.tombridge.com/photos/londond4/pikemen.jpg
http://www.ecwsa.org/images/Stralsund03/Stralsund For Website/Pikemen.jpg

The pikemen equipment was in no way superior to the legionary. Each unit was adapted to the era it ruled.

The legionary were the soldiers that were to go against the phalanx. nothing more nothing less. the strength they developed figting Pyrrus was then adapted and honed fighting Hannibal. Scipio Africanus was Hannibals very able student and he learned everything he could before salting Carthages fields.

the fall of the Roman empire was not in their armies. Although their armies were later poorly adapted to figting skirmishing huns, gallic warlords and germanic axemen and lancemen.

The pike was the answer to the axe and the lance. Only cause you could set it.

I would also change the name from Praetorian to Legionairy. Praetorian units were basically glorified firefighters and town guard.

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None of that maters. I like your balancing mod


of course pikemen differed in their equipment and

Interesting changes. Did you happen to change the research time for this era and the next as well? In my games it seems that these units aren't useful for very long since musketmen, ect come too quickly.

I like the fact that the units are coming sooner and more historically accurately. Too bad I'm at work now....

I didn't really think about that but since you brought it up I should probably slow research down a bit. Would 125% be about right? I'll play with it a bit and see what feels good.

I honestly like the research in the early era as is, but once you get to swordsmen I think it could be slowed down at least 125%, maybe more. I'd love to see the macemen, knights, pikemen, longbowmen, ect part of the game last at least double what it is now before gunpowder overruns it. Maybe combining a decrease in number of years per turn along with an increase in tech cost would yield the same timeframe in the end, but allow for more turns with these units?

Dracleath said:

Pretorian- Strength decreased to 6, gains +10% attack vs cities, +25% attack vs archers. The roman legion consisted of well disciplined soldiers who were skilled in many forms of combat, especially against missile using enemies. They dominated the world around them during their prime. They were not however on a level with medeival pikemen or heavy infantry in terms of weapons, armor, or combat capability by any means.

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Alternate history is always fun to argue about, but I think you're quite mistaken. The Roman legion's strength was manifestly not against missile-using enemies―the disastrous Battle of Carrhae shows that when you can't catch your enemy, you're toast, and legionaries can't catch horse archers. The testudo/tortoise formation was not effective against more powerful missile weapons such as Eastern composite bows of Roman times or the later English longbow; the arrows would simply plow straight through the shields.

On the other hand, against pikemen Romans were well-equipped. Rome fought against the overwhelmingly pike-oriented Greek successor states as it started to expand, and in the end it decisively crushed them. Quite simply, pike phalanxes must remain rigid to remain effective, since if they break up their flanks will be vulnerable; legions, on the other hand, can break into multiple groups without such dramatic drops in effectiveness. This gives the legions more mobility, and thus the ability to outflank―a line of pikes must be solid to be effective.

Furthermore, if legions withdraw at full speed, pikemen can't pursue without slowly disrupting their formation, leaving them wide open to flank attacks by other parts of the legion. Thus, retreating Romans couldn't be chased down, and would live to fight another day, whereas in the reverse situation, the Romans could chase the pikemen to their heart's content in the full knowledge that pikes are useless at close range. A pike formation that's retreating and being actively pursued simply can't reform, while legions could―at substantially reduced effectiveness if they had routed and dropped their shields, true, but they would still have their weapons and armor, which routing pikemen wouldn't (having dropped their cumbersome pikes and not having worn much armor to begin with).

Now, it's true that there are those who argue that while legions beat pikemen alone, pikemen plus strong cavalry (in the style of Philip, the pioneer of pike warfare) could have beat legions. This may be; history has not been so kind as to give us a test case. Certainly, legions would butcher melee cavalry alone, assuming equal amounts of money are spent to equip and maintain both sides, but if the cavalry can effectively stop the legions from retreating from the pikemen, the legions will get diced. (Quite simply nothing could stand a frontal attack by a Macedonian phalanx, except of course another such phalanx.) This is plausible. But legions will beat either pikemen or cavalry alone, to be sure.

I'm also betting, by the by, that the well-trained and honored pikemen of the successor states were probably superior in equipment, morale, and training to most medieval peasant pikemen. All the more so would legions defeat them.

userqwerty said:

The pike was the answer to the axe and the lance. Only cause you could set it.

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Not in the least. Pikes would only conceivably be set against a cavalry charge―against infantry, set pikes would be pushed aside. And anyone who charged cavalry into pikes would have instant slaughter on his hands, anyway, if the horses were even willing to do it. The primary mode of fighting for pikemen was holding the pike in both hands and stabbing―it's very difficult to push aside a pike that's actively attacking you, particularly since a) pikemen generally had tighter formations than most non-pikemen and b) even if you got past the first row of pikes, there would be more rows right behind them. Pike phalanxes are impregnable from the front; it's the flanks that get them killed.

Edit: qwerty is spot-on about the Praetorian names, incidentally. Legionaries they should be.

On your successor states vs medieval pikemen point you are probably correct, a pike is a pike, though it is important to note that ancient phalanxes generally used iron and bronze weapons and armor while medieval pikemen used steel weapons. Cast iron and steel were not developed in europe until well after the fall of the roman empire. Also it was only when Phillip came on the scene that phlanxes actually set pikes and used them two-handed, prior to this smaller spears were used along with shields in one hand. And again do not underestimate the power of materials technology, steel is simply worlds ahead of non-cast iron and bronze.



By what method could a legion have any chance of defeating a real heavy cavalry force (and by real heavy cavalry force I mean medieval knights, armored, with lances, equipped with stirrups)?

The legion had no pikes to set. I find it hard to believe that they would not break from a charge immediatly, roman discipline or no roman discipline. And upon breaking the knights would eat them alive.

This is part of what I mean when I say medieval infantry were better armed an armored, they were equipped to deal with threats the romans never faced. A legionaire was armed with a simple javelin and iron gladius (carbonized only on the very outside by simply coating it with coal dust) a bronze helmet, and bronze scale or chain armor (though Iron plate was used it was extremely expensive and only in service breifly). An english or scandinavian huskarl would be armed with a 4 to 6 foot long axe or sword made of much higher quality cast iron (or steel in later times) capable of cleaving chain mail. The same huskarl would have a chain or ringmail hauberk, also of quality cast iron or steel. The latter existed in a world where good metals and metalworkers were much more commonly availible using similar tactics to the romans and macedonians themselves (formations, shield walls, flanking with shock infantry and cavalry, etc)



The bonus against archers in civ4 doesn't apply to mounted archers, it applies to simple foot archers which the legion could in all probability deal with adequately. Against horse archers or knights or medieval infantry the legion should go down, and that's what happens in game. But it's true they were much more a counter unit for phlanxes


I might take a look at the ancient age in general. Spears don't seem powerful enough in general and perhaps should move up to 5 atk and their bonus vs cav reduced to 50%. They should get beaten by swords but routinely beat cavalry and be about the same vs archers.


How does this sound?

Switch axemen and spearman places in the tech tree. Axemen require hunting, bronze working, spearmen just bronze working.

Axemen reduced to stength 4, bonus vs melee increased to 75%. (axemen are actually pretty decent against both spears and swords, but ancient age axemen with no shields should get eaten alive by chariots, horsemen, archers etc.) Axemen did occur historically earlier than spears and swords but fell out of fashion later.

Aztec jags remain as is.

Spearmen increased to strength 5. Bonus vs cav reduced to 50% (about the same in total). Hoplites also bumped up to maintain the same relations with spears as they have now.

Swordsmen remain as is, legion bonus vs archers replaced with a 25% bonus vs melee.

This seem about right?

Edit: Bronze working not hunting for spears, silly me.

Feudalism is not required for civil service. Knight can come in 7 tech steps. Long before the macemen.

The knight itself requires feudalism.

The entire path to knights is 13 techs -
7 to feudalism
+1 for civil service
+3 for metal casting
+1 for iron
+1 for horseback riding

The praetorians were the best of the best, chosen to defend the Imperial palace. Certainly more than mere firefighters. Look at http://www.roman-empire.net/army/army.html and find on that page 'Praetorian Guard '

If anything, praetorians should be changed to have a really good city defence bonus.

@Joh:

I'd have to disagree about the Praetorians. They were touted as crack troops simply because they were the emperor's imperial guard. The truth is that they spent most of theire time on "soft" garrison duty, and had nowhere near the experience of the combat tested Legions. They also were plagued with politcally appointed leaders- the ones you can find in any peace-time army that quickly disappear when the going gets rough.

I like where you're going with this, Dracleath, but I'm worrying that you might be getting carried away. For instance...

Dracleath said:

I might take a look at the ancient age in general. Spears don't seem powerful enough in general and perhaps should move up to 5 atk and their bonus vs cav reduced to 50%. They should get beaten by swords but routinely beat cavalry and be about the same vs archers.

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Actually, this is the way things should work as is. With a 4 strength and a 75% bonus vs. cavalry, spearman have the advantage against horse archers and Keshiks (a strength of 7 vs. 6) and should slaughter chariots (7 vs 4). Against swordsmen, spearman have a disadvantage as long as they are not heavily fortified (4 vs. 6), plus there's the swordsman's bonus on city attack to add to give them a little edge. The only thing that changing the spearman's strength from 4 to 5 would do is strengthen it against swordsmen and archers, making it have a distinct advantage against archers and decreasing its disadvantage against swordsmen. The advantage vs. cavalry would only go up .5 (50% of 5 = 2.5, therefore 7.5 strength vs. cavalry as opposed to 7). But hey, if that all sounds good to you, then go for it.

Also, if you make these changes and the Aztec Jaguar, as you said, "remains as is," will it still be replacing the axeman? Will it come with hunting and bronze working, or just bronze working? I'm unclear on what you're planning for it. I liked your idea of moving it back to axeman (was thinking of doing that myself), but now I'm just confused, and a bit skeptical.

On the subject of BOTH knights and longbowmen coming with civil service, I'm not sure about the balance or the accuracy. On the gameplay side, getting two strong units from one tech kind of overpowers that tech; a minor point, but one to consider. As for accuracy, longbowmen being a response the armored knight, I'd think they should come later rather than at the same time. Perhaps they could come from Engineering, but require civil service and/or feudalism? or some other techs?

I'm not so sure about chaning the axeman's strength and position either. I kind of like him where he is on the tech tree.

Oh, and the problem with cannons coming with gunpowder -- wrong era cannon. I'd love for the cannon to come earlier, bu the cannoneer looks pretty damn Napoleonic to me. At most, it could be moved back to chemistry and not look out of place. Hopefully a reskin job could fix this issue (though it would be tricky with that hat). If so, it might be nice to have an early cannon unit, the "bombard," that is replaced by the later-age cannon.

This is part of what I mean when I say medieval infantry were better armed an armored, they were equipped to deal with threats the romans never faced. A legionaire was armed with a simple javelin and iron gladius (carbonized only on the very outside by simply coating it with coal dust) a bronze helmet, and bronze scale or chain armor (though Iron plate was used it was extremely expensive and only in service breifly).

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Roman legion was armed and armoured often far better than medieval army. Medieval army consisted of leived peasants with chain mail, shield and spear. Pikes were rare in the middle ages. And, no Lorica segmentata (the "plate armour") was in service for over an century and it was used very much. It was expensive but losing a highly trained legionary was more expensive.

Roman legionaries were certanly far better armoured than medieval army. Medieval army was made of few professional men-at-arms, (who were well armoured and trained, but in induvidual arts not in group based combat) few knightly troops and large number of levy peasants. The levy peasants were not well armoured. They were armoured in whatever their village could afford.

An english or scandinavian huskarl would be armed with a 4 to 6 foot long axe or sword made of much higher quality cast iron (or steel in later times) capable of cleaving chain mail.

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The gladius, which was extremely powerful sword, was designed for stabbing. The legionaries would bash the shield on the enemy while stabbing from the sides of the shield, to the stomac or chest. A stab from gladius was much deadlier than a strike from axe. Gladius left very wide wounds.

The same huskarl would have a chain or ringmail hauberk, also of quality cast iron or steel.

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Well, Roman legionary would have a large shield, excellent helmet, and better armour. Also, you are only looking at the medieval elite, the huscarls were not numerous, they numbered around 6000 - 7000, IIRC. While there were 150 000 Roman legionaries. Roman legionaries were the common troops.

The latter existed in a world where good metals and metalworkers were much more commonly availible using similar tactics to the romans and macedonians themselves (formations, shield walls, flanking with shock infantry and cavalry, etc)

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The medieval army didn't use Roman tactics but they did use something like the macedonian tactics. The Roman army was completely different, IMHO. Also, medieval army had very poor organization, discipline, and often it was lead by kings rather than professional commanders.

On your successor states vs medieval pikemen point you are probably correct, a pike is a pike, though it is important to note that ancient phalanxes generally used iron and bronze weapons and armor while medieval pikemen used steel weapons. Cast iron and steel were not developed in europe until well after the fall of the roman empire. And again do not underestimate the power of materials technology, steel is simply worlds ahead of non-cast iron and bronze.

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Wheather the pike is made of steel or iron isn't as relevant as you say. Roman shield was originally designed against pikes of the phalanx line. No, the macedonian sarissa wasn't made bronze, never. That would be illogical, since bronze is more expensive and iron is more powerful. But, bronze was still used in armour because it could be banged in to different forms.

The quality of the iron isn't so important. The macedonian army used very good tactics which combined lancers with phalanx lines.

Also it was only when Phillip came on the scene that phlanxes actually set pikes and used them two-handed, prior to this smaller spears were used along with shields in one hand.

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Medieval armies used pikes rather rarely. Most of the time the infantry carried large kite shields with spears. The medieval pike was also much shorter compared to sarissa which was a long as 21 feets.

Oh, btw Roman legion was quite bad against archers, but it improved later on.

Master Kodama said:

I like where you're going with this, Dracleath, but I'm worrying that you might be getting carried away. For instance...


Actually, this is the way things should work as is. With a 4 strength and a 75% bonus vs. cavalry, spearman have the advantage against horse archers and Keshiks (a strength of 7 vs. 6) and should slaughter chariots (7 vs 4). Against swordsmen, spearman have a disadvantage as long as they are not heavily fortified (4 vs. 6), plus there's the swordsman's bonus on city attack to add to give them a little edge. The only thing that changing the spearman's strength from 4 to 5 would do is strengthen it against swordsmen and archers, making it have a distinct advantage against archers and decreasing its disadvantage against swordsmen. The advantage vs. cavalry would only go up .5 (50% of 5 = 2.5, therefore 7.5 strength vs. cavalry as opposed to 7). But hey, if that all sounds good to you, then go for it.

Also, if you make these changes and the Aztec Jaguar, as you said, "remains as is," will it still be replacing the axeman? Will it come with hunting and bronze working, or just bronze working? I'm unclear on what you're planning for it. I liked your idea of moving it back to axeman (was thinking of doing that myself), but now I'm just confused, and a bit skeptical.

On the subject of BOTH knights and longbowmen coming with civil service, I'm not sure about the balance or the accuracy. On the gameplay side, getting two strong units from one tech kind of overpowers that tech; a minor point, but one to consider. As for accuracy, longbowmen being a response the armored knight, I'd think they should come later rather than at the same time. Perhaps they could come from Engineering, but require civil service and/or feudalism? or some other techs?

I'm not so sure about chaning the axeman's strength and position either. I kind of like him where he is on the tech tree.

Oh, and the problem with cannons coming with gunpowder -- wrong era cannon. I'd love for the cannon to come earlier, bu the cannoneer looks pretty damn Napoleonic to me. At most, it could be moved back to chemistry and not look out of place. Hopefully a reskin job could fix this issue (though it would be tricky with that hat). If so, it might be nice to have an early cannon unit, the "bombard," that is replaced by the later-age cannon.

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Jag would come with bronze working, really after looking at it there's no point in changing the techs since spearmen now require bronze working anyway. It would just be a cosmetic change.

Well, spearmen *should* be better against archers than axemen. The axemen in civ4 are lightly armored 2 handed axe users with no shield, similar to what egyptians or some germanic armies used. They should get slaughtered by archers. Phlanxes for the most part carried shields that they'd hold until the enemy came into pike range. And only the legion which was designed to fight phalanxs really had a strong, distinct advantage over them.

Spear and pike formations were the mainstay of ancient forces until the legion came about and even then sopped being used not particulary because they were abandoned but because the romans conquered most everyone who was using them . Now if you don't have iron in civ4 you generally use axemen as your main army and spearmen still just have a specialized role, it should be the other way around.

naziassbandit said:

Roman legion was armed and armoured often far better than medieval army. Medieval army consisted of leived peasants with chain mail, shield and spear. Pikes were rare in the middle ages. And, no Lorica segmentata (the "plate armour") was in service for over an century and it was used very much. It was expensive but losing a highly trained legionary was more expensive.

Roman legionaries were certanly far better armoured than medieval army. Medieval army was made of few professional men-at-arms, (who were well armoured and trained, but in induvidual arts not in group based combat) few knightly troops and large number of levy peasants. The levy peasants were not well armoured. They were armoured in whatever their village could afford.

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This was not true everywhere, and depending on location and force composition, medieval armies most definately did train in group based combat. Sheild walls, flanking, combined arms tactics, formations both in groups and entire armies, all of these were used.

The gladius, which was extremely powerful sword, was designed for stabbing. The legionaries would bash the shield on the enemy while stabbing from the sides of the shield, to the stomac or chest. A stab from gladius was much deadlier than a strike from axe. Gladius left very wide wounds.



Well, Roman legionary would have a large shield, excellent helmet, and better armour. Also, you are only looking at the medieval elite, the huscarls were not numerous, they numbered around 6000 - 7000, IIRC. While there were 150 000 Roman legionaries. Roman legionaries were the common troops.

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The huskarl should also have a large shield, and Cast iron and steel armor is simply better than bronze no matter what configuration it's in. A danish axe could sever a man's torso through chain mail. A gladius was used for stabbing because they couldn't actually sharpen it enough to make it an effective slicing instrument. Medieval swords and axes were worlds ahead of ancient ones, if you don't believe it go look at real life examples of these weapons. A frankish longsword could do everything a gladius could do, was 2 feet longer, was much sharper, was made of superior metal, and could be an effective slicing weapon. There's just no comparison.

Wheather the pike is made of steel or iron isn't as relevant as you say. Roman shield was originally designed against pikes of the phalanx line. No, the macedonian sarissa wasn't made bronze, never. That would be illogical, since bronze is more expensive and iron is more powerful. But, bronze was still used in armour because it could be banged in to different forms.



The quality of the iron isn't so important. The macedonian army used very good tactics which combined lancers with phalanx lines.

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Sarissa was made of an iron tip surrounded by a bronze lip.


The quality of metal is hugely important. If you're fighting people with steel or cast iron armor you better have something that can actually pierce through it. You vastly underestimate the impact of materials on weapons effectiveness, people didn't spend thousands of years developing better iron-working methods because they were bored and liked shiny things.

Medieval armies used pikes rather rarely. Most of the time the infantry carried large kite shields with spears. The medieval pike was also much shorter compared to sarissa which was a long as 21 feets.

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Swiss and german pikes were 18-20 feet standard, and were used 2 handed. Pikemen did not carry shields into the actual melee and used their pikes 2 handed just as macedonian pikemen did.

Ed: And after the 100 years war, pikemen generally comprised the preponderence of medeival armies.

Dracleath said:

On your successor states vs medieval pikemen point you are probably correct, a pike is a pike, though it is important to note that ancient phalanxes generally used iron and bronze weapons and armor while medieval pikemen used steel weapons. Cast iron and steel were not developed in europe until well after the fall of the roman empire.

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Certainly, but overall, the metal tip of the pike would be expected to break pretty infrequently either way. The sharpness would be a minor issue only; the main power of the pikes was a) the force of a big piece of wood being swung, and b) the simple obstruction a wall of pikes presents to anyone without pikes.

Dracleath said:

By what method could a legion have any chance of defeating a real heavy cavalry force (and by real heavy cavalry force I mean medieval knights, armored, with lances, equipped with stirrups)?

The legion had no pikes to set. I find it hard to believe that they would not break from a charge immediatly, roman discipline or no roman discipline. And upon breaking the knights would eat them alive.

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They would not break. The Roman legions faced down cavalry roughly equivalent to medieval knights, although doubtless with inferior equipment―cataphracts, for instance, were used by the successor states. But the point is, for the amount of money it costs to equip your knight with his heavy armor and top-notch weapons and highly-trained warhorse, you could afford to train and equip at least five legionaries. How many knights were there in a typical medieval army? A large Roman army would generally consist of perhaps 20,000 legionaries and 20,000 other troops (skirmishers, cavalry, etc.).

So probably the front legionaries would crouch down, hold their shields up and away from themselves, and hold their pila (javelins) set in front of them. The row behind them would prepare to throw their own pila as soon as the knights came within range, disrupting their charge at least slightly. So the knights' lances would strike the front legionaries, killing quite a few, then the survivors would jam their pila up at the horses, killing quite a few, and then the knights would quickly become totally surrounded by legionaries who still outnumber them four to one. The knights would be butchered.

Dracleath said:

This is part of what I mean when I say medieval infantry were better armed an armored, they were equipped to deal with threats the romans never faced. A legionaire was armed with a simple javelin and iron gladius (carbonized only on the very outside by simply coating it with coal dust) a bronze helmet, and bronze scale or chain armor (though Iron plate was used it was extremely expensive and only in service breifly).

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The equipment of legionaries varied dramatically. In general, over the history of Rome, iron chainmail was most favored. (As you say, the lorica segmentata banded armor was used only for about two centuries, as opposed to chainmail being in wide use for something more like eight.)

Dracleath said:

An english or scandinavian huskarl would be armed with a 4 to 6 foot long axe or sword made of much higher quality cast iron (or steel in later times) capable of cleaving chain mail. The same huskarl would have a chain or ringmail hauberk, also of quality cast iron or steel.

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How numerous were they?

Dracleath said:

The bonus against archers in civ4 doesn't apply to mounted archers, it applies to simple foot archers which the legion could in all probability deal with adequately.

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Oh, to be sure. Archers using simple bows should be butchered by pretty much anything, really―composite bows would stand a chance, but foot archery was still mainly just good for support. Horse archers can only realistically be defeated by an army equipped with large numbers of good bows or slings, though.

Dracleath said:

Against horse archers or knights or medieval infantry the legion should go down

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Depends on how large you assume the units are. If you assume the knights are, say, half as numerous as infantry, then of course they should kill pretty much anything from the era one-on-one. But Roman infantry versus an equal number of standard medieval infantry should be able to hold its own (elites would be a different story, obviously).

Dracleath said:

I might take a look at the ancient age in general.

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Indeed. For one thing, pikemen should be available much earlier. They should defeat rigid-formation spearmen handily, but be at a disadvantage against more mobile units of swordsmen, axemen, etc.

Dracleath said:

Spears don't seem powerful enough in general and perhaps should move up to 5 atk and their bonus vs cav reduced to 50%. They should get beaten by swords but routinely beat cavalry and be about the same vs archers.

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Spears should not necessarily be beaten by swords. Units that need to stay in rigid formation should be at a disadvantage against more flexible units, yes, of course, but a spear unit that doesn't depend upon its formation (e.g., Roman triarii) should be able to take on a sword unit just fine. Spears are not in any way inferior to swords.

naziassbandit said:

Pikes were rare in the middle ages.

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Depends on the era.

naziassbandit said:

And, no Lorica segmentata (the "plate armour") was in service for over an century and it was used very much.

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It was hardly ubiquitous even in the two centuries where it was widely used (roughly 1-200 CE). Chainmail was still used by many legionaries when segmentata was in use, particularly in the hotter climes, and it was also used for about three centuries before segmentata and three or more centuries after (depending on what you consider the end of the Empire).

naziassbandit said:

Medieval army was made of few professional men-at-arms, (who were well armoured and trained, but in induvidual arts not in group based combat)

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Not at all. Formations of various sorts were definitely used extensively in the Middle Ages. Whether they were as well-trained as the Romans, I don't know, but they were certainly trained and experienced in group-based combat.

naziassbandit said:

A stab from gladius was much deadlier than a strike from axe. Gladius left very wide wounds.

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Not particularly. An axe definitely has more penetrative power. Gladii simply could not pierce chainmail, for instance. And if we're talking light or no armor, an axe can dismember and decapitate, causing pretty much instant incapacitation no matter where it hits, whereas a gladius would have to get a direct hit on the heart, neck, or head to kill instantly.

naziassbandit said:

Also, you are only looking at the medieval elite, the huscarls were not numerous, they numbered around 6000 - 7000, IIRC. While there were 150 000 Roman legionaries. Roman legionaries were the common troops.

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This is the important point. The Romans didn't really use "elite" troops like the successor states' cataphracts or Silver Shields or whatnot. They depended on the strength of their common troops, and so their common troops outnumbered the enemy elites and outmatched the enemy grunts.

naziassbandit said:

Also, medieval army had very poor organization, discipline, and often it was lead by kings rather than professional commanders.

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You're making dramatic generalizations again. Arguably there were fewer great medieval commanders than great ancient commanders, and if so doubtless the dominance of the nobility would be a major cause, but medieval armies were reasonably organized as a whole.

naziassbandit said:

bronze is more expensive and iron is more powerful. But, bronze was still used in armour because it could be banged in to different forms.

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To the contrary, bronze is superior to iron for armor. It's just more expensive. Thus, the officers of ancient armies ("ancient" in this context meaning perhaps 400 BCE–400 CE or so) would often be equipped with bronze, while the ordinary soldiers would bear iron.

naziassbandit said:

Oh, btw Roman legion was quite bad against archers, but it improved later on.

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Again, foot archers were never used as the dominant force in an army in classical times, only as support. Archers just couldn't do much damage. Look at the Battle of Carrhae: 50,000 Romans were forced to sit under fire from 10,000 archers for perhaps six to eight hours, and while their ranks were devastated, they still kept half of their original strength. That's a rate of one kill per archer per three or four hours. Now consider the number of losses the Romans would have taken had they been able to simply charge the archers and reach them in a minute or less, and you'll see that archers weren't very effective against legions.

(Of course, the numbers for Carrhae casualties and army strengths are pretty shaky, but they probably aren't too far off; certainly the Romans would have known their strength and losses, and both Plutarch and Cassius Dio were Romans. If anything, of course, the Romans would have understated their losses, but they would also have overstated the enemy's numbers and understated their own, so the bias doesn't necessarily prejudice the account toward either side in particular.)

Dracleath said:

A danish axe could sever a man's torso through chain mail.

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Indeed? What's the evidence for that?

Dracleath said:

A gladius was used for stabbing because they couldn't actually sharpen it enough to make it an effective slicing instrument.

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Hardly. Romans could have used longer swords if they wanted; indeed, later on they did. The Celts certainly used longswords since before 400 BCE. Furthermore, Romans did in fact use their gladius for swinging attacks as well, but thrusting was the preferred method of attack simply because of their large shields. If you have your shield in front of you, with your left arm and leg forward, swinging a short sword is much less awkward than thrusting with it. While the medieval swords were certainly of higher quality than their ancient equivalents, the ancients were certainly capable of making perfectly effective slashing weapons.

Dracleath said:

A frankish longsword could do everything a gladius could do

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Except be used in conjunction with a very large shield, arguably one of the legion's major strengths.

Dracleath said:

This was not true everywhere, and depending on location and force composition, medieval armies most definately did train in group based combat. Sheild walls, flanking, combined arms tactics, formations both in groups and entire armies, all of these were used.

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I dont doubt that they did train, but the training was very poor compared to training of the legionaries. Roman army was trained as highly effective regiment force, Roman army was shared into cohorts lead by centurion and optio. This made the Roman army highly flexible in the battlefield.

The huskarl should also have a large shield, and Cast iron and steel armor is simply better than bronze no matter what configuration it's in.

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Huscarls had many kinds of shields. later on, they used kite shields, they used large rounds shields, smaller round shields, oval shields...

A danish axe could sever a man's torso through chain mail. A gladius was used for stabbing because they couldn't actually sharpen it enough to make it an effective slicing instrument.

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Nonsense. The Gladius was made a stabbing weapon because stabbing was far more effective in Roman combat. The Roman swordsmanship based on using large shield to give excellent protection, basically a wall between the enemy and the legionary.

When the legionaries get close, they bash the shield on the enemy, and then they stab from the side of the shield, because of this the sword was short. The legionaries used the sword in tight conditions where longsword was useless.

When fighting against armies which wielded longer swords, the Roman could, by using their shields, make the battles so tight that there was no space to use the long slashing/cutting swords. They did this when they fought against the celts.

Also, it should be remembered that medieval armies didn't use swords often. Swords were expensive and most of the time used by nobles. It was sometimes, indeed a symbol of nobility.

The Romans did have longswords too, BTW

http://www.odinblades.com/Pages/Spatha.html

Spatha is the prototype for European longswords. It was used at first by the cavalry, however later on, as Roman tactics changed (Romans struck over the shield, not from the sides), it was taken into general use.

A frankish longsword could do everything a gladius could do,

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Again, as I descriped above, no it cannot. It isn't designed for the same tactics.

Sarissa was made of an iron tip surrounded by a bronze lip.

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Oh, wonder why... The reason for it is probably good one, since iron is much cheaper.

Other sources say otherwise...

"The sarissa was a 3 to 7 meter (13-21 feet) long double pointed pike used in the Macedonian phalanx. It was very heavy for a spear, weighing over 5 kg (12 pounds). It had a short iron head shaped like a leaf and a bronze shoe that would allow it to be anchored to the ground to stop charges by enemy soldiers. Its great length was an asset against hoplites and other soldiers bearing smaller weapons, because they had to get past the sarissa to engage the phalangites."

Also, there were many sarissas used by many different factions in mediterranean and middle east.

The quality of metal is hugely important.

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It depends.

If you're fighting people with steel or cast iron armor you better have something that can actually pierce through it.

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Well, chain mail, which medieval levies used, if they indeed had armour cannot take a stab from gladius. Plate armour wasn't pierced by medieval swords either.

While the Romans, Celts and others didn't have a vast understanding of carbonizing iron to make steel, they used coal in their furnaces at first simply because it helped create high heat and later as a matter of course. The Romans were working with steel even though they may have thought that it was iron.

You vastly underestimate the impact of materials on weapons effectiveness, people didn't spend thousands of years developing better iron-working methods because they were bored and liked shiny things.

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True, in some ways and some ways not. But, the reason why during the middle ages iron quality improved dramatically was because Europeans had to find ways to replace larbour. The Romans had large number of paid larbourers and slaves, the medieval society had very low population and urbanization. So, the medieval society had to use technology to get more metal production. Europeans invented and learned, from others, such advanced methods like wind powered hammers, out of neccesity.

This also made the iron, unintentionally, of much better quality.

Muslims, for example, didn't need to do this because they had so high population.

Not particularly. An axe definitely has more penetrative power. Gladii simply could not pierce chainmail, for instance. And if we're talking light or no armor, an axe can dismember and decapitate, causing pretty much instant incapacitation no matter where it hits, whereas a gladius would have to get a direct hit on the heart, neck, or head to kill instantly.

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Gladius penetrated chain mail easily, it was one of the reasons why it was such a powerful and feared sword. Gladius' stabs were deep and wide, and if in the chest area, they would kill fast.

This claim is based on the words of military experts, not mine.

Again, foot archers were never used as the dominant force in an army in classical times, only as support. Archers just couldn't do much damage. Look at the Battle of Carrhae: 50,000 Romans were forced to sit under fire from 10,000 archers for perhaps six to eight hours, and while their ranks were devastated, they still kept half of their original strength. That's a rate of one kill per archer per three or four hours. Now consider the number of losses the Romans would have taken had they been able to simply charge the archers and reach them in a minute or less, and you'll see that archers weren't very effective against legions.

(Of course, the numbers for Carrhae casualties and army strengths are pretty shaky, but they probably aren't too far off; certainly the Romans would have known their strength and losses, and both Plutarch and Cassius Dio were Romans. If anything, of course, the Romans would have understated their losses, but they would also have overstated the enemy's numbers and understated their own, so the bias doesn't necessarily prejudice the account toward either side in particular.)

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This depends on the area. For example, in the pre-Roman-Imperial western mediterranean there was no archers. Greeks had relativly good archers, Persians had good archers, Indians and other far eastern peoples and steppe peoples and excellent bows.

The Roman legionaries were in testudo formation during Carrhae, and they were bombared by horse archers who used small bows, and because of this the arrows were small and couldn't penetrate the shield. But, later on, during 200+ archers improved in the west, Romans took the Sarmantian bow in to use.

To the contrary, bronze is superior to iron for armor. It's just more expensive. Thus, the officers of ancient armies ("ancient" in this context meaning perhaps 400 BCE–400 CE or so) would often be equipped with bronze, while the ordinary soldiers would bear iron.

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No, the ancients didn't know how make iron plate armour, large plate pieces. Thats why the lorica segmentata is made of small pieces. But bronze could be made into large plates and it could take severe damage. Also, the solidness gave it protection from certain forms of attacks better than chain mail or leather armour.

Edit: also, the theory that bronze was, at some point, better than Iron isn't true.

Re: danish axe severing a man's torso

First hand accounts of hastings state that huskarls at hastings used danish axes with two hands and that a huskarl could take down an armored knight and his horse in one blow. While this is probably hyperbole, william the conqueror himself had three horses killed out from under him in the course of the battle. Other accounts refer to the huskarls as "killing the horse with his first stroke and then the knight with his second stroke, as they charged at him". A common technique was to swing the axe in a figure 8 pattern at the enemy horse, first killing the horse with a blow to the head and then killing the knight as he fell forward from it.

Regardless, do you agree with the point about spearmen vs axemen? With the setup I describe above, ancient spearmen would be about the same as they are now against horsemen, would with against swordsmen 45% of the time rather than 33% of the time prior to bonuses, and greek phlanx formations would be even with non-legion swordsmen prior to terrain or defense bonuses. They would go from failing the majority of the time against archers in cities with no walls or culture bonus to having a slight edge, though with swordsmen would still be the superior city assault troops by far unless the spearmen was specifically promoted for the role.


Axemen would perform at similar levels against swordsmen and spearmen, still beating those units, but in contrast to now would regularly lose against archers in cities without a culture bonus and would be approximately equal in combat to chariots.

I think that the axemen should be as effective against spearmen as swordsmen...

(Of course, I dont know about this since I dont own cIV)

naziassbandit said:

I think that the axemen should be as effective against spearmen as swordsmen...

(Of course, I dont know about this since I dont own cIV)

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They are as of now and would be similarly effective after the change I'm proposing, I'm just taking one strength away and converting it into a general bonus against melee units.