Crossbows and Arquebuses (Arquebi?)

[Lord Bayushi]

So here I am in the late game again, and every computer player in sight has replaced the majority of his armies with Arquebus units. The mighty gun is destined to conquer all other weapons in a real game of civilization, but in FFH, where the crossbow is more difficult to research and produce, and is more powerful to boot, this just seems like something went wrong somewhere. Guns are a rarity in (most) fantasy settings, and so should they be in FFH, I would think.

I would purpose that a change be made to make Arquebus units into national units, and upgrade their power and cost, as well as their requirements, to make them superior to Crossbowmen. They should require Machinery, though I feel that the Gunpowder prerequisite should be enough without the Machine Shop being needed to produce them. They should have upgraded power (maybe a 12 to bring them in line with the Weapons promotions of other units), a first strike or two, and keep their ability to ignore defensive bonuses. They should also have a bonus against archery units, as guns are superior to arrows in ranged engagements. These differences should offset the fact that they are a national unit, and would bring them more in line with the genre of the setting. Cannons should likewise be upgraded and given national unit status.

Dwarven cannons should also be upgraded, though Dwarves should not have the national unit restriction, and there should be a Dwarven Rifleman unit instead of the Arquebus that gives them some more punch and removes the national unit restriction on that as well. That would be a nice boon for the sometimes underpowered Khazad Civ.

[Ecofarm]

Turn, speed?

[SwordofStriker]

They could even limit the arquebus units to the dwarves for that matter. It fits them flavorwise more than the other civs and would let you maintain more of a fantasy setting than armies of those guys on every side. Perhaps for people who wanted them with other civs, there could be a dwarven arquebus mercenary.

[Sureshot]

ya, id rather arquebus were just UUs for crossbows for dwarves and a few others

[MagisterCultuum]

The Lanun need firearms too.

I do like the idea of having a variety of units (including UUs) available as mercenaries at different prices, techs, etc.

[Uberness]

EVERYONE knows in fantasy games, Swords beat guns, it's a proven fact.

Why would you bother shooting somebody and likely miss with your gun when you can just fire a sword energy beam and take out half the area?

[Ringtailed]

Originally Posted by Uberness

EVERYONE knows in fantasy games, Swords beat guns, it's a proven fact.

Why would you bother shooting somebody and likely miss with your gun when you can just fire a sword energy beam and take out half the area?

Are you sure you're talking about fantasy games and not low quality anime?

[Alzara]

Yeah it would make sense to have crossbowmen as a "normal" unit in place of arquebusses(i?) and to have the arquebus as a national unit. Armies of strength 10 dudes are actually quite easy to amass when you reach gunpowder (which can be quite easy to get if you work for it)

Al

[EverNoob]

Historically speaking, I think the very first handheld gunpowder weapons were actually pretty mediocre compared to longbows (maybe crossbows too?) of that period. They had more power but in terms of accuracy early gunpowder weapons were just terrible.

Now before I put my foot in my mouth, I just looked it up wikipedia:

Originally Posted by wikipedia

Arquebus vs Archery

In terms of accuracy, the arquebus was extremely inferior to any kind of bow. However, the arquebus had a faster rate of fire than the most powerful crossbow, had a shorter learning curve than a longbow, and was more powerful than either. An arquebusier could carry more ammunition and powder than a crossbowman or longbowman could with bolts or arrows. The weapon also had the added advantage of scaring enemies (and spooking horses) with the noise. Perhaps most importantly, producing an effective arquebusier required a lot less training than producing an effective bowman...

...Bows and crossbows can shoot over obstacles by firing with high-arcing ballistic trajectories in order to reach the enemy when he has some frontal but no overhead cover (such as when your own troops are in melee with the enemy) — albeit with much less accuracy. An arquebus cannot do this.

[Basil II]

Kinda the same thing with the Crossbow vs the Longbow in an earlier period of innovation for that matter. Longbow was superior but requires training from a young age to master. The english longbowman was feared due to the long range of his bow, but much more so due to the incredible skill of the English Yeomen. The Crossbow on the other hand could be learned in a matter of months and used with reasonable effectiveness.

[Ur_Vile_Wedge]

Which, IMO means that neither should be a national "restricted" unit. Isn't that what Flurry's and marksmen are for? Your small corps of elite archers?

[Ecofarm]

Well, I don't see a problem. There is no indicaion that the AI will spam gunpowder units in any given game. For all we know, this instance is on turn 500, quick speed. You cannot "balance" things based upon super (rediculas?) late game situations.

[Alzara]

Gunpowder is very easy to get if you have good science. Once you've got it you can churn out strength 10 dudes. Also the original point being made is that they are weaker than crossbowmen which is unusual, and that you can only have 3 crossbowmen and unlimited arquebusses/arquebi. In a fantasy setting it would make sense to be the other way round.

Al

[Ur_Vile_Wedge]

Originally Posted by Alzara

Gunpowder is very easy to get if you have good science. Once you've got it you can churn out strength 10 dudes. Also the original point being made is that they are weaker than crossbowmen which is unusual, and that you can only have 3 crossbowmen and unlimited arquebusses/arquebi. In a fantasy setting it would make sense to be the other way round.

Al

I'm not so certain. The earliest firearms were pretty innacurate and relatively non-lethal, compared to say, a longbow. The major advantage that these weapons held was the extremely kind learning curve to use them. They were the precursors to the massed levies, because they were such easy weapons to use. I don't see any particular problem in allowing an unlimited batch of them, esp when you consider they're no stronger than a champion with Mithril weapons.

[Kael]

My thoughts (ie: rationalization) was that the crossbowmen unit represents the pinacle of archery training and skill, while the arquebus is really just a normal soldier handed a pretty powerful weapon. Like the Samurai vs the gunpowder wielding soldiers in the Last Samurai.

The advantage of the resource being the skill fo the wielder is that the unit is more powerful, the advantage of the resource being the weapon is that it can be mass produced by empires with access to the gunpowder.

Anyway, thats my justification. In game design terms we wanted a weak t4 unit that would allow some military options outside of national units, especially on huge maps where a battle on one front that was consuming your national units would lead to a sweep on another front that was still defended by t3 untis you couldn't upgrade (because of national limits). Its also easier on the AI who isn't as good at evening out his national units as human players are.

[Mailbox]

I like the fact that the Age of Rebirth can end with the death of magic at the hands of firearms.

[Alzara]

In response to the ineffectiveness of early firearms, they may not be awesome compared to a longbow (giving a good reason to lower the strength value of the arquebus), but I would say that they could easily give a crossbowman a run for his money. A crossbow, although a very powerful piece of medieval machinary, is also short range. Getting into decent range with your crossbow to shoot at an arquebus user would put you at risk of being shot yourself.

"Normal" civ has crossbowmen raw strength on par with that of a longbowmen, but with a bonus against melee units instead of city/hill defense conferred due to the range of a longbow (makes sense cause closing in on a crossbowman is very dangerous). The next unit up is the musketman, which is a substantial leap up from an arquebus. So if one were to include and arquebus in normal civ it would have to be between strength 6 and 9.

So in reference to the advantage of a longbowman, maybe they should have a bonus against the arquebus (or archery units in general due to range). Then the arquebus could have more raw power than a crossbowman, with crossbowmen keeping their bonus against melee units? In such a case you could make crossbowmen a normal unit along with the arquebus and maybe have an elite core of crossbowmen as national units similar to the guys you get with the "precision" tech (or some sort of ballista maybe).

What do people think?

Al

[Ur_Vile_Wedge]

Not so sure myself. Firstly, while at long ranges the penetration power of a crossbow would be vastly inferior to even the most primitive firearm, those arquebuses (grammer?) were dreadfully inaccurate at anything but the closest range, something that even the most inept crossbowman could aim at. Even the more advanced muskets of say the American revolution, most battles were fought with some 30-40 feet seperating the front lines, and the casualty rates were kind of low, showing that even these attacks were relatively ineffective. (Try looking up the battles of Bunker Hill, Long Island, and Trenton.)


And yes, Crossbowmen historically were the bane of heavy *infantry* not the cavalry that they are so often praised as bringing down. Those things take almost 30 seconds to reload. A horseman will have cut off your head by the time you fired your second bolt. However, heavily armored infantry, especially pikeman phalanxes, that could not move quickly, or more importantly, turn around easily, were often easy pickings for even small numbers of crossbowmen.

As for vanilla civ, again I'd quote some rather obscure medieval warfare stuff, but I would have assumed that there were afew arquebus support guys attached to the units themselves, rather than formed into a kind of independant corps. I can't ever recall an instance of a massed arquebus shquare or something being effective. (but if I'm wrong, please tell me!)

Personally, I would swap where the longbowmen and crossbowmen are on the tech tree and effectiveness. The longbows should be the late, elite unit, that's hard to train and equip in large numbers, wheras the crossbows are the more readily available, weaker, mass produced unit. (Maybe even make it possible to draft crossbowmen?) Also, as a side note, I should think crossbowmen and longbowmen would be allowed to use mithril, if they are allowed to use iron...............

[Alzara]

Yeah I agree with what you are saying. It is true that the accuracy was pretty much down to luck with very early gunpowder weapons. In the event you did hit, however, it would hurt lol.

Swapping crossbows and longbows would be a cool tweak to gameplay but a confusing one for the tech tree. Crossbows are essentially "basic" machines, that would require the machinary tech. Longbows are much easier to make, so I'm unsure how you would justify the change with the present tech tree.

Still it's a cool idea that could be developed on

Al

[Roghar]

has there ever been a fantasy forum that doesn't debate the relative merits of crossbows and longbows??