Questions about rifles?

[henyo10]

im confused. Do redcoats use muskets or rifles? They seem to use muskets in the Patriot and minutemen were during that time period? and do riflemen use bolt action rifles or the one-shot musket type reload?

 

[Cytral]

think rifleman

 

[CCRunner]

im confused. Do redcoats use muskets or rifles? They seem to use muskets in the Patriot and minutemen were during that time period?

They use rifles in the game as they replace riflemen. In history( meaning American Revolution) they used muskets.

and do riflemen use bolt action rifles or the one-shot musket type reload?

In game? Bolt action? Why does it matter

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

The first rifles were muskets.

 

[Silbeg]

The first rifles were muskets.

More accurately stated, the first rifles were muzzle loaders. Muskets were always smooth-bored, as I understand it. The rifled barrels is what makes a musket a rifle.

Or am I insane?

 

[Sisiutil]

More accurately stated, the first rifles were muzzle loaders. Muskets were always smooth-bored, as I understand it. The rifled barrels is what makes a musket a rifle.

Or am I insane?

No, you're correct, though the first rifles were also muzzle-loaded; the rifling made them painfully slow to load compared to the smooth-bored muskets, which prevented the wide-scale adoption of rifles for some time despite their greater accuracy (Napoleon disdained them, for example). Early riflemen fought as skirmishers rather than as massed units.

So yes, the game is historically inaccurate--redcoats should be a replacement for musketmen, not riflemen. But the game is rife with historical inaccuracy, so what's one more?

If you're interested in reading about the warfare of the musket/early rifle period, I highly recommend Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series.

 

[PibbZ]

So yes, the game is historically inaccurate--redcoats should be a replacement for musketmen, not riflemen. But the game is rife with historical inaccuracy, so what's one more?

14str muskets mmmmmmm pie!
It could be tweaked to be available earlier with lower str, but i dont think a direct musketman replacement would be historically correct either

 

[christian_a]

I believe the term "rifled muskets" were used in the mid to late 17th century, to denote a firearm, which was essentially like the older, smoothbore, muzzle loader muskets, only with rifled barrels. They were slower to load, due to more precision being needed, more prone to malfunctions, but had better range, accurracy and perhaps more damage. As the rifling stabilized the projectile, it retained energy better than the musket balls.

I'm, not really sure where and when and about what the term changed from 'musket' to 'rifle', since there seems to be a period of overlap. But once you started to make only rifled barrels, and almost solelu breech loaders, they were called 'rifles'. Bolt-action or not. The first rifles were non-repeating, and also had to be manually reloaded between shots.
IMHO the Civ term 'Riflemen' mean rifles with metallic cartridges.

 

[thadian]

What about Oda? "One unit fire while the other reloads to maintain a continual rate of fire".

Or were they used like this only for that one battle?

 

[Sisiutil]

What about Oda? "One unit fire while the other reloads to maintain a continual rate of fire".

Or were they used like this only for that one battle?

The early rifles were used this way in pretty much every engagement. The riflemen's skirmish line operated with each man paired with another; one would fire/cover his partner while the latter reloaded.

The muskets operated in a similar manner, but en masse when they were in line formation, with one rank firing while the other reloaded. The difference there was that the smooth-bored muskets could be reloaded in a more precise manner, allowing for synchronized firing.

 

[Wolfshanze]

im confused. Do redcoats use muskets or rifles? They seem to use muskets in the Patriot and minutemen were during that time period? and do riflemen use bolt action rifles or the one-shot musket type reload?

The graphic used in-game for the "Redcoat" comes from a time when English Redcoats used smoothbore muskets en-masse.

The in-game option Firaxis chose was (for some strange reason) Riflemen.

The graphic does not represent the weapon used... the English army did not start using rifled firearms en-masse until the mid to late 19th century... at a time when they wore a much different uniform.

In other words... Firaxis blew-it again.

"Redcoats" were still in-use in the late 19th Century (think Zulu wars) when the British were using rifled guns... so the term "Redcoat" could apply to both muskets and rifles... however, as I mentioned, Firaxis chose a graphic of a uniform clearly used in the age of muskets, not rifles... so either the unit should represent Musketman Redcoats, or Firaxis should have used a Zulu-War period uniform for rifled Redcoats.

In either case, they failed to match a uniform with the weapon... so, like I said... Firaxis blew it.

 

[Rusty Edge]

im confused. Do redcoats use muskets or rifles? They seem to use muskets in the Patriot and minutemen were during that time period? and do riflemen use bolt action rifles or the one-shot musket type reload?

It's confusing because firearms evolved..

Gun powder from loose poured from the powder horn/paper cartridges/ brass cartridges.

Powder ignition from matches/ matchlocks/flintlocks/percussion caps/firing pins.

Barrels from smooth bore muzzleloaders/ rifled muzzle loaders/ rifled breachloaders.

Projectiles from anything that fit in a blunderbuss,/iron balls / lead balls/ minnie' balls/ lead bullets/ jacketed bullets

I'm sure I've overlooked something, but you get the idea - the improvements changed rate of fire , range and accuracy dramatically.

The "musketman" we see that arrives in the conquistador helmet with gunpowder was on the primative end. The redcoats we see were well-drilled soldiers with improved tactics , advanced late era muskets, capable of firing more rapidly than the rifles of their time.

George Washington directed that rifle companies be supported by 3 musket companies.

Even so, most of the casualties of the American Revolution were caused by bayonets rather than bullets.

I think Firaxis made the Redcoat a specialized rifleman as a timing aproach.


I think Wolfshanze has a way better approach to musket/grenadiers/rifles

and coal navies than Firaxis does.

 

[Sisiutil]

Well, with all due respect to Wolfshanze and the perfectly valid points made in that post, if we listed all the historical inaccuracies in all the Civ games, we'd be here well past 2050 and a time victory, I assure you.

Civ is a game with historical elements; it's not a history simulation, not really. The historical elements have an appeal because many people are at least somewhat familiar with them, and/or because they encourage players to find out more about those game elements they're not familiar with, such as we're doing here.

But ultimately, the historic elements are really just window dressing, there to enhance the game's appeal. (One of the reasons I never got into Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri was the lack of familiar, history-based game elements; I mean, I know without looking at the tech tree that Feudalism and Guilds should be roughly contemporary, which they are... but Bioadaptive Resonance and Applied Gravitonics? ) (Yes you should be impressed that I went and looked those up. )

To truly judge if Firaxis blew it, I'd say you'd have to base your criteria on the success of the unit in-game. Since the Redcoats are one of my (and several other players') favourite unique units, I'd say Firaxis got it right even if they had to sacrifice historical accuracy for the sake of game balance and appeal. It would have been more historically accurate to base the Redcoat on the Musketman rather than the Rifleman, but I think we all agree that Musketmen, though they have their uses, do not have as much impact in the game as Riflemen, let alone Redcoats. Instead, the unit looks how we expect a Redcoat to look, and its strength and other characteristics and timing in the tech tree make it a powerful unit that roughly coincides with the historical emergence and spread of the English Empire.

And it takes names and kicks a**.

 

[r_rolo1]

^^You , not a fan of SMAC? The game has a really nice plot line.... Of all people I thinked you would like it

 

[Sisiutil]

^^You , not a fan of SMAC? The game has a really nice plot line.... Of all people I thinked you would like it

I also didn't like how it looked, all grey and drab. I missed the greens, blues, and browns of earth.

Don't get me wrong, it was a very innovative game and many of the elements it introduced have been ported over to Civ IV, as you've pointed out yourself. But when I played it, I just kept wishing they'd incorporated its innovations into Civ. Now I'm just happy that they have.

 

[r_rolo1]

Not all unfortunately.... never understood why they didn't ported the SMAC surface and weather system to the Civ line. It would make the game far better IMHO

/offtopic

 

[Wolfshanze]

Well, with all due respect to Wolfshanze and the perfectly valid points made in that post, if we listed all the historical inaccuracies in all the Civ games, we'd be here well past 2050 and a time victory, I assure you.

Civ is a game with historical elements; it's not a history simulation, not really. The historical elements have an appeal because many people are at least somewhat familiar with them, and/or because they encourage players to find out more about those game elements they're not familiar with, such as we're doing here.... etc, etc, etc...

This boils down to the old excuse of "well, it's that way for gameplay reasons, so I'll live with it"...

Unfortunately, that's just not the case here... this isn't a "well, either we make it realistic, or we make it fun, but we certainly can't do both".

This actually is a case where they don't have to change a damn thing except the graphic, or which unit it links to, to make it both accurate and fun.

So sorry Sisiutil... this is NOT a case of gameplay vs realism... not in the least... it's simply Firaxis being flat-out lazy to either get the graphic correct for riflemen, or assigning the wrong unit class to the right graphic. This is not gameplay vs realism, this is just flat-out being lazy.

It's essentially the same as using a Tank for the Cavalry graphic... "Hey... lay-off Firaxis... they simply had to choose the tank graphic instead of a horse graphic for gameplay reasons... I accept mediocrity in my games because I don't want to challenge any of their decisions!".

Ummm... no...

Firaxis was lazy here... this simply wasn't a gameplay vs realism issue... it's one thing to nitpick obvious choices of gameplay over realism, it's another to defend Firaxis on every issue blindly even when it's clear the company just didn't even try to research or get something right.

Folks seem to get complacent and allow companies to dish-out anything they want and always act like everything is a sacrifice for gameplay... you know, it IS POSSIBLE to have BOTH GAMEPLAY AND REALISM in the same game! You don't always have to sacrifice one for the other.

Just how hard would it have been for Firaxis to use a Zulu-War era uniform for British Redcoats in the Rifle age... or conversely make the Redcoat unit with the current graphics a Musketman? Either choice would have been fine, and either choice would have been realistic and allow the same level of gameplay fun...

But no... they might as well use tank graphics for horse cavalry... someone will always defend Firaxis no matter how lazy they get on some issues.

 

[Sisiutil]

Well, I don't defend Firaxis on every count, but I think you're being a bit too nit-picky here, Wolfshanze. I know the unit is inaccurate in several respects, but that's never really bothered me too much.

Nevertheless, I can understand how something like this can have a nails-on-the-chalkboard effect for some people. I'm a former English teacher and I get that way over its and it's...

 

[CheScott]

I assume they went with Riflemen, because the French already had Musketeers.

It was a bad call and has been a pain in my ass before. Last game I got my ass handed to me by Redcoats who slaughtered my Cavalry en masse. It's irritating to think of a Civil War era unit, not only being beaten by a Revolutionary War era unit, but to be so consistantly defeated.

Oh well, at least I know to beat them down before rifling or wait until they're antiquated. Civ IV still rules.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Nevertheless, I can understand how something like this can have a nails-on-the-chalkboard effect for some people. I'm a former English teacher and I get that way over its and it's...

Aha! That's why you can explain so well and tell stories. I figured you were probably a technical writer.