scottcstoness
Chieftain
Psycadelic_Magi said:Lemme think of some effects of gunpowder...
I know that, after gunpowder started to be in wide use, armies began to use lighter and lighter (and eventually virtually no) armour, since speed was a better protection than the armour that could be punctured easily. So what would happen instead in our scenario?
The trend before gnpwdr was more, and more defensive armour (plate mail), but will the 'uber-crossbows' people are talking about discourage the trend or continue an armour-weapon battle where armour gets heavier and heavier, and the weapons get more and more puncturing?
The poison-warfare concept is a real good idea to break the crossbows thing up, could be real interesting... Need to think of other alternate forms of war though..
(THIS is the sort of thing that should be discussed by the way, instead of the go-nowhere argument most of these people are in)
I expect you would see some of the same things happening with personal armour that you saw happen with tank armour after WWII, and castle fortification after the first gunpowder cannons showed up. The early gunpowder era was the age of scientific fortification, remember. At first you get thicker and thicker armour/walls, but eventually you get scientific design that helps the armour start handling the most common angles of incidence with the right amount of deflection.
For example, if the main threat to knights is head-on, point blank shots from bowmen (because from a distance the arrows/quarrels don't have enough penetrating power), then knights would get armour that was pointy in the chest, so that head-on shots would tend to deflect.
Incidentally, it was not the bow that lead to the fall of the knight, but rather the pikeman. By the time the longbow came to prominence, knights were already tending to fight dismounted because the pike could handily break up the cavalry charge. *Mounted* knights actually do a good job against longbowmen; dismounted knights get slaughtered, especially when charging uphill in the mud (was that Crecy, Agincourt, or both?). It would be great to see some sort of mod where knights could do an ok job against pikemen (e.g. like now), slaughter defending longbowmen (like now), but be in serious trouble if both are present...
Also, since burning is OK, but explosions are not, you'd see a lot of use of boiling oil/fire arrow combinations, perhaps more consistent use of greek fire/napalm, etc.
Again, like the idea of a poison tech branch, maybe a trebuchet ammunition branch (e.g. stones, fire, some sort of fuse-less shrapnel good against anyone not armoured, etc.). It would be definitely interesting to investigate the limits of bow technology; I know that current complex bows and crossbows are considerably more effective/powerful than they used to be. Interesting to know what modern (or even 19th century) machining technology could do to the cross-bow.
Interesting UUs to give a "primitive" tribes in this world might be the blowgun and/or the boomerang. I think that blowguns were incredibly accurate, which would be great when combined with some poison research, and boomerangs do a pretty good job against anything not heavily armoured.
PS: Sorry to open up the "no fire" discussion; I originally thought that doppleganger just meant no explosions and no gasoline engines, but then when I read more carefully and it said "no combustion"...