longbowmen-a truely amazing weapon

[johncmcleod]

Hello
In real life, longbowmen were amazing. For one thing, they were extremely well trained. Skeletons of longbowmen show they had terrible problems with their backs, they'd be curved like the bow. For them, archery was a way of life. But the main reason they were so deadly was the bows themselves. Longbows could fire six times a minute and could kill someone with heavy armor from 200 yards out-no exaggerations. At the battle of Agincourt during the 100 years war, 5,000 sick English longbowmen were marching through marshes and were ambushed by 15,000 fresh French knights. The longbowmen were in a terrible situation but still massacred the French. They lost less than 500 men and killed an estimated 12,000 French. That's truely amazing. And well into the 19th century, the longbow was still unmatched in their speed in firing, their power, and their accuracy. The reason they disappeared by the 15th century was not because they became obsolete, but because no one took up archery as a profession at that time. Longbowmen made the English a superpower. It should be there UU and should be WAY better. Any suggestions to what their ratings should be?

[Jon Shafer]

I made the Ship of the Line (Man-O-War) available to everyone, made the Longbowman the English UU, and made a generic Crossbowman unit for everyone else.

Just to let you know, the battle of Agincourt was fought under very special circumstances... down a small gap in the trees in heavy rain and thick mud while heavily clad knights rode through it and got slaughtered from long range while struggling in the mire. More to blame on the situation and French stupidity than the power of the longbow.

But you're right about everything else.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Being a sick Englishman myself I think you have quite a good point Johnmcleod,although they have assured me I will get better if I keep taking the tablets.The Longbowman did play a major role in English history,but so did the Royal Navy so its only fair that we should get two unique units and take over the whole world

Just kidding but I do like the idea

[dunk]

The compound bow made the longbow obsolete. A compound bow has wheels and pulleys to reduce the amount of force the person must exert upon the string. Even a child can wield a compound bow. The longbow required a great deal of strength as evidenced by your point of back damage.

[SpencerH]

In my mod I've made the longbow available to the Brits and the Japs and added crossbows for the others.

[SpencerH]

I have to disagree, compound bows did not make the longbow obsolete, they were not invented until 1967. You may be thinking of composite bows which were present in Egypt by 2800BC (so they didnt make the longbow obsolete either). The longbow was made obsolete to some extent by the crossbow and eventually muskets that required less training and experience and could thus be employed by larger groups of relatively untrained soldiers.

BTW, the real advantage of compound bows is that they are easier to hold while drawn (but harder to pull from the start). Longbows are the opposite, easier to begin to draw but hard to hold fully drawn.

[phunny_pharmer]

Yes, I do think that longbows should be a unique unit. However, I'm not sure that I would like to see the generic unit be the crossbow...

But I do think that the game needs at least 2x different units in each age...

[jshelr]

This thing about Agincourt could be a good story line for a movie or a play or something.

How about making the longbow a slow 6 shooter. A six attack, with one defense, would require pikeman alongside and be fair game for knights who swoop in from afar. But if he gets in range on his turn, the knight's dead.

[Jon Shafer]

There's a Shakespeare play on the battle.

What I did was give Longbowmen/Crossbowmen some defensive bombard (0 range, no bombard 'button') capabilities. Longbowmen have a lower Rate of Fire and defense but a much higher bombard and attack stat than the generic Crossbowman.

[Maquiladora]

Of course the WELSH were much more skilled with the longbow, until the English beat them into submission and payed them to fire at the French too. In fact many Welshmen fought in English armies as longbowmen. They were also known to be generally more experienced than the English with such a weapon. (im not Welsh)

[Theseus]

... the Welshmen did good service in a
garden where leeks did grow...

[PGM]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
Any suggestions to what their ratings should be?

I think the current stats are ok. But maybe some bombard capability (range 1, power ?) could be a nice improvement.

[King of Rasslin]

6/1/1 would be appropriate. I mean, even riflemen would occasionally lose to the American Indians. And since the longbowmen is very well trained, he should be very expensive compared to the musketman/riflemen. Both the musketman and rifleman are too expensive. They should be cheaper or have more hps to represent their number advantage. This would also make the pikemen more useful. Knights are strong enough as it is, although I think they should be 4/2/2. It only makes since because they actually have the same defence as cavalry.

[Coracle]

Many months ago I modded the game to make Longbowmen the English UU (at 4.3.1), and made crossbowmen the archer upgrade for everyone.

You ae right that Longbowmen were an elite and used that bow for their entire lives. Crossbowmen could be trained fairly quickly it being a simpler weapon.

Firaxis giving everyone Longbowmen shows again their disdain for History., unfortunately.

[Beeblbrox]

Nice idea about beefing up Longbowman, but unfortunately, unless they are made to upgrade to something useful I would still not build them (I am aware I can change tht in the editor though).

And yes as has been mentioned, I would be very surprised to see any child pull a modern composite bow. I have very recently taken up archery, and as yet can barely pull the string back let alone aim the damn thing!

[Jon Shafer]

I gave them some defensive (range 0) bombard also. Makes them good offensive and defensive weapons, and I've found it works well.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Beeblbrox

And yes as has been mentioned, I would be very surprised to see any child pull a modern composite bow. I have very recently taken up archery, and as yet can barely pull the string back let alone aim the damn thing!

It sounds like you bought too strong a bow. For target use you don't want a powerfull bow. Also you could try a different technique. Push the bow away instead of pull the string towards you. Japanese bowmen do it that way.

[Zylka]

I find all of this history very interesting

[sabrewolf]

trip & others: what values did you use for the crossbowmen? with which tech did it come and what do you replace it with? same questions about the longbowmen...

[Doctor Bob]

Actually. It was the french knights who were marching through the sticky, spike trapped marshes and were shot to pieces by an English Longbow ambush. The french were then finished off by the English troopers. Agincourt was a very well prepared battle Henry V set up against the French.

[dunk]

Originally posted by Beeblbrox
And yes as has been mentioned, I would be very surprised to see any child pull a modern composite bow. I have very recently taken up archery, and as yet can barely pull the string back let alone aim the damn thing!

I didn't mean a 4 year old. I've known quite a few kids (10-15 years old) who have gone bow hunting.

Maybe you're using to powerful of a bow? They do have varying strengths.

Originally posted by SpencerH
I have to disagree, compound bows did not make the longbow obsolete, they were not invented until 1967. You may be thinking of composite bows which were present in Egypt by 2800BC (so they didnt make the longbow obsolete either). The longbow was made obsolete to some extent by the crossbow and eventually muskets that required less training and experience and could thus be employed by larger groups of relatively untrained soldiers.

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of just archery. I don't know what kind of bows people used for hunting, target shooting and so forth in the 1800's, but now almost everyone uses compound bows.

[Grumbold]

Civ III would be a more interesting game were there a greater variety of units. I'm not a fan of the Firaxis approach of reducing Civ back to basics. I have hopes that eventually we will see similar things to Medmod appear. That made CtP2 a much more interesting game, with many specialist units available without tying them specifically to fixed countries.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
trip & others: what values did you use for the crossbowmen? with which tech did it come and what do you replace it with? same questions about the longbowmen...

Well, first thing I did was double all attack/defense/bombard values, which allows more accuracy (i.e. Warrior is now 2/2/1 instead of 1/1/1).

The values I have:

Longbowman (English UU): 12/2/1 BStr 6 BRng 0 BRoF 1 Cost 5
Crossbowman: 10/3/1 BStr 4 BRng 0 BRoF 1 Cost 5

I would have made the Longbowmen much stronger for a much higher cost (to reflect the training it required to learn the skill), but that would have probably made the game too unbalanced, so I tried to keep things within reason.

[Grumbold]

I'm interested why you gave the crossbowmen a slightly higher defensive value. In the period when longbowmen were in the field I was not aware there was any difference in the armor worn. In later centuries the crossbowmen tended to get metal breastplates and helmets but that was in the days of early powder weapons.