Imperator Development Diary #4 - 18th of June 2018

[Tisifoni12]

Celtic chariots; of light construction, pulled by two ponies, using two men to deliver the fighting capability of one and perhaps limited in what terrain they could operate in. the sort of chariots you use if you haven't got enough good horses big enough to use as cavalry mounts.

Seleucid and Pontic four horse scythed chariots; the horses blinkered to they can't really see far ahead, charged toward the enemy line by a driver who will try and jump before it hits its target, basically an attempt to create a traffic accident . . .

Indian chariots; heavy and light, particular to India; archery platforms in a subcontinent with no horse archers

 

[durecellrabbit]

Pretty sure the selucids did as well .

They used scythed chariots which were one use "super" weapon. They could cause poor quality troops to rout in fear as the blades on the chariot's wheels cut through them but better soldiers like the Romans were able to handle them.

 

[Moredrug]

So we have 6 types of mounted units and just 3 types of infantry.
Wouldnt it be better to represent the diversity of the infantry types? They were the majority of most armies.
Please kindly elaborate why have you decided on separating cavalry into so many types, yet you did not distuingish beetwen roman heavy infantry and greek hoplites & phalangites, which seems like the 1st obvious choice when making a game about antiquity.
I'm sure you already discussed this during development.

 

[Tisifoni12]

DBMM miniatures games troop classifications:

Infantry:

• Pike
• Spear (Greek hoplites, North African spearmen, Roman Triarii)
• Blade (Roman principes and hastati, all late republic legionaries, imitation legionaries, Galatian mercenaries)
  
• Warband (Gauls and Germans)
• Auxilia (Greek/Hellenistic peltasts, Iberian Scutarii)
• Bow (massed archers)
• Psiloi (light skirmishers)

Mounted:

• Elephants
• Knights (nobles or other elite cavalry; Hetairoi)
• Cavalry (the rest who fight in close formation)
• Light Horse (Numidians, Spanish light horse, horse archers, etc.)

Differentiated also by regular or irregular and by quality superior, ordinary or inferior.

 

[KalypsoKirin]

Looking pretty good!

 

[ETAIPOS]

DBMM miniatures games troop classifications:

Infantry:

• Pike
• Spear (Greek hoplites, North African spearmen, Roman Triarii)
• Blade (Roman principes and hastati, all late republic legionaries, imitation legionaries, Galatian mercenaries)
  
• Warband (Gauls and Germans)
• Auxilia (Greek/Hellenistic peltasts, Iberian Scutarii)
• Bow (massed archers)
• Psiloi (light skirmishers)

Mounted:

• Elephants
• Knights (nobles or other elite cavalry; Hetairoi)
• Cavalry (the rest who fight in close formation)
• Light Horse (Numidians, Spanish light horse, horse archers, etc.)

Differentiated also by regular or irregular and by quality superior, ordinary or inferior.

There is no point for such granulated unit divisions in a game that will be way more like EU:IV than Rome:TW (or miniature games).

Basic HI should be considered as organised and possibly armoured spearmen with ideas switching between base, pike (hellenistic) bonuses and sword (roman inf, celtic elites) bonuses.
LI perfectly well gather various units, from eastern spearmen, through peltasts, warbands etc. I'd say unorganised archers, javelinmen etc should also be grouped here, with AR units grouping all organised ranged units.

As for mounted, I understand that there are many types, as they will be limited by resource availability - some places will get chariot traditions, other high quality horses, yet other steppe horses or camels.
Again, difference between heavy and and medium melee can perfectly well be portrayed by differing ideas.


One question that interest me would be if there would be terrain/weather bonuses and maluses for unit types. For ex:

Elephants and camels should get maluses in winter anywhere north of Alps (maybe even further south), all unit types except LI should get maluses in mountains, woods, marshes while LI getting bonuses (to the point of making LI stronger than them in those places).

 

[Tisifoni12]

Elephants and camels should get maluses in winter anywhere north of Alps (maybe even further south), all unit types except LI should get maluses in mountains, woods, marshes while LI getting bonuses (to the point of making LI stronger than them in those places).

If you're talking in terms of variable attrition rates, yes.

All but one of Hannibal's elephants died, probably of cold/malnutrition soon after the first battle at Trebbia, leaving only the 'Syrian' which is believed to have been of the Indian elephant species, the others being North African forest elephants (either a different species than or a smaller sub-species of the savannah elephant, and still found in Congo today). Bactrian camels are from colder regions, but mostly were used as pack animals. Dromedaries weren't used much outside of the Arabian peninsula, certainly in the period covered by this game. They would only be present really as unreliable mercenary Arab light 'cavalry'.

 

[griffus]

Stirrups make it easier and more comfortable to ride.
They didn't make heavy cavalry suddenly effective in combat, as if they hadn't been for a millennium before stirrups came along. And they weren't a magic wand that suddenly allowed cavalry to charge headlong into formed heavy infantry and win. They didn't.

Comfortable?
Not, stirrups keeps you on the horse once your lance hit the enemies chest or shield.
You should read about japanese warfare before and after they adopt stirrups and how tactics and weapons change.

It's kinda embarrassing deals with your ignorance when you try to make up a point.

 

[blakh]

Comfortable?
Not, stirrups keeps you on the horse once your lance hit the enemies chest or shield.
You should read about japanese warfare before and after they adopt stirrups and how tactics and weapons change.

It's kinda embarrassing deals with your ignorance when you try to make up a point.

I mean you pretend horsemen are useless if they can't charge at you with locked lances. I would be careful of accusing other people of ignorance.

 

[ikki]

hmm.. looks to me like this game just got complicated...

How are center/flanks divided up?
If we assume 80/20 then 40% of a force would be cav archers and archers in some mixture
40% mixture of inf/cav/ele/char
20% a mixture of light cav and camels.

So by sheer firepower going with 40% HA, 10% ele, 30% cav and 20% camels if avalable
Except then the assault ability is pretty much completely unavailable. But atleast the force would be pretty fast and downright invincible. perhaps even faster by duping the elephants for even more kniggets.

Yet we may want to conquer at least early on and thus a more both heavy infantry and archers rich mixture is critical.

Starts to look like romes mistake was to go with what worked once and brought an empire.. but then sticking with that instead of going full cavalry into ultra deadly deathmachines of nothing but various cavalry and elephants.

 

[D Inqu]

I mean you pretend horsemen are useless if they can't charge at you with locked lances. I would be careful of accusing other people of ignorance.

It's not just about lances though. Pretty much any horseman attack (sword, spear, bow) needs stirrups to provide footing. Without them, cavalry ability was more limited.

 

[Tisifoni12]

It's not just about lances though. Pretty much any horseman attack (sword, spear, bow) needs stirrups to provide footing. Without them, cavalry ability was more limited.

See my earlier comments about Roman saddles, though they were probably develped after Caesar's gallic wars.

 

[D Inqu]

See my earlier comments about Roman saddles, though they were probably develped after Caesar's gallic wars.

Exactly. These were a later tech than the start date.

 

[griffus]

I mean you pretend horsemen are useless if they can't charge at you with locked lances. I would be careful of accusing other people of ignorance.

I never said that. What I was saying is that before the stirrups, cavalry use for other purposes that crash to the infantry and try to break formation. You should read what I say before making assumptions and put words in my mouth.

 

[Lord Lambert]

For those complaining about unit varriety, which unit types would you have?

Personally I would love to have a system whereby your units had upgrades. These upgrades could be bought or traded for or produced yourself, but upgrades nonetheless. Thusly, I would have the following:

Infantry - starts off as just a standard, unarmoured/lightly armoured melee infantry block - upgrades include Pike, Heavy Armour, Spear, Pila.
Cavalry - starts off as just a dude on a horse with a sword - upgrades include armour, better horses, horse armour, shield, spear type weapon and bows for horse archers.
Skirmisher - starts off as a javelinman - upgrades include slings, bows, armour, shield.
elephant - riders having bows or javelins or what have you.
chariot - upgrades like heavier armour, better horses, scythes perhaps?
camel - I dont even know if these were ever used in combat so meh idk.

Basically, I think to represent fully the amount of units that a game of the antiquity era needs, you kinda need to have a layer above just unit type. There needs to be something to differentiate between roman infantry and greek infantry... I think an upgrades system could do that trick nicely.

 

[Tisifoni12]

Exactly. These were a later tech than the start date.

Later than the end date, bur developed before stirrups and offering a different, and according to re-enactors more flexible form of support.

 

[Tisifoni12]

Personally I would love to have a system whereby your units had upgrades. These upgrades could be bought or traded for or produced yourself, but upgrades nonetheless. Thusly, I would have the following:

Infantry - starts off as just a standard, unarmoured/lightly armoured melee infantry block - upgrades include Pike, Heavy Armour, Spear, Pila.
Cavalry - starts off as just a dude on a horse with a sword - upgrades include armour, better horses, horse armour, shield, spear type weapon and bows for horse archers.
Skirmisher - starts off as a javelinman - upgrades include slings, bows, armour, shield.

Except all these already exist before the game's start date !

 

[Lord Lambert]

Except all these already exist before the game's start date !

perhaps upgrade is not the word I'm looking for then... perhaps "implant"? All of those things can be available from day 1, after all.

 

[Tisifoni12]

There is no point for such granulated unit divisions in a game that will be way more like EU:IV

But there is some more variety in EU4 than just horse, foot, guns although your choices are limited to all your infantry being one or other of two or three types.
And I certainly don't want to see something as appalling as RTW.
I would like to see something that reflected the real armies of the period and their organisation, I hope it won't just be a variation on the current combat system in EU4 and what they had in EU:Rome . . .

 

[wingren013]

They mostly charged loosely formed levy based armies, men at arms and knights. Not phalanxes. Not shieldwalls. Not disciplined Legions in very close order.

Actually medieval infantry would have mostly been semi-professional armsmen outside of large battles. Ill-disciplined levies like you are describing would have been rare sight due to the logistical issues attached to them.