(Historic) Development and suggestions

[Ron Losey]

In return, when the Muslims capture Jerusalem the Christian's morale should drop at least as much as when the Christians capture a piece of the true cross.

A sight more, I should think.  Having your entire kingdom destroyed and your army driven into the sea is generally a tad more demoralizing than when your enemy picks up some trinket that makes him feel better.

[Raz]

I mean a single city, not the whole kingdom surrounding it. Simply because it meant so much more to the Syrian Franks than it did to the Muslims there. Sadly morale can hardly be implemented at the moment.

[Ron Losey]

I mean a single city, not the whole kingdom surrounding it. Simply because it meant so much more to the Syrian Franks than it did to the Muslims there. Sadly morale can hardly be implemented at the moment.

Sure it can.  Just cut into recruiting - lower morale means fewer people, and especially fewer qualified people, joining your war.  It gets low enough and they start to leave.  (Look at the U.S. military right now - low morale equals nobody joining and nobody renewing their contracts.)

And technically, Jerusalem controls the only trade route between North Africa and Asia.  (You can't cross the Desert of Zin to the south - not even today.)  Nothing passes through the Valley of Megeddo without coming into striking range of a garrison at Jerusalem.  It's the only defensible point on that trade route (the old Roman "Via Mara") between Alexandria and Sidon.  Without Jerusalem, the rest of the "Kingdom of Jerusalem" was mostly sand.  It's not just "one city", any more than the Panama Canal is just "a few million gallons of salt water."

[Landsknecht]

Whats the point in arguing if Raz just said morale isn't even close to being a part of the game?

But I did not join this post just to be critical, I do have a suggestion for the historical accuracy of the mod. First and foremost, any reasonably historical interpretation of the crusades should not involve plate armor. Plate armor was the mounted knights reaction to the widespread use of first the crossbow then gunpowder. However, at the beginning of the crusades the European crossbow laths (bows) were made of a single piece of ash or yew. This in itself did not pose a dire threat to the chain mail wearing knight, mainly because the draw weight (amount of force the lath is able store) was not enough to peirce the rings in the armor. However, when these chain mail wearing knights left for the crusades, they encountered a new type of bow used by the Saracens. This was the composite bow. The Saracens never actually even used a crossbow, or even traditional wood bows, preferring their own traditional bows made of layers of bone, wood, and horn. While they were far superior to the bows of the crusaders, the chainmail armor was still an effective defense against them. It was not till very late in the crusades that the crank or pulley crossbows, utilizing the composite bow making techniques learned from the crusades became an effective weapon. But unfortunately, the crusades were over when the crossbow became a threat on the battle field. The major crusades, or the crusades against Jerusalem lasted from 1095 to 1272  and for the entirety of these Crusades Chain mail was the only armor used by the European armies. In the very late crusades, sometimes plates were added over the chain mail to protect arms and legs, but never was there a suit plate used against the Saracens in the Crusades. So if we are attempting to create a historically accurate game, then the absence of plate armor is a must, since it was not introduced until the time after the crusades (Late 13th, Early 14th century) when Europe turned her new found technology on each other rendering chain mail obsolete. Rather, the addition of the surcoat would be a nice touch, since it was during the crusades that this piece of cloth worn over mail became popular. Plus, allowing your band to create an emblem or take on one of the preexisting historical ones depending on your attention to historic detail would add a certain depth to the game.

[Ron Losey]

Stand by on that.  We're trying to get my "Combat Realism Model" (developed for Onin-no-Ran) into the game.  Most of the pattern of which weapons were effective against which armors will be modeled properly then (or somewhere close to it, within the parameters of the game engine).

And no, there are no full plate armors in this game.  Heavy maille, lamellars and brigandines are the top end.  And surcoats are part of most of the new models.

Stand by on that one - I think most of the historians will be relatively happy with the outcome.  I have been, and I'm normally rather picky about things like that.  (If and when we get the damage model working, that is.)

[Aqtai]

Not even brigandines, since coats-of-plates did not appear until the mid 13th century (70 years later than the time in which this mod is set) and the brigandine did not appear until the 15th century.

The heaviest armour would have been the mail worn by European knights, as it would have been a long sleeved hauberk with integral mail mufflers (mittens) and coif and mail chausses.  Some sources from the period refer to 'double mail'. We have no idea what this actually means, but one possiblity is that it could either be mail made from thicker rings (similar perhaps to 17th century Russian "Moscow mail") or two mail hauberks worn one over the other.  Arab historians sometimes refer to "Frankish mail" is if it somehow different to Turkish-Arab mail, maybe because it's made from thicker rings, but who knows?

There is some evidence that some Muslim warriors wore lamellar cuirasses over mail hauberks, this would have been an uncommon practice limited to elite warriors and Muslim warriors did not use mail mufflers and rarely used mail chausses. Some Arab kazaghands were pretty heavy though.

Finally i leave you with this quote from Arab warrior and historian Usamah ibn Munqidh to chew on:

[Ron Losey]

Yeah, we're on it.

Brigandines of various sorts have been used off-and-on for more than 6000 years.  A true brigandine - metal or hardened leather backed by cloth or soft leather - is different from a partial plate - which uses large trauma plates connected to other plates by more flexible armor (and were not really in use yet in Europe).

The Middle Eastern lamellars were basically the same thing they had been using since the Persian Empire - even older in some parts of that area.  Wearing both lamellar and maille would have certainly been overkill, and likely restricted to V.I.P.'s who they really wanted back in one piece.

These guys had good research before I volunteered to do the Combat Realism model for them.  I was quite impressed, actually (which is seldom easy - "depressed" is usually my reaction to most things like that).  Wait and see how the next release comes out ... it will save a lot of the "yeah, we knew that already" factor.

[messenger]

Yeah trust me, the armour fails to disappoint .

[Eisenhouwer]

I don't think I've seen heroes in the mod yet Raz so I was thinking maby put in some guy's who can be used as bodyguards. (or whatever you would like to call them) These hero/bodyguards should use the champion commands on the battlefield.

This is how I actually see it. As the commanding officer in large battles you will probably stay behind for a bit and watch how things are going. But since all your troops are in battle you're rather harmless all alone behind the flank so this is where your bodyguards would come in handy. (bodyguards who can be equipped like you want -like heroes in Native- so you can give them a coat of arms you like and banners, same warhorses  etc...)

What do you think of this?

(And as for an extra feature something like this: high character level or a skill level is a higher number of bodyguards you can have)

[Ron Losey]

OK, all you history buffs out there ... Got a question for you:

I'm about to rework the troops file for the beta - give the low-end and shock infantry a few missile weapons, to keep them from being totally at the mercy of missile cav.

Besides stones, what would be historically correct?

I figure the Frankish types should get throwing axes - the Fransisca throwing axe was apparently pretty common.

I'm not sure about the Bedouins and Arabs.  We don't have a working model for a sling, which would be the most common peasant missile weapon.  I don't know if the Bedouins used javelins in any degree or not.  The occasional light bow would be good, provided it doesn't mess up the troop types too badly - but I'll have to check on that.

Anyway, suggestions?

(Also, can anybody model a decent sling?  This mod and the MesoAmerican mod both need one.)

[Brigadier Hussey]

I don't know that the Francisca would be common, it was specifically designed as a weapon, it's not like they just raided the tool shed for a handful of axes to lob, just because it was the Frankish throwing weapon of choice doesn't mean low end infantry would get their mitts on it.

[Ron Losey]

I don't know that the Francisca would be common, it was specifically designed as a weapon, it's not like they just raided the tool shed for a handful of axes to lob, just because it was the Frankish throwing weapon of choice doesn't mean low end infantry would get their mitts on it.

I don't plan to just cover the lines in them exclusively.  I was just thinking that it was the Frankish thrown weapon of choice.  Therefore, when spreading thrown weapons around, so infantry can at least make a passable response to missile cav, Frankish troops should get some throwing axes to go with their stones.

Question is, still - what was the thrown weapon of choice among the Bedouin, Arab, and/or other locals?  They don't really have a tradition of throwing knives, that I know anything about.  Not sure about javelins.  Since we don't have a model for a sling, we're going to have to make do.

[Eisenhouwer]

I'm about to rework the troops file for the beta - give the low-end and shock infantry a few missile weapons, to keep them from being totally at the mercy of missile cav.

Besides stones, what would be historically correct?

My thoughts on that one is that I think it would be hard to believe that low-end infantry (Christian) had both (melee & missle) weapons at their disposal. Best would be to give backup with skilled missle units. But this is how I think about it. If we are looking at the Muslim factions then I believe they were more into missle weapons.

[Brigadier Hussey]

Hmmm, maybe with a 1 to 10 ratio of Francisca to stones.

Slings would be great, and the model would be piss easy it's the animation that wouldn't be fun.

[Ron Losey]

Model... animation... whatever.  Point is, the sling is a dream until somebody who's damn good at this stuff makes one work.  I'm not that guy, and I don't know who that guy would be.

As for ratios, the troops file picks things from the inventory at random.  You put both stones and axes in among spears and swords and shields, and some troops might come out with axes, some with stones, and some with neither.  (There's a force missile weapon flag, like for archers - but I didn't want to use that.)  If you put 9 stones to 1 axe, odds are every guy in the unit will be armed with stones and minimal melee weapons and shields.  It's easier to just add maybe one of each, and let probability work it out.

The accidental ratio thing did an excellent job of distributing various missile weapons on ONR, and Guspav had already done this on the MesoAmerican mod.  It may not come out exactly the ratios you think, but it gets the message across.

Still, what should I give the Bedouins?