Medieval Warships Research

[+Marius+]

Um, Elizabeth I died in 1603. The Spanish Armada was 1588. Ships of her dad's time already carried dozens of cannons. It gotta be earlier than then.

The first recorded(as far as I know) use of cannons on ships was at the battle of Arnemuiden, 23 September 1338.

This is what such ships looked like at the time;

[You_Guess_Who]

I'm thinking about using the ship deck models as a reference of where the units will be placed on the deck, and then create a model around it. It'll be lazy way to approach this process, but I think it might be an effective one. I'll try to work on a cog this week to test this out.

This is the most practical way, yes. Base it on large or small Corbita?

About cogs, I have an idea: Make the fore and aft castle a tower or castle like those of Castled Dromons, i.e. not a part of the ship's variantmodel. After all, the corbita models doesn't have EFlines for a high forecastles correct? Make them installable naval_weapons instead. This way, the crew of the cogs do not need to be a purely missile unit, can be a primarily melee unit, as the shooting are done by the autonomous towers.

[Slytacular]

I guess the large corbita? I'll probably keep playing with the different ship decks until I get a shape I like.

[Ciruelo]

Don't know any detail about this picture but it looks like medieval arab ship


Muslim gallere


Battle of Tunis 1535

[Baron279]

Some ships

1478, Switzerland

[You_Guess_Who]

This is interesting:

[Slytacular]

Ah, so the difference is that the cog's forecastle is a separate piece?

This is the most practical way, yes. Base it on large or small Corbita?

About cogs, I have an idea: Make the fore and aft castle a tower or castle like those of Castled Dromons, i.e. not a part of the ship's variantmodel. After all, the corbita models doesn't have EFlines for a high forecastles correct? Make them installable naval_weapons instead. This way, the crew of the cogs do not need to be a purely missile unit, can be a primarily melee unit, as the shooting are done by the autonomous towers.

Now that I finally have access to my desktop computer, its easier for me to type out my thoughts. I might actually consider using the Light Liburnian instead since the ship deck seems to resemble more of the cog than the corbitas. I think I might use the heavy corbita ship deck for making the Hulk. As for the stern and bow props, I think I do see some pathfinding for the crew to travel on to the sterns and bow for boarding other ships.

[jim501]

There arent many details for the Byzantine fleet of those centuries so perhaps using ship designs of earlier times is the optimal solution.
In Medieval 2 they used Carracks and Galleys so there is a start.
As far as I could find:

[SerbianWOLF]

Is there some way that MKTW team can make "Greek fire" ship (it was placed on byzantine dromon/galley) ?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Here are some links where you can see a bit of medieval ships. Hope it's useful.

http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/g...-h/33098-h.htm

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/145381894192509799/

[You_Guess_Who]

There arent many details for the Byzantine fleet of those centuries so perhaps using ship designs of earlier times is the optimal solution.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Just use the vanilla model already in the game for early Byzantine ships. The models for Chelandion and Dromonarion in-game are already spot-on.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Is there some way that MKTW team can make "Greek fire" ship (it was placed on byzantine dromon/galley) ?

But its already in the game? Thank god for CA's love of anachronistic units.

[SerbianWOLF]

But its already in the game? Thank god for CA's love of anachronistic units.

Maybe it is I haven't played vanilla Attila that much. It was a little bit boring before this mod was released

[Ltd.]

Yes , it is in the vanilla game, so we'd only need to change the sails to make it fit our time-frame

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL_cCfZS9YU

[SerbianWOLF]

That's great !
What factions will have it ? Nicaea and Trebizond ? Did Latins had them ?

[Kjertesvein]

Long-range bombardment between ships wasn't a thing during the time frame of the mod, but instead the main use was by the the swivel guns supporting the melee during boarding action. I'm not sure if the mod's engine can support the boarding action and swivel guns combination. In any case, that won't be my call to make.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

~Wille

[You_Guess_Who]

Long-range bombardment between ships wasn't a thing during the time frame of the mod, but instead the main use was by the the swivel guns supporting the melee during boarding action. I'm not sure if the mod's engine can support the boarding action and swivel guns combination. In any case, that won't be my call to make.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I think it can be done in-game. Artillery can be set as autonomous engines atop ships, apart from the unit. They will automatically shoot any enemies in range, however they cannot be directed or ordered for a specific target. This way (other than autonomous towers) a ship can be a melee unit with boarding as the way of fighting, but have ranged capability aside of precursor weapons (like javelins, grenades, or throwing axes)
The autonomous engines can be disabled if the crews are killed, and they cannot be replaced in-battle, unlike engines that are part of the unit.

Anyway, why the first chamber is censored?

[Kjertesvein]

It's a 16th century pothund (3/4 pound, Netherlands).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

~Wille

[lion8000]

The Bulgarian fleet should be very similar to the Byzantine one.You should add an river fleet to the Bulgarian empire. Before some time I've watched professor Bojidar Dimitrov and he was talking about the Bulgarian river fleet. He said that the Bulgarian fleet was in Byzantine style, some of the ships were so big that they were able to carry cavalry. The Bulgarian river fleet acted mainly in Danube river and was able to make ambushes.

[You_Guess_Who]

Right, since I now have figured out how to import models_naval from older TW3-Warscape games (all the way to ETW), there are plans to utilize the older game's models_naval which deck placement and collisionmodels as skeletons where the appearance model can be built around, fleshing and skinning them. So, I want to hear suggestions on what need to be done, for select ships from ETW, NTW, S2TW to fit how ships of the MKTW timeframe looks in historically appropriate manner.


So far, I see some potential models to be used as base:


ETW Galley

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A very promising model. The basic design hasn't changed much from the medieval.




S2TW Nanban Trade Ship and Carrack

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

These S2TW models are more mid-16th century than early 15th, so I imagine some changes would be necessary. For instance, watertight gunports were an early 16th century innovation, so some cannons should be either deleted or lifted to the main deck. For those who have better resources, please give suggestions so they would look more like early carracks.

[Kjertesvein]

That's a good question. I'm not qualified to give you good answers on the subject, these are just some thoughts I got.

1.) Probably to add flyers, smaller flags, some where down the road. We know English ships used st. George's coat of arms from about mid 14th century for example.

2.) Have you thought about adding some of the shogun ships that could also have been used by China for the mongols as early tier ships?

3.) The thing I get from the thesis in my post above is the fact that ships grew in size quite dramatically from the early 16th century to the late 16th century. Whether that can also be translated to be the case for the transition between the 14th to 15th century ships would be interesting to look into.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Grace Dieu was supposedly a monster of it's time, early 15th century, 66 m x 15 m. A Grand Carrack, possibly the largest of it's time. According to account letters it was equipped with 3 wrought-iron guns at the center of the ship, shooting over the gunwale (Konstam, 2008). Also known as Swivel guns. Here is a digital reconstruction (report).

The two Shogun 2 ships, with their large rear castle, seem to mirror large Carracks at the very end of the 15th century, judging by all the images I've seen. As you pointed out, they are reminiscent of 16th century ships.

3.) Then there is the Light Galley. Have you given it any consideration?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

http://i.imgur.com/mhdqOVp.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/sgbbkb8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vrvN0rT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/8NyKwyg.jpg

~Wille

[You_Guess_Who]

2.) Have you thought about adding some of the shogun ships that could also have been used by China for the mongols as early tier ships?

No. I do not believe the Mongols would brought a team of Chinese shipmaker halfway though the world through land. Its more plausible for the Mongols to use any local shipbuilders to build whatever their style of ships for their bidding.

But I did tried importing the Japanese Sengoku Bune and Shuinsen deck plan to Attila. Its not for importing the whole ships appearance, but just to reuse the deck layout for some kind of Caravel or Dhow.

In S2:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In Attila, as models_naval only without variantmodels:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

3.) Then there is the Light Galley. Have you given it any consideration?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

http://i.imgur.com/mhdqOVp.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/sgbbkb8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vrvN0rT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/8NyKwyg.jpg

~Wille

EDIT: Tested. Its small, only able to carry ~30 men, so in the game its should be a swarm of several ships per unit, like in R2 Beta.