Archers damage not realistic?

[Vann7]

Have been playing for sometime the CAmpaing , using sarmatians . A faction very focused in archers ,and very popular for its very fast horses.And so far its looks anything but realistic the damage they do ,in a frontal atack. For example oone of my horse archer unit ,(with gold bars) ,wasted ALL its ammo ,againts Macendonian light infantery ,without killing a single soldier. Its even dificult to kill slingers at distance with arrows ,*that have no armour at all* ,if you atack them in the front. Not sure if they are as indestructible as Light infantery ,but cant remember of doing any progress ,until you atack them from the rear or the sides. Is this the way ,Archers are simulated in this game?
Or this is a bug in the modification? because in the original game it was possible to kill people in a frontal atack with arrows. In this MOd any Light infantery of any faction feels like the ELite LEgionary INfantery of Romans using the testudo formation ,but even better ,because even with testudo formation ,i used to take few ramdom casualties at times when facing a rain of arrows in the orginal game . In RTR i have seen 4 of my best horse archers units firing non-stop for a long time and being useless to kill a single light infatery soldier in a frontal missile atack againts any light troop .and that is without them using any Testudo formation or any defensive tactics ,they simply run to chase my horse archers and are unstopable in a frontal atack. Is there a way to fix this ? to tweak the misile damage of the MOd to something more realistic?

I really like the graphics ,and so many things in this game ,but it doesnt look realistic ,the invicibility of the light troops in a frontal atack with long range missiles. The testudo formation was used by heavy infantery for nothing . because shiedls or armour doesnt cover 100% of your body. it is true that Making missiles too deadly in a frontal atack will be also unrealistic ,but a reasonable damage should be possible to atleast cause some reasonable damage and witness the enemy to show some respect and slow down their speed .(that by the way it also feels too fast or perhaps is looks like horses are a little slow? ) ,when a rain of arrows above is above their heads.

if anyone can point me how to edit the damage archers do in a frontal atack , (but also to tweak the speed of horses ) it will be greatly apreaciated.

[Master Nikolaos]

I agree with you that arrow damage is unrealistic, but what's even more unrealistic is the range some archers have! And also some peltasts. It'd be really nice if the RTR team could get its hands dirty with this stuff...for the SAKE OF REALISM :sign_woot

[Aismov]

Archers are modelled very realistically. There was an extended debate about this on these boards (or maybe it was RTR, dunno now) a while back. The problem is that everyone sees arrows/archers through the lenses of Hollywood where you have thick swarms of arrows cutting down dozens even hundreds of men (Gladiator, Troy, Alexander, King Arthuer, etc.). The fact of the matter is that bows, even Eastern bows, were very primitive weapons at this point in time and had difficulty penetrating any sort of armor.

Think of it this way - who was an archer in antiquity? Where they the cream of the army? The wealthiest, most elite troops they could put on the field? No, they were the poorest of the poor, people who could not give anything to the army so they were at least given a stick with a string attached to both ends. In other words archers in this period of time were people who could not otherwise help the infantry and cavalry in any way so at least they were given some sort of weapon they could harrass the enemy with.

Another example is to think back to the famous saying allegedly said at Thermopalyae. Are the "arrows of Medes" so great in number they "kill a hundred men in a single volley?" No they merely "darken the sun." Although I will admit that there are some rhetorical/literary plays going on here - but the basic fact should not be lost behind this statement - arrows simply were not seen as the terrible killing weapons that Hollywood has made them out to be.
I think its telling that in the sources there is hardly any mention of the lethality of archers. If anything, they are mentioned tangentally at best, such as at Gaugamela. And then do they kill the cavalry under Bessus with one volley? No... they merely keep him at bay. Thats petty telling of the capability of missle weapons. The missle weapons that were feared in antiquity were javalins, not arrows.

As far as arrow damage in RTR goes, I think it is spot on. Archers were meant to attack other skirmishers and maybe harrass the infantry. The name, skirmishing, is pretty telling of the effectivness. Not many casualties were sustained on either side by skirmishing, and it was merely a sideshow to the real battle - again this is telling about the relative effectivness of missle weapons. When were they used? They were used as a sort of "preview" for the battle to get each side excited about the coming clash - not to directly attack and massacre front-line infatry squares.

[ramsesii]

Iff you think they are to weak try to circle the enemy and shoot from behind that should work pretty well

[Vann7]

Iff you think they are to weak try to circle the enemy and shoot from behind
that should work pretty well

You are missing the point.
My goal is not to kill easier ,or to make the game more dificult ,but ***realism***. im playing the game with horse archers , and have seen 4 units of horses arches ,that is more than 400 soldiers throwing thousands of missiles ,running out of ammo and neither one scoring *a single kill* a close distance when firing the enemy at the front, at that was not againts ELITE ROMAN heavy infantery with eagles using the testudo formation ,but againts cheap LIght INfantery with very little protection.

If the goal of RTR is to make the game more dificult ,then i dont notice much the diference ,since i can score a kill from behind without much problem. only need to send my horses to their back. But if RTR goal is to make the game more realistic as the game mod title says.. archers should a way more effective that scoring ZERO kills at the front.

the "armour" of light infantery only cover few places , some even doesnt wear armour at all. just a shield. And those Romans shields are mostly made of wood , that arrows can penetrate easily enough to hurt someone a bit at least. i saw on TV (history channel) a program dedicated to show the real power of ROmans weapons in practice, and someone without much experience using a missile ,(similar to those used by hastati) could penetrate 50% of it in a roman shield making a big hole in it . of course the missile was far bigger than an arrow ,but still arrows should be able to penetrate a bit any shield ,and enough arrows enough to damage the shield.

Since full plate armour wasnt invented until a thousands years later ,i really think that archers needs more work in the game. For some reason Testudo formation was invented.. not just to stop melee atacks , but for the protection of heavy infantery againts missiles. if you had a rain of thousands of arrows over your unit ,you can be sure sooner or later a few will hurt badly some your soldiers ,in their face ,hands ,feets or parts of their chest even if they are wearing armour in the most important places.
if an arrow dont kill ,if still have the potential to disable a soldier capabilities for combat.

To do some correction on my ealier post after playing more ,light skirmishes (slingers) without any armour atleast take some damage at frontal atack with arrows.. just but a bit too low. Light Infantery or any unit with more protection is GODLy ,unstopable in a frontal atack if you use long range missiles.

in a side note ,Horses speed also need some tweaking , i had ride horses before ,and the speed those beast can get are simply amazing.. in the game is modeled a way slower than they really are ,from a fresh start. for example a quick search on internet on "animals speed" shows the Horses max speed about ~50mph whilethe fastest humans are rated at 25mhp.

http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0004737.html

thats about twice the max speed of the fastest atlete from the olympiads. . however light Infantery arent atlethes that runs on olympiads ,neither they could run too much wearing a shield a sword a helmet and so many things. and on top of that to stay in formation ,they cant run too much faster faster than their slower soldier in their unit to stay close to the original formation.. So at least the fastest light horses should be modeled around 5xtimes faster than heavy infantery maximum speed at charge. that is 50mhp vs 10mhp. and the most heavy armoured horses around 3xtimes faster. Slingers and skirmishes wearing no armour should be modeled around 20mph at best. have not tested Elephants speed but have seen documentaries some of them in Africa almost catching people in jeeps . Elephants can run up to 25mhps ,so they should be around 2.5xtimes faster than heavy infantery and a bit faster than the fastest skirmishes. they looks too BIG that is hard to imagine them defeating the fastest human runner of your country at small distances.

http://news-service.stanford.edu/new...phants-49.html

Lol! and its strenght is awesome too , they can literary break/cut in half a Huge tree with just one full hit of the head.(run away from angry elephants) LOL! awesome creatures .


If someone can point to how to edit the damage and the speed settings myself ,it will be apreciated.

[PatWest]

For the speed go to data\descr_battle_map_movement_modifiers.txt and increase the #'s abit. RTR always was too slow. For the damage it depends on what they modified. The file is data\export_descr_units.txt but like I said their could be alot of ways to modify that file.

Good Luck,
PatWest

[PatWest]

I went to that folder: data\descr_battle_map_movement_modifiers.txt
and there only movement there is for grass and plants..

any other idea?

Those are the modifiers for the different terrain features. You can't change the individual speeds of units you can only change the movement of all units in relation to the ground. They will still maintain the same speed in relationship to each other.

I see you two are still going at it. I would like to add one more comment to your debate. RTW, didn't get the fresh to exhausted ratio right IMO. Meaning their should have been a wider speed difference between the two. RTR was mostly concerned with getting the effects of fatigue right and I think they did that. They set it to get the exhausted speed correct leaving the fresh speed too slow. This is really more of a CA flaw then RTR's fault. They had to compromise like many have too.

[Aismov]

in a side note ,Horses speed also need some tweaking , i had ride horses before ,and the speed those beast can get are simply amazing.. in the game is modeled a way slower than they really are ,from a fresh start. for example a quick search on internet on "animals speed" shows the Horses max speed about ~50mph whilethe fastest humans are rated at 25mhp.

http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0004737.html

Sorry, but that is completely false. Not to mention that there is a big difference between a horse with a lone rider and a horse with a fully armed soldier. Or the fact that you somehow need to maintain a cohesive formation, or the fact that a horse will tire if it is forced to sprint full bore with 200 lbs of man and equipment on its back. Furthermore, this was already researched and proven to be completely wrong in this thread (on the RTR forums):

http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...showtopic=7068

here are the highlights:

Historical evidence for the unit speeds used

Heavy Cavalry

..if a heavy-armed horseman gallops and exerts himself for only a few minutes, the horse is beat by the weight...such a man is at the mercy of any light horseman that may turn on him...Speed is more than weight: in proportion as you increase weight you decrease speed, and take from your cavalry that impetus that ought to be its principal element...

Nolan, L E Cavalry, its History and Tactics (1853 AD)

According to Nolan the heavier the armour the slower the horse must maneuver. According to him if a heavy cavalry horse runs at a gallop which is 20-25 MPH the horse will quickly become exhausted and be easily defeated by light cavalry.

...no distance can be laid down at which to charge...when the ground is favourable and your horses in good condition you can strike into the gallop sooner, but the burst, the charge itself, must always be reserved till within 50 yards - for in that distance no horse can be left behind, nor is there time to scatter, and they fall on the enemy with the greatest effect...

Nolan, L E Cavalry, its History and Tactics (1853 AD)

So a heavy horseman would not attempt to reach galloping speeds until the last 50 yards. The rest of the time a horse would canter as even CA agrees they call the running animation for the horses a canter. A canter varies from 7.31 MPH to 13.35 MPH according to my sources (See [1] below).

Cataphracts

...ride on in good order, not too fast but at the trot, to avoid having the charge break up their ranks before coming to blows with the enemy - which is a real risk...nor will tired horses fare well in combat, but be, as it were, defeated before the combat begins...

Emperor Maurice, Strategikon (600 AD)

and we can see them in motion, riding at a pace which took them across all but the last fifty of the two or three hundred yards they had to cover in forty seconds or so and then spurring their horses to ride down on the archers at the best speed they could manage twelve to fifteen miles an hour.

Keegan, John The Illustrated face of battle: A study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme Viking Penguin Inc. 1989, Chapter 2, p. 82

Emperor Maurice is referring to Byzantine cataphracts which would be about the same or a bit lighter than than cataphracts in RTR. Keegan is referring to the charging French Knights at Agincourt whose total kit would weight about the same as a Parthian or Seleucid cataphract.

So during the charge the best a cataphract could do is 12-15 MPH according to Keegan. According the Emperor Maurice cataphracts should maneuver at the trot which is 7.31 MPH to at most 11.03 MPH (See [1]).

Now here is a quote about what happens when a cataphract tires.

"...while the order of their lines was being re-established, the cavalry in coat-of-mail {translator's foible for cataphract in the text} seeing their leader wounded and one of their number slipping over the neck of his horse, which had collapsed under the weight of its armour..."

Ammianus, battle of Argentoratum, 16.12.37-8 (300 AD)

As you can see from the above sources a cataphract should charge at a speed of 12-15 MPH. Maneuver at a speed of 7-11 MPH. If the horses tire the horses will literally die from exhaustion if the rider is not careful so my speeds are very reasonable if the cataphracts are to be used in a responsible and realistic manner.

Light cavalry

In Theory the squadron could be maneuvered at a gallop, say over twenty miles an hour, but it would very shortly lose cohesion if it was, as stronger horses outstripped weaker; and in any case distances and gradients on the waterloo field make it seem unlikely that high speeds were achieved with any frequency.

Keegan, John The Illustrated face of battle: A study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme Viking Penguin Inc. 1989, Chapter 3, p. 128

According to Keegan light cavalry would maneuver at speeds under 20 MPH due to the difficulty of maintaining formation at high speeds.

[Vann7]

Sorry, but that is completely false. Not to mention that there is a big difference between a horse with a lone rider and a horse with a fully armed soldier. Or the fact that you somehow need to maintain a cohesive formation, or the fact that a horse will tire if it is forced to sprint full bore with 200 lbs of man and equipment on its back. Furthermore, this was already researched and proven to be completely wrong in this thread (on the RTR forums):

http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...showtopic=7068

here are the highlights:

FAlse WHat?
THat i never had experience riding horses?
Or that the that Horses max speed is not rated around 50mph vs the fastest humans at 25mhp?

THe info you provided me while interesting doesnt say anything about RTR realism with horses speeds , If you have infantery running too fast and Light horses doing mostly 7-14mphs then the speed is not modeling correctly.

Not to mention that there is a big difference between a horse with a lone rider and a horse with a fully armed soldier

IF you notice my previous post i already told heavy armour (weight) have an impact in the speed of horses.

Or the fact that you somehow need to maintain a cohesive formation,

Didnt i told that already ? the fastest soldier cant run faster that the slower soldier to not break their formation.

or the fact that a horse will tire if it is forced to sprint full bore with 200 lbs of man and equipment on its back

I think it is clear already that weight have an impact on speed. but what you ignore is that this limitation is also a disadvantage for Infantery. and even more , because horses have greater resistance than humans and they can retire to a safer place and regroup if they miss their formation .in other words ,cavalry have a lot more freadom with their speed they need. Infantery need to be at all times in check with their formation. since they are a less mobile target. Light INfantery/heavy infantery cant RUN efficiently with so many equipment and tight space.. A big shield ,a sword ,a helmet , Big missiles , and on top of that the entire unit need to move at the same pace. making more dificult for them to Run without breaking their formation .So any organized light infantery with shields and any armour should be rated far below the speeds of atletes or master runners. . being generous infantery max speed should be around 10mph . FOr the only cases i see light/heavy INfantery running beyond 15mph ,is when the unit is broken ,in panic ,and they are trying to save their lives.


And horse archers dont need to keep their formation while running away from infantery.
Most of the time they are at safe distance ,while their horses rest and eat ,the archers do their job. Means their light horses most of the time will be fresh ,ready to run at full speed when required. so that small detail change everything . Those studies are mostly for heavy calvary that fight in close combat . if they want to break enemy lines they need to have a tight formation. the info is more focused in Cataphracts .Something diferent than light horses or medium horses that are used for skirmishes tactics ,fire and run. neither archers are wearing armour ,they are ultra-light infantery ,in small horses , with abow and bag of arrows. (to balance weight extra ammo can be left behind in a safe place under any tree when more is needed). famous for being the masters of horses riding is somewhat underestimated in the game. perhaps the speeds for all calvary are modeled around the performance of Cataphracts and any other close combat calvary.


In one side we have what?
Infantery that will not be ordered to RUn in most situations for the reasons explained ,(to not tire them to early ,and keep their formation) in other words their speed should not be comparared to single runners ,even less to atletes in the olympiads ,but as whole unit. because their formation is all ,in the other side we have light horses that can be ordered to run and move freely in the terrain as they want. So with similar equpment for soldiers in each side..of similar weight ,i think LIght Horses should be at least 2x times faster in the majority of the situations than light infantery.specially the ones with long range missiles with medium calvary being a bit slower.. and so on.

The MPH numbers doesnt matter much if they arent applied for every thing ,if the realism is only applied for horses. but leave humans untouched (or viceversa) .

I know is dificult to please everyone , but in the end more realism is what the majority of people always look ,in the majority of MODS. IS the most populat request ..Perhaps some settings used for the game have something to do with more balance in the game . But balance have nothing to do with realism . In real life , WArs arent fair at all.




Please don't double post! - Trajan

For the speed go to data\descr_battle_map_movement_modifiers.txt and increase the #'s abit. RTR always was too slow. For the damage it depends on what they modified. The file is data\export_descr_units.txt but like I said their could be alot of ways to modify that file.

Good Luck,
PatWest

I went to that folder: data\descr_battle_map_movement_modifiers.txt
and there only movement there is for grass and plants..

any other idea?

[Freddie]

Have been playing for sometime the CAmpaing , using sarmatians . A faction very focused in archers ,and very popular for its very fast horses.And so far its looks anything but realistic the damage they do ,in a frontal atack. For example oone of my horse archer unit ,(with gold bars) ,wasted ALL its ammo ,againts Macendonian light infantery ,without killing a single soldier. Its even dificult to kill slingers at distance with arrows ,*that have no armour at all* ,if you atack them in the front. Not sure if they are as indestructible as Light infantery ,but cant remember of doing any progress ,until you atack them from the rear or the sides. Is this the way ,Archers are simulated in this game?
Or this is a bug in the modification? because in the original game it was possible to kill people in a frontal atack with arrows. In this MOd any Light infantery of any faction feels like the ELite LEgionary INfantery of Romans using the testudo formation ,but even better ,because even with testudo formation ,i used to take few ramdom casualties at times when facing a rain of arrows in the orginal game . In RTR i have seen 4 of my best horse archers units firing non-stop for a long time and being useless to kill a single light infatery soldier in a frontal missile atack againts any light troop .and that is without them using any Testudo formation or any defensive tactics ,they simply run to chase my horse archers and are unstopable in a frontal atack. Is there a way to fix this ? to tweak the misile damage of the MOd to something more realistic?

I really like the graphics ,and so many things in this game ,but it doesnt look realistic ,the invicibility of the light troops in a frontal atack with long range missiles. The testudo formation was used by heavy infantery for nothing . because shiedls or armour doesnt cover 100% of your body. it is true that Making missiles too deadly in a frontal atack will be also unrealistic ,but a reasonable damage should be possible to atleast cause some reasonable damage and witness the enemy to show some respect and slow down their speed .(that by the way it also feels too fast or perhaps is looks like horses are a little slow? ) ,when a rain of arrows above is above their heads.

if anyone can point me how to edit the damage archers do in a frontal atack , (but also to tweak the speed of horses ) it will be greatly apreaciated.

If what you say is true then arrow damage is unrealistic. In terms of historical evidence you only have to look at the battle of Marathon to see how much the bow (at least the east bowmen) were feared. The Greek General Miltiades ordered his hoplites to run at towards the Persian line because he knew if his hoplites marched in phalanx formation they would get picked of by light infantry (archers, slingers etc). On a side note the battle also revels how fit the Greek army was, Darius thought the Greeks wouldn’t charge because the heavy bronze armour would make the Greeks exhausted, which didn’t happen.

Back to the game I suggest your fire arrows into the back of enemy units were they will be 3 or 4 times more effective.

[PatWest]

Shooting at heavily armoured troops should result in few if any casualties. Shooting at unarmoured light units should be very effective. If the results you're describing are typical, than it's not moddeled right.

[LordSaradain]

Units with sheilds suffer very few(if any) casualties from archer fire directed at the front. I think archers and other units without sheilds still suffer quite heavily from archer fire directed at the front though.