Wait a Sec. Can't You Put Bayonets on HandGunners?

[yuzhonglu]

And turn them into the equivalent of LSGs?

Is there a mod for this?

[Sins]

By being elves, and thus cheating.

Unless you mean to imply they affix bayonets to their bows, which would be hilarious but very un-elf-like.

[yuzhonglu]

Ah.

[h0b0king]

Because they don't. Making the Empire's armor piercing missile units have charge defense v. large and/or anti-large bonuses would be disruptive to the balance and play style of the faction. This is the reason, but one can have a few more "loreful" ones if one likes.

A) The Empire, like real world early modern pike & shot armies does not use standardized guns, making standardized bayonet manufacture and fitting impossible - especially for socket bayonets. Even plug bayonets (where the handle of the bayonet is jammed directly into the muzzle) are first recorded in 1606 - in China. The bayonet simply isn't part of historical pike & shot warfare - why would the Empire have it?

B) The Empire - despite having "State Troops" has an army that is quite hidebound and won't simply change its way of fighting, discarding storied regimental histories and traditions because some elector says so. Handgunners have thier traditions and aren't going to change them even if it gives them some advantage when being ridden down by wolf mounted goblins or giant crabs.

C) The firearms of the Empire make for poor melee weapons, even with a bayonet. They aren't rifles or muskets with a long, narrow barrel but handgonnes - heavy, fairly short and totally impractical to fend off a horseman. Heck the 14 foot or 16 foot pike was the weapon used in the early modern period for this purpose, not sure even "spearmen" should be anti-large?

D) They do, they just lack the fortitude, skill, reach and training of the Imperial Spearman. They have a melee defense and attack after all. Historically bayonets weren't really that effective (especially early on) against troops with melee weapons. Check out the Battle of Killicrankie (also a best battle name award finalist) where Scottish highlanders armed with swords and axes successfully charged and crushed a mass of troops with plug bayonets. It happened in 1689 and is the first recorded use of the plug bayonet by British forces.

Why the Black Spot have bayonets is a better question, but given that there are zombies carrying light artillery in the game presumably the vampire Coast doesn't use actual functioning black powder weaponry. Plus there are rats with gatling guns (who work in tandem with rodent ninjas), lizards riding lizards with lasers and 7 or more kinds of dragon in the game so really trying to make realism style arguments is pretty silly.

[yuzhonglu]

And yet here you are making a realism style argument in the first half of your post.

[h0b0king]

No I am making a gameplay based argument and then offering some options if you can't handle that.

[yuzhonglu]

No I can handle it. I'm just laughing at it.

[Ewalden]

Actually..

I don't know if anyone mentioned this, but it isn't quite as simple as "fixing a bayonet."

Do you know when Bayonets came into proper use? 17th century. Or 1600s if you will.

What does that have to do with a fantasy game? A touch of realism.

Before that blunderbusses and early muskets didn't have bayonets, they didn't have the fittings for a bayonet. The first bayonet? It was a plug-bayonet that you jammed into the barrel. Not much more than a glorified dagger that prevented you from actually shooting.

The Empire troops? The handgunners? They are modelled on the early musketeers that fought behind formations of pikemen. They fought behind a wall of pikemen because they didn't have bayonets.

The bayonet, as in the ring-bayonet, fastened next to the barrel, not in it, though now something we take for granted, was a surprisingly late invention. Early gun armed troops carried swords, or wielded their weapons as clubs. They did not however fasten bayonets.

---

The entire argument about humans not living long is moot. Learning to use a bayonet is very simple. Almost as easy as a spear. And as for them having to learn to use a arquebus or blunderbuss or such, the reason these weapons replaced archers while the bow was still actually a better weapon, were the training. It takes many months, or even years to master a bow. One can learn to load and fire a gun in an afternoon, and master it within a few weeks of drilling.

Bayonets and gun handling takes little time compared to learning a bow and a sword.

Still, the technology level for the Empire is pre-bayonet.

---

But, but.. this is a fantasy world! I want my bayonets!!

Well, it is actually one of the most realistic aspects of this game, the lack of bayonets, considering how primitive the gunpowder technology is presented to be, with arquebuses, giant bombard-like cannons and primitive rocketry.

[yuzhonglu]

But how would you explain the steam tanks?

[Fallaner, the Writer Eternal]

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

But how would you explain the steam tanks?

By being utterly unrelated to the idea of a bayonet.

There's no connection there. Just because you have one, doesn't mean you have to have the other.

[Ewalden]

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

But how would you explain the steam tanks?

Steam tanks are not technically gunpowder technology. Only their cannon is. And the vehicles themselves are giant wagons with a very primitive and overly thick iron hull. And yes it is a fantasy universe.

Such medieval tank was actually dreamt up by men of that time, though never made, but Leonardo da Vinci had drawings and designs of what we today would term "tanks".

The overall technology within the Empire though is far closer to that found in the 13th, 14th and 15th century, than that found in the 17th or 18th century. Their clothing, their weapons and their knights, all would seem to fit European warfare as it was during the time of Colombus and the earliest conquest of America, the Golden Age of Piracy and the Renaissance.

[yuzhonglu]

Originally posted by Fallaner:

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

But how would you explain the steam tanks?

By being utterly unrelated to the idea of a bayonet.

There's no connection there. Just because you have one, doesn't mean you have to have the other.

But according to the Civilization series, you cannot research steam engine until well after Gunpowder. Also, what about the quick firing mortars? How is that 15th century? Those mortars fire like WWI mortars.

[Ewalden]

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

Originally posted by Fallaner:

By being utterly unrelated to the idea of a bayonet.

There's no connection there. Just because you have one, doesn't mean you have to have the other.

But according to the Civilization series, you cannot research steam engine until well after Gunpowder. Also, what about the quick firing mortars? How is that 15th century?

The Greek world, and the Romans experimented with steam powered devices as early as 100 AD. Just look at the Aeolipile.

While there were no advanced steam engines until the 17th century, gun powder is not connected to the development of steam engines. They work on different principles, and with coal, bronze and an understanding of how boiling water becomes steam the only thing keeping you back is an understanding of gears and mechanism themselves. Again an entirely different field of science to firearms.

The Civilization series have a fixed science tree, it is however, a series of computer games. Excellent ones at that, but still computer games which have to create workable game mechanics.

[Grinch]

"But according to the Civilization series"

Oh you mean the completely unrelated extremely a-historical game, that isn't even made by the same people?

[yuzhonglu]

But the metallurgy required to allow mortars to fire that fast without exploding is 20th century.

[Jakal, Lady kisser]

Originally posted by Ewalden:

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

But how would you explain the steam tanks?

Steam tanks are not technically gunpowder technology. Only their cannon is.

according to the lore, the (default) cannon isn't gunpowder either, it's steam-fired.