Longbow and Pikemen breaking the immersion

[Einherjer]

It breaks my immersion when I play a game which takes place in the ancient time and there are Units of the medieval times? I really don't understand the reason why they are in the game. Here are my seggestions how to replace them.

Range Unit: Slingshot boyz -> Velites / throwing spear boyz -> bow boyz

The Pikemen are just replaced by Sarissa Phalanx boyz

Stats were be the same as before, it would be just a visual change.

[krabdr]

"Phillip of Macedonia, who paid attention to Epaminondas' innovations, doubled the length the spears of his army (to over 18 feet!) and reduced the size of their shields so his soldiers could hold the long spears with both hands." From ancientmilitary.com/ancient-weapons.htm
Sounds like a pike to me.

[Einherjer]

Originally posted by krabdr:

"Phillip of Macedonia, who paid attention to Epaminondas' innovations, doubled the length the spears of his army (to over 18 feet!) and reduced the size of their shields so his soldiers could hold the long spears with both hands." From ancientmilitary.com/ancient-weapons.htm
Sounds like a pike to me.

It's a Sarissa like i suggested as replacement. The Pikemen in the game does'nt look like a warrior of the ancient world at all. Same for the longbow and the crossbow skin.

[easytarget]

Better be sitting down for this one: did you know that everything taking place in Stellaris isn't real?

Yeah, I know, just ruined your immersion in another game you play.

[Einherjer]

Originally posted by easytarget:

Better be sitting down for this one: did you know that everything taking place in Stellaris isn't real?

Yeah, I know, just ruined your immersion in another game you play.

Bozo? Is it you?

[katzenkrimis]

Wasn't that long ago someone was here complaining about the bracers that Philp of Greece is wearing.

Being an artist myself, that made me laugh. The artwork in this game is one of the main reasons that I purchased it. It caught my eye.

I certainly wouldn't start nitpicking this game to death. Like all those Viking fans did when Valhalla was released earlier this year. YouTube exploded with so-called Viking experts who were posting videos about everything under the sun that was inaccurate about Ubisoft's best-selling action/adventure game.

It was hilarious. Everybody was suddenly a Viking professional.

It was so poisonous that even I got pulled into the fray. I was playing the game as Layla, digging around the woods in New England, USA. I'm thinking to myself, there were no Vikings here. They were up in what is now Newfoundland, in Canadian territory. What the F is this bul...

Oh, right. It's just a video game.

[Einherjer]

Originally posted by katzenkrimis:

Wasn't that long ago someone was here complaining about the bracers that Philp of Greece is wearing.

Being an artist myself, that made me laugh. The artwork in this game is one of the main reasons that I purchased it. It caught my eye.

I certainly wouldn't start nitpicking this game to death. Like all those Viking fans did when Valhalla was released earlier this year. YouTube exploded with so-called Viking experts who were posting videos about everything under the sun that was inaccurate about Ubisoft's best-selling action/adventure game.

It was hilarious. Everybody was suddenly a Viking professional.

It was so poisonous that even I got pulled into the fray. I was playing the game as Layla, digging around the woods in New England, USA. I'm thinking to myself, there were no Vikings here. They were up in what is now Newfoundland, in Canadian territory. What the F is this bul...

Oh, right. It's just a video game.

Yes it's nitpicking and the artwork of the game is great. But to chnage a few things here and there would be the cherrys on top. And changing the names and skins of these units would be one them.

[Elvicomte]

I fully agree with you, I enjoy the game for the care shown in depicting the ancient world, these few units (add the mangonneaux to the list) could be modded to be replaced by something less immersion breaking like you offer and I would play that mod in a heartbeat.
Have you noticed there is globe icon next to the title of many events that brings you to the wiki page for the historic event the game event was designed after ? it's great, and it just makes it all the more puzzling why these few units were named like this, and with the 3D model to go with it :(

[Einherjer]

Originally posted by Elvicomte:

I fully agree with ypu, I enjoy the game for the care shown in depicting the ancient world, these few units (add the mangonneaux to the list) you could be modded to be replaced by something less immersion breaking like you offer and I would play that mod in a heartbeat.
Have you noticed there is globe icon next to the title of many events that brings you to the wiki page for the historic event the game event was designed after ? it's great, and it just makes it all the more puzzling why these few units were named like this, and with the 3D model to go with it :(

Yeah it's kinda weird that on one side they really care about the history and on the other side there is a longbow boy :D

[Dale Kent]

Graphics aside, you're thinking specifically of the English longbow, which is a middle ages weapon. They have found longbows in different areas of Europe dating all the way back to 2000+BC.

Yeah, the graphics may look like a middle ages longbowman, but longbows had been in use for millennia before the Celts came up with their version of it.

[linas.warrior]

I think a new selectable mode which disables the last 1-2 columns in the tech tree would be quite nice :)

[Elindos Phar & Family]

I made a small quick mod ( "Antique Authentic" ) renaming:

Crossbowmen as "Gastraphetes" (the greek antique crossbow which was used very few times),

"Longbowmen" as "composite bowmen"

"Mangonels as "Onagers" (and previous versions of lighter catapults are renamed as "Catapults")

... and renaming "duke" title as prince.
I uploaded it on EGS, so from EGS you can find it directly in Mods -> Install.

From Steam until I have a duplicate Old World on Steam, you can find it here on mod.io : https://mod.io/g/oldworld/m/antique-authentic-by-elindos

( sorry about that, you have then to create a "Mods" folder in your (user folder)/My games / Old World , and to unzip the mod manually )

Once activated it will be active for all new games, and compatible with all mods.
I also added Pikemen translation to it, with a "Sarissa armed Phalanx".

For immersion it's interesting to have this player feedback even if we lower the spectrum to one aspect, as this is how we improve a game reception and quality.

I want to be helpful here so don't take this wrong, but I don't think it's actually a "debate" about caring or not about this aspect. Having no opinion or interest in this aspect of immersion is absolutely OK.

But I just don't think it's actually a relevant factor to oppose and post about it unless you have big arguments to say you want Mangonels and Pikemen because of another more important line of thought.

=======================

They have found longbows in different areas of Europe dating all the way back to 2000+BC.

Yeah, the graphics may look like a middle ages longbowman, but longbows had been in use for millennia before the Celts came up with their version of it.

It is true (for the fact it existed, for its usage as to "where and how many" it's still debated) but actually, it's the composite bow which already gave the longer range (ie for egyptians for instance) for a weapon which was used in armies, not the longbow per say for the cultures we mention and play in Europe. The explanation is that Longbows themselves were not really used in troops in that era and area (mediterranean area) because that also makes sense when you look at the exact criteria to use one. So we have to observe these criteria a bit in more detail, because they seem to make a point by themselves.

Danish tribes had a very long bow found (1.80m+) from the antique era, so it has been debated whether the longbow as a unit/Army weapon could have been possible mostly for people who were "taller": because that may be a requirement to use a 1m80+ bow, quite obviously, let's not forget that. It's not even practical to have a so tall bow where many of your men can't use it. You have to look at the size of armies of that era in the mediterranean region, the training/strength/tall size to use a longbow, and you get a better idea. One longbow was also found in eastern Europe but it seems cultures using a lot of archers, more to the East and South, did not use them in troops AFAIK.

Even the composite bow, meant to curve and release more power (so it's ways more practical than a longbow as an army trained weapon as it has a shorter size and could be use by more men and less training), was not so dominating as having all armies use that: cultures which had discovered the composite bow since -1700 BC (such as Egypt) and had many archers in their armies still seemed to use the normal bow for their regular troops, and composite bows for other troops, and no longbow.

Could be discussed further as I am no army egyptologist, but the fact that some weapons were found does not immediately mean it was not trained as an army. For the reasons above I moved up the "composite bows" to replace "longbows", thinking it was making sense in the antique era in Europe ; composite bows actually had longer range and efficiency than previous bows or war bows.


Let's be honest too:
In the game, the problem is that its meant as the dominating weapon. You have almost no use for your archers once you have the longbow and you "distribute" that name on all your army.

Also, there are mangonels which are definitely a medieval weapon.
Pikemen who should not be here under this name and graphics (unless you want it medieval).
Crossbowmen too (they would have been OK in Asia). Although some crossbows existed, so I put another name in my mod above to keep the immersion ("Gastraphetes"), and what is OK with crossbows is that it's not exactly the better version (bows have longer range) so you may not use them everywhere.

Please note this is just cosmetic and thematic. So in itself people do not lose anything by having the option to have it more immersive.

[Elvicomte]

Thank you my friend ! :) I'm going to try it our right away !