impact foot

[SnuggleBunnies]

There is actually no primary account of what happened regarding lances/secondary weapons once contact is made. The statement "ancient and medieval cavalry equipped primarily for hand to hand combat overwhelmingly preferred lances over swords" is unsupported. If there is I would like to see it.

...cavalry that carried lancers/spears used them before they resorted to swords, because they kind of had to. I don't think that's a statement that requires any support. Tell me, what Ancient/Medieval heavy cavalry wielded swords as a primary weapon?

Lances: "Traditionally a Polish weapon, the lance was employed by most armies during the Napoleonic Wars, Britain being a notable exception. The lance however was issued only sparsely... The reason for this lay in the characteristics of the weapon, for whatever its advantages, the lancer was at a distinct disadvantage in a melee once the initial 'shock' had passed; the fact that a lancer was almost defenceless once the point had been turned was a major factor influencing Britain against its adoption." This disadvantage holds true in any era.

Yet the lance was not issued only sparsely in many eras. Finally, say what you will about lance vs spear or javelin, the phenomena of cavalry using swords as a primary weapon isn't widespread until the later 1600s, and even then cavalry often charged sword in hand but used pistols in the melee!

Cavalry Pistols: "Despite the manufacture of vast quantities of pistols... so that almost every cavalryman had one or two, they were hardly ever used...."

Yet they were used as the primary weapon of heavy cavalry very widely into the mid 17th century. Anyway that doesn't matter to a discussion about earlier times.

Setting all that aside, the real question is - what specific mechanical changes would you suggest that would be an improvement to the game?

[Athos1660]

what specific mechanical changes would you suggest that would be an improvement to the game?

I'd be pretentious to say it'd be an improvement to the game. Here are just thoughts :

1) Troop quality
A cav charge being a complex operation that can easily fail and being THE important moment of any cav fights, the troop quality of a given unit would be randomly determined at each impact (after the player clicks on ‘charge’, at the time of calculation) so that it could be < to the stat quality displayed on the information panel (that become a maximum). A Superior unit could be only say Above average (or even average ?) during the first impact but Superior at a second one.

During melees, the troop quality would always be equal to the displayed one on the information panel (as currently). So that it would only affect the Impact PoA of a given charge.

The rationale behind that would be that there can be a gap between the expected quality of a troop and its effectiveness at a given moment due to many factors.

Would add some suspense at impact. Would add some spice in matchups between two armies having both (almost) only Superior cav. And overall they’d always remain as effective in charging from the rear or flank.

(Maybe could be extended to any charge, even by foot but I for one am not sure that a foot charge is generally as complex and risky as a cav one, because of the speed, etc.)


2) Breaks off
Maybe I’d increase the probability of breaks off in cav vs cav fights and not only when they ‘’lose badly in close combat’’ to reenact that imho cav didn’t stay in the same melee during 80% of a battle as is quite currently shown in game.

It returns to what I wrote above in this thread about threading, multiple charges, shock cav fleeing/evading just before impact, etc. (even if making a generalization about 3000 years of warfare is difficult).

[fogman]

I think the main idea there is that a cavalry charge produces results by the "shock" i.e. cascading panic and the resulting collapse of cohesion and resistance. Individual close combat ability is secondary to the psychological state of both sides.

For example if a Napoleonic era cavalry charge completely fails to disrupt an infantry square it doesn't matter how skilled the cavalryman is at poking with a lance or swinging a sword, the cavalryman is not going to come out a winner from a direct brawl against a sea of bayonets and firing muskets.

You only describe what happens against infantry, in a square no less. It is well known that cavalry against infantry is lethal in other situations, and that lances are particularly good against them, as at Albuera. And in FoG Napoleonics, lances get bonus against infantry but not cavalry.

I do not see that mechanism in a cavalry vs cavalry fight.

[fogman]

...cavalry that carried lancers/spears used them before they resorted to swords, because they kind of had to. I don't think that's a statement that requires any support. Tell me, what Ancient/Medieval heavy cavalry wielded swords as a primary weapon?

Well your statement was "ancient and medieval cavalry equipped primarily for hand to hand combat overwhelmingly preferred lances over swords" not "cavalry that carried lances/spears used them before they resorted to swords". That's two substantially different statements. The original argument I made was lances were poor for melees but probably good for impact (and certainly most useful against infantry).

Nobody knows what actually they wielded in general since it was not institutional and everything was ad hoc; even Poylybius doesn't say anything. Now the question of primary and secondary weapons is vexing. For a Roman legionary, what is primary, the pilum or the sword? For a horseman, is the lance primary or the sword/mace? what is the definition, the weapon they trained most on?

Yet the lance was not issued only sparsely in many eras. Finally, say what you will about lance vs spear or javelin, the phenomena of cavalry using swords as a primary weapon isn't widespread until the later 1600s, and even then cavalry often charged sword in hand but used pistols in the melee!

Disagree.

Setting all that aside, the real question is - what specific mechanical changes would you suggest that would be an improvement to the game?

That shock bonus diminishes with subsequent impacts, like archers ammo.

[SnuggleBunnies]

That shock bonus diminishes with subsequent impacts, like archers ammo.

Yes you said that. How much? Including impacts vs lights? What's the floor? How would non-shock units need to be repriced to make up for it?

[Athos1660]

As to lancers, I don't think Napoleonic era accounts are that useful here. Ancient and Medieval cavalry equipped primarily for hand to hand combat overwhelmingly preferred lances over swords. They were not stupid. There must have been reasons for their preference. High levels of training and horsemanship, or the wider use of armor come to mind. The most successful lancers in the Napoleonic period were those who had more time and experience with and a living tradition of using the weapons (the Poles). More ancient/medieval horsemen would have been the product of martial cultures in which young men trained with the weapon on horseback from an early age. Only a small proportion of lancers would be likely to actually strike an opponent in any given charge, and of course spares were probably available.

There is actually no primary account of what happened regarding lances/secondary weapons once contact is made.

All the medieval French epic poems, such as the 11th-century Song of Roland, speak of knights making several charges in a row with their lances, some depicting charges even with partly broken lances.

"The charge is the heart of the shock cavalry, not the melee"

This is quite a statement. Notice however that cuirassiers were equipped with swords while lances were issued to light cavalry, namely chevau-legers lanciers.

I think the main idea there is that a cavalry charge produces results by the "shock" i.e. cascading panic and the resulting collapse of cohesion and resistance. Individual close combat ability is secondary to the psychological state of both sides.

Indeed. I'd add, to this psychological factor, the physical ability at impact to sneak in the breaches of the enemy unit (that appear during a not-perfectly controlled charge) while remaining grouped (that is cohesion) to scatter the enemy cavalrymen (ie breaking their unit cohesion) to make these individuals lonely easy preys making the following melee easy and short.

The effectiveness of the modern charges with only the sword drawn (during the 17th -18th centuries) show it is not the used weapon that matters most, but preserving unit cohesion at speed, its actual speed, gaining a terrain advantage, morale, etc. that is gaining a psychological and physical advantage over the enemy, thanks to cohesion and speed.

For example, Philippe de Commynes in his Mémoires, witnessing the battle of Fornovo (1495), wrote about a knight vs knight charge : « Galeazzo Sanseverino (and his cavalrymen) charged the (French) Vanguard but, when the time came to couch the lances (that is during the charge before the impact), they took fright and broke up by themselves. Fifteen or twenty of us grabbed the bridle of their horses and killed them, the rest of the enemies fleeing unsuccessfully pursed. »

(... an example that also implies that, this time, the French vanguard was able to make (at least) a second charge with whole lances...)

[Athos1660]

"The charge is the heart of the shock cavalry, not the melee"

This is quite a statement.

It is not with all the arguments above and if you translate what an cavalry officer of the First French Empire (early 19th century) wrote about melees :

"Sur cent cavaliers, rapporte un officier du Premier Empire, deux ou trois ne songent qu’à pointer ; ce sont eux qui font toute la besogne utile ; cinq ou six parent les coups qu’on leur porte, et parfois allongent un coup de taille lorsqu’ils en voient la possibilité, sans courir aucun risque. Le reste est taillable et pointable à merci." (in Pierre Cantal, Etudes sur la cavalerie, 1905)

Quickly translated : out of 100 cavalrymen in a melee, only 2 or 3 are effective, 5 or 6 others avoid the blows and the 90 remaining ones are just preys.

So imho, the less able a cavalry unit was to win its fight at (or before) impact (and that's the case of the earliest cavalry, during Antiquity and early middle ages, especially the non-lancer ones), the greater the likelihood that a cav vs cav encounter degenerated into a messy, ineffective, exhausting, ever-lasting, undecided melee.

So if I had to bet, I'd say that the melees between "plain" cav of the Antiquity/early middle ages lasted longer than those of the lancers, knights then cavalry of the 17th century.

[fogman]

That shock bonus diminishes with subsequent impacts, like archers ammo.

Yes you said that. How much? Including impacts vs lights? What's the floor? How would non-shock units need to be repriced to make up for it?

I"m not the rules guru, that doesn't concern me. I'm pointing out what could be more sensible.

[fogman]

"The charge is the heart of the shock cavalry, not the melee"

This is quite a statement.

It is not with all the arguments above and if you translate what an cavalry officer of the First French Empire (early 19th century) wrote about melees :

"Sur cent cavaliers, rapporte un officier du Premier Empire, deux ou trois ne songent qu’à pointer ; ce sont eux qui font toute la besogne utile ; cinq ou six parent les coups qu’on leur porte, et parfois allongent un coup de taille lorsqu’ils en voient la possibilité, sans courir aucun risque. Le reste est taillable et pointable à merci." (in Pierre Cantal, Etudes sur la cavalerie, 1905)

Quickly translated : out of 100 cavalrymen in a melee, only 2 or 3 are effective, 5 or 6 others avoid the blows and the 90 remaining ones are just preys.

Entirely anecdotal. Who is this person? What makes him a reliable source. Is his extreme judgement corroborated by anyone else? Are we to believe that more than 90% of French cavalry were useless?

[Athos1660]

"The charge is the heart of the shock cavalry, not the melee"

This is quite a statement.

It is not with all the arguments above and if you translate what an cavalry officer of the First French Empire (early 19th century) wrote about melees :

"Sur cent cavaliers, rapporte un officier du Premier Empire, deux ou trois ne songent qu’à pointer ; ce sont eux qui font toute la besogne utile ; cinq ou six parent les coups qu’on leur porte, et parfois allongent un coup de taille lorsqu’ils en voient la possibilité, sans courir aucun risque. Le reste est taillable et pointable à merci." (in Pierre Cantal, Etudes sur la cavalerie, 1905)

Quickly translated : out of 100 cavalrymen in a melee, only 2 or 3 are effective, 5 or 6 others avoid the blows and the 90 remaining ones are just preys.

Entirely anecdotal. Who is this person? What makes him a reliable source. Is his extreme judgement corroborated by anyone else? Are we to believe that more than 90% of French cavalry were useless?

This is the kind of accounts that can be found among other authors such as Tavannes. And that's also quite what Michael Rimington implies when he writes : "In the melees which occur after a charge, men and horses are so intermingled that even the use of the sword is difficult." Difficulty in fighting in cav melee.

HoweverI won't keep on writing, writing... trying to 'convince' you. The task seems impossible. And is it that important ?

Hoping at least I provided some info to others.

[fogman]

It is not with all the arguments above and if you translate what an cavalry officer of the First French Empire (early 19th century) wrote about melees :

"Sur cent cavaliers, rapporte un officier du Premier Empire, deux ou trois ne songent qu’à pointer ; ce sont eux qui font toute la besogne utile ; cinq ou six parent les coups qu’on leur porte, et parfois allongent un coup de taille lorsqu’ils en voient la possibilité, sans courir aucun risque. Le reste est taillable et pointable à merci." (in Pierre Cantal, Etudes sur la cavalerie, 1905)

Quickly translated : out of 100 cavalrymen in a melee, only 2 or 3 are effective, 5 or 6 others avoid the blows and the 90 remaining ones are just preys.

Entirely anecdotal. Who is this person? What makes him a reliable source. Is his extreme judgement corroborated by anyone else? Are we to believe that more than 90% of French cavalry were useless?

This is the kind of accounts that can be found among other authors such as Tavannes. And that's also quite what Michael Rimington implies when he writes : "In the melees which occur after a charge, men and horses are so intermingled that even the use of the sword is difficult." Difficulty in fighting in cav melee.

HoweverI won't keep on writing, writing... trying to 'convince' you. The task seems impossible. And is it that important ?

Hoping at least I provided some info to others.

I don't think you realize how the quote you're peddling is from way out of left field for anyone vaguely familiar with Napoleonic historiography.

[SnuggleBunnies]

I"m not the rules guru, that doesn't concern me. I'm pointing out what could be more sensible.

There is no point in pointing out something that you think isn't right without proposing a better solution. Specific solutions allow us to look at what other problems could be created by them, and whether the tradeoff is worth it. So if you throw out ideas without mechanical followup, they are exceedingly unlikely to receive real consideration.

[MVP7]

I"m not the rules guru, that doesn't concern me. I'm pointing out what could be more sensible.

There is no point in pointing out something that you think isn't right without proposing a better solution. Specific solutions allow us to look at what other problems could be created by them, and whether the tradeoff is worth it. So if you throw out ideas without mechanical followup, they are exceedingly unlikely to receive real consideration.

And there's still no historical accounts where some unit types would get progressively weaker more than others over multiple charges. Without that there's no basis to assume that a separate impact weakening mechanic would be any more realistic than not having one at the mechanical level of detail in FoG2 system.

All we have at the moment is conjecture on how the throwing spear/lance expenditure could have affected combat performance, and we have conjecture on how it could have been a non-issue or easily mitigated. Without quantitative historical evidence there's no target or starting point for a "sensible" magnitude of the effect.

In FoG2 system there's also the often overlooked loss of men or "damage" to units that already models reduction in combat efficiency. This reduction wouldn't be due to reduced number of men as most formations in FoG2 are several ranks deep and only the front few would take part in physical combat. By the time the number of men could become a physical issue, the unit auto-breaks. The reduction in combat efficiency depicts factors like stamina, wavering enthusiasm, disrupted organization etc, and it can be considered to include shortage or loss of lances, pila and any other weapon as well.

Ranged units don't take losses as consistently as melee units so they have the additional system of ammunition. The system doesn't imply that all the ranged units through history literally have ammo for five full "volleys" and then unlimited ammo from there on out. The ammo works the way it does because there is historical trend of skirmish and missile units having lesser tactical influence towards the end of most battles. The system was not made by asking "how much ammo would a unit carry" and work up from there. Instead it was made by first establishing the desired top level effect and then creating the lower level "ammo" system that produces that desired result.

[fogman]

There is no point in pointing out something that you think isn't right without proposing a better solution. Specific solutions allow us to look at what other problems could be created by them, and whether the tradeoff is worth it. So if you throw out ideas without mechanical followup, they are exceedingly unlikely to receive real consideration.

I realized a long time ago that the chances of that were indeed "exceedingly unlikely"! It's why I still use FoG1 for serious battle studies. But it's a discussion board, so I discuss, and I enjoy the banter.

[fogman]

And there's still no historical accounts where some unit types would get progressively weaker more than others over multiple charges. Without that there's no basis to assume that a separate impact weakening mechanic would be any more realistic than not having one at the mechanical level of detail in FoG2 system.

Because nobody was aware that there will be a game in the 21st century would that look for that particular description.

All we have at the moment is conjecture on how the throwing spear/lance expenditure could have affected combat performance, and we have conjecture on how it could have been a non-issue or easily mitigated. Without quantitative historical evidence there's no target or starting point for a "sensible" magnitude of the effect.

Yet, we somehow know when auto-rout will occur for any particular unit.

Now, I don't want to be seen trolling, but there really isn't conclusive evidence either way. I respect the designer's choices, because in the end, I can see that it could go in many different directions, without one really being more supported by primary sources than the others. I'm merely exploring the other options that were discarded, not because I believe they were more faithful to the sources, but rather because they were no less so.

[Athos1660]

Now, I don't want to be seen trolling, but there really isn't conclusive evidence either way. I respect the designer's choices, because in the end, I can see that it could go in many different directions, without one really being more supported by primary sources than the others. I'm merely exploring the other options that were discarded, not because I believe they were more faithful to the sources, but rather because they were no less so.

Let's note that, in this thread, at no time you've supported any of your assertions about the cavalry charges and melees by any source, any quotations, any evidence (so no, one can't say "there really isn't conclusive evidence either way" at this point) ; nor have you suggested any changes in the game mechanics.

[MVP7]

And there's still no historical accounts where some unit types would get progressively weaker more than others over multiple charges. Without that there's no basis to assume that a separate impact weakening mechanic would be any more realistic than not having one at the mechanical level of detail in FoG2 system.

Because nobody was aware that there will be a game in the 21st century would that look for that particular description.

All we have at the moment is conjecture on how the throwing spear/lance expenditure could have affected combat performance, and we have conjecture on how it could have been a non-issue or easily mitigated. Without quantitative historical evidence there's no target or starting point for a "sensible" magnitude of the effect.

Yet, we somehow know when auto-rout will occur for any particular unit.

Now, I don't want to be seen trolling, but there really isn't conclusive evidence either way. I respect the designer's choices, because in the end, I can see that it could go in many different directions, without one really being more supported by primary sources than the others. I'm merely exploring the other options that were discarded, not because I believe they were more faithful to the sources, but rather because they were no less so.

The two competing views here are are that either the expenditure of javelins/lances by shock units was a major tactical factor, or that it was not.

If it were a major factor in battles (like for example, low morale or advantageous terrain feature), you can reasonably expect that it would be mentioned in historical accounts of battles as a major factor to the course and outcome of battles. The lack of it being mentioned supports it not having been a decisive factor in the relative fighting ability of ancient or medieval units. The only support for the opposite is a conjecture of how it could have been a factor (that ignores the conjecture of easy solutions that would have mitigated the effect).

[fogman]

The two competing views here are are that either the expenditure of javelins/lances by shock units was a major tactical factor, or that it was not.

If that was not, then you have to question why the game has impact foot and lancers bonus.

[fogman]

"And the command had been previously given to all the Vandals [cavalry] to use neither spear nor any other weapon in their engagement [Tricamarum] except their swords... And a third time with almost all the guards and lancers of Belisarius he took the general's standard and made his attack with much shouting and a great noise. But since the barbarians manfully withstood them and used only their swords, the battle became fierce, and many of the nobles of the Vandals fell..." (Procopius)

Procopius would expect his intended audience to understand the implications of cavalry discarding lances and fighting with swords so offered no explanation. It was matter-of-fact that the "battle became fierce" because the Vandals only used swords. It seems because the Vandals were massed behind a stream, which they did not intend to cross, that would blunt the charge of the Byzantine lancers, they were prepared for an extensive melee.

[Schweetness101]

just to entertain the idea from an implementation standpoint: An impact foot unit in FoG typically has 480 men, which is a somewhat arbitrary number for non-Roman units, and warband are larger, etc...but lets take just take a Cohort as an example (Cohort right? 4x120 man maniples = 1 cohort? = 1 FoG heavy inf unit?). Do we assume this unit is typically ~8 rows deep? Or sometimes something more complex may be going on (ie 4x120 man maniples 3 deep and 40 wide interacting in some maybe complex and not totally known way)? Let's assume 8 ranks deep in general.

It also seems legionnaires generally carried two pila each, but any given charge would see each man who threw at all throw two of them, as there was the lighter longer range one and the heavier closer range one? IE, each man has enough pila for one charge as a pilum thrower, even if they have two pila each. Unlike lances, there is also a decent chance of picking up a thrown javelin (although I think pila in particular were designed to bend and NOT be reusable, but perhaps javelins in general were thrown back and forth).

As someone mentioned, probably only the first 1-2 ranks would actually be able to throw a spear on charging, and we can assume that some of the men even in the first few ranks wouldn't get the opportunity to throw, or wouldn't be as well lined up to do so as the rest of the unit, even though they are at the front. We can also speculate that men who died without throwing had their pila picked up, both from allies and enemies. Putting that aside, even if we assume in the worst case that fully 2/8 ranks use both of their throwing pila per charge, then they would still have 4 charges worth of ammo. If it was more like 1-2 ranks rather than always 2 throwing, they'd have 4-8 charges worth of ammo. They may have also been resupplied at some point during a battle, and been able to reuse ammo, etc...

So, say you implemented some kind of pila/javelin ammo system for impact foot, then they should have full impact power for about 5 charges as a pretty low end estimate. How often in a battle does an impact foot unit charge more than 5 times? Maybe that happens on occasion, but in general heavy infantry units don't get that many impact combat rounds in before being routed or the battle being over.

This is all a very long winded way of saying that even if you implemented such a system, it would probably have a negligible impact on gameplay (unlike ammo for ranged units, as ranged units will shoot over and over, typically more than 5 times, whereas impact units don't typically impact over and over as after impact they are in melee)

The thrown weapons are also only part of the impact, not the whole impact POA. The boldness and aggression of legions, warbands, etc...their battle cries and ferocious charge and psychological impact etc...wouldn't necessarily lag much without throwing spears, so even if they'd run out of pila ammo maybe their impact foot POA should reduce 20%? but then you're implementing an ammo system to say that after X impacts all impacts are marginally worse...it would just be totally negligible as a whole.

And, generally other systems like loss of cohesion and manpower already represent this sort of degradation in fighting ability over time, without needing extra systems of ammo loss, lance loss, or say stamina etc...they would needlessly complicate the core gameplay to no purpose.

It's also worth mentioning that many non-impact units, like offensive/defensive spearmen, would have likely had some ranged support interspersed throughout the formation (maybe toxotoi and psiloi among some hoplites, or Anglo-Saxon fyrdman in the a few ranks back throwing spears/shooting bows, etc...) but that is just sort of folded into the general impact POA. Arguably all skirmishing could be folded in to impact POAs for representing some time periods anyway.

As for lances, they may have frequently broken on impact, but other weapons broke as well. Even seemingly sturdier one-handed melee weapons, especially swords, frequently broke in combat, but representing that at a more granular level than just folding it into cohesion and manpower loss is not necessary imo.

Or, to ask another way, from a high, top down level, what behavior would actually change in the player's overall plan and the historical accuracy of their tactics if you introduced impact foot/lancer impact ammo? I think probably nothing, so it can be assumed to get abstracted away at no loss to the fidelity of the simulation.