How stronger archery could change the Known World

[Revelations]

Well, maybe. And that's if it was implemented. Anyways, I was going on a line of thought following the archery thread earlier. If archery became important to military operations, would that not shift the world into a certain path? I was thinking of speaking about ideas that might be left to respective leaders to come up with, or implement, and if I should leave this topic off of discussion, could an Imm delete this thread? So here's my line of thought:

Well, considering archery was made stronger, and that PC's used it more often, would that not have the military using more archers?

And in that case, armor might need to be adapted to better codedly withhold arrow attacks. Having more resilient armor, shifts my thoughts to the abundance of material in regions.

The north appears to have the most in natural goods. The close proximity of wood allows for easier access to the production of bows and arrows, and the number and variety of animals (and mounts) in that location allow more for a larger population..IMO. [Going off tangent alittle, mounted archers would be more an occurance, would it not? Considering that archers may be left without sufficient protection, having a quick means of retreat would be logical for them to reside on.]
Now the south is not as blessed as the north might be, in the regards that they are in a desert location, with very little available natural goods. They have war beetles, which may be a slightly added bonus, but not in large numbers perhaps.

Now considered together, the north would be superior in alot of aspects, including manpower, mounts, and supplies. But the major difference from now, and after the archery is changed, is the amount of archers. The south wouldn't have alot of materials to support a large population of archers, and in that respect would be at a disadvantage. A northern army would thus have range invovled in alot of military encounters.
So how might the south react?

Heh, I'm bringing in a lot of topics here, so bear with me. Allanak has one thing that Tuluk does not have, or rather, chooses not to have. An elementalists quarters. By supporting the use of gemmed elementalists (and giving them things to do now, as well as more importance) the south would have the advantages that magic holds. A few gemmed elementalists in the midst of a southern army could do alot to even any differences.

Whew, I done chatting. What do you guys feel about what might happen, how do you feel about these changes, or any other changes? And what do you feel about a shift in this direction? Let's keep this thread devoid of any nonproduction talk, eh?

[Marauder Moe]

I think Zalanthas doesn't have the benefit of hindsight that includes an era of warfare where archery dominated battlefields.  Ideas have to be invented too, and many players forget that and all sorts of modern ideas creep into the game.  In Zalanthas, people simply haven't realized/learned that archery can dramatically affect a battle.  Also, even Tuluk doesn't have the lumber resources of medieval Europe.  Outfitting the legions with bows and arrows would probably be thought of as too expensive, especially considering the value in battle is unproven, like I said.

[Revelations]

Well, there are virtual archery groups in the military, correct? If that's the case, they might not be large, but they likely have come up with battle methods of their own. I realize Tuluk doesn't have units after units of archers, but the effect that small groups of archers have on a battlefield should likely have been noted by now...military advisors wouldn't be -completely- ignorant of the advantages the ranged weapons give, IMO.

[Marauder Moe]

The last war was more than 50 years ago (if my math is correct).  As far as I know, archery wasn't a big part of it.  I don't think there have been enough battles for that to have changed since then.

[Delirium]

Until a guard with a shield can protect an archer code-wise from missile and melee combat, archery on the battlefield in a non-virtual sense is not likely to become popular. It takes an extremely buff archer, melee and ranged, to be able to withstand the heat of a battlefield, due to two main concerns:

1) Archery and throwing auto-starts combat with your target if you're in the same room.

This feels very awkward and forced, because an archer's primary concern is always to keep a distance from the target and not enter melee combat. Having to type 'disengage' or 'flee' everytime one takes a shot in the same room seems silly. One could leave the room, but that makes formations and actual battle tactics much harder and sometimes impossible to pull off from a code standpoint.

Fixing it means that an archer and a melee combatant could feasibly destroy a single, lone fighter. But a team of two melee fighters against an archer and a melee combatant would probably win. It means that NPC archers could feasibly team up - one to engage you in melee and the other to take shots at you. PCs could do the same, or come up with strategies to combat that. All in all, it could help add pressure to think intelligently and use strategy, and perhaps most importantly, team up, on the field.

2) There is no way, excluding any spells that may or may not exist, to protect someone from ranged missiles.

Historically, shield-bearers were employed to protect archers from incoming ranged weapons. A team of two heavy soldiers and a light (archer) was a devastating combo. Ancient cultures with much less technology than we have today came up with this; the importance of warfare to Zalanthans and the fact that it is a fairly simple conclusion to come to (a protected archer is a deadly force) makes me think that there is little reason this isn't more widely used in-game save for coded complications.

If ranged attacks no longer auto-engaged combat, and guards (NPC and PC) were able to attempt to protect their charges against missile fire, it would balance out the increased deadliness of archery and thrown weapons, while alternatively providing archers and javelinists that are weak in melee a better chance on the field -- if they team up with a shield-bearer. In other words: it would help pave the way for real tactics and strategies on the field, supported by code.

This helps make IMM support less important on the field as well, letting the outcome of the battle rest more squarely on the shoulders of the PCs involved.

[Swordsman]

To me, the strength of archery as a battle strategy (as opposed to, say, a hunting strategy) lies in numbers. IRL you never saw any ruler get together a bunch of 5-10 Robin Hoods or William Tells and turn them into a feared strike force. Rulers got hundreds (thousands?) of archers, put them together, and got them to all shoot at basically the same thing (i.e., enemy formation) at the same time. IMO, you can do this in the game; the catch is that you have to find enough PCs to make this viable. To me, this does seem viable with the current set-up; even a hardened warrior with buddies is going to stop and pause when he/she sees 5-6 archer PCs at the ready (and, sensibly, with a few escorts to defend said archers). Five or six archer PCs, even if all very skilled, won't pose a threat to the armies mentioned earlier from RL, and so they won't pose a threat to the armies of Allanak or Tuluk, but they can pose a threat to almost all PC groups. All IMO.

Swordsman

P.S. On the magickers in the Allanaki army: both Allanak and Tuluk have serious numbers of templars powered by basically-invincible sorcerer-kings in their ranks who would form the core magickal power for said armies. Also, and I might well be entirely wrong on this, I get the impression that the imms are trying to downplay the elementalists' quarter in Allanak. From another perspective, I simply wouldn't believe that magickers would make up a proportion of the Allanaki population reflecting the coded size of that section of Allanak relative to the rest of the city. Magickers are supposed to be rare, so I doubt they'd make up about 20% of the population of Allanak. (Maybe all that space is for all the templarate spies keeping an eye on them?)

[Savak]

Let's keep in mind that what is codedly viable from a playability point of view has relatively little bearing on whether archery is/was important in IC battles.  In most large-scale IC battles, I have no doubt that archery plays an important role (past, present, and future), although this is not often shown clearly to players.  That role may be quickly minimized by certain magicks, of course, but magick does not always play an immediate or significant role in every single battle, either.

From a playability point of view, it's simply very easy to close the gap very very quickly between a target and an archer, even getting in a round of melee combat before the archer can scramble back and pick up melee type weapons.  Thus unless the target is running away, or so much more powerful that a quick hit-and-run ranged attack seems the best way to do any successful damage, we do not often see it played through in-game.

I don't have a major problem with that particular playability issue, however, because large-scale IC battles with numerous NPC's and PC's is a relative rarity AND archery seems to be much more playable in the common everyday IC world as it currently is (hunting, one-chasing-one, small group scrambling combat, assassination attempts, etc.).  That said, good ideas to improve upon it are always welcome.

-Savak

[Revelations]

Well, during a large engagement, for one, it's possible to have archers set a few rooms back and picking off people...perhaps. Of course, it would be hard to a particular group of archers to be aiming at specific PC's, but large groups of NPC units are easy meat, considering that the group has depth.

Archers definitely would be in the heat of any battle, even with melee defenses. If archers are used more regularaly, that is.

Now about having archers easy to get caught up to. Making archery stronger would fix that, would it not? Although the time it takes to aim wouldn't allow quick volleys between, if a single arrow driven into the chest is able to stop or at least slow down a human, or similar-sized humaniod, that would make it alot more realistic. In RL, with the distance that one room in the wilds is relative to RL, an archer should be able to get off three, if not four quick shots before allowing the target to get to a dangerous distance. Of course, the code wouldn't allow that IG, but making it so that one or two arrows does the equivilent damage might make it abit more playable.

The current use of archery, isn't very realistic in its use. An NPC bahamet, for example, won't come rushing after you if it gets attacked by an archer, it simply sits there, at least that's my impression. And with the current code, I'm quite fine with that. But if NPC animals (the current sim right now are great, don't get me wrong) were to be made more realistic, a hunter wouldn't be able to get off a shot or two before the bahamet came and tore them down. If the arrows had stopping power though, you might be able to keep the bahamet away from you until sufficiently injured, and do equivelent damage as what a real arrow would do, before having to revert to melee, and that would be against an injured animal. Small animals would likely flee, or hide someplace, but a good shot on one should be able to drop them.

I agree magickers shouldn't be made a popular or common guild, but the current gemmed elementalists would have more things to do with the added uses of aiding in military operations, which they should more often, considering their presence and potential. Yes, templars use magick during encounters, but compared to the virtual size of any group of militia, the percent of templars able to use magick isn't very large, but of course powerful. And with the difference that the north has in material goods, and higher population capacity than Nak, gemmed folks would likely even the odds. This is considering virtual NPC's though, an actual IG group led by a few PC templars could probably only contain one or maybe two PC gemmed or else the scale would be -really- tipped. Just my thought.

[Maybe42or54]

Then, as pointed out in another thread, archers either hit their specific target or don't hit anything.

Two giant amount of people running and killing each other, you wont beable to aim at someone. You instead would aim at a group of someones, possibly killing a friendly since an arrow in the back hurts a lot mroe than one in the chest. You can't hit 2.target if you shot at 1.target.

[Tamarin]

mon demonfire > arrows.

[JohnGalt]

edit

[Dracul]

Allanak has Tek

Thats why theyre tough.