Just one thing has has always infuriated me about these games is the use of crossbows and longbows. Why are crossbows better in open field battles and longbows better at defending cities - in reality (I know this is a game but still!!!) even the English used crossbows for defence of towns and castles as longbows weren't as effective. Do you think they could change this for Civ 5 - would be nice.
Well. I think that crossbowmen were good at short distances and longbows were at long range. That's what they did in Civ 4- crossbowmen had advantage vs melee units and longbows against the others so you could use both of them in city defence. I usually use crossbowmen as they are good in attack also. In civ 5 I'm sure everything will change because now archers are long range units and you can use them not only as deffensive units.
Last edited by Aragorn83; 07-22-2010 at 06:39 PM.
In Civ V, the Longbowman is now one of the English civ-unique units. The Crossbowman now appears to be the only "regular" Medieval-era archery unit.
Maybe there'll be simple bowmen, crossbowmen and England will have longbowmen.Originally Posted by Arioch IV
Yes, that's how it looks.
Although other countries in Europe did have longbows, the English were the most effective at using them. That's why it's a UU.
Also, it was my impression that the reason why crossbows were so popular for city defense was because, if an army reached your city, you wanted as many people as possible to help in the defense.
A longbowman often trained for many years to be able to be effective at his job, and for that, he (rarely she) was unrivaled until age of firearms. On the contrary, the most difficult task a crossbowman had was in loading the bow quickly and without injuring himself. He could be trained to do this in a relatively short period of time. The skill required to aim and shoot a crossbow did not require years of training.
End result: if you're using crossbows, you could have a much larger defensive force, and your defensive force could be made of people who were not career soldiers.
(I don't have clear sources to back this up: historians feel free to correct me if I'm mistakenly quoting flawed research)
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/asp...ents-and-drugs
I think that you're right and, if I remember correctly, there was a Pope that tried to ban crossbows. He threatened excommunication for using them because they were "too deadly".
Right. And I thought (no source yet) that they were considered "too deadly" not because they did more damage than a long bow, but because commoners could be trained to use them.
And specifically, commoners could be easily trained to use them. Longbows were just as deadly, but they took a lot of training and practice to use effectively. Similarly, the early matchlock muskets were less accurate and not much more deadly than a longbow, but were much easier for the average soldier to use.
you are correct but you forgot to mention this is only against other christains lol, damn healths could be killed by them, just like whoever that guy was who made the gun that was somehow going to be able to shoot round and square rounds, 1 for christians and 1 for non christians 0_o.
Just to clarify, the longbow was a not a gentry's weapon. The people who used them were typically of the lower rural class. For them it was a way of life; longbowmen literally grew up learning the thing and thier bodies developed differently as they grew up in terms of both thier muscular and skeletal architecture.
The longbow culture was especially unique to the English which is what makes it such a great UU. The French hated them- so much in fact that they the first thing they would do is cut off thier fingers when they captured one of them.
Also, the musket was not what ended the era of the longbow. It was a combination of two things - first, armor technology started to advance to a level that the bodkin could not penetrate it anymore. Second, the 100 years war ended and the English longbowman culture basically ended with it.
Agreed. My earlier messages do sound as if they were trying to present longbowmen as some sort of higher class. They weren't. All bowmen were of the "commoner" class, however, as you also explain, longbowmen were specialized and spent much more time training than anyone you'd find behind a crossbow.
Beware. Most reports of this are urban legend (medieval legend?). I can't find any substantiated reports of this ever actually occurring. Most people cite the source of a story about Agincourt as the place they first heard this. That story is fiction.
You might be right; come to think of it I may not have encountered this outside of a fictional description.
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