Crossbows vs. Longbows

[Agema]

Chainmail might very effectively stop a sword slash - if the sword doesn't penetrate the links, it's effectiveness is greatly reduced - whereas a mace might crush whatever is below the mail. However, against an unarmoured target where the mace would still do lots of damage, the sword would cut a huge gash in the target. As the mace's relative effectiveness increases with more armour, it's more grounds to make it AP than higher damage. Although having argued that, I'd rather not see maces/warhammers with AP damage, more an increased damage, simply for game mechanics.

[Gregstrom]

I think it's more complicated than that. To the best of my knowledge, flexible armours (the various sorts of mail) weren't terribly good at stopping maces - even with padding (which was present as standard) a solid hit was likely to break bones. Rigid plate would be good protection, though. Full plate was not supposed even to dent, as dents would normally restrict the user's mobility.

Edit: Ninja'd! Dammit.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

I think it's more complicated than that. To the best of my knowledge, flexible armours (the various sorts of mail) weren't terribly good at stopping maces - even with padding (which was present as standard) a solid hit was likely to break bones. Rigid plate would be good protection, though. Full plate was not supposed even to dent, as dents would normally restrict the user's mobility.

Edit: Ninja'd! Dammit.

This is not true about the rigid plates. The end of the age of chivalry misnomer though that was.. was a combination of many things - including the fact that plate armor was actually remarkably poor against the kinetic energy transfer of flails, mauls etc.

[Gregstrom]

I think I should have said 'better' rather than 'good'.

[malthaussen]

Getting back to the OP's question, I wondered the same thing when I started playing the game. I figured both crossbows and longbows should be AP weapons. It appears, however, from information supplied in this thread, that if the idea is to represent RL weapons, neither should be AP. There doesn't seem to be any reason why one should be AP and the other not, unless it is for gaming reasons, and not simulation reasons. And since Dominions makes no pretence of being a simulation, that's probably all the reason needed.

I like the discussion of "blunt force trauma" and "kinetic energy transfer" and the like. I wonder what the reaction of your typical mediaeval knight would have been. Not only would he not understand the terms, he'd probably burn you at the stake for using them. Despite the efficacity or otherwise of various maces, hammers, flails, and ilk for defeating armor and causing damage to your opponent, all of these weapons remained pretty much auxiliary to the sword, whether the latter was more efficient or not. Should some of these weapons be AP and some not? Don't we first of all have to know what the designers intend by making weapons AP before we can answer that question?

Knights didn't fight knights if they could avoid it. A "good day" for your typical mounted thug, pace the chansons and their ilk, was to ride down and trample a bunch of hapless peasants, not engage in Irish Standdown with an opponent as well-armored and armed as yourself. This is why the pike caused such an uproar when it was first employed -- because for the first time, those hapless peasants could defeat the flower of chivalry. Yet I notice in the discussion above about weapons effectiveness, nobody talks about the pike, although it evolved into the standard battle arm for centuries. Should pikes be AP?

As for missile weapons, I see the progression this way: slings were good, cheap weapons that were effective at short ranges, but (as another poster points out) couldn't be used in masses and required a good bit of experience to be used effectively. Shortbows needed less experience, but were consequently not much more effective, if a bit longer-ranged. Longbowmen needed quite a lot of training, the weapon itself was expensive, but in mass it was very effective and long-ranged, so long as you had trained longbowmen. I recall one article I read somewhere-or-other (possibly S&T magazine) that speculates that a side effect of the Great Plague was to wipe out the pool of trained longbowmen for England and thus lose the Hundred Year's War for them. You can believe that one or not as you like. Crossbows didn't require as much training and were nearly as effective as longbows, which explains their vogue in the latter Middle Ages. Both kinds of bows were very good infantry killers, too, a fact that became more important as armies became more and more dominated by pikemen. What used to puzzle me was the vogue of gunpowder weapons once they were invented. Despite being expensive and unreliable, they became more and more popular as time went on. An arquebush or musket is no simpler to use than a crossbow (in fact, the latter is much simpler, not to mention tremendously more accurate), so why did firearms replace bows? Could it be that they were AP, and bows and crossbows not? A .75 cal bullet will punch through any armor without much problem, I should think. (Nevertheless, Benjamin Franklin proposed that the American army be armed with longbows, not muskets, since the former were not only much more accurate but had a much greater rate of fire. He ignored the fact that it is a lot easier to shoot a musket than a longbow)

Well, I suppose I've rambled enough here. Ultimately, I think there is only one real answer to the OP's question: crossbows are AP and longbows are not, because the designers wanted it that way.

-- Mal

[Agema]

The Black Death was around the beginning of the 100 Years' War, 1350, it wasn't a major influence on the final result around 1450. Ultimately, England lost simply because it was a far less wealthy and populous nation than France - it couldn't replace the casualties or pay for the endless conflict.

[Renojustin]

Geez guys:

A sling has 25 range and does 9 damage with -1 to attack.

A shortbow has 30 range with 10 damage.

A longbow has 40 range with 13 damage.

A crossbow has 35 range with 10 AP damage.

Duhhhhhhh!

[Endoperez]

Renojustin: most crossbows also have +1 precision IIRC.

That reminds me how my cousin and his friend were arguing about if a medieval person would have known what to do with a crossbow if he hadn't seen one before. Everyone would know what a bow is, one of them argued, but crossbows would be more rare and an average peasant wouldn't know what to do with it. His argument was countered by the following statement: "Crossbows are Simple in 3rd edition".


Any way, while we are speaking of game stats, I like Conceptual Balance bows. Crude Short Bows are about equal, normal short bows are slightly more accurate, and more advanced bows/crossbows are better.
Speaking of mods, about a year ago Sombre helped me make a mod that gave all slingers a weapon that deals -2 damage, plus strength. It also increases the range to slightly over a short bow's range, but that's overkill, really. Strength of Giants boosting slingers' damage would be enough to give them a niche use. Would anyone be interested in seeing that mod updated?
Yet another mod-related thought: I should add a site with elite slingers to the magic site mod.

[Ironhawk]

Does no one here recall our short foray into AP longbows some time ago? Everyone clammored for it like this and then we modded it into CB or something and everyone hated it.

[Panpiper]

As I understand it, what causes the seeming discrepancy of crossbows being armor piercing while longbows are not while having longer range, is the fact that the crossbow bolts are heavier. The heaviness of crossbow bolts reduces their ability to stay aloft but at the same time gives them a greater impact, hence their ability to pierce armor. Longbows could indeed pierce armor, but they were also greatly helped at Agincourt by being fired from a higher elevation, so the extra drop lent them velocity.