Crazy Europe: House of Habsburg

[Cernel]

@crazyg said in Crazy Europe: House of Habsburg:

When reading about the weapons of the time, I got the impression that there were two distinct things going on. You had the older professional armies, soldiers using skills such as archery or horse riding that took a long time to learn. This was contrasted with weapons that required very little training, like pikes or crossbows.

By 1550 onwards bows / crossbows were not anymore used in significant numbers by the central players of your game (Habsburg, France, Italian States), in any case.
What spelled the end for the crossbow was the invention of the musket, that made firearms just too good.
The English and others just took some more time to realise and accept it (when having strong archer traditions).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franc-archer
In 1485 the franc-archer system was re-established and they were employed again in the Flanders campaign of the Mad War under Esquerdes.
During the Italian Wars, the francs-archers were primarily used for frontier defense. In May 1513 Louis XII raised 22,000 of them for such a purpose. They occasionally served in the field during campaigns such as in 1522 and 1523. They were levied for the last time after the French defeat at Pavia. The francs-archers were definitively disbanded in 1535.

[Cernel]

I'll add that, while the musket (in widespread use since about 1540) made the crossbow immediately obsolete, the bow was not ended right away, as the much higher rate of shooting made the matter not so obvious, but it didn't take long to realise its time was over too.

[General_Zod]

@cernel I think on start date that @CrazyG is using for this map. Bows would not make sense anymore, unless it was an uprising of hunters or something.

[Cernel]

@general_zod Bows would make more sense than crossbows, or, rather, crossbows would make less sense than bows. The Ottomans were still using bows a lot, also in naval battles (and this is one of the reasons they got their asses kicked at Lepanto).

[General_Zod]

@cernel Perhaps that's accurate, but I'm also looking at it from the another perspective. One that I think @CrazyG had in mind per his comments upon introduction either in this post or another. Something about keeping it very simple yet have an engaging depth. Or maybe that's just something I would like to see for a multi, hehe ;). Imo, to keep the map multi friendly extra scrub units are not needed to slow the game down. At least that's my impression thus far, after my initial game .

[Hepps]

Did a little work on some of the visuals while working on and playing with the map.

• New City unit (Tried to keep the style in-line with the existing units)
• New PU icon
• New large national unit icon

[Cernel]

@crazyg Considering how much this map is detailed, I think this is a good opportunity of adding more islands in the Aegean. Definitely, I would have the Cyclades (all represented as a single territory). For the Sporades, that cannot be a single territory, Lesbos is bigger than Rhodes (Rhodes is more important to have, but I think here we can have Lesbos too). Moreover, it seems natural to me, at this scope, having Negroponte, but, of course, land connected to Athens (so, practically, not an island, map wise).
Looking at the other side, I would add, either, the Ionian Islands or Cephalonia (representing all Ionian Islands).

[CrazyG]

@cernel
I thought about the cyclades. I mostly didn't include them because I'm artistly challenged. If Hepps wants to add them he can, I dare not ask him to volunteer more time

[General_Zod]

@hepps The roundel isn't needed. The units are already color coded. Pu image is cool, the city is cool. Need a new village image imo, current ones look like tents when zoomed out. Which btw lets keep it zoom out friendly

btw, my definition of zoom friendly for this particular map is 50% zoom level. units 87%. Also I should add, that the images at this level only need to be identifiable not pretty.

[Hepps]

@general_zod The roundel is designed for if you turn them on via the controls... not embedded into the unit image.

A new village image may have already been done.

[General_Zod]

@hepps ok cool

[Frostion]

@Hepps The roundels look very nice. Maybe you should use the same graphics to make flags for all the nations? The current are of a pretty mixed quality

[Hepps]

@frostion Could be rabbit.... could be. Might already be in the possession of one Crazy German.

[Frostion]

@Hepps Yea, you might be right. He probably already has new flags of a quality equal to what you could make. Never mind then.

[Hepps]

@frostion lol

[Hepps]

Work continues on the leviathan that is the HOH map. I am about 50% there.

Here is a sample of one small section with a before and after....

[Frostion]

The new borders look great. Like a 1000% improvement.

The PU value markers are also very stylish and fitting for the era. I like that they are transparent looking, so that players do not confuse them with the units. It’s more background and secondary info.

I also like the shadow of the Danish soldier, but if one unit has it, all units should have shadows.

One thing I would change would be the unit flags. The look good, but I find them much too large. Maybe you could try to shrink them just a little bit?

A second thing that I would work on would be the city unit picture. It might be a good picture, but such a detailed picture gets blurry and unrecognizable when shirked. Either you could allow it to be a bit larger, or look for another city picture?

Question: What does the green + mean? If it is a symbol for a place where units spawn, then maybe the City should have a symbol that expresses something “better”. Maybe a ++ symbol, or the village could have a silver/cobber + and the city a golden +, or maybe the two factories could have a small green cross and a large green cross?

[Hepps]

@frostion said in Crazy Europe: House of Habsburg:

The new borders look great. Like a 1000% improvement.

The PU value markers are also very stylish and fitting for the era. I like that they are transparent looking, so that players do not confuse them with the units. It’s more background and secondary info.

I also like the shadow of the Danish soldier, but if one unit has it, all units should have shadows.

I had only worked on the Pikeman during my experimentation. I just haven't even started dealing with the units as of yet... just a quick cut and past as an example.

One thing I would change would be the unit flags. The look good, but I find them much too large. Maybe you could try to shrink them just a little bit?

The Flag image is the 'large' version of the flag... there would still be a 'small' version as well. I just used the one I had designed initially.... and of course these would be able to be toggled on and off by the user.

A second thing that I would work on would be the city unit picture. It might be a good picture, but such a detailed picture gets blurry and unrecognizable when shirked. Either you could allow it to be a bit larger, or look for another city picture?

Is a first prototype. Just put it in as it is an improvement (IMHO) over the 270 BC image.

Question: What does the green + mean? If it is a symbol for a place where units spawn, then maybe the City should have a symbol that expresses something “better”. Maybe a ++ symbol, or the village could have a silver/cobber + and the city a golden +, or maybe the two factories could have a small green cross and a large green cross?

Just another prototype. the idea is that since the villages and the cities function in very different ways as it pertains to unit production, those differences should be underscored visually on the map since the current mechanics for the villages can be quite confusing to the player while purchasing units.

In the end I am at the disposal of the Holy Roman Emperor as to what he wants the finished images to include or not include.

[Frostion]

If you need a PUs picture, you can use the new ones from Caribbean Trade War map. Maybe they would fit the style of Crazy Europe also:

[beelee]

@frostion "Crazy Europe" lol
Sorry : )