- -----Original Message-----
From: Craig Greeson
Date: Sunday, November 08, 1998 8:44 AM

>
>I did not mean to imply in my original post that learning how to use the
>longbow (or any other weapon) effectively was not extremely difficult.
>What I was saying was that I assume men who sign up for a mercenary company
>already have some skill with the appopriate weapons that unit uses. Thus,
>when I said archers and infantry took less training than pikes and cavalry,
>I meant they took less training to operate effectively as a unit. I'm no
>military expert, but my limited understanding is that pike and cavalry
>units have to be pretty precise on the battlefield. I would guess archers
>who are individually skilled with the bow could be formed into an effective
>unit easier than pikes of cavalry. Is this an incorrect assumption?
>


It depends on your conception of war in Cerilia. Fighting as a unit as
opposed to a a crowd of individuals was pretty rare before the gunpowder
era. The Swiss and Flemish pikes and the Greek hoplites were local peolpe
formed into local units, that is the soldiers knew each other as neighbors,
and so the civic cooperation that existed was extended to war. There was no
training of strangers to act as a cohesive whole until the Romans, and then
again until Roman methods were imitated by Maurice of Orange c. 1570's. The
pikes of the Swiss and the Flemish were imitated by others, but never
successfully, because it was the local character of the recruitment that
made it work.

The only thing I would say about why trained units should not exist in
Cerilia is that its very expensive, and the states of Cerilia are the former
provinces of a former empire, that is they are to small to bear the cost.
Bouruine, Avanil, and Ghoere would be the first to handle the expence and
their neighbors would submit or be conquered.

BTW, in my opinion the pikes in the game represent the imitation pikes, not
the Flemish or Swiss (or Greek).

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@earthlink.net