Loved this update so much. While I am eternally stressed out about the skirmish attacks, it just means that they do their job. I mostly just hope that I have not messed up enough for Elya or Darin to catch a stray arrow in one of the future updates.
Especially loved the segment where you got to talk to everyone. The variety of options + being able to skip over the two more controversial family members were very much appreciated. Also, playing the Marshal who is romancing Obren, I very much appreciated that he was saved for last no matter what. In these games, it too often feels like you have only a limited amount of characters to hang out during a break, and almost always you have to sacrifice some platonic bonds to spend time with your chosen RO. I liked talking to Darin, Elya, and Velinor, and not being punished for it. Being reassured from the start that you get to talk to everyone before going to a romance scene is super refreshing and nice to have. Vedran is super interesting to me as well, and I can’t help but feel bad for him despite all of the awful shit that he’s done. Really hope that the Marshal can talk him out of his “I should have just looked up to/emulated you” mindset and have him discover who he is without trying to live up to someone else’s ideal. Probably not what was intended in code but solid 60% of my Marshal’s “don’t be like me” was “find your own way instead” rather than self-loathing.
And finally, the romance scenes with Obren were adorable. I’m not sure if that’s the word I should be using for the two seasoned warriors but here we are. I don’t think I’ve ever been as invested in a romance in a choicescript game as I am with these two. They face death every day and yet they are so awkward about cuddling, and it’s precious, and I just love both the Marshal’s inner dialogue and their talks in private.
Thank you all for the feedback so far! I’ve taken a decent break for the last week to let myself reset, but I’ve been fixing bugs. Will get into Chapter 3 starting tomorrow, methinks.
i would never
Good catch!
I think that she does comment if Balaban is the second kill.
I definitely think I’ll add one later, it merits one
I should maybe add more sympathetic versions of the Obren dialouge
I felt obligated to explain myself
In fairness, Obren is actually correct this time.
Extremely interesting account. I read the account of Thomas of Spalato for help researching for ITUO and it didn’t go into as intesne of detial.
Throughout years, I have never been able to betray Elya. First time I tried ITUO, I chose the loyalist path to try first. Then out of curiosity went for usurper path.
One run later, I ended up playing the usurper route the first time and am finally planning on seeing the betraying elya route through in ITFO
In endgame of Usurper route, possibly.
However, Drazen is also an NPC in Book 1 Chapter 5, who attempts to kill Elya if she is left unprotected and the rebel cavalry aren’t intercepted during the battle of the Atiming. If she has enough strength, she can kill him instead.
Leadership Marshal should play a much bigger role on Regent and Usurper routes in general, since Elya the leader (at high strength)/figurehead (at low strength) isn’t around to hold the coalition together.
Where are you sourcing the information from that Mongols dismounted and typically fought on foot? Even if true other societies like Turks, Parthians, and even Japanese Bushi relied on horse archery to achieve decisive tactical advantage. I certainly think there is at least enough historical evidence for fantasy verisimilitude for this type of story.
I’m not objecting to the idea that they did dismount occasionally when the situation warranted, but that horse archery was so inaccurate that they were actually effectively dragoons and typically dismounted in most battles.
My bias is to agree with you, but that is based on conventional wisdom. If @zera is aware of some new scholarship on Mongol mounted infantry tactics I would be here for it. Even if it does exist I don’t think it inherently recommends a change in the depiction of horse archery in this low fantasy story.
They certainly would dismount on foot and fire arrows behind barricades during sieges. There are also Delhi Sultanate accounts of Mongols dismounting and firing arrows at elephants as well.
When I play as Khuzait in Mount and blade bannerlord, I usually dismount my HA when fighting on mountainous terrain or when I intend to use a bridge as a choke point or when defending a village.
Horse Archery was not inaccurate for nomads who were practicing it from childhood, it’s the main reason why the Mongols were more inclined to let mercs or troops from conquered people to lay sieges and do the dirty work, while keeping their Tartars, Mongols and Cumins HA safe simply because they were that valuable and could not be replaced easily.
Also if horse archery was simply that inaccurate then the Mongols or even the Huns wouldn’t be able to conquer and cripple empires
A) the primary purpose of weapons like bows, crossbows and slings was not to kill the enemy, but rather to cause enough physical, mental and emotional exhaustion to cause the enemy to be unwilling or unable continue fighting. As well as being used control the movement of the enemy by increasing the volume of “fire” onto a formation if they advance to an area you’d prefer they didn’t, and when they’d move in a different direction, you’d slightly decrease the volume of fire to subconsciously encourage the enemy to move away from the area you’d prefer wish to control.
B) bows and the like would not be fired in “arcs” or volleys. Simply because you can’t really see or aim at something when you fire at an arc, and it means your arrow will experience more air drag in an arc, which will slow it down substantially, causing it to have less range, and less stopping power. The volley thing is because the first written occurrences of the word to reference an ordered method of firing ranged weapons, pop up in the 16/17th centuries and were strictly used to describe one firing method used by Dutch Musketeers and arquebusiers. It being applied to archers/crossbowmen comes from Hollywood, and video games such as total war.
C) Bows and the like would be fired in a direct/straight at the enemy with little to no order or cohesion of fire outside of an officer type giving orders to start shooting, and to stop shooting, this is because not even dudes who have trained all their life can pull the string all the way back on an actual warbow for more than a few seconds, alongside because of that weight/strain of loading/shooting a bow, a dude will get gassed/exhausted extremely fast. (Further reducing the “cohesion/order” of “fire”) Another reason is while some bows like the longbow, and heavier “siege” crossbows had ranges that could extend to 300 meters, the chances of them actually hitting or even hurting/killing something at the range is astronomical. The main reason being the arrows/bolts/whatever will experience both air catching/dragging(slowing/reducing stopping power) the ammunition down, and gravity pushing/weighing the ammunition down(slowing/reducing stopping power), this meant that while the bow/crossbow may have had an theoretical range of 300 meters, in reality they had the effective range of maybe 50-75 meters(also to reference the first part of part c, you may have had higher rate of fire in the first 3/4 shots from bows/crossbows, that rof will drop extremely fast after, as again, shooting a lot with a bow or crossbow made for war, is very exhausting)
(Also, the English longbow being an amazingly effective weapon of war, or even that the English were renowned as longbowmen, is the result of historical propaganda and most people’s knowledge on the subject being based on popular culture, which is itself based on said historical propaganda and the Victorians tendency to make shit up/draw absurd conclusions in order to project themselves as more civilized and superior to their ancestors, and they’re ancestors to everyone else. In reality, the longbow(alongside every other bow in history) was viewed as the weapon of the poor militia, and untrained country yokel. The professional soldiers/mercenaries/men at arms typically preferred crossbows and early firearms as their ranged weapons of choice. Part of this was because it only takes roughly two-ish week of somewhat regular practice to both build the muscle mass required and to get good enough of a shot with a bow. As the overwhelmingly majority of historical warbows(including the English longbow) and even modern bows, had/have draw weights between 50-ish to 75-ish pounds. With the highest draw weights we have any evidence for, are the ones recovered from the wreck of the Mary Rose, with the suggested draw weights being 65 and 175 pounds, though with a peak of 110-ish pounds(meaning the actual weights are most likely to be closer to 110 pounds than 65 or 175). It’s good to note that these would be the bows used by very experienced, long serving, and “elite” professional soldiers/men at arms. So are absolutely nothing like the bows/longbows used by the vast majority of English longbowmen in the late Middle Ages(who were typically militia drawn up to augment an armies numbers, and whose bow practice largely consisted of getting drunk with a couple friends and shooting a few arrows randomly)(Also why “volly fire” never existed before the widespread use of firearms(the term is also first used/written down to describe a tactic used by Dutch musketeers in the late 1500’s))
C) The main advantage a crossbow has over a bow, is that you can shoot for far longer than you’d be able to with a bow. As the bow is reliant on entirely muscle power, and after a dozen or so shots, you’d be too gassed to continue shooting, whereas the crossbow has the advantage of being a lever/providing Mechanical assistance in cocking the weapon, therefore limiting energy you expend cocking/shooting the weapon.
D) the primary tactic/purpose of Calvary, arrows, bolts, stones, javelins, etc throughout history had been one of mentally/emotionally/physically exhausting the enemy to the point of blind fear/rage as then they’d either make a mistake allowing you to defeat/slaughter/force them off the field, or just break and run.
That’s why discipline was such a important factor in not historic military’s, but modern ones as well. It’s also why the pop culture/total war/video game idea of using untrained, unarmored peasants/mobs/slaves/fodder is not only false, but a catastrophically stupid idea in actual war
Also horse archers(finally talking about them), whose primary weapon wasn’t the bow or arrow, but rather the combined psychological effect of being charged with Calvary, and being suppressed by continuous arrow fire. This is because horse archers did not operate like those portrayed in total war, or pop media and shoot as far away as possible and attempt to stay as far away from the enemy formations as possible, but rather they charged the enemy’s formations until the very last second, then they’d “turn” to avoid charging into the enemy formation and ride in a circle/oval/whatever shape, with the riders shooting onto the formation as they passed directly beside it(often times they were so close the enemy formation could simply reach out with their hands and touch the horse riders)
This was because the primary tactic/purpose of horse archers was to bait/provoke the enemy formation into charging out of said formations/fortifications by mentally/emotionally/physically exhausting the enemy into the point of blind terror/fear/rage. Which, if they did charge the horse archers, then the now blind to the world-unorganized mob would be slaughtered by the counter charge of the newest “rotation” of horse archers, and heavier Calvary and infantry components out of site behind trees, grass, hills, ravines, or trenches, barricades, fences, etc(said fortifications were very common in field battles, especially in medieval Europe) who’d been waiting specifically for this exact moment.
But if the training/discipline was high enough in the enemy, then typically the horse archers would be in turn slaughtered by the enemy ranged components as they had the luxury of having heavier/larger ranged weapons that possessed further range and stopping/penetrative power than the horse archers, or they’d retreat due to their own/their horses exhaustion and/or running out of arrows/javelins. Or they’d be caught/charged by the enemy’s light/heavier Calvary as happened several times during the mongol campaigns in eastern/southeastern Europe, Anatolia, Egypt, India, south China, and indochina)
Here’s some links talking bout bows, arrows, draw weights, the uses and strategies for em
(Me having recreationally shoot bows, me being on my high school’s archery team, me having bow hunted for the majority of my life, and me having a reproduction English longbow modeled after the only archeological records/examples we have of the weapon(it’s 125 pounds)
The most typical example is the Xueyantuo Khaganate. The Xueyantuo were a branch of the Tiele people and implacable enemies of the Turks. When the Turks were strong, a Turkic khaghan once wiped out hundreds of Tiele leaders in a single stroke. The Xueyantuo were skilled horse-archers and wanted revenge, but the Turks were even better at mounted archery and were better equipped, so for a long time the Xueyantuo could not defeat them.
During the reign of the Xueyantuo leader Yinan, however, the Xueyantuo adopted infantry shock-tactics: they repeatedly defeated Ashina She’er and Khagan Shaboluo, annexed much of the Turks’ territory, and even seized the sacred Mount (the Shǐng/Diwudequn Mountain, also called Hang’ai Mountain) that both Turks and Tiele revered — they had taken it two years before Li Jing’s victory over the Turks in 627. They established their yazhang (royal camp) there, absorbed large numbers of Tiele, and proclaimed themselves khans.
Ashina She’er, whom Yinan defeated, was a master of mounted-archery tactics and later became a famed Tang general, so his tactics were no lightweight. Yinan’s approach was to use the mobility advantage of nomads to locate the enemy; once contact was made, his whole force dismounted to fight. He borrowed from Central Plains armies by dividing his troops into many five-man units (“five to a squad”), designating one man to hold the horses as a reserve while the other four charged and fought at the front. The Turks still used mounted archery, but mounted shooting has far shorter effective range than infantry shooting and is less densely concentrated (horse archers can only really fire from the first one or two ranks while charging). The Xueyantuo also learned an infantry volley technique — massed volleys of arrows. This change left the Turks bewildered and forced them to seek help from the Tang.
The semi-nomadic, semi-agricultural Tubo (Tibetan) people also liked to use their own elite as heavy infantry while throwing foreign nomadic horsemen away as cannon fodder — with this tactic they even beat the Turks in Xinjiang. Genghis Khan left the Mongols a textbook example of switching from mounted archery to infantry when needed: at the Battle of Yehuling the Mongol cavalry dismounted to make infantry assaults and defeated the Jin field army. （disputed）When Muqali faced Zhang Jing’s 35,000-strong force, he likewise had half of his elite Mongol troops dismount to fight on foot and pulled several thousand archers together for concentrated volleys — in that engagement they killed well over 12,800 of the enemy.
By the way, cavalry usually carry two kinds of bows. One is the short bow for shooting from horseback — easy to handle but short in range and low in power. The other is the longbow for fighting on foot — it reaches much farther and hits much harder
Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) discussed a three-line tactic used by the Turks of his time. Someone told me that modern Turks still fight with bows and that their battle formation is three parallel lines. The soldiers in the first line dismount to fight, empty the arrows from their quivers onto the ground in front of them, then sit down and begin shooting. Each line supports and covers the line in front of it in case those troops are broken. The fighting continues like that until one side wins — a very solid and quite distinctive formation (tábiya).
From Ibn Khaldun’s writing, it is clear that dismounting to shoot was advantageous for stabilizing the battle formation. His account can also be corroborated by several historical examples. One such case is the 1221 Battle of Parvan described in The History of the World Conqueror, where the Khwarezmian army dismounted and fought to the death, and indeed on the final day managed to repel the Mongols through dismounted archery.
A week after Sundan [Jalal al-Din] arrived at Parvan, the Mongol army appeared in the morning. Sundan immediately mounted his horse, advanced about a farsakh, and deployed his troops. He assigned the right wing to Amin-Miri and the left to Sayf al-Din Miri Aghrakh, while he himself commanded the center. He ordered the entire army to dismount but hold on to their horses and fight to the death. Because the right wing under Amin-Miri outnumbered the Mongols—ten thousand riders, all brave horsemen—they attacked the Mongol right and pushed it back. Reinforcements were continually sent from the center and left wing until the Mongols were driven back to their original position.
The next day, they again dismounted. The Mongols, sensing the ferocity and strength of Aghrakh’s troops, selected their baatur and launched an attack on the left wing. Aghrakh’s men stood their ground, drew their bows, and loosed volleys of arrows (ighrāq), holding off the Mongols. When the Mongols withdrew under this fire and returned to their lines, Sundan ordered the drums to be beaten, and the entire army mounted and launched a general assault, routing the Mongols.
However, during their retreat, the Mongols turned back and struck at Sundan’s forces, leaving nearly five hundred warriors dead on the field. At this critical moment, Sundan charged about like a lion of the steppe or a raging sea-beast, and the Mongols were finally defeated. Two noyans and a small contingent went ahead to await Genghis Khan, while Sundan’s army busied itself with plundering..
Also, Bacon just to be clear, my above comment offers no criticism or disparagement towards your books, I can easily separate shit in order to both enjoy and immerse myself into it. Which I am, and largely can’t wait to see how(if possible) a bastard Queen/king can reconcile with Ellie, and whether or not we can create some sort of “secret police” in the view of the Oprichniki under Ivan the terrible, or a personal guard/elite military formation, using the dishonored already in our army, and of kanton society as an whole.
Plus, I’m curious as to which art better represents the armor and weapons aesthetic/design of Kanton more
Thank you for putting so much thought into your post. That said most of the examples your provided were the Mongols opponents using dismounted archery rather than the Mongols themselves. The example of the Battle of Yehuling seems to be notable as an exception and unusual circumstance rather than as the usual practice.
Don’t want to turn this into the history of horse archery thread, but I think my point stands. For the purpose of fantasy verisimilitude, Mongols typically fought field battles as mounted archers, and it was an effective tactic.
The source you referred lost all its credibility when I read this, the Quran has no verse on war tactics, much less on mongol war tactics.
I don’t know if this post was ai generated and hallucinated or if its just misspelling
My point is this: the idea that nomadic armies “relied on horse archery to achieve decisive tactical superiority” is itself a misconception. For example, many people think the Mongols conquered vast parts of Eurasia mainly because of their horse archers; that the backbone of the Mongol Empire was these mounted archers; that the famous “small but enduring Mongol horses” combined with lightly armed mounted archers using hit-and-run “kite” tactics allowed them to defeat European heavy cavalry. Just like in many games: when enemy heavy cavalry charges, Mongol horse archers fall back while shooting; if the enemy withdraws, the horse archers pursue, shooting while riding. Sometimes the horse archers supposedly form rotating shooting circles for continuous fire. Or they split and envelop the enemy, “shreda—uh, annihilating” them.
This classic image of Mongol cavalry shows up everywhere — in Mount & Blade, Age of Empires, Total War, and all sorts of strategy games — but it does not exist in real warfare.
Contrary to popular imagination, the effective range of mounted archery was actually very short. Light cavalry typically had to ride to within 20–30 meters of the enemy line before they could shoot effectively — a distance close enough for enemy cavalry to close in with one charge. On top of that, mounted archers were constantly exposed to enemy foot archers. In general, horse bows had lower draw weight and smaller size than foot bows. In an exchange of arrows between foot and mounted archers, the mounted side was usually at a disadvantage.
The horseback is an extremely unstable shooting platform: the faster the horse runs and the rougher the terrain, the more violent the bouncing, and the more difficult accurate shooting becomes. At slightly longer ranges, accuracy drops dramatically. For this reason, mounted archers in actual combat had no choice but to get very close if they wanted to hit anything.
We can get a sense of real mounted-archery distances by looking at modern cultural practices. For example, in the FITE China International Horseback Archery Tournament, which uses the Hungarian “Kassai 99-meter course” rules, the target is only 9 meters from the track’s center line. Japan’s yabusame has an even shorter shooting distance — around 5 meters.
Short range is necessary not only for accuracy but also for lethality: arrows lose kinetic energy rapidly with distance, and thus penetration dramatically drops. As armor quality improved and more soldiers wore protection, mounted archers increasingly had to shoot from close range.
In short, the “Mongol horse archer” is largely a mythic exaggeration. They were not like in video games — impossibly accurate, fast, and devastating at long range. Real mounted archers were not the decisive backbone of the army; their primary roles were scouting and harassment. Even in pitched battle, the casualties inflicted by mounted archers were limited; their main effect was to stress enemy morale and restrict enemy maneuvering.
The Mongols’ true battlefield “killer weapon” was actually no different from contemporary Europeans: lance-armed shock cavalry, using one or multiple charges to smash through enemy formations. Once the heavy cavalry broke the enemy line and secured victory, the mounted archers typically handled the pursuit and capture of fleeing troops. And of course, when they were being harassed by enemy horse archers, they would deploy their own mounted archers or light cavalry to drive them off — which is when you often saw the spectacle of two groups of mounted archers chasing and shooting at each other.
The original text is not the Quran; it is The Journey of William of Rubruck (or Rubruck’s Account of the Mongols).”Google Chrome’s built-in webpage translation feature is actually better
