Baris and I have just finished a Second Punic War game, the final nail in Carthage's coffin was a naval engagement off the coast of Africa.
This led me to wonder if it is correct that Roman ships are equipped with the corvus in this scenario. It means that Carthage can never challenge Rome at sea.........
I think probably not. I think this was only used in the first Punic war.
Any one else with any thoughts on this.
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Ebbingford
- Posts: 6162
- Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2007 5:22 pm
- Location: England
Questions on the Corvus
"Umbrellas will not be opened in the presence of the enemy." Duke of Wellington before the Battle of Waterloo, 1815.
"Top hats will not be worn in the Eighth Army" Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein K.G.
"Top hats will not be worn in the Eighth Army" Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein K.G.
For what i know corvus was indeed just used on the First Punic War.
But during the second Punic war Rome ruled the seas historically. Thats why Hannibal and Hasdrubal had to cross Galia and the Alps to get to Italy by foot, as they could not compete with Rome at sea.
On HAN both sides can construct similarly sized navies. It's just having the expensive Corvus quinquerremes what gives Rome the edge at sea.
IMHO if someone wants to remove corvus ships they should reduce CAR naval pool a lot to keep Rome superiority at sea.
Honestly, is the only place Rome has some edge for the first 80 or 100 turns.
On land they cannot dream to fight Hannibal neither by quality nor by quatity (the later kind of surprise me, as i expected Rome could recruit more tropps than CAR, but it's completely the opposite. For many years Rome can only field 7 legion+7 alae and a bunch of allied troops while CAR can recruit hordes of nice spanish, galic and african troops)
As you may had noticed, i'm currently playing Rome on a 219 PBEM game and getting kicked around by Hannibal and his buddies
Only my corvus quinquerremes give some joy from time to time!
Regards!
But during the second Punic war Rome ruled the seas historically. Thats why Hannibal and Hasdrubal had to cross Galia and the Alps to get to Italy by foot, as they could not compete with Rome at sea.
On HAN both sides can construct similarly sized navies. It's just having the expensive Corvus quinquerremes what gives Rome the edge at sea.
IMHO if someone wants to remove corvus ships they should reduce CAR naval pool a lot to keep Rome superiority at sea.
Honestly, is the only place Rome has some edge for the first 80 or 100 turns.
On land they cannot dream to fight Hannibal neither by quality nor by quatity (the later kind of surprise me, as i expected Rome could recruit more tropps than CAR, but it's completely the opposite. For many years Rome can only field 7 legion+7 alae and a bunch of allied troops while CAR can recruit hordes of nice spanish, galic and african troops)
As you may had noticed, i'm currently playing Rome on a 219 PBEM game and getting kicked around by Hannibal and his buddies
Only my corvus quinquerremes give some joy from time to time!
Regards!
I do agree with the above post about CAR Navy and SPQ troops FrocePool.
The existing ForcePool give a big advantage to CAR player in PBEM.
But maybe they do help IA.
Maybe a PBEM only version of the scenario should be generate to avoid such issues.
Regards
The existing ForcePool give a big advantage to CAR player in PBEM.
But maybe they do help IA.
Maybe a PBEM only version of the scenario should be generate to avoid such issues.
Regards
Marco, perché vai così forte in salita?» «Per abbreviare la mia agonia.
With the lack of naval strenght Macedon and Syracuse alliance seems a bit cosmetic as they can not perform any breach on walls and easily isolated. Roman navy on turn 1 would start naval blockade in Carthage capital immediately. Leptis Magna will be captured a few turns later. Maybe level 2 forts should be protecting it.
I think EP is excessive for long campaign play.
Removing corvus and decreasing Carthage naval pool would be better for fair sea battles if both historical and better gameplay wise. Otherwise building navy is waste of resources. Roman navy was around 1.3-1.4 multiple strenght and armies were mostly equal in size. Once Hannibal get older I think legions much stronger when evenly matched.
I think EP is excessive for long campaign play.
Removing corvus and decreasing Carthage naval pool would be better for fair sea battles if both historical and better gameplay wise. Otherwise building navy is waste of resources. Roman navy was around 1.3-1.4 multiple strenght and armies were mostly equal in size. Once Hannibal get older I think legions much stronger when evenly matched.
Hi!
For my playing experience, i don't see things the same. I guess i'm seeing Roman weak spots and you CAR ones
You cannot permanently blockade Cartaghe. In offensive stance the fleet loses his cohesion in a couple of turns. Then it has to return to port. If you divide your fleet in two so one is blockading while the other rests, they get weak enough to be defeated by CAR
In defensice stance, a fleet on a blockaded port can sail away in defensive or passive without triggerig any combat. So it only helps if you are besiegeing the city.
Having somewhat control of the seas is what gives Rome his only safe haven to avoid extermination on Hannibal hands: port cities with level 2+ walls Hannibal can't blockade are safe. All the rest is bound to end on CAR hands sooner or later.
As Rome you have to options: you let Hannibal assault or besiege and take any inland city he wants or you can try to defend them with your army, get slaughterd and then see how he besiege or assault at will.
Fighting Hannibal before he gets old 211, no matter the odds is pure suicide.
For what i've seen on another game, the only exception to the rule may be triying to defend at all costs on Felsina early on, before he leaves Cisalpina. In Felisna the swamp terrain is so restrictive on frontage Hannibal may have difficulties killing enough romans before the battle ends.
Taking Epirote cities is indeed difficult but most because of the terrible wheather on those regions than because of roman naval superiority.
In our game my CAR has played really well on those areas and has been able to starve and take Apollonia and even Ariminum using the stormy wheather as a shield. I dreaded risking my expensive corvus quinquerremes on stormy wheather and before it cleared the cities had fallen.
Syracuse is a pain for Rome when it changes sides. It ask for a long siege and blockading effort that ties your fleet.
Roman fleet with corvus is stronger, but cannot be anywhere at once. And again, if you disperse it to chase away port blockading fleets you risk being caught by the whole CAR fleet and defeated.
In our game both of us has invested heavily on fleets. Me (Rome) because for several years i had nothing else to recruit (the legion pool is limited to 7 legions until around 214, the 5 you start with and two more unless Hannibal triggers some of those events that gave you a couple of free legions).
CAR tried to keep on my naval construction and he was able to do it with no problem. Our navies are the same size, but as he lacks corvus, i get the upper hand in combat.
But things are so close that as i said before, Rome has to be very carefully to not disperse his combat fleet around.
Regarding land, in our game, even with 6 free event legions plus the 5 o 6 that get added to the pool around 213 plus the starting 7, plus all the alae and the rest of units i can recruit i'm around the same land strenght than CAR according to the ledger power comparisons. And this comparison don't take into account Hannibal special capacities, which in fact makes me much weaker than CAR on land.
My naval superiority makes for some of this disadvantage, but too much IMHO
Regarding EP, as Rome i'm finding it pretty scarce. Not at the start of the game, but later on, when CAR starts controling most of Italy and you get less of them.
Regards!
For my playing experience, i don't see things the same. I guess i'm seeing Roman weak spots and you CAR ones
You cannot permanently blockade Cartaghe. In offensive stance the fleet loses his cohesion in a couple of turns. Then it has to return to port. If you divide your fleet in two so one is blockading while the other rests, they get weak enough to be defeated by CAR
In defensice stance, a fleet on a blockaded port can sail away in defensive or passive without triggerig any combat. So it only helps if you are besiegeing the city.
Having somewhat control of the seas is what gives Rome his only safe haven to avoid extermination on Hannibal hands: port cities with level 2+ walls Hannibal can't blockade are safe. All the rest is bound to end on CAR hands sooner or later.
As Rome you have to options: you let Hannibal assault or besiege and take any inland city he wants or you can try to defend them with your army, get slaughterd and then see how he besiege or assault at will.
Fighting Hannibal before he gets old 211, no matter the odds is pure suicide.
For what i've seen on another game, the only exception to the rule may be triying to defend at all costs on Felsina early on, before he leaves Cisalpina. In Felisna the swamp terrain is so restrictive on frontage Hannibal may have difficulties killing enough romans before the battle ends.
Taking Epirote cities is indeed difficult but most because of the terrible wheather on those regions than because of roman naval superiority.
In our game my CAR has played really well on those areas and has been able to starve and take Apollonia and even Ariminum using the stormy wheather as a shield. I dreaded risking my expensive corvus quinquerremes on stormy wheather and before it cleared the cities had fallen.
Syracuse is a pain for Rome when it changes sides. It ask for a long siege and blockading effort that ties your fleet.
Roman fleet with corvus is stronger, but cannot be anywhere at once. And again, if you disperse it to chase away port blockading fleets you risk being caught by the whole CAR fleet and defeated.
In our game both of us has invested heavily on fleets. Me (Rome) because for several years i had nothing else to recruit (the legion pool is limited to 7 legions until around 214, the 5 you start with and two more unless Hannibal triggers some of those events that gave you a couple of free legions).
CAR tried to keep on my naval construction and he was able to do it with no problem. Our navies are the same size, but as he lacks corvus, i get the upper hand in combat.
But things are so close that as i said before, Rome has to be very carefully to not disperse his combat fleet around.
Regarding land, in our game, even with 6 free event legions plus the 5 o 6 that get added to the pool around 213 plus the starting 7, plus all the alae and the rest of units i can recruit i'm around the same land strenght than CAR according to the ledger power comparisons. And this comparison don't take into account Hannibal special capacities, which in fact makes me much weaker than CAR on land.
My naval superiority makes for some of this disadvantage, but too much IMHO
Regarding EP, as Rome i'm finding it pretty scarce. Not at the start of the game, but later on, when CAR starts controling most of Italy and you get less of them.
Regards!
Bohémond wrote:If somebody get guidelines for ForcePool adjustment, I can include it in a mini mod dedicated to PBEM.
Regards
Hi Bohemond!
That will be very interesting. But honestly, i'm not too sure about what gidelines i could propose, as i haven't played HAN on PBEM and only a little against the IA.
One thing to take into account is that since 1.05 patch CAR can buy replacements for his gallic units (and also for greek mercenaries and maybe some other faction too).
I was a proponent of this change as IMHO it makes no sense Hannibal cannot replace gallic losses while in cisalpina while he can buy african or spanish replacements for example.
But i fear this change may have unbalanced the game somewhat.
Before the gallic units mostly dissapeared after some years of combat for lack of replacements, but now they can be kept healthy during all the game, being a big part of Hannibal army on Italy.
So to compensate for this i would think a reduction on the gallic unit pool would be nice. He gets a lot of gallic units for free when he enters the Cisalpina. So reducing a lot aditional recruitment won't be too unbalancing i think.
But for what i've seen, i think the main recruitment pool for CAR is Hispania. At start they have a lot of units to recruit, some of them excellent and none too expensive.
As the game progresses, some spanish tribes rebel and when CAR subdues them, they recieve new recruitment pools of this tribes in adition to starndart spanish pools! And as CAR has several leaders that can command spanish units without penalties this is a big boon.
Not to speak of that big and well led ilergete army CAR gets for free as soon as Rome enters hispania...
Rome instead has much smaller spanish units pools and specially has no leader who can command them without 4x CP penalies, so they are of little use, as Rome leaders are not plentiful at all.
At least until Scipio Africanus arrives late in the game (i think he can command spanish units).
Regarding the african pools, for the little i've played with CAR they seem pretty big too, but honestly i don't know if this is historic or not.
Baris or some other CAR player maybe can confirm my suspicion that on this campaign CAR never really needs to recruit a big part of his land combat units pools. There are more units that they need.
While Rome usually has his land combat unit pool empty and is wanting for more to buy but can't.
Regards!
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Ebbingford
- Posts: 6162
- Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2007 5:22 pm
- Location: England
Roman fleet doesn't need to be in offensive posture. It can sit in the sea zone outside Carthage in defensive posture but with the intercept button selected. Carthage cannot move by sea from Carthage without getting intercepted. You only need to send transport ships back to Sicily for resupply. The fleet can sit there all game. 
"Umbrellas will not be opened in the presence of the enemy." Duke of Wellington before the Battle of Waterloo, 1815.
"Top hats will not be worn in the Eighth Army" Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein K.G.
"Top hats will not be worn in the Eighth Army" Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein K.G.
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Cardinal Ape
- General of the Army
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- Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:59 am
Anyone ever play the old board game Hannibal versus Rome? Anytime Carthage wanted to move troops by sea they had to roll a six sided die and if you didn't roll high enough your troops all died or they failed to move. This game has the same feel - Rome rules the seas; enter at your own peril. I think it is good.
I don't have much experience with naval combat in this scenario so I can't speak to that directly, but I do think this scenario has some balance problems. I think the main problem is that the Carthage economy is too good - or that their units do not cost enough across the board.
With efficient use of the requisition and enslavement cards it did not take me long to build the entire Carthage land unit pool. Also, if Rome fails to use their navy early in the game to disrupt the Carthaginian economy, it is game over. Leptis Magna, silver mine shipments from Hispania, and the big Mare Internum Commercius trade all need to be countered or the Hannibal steamroller gets too much speed too quickly.
When Carthage does a good job of building their army quickly there really is no hope of stopping Hannibal. Rome simply does not have the force pool to put up any kind of fight. In some way or another, Rome needs more time.
One thing I found to be too easy as Carthage was keeping my units well supplied by excessive building of depots. One can build four supply wagons for $160. They can be built almost anywhere and immediately consumed to build a level 4 depot from scratch, and then you repeat the cycle every other turn. I think wagons should cost more or take longer to build then one turn.
Another feature I found to be heavily in favor of Carthage is the ability to attach units to generals. Because Carthage has many more and better generals this puts even more stress on the small Roman force in the early stages of the game. Giving Hannibal and Muttines direct control of the Galli and Iberii mercenarii equates to over 900 power alone! It is obsane. And yes, obsane is a word I just made up, a combo of obscene and insane because that is what Hannibal deserves. Removing this feature might help balance.
I don't have much experience with naval combat in this scenario so I can't speak to that directly, but I do think this scenario has some balance problems. I think the main problem is that the Carthage economy is too good - or that their units do not cost enough across the board.
With efficient use of the requisition and enslavement cards it did not take me long to build the entire Carthage land unit pool. Also, if Rome fails to use their navy early in the game to disrupt the Carthaginian economy, it is game over. Leptis Magna, silver mine shipments from Hispania, and the big Mare Internum Commercius trade all need to be countered or the Hannibal steamroller gets too much speed too quickly.
When Carthage does a good job of building their army quickly there really is no hope of stopping Hannibal. Rome simply does not have the force pool to put up any kind of fight. In some way or another, Rome needs more time.
One thing I found to be too easy as Carthage was keeping my units well supplied by excessive building of depots. One can build four supply wagons for $160. They can be built almost anywhere and immediately consumed to build a level 4 depot from scratch, and then you repeat the cycle every other turn. I think wagons should cost more or take longer to build then one turn.
Another feature I found to be heavily in favor of Carthage is the ability to attach units to generals. Because Carthage has many more and better generals this puts even more stress on the small Roman force in the early stages of the game. Giving Hannibal and Muttines direct control of the Galli and Iberii mercenarii equates to over 900 power alone! It is obsane. And yes, obsane is a word I just made up, a combo of obscene and insane because that is what Hannibal deserves. Removing this feature might help balance.
So intercept works on defensive stance, letting you attack nearby enemy fleets?
I have used intercept a lot in my games and with great results, but always in offensive losing cohesion after a couple of turns.
I understand why baris is worried. Intercept on defensive may result overpowered
Maybe what should be fixed is this and not the corvus
It makes no sense you must be in offensive to attack passing fleets in just your region but can attack fleets on all adjacent sea regions on defensive.
That kind of patrolling should cost cohesion.
Regards
I have used intercept a lot in my games and with great results, but always in offensive losing cohesion after a couple of turns.
I understand why baris is worried. Intercept on defensive may result overpowered
Maybe what should be fixed is this and not the corvus
It makes no sense you must be in offensive to attack passing fleets in just your region but can attack fleets on all adjacent sea regions on defensive.
That kind of patrolling should cost cohesion.
Regards
Very interesting post.
About the curvus issue, if it is ahistorical to use it in this scenario I totally agree with what baris has written:
I'm the one playing with Arsan and I agree in most of his sentences. I'm the CAR player and I've increased the fleet in order to challenge the roman fleet. But as baris said it was a waste of money. I massed what seemed a very powerful fleet (I have no more fleet to buy) but every time I exit the Carthage port I clash with a roman navy that intercepts and defeats it. Even with Bomilcar, that has a very useful ability to escape the attacking fleet.
That has happened three or four times, with a 3-4 loss of national morale. Now I've changed the strategy and I try to sail away only with light ships that have more evade capacity, and with Bomilcar as the commander... I'll see if that works, but the fleet is almost useless if it doesn't.
I was very lucky because I did'nt know that if you don't move a fleet out of a storm symbol region it suffers no harm. That or I've been lucky and the storm had no effect despite the storm symbol...
And now the army balance.
I'm playing two PBEM games (the Arsan one is the second). In the first one (wich is about to end) Hannibal losed his gallic, celtic and mercenary (greek) units too soon and they had no replacements at all. So that and my own mistakes in opening a war against the northeastern Cisalpina gallic tribes stalled Hannibal march in the north side of the Po mouth. Scipio father trenched in the south side of the Po river and he has been there all the rest of the game, making the game a bit boring and the roman side will easily win with a lot of VP margin.
In the second game I had the experience of the first one and the new patch that Franciscus made, wich allowed the purchase of gallic, celtic and mercenary replacements. That made Hannibal maybe too powerful. He was able to defeat Scipio father every time they clashed, even crossing the Po. After that Hannibal conquered a few italian cities plus Tarentum with the traitor option. Then he went for Rome and smashed the Scipio army there with about 60.000 roman casualties. Now he's there trying to take Rome, perhaps making the game boring to Arsan, that had no chance to defeat Hannibal.
Anyway... I do see the game totally historical and very well designed. Some examples:
-The first part of the SPW, Hannibal was indeed the terror of Rome and defeated every army that fought with him. After that the romans avoided him and he was errand, wich is also very well depicted in the game when he kinda "gets older".
-The iberian peninsula also is well depicted. If the CAR side defeats the iberian revolts he can purchase new units (wich only happens with the turtedans) because the politics of hostages and personal unions the cartaginians had with the iberians.
-In spite of the corvus matter, the roman fleet is stronger as it was historically and has CAR side scared of his power.
The way the game is designed, it seems that Hannibal has the chance to conquer Rome and do what he did'nt made, wich is totally realistic. I wouldn't change that. But in terms of game, how can the roman player stop it? The roman player should stop him like it did: avoiding great battles and using his greater human and food resources to build and rebuild legions in Italy, and take the war to the cartaginian territory.
To represent this maybe the romans should have the chance to create more units (but not more than what history tells us, of course) to confront all these challenges, or like Arsan says reduce the number of gallic units Hannibal gets in the Cisalpina. If the roman player has to stop a Hannibal that can conquer Rome and also taking the fight to other countries with the chance to win he needs more units.
That are our experience and thoughts so far.
Yes, if this is true that should be reworked. A defending interception force makes no sense at all.
About the curvus issue, if it is ahistorical to use it in this scenario I totally agree with what baris has written:
" wrote:Removing corvus and decreasing Carthage naval pool would be better for fair sea battles if both historical and better gameplay wise. Otherwise building navy is waste of resources. Roman navy was around 1.3-1.4 multiple strenght and armies were mostly equal in size. Once Hannibal get older I think legions much stronger when evenly matched.
I'm the one playing with Arsan and I agree in most of his sentences. I'm the CAR player and I've increased the fleet in order to challenge the roman fleet. But as baris said it was a waste of money. I massed what seemed a very powerful fleet (I have no more fleet to buy) but every time I exit the Carthage port I clash with a roman navy that intercepts and defeats it. Even with Bomilcar, that has a very useful ability to escape the attacking fleet.
That has happened three or four times, with a 3-4 loss of national morale. Now I've changed the strategy and I try to sail away only with light ships that have more evade capacity, and with Bomilcar as the commander... I'll see if that works, but the fleet is almost useless if it doesn't.
" wrote:Taking Epirote cities is indeed difficult but most because of the terrible wheather on those regions than because of roman naval superiority.
In our game my CAR has played really well on those areas and has been able to starve and take Apollonia and even Ariminum using the stormy wheather as a shield. I dreaded risking my expensive corvus quinquerremes on stormy wheather and before it cleared the cities had fallen.
I was very lucky because I did'nt know that if you don't move a fleet out of a storm symbol region it suffers no harm. That or I've been lucky and the storm had no effect despite the storm symbol...
And now the army balance.
I'm playing two PBEM games (the Arsan one is the second). In the first one (wich is about to end) Hannibal losed his gallic, celtic and mercenary (greek) units too soon and they had no replacements at all. So that and my own mistakes in opening a war against the northeastern Cisalpina gallic tribes stalled Hannibal march in the north side of the Po mouth. Scipio father trenched in the south side of the Po river and he has been there all the rest of the game, making the game a bit boring and the roman side will easily win with a lot of VP margin.
In the second game I had the experience of the first one and the new patch that Franciscus made, wich allowed the purchase of gallic, celtic and mercenary replacements. That made Hannibal maybe too powerful. He was able to defeat Scipio father every time they clashed, even crossing the Po. After that Hannibal conquered a few italian cities plus Tarentum with the traitor option. Then he went for Rome and smashed the Scipio army there with about 60.000 roman casualties. Now he's there trying to take Rome, perhaps making the game boring to Arsan, that had no chance to defeat Hannibal.
Anyway... I do see the game totally historical and very well designed. Some examples:
-The first part of the SPW, Hannibal was indeed the terror of Rome and defeated every army that fought with him. After that the romans avoided him and he was errand, wich is also very well depicted in the game when he kinda "gets older".
-The iberian peninsula also is well depicted. If the CAR side defeats the iberian revolts he can purchase new units (wich only happens with the turtedans) because the politics of hostages and personal unions the cartaginians had with the iberians.
-In spite of the corvus matter, the roman fleet is stronger as it was historically and has CAR side scared of his power.
The way the game is designed, it seems that Hannibal has the chance to conquer Rome and do what he did'nt made, wich is totally realistic. I wouldn't change that. But in terms of game, how can the roman player stop it? The roman player should stop him like it did: avoiding great battles and using his greater human and food resources to build and rebuild legions in Italy, and take the war to the cartaginian territory.
To represent this maybe the romans should have the chance to create more units (but not more than what history tells us, of course) to confront all these challenges, or like Arsan says reduce the number of gallic units Hannibal gets in the Cisalpina. If the roman player has to stop a Hannibal that can conquer Rome and also taking the fight to other countries with the chance to win he needs more units.
That are our experience and thoughts so far.
" wrote:So intercept works on defensive stance, letting you attack nearby enemy fleets?
I have used intercept a lot in my games and with great results, but always in offensive losing cohesion after a couple of turns.
I understand why baris is worried. Intercept on defensive may result overpowered
Maybe what should be fixed is this and not the corvus
It makes no sense you must be in offensive to attack passing fleets in just your region but can attack fleets on all adjacent sea regions on defensive.
That kind of patrolling should cost cohesion.
Regards
Yes, if this is true that should be reworked. A defending interception force makes no sense at all.
Dortmund wrote:
Now I've changed the strategy and I try to sail away only with light ships that have more evade capacity, and with Bomilcar as the commander... I'll see if that works, but the fleet is almost useless if it doesn't.
I think Bomilcar have a trait he can retreat after 1st round of battle. But naval battle losses can be decisive in the first round. With a smaller force (2-3 units) with evade combat order his navy destroyed by Romans in the first round of battle.
I think he has also evade special ablity but not useful maybe bacause Africa coast usually in clear weather ; not possible to hide.
Dortmund wrote:I was very lucky because I did'nt know that if you don't move a fleet out of a storm symbol region it suffers no harm. That or I've been lucky and the storm had no effect despite the storm symbol...
My impression is same. It seems if navies don't move they don't get hit by storm.
corvus was a transitional force multiplier, it removed superior sea skills by fixing each ship in place, once the socio learned the sea skills, the corvus was no longer used, as its main weaknes/strength was that a ship fixed in place was then determined by close combat and marines numbers. Once you know thats comming, you stack the ship with troops. Gallic punic force pools should be tied to Hannys prescence in N Italy i would think, as some other events use x elements and x leader in x region. Or a straight cap to the force pool. The storm mod makes a lot of sense to me. Car can defeat Roman at sea by being not at carthage and easy to interdict, instead march land forces to another port and board where the ai is expecting you to be and have evade on the navy and your usally able to move troops to Spain unhurt. Storms will get the Romans sooer or later and then you can finish them. WHy are Baleric sligers range1? i dont get that.
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Straight Arrow
- General
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- Location: Washington State
hanny1 wrote:once the socio learned the sea skills, the corvus was no longer used.
Perhaps,
But there is another potential cause as to why the Romans may have stopped using the corvus. Ancient warships were glorified racing shells. Wind power provided transportation to and fro, but during combat, masts were taken down and battles were performed under oar power. There was a very good reason for this, Ship stability.
Due to being commonly run ashore on beaches, every night if they could, Roman and Greek warships had a very shallow draft, around 4 feet for a roman quinquereme. These ships lacked a deep keel, and this resulted in their masts strongly affecting the vessel’s center of gravity.
The Corvus compounded this problem. According to Polybios, the device was as a bridge 1.2 m (4 ft) wide and 10.9 m (36 ft) long, with a small parapet. It was attached to a pole at the bow. A system of pulleys allowed the corvus to be raised and lowered. When dropped, a heavy spike on underside of the device pierced the enemy's deck and formed a firm connection between the vessels that allowed legionaries to come into their own.
And thus we have the corvus, crap for ship handling and great for boarding. It is possible the Romans abandoned the corvus after it compounded tremendous loses due to storms.
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