Where? There's a lot of piracy in this time period.Is the Piracy still continuing?
Mind you, Im presenting things from the Roman POV where the fiasco with the Catalan company still is a sore point.A don't think mercenaries are a problem.If anything,the history of the Roman Empire showed that having a good number of mercenaries is great.The idea however is to have a healthy number of mercenaries,not fully reliant on them,but not keep them as low as possible.Having a good number of mercenaries prevents coups and gives the emperor a reliable source of troops to fight against potential usurpers.What's needed however is that you need to ensure that you can actually pay these troops.Another thing is that on a permanent basis,mercenary units shouldn't be hired as companies but as individual troops enrolled in permanent army units with promotions controlled by the government.
There's that and the fact that Rome is now essentially taking up the role Venice had in the Black Sea- a major rival for the Silk Road trade.Good update.
I think that the future Geneoese-Roman conflict will deal nicely with the debt owed to the Genoese Loan sharks and could easily be a large contributing factor to the cause of the war.
Well they aren't exactly like the Jannisaries. They're supplemental units that are spread around to reinforce the main army, rather than a separate army fighting alongside.Well, if allowing a core of mercenaries to become an army a la Janissaries could help the Empire to survive and regain ground as the creation of a national army will lag in the meanwhile, then should be enough welcomed. Even if later will bite back it.
Well not about range, its about finding a counter to horse archers. The idea is to recreate something like the English did with their longbowmen in the Hundred Years War against French knights on horseback. And this ties in with the whole fortification thing, lots of forts, stationed with lots of troops that can attack in long range make taking and holding the land (in theory) a very difficult task.Good update and good to see you back.
One minor pin however. I don't think that longbowmen succesfully outranging horse archers is plausible. And I'm not even trying to reenable the old longbow v. s. Mongol composite bow(I do however firmly believe that comparing to a proper composite bow longbow is crap; it's just that Western Europe didn't have anything better) it's simply due to the fact that horse archer fires bow when galloping and that adds the energy of the movement to the shot. So no matter what bow archers use the horse archer would always have advantage.
Where? There's a lot of piracy in this time period.
Today I found out this TL and I've caught up. Subscribed! quite a realistic approach so far.
They are being idiots.Everyone knows what would happen if you refuse to pay any army unit,especially mercenaries.Where? There's a lot of piracy in this time period.
Mind you, Im presenting things from the Roman POV where the fiasco with the Catalan company still is a sore point.
There's that and the fact that Rome is now essentially taking up the role Venice had in the Black Sea- a major rival for the Silk Road trade.
Well they aren't exactly like the Jannisaries. They're supplemental units that are spread around to reinforce the main army, rather than a separate army fighting alongside.
Well not about range, its about finding a counter to horse archers. The idea is to recreate something like the English did with their longbowmen in the Hundred Years War against French knights on horseback. And this ties in with the whole fortification thing, lots of forts, stationed with lots of troops that can attack in long range make taking and holding the land (in theory) a very difficult task.
Well we shall see.Hopefully this new army should stop the Genoese loansharks from breaking the proverbial legs of the Empire. Still, provided that the Empire has enough time to build up the army as well as its willingness to take the best of what it sees in the military of others, it could be a very powerful tool for future expansion. Certainly with the Ottomans out of the picture, Rhomania should have a much easier time of things. I'm eager to see where she strikes next.
Brilliant stuff!
Not really, although there's a couple of under the table operations going on.The Rhomans' using Aydin's fleet as a cover to conduct pirate raids against other people's shipping.
Thank you! I appreciate the praiseToday I found out this TL and I've caught up. Subscribed! quite a realistic approach so far.
They are being idiots.Everyone knows what would happen if you refuse to pay any army unit,especially mercenaries.
It'll be fun when Timur rides in.As for archery,it's been well established that foot archers have a decisive edge against horse archers in a shootout.Riding on a horse makes horse archers a massive target by foot archers.There's a reason why in the event of a shootout,horse archers generally dismount.There's also the fact that Parthian shot works best if the horse archer rides up close to enemy units and then shoot them.