How would enlisting warriors/soldiers work?

Just curious as I know previously you have stated that the citizens will simply do a job if their characteristics go along with it, but then what about warfare? If this is the case, then all the brave warrior-like people will eventually die out as they are used for warfare ( unless the player deceides to not goto ‘war’ and in that case I’m guessing will simply have to fend off some raids and such ), will there be a building where people can casually decide to enlist in? And if so there should be a cap (which can be adjusted by the player) of how many maximum warriors they want in the tribe, but for example enlisting the warrior doesn’t mean he/she can’t do any of the laborious work anymore, but instead gives them a weapon or a rally point in the case of a raid or preparing to conduct a raid and they’ll suit up around the rally point?

@hansthedude

@nuLoon
I see there remark there, but my suggestion is to enlist people to the warband/army, you could filter who can join by possibly looking for a certain character trait or something, that post just says the downside of an unsuccessful raid, but if preparing is possible you could have a few dozen men ready for it, and be able to fight the odds against the village warrior which have no training.

Remember I did suggest that being enlisted does allow them to do labour as well, but then for example there could be a building for them to train that they would visit in their free time

I would imagine that there was no warrior class per se, only farmers and agricultural tools. With the rise of organised agriculture, you have the rise of raiders wanting to profit from the hard work and the artisan specialities that a sedentary life style produced. From that the rise of fortifications to defend against said raiders ( Jericho being a prime example). And so we get into that lovely self improving wheel of war with each advance in attack or defense promoting evolution in weaponry, tactics and materials.

1 Like

@hansthedude Hi, I’m just here sharing other discussions around this topic, not trying to provide any sort of definitive answer. I also find it interesting that an army or warrior class was unlikely until the Bronze Age empires. As you say, having a way to influence your villagers to have a more “viking-like” mentality would add some neat variety to gameplay styles.

Could I suggest one minor alteration to that: only villagers (even in agrarian societies I feel it might be a bit of a stretch for everyone to be a farmer) and hunting tools. The Javelin, the Bow and the Spear are almost as old as humanity itself, all hunting tools, all easy to make.

@nuLoon
I agree totally, it would be a more enjoyable game if such was implemented.

@Warspite666
I see your point, but what if you were allowed / able to build your society around the aspect of raiding, as you said, raiders would want to profit from the hard work of others, if so, then their should be a way as @nuLoon says to have a more “Viking-like” mentality, don’t you agree?

Again, I would like to propose stealing some of the game mechanics of Far Cry Primal for some small notion of what raiding parties probably looked like in the Paleolithic.

Look guys, I’m just gonna say that there’s a lot of you out there saying “no!” to the combat and warfare side of the game as it “wasn’t really viable in the Neolithic era” but I don’t wanna simply sit there and watch some villagers farm for eternity, barely surviving.
Instead I prefer a Neolithic INSPIRED game which follows suite but even if not available immeaditley, eventually has some warfare mechanics and system… don’t you agree that this is better?

Keep in mind that no armies in Neolithic times doesn’t means no combat.

4 Likes

exactly. look at some of these cave paintings of warbands clashing.

I’m very glad to hear that :smile::+1:

Is the first picture a neolithic one? I’m very surprised to see mounted horses or anything similar in those times.

For all I know on the subject, the chariot was invented because the horses could not be mounted before having a spine strong enough to carry a man.

They look more Bronze age to me, but would be interesting to know for sure.
Do you have information about them @Sargon?

1 Like

http://arthistoryworlds.org/some-of-the-cave-paintings-and-rock-art-from-bhimbetka/

this is where I got the first photo. Apparently, the cave has paintings older than 11,000 years old… it’s located in India, so not in Europe…

Although there would not be nearly as much organization, we can assume that a vast majority of the males in a village acted both as workers and army, whereas the hunters would be the raiding party (if the tribe were to have one).

Despite this, there were definitely pacifistic (and very successful) proto-civilizations like the Indus Valley Civilization :slight_smile:

Evidence for large-scale military conflict during the Neolithic is both scarce and unconvincing. Early Neolithic warfare probably involved small groups of people raiding villages for resources or to settle disputes. The combatants were likely simple villagers utilizing the same tools used for hunting and farming (and not dedicated warriors) using simple snatch-and-grab and ambush raids.

Anatolian stands ready to defend her mudbrick town from invaders

On occasion, entire villages were wholly massacred, as seen in the Talheim Death Pit of Germany (committed by the Linear Pottery Culture). In many of these cases of genocide, all but younger females tended to be killed, including children. It can be supposed the women were taken as slaves, due to their lower frequency within the mass graves (though this is NOT always the case).

Linear Pottery Culture woman with bow

It is also important to realize that the majority of combatants, having no formal military training, would likely have spent much of their time intimidating their opponents than actually engaging in deadly melee.

I think your going to have to define large-scale military conflict. What is large in one region is a skirmish in another. How your going to define it is going to go a long way in framing your opinion.

I suppose I would define large scale as being a significant percentage of a population engaging and militaristic actions. The wholesale dedication of a significant percentage of a tribe represents a major, if not mortal, risk to that population.

Given the small size of many Neolithic societies, a large-scale military operation could probably be defined with his little as perhaps 50 plus combatants on the aggressor side. I would not count the size of the defending party is that could easily count as the entire tribe. Just because someone takes up a weapon in defense does not mean that they are a defacto fighting force, more of an ipso facto fighting force.

Perhaps I should have clarified this in my initial statement, but the problem is, as you put it, there is a sliding scale of population with respect to both time and location. With at least two degrees of freedom in the boundary conditions, the answer to your question would require knowing the time and location ( which could be used to quantify the statement given known archaeological data from that area). As a result, I was speaking generally.