Pepperm1nts

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

This will tell you all you need to know about Italy's naval power and their military record as a whole. I link to that specifically because it's the only battle I know from memory where Italy dun goofed at sea.

tl;dr: It's bad.

Do The Eagles Circle The Mountains? - A Eastern "Middle Ages" Fantasy RP

The Han Dynasty defeated the Romans in an expedition into central Asia, primarily because the bolts penetrated Roman armor and shields.

@Maavoimat

Are you referring to the Battle of Zhizhi? Because if you are, that is kind of a bad example. Firstly, only about a hundred Roman soldiers were supposedly involved, and this is only speculated because the men were said to have fought in a formation that resembled the Roman testudo. It has never actually been proven that it was Romans. And if even if it had been, it was hardly an "expedition", and not a true battle between Romans and Han Chinese.

Do The Eagles Circle The Mountains? - A Eastern "Middle Ages" Fantasy RP

Do you, then, mayne.

But in the words of Yoren: "Always hated crossbows; takes too long to load!"

Do The Eagles Circle The Mountains? - A Eastern "Middle Ages" Fantasy RP

But it's pointless to use crossbows that way when you can use bows. If you are going to be forming lines, you may as well be able to fire a lot of arrows rapidly, as opposed to a few a minute. When you are firing in volleys, the point is to fire in unison and pretty much rain death on people. You do that more effectively if you are firing rapidly. And if you are going to be forming lines, then you are presumably firing from afar, which would be negating the armor-piercing ability of a crossbow, and as a result be negating the one trait that crossbows have over bows. So you'd just be handicapping yourself at that point. You'd be better off with a bow. You can even slap on some armor-piercing heads to the arrows.

EDIT: The one redeeming factor is that crossbows are easier to master, so you don't have to spend as much time training people.

Do The Eagles Circle The Mountains? - A Eastern "Middle Ages" Fantasy RP

Yeah, I think if you're going to form firing lines to fire volleys, it kind of defeats the purpose of being on a horse. Might as well be infantry.

EDIT: Unrelated - How long ago did Shapur's conquest of the desert area happen?

Do The Eagles Circle The Mountains? - A Eastern "Middle Ages" Fantasy RP

Yeh, Mongols relied on speed a lot. Not just on horseback, moving around fast, but also in terms of firing rate. You can't fire rapidly with a crossbow, so you'll either have riders firing all at once, in volleys, or sporadically, with shots very spaced out and random. With bows though, you can have a continuous stream of arrows raining down on the enemy because every rider can and will be firing arrows back-to-back, so there is no pause. Cranking up a crossbow on horseback, especially on the move, has to be a pain in the ass too. I can't say crossbows would have been my first choice.

EDIT: Just realized the above post had nothing to do with speed. Sleep-deprived again, don't mind me. Still a good thing to remember though.

Do The Eagles Circle The Mountains? - A Eastern "Middle Ages" Fantasy RP

Just so you know, the player for 'Koraha' left and the territory that made up his nation is open for anyone. It's just that Aaron hasn't gotten around to editing it out of the map. Since he left after posting only once, we're just pretending Koraha was never a thing. So if you want a key to the sea, you can move your location there. If you still want the location you picked, that's fine too.

Do The Eagles Circle The Mountains? - A Eastern "Middle Ages" Fantasy RP

If I were to relocate north, drop the boats, and redesign the nation so that it was geared more towards the rest of the environment, would that be acceptable?

@Maavoimat

Of course. It's not like you only get one chance to make an acceptable sheet :P

It's your choice though. There are a few things you can do. You can 1) Completely redesign the nation so that it fits the setting more. If you do this, keep in mind you don't absolutely have to base them on India. The Indian theme is predominant only because the Visha conquered most of the continent and influenced the cultures of its inhabitants. But if you want something different, anything eastern will work.

2) You can make some edits to your nation so that it makes more sense. The biggest problem with your sheet is that the Norse theme doesn't fit in with the setting. But if you absolutely must keep it, you're going to have to make it make sense. One way I see that being done is by relocating further north and basing your nation on Kiev Rus and the Varangians who, in real life, were vikings that sailed down to modern-day Ukraine. In this case, they'd be sailing into the northern steppes from somewhere even farther north. The only problem with that is that as of now, we have quite a few players that are playing as people who came from other distant lands, so another such nation may be too much in my opinion. You can still do it, if you want, but it'd be cool to see something else.

If you were to completely rethink your sheet, I'd suggest considering something like the Mongols. Aaron also mentioned that you could go for something like the Magyars from Hungary, since they are a Finno-Ugric group and as such, are a good compromise. They would also fit in better than full-blown vikings. And they were horsemen, which would work well in the northern steppes.

Do The Eagles Circle The Mountains? - A Eastern "Middle Ages" Fantasy RP

I read Vilage's sheet again to use as reference as I write my own, and I realized this bit sounds like it was pulled from a vampire dating website:

The Gul-Shapur
-Alecta. A female Gul in her late forties. Attractive, looking to spawn children before she gets too old.

Do The Eagles Circle The Mountains? - A Eastern "Middle Ages" Fantasy RP

EDIT: -disregard this I make stupid posts when sleep-deprived.-