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6/8/2025, 1:47:03 AM
>>2061450
And the other bit with cavalry was my own sussybobcatism at the actual historians. Over and over you'd read that early cavalry was primitive, inefficient, required a pseudo-chariot-team of one guy holding the reins. They say this because of Assyrian reliefs of Ashurnasirpal in the mid 800s. The same reliefs that show enemies of said king doing parthian shots. Meaning it was just Assyrians who were inexperienced with cavalry.
A really interesting theory for the rise of cavalry I came across that I find compelling is the introduction of metal snaffle bits (possibly also jointed, I forget). It was in Robert Drews 2004 Early Riders book, I can't remember the exact thesis but it was that either metal snaffle bits, or metal and jointed snaffle bits, meant you could actually fully control the horse. Prior to that and organic bits could be tongued by the horse to fall into a part of their mouth that meant the snaffle did fuck all. Or straight up just break the organic bit. In a chariot you've got the other horse and also the rigging of the chariot to give you some control. On horseback it's that snaffle or you've trained it with your thighs and that's it.
The oft cited
>"Horses weren't robust enough to carry an armed man from horseback"
seems like pure myth, since the cavalry horses weren't Nisaean gigachads and were ponies or smaller by modern standards even when they began to be ridden. It's not like you had +130 pound men wearing +60 pounds of kit on. But what you did have was people who wanted to be sure they were in control of their mount in fucking battle.
So yeah, if I could have shaped design policy for Pharaoh Dynasties I'd have made it more of a 1200 to 900 (Aka slightly short of R2's length) where cavalry opens up for people at the end of your building tiers. I suspect that was their goal with the scrapped DLC campaign (Unless that was to do some kind of Rig Veda map since they did strangely have "Indus" tagged human models.)
And the other bit with cavalry was my own sussybobcatism at the actual historians. Over and over you'd read that early cavalry was primitive, inefficient, required a pseudo-chariot-team of one guy holding the reins. They say this because of Assyrian reliefs of Ashurnasirpal in the mid 800s. The same reliefs that show enemies of said king doing parthian shots. Meaning it was just Assyrians who were inexperienced with cavalry.
A really interesting theory for the rise of cavalry I came across that I find compelling is the introduction of metal snaffle bits (possibly also jointed, I forget). It was in Robert Drews 2004 Early Riders book, I can't remember the exact thesis but it was that either metal snaffle bits, or metal and jointed snaffle bits, meant you could actually fully control the horse. Prior to that and organic bits could be tongued by the horse to fall into a part of their mouth that meant the snaffle did fuck all. Or straight up just break the organic bit. In a chariot you've got the other horse and also the rigging of the chariot to give you some control. On horseback it's that snaffle or you've trained it with your thighs and that's it.
The oft cited
>"Horses weren't robust enough to carry an armed man from horseback"
seems like pure myth, since the cavalry horses weren't Nisaean gigachads and were ponies or smaller by modern standards even when they began to be ridden. It's not like you had +130 pound men wearing +60 pounds of kit on. But what you did have was people who wanted to be sure they were in control of their mount in fucking battle.
So yeah, if I could have shaped design policy for Pharaoh Dynasties I'd have made it more of a 1200 to 900 (Aka slightly short of R2's length) where cavalry opens up for people at the end of your building tiers. I suspect that was their goal with the scrapped DLC campaign (Unless that was to do some kind of Rig Veda map since they did strangely have "Indus" tagged human models.)
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