After multiple updates, the developers have enriched and revised unit models continuously. Generic units such as spearmen, men-at-arms, foot archers, mounted archers, knights, and even cavalry of certain civilizations like the Jin Dynasty now feature civilization-specific weapons. This is truly a great improvement, and thank you for all your hard work!
However, crossbowmen still use identical models across all factions. Every civilization currently wields European windlass crossbows and steel-armed crossbows, which greatly breaks the immersive experience. As the birthplace of crossbows, East Asian civilizations represented by China deserve their authentic, traditional crossbow designs. We sincerely hope you can add exclusive East Asian/Chinese-style crossbow models for crossbowmen of East Asian civilizations.
Medieval European Crossbow:
Typical early Chinese crossbows:
Typical crossbows from the Song to Ming dynasties:
As you can see, crossbows from the East and West have vastly different appearances and styles.
It is worth mentioning that Asian and European crossbows have major differences in appearance and design principles. Medieval European crossbows featured high draw weight and short limbs, and windlasses were even required for cocking during their peak era. By comparison, Asian crossbows used lower draw weight with longer limbs. They were cocked by bending over or using legs while seated, just like early European crossbows. With this mechanism, the existing bending cocking animation can be directly applied to crossbowmen of East Asian civilizations wielding traditional Chinese crossbows.
Interestingly, despite these contrasting designs, crossbows from the East and West deliver roughly the same kinetic energy.
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I’m really glad to see someone else paying attention to this issue with me. The inaccurate crossbow models and reloading animations are arguably the most glaring visual issues for Chinese and Mongol units right now (since the previous spearman bug has been fixed). This is because the current crossbows and their reloading mechanics are entirely European in style. I’d actually like to take this opportunity to propose a modification plan that I think could serve as a good reference.
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To properly represent Eastern-style crossbows, here are the key steps:
First and foremost, you need to remove the mechanical cocking devices from the models. Whether it’s the Windlass in the Castle Age or the Cranequin in the Imperial Age, these mechanisms were practically never used on Eastern infantry crossbows.
Second, revert to the older reloading animation and keep only the foot-stirrup (pedal) movement. Don’t forget, you actually already have a ready-made reloading animation to use, so there’s no need to create a new one from scratch.
Third, widen the bow limbs slightly. You could consider a composite bow shape, or even just a simple curved design. The width could be similar to the European crossbow’s Imperial Age version.
Finally, move the crossbow’s trigger mechanism all the way to the rear.
Here is a quick summary of the key points in one image:
Agree. And…aside from that, there’s also the sound effect for the crossbow firing, but I think the visual effects need more work. The current reloading animation for the crossbow really makes it obvious that it’s a European-style weapon. It wasn’t so noticeable before the animation was changed.
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That do reminded me of another issue with the sound effects.
Actually, it’s not just the reload sound on the crossbow. The hit sound for the Chinese Lancer’s charge is clearly meant for a European-style wooden lance. It’s just not as obvious as the Crossbow issue.
Just a quick suggestion: the Jin Dynasty’s Iron Pagoda has a pretty unique charge hit sound. Maybe they could just reuse that one for the Chinese and ZXL?
