Yes they were important as they were a strong foreign power that tilted the balance.
However people have this misconception that the Spanish were just wading through “hordes” of “underpowered savages”.
Which is very much a problematic and ahistorical view.
I mean, against what? It had the same efficacy against all ranged fire barring firearms. For sword thrusts it broke down faster, but was more padded so would transfer less force into the wearer. In the context of AoE4 overall, steel armor wasn’t widely used until the late 1400s. It seems weird to punish the Aztec in the early stages of them game for not keeping up with the Spanish at the very end of the game.
I’d love to see an academic source on that. From what I’ve been able to read, Aztec armor was basically a stronger version of the gambeson (specifically since it used a lot of cotton, which Europeans didn’t have large access to). Gambesons were able to stop infantry strikes and arrows. In AoE4, crossbows are already designed to counter armor. Knights also are designed to counter the armor of Men at Arms. So I’m failing to see where European armor would serve a better purpose. Especially if we are starting in the 800s, which seems to be the start of the time period.
In the context of the AoE4, that doesn’t matter. Crossbow bolts go through armor as do firearm rounds.
Why? Do you have any reasoning for this? Without some sort of backing on this you just seem really weirdly prejudiced. Do you have any sources of the Spanish being better hand to hand fighters than the Aztec? It seems like they were terrified of them. I really don’t think its a stretch to assume the elite warrior societies fared similarly to their European counterparts. Jaguars and Eagles were nobility similarly to knights. They would have been trained more than knights specifically in combat. Shorn Ones are literally the best of the best showing insane merit and having many captured prisoners.
The Aztec were not unwashed, easy to mow down savages. Steel was not the be all end all to combat. The warrior societies were elite combat units that routinely went into the field for real experience.
Can you quote the guy who talked about “savage”? Seem to be a sort of “strawman” argument
The current debat seem meh…, like, how peaple can realisticly states spanishs wasn’t heavily favoured in term of military weapons, it was stone vs steel.
But i don’t think aoe4 care than much about this kind of stuff as longbowman have more range and more damage than mongol archer in aoe4, where the mongol main weapon was the composite bow which was more powerfull than longbow.
Well English used bigger and heavier arrows than Mongols and Turks. So yes range should be lower but impact would be quite different.
Spanish bested natives in combat countless times. Its even hard to count. You are practically denying 4000 years in material advancement and warfare progress. American civilisations were on the level of Predynastic Period in Egypt and I am very nice here.
Well for one Aztecs start in XIII century so yeah. And even earlier european armors would be superior than anything meso americans could make. Gambeson wasn’t super effective. It was cheap. That was it’s main advantage. There was reason why in europe everywhone was trying to get something better.
Aztecs won only 1 battle against Cortez. One. They even lost battle when spanish forces were exhausted and on the ropes, while haveing huge advantage in numbers. They weren’t able to stop Cortez during siege of Tenochtitlan even when most of his allies left. And there is reason for that.
Of course. I am not trying to say that this walk through the park but it also wasn’t some horrendeus task. In the end they conquered huge empire in less than 2 years, with small forces and resources used.
Only through clever tactics and a heavy reliance on the local populace.
I don’t say this to take away from the achievements of the Spanish, but it is important to understand the local politics/material situation of the Aztecs.
Haida canoes were proven to have crossed open sea. The Haida themselves have stories of exploring the Pacific ocean in their canoes, and they had slaves ranging from the northern Inuit to the southern Aztecs. They were out in the open ocean as much as the longships generally were.
And they were about the same width, as I stated before. The only real difference was the length, and that, only by a few feet at most. Haida canoes are massive, considering they’re dugout canoes made from a single tree.
The range and the strengh is mostly based on the same variable. A bullet is lighter than any arrow and a way more powerfull, more speed at start = more damage.
I dunno man, I feel like I’ve been making a solid case against this line of thinking and you haven’t refuted it. Not all natives are the same and the technological edge the Spanish had against the Aztec was only advantages in the battle of Otumba, which was the Aztec’s first encounter of cavalry on an open field.
And it stopped European weapons.
Let’s go over them.
The actual assault had multiple phases, and the Aztecs pushed off several assaults against the Spanish. At the end of the day, like most sieges, they ran out of food and water.
Is the reason you’re wrong? The allies left since it was prophesized that the Spanish would lose on the 10th day. On the 12th day, it was obvious this wasn’t the case and they returned. Texcocan and Tlaxacan warriors numbered in the thousands and rejoined them. The Spanish had also convinced virtually every tributary to go against the Aztec. Without these allies, they would have had to fought to even get access to the lake. The reason the siege was successful was because the system of hegemony the Aztecs relied on failed them (because of their actions) and they had no support during a siege (which includes disease and starvation).
Mongolian arrows would have averaged to be heavier and longer than those used by the English longbowman. The most popular woods used by the English were the poplar and beech, while the Mongols primarily used birch. Birch is denser than poplar, but on-par with beech, while the Mongolian arrows averaged slightly longer than English arrows. Both would have used similar arrowheads for similar purposes.
What case? You said that natives had equivalent armour to Spaniards which is obviously wrong since no Aztec weapon could go thru Spanish breastplate while every Spanish one could pierce Aztec cotton shirt. (swords probably couldn’t slash thru it but would easily pierce it which is like only situation where it worked)
I have no idea about arrow lenght ^^ but i need to check what you said because i would have think the opposite as the longbow is a bigger bow than composite mongol bow, so i suppose if the bow is bigger, the arrow should be ^^.
You don’t know jackshit about Aztec armor, do you? Ichcahuipilli was meant to be easily slashed and stabbed - its strength was that it would slow weaponry through it. It was highly common for the Spanish to ditch their own plate armor in favour of ichcahuipilli because it was better at blocking musket shots and projectile weaponry than plate armor was, while being cool enough to not be uncomfortable or crippling in the humid jungle weather like plate armor was.
Bigger bow ≠ Longer draw. The Manchu bows of the Mongols had a fairly long draw. I dunno if there’s a reason for this, but I know plains Native bows also had long draw lengths. I wonder if this made them easier to shoot from horseback or something. It’s entirely possible to make a super heavy bow like a longbow without giving it a long draw.
Once again Spanish could easily defeat armour of the Indians while they couldn’t pierce plate at all.
Yes some Spaniards used native armour in humid environment because it worked against American weaponry fine and was more comfortable there. Not because it was better vs advanced weapons.
Again, you are absolutely incorrect on this. Ichcahuipilli was far better than gambeson. It wasn’t “just gambeson” armor. It was designed to catch anything going through it and slow it down, while providing enough padding to make heavier weaponry like clubs and whatnot, just bounce off it. It was entirely capable of stopping an atlatl dart before it hit the wearer and was just as effective against musket shots as plate armor was.
The only real difference was that you could theoretically stab through it, which you couldn’t do with plate armor.
And again, Aztecs didn’t fight to break plate armor. Spanish plate was often more detrimental to fighting Natives than helpful, as it was cripplingly hot and extremely restrictive for movement through a jungle, and the obsidian weaponry of Mesoamericans in general had a heyday against plate armor - Obsidian weaponry is intended to shatter on impact, because that’s where its strength comes from.
The Spanish were not that great vs Mesoamericans. They won through a lot of factors that had nothing to do with them and everything to do with an empire already in decline.
Except… it absolutely was better vs advanced weaponry. It was better in that environment and offered nearly the same level of protection as plate armor. The only thing it couldn’t do as well as plate was ward of direct stabbing attacks.
That one weakness alone did not make much of a difference. Metal ≠ better.
As if that was not a day and night difference. Most of Spanish weapons used “stabbing attacks”
Their swords were mostly intended for stabbing. Crossbow bolts with sharp steel/iron broadheads would cut thru it like butter. Lances also.
Also I don’t believe it could stop bullet inside 100m that’s just b ullshit.
Except it could? Literally the entire point of ichcahuipilli was to stop projectiles? Bullets are a projectile? It’s a mess of unspun cotton bound between two layers of jute that’s been hardened by evaporated seasalt. It was more than capable of stopping something like a bullet. Crystalized jute isn’t a soft material. It was better at stopping things like arrows and crossbow bolts than even chainmail was.
.50 BMG is also a projectile. What is this crazy reasoning?
Well better than chainmail alone? Possibly but that’s not how chainmail is used.
Chainmail part blunts the arrowhead while gambeson underneath stops it after.