Worldbuilding a Mediterranean world, trying to keep it relatively

Onboard ballistae/onagri/harpagones could substitute canons.

The issue of pirates being occupied with rowing is easily resolved if this task is carried out by slaves.

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>>49648583
Definitely liking the idea of onboard heavy weaponry, but I had actually considered the slave idea and felt it created more problems than it solved.

Theoretically it could work for the navy of a major nation, but on a single pirate ship the crew kind of acts as their own government. Seeing as at least triremes were small next to clippers, the slaves rowing would outnumber the crew, and there would be no reason not to revolt.

Maybe this could be solved by having a small pirate fleet, but then I would think they're more of a hostile mobile sea nation and not really true pirates.

>>49648583
This.

Also, exotic ammo. The greeks would shoot pots filled with snakes over to other ships.

>>49648632
Okay, so now getting a good crew together and keeping them happy enough that they don't overthrow you is part of the game. I don't see how that's an issue.

>>49648937
Not sure how a pirate crew could keep a bunch of slaves who outnumber them happy; even going past them being owned / on the bottom of the totem pole, rowing is shit work

>>49649031
Slaves in antiquity didn't always mean what we think of them today. These slaves may have gotten paid, enough to buy themselves and then retire even. Maybe the rowers get a (small) cut from the spoils.

Also, good dental.

>>49649134
Chattel slavery was an early modern thing, yeah.
The thing about chattel slavery is that it requires a lot of infrastructure to function as well as a lot of surplus food and wealth to provide for them minimally so they can survive to do your work.

>>49649134
>>49649153
Looks like I have more research to do, thanks for the ideas.
>>49648878
This sounds brutal.

>>49648878
Honestly, I suspect that the snakes were more dazed and bewildered than angry.

Could work better with bees/hornets.

>>49649315
Even if they weren't angry, in that time period it could have worked as psychological warfare.

>>49649031
Have them kept in chains.
Chained to there seats where they row. Have a shit pot next to each pair or something. Let them sleep in their work areas. Feed them gruel. And/or pay them a tiny fee. Enough to he able to purchase themselves one day. Reward good service. Strike down rebellion without mercy. Make it so that life is maybe not great. But not too uncomfortable. So that they wont prefer it to death.

Thats how you keep slaves without them rebelling.

Osprey should have a few books about ancient and medieval ships. I know they have a book comparing byzantine and arab warships. Maybe that could help you.

>>49648395
Yup, galleys ruled the Mediterranean for a couple thousand years, so if you want to worldbuild not!Antiquity, oars will be the most imporatant method of propulsion.
Boarding battles were the main method of combat after the ships had come into contact with each other via ramming. The typical medium galley had three to five rows of oars; Roman quinquiremes might have a marine detachment of 120 soldiers for combat in addition to 300 rowers. Likewise, Greeks used hoplites as marines.
The rowers were never slaves unless the nation had a dire shortage of manpower. Combat manouvers like ramming required training, coordination, and a strong esprit de corps. Galley slaves were mostly a Medieval practice.

>>49649153
No, most slaves in this time period were chattel slaves. Rome abolished debt bondage early in the Republic's history; Carthage sold a massive number of slaves acquired from its European territories to African nations.
The Hellens - including the Ptolemies and Seleucids - who were constantly warring with each other typically sold the citizens of conquered poleis (eg. when Athenians sacked Melos in 416BC) to slavery, although debt bondage was also practiced, and there were some areas in mainland Greece where serfdom existed.
The great pirate nations that arose after Rome began to replace Carthage as the strongest power in the Western Mediterranean, Cilicia in Anatolia and Crete, typically ransomed some of their slaves to whoever might want to free them and sold the rest to the Romans. These pirate-infested waters were known as the Golden Sea due to the huge profits they got from their slave markets.
Cyrus the Great of Achaemenid Persia didn't really like any kind of slavery and tried to ban it, but it remained widespread after his death, and was practiced in Parthian times.

>>49649500
That's the Ottoman method. Some unlucky galley slaves in the Sultan's fleet might spend 20 years chained to a bench.

>>49648395
read up on it, there was quite a lot of interesting naval warfare. Also stop calling everything after that a clipper ship.

Ships of the period did carry artillery, corvii (boarding bridges with a spike). Most ships had professional rowers, not slaves. Some ships could get staggeringly large. The tessakontares(sp?) had something like 4000 rowers, 3000 officers and marines, was 400+ feet long, etc

>>49649315
Bees and hornets were used, yes. IIRC for the snakes they smoked them or something so they were pissed. Also they use jars of quicklime and other caustic chemicals.

Also, later periods did have rowed ships with cannon - galleasses were used up til the 1800s.

>>49649667
>That's the Ottoman method. Some unlucky galley slaves in the Sultan's fleet might spend 20 years chained to a bench.

Notably, at Lepanto the Christians won in large part because their rowers were pros while the Ottomans used Christian slaves. When the Ottoman commander was desperate he promised to free the slaves if they would fight. As you might guess, that didn't work out well.

>>49648395
>the naval combat seems a little bit dull (only ramming and maybe Greek fire)
Trireme based combat is primarily based around using your ram to break the other ship's oars, just ramming them in the side and sinking them, or just rowing up alongside the other ship and turning it into a boarding action. Those can all make for interesting mechanics once you get your mind past the stage of all naval combat must involve cannons.

>piracy seems completely infeasible when you have a crew that's mostly rowing, though I'm sure they had ways of doing it back then.
Yeah, piracy has been a thing for as long as people have had ships galleys are no exception.

>>49651212
>Trireme based combat is primarily based around using your ram to break the other ship's oars
How hard was it to do this while not breaking your own oars on the other ship's ram and flanks?

>>49651403
Typically as you get close you have your rowers pull your oars in and just coast the rest of the way.

>>49651052
Didn't mean to refer to everything afterwards as a clipper ship, I know that there were other models, just that that's the kind of ship I had in mind.
>>49651212
I guess the question was more how did the pirates back then do it.

>>49652432
Trade by sea was far quicker and more profitable than land trade, and most vessels in the Mediterranean preferred to hug the coastlines, making them easy to locate. A swarm of small pirate vessels could easily outmanouver and board a lumbering trade ship full of cargo. After the valuabes and captive crew were transferred to the pirate ships, the trade ships that were unsuitable for pirating were usually sunk, with perhaps a curse tablet or two hammered to them so that the gods would grant the pirates safe passage home.

Raiding coastal villages was also common.

>>49653411
>Trireme based combat is primarily based around using your ram to break the other ship's oars, just ramming them in the side and sinking them, or just rowing up alongside the other ship and turning it into a boarding action. Those can all make for interesting mechanics once you get your mind past the stage of all naval combat must involve cannons.

Also merchant galleys were mostly wind-based. Which is the logical choice when you have to sail a cargo from, say, Alexandria to Syracuse.

But that means outrunning you (and worse) is very, very easy if you incur in said pirates' zones.

Also, basically there was not a clear distintion between "pirates" and "war navy".

Running a similar tech-level campaign but with airships.

How would the ramming tactics of antiquity adapt to aerial battles?. Would a mix of ramming and dogfights work for the quickest and smallers ships?

>>49653848
Is the buoyant gas flammable, susceptible to some kind of magic, poisonous or completely inert? The answer to this question changes absolutely everything about the battles.

>>49653914

Its magic/bullshit-powered. Basically enchanted wood and other classic parts of the ship have powerful permanent spells. So, its just as flammable as wood i guess.

>>49649667

Is there any reason the Greeks or Romans could not develop clippers given the blue prints? I mean from a strict manufacturing perspective.

>>49653914
Not that guy, but I'm interested. How could the kind of gas change the course of battle? I can sort of guess what would happen with flammable or poisonous gas, same with magic, but how would an inert gas change the battle?

Just explain everything. I'm now incredibly interested, but I don't have anything to go by.

>>49654039
they could possibly build ships on the same lines, but they wouldn't be as fast or as strong due to needing metal parts they would have a difficult time making, as well as more advanced cordage and sailcloth.

>>49654039

Well, first you'd have them to undestand the blueprints, and this might not be that simple.

Aside from that and having to invent not just a technical tradition of making things but a sailing tradition (how to actually operate those damn sails), I dunno. There might be some minor problems with the metal usage in the ship and to build it but I guess mostly they could make without.

They couldn't do without compasses, sextants, algebra and chronometers, though, if you are asking them to discover America 1500 years before.

>>49654244
A flammable gas would have all combatants trying to light the enemy airship on fire instead of shooting or ramming it to pieces. A body of combustible gas is an incredible weak point.
A poisonous gas would have combatants desperately avoid leakage (especially on your own ship, depending on how fast it would spread). With inert gas, everybody would resort to more traditional warfare, maybe hurling stones and arrows and boarding crews.
>>49654039
>>49654390
>>49654417
They had absolutely no reason to. The mediterranean is one of the calmest seas in the world, with very gentle storms and no chop to speak of. The Atlantic ocean, which to traverse the later caravels, galleons and ships of the line were built, is a whole different ordeal. They relied in part on north European designs like cogs and hulks.
Mediterranean ships were designed for quick journeys from coast to coast that only took a few days.

>>49654508
New to the discussion, but I have to say the idea of an air-ship being fueled or kept buoyant with a highly toxic substance really fucking interesting. The idea of the ship being an incredibly dangerous environment, where gas masks and protection must be worn at almost all time and where you'll probably die of slow poisoning after few years of working, being a price for people wanting to fly is really compelling for some reason: it adds a whole new layer of effort and hardship to the idea of flying, makes it seem more like a struggle and an achievement.

It does not seem so interesting combat-wise (I'd assume that leaks as product of a malfunction or accident would be so common that some forms of protection would have to be in place one way or another, making battle-inflicted damage inexceptional and hardly affecting the battles themselves, but it's really interesting on the level of basic daily routines.

>>49654508

I agree, I was just thinking about OP's hypotetical.

>>49648395
I haven't touched up on my Roman history for a bit, but I'll try my best. A thing to note is, if you really want naval antiquity maybe don't go look to the Romans, they always saw their navy as secondary to their armies. The Greeks, Carthaginians, and Phoenicians would probably be better cultures to draw from.

Pirates in antiquity used slaves for rowing, and it was very feasible. During the first century BC pirates were coordinating over large areas and operating as fleets. Needless to say, Piracy was pandemic; they would launch inland raids and capture important people and hold them ransom (like a young Julius Caesar). Furthermore, their piracy effected imports into Rome itself, including the all important grain supply. Pompey the Great would stop all piracy in the Mediterranean, but piracy returned during the Civil war between Caesar and the Republicans.

As a notable example, the Veneti of Brittany didn't use oars (unlike the Romans) and their ships' hulls were larger and made of harder wood so they were resistant to ramming and more focused on projectile attacks instead of boarding. To counter these advantages in his campaign against the Veneti, Julius Caesar used long hooks to cut their ropes so they wouldn't be able to control their sails, ultimately leading to a Roman victory.

Another thing to check out would be to check out Archimedes, he had some great ideas that he dreamed up to defend Syracuse from besiegers.

Hope I gave you some launching off points!

>>49654858
One side uses nimble and maneuverable airships made buoyant with highly toxic chemicals and moved with oars (Actually people in fixed bicycles). While their combat and maintenance crew use sealed suits to combat poisoning, their oarmen are instead in safe sealed rooms so they can breathe and sweat while doing physical work.
They are lightly armored and use missiles and bombs to fight. They deploy the highest number of ships but are heavily hindered by bad weather.

The other uses a less buoyant, but harmless, gas to lighten their heavily armored vehicles, to propel themselves and, actually fly, they use combustion engines and rocket propulsion. They would use normal airplanes and jets if their only fuel supply wasn't so heavy it requires many engines just to carry around. They leave a trail of toxic smoke and thundering noises in their wake
They favor machineguns, rockets, napalm, and the like. They deploy the least number of ships due to their cost and fuel availability but can fly in a hurricane if they so desire.

The third, and less involved in the conflict, side lives on the top of the floating mountains and use highly buoyant flammable gases in their ships that allow them to loiter at incredible, and almost unreachable altitudes. Their airships resemble giant hot air balloons. For combat they use unarmored gliders that perch on the underbelly of their main ships. They drop and fire at the enemy with gas powered harpoon throwing machineguns before abandoning their unexpensive vehicles on glider-parachutes, and allow them to crash against the enemy ships where a pressure dependant bomb will trigger once they reach the altitude their enemies fly at.

Get your players to focus on boarding actions. Get them to swing onto enemy ships and fight them there.

>>49654039
I don't think so, the rigging and hulls of clippers are very complex and a result of centuries of evolution. The Romans even forgot how to build triremes during the Pax Romana, and for the next thousand years they built galleys with no more than two rows of oars, like dromons that were used by the Byzantines in the 1100s.

Oceangoing sailing ships were used around 0AD by southern Indian states like the Satavahana kingdom that traded with Ptolemaic and Roman Red Sea ports. Some Roman glass items found their way all the way to Guangzhou in China likely via maritime trade, although most of the Sino-Roman trade happened throught the continental Silk Road.

The Greeks and Phoenicians were the greatest sailors of the ancient Mediterranean, but even they didn't sail often beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Storms in the Atlantic were unpredictable, and the tides were large. Hanno the Navigator sailed an exploration fleet around West Africa to the Gulf of Guinea in the 5th century BC and had some trade with natives, but Carthaginian colonies were never established beyond Morocco. The Romans had trade routes between Britain and the rest of the empire, but preferred to unload their goods in Burdigala and transport them overland through southern Gaul to Narbo, instead of sailing around the western coast of Iberia.

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>>49656081
>The Romans had trade routes between Britain and the rest of the empire, but preferred to unload their goods in Burdigala and transport them overland through southern Gaul to Narbo, instead of sailing around the western coast of Iberia
Beautiful. It makes me sad to know that Britannia, Gaul, Hispania and Italia will never again be unified.

Attila was a mistake.

>>49648395
If your setting has mages, they can fill the role of cannons. Not only that, but they can do all sorts of shit that could be useful in a naval battle: manipulating wind and water, teleporting self or others from ship to ship to and controlling marine megafauna.
That would probably have a massive impact on their social status: most maritime countries would rely on their mages to serve in their navy, and that would give mages a certain degree of power. Most countries would likely have an influential mage lobby and some might be full-blown magocracies.