Equipment

[Roran Hawkins]

In the battle of Hasting the Norman cavalry was unable to penetrate the shield war many times. There is a reason that the heavy cavalry charge was reserved and used when the enemy started to waver.

Because charging uphill whedre the horse can develop such magnicifent speed is always a good idea.

Proof please.

I can only remember this guy making a good point out of it, but I'm not sure anymore which videos. I remember reading it elsewhere, but for the hell of it I can't remember properly. I don't think this is the correct video, but you'll have to skim through. I think it was something where he quotes that book about 'British swordsmen of history' or whatever, talking about cavalry charges hitting an infantry formation square on etc. I'll look into it when I find more time.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdd-RKNr5f4


E: I think it was this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7g9y9ScKjE

[Ratharing]

So, reviving this thread and after seeing the weapon changes I would like to reformulate some of the requests:


Firstly, the javelin. It is currently made by the Weaponsmith, along with the mace and the halberd, making it an extremely costly one-use weapon. It would be much better if made in the blacksmith, along with axes and spears (much more similar to javelins than halberds).


Secondly, the mace and axe. I understand the introduction of the mace in order to balance things, but if we consider it as most of the things you can swing around and have a blunt hit (including short and long sticks, and blunt polearms) we might find it much simpler than most of the things you can swing around and have a cutting/chopping hit (including hatchets and poleaxes). My recommendation is that you rename the current mace with "axe", and the current axe with "mace", and describe them generically in such way.
That would make the mace<spear<axe<sword progression much more logical.

[De-Legro]

So, reviving this thread and after seeing the weapon changes I would like to reformulate some of the requests:


Firstly, the javelin. It is currently made by the Weaponsmith, along with the mace and the halberd, making it an extremely costly one-use weapon. It would be much better if made in the blacksmith, along with axes and spears (much more similar to javelins than halberds).


Secondly, the mace and axe. I understand the introduction of the mace in order to balance things, but if we consider it as most of the things you can swing around and have a blunt hit (including short and long sticks, and blunt polearms) we might find it much simpler than most of the things you can swing around and have a cutting/chopping hit (including hatchets and poleaxes). My recommendation is that you rename the current mace with "axe", and the current axe with "mace", and describe them generically in such way.
That would make the mace<spear<axe<sword progression much more logical.

Tom equates the axe with a lumber axe, rather then a rare and specialised war axe, thus their low tier and poor effectiveness. Maces I can live with. In reality they are simple to make, but they are also extremely effective. For game balance moving them up into that tier make sense if we just look at performance.

Javelin are a pain. They are reasonably slow to accumulate, which given their 1 shot nature make them situational at best. Camp followers only carry 15 or so of them, making even small amounts of refills require significant baggage trains if you plan to use them in any significant numbers.

[Tom]

Javelins are also quite powerful, and much faster to train than comparable multi-use ranged weapons.

I look at the statistics and I see that javelins are used quite a lot, so I don't think there is something wrong with them.

I look at a lot of numbers all the time to check. For example, I see that the longbow is much, much more popular than the shortbow, so I might have to do some rebalancing there soon. I see the shield is by far the most popular equipment, so I might change something there as well. I see leather armour is by far the most popular armour, which I consider fine.

[Weaver]

Is there any chance we might ever get a basic and vague idea of what some of the equipment is good at. We only pick the popular things either because we are out of shields, or because we think that training time equates to effectiveness. We know nothing of any special things the equipment might do. Some transparency would be very welcome in diversifying equipment, as we have no certain or good way to test which is better, or what it does better.

[Lann]

Exactly.  A little information in this regard would be very helpful.  Exactly how 'good' are javelins?  Is a single attack by javelins a lot better than arrows or bolts?  What advantage does a horse give?  Hell, I even question the effectiveness of short swords. If placed on a melee unit, do they boost their attack in melee or does that work only for ranged? Shields are easy to figure out because they give a +1 to your unit's defensive rating.  But all other equipment is kind of shrouded in obfuscation, so it's hard to figure out exactly how good (or bad...) they are or when to use them.  So many don't even try because of the time and uncertainty factor. 


Personally, I always felt the javelin made a better defensive weapon in this game.  Supplying them in the field is costly.  But if you can have wall defenders with them, then your melee units can support your ranged during a defensive siege and get resupplied after by the town they're sitting on.  I've had mixed success with this.  Offensively, it takes some time to get enough javelins with your camp followers so that you can resupply your men. 

[De-Legro]

Javelins are also quite powerful, and much faster to train than comparable multi-use ranged weapons.

I look at the statistics and I see that javelins are used quite a lot, so I don't think there is something wrong with them.

I look at a lot of numbers all the time to check. For example, I see that the longbow is much, much more popular than the shortbow, so I might have to do some rebalancing there soon. I see the shield is by far the most popular equipment, so I might change something there as well. I see leather armour is by far the most popular armour, which I consider fine.

They were used a lot, for example they were standard equipment throughout Rheged. They no longer will be they are abandoning them for the simplicity and reliability of archers. That more then one thousand javelin infantry to be retrained.

Exactly.  A little information in this regard would be very helpful.  Exactly how 'good' are javelins?  Is a single attack by javelins a lot better than arrows or bolts?  What advantage does a horse give?  Hell, I even question the effectiveness of short swords. If placed on a melee unit, do they boost their attack in melee or does that work only for ranged? Shields are easy to figure out because they give a +1 to your unit's defensive rating.  But all other equipment is kind of shrouded in obfuscation, so it's hard to figure out exactly how good (or bad...) they are or when to use them.  So many don't even try because of the time and uncertainty factor. 


Personally, I always felt the javelin made a better defensive weapon in this game.  Supplying them in the field is costly.  But if you can have wall defenders with them, then your melee units can support your ranged during a defensive siege and get resupplied after by the town they're sitting on.  I've had mixed success with this.  Offensively, it takes some time to get enough javelins with your camp followers so that you can resupply your men. 

Short sword for archers increase their survivability significantly. I assume it is because they have some say of defending themselves in melee. For infantry the main reason is a backup weapon should the main be lost. While the main weapon is still present, I observe no "bonus" to the short sword.

Shields don't give +1. When combined with leather sure the total defense of the unit is now at least at the same ballpark as plain scale, so you go to medium classification, but that is the only case. Scale + shield is not the equivalent of chain for example.

[Lann]

Shields don't give +1. When combined with leather sure the total defense of the unit is now at least at the same ballpark as plain scale, so you go to medium classification, but that is the only case. Scale + shield is not the equivalent of chain for example.

Truly?  Would you say Scale + shield is worse than chainmail + nothing?

[WVH]

Truly?  Would you say Scale + shield is worse than chainmail + nothing?

That depends.  Soldier vs soldier, probably.  But this is not ultimate warrior.  We have limitations on how many warriors we can produce at all, and how quickly we can produce them at different levels of gear.

I would rather have 3 spear/scale/shield warriors than 1 sword/chain warrior any day.  In fact, I would trade out that shield on the 3 for 3 javelins and watch that chain mail warrior die before the spears get there.

[De-Legro]

Truly?  Would you say Scale + shield is worse than chainmail + nothing?

Yes, yes I would. Solider vs solider chain + nothing has always performed better in my testing. This is rather hard to test though, as exp matters. Chain being a higher tier quite likely requires higher exp before it is properly utilised.

That depends.  Soldier vs soldier, probably.  But this is not ultimate warrior.  We have limitations on how many warriors we can produce at all, and how quickly we can produce them at different levels of gear.

I would rather have 3 spear/scale/shield warriors than 1 sword/chain warrior any day.  In fact, I would trade out that shield on the 3 for 3 javelins and watch that chain mail warrior die before the spears get there.

That is the fallacy though, same with Javelin. So little of the world wars that most have all the time in the world to equip all their troops with chain. Lots of people have equipped javelin too troops? How many have used them for more then fighting off the occasional bandit. How many people have trained an entire sub realms stockpile of them in 3 RL days of fighting, only to watch them slowly tick up because they are now part of a higher tier building that now requires a decent grassland settlement to get full population production, and a greater source of metal.

Why are Longbows so prolific? Because they produce fast. Training time is higher, but supply is easily enough to equip entire archer forces, all for the cost of one more building. How many of the Javelin troops were produced back when that was true of them. When they didn't consume the work hours of two of the most desirable melee weapons? When they didn't require a greater population and metal supply to produce in any sort of useable quantity? Raw numbers are meaningless without context.

[Tom]

I would love to support a project that tries to put together observations.

Just revealing things is not so easy, because I would have to go deep into details. However, one thing that I have repeatedly denied is that there is any kind of special mechanics for individual weapons. There is no "this weapon is good against that armour" code. All battle code is abstract. That means that, for example, while right now the javelin is the only one-shot weapon in the game, there is no special "javelin" code, there is only a "ranged weapon with limited number of shots" code. I could turn all ranged weapons into limited shot ones (say, 100 arrows) easily. Same for melee weapons, armour, etc. They have values, but no "if this weapon, then" code.

So everything you observe can be explained in terms of abstract values, such as defense, offense, damage, etc.

Some items have more than one value and increase both offense and defense, for example.

[Lann]

That depends.  Soldier vs soldier, probably.  But this is not ultimate warrior.  We have limitations on how many warriors we can produce at all, and how quickly we can produce them at different levels of gear.

I would rather have 3 spear/scale/shield warriors than 1 sword/chain warrior any day.  In fact, I would trade out that shield on the 3 for 3 javelins and watch that chain mail warrior die before the spears get there.

Well... yes.  But that's not exactly my question or issue.  I get that supply is an important thing.  Believe me I do.  It's a lot easier to assemble and stock an army of spearmen with leather armor than any chainmail soldier.  That said, I've seen just how good 100 heavy infantry decked in chainmail and shields can actually be.  I've seen 100 heavy infantry take a settlement against 100 medium infantry/ archers and despite the medium infantry/ archers having a defensive bonus from palisade, kill only 14 chainmail soldiers and lose well beyond 50 of their own.  But nevertheless, yes you are correct in that supply, population, and buildings are a big factor into what kind of troops you can field. 


That said, that doesn't mean I don't want to know more nuanced information regarding soldier equipment and how one man with one kind of gear and equal experience stacks up to another man with another type of gear.  That kind of information is invaluable, if for no other reason than to get a rough estimate of how to measure chance of victory in a battle.  There are of course, a lot of different factors beyond equipment that influence a battle. 


Also, De Legro, I appreciate the input to my question.  It was very informative.  I used to think Scale + Shield = Chainmail + nothing, more or less.  Glad to see I was wrong there.

[Weaver]

By the way, Tom, does 'everything is abstract' mean that every piece of equipment is basically just a modifier? Even the shortswords and horses? I was under the impression that horses counted as a secret separate combatant with it's own combat values. That seems to be my logic in figuring why there's a warhorse and a horse, other than, you know, better bonuses from horses. I also believe you said something along the same lines once. And shortswords, for example, they are not a fixed value in case the main weapon gets lost, or?

[Tom]

@Lann: I could envison setting up a "battle table" where I run test battles of 100 vs. 100 of some of the most common equipment combinations. However, I fear it would not be a very good result as it ignores, for example, that archers with an infantry shield are much better than without.

@Weaver: Yes, equipment modifies battle values. Even shortswords and horses. All the effects described in their descriptions are folded into those modifiers. I spent a lot of time tweaking things to make sure they give the results that I would expect from them. Especially horses. They modify quite a few values, for example in addition to battle values, horses also affect the pursuit phase considerably.

[Weaver]

Ah, I see. That makes it a lot more intuitive. I myself was always under the impression that shortswords only mattered if the combatant lost his main weapon, or that it, for example, doesn't affect anything in the ranged phase. Very interesting. I would very much love to be part of the theoretical project to gather this data and start an in game war academy of sorts. I recently found out that horses, which surely you can remember I hated, are actually... kinda good. Kinda really good. Damn good.

I long operated under a doctrine where I ignored horses. I liked my heavy infantry, cause they don't care if I am charging walls, defending walls, beating up people. Minimal archer support. I think in 20 battles more or less. I never captured a noble, or killed one. Hurt, yes. Then the first time I field cavalry, and voila.

I would very much like to test pure cavalry and pure archer armies, to see what exactly they can do against the standard combinations of infantry to figure out what exactly is going on. I do think that it is possible with enough soldiers, to find out about all the details equipment provides.

Which also brings me to my suggestion- can we separate archers into classes? I did know that Archers with a shortsword are crazy good, but I always figured it was up to their experience. I also knew about archers with a shield performed quite a bit better than pure archers. I think it is a difference big enough that it warrants classing archers as heavy or light. Maybe even add a sort of 'assault' class for archers with shields, or just call them 'pavise archers'.

I got a bit off the rails there- how do you suggest we start this project to accumulate the data we need?