fatigue and recovery rate

I have played m2tw for 2 days now, using Lusted's Lands to Conquer Gold mod, and here are my initial impressions. The fatigue seems to be much much faster than RTW. Couple armored sergeants went to very tired or exhausted within about 10 minutes of fighting on the walls. I let them rest for 10 min, which only improved to tired. Is this part of the game? I can understand peasants and spear militia getting tired easily, but armored sergeants are highly trained guys.

Also, the year is 1108, and I have not had a single crusade called yet. The pope is not enemy with any muslim factions.

But naval invasions do seem to be quite good. Ships carrying armies all over the place.

Much less back stabbing by allies. There was only one such treachery. I was the English, when the main scot army went to get Oslo, I attacked Edinborough killing Malcolm, Edward and Alexander Canmores, and I besieged Inverness. Guess my rep will take a hit cuz I was allied with them at the time.

There were 5 armies around Zarragosa, English, Spanish, Sicillian, Milan and Venician. I besieged Zarragosa, the Milanese boarded a boat and left. I sacked Zarragosa, and all the other armies retreated or boarded ship the very next turn. I was allied with all of them.

Units is M2TW generally do get tired far too quickly. If an average unit fights another unit 1-v-1 until the other routs, the unit will be left at least Winded, and more often Tired. Also archers and crossbowmen in particular exhaust themselves just firing volleys.

:shrug:

EDIT: This is one thing realism mods should sort. Anything above militias should have the 'hardy' attribute, and all elite units should have the 'very_hardy' attribute in EDU (Reads as 'Good Stamina' and 'Very Good Stamina' respectively in-game).

Try lugging around heavy armor and weapons and see just how tiring it is. It's not like your guys can sit down and take a breather either, they gotta go stand back in formation too. Sure, the training helps, but it doesn't help you recover faster, just helps you maintain yourself a little longer.

In other words, yes, your trained and should have better stamina, but because your trained, your also wearing/using heavier equipment to improve your survivability rate, which does effect how quickly you'll lose stamina. As for archers/crossbows, those things are ridiculously straining to use. See how long you can fire a REAL longbow (none of this compound stuff) or a crossbow (using the old belt method on an old design, not one of these newer ones) before you get exhausted.

TBH I don't know anything about firing medieval weaponry and how tiring it would be.

But as for melee troops, remember that only those in the front line are engaged in combat. Didn't medieval battles used to last for hours or even over a day? My troops are dropping dead from exhaustion after a couple of minutes combat.

The last post proved the point. Yes, historical battles didnt end with tired troops unless it was days of fighting.

Any tired troops ended up dead. The rest kept fighting.

I don't know about you, but I would rather not spend 10 hours sitting in front of my computer fighting a single battle.

Well I expect at least 48 hour battles in ETW.

Sure a battle could last long, but most medieval battles didn't last a day. In the Middle Ages, great decisive battles were rather rare, and these were often decided by differring troop strength, by one side's morale breaking quickly, or by one all-out assault.
People often think "Battle of Hastings" when they think about medieval battles: that battle did take most of a day's fighting, and it was one of the bloodiest battles ever fought in the Middle Ages. But make no mistake: There were long lulls and delays in between. Knights got new horses, William the Conqueror ordered additional ammunition brought up from the ships (!), troops fell back from assault, regrouped and rested. Nobody in their right mind was eager to rush into deadly battle, every single minute of delay was used to the full.

A more typical example of a great, decisive battle may have been the battle of Bouvines, in 1214. This battle ultimately decided the fates of England, France and the Empire for a whole generation. It started in the morning and was finished before noon. So the actual battle lasted only about one to two hours, and much of that was probably marching into position. Once the fighting started, the English-Guelf army pushed back the French infantry, while the French knights took their time rounding an English flank. The French knights' attack immediately routed most of the English-Guelf army and decided the battle.

History aside, I couldn't imagine feeling fresh even after standing around in full chainmail for a few hours, let alone running and fighting for my life. Similarly, after ten boshots, my arms would probably start aching, and after expending a whole M2:TW quiver of 28 arrows (at max range, and in volley fire, requiring me to hold the bow drawn several seconds every time), I'd be a cramping wreck! Training will mitigate this, but not eliminate fatigue.
Drawing a crossbow 28 times is probably even more tiring than firing a bow 28 times, and crossbowmen wear quite a bit armor!
Knights, on the other hand, have the hard work of riding a very powerful beast to do, and the beast itself has the hard work of carrying 300 pounds of man and metal to perform, easily explaining their fatigue (which is actually way too low in the game, imho). Historically, heavy cavalry tired very quickly and was probably only good for one or two charges before having to rest quite some time.

Have any of you people ever tried to carry real armor or a sword or something? If not then you have no idea how it is to even walk in this stuff let alone fight i think that the fully plate armored soldiers wouldn't last a minute. the full number of soldiers would often not be deployed they would get replaced all the time to keep on fighting, like what people above said hours maybe even days.

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Originally Posted by snorky

Have any of you people ever tried to carry real armor or a sword or something? If not then you have no idea how it is to even walk in this stuff let alone fight i think that the fully plate armored soldiers wouldn't last a minute. the full number of soldiers would often not be deployed they would get replaced all the time to keep on fighting, like what people above said hours maybe even days.

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Should we assume that you have? I've marched with a modern infantry kit in half-metre deep snow without skis or snowshoes, and according to John Keegan, plate armour weighs about the same.I got pretty exhausted, but would recuperate nicely after a few minutes rest, and I was not in extremely good shape at the time, just good shape. The difference is that plate armour evenly distributed around your body. That would make it easier to move with. Apparently, knights could somersault and do other acrobatics in armour, and often did. As to physical shape, comparing modern man to medieval knights do not do them justice. The only one to compare, would be world-class (greek/roman) wrestlers, or prize fighters. It is very easy to forget how much physical strength is required to fight with hand-to-hand weaponry with any effect.
Knights were trained from childhood. Fighting is what they did. It was their way of life. Their life depended on their ability to fight in armour.

I concur that Heavy horse tire to slow. Still, I think units tire too fast, especially in those situations where only a few men ar fighting, like on a castle wall.

Since we can't represent all the gaps in fighting during battles that allowed troops to recover, its a bit silly fighting the last 2/3 of every battle with Exhausted troops. Although chain routs often prevent things getting that far. Against the Mongols/Timurids though, the horse archery and then combat leaves troops tired after the battle has barely started.

But if all troops had really good endurance, why code in fatigue at all?
I think it adds to the game that you are forced to have your troops take a rest.

When I assault a city I always take time to establish a foothold after breaching. That gives my men a breather to prepare them for the final push to city center.

It's actually advisable to have troops sit back in reserve the way this works, especially if your defending a town/castle. I always take the tired wall defenders off and cycle in a fresh unit and move the tired one to the town plaza. Of course in an open field, it doesn't matter as much, since holding back troops just means less men you could have attacking from the flanks.

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Originally Posted by Zajuts149

Should we assume that you have? I've marched with a modern infantry kit in half-metre deep snow without skis or snowshoes, and according to John Keegan, plate armour weighs about the same.I got pretty exhausted, but would recuperate nicely after a few minutes rest, and I was not in extremely good shape at the time, just good shape. The difference is that plate armour evenly distributed around your body. That would make it easier to move with. Apparently, knights could somersault and do other acrobatics in armour, and often did. As to physical shape, comparing modern man to medieval knights do not do them justice. The only one to compare, would be world-class (greek/roman) wrestlers, or prize fighters. It is very easy to forget how much physical strength is required to fight with hand-to-hand weaponry with any effect.
Knights were trained from childhood. Fighting is what they did. It was their way of life. Their life depended on their ability to fight in armour.

I concur that Heavy horse tire to slow. Still, I think units tire too fast, especially in those situations where only a few men ar fighting, like on a castle wall.

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although i ahve heard this somersaulting business mentioned many times i still cannot get my head round it plate armour, when all the bits are on, is simply not that flexible. you dont have to wear it to kow that just watch how a guy moves when he is actually wearing it.

and just cos the weight is distributed doesnt necessarily mean it makes u ledss tired. u r still carrying the same weight and still ahve to expend the same energy to carry it.

i also cannot see how large numbers of people could afford to spend their life from choldhood just training. europe in the middle ages was not that wealthy. i'm sure that there were very good fighters but i wouldnt think you would see more than 100 of them in any battle unless it was major batle where nearly all of the nations army had gathered.

and most importantly for me having fatugue gave the game more depth and included another tactical variable to consider when fighting and for that reason alone i think it sould be modelled into the game. in vanilla u can forget about fatigue but playing lts troops certainly do get tired but recovery is very slow.

what i would also wish for is more affects of bad weather. heavy rain should make archers nearly useless. but they seem to be the same in wind/rain or snow

Look at modern sport fighters, like boxers - they are in excellent shape and train for endurance, yet they are noticibly tired after a few minutes and exhausted if the fight lasts any length of time. And, they aren't wearing armor or swinging a weapon.

I saw an episode of Mail Call on the History channel where R Lee did some sparring in full plate. I believe it was about 90lbs of gear. Just wearing the armor, he said it didn't feel that heavy because if the way it was distributed over the body, but when he sparred with another guy they were both out of breath very quickly. Once they were both too tired to dance around and do anything fancy it basically turned into a smashing contest on each others shields and the winner was who had more energy, and could continuously deliver crushing blows to the other guys shield and keep him off balance until he fell down. Granted neither of the men were in great shape or great fighters, but it still gives an idea.

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Originally Posted by crpcarrot

although i ahve heard this somersaulting business mentioned many times i still cannot get my head round it plate armour, when all the bits are on, is simply not that flexible. you dont have to wear it to kow that just watch how a guy moves when he is actually wearing it.

and just cos the weight is distributed doesnt necessarily mean it makes u ledss tired. u r still carrying the same weight and still ahve to expend the same energy to carry it.

i also cannot see how large numbers of people could afford to spend their life from choldhood just training. europe in the middle ages was not that wealthy. i'm sure that there were very good fighters but i wouldnt think you would see more than 100 of them in any battle unless it was major batle where nearly all of the nations army had gathered.

and most importantly for me having fatugue gave the game more depth and included another tactical variable to consider when fighting and for that reason alone i think it sould be modelled into the game. in vanilla u can forget about fatigue but playing lts troops certainly do get tired but recovery is very slow.

what i would also wish for is more affects of bad weather. heavy rain should make archers nearly useless. but they seem to be the same in wind/rain or snow

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I spent basic training with one of Norways most promising wrestlers. The difference between his physical shape and mine at the time is like crap compared to creme :laugh4:
One of our standard training and toughening exercizes was 'rifle gym' with our G-3 rifle. Most of us got tired after 100 or so reps with the 10 lb rifle. He would do it in his leisure time, and once did over 2000(!) during a camp watch, in which he rested his arms by using one arm from time to time, and only counting one-arm lifts as 1/2 :yes:

To compare modern day reenactors is vastly misrepresenting.

It is hard to assess the economy of the Middle Ages without deep study. To give an inclination on how the econmy has changed just in the last century, a farm in Southern Norway that would support 2 full families before WWII, can hardly support a single man today.

If you look at a typical English army in Medieval times, just 1/4th would be Men-at-Arms(armoured knights and squires). The rest would be archers and spearmen with little or no armour. The Noblemen would have the best armour, and one of the most lucrative ways of gainging fast cash during the 100-years war was loot, ransom of noble captives and taking and selling their arms and armour.
Medieval economy in Europe was very different from the Middle East, in that everyday items for the latter was luxuries for the former. Knights would typically only need money for arms, armour(if they didn't have smiths to make them), horses(if they didn't breed them), castle repair or expansion and scutage(tax to the king). Otherwise, the economy was not money based, and
they would tax their peasants in kind, or work. The Feudal system meant that they held their land in exchange for military service. To pay that service and survive, the nobility would focus all their efforts on gathering taxes, and training for that service. There was little other 'jobs' for them to do.

i agree that your wretler mate was in better shape than you but did you think about how he got into that shape.

good diet, nutritional supplements, carfully controlled gym and other traning sessions. none of this was available to the medeival knight. although i'm sure they were much more fitter than an avarage man of today i doubt any of them would be anywhere close to the physical shape of any top boxers/wrestlers/rugby players of today. even if they were a heavy weight boxer after 20 rounds of 3 mins cant even stand up wearing only shorts and gloves.