The Shield Problem(s)

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Originally Posted by The Stranger

i think you should leave on the shield value because it works against arrows... but you should also add the same amount the shield distracts instead of adds to the defence value. Adding it to the armour wouldnt be that smart because it would greatly improve the effect of armour piercing units. Because the shield bug distracts points in their defensive ability and they will die faster i think that adding points to the defensevalue is good because they can now better defend themself...

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Well, armor piercing units have the AP value applied to shield value too... Not just armor. So it doesn't really overpower AP units. Actually adding the shield value to defense skill underpowers AP units. But that's not a huge deal...

The main issue with adding it to armor is that it makes missile troops too ineffective since you can't use enfilade and flanking fire to overcome the shield value.

Personally my preferred solution is to put double their shield value into defense skill. This counteracts the negative value, and gives them the melee advantage that they would normally gain from the shield, leaves them with the shield value against missile fire, and basically doesn't overpower them at all in normal play. It makes them overpowered in autocalc, but I never autocalc a battle so it's no big deal to me.

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Originally Posted by Musashi

Personally my preferred solution is to put double their shield value into defense skill. This counteracts the negative value, and gives them the melee advantage that they would normally gain from the shield, leaves them with the shield value against missile fire, and basically doesn't overpower them at all in normal play. It makes them overpowered in autocalc, but I never autocalc a battle so it's no big deal to me.

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I don't care about autocalc, this can be the best fix I think :2thumbsup:

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Actually schiltrom should make them more vulnerable to arrow fire since no matter which direction I fire from the majority of the men I'm hitting would be taking shots in the rear/side.

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In schiltrom they form a SOLID circular shield wall, an arrow fired on a flattish trajectory from ANY direction has to pass through someone with a shield BEFORE it can hit anyone in the back. It isn't POSSIBLE to hit someone in the back with arrow fire when they are in that formation with a flattish trajectory missile.

You can do it if you fire in an Arc, but if you do that you lose power because of the arcing affect which probably evens things out.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that they would suffer more losses as some arrow WOULD skim into peoples backs occasionally, but I don’t think the losses would be much worse.

Also, remembers this was a full stack of the best combined medium cav/HA available, (that I could find anyway), against LESS than a half a stack of decent Spear infantry, I'm pretty sure 2/3 a stack of Spear Militia with silver level armour would be able to replicate this result even with a proper working shield and newly lowered armour values.

Without meaning any offence, I’m interested in just how much you actually use non-HA armies? The shield fix REALLY neuters CAV now, and weather the cav do well seems to be down to their total attack value on the charge. This means that most HA can't freely slaughter infantry at will anymore, especially spear infantry. I'm getting the impression you only use all HA armies and only against the AI in most of your battles. Thus you haven’t encountered the effects of the shield fix to date as I’m finding weak cav to be really neutered. In my experience the Ai isn't that brilliant and could do much better. A Human could do much better with Sword & Shield and Spear & Shield units than the AI normally could.

I'll point you to here post by Foz where he says repetitive formed charges are required to beat high quality sword & shield Infantry. Most HA aren’t even as good as Border Horse in a fight from the stats, so they are in real trouble in melee against them.

The days of your HA simply shooting half the enemy army to death and then running the rest down with formed charges are well over IMO. The shield fix just makes it too destructive to your own cav to try, and as long as the enemy has more units that you they should be able to keep one facing each of your HA all the time.

I'm not trying to say that HA are useless, but that I anticipate HA no longer being able to take on much larger armies and win as they have been up to now. They will remain useful and powerful unit, but will have to be used in combination with other units to achieve the desired effect. Much like every other unit out there.

To get the full benefits of the shield fix you HAVE to take the shield value away as they don’t brace for a charge right for some reason if you don’t.

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According to an old guide for the first medieval total war. it's true that shields only protect against missile fire, and infact, some are just for show (as discovered by testers).

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2 points:

1. Theirs a diagram out their somewhere that says shields should work in melee.

2. They don't even work properly vs. missile fire ATM.

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Personally my preferred solution is to put double their shield value into defense skill. This counteracts the negative value, and gives them the melee advantage that they would normally gain from the shield, leaves them with the shield value against missile fire, and basically doesn't overpower them at all in normal play. It makes them overpowered in autocalc, but I never autocalc a battle so it's no big deal to me.

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And this explains why you still seem to be having so much success with HA in melee. If you don't zero the shield value, they don't brace properly and shield units are still massively underpowered vs. cav. I actually did the Defence fix, going as far as to double it in some cases and shield units NEVER braced.

@Lusted: Most of the changed you've made in LTC arn't needed if you fix the sheild bug because it actually makes units work without messing auto-calc. the only issue is 2-handed sword units which need a serious stats buff, (and do mess auto-calc up if you do~:().

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Originally Posted by Vinsitor

I don't care about autocalc, this can be the best fix I think :2thumbsup:

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Mmm I think I was wrong before :dizzy2:

In fact adding the double the shield to defence, it means you have 3 times the defence where shield bonus isn't applied and the defense bonus is (right side, and maybe the back too I think). Thus means that flanking would be less effective in melee combat, in exchange of some volley's hit from the right side.

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@Lusted: Most of the changed you've made in LTC arn't needed if you fix the sheild bug because it actually makes units work without messing auto-calc. the only issue is 2-handed sword units which need a serious stats buff, (and do mess auto-calc up if you do).

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The only chance i've made in LTc that messes up auto-calc is my 2 handed bug workaround. The other changes have been through toher things that do not affect a units ability in auto-calc. The only way i would go about adding in the shield fix(adding in the shield value to defense skill but leaving in the shield defense as wel) would mess up auto-calc.

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Originally Posted by Musashi

Personally my preferred solution is to put double their shield value into defense skill. This counteracts the negative value, and gives them the melee advantage that they would normally gain from the shield, leaves them with the shield value against missile fire, and basically doesn't overpower them at all in normal play. It makes them overpowered in autocalc, but I never autocalc a battle so it's no big deal to me.

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If defense stats apply as purported to, this will really make the units whacky when they get flanked in melee. They have an extra defense from the right equal to twice their shield, while having presumably -2x their shield still on the left. I'm saying this: an 8/8/6 def unit has the following intended defenses in melee:

Front: 22
Right: 16
Left: 14
Rear: 8

Putting 2x shield in skill gives them file stats of 8/20/6 and stats in practice of:

Front: 22
Right: 28
Left: 2
Rear: 8

This to me is absolutely unacceptable, as melee flanking is very common. Putting shield into armour looks like (14/8/0) and in practice:

Front: 22
Right: 22
Left: 14
Rear: 14

This is a little more powerful unit, but does not cause the horrific see-saw of the skill points. Given that it ALSO does not mess up auto-calc as the calculated unit defense stays the same (skill point fix makes the unit have 12 extra armour in auto-calc), it gets my vote.

By the way, the reason we care about auto-calc is not only in case we ever use it, but also the fact that the computer uses it ALL THE TIME. Lusted, while your fixed stats may have the units performing reasonably well on the battlefield, they make autocalc absolutely horrible, as for instance 2H units that will perform great on the battlefield will have the strength of water when the computer autocalcs them because you watered down their stats so much to keep them from slaughtering bugged shield units. This will in turn be drastically affecting the AI's battles, and ultimately the composition of the armies that you encounter in battles with the AI, as the troops you face when expanding have often been around and fighting with various other computer factions for a while. It also may be affecting army composition if you have not costed the units with a very exact balance, as the AI presumably recruits based on the stats and not on actual battlefield performance, and so likely holds the units with nerfed stats in disfavor as a result. In general all this discrepancy you get from modifying stats to create battlefield balance without regard to stat balance will lead to a profound lack of any unit you nerfed the stats of in enemy armies you encounter, not to mention a likely overabundance of things like sword+shield infantry which will have their stats intact and thus typically survive AI auto-calcs mostly unharmed. This is exactly the sort of problem I'm attempting to avoid by balancing the units a different way, and again I feel that the few problems the proposed shield fix presents are absolutely miniscule compared to the destruction of the computer's perception of unit strength that stat rebalancing for battlefield performance (without maintaining unit attack/defense totals) inherently causes.

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Lusted, while your fixed stats may have the units performing reasonably well on the battlefield, they make autocalc absolutely horrible, as for instance 2H units that will perform great on the battlefield will have the strength of water when the computer autocalcs them because you watered down their stats so much to keep them from slaughtering bugged shield units.

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2 handed units with my workaround for the 2handed bug(give them the JHI infantry animation and reduce attack) are the only ones in my mod to suffer this problem. I actually balanced them compared to both JHI and shield units.

Im also curious about whether you apply this fix to cav as well.

Plus doesn't your fix defeat the point of shields, which is better defense against missiles?

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Originally Posted by Musashi

Personally my preferred solution is to put double their shield value into defense skill. This counteracts the negative value, and gives them the melee advantage that they would normally gain from the shield, leaves them with the shield value against missile fire, and basically doesn't overpower them at all in normal play. It makes them overpowered in autocalc, but I never autocalc a battle so it's no big deal to me.

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This is what I am also using, though I also upped the defense skill of the units without shield to compensate for autocalc and AI building priorities. So far the battles have been playing out nicely with these changes.

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Plus doesn't your fix defeat the point of shields, which is better defense against missiles?

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No as adding it to the armour helps out there. YES it does mean AP missiles and C attacks are bit OTT. Missiles we'll just have to live with. (although the benefits against enfidle fire probably even things out overall). AP melee is partly why I add 2 extra to the defence skill. It helps make 2-Handers without stat changes a littlie less OTT against Shield units (i.e. they suffer some losses), and deals with non-2-hander AP melee units being really OTT.

P.s. What I meant is that you don't need to modify unit stats much with the shield fix or add mass to units. It also brings into play some really important balance points. Namely anything that doesn’t kill a Shield unit on impact will get an automatic Shield Bash inflicted. This never kills as far as I can tell. However, it does knock them out of charge mode. So non-AP/cav units that are charging shield units find them very hard work, as does weak, (i.e, HA), cav. That’s a big change TBH.

I'm not trying to knock the effort you've put in of course, just that I think the Shield fix deals with so many issues at once that many of the other modifications you've already made simply aren’t needed, although I can understand you'd resent abandoning so much hard work. It's annoying me how much modding I’m having to do to get a working game TBH.

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This is what I am also using, though I also upped the defense skill of the units without shield to compensate for autocalc and AI building priorities. So far the battles have been playing out nicely with these changes.

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BUT IF YOU DO THIS YO ONLY HALF FIX IT AS SHIELD UNITS STILL DON@T BRACE PROPERLY.

Sorry for shouting but a lot of people seem to have missed this very important point. It effect Shield Infantry and Spears against cav tremendously, as well as non-spear Shield infantry against anything in general.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

2 handed units with my workaround for the 2handed bug(give them the JHI infantry animation and reduce attack) are the only ones in my mod to suffer this problem. I actually balanced them compared to both JHI and shield units.

Im also curious about whether you apply this fix to cav as well.

Plus doesn't your fix defeat the point of shields, which is better defense against missiles?

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I Sure do. Everything with a shield stat gets it put into armour, then zeroed. It would be unfair to fix the spear units, but let the cavalry suffer the 8-point stat swing they would have in melee combat due to their typical 4-point shields. It also helps balance the lower cav units against the later ones. Many late units have more armour but no shields, and as a result the early cav were being absolutely butchered by late cav that had only a minor stat point advantage against them. It in fact removes many discrepancies like that that people had been noticing.

It actually doesn't defeat the point of the shield either, as the unit's improved armour stat protects it from missile fire as effectively as the shield points had been, perhaps even a hair better.

I'd suggest even if you don't intend to apply the fix permanently, that you play a session or two using my shield-fixed vanilla file with a 2H fix in place and maybe a pike fix too. It's substantially better than even I had anticipated it would be, and hard to exactly describe well. Much easier to experience. :smile:

@Carl: Thanks for the note about the units bracing when having shield-value zero. I had noticed them doing this when they received cav charges, but not that they were failing to do it when having a >0 shield number. Sounds like another reason the fix should be applied, as it's a non-obvious benefit of being able to zero the shield.

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I'm not trying to knock the effort you've put in of course, just that I think the Shield fix deals with so many issues at once that many of the other modifications you've already made simply aren’t needed, although I can understand you'd resent abandoning so much hard work. It's annoying me how much modding I’m having to do to get a working game TBH.

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Well actually i think i've got a pretty good balance with the changes i've made, im not sure i need to incorporate this into my mod. and the changes i made weren't that time consuming(increased mass of spearmen, change to charge bonuses). The most time consuming was rebalancing the bugged 2 handed units after changing their animation tot hat of the JHI.

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substantially better than even I had anticipated it would be, and hard to exactly describe well. Much easier to experience.

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Yeah, that’s what I’m finding. Great fun but hard to describe.

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Well actually i think i've got a pretty good balance with the changes i've made, im not sure i need to incorporate this into my mod. and the changes i made weren't that time consuming(increased mass of spearmen, change to charge bonuses). The most time consuming was rebalancing the bugged 2 handed units after changing their animation tot hat of the JHI.

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I wasn't suggesting you had bad balance, just that the shield fix adds new balances that you can't achieve any other way because they rely on bracing that works, when braced shield units act as though they DO have better mass which really throws things. In addition they can actually nullify charges from many Inf units totally, I mean literally the enemy inf causes no kills when they charge in because the braced shield absorb it all. Cav and high stat Ap 2-handers can get through. But they are a special case. Without AP you need an attack in the 30+ range to get through defence 24 sword and shield units on the charge.

It helps give you extra defences against light cav, and as a result REALLY changes the HA dynamics.

Likewise I’ve never seen Spearmen fight effectively in Shilstrem with a shield value of better than 0. Although others seem to have them working so it could just have been me. I think I’ll start a separate thread on the matter as I’m not sure if that’s a shield bug thing or just me.

As Foz says, just give it a try for a session or two and see how it feels, even if you don’t like it you know you aren’t missing anything and can give an explanation of this in your mod readme.

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Originally Posted by Carl

BUT IF YOU DO THIS YO ONLY HALF FIX IT AS SHIELD UNITS STILL DON@T BRACE PROPERLY.

Sorry for shouting but a lot of people seem to have missed this very important point. It effect Shield Infantry and Spears against cav tremendously, as well as non-spear Shield infantry against anything in general.

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Then reduce the mass of mounts, and you're set.

One of the changes i've made in my LTc is mod is to remove the charge bonus for light cav so HA no loger own spearmen, and reduce hev cav charge bonus so they don't wipe out armoured sergeants in a single charge. But i've also increased the mass of cavalry to make charges feel more realistic. Now testing the shield fix i've found late shield sword infantry very resistant to cav, when they shouldn't be considering that they're swordsmen. That, plus the fact that ap units are far too effective against late era units with the fix aren't really endearing me to this

That dosen't do anything for the effects against infantry though (and they are very important). I'm also not convinced we'll see the on contact MAD that occurs with them properly braced. Of course if you've tested it and you do see this. Fair enough.

Finially, which is easier. Moving a sheild value to the armour. Or adding the Sheild to the Defence Skill, AND rebalanmcing 2-hander stats, (which messes up auto-calc), AND playing with unit masses, AND implimenting some kind of fix for the lost Effects vs. Infantry?

It's clearly easier to transfer the sheild to the armour and makes the units perform as intended when engaged from the front and sides, (assuming defence skill affects a 180 degree arc when the sheild is set to zero as appears to be the case with 2-Handers).

You need to put those charge bonusus back in or it will mes things up. Likewise AP 2-Handers SHOULD be massacering sheild units. Pikes and AP 2-handers are the best late infantry, they are also sluaghtered by cav and archers (unlike Sword and sheild units). Noble Swordsmen with the Charge Bonuses back in correctly can tack on Mailed Knights, but Anything better massacres them with some, (but not massive losses).

To test this objectivly you need to use a fresh file set with ONLY the sheild fix, swaped animations, and if you ant, the pike fix. Anything else will skew things massivly in some way towards IMBA.

It's only cav charge bonuses i have reduced to stop them wiping out spearmen in 1 charge, but my reduction in cav charge bonuses has been sort of counteracted by my increasing cavalry mass.

It could still be having knock on effects. anything with an 8 charge stat, (or one with 6 and very good stats), should decimates Sword and Sheild units. Your statment makes me belive this isn't happening for you and thats what prompted my post.

Sorry if i was a bit over aggressive about it BTW.

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Originally Posted by Carl

It's clearly easier to transfer the sheild to the armour and makes the units perform as intended when engaged from the front and sides, (assuming defence skill affects a 180 degree arc when the sheild is set to zero as appears to be the case with 2-Handers).

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But it's clearly less in the spirit of the game, IMO. The TW games have always been about units having different defense on different sides. If they now have the same value for all sides for both melee and missiles, especially if the skill applies in a 360 arc without a shield as you seem to imply, then I am playing an Age of Empires game and not a TW game any more. We might as well dump everything into armor and forget about it.

And btw, I didn't notice any difference with bracing/not bracing.

They won't brace when in Guard/Hold mode. Yiou must also be tottaly still, if you order them to move whilst reciving a chage they won't brace.

And defence on diffrent sides dosen't matter here. Leave the sheild value in and you get too high a defence on one side and almost no defence on the other. Lets also remeber that this is a GAME. It's meant to be a Balanced. With the sheild value still their and crazy defence values for sheild units and weakened 2-handers and other similar stuff the game isn't balanced at all, in or out of auto-calc. we allready know the sheild isn't working right against missile fire and may be effected by AP so theirs no point keeping it, and considering most sword units have a defence skill VERY similar to their sheild value, it doesen't actually change their left/right defence values by more than a point over what they should be with working sheilds. So with working sheilds you'd still be playing an AOE game not a TW game anyway. Except it isn't things like that that set the systems apart. It's the fact that the TW games actually include Startegy and complex Tactics as apposed to simpile ones. As an AOE player i can tell you that the fixed game STILL uses the rock/paper/scissors system that has dominated RTS so long, (with good rason). and at the basest level isn't much diffrent in terms of unit interaction in head on fights. It's things like Morale, Flank and Rear Charges, units instead of individual models and many other things that set the games apart. these introduce a lot of new tactics to the TW games that AOE can never have. The sheild fix dosen't change that one bit. it just makes units work more as intended.

p.s. it's 180, not 360.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Now testing the shield fix i've found late shield sword infantry very resistant to cav, when they shouldn't be considering that they're swordsmen.

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Should this not be the case? Don't forget that said shield sword infantry units are wearing and carrying enough metal to practically build a small tank, and have an 8 point advantage in defense over 2H AP units that in fact do get slaughtered by cav. It should be considerably harder for cavalry to make a dent in sword+shield units with them able to bring so much defense to bear against the charge. They do still take some losses from the initial charge, but are (and should be) in a better position defensively to hold against the ensuing melee sword assault of the cavalry, and once a horse is near you in combat, it shouldn't be very difficult to hit it with a sword.

The real point, though, is that the sword+shield unit's stat sheets tell me they should survive a cavalry charge pretty well. More than likely it's just that you're so used to enjoying being able to plow into what ought to be high-armour units and win the day easily with cavalry that it's never occurred to you that maybe it doesn't make all that much sense.

I would also recommend working with the vanilla shield fix file as a baseline, as any changes you've made like lowering charge values and such will certainly affect your results. A fair number of shield guys should still die on initial contact, and I'm gonna guess the charge modifier is largely responsible for those kills. Just figured I'd mention this, since it's entirely unclear whether you've added the fix into your modified LTC file, or are actually working with the vanilla fixed version I provided. Also when I say using a 2H fix along, I mean an animation replacement fix, like zxiang's 2h fix, not replacing soldier types in the unit definitions, which could be another source of potential disparity.

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Originally Posted by Carl

And defence on diffrent sides dosen't matter here. ... *snipped for brevity*

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Right... To each his own.

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Right... To each his own.

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Of course, Agree 100%. We each have our own veiw on how things should be, and are free to implement them like that in our mods.

I was mearly trying to point out that the sheild fix only really disfavours HA as a unit class in general. Whilst not fixing it disadvantages 3 classes. Spear units, Sword & Sheild Units, and Cav with a sheild. It might give them slightly better rear charge resistance and Enfidle fire resistance than we'd like. But overall it fixes a much bigger set of problems much more cleanly and without creating as many more and is thus a better fix in general IMO.

The shield into armor fix nerfs all missile troops Carl... Even with foot archers you generally try to flank because enfilade fire is the best kill rate of any attack type in the game... Making it so that archers can't do any better when flanking/rear firing makes them basically worthless (Which explains why you think the Scots are so good) whereas they're the best killers in the game without that kind of fix.

PS: I've stated this before but you seem not to believe it -- AP counts against shield as well as armor, so moving armor into shield doesn't make AP anything better.

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Originally Posted by Musashi

The shield into armor fix nerfs all missile troops Carl... Even with foot archers you generally try to flank because enfilade fire is the best kill rate of any attack type in the game... Making it so that archers can't do any better when flanking/rear firing makes them basically worthless (Which explains why you think the Scots are so good) whereas they're the best killers in the game without that kind of fix.

PS: I've stated this before but you seem not to believe it -- AP counts against shield as well as armor, so moving armor into shield doesn't make AP anything better.

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Of course, I thought archers (at least English ones that I've played with a lot) were underpowered already even without making any fixes/changes to the EDU. I was running tests earlier and the computer marched (they never decided to run) pikemen at some Yeoman that I allowed to sit still and auto-fire at the pikes. They were highland pikemen, with stat_pri_armour 0, 3, 0, flesh. That is, 0 armour, 3 skill, 0 shield, which should mean zero rating against missile fire. I disabled skirmish too so they'd keep firing as the pikes approached. To my horror, ~1/3 of the pikes were still alive when they got to the yeoman. They took several volleys from close range (probably ~12 in total), including one from about 6 feet away, which while it almost entirely hit the front line of men, did NOT cause all of those men to fall over dead. In fact I would estimate that at least half of the arrow impacts did not directly cause deaths, from any given distance. I have no idea why this would/should be the case, but it really makes me wonder if archers stats are too low.

It may be necessary to balance archer stats up to the level of fixed shield units and 2h units, as the archers now appear to have far worse game effects than similarly costed dismounted knight units. For instance compare working armoured swordsmen with yeoman. They cost almost the same in recruitment and upkeep... but it's clear that the yeoman are not nearly as powerful. I don't know what exactly to propose for stats yet, but the balancing will probably be considerably more subjective than what I've previously been doing, which makes it touchy at best. I won't be surprised if a missile attack value of 13 or even more for yeoman is required to make them feel as useful as various dismounted knight units clearly are.

It should be noted too that this is an issue I feel has been present at least for English archers since the beginning and is not caused by any of my modding: The yeoman I tested are completely unmodified, while the pikes have only their swords taken away (the pike fix) which affects their ability to die from missile fire not at all. I would submit that yeoman that cost 650 and 150 upkeep should completely dismantle a 0-missile-defense unit like these highland pikemen before they ever get to melee range... especially since >75% of the last 3 volleys appeared to be registered as hits, yet men hit by 3 or more arrows sometimes still failed to fall over dead. This should not happen, especially with completely unarmoured troops...

As for Musashi's comment about the shield fix not making AP anything any better, I heartily agree, as my limited testing of it and battlefield experience have shown it true. Tests have borne out that the armour points protect as well as the shield ones do against AP missile fire, so people claiming the fixed units are weaker to AP missile fire b/c of having armour points instead of shield points will have to make a compelling case with data to support that conclusion.

I have to agree with above. It almost sounds like you guys are trying to neuter the game.

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The days of your HA simply shooting half the enemy army to death and then running the rest down with formed charges are well over IMO.

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A little bitter, eh? Last time I checked, historically, a good HA army (mongol/Byzantine/Turk) was suppose to do just that to a all infantry army.

While I feel its nice that we have the opportunity to 'balance' the games for ourselfs, it shouldn't be left to a small community of modders to decide how the game shall play for all of us. Already, when we are discussing strategy, its automaticly assumed that your using the '2H fix' and the 'Pike' fix. I can see this new 'sheild' Fix being mandatory for strategic discussion in the not too far future.

It is a shame that the shield does not contribute to melee fighting like it should. However, I still feel the idea that sheild values contribute negativly to defence in melee is still debateable. However, if it IS true, I would prefer to wait for a official patch.

Why? Well lets state the problem: We want our shields to have a effect in melee.

Well, of the possible solutions, the best two ways are to:

A: add sheild to the armour and 0 the shield value. This has the effect of nerfing the depth that CA took in simulating archery based combat. It also does not produce the above desired effect.

Why? Well lets talk about what happens when you add to armour.

There are three 'quadrants' of defense to each solder. The Front-Right, Front-Left, and Rear.

the Armour value adds to all three quadrants. The Skill value adds to the front Right, and the Shield value adds to the Front-left. So, Lets look at a vanilla DFK from a Quadrant perspective assuming the shield bug is true.

Front-Right: 7 Armour + 8 skill= 15 defense
Front-Left: 7 armour + -6 shield= 1 defense
Rear: Defense = 7.

Now add the Armour fix.

Front-Right: 14 armour + 8 Skill= 22 Defense
Front-Left: 14 armour + 0 shield.= 14
Rear: Defense = 14

This game is balanced under the assumption(not knowing of the shield bug) that DFKs are actually: 15, 13, 7 respectively, not 22, 14, 14. Thus, we get a unit that is overpowered in terms of the way this game was meant to be played. What -you- think is how it suppose to be doesn't matter as much. If you think Dfk's should be Zomg death knights, then great, mod your game...don't declare it a universal fix for everyone.


The other Fix:

B: Keep the shield value and add double the shield value to the skill value to offset the inverse effect sheild has on melee defense. This also does not produce the desired effect:

With this fix the DFK's Quadrants are

Front-Right: 7 Armour + 20 SKill(6*2+8)= 27 Defense(Zomg)
Front-Left: -6 Shield + 7 armour= 1 Defense
Rear: Defense = 7

So we get a Dfk who's Quadrants are 27,1,7. Crazy, but at least arrow fire will continue to work like its suppose too.

TO me, both of these 'fixes' are not really fixes at all. Assuming one used the Shield-to-armour fix..I think there is only way it could be done barring a official patch. You would have to go through every unit in the game and readjust their stats to balance accordingly with the new and improved shield units. With that goes hours upon hours of balance testing just like the designers went through when they made this game.

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Originally Posted by Carl

Of course, Agree 100%. We each have our own veiw on how things should be, and are free to implement them like that in our mods.

I was mearly trying to point out that the sheild fix only really disfavours HA as a unit class in general. Whilst not fixing it disadvantages 3 classes. Spear units, Sword & Sheild Units, and Cav with a sheild. It might give them slightly better rear charge resistance and Enfidle fire resistance than we'd like. But overall it fixes a much bigger set of problems much more cleanly and without creating as many more and is thus a better fix in general IMO.

---

Speaking as someone sitting on the sidelines (this is a very interesting thread)... comments like that make me very nervous about applying a "shield fix" to a full campaign game. At least, not without deep testing, in that context.

Someone mentioned up-thread that auto-calc is important because the AI uses it all the time, which is a crucial point. Every time you hit the "turn" button, the Ai is auto-calc'ing based on stats. I don't want to suddenly see the Mongols nerfed in the campaign game (just taking one possible example), because suddenly HA's are less effective.

Okay, back to lurking on this thread now. :beam:

I apologize ahead of time and mean no disrespect Blademun, but I have to rip your assumptions about the 3-quadrant system to shreds.

One of the very early tests I ran included 3 key elements. Those were the following:

-Testing a unit with 22 armour/0 skill/0 shield
-Testing same unit with 0 armour/22 skill/0 shield
-Testing same unit with 0 armour/0 skill/22 shield

It was one of the pivotal tests for me, because it showed that shield points did NOT do the same thing as other defense points. On the flip side of that coin, however, is a point pivotal to your discussion:

-The all armour point unit produced combat results nearly identical on average to the all skill point unit.

Since I can't seem to find it at the moment and it's possible I didn't actually post those numbers as they were part of other testing, I'll put the results that back it up right here:

Code:

---

Armored Swordsmen 22/0/0 vs. Dismounted Noble Knights 15 attack no ap

AS Kills/DNK Kills
50/30
40/29
55/29
40/25
45/43
-----
230/156

Armored Swordsmen 0/22/0 vs Dismounted Noble Knights 15 attack no ap

AS Kills/DNK Kills
39/17
60/48
60/59
38/23
34/19
-----
231/166

I'm also including a set I ran just now with lock_morale.  I set shield 1 to be sure skill would only affect the right side in case shield 0 makes it have 180 degree arc.

Dismounted Feudal Knights 13/8/1 vs. Dismounted Norman Knights 21/0/1

DFK Kills/DNK Kills
61/52
61/49
61/56
47/61
45/61
-----
275/279

---

The results immediately indicate your front-left and front-right thinking must be flawed. The first 2 sets show that an all armor unit performed the same in CC as an all skill unit. If skill only applied on the front-right, we would presumably see the all skill unit take a performance hit, as half the attacks against it should come from front-left and thus be against a 0 defense value.

The third set that I just ran tonight is much more carefully constructed. lock_morale removes the morale factor, making units fight to the last man. The DFK have 8 skill points where the DNK instead get an extra 8 armor points. I gave each unit shield 1 to force the skill to only affect right if it in fact becomes 180 degrees in the absence of a shield (this may be set already for each unit instead of relying on shield value to determine it). The result shows an even matchup, where we would expect DNK to be dominant if a front-left and front-right field were used, as half the attacks against the DFK would come from the front-left and thus have a 12 defense instead of their front-right 21. The DFK suffer no such performance hit because of having skill instead of armor.

What all this means is that there is a front rating which sums armor, skill, and shield, and into which the majority of attacks in frontal melee combat go. Skill therefore does not apply to front-right, but rather to front AND right, and likewise shield would go front and left. The way I picture it is with quadrants (that means 4 btw), one for each of the cardinal directions, with their borders at 45 degrees, 135 degrees, 225 degrees, and 315 degrees (i.e. diagonals, like NE would be on a compass). That representation may not be completely correct, but it is for certain at least that some field directly in front of the man gets all 3 values (armour, skill, shield) counted for it, and that field is wide enough that it accounts for the vast majority of melee attacks in frontal melee combat.

After understanding that, go back and look at the shield-to-armour fix, and you'll note that in all cases it makes the all-important front number the amount the devs would've assumed it to be, as well as the left number, while making the right and rear numbers too high by an amount equal to unit's shield amount. It's a VERY important distinction to make, as the screwy numbers don't affect typical front combat like you suggested.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zenicetus

Speaking as someone sitting on the sidelines (this is a very interesting thread)... comments like that make me very nervous about applying a "shield fix" to a full campaign game. At least, not without deep testing, in that context.

Someone mentioned up-thread that auto-calc is important because the AI uses it all the time, which is a crucial point. Every time you hit the "turn" button, the Ai is auto-calc'ing based on stats. I don't want to suddenly see the Mongols nerfed in the campaign game (just taking one possible example), because suddenly HA's are less effective.

Okay, back to lurking on this thread now. :beam:

---

That's exactly why I've been saying the armour fix is the way to go. All the discussion about HA's being less effective is only in the context of the battlefield. The shield-to-armor fix maintains the defense total as calculated by the game, and therefore doesn't affect the massive amount of auto-calcing the computer does! The mongol HAs will only be affected when actually in battle with you. And even then, the effect has been exaggerated: shield units will have at most 6 more missile defense to the right and rear than they used to (newly covered areas by the armor points), and the exact same amount they did on the left and front (where shield was already being applied). That at most 6 point difference is effectively halved if the archers in question have AP. The biggest thing is that HAs may be underperformers on the battlefield in melee now, since they might have been balanced stat-wise against the shield-bugged units, which would cause up to a 12-point defense swing in a lot of cases...

Foz, using your fix, doesn't it make units with shields more vulnerable to missile from the front where the 'shield' defence is now zero.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by the_foz_4

That's exactly why I've been saying the armour fix is the way to go. All the discussion about HA's being less effective is only in the context of the battlefield. The shield-to-armor fix maintains the defense total as calculated by the game, and therefore doesn't affect the massive amount of auto-calcing the computer does! The mongol HAs will only be affected when actually in battle with you. And even then, the effect has been exaggerated: shield units will have at most 6 more missile defense to the right and rear than they used to (newly covered areas by the armor points), and the exact same amount they did on the left and front (where shield was already being applied). That at most 6 point difference is effectively halved if the archers in question have AP. The biggest thing is that HAs may be underperformers on the battlefield in melee now, since they might have been balanced stat-wise against the shield-bugged units, which would cause up to a 12-point defense swing in a lot of cases...

---

Okay.... but what if I'm playing a faction like Turks, which is actually my current campaign (hence my interest in the thread)? I almost never auto-resolve battles, and while it's not their main strength, my HA's do sometimes enter melee when the arrows run out.

I suppose an argument could be made that vanilla HA's are overpowered, but it took me a long time to learn how to use those "overpowered" units.

It seems that many of you are trying to change units to make them 'balanced'
in multiplayer. Speaking for myself, I abhor the idea of rock-paper-scisors
balancing applied to historical units. Heavy cavalry should devastate anything
but pikesmen. Horse archers should anihilate infantry. Shields should protect
only in an arc, and should help in melee.

I do not think that my wishes can be reconciled with those who wish to
balance multiplayer. I can only hope that someone (CA or a modder) will
strive for a "total realism" mod, as opposed to a "total balance" one.

Hello,

I thought I drop in to compliment you on your findings. I've followed a different approach trying to find out how the stats actually influence combat. I've worked with zero stats etc. but didn't expect one value like the shield to be so completely bugged as it is.
I've just done some tests where I set the shield of ASergeants to zero and otherwise kept their stats as they are. I pitted 5 of them against 5 Mailed Knights (also with zeroed out shield).
Now those units actually work like the advisor tells you and like it's supposed to be. If the AS receive the charge in default formation they may win but take horrendous casualties. Before the fix they would've just been run down by the knights. Now they stand a chance and are actual anti-cav units.
What's even better, the Shiltrom works. It really does. When placed in shiltrom your AS won't take much losses from repeated charges and will eventually rout the knights.
If you still feel you want Spears to be stronger, change the shiltrom to shield_wall (unused feature) and the knights don't stand a chance.

Width of the shield_wall (unit in the back) compared to default:
https://img216.imageshack.us/img216/4919/0028sq6.jpg

Spear wall ready to receive charge:
https://img142.imageshack.us/img142/3561/0029oc8.jpg

Charge at shield_wall
https://img142.imageshack.us/img142/2573/0033pc4.jpg

Charge at Shiltrom
https://img216.imageshack.us/img216/7121/0034eh7.jpg

I was surprised that this simple fix makes it unnecessary to toy around with other values like collision mass or skeleton comp. factor.
:2thumbsup:

R'as

So this has become a hot topic.

What I find amazing is that no one from CA takes the time to jump on a thread like this and say something...anything.

Even something like;

"Guy's, great work, thanks for that and where going to get on it."

When is the next "update" scheduled?

Is this 'Fix' working with armor upgrades? Having tried a number of battles with upgraded and non-upgraded units vs the same opponents, the upgraded units seem to do worse.

Maybe when a unit is upgraded it will not retain the higher armor value generated by the Fix?

Even unupgraded Armored Swordsmen now seem to be able to take om JHI quite well wiith the Fix...

Since the original problem is that the game subtracting the shield value in melee rather than adding it, setting the shield values to negative would in fact correct the melee values since subtracting a negative yields a positive. It would make shielded units more vulnerable to missile fire though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Point_Blank

Since the original problem is that the game subtracting the shield value in melee rather than adding it, setting the shield values to negative would in fact correct the melee values since subtracting a negative yields a positive. It would make shielded units more vulnerable to missile fire though.

---

That doesn't work. Negatives are displayed as zeroes in the stats.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul

That doesn't work. Negatives are displayed as zeroes in the stats.

---

Yeah I just tried it, would have been confusing anyway.

But I would still like to know whether armor upgrades are working properly in conjunction with the Fix.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AussieGiant

What I find amazing is that no one from CA takes the time to jump on a thread like this and say something...anything.

Even something like;

"Guy's, great work, thanks for that and where going to get on it."

---

Great work guys, really good bug-spotting :) The reason that we don't usually comment is that - to be brutally frank - there just isn't much to say about these things. We try hard to prioritise core gameplay bugs, but it's a huge piece of software with many people working on it, and obviously a few things have slipped the net that shouldn't have.

Rest assured that we do read these forums, both here in the UK and in Australia, and that these things do get discussed internally and passed on for investigation to the folks in Oz who are dealing with the patches.

Quote:

---

The shield into armor fix nerfs all missile troops Carl... Even with foot archers you generally try to flank because enfilade fire is the best kill rate of any attack type in the game... Making it so that archers can't do any better when flanking/rear firing makes them basically worthless (Which explains why you think the Scots are so good) whereas they're the best killers in the game without that kind of fix.

---

Well just to get it out of the way at the start, my scots comments where based on a game where the only modification was a 2-hander fix and MY version of the shield fix which DID NOT get shield units to brace, and which DID NOT give them any extra armour. They're better with foz's fix I admit.

Second, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If your being competent and the enemy army isn’t bigger than your you WILL NOT get enfidle fire with foot archers, they can't get into position fast enough, and need guarding from cav. The result? You've got 2 small armies to beat as apposed to one, and while he's repositioning his archers you can advance on him with no missile fire losses. I can’t see any advantage to even trying against someone competent./ remember the AI is terrible at unit control, you have to think of what a good human player would do, not a stupid AI that can’t recognise when to take advantage.

Let me also point out, AGAIN, that you can easily create all kinds of unit layouts where you force the enemy to shoot through a unit whose shields are facing the HA if thy want to hit anyone in the back. Or fire in an arc instead. Either will cut the effects of enfidle fire ANYWAY, so your not getting as big an advantage as might first appear. It just lets you use sloppy formations as apposed to carefully thought out ones.

@ this post: Yep, I noticed the same thing, it's really shocking. From the sounds of it I’m not the only one finding Shiltrom 10X more effective than it used to be.

Quote:

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A little bitter, eh? Last time I checked, historically, a good HA army (mongol/Byzantine/Turk) was suppose to do just that to a all infantry army.

---

Nope, the only time I’ve ever fought against HA on the battlefield was those tests furthar up the thread. However, I have heard a LOT of reports of pure HA armies defeating mixed and pure Inf armies. That simply isn't BALANCED. It doesn’t matter if it's historical or not, this is a game and it must be fun to play, that requires BALANCE.

Quote:

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It is a shame that the shield does not contribute to melee fighting like it should. However, I still feel the idea that sheild values contribute negativly to defence in melee is still debateable. However, if it IS true, I would prefer to wait for a official patch.

Why? Well lets state the problem: We want our shields to have a effect in melee.

Well, of the possible solutions, the best two ways are to:

A: add sheild to the armour and 0 the shield value. This has the effect of nerfing the depth that CA took in simulating archery based combat. It also does not produce the above desired effect.

Why? Well lets talk about what happens when you add to armour.

There are three 'quadrants' of defense to each solder. The Front-Right, Front-Left, and Rear.

the Armour value adds to all three quadrants. The Skill value adds to the front Right, and the Shield value adds to the Front-left. So, Lets look at a vanilla DFK from a Quadrant perspective assuming the shield bug is true.

Front-Right: 7 Armour + 8 skill= 15 defense
Front-Left: 7 armour + -6 shield= 1 defense
Rear: Defense = 7.

Now add the Armour fix.

Front-Right: 14 armour + 8 Skill= 22 Defense
Front-Left: 14 armour + 0 shield.= 14
Rear: Defense = 14

This game is balanced under the assumption(not knowing of the shield bug) that DFKs are actually: 15, 13, 7 respectively, not 22, 14, 14. Thus, we get a unit that is overpowered in terms of the way this game was meant to be played. What -you- think is how it suppose to be doesn't matter as much. If you think Dfk's should be Zomg death knights, then great, mod your game...don't declare it a universal fix for everyone.


The other Fix:

B: Keep the shield value and add double the shield value to the skill value to offset the inverse effect sheild has on melee defense. This also does not produce the desired effect:

With this fix the DFK's Quadrants are

Front-Right: 7 Armour + 20 SKill(6*2+8)= 27 Defense(Zomg)
Front-Left: -6 Shield + 7 armour= 1 Defense
Rear: Defense = 7

So we get a Dfk who's Quadrants are 27,1,7. Crazy, but at least arrow fire will continue to work like its suppose too.

TO me, both of these 'fixes' are not really fixes at all. Assuming one used the Shield-to-armour fix..I think there is only way it could be done barring a official patch. You would have to go through every unit in the game and readjust their stats to balance accordingly with the new and improved shield units. With that goes hours upon hours of balance testing just like the designers went through when they made this game.

---

First your example are wrong, it should be 7+6 to the left. That's 13, 1 less than the value with the armour fix. defence skill also seems to be a 180 affect ATM, so it's only rear armour and right missile armour that’s borked.

Second, the shield isn't even working properly against MISSILE FIRE

RE READ THE ABOVE.

Got it, good.


Overall the fix actually makes the units have about the right defence values all the time from everything except the rear, and right if it's missile fire.

Quote:

---

Okay.... but what if I'm playing a faction like Turks, which is actually my current campaign (hence my interest in the thread)? I almost never auto-resolve battles, and while it's not their main strength, my HA's do sometimes enter melee when the arrows run out.

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Then you get smashed. As you should. Use a combined arms army so you have some infantry, or heavy melee cav to finish the job and you'll do fine. Byzantine has all those spear and shield units for a reason you know. As do the turks.

Quote:

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Great work guys, really good bug-spotting :) The reason that we don't usually comment is that - to be brutally frank - there just isn't much to say about these things. We try hard to prioritise core gameplay bugs, but it's a huge piece of software with many people working on it, and obviously a few things have slipped the net that shouldn't have.

Rest assured that we do read these forums, both here in the UK and in Australia, and that these things do get discussed internally and passed on for investigation to the folks in Oz who are dealing with the patches.

---

Thanks for the heads up~:).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke

Great work guys, really good bug-spotting :) The reason that we don't usually comment is that - to be brutally frank - there just isn't much to say about these things.

---

Thanks very much for posting but it's not true that there's not much to say.
What you just posted, an acknowledgement, means a lot to the community.
It's fine that we can have faith that you read the forums and take care of problems but it's even better to hear it. Seeing is believing. We don't want details, sometimes a simple "aha" or "mmmmh" or "ok" would be totally sufficient. :wink: Give us lifesigns now and then and we'll be as tame as kittens.
Of course, I realise that in the past some remarks have been taken as promises.
I see CA's problem there but there's always a compromise.

R'as

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke

Great work guys, really good bug-spotting :) The reason that we don't usually comment is that - to be brutally frank - there just isn't much to say about these things. We try hard to prioritise core gameplay bugs, but it's a huge piece of software with many people working on it, and obviously a few things have slipped the net that shouldn't have.

Rest assured that we do read these forums, both here in the UK and in Australia, and that these things do get discussed internally and passed on for investigation to the folks in Oz who are dealing with the patches.

---

LOL,

Mission accomplished, thanks Jerome for confirming that you guy's at the very least are aware of this issue.

I just needed a little positive reinforcement...I'm not too demanding...at least I don't think so. :laugh4:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul

If you still feel you want Spears to be stronger, change the shiltrom to spear_wall (unused feature) and the knights don't stand a chance.

---

R'as, did you mean shield_wall, or spear wall i.e. phalanx? I would love to be able to use shield_wall formation in game, but I think that the AI will not use it with his spearmen, which then imbalances things for the player. Have you tested it with the AI controlling the spearmen, is it able to employ shield_wall properly (or at all)? If not, do you, or anybody else for that matter, know how to get the AI to use a new formation?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke

Great work guys, really good bug-spotting :) The reason that we don't usually comment is that - to be brutally frank - there just isn't much to say about these things. We try hard to prioritise core gameplay bugs, but it's a huge piece of software with many people working on it, and obviously a few things have slipped the net that shouldn't have.

Rest assured that we do read these forums, both here in the UK and in Australia, and that these things do get discussed internally and passed on for investigation to the folks in Oz who are dealing with the patches.

---

Many thanks for posting this! :yes:

Hmmm looks like everyone who thought it was a bug was right, while Zhukov was wrong.

Quote:

---

Great work guys, really good bug-spotting :) The reason that we don't usually comment is that - to be brutally frank - there just isn't much to say about these things. We try hard to prioritise core gameplay bugs, but it's a huge piece of software with many people working on it, and obviously a few things have slipped the net that shouldn't have.

---

Oh, we understand the difficulty in making a completely bug free product. I'm not interested in 'gotchas' or assigning blame to the developers, nor is anyone else, I think.

We just want assurance that what we are seeing actually is a bug, and that CA is aware of it, and working to correct it.

Icing on the cake would be an ETA on the fix :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ulstan

Hmmm looks like everyone who thought it was a bug was right, while Zhukov was wrong.

---

The opening shot at member who posted a completely valid point was totally unnecessary.

Especially considering that this

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ulstan

We just want assurance that what we are seeing actually is a bug

---

Was essentially Zhukov's point to start with: That just because you're seeing something you don't think is working as it should, doesn't necessarily mean its a bug.

@Kraggenmor:

I agree that was a cheap shot, but also, if you read my last reply to Zurkovs last post in this thread you'd see that i'd pointed out how it made fixed 2-handers work with origonal stats, (and thus in auto-calc), and also made late era sheild units competetive with all other late era units. This proved it was bug to me as it brought everything back into balance. The effects of getting working bracing, have only added to this extra balance where seeing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carl

@Kraggenmor:

I agree that was a cheap shot, but also, if you read my last reply to Zurkovs last post in this thread you'd see that i'd pointed out how it made fixed 2-handers work with origonal stats, (and thus in auto-calc), and also made late era sheild units competetive with all other late era units. This proved it was bug to me as it brought everything back into balance. The effects of getting working bracing, have only added to this extra balance where seeing.

---

I did read it and you've done excellent work!

My comments weren't directed across your bow.

I knew they wern't directed at me BTW, I was just pointing out that I can understand the frustration that caused the post, no matter how "bad" a post it might have been.

Also, whilst I must say thanks for your thanks, i played only a very small part in this issue, running a few tests and noticing the odd thing. Foz did all the real work really. I'm just very long winded and vocal, so i get noticed a lot, and thus get more praise than i deserve...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hrvojej

R'as, did you mean shield_wall, or spear wall i.e. phalanx? I would love to be able to use shield_wall formation in game, but I think that the AI will not use it with his spearmen, which then imbalances things for the player. Have you tested it with the AI controlling the spearmen, is it able to employ shield_wall properly (or at all)? If not, do you, or anybody else for that matter, know how to get the AI to use a new formation?

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hrvojej, I meant shield_wall, sorry for the confusion. I'll edit my post.
Personally I just think that shield_wall looks better and is a bit more plausible. 75 men forming a shiltrom does look a bit funny in the battle.
I've edited the formation line where it says one or two of :"square, horde, schiltrom, shield_wall, phalanx, testudo, or wedge" can be used. So, now it's there I suppose that the AI will use it but to be honest I haven't seen the AI do a shiltrom formation. It may be difficult to test because it is rarely used.

Considering the typically ambiguous wording of the guy from CA's statement, it's not clear whether CA considers this a major gameplay bug, a minor nuisance, or an embarrassing revelation of shortcuts they made to achieve the desired unit balance.

From a conversation a forum member had with someone from CA:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lusted

I also mentioned the shield bug to him(looks like CA changed the way shields worked and this was an unfortunate side effect)

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However, was the unfortunate side effect known about before the game was released? The answer to that question may lead to which of the following idealized conversations are going on, or have gone on at developer HQ:

1. "Drat. They found our shield factor. Alright, redo the engine for the next patch so that the unit balance is roughly maintained, but so that the factor doesn't show up in homebrew testing."

2. "God's Nipples! I want that prog's head on a plate! This means that all shielded units have been underpowered in melee versus unshielded units and against units with smaller shields. Fix it for the next patch."

I also like to know if the proposed shield fix, whereby the bonus is transferred from shield to armour, works with armour upgrades??

Some have stated that armour upgrades are kind of hardcoded and linked to how they appear on the battlefield. For instance, padded gives 4 armour regardless of the actual numbers displayed in the unit scroll. If this is the case then surely giving a massive armour boost is going to be completely negated as soon as the unit's armour level is upgraded.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Point_Blank

Is this 'Fix' working with armor upgrades? Having tried a number of battles with upgraded and non-upgraded units vs the same opponents, the upgraded units seem to do worse.

Maybe when a unit is upgraded it will not retain the higher armor value generated by the Fix?

---

TBH, I'm not actually sure. I wasn't thinking about armor upgrades when I did it. If the upgrades add armour points to the unit, then for sure it should work. If they replace the unit's base armour amount with that of the given piece of armour (which I rather expect), then for sure they will mess up the fix. Anyone know for sure what happens? And what we might be able to do (if anything) to work around it if it's the latter case?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke

Great work guys, really good bug-spotting :) The reason that we don't usually comment is that - to be brutally frank - there just isn't much to say about these things. We try hard to prioritise core gameplay bugs, but it's a huge piece of software with many people working on it, and obviously a few things have slipped the net that shouldn't have.

Rest assured that we do read these forums, both here in the UK and in Australia, and that these things do get discussed internally and passed on for investigation to the folks in Oz who are dealing with the patches.

---

Understood, and appreciated. It even took me a while to spot this one, and I was running fairly large numbers of custom battles and playing with unit variables at the time. It's so much harder when you have to worry about the whole project at once, especially when the problem is something that only causes unintended behavior instead of compiler errors or game crashes.

If the fix is as easy as I believe it to be in the code, I think there's a very good chance we can expect them to get to it for the second patch. Data inversions, which is what I speculate to be the cause, are among the easiest fixes, often just requiring changing an incorrect minus to a plus, or vice versa. Yeah, amazing that it could be so simple, yet leave us no perfect way to mod a fix. Ahh, the power of real actual code...

Quote:

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The opening shot at member who posted a completely valid point was totally unnecessary.

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I disagree, Kragennmor. Zhukov told us that everything was working as intended, tried to back up the counter-intuitive results with some rather absurd reasoning, and repeatedly denigrated the sterling bug testing efforts of Carl, Revenant, Foz, Musashi, etc. That was not a valid point at all. Example below:

Quote:

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I did read it Carl. I have read many of your posts. They all move to this beat: bug, fix, bug bug fix, fix, fix, fix fix bug. Which plays into a larger phenomenon I've noticed about the boards: somebody finds something they question in the game, and make a "fix" for it! Meanwhile, it's by no means clear that the vanilla version of what they're changing was bugged in any way.

---

From another thread, Zhukov dismissing out of hand another players concerns about a possible bug

Quote:

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Seeing more and more of these threads pop up, and contrasting their complaints with the experiences of various experienced players on the boards, and my experiences, it has gradually become clear that the Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair.

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To Zhukov: If your 'bug sense' ability isn't as finely developed as these guys, fine, just let it pass. There's no need to accuse them of crying wolf and finding bugs where none exist. It is and was clear that we have a serious issue on our hands, and the members testing it and bringing it to our attention are doing invaluable work, for which we should be thanking them, not poo-poohing their efforts.

And now, thanks to their efforts, CA is made aware of the problem. Hearty thanks to everyone who's spent time testing, not only the shield bug, but also the 2h bug as well.

Quote:

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If they replace the unit's base armour amount with that of the given piece of armour (which I rather expect), then for sure they will mess up the fix.

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In theory this could be determined by boosting a units base armor values sky high, so that if what we face is a replacement, the difference will be immediately apparent in a combat test.

However, as you say, we don't have any real way to fix this with mods, unless we have some way to go in and modify the level each armor upgrade applies to each unit.

Still, it should be something CA can fix up for us pretty quickly :laugh4:

I've used armour upgrades on fixed units in custom battles with it increasing their actual power, so no worries there.

Thanks Carl. I just ran the usual 13/21 knight mirror match with one of them having an armor upgrade, and the battle shifted in their favor. If anyone has specific examples that aren't working, let us know. Note, though, that this would probably be clearly indicated on the unit stat sheet: i.e. if the armor upgrade nerfed its stats, you'd see the bad stats when you checked them for the unit. From what I can see though, it appears to work correctly.

@Ulstan: Thanks for the props, it's nice to hear that the work is appreciated. That goes for all of you who've been expressing similar sentiments, too.

As for being poo-poohed, I'm used to being questioned at every turn, and frankly it's good: it gives me a chance to further explain the reasons for drawing the conclusions I have, not to mention giving me countless chances to pin people under inescapable mountains of concrete evidence and sound logic :beam:

Seriously though I try not to do that (at least in a harsh or disrespectful way), and typically only will when someone comes in with guns blazing, spouting information that is obviously poorly conceived and quite incorrect... because at that point I feel they've earned being put in their place.

Additionally, all the backlash is really good for me too. I've become quite dauntless and unflappable as a result of being hammered on so much, which in turn has made it infinitely easier to push through the work I've been doing. So in a roundabout way, I'm also thankful for the nay-sayers who've tried to drop the hammer on me: you've forced out my very best work.

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Originally Posted by Ulstan

I disagree, Kragennmor.

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As the boards don't need to be cluttered with off topic bickering, you have a PM.

Good explanation Foz! I'll try to adopt a similarly relaxed attitude towards the nay-sayers.

All your rigorous testing is much appreciated. :2thumbsup:

the foz, it's not that it would nerf stats (as seen by the unit scroll). The question was really based on the current two hotly debated hypotheses that 1) armour upgrade adds +1 as the increase to stats suggest or 2) armour upgrades actually mirror what the vanilla armour grades equal in the EDU file, i.e. padded = 4, mail = 5, heavy mail = 7, etc, all the way up to the Gothic armour (advanced plate) at 10.

For example, Italian spear militia start with padded armour and have an armour rating of 4. There next upgrade is mail. Spear militia have 0 armour and their next upgrade is padded. The increase according to the stats is only +1, however, some have shown with tests that the upgraded Spear militia perform very similar to the Italian militia; possibly indicating that the upgrade is really based on the "padded" and battle map appearance rather than the "incorrect" +1 on the stats would imply.

I just wondered how this fitted in with giving units with shields an ungeneric boost to their armour stats which distorts them from the +4, +5, +7, etc associated with the various armour levels?

I know I probably haven't explained it very well, but I hope you understand.

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Originally Posted by Kraggenmor

[which] was essentially Zhukov's point to start with: That just because you're seeing something you don't think is working as it should, doesn't necessarily mean its a bug.

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Of course that is true Kragg, and nice of you to point it out. But, really, one can understand the compulsion that drives our hosts in this thread to improve the world, based on the evidence as they see it. Is not progress always driven by the unreasonable man? Nay, better to observe quietly as Carl and Foz4 work their mad schemes in Mod Manor, with Ulstan, ready, with ears perked, guarding the gate. When they have figured out exactly how shields should work, and exactly what balance the game should have, we will be able to eat the sweet fruits of their toil. And if they err in eradicating error? Then at least they have brought the issue to the attention of the TW gods, and for that we should be grateful at least.

I'm not sure how much of your post is sarcasm and such Zhukov, but I would like to remind you, if you don't like the mod they make and think it goes overboard, you are always free not to download it. You are quite protected from overzealous modders :beam:

And once CA patches the game to fix the problem, but you want your old hurting you in melee shields back, you can still choose not to install the patch.

You have a lot of options to wind up playing the exact same kind of game you want.

Granted, if you do install the patch I don't think it would be possible to mod back in the 'harmful in melee' shields, the same way we can't really mod them out without a patch.

Alright, I'll accept Foz's explanation.

However, this..

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...Then you get smashed. As you should...

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Seems way out of line to me. I don't know what your thinking Carl, but alot of us don't want balance We want Historical Accuracy. Thats why we're playing this game, for the historical effect. Of all the medieval units that ever existed, only two survived well into the age of gunpowder..do you know what those two are? Light Cavalry and Horse Archers. Muslim and Native American cultures used horse archers effectively long after the age of bows and swords had died off. This is purely due to the fact that a good horse archer is an extremely versatile and effective weapon. Why is it that they can take on mixed-arms armies? Because, unlike in the 20th century, mixed arms were not nearly as effective in the 14th century. It creates weak and strong spots, and a general has to constantly cover for one while striking with the other. Remembering the most of his troops are on foot, and can't move from point a to b quickly. The general has to reconfigure his army to take into account his enemy every single time he engages them. Whereas the leader of a HA horde knows what they have to do, they've done it a million times before, and they're going to do it again. You think europe was the only country fielding mixed arms? China did too, and they got stomped by Mongolia. Rome was reknowned for their mixed armies. The Huns made them look like fools. Little Bighorn was suppose to be the battle to break the back of indian power...and we know that isn't exactly what happened..

I'd say of all of europes armys, the only one that could effectively counter a powerful HA army at its prime is that of Englands. Not because they fielded mixed arms, but because their longrange longbows and bodkin arrows would make short work of the shorter ranged, light armored cav archers. (Indeed, in a battle between spain and England, Longbowmen made a superior army of jinettes into a shooting gallery.)

Anyway, I feel that the current dominance that a strong army of Mixed HA(heavy/light) is justified. They rightfully are one of the most fearsome, and expensive, armies to be used on the battlefield. The Byzantines, Mongols and Turks rely on their horse archers almost exclusively for cavalry.

This is not to say cav archers are a noob-tube weapon that makes any noob a good player. It takes alot of skill and finnesse to use HA.

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Nope, the only time I’ve ever fought against HA on the battlefield was those tests furthar up the thread.

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Perhaps your lack of experience with them is the primary reason you don't know this. In fact, Carl, until you've actually played a campaign as one of the HA heavy nations, I really think you ought not be denouncing HA as unbalanced. You've never dealt with the cost, and micromanaging, that it takes to field a effective HA army. I kinda wish Orda Khan would get involved in this post. He's having his beloved mongol HA neutered even moreso then they already are..


P.S. sorry for going sort of off topic. I know this thread is suppose to be about a bug, not discussing the finer points of medieval warfare. To bring it in line with this topic; I would just like to reiterate that game balance is not what all of us want. If you reallllly feel that HA and other units are overpowered in multiplayer, increase their price. Don't neuter their abilities, as for the first time they've been realisticly modeled.

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Originally Posted by Jambo

the foz, it's not that it would nerf stats (as seen by the unit scroll). The question was really based on the current two hotly debated hypotheses that 1) armour upgrade adds +1 as the increase to stats suggest or 2) armour upgrades actually mirror what the vanilla armour grades equal in the EDU file, i.e. padded = 4, mail = 5, heavy mail = 7, etc, all the way up to the Gothic armour (advanced plate) at 10.

For example, Italian spear militia start with padded armour and have an armour rating of 4. There next upgrade is mail. Spear militia have 0 armour and their next upgrade is padded. The increase according to the stats is only +1, however, some have shown with tests that the upgraded Spear militia perform very similar to the Italian militia; possibly indicating that the upgrade is really based on the "padded" and battle map appearance rather than the "incorrect" +1 on the stats would imply.

I just wondered how this fitted in with giving units with shields an ungeneric boost to their armour stats which distorts them from the +4, +5, +7, etc associated with the various armour levels?

I know I probably haven't explained it very well, but I hope you understand.

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On the contrary, I understand the point in contention very well from your explanation. From my recent test I just mentioned with the 13/21 knights (13/8/0 def stats with fix applied), I can clearly tell that the armor-upgraded knights got some manner of positive change (call it a bonus) to their armor, since they fared a bit better than they typically did with no upgrade. This means that the upgrades do not replace the old armor stat with the one for the appropriate upgrade level (i.e. the knights' upgrade is to half-plate, which I think is 8 point armor - replacement of the old armor stat would've made the unit have 8/8/0 def stats for a loss of 5 defense overall, and they'd get wrecked by their 13/8/0 unupgraded mirror unit).

Another possibility would be that the upgrades applied the correct difference in armor levels, as a bonus. This would probably be accomplished by assigning an armor value to each armor upgrade level, and then simply assuming the unit without any upgrades is at the level directly below its first listed upgrade. Then the upgrade would take its value, subtract it from the value directly below (2 below if it is the second upgrade for the unit) and bonus the unit that amount of armor. This makes sense, because the upgrades seem to progress in order in all cases, never skipping over a level.

Yet another possibility is that each upgrade level has been assigned an armor bonus equal to the difference between it and the level below it. That is to say padded level may be 4 - 0 = +4, mail would be 5 - 4 = +1, heavy mail would be 7 - 5 = +2, etc. As the unit info in the EDU explicitly lists the upgrade levels each unit is given (the line "armour_ug_levels), it would just be a matter of summing the bonus for any upgrade(s) the unit currently has, and applying it to armor.

Note that I'm not saying in the last case that padded level DOES give a +4 bonus in the game, I was just demonstrating the possible math. In reality they could have put any value they wanted (including +1 for all levels) in for any given upgrade level, and that bonus would be conferred to the unit when it got the given upgrade level. Some sort of serious testing would be required to determine what that number is for each upgrade level, though I'm inclined to believe what the in-game unit stat sheet tells me has happened in this case as I haven't noticed myself that any upgrades have had an unusually higher than claimed effect on any units. By the same token it would not surprise me at all if padded upgrade DOES give the +4 bonus, for two reasons:

- It makes sense that if you put on padded armor, which for other units that have it from the start is worth 4 points, it is worth 4 points for you as well.
- the commented out stat_armour_ex line for town militia for instance lists ;stat_armour_ex 0, 4, 5, 0, 1, 6, 6, flesh. The first number is base armor, while the next 3 are for upgrades. Notice the first upgrade has value 4, not 1, which seems to indicate they intended the padded upgrade to have value 4. This is unimplemented and so it really says nothing about what the game is doing, but it does show thinking in the 4-point direction, and so IMO lends credence to that suggestion.

This is off topic~;p.

However.

This is basically a case of preferring different game types.

or me I love historical accuracy, but it HAS to take a backseat to a fun game, a game is only fun for me when it is balanced. A balanced game means taking any too armies, (say a pure infantry and pure HA army), putting them in equally skilled hands, and expecting, (on average), an equal number if wins and losses over the course of a number of games.

Everybody admits that won't happen, and that means to me the game isn't balanced. At heart it seemingly boils down to, (if you have good HA), build economy, spam HA, use well, decimate everyone.

If I want that type of game play I’ll go back to playing DoW:WA, it's pretty much the same play style and requires even less brainpower as it doesn’t require the micro-management of HA, (which I find boring anyway).

I got RTW and M2TW because I liked how they played out in the demos, it felt like the kind of game I’d been looking for, for years. It seemed ok on balance, (cav was a bit OTT in both mind), with good combined arms and a general feel of balance and strategic depth that’s been lacking in any other RTS I’ve played. It's the challenge of wits I love so much.

On the flip side my point about combined arms was meant to apply to those armies capable of it. Just as Scots lack effective heavy archers and cav, the Mongols lack effective Infantry and Heavy cav.

In these kinds of cases, it's OK for a 90% HA army to do great. They don't really have much else to rely on, and thus need HA that can do well if they are to have a chance of winning. The same Logic Applies to Scotland, they don't have much beyond Melee infantry, so they need really good melee infantry. They still have to use combined arms to a degree. But nowhere near as well as anyone else. The comment was really aimed at factions like Byzantine and the Turks who according top most people can get away with littlie besides HA in their armies 90% of the time. They have other very good units and they are their to be used, the game shouldn't be set up so that a competent HA player has no need for them, and nerfing the HA stats any more would only increase the Auto-Calc discrepancy.

As I said, it's different styles, I want a game that’s fun for me, I don't find it fun when all I have to do is build one unit all the time and use it well to win. I like the challenge of using combined arms and making it work.

So no offence meant by anything, we just have different views on what’s fun, and now that’s cleared up we can go back on topic~;p.

Not to nitpick, but both the Byzantines and Turks have really terrible spearmen and other infantry until the middle to late period.

Don't worry Bladenum, I'm pretty sure most Guild members are happy to descend into discussions of historical accuracy and such :laugh4:

For my part, I believe horse archers in the total war series tend to be overpowered, if anything. Note that all cavalry in RTW was massively overpowered, so I'm not singling horse archers out for special ire.

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Seems way out of line to me. I don't know what your thinking Carl, but alot of us don't want balance We want Historical Accuracy.

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As this is a game, not a history replicator, we must be willing to make some small sacrifices for the name of balance. Now, one of the strongest selling points of the TW series is that there is a pretty historically accurate balance between the different military types, so I agree we shouldn't just chuck all that overpowered.

I do not think any army of the period was composed exclusively of light horse archers, and such a thing is very easy to do in the TW series. Granted, a player can beat the AI with almost any kind of 'all one type' army, just some armies are easier than others. Are horse archers too effective? I tend to think so.

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Of all the medieval units that ever existed, only two survived well into the age of gunpowder..do you know what those two are? Light Cavalry and Horse Archers.

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And heavy cavalry. There were lancers still in Napoleonic times, and most cavalry were still armed with sabers and such. And of course, you had heavy and light infantry, just they were armed with different weapons. Then you get to rifled weapons and suddenly cavalry vs infantry is a doomed matchup.

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Muslim and Native American cultures used horse archers effectively long after the age of bows and swords had died off.

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They could have done this, not because a horse archer was intrinsically so awesome, but because they were technologically at a disadvantage to their rivals. Anyway in the native American case, there *were* no native american horse archers during the medieval period. That came later, and they fought Americans armed with revolvers and such, also on horseback. Off hand, I can't think of a single instance of Native American 'horse archers' fighting massed regular heavy infantry.

When US Cavalry killed Indians, they did not take their bows and use them. When the Indians killed US soldiers, they very eagerly and very happily took their guns.

At any rate, considering the Americans got brutally crushed and the Muslims remained a quiet backwater, this hardly speaks to the military prowess of Horse archers :D I think the better examples come earlier on.

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This is purely due to the fact that a good horse archer is an extremely versatile and effective weapon.

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I agree, it's just that they do have weaknesses and can't fill all roles on a battlefield.

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Rome was reknowned for their mixed armies. The Huns made them look like fools.

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Chalons? :D Anyway, the Huns had more than horse archers, I think. And I wouldn't really characterize the Romans as a renowned combined arms amy: at least not the western roman empire. Strong infantry, weak cavalry, weak archers seems to be the consensus.

I'm perfectly fine with a heavy cavalry force with lots of horse archers annhilating a pure infantry army, as happened to Crassus: I just don't think they should be able to do it vs any army with zero losses :D

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Little Bighorn was suppose to be the battle to break the back of indian power...and we know that isn't exactly what happened..

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Little Bighorn was far from a victory of bow armed horse archers over some other troop type. Poor leadership decisions on the Americans part and dash and overwhelming numbers on the Indians part allowed them to surround and cut down the cavalry.

Anyway, it doesn't mean it's a triumph of horse and bow anymore than the British disaster at Isandlwana was a triumph for spear and shield. In both cases the natives won a victory over vastly outnumbered and arrogant invading forces, and then were subsequently crushed by reinforcements who were better commanded. Their victories however, did not change the course of the war, and were the exceptions, rather than the rule. Also, the invaders could replace their losses far better than the natives.

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Not because they fielded mixed arms, but because their longrange longbows and bodkin arrows would make short work of the shorter ranged, light armored cav archers.

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I think any foot archers would be able to drive off horse archers. And I don't think horse archers should be able to dash away formed spearmen in a charge either :D As long as we don't have a situation where the answer to every problem is 'More horse archers!' then I'm satisfied :)

Correct me if i'm wrong, but arn't Turkish/Bazantyine spearmen roughly equivelent to English Spear Milita?

The reason I ask is that with Silver armour they, (Spear Milita), CAN take Fuedal Knights, (weird I know, as they get massacred without them), and can badly hurt Hospittelter's. Thus i'm pretty sure any units coming out of a large town are going to be decent spearmen in effect.

Of course if i've missed somthing...?

Likewise, when do all those Bazantyine Sword and Sheild units show up then, I thought they where quite early? (Maybe i'm wrong). Remeber, he Sheild Bug wreacks their power tottally. Most HA vs. Militia spearmen is instant death in melee to the HA. Especially with Shilstrom.

EDIT: Ignore some of the above, i've just gone looking at the Bazantyine guide and found most of them don't turn up till 3/4h barracks, (allthough the expiriance bonuses from 4th barracks would be mean TBH, as combined with silver armour you get some serious defence/offence power).

The reason horse archers generally win isn't that they can smash spears with a frontal charge, it's that greater mobility plus range means the spears have to either endure their entire arrow supply from flanks and rear directions before the engagement, or have to break formation, and end up getting caught out where the HAs can smash them with 3 units to their one, and under flanking attack any unit will beat any other, more or less.

Carl: In my experience the Byz spear are equivalent to spear militia in other factions (Nothing they have really compare to say, armored sergeants... and I'm certain english spear militia don't win without the a zero shield fix, which I'm not willing to apply). Their sword and shield guys, which are actually quite nice, don't come until about the middle period. You need a level 4 barracks, which actually takes quite a while to get out there.

The turks infantry absolutely SUCKS. Muslim spear units are worse than European militia units, imho.

Granted, in the late period you get the various awesome Janissary units. But to get there you basically have jack other than your horse archers.

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and under flanking attack any unit will beat any other, more or less.

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Well of course, that’s what I love about the TW games, even though these are my first ones~;p.

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The reason horse archers generally win isn't that they can smash spears with a frontal charge, it's that greater mobility plus range means the spears have to either endure their entire arrow supply from flanks and rear directions before the engagement, or have to break formation, and end up getting caught out where the HAs can smash them with 3 units to their one,

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Well HA seemed to be able to smash them with a frontal charge before. I was just trying to point out that this has changed and if you don't REALLY whittle them down, your going to get beaten. i.e. it's going to put a stop to half stack HA armies beating Full Stack enemy armies as you claim to have done.

Shilstrom seemed to be the Western European answer to HA too. By the time the HA are close enough to be in effective firing range, (they brace sooner in Shilstrom), they are braced, and that means their are 5 guys with shield pointing at you between you and the guy with his back to you. Don't get me wrong, you will get some enfidle effects and I don't expect shistrom to be as resistant under those circumstances.

Overall, It was more a case of me saying that pure HA armies seem to have been reduced to an even keel and I liked that. Sorry if it game across as overly aggressive. it was too aggressively worded I admit.

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Originally Posted by Musashi

Not to nitpick, but both the Byzantines and Turks have really terrible spearmen and other infantry until the middle to late period.

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Exactly... which is why the alarm bell went off for me, with the comment up-thread about a shield fix that has a side effect of nerfing HA's. That's about all you have to work with, for the first part of a Turks campaign. And it's one of the challenges of playing that faction. It's not some kind of "easy mode" that beats everything else in the game. It becomes more of an interesting option in the later game, when mixed armies are viable for the Turks. But that option should still be there, for those who enjoy running HA-based armies. Otherwise, why have Eastern factions in the game at all? And of course Mongols aren't Mongols unless they're a strong HA-based faction; something to be feared and respected.

I'm sure CA will be taking this into account, when they address whatever is going on with shields in the next patch. I would assume they won't be nerfing HA's in the process, since they're such an important part of the game... at least on the Eastern side of the map.

Meanwhile, nobody is twisting our arms to use the shield fix ideas here, so those of us who are in the "cautious" camp can just wait for the official patch. Or use the mods that have a lighter touch on the stats.

Actually, my victories have not been due to relying on charge bonus... In fact I never chain charge (I think it's lame and exploitish). I've found that flanking fire is SO effective, that I can easily rout or annihilate twice my number in infantry troops without needing to do much melee.

What melee I do do with them is always flanking and rear work. Because of their mobility it's dead simple to do.

The only frontal charging I do with them is against foot archers (Which the AI always foolishly stick out in front of the other troops.

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Exactly... which is why the alarm bell went off for me, with the comment up-thread about a shield fix that has a side effect of nerfing HA's. That's about all you have to work with, for the first part of a Turks campaign.

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Perhaps, but remeber that the sheild fix will also DRASTICLY up-power all infantry that have a sheild.

Hashashim are terrifying now, (I know they arn't an early unit BTW).

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Actually, my victories have not been due to relying on charge bonus... In fact I never chain charge (I think it's lame and exploitish). I've found that flanking fire is SO effective, that I can easily rout or annihilate twice my number in infantry troops without needing to do much melee.

What melee I do do with them is always flanking and rear work. Because of their mobility it's dead simple to do.

The only frontal charging I do with them is against foot archers (Which the AI always foolishly stick out in front of the other troops.

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Fair enough. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought you where doing what everyone else does and frontal charging all non-pike units. How do you stop the enemy turning to favce anyway. No matter waht I do Ican't force rear charges if I don't have at least the same number of units as my opponnent, and you seem to be doing it when outnumbered a lot. Or have routing units usually given you Numerical Advantage at this point. As I mentioned though. Whatch out for opponnents that go Shistrom on you. they'll be unshiftable if your out of arrows.

Well, generally even if I haven't achieved numerical superiority (Which would mean I was up against something truly nasty and uber armored... and probably would have brought the rest of my army hehe) I find I can use my cav's speed to tempt the AI into breaking up formation and pursuing in multiple directions, then swing my horses around and focus on one unit while the others scramble to get there, and just disengage when it gets dangerous.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

If he has schiltrom capable troops I just focus my arrow fire on them and wipe them out early. Otherwise I focus on the general and wipe his unit out/rout him. That makes the rest easier.

Geuss I have to remeber the AI isn't as smart as a Human:smash:.

As to Little Big Horn. Not only did the native Americans have numerical superiority. But my understanding is that many of the Native Americans were armed with better rifles (and thus more fire power) than what the U.S. government provided the cavalry at the time. Of course that type of fubar rarely makes it into mainstream public history books. The victors write the History books, not the losers. As mentioned above, the biggest problem was the leadership anyway. Custer was rash in the Civil War, why would we he change against what he considered an inferior foe.

Most importantly, great work on the bug identification, and fix guys :2thumbsup:

To be fair, if he has significant numbers of schiltrom capable troops left at the end, I'll likely just withdraw, and plan to finish them later.

Not a bad idea really when you think about it. YourHA get their bows reloaded if you do that~:).

Exactly. And that's a historical HA strategy (As opposed to tactic)... you attack and fade away to rearm and resupply.

correct me if im wrong and i very well may be but an early medieval unit who might have used quilted or light to heavy mail probably used a shield not just to stop arrows but to help protect them in combat. daah

ok later when plate was developed the armor was more resilient to damage and since it was able to resist missiles and wepon blows better the soldiers opted for two handed weapons to multiply their attack depending on their armor and quicker combat speed to give them an advantage in battle.

so should a shield bearing warrior in heavy mail with a one handed sword be able to take on a plate armored soldier with a more advantageous two handed weapon . the protection is there but the one handed sword would have difficulty penetrating the armor plate. so is there a shield bug or is what is being seen is a relatively weak attack by shield using infantry versus a stronger attack by a two handed unit.

of course im not trying to argue so if im wrong no problem.

Against armour with a sword, you don't try and cut the enemy. You try and whack them and disorient them so you can disarm them or force them into a position where you can dagger them through a soft spot.

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I do not think any army of the period was composed exclusively of light horse archers

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Well, I tried to note when I say "HA" I mean of varying types, both light and heavy.

Your right about the heavy cavalry, however, when I look at 'heavy cavalry' from the 1600's..I have a hard tiem calling it 'heavy' often the only armour they're wearing is a cuirass, shin guards and a steel helmet. A far cry from the Mailed, Plated and Barded tanks of medieval times.

Also, I know that little bighorn involved just as many guns as it did bows. I also know that Native Americans didn't start out using HA. In a sense though that should be strong argument for HA. Look at the situation..your facing a disciplined, well equiped army with far superior technology. So what do the Natives of the plains do? They start fielding HA, even though they have no history of doing that prior. Of course they upgraded to guns to stay competitive, but they still had large contingents of bow armed HA. They managed to hold off America for a very long time..

Just going to logical sense..if you have an army of peasants armed with sticks(spears), some archers whose bow is little use for hunting, much less warfare, and maybe a handfull of armoured knights whom are dismonted because the mounted variety are to expensive...would you really expect a HA army to have trouble with this? This is the average army fielded by the AI for most of the game afterall....

In my Byzantine campaign, I fought a hard war against the venetians. The Venetians field lots of spearmen, and they are good too. I was forced to use all the tactics mentioned above to win, because I just had NOTHING to attack them head on with. While Spear milita may suck, Italian Milita has a bit of bite to them, especially against Byzantine Cavalry, which is quite a bit weaker then their bigger Vardariotai brothers. I didn't have the Econ to field a full stack of Vard's that early.

HA do fill out alot of roles, but you have to use them creativly. They lack the 'shock' factor that other troops have, like HC. You can't hold a solid line with HA, and you can't fight in the woods. HA have alot of strategic weaknesses that may not crop up in MP, but do in Campaign games. Its that reason that makes me feel Hungary actually has the superior army to Byzantine. While their HA are weaker, they have Heavy Cav all the way up to Chiv's to back them up, and later on, Arquebusiers and Serpentines. Hungarian Nobles are only a point shy of Vards in every stat. I feel this gives them alot more flexibility. Even I will admit that a army of HA can't win all battles. I feel however that on a open grassy field, against a army thats mostly melee infantry...they should decimate them or at least greatly reduce their numbers.


Lastly, I really don't like this fix mainly because it strengthens units that -should- be weak, namely spear milita and town milita. Spear milita should die like flys from Enfilade/rear fire, because Spear Milita are just peasants with spears. Thats it. THey should cause MAD on head-on light cavalry charges and be able to go toe to toe with other cheap 'peasant/milita' units and thats it. Armoured Seargents and Italian Milita should be able to cause MAD on FK's and the like, and beat all types of lesser milita, thats it.