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To be fair in the Hungary/Byz comparisons, Byzantium has Kataphractoi to back up the Vards, and while they may not be the greatest heavy cav around, they don't exactly suck either. Add in Byzantine Infantry (Sword and shield guys... basically legionaires who don't toss pila) and Varangians and they can field a combined arms force, but only in the middle and late periods. Still, they can field one, and it's not so weak.
Sounds a little trite, but hey... I'm one of the TW series biggest fans so I hope it's true.Quote:
Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke
Spear militia are currently too weak. They get dashed aside by cavalry as though they aren't there. They definitely need boosting, though more in their ability to stand against cav charges, not necessarily in their ability to absorb arrows from the rear.Quote:
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.
A schiltron though, would be a fairly effective anti-archer formation in that suddenly, there isn't an exposed flank/rear to shoot at. Not quite as good as a testudo, but then, a schiltron isn't completely inept at melee combat either.
Also, don't just dismiss them as 'peasants with spears'. We have a separate unit of peasants to be the peasants. ;) That would be like calling longbowmen 'peasants with bows', as the french knights were happy to do until they got massacred :D
My point on schiltroms is that it doesn't work that way in the game. The arrow trajectories in the game mean that half or more of your arrows are going over the guys facing you and striking the guys facing the other direction in the rear or sides...
Thats not a fair comparison at all! We all know that longbowmen are professional soldiers, not milita. Militia ARE peasants..they are farmers that work part time as soldiers to make extra money.
I'm sure you just forgot to qoute the rest of my paragraph, where I went on to say that I felt spear milita should cause MAD against light cavalry..maybe. No more, however, because they lack the training and displine to properly brace themselfs for attacks by heavier forms of cavalry. Notice they don't plant their spear in the ground, and they only hold them WITH ONE HAND. That is why I feel they should largely get busted by heavy cav.
Take a charging knight on a spear militaman. The spearman may be smart and go for the horse, or attempt to strike the armoured knight. However, since hes only holding his spear by one hand, that means upon contact...that spear is 99% most likely to get ripped out of his hand, painfully. It will either wound the horse, or either break or bounce off the knights armour. Since mounted units can't dismount and fight after their mounts been killed...I would like to see this count as a "healed casualty" after battle. I feel spear milita should have only a small(30-40%) chance of scoring a fatal kill and a much higher chance of causing a healable casualty(50-60%).
I know it doesn't mean much for multiplayer where a 'kill' is a kill. Perhaps a few years down the road we can see our knights get up from their dead horses and keep fighting...
Actually a lot of times militia weren't even paid... Just expected to train in order to not get killed when the enemy warlord decides to invade and the actual army is three towns away...
Ah, excellent. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.Quote:
Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke
Two points here.Quote:
however, because they lack the training and displine to properly brace themselfs for attacks by heavier forms of cavalry. Notice they don't plant their spear in the ground, and they only hold them WITH ONE HAND. That is why I feel they should largely get busted by heavy cav.
One, ALL spear units, (including Papal Guard, who are the best), use spears in EXACTLY the same way as Spear Militia. They ALL carry their spears in one hand, and NONE of them stick them in the ground.
Second, Spear Militia, ARE NOT peasants given spears and shields and shown how to use them, that’s Town Militia (who only get Light_Spears and Spear_Bonous 4), Spear Militia represent professional militia unit. Individuals given equipment just below the level of professional soldiers and the best training that can be given to Militia level units. Italian Spear Militia, (and similar top level Militia units), are better more because of better equipment, they actually have professional equipment instead of high quality Militia equipment.
NOTE: the above may or may not be historically accurate, but it IS how they are portrayed in game, and that’s what I really worry about as it shows designer intent IMHO.
This isn't actually as common as you'd think and comes with disadvantages. On small size at least, most arrows that would not hit someone with a shield will simply skim right over the unit. Larger unit sizes will probably result in the arrow hitting the shields as their more rank for it to fall into. Some will of course hit them in the back AND if you do really big angles on the arcing fire then YES you will get them hitting guys in the back, but your sacrificing a lot of hitting power to get that kind of angle, (it also won't work with Crossbow units at all, gunpowder being powerful enough to not care about the shield).Quote:
My point on schiltroms is that it doesn't work that way in the game. The arrow trajectories in the game mean that half or more of your arrows are going over the guys facing you and striking the guys facing the other direction in the rear or sides...
Don't get me wrong, the current shield fix does bork things, but in my experience, short range arrow volleys are too flat a trajectory to hit the unit without hitting a shield more often than the hit someone in the back. less flat trajectories introduce problems with reduced impact power. Their IS a perfect position I’m sure, but it's probably not easy to judge and get right.
Don't get me wrong, Schilstrom IS a LOT more resistant to missile fire ATM, but I don't think the difference will be quite as large as you think it will be either. In the end I think we should just wait and see:smash:.
To those worried about late era units getting wailed upon by early era units. I would point out that most good late era infantry is AP 2-handers and pikes. Even with the Shield immunity to AP back in, the shield units will be at a heavy disadvantage to them, so they won't be getting any weaker really. They also typically have much of the shield value dumped into armour anyway. This will make them a lot more resistant to enfidle fire, and hence HA anyway. (At least in the case of mounted units,. Late era Inf tends to be more vulnerable).
Good to hear. Thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke
By the way, how do we know "skill" only works to the front and right? How do we know it's not cumulative with the shield?
You'll have to clarify your question a bit. Defense would be the generic term for whatever sum of numbers applies to the unit's defense from any given direction against a particular kind of attack. The individual stats that comprise it for each unit are Armour, Skill, and Shield. For instance, Armored Sergeants have defense listed 14 on their info sheet, which is their front melee defense rating. This is the convention applied in the game. That number is arrived at by adding the unit's armor, skill, and shield, which all apply from the front in melee. Armor applies to all sides of the unit, skill to the front and right, and shield to the front and left. Additionally, armor and shield apply (in the same directions they do in melee) against missile attacks as well, while skill is ignored against missile fire. Hope that clarifies the terms and their interaction for you, but of course feel free to ask further questions or rephrase the current one if I haven't covered what you were trying to get at.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jambo
IMHO, CA should jump on this ASAP and issue a hot-fix patch... The shield bug is game breaking. With it present, the tactical dimension of the game is lost and what we have is just an application with pretty soldier animations running around and doing random stuff in eye-candy environmental settings...
And it's not that we can fix the shield issue easily through modding. None of the currently suggested modding solutions work without grave side-effects. Putting the shield defense value into armor nerfs all missile units while putting it into defense skill distorts melee aspects of the game.
finally a realization of the truth!Quote:
Originally Posted by Slaists
I've been sayin' this for ever since before the game was released -- m2tw is a big flop.. it's an overhyped mtw clone with better graphics for those lucky to have state of the art systems in order to appreciate the only thin' m2tw has goin' for it -- graphics :laugh4:
sorry for not bein' on topic or constructive.. just had to get it out of my chest :yes: :thumbsdown:
Sorry, I meant "skill" instead of "defence" then.Quote:
Originally Posted by the_foz_4
Carl: I've played with schiltrom vs. missile fire with the unmodded game, and it does suffer badly. I never play on any settings other than Huge unit size, as far as I'm concerned there is no other unit size setting. But in my experience schiltrom has a unit get massacred under missile fire, because even when they're firing on a relatively "flat" trajectory approximately half the missiles fires in a given volley will go over the front facing ranks and hit the men behind them.
YES, but sheilds don't work right against NON-AP missile fire in vanillia eithier, you can expect SIGNIFICANT reductions once sheild ARE working.
The unit size thing is being hard headed IMO, most people don't play on that size as their comp simply can't handle it from what I can tell. Remeber, the larger the unit size, the more likliy a miss is to still hit somone enyway. On smaller unit sizes, many of those hits in the back will be misses on the smaller unit sizes as they'd sail rght over-head. This is true in AND out of Sciltrom BTW.
iIm, not knocking your results though, i'll trust you as i can't handle above normal in non-seige games and small in seiges games because of jumping. (allthough i probably could run a test the jumpiness starts at around 3500-4000 models). However it is worth remebering that your results are probabky getting skewed in your favor by your choice of huge unit size compared to normal, (which is also probably what they tested and balanced the game at IMHO).
Hmm... interesting question. We don't know it's not cumulative with the shield on the left. And frankly, I cannot think of a good way to test it. The only way possible is to have a unit get flanked in melee from their left. And even then, you'd have to set it up with the unit in one case having stats x/0/1 and the other having 0/x/1 to make sure you were able to see any difference that was there. The 1 shield point is to make sure skill is forced to right-side only in case shield points are relied on to make this happen. X should be fairly large, so there is a big difference in the unit's left defense value if skill is not applying there. Then of course you have to work the combat so the unit gets engaged from the front, then flanked... and I guess either time how long it takes to be wiped out, or judge by how many of the enemy units it is able to kill (should be less with x skill point case if it has less left defense due to skill not applying there, or ~same if skill does apply left). Of course this also introduces a lot more error into the testing as the player is required to maneuver around 2 units on the battlefield, and try to precisely engage the enemy left flank at the same time and in the same manner each time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jambo
Most people's rigs can run huge unit size if they turn off shadows. Shadows are a huge performance hit, and they don't add much to the looks of the game, so I always turn them off.
Well, fine, what is the professional spear armed infantry unit for that same period then?Quote:
Thats not a fair comparison at all! We all know that longbowmen are professional soldiers, not milita. Militia ARE peasants..they are farmers that work part time as soldiers to make extra money.
Mine can run it, but not with full stack armies!Quote:
Most people's rigs can run huge unit size if they turn off shadows. Shadows are a huge performance hit, and they don't add much to the looks of the game, so I always turn them off.
And I don't consider my PC THAT out of date yet, (allthough it DOES need an update). Plus if given a choice between more guys (and the pathing problems it induces), or less men and better graphics and pathing. 'll go for the better graphics.
Yeah but shadows are something you don't really even notice, so it's not like it makes the scene much prettier.
My rig is quite out of date, 64 meg GeForce card, 1.7ghz processor, 1.5 gigs of ram, but I can run huge unit sizes with two full stack armies with no problems whatsoever. Even when the men pile into one siege tower.
Thats really bloody of then as i'm running a 9800pro on an AMD Athalon 3200+ with 1 Gig of ram and theirs no way I could run 2 full stack armies at that size, at least not infantry stacks anyway.
Yeah, it seems to like nVidia cards better than ATI cards, from what I've been reading... And it seems to want more than a gig of RAM.
That probably explains it nicely then. plus of course my processer dosen't have SSE2 which dosen't help.
To be fair, my system's a laptop, and Pentium M's are a little sweeter than an equivalent speed P4... But still, my specs are hardly top flight. Especially in terms of VRAM.
But my little mobile GeForce card seems to work shockingly well, better than you'd expect it to, since I was able to play Quake 4 from end to end...
Armoured Seargents, Papal Guard, ect. There are probably more that are similar but I can't think of them now. As far as I'm concerned, "Professional Militia" is a Oxymoron, seriously.Quote:
Well, fine, what is the professional spear armed infantry unit for that same period then?
Personally, I'd like to see units like the Armoured Seargent, Papal Guard, ect, get a "brace" option to put them up and above the militias so they could actually absorb a head-on cavalry charge. Let Spear militia continue to get bowled over to send home the message that in the early days before professional armies..Knights trully did rule.
Also, to Carl, who's mentioned on several occasions that he wants to merely have the game work as the Devs intended I have this to say..GODS NIPPLES?! Who drank my ale...
And also, we, the paying customers, do not answer to the Devs whims. They answer to us and our desires. Instead of focusing on how to go backwards in game design, why don't we focus more energy on improving this game above and beyond what "The Devs Intended". I know thats probably heresy for questioning the might of our almighty CA gods, but then I'm a protestant..:laugh4:
Sergeant spearmen, armored sergeants, etc.
Basically all professional spear come from castles.
Not bad. I myself can't run the game with playable framerate on huge unit settings, but that's because I desire quality over quantity, so I crank up the visuals (except for shadows and bloom).Quote:
Originally Posted by Musashi
I'm running a 2.8 P4 proc, 1 gig of ddr2 RAM, and a eVga 7900 KO. My next upgrade is going to be another gig of RAM, which I believe is the cause of any woes I might have in MTW2. It seems like a really RAM/Proc intensive game.
You'll cry when you hear this, but I play on huge unit sizes, with unit detail set to "highest" and texture detail set to high.
Actually, the crying will set in later tonight over some ice cream and bon bons. :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Musashi
Would you mind giving me an above average run down of your system specifications? Proc, speed of proc, ram, amount, speed of ram, size of individual ram sticks, configuration of ram (overclocked, dual channel, etc), graphics card, etc.
Okey dokey.
Intel Pentium M 1.73 ghz, (Family 6, Model 13, Stepping 8)
1.5 GB DDR2 400 RAM (One 1 gigabye stick and one 512 meg stick)
GeForce Go 6200 64MB Turbocache
I'm not sure about the configuration of my RAM, I know it's not overclocked, because I haven't messed with the default settings of things like that. It's a laptop, it's hard to fix if you break stuff ;)
I'd post a screenie to show I play at max detail, but for some reason the game shrinks the screenshots to 1024x768 from the 1400x1050 I play at, and they don't look as good as it actually looks in play.
They are professional spearmen, and like all professional spearmen they are meant to deal with equally professional and late era Knights.Quote:
Armoured Seargents, Papal Guard, ect. There are probably more that are similar but I can't think of them now. As far as I'm concerned, "Professional Militia" is a Oxymoron, seriously.
The purpose of ALL spear armed units in this game is to stop knights of similar era , (but with heavy losses to the spearmen). In addition, for many western European factions at least, Spear Militia are the best anti-cav unit they get prior to Pikes. That’s quite important as that means that mostly they are the ONLY thing you've got infantry wise that CAN be used against knights. Saying they should be annihilated makes no sense under these circumstances.
The Professional militia isn't really an oxymoron at all. You treat all militia as idiot peasants given a set of equipment, no real raining and sent out. Most militia in this game ARE NOT this type of unit. they are semi permanent forces that exist in war time who have decent training with their equipment, (although not as much as proper full time soldiers). They get called up in times of crisis, but unlike most militia, they stay called up until the crisis is over, (rather than only being called up for the problem when it effects them locally). To avoid getting overly long winded my Point is this:
Most Militia units (including Militia Spearmen), are NOT portrayed as useless peasants given proper weapons. They are semi trained levy units that are available at, (nearly anyway), a moments notice and that are somewhat decently trained. Professional solders might be able to beat them 1 on 1. However, if used well the Militia can tip the balance against them.
The problem is that isn't balanced and neither me, (nor seemingly the devs based on some things in the game), are willing to put history ahead of balance to say nothing of the fact that Militia Spearmen represent troops equipped with long spears, (units with sort spears get the Light_Spear attribute), who have enough training to know how to brace and fight properly with them. Professional Knights charging into those would get decimated, you've said it yourself.Quote:
Let Spear militia continue to get bowled over to send home the message that in the early days before professional armies..Knights trully did rule.
Also, if you do this I have to ask you WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF MILITA SPEARMEN. They can't fight against any other infantry and seemingly you don't ant them to be any good against knights, so in that case we'd better remove them from the game since everything in the game beats them and they serve no purpose :sarcasm:.
All right this next bit is going to get nasty, and I’m sorry for that, but a combination of worn out patience, an inability to think of a way to politely phrase this, and the belief that I won't get through to you any other way leaves me feeling like I’ve got no choice really.Quote:
Also, to Carl, who's mentioned on several occasions that he wants to merely have the game work as the Devs intended I have this to say..GODS NIPPLES?! Who drank my ale...
And also, we, the paying customers, do not answer to the Devs whims. They answer to us and our desires. Instead of focusing on how to go backwards in game design, why don't we focus more energy on improving this game above and beyond what "The Devs Intended". I know thats probably heresy for questioning the might of our almighty CA gods, but then I'm a protestant..
Here it is:
If you aren’t interested in a balanced game, DON'T POST IN BUG THREADS.
Simply put these threads are about fixing bugs and creating a balanced game as a result. If your ideas on the matter won't create that, (as having Mailed and Fuedal Knight wail on Militia spearmen wouldn't), then your replies are pointless, detracting from the purpose of the thread, gives us and CA no useful information and are totally unimportant IMHO.
It would save a lot of argumentation and frustration on the part of myself, (and, (I imagine), others trying to create a balanced game), if you left them out of these threads.
By all means express them, I’d never dream of saying you shouldn’t be allowed to express those opinions, just try not to do it in bug threads if it creates obvious IMBA as it dos no good. I'll even create a thread for you all to debate it in as soon as I finish this post.
DAMM YOU~;p.Quote:
You'll cry when you hear this, but I play on huge unit sizes, with unit detail set to "highest" and texture detail set to high.
Carl: Technically, normal spears were never capable of dealing with the late era uberknights (Gothics, Lancers, etc). It was pikes, or go home.
Well I know techincly they whern't, (well probably depens on the spear too). But Blademun said units with Long Spears and the Training to brace them against the ground sould beat cav in his opinion in game. I was pointing out that Militia Spearmen actually do have Long spears and the Training according to the in gam descriptions.
A problem here is that we don't all agree on "balance." And we may also be mixing multiplayer balance issues with campaign balance issues.Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl
For example, you and I seem to disagree about how powerful horse archers should be in the game. I really wouldn't want to see them diminished, and I believe (yes, in a historical context) that they're currently well-represented in the game.
I also think that militia spearmen are working as intended. The game needs weak units to put stronger ones in perspective, and to provide a feeling that you're building up from scratch in the early campaign. It makes you appreciate the better units when you can get them. There is more to this game, at least on the campaign side, than having units that perfectly balance all other units in some respect.
Now, if we're talking about adjusting unit stats for perfect MP balance, that's a different story. But there is a MP forum for that.
Perhaps I was a littile unclear.
I don't mind diffent PoV. but the idea that cav should dominate all infantry till pikes/pro spears come along is clearly unbalanced. Thats what Bladenum was suggesting and why i'm so annoyed.
I Might disagree with you on HA, but they are a lot closer to balanced than the vaniliia spear units are.
Like I said, in this game if a unit dosen't serve a purpose on the batlefeild it dosen't have a place. Why build Spear militia if everything beats them. I might as well build Town militia who don't get the melee penalties vs. infantry and are thus of some use. Without the ability to beat Maqiled/Fuedal Knights Militia Spearmen simply can't beat anything in the gaame. Yet Bladenum seem to want that.
Agreed, allthough this heavily impact MP too.Quote:
Now, if we're talking about adjusting unit stats for perfect MP balance, that's a different story. But there is a MP forum for that.
Most factions have at least sergeant spearmen from very early on in the game.
Additionally, even if a unit can't beat another unit, there's still often a reason to bring it. No matter how weak your best spear unit is, you'll always bring a few, because heavy infantry, even really good heavy infantry, can't hold a charge. They'll be annihilated. Often you bring your spears just to die, but their merit is in the fact that they die slowly, giving your real worker units a chance to flank and kill the enemy cavalry.
The problem is that any spear unit that can actually hold a charge BETTER than a sword unit will beat or almost beat a cav unit all on it's own. Likewise, a sword unit that can take the cav charge better than the spearmen will still do heavy damage without support. Now lets take this across to the appropriate thread i set up, (please).
Alright, we will, but I would like to express my real concern that you are not genuinely interested in "fixing" the game, but using your posistion to slip in balance changes that will change the game toward the way you see fit. Thats why theres a argument in the first place. Its already very clear how biased you are toward spearman, and it is certainly no wonder if somehow this bias were to get translated into any fix you created.
Perhaps I'm being paranoid, if so then I am sorry. However I do personally doubt your intentions. I realize this is a bug thread though, so I'll leave to discuss balance elsewhere.
Not really, How I want spearmen to be is how they actually perform with the shield fix in place. That’s the thing. Some of you history buffs want knights to dominate, but that’s not what happens with the fixes in place and like the balance like that a lot. I’ll admit I’m not 100% happy with the performance of Spear Militia vs. feudal knights. But they do okay.
If you'd said you where worried I was trying to skew balance I probably wouldn't have got so fed up and bit your head off.
It felt to me like you where trying to say that cav/HA should decimate all non-pike forces making them the only useful unit except pikes, muskets and the odd archer unit.
I would consider you saying that your worried that I might be taking things too far the other way with my suggestions, constructive and useful. It's when people ask for historically accurate things that are fairly obviously IMBA because of how they neuter so many armies/unit types that gets my back up.
What you just put is actually very constructive as your acting to try and check balance me and I’d happily appreciate more comments like that.
I wasn't really trying to drive you awa from bug threads alltoghether. I was just trying to get you to leave the history vs. balance bits out, as arguing over them isn't the purpose of these threads, thats why I created the spearmen balance thread. S we CAN have these types of discussions without cluttering the bug threads with them, as they are off-topic really in them IMHO.
Has anyone tried a negative shield fix? Does it indeed alter the animation so that units block with shields in melee?
Negetive values don't work unfortunatly, and if they did it would bugger their missile defence anyway.
not to interrupt the spear comments but about the shield problem i seem to see animations where the soldiers move their shield up and block weapons but maybe im mistaken. and as i stated before maybe why they are getting slaughtered is because swordsmen with shields usually arnt going to have the same weapon power as a halberdier or war pick/hammer.
but as far as the spear units i think that any unit that is supposed to represent the scottish schiltrom should have a spear 10 to 12 feet in length. i mean as far as i know the scots were the first to develop the schiltrom asides from greek testudos and circles.
schiltrom is specifically an anti-cav formation thats why the scots developed the technique so maybe there should be a boar spear, regular spear 8ft, short or early pike 10 to 12ft, and long pike which seems to be about 16 to 18 in the game but not sure on that.
i think pikes should be able to form schiltrom which would be effective versus cavalry but since the pikes are radiated out and the front rounded it would make them vulnerable to infantry assault. while the spear wall would basically be an anti infantry or link up with other units formation.
but i see nothing wrong with schiltrom spearmen bracing spears. napoleon era muskets with bayonets may have been around 7 to 8 ft long and they braced against cav but then again they werent trying to stop an avalanche of heavy armored knights.
i think that missiles are not as effective against units as they were in the previous games. i think the reason why shielded infantry arnt benefiting from a shield is because they dont seem to be guarding with them until after they have been hit by missiles and before the next volley hits them they have relaxed again. this wasnt a problem in rome since when a unit braced against missile fire it stayed that way for some time.
*Sorry if this has already been suggested. Finals are coming up and this is a long thread
Would it not fix the problem if you were to leave the shield values unaltered but add twice the shield's value to the unit's skill
( -x + 2x = x ). This would give the unit the bonus against archers, as well as in combat.
While I enjoy the ability of spearmen to beat or at least hold their own against cav with the fix in place, there is a point to be made here:Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl
We really have no idea whether the units were balanced to each other in playtesting, or if they were balanced numerically without playtesting.
The first would mean knights are less capable than intended by CA with the fix, and is probably the camp the people who want spear units to continue to remain bad and knights to mop up would find themselves in.
The second means fixing the bugs would directly put the units back into a balanced state, and would be represented by people who feel the fix makes game balance better.
After having watched the debates rage for quite some time, I find myself in no man's land: I feel some units appear clearly to have been balanced down to the levels of borked shield units, while others have not been. The end result, IMO, is that fixing the shield bug has improved balance in some ways, and made it worse in others. This mixed weird situation is probably due to the combat bugs, which undoubtedly made it impossible to balance the units in any reasonable or logical way in the first place, meaning unit stats are all over the place while not having any clear relation to how the units are actually performing in the game.
However, I would not be supporting the fix in the first place if I did not feel it makes more and bigger things better than it makes worse. Things I've noticed with the fix:
- Archers are a little on the downside of things, though I consider this a vanilla game issue. Especially the English ones have never been very good unless you achieve enfilade fire from the weapon side of the enemy, which should not be absolutely vital to them being at all useful in combat.
- Spearmen are useful now. They stall more against infantry, but still are very disadvantaged due to penalty against infantry units (i.e. they die, but take a little longer to do so). They take cav charges now, causing MAD on initial impact (a lot of the first line of knights dies, as does a lot of the first line or 2 of spearmen), and can typically win in standard melee against cav though still suffering significant losses.
- Sword+Shield infantry are put at a level where they are actually good. They lose to 2H AP units something like 3:2 or 2:1, which by the vanilla stats is exactly what I'd expect (they have even stats except the 2H have AP and 3 extra charge). They hold cavalry pretty well, but lack the spear's ability to reflect the charge back at the knights. Against mailed knights they go about 1:1, higher knights can be MAD or loss for S&S unit depending on knight stats and how the charge goes.
- Animation-fixed 2H units (with vanilla stats) feel totally in balance with the shield-fixed units, and most units in general. 2Hs are shock troops on the ground now, but get much more wrecked by missile fire than S&S units, as well as being destroyed by charging cavalry (and that's 21/13 type DEK units I'm talking about. Bills and such can be assumed to get wrecked by those two things even more so). I'm a big fan of this balance, as trading your shield in for a 2H weapon should make you win in melee but leave you less capable of defending yourself from other battlefield elements (archers and cav primarily) as well.
- 2H swords are unquestionably weak. This is one of the unit's I'd suggest was balanced to the broken shield units, and thus left underpowered with them fixed.
- Cavalry... well, something can actually kill them now, that being the fixed spear units who brace correctly for the charge now. The MAD on the charge can be avoided if you keep from charging directly into spears that are set for the charge, and seems to help the knights' situation a lot. Additionally, high armor units (like, 21) also are okay at accepting charges due to their correctly-working high AC providing more protection. As I mentioned for S&S, higher cav can beat them while lower ones usually go 1:1. Cavalry actually suffered from the shield bug in a lot of cases too, and so have largely benefited from the fix, keeping them competitive with all the other units that benefited, and also delivering the melee staying power I think was necessary to make them best 2H units (perhaps mostly due to the formed charge, but I'm okay with that).
Feel free to discuss this further. I hope my insight from using it for a while helps people decide whether or not they feel the fix is something they wish to try, or might possibly accept as an improvement over vanilla and an interim solution until a real fix arrives from CA.
Good job on the Shield fix :2thumbsup:
Good post the_foz!
That's exactly the sort of information that I was looking for - a nice summation of the pros and cons of the shield fix, presumably the one transferring the shield value into armour. As much as the fix helps shield infantry, it's also worth noting (as you did) that it also impacts the shield based cavalry. Feudal knights, etc, will also benefit from the shield fix, so the net effect should be an overall "slowing" down of combat resolution.
Quite clearly the 2HS units are underpowered. In fact, I'd argue they were underpowered to start with. Maybe giving them a deserved ap attribute and a slight hike in attack would balance them out? Still, it's hard to see how the Highland Nobles and the 2HS HRE units can be easily balanced with the proposed shield fix - certainly nothing intuitive immediately springs to mind. It's interesting to see you mention that the DEKs with their lofty 21/13 stats and the ap attribute were considered balanced. These guys became monsters with the fixed animation. I guess I'll just have to try the fix and see for myself.
the Foz, with all due respect to you and all the others who have done a marvelous job figuring out the intricacies of this bug, have you done any testing in multiplayer? it would remove a lot of the variability of AI control (with what goes on in the battlefield, as well as any variables difficulty settings will throw in). it means greater ease in replicating any given maneuver or circumstance. for example, the early testing (at least from what it sounded like) in this thread always had to factor in the effects of charging, when what people wanted to test was effects of the shield in melee. by doing that in multiplayer you can just have both units walk into each other, removing any effects of a charge, and of having either unit designated as the "attacker".Quote:
Originally Posted by the_foz_4
of course it helps to have an extra computer in the house that can actually run M2TW (i am amazed that my old computer with its radeon 8500 is actually able to).
anyway, again, props to you guys for finding this bug and so throroughly searching for the best fix until the official one comes out.
Genrally giving 2-H swords AP and +2 attack helps. But DGK are still too expensive for their power. On the other hand this was true in vanillia anyway too IMO.Quote:
Quite clearly the 2HS units are underpowered. In fact, I'd argue they were underpowered to start with. Maybe giving them a deserved ap attribute and a slight hike in attack would balance them out? Still, it's hard to see how the Highland Nobles and the 2HS HRE units can be easily balanced with the proposed shield fix - certainly nothing intuitive immediately springs to mind. It's interesting to see you mention that the DEKs with their lofty 21/13 stats and the ap attribute were considered balanced. These guys became monsters with the fixed animation. I guess I'll just have to try the fix and see for myself.
DEK still beat any other non-pike infantry out their with all the fixes but they do suffer losses and don't tottally walk all over things like they did before. It's just that (as their stats suggest), they are the best infantry in the game in general melee.
Just a comment from the history over balance peanut gallery:
Most of the spearmen in M2TW (and in corrosponding periods of history) are using a normal spear, about 6 feet long, with ONE hand. Considering that they are holding it around the mid point, that isnt a very big reach advantage. Setting the spear on the instep would mean that 2 feet or so would be "used up" going from the foot to the hand.
The popularity of the spear in history stems more from its ease to make and cheap production than any cavalry killing magic. It is a dagger on a stick: cheap easy to create and easy to use. It's benefit against cavalry is more about it's reach in melee that allowed you to poke at mounted opponents chest rather than bonking his knees with a club.
Long spears and pikes are a totally diffrent story though. They ARE designed to kill cav and out-distance a lance. However, their length makes them unweildy as a melee weapon unless they are packed together in a strong formation.
Well according to the unit descriptions, every spearmen above Town Militia has a "Long Spear". as you put it. the in game animations don't allways match reality. Town Militia for example look nearly identical to Militia Spearmen, yet one has a short spear and the other a long spear according to the descriptions. does raise a lot of WTF moments mind.Quote:
Long spears and pikes are a totally diffrent story though. They ARE designed to kill cav and out-distance a lance. However, their length makes them unweildy as a melee weapon unless they are packed together in a strong formation.
Will this shield fix bug be compatible with other mods, such as Lusted's LTC? Oh...just occured to me that he balances units in his mod, so it'd mess with the changes he made, wouldn't it? Or would it still be compatible, just changing the units?
After testing the shield fix i do not recommend it as other changes i've made unbalance things if you use the shield fix. I will be using the shield fix in 2.1, i just need to balance some other things.Quote:
Will this shield fix bug be compatible with other mods, such as Lusted's LTC? Oh...just occured to me that he balances units in his mod, so it'd mess with the changes he made, wouldn't it? Or would it still be compatible, just changing the units?
Thanks. :)
HOPEFULLY M2:TW comes to me soon...then I can download the patch and pick the mods I want to install to improve my experience (by improve, I mean fix (some of) the issues with unmodded patched vanilla).
Personally I like my missile troops too much to nerf them by applying the armor based shield fix... And the skill based fix either leaves infantry too weak vs missiles or doesn't fully fix the problem.
So basically I'm just going to wait until the next patch, and then do my modding.
I need the darn mesh import/export tools anyway.
Sorry, I saw a post on twc and ima quoting someone«s post there (i cant log into twc right now so i cant say the name of the auhor iof the post).
Quote:
I've found that if you use the shield to armour bug fix (for shield units add their shield value to their armour value and make shield value 0).
It works not too bad with the following 2 handed fix,
Use Highland_Nobles soldier for:
billmen
heavy_billmen
bill_militia
heavy_bill_militia
dismounted_english_knights
dismounted_noble_knights
dismounted_portuguese_knights
free_company_men_at_arms
Use Viking_Raiders for:
woodsmen
croat_axemen
religious_fanatics
berdiche_axemen
varangian_guard
norse_axemen
galloglaich
Galloglaich mercs
tabardariyya
mutatawwi'a
eagle_warriors
english_huscarls
and use 270 for attack speed for all of these units except the ones using viking raider soldier these need about 300
with the lower order ones like woodsmen and croat axemen needing around 330 while leaving other stats intact.
Of course more testing is needed and the charge bonus is probably too high.
Unquote.
Unfortunalty Im not finding how I do the last phase:
and use 270 for attack speed for all of these units except the ones using viking raider soldier these need about 300
with the lower order ones like woodsmen and croat axemen needing around 330 while leaving other stats intact.
Can any explain me How do I change atack speed to those values???
I've not done multiplayer testing, as I don't have the luxury of having a second computer around the is good enough to run M2TW. And honestly, except for this one case, I wouldn't have wanted to do it that way anyway. The AI actually makes the computer totally predictable in 1v1 combat, to the point that I could almost snap my fingers at the exact moment when the computer would choose to regroup its cavalry unit, and point on screen where it was that they would be moved to. If you control your unit scientifically, it actually makes the AI a total non-factor.Quote:
Originally Posted by Han Summer
Thanks for the props! :smile:
Lusted answered this one about LTC, but concerning other mods, it depends if and how they've modified the EDU file. If the EDU is left untouched, or changes have been made that don't affect unit offense and defense stats, then you'll get the same results I've described. If some attempt has been made to balance units, though, your results will vary (sometimes quite a lot) from what I've been describing as the results of applying it to the vanilla game file. In general you can apply the fix (via my exe that patches the file) to absolutely any EDU out there, and it will do what it's supposed to - add the shield points of each unit into their armor, and put 0 for their shield. The only difference is that if stats have been changed, then unit balance will be different from what I've told you to expect. You'd have to try it in each case to find out exactly how though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaidonni
I figured you'd say that, as you already took measures to harden spears against cavalry, and their fixed shields would make them OTT against cav - something like an impervious cavalry meat grinder. I'm sure horse meat is tasty and all... but that doesn't mean we should install factories to make it on every battlefield.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lusted
I'm glad to hear you're implementing the fix into LTC 2.1, it sounds promising already. I imagine you're putting back in balance a lot of the things I feel are out, and look forward to seeing it, as we seem to want the same sort of things from the game.
I guess I'm just less patient than you. I'd rather swat the shield problem, then worry about putting archers and 2HS units back in balance with the higher power level of the rest of the units, than just sit around doing nothing. It's certainly not a bad option to wait for the official patch if you can do so... but I, knowing about the problem, would be constantly bothered by it in the game... and I can't just not play it until the patch comes. That leads me to use the fix, and finish balancing disadvantaged units as I can. It sounds like Lusted is already on this particular on though... so maybe I have to just tolerate the game being slightly off until he gets 2.1 done :smile:Quote:
Originally Posted by Musashi
Well, to me, it's better to have my shielded units a little nerfed in melee than completely remove the value of flanking fire from the game.
I agree, it takes away too much from tactics. I am well into my campaign with skill-fixed shields, and so far things are looking good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Musashi
This represents a gross misunderstanding of the problem. The archers, who are far less numerous than the shield units, experience at most a 6 point difference in flanking fire from this fix, as the shield value instead becomes armor which applies against missiles from the right and rear (that's if I correctly recall the maximum shield as 6 points). Left and front archer fire should be entirely unaffected as shield already counted there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Musashi
The backwards melee shields, OTOH, affect the units in melee twice as much as the fix nerfs any flank archer fire against them. In a great many cases that is to say the 6 point flanking archer fire difference instead is a 12 point deficit from what the shield should be doing for the unit in melee. 12 points is not "a little nerfed," it is "absolutely destroyed." It's much worse of a problem too even ignoring it having a twice as harsh effect on stats and breaking more units than the fix does, as it applies to any normal melee from the front or left where the shield is supposed to be applied, situations that happen far more frequently and are more integral to the function of the game than flanking archer fire. That is not to downplay the usefulness of flanking archer fire working right by any means, but simply to say that standard melee combat is far more important to the game and thus makes the fix a good trade to make since melee affects all units that aren't archers, and archers too sometimes.
I imagine skill-fixed shields work fine for the human, but in terms of the AI I think it would have drastic effects on army composition and auto calc. In fact this option ONLY seems to benefit the human!Quote:
Originally Posted by hrvojej
The armour-fixed option seems to the only real workaround to maintain a competitive and fair level of play, especially given the AI will never take advantage of enfilade fire.
Alsom, some people have just been zeroing the sheild value with no other changes Musahsi. You could try that as it still seems to have positive knock on effects from what I hear.
Got it wrong.
Of course, I also modified the units without shields, i.e. upped their def skill, to compensate for this. I'm not saying it's perfect, but IMO it's still less of a one-dimensional solution, and for me a more enjoyable way to play the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jambo
Well sure, it at least removes the penalties to melee. OTOH it also removes the shield's effect from ranged combat, which I'm guessing will make archers and gunpowder units pretty much slaughter shield troops, even from the front.Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl
would it be feasible to remove the shield bonus, and add half of it to armour and the other have to defense skill? So archers dont become underpowered, but units still melee good and autocalc isnt messed up? or is that simply a bad idea.
It's not a gross misunderstanding of the situation. By putting the shield value into armor you create a situation where firing on a unit from the flanks or rear is EXACTLY the same as shooting them in the front. There's no benefit. AT ALL. To me, that's taking an entire aspect of the game out, and is unacceptable.Quote:
Originally Posted by the_foz_4
You've still completely missed the point. I never said it was a good thing to do, or that it didn't remove an aspect of the game. What I said was that the melee shield problem is a far bigger, more prevalent, and important aspect of the game than is the archer flanking fire consideration. An entire aspect is already out of the game in vanilla, that being the melee combat effectiveness of all shield units. That is what is really unacceptable. Anyone should easily be able to see that putting that aspect back in at the expense of the other is about 5 steps forward and one step backward, which is the point I was trying to hammer home, and the reason I say you clearly do not understand the nature of the situation. If you can't bring yourself to fix a greater evil by introducing a lesser one, then so be it, but if you cannot understand why everyone should want to do so, you need to re-evaluate the situation. I don't like the side effects by any means either, but they are a necessary evil to fix a much more horrific problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by Musashi
Now that's what I'm talking about... the suggestion shows a lot of good critical thinking. This idea does have the benefit of probably keeping archers at a much more reasonable power level compared to the fixed shield units, and screws up flanking right and rear fire half as much. In return, the archers get an equal bonus against the front and left quadrants. That is, fixing a 6 point shield would now give +3 missile def in rear and right, but -3 def in front and left. I'll have to give this more careful consideration, and figure out what exactly it does to melee.Quote:
Originally Posted by Garnier
I'm not worried about archers being "underpowered". To me, if flanking isn't better than direct frontal attack, that's a whole tactical element removed from the game. Shield bearing units being weak in melee is minor to me.
Just because you feel it's a big deal, doesn't mean it is. It's pretty much a matter of opinion.
Not if you're playing the Turks, or any other faction that can flank easily with archers, and who in fact depend on that ability due to lack of infantry (or just straight-up historical realism).Quote:
Originally Posted by the_foz_4
Fixing one part of the game by breaking another part, isn't a real solution (IMO).
Great work in puzzling through this, y'all. It certainly looks like only CA can provide a real fix to it though. "Help us Obi-Wan Grasdyke, you're our only hope!"
I'll be interested to hear the results of the 0 shield, +3 def, +3 arm tests. Maybe that's a better compromise for all?
How about the tactical element of "use your shield troops in melee combat, they work." That's the most basic tactic there is, and it's the one horribly broken by this bug. If you want to talk about tactics being borked, you can't just ignore that one b/c you find archer flanking fire more convenient to talk about.Quote:
Originally Posted by Musashi
You're right, just because I feel it's a big deal doesn't make it one - the fact this thread immediately became such a hot topic and continues to stay so, though, does guarantee that it in fact is a big deal. There's power in consensus, Musashi, it runs the entire world. It elects governments, determines policy, makes laws, and defines right and wrong. The people have spoken, and they want their melee units to work right. So I give the people what they want, and try to minimize it's unintended impact as far as possible...Quote:
Just because you feel it's a big deal, doesn't mean it is. It's pretty much a matter of opinion.
The best part of it is of course that you don't have to (in this case) do anything you don't want to. I'm not sure I can understand why you don't think the problem is as big as the numbers say it is, but that of course is your prerogative. For the moment it looks like we'll have to agree to disagree.
As a side note, you may find a happier solution in juggling some of the shield points to skill instead of armor. Base armored sergeants, for instance, have def stats 5/3/6, and look like this vs. missiles:
Fr/Le/Ri/Re = 11/11/5/5
The shield-to-armor fix gives 11/3/0 and looks like:
Fr/Le/Ri/Re = 11/11/11/11
It's obvious this is not a good change for archers to have to deal with. That leaves other options of putting all 6 points into skill, or putting some amount into each other def stat (naturally half is a good place to start). The first gives stats 5/9/0:
Fr/Le/Ri/Re = 5/5/5/5
The latter makes the unit 8/6/0 and thus:
Fr/Le/Ri/Re = 8/8/8/8
While I gather you will still not be happy at losing the shield vs. no-shield dynamic (as I'm not either), the quad-8 unit (split the shield points between armor and skill) at least maintains its average defense value against missiles and therefore enemy archers' usefulness.
Note however that skill points instead of armor points may affect melee combat strangely...
Anyway, just some food for thought.
Guess it all depends on what skill actually does in terms of which areas it gets added to (Fr/Le/Ri or Re)...
Anyway, I'd like to throw in another point for discussion and that's what effect the shield to armour fix has on units like voulgiers, halberds, swordstaff, and JHI?
What I've noticed so far is the shield to armour fix has generally meant a need to improve the other units like 2HS so they keep pace and balance is retained. Should this extend to the other 2 handed units like the Halberd? It would seem so. In fact, it would seem there's a need for a general improvement to all non-shield units to compensate...
Maybe the vanilla (i.e. bugged) shield units were balanced OK to start with?
@Jambo: Not really all 2-Handers that arn't swords do just fine against S&S unit, they just don't massacre them for no losses anymore, which is pretty fair considering prices. Only 2HS suffer and thats partly down to lack of AP, and partly because they have massivlly under powered stats for their cost when compared to the fixed 2-handers.
Mostly the 15 and 21 point attack values plus AP that the various 2H units have easily makes them more than competitive with the fixed shield units (note I mean without touching their vanilla stats here). A few units like 2HS units weren't bugged and so I speculate were in balance with the broken shield units, and therefore yes are left underpowered and can be modified to be put ~"back in balance". That most 2H units were in fact bugged turns out to be important (and good in this case) as they seem to have retained stats that balance with those of working shield units. This leaves a pretty small portion of units out of balance after the fix, IMO just archers a little under and 2HS a lot under, which can easily be put back in with time to toy with their stats. +2 attack and the AP stat have been suggested as help for the 2HS units, and my limited work with archers has me thinking they deserve an attack bump somewhere in the 2-4 range. That of course is just what I want to see archers doing in the game, as judging this is purely subjective business.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jambo
The lack of flanking fire is about a 4, while shields hurting folks in melee is about a 9 on the broken-ness scale.Quote:
It's not a gross misunderstanding of the situation. By putting the shield value into armor you create a situation where firing on a unit from the flanks or rear is EXACTLY the same as shooting them in the front. There's no benefit. AT ALL. To me, that's taking an entire aspect of the game out, and is unacceptable
Without flanking fire, archers would still function, fulfill their primary role, and kill people at range.
With their shields *hurting them* no shield unit can possibly be used for its historical role in any way shape or form.
The equivalent would be if horse archers shooting into someones flanks actually had their arrows reflected and wound up shooting themselves in the face.
Not only is there no benefit AT ALL to having shields in melee IT ACTUALLY HURTS YOU. This is a huge issue and all but the most partisan horse archer fanatics completely uninterested in game balance would agree.
Now, you may feel that the putting the shield value into armor isn't a perfect or even the best fix to the shield problem, and that's fine, but don't try to pretend it's not a major deal.
Your missing Musashi's point. Without a flanking fire bonus, there is no incentive to flank! Just always leave your archers, even HA's in the main battle line and fire away! It's easier than trying to maneuver for position, after all. This does seriously detract from the tactical depth of the game, if there is no reason to flank with archers. BTW this doesn't only apply to HA's. There are situations in siege defense and attack where foot archers can get into flanking positions. But hey... why bother trying to maneuver them through the streets into an advantageous position, if I can just mass my army and fire from the front, for the same effect?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulstan
I don't think anyone is disputing that there's a problem with shields, although frankly I haven't noticed it breaking my campaign games to the extent that some people in this thread say it does. Same thing with the "broken" spears... I still manage to use them, and win. Hopefully CA will find a way to fix shields without breaking archers, and that's all some of us are asking for.Quote:
With their shields *hurting them* no shield unit can possibly be used for its historical role in any way shape or form.
The thing is it dosen't appear to break things badly until you try it out, then when you do you see just how much of an effect it has and it REALLY changes things. Allthough TBH you wouldn't notice it THAT much if you use a mostly mounted force anyway, which is the impreshion most of your posts give. The AI is too stupid to keep it's spears still and braced when you charge cav at them and mounted units arn't effected as badly by it due to their smaller sheild values and high powered charge.Quote:
although frankly I haven't noticed it breaking my campaign games to the extent that some people in this thread say it does.
Amen to that. No modding fix that we can do will fix this without causing trouble elsewhere, so CA needs to step up to the plate and flip a few switches in the underlying code. But they're aware of the problem and I'm confident they're working on it.Quote:
Hopefully CA will find a way to fix shields without breaking archers, and that's all some of us are asking for.
The modding solutions presented are better than nothing, and much thanks goes out to the modders for finding the bug and then creating as much of a work around as they can with the tools available, but none of them are a perfect solution. I don't see how they could be, when the problem is an outright inversion: we can't fix that just be adding some numbers here and there.
Dude, I know. Flanking fire is good and it would be bad if it were gone. However, shields not working at all, in fact, *hurting you* is a far more serious problem. Now naturally I'm not going to tell Musashi he has to install this mod if he doesn't want too. I just don't like the idea floating around that this shield problem is minor because HA folks don't care if shields are detrimental in melee.Quote:
Your missing Musashi's point. Without a flanking fire bonus, there is no incentive to flank! Just always leave your archers, even HA's in the main battle line and fire away! It's easier than trying to maneuver for position, after all. This does seriously detract from the tactical depth of the game