Two-hander fix?

[Ryanus]

Hello, I started playing M2TW just recently. I had long heard about various bugs with two-handed weapons and pikes and this seems to still be the case. I have vanilla M2TW with the 1.2 patch. Is there any updates that will fix these problems, say another patch or Kingdoms, or will I have to look to mods instead?

[Soul Reaver]

I have Kingdoms, haven't seen any improvement, it looks as though you'll have to go the mod route.

[Karl08]

I've heard a lot of talk about this as well, but have as yet only tried two-handers against pike in custom battles. Haven't encountered any bugs, though. What are they, exactly?

[Soul Reaver]

These are the 2 handed units, included a review by ForlornHope from 08/17/09. A bit harsh IMO but everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Varangian Guard
Tabardariyya
Berdiche Axemen
Dismounted English Knights
Dismounted Noble Knights
Dismounted Portuguese Knights
All Billmen units
Norse Axemen
Free Company Men at Arms
And possibly:
Galloglaich
Woodsmen
Croatian Axemen
Mutatawwi'a
Religious Fanatics
"After the first patch they were sort of fixed, as in they could attack but they still were too slowly animated and since m2tw is based on actually hitting rather than number crunching they lose to just about anything. Things got even worse when the last patch was released, as that fixed the shield bug that has existed since the release version of Rome total war that caused shields to have a negative defence bonus instead of positive.
This means that all units with shields got a big increase to their defence from their now working shields and this made two handed units even more useless as their attack and defence was unchanged and as a result they became much, much weaker and can't beat anyone. You see things like the first and weakest knight easily beating Gothic Knights, a very expensive knight that the Holy Roman Empire gets at the very end of its tech tree. Horrible. This makes certain factions like Poland with its polearms and Turkey with its Janissary Heavy Infantry polearm troops useless as their best troops don't work."

[Wytchfynder]

Thats a long list of dodgy 2 handed units, and it was never fully fixed? i was under the impression that each succesive patch fixed em up better as fighting units?

the animations do still look iffy and it takes all day for a billman or similar to get his blow in whilst the sword and spear guys can get a couple or more strikes in.

maybe they were never fully fixed? which might explain why heavy billmen and stuff take ages to clobber some garbage spear militia?

i tend to avoid 2handed stuff and go with sword guys.

[anshuvio2]

It's not that they were ever "broken", it's just the way CA designed them was far too slow. ForlornHope has a...thing against 2 handers because of this. The purpose of 2 handers is NOT a frontal confrontation (or a prolonged one anyway) but really flanking duty and breaking up the enemy right before the main charge by your backbone troops. Though that being said, they do kind of suck.

[Ryanus]

Well all I know is that going by pure stats, dis. noble knights should beat dis. chivalric knights (I'm assuming that defense value is subtracted from attack value, and that armor piercing reduces the defense value from armor by half). But this is obviously not the case if you do a custom battle with these units. I could see the slower 2 handed animations being a "feature", after all, you would think it would take longer to swing a huge battle ax than a short sword. However, the fact that this disadvantage is mentioned no where in the game, not to mentioned it makes these units weaker than their tech level and costs would indicate they should be, leads me to believe its not fully intentional on the part of the game designers.

[Karl08]

Hmmmm. Looks like I'll have to fire up M2TW again and try some Zweihänders against some shielded opponents. Prieviously I have tested them against pikes, as that's what they were meant to deal with. IMO they should struggle when facing a shield/hand weapon combo, but be effective against pikes. And my testing so far shows that they make short work of pike formations.

[Ryanus]

Hmmmm. Looks like I'll have to fire up M2TW again and try some Zweihänders against some shielded opponents. Prieviously I have tested them against pikes, as that's what they were meant to deal with. IMO they should struggle when facing a shield/hand weapon combo, but be effective against pikes. And my testing so far shows that they make short work of pike formations.

Yes but are they any better at pikes than one-handed infantry? Due to the fact that pike men usually drop their pikes when charged by any infantry (at least they keep formation during a calvary charge), most pike men have weak base stats, and one-handers attack more quickly, I'd be willing to bet the one-handers would defeat the pikes as quickly or quicker and with fewer casualties. Not to mention that the Zweihander has 14 attack; only one more than the 13 attack of most one-handed sword unites for some reason.

Also, I believe in the latter middle ages many heavily-armored fighters stopped wearing shields simply because they didn't offer significantly more protection to a man who was already encased in plate. The higher striking power of a two-handed weapon was more advantages if you were fighting a similarly well-armored opponent. This isn't really reflected in the game as even high end knights get much of their defensive value from their shields (this is also why some top-tier knights, like lancers, have poorer stats than their earlier counterparts). I'm not saying that you shouldn't use two-handed units or that they can't be effective in certain situations, I'm just saying that in the basic game they probably aren't as powerful as they should be.

[Karl08]

Yes but are they any better at pikes than one-handed infantry? Due to the fact that pike men usually drop their pikes when charged by any infantry (at least they keep formation during a calvary charge), most pike men have weak base stats, and one-handers attack more quickly, I'd be willing to bet the one-handers would defeat the pikes as quickly or quicker and with fewer casualties. Not to mention that the Zweihander has 14 attack; only one more than the 13 attack of most one-handed sword unites for some reason.

Also, I believe in the latter middle ages many heavily-armored fighters stopped wearing shields simply because they didn't offer significantly more protection to a man who was already encased in plate. The higher striking power of a two-handed weapon was more advantages if you were fighting a similarly well-armored opponent. This isn't really reflected in the game as even high end knights get much of their defensive value from their shields (this is also why some top-tier knights, like lancers, have poorer stats than their earlier counterparts). I'm not saying that you shouldn't use two-handed units or that they can't be effective in certain situations, I'm just saying that in the basic game they probably aren't as powerful as they should be.

I'll have to test the regular infantry against pikes as well, then - as soon as I can find the game


As for the attack stats, I don't know if they really ought be higher than regular swordsmen's. For most purposes a singlehander or a longsword would be far more useful in the attack than a Zweihänder, which was after all a specialized weapon. It all depends on the match-up, really, what the "realistic" attack and defense stats should be.

[Soul Reaver]

2 handed units are shock infantry and used to attack the flanks in Med2, a prolonged melee encounter with some Armored Swordsmen, or any similar unit would see most of them running for the hills.

[StuntManMatt]

I don't know. Most of the units listed above have some sort of AP bonus. I did a couple simple tests in custom battels, 1 on 1. With Varangian Guard vs. Spear Militia. Whooped them. Then I tried vs Saracen Spear Militia. Whooped them as well. After that it was armored seargents, beat them also; and finally I tested them vs DFKs. Not as one sided, but their charge and AP bonus lead to an eventual win with like 50% losses. I only did this with Varangian guard though, so I'm not sure how the others scale.

On a side note, Zweihanders got their butts handed to themselves verse DFKs (no AP bonus).

[Ryanus]

I don't know. Most of the units listed above have some sort of AP bonus. I did a couple simple tests in custom battels, 1 on 1. With Varangian Guard vs. Spear Militia. Whooped them. Then I tried vs Saracen Spear Militia. Whooped them as well. After that it was armored seargents, beat them also; and finally I tested them vs DFKs. Not as one sided, but their charge and AP bonus lead to an eventual win with like 50% losses. I only did this with Varangian guard though, so I'm not sure how the others scale.

On a side note, Zweihanders got their butts handed to themselves verse DFKs (no AP bonus).

I did a test with Varangian guard and DFK. They won once in three or four battles, and even then it was very close. Again this is not what their stats would lead you to believe.

And to those that say two-handers are meant solely to attack enemy flanks; this seems like a very narrow role me. You know what is also good against enemy flanks? Almost everything. Two-handers do have good shock value due to their high attack values and ap attributes, however if the battle last much longer than that initial charge, they start to suffer in comparison to other, faster attacking units. Calvary are probably better at flanking since they have better mobility to actually get to the flanks and are able to charge repeatedly. In the end, two-handers are units who aren't good at withstanding attacks, and aren't very good at dishing them out either. This doesn't make much sense by game play or historical standards.

[Wytchfynder]

I did a test with Varangian guard and DFK. They won once in three or four battles, and even then it was very close. Again this is not what their stats would lead you to believe.

And to those that say two-handers are meant solely to attack enemy flanks; this seems like a very narrow role me. You know what is also good against enemy flanks? Almost everything. Two-handers do have good shock value due to their high attack values and ap attributes, however if the battle last much longer than that initial charge, they start to suffer in comparison to other, faster attacking units. Calvary are probably better at flanking since they have better mobility to actually get to the flanks and are able to charge repeatedly. In the end, two-handers are units who aren't good at withstanding attacks, and aren't very good at dishing them out either. This doesn't make much sense by game play or historical standards.

I agree with the Ryanus post. most anything is good for flank attacks and esp rear attacks. and all that cost and upkeep and upgrading stuff is supposed to make 2handed guys top of the infantry tree, and then to only have them in that limited role of shock flanking which most everything else can do, seems a flaw in the game play.

and with the dodgy animations there is definitely something messed up here.

[Soul Reaver]

FactionHeir and his "VanillaModv0.93" fixes the 2handers animations to a certain extent. It makes them worth recruiting for anyone who likes to use them.
The VanillaMod Bug thread can be found here if anyone is interested, the download for it is in his sig. https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...read&highlight=

[Bilgediver]

I thought two handed infantry were still only used as "shock" troops. You don't really have a lot of them but you used them in a pinch to slam into an entrenched position (like a pike wall). Obviously they are extremely effective, but really only for their first blow (the charge bonus should be tremendous). Shields weren't just good for warding off blows, they did help in warding off missile attacks. An infantryman holding a shield about a foot above his head/body can protect himself in a way that even a plated man holding a two-handed sword just cannot.

[Bilgediver]

Makse sense. As long as you let the Two handers use their charge bonus that sounds like what should happen.