"Spear" attribute

[MAsta_KFC]

Yes, I recall that thread at twcenter.

Basically, the 'spear' attribute gives that certain weapon something akin to 'the touch of death' for cavalry and at the same time makes them horrible against infantry. Which is why if you notice carefully, almost any hit on a phalanxed unit still carrying the spear/pike will almost always result in a kill.

The mount bonus is usually better, however, the drawback is that it applies to BOTH weapons, which means units with primary and secondary (usually the sword) gets a bonus for both, making it unrealistic. It's quite useful for dedicated spearman though.

After some tweaking, I've felt that the mount bonuses for vanilla spearman are far too underpowered, especially if swordsman fare better. Take for example, Triarii compare to Principes.

Principes sword has the following values:
stat_sec 7, 2, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 25 ,1

Ie its attack value is 7 x (Rate of attack)1 = 7

Compared to Triarii:
mount_effect horse +4, chariot +4, camel +4
stat_pri 7, 7, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,0.73

So against cavalry its total attack is (7+4) x 0.73 = 8.03

Whoa, thats ONE whole point of bonus compared to a normal swordsman! *sarcasm*. Fat lot of difference that'll make in a fight.

So therefore if one wants to make spearman truly effective, you might have to change the bonuses manually to suit your taste.

Cheers!

[Woreczko]

Btw: Why CA gave 0.73 rate of attack for spear, not phalanx units? Such thing makes for example triariiis hopeless, as they can`t even beat hastati!

[Frans Ubberdork]

slightly off topic:\
mount_effect horse +4, chariot +4, camel +4
stat_pri 7, 7, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,0.73

what does the 25 represent in the statline?

on topic so if we sped up the attack to .9
that would make it (7+4) x 0.90 = 9.9
compaired to the 7 on the principes
does it speed the spearman up too much tho?

[Woreczko]

I don`t think it so easy. I gave 12 attack and 1 attack rate to triariis and they`ve finally beaten principes, but with heavy casualties. Now if you look at stats - principes 7 att, 16 def, triarii 12 att, 17 def, you would think, that principes should be soundly defeated, but that was not the case. I guess triariis and probably other spear units have slower attack animations by default, so even giving them 1 attack rating does not make them as fast, as sword units.

I`m however no expert on animations and their impact on game mechanics, these are just guesses.

I`m also curious, what "25" stands for. Maybe it`s fp/s?

[Red Harvest]

I agree about the problems with CA's low mount modifier choices (ditto for terrain effects.) The charge bonuses for some cav units are huge, so spears need big mount effects. I've changed spears to +8 vs. cav and camels. Non-phalanx spears are a bit nerfed.

Same applies to elephants. Cav actually can do well vs. elephants if you tone down the elephants so that infantry have a chance, and that makes no sense. As a result I started using -12 for mount effects for cav/camel vs. elephants. I also had to up the elephants own bonus vs. cav/camels to +8. I'm still seeing "momentum" problems for elephants vs. heavy cav when I cut the elephant unit size in half, and cut the hit points. Ideally, charge bonuses should be removed for horses attacking elephants.

CA has lots of inconsistencies and some things need polish to get the engine making sense.

[MAsta_KFC]

To explain a few things:

stat_pri 7, 7, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,0.73

The 25 represents the next time the unit attacks, ie ROF in 1/10ths of a second. So the default is one attack every 25/10=2.5 seconds. Setting this value to something small ie 1, will have them hack at each other like madmen, and a number too high will have them stand around all day. I think CA was probably planning to implement different ROF for different units (ie beserkers) but never got around to it.

stat_pri 7, 7, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,0.73

The 0.73 is an 'attack factor' bonus that modifies the lethality of the hit. Setting this value high means that every hit will be a kill, if you set it low, then you will have more knockdowns/getups. Eg Setting it to 0 means that practically no-one gets killed, which is quite hilarious as guys just keep standing back up. Again, i think CA was planning to use this more extensively rather than the arbitrary allocation which seems to be existent atm.

On the topic of spearman, I've given a +12 mount bonus to triarii, and that seems to strike a good balance between realism and lethality.

Cheers!

[Woreczko]

Thanks a lot MAsta_KFC for clearing up the stats . May I ask, where did you found this info? Given that we have lethality, it`s possible to mod projectiles more extensively. If the attack of a projectile means it`s accuracy, and we have lethality, then it`s all like in MTW!

Anyway I still don`t get, why small spears and 2-handed axes have lower lethality than others.

Regarding your triarii, don`t you think they are pretty much too weak in comparison to other legionarie? Vanilla triariis stand no chance even against hastatis. As I mentioned before, I had to give them 12 attack and set lethality to 1 in order to make them stronger than principes, and become true elite. Otherwise they were just hopeless pushovers.