The Shield Problem(s)

[AussieGiant]

Ok, I'm not as lazy as I thought.

Setting the shield value to a whopping 30, I went from winning battles with kills generally in the 100/50 range, to losing battles with kills in the 50/100 range, 5 times in a row, with the worst being a humiliating 45/114 loss.

That pretty much confirms that there's an inverted operation in the battle calculations. Shield value subtracts directly from a unit's defense in combat.

Nice Musashi.

Hopefully that can be added to the bug list and it is as easy to correct as it sounds. (I hope!!)

Cheers

[Foz]

I added this issue to our buglist here on the 10th, and Sapi recently posted that he updated the buglist front page and shipped the new ones off, so it appears we've done all we can do already toward getting an official fix going.

@Musashi: Thanks for all the work, we needed more evidence illustrating the problem to get some of the skeptics on board. I think your results make it clear that removing a unit's shield points makes that unit less vulnerable in close combat, and not just by a minor amount. This in turn clearly indicates that the shield stat is conferring a penalty on its unit.

I'll be looking forward to any further testing results anyone might want to post

[AussieGiant]

I added this issue to our buglist here on the 10th, and Sapi recently posted that he updated the buglist front page and shipped the new ones off, so it appears we've done all we can do already toward getting an official fix going.

I hope they have time to deal with this "foz".

Have a good weekend all.

[Revenant]

I have one issue with this shield mess...

With the working shield, a lot of units will have much increased performance, their defence will actually go up of 12 points in some cases. And so a lot of late era units without shields, which performed admirably against them, will be totally outclassed halberdiers, zweihanders, Lancers, Gendarmes etc.. There will be no point in fielding newer units.

I spotted this trend even now, some late era units are just worse than their feudal predeccesors. For example dismounted Eastern Chivalric Knights compared with dismounted Feudals. Or some italian dismounted later eras infantry, all are worse than plain dismounted Feudal knights...

[hrvojej]

I have one issue with this shield mess...

With the working shield, a lot of units will have much increased performance, their defence will actually go up of 12 points in some cases. And so a lot of late era units without shields, which performed admirably against them, will be totally outclassed halberdiers, zweihanders, Lancers, Gendarmes etc.. There will be no point in fielding newer units.

I spotted this trend even now, some late era units are just worse than their feudal predeccesors. For example dismounted Eastern Chivalric Knights compared with dismounted Feudals. Or some italian dismounted later eras infantry, all are worse than plain dismounted Feudal knights...

Yep, the whole roster needs rebalancing if you try to fix the shields with upping the def skill. However, I think it's less problematic to up the def skill of the 2handers than it would be to deal with the missile combat (and ap) issues that could arise if armor is upped as a shield compensation. So, I think I'll do that.

I was thinking about giving around 8-10 skill to late game elites (DGK etc.), around 6-8 to midrange units, 4-6 to archers and low-end units, and nothing to peasants as a revenge for them owning the militia earlier... I think it should bring more balance to the battles with fixed shields, and the autoresolve and AI build priorities as well once the shield fix is implemented. Well, at least there won't be any more complaining about the fast kill rates or battles being over too quickly.

[Ulstan]

Good testing, Musashi. I disagree with you that it's ok if shields do nothing in melee, but the question is rather academic at this point.

I'm also glad to see that you tested adding an artificially high shield value and seeing what happened - that is a key test that makes it pretty clear the shield is being 'subtracted' rather than 'added'.

Is it possible to put in a negative number for the shield value? Regardless, if shields work fine for missiles right now, but are messed up for melee, it is going to be nearly impossible to mod in a fix that doesn't screw one combat method over.

The testing results indicate that a shield is a detriment in melee combat, which is an idea I can wrap my head around. The bulkier the shield, the more of a penalty in melee

My god. No, no No no NO.

Hey lets get rid of armor too. The bulkier the armor, the more of a penalty in melee!

Discard all the ridiculous nonsense you have gotten from the movies. I don't care if the hero with no armor and no shield routinely hacks down heavily armored, shield wearing guards. That's not the way it worked in real life. Name ONE army that had its soldiers take off their armor and shields before a melee fight because they were 'too bulky'.

I just cannot fathom the large group that adheres to the belief that heavy armor and a shield hurt you in melee, despite all historical evidence to the contrary. I blame Hollywood :(

[Revenant]

My god. No, no No no NO.

Hey lets get rid of armor too. The bulkier the armor, the more of a penalty in melee!

Discard all the ridiculous nonsense you have gotten from the movies. I don't care if the hero with no armor and no shield routinely hacks down heavily armored, shield wearing guards. That's not the way it worked in real life. Name ONE army that had its soldiers take off their armor and shields before a melee fight because they were 'too bulky'.

I just cannot fathom the large group that adheres to the belief that heavy armor and a shield hurt you in melee, despite all historical evidence to the contrary. I blame Hollywood :(

Nobody wrote such things here.

[Foz]

I disagree, Rev, Zhukov is clearly suggesting that it makes sense for shields to detract from a unit in melee combat, as the post wraps up by saying we should not assume shields are not behaving as intended. I'm forced to disagree vehemently. There's no way you can suggest that giving me a nice shield to deflect blows with should make me less able to defend myself in melee combat. A shield confers a huge amount of cover in melee, and allows its user to deflect blows with something other than his sword or other weapon, affording additional defense and openings for attack in combat as well. If you gain good shield position on an attacker, you can literally prevent him from bringing his weapon back to position to defend himself and easily kill him. As for the tremendous weight of a shield, this is also Hollywood BS. Even the largest steel shields depicted on heavily armoured units in the game typically weigh about 15 lbs, the weight of a bowling ball. This in no way makes you a lumbering oaf as people always seem to think, and is clearly a benefit rather than a hindrance in close combat.

The other clear factor that indicates shields are not intended to detract in combat is that the game adds the unit's shield stat to its total defense calculation that it displays when you mouse over the unit. As it would make absolutely no sense if they added its value into the displayed stat but then subtracted it in combat in actuality, not to mention that this would be horribly inaccurate historically, we should assume shields are not acting as intended. I thought this was totally obvious, but apparently not.

[Frankmuddy]

May I suggest developing a standard test formula of X many of unit A with set stats versus X many of unit B with set stats, twenty times. Volunteers could conduct regular tests with consistent parameters, allowing for a greater number of tests to be performed and collated later on.

[Foz]

May I suggest developing a standard test formula of X many of unit A with set stats versus X many of unit B with set stats, twenty times. Volunteers could conduct regular tests with consistent parameters, allowing for a greater number of tests to be performed and collated later on.

Sure you can suggest it. I don't think anyone is doing much testing at the moment though. We've run more than enough tests already to prove the problem to anyone except those unable to accept it due to religious reasons.

At the very least I can say that I'm not really concerning myself much further with the problem, and am assuming that a patch is on its way from CA. So barring some as yet undiscovered catastrophic side effect of my v1.2 Shield Fix, I intend to enjoy the game to the full extent of the law until that official patch shows up from CA and hopefully fixes all these problems we've all been seeing.

[General Zhukov]

With the working shield, a lot of units will have much increased performance, their defence will actually go up of 12 points in some cases. And so a lot of late era units without shields, which performed admirably against them, will be totally outclassed halberdiers, zweihanders, Lancers, Gendarmes etc.. There will be no point in fielding newer units.

Indeed, it seems that unit balancing takes factors into account we were not aware of.

The testing results indicate that a shield is a detriment in melee combat, which is an idea I can wrap my head around. The bulkier the shield, the more of a penalty in melee, but with a boost in missle resistance. Many units, like sword infantry, won't feel the burn of the penalty much since they have high normal armor, good defense skill, and high melee attack anyway.

What the penalty means is that shieldless melee units (two handers of all stripes, plus peasants) will have it easier by 3-6 points against shielded troops. Again, it smacks of troop balancing.

I see no reason to assume things are not working as intended.