The Shield Problem(s)

[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.