The Shield Problem(s)

**dopp** · 01-13-2007, 04:00

@Carl: You can just use the Foz's modded file and make your own changes to it. The pikemen and polearm fixes are minor when set against tweaking the shield stats of every unit.

To 'fix' the pikes, just run a search for long_pike and replace all the secondary weapon entries with the following line:

stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 25, 1

That's it. There are only 8-12 pike units in the game (and half of them are Scotland's), so it's an easy job.

Might I suggest that since shields normally only apply to attacks from the left, adding them directly to armor will make shielded units a lot stronger than they 'should be' in combat. Why not halve the bonus or subtract 2 or something to even things out a bit?

**Garnier** · 01-13-2007, 05:53

I'm going to set aside my game until I can get a temporary fix for this. I hope people are still working on it. I dont expect anything from CA in the patch coming in february(which will turn into march).

**Foz** · 01-13-2007, 05:59

Originally Posted by dopp

@Carl: You can just use the Foz's modded file and make your own changes to it. The pikemen and polearm fixes are minor when set against tweaking the shield stats of every unit.

To 'fix' the pikes, just run a search for long_pike and replace all the secondary weapon entries with the following line:

stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 25, 1

That's it. There are only 8-12 pike units in the game (and half of them are Scotland's), so it's an easy job.

Might I suggest that since shields normally only apply to attacks from the left, adding them directly to armor will make shielded units a lot stronger than they 'should be' in combat. Why not halve the bonus or subtract 2 or something to even things out a bit?

Or you can of course simply run the exe on an already-modified EDU if you've been doing other changes. It copies everything except the stat_pri_armour line verbatim. This was of course the whole point of posting the tool in the first place, that it adds the fix to a file that already implements other ones.

Concerning your proposal, Dopp, the way I understood shields to function was that they applied to the front as well as the left. I think this must be the case, or the only way you'd notice the shield bug would be to cause a unit to become flanked from the left. The vast majority of fighting in 1v1 tests is occurring between 2 men facing each other, so the fact that we can clearly notice the shield bug in those tests strongly points to the shield being applied to the front as well as the left. Given that the frontal defense is the one I am trying to get to the intended value, I feel the full amount should be applied, as that front defense total will certainly be the one most used in combat, and therefore I will always choose to deal with the others being slightly off instead of the front. Some side effects (in this case the right and rear will have higher than intended defense values) are unfortunately the best we can expect from any fix we can implement at the moment...

On a different note, the fixed file gives the game some interesting dynamics that I have not previously seen. I am noticing that Armoured Swordsmen and 13/21 knights for instance are now considerably more resistant to archer fire and cavalry charges than the various 21/13 units like DEK, and can beat mailed knights (cav) in 1v1... but the DEK-type units will beat the swordsmen in melee combat, retaining about 1/3 unit strength in doing so. Those same DEK types, however, rollover and die to cavalry charges (due to low armour to absorb the charge), and are considerably more beat up by archer fire than sword-and-shield units. Similarly, cavalry are no longer the total wrecking ball that they had previously been, but have units they shred, units that can match them, and units that will typically best them (the fixed spearmen). In short what I'm saying is, I'm really feeling the rock-paper-scissors dynamics that I've seen Lusted describe about his mod, and it's shocking: something this game hasn't delivered before this. It's an odd thing to be saying, but with units performing at levels that appear to be what the stats actually say, I'm really beginning to feel like each unit has a clear tactical role to play in the game, and it's a breath of fresh air. I'm genuinely excited!

**Durallan** · 01-13-2007, 10:36

I might be throwing a spanner into the works but what if you changed the shield positive values into negatives? I tried testing this myself with chivalric knights (french) and chivalric knights (hungary) first I set French to 0 shield value and Hungary to 26. I played hungary and utterly trounced them, switched the values around and they utterly trounced me, BUT when I siwtched my value to 0 and the hungarians to -26 the results were very interesting, first of all the battles were close, (I won a few times and they won a few times) and they were really cool fights because I could actually see them fighting and deflecting blows with their shield. Anyway anyone else though with playing with negative values for shields?

**JCoyote** · 01-13-2007, 11:22

That's kinda what I was thinking Dur, but I can think of at least 2 problems with that. First is autocalc. Second, is missile defense, which will get tanked because of that.

The location of the problem is outside autocalc obviously, and also outside missile calculations. So the actual problem lies somewhere in the melee module of the program that accepts the shield values.

**Durallan** · 01-13-2007, 11:40

Ah. I see, still it was fun to see the soldiers fighting each other for once and not killing the others in one hit. Could just be a flipped value, but who knows!

**Carl** · 01-13-2007, 12:19

am using units with Great Sword against shield infantry and late era heavy cavalry against mounted knights (no surprise here, they really have better stats now).

And thats the problem. 2-handed sword units have one half of the issue the other 2-handers had before the fix, (in relation to every other unit in the game), their attack animation is too slow, and thus they rarely get a strike in against most other units. Pre sheild fix this didn't really matter as any hit they did make was a near garunteed kill. Now it matters a LOT.

I'll not worry about the pikes in our discussion, as TBH they eithier work for you or they don't and when they do work they sluaghter whatever you put in front of them.

Yes, your right the 2-handers with the fix are still killers, (because the AP value is cutting into the armour), but honestly in most cases the 2-handers have such good stats they should do that anyway.

@Dopp: I wasn't worried about doing that for my file in any case, i just wondered if Reverant had ben using it in his tests.