The Shield Problem(s)

[Garnier]

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]

@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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[Vinsitor]

Tnx for your great job guys I'm really happy too ear about these results!

Is there finally a file where 2Hs, shield, and pikes are all fixed? Tnx!

Cheers

[Revenant]

So i tried to modify behavior of pike units, as Dopp suggested. It works, but again, the low end pikes function now very well, (pike militia), but the top end are insanely powerfull.

We now have three things: 2H bug fix, shield to armor conversion and now this pikemen fix. The question is how to combine them.

My proposal is to apply 2H bug fix and shield to armor as they stand and boost attributes of Zweihanders, Forlorn Hope and DGK and maybe Lancers, Gothic Knights and Gendarmes.

Pikemen are another thing, as not everybody agrees they not function as inteded by developers (They stop cavalry and the top end are even capable swordsmen.) But I reccomend that with pike fix, their attributes should be lowered for some of them.

Militia Halberds are now roughly equivalent to Italian spear militia (I did not apply any form of changes to them) when in spearwall formation and hold mode off. I dont know if they need some change.

The bad thing is the fact comp does not consider various unit abilities when calculating autoresolve. He takes only numbers from their attack/defence, maybe morale and ap ability (not sure). It does not consider any advantages of Spearwall, better animation and whatever other things.
I think it because of position of victory / loss chance bar unde radar map, when the battle begin. For example, I put Aventuros against Dismounted Chivalric, the bar was in favor of DCK, while Aventuros completely massacred them with pike fix.(with vanilla stats, halberdiers were usually underrated)

The question is what kind of unit interaction on battlefield we want to achieve. I, for example, do not think early era spearmen should be able to stop charge of knights, but this can be subject to long discussion.

[Zuraffo]

The question is what kind of unit interaction on battlefield we want to achieve. I, for example, do not think early era spearmen should be able to stop charge of knights, but this can be subject to long discussion.

I agree. Spear shouldn't be able to stop a well form cavalry charge but it should be able to beat most cavalry in a normal fight.

[Vinsitor]

So i tried to modify behavior of pike units, as Dopp suggested. It works, but again, the low end pikes function now very well, (pike militia), but the top end are insanely powerfull.

We now have three things: 2H bug fix, shield to armor conversion and now this pikemen fix. The question is how to combine them.

My proposal is to apply 2H bug fix and shield to armor as they stand and boost attributes of Zweihanders, Forlorn Hope and DGK and maybe Lancers, Gothic Knights and Gendarmes.

Pikemen are another thing, as not everybody agrees they not function as inteded by developers (They stop cavalry and the top end are even capable swordsmen.) But I reccomend that with pike fix, their attributes should be lowered for some of them.

I sugges to don't modify stats yet, but only to fix the 2Hs, the shield and maybe the pikes (if there is a bug), and then to test the new units behaviour in combat, waiting for a the official patch.

[Foz]

Tnx for your great job guys I'm really happy too ear about these results!

Is there finally a file where 2Hs, shield, and pikes are all fixed? Tnx!

Cheers

Well yes, and no. Yes because all the necessary things can be (and I'm sure have been by some players) incorporated into one file. No, because the generally accepted 2H fix does not require anything to be changed in the EDU file (export_descr_unit.txt, I realize this may not be a totally obvious acronym), but instead relies on replacing animations from the animation pack with other ones that make the units function correctly. The pike fix was outlined a few posts ago in this very thread, and is totally easy to accomplish, so I recommend simply modding my shield-fixed EDU to include the pike fix, and hunting down zxiang's 2h fix which you may have to jump to another board for, as I have never seen it on here.

Concerning the power of 2H units with the fix and vanilla stats: I still believe them to be tactically balanced using vanilla stats with the various fixes (including shield) applied. They have very high attack and charge values, and the AP stat, which means they will dominate in close combat. However, this is counter-balanced by being weak to cavalry and archers. In particular, a typical fixed 13/21 unit of dismounted knights will have 14 armor against missile attack, 7 vs. AP archers. On the other hand a 21/13 unit only applies 8 armor against missile attacks, down to 4 versus AP archers. There's a very noticeable difference, especially at close range. The difference against cavalry is even more pronounced. 13/21 units can go toe to toe with mailed knights, and in my experience can get about a 1:1 kill/death ratio, meaning the cav lose due to having the smaller unit. That's with the computer repeatedly recharging the swordsmen. 21/13 units on the other hand have hellacious fights against mailed knights. The knights plow into them, and they die in droves. They take some cav along to the grave, but lack the staying power to hold against the charge, typically losing maybe half the unit on initial contact and quickly being finished off by the knights who are now all among them. I've never seen the computer have to recharge them. It looks a lot like borked spear units used to against cav. So what I'm getting at is, yes fixed 2H beat any given melee unit you put them against, but they're supposed to, as you're given other solutions to beat them that you must learn to implement effectively on the battlefield. One of the biggest changes I anticipate will be in army composition, as many seem to focus too much on infantry units, and where we used to rely on other infantry to best them, we now will require non-infantry units as an effective balance against them. I also anticipate it will be much more clear to everyone which units are of particular importance to target with ranged attacks, as the units weak to it are the same ones that are most devastating in melee combat.

Concerning the somewhat odd shield results against ranged attack: Does anyone think it's possible that the shield value is only applied against a given attack if hit detection indicates that attack has struck the shield portion of the unit? I don't think it would be in the realm of things we can possibly prove, but it would be one possible explanation for the apparent result that AP archers fare slightly better against units with shield stat intact than they do against the same unit but with the shield points dumped into armor. Essentially this would mean that the rest of the man's non-covered parts benefits from the added armor, and would affect some 50-75% of incoming missiles, as I'm guessing the shield covers between 25% and 50% of the man's surface area.

[Vinsitor]

Well yes, and no. Yes because all the necessary things can be (and I'm sure have been by some players) incorporated into one file. No, because the generally accepted 2H fix does not require anything to be changed in the EDU file (export_descr_unit.txt, I realize this may not be a totally obvious acronym), but instead relies on replacing animations from the animation pack with other ones that make the units function correctly. The pike fix was outlined a few posts ago in this very thread, and is totally easy to accomplish, so I recommend simply modding my shield-fixed EDU to include the pike fix, and hunting down zxiang's 2h fix which you may have to jump to another board for, as I have never seen it on here.

Many tnx for your explanation :)

[dopp]

I don't know if the engine calculates hitting the shield precisely, but the angle of a given attack might fall outside the protected 'arc' of the shield bonus. AI units caught reforming suffer very heavily from archery as the men are facing all directions and get hit a lot. You can score 10-20% kills in a single volley against dismounted knights with shields if you catch them trying to get into position.

[Carl]

A few interesting spear vs mounted results to follow in a moment. First, I want to answer a point or 2.

Concerning the somewhat odd shield results against ranged attack: Does anyone think it's possible that the shield value is only applied against a given attack if hit detection indicates that attack has struck the shield portion of the unit? I don't think it would be in the realm of things we can possibly prove, but it would be one possible explanation for the apparent result that AP archers fare slightly better against units with shield stat intact than they do against the same unit but with the shield points dumped into armor. Essentially this would mean that the rest of the man's non-covered parts benefits from the added armor, and would affect some 50-75% of incoming missiles, as I'm guessing the shield covers between 25% and 50% of the man's surface area.

AND

I don't know if the engine calculates hitting the shield precisely, but the angle of a given attack might fall outside the protected 'arc' of the shield bonus. AI units caught reforming suffer very heavily from archery as the men are facing all directions and get hit a lot. You can score 10-20% kills in a single volley against dismounted knights with shields if you catch them trying to get into position.

I was wondering the same thing. and also if maybe the code that tells the engine that shields effect to the front has been removed so that they only effect the sides?

So I tried to modify behaviour of pike units, as Dopp suggested. It works, but again, the low end pikes function now very well, (pike militia), but the top end are insanely powerful.

I'd like to point out that Pikemen are VERY vulnerable to missile fire with most of them having a 0 defence value against missile fire. Only Portuguese Avertos, and Scottish Heavy Pike Militia. Noble Pikemen having any defence.

2 Units of Peasant Archers can decimate all non-Scottish armoured Pikemen before they even get into CC, so think what dedicated professional missile troops would do. A rear or flank charge into already engaged Pikemen will also decimate them still. Yes if you try to throw CC infantry, (even DEK with animation fix), at them frontally you will lose and very badly. I've had 40-1 kill rates when i was able to force the comp to do that to me on a bridge once.

Only the Scottish armoured Pikes are well enough armoured to be a real headache, and honestly, Scotland need the advantage it gives them to work.

On to the spearmen results:

All the tests where done with me controlling the Spearmen, deployed 3 ranks and set OFF Guard Mode, (important as they won't brace for the charge on guard mode).

I used a slightly modified version of the shield fix. The shield was moved over to the armour, however, I also added 2 points to all the non-cav units defence skill. This was done for 3 reasons:

1. It helped balance AP CC units vs shield units a bit better as the AP effects more of the armour value than was originally intended.

2. It helps make Shield units a touch better against fixed 2-handers, (so they don't instantly die when engaged basically), and helps weak spear units vs. peasants.

3. It helps cut a bit of punch from cav, especially the lighter cav types, (e.g. Border Horse, Hobladiers, Scouts e.t.c.).


Onto the result, (conclusions only BTW, no actual figures):

Spear Militia can stop light stuff like Border Horse and Hobladiers with heavy losses, and can inflict moderate losses on Mailed/Feudal Knights. Hospitaller's plow through with few losses.

Italian Spear Militia can stop Light stuff cold and can cause MAD on Feudal Knights/Mailed Knights. Hospitaller's suffer about 50% losses, (mostly on the charge), but beat them.

Armoured Sergeants are pretty much the same as Italian Spear militia, but perform just slightly better than them due to slightly higher defence stats.

Papal Guard Slaughter everything from Hospitaller's down. Even beating Hospitaller's they have a littlie under 20 Men left. They can also cause MAD to Chivalric Knights.

Two things really stood out to me:

1. Papal Guard are brilliant.

2. In the case of the spear units beating cav or causing MAD, they actually received the charge in a similar fashion to the way Pikemen do. The cav would simply drop dead upon contacting the front rank of spears. It was just that unlike Pikes, most of the front 2 rows of spearmen went with them. As long as the spear unit wasn't totally outclassed this drop dead on contact effect would normally kill off about half of both units.

[Foz]

1. It helped balance AP CC units vs shield units a bit better as the AP effects more of the armour value than was originally intended.

2. It helps make Shield units a touch better against fixed 2-handers, (so they don't instantly die when engaged basically), and helps weak spear units vs. peasants.

3. It helps cut a bit of punch from cav, especially the lighter cav types, (e.g. Border Horse, Hobladiers, Scouts e.t.c.).

...

2. In the case of the spear units beating cav or causing MAD, they actually received the charge in a similar fashion to the way Pikemen do. The cav would simply drop dead upon contacting the front rank of spears. It was just that unlike Pikes, most of the front 2 rows of spearmen went with them. As long as the spear unit wasn't totally outclassed this drop dead on contact effect would normally kill off about half of both units.

Re 1. For AP affecting the armour fixed units more b/c of armour being halved, this is not confirmed, and data so far show a statistically insignificant trend in the opposite direction actually. That is to say, fixed shield units seem to take slightly fewer losses now against AP archers than they used to, so you should in no way run under the assumption that the conversion makes AP units more effective against shield units than they are intended to be. My initial guess for this is that shield value is also halved by the AP ability, though it could be some other as yet undiscovered factor that eludes us. I would also point out that the units are not intended to have equal footing in melee, as the shield units are inherently more resistant to cav and missile fire. Winning in CC is the 2H unit's compensation for that difference.

Re 2. Fixed dismounted knight shield units already do well enough against 2H units in my experience, killing 1/2 to 2/3 of said 2H units like DEK in direct frontal combat. Spear units, on the other hand, are supposed to suffer undisclosed penalties against infantry units, and absolutely SHOULD get slaughtered as a result, especially by 2H units. This penalty is the same reason the peasants should be a tough fight for them, but not unwinnable. That seems to be how it turns out for me with them receiving no extra skill points. Ergo, I see no fault in game behavior that should necessitate extra defense skill points for shield units.

Re 3: If you feel this necessary, go for it. I however would paly campaign for a while using the shield fix, to get a feel for the new dynamics before trying to decide if any further balancing was needed.

Re Other 2. Noticing the same thing. I said somewhere before that I felt spear units should be causing MAD on the initial impact against mounted units. It's not too tough to kill a big charging horse if you have a spear to point at it, but it is tough to avoid the falling horse and the knight's lance once its done. My impression of the charge really is that both front lines should have MAD almost to a man, and some charging horses/riders (wounded or dead horse/rider projectiles, I mean) would probably spill into the second or third row of spears , causing more casualties. This appears largely to happen with the fix implemented, and causes me great joy.

[Carl]

@The_Foz_4:

re: Re 1: I'll have to do some more tests myself, but TBH I think the shield bug is actually that the shield value simply isn't being applied to the front area. Defence skill doesn’t help vs. arrows anyway though. It's meant to help out against Melee AP attacks. The entire point of Shields over armour is supposed to be that they are resistant to AP, so I wanted to try and replicate that without messing auto-calc up much. More than 2 extra to defence would have done that.

re: Re2: I was actually trying to replicate the feel of sword and shield units from when I tried adding the shield value to the defence skill. Like that they still got beat pretty hard by 2-handers, (caused a few kills mind), but took an absolute age to die, which I really liked as it meant even if you couldn't spare a support unit immediately, you had a chance. Your fix shortens the death time a littlie bit and I was trying to lengthen it again. It mostly worked too. With Spears my problem is with peasants beating Spear Militia, no offence but the Peasants are a quarter the price and a quarter the stats, they really shouldn't be winning those fights, spear penalties or not. I don't have anything against them causing MAD to spear Militia, or even taking an age to kill. I just don't think they should be beating a unit that’s 2 stages further up the tech tree, costs 4 times as much and has over 4 times the stats. With the change it's roughly MAD for peasant vs. Militia Spearmen, although it seems a bit luck dependent.

Re: re3: I did this actually because I found cav a bit too good against spears without it. Border Horse where beating Spear Militia, (Spear Militia REALLY benefited from the change), Mailed Knights where beating Armoured Sergeants/Italian Spear Militia, and Hospitaller's where suffering a lot less losses to them. Papal Guard as listed where actually tested without the change (I missed it and noticed when looking at the stats randomly). With it they get a touch better, (but not much, doesn’t seem to benefit them as much). I'm still not totally happy with the performance of Spear Militia, but I’m loath to tweak much more for fear of messing auto-calc up or going overboard. As I can't really apply a change to them and not to other spear units without messing up internal balance between different spear units.

re: Re Other 2: Glad you liked it, it was what I’d being wanting to see and what people over in the MP forums have been asking for since before I joined, (I lurked as a non-member for a couple of weeks).

Heavy Swordsmen vs. Cav is interesting too. You tried Vargarian Guard vs. a cav charge yet as they have an armour value similar to that of many swordsmen, whilst still having a high attack AP, good animation 2-Handed Axe on top.

Would you be willing to pass comment on my contention that 2-handed swordsmen seem to be performing well below their stats? It would help if I knew if I was the only one finding them a bit UP.

[Revenant]

Would you be willing to pass comment on my contention that 2-handed swordsmen seem to be performing well below their stats? It would help if I knew if I was the only one finding them a bit UP.

I do not think they perform below their stats. I upped attack of Zweihanders for 7 points (now they have attack 21, defence 11) and tried them against Sword and Buckler men (attack 13, defence 19) and they usually managed to beat them. They have charge 6, compared with SBM 3.

They also have Skeleton compensation factor 1.3, whatever it is (probably some bonus number because of their slow attacks)

I compared them with SBM because both are late era units with the same building requirement and also with the same upkeep.

[Carl]

When I said stats I also meant cost and I tend to use the MP cost as in campaign they are also balanced by Upkeep which is a tricky thing to take into account.

DGK get Massacred by by Heavy Billmen, (HB is my short version). Considering the stats, DGK should lose once you take the AP factor into account (the DGK chave an effective Defence of 9 at this point). But not by the amount they do. Maybe it's just me though or maybe fixing the sheild value. Add to that the cost diffrance, (allthough TBH, most fixed 2-Handers and Pikes are worth about double their actual cost IMHO, they've been costed according to bugged performance), and really things look very odd. I geuss I need to do more tests TBH.

[Foz]

While I have not worked with 2H sword units nearly enough to comment on whether or not I believe they underperform, I would tend to believe that they perform fairly accurately at their listed stats as I have no reason to believe otherwise. What I will say, however, is that those stats look rather low for what the unit costs. If I had to guess, and this is a real shot in the dark, I'd suggest that in a vain attempt to make one of the few correctly functioning types of units in the game perform on the level with the various borked ones, the devs may have nerfed their stats. Somewhat amusing then that the numerous borked units perform at acceptable levels compared to each other with fixes in place, leaving the few units that worked right originally horribly underpowered. Of course this is pure speculation, but it's my best educated guess at what may have gone on.

[Rurik the Chieftain]

Well yes, and no. Yes because all the necessary things can be (and I'm sure have been by some players) incorporated into one file. No, because the generally accepted 2H fix does not require anything to be changed in the EDU file (export_descr_unit.txt, I realize this may not be a totally obvious acronym), but instead relies on replacing animations from the animation pack with other ones that make the units function correctly. The pike fix was outlined a few posts ago in this very thread, and is totally easy to accomplish, so I recommend simply modding my shield-fixed EDU to include the pike fix, and hunting down zxiang's 2h fix which you may have to jump to another board for, as I have never seen it on here.

Concerning the power of 2H units with the fix and vanilla stats: I still believe them to be tactically balanced using vanilla stats with the various fixes (including shield) applied. They have very high attack and charge values, and the AP stat, which means they will dominate in close combat. However, this is counter-balanced by being weak to cavalry and archers. In particular, a typical fixed 13/21 unit of dismounted knights will have 14 armor against missile attack, 7 vs. AP archers. On the other hand a 21/13 unit only applies 8 armor against missile attacks, down to 4 versus AP archers. There's a very noticeable difference, especially at close range. The difference against cavalry is even more pronounced. 13/21 units can go toe to toe with mailed knights, and in my experience can get about a 1:1 kill/death ratio, meaning the cav lose due to having the smaller unit. That's with the computer repeatedly recharging the swordsmen. 21/13 units on the other hand have hellacious fights against mailed knights. The knights plow into them, and they die in droves. They take some cav along to the grave, but lack the staying power to hold against the charge, typically losing maybe half the unit on initial contact and quickly being finished off by the knights who are now all among them. I've never seen the computer have to recharge them. It looks a lot like borked spear units used to against cav. So what I'm getting at is, yes fixed 2H beat any given melee unit you put them against, but they're supposed to, as you're given other solutions to beat them that you must learn to implement effectively on the battlefield. One of the biggest changes I anticipate will be in army composition, as many seem to focus too much on infantry units, and where we used to rely on other infantry to best them, we now will require non-infantry units as an effective balance against them. I also anticipate it will be much more clear to everyone which units are of particular importance to target with ranged attacks, as the units weak to it are the same ones that are most devastating in melee combat.

Concerning the somewhat odd shield results against ranged attack: Does anyone think it's possible that the shield value is only applied against a given attack if hit detection indicates that attack has struck the shield portion of the unit? I don't think it would be in the realm of things we can possibly prove, but it would be one possible explanation for the apparent result that AP archers fare slightly better against units with shield stat intact than they do against the same unit but with the shield points dumped into armor. Essentially this would mean that the rest of the man's non-covered parts benefits from the added armor, and would affect some 50-75% of incoming missiles, as I'm guessing the shield covers between 25% and 50% of the man's surface area.

I wholeheartedly agree with this.

[JCoyote]

Some of this could be the result of compartmentalized development combined with poor communications. I could easily see them starting off with team A making the combat engine and team B working on the specific unit stats. Team A makes one screw up in the engine where shield values get inverted, but it doesn't cause any immediately obvious problem and isn't immediately diagnosed. While B is creating units and trying to make them work against each other with the engine... if the inversion happened early on in development, but after a lot of units were getting laid out, it could have been missed a while. Team B would be busy trying to make the units work inside the engine, and might have been told the engine is fine or locked and just had to work their best with it to compensate. Hence what we see... almost balanced in some fields, but when considered as a whole the something is far off. I can also easily understand how someone working on a couple units at a time could easily miss something like this. It's a problem that doesn't even seem like one unless you step back and look at the big picture.

But anyway, until the underlying engine is repaired, nothing "Team B" could have done would have gotten everything to work together right. And I will grant you, there is a chance that the fact the game is as playable as it is right now might be thanks to monumental 11th hour effort on "Team B"s part. Still, that's duct tape holding things together in a way while actual structural repair needs to be done. It's like a fresh coat of paint being used to hide cracks from earthquake damage... might look fine, even pretty, but it still needs repair.

[Carl]

@The_Foz_4: Thanks for the reply, further testing has me thinking the same. Namely the units are under stated for their price.

[Vinsitor]

[B]

Re 2. Fixed dismounted knight shield units already do well enough against 2H units in my experience, killing 1/2 to 2/3 of said 2H units like DEK in direct frontal combat. Spear units, on the other hand, are supposed to suffer undisclosed penalties against infantry units, and absolutely SHOULD get slaughtered as a result, especially by 2H units.

In my tests, fixed 2H Billmen (and fixed 2H DEKs too) completely destroy fixed shield Dismounted Knights. I don't know if this is a "2H fix issue", but they seem overpowered.

[Carl]

In my tests, fixed 2H Billmen (and fixed 2H DEKs too) completely destroy fixed shield Dismounted Knights. I don't know if this is a "2H fix issue", but they seem overpowered.

Part of the problem is that for such late era units they are very underpriced. HB are easily worth 700-800 Florins according to their stats. Likewise The Bill and Halbered are relativly similar weapons, I'd expect a bill unit with a given set of stats to perform about as wel as a Halberd unit (like JHI), with similar stats. this they do admribly. On the flip side they do go through Sword and sheild units a bit too quick IMO with Foz's version iof the fix. 2 extra defence skill dosen't really change things overmuch, but it does push things a bit more towards sensible, (i.e. the 2-handers can beat Sheild units well, but not without some losses that WILL have knock on effects).

[dopp]

To comment on the spearmen vs cavalry thing: the same thing happens to pikemen if you throw the "right" kind of troops (swordsmen) at them. Jaguar Warriors charging braced pikemen will demolish the entire front row of pikemen as if the pikes are not there. It's like the game "teleports" the charging warriors into the enemy and applies a free "charge attack" as part of the charge mechanics. Against cavalry some special bonus is applied that allows the pikes to stop them, but normal units waltz right past if they have the powerful charge ability.

[Carl]

I've noticed that too Dopp. O the flip side i've found that you don't need Pikemen in Guard Mode for the to brace and that units in Guard Mode take a LOT more losses from a charge so that might be somthing to check.

Also, once sheild infantrys defence gets high enough, they are amazingly resistant to formed charges. Any Sword and Sheil unit with a defence of more than 20 can take a Mailed/Feudal Knight charge with much lower losses than any spear unit, except Papal Guard.

[Vinsitor]

I've noticed that too Dopp. O the flip side i've found that you don't need Pikemen in Guard Mode for the to brace and that units in Guard Mode take a LOT more losses from a charge so that might be somthing to check.

Also, once sheild infantrys defence gets high enough, they are amazingly resistant to formed charges. Any Sword and Sheil unit with a defence of more than 20 can take a Mailed/Feudal Knight charge with much lower losses than any spear unit, except Papal Guard.

Yes I've noticed that too

At the same price, shielded swordmen do betterer than shielded spearman against cav

[Carl]

Not really Vinstor. The swordsmen might lose less on the charge, but so too do the Cav, AND against really good cav, (anything with an 8 charge stat), the Swordsmen will get hit with the full effects of the formed charge.

I’m not sure But I think units when braced with shields/spears inflict a "hit" on anything that runs into the shield/Spear as a kind of Shield Bash Attack. This means that even militia spearmen vs. Mailed Knights results in every knight who contacts a spearmen taking 2 Attack 19 hits each, (that 5 basic, 6 for the reflection, and 8 for the Spear_Bonus). This also means Shield Units are inflicting a Single Attack, this seems to slow the knights down, although it rarely stops them totally. Weather the shield effect kicks in seems to depend on the total defence, comparative to the charging attack of the opponent though.

This is also probably why 2-handed Swords have so many issues with Shield units. Since the Swords don't normally have the AP stat the shield effectively nullifies their charging effects by doing a knock-back on them.

[Carl]

The Shield Fix REALLY nerfs HA against spearmen.

Here’s a few screenshots of a battle I ran. 20 Vardorti against 8 Armoured Sergeants with 1 Bronze Chevron, 1 Armour and 1 Weapon.

All I did was put the Armoured Sergeants in Schilstrom and group 1, Double Line Formation then pushed the Start battle and 3X speed buttons and let it happen.

Here’s 2 screenshots, The first was taken whilst i was chasing down some stragglers who refused to charge me. the second is the end battle report.





Best thing yet, In shistrom the spearmen have shield facing out in all directions so the fact that Enfilade Fire is less effective with the shield fix doesn’t matter as you can't get true Enfilade fire, (i.e. you'll always be hitting shields).

Looks like the shield fix balances HA vs. Infantry too.

[Musashi]

Actually schiltrom should make them more vulnerable to arrow fire since no matter which direction I fire from the majority of the men I'm hitting would be taking shots in the rear/side.

The shield into armor fix nerfs arrow fire vs everyone.