The Shield Problem(s)

[JeromeGrasdyke]

What I find amazing is that no one from CA takes the time to jump on a thread like this and say something...anything.

Even something like;

"Guy's, great work, thanks for that and where going to get on it."

Great work guys, really good bug-spotting :) The reason that we don't usually comment is that - to be brutally frank - there just isn't much to say about these things. We try hard to prioritise core gameplay bugs, but it's a huge piece of software with many people working on it, and obviously a few things have slipped the net that shouldn't have.

Rest assured that we do read these forums, both here in the UK and in Australia, and that these things do get discussed internally and passed on for investigation to the folks in Oz who are dealing with the patches.

[Carl]

The shield into armor fix nerfs all missile troops Carl... Even with foot archers you generally try to flank because enfilade fire is the best kill rate of any attack type in the game... Making it so that archers can't do any better when flanking/rear firing makes them basically worthless (Which explains why you think the Scots are so good) whereas they're the best killers in the game without that kind of fix.

Well just to get it out of the way at the start, my scots comments where based on a game where the only modification was a 2-hander fix and MY version of the shield fix which DID NOT get shield units to brace, and which DID NOT give them any extra armour. They're better with foz's fix I admit.

Second, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If your being competent and the enemy army isn’t bigger than your you WILL NOT get enfidle fire with foot archers, they can't get into position fast enough, and need guarding from cav. The result? You've got 2 small armies to beat as apposed to one, and while he's repositioning his archers you can advance on him with no missile fire losses. I can’t see any advantage to even trying against someone competent./ remember the AI is terrible at unit control, you have to think of what a good human player would do, not a stupid AI that can’t recognise when to take advantage.

Let me also point out, AGAIN, that you can easily create all kinds of unit layouts where you force the enemy to shoot through a unit whose shields are facing the HA if thy want to hit anyone in the back. Or fire in an arc instead. Either will cut the effects of enfidle fire ANYWAY, so your not getting as big an advantage as might first appear. It just lets you use sloppy formations as apposed to carefully thought out ones.

@ this post: Yep, I noticed the same thing, it's really shocking. From the sounds of it I’m not the only one finding Shiltrom 10X more effective than it used to be.

A little bitter, eh? Last time I checked, historically, a good HA army (mongol/Byzantine/Turk) was suppose to do just that to a all infantry army.

Nope, the only time I’ve ever fought against HA on the battlefield was those tests furthar up the thread. However, I have heard a LOT of reports of pure HA armies defeating mixed and pure Inf armies. That simply isn't BALANCED. It doesn’t matter if it's historical or not, this is a game and it must be fun to play, that requires BALANCE.

It is a shame that the shield does not contribute to melee fighting like it should. However, I still feel the idea that sheild values contribute negativly to defence in melee is still debateable. However, if it IS true, I would prefer to wait for a official patch.

Why? Well lets state the problem: We want our shields to have a effect in melee.

Well, of the possible solutions, the best two ways are to:

A: add sheild to the armour and 0 the shield value. This has the effect of nerfing the depth that CA took in simulating archery based combat. It also does not produce the above desired effect.

Why? Well lets talk about what happens when you add to armour.

There are three 'quadrants' of defense to each solder. The Front-Right, Front-Left, and Rear.

the Armour value adds to all three quadrants. The Skill value adds to the front Right, and the Shield value adds to the Front-left. So, Lets look at a vanilla DFK from a Quadrant perspective assuming the shield bug is true.

Front-Right: 7 Armour + 8 skill= 15 defense
Front-Left: 7 armour + -6 shield= 1 defense
Rear: Defense = 7.

Now add the Armour fix.

Front-Right: 14 armour + 8 Skill= 22 Defense
Front-Left: 14 armour + 0 shield.= 14
Rear: Defense = 14

This game is balanced under the assumption(not knowing of the shield bug) that DFKs are actually: 15, 13, 7 respectively, not 22, 14, 14. Thus, we get a unit that is overpowered in terms of the way this game was meant to be played. What -you- think is how it suppose to be doesn't matter as much. If you think Dfk's should be Zomg death knights, then great, mod your game...don't declare it a universal fix for everyone.


The other Fix:

B: Keep the shield value and add double the shield value to the skill value to offset the inverse effect sheild has on melee defense. This also does not produce the desired effect:

With this fix the DFK's Quadrants are

Front-Right: 7 Armour + 20 SKill(6*2+8)= 27 Defense(Zomg)
Front-Left: -6 Shield + 7 armour= 1 Defense
Rear: Defense = 7

So we get a Dfk who's Quadrants are 27,1,7. Crazy, but at least arrow fire will continue to work like its suppose too.

TO me, both of these 'fixes' are not really fixes at all. Assuming one used the Shield-to-armour fix..I think there is only way it could be done barring a official patch. You would have to go through every unit in the game and readjust their stats to balance accordingly with the new and improved shield units. With that goes hours upon hours of balance testing just like the designers went through when they made this game.

First your example are wrong, it should be 7+6 to the left. That's 13, 1 less than the value with the armour fix. defence skill also seems to be a 180 affect ATM, so it's only rear armour and right missile armour that’s borked.

Second, the shield isn't even working properly against MISSILE FIRE

RE READ THE ABOVE.

Got it, good.


Overall the fix actually makes the units have about the right defence values all the time from everything except the rear, and right if it's missile fire.

Okay.... but what if I'm playing a faction like Turks, which is actually my current campaign (hence my interest in the thread)? I almost never auto-resolve battles, and while it's not their main strength, my HA's do sometimes enter melee when the arrows run out.

Then you get smashed. As you should. Use a combined arms army so you have some infantry, or heavy melee cav to finish the job and you'll do fine. Byzantine has all those spear and shield units for a reason you know. As do the turks.

Great work guys, really good bug-spotting :) The reason that we don't usually comment is that - to be brutally frank - there just isn't much to say about these things. We try hard to prioritise core gameplay bugs, but it's a huge piece of software with many people working on it, and obviously a few things have slipped the net that shouldn't have.

Rest assured that we do read these forums, both here in the UK and in Australia, and that these things do get discussed internally and passed on for investigation to the folks in Oz who are dealing with the patches.

Thanks for the heads up.

[R'as al Ghul]

Great work guys, really good bug-spotting :) The reason that we don't usually comment is that - to be brutally frank - there just isn't much to say about these things.

Thanks very much for posting but it's not true that there's not much to say.
What you just posted, an acknowledgement, means a lot to the community.
It's fine that we can have faith that you read the forums and take care of problems but it's even better to hear it. Seeing is believing. We don't want details, sometimes a simple "aha" or "mmmmh" or "ok" would be totally sufficient. Give us lifesigns now and then and we'll be as tame as kittens.
Of course, I realise that in the past some remarks have been taken as promises.
I see CA's problem there but there's always a compromise.

R'as

[AussieGiant]

Great work guys, really good bug-spotting :) The reason that we don't usually comment is that - to be brutally frank - there just isn't much to say about these things. We try hard to prioritise core gameplay bugs, but it's a huge piece of software with many people working on it, and obviously a few things have slipped the net that shouldn't have.

Rest assured that we do read these forums, both here in the UK and in Australia, and that these things do get discussed internally and passed on for investigation to the folks in Oz who are dealing with the patches.

LOL,

Mission accomplished, thanks Jerome for confirming that you guy's at the very least are aware of this issue.

I just needed a little positive reinforcement...I'm not too demanding...at least I don't think so.

[Slug For A Butt]

Great work guys, really good bug-spotting :) The reason that we don't usually comment is that - to be brutally frank - there just isn't much to say about these things. We try hard to prioritise core gameplay bugs, but it's a huge piece of software with many people working on it, and obviously a few things have slipped the net that shouldn't have.

Rest assured that we do read these forums, both here in the UK and in Australia, and that these things do get discussed internally and passed on for investigation to the folks in Oz who are dealing with the patches.

Sounds a little trite, but hey... I'm one of the TW series biggest fans so I hope it's true.

[Ulstan]

Lastly, I really don't like this fix mainly because it strengthens units that -should- be weak, namely spear milita and town milita. Spear milita should die like flys from Enfilade/rear fire, because Spear Milita are just peasants with spears.

Spear militia are currently too weak. They get dashed aside by cavalry as though they aren't there. They definitely need boosting, though more in their ability to stand against cav charges, not necessarily in their ability to absorb arrows from the rear.

A schiltron though, would be a fairly effective anti-archer formation in that suddenly, there isn't an exposed flank/rear to shoot at. Not quite as good as a testudo, but then, a schiltron isn't completely inept at melee combat either.

Also, don't just dismiss them as 'peasants with spears'. We have a separate unit of peasants to be the peasants. ;) That would be like calling longbowmen 'peasants with bows', as the french knights were happy to do until they got massacred :D

[Musashi]

My point on schiltroms is that it doesn't work that way in the game. The arrow trajectories in the game mean that half or more of your arrows are going over the guys facing you and striking the guys facing the other direction in the rear or sides...

[Blademun]

Thats not a fair comparison at all! We all know that longbowmen are professional soldiers, not milita. Militia ARE peasants..they are farmers that work part time as soldiers to make extra money.

I'm sure you just forgot to qoute the rest of my paragraph, where I went on to say that I felt spear milita should cause MAD against light cavalry..maybe. No more, however, because they lack the training and displine to properly brace themselfs for attacks by heavier forms of cavalry. Notice they don't plant their spear in the ground, and they only hold them WITH ONE HAND. That is why I feel they should largely get busted by heavy cav.

Take a charging knight on a spear militaman. The spearman may be smart and go for the horse, or attempt to strike the armoured knight. However, since hes only holding his spear by one hand, that means upon contact...that spear is 99% most likely to get ripped out of his hand, painfully. It will either wound the horse, or either break or bounce off the knights armour. Since mounted units can't dismount and fight after their mounts been killed...I would like to see this count as a "healed casualty" after battle. I feel spear milita should have only a small(30-40%) chance of scoring a fatal kill and a much higher chance of causing a healable casualty(50-60%).

I know it doesn't mean much for multiplayer where a 'kill' is a kill. Perhaps a few years down the road we can see our knights get up from their dead horses and keep fighting...

[Musashi]

Actually a lot of times militia weren't even paid... Just expected to train in order to not get killed when the enemy warlord decides to invade and the actual army is three towns away...

[dopp]

Great work guys, really good bug-spotting :) The reason that we don't usually comment is that - to be brutally frank - there just isn't much to say about these things. We try hard to prioritise core gameplay bugs, but it's a huge piece of software with many people working on it, and obviously a few things have slipped the net that shouldn't have.

Rest assured that we do read these forums, both here in the UK and in Australia, and that these things do get discussed internally and passed on for investigation to the folks in Oz who are dealing with the patches.

Ah, excellent. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

[Carl]

however, because they lack the training and displine to properly brace themselfs for attacks by heavier forms of cavalry. Notice they don't plant their spear in the ground, and they only hold them WITH ONE HAND. That is why I feel they should largely get busted by heavy cav.

Two points here.

One, ALL spear units, (including Papal Guard, who are the best), use spears in EXACTLY the same way as Spear Militia. They ALL carry their spears in one hand, and NONE of them stick them in the ground.

Second, Spear Militia, ARE NOT peasants given spears and shields and shown how to use them, that’s Town Militia (who only get Light_Spears and Spear_Bonous 4), Spear Militia represent professional militia unit. Individuals given equipment just below the level of professional soldiers and the best training that can be given to Militia level units. Italian Spear Militia, (and similar top level Militia units), are better more because of better equipment, they actually have professional equipment instead of high quality Militia equipment.

NOTE: the above may or may not be historically accurate, but it IS how they are portrayed in game, and that’s what I really worry about as it shows designer intent IMHO.

My point on schiltroms is that it doesn't work that way in the game. The arrow trajectories in the game mean that half or more of your arrows are going over the guys facing you and striking the guys facing the other direction in the rear or sides...

This isn't actually as common as you'd think and comes with disadvantages. On small size at least, most arrows that would not hit someone with a shield will simply skim right over the unit. Larger unit sizes will probably result in the arrow hitting the shields as their more rank for it to fall into. Some will of course hit them in the back AND if you do really big angles on the arcing fire then YES you will get them hitting guys in the back, but your sacrificing a lot of hitting power to get that kind of angle, (it also won't work with Crossbow units at all, gunpowder being powerful enough to not care about the shield).

Don't get me wrong, the current shield fix does bork things, but in my experience, short range arrow volleys are too flat a trajectory to hit the unit without hitting a shield more often than the hit someone in the back. less flat trajectories introduce problems with reduced impact power. Their IS a perfect position I’m sure, but it's probably not easy to judge and get right.

Don't get me wrong, Schilstrom IS a LOT more resistant to missile fire ATM, but I don't think the difference will be quite as large as you think it will be either. In the end I think we should just wait and see.

To those worried about late era units getting wailed upon by early era units. I would point out that most good late era infantry is AP 2-handers and pikes. Even with the Shield immunity to AP back in, the shield units will be at a heavy disadvantage to them, so they won't be getting any weaker really. They also typically have much of the shield value dumped into armour anyway. This will make them a lot more resistant to enfidle fire, and hence HA anyway. (At least in the case of mounted units,. Late era Inf tends to be more vulnerable).

[Shahed]

Great work guys, really good bug-spotting :) The reason that we don't usually comment is that - to be brutally frank - there just isn't much to say about these things. We try hard to prioritise core gameplay bugs, but it's a huge piece of software with many people working on it, and obviously a few things have slipped the net that shouldn't have.

Rest assured that we do read these forums, both here in the UK and in Australia, and that these things do get discussed internally and passed on for investigation to the folks in Oz who are dealing with the patches.

Good to hear. Thanks.

[Jambo]

By the way, how do we know "skill" only works to the front and right? How do we know it's not cumulative with the shield?

[Foz]

By the way, how do we know "defence" only works to the front and right? How do we know it's not cumulative with the shield?

You'll have to clarify your question a bit. Defense would be the generic term for whatever sum of numbers applies to the unit's defense from any given direction against a particular kind of attack. The individual stats that comprise it for each unit are Armour, Skill, and Shield. For instance, Armored Sergeants have defense listed 14 on their info sheet, which is their front melee defense rating. This is the convention applied in the game. That number is arrived at by adding the unit's armor, skill, and shield, which all apply from the front in melee. Armor applies to all sides of the unit, skill to the front and right, and shield to the front and left. Additionally, armor and shield apply (in the same directions they do in melee) against missile attacks as well, while skill is ignored against missile fire. Hope that clarifies the terms and their interaction for you, but of course feel free to ask further questions or rephrase the current one if I haven't covered what you were trying to get at.

[Slaists]

IMHO, CA should jump on this ASAP and issue a hot-fix patch... The shield bug is game breaking. With it present, the tactical dimension of the game is lost and what we have is just an application with pretty soldier animations running around and doing random stuff in eye-candy environmental settings...

And it's not that we can fix the shield issue easily through modding. None of the currently suggested modding solutions work without grave side-effects. Putting the shield defense value into armor nerfs all missile units while putting it into defense skill distorts melee aspects of the game.

[redriver]

IMHO, CA should jump on this ASAP and issue a hot-fix patch... The shield bug is game breaking. With it present, the tactical dimension of the game is lost and what we have is just an application with pretty soldier animations running around and doing random stuff in eye-candy environmental settings...

finally a realization of the truth!

I've been sayin' this for ever since before the game was released -- m2tw is a big flop.. it's an overhyped mtw clone with better graphics for those lucky to have state of the art systems in order to appreciate the only thin' m2tw has goin' for it -- graphics

sorry for not bein' on topic or constructive.. just had to get it out of my chest

[Jambo]

You'll have to clarify your question a bit. Defense would be the generic term for whatever sum of numbers applies to the unit's defense from any given direction against a particular kind of attack. The individual stats that comprise it for each unit are Armour, Skill, and Shield. For instance, Armored Sergeants have defense listed 14 on their info sheet, which is their front melee defense rating. This is the convention applied in the game. That number is arrived at by adding the unit's armor, skill, and shield, which all apply from the front in melee. Armor applies to all sides of the unit, skill to the front and right, and shield to the front and left. Additionally, armor and shield apply (in the same directions they do in melee) against missile attacks as well, while skill is ignored against missile fire. Hope that clarifies the terms and their interaction for you, but of course feel free to ask further questions or rephrase the current one if I haven't covered what you were trying to get at.

Sorry, I meant "skill" instead of "defence" then.

[Musashi]

Carl: I've played with schiltrom vs. missile fire with the unmodded game, and it does suffer badly. I never play on any settings other than Huge unit size, as far as I'm concerned there is no other unit size setting. But in my experience schiltrom has a unit get massacred under missile fire, because even when they're firing on a relatively "flat" trajectory approximately half the missiles fires in a given volley will go over the front facing ranks and hit the men behind them.

[Carl]

YES, but sheilds don't work right against NON-AP missile fire in vanillia eithier, you can expect SIGNIFICANT reductions once sheild ARE working.

The unit size thing is being hard headed IMO, most people don't play on that size as their comp simply can't handle it from what I can tell. Remeber, the larger the unit size, the more likliy a miss is to still hit somone enyway. On smaller unit sizes, many of those hits in the back will be misses on the smaller unit sizes as they'd sail rght over-head. This is true in AND out of Sciltrom BTW.

iIm, not knocking your results though, i'll trust you as i can't handle above normal in non-seige games and small in seiges games because of jumping. (allthough i probably could run a test the jumpiness starts at around 3500-4000 models). However it is worth remebering that your results are probabky getting skewed in your favor by your choice of huge unit size compared to normal, (which is also probably what they tested and balanced the game at IMHO).

[Foz]

By the way, how do we know "skill" only works to the front and right? How do we know it's not cumulative with the shield?

Hmm... interesting question. We don't know it's not cumulative with the shield on the left. And frankly, I cannot think of a good way to test it. The only way possible is to have a unit get flanked in melee from their left. And even then, you'd have to set it up with the unit in one case having stats x/0/1 and the other having 0/x/1 to make sure you were able to see any difference that was there. The 1 shield point is to make sure skill is forced to right-side only in case shield points are relied on to make this happen. X should be fairly large, so there is a big difference in the unit's left defense value if skill is not applying there. Then of course you have to work the combat so the unit gets engaged from the front, then flanked... and I guess either time how long it takes to be wiped out, or judge by how many of the enemy units it is able to kill (should be less with x skill point case if it has less left defense due to skill not applying there, or ~same if skill does apply left). Of course this also introduces a lot more error into the testing as the player is required to maneuver around 2 units on the battlefield, and try to precisely engage the enemy left flank at the same time and in the same manner each time.

[Han Summer]

... Of course this also introduces a lot more error into the testing as the player is required to maneuver around 2 units on the battlefield, and try to precisely engage the enemy left flank at the same time and in the same manner each time...

the Foz, with all due respect to you and all the others who have done a marvelous job figuring out the intricacies of this bug, have you done any testing in multiplayer? it would remove a lot of the variability of AI control (with what goes on in the battlefield, as well as any variables difficulty settings will throw in). it means greater ease in replicating any given maneuver or circumstance. for example, the early testing (at least from what it sounded like) in this thread always had to factor in the effects of charging, when what people wanted to test was effects of the shield in melee. by doing that in multiplayer you can just have both units walk into each other, removing any effects of a charge, and of having either unit designated as the "attacker".

of course it helps to have an extra computer in the house that can actually run M2TW (i am amazed that my old computer with its radeon 8500 is actually able to).

anyway, again, props to you guys for finding this bug and so throroughly searching for the best fix until the official one comes out.

[Carl]

Quite clearly the 2HS units are underpowered. In fact, I'd argue they were underpowered to start with. Maybe giving them a deserved ap attribute and a slight hike in attack would balance them out? Still, it's hard to see how the Highland Nobles and the 2HS HRE units can be easily balanced with the proposed shield fix - certainly nothing intuitive immediately springs to mind. It's interesting to see you mention that the DEKs with their lofty 21/13 stats and the ap attribute were considered balanced. These guys became monsters with the fixed animation. I guess I'll just have to try the fix and see for myself.

Genrally giving 2-H swords AP and +2 attack helps. But DGK are still too expensive for their power. On the other hand this was true in vanillia anyway too IMO.

DEK still beat any other non-pike infantry out their with all the fixes but they do suffer losses and don't tottally walk all over things like they did before. It's just that (as their stats suggest), they are the best infantry in the game in general melee.

[IvarrWolfsong]

Just a comment from the history over balance peanut gallery:

Most of the spearmen in M2TW (and in corrosponding periods of history) are using a normal spear, about 6 feet long, with ONE hand. Considering that they are holding it around the mid point, that isnt a very big reach advantage. Setting the spear on the instep would mean that 2 feet or so would be "used up" going from the foot to the hand.

The popularity of the spear in history stems more from its ease to make and cheap production than any cavalry killing magic. It is a dagger on a stick: cheap easy to create and easy to use. It's benefit against cavalry is more about it's reach in melee that allowed you to poke at mounted opponents chest rather than bonking his knees with a club.

Long spears and pikes are a totally diffrent story though. They ARE designed to kill cav and out-distance a lance. However, their length makes them unweildy as a melee weapon unless they are packed together in a strong formation.