The Shield Problem(s)

[Carl]

Not a bad idea really when you think about it. YourHA get their bows reloaded if you do that.

[Musashi]

Exactly. And that's a historical HA strategy (As opposed to tactic)... you attack and fade away to rearm and resupply.

[pike master]

correct me if im wrong and i very well may be but an early medieval unit who might have used quilted or light to heavy mail probably used a shield not just to stop arrows but to help protect them in combat. daah

ok later when plate was developed the armor was more resilient to damage and since it was able to resist missiles and wepon blows better the soldiers opted for two handed weapons to multiply their attack depending on their armor and quicker combat speed to give them an advantage in battle.

so should a shield bearing warrior in heavy mail with a one handed sword be able to take on a plate armored soldier with a more advantageous two handed weapon . the protection is there but the one handed sword would have difficulty penetrating the armor plate. so is there a shield bug or is what is being seen is a relatively weak attack by shield using infantry versus a stronger attack by a two handed unit.

of course im not trying to argue so if im wrong no problem.

[antisocialmunky]

Against armour with a sword, you don't try and cut the enemy. You try and whack them and disorient them so you can disarm them or force them into a position where you can dagger them through a soft spot.

[Blademun]

I do not think any army of the period was composed exclusively of light horse archers

Well, I tried to note when I say "HA" I mean of varying types, both light and heavy.

Your right about the heavy cavalry, however, when I look at 'heavy cavalry' from the 1600's..I have a hard tiem calling it 'heavy' often the only armour they're wearing is a cuirass, shin guards and a steel helmet. A far cry from the Mailed, Plated and Barded tanks of medieval times.

Also, I know that little bighorn involved just as many guns as it did bows. I also know that Native Americans didn't start out using HA. In a sense though that should be strong argument for HA. Look at the situation..your facing a disciplined, well equiped army with far superior technology. So what do the Natives of the plains do? They start fielding HA, even though they have no history of doing that prior. Of course they upgraded to guns to stay competitive, but they still had large contingents of bow armed HA. They managed to hold off America for a very long time..

Just going to logical sense..if you have an army of peasants armed with sticks(spears), some archers whose bow is little use for hunting, much less warfare, and maybe a handfull of armoured knights whom are dismonted because the mounted variety are to expensive...would you really expect a HA army to have trouble with this? This is the average army fielded by the AI for most of the game afterall....

In my Byzantine campaign, I fought a hard war against the venetians. The Venetians field lots of spearmen, and they are good too. I was forced to use all the tactics mentioned above to win, because I just had NOTHING to attack them head on with. While Spear milita may suck, Italian Milita has a bit of bite to them, especially against Byzantine Cavalry, which is quite a bit weaker then their bigger Vardariotai brothers. I didn't have the Econ to field a full stack of Vard's that early.

HA do fill out alot of roles, but you have to use them creativly. They lack the 'shock' factor that other troops have, like HC. You can't hold a solid line with HA, and you can't fight in the woods. HA have alot of strategic weaknesses that may not crop up in MP, but do in Campaign games. Its that reason that makes me feel Hungary actually has the superior army to Byzantine. While their HA are weaker, they have Heavy Cav all the way up to Chiv's to back them up, and later on, Arquebusiers and Serpentines. Hungarian Nobles are only a point shy of Vards in every stat. I feel this gives them alot more flexibility. Even I will admit that a army of HA can't win all battles. I feel however that on a open grassy field, against a army thats mostly melee infantry...they should decimate them or at least greatly reduce their numbers.


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. Thats it. THey should cause MAD on head-on light cavalry charges and be able to go toe to toe with other cheap 'peasant/milita' units and thats it. Armoured Seargents and Italian Milita should be able to cause MAD on FK's and the like, and beat all types of lesser milita, thats it.

[Musashi]

To be fair in the Hungary/Byz comparisons, Byzantium has Kataphractoi to back up the Vards, and while they may not be the greatest heavy cav around, they don't exactly suck either. Add in Byzantine Infantry (Sword and shield guys... basically legionaires who don't toss pila) and Varangians and they can field a combined arms force, but only in the middle and late periods. Still, they can field one, and it's not so weak.