The Shield Problem(s)

[Foz]

Not really, How I want spearmen to be is how they actually perform with the shield fix in place. That’s the thing. Some of you history buffs want knights to dominate, but that’s not what happens with the fixes in place and like the balance like that a lot. I’ll admit I’m not 100% happy with the performance of Spear Militia vs. feudal knights. But they do okay.

While I enjoy the ability of spearmen to beat or at least hold their own against cav with the fix in place, there is a point to be made here:

We really have no idea whether the units were balanced to each other in playtesting, or if they were balanced numerically without playtesting.

The first would mean knights are less capable than intended by CA with the fix, and is probably the camp the people who want spear units to continue to remain bad and knights to mop up would find themselves in.

The second means fixing the bugs would directly put the units back into a balanced state, and would be represented by people who feel the fix makes game balance better.

After having watched the debates rage for quite some time, I find myself in no man's land: I feel some units appear clearly to have been balanced down to the levels of borked shield units, while others have not been. The end result, IMO, is that fixing the shield bug has improved balance in some ways, and made it worse in others. This mixed weird situation is probably due to the combat bugs, which undoubtedly made it impossible to balance the units in any reasonable or logical way in the first place, meaning unit stats are all over the place while not having any clear relation to how the units are actually performing in the game.

However, I would not be supporting the fix in the first place if I did not feel it makes more and bigger things better than it makes worse. Things I've noticed with the fix:

- Archers are a little on the downside of things, though I consider this a vanilla game issue. Especially the English ones have never been very good unless you achieve enfilade fire from the weapon side of the enemy, which should not be absolutely vital to them being at all useful in combat.

- Spearmen are useful now. They stall more against infantry, but still are very disadvantaged due to penalty against infantry units (i.e. they die, but take a little longer to do so). They take cav charges now, causing MAD on initial impact (a lot of the first line of knights dies, as does a lot of the first line or 2 of spearmen), and can typically win in standard melee against cav though still suffering significant losses.

- Sword+Shield infantry are put at a level where they are actually good. They lose to 2H AP units something like 3:2 or 2:1, which by the vanilla stats is exactly what I'd expect (they have even stats except the 2H have AP and 3 extra charge). They hold cavalry pretty well, but lack the spear's ability to reflect the charge back at the knights. Against mailed knights they go about 1:1, higher knights can be MAD or loss for S&S unit depending on knight stats and how the charge goes.

- Animation-fixed 2H units (with vanilla stats) feel totally in balance with the shield-fixed units, and most units in general. 2Hs are shock troops on the ground now, but get much more wrecked by missile fire than S&S units, as well as being destroyed by charging cavalry (and that's 21/13 type DEK units I'm talking about. Bills and such can be assumed to get wrecked by those two things even more so). I'm a big fan of this balance, as trading your shield in for a 2H weapon should make you win in melee but leave you less capable of defending yourself from other battlefield elements (archers and cav primarily) as well.

- 2H swords are unquestionably weak. This is one of the unit's I'd suggest was balanced to the broken shield units, and thus left underpowered with them fixed.

- Cavalry... well, something can actually kill them now, that being the fixed spear units who brace correctly for the charge now. The MAD on the charge can be avoided if you keep from charging directly into spears that are set for the charge, and seems to help the knights' situation a lot. Additionally, high armor units (like, 21) also are okay at accepting charges due to their correctly-working high AC providing more protection. As I mentioned for S&S, higher cav can beat them while lower ones usually go 1:1. Cavalry actually suffered from the shield bug in a lot of cases too, and so have largely benefited from the fix, keeping them competitive with all the other units that benefited, and also delivering the melee staying power I think was necessary to make them best 2H units (perhaps mostly due to the formed charge, but I'm okay with that).

Feel free to discuss this further. I hope my insight from using it for a while helps people decide whether or not they feel the fix is something they wish to try, or might possibly accept as an improvement over vanilla and an interim solution until a real fix arrives from CA.

[DukeKent]

Good job on the Shield fix

[Jambo]

Good post the_foz!

That's exactly the sort of information that I was looking for - a nice summation of the pros and cons of the shield fix, presumably the one transferring the shield value into armour. As much as the fix helps shield infantry, it's also worth noting (as you did) that it also impacts the shield based cavalry. Feudal knights, etc, will also benefit from the shield fix, so the net effect should be an overall "slowing" down of combat resolution.

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.