The Shield Problem(s)

[Foz]

I dont think shields are bugged.

I just have to laugh when people say this. It's like people who deny the holocaust. Against mountains of evidence, and everything reasonable, they still don't see it. Apparently even a dev commenting on the problem and proposing a solution is not enough to get some people on board. Sad.

The dev has spoken. We mortals hear and obey.

AMEN BROTHER DOPP!

Now we just need a nice little exe program to help us change all shield values to 0 and put half into armour (with the option of then putting another half into defence skill)! *hint hint* ;)

lol.

It called WordPad.

LMAO @ the comment. Trust me Dopp, you don't really want to sit there and shift numbers around with WordPad. I did about 3 lines of that the first time before I decided it would be way easier to automate it... which it undoubtedly was. And that's not to mention the computer can't forget to change something or do math wrong. You're bound to screw something up trying it by hand.

I'll be on it when I'm done with dinner tonight guys, as I work til then. I'm initially not going to give the option for half to go again into defense skill, just going to send half to armor, as it will make discussion difficult if people are not using the same unit stats. Then we can open up discussion on it and try to determine if the affected units warrant the added defense skill points or not. I apologize to those of you who may be itching to get the skill points in there too, but it would make discussion too confusing and possibly impossible, so you'll have to wait.

[Midnight]

I'm a little confused about something - if AP halves the shield value which it seems is currently being subtracted from the total defence, does that mean that AP is now a bad thing, as it halves the amount subtracted from defence, leading to a higher defence vs AP than vs non-AP for shield-bearing units?

I've not been following this thread overly closely (but it does interest me), so sorry if I've just not understood something!

[Jambo]

I'll be on it when I'm done with dinner tonight guys, as I work til then. I'm initially not going to give the option for half to go again into defense skill, just going to send half to armor, as it will make discussion difficult if people are not using the same unit stats. Then we can open up discussion on it and try to determine if the affected units warrant the added defense skill points or not. I apologize to those of you who may be itching to get the skill points in there too, but it would make discussion too confusing and possibly impossible, so you'll have to wait.

Great, thanks.

How will you deal with those units that have an odd number for shield bonus?

[CeltiberoMordred]

Well, there are 3 types of shields: +3, +4 and +6.

Using half of these values, it looks fair a +1 for the smallest shield creating logic steps, so:

+1 bonus for small
+2 for medium
+3 for big

[Jambo]

Well, there are 3 types of shields: +3, +4 and +6.

Using half of these values, it looks fair a +1 for the smallest shield creating logic steps, so:

+1 bonus for small
+2 for medium
+3 for big

[Carl]

@Midnight: No, what it is is that in RTW the sheild was unaffectd by AP. The diagrams and in files notes say this is still the case, when in fact CA have changed it.

Before a unit with 6 armour and a 6 sheild got 9 defence vs AP attacks (because the AP halved the armour to 3 points of effective defence).

No the sheild is also being halved so the sheild only provides half it's value against AP attack as apposed to the full value. That is a pretty big change overall and is tottaly undocumented as far as i know.

[Musashi]

Like I said, a lot of the comments in the files are outdated :)

And I knew I was right all along

*gloats*

[Ulstan]

I dont think shields are bugged. They are working ok against missiles,bigger is the shield - bigger is the drawback to have it in melee.

Also, the better your armor, the bigger drawback to have it in melee. Those stupid, stupid romans and their big clumsy shields! What idiots! If only they were as smart as JaM and realized that the most effective way to fight in melee was butt naked.


Oh wait. The barbarians that fought the romans tried that. And got slaughtered.


Shields should absolutely help you in melee. A *lot*. A shield that prevents the blow from even landing on your torso or arm is in many ways more effective than armor in a melee combat. A shield can be used as an additional weapon in melee combat, and it often was.


It doesn't currently. And since we know the CA devs are not a bunch of bleeding idiots, we can determine that it's a bug.

[Foz]

I'm a little confused about something - if AP halves the shield value which it seems is currently being subtracted from the total defence, does that mean that AP is now a bad thing, as it halves the amount subtracted from defence, leading to a higher defence vs AP than vs non-AP for shield-bearing units?

I've not been following this thread overly closely (but it does interest me), so sorry if I've just not understood something!

Actually this question is substantially different and more thought-provoking than the initial response to it would indicate. I believe what he is getting at is that since the shield works backwards, AP may in fact be causing the target unit's shield melee penalty to be reduced, thus helping the target in fact resist resist the attack. I would surmise that this is probably the case. What net effect the AP stat has in vanilla, then, is entirely dependent on whether the target unit's shield stat is in fact bigger than its armor stat. If the shield is bigger, AP will be halving more shield penalty than it will armor bonus, and therefore helping the target unit resist the attack. If they are the same AP does nothing at all. OTOH if the unit's armor stat is bigger, more armor bonus is removed than shield penalty, and the result is a slight gain in attack effectiveness, though not nearly what would be gained if the shield was working correctly (in that case, though, the shield would be giving a correct bonus in melee, and consequently the unit would still have a higher resistance to the attack than the borked shield/AP combo could possibly give it). Needless to say, that AP could actually help the opposing unit resist the attack is a strange oddity caused by the shield bug, and in general AP will make a far lower difference in combat in the vanilla game that it does with a fix in place. I'm not saying it's the case, just that I suspect it probably is.

Great, thanks.

How will you deal with those units that have an odd number for shield bonus?

Well, there are 3 types of shields: +3, +4 and +6.

Using half of these values, it looks fair a +1 for the smallest shield creating logic steps, so:

+1 bonus for small
+2 for medium
+3 for big

Sounds good to me. For what it's worth, I was planning on truncating even before I realized it would make the bonuses so nicely tiered! :smiles: