Sword vs hand axe

[KiriKaneko]

I've got a full set of 12 companions armed with crude+ versions of the top tier non-special armour (veteran helm, mail coat, splinted greaves, hardened gloves) and equipped with 140 size shields and normal swords/rich swords.

Unfortunately we still lose to unrights when we defend villages and I've noticed even though they're pretty much naked they hit like a truck with those hand axes and have decent HP. They rush in and attack at point blank range and their attacks never whif. Swords on the other hand do have a minimum range, and they have a useless stab attack that almost always whifs and does barely any damage that is essentially a wasted attack for my companions.

Would I be better off switching them all over to hand axes? With their horses and the massive armour advantage they have they really should be wiping the floor with them, even without help from the farmers

 

[KiriKaneko]

I've found some hand axes in the shops. They're slower and slightly less damaging than swords, with a shorter range

However, they have no minimum range meaning they can be used at point blank while rushing someone who is backpedalling or swinging at a horse that is surrounded, they only have a slash attack which is more damaging (slash down) or more likely to hit (slash sideways)

What's more, hand axes do piercing damage and have anti-shield properties. This means they almost negate armour and cant be blocked for long when theyre mobbing you. I'm gonna switch to handaxes and see how it goes

 

[14cmurphy1]

Hand-axes are definitely better. If you look in the module.ini,  you can see that pierce damage is nearly twice as effective as cutting damage against armour; though you can easily adjust these values to make swords less ineffective. Axes are more suitable for close-quarter brawls and cheaper than swords. The range of axes isn't great on horseback though, but they deal better damage than swords and can acquire speed bonuses of 150%, destroying anything you hit. Additionally there is no useless thrust attack to hinder your companions.
I had this problem, but I switched to axes and never looked back. Finally horses are a disadvantage in village battles, tell your companions to dismount. All the enemies at the back will be waving around useless ranged weapons so you and your companions can just work your way through them. Myself and my twelve companions have worked through almost 60 bandits like this before. Finally tell your scummy farmers to hold fire, their stones really don't help...
Cheers and good luck chopping up fools,

 

[KiriKaneko]

Thanks for the info. In village battles I typically try to lure the enemy out and have them engage the villagers then charge my cavalry in from the side, but I've started dismounting my companions so they can get right in their face with those axes

 

[gdwitt]

What would you change to make them more realistic.
Swords should own hand axes except in heavy armor where they should be about equal.
I could easily change module.ini which I haven't touched for my time here.
Maybe someone can examine pierce attacks or we can make axes into slashing weapons.
This would be a great mod project for a new coder.

 

[14cmurphy1]

One of the main problems with swords is that the thrust attack becomes useless after the first blow, but the AI will still prod you for 0 damage. The East Engla king had a massive sword and looked really awesome.. until his horse got stuck on a sapling, he prodded me with his sword for 0 damage and I killed him in one blow with my axe  . Swords are also a little slower than axes, and generally deal higher cutting damage than axes deal piercing but in the module ini. you can see that cutting is hopeless:
Flat reduction of cutting damage: 0.92
Flat reduction of piercing damage: 0.65
Percentage reduction of cutting damage: 0.8
Percentage reduction of piercing damage: 0.5
(These numbers may not be totally accurate)
In Brytenwalda this is made worse because anyone without heavy armour won't last long and are barely worth killing...
Axes into slashing weapons might work, swords could made better stat-wise or the module ini. could be tweaked. Swords could also be adjusted so that they don't break or have a very low chance of breaking compared to axes, but I am not sure if this is already in place. There are a number of threads about axes and swords for Brytenwalda I think.
It is a little annoying that loads of bandits have rubbish axes that can still be more effective than high-level troops' weapons (spears..). The only downside of axes on horseback is that there is that odd embarrassing moment when your foe's head is *just* out of reach of your axe though..

 

[gdwitt]

For reworked, I made axes shorter, have less damage, and have slower attack speed.
This is vs. Brytenwalda and Repolished.
Are you playing reworked?
If so, I will experiment with .ini.
Other things we can change are weapon reach and speed. Thrust damage for spears has been amped up but it sounds like we should do it for swords as well.
The thrust attacks are quite slow and can't be sped up much due to the animations we're given.

 

[14cmurphy1]

Yes, I am playing Reworked,
I have a cavalry axe that does 42p. The best sword I have found is Virio's Falcata, with 50c. The axe does more damage by a decent margin. Thrust attacks are very weak because of their animation. An extreme measure could be to disable it, as the AI don't know how to use it. You must be careful to not make armour useless as well by buffing weapons too much.
Maybe you could add an option to buff swords at the arms merchant, so a wealthy player can make better use of swords?
You should try and find out other user's opinions on swords versus axes in Reworked, rather than taking my word for granted.