Peasants v.1

[fran27]

It wasnt breaking the armour that got them killed, it was bypassing the armour all together. Back of the neck was a weak point, thus the hook weapons. you would thrust past the knight only to bring the hook into the back of his neck. Shoulders was another area to aim for due to there being a small unprotected are to allow the wearer to actually move his arms more than a couple of centimetres.

Even those areas would be covered in maille, on the partial or "field" plate armors.  The Gothic-period plate armors had articulated joints until these gaps were absurdly small, as well as having under-layers of flexible armor, and hitting them would require either amazing luck or tying the guy to a post so you could beat on him.

In general, striking the center of a heavy plate would pretty much insure that the blow would do nothing.  Even hitting at a "soft" spot might or might not see great results - as even those points would likely require penetrating some armor or over-extending whatever body part was contained in said armor.

Aiming for unarmored spots sounds good when you're looking at a modern flak vest that only covers the front and back of the torso.  (They're really only intended to make medical care easier and more effective, not to reduce casualties.)  The ancient world did not build armors this way.  Again, no matter what the movies show, those guys realized where the soft spots on their armor were, and tried very hard to cover them as best they could.

The real logic of the hook weapons was to pull a man off of his horse, and/or to cut the horses' legs, so as to cause the heavily armored fellow to a) hit the ground rather hard, and b) lose the mobility advantage that the horse offered him.  This greatly increased the chances that you could run him down and beat him into the ground with hammers or something.  They were also useful for unbalancing an armored man, and so preventing him from hitting you (at least until he could get up off the ground) - and the hook or axe blade behind the neck would work for that every time, even if the blade contacted solid steel.

Still, yes, heavy bladed polearms are more effective against armor than light longswords ... but not for the reasons you just described.  They work better because it is possible to hit harder, and so to increase the chance of damaging the target (if you manage to hit one of the softer points and/or really land a solid blow), and they work better at attacking balance in order to stun or temporarily immobilize (during which time the target could be hammered into the turf).

Only in the movies do people wear 80 pounds of armor but leave a huge obvious hole with skin showing.

I never said they were huge gaps, they were gaps though. In combat against an armoured opponents soldiers were trained to a) aim for joints b) get opponent offbalance with blow to such weak point c) wrestle to ground d) stab through visor. This of course was for those that carried swords and such. If there were guys with maces around they would take care of the armour (hah just saw "armor" are you a yank? that would explain the spelling) guy by just beating the crap out of him.

As for hook weapons, of course the main reason was to unhorse men, but it wasnt until the 15th century that neckguards were common, thus hooks were an efective weapon to reach and wound the knights neck, which early on was not protected.

They often wore chain under the plate, but if you could go back in time and ask "would you like to battle the guy wearing plate or the guy with chain" they would answer chain everytime. Chain broke easily compared to plate, thus aim for the chain not the plate.

Just google German School of Fencing.


On to the mod, it better be harder with the next version, way to easy currently

[Ron Losey]

You will find the actual damage statistics on RCM mods, when power strike and skill bonus is included, to be fairly indicative of this.  It is generally possible to do some damage even through heavy armor (i.e. the obviously 15th century "plate armor" in the game), but highly difficult with light weapons.  I put a lot of research into this, and if you test it carefully, I'm confident you will find the statistics to add up well.

Also, as previously stated, the problem was not the armor.  The problem was that every unit in the game had a light weapon that would prove ineffective against anything thicker than a leather jacket.  That WILL be corrected in the next version ... the mace-men will have some serious long maces, and hopefully some bigger swords will be in the game as well.

[Cartread]

I would like to have realistic plate-armored riders, but I'm going to have to settle for something different.  People have obviously exploited them and the ai doesn't know how to aim crossbowmen at them.  In the end it would lead to there just being knights, crossbowmen and macemen...but most people would probably just choose knights.  I could make it harder to get knights and all that, but people would surely just go through whatever I assume is fair and payload them out.

So, I'm keeping RCM items info (w/ fixed piercing and other values and with heavy macemen), but I'm just going to use native damage calculation (I'll add rcm damage calculation to the download as well as native items info files).
I've played it a bit like this and believe it plays well.  Knights are good, but not invincible.

Ron, what would you say is good stats for your mace, btw?:

["cbl_long_mace", "Mace", [("CBL_long_mace",0)], itp_type_two_handed_wpn| itp_primary|itp_two_handed, itc_scimitar|itc_nodachi|itcf_carry_axe_left_hip,                                         150, weight(5.0)|   difficulty(0)|spd_rtng(85) |   weapon_length(100)|   swing_damage(35 , pierce) | thrust_damage(0 ,  pierce),imodbits_mace ],

-----On the general note:

I'm adding hamlets, and it's gonna be sweet.  Sword of the Samurai influence will work great here: being able to duel, assassinate tax collector, insight rebellion, etc.

[Ron Losey]

I sent you RCM stats on the mace, as you just posted.  If you want stats for Native-based, well, your guess is as good as mine.  I don't know how to compute damage in a world where people are 7 times harder than steel.

Seriously, you might be burning the house to kill the mice, here.  Before changing the RCM/Native stats, try rearming the mace-men and giving the swordsmen 2-handers of some sort.  If that doesn't fix it, try plan B - either remove all plate armor and get them back to Crusades-period equipment, or completely rework the infantry to give them decent armor and heavy anti-armor-type polearms (i.e. the European foot knights of the 15th century).

I mean, yes, you have a BAD balance problem ... but if you trade it for a balance problem that can't be fixed (i.e. Native-based damage model, where everything is screwed up) ... well, don't say I didn't warn you.

[Blademaster]

This is why i suggested heavy and light troop types, so that there can be a balance between troop cost, and efficiency. my suggestion:
Light:
all melee troops get a -20 armor bonus, ie they wear leather, and light arnament
Heavy: opposite.
Archers and crossbowmen unaffected, except i think that they should be limited to chainmail shirts and not full on battle gear for a swordsmen. i also think that they should have either daggers or shortswords.

There has got to be a compromise here: Give Horsemen too strong of armor, and they are fricking tanks. which they were back then. Give troops huge weapons and it would
not be good for gameplay, of for historical accuracy if every troop had a huge weapon. give horsemen too little and they are sitting ducks. i can see three options:
1.) above.
2.) Lower the knight's armor rating a tad, which i can help test and find the right amount for you.
3.) give them a counter troop, like a pikemen (by the way, pikes are too short as of now.) that can pierce their armor. you would be surprised what pointy sticks can do to a tin can charging towards it with all their force clasing against eachother. that and they would be dehorsed, which would make them vulnerable. thats my opinion on that.

O, and props for the sword of the samurai features! another good game to look at is age of empires, and their tech tree, which might be a good idea. also when putting in hamlets, think about the lords 3 game style to them, if you haven't. (have i said this before?) Keep up the good work, your doing good. i look foward to your next release, i can tell its going to blow everything else out of the water.

[Cartread]

Well a problem with making pikemen anti-cavalry is that pikemen just suck in M&B, because all they can do is poke.  I would have made a "dismount and injure horsemen running into a pikeman script," but agent_set_animation doesn't work.

Again, if there were knight-defeaters, it would just lead to battles involving knights and knight-defeaters.

I've characterized the different troops as well:

"Bowmen have low armor, cutting damage, and speed bonus.", "head_armorer_troops_b",[]],
"Macemen have medium armor and do piercing bonus against armor.", "head_armorer_troops_b",[]],
"Swordsmen have high armor and do cutting damage.", "head_armorer_troops_b",[]],
"Axemen have high armor, cutting damage, and attack bonus.", "head_armorer_troops_b",[]],
"Pikemen have high armor and defense bonus.", "head_armorer_troops_b",[]],
"Crossbowmen have medium armor and do piercing bonus against armor.", "head_armorer_troops_b",[]],
"Mounted Swordsmen have very high armor and do cutting damage.", "head_armorer_troops_b",[]],

Also, Earth swordsmen, Fire macemen, Metal crossbowmen, Water Pikemen, and Wood Bowmen & Axemen are all twice as strong (12 str, agi rather than 6 & +100 wp) as the same troop-type of other elements, and you can also acquire these special units after conquering the region.  bowmen,crossbowmen have melee now too.

[Zaro]

being able to duel, assassinate tax collector, insight rebellion

I'm sure the source would be very interesting to look over 

[Cartread]

Anyone want to help me out by doing something monotonous?
take screens of as many of native's villages as you can--there are 54(like this  village 1: village 1)
pm me with your email and i'll send the dialog.txt which'll let you talk the constablein native and visit all the villages

you'll get special thanks in the coming release...if that's any incentive

[Zack21]

If you have built everything.

You can only build houses,Farms,And Gather Resources

Pretty much your entire Village becomes a Giant Troop Spawner for  you

i dont have walls around my town or stuff like that

[kamov23]

How did this mod come out of now where? I'll check it out!

[Ealdormann Hussey]

Cartread, could you satisfy my curiostiy with a brief discription of what the mod is about and what features it has? I can't play M&B at the moment on account of my PC.

[QuailLover]

You control a village, assign work to your peasants, build up village, train an army, burn, rape, pillage, and all that jazz

[Cartread]

Hussey: this is a discussion thread, but the main page is linked on the 1st post--its on MBX.

[kamov23]

OH, Tavern keeper always wants to fight me.....is it supposed to happen?

[DarkAnd]

He is just laking a dialog.
[sugestion]I think that the tavern could have a ration of alle consumition you give to your peasants, having high consumitions costs gold to produce it, but increase your vilage health.[/sugestion.]