<deniz>
I think it is best to first mention the story behind the suggestion:
With one of my characters I prefer to have no forces with me. Once, I encountered a party of 33 sea raiders. I had two steel shields, a heavy warhorse, and a 1h sword with me. In that battle, I managed to knock-out all 33 sea raiders by simply holding my shield and trying to hit the raiders with my horse. The only trick was to prefer to hit those raiders that constitute a line (so that I can maximize the number of enemies I can hit in one turn).
This was obviously an exploit of the AI.
What I suggest is -the search yielded no exact matches- that the NPCs with ranged weapons should be able to consider attacking the horse instead of the rider if the rider is using a shield. Also, if the rider (and the horse, of course) gets close to them they should use their shields, too, to avoid getting knocked-down by the horse!
What I mean by "considering" is that this behaviour cannot be expected all the time. A trivial solution is to have the NPCs attack the rider and the horse with equal probabilites.
By the way, why I confine the discussion to ranged weapons is that if I were to fight in a battle using a melee weapon I would prefer to attack the rider once a get the chance of being that close. But, surely, it is wise to use the shield in such cases as a guy with a great lance is approaching you!!
With one of my characters I prefer to have no forces with me. Once, I encountered a party of 33 sea raiders. I had two steel shields, a heavy warhorse, and a 1h sword with me. In that battle, I managed to knock-out all 33 sea raiders by simply holding my shield and trying to hit the raiders with my horse. The only trick was to prefer to hit those raiders that constitute a line (so that I can maximize the number of enemies I can hit in one turn).
This was obviously an exploit of the AI.
What I suggest is -the search yielded no exact matches- that the NPCs with ranged weapons should be able to consider attacking the horse instead of the rider if the rider is using a shield. Also, if the rider (and the horse, of course) gets close to them they should use their shields, too, to avoid getting knocked-down by the horse!
What I mean by "considering" is that this behaviour cannot be expected all the time. A trivial solution is to have the NPCs attack the rider and the horse with equal probabilites.
By the way, why I confine the discussion to ranged weapons is that if I were to fight in a battle using a melee weapon I would prefer to attack the rider once a get the chance of being that close. But, surely, it is wise to use the shield in such cases as a guy with a great lance is approaching you!!
