Damage/protection conception: the elephant in the room

Do you like the armour protection/infliction damage calculations currently applied in SP Bannerlord


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Its the further away you are, but when you start getting closer and closer the odds get worse. And well, I'd be pretty damn sad if an arrow punched right through my mouth. So yeah it probably won't happen as much as you'd think, but I don't think anyone is going to be happy to run into volleys without a shield or visor. All in all, a bad time for your given early medieval warrior without their shield.
If you look at the current game state, in that video again, even with the weak armour in its current state, half of the 250 shock troops survive the run across the field to the 100 archers.

So, if TW doubles the average HTK of armour (including head armour- not only chest HTK would be buffed), and it were 100 shock troops against 100 archers, I think that would be close to an even fight despite the lack of shields. Or perhaps the archers will have a slight advantage, which I'm fine with.
Yeah, too many damn noble troops around, its stupid. Never understood the complaints about not having enough of them. Now they're everywhere and they end up becoming mainstay troops as opposed to an elite reserve.
It really takes the feeling of eliteness from them when every second village provides a greater number of them than normal troops.
But to me that's not even enough. I want to go as far as to make Imperial Legionaries rare. If I had my way, the majority of the average player's army would be T3, and they will weep at the loss of even a single T5.
Could genuinely be a good idea if armour gets fixed and good troops are dying less often, so that replacing them when they do die isn't as easy.
Reading your sources and they do mention that 'peltasts' did run around with shorter versions of 2.4m kontarion spears. Emphasis on shorter though, so I'm not seeing pikemen but rather your dime in a dozen javelineer. Longer spears than usual maybe, but not pikes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_army_(Komnenian_era)#Peltasts
I said 2.4m, because that is the minimum length a kontarion was in order to be called a kontarion; the weapon ranged from 2.4 to 4m. "Shorter version", to me, means "on the smaller end of the range". So in essence, their spear/pike would be at least 2.4m, if not even a bit more. Otherwise I think it would just be called a spear.
Not the way I understood it. Phalanx guys can kill dudes, but that wasn't their job at all. Their job was to pin the enemy formation down and keep them in place for Alexander's cavalry, the real killers. Hence the 'hammer and anvil' expression. Pikes were the anvil, cavalry the hammer.
True enough.
I'll admit this much yes, unless the archers are uniquely capable of melee combat due to shields, skills or armour.

I'll be content with this much, so long as its not absolute (which tbf you don't want it to be). Again, shock/pikes will not have much fun going after archers, melee cav can absolutely get splattered if they get tied up in one place and hit by shock troops and etc etc. Good chart though otherwise.
Thanks, I'm very glad we agree overall, and you have made my idea more appropriate to the current state of the game, and less reachy.
I suppose more troop types can be fitted in. Not too sure which. And it gets messier when you talk about hybrid troops too.
The way I see it, hybrid troops would be classified as whatever their primary is (eg: Faris are ranged cavalry because their primary is their javelin, with a side of melee cavalry,) and they would have counter relationships with more troop types, but the counters would be even softer - smaller advantages and disadvantages.

In the Faris' case, smaller advantages than most ranged cav - maybe even none- against pike infantry since they have fewer javs to throw before being forced to engage in melee against a pike wall; smaller disadvantage against ranged infantry as they can ride them down with their lances.
 
Hmm, I like the first one obviously, the second one might not be necessary except on troops who have 2 quivers, and the third one I would disagree. Accuracy is already in a decent place, some horse archers and lower tier archers can be ridiculously inaccurate (unable to hit a stationary target at 30 meters in many shots). Hop into custom battle yourself against a low tier archer and see. When I was testing hits to kill it could be annoying waiting for militia archers to roll good enough RNG to actually kill me. Accuracy doesn't need to be lower, otherwise militia archers would never hit anything.
Arguably right now, that is because the AI is inaccurate more so than anything else.


Granted, even low archer skill players(ex: at the start of the game) have a wide radius on their targeting cursor.
 
Well in fairness, I don't really consider foot archers to be an actual counter to horse archers, so much as a necessity to stand a fighting chance against them. From what I know in real life, the only truly effective counter for horse archers was more horse archers. Otherwise its having a lot spearmen and archers capable of holding ground and keeping it.


This is inaccurate. Massed archers and crossbows would very effective against horse archers, assuming they outnumber the horse archers. Lanchester squared would favor the foot archers.





https://www.sealionpress.co.uk/post/the-nitpicker-s-guide-to-ancient-warfare-horse-archers


In some video games, horse archers are basically superweapons. And yet, in reality, horse archers lost as often as they won. The Romans in particular became quite accomplished at defeating them.
Why is this?
The basic principle derives from the fact that for horse archers to be effective, they have to get to close range. Forget that nonsense about firing from long range. Arrows aren’t effective at their maximum range. Even at close range, good armour and shields will block arrows.
By contrast, horses are vulnerable to archery and slingers. That indicates one tactic against horse archers: a heavy infantry base that has only limited vulnerability to archery, with archers behind them. This was the tactic most commonly used by the Romans.
The other main tactic was a heavy infantry base backed by light cavalry, melee riders. This tactic needed careful timing (and hence itself required a lot of training); as the horse archers start to retire, and if they are close enough, the light cavalry rush out to engage in melee. If they catch the horse archers, then they will inflict heavy losses – lances and spears are effective that way. Even if they don’t catch the horse archers, the horse archers will have been dispersed and will take time to reorganise.

Is be normally reluctant to cite Quora, but the answers here are well written.




You are absolutely right that foot archers were the absolute bane of mounted ones, IF the mounted fellows were foolish enough to turn the combat into a straight up firefight. This equation held true so well that steppe horse archers would often dismount if the only way for them to fight was an archery exchange, for example if they were hemmed in a narrow pass (and in such instances they tended to lose anyway). Simply put there's no way a formation of mounted archer could equal the firepower of a formation of foot archer, because the latter could stand much closer together. Plus like you said, the horses made such huge targets!



The second best way is to employ foot archers or crossbowmen and outshoot them. Foot archers are poison to mounted archers because of the greater fire density and Lanchester’s Square Law. Moreover, foot archers can be armoured much better than the horse archers. And as cherry on the cake, an unarmoured horse and an unarmoured man is a much more bigger and vulnerable target than an armoured foot archer.
 
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This is inaccurate. Massed archers and crossbows would very effective against horse archers, assuming they outnumber the horse archers. Lanchester squared would favor the foot archers.





https://www.sealionpress.co.uk/post/the-nitpicker-s-guide-to-ancient-warfare-horse-archers








Is be normally reluctant to cite Quora, but the answers here are well written.






Well, the more you know. Now all we need is for archers to be more effective at actually hitting horse archers, in exchange for losing their fighting power against everything.
 
If you look at the current game state, in that video again, even with the weak armour in its current state, half of the 250 shock troops survive the run across the field to the 100 archers.

So, if TW doubles the average HTK of armour (including head armour- not only chest HTK would be buffed), and it were 100 shock troops against 100 archers, I think that would be close to an even fight despite the lack of shields. Or perhaps the archers will have a slight advantage, which I'm fine with.
Well I like to think that with an increase on armour, they will fix the accuracy of archers too. I could be wrong, but they did nerf archers by making them stupider. Even if they become weaker in the end, I want them to feel like experts dammit.

It really takes the feeling of eliteness from them when every second village provides a greater number of them than normal troops.

Could genuinely be a good idea if armour gets fixed and good troops are dying less often, so that replacing them when they do die isn't as easy.
And if there's one issue with RBM, its that once you get a good army of top of the heap heavy infantry, it starts getting a bit too easy to overwhelm all the other armies. So yeah, make elites elite again(?)

I said 2.4m, because that is the minimum length a kontarion was in order to be called a kontarion; the weapon ranged from 2.4 to 4m. "Shorter version", to me, means "on the smaller end of the range". So in essence, their spear/pike would be at least 2.4m, if not even a bit more. Otherwise I think it would just be called a spear.
Guess its down to interpretation then. But I think mine is betterer than your's, so take that L buddeh.

Thanks, I'm very glad we agree overall, and you have made my idea more appropriate to the current state of the game, and less reachy.

The way I see it, hybrid troops would be classified as whatever their primary is (eg: Faris are ranged cavalry because their primary is their javelin, with a side of melee cavalry,) and they would have counter relationships with more troop types, but the counters would be even softer - smaller advantages and disadvantages.

In the Faris' case, smaller advantages than most ranged cav - maybe even none- against pike infantry since they have fewer javs to throw before being forced to engage in melee against a pike wall; smaller disadvantage against ranged infantry as they can ride them down with their lances.
Hmm, this is unimportant but I would not call Faris ranged infantry. You might as well call Heavy Axemen ranged infantry considering the amount of handaxes they run around with. Last I checked, they pack more ammo than the afforementioned Faris. And I can't help but think you would not pigeonhole them into being ranged infantry.
 
Well I like to think that with an increase on armour, they will fix the accuracy of archers too. I could be wrong, but they did nerf archers by making them stupider. Even if they become weaker in the end, I want them to feel like experts dammit.
Now that I have actually tested it, archers actually are too inaccurate yeah.
Guess its down to interpretation then. But I think mine is betterer than your's, so take that L buddeh.
Oh yeah, well you're mom gey! nah sounds good
Hmm, this is unimportant but I would not call Faris ranged infantry. You might as well call Heavy Axemen ranged infantry considering the amount of handaxes they run around with. Last I checked, they pack more ammo than the afforementioned Faris. And I can't help but think you would not pigeonhole them into being ranged infantry.
You're probably right since I checked and the Faris does only have one stack of 5 ammo. I classed them as ranged cav because of their 140 throwing skill, second only to the Battanian Mounted Skirmisher. Though as you say, Heavy Axeman does get 6 ammo and has 130 Throwing.

You know what, Faris Champion should be ranged cavalry, and get another stack of javelins. There's already 3 other nations with melee lancer cav elites (Vlandian Banner Knight, Sturgian Druzhinik Champion, Imperial Elite Cataphract) so it would be good for variety.
 
Lets hear it for @Terco_Viejo for making all this possible.
It's been adressed and integrated in the official roadmap.

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Perhaps by being one of the last forumites to bring this issue to the table, we have managed to fan the flames. However, I would like to remind you that this issue has been brought to the attention of many people since the beginning of EA through several threads created for this purpose.

In any case, it is to the credit of the whole Community for continuing to hold on tightly to the rope. That said, and although ok... Taleworlds have included "this issue" in their "roadmap", we have to be cautious and see what the final result will be before we jump the gun. I agree with Vader... I doubt very much that we will see significant changes... I hope I'm wrong and the vision will win out over the critics in this regard.
 
Taleworlds have included "this issue" in their "roadmap"
It's been there for a while :razz:
Other
Of course, we will also be working on maintaining, balancing and improving all of the existing singleplayer features and content. This is including further AI fixes and improvements, for sieges in particular, as well as, a continued effort to improve performance across the board. This extends to the polishing of any newly introduced content, such as War & Peace reasons, and balancing existing mechanics like Birth & Death rates, skill experience gains, and armour effectiveness.
 
Perhaps by being one of the last forumites to bring this issue to the table, we have managed to fan the flames. However, I would like to remind you that this issue has been brought to the attention of many people since the beginning of EA through several threads created for this purpose.

In any case, it is to the credit of the whole Community for continuing to hold on tightly to the rope. That said, and although ok... Taleworlds have included "this issue" in their "roadmap", we have to be cautious and see what the final result will be before we jump the gun. I agree with Vader... I doubt very much that we will see significant changes... I hope I'm wrong and the vision will win out over the critics in this regard.

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And in the roadmap it mentioned that the armour effectiveness wouldn't adopt the Warband system. I can't recall what the Warband system looked like but I am curious if the new armour effectiveness would then be more -loosely- based on what the RBM mod achieved.
 
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