Should recruits have shields?

[five bucks]

See this is why you're a pain in the ass to have a conversation with. All you care about is being 100% correct all the time, so you nitpick everything sentence by sentence and word for word like a robot without actually looking at the context

Actually I just apparently have misunderstood you (maybe?), but sure, tell me how horrible I am to talk to (you were the one who started this conversation with me!) What I care about is the game being good, fun and immersive, and I would happily be wrong many times in order to do that.

My point is that levy requirements were to be maintained all year round. Obviously there was no use for a sword or hauberk during peacetime, but a Knight was expected to own and maintain them constantly.

The point I was trying to make in my reply to you is that the things which peasants were required to own at all times ("knives, scythes, or other small arms" were items which were useful for non-warfare purposes. Knives were often used for eating, cutting rope, and cutting up hunting kills as well as "casual carry" personal defense, for example. Scythes' non-combat use is obvious. Guisarmes doubled as a weed-cutting and branch-pruning tool.
But there is nothing you can use a shield for but warfare on a battlefield, unless you're Vitalstatistix.
So a dirt-poor villager would not just have one lying around in the hopes that one day a warband would come through recruiting.

There is no way you really believe that a shield is significantly harder to make than a guisarme or scythe or anything else on that list.

Read the source that Lyon provided for how difficult it was to make shields. You can also read his other source for how expensive they were to buy, which further indicates they were difficult to make. Significantly harder? Maybe, maybe not.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

So a dirt-poor villager would not just have one lying around in the hopes that one day a warband would come through recruiting

A dirt-poor villager would not be on the battlefield or called up for levy. Generally levied "peasants" were the richer ones who met the land requirements. A peasant isn't just a hobo with no money.

Read the source that Lyon provided for how difficult it was to make shields.

bruh

The second reason was the price of medieval shields compared to other parts of medieval armor. Shields were probably the cheapest piece of armor that was available during the Middle Ages. You can find more information on the price of medieval shields compared to other types of medieval armor in my article here.

So shields had a lot of advantages. Because of that shields would remain extremely common among foot soldiers even when knights started to use shields less and less. For more information on why (and when) knights stopped using shields and whether or not they actually completely stopped using shields you might want to check out my article here.

Sure shields were difficult to make from scratch, but literally everything is. I would be a lot more confident making a shield from scratch with my rudimentary woodworking skills than a scythe.

 

[Apocal]

See with all this talk, I am once again reminded of how well Viking Conquest handled this sh*t.

They have crap, useless t1 troops that you seldom see much of because you end up recruiting t2 troops much more often. And in bulk.

My only issue is how grindy it makes the game if the AI can access large numbers of decent troops, right out of the gate after a wipe.

Maybe that should be addressed by tuning down the replacement rate for settlements instead but TW has only moved the needle on that since the start of EA to make it easier to get high-tier troops.

 

[geala]

The tier + unit variety system of M+B is not nearly realistic, so you can say that realism should not count that much. M+B later game is about grinding through masses of enemy armies, it's maybe easier to play with recruits without shields. It's also how it's been since ... ever. So they should not give shields to recruits probably.

I don't care for late game. In reality it would not have been that important wether the recruits were poor or rich or volunteers or levied. Every commander had to be very careful what people he would deploy on the field. A battle was a seldom and very dangerous affair, desaster was always near. Because in warfare with formations weaknesses of parts could quickly lead to a general breakdown and flight, as panic spreads very fast among humans. To utilize absolute trash on the battlefield would have been quite dangerous. As armor was never that important as many think but shields were, giving at least shields to the troops would have been a good idea. For the welfare of the leader, not the recruits.

In my game all recruits have shields and spears (except Khuzaits, hehehe). And from T1 to T2 the skills go from 25 to 80, while armor is reduced and T5/noble T6 are gone. I like it that way. Do what you want.

 

[LyonExodus]

@Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James You are asking to much from a man that thinks the half of 19 is 2. And that 2 shillings that is roughly 1 or 2 weeks wages for a low rank archer of the time was the equivalent of half of a Ferrari car. Not to mention the pay in the link is "daily" not monthly.

The Middle ages sure were great if that was real

Here instead the pay for soldiers was even lower but as stated in both links: there was an "extra pay"compensation was given in form of loot. thus the relatively low amount of pay in comparison to a civil worker.

Not to mention information on the subject is very limited, as it's records of battles. And depending on the historian you can find basically anything you want to hold your theories, that's why i would much rather use common sense and logic.

Non of this leads me to believe that it was that hard to save up enough to buy a cheap shield and a cheap sword, considering kids started working or helping the family full time at around the age of 7 and could be drafted at the age of 14 or 16.
Then if we even look at the English doctrine we know all men between age X and Y had to train at least once a week, generally in bow.

The only one that couldn't save the money were the ones with no jobs, sick or dead family members.


The man also seems to not understand that the kingdoms economies also made of war a great deal and shops and merchants were basically everywhere and there was an industry that for the time could be compared to not be lesser than the later eras.

He also forgets about inheriting items, gifts from friends and family that returned from war, passing the objects (in not great conditions but still better than nothing) down the line.

Or accounts of Lords buying gear for their own soldiers at lower cost since, generally speaking when you buy in bulk you pay less, or even simply other soldiers that sold looted items for food or less or just at below market price.
Not to mention the advantage of gearing your people better if you could, which the most ambitious and competitive lords sure did, for most, war was nothing but real life chess with a prize (land or simple glory) in the end.
And the fact that if you were a successful commander or captain there was a lot to be gained.
The last thing an imposing and rich commander wants to say is that he lost a fight because he had too many people without a board. You can imagine the personal ridicule.

For manufacturing there are plenty of ways to get resources, villagers weren't morons with no idea of what they were doing. Most of them were more resourceful than most of the people today.
Not to mention that unlike today society that is aimed at the use of "specialized" workers the civilians in the middle ages, the ones in rural villages especially, had to do a large variety of jobs in the same week. Just looking at the lesser developed countries is enough to understand that was and still is a reality.

Anyway a well researched video was made on this very subject and it explains well how our friend is massively overestimating the price and underappreciating the entire industry of the time

And glue was obtained in a bunch of different ways than just by slaughtering farm animals like: fish, vegetables, eggs, cheese, milk, plants and hunting were all ways to get glue, let alone that the amount of glue you can get from a single dead animal is plenty, (even humans could make good glue since they contain collagen as well).
The Romans for example used fish glue to bond their shields. England, like Italy or France or Spain was surrounded by the sea. Fish would have been a fairly common resource.

Metal could be smelted from the old helmets, armors and weapons of dead soldiers, nails could be made out of wood, yeah, you would be surprised of how good wood nails can be.
They were used to keep ships together just to have an idea of how strong ,when used well, they could be and how resourceful human engineers were for the time. Sure they had the downside of rotting but for a 60 days to even an year campaign it should be no problem with some maintenance.

Another thing to keep in mind is that shields of the same type and color could be given out to the soldiers to avoid "friendly fire" scenarios.
But same colors of uniforms and other equipment had a greater role later down the history line than the time Bannerlord should take place in. Altough it shouldn't be discounted, as reports of friendly fire and "mistakes" exist from at least the Romans.

There is a lack of complexity in the arguments which is fine, as long as the evidence leads them to realize that they are being stubborn and not considering the wide range of possibilities on most points, or well, there isn't much that can be done.

Just wanted to link some more evidence and give out some more reasoning

 

[Chest Hunter]

Nobody cares, enter the village, talk to the elder "you got any peasants for sale m8?" he'll say "aye 4 recruits from that field there" and you'll say "cheers" and be on your way, not "but m8 they haven't got shields". He'll say "of course they don't! Where tf am I gonna find a shield around here? You don't have a g-g-good brain do you Simple Jack?" the camera will pan to a portrait shot of an agape, drooling mouth accompanied by a vacant stare. -10 reputation with the village notable. You sigh.

None of these villages have an armoury, and trust me I've visited them all. The recruit equipment is appropriate.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Nobody cares, enter the village, talk to the elder "you got any peasants for sale m8?" he'll say "aye 4 recruits from that field there" and you'll say "cheers" and be on your way, not "but m8 they haven't got shields". He'll say "of course they don't! Where tf am I gonna find a shield around here? You don't have a g-g-good brain do you Simple Jack?" the camera will pan to a portrait shot of an agape, drooling mouth accompanied by a vacant stare. -10 reputation with the village notable. You sigh.

I would actually be fine with this if non-lord players had to recruit like this. I would even be fine having them completely unarmed and unupgradeable, with the player having to give them weapons to "arm" them. But it doesn't change even if it's your fief, even if you're the king, and even in the lategame hyperwars you still have to recruit these stupid guys.

 

[JunKeteer]

Realism relevance aside (TW doesn't seem to bother or put depth into that anyways), recruits in the game are the most basic and should stay that way. Giving them shields won't make them any more relevant in terms of the overall gameplay, even with AI parties - they are just fodder.

There's no sensible relation with in-game as to how affordable a shield would be, how you (as a random nobody) are able to essentially take a lords' serfs from their villages with you (and higher tier as you get friendlier), how their upgrade costs don't line up with what their equipment costs, how abundant a lowly fief is for spawning 100s of recruits, etc...

The only thing that doesn't seem to make sense, someone pointed out, is that the 'peasant' unit is stronger than the 'recruit' which I think should be adjusted to be equal at the very least.

 

[Apocal]

I would actually be fine with this if non-lord players had to recruit like this. I would even be fine having them completely unarmed and unupgradeable, with the player having to give them weapons to "arm" them. But it doesn't change even if it's your fief, even if you're the king, and even in the lategame hyperwars you still have to recruit these stupid guys.

There is an unintuitive, ultra-grindy and barely displayed method to make sure you have consistent access to Tier 2 troops.

Basically grind relations very high with village landowner any notables in a fief you own for like ten or fifteen years and they'll swap over support to you (the owner), get crazy amounts of power (well above 200) either blitz through the recruit phase of their troop production (urban and village headman notables) or just skip to producing noble troops that start at Tier 2 (village landowner notables).

It is silly because it is opaque system that rests on the back of both grinding out quests like crazy and then just waiting for a nearly pure-RNG process to give you an advantage.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Basically grind relations very high with village notables in a fief you own for like ten or fifteen years and they'll swap over support to you (the owner), get crazy amounts of power (well above 200) and produce noble troops that start at Tier 2.

shame this strat didn't work for Bannerlord's development

 

[Brano]

I don't understand this kind of threads. It is SP game. Edit your troops to whatever you like or download a troop overhaul mod.

 

[LyonExodus]

i mean @Brano i get you.

but this is an hypothetical debate. People give out their reasons and some take it the wrong way.

A bit of community brainstorming, which i like, especially when someone presents some data and evidence with videos of the concept.
it's not for everyone sure, and it likely will not change anything going forward. But i'd rather have posts like this than some that we all know pop out every other day.

 

[Apocal]

shame this strat didn't work for Bannerlord's development

lol

I still don't know why they placed such a crucial method of making the late-game easier and more bearable behind a double-gate of opaqueness and raw RNG.

I don't understand this kind of threads. It is SP game. Edit your troops to whatever you like or download a troop overhaul mod.

Editing troops is simple but not necessarily accessible to most players. Plus, we discuss all kinds of balance issues here that could be modded away very easily.

 

[JunKeteer]

I don't understand this kind of threads. It is SP game. Edit your troops to whatever you like or download a troop overhaul mod.

Fair point, this discussion is better suited where the rest of game/features isn't more of a hot mess, but, I mean, just like the debate in this very thread about whether recruits may or may not have/afford/provided a shield, not all players may or may not create/use mods.

 

[Tiberius Decimus Maximus]

Recruits are fine as they are. They upgrade fairly quickly, and I agree with those who mention the sense of progression you get from watching your soldiers go from nothing to power incarnate.

 

[five bucks]

Then if we even look at the English doctrine we know all men between age X and Y had to train at least once a week, generally in bow.

That law was not passed for all men of a certain age until the 1500s. Bannerlord is 600s-1000s.

While I was looking up laws about that, I found the Assize of Arms 1181, which is closer to Bannerlord's time period, and does mention shields.

• Whoever possesses one knight's fee shall have a shirt of mail, a helmet, a shield, and a lance.
• Moreover, every free layman who possesses chattels or rents to the value of 208 shillings shall have a shirt of mail, a helmet, a shield, and a lance.
• Every free layman possessing chattels or rents to the value of 130 shillings shall have a hauberk, an iron cap, and a lance.

Isn't it interesting? That a richer person is expected to own a shield and mail, while a poorer person is not? Now why would that be? Perhaps because it is not trivially easy to buy or make a shield.

A peasant isn't just a hobo with no money.

Well, in the actual game, that's who the T1 troops are that we recruit. So it makes total sense that they don't have shields.
They aren't being levied; they're being picked up by a random group of thugs riding through their town.

bruh

Explain which part I'm meant to be looking at and how it contradicts my position. Personally, after reading the article, I don't see an issue there. But enlighten me.

Sure shields were difficult to make from scratch, but literally everything is. I would be a lot more confident making a shield from scratch with my rudimentary woodworking skills than a scythe.

Making Bannerlord's scythe requires breaking off a long, thin but sturdy tree branch, sanding it down, buying a long flat piece of metal, taking it to a smithy and using a hammer and anvil to create a cap on one end (difficult), then sharpening the metal on one edge to a point with a grindstone, and affixing the blade (may require one nail).

Making Bannerlord's cheapest shield requires cutting down an entire tree with a saw (difficult), using a saw to cut the timber lengthways and then widthways into boards (difficult), planing down the boards to 1/2in, mixing up a glue from milk and quicklime to glue the boards together, cutting more narrow boards to act as crosspieces, buying nails and hammering the boards to the crosspiece, buying a long flat piece of metal for the handle, taking it to a smithy and using a hammer and anvil to put bends and holes in it, and hammering that on with more nails.

A village would also naturally tend to have a lot more farming tools than it would shields.

@Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James You are asking to much from a man that thinks the half of 19 is 2. And that 2 shillings that is roughly 1 or 2 weeks wages for a low rank archer of the time was the equivalent of half of a Ferrari car. Not to mention the pay in the link is "daily" not monthly.

You completely misread my post. I said 1/6th. Not 1/2.

A footsoldier is going to be paid much better than a farming peasant because they are literally risking their lives all the time and constantly travelling and you don't want them to mutiny. They would make 2 pennies a day. A mail shirt cost 144 pennies. So they would need to work risking death and not spending any of their pay on food or drinks, just saving it all, for 72 days to be able to afford a mail shirt. For a peasant it would be even longer than that. And not eating is obviously not an option.

"The equivalent of a Ferrari" was simply meant to illustrate that mail shirts and stallions were some of the most expensive things in existence in medieval times, it should have been obvious that it wasn't literal.

considering kids started working or helping the family full time at around the age of 7

They did that because you had to keep the livestock fed and milked and fences repaired, ward off thieves and wolves, till the soil and sow, reap and bale the hay and harvest, spin cloth to make thread to make clothing and bedding, repair sheds and the roof and walls, and gather firewood so you didn't freeze to death, all of which was very time consuming, and then afterwards tax collectors would come by and take the majority of your income. Peasants were not making their children work because they wanted to afford useless things like shields. They were making them work because they were extremely poor and forced to do so.

The only one that couldn't save the money were the ones with no jobs, sick or dead family members.

(Big Citation Needed)

The man also seems to not understand that the kingdoms economies also made of war a great deal and shops and merchants were basically everywhere and there was an industry that for the time could be compared to not be lesser than the later eras. Or accounts of Lords buying gear for their own soldiers at lower cost since, generally speaking when you buy in bulk you pay less, or even simply other soldiers that sold looted items for food or less or just at below market price.

Why is it so hard for you to understand that it was difficult to make things before the Industrial Revolution? There were not huge quantities of surplus items being churned out of production lines and being sold in bulk for discounts. Things were made by artisans with difficulty and they made as much as they thought they would sell, and haggled for every last penny per item sold.

He also forgets about inheriting items, gifts from friends and family that returned from war, passing the objects (in not great conditions but still better than nothing) down the line

An enormous amount of peasantry would never have gone to war. So let's say you have a village with 10 men who have been farmers their whole lives, and 1 man who returned from war, with his 1 shield to pass down. Each of them has 2 sons.

The next generation will have 22 sons, of which 1 son will recieve a passed-down shield from his father (who has no shield to give to the other son). That is 21 men with no heirloom shields.

Or accounts of Lords buying gear for their own soldiers at lower cost since, generally speaking when you buy in bulk you pay less, or even simply other soldiers that sold looted items for food or less or just at below market price.
Not to mention the advantage of gearing your people better if you could, which the most ambitious and competitive lords sure did, for most, war was nothing but real life chess with a prize (land or simple glory) in the end.
And the fact that if you were a successful commander or captain there was a lot to be gained.
The last thing an imposing and rich commander wants to say is that he lost a fight because he had too many people without a board. You can imagine the personal ridicule.

So many words, so much missing the point. Lords had war parties and that was who they would worry about equipping. They did not worry about equipping every single last man in every last village. That's ridiculous.

Metal could be smelted from the old helmets, armors and weapons of dead soldiers, nails could be made out of wood, yeah, you would be surprised of how good wood nails can be.

But you already said that the helmets, armors and weapons of dead soldiers would be looted by the soldiers themselves, who would be the first on the battlefield while the peasant is back on the farm. So your scenario doesn't make sense. And you need to purchase even more specialised tools to make wooden nails, which would be as expensive as buying metal nails themselves.

There is a lack of complexity in the arguments which is fine, as long as the evidence leads them to realize that they are being stubborn and not considering the wide range of possibilities on most points, or well, there isn't much that can be done. Just wanted to link some more evidence and give out some more reasoning

You're just blathering at this point with poorly thought through scenarios that aren't actually historical sources and are just guesswork. If you want to claim that recruits not having shields is historically unrealistic you need to give real historical examples of all villagers in villages being issued shields or being able to easily obtain them.

Recruits are fine as they are. They upgrade fairly quickly, and I agree with those who mention the sense of progression you get from watching your soldiers go from nothing to power incarnate.

Well said, +1.

 

[BigFat]

I've played mods that give recruits shields and it's not a noticeably huge difference though I do like it gameplay-wise because getting to the phase where you fight lords with 400 recruits isn't all that fun.
I will point out this in favor of it I guess. Over the course of my average soldiers career, he will equip himself in several hundred thousand denars worth of gear by t5 on his wage of 12 denars a day, so it doesn't seem all that unreasonable that he may take the 100 denars I pay him up front when I recruit him to buy a cheap shield when he knows he's going to fight. I do wish he would use some of his amazing trade skills to buy his own horse though.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

I still don't know why they placed such a crucial method of making the late-game easier and more bearable behind a double-gate of opaqueness and raw RNG.

It was probably added and then mostly forgotten about. This happened to a ton of mechanics in warband that I only discovered after reading the game's scripting language.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

My only issue is how grindy it makes the game if the AI can access large numbers of decent troops, right out of the gate after a wipe.

Maybe that should be addressed by tuning down the replacement rate for settlements instead but TW has only moved the needle on that since the start of EA to make it easier to get high-tier troops.

I recall being able to get a lot of adequate t2 troops to fill my ranks just fine as a lord in VC. I also require vast swathes of enemy troops to be just t2s as well after a wipe.

Nobody cares, enter the village, talk to the elder "you got any peasants for sale m8?" he'll say "aye 4 recruits from that field there" and you'll say "cheers" and be on your way, not "but m8 they haven't got shields". He'll say "of course they don't! Where tf am I gonna find a shield around here? You don't have a g-g-good brain do you Simple Jack?" the camera will pan to a portrait shot of an agape, drooling mouth accompanied by a vacant stare. -10 reputation with the village notable. You sigh.

None of these villages have an armoury, and trust me I've visited them all. The recruit equipment is appropriate.

Yet again another reason why I like VC lol. The elders just tell you to f*ck right off or pay up unless you’ve been helping them or are a lord.

And once you’re a lord you never see t1 weaklings again. It’s like batches of 20 troops with real gear, save for padded armour.

 

[randomuser]

In my opinion, every soldier should have a shield. However, the shield in too powerful in this game. You are nearly invincible when you a holding a shield. They should reduce the durability of low level shield and give everybody a shield.