Recent content by Falcon Critical

On one of my characters I have a spear, sword, shield and siege crossbow always equipped. The crossbow always comes pre-loaded with a bolt and you can fire a siege crossbow from horseback, just not reload it. Often useful for taking down stragglers. Then if I forget to swap some bolts in for my spear in a siege I can wait till one of my crossbowmen die and loot their bolts off the ground. Especially useful in siege defense where defender ammo regenerates.

I made a post two years ago about troop persistence when that was still truly a thing. It used to be that if you recruited one Peasant Woman and she had white skin and red hair, she would maintain her complexion and hair all the way from Peasant Woman to Sword Sister. As she progresses through certain tiers her weapon selection changes, but her gear as a Camp Defender definitely affects her gear as a Sword Sister (helmet, crossbow etc).

I believe equipment/loadouts are still persistent even though the appearance of troops is now randomised in each battle. Fight a few battles, look at your sword sisters or any other troop with a large variation in possible equipment. You will notice that though their skin/hair may change - if you have 2 with helmets, 3 with crossbows and 2 with neither in one battle, the same will be true in the next battle. This may only be stored in short term memory so if you exit Warband and enter again it might change your units' equipment.

Sure Camp Defenders don't have helmets but they do at least have crossbows which means they duck behind cover whenever they reload.

SkyChef said:

Next game I probably will play Razia Sultana again with her army consisted of all female warriors (sword sisters and female companions) and made all the stupid lords drooling with sexy woman and deadly weapons. I can't revenge for her in real life but I can pay tribute for her in my game. It will be a very long game because woman peasant number is very low compared to others so I have to go around the country to look for woman to rescue. The only stupid part of this game is if she doesn't have a husband she can't hold a feast.

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Don't underestimate Camp Defenders. They're one tier under Sword Sisters, most have crossbows and they cost virtually nothing. They're surprisingly accurate and since they got chain armor a few patches back are a bit more survivable. It would also allow you to have more than one troop type in your army. Those that don't have crossbows tend to have shields, and stand in the archer line defending.  It's really a shame that you can't choose which of the Camp Defenders to promote to Sword Sisters.

I started an equal opportunity army and recruited every troop I rescued. My party list is pretty long since there aren't more than a few of any units. I hired myself out to nations as a mercenary, then never initiated combat. If a lord attacked me I would fight them, I would join in and assist lords in whichever nation I was fighting for if I could tip the scales in their favour. I always let lords go if I captured them. Through this gameplay I now had about 15 lords with 30 or higher relation, across all nations.

I figured it was time to set out on my own, and I had enough soldiers and mercenaries with me to take a city.  I took the Tulga and declared it a free city. There are many who dislike my one city nation, but they break upon Tulga's walls like sea against a rocky shore. I must admit it is intimidating when the Nords declare war and march across the map with 1200 troops to try and squash me, but my defenses always hold. Tulga is forever more a free and independent city.

bonez899 said:

Guy above is close, but wrong. The numbers on the other side are what the damage is multiplied by.

I.E. armor_soak_factor_against_cut      = 0.8 // Means that if you would do 10 damage without armor it is multiplied by 0.8 so 10*0.8=8 and that is the damage applied.

The reduction factor is just straight damage taken of. So a reduction factor of 10 would mean a cut of 20 damage would do 10, then be mulitplied by the soak factor (or vise versa)
Honestly the easiest way to do this realism you mention would be to modify weapon stats as these are to general.

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Doesn't this mean that swords do more damage to armored enemies than blunts? (8 damage cut vs 5 damage blunt) I thought blunts were better against armored enemies?

The higher the 'soak' number, the more damage is mitigated (reduced) by the armor. Cutting weapons are not good against armor. Those stats show that 80% of weapon damage is soaked by armor, or I presume slashing damage is soaked by 80% of your armor rating.

An example (40 armor rating):
Cut (vs. unarmored) = 40 damage
Cut (vs. 40 armor) = 8 damage

80% of 40 is 32, subtract this from the damage done (this damage is absorbed by the armor).

Another example (more uneven, 20 armor):
Cut (vs. unarmored) = 40 damage
Cut (vs. 20 armor) = 24 damage

80% of 20 is 16, leaving 24 damage.

If the armor soak is greater than the damage done, you take no damage. If you use the 50% soak from blunt weapons the first scenario takes 20 damage, the second 30. There are a whole lot more factors accounted for in the game however, the damage done is affected by movement speed, the armor rating of the area you hit the enemy, special abilities on the weapon, whether they're defending etc. Beyond that headshots with missile weapons and couched lance damage have their own multipliers.

All the data above is theory from what I understand of damage soak in other games and experience in M&B.

In terms of the different damage types, you can see them on the weapons themselves. Swords will say 23c (the C standing for cutting damage), bows say 14p (piercing) and maces 22b (blunt). There are some weapons that do more than one damage type, depending on how the weapon is used. In general these are the categories.

Cut = swords, axes, glaives
Pierce = bows, xbows, bladed lances, spears, morningstars
Blunt = non-bladed lances, maces, clubs, hammers, staves, swinging long weapons like spears instead of stabbing

OgrE_LusT said:

They beat the nords cause of Sabre+axe+mace combo and theyr exelent armour.

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The thing is, because the AI troops can swing through each other a cluster of nord defenders (warrior, veteran, huscarl) are almost unbreakable. Since I play with battle size 500 the enemies never surrender, they just send all their troops at you till they are dead to a man. In one particular siege defense (against swadia) the battle was my 200 against 1200 attackers. Since they fought to the last man, the battle took about half an hour and it gave me time to watch my troops actions.  Since all nord troops have shields and generally axes, it seems they were taking turns swinging and holding up their shield. With the high shield skill 'forcefield' effect I noticed that most of the attackers' swings were just bouncing off the raised shields and the onslaught of axes were tearing through any shields that the enemies had raised. There's something quite satisfying about hearing the repeated cracks of enemy shields as axes swing at them from every direction.

The biggest problem with using Lancers as melee fighters really is the lack of shields. Makes them vulnerable against multiple opponents and archer fire. I'm not saying they are weak, just that in the chaos of a siege shields are very important.

Wheem said:

I don't know of any way to get other lords or kings to come inside the city to help defend, which stinks.

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If you're out in the field and talk to a lord, you can 'make a suggestion' to go to city/castle xxxx and assuming you're marshall or they like you, they will head there and sit in the castle for a time. If there's already a large sieging army around the castle though they'll probably just do that back and forth on the edge of visual range because they're too scared to get closer.

Marriage is totally up to you. Find a single lady, start visiting her all covert like then propose marriage. Her type will affect what kind of poem/actions she appreciates and whether she'll run away with you if it comes to that.

Capturing castles you mean? It depends how big the garrison is that you want to attack, the best bet (if you're in a faction) is to get friendly with one of the lords and then when you're at war ask him to accompany you and attack a castle. This way many of the casualties will be his. Even better if you can get more than one to accompany you.  When you have a decent number of top tier troops however, you can generally take castles with half the defender's numbers - though you will need more for Nords and Rhodoks as they are monsters in sieges.

Don't go near the Khergit or Sarranid areas early on, their mounted bandits will tear you apart. For the other bandit types just keep your troops together and try to pick on the smaller groups till you get some solid mid-tier troops.

Depends on the lady you are courting. Once you are officially (or I guess unofficially) seeing an unmarried lady, if you then speak to a bard and ask about the status of the lady you are courting it will often say "I hear she is being courted by Lord xxx and marriage may be soon". You can then go and confront that lord (or the lady) about this, and then duel said lord for the lady's affection. Predictably the lord will hate you for this, I think it depends on the type of lady as to how she reacts.

When your nation is at war you can speak to married women in your nation and if one of their relatives is currently captured they will give you a quest to free him. This allows you to grow your relations with that married woman and once that has risen a bit she will help you smooth over relations with other lords in your nation.

Try to place yourself on an uphill (for the enemy) slope. Not only does it give the archers more room to shoot over your infantry, but horses slow down whenever they start going uphill and killing their momentum is key for avoiding couched lance damage.

Right, so here's the keys I press to achieve results.

I tend to have 4 or 5 groups in my army. Currently as Sarranids:
1. Infantry (mainly just lower level troops being trained)
2. Archers
3. Cavalry
4. Manhunters/Slavers
5. Personal Guard

Against infantry I order everyone to follow me at the start of battle (F1, F2), then look at the ground around me to find a hill for the archers to stand on. Line up the archers first so they have a good firing zone (2, hold F1 and move your mouse to where you want them), then move my cavalry (3, hold F1) and slavers (4, hold F1) off to one side. Then put infantry (1, hold F1) in front of the archers, but there aren't generally many of them. Have considered combining them with the archer group since the meat of my army is the cavalry.

As the enemy advances they get peppered by arrows, then as they get close I tell the slavers (4, F1, F3) then the cavalry (3, F1, F3) to charge. They slam into the enemy and run them down. At this point I haven't given any specific instructions to the personal guard group, this is just a couple of elite level infantry units that I want to always be at my side in case I get singled out.

Against cavalry there's less time for strategy, so I let my whole army advance and pick a hill as I ride forward to tell my archers to stand on (2, hold F1). Depending on how difficult the battle may be, I may call my personal guard to me during this (5, F1, F2).

I am at the point now where I can order commands to the troops by braille, my fingers remember where the keys I need are and I don't have to think about what I'm pressing but just what I am ordering.

2. Depending on your battle size setting, troops from the top of your list are more likely to be picked. It is a common strategy to have your companion with the medic skills down the bottom of your order, especially in sieges because their medic skills take effect even if they're not on the battlefield persay.  This order is most noticable when you attack bandit hideouts, one I attacked the other day had my companions along with a couple of mamelukes and a camp defender (mamelukes and camp defenders were highest in my party list other than companions).  On lower battle sizes you can use this to your advantage for things like sieges, purposely placing a strong melee unit at the top of the order, then about 3/4 of the way down to ensure you get strong reinforcements once the enemy is weakened.

3. There are so many variations to battlefield strategy, largely depending on the makeup of your army. When I was playing Nords I would line all my melee units up and have them stand closer to basically form a shield wall and stop cavalry. I would place archers in a line behind them to soften the enemy as they advance. Especially effective in larger battles where the opponent hangs back in a line, because as they start to advance the nord infantry adds throwing axes to the barrage of ranged damage before the opponent hits the shield line.
Now that i'm playing Sarranids, my army is basically Cavalry and Archers. When I'm fighting enemies that are infantry heavy I line my archers up in front of my cavalry and get them to spread out. This gives them a free line of fire on the enemy as they advance on my position, then I can order the cavalry to charge and they don't have much trouble picking gaps through the archer line to engage the enemy. Against cavalry I just line my archers up on a slope near my starting position and have all my cavalry follow me. Depending on the imbalance of the battle I have been known to either charge head on, or have the cavalry all stand their ground. Especially against Khergit armies, if you have your cavalry stand ground it kills the momentum of their charge and tying up Khergit units basically means their death.
My mate is playing Rhodoks and he basically has an army of sharpshooters, with some heavy infantry to stand in front of them and block charges hitting his crossbowmen directly.
It all depends on what units you use.

Course if you are a female character assigning your wife isn't an option.  Since I am attempting to be a mercenary state with my female character I am not sieging many castles, and therefore I use Artimminer as my minister.  If I need to siege something I can swap him out for his engineering, but mostly he sits in the castle where he can't argue with anyone.

Is Tevarin a ladder or siege tower castle?  See if you can get Ragnar (or a couple Jarls) to 'follow you' and then go siege the castle.  The extra manpower of a couple of lords is all you need.