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I agree with the OP - though frankly we don't know a whole lot about historical one-handed spear technique for sure, it seems very unlikely that you would use a spear in combat primarily by holding it at the point of balance. Doing that basically gives up the reach which is the major advantage of a spear over a sword, axe, mace, or other hand weapon; if you have a seven foot spear but you're holding it at the point of balance (which will be slightly forward of the center due to the weight of the spearhead, assuming a non-tapered shaft and no buttspike) you really only have three feet or so of combat length, at which point there's no real reach advantage over any other hand weapon. Then length of a spear is the primary reason you would want to use it over something else, and the primary reason why spears were, historically, so dominant; a formation of shielded spearmen can make it very dangerous for enemies with hand weapons to try and close in, even if they don't have a lot of training.

Now, holding a spear by the very back end may not be correct either, depending on the size of the weapon, but if you're using a seven-foot spear you probably want at least four and a half or five feet of it to be forward of your hand.

EDIT; another thing to consider is that many ancient and medieval spears were specifically built to move the point of balance back, with the addition of counter weighting spikes and/or tapering of the shaft. Greek dory are a good example; the 'lizard-killer' spike on the butt end served that function.

I mean, it does take skill to operate a crossbow, especially a heavy one. It takes less skill to be a master arbalestier than it does to be a master archer, sure, but still, if you're trying to use a heavy cranequin or windlass-operated crossbow, not only do you have to be accurate and consistent with your firing, you also have to be fast, precise, and extremely consistent in your reloading procedure. Every shot with a heavy crossbow is preceded by a twenty or twenty-five second mechanical operation. Yes, you can learn to do it at a very basic level in a short period of time, but if you want to be actually good at it it takes plenty of practice. And of course the actual firing is the same way; anybody can point a crossbow and shoot it, and some people will be able to get pretty close to a nearby stationary target in a short period of time, but honing your accuracy and nerve to the point where you can reliably hit a moving target, at variable range, under battlefield conditions, while combat is going on around you and you might yourself be hit by an arrow or bolt at any moment, is a very different thing.

Obviously the skills, their requirements, and the buffs they give are highly unrealistic, but crossbow skill requirements are no more unrealistic than bow or riding skill requirements. Obviously anybody with even a very basic riding skill could try to ride any horse into battle; it would just be very dumb, realistically, to let someone without extensive riding experience take a temperamental, aggressive warhorse into battle. In a similar way, anybody with an hour of training could certainly take a windlass-operated steel-prod arbalest into combat, but it would be stupid to let them do so.

Oh, and also. . .

FlameRiot said:

The better the crossbow, the easier it should be to shoot it.

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This is most definitely not true for medieval crossbows. Modern-day, yes, modern machines have plenty of ease-of-use features, but heavy draw medieval crossbows did not. A light hand crossbow was certainly easy to use; a moderate-draw crossbow with a goatsfoot lever or some similar relatively simple reloading device, also pretty simple; a heavyweight crossbow of the kind that people think of when you say 'crossbow' in the modern day, no, those were the most complex to handle by far.

RegamusMaximus said:

Also a full draw weight war bow, is drawn and fired completely differently to the dude in the video. The draw weight was so high, there was no holding the draw and taking careful aim like in the video. There's literal manuscripts showing how it's drawn and released, it's all one fluid motion that uses the entire body, not simply arm and back strength like shown in that video.

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So, are you claiming that wasn't a bow of the stated weight? Because it is trivially easy to prove that Joe Gibbs can and does fire bows of that weight; he literally does it for a living. This video here;

CyberianK said:

The guy is Joe Gibbs he knows his stuff and he uses his whole body including much of shoulder and back muscles you see that in his special poses how he leans in that look weird at first glance to regular peoples:


The expression using the entire body usually means not just arm but whole upper torso including back muscles and shoulder. So I am a bit confused why you say "not just back muscles" you can't really do it much better than him and use more of the body. Using the entire body does not mean you use your toes and your **** as well it usually means the whole torso and shoulders in addition to just the arms.

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. . . Is the same guy firing a 170-pound yew longbow. When seen from the side, the way his pose 'uses the entire body' is obvious; he's physically leaning into the bow, pushing with his feet against the ground. He did the same thing in the Tod's Workshop video.

Crossbows were more expensive than longbows and not (on average) more powerful, but massively less demanding on the users and massively more convenient to wield, just because of the way bows operate.

If you want to aim and fire a medieval longbow you have to stand up straight, in a very particular pose, aim with your whole body, sight by eye and instinct with a tool that has no aids to help you place the shot properly, draw through raw muscle power, and fire without taking too much time because the strain of holding the bow - if it's powerful enough to seriously threaten armored men and horses - is too great to hold steady for long. Then you do that again, and again, and again. In order to do this as effectively as the English longbowmen, you need years of conditioning and training, to such an extent that it reshapes your bones - and even so, your performance will start to drop in short order, and long before the battle's over you'll be exhausted. Firing large war-bows is nearly as strenuous as fighting in melee is.

If you want to aim and fire a heavy medieval crossbow, on the other hand, you wind it with a cranequin or a windlass - which is a relatively slow process, but not incredibly strenuous. You sight down the crossbow rifle-style, with the stock against your shoulder, which is much more intuitive and easier to learn than a bow. You can do so from pretty much any position; standing, kneeling, sitting, lying down, through a slit in a castle wall, between close-set crenelations, from behind a pavise shield. You may not have quite the same range and power as a master longbowman with a large yew bow does, and you certainly don't have the same rate of fire, but you're much safer, probably more accurate, and while your gear is a lot more expensive in cash terms you don't represent literal decades of training like that longbowman does. You can be a functional military asset in a few weeks and a master in a year or two, and if you die it doesn't take an entire generation to replace you.

That's the difference. Both bows and crossbows had very high-powered and very low-powered examples in the medieval period, but if you're raising and equipping an army then getting maximum performance out of a high-powered bow required extremely specific circumstances and a very long time horizon, while getting maximum performance out of a high-powered crossbow just requires money.

AFAIK this issue is caused by the fact that NPC lords cannot attack hideouts currently, so hideouts sit there for the whole game getting stronger and constantly spawning bandit/looter parties unless you clear them yourself. And hideout battles suck, so you are in no way incentivized to actually do that.

It seems to take some time for high-tier armor to show up. At the start of the game the best stuff in Battanian cities was Woodland Clothing, which is a mid-tier light armor; now my save has gone on for several months and I'm a lord, and I'm finding tier-6 Highland Noble Armor in the same stores.

Might be just time, might be linked to clan tier, and/or might be linked to the prosperity of the town, I'm not sure.

White Ahroun said:

Man up and tank their arrows with a shield. Problem solved. Works for me every time.

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I mean, the problem isn't that the fights are impossible; except for when a hideout gets really, really out of hand (saw one with 49 Forest Bandits earlier tonight, and another with over 70 Sea Raiders) you can still win it. The problem is that it's a pain in the ass and makes no sense. If I know there are fifty bandits in this canyon, why the hell am I trying to take them on with nine dudes? At that point, I bring my whole army!

Yeah, hideout battles are pretty poorly designed - and, what's more of an issue, NPC lords apparently can't attack them, so within a few hundred days there are bandit parties everywhere. Which is good for leveling, sure, but kinda ruins the world as a whole.

Battanians, definitely. Khuzaits are cool and all, but nothing in the game is as hilarious as watching a firing line of Fianna mowing down entire armies as they struggle to close, then drawing their swords and slaughtering the ragged survivors in ten seconds flat. Even cavalry can't make contact half the time - Vlandian Knights launch their glorious charges, get their horses shot out from under them, power-slide into the Fianna on their faces and are instantly executed via falx to the back of the head.

Tournaments. Even if you don't modify the bet amounts, winning a tournament is good for several thousand denars. I play with bets amounts quintupled (500/250/100/50), so I can clear 20,000+ from winning a single tournament. After you win, ask the arena master where the next one will be, and go win that one too. Repeat until there are no tournaments running, then go do something else for a while and ask again after a few days. There'll be a new round of tournaments starting.

Magorian Aximand said:

Thick Knightly Heater Shield anyone?

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Yes please.

But of the two options, I'll go with Huscarl. Board shields are for peasants.

Even though I haven't been active for long, I find the idea of you disapproving of something because it's "cheating" strangely hilarious.

My highest shot difficulty was, I believe, a 6 point something. I am not an archer.

To be fair, it was at night from one running horse to another one running in the opposite direction.

NordMann 2 said:

Khazik said:

...I rolled as a Nord and to be honest I'm loving the infantry game.

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I think I love you! The Nords are asskickers, they are kickass without cavalry too. Just make sure you never go with the Swadians and heavy knights, okay?

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All you Nord pansies can bite my 300 couched lance damage.

I've never actually taken two shields; I very rarely lose a shield in combat. Of course, I mostly play as a lancer, so I take few hits. Is taking two shields common?

Hans Sterhiem Reinboc III said:

I once took Sargoth with 4 manhunters and a rhodok tribesman. no lie guys. Seriously guys. No lie.

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Bah. Pansy. I once took Praven with my bare hands.

EDIT: No, wait, I had a bag lunch. Cheese sandwich ftw.

Gotta say town here.

Depends on whether I'm playing infantry or cavalry.

As cavalry I'll go with a lance, a bastard sword and a shield. As infantry I get a crossbow with 2 bags of bolts and a bardiche. Occasionally I use blunt weapons if I want prisoners.

So, um, all of the above?

EDIT: That said, my favorite weapon in Native Expansion has gotta be the two-handed warhammer. That beast is sick.

Y'know what M&B really needs?

A "brace spear" action. When someone charging on horseback hits a braced spear, it uses their speed and calculates damage just like a couched lance attack. That would give infantry a useful counter to lancers.

Hell, I'd probably do the same thing I do in M&B now; mercenary work! I'm a decent hand with a sword in real life, and a crossbow is simple to use.

For equipment, I'm gonna go with the heaviest crossbow I could find (and a winch to cock it with), a targe and broadsword. Steel bascinet with a chain coif, mail shirt with padding, and tough bezainted (leather with metal disks riveted on) pants. I can't ride worth a damn, so no horse for me.