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I've tested a lot of different battle sizes, as far as choosing which troops enter combat when you have more troops available than battle size, troops are drawn in from the top of your party screen to the bottom. Put weak campaign map companions (surgeon, scout, engineer, trader, etc) at the bottom of the list (and I group them with archers), and your main troops at the top. This is tricky when you have a lot of one troop, for example, tier 2 archers. They often make up a third of my army, so I opt to put the higher tier of archers at the top of the list, and the tier 2 near the bottom, so they are drawn in as filler. This is another way to control your parties XP gain in larger battles. Put the low tier infantry troops up first so they can soften up enemies, and get more XP, preserving your higher tier troops.

With the looters/random bandits you'll have to manage in armies, I try to get one of them in my party at some point, and now that formation changes save permanently in game, put them in the 'Skirmisher' group. Use them to screen your archers from cavalry, or have them follow right behind you as you lead a cav charge, to tie up your enemies.

In massive battles, (talking ~1000v~1000, if I am in command I try to opt for a prodding strategy. Take a good place 1/3 or 1/2 way from your spawn to the enemy, use arrow fire, skirmishers, cav, or bring infantry close to bait them, horse archer skirmish and flank them, fight until they break, fall back to your original line, and wait for their push. They do get messy, since all of the infantry/archers are controlled as single blocks even in these massive battles, where they should really be split into multiple groups for the AI to command.

Strangely, I have not experienced this much in my game since 1.5.7, or on the .8 beta branch. The 3 ladder siege towers do sometimes have issues, but my army has been using ladders, the battering ram, all the catapult/ballistae/trebuchets I bring, and on low tier walls, the ramp siege tower is extremely effective.

Forlorn Hope said:

Some good points here.

For starters I think it'd be good just to give spears four attack directions when used with two hands and a speed bonus.

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Other than making animations, this seems like the best, easiest fix. Speed bonus I don't think I would touch, just increase the damage, or the spin poke will be even more incentivized.

Doesn't work in MP due to the presence of active block mechanic

Koshkasa said:

As for armor types, I guess TW wouldn't want to complicate fights that much. While what you've suggested is certainly realistic and curious to play around in a custom battle setting, in Campaigns that would force me to just carry three sidearms, each for a specific purpose, swapping them in the middle of a fight to my unlimited frustration. I guess there's a balance between realism and playability that we'd have to find first.

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It could complicate fights somewhat yes, but I would think it would mostly leverage the advantages of shock infantry and certain infantries with maces and axes, giving them a better place in fights. I wouldn't want slash damage for example to do no damage to lamellar, even though realistically it wouldn't. For gameplay, every weapon should be able to hurt any armor with speed bonus, enough weapon skill and athletics, even if it's only 10 or lower damage. Sabres and other slash only swords could become hack weapons, to beef them up vs armor or have even higher damage value to make up for lacking a piercing stab attack.

I'm not sure exactly what Viking Conquest did with armor, but they made lower tier spears deal cut damage, as well as certain arrows to make armor more efficient vs slash, and gave better axes pierce damage to allow them to penetrate armor as they should. Something could be done without changing the current mechanics too drastically.

Koshkasa said:

My bet is that a spear thrust from horseback would shatter the spear rather than penetrate plate, although the armor wearer is still gonna be quite unhappy because of the impact (don't quote me on that, I don't claim to have any level of expertise on the matter).

Piercing through chainmail, even higher weave density mail, sounds at least more credible, but debatable nontheless. It isn't like armor was designed to resist slashes and do nothing with other, not edge-based cutting weapons - you still have to overpower the strength of linkage, then the gambeson underneath, yada yada.

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I misspoke somewhat about spears through plate armor on foot, the likelihood of you penetrating and killing a knight as a spear wielding footman is incredibly low (praying for cheap armor), but you will be able to leverage the main disadvantage of plate armor, the fact that it deforms and can be made to be more cumbersome than it is protective. A spear driven as deep as possible into a plate cuirass may only penetrate 1mm through the armor, and of course because of the gambeson not reach the knight, but now the knight has a spear driven into his armor, giving leverage and maintaining distance. A similar concept to the pilum, I've shared a video of what they do to shields here previously. (
Edit: Didn't refresh page, vid has already been posted) You won't be fighting much with spears lodged in your armor, and taking time to remove one could get you killed.

In regards to spears or lances off horse, they absolutely would penetrate plate armor and kill the wearer. There is a reason for jousting tournaments the lances were blunted and the armor extra heavy, the force generated from a horse at full charge will give a small spear point deadly penetration, at the very least crushing the armor and leaving the knight unable to move, if not outright killing them from the trauma and broken bones or a quick death from being hit in the head.

Yes, penetrating chainmail is not easy, but very much possible. Even an untrained spearman can deliver a fatal stab through chainmail if their spear has an appropriate thin head and not a broad leaf blade. Once you've made it through the mail, the gambeson is hardly a factor, as the rings hold the spear straight and basically give you leverage to push deeper.





In game, I really wish Taleworlds would be more ambitious. Give us different TYPES of armor that are better or worse vs certain damage types, or more damage types that react differently against higher/lower values of armor, preferably both. Hack damage for axes, as an example, could have higher armor penetration stat up to a certain armor threshold than slash damage for swords, but slash damage gains bonus damage when they deal damage exceeding armor threshold by a certain number. Blunt and pierce could be alternately better vs different types of armor, blunt doing more consistent damage across armor types, but dealing lower value damage, while pierce could possibly completely negate armors such as cloth, leather and cheaper mail and deal higher damage than anything except high value/two handed axes until you reach lamellar and basic plate (coat of plates for Vlandia) armors, where blunt would deal the most damage not accounting for horse speed bonus, which should be higher for pierce weapons.

xdj1nn said:

you should learn more about real armor, what you've said about spears in formation is correct, what you've said about armors is just mind-boggling. A full plate armor is impenetrable unless there's so much force applied, that you'd have to be the Incredible Hulk or be mounted on a full speed charge to puncture it effectively. And even if you did, you could say goodbye to your spear/lance.

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I never said puncturing plate armor was easy. I said it was possible, which it is, and it can be deadly. Spears against plate armor is somewhat anachronistic, a peasant levy wielding spears would run before they fought plate armored knights, and trained footmen would be using two-handed polearms (pollaxe, corseque, halberd, etc), which have far more deadly offense against plate armor.

I remarked about gambeson & chain not being thick enough to stop a spear from hitting vitals if effort is applied, such is not necessarily true for plate armor, unless the specific style of armor had thin spots or a fatal design flaw guiding the spear-point to an opening in the armor(surprisingly not uncommon, such as some Gjermundbu style helmets guiding spears into the eyehole).

It's not really relevant to the game, where there is no true plate armor anyway. Spears should be a viable weapon in the game, right now they have some serious flaws that prevent them from being competitive.

Cèsar de Quart said:

It is weird, because most HEMA people say again and again that overarm grup is rubbish and underarm grip is way better when using spears.

BUT of course, sources show overarm grip all the time. Is it a tropos of the visual art, a remnant of a time where soldiers wore heavier armour and spears needed a lot of thrust and less reach and maneauvrability? Did they use them in a way HEMA people just don't know about?

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I think the overarm grip is definitely more visually compelling, spears raised in the air are easier to depict than them all clustered together, struggling to make it through the clash and into a foe. I do have suspicions about spears being used in an overhand grip by horsemen being fantasy, it would decrease the range of your weapon and the body mechanics don't work as well as a simple thrust. Perhaps if tied down against other cavalry or an army of very tall men?

The overarm grip isn't useless, it's HEMA's sport/duel aspect and particular historical focus that makes it perform and seem so. In a real combat you are killing people, not scoring points.

zenDzee said:

Can you kill with a spear by simply extending your arm? No, you cannot. You have to include body movement into your strike. In the game they strike only by extending their arms. And they lean forward just for the range. There is no power on their strikes. Do you want good damage in the game? - move you body during a strike.

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This is just a problem with animations in the game, which I do agree, are lacking. Simply because the animation is bad does not mean spears should be in the game.

Without armor? Yes I could absolutely kill someone with a spear and only my arm, standing still feet shoulder width apart, one arm at my side.

Stratigo said:

It also may be artistic representations of people throwing their spears and not actual overhand thrusting. Since over hand thrusting it just purely physically worse than a better grip.

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Having done historical shieldwall reenactment, you're wrong. Firstly, most of the representations are of spears far too long to be thrown, and in periods where this wasn't really common practice regardless.

Secondly, the overhand grip allows for a level change, now while your fellow spearmen stab at the legs and feet of the enemy, you stab over and into their neck/face. There is plenty of leverage to kill someone, and you actually have more of an arc infront of you where the spear is dangerous with an overhand grip. You'll also need an overhand grip to effectively fight 2nd rank with kite shields, the tail of the shield of the man infront of and to your right will severely restrict your movements.

zenDzee said:

You can pierce human flesh with a spoon. Of course, I mean the enemy in armor, at least in some decent gambeson or chainmail

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A spear can kill you through chainmail, a spear can kill you through plate armor even. Chainmail primarily stops slashing blows, and makes you a harder target to hit square, as you will glance off at bad angles even with a spear, but a direct hit will penetrate and potentially kill. The gambeson may save you from a spear if it's very thick and paired with chainmail to allow less of the spear to reach your body as fast, but spearheads are plenty long enough (usually, there are of course exceptions) to reach through these defenses with enough force to kill you.

For an example in Bannerlord, look at the Thin Fine Steel Hewing Spear. That could reach through and out your back, regardless of the armor.

The Battanian Mountain Blade.

Best 2h available for civilian use, looks good, all around good stats, 93 handling, 105 length AND swing speed, 99 cut, 100 thrust speed and 52 pierce damage!

My problem with horsemen in Skirmish is that there is no team collision damage. They stomp around and knock down only enemies in team fights, giving their footmen a huge advantage unless the other faction has access to similarly heavy cav (and cav players).

The Courser class is ridiculous. I shouldn't be able to go 15-0 without a care in the world for getting stopped by a spear because I can simply swing over my horses head and kill them with my 147 cut damage polearm while they tickle me with glance stabs and strikes.

How large are we talking? What's your battle size set to? At 1000, I have yet to see enemies respawning on the walls but I have seen them run from within the town out to the front gate (perhaps returning from being routed).

Also, how exactly was the siege paced better in Warband? Unless you mean the game in general? There was the ability to ask for surrender that is currently absent in Bannerlord, but being able to choose your siege engines and where you place them gives you more strategy than Warband... you can even knock entire walls down and run straight thru a la WFaS.

Bannerman Man said:

If what you say about pila is true Hndzm, then maybe having one stuck in your shield could reduce the speed attribute of the shield, making it slower to raise. That might cause someone to have to decide between potentially dropping the shield or risk getting hit from being slower to block. Not sure how feasible it is to program something like that though.

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I wouldn't suggest this exactly as a mechanic or anything, shield breaking would be good enough in my opinion.

They kill peasants/lightly armored troops pretty well, usually more ammo than javelins (depends on the specific unit/perks in MP) . They're ok at those jobs, javelins are much more deadly to armored units, can 1 shot kill. With throwing axes you'll probably do 20-50 damage on a bodyshot, and likely kill on headshot like other ranged weapons. I prefer javelins, they kill almost every time, and if you are throwing them into charging infantry they will kill due to speed bonus.

The reason they were used in real life isn't present in Bannerlord, which is that they bounce around and off the ground when they don't land head first in a shield or person and thus wreak havoc when thrown into a defensive formation or a charging enemy force, unlike javelins which stop or skid away from where they hit first. Pila would force you to drop the shield due to the long tapered heads which bend after piercing the shield (if not just killing you at this point) and cause your shield to be staked to the ground by the heavy shaft of the weapon.

EDIT: Pretty much anything else is more efficient for ranged weapons. Daggers < Axes < Javelins < Crossbow < Bow (which undoubtedly reigns supreme on horse and foot)

I really want TaleWorlds to look back at the formation systems in Viking Conquest. The shield walls were perfect, shields in front, staggered half a man as to allow swords/axes to attack from two lines deep, and spears reaching up to 3 men deep. In a skein, the heaviest infantry up front, tapering to the lightest at the ends of the wedge. We could also use a better way of creating line formations, for example creating a staggered skirmish line can be extremely difficult on flat terrain.

Auto resolve is the same as starting a manual combat and hitting F6 to let the sergeants take control of your army. Do this and watch what your army does in these battles where you vastly outnumber the enemy.

They all charge in as one blob, with their shields down. You will often lose high tier archers because they get out ahead of the infantry and get killed in a barrage of thrown weapons or arrows, same with your faster unshielded infantry.

Never use autoresolve unless you are trying to quickly train recruits that you don't mind losing a few of(even then it's better to set them as formation V (skirmishers) and use them in tandem with your archers).