Archers need a nerf.

[flavior flavius]

Observing the videos and considering the data again... I think the issue with archer > cavalry may actually lay more with the cavalry than with the archers. It seems that archers are only able to get off about two good volleys on charging cavalry, which seems about right... however the cavalry don't seem to be doing enough damage on the charge.

I still think that archers fire too fast and are too good in melee (only slightly worse than melee infantry), however, perhaps the dominance of archers in the current meta is due NOT to them being too good, but rather their direct counter (cavalry) being so horribly bad. I mean look at the cataphract charges in dabos37's videos... not a single fian killed on some of those charges, absolutely pathetic.

In this game we have a pathetic overabundance of well armored units.

Absolutely disagree, in fact I think the opposite... A line of 500 infantry dissolves in less than a minute in a general melee, which makes tactical maneuvering and flanking after contact has been made utterly pointless. If anything armor needs to be INCREASED across the board, and the damage bonus to movement on spears (cavalry) buffed to allow 1 hit kills through even the toughest armor. Or something along those lines.

A mass cavalry charge should be something to be feared, it should change the battle in an instant when it happens.

 

[Apocal]

Maybe part of the problem is that cavalry charges are not great in this game, but then you realize that cavalry is able to kill infantry pretty handy. So I think that it is pretty clear that archers are performing too good in this game without any doubt and all you need is archers in mass to masacre everything.

Which version are you on? I ask because I notice the behavior of the cavalry is to stay in formation and reform before charging again, rather than splitting off in all directions and collapsing inward.

What? Archers are helpless against shielded infantry for example. Cavalry is bad against archers only under certain circumstances and with certain numbers, as it should be.

Archers aren't helpless against shielded infantry. For starters, the AI isn't smart enough to adopt and maintain shieldwall formation until they run out of arrows. Secondly, any group off to a flank -- cavalry, other infantry or even a second division of archers -- will force them to split and give free shots on their unshielded side. Bannerlord's shields have a markedly smaller forcefield than Warband's, so even as little 60 degrees off-angle starts to give up hits and anything close to 90 degrees off-angle means most arrows will get through.

Combined with high rate of fire, you can easily rip apart an advancing infantry formation with shields with just a little bit of planning.

Meanwhile, he just posted a series of videos (one that I can't replicate) of archers outright destroying cavalry on completely flat ground, unsupported. If those aren't ideal circumstances for cavalry to run roughshod over archers, what are?

In this game we have a pathetic overabundance of well armored units. In addition most high tier cavalry has armored horses, something very seldomly seen in medieval reality

Very seldom is putting it more strongly than it deserves.

The Eastern Roman Empire, analogous to Bannerlord's Empire, was fielding armored warhorses in numbers sufficient to account for the entire first rank and typically a portion of the second and third ranks of their cataphracts as of the 6th and 7th centuries. This was due to the Persian influence (primarily) on their tactics and equipment.

The pre-Islamic Arab tribes that apparently inspired the Aserai didn't make use of armored warhorses, but they also didn't employ Mamluks. For the Egyptian dynasties that provide most of the inspiration for the in-game Mameluke line (judging by armor and nothing else) they also made a point of armoring considerable numbers their warhorses. And especially after contact with the Mongols in the 13th century, wherein the Mamluks abandoned an apparent prior preference for a mix of armored and unarmored warhorses to instead go with as many armored mounts as possible.

 

[KingEroc1st]

Anyway, I was wrong about terrain masking making a difference. Top of the hill, they did slightly worse.

2020-06-09 06-41-34

Watch "2020-06-09 06-41-34" on Streamable.

streamable.com

On basically as flat as you could reasonably ask for in this game, same outcome.

2020-06-09 06-49-51

Watch "2020-06-09 06-49-51" on Streamable.

streamable.com

both those "tests" are as biased and unfavorable to the archers as they possibly can be without facing opposite direction and hold arrows.
in the first desert map, the archers are on lower ground vs cavs charging over a hill at them. the archers are not formed up at all and are in tight position blocking each other from shooting, also they are on charge without face direction command so they are running around in circles instead of standing n shooting.
the second map is just as bad, flat land is the best terrain for cavalry and worse terrain for archers, once again, archers are not formed up, in tight position and issued charge command.

is that how you would use your archers? charge in tight formation? not utilize high ground?

 

[KingEroc1st]

I fail to see the point of making a comparison of equal number of archers vs equal number of cavalry on flat land. because it's completely irrelevant what the outcome is. this hypothetical scenario will never ever happen in a game. and the findings of this wouldn't be or any use for your game play.

if you are not putting your archers on high ground with 150m+ unobstructed vision and everyone able to shoot (no blockages of any kind). then you might as well not use them. there's the good old f1 f7. Frankly i immediately retreat from a battle and reset the map if there's no high ground for my archers in close range of my spawn area. by the same logic i avoid forests and fighting at night.

What about ease of access? Cavalry troops are rare and hard to come by while archers are available even straight from taverns sometimes 15 at a time. i can recruit 150 tier3+ archers in 30 days easily but can you get even 30 cavs in the same amount of time? now if we were to fight 150 vs 30 what would happen? i can hold fire and face them away and likely still win.

are Archers op? no because they can be countered, quite easily. are they effective? yes, maybe too effective. do they need a nerf? possibly since i don't think getting head shot for 75 damage wearing 50 armor helm is acceptable. when in reality a 500kg windlass crossbow can barely break plate from point blank. you know what happens when a 80kg longbow shoots a hardened bodkin arrow at plate armor from 25 meters? the arrow shatters. and the plate is slightly dented. now imagine if they were also wearing padded cloth over that plate...

 

[flavior flavius]

I fail to see the point of making a comparison of equal number of archers vs equal number of cavalry on flat land. because it's completely irrelevant what the outcome is. this hypothetical scenario will never ever happen in a game. and the findings of this wouldn't be or any use for your game play.

It allows us to compare the power of archers vs their direct hard counter (cavalry) in a vacuum. This is important because a clever commander can utilize terrain or the environment to give one side or the other advantages in the fight that may cloud the outcome. Flat land with no visual obstructions is about as unbiased as you can get, even if this scenario rarely shows up in actual play. If the cavalry cannot win in this unbiased environment against something they are supposed to hard counter it means either archers are overpowered or cavalry are underpowered.

are Archers op? no because they can be countered, quite easily. are they effective? yes, maybe too effective. do they need a nerf? possibly since i don't think getting head shot for 75 damage wearing 50 armor helm is acceptable.

Agreed, armor needs to do more. However I just want to point out that...

when in reality a 500kg windlass crossbow can barely break plate from point blank. you know what happens when a 80kg longbow shoots a hardened bodkin arrow at plate armor from 25 meters? the arrow shatters. and the plate is slightly dented. now imagine if they were also wearing padded cloth over that plate...

There is no plate armor in the game. This is for a very good reason. Allowing heavily armored troops to be impervious to arrows (or even near impervious) would not be a good change for the game. "Heavily resistant" to arrows is probably good enough if you want to see a good balance between archers, infantry, and cavalry.

 

[Apocal]

in the first desert map, the archers are on lower ground vs cavs charging over a hill at them.

No, they are not. Those archers are on the top of the hill.

the second map is just as bad, flat land is the best terrain for cavalry and worse terrain for archers

That was done at the other poster's request because...

I fail to see the point of making a comparison of equal number of archers vs equal number of cavalry on flat land. because it's completely irrelevant what the outcome is. this hypothetical scenario will never ever happen in a game. and the findings of this wouldn't be or any use for your game play.

It is used to illustrate that even in a situation where the archers should be losing (flat land, equal numbers of cavalry charging) they are still winning for some of us.

What about ease of access? Cavalry troops are rare and hard to come by while archers are available even straight from taverns sometimes 15 at a time. i can recruit 150 tier3+ archers in 30 days easily but can you get even 30 cavs in the same amount of time?

Yes, I can get 30 cav in 30 days. I can probably get 150 without too many problems. Horses are a one-time expense of approximately 350 denars when buying in large numbers at typical market prices. While 35,000 denars is no joke it is absolutely doable over 30 days by time you have a party size limit of 150 (i.e. mid-game). Every other expense is accrued by archers as well.

Of course, this is irrelevant for purposes of discussing their interaction on the battlefield. Players are not restricted to 30 days of recruiting for their parties and there is no mechanism in place that restricts the number, tier, composition or faction of their troops. Allowing unbalanced elements to disrupt or ignore their 'natural' counter on the basis of supposed rarity means that there is no tactical puzzle to be solved with each battle. You just take the time and effort to accumulate the offending element in decisive numbers and reap the rewards.

But the more pressing thing is that some of us are getting complete archer domination and others are getting cavalry steamrolling them and I can't figure out why.

 

[Alescor]

First of all you have to be more objective in general, I explain here it seems that there are two sides and I find it a bit silly. An example: lion and a gazelle there are people who have favored the gacella trying to remove the claws and tusks from the lion, which seems strange to me at least, that the archers are overpowered, I think there is not much doubt and that the armors are made of butter there is not much discussion either.

In my opinion, the parameters would have to be changed to make them more historically correct, "I know it is a non-historical game but they would also have to be improved" It is possible that when it is closer to the end of development this will be so since the heavy chivalry, it is compiled as league chivalry and that is likely to change.

by the way the scale armor had little to envy to one of plates, in terms of projectiles and nuanced projectiles
against lances if there is a considerable difference especially in cavalry, I explain a little in the most used constructions since there are hundreds of them and I will not go into all the pattern is that a plate is on the bottom so it is strong against decent trajectories such as arrows or bolts since the projectile, when not finding a weak point in its trajectory, will slide and fall to the ground or, with bad luck, crash into another area,
the spears, on the contrary, would be much more effective since The movement is ascentente and it would be much easier if it could go under a scale and pierce the armor, if the parameters of the armor and the lances were modified, they would already have three problems fixed.
1 archers overpowered
2 weak chivalry
3 useless spearmen for which
I come to the conclusion that the parameters of the game suck if they were modified, it is true that the archers would be practically useless against heavy units but this is life. use another unit against armored units

important note the cavalry in turn should be much more expensive and scarcer, since removing a few exceptions was frankly scarce since each knight's equipment "armor, horse, fence, ..." cost the same as a small village or a farm and not many people had these financial means without counting the maintenance that is not only the gentleman but his escort that was formed by a few men

 

[Dabos37]

I am playing 1.4.2 version.

Cavalry is designed in this way where It does not much damage on charge bit cavalry units are able to kill infantry without problems.

On the other hand, the archers accuracy un insane and if you pay attention to my videos, you can see a lot of headshods which makes no sense. The missile units in this game are way too accurate, even low tier archers and this is the main problem IMO.

People saying that archers are balanced... I just steongly disagree with this, archers are pretty OP without any doubt IMO and they are able to wreck everything, included shielded infantry.

 

[Sheepify]

Switch lower-tier arrows to cutting damage, see what happens.

They should be highly effective against low-armor shieldless troop types. They should get cheesed hard by heavier armored and/or shielded infantry in direct proportion of the quality of the latter.

They should get trampled into the ground like the inferior peons they are by majority, if not all, mounted units - switching to "cutting" would make horse armor more effective, and allow the cavalry at least one successsful attack pass unless severely outnumbered and pincushioned.

Of course, in case of cavalry, the fact that they currently are about as good with their melee weapons as in the training scene from Men in Tights exaberates the issue.

Important note the cavalry in turn should be much more expensive and scarcer

Agreed wholeheartedly. The fact that unit upkeep right now only considers troop tier, and not whether there's a sodding expensive horse that dood is riding on requiring upkeep (and wage proportional to the wealth investment it represents) is another part of the issue, since it allows far greater concentration of higher tier cavalry units in parties than decent balance would suggest.

 

[flavior flavius]

Switch lower-tier arrows to cutting damage, see what happens.

It doesn't make sense for some arrows to arbitrarily do cutting damage and some to arbitrarily do piercing damage. Armors' affects being increased across the board achieves ROUGHLY the same affect as switching arrows to cutting damage. It also solves the problem of infantry fights not lasting long enough, so that is a better change IMO.

Of course, in case of cavalry, the fact that they currently are about as good with their melee weapons as in the training scene from Men in Tights exaberates the issue.

I personally think this is a big part of the issue. Archer forces should be getting wrecked by cavalry charges without screening infantry to protect them and they really just aren't at the moment. Archers can even sometimes beat cavalry in melee.

First of all you have to be more objective in general, I explain here it seems that there are two sides and I find it a bit silly. An example: lion and a gazelle there are people who have favored the gacella trying to remove the claws and tusks from the lion, which seems strange to me at least...

To use your analogy, the lion SHOULD be winning the fight with the gazelle 99 times out of 100. Right now the gazelle is somehow winning and that means the gazelle is too strong or the lion is too weak.

 

[Sheepify]

It doesn't make sense for some arrows to arbitrarily do cutting damage and some to arbitrarily do piercing damage.

You mean the way a broadhead will work differenty compared to a bodkin arrowhead?

Armors' affects being increased across the board achieves ROUGHLY the same affect as switching arrows to cutting damage. It also solves the problem of infantry fights not lasting long enough, so that is a better change IMO.

Por que no los dos?
Though I'd rather avoid ending up with Elite Caraphracts or Legionairies being neigh invulnerable because most weapons that troops carry would just chip one or two hit points on hit due to excessive armor damage mitigation.

When you buff up armor, you need to consider that for it to be effective for lower-tier troops, it has the very possibility of being TOO effective for higher ones (much less the player/companions or NPC lords).

Also, it's much easier to tweak arrow damage type on all units for testing purpose than overhaul troop loadout for all the factions. It would also allow exceptional unit types (Fian Champions) to retain their "pew pew" prestige.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

I also think armor values are the main issue. Armor seems weak across the board but especially at the high end. Its weird to me that weapon damage was increased over Warband levels by at least 2-3X and even higher on certain weapons, but armor values are still roughly the same as they were in Warband. Plus the fact that every troop has 100 hit points makes it so there's not much of a gap between low tier and high tier troops. No troop can really tank anything because even looter weapons can hit for significant damage. Higher armor would separate the elites from the scrubs much better and give your heavy troops more survivability, plus make battles last a little longer

I wonder if it has something to do with how they've balanced the multiplayer class system and wanting to keep stats between SP and MP roughly similar. Its a key part of their MP class design to have low tier troops able to fight alongside high tiers, so if they're going to have that, then they can't make the high tiers overwhelmingly stronger than the low tiers or it wouldn't even be a contest. If they carried that balancing concept over to SP, then that would explain why armor isn't super effective and every troop has 100 HP.

 

[Alescor]

To use your analogy, the lion SHOULD be winning the fight with the gazelle 99 times out of 100. Right now the gazelle is somehow winning and that means the gazelle is too strong or the lion is too weak.

the gazelle would be the archers

my answer would be that both the gazelle has a m134 and the lion a butter armor

 

[flavior flavius]

You mean the way a broadhead will work differenty compared to a bodkin arrowhead?

Both arrowheads pierce. The bodkin just has a smaller surface area to concentrate the force of the impact and reduce friction.

Introducing a mechanic that makes some arrowheads do cutting damage and some do piercing damage is problematic for many reasons:

1. It is potentially confusing to the layman. The average player is not going to understand how much better piercing damage is vs cutting damage. It is counter-intuitive because it would often be better to take arrows with lower amounts of piercing vs than higher amounts of cutting damage.

2. Taleworlds would have to implement a system that deals with multiple arrowhead types (IE switching between them), which is additional developer time. (We do "technically" have different types of arrows in the game right now, but they are for all intents and purposes identical. The only difference between them is like 1-3 extra damage, and arrows are lumped into one stack, with no way to change order or switch between stacks).

3. It potentially makes cutting arrows too strong vs lightly armored troops while simultaneously being too weak vs heavily armored troops. Cutting damage is mitigated strongly by armor, whereas piercing damage tends to ignore a certain amount of armor. Having all arrows do piercing damage makes the damage curve between low armor and high armor targets less diametric and easier to balance. Making arrows from low tier archers do cutting damage may make weird balance situations arise where these archers dominate in battles with lightly armored troops (even more than now) and are utterly useless in battles with heavily armored troops. I do think that armor should mitigate arrow damage, but not to the extent that it makes them a nonissue.

4. Simply increasing the damage mitigation of all armors across the board would solve this issue adequately IMO, as well as solves a host of other battle issues. A simpler change that solves multiple issues is infinitely more preferable to a more convoluted change that only solves a narrow subset of issues.

Though I'd rather avoid ending up with Elite Caraphracts or Legionairies being neigh invulnerable because most weapons that troops carry would just chip one or two hit points on hit due to excessive armor damage mitigation.

This would be overbuffing armor. However, I would like to see a peasant whacking a fully armored knight over the head with a cheap sword do like 7-10 damage out of 100 HP, that is about where it should be IMO. As it stands now it's more like 20-25 damage.

Also, it's much easier to tweak arrow damage type on all units for testing purpose than overhaul troop loadout for all the factions. It would also allow exceptional unit types (Fian Champions) to retain their "pew pew" prestige.

You wouldn't have to touch troop loadouts, just... oh say roughly double the amount of damage mitigation that each point of armor value gives. Perhaps that is a bit hamfisted and it would need to ultimately be tweaked, but that is a good starting point.

 

[rektasaurus]

Lowly troops being able to deal good damage against top tier troops is absurd.

Said the noble knight as the peasant he was bullying last season used his gisarme to pull him off his horse and stab him in the eyehole.

The stones are annoying. Their aim is way too good for the scale of the game. Wait to flank until after they’re engaged, then they don’t throw stones. I just don’t understand how they find so many perfectly sized stones. They must be everywhere.

 

[William7667]

The stones are annoying. Their aim is way too good for the scale of the game. Wait to flank until after they’re engaged, then they don’t throw stones. I just don’t understand how they find so many perfectly sized stones. They must be everywhere.

Yes they should just give them slings then it wouldnt feel out of place to be hit so hard with a rock.

 

[rektasaurus]

Yes they should just give them slings then it wouldnt feel out of place to be hit so hard with a rock.

Ha so true omg. Oh slingers. The worst unit type ever.

 

[geala]

...


Absolutely disagree, in fact I think the opposite... A line of 500 infantry dissolves in less than a minute in a general melee, which makes tactical maneuvering and flanking after contact has been made utterly pointless. If anything armor needs to be INCREASED across the board, and the damage bonus to movement on spears (cavalry) buffed to allow 1 hit kills through even the toughest armor. Or something along those lines.

A mass cavalry charge should be something to be feared, it should change the battle in an instant when it happens.

That's not the point. There is an overabundance of heavy armor in the game. Look at the units. Currently it just has no great effect against archers because of the Pierce damage. And some other effects.

If you made armor work against archers like many want, there will be an imbalance in the game. I played from 1.2.1 till 1.4.0 with several mods making armor stronger and/or archers weaker (like Range Refine, Real Armor, Custom Damage, setting bows/crossbows to Cut, and so on). It lead to crazy effects, not only considering the archer's effectiveness. It for example also made tournaments with lords or high tier Empire units impossible because they hack at each other with swords for 10 minutes and more.

So, many top tier units became nearly unkillable which would not be a problem if there weren't so many on the battlefield. But they are with some factions. Bad for the other factions. The recent changes which gave the AI a lot of artificial benefits for troop training only add to the problem. In the end it was not a good feeling to have made archery nearly pointless.

I stopped going this way. I don't say archers are ok in vanilla. For me it is just not a projectile-armor relation mainly.

I use the following changes:
- bows shoot slower (- 20), crossbows shoot slower a lot (- 40)
- bows are less accurate
- Custom Damage mod makes heavy armor a bit more resilient (at least I think so ...) and nerfs ranged Pierce damage a bit while buffing melee Pierce damage
- all metal helmets get 10 armor

It feels better now.

 

[Alescor]

That's not the point. There is an overabundance of heavy armor in the game. Look at the units. Currently it just has no great effect against archers because of the Pierce damage. And some other effects.

If you made armor work against archers like many want, there will be an imbalance in the game. I played from 1.2.1 till 1.4.0 with several mods making armor stronger and/or archers weaker (like Range Refine, Real Armor, Custom Damage, setting bows/crossbows to Cut, and so on). It lead to crazy effects, not only considering the archer's effectiveness. It for example also made tournaments with lords or high tier Empire units impossible because they hack at each other with swords for 10 minutes and more.

So, many top tier units became nearly unkillable which would not be a problem if there weren't so many on the battlefield. But they are with some factions. Bad for the other factions. The recent changes which gave the AI a lot of artificial benefits for troop training only add to the problem. In the end it was not a good feeling to have made archery nearly pointless.

I stopped going this way. I don't say archers are ok in vanilla. For me it is just not a projectile-armor relation mainly.

I use the following changes:
- bows shoot slower (- 20), crossbows shoot slower a lot (- 40)
- bows are less accurate
- Custom Damage mod makes heavy armor a bit more resilient (at least I think so ...) and nerfs ranged Pierce damage a bit while buffing melee Pierce damage
- all metal helmets get 10 armor

It feels better now

first, each one can think one thing and although it is not approved, the other's opinion must be respected, I say this because I write with a translator and at no time do I want to disrespect anyone.
What you say is a bit contradictory, I mean, you say that the game would be broken if the armor parameters were modified, but the game is already broken with a type of unit that is practically immortal. You then put them down the firing speed and precision which is nerfing from my point of view.
therefore I do not see what would be the problem of giving other parameters to get some use out of other units such as lancers that today are completely useless.
The thing about the armored units if they would have to be fixed as well, personally I think that they will raise the price of recruiting and maintenance, the problem would fix itself since you could not have as many armored units as now.
It is true that archer units would no longer be as effective as now and you would be forced to use other units to protect them, which is the most normal thing, from my point of view it would be more fun to have to think a little than just have to take units. of archers capable of destroying anything with ridiculous losses.
I have nothing in favor or against any unit of the game I have played a few games thanks to the covid, in different ways, with a little of each, only with cavalry, only infantry, only archers, only looters "this did not end very well but I laughed a lot ", ..
the one with the fewest casualties I had was with archers since the enemy units rarely arrived and if they arrived they were literally erased from the map. I think that a game that only with one unit you win without having to think is completely broken

 

[Sheepify]

Both arrowheads pierce. The bodkin just has a smaller surface area to concentrate the force of the impact and reduce friction.

We're discussing this within the scope of an already heavily abstractizing system. It's not a simulation. Considering how Bannerlord handles cutting and piercing damage, the change would better reflect the intended performance of higher quality armor against arrows than simply increasing armor values, or damage mitigation from existing stats.

Introducing a mechanic that makes some arrowheads do cutting damage and some do piercing damage is problematic for many reasons:
1. It is potentially confusing to the layman. The average player is not going to understand how much better piercing damage is vs cutting damage. It is counter-intuitive because it would often be better to take arrows with lower amounts of piercing vs than higher amounts of cutting damage.

That's a cop-out of an argument. "Layman" will accept the game working as it is and is unlikely to analyse it for any kind of historicy. Though they might at least be bothered to learn the difference between "cutting" and "piercing" damage types within the game, information that will serve them well with other weapon types (why isn't it a problem that "thrust" values of polearms are distinctly lower than "swing" to you?)

2. Taleworlds would have to implement a system that deals with multiple arrowhead types (IE switching between them), which is additional developer time.

Uh... what? You just flip a damage tag from "piercing" to "cutting," and the existing code handles the rest. No idea what you're talking about here. "Blunt" arrows and bolts are already in, work, and don't need any special handling or coding.

3. It potentially makes cutting arrows too strong vs lightly armored troops while simultaneously being too weak vs heavily armored troops.

"Potentially." If it turns out whatever initial implementation damage values are are too high, you just tone it down. While maintaining the inherent distinction between light and heavy armor that already exists within the code - at least as far as "cutting" damage is concerned.

Cutting damage is mitigated strongly by armor, whereas piercing damage tends to ignore a certain amount of armor. Having all arrows do piercing damage makes the damage curve between low armor and high armor targets less diametric and easier to balance. Making arrows from low tier archers do cutting damage may make weird balance situations arise where these archers dominate in battles with lightly armored troops (even more than now) and are utterly useless in battles with heavily armored troops.

Is't that kind of the whole point of this discussion? Yes, your low-tier archers SHOULD be, perhaps not "utterly," but very much effectively useless against heavily-armored enemies. And if this turns out to screw over the overall combat balance, you can always tweak damage values of that handful of arrows (or even bows themselves) much faster than armor values for everyone.

4. Simply increasing the damage mitigation of all armors across the board would solve this issue adequately IMO, as well as solves a host of other battle issues. A simpler change that solves multiple issues is infinitely more preferable to a more convoluted change that only solves a narrow subset of issues.

That's how you end up with untouchable Elite Cataphracts, Bucellari, Palatine guards, Legionairies... see the trend here?

I really don't understand how you can think addressing a specific issue is done best by overhauling entire combat balance instead of addressing the area that needs attention specifically.

This would be overbuffing armor.

At least we agree on something, heh.

However, I would like to see a peasant whacking a fully armored knight over the head with a cheap sword do like 7-10 damage out of 100 HP, that is about where it should be IMO.

The change you propose is more likely to result in elite two-hander troops needing several hits to drop the same heavily armored enemy. Goodbye balance.

You wouldn't have to touch troop loadouts, just... oh say roughly double the amount of damage mitigation that each point of armor value gives. Perhaps that is a bit hamfisted and it would need to ultimately be tweaked, but that is a good starting point.

No. Flat no.

Axes are already pretty underperforming compared to swords. Spears with swing attacks are suddenly even more useless. Factional troop balance goes right out of the window.

Again, I really fail to see how this is superior approach to simply changing damage type (and perhaps tweaking arrow/bow damage for a handful of unique items).

Ha so true omg. Oh slingers. The worst unit type ever.

Y'all want to now lose half of your T5 army to a random groop of looters now?