Archers need a nerf.

[Sheepify]

It’s a box with six sides. They don’t have to overhaul ****.

How exactly is the game supposed to determine if that strike hit armored part of the head or not, then? It's not coded to do it, various helmets have different face coverage, or use different type of material in their construction.

General "head protection" value is an abstraction, and as annoying as it may seem, I strongly suspect it's a good compromise for the sake of performance.

 

[Gelimer]

I think that overall in this thread, we almost all agree that armour needs to be implemented in a more realistic way.

It is normal that people disagree on details because reality is complex and the game is just a reduction of it.

However from a gameplay perspective ( for people playing on max difficulty ) i would like archers to remain strong because of how the game plays out, the player being almost always outnumbered, for instance yesterday i had to fend off 2300 men ( 3 armies ) sent by Vlandia with only 550 men while sieging Revyl even though Vlandia is really far and at war with other factions but they just focus on that meaningless city for them. ( poor city and far from their lands even though they are supposed to defend their main hub down south, they sent almost everything they have on me)

Also from a tactical point of view, specializing in elite cavalry is still strong in this game because if you dominate the flanks and can attack from multiple directions or encircle the enemy then charge, it is quite effective, not to mention horse archers armies are deadly in player s hands and the AI often doesnt know what to do in those situations of being encircled.

Specializing in heavy infantry is also quite strong because if you screen your infantry attack with shield wall troops, you dont take many losses from missiles before your infantry behind them makes contact. You can flank with 2 handers and javelin units and just need a bit of cav to distract their range units.

So IMO if you specialize in archers, I think it should still remain very dangerous as it is currently ( perhaps too much currently hence this thread but mostly due to quality armours not resistant enough ).

I love realism but I also want the game to be somewhat balanced and the fact is reality was not balanced ( well trained troops and veterans/mercs were in finite supply so they had to make the numbers with commoners).

In the game you can have as many elite cavalry as you can afford and archers that would take years to train are easily recruitable everywhere.. if you lose them in battle, you can get good troops back in a matter of days. So technically it means the AI can spam troops with good armor easily.

So any change has to make sure that it is still possible to win against a much larger force wih few casualties IMO ( sry for long post)

 

[Sheepify]

However from a gameplay perspective ( for people playing on max difficulty ) i would like archers to remain strong because of how the game plays out, the player being almost always outnumbered

I strongly disagree that this should be a driving balancing consideration in any form. If anything, the player and AI should play by the same rules as much as possible - at least as far as my personal preferences are concerned.

We already got the army creation tools in Bannerlord to allow player the same numerical presence as the AI. If you aren't using them (for whatever reason) that's your choice. We already have troop tiering that drastically impacts the outcome of a fight, regardless of the troop type - again, it is something directly infuenced by player's decisions, to a much greater degree than in AI's case (have yet to see AI build up a party made up of only - or even mainly - Fians, as an example). The player will always have a way to min-max additional advantage out of their party setup, something the AI, by its implementation, will not achieve.

It's awesome to take on superior enemy force and win, but this should come as a result of efforts put into party preparation (troop quality and party composition decisions), coupled with tactical decisions, not just a result of some troop type being outright "better" against anything thrown at it.

 

[KingEroc1st]

the reason missiles shouldn't do as much damage compared to a spear thrust is due to the force involved.
the golden equation here: F=Ma (force = mass x acceleration)
an arrow is typically around 20grams, when it's released from the bow there's only 20grams of weight behind it.
a spear is a few pounds, and you are holding it in your hand. often times thrusting with forward momentum (your body weight or even your horse's)

that means the mass involved in a spear thrust is significantly higher than that of the arrow. exactly how much it's difficult to gauge since it would depend on your own mass and momentum (you might only use a fraction of your own weight in the thrusting direction, or most of it) but we can assume it's in the ball park of 1000x-30000x. at 1000x it's only 20kgs of mass. an average skinny person is like 60kgs and has more pushing strength in his arms than 20kgs. at 30000x it's 600kgs which is probably still less than a fully armored warhorse+ it's rider.

which means the acceleration of the arrow needs to be at least 1000x that of the spear to deliver the same amount of force. acceleration is velocity over time over time. the game engine tells you the velocity of each of your attacks at the moment it connects, but no time (it's really not relevant since we can eliminate same variables from both sides of the equation)

from my personal experience, an arrow typically hits around 60-90m/s
a spear on foot is around 3-6m/s, on horseback typically 8-16m/s and at full gallop i've seen as high as 30-35m/s

when it comes to damage, against unarmored targets in arena practice or vs looters.
arrow from steppe bow (about 40p dmg similar to spears, the noble longbow has 95 dmg i won't use it in this comparison) does around 35-45 damage.
thrust from spear on foot (using high tier 38-40p dmg spears) about 35-55 damage. on horse about 60-140. and full gallope as high as 200+

this certainly means that spears require a lot less velocity to deliver the same amount of damage. but is it proportional to mass or force? the answer is also no. from the minimal numbers of each experiment you can deduce that the mass factor of the spear is about 20x of the arrow, not the 1000x i was expecting. meaning the effective weight behind the spear is about 400 grams compared to the 20 grams of the arrow.
I don't know what else to add here. it seems pretty absurd that when i thrust at your face with all my strength after a quick run up, there's only 400 grams of weight behind my attack... i guess i'm skinnier than i thought.

 

[KingEroc1st]

It's awesome to take on superior enemy force and win, but this should come as a result of efforts put into party preparation (troop quality and party composition decisions), coupled with tactical decisions, not just a result of some troop type being outright "better" against anything thrown at it.

I don't think that is the case here, aside from Fians the archers in this game are not that op. even with high ground and unobstructed vision. they struggle against shield infantry advance, and 100 archers vs 100 infantry same tier, with high ground defensive advantage the infantry will still be able to get into range losing less than 20% of his men (vs ai here, he's not using shield wall or anything, just advance, i'd say 90% of my shots end up on the shields) Fians are special since they use 2h weapons and those are strong vs infantry. so they'll win vs infantry in melee only not to mention the range part leading up to it.
Personally I've always fought greater numbers of enemies since they cycle troops too frequently and don't keep enough high tier. even still i'm fighting opponents with similar or greater power levels. the constant problem is my archers running out of arrows. so i have to be very very efficient with "fire at will"

 

[hruza]

The Peasant Rebellion was not fought by peasants?

Read what I wrote again. And this time please dob't cut anything off.

The Bohemian conflict that popularized the use of trashing flail (a very much improvised agricultural tool turned a weapon) was not fought by peasants? What?

It did not popularize any such thing, use of flails in combat is recorded as far back as 5th crusade and likely dates further back. And while peasants saw plenty of fighting during Hussite wars, as all Hussites were considered heretics and crussades were declared against them, they were not part of Hussite armies.

You mean like the villeins, who constituted majority of longbowmen levy?

Except they did not:

Henris II Assize had required that all freemen with 40-100s. of land or 9-20 marks of chattels should serve with bow, arrows and sword.
Armies of Feudal Europe 1066-1300

According to historian Clive Bartlett, the English armies of the 14th century, including the longbowmen, mainly comprised the levy and the so-called ‘indentured retinue’. The latter category entailed a sort-of contract between the King and his nobles that allowed the monarch to call upon the retainers of the noblemen for purposes of wars (especially in the overseas).

This pseudo-feudal arrangement fueled a class of semi-professional soldiers who were mostly inhabitants from around the estates of the lords and the kings. And among these retainers, the most skilled were the longbowmen of the household. The archers from the King’s own household were termed the ‘Yeomen of the Crown’, and they were rightly considered the elite even among the experienced archers.

The other retainers came from the neighborhoods of the great estates, usually consisting of followers (if not residents) of the lord’s household. Interestingly enough, many of them served the same purpose and received similar benefits like household retainers. There was also a third category of the retainer longbowman, and this group pertained to men who were hired for specific military duties, including garrisoning and defending ‘overseas’ French towns.

https://www.realmofhistory.com/2016/05/03/10-interesting-facts-english-longbowman/

Sorry, no peasants there.

The same "serfs" (because that wasn't a term used in England) that are literally mentioned in Henry III's Assize of Arms of 1252 as required to be armed, by law?

It was used. It was used in it's original Latin form "servus".
https://www.etymonline.com/word/serf

And they are not mentioned in Assize of Arms.

Except you weren't talking about serfs exclusively, but peasants. Which includes freemen, who very much were the backbone of medieval levies until the armies turned professional.

Except all this nonsense about "peasant armies" implies specifically poor unarmed and untrained serfs, not relatively wealthy and small in number free farmers who held their own land and did not own service to a lord. Majority of feudal peasants were serfs -people who did not held any land, instead worked and lived on the land of the lord.

Freemen, or free tenants held their land by one of a variety of contracts of feudal land tenure and were essentially rent-paying tenant farmers who owed little or no service to the lord, and had a good degree of security of tenure and independence. In parts of 11th century England freemen made up only 10% of the peasant population, and in the rest of Europe their numbers were small.
https://middleages.fandom.com/wiki/Serf

I'll see your wikipedia claim of one author and raise you collected cited examples of contemporary laws requiring specific military equipment (if not training) from various segments of the society.

Do you realize this is validation of the statement that armed peasants were part of the levy and participated in combat?
No, it could very well consist of burghers (Italian city-states certainly used those), but does not discount "peasants" at all - quite the contrary, you yourself provided validation to it.

I don't see peasants mentioned in any of the cited examples. Mere fact that those laws require people to own weapons and armor shows that they don't talk about poor peasantry.

 

[hruza]

The topic of the thread is “nerf archers”, that’s why I keep trying to bring it back to missiles... What’s wrong with putting my opinion on the internet that if my attack hits a surface of a hitbox which is armored I’d like it to do little to no damage. If it hits a surface on a hitbox which is unarmored, it should do full damage. That’s literally how it is now. What are you arguing with me about I don’t get it?

Hitboxes in Bannerlord are not made by individual rings and scales. They are made of whole limbs and torsos. When you hit torso, game does not look if place where you have landed hit is covered by scale or ring or not. Instead it apply armor average over whole hit box and reduces damage by an abstract %. Damage model does not distinguish between surfaces that are cowered by pieces of armor or not.

There's nothing wrong with your opinion, it's just impossible to implement in the game, because damage model is not sufficiently detailed.

Because current Bannerlord implementation makes archers more effective of an unit type than anything comparable.

That's subjective opinion. I don't find archers overpowered at all.

Your melee infantry will still take damage and potentially die to enemies they fight - even the lowliest looter. Your cavalry, more often than not, won't even hit anything charging, and will take damage and die when properly countered (and there are multiple ways of doing it).

Archers, by their definition, sit there and, currently, kill significant portion of enemy force even before being threatened themselves in any meaningful way. Basically, they overperform.

Unless you protect your archers, they are going to take damage in pear to pear fight. Of course you can place 100 fian champions against AI army of 50 of which 20 are t1 and it will melt before reaching your line, ...but that does not demonstrate anything.

So while "simulation-wise" armor type should be far more resillient to all weapons compared to how Bannerlord currently works (and whether or not that would benefit the game is, frankly, another discussion), archers are the major offender.

Armor definitely shouldn't be far more resilient. You can barely do any damage to highest tier armors in the game if you use mediocre weapons and low skill. Arena fights are perfect demonstration. Pushing armor resistance higher would make t5-t6, lords and potentially player and his companions almost invulnerable to most units in the game. It would break the game. It takes more then dozen arrows using low level bow to kill certain lords in the arena already. How high do you want to go?

 

[Sheepify]

Read what I wrote again. And this time please dob't cut anything off.

You're arguing that something that literally began as series of rural local uprising was fought by nobility and rich urbanites. Gotcha.

It did not popularize any such thing, use of flails in combat is recorded as far back as 5th crusade and likely dates further back. And while peasants saw plenty of fighting during Hussite wars, as all Hussites were considered heretics and crussades were declared against them, they were not part of Hussite armies.

First of all... the imagery of Bohemian flail-wielding peasant fighting Germanic knight was even used by contemporary German bishops as appeal for support of the crusades. After said "flowers of Germanic nobility" got soundly trounced by unwashed masses yet again. It's also something mentioned in most of the sources I'm familiar with, in one way or another, but bugger if I'm going to dig those books out right now, especially since most aren't in English anyway.

Secondly, just because it was something in use earlier on, does not discount the point that it was something that saw (as attested by various sources that survived) unusually high use in that specific conflict. Possibly because the long-hafted flails were not just readily available and effective against targets' armor, but also because they were something that could be used much better from within the confines of a Wagenburg than other weapon types. Lastly, to claim that "peasants were not part of Hussite armies" shows complete ignorance of the subject matter. I'd suggest starting with "Warrior of God" by Victor Verney. There aren't a lot of decent English sources for that lamentably overlooked conflict, but it should provide you with at least some basics.

Except they did not:
Henris II Assize had required that all freemen with 40-100s. of land or 9-20 marks of chattels should serve with bow, arrows and sword.

Are you for real?

Page 481-482 of the Assize https://archive.org/details/closerollsofreig04grea/page/482

Rough translation for the lowest-status, courtesy of an internet stranger (since I can about remember "puella pulchra est" by now):

Those with goods valued at 10 marks must have sword, knife, bow, and arrows (gladium, cultellum, arcum et sagittas).
Those with goods valued between 40 shillings and 10 marks must have scythes (falces), knives (cultellos), guisarmes (gysarmas), and other small arms (et alia arma minuta).
Those who live in the woods that can come out must have bows and arrows (arcum et sagittas), or they can have bows and piles (arcus et pilettos).
That's the "Omnes eciam alii qui possunt habere arcum et sagittas extra forestam habeant; quite vero in foresta arcus et pilettos." part on page 482

According to historian Clive Bartlett, the English armies of the 14th century, including the longbowmen, mainly comprised the levy
[..]
Sorry, no peasants there.

You're literally citing a source telling you that the armies were mainly peasants.

It was used. It was used in it's original Latin form "servus".
https://www.etymonline.com/word/serf

And they are not mentioned in Assize of Arms.

Maybe because "serf" is a late 15th century term, and the Assize is 13th? I mean, just a wild guess.

Except all this nonsense about "peasant armies" implies specifically poor unarmed and untrained serfs

No, that's your baseless assertion.

They were poorly armed and poorly (if at all) trained, compared to any of the "professional" warriors they would face, much less the life-long training of the noble warrior class. At least outside of cities (and Italy in general) where the population tended to be comparably wealthier, but statistically constituted much lower percentage of general population than rurals.

not relatively wealthy and small in number free farmers who held their own land and did not own service to a lord. Majority of feudal peasants were serfs -people who did not held any land, instead worked and lived on the land of the lord.

You mean like the "people who live in the woods" from the Assize?

Oh, and by the by, if you read on THAT subject (I'd suggest the Gies' work as a decent starting point), you'll learn that English freeman was anybody from a seasonal worker with just a shirt on their back of their own, to a wealthy landowner. Which is why the armament requirements were given based on personal wealth, not the legal class or subclass they belonged to.

I don't see peasants mentioned in any of the cited examples. Mere fact that those laws require people to own weapons and armor shows that they don't talk about poor peasantry.

Won't see what you don't want, I guess.

You're literally citing examples of peasant levy and claiming they weren't peasants because they did not belong to (according to you, anyway) specific sub-class of peasants.

 

[Sheepify]

Unless you protect your archers, they are going to take damage in pear to pear fight. Of course you can place 100 fian champions against AI army of 50 of which 20 are t1 and it will melt before reaching your line, ...but that does not demonstrate anything.

Funny, because my massed Vlandian levy crossbows (literally no other infantry troop along) coupled with a handful of cavalry to break up enemy formation (and derp the AI) don't get that many losses against various comparably-sized lords' parties. And most of that is ranged counter-fire, anyway. Or get that many opportunities to have to switch to melee weapons in the first place.

Armor definitely shouldn't be far more resilient.

I was writing in terms of "realistic" performance, not game balance. I argued earlier on that, right now, I'd rather see changing lower-tier arrow damage to cutting type precisely to avoid overtweaking armor's resistance.

Though people who point out how quick-paced moshpit of a fight field battles are do have a point, and armor tweaks might be a good way to address that.

 

[Brentimus Maximus]

I think we should have friendly fire, that would seriously change the impact of archers and offer some additional tactical decisions. You could have settings for your archers to indicate your inclination to risk when their is a chance of crossfire. To me, archers seem overpowered because they are effective even when I've got them shooting into a crowd of my own forces. That whole abstraction annoys me. It would suck to be hit by your own but this was a real problem in warfare.

 

[rektasaurus]

I think we should have friendly fire, that would seriously change the impact of archers and offer some additional tactical decisions. You could have settings for your archers to indicate your inclination to risk when their is a chance of crossfire. To me, archers seem overpowered because they are effective even when I've got them shooting into a crowd of my own forces. That whole abstraction annoys me. It would suck to be hit by your own but this was a real problem in warfare.

I think they just don’t shoot if there isn’t a clear line of sight. Mp has friendly fire.

Hitboxes in Bannerlord are not made by individual rings and scales. They are made of whole limbs and torsos. When you hit torso, game does not look if place where you have landed hit is covered by scale or ring or not. Instead it apply armor average over whole hit box and reduces damage by an abstract %. Damage model does not distinguish between surfaces that are cowered by pieces of armor or not.

There's nothing wrong with your opinion, it's just impossible to implement in the game, because damage model is not sufficiently detailed.



That's subjective opinion. I don't find archers overpowered at all.



Unless you protect your archers, they are going to take damage in pear to pear fight. Of course you can place 100 fian champions against AI army of 50 of which 20 are t1 and it will melt before reaching your line, ...but that does not demonstrate anything.



Armor definitely shouldn't be far more resilient. You can barely do any damage to highest tier armors in the game if you use mediocre weapons and low skill. Arena fights are perfect demonstration. Pushing armor resistance higher would make t5-t6, lords and potentially player and his companions almost invulnerable to most units in the game. It would break the game. It takes more then dozen arrows using low level bow to kill certain lords in the arena already. How high do you want to go?

Yeah so front face of head = no armor value if wearing helm without visor. It’s literally not that difficult to apply the “abstraction” you’re talking about to faces of a box... the game already has the hit detection and I’m pretty sure already does it god it’s just such a simple concept. You must be trolling me. Why on earth would I advocate that Bannerlord simulate each ring of chain mail?

 

[flavior flavius]

We'll never reach an agreement, because I think we expect different things from the game.

Agreed. I wouldn't want to play bannerlord if low-tier archers were "effectively useless" vs heavy infantry. I mean, they are overperforming now but that would be too much of a nerf. Though, I'm glad we seem to agree on the fact that archers are indeed overperforming, rather then debating whether the problem even exists like some denialists in the thread.

However from a gameplay perspective ( for people playing on max difficulty ) i would like archers to remain strong because of how the game plays out, the player being almost always outnumbered

I strongly disagree that this should be a driving balancing consideration in any form. If anything, the player and AI should play by the same rules as much as possible - at least as far as my personal preferences are concerned.

Absolutely 100% agreed. Overpowered archers should not be a crutch just so that players can defeat AI forces of greater strength.

are you saying that one of the best tactical counter to archers in both history and in game is irrelevant in the discussion of whether archers are over powered because the AI is not programmed to use it in an early release game yet? because it sure seems like that's what you are saying.

Yes. Straight up. You have to balance for the game you have, not the game you want. Unless the developers have stated otherwise, I do not see the battle AI changing at any point going forward in development. AI systems are, as a general rule, the most time-intensive and complicated part of software development, and messing with it at this point MAY be too much of a risk vs reward for Taleworlds. Archers need to be balanced around the fact that the AI cannot use shieldwall. If the AI somehow gain that ability later we can re-evaluate.

Cavalry is not the hard counters to archers, at least not historically. since archers were used in ambushes, with high ground advantage or volleying behind infantry, they almost never face cavalry in direct combat. when they did, it was more of a tactical mistake/outplay rather than troop counter.

Absolute bull. You are wrong from an IRL perspective (Apocal already explained things adequately so I'm not going to harp on about it). You are also wrong from a videogame perspective. Cavalry has always been the traditional counter to archers in medieval strategy games, and I do not see why they shouldn't be considered so here.

There is no such thing as a "counter unit" in real life. Archers were not counter to cavalry and cavalry was not counter to archers. That's a computer game stuff.

Um... This IS a computer game. I do not understand why you are so consistently opposed to the rock/paper/scissors concept of spearmen>cavalry>archers>spearmen. Is it (slightly) inaccurate? Yes. But, it is a concession for fun gameplay and an expected trope in the genre.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

Cavalry should absolutely be a counter to archers, but of course it would be dumb to make it as simple as rock paper scissors.

Just like how cavalry can defeat spear blocks by hitting flanks, archers should be capable of fighting back against cavalry as well, if used smartly. Things like better terrain, frontline protection or just difference in quality should allow archers a chance to fight back.

Otherwise in a brainless vacuum scenario, cavalry should absolutely defeat archers. Just look at the Battle of Patay.

 

[flavior flavius]

Yeah so front face of head = no armor value if wearing helm without visor. It’s literally not that difficult to apply the “abstraction” you’re talking about to faces of a box... the game already has the hit detection and I’m pretty sure already does it god it’s just such a simple concept. You must be trolling me. Why on earth would I advocate that Bannerlord simulate each ring of chain mail?

You misunderstand him.

The way the game works now there is only 6-7 hitboxes on a soldier model (unsure if the neck is a separate hitbox). These are the arms, legs, torso, head, and maybe neck. When armor is worn, it applies its armor value to the entirety of the hitbox. Armor that only goes down to the elbow on the player model in actuality protects the entire arm, from shoulder to finger. Likewise, even if it does not look like a piece of armor covers a part of a body, it does... this is noticable on helmets because as far as I understand it, every single helmet in the game protects the whole head including the face, visors on certain helmets are just for show. There are no "unique" hitboxes for individual armor pieces, and no system currently in place to support this. This is to simplify collision calculations.

If I got this wrong someone please correct me.

In order to do what you want, Taleworlds would need to program unique soldier model hitboxes for every possible permutation of armor in the game, which is literally impossible. There MAY (depends on the game engine) be a way to alter a soldier model's hitboxes locationally on the fly based on worn equipment, but even if that were true it would require unique, custom designed hitbox systems (collection of hitboxes) for every single individual armor piece in the game, and that is still an insane amount of work not to mention computationally expensive while playing the game.

Just like how cavalry can defeat spear blocks by hitting flanks, archers should be capable of fighting back against cavalry as well, if used smartly. Things like better terrain, frontline protection or just difference in quality should allow archers a chance to fight back.

Of course... putting archers on rocky, uneven terrain, or unreachable high ground should definitely change the dynamic. I am not advocating cavalry beat archers 100% of the time in every conceivable scenario just because of the fact that they are cavalry. But, no way in hell should archers be beating equal numbers of cavalry on flat terrain in a head to head fight. The fact that they are doing so in almost all cases (Apocal's tests withstanding) speaks to a fundamental imbalance in the combat system.

 

[William7667]

I think archers are a bit overpowered but only to heavy armour they seem a bit underpowered against unarmoured /lightly armoured
I'd expect volleys of arrows to mow down unarmoured/ unshielded opponents like a machine gun they dont

Then again heavy arnour is everywhere and if you buff amrour too much you'd need to limit its avaliabilty somehow and probably need to buff archers effect on unarmoured / lightly armoured targets

Some archers seem to do rather well in melee I'd expect trained and equipped melee soldiers to beat archers easily they dont
Cavalry even when they reach archers dont seem to beat them easily

So to my mind theres two issues archers apparently high level of melee proficiency which need reducing
Archers apparently high damage against heavily armoured targets.

the sort of principle I'd impliment if I was making a system for damage would be

(NA) No armour takes full damage from cut pierce and blunt
(LA) Light armour takes 50% cut damage full damage from pierce and blunt
(MA) Medium Armour immune to cut damage takes 50% pierce damge full damage from blunt
(HA) Heavy Armour Immune to cut + Pierce takes 50% blunt damage


---------------------------------------------------------------- NA-- LA -- MA -- HA--
Sword Swing 100 cut 20 blunt -------------------------110 -- 60-- 20--- 20
Sword thrust 100 pierce 10 blunt ----------------------110 - 110-- 60-- 10

Axe 30 cut 80 blunt----------------------------------------110 -- 95-- 80--- 40
Mace 10 Pierce 90 blunt---------------------------------100-- 100-- 95--- 45
Spear 90 pierce 20 blunt---------------------------------110-- 110 -- 65-- 10
2 handed long spears 90 pierce 40 blunt -----------130-- 130-- 85-- 20 + velocity damge, charging horse eg: +30 pierce+30 blunt
Arrows 30 cut 30 pierce 10 blunt------------------------70--- 55--- 25--- 10 + speed damage for better bows eg: long bow + 20 pierce damage

This would make everything pretty effective against unarmoured but give each weapon its own niche
Sword would be most versatile because you can thrust and swing but wouldnt be great against heaviest armour

Maces and axes would out damage swords considerably on heavy armour but sword would be slightly better on unarmoured and light armoured

2 handed spears would outdamage on most things except the heavy armour unless hitting a charging horse
Arrows would progressively weaken with heavier armour

Light amrour would reduce sword axe and arrow damage by a bit but still take full damage for thrusts
Medium armour would reduce sword axe mace spear and arrow damage but with axe,spear and mace still doing quite high damage
Heavy armour would reduce all damge considerably with axe and mace doing the most damage unless your a 2 handed spear hitting a horseman whos running at you at speeed in which case you'll outdamage every other weapon

I'd reduce most tier 6 troops to medium armour most archers would be light or no armour
Heavy armour would very expensive to buy and would be for noble elite troops only

 

[hruza]

You're arguing that something that literally began as series of rural local uprising was fought by nobility and rich urbanites. Gotcha.

Neither Hussite Wars nor Flemish uprisings started as rural local uprisings. Hussite wars were religious wars and Flemish uprisings were about taxation and embargo on trade between Flemish towns and England. Peasants had nothing to do with them.

First of all... the imagery of Bohemian flail-wielding peasant fighting Germanic knight was even used by contemporary German bishops as appeal for support of the crusades. After said "flowers of Germanic nobility" got soundly trounced by unwashed masses yet again. It's also something mentioned in most of the sources I'm familiar with, in one way or another, but bugger if I'm going to dig those books out right now, especially since most aren't in English anyway.

I don't know what Germanic bishops used in his propaganda posters but Hussite wars were religious wars and not peasant uprisings. Hussites were led by nobility just as the Imperial side was.

Secondly, just because it was something in use earlier on, does not discount the point that it was something that saw (as attested by various sources that survived) unusually high use in that specific conflict. Possibly because the long-hafted flails were not just readily available and effective against targets' armor, but also because they were something that could be used much better from within the confines of a Wagenburg than other weapon types. Lastly, to claim that "peasants were not part of Hussite armies" shows complete ignorance of the subject matter. I'd suggest starting with "Warrior of God" by Victor Verney. There aren't a lot of decent English sources for that lamentably overlooked conflict, but it should provide you with at least some basics.

I already told you that flails were used in warfare long before Hussite wars and their popularity among Hussites means exactly nothing. It's like arguing that since English armies fighting in the 100 year's war were using bows, they must have been composed of hunters. Nonsense.

Are you for real?

Page 481-482 of the Assize https://archive.org/details/closerollsofreig04grea/page/482

Rough translation for the lowest-status, courtesy of an internet stranger (since I can about remember "puella pulchra est" by now):

Those with goods valued at 10 marks must have sword, knife, bow, and arrows (gladium, cultellum, arcum et sagittas).
Those with goods valued between 40 shillings and 10 marks must have scythes (falces), knives (cultellos), guisarmes (gysarmas), and other small arms (et alia arma minuta).
Those who live in the woods that can come out must have bows and arrows (arcum et sagittas), or they can have bows and piles (arcus et pilettos).
That's the "Omnes eciam alii qui possunt habere arcum et sagittas extra forestam habeant; quite vero in foresta arcus et pilettos." part on page 482

See no mention of peasants there.

You're literally citing a source telling you that the armies were mainly peasants.

Word "peasant" is literally absent in that text. Not even a single peasant is there, much less "mainly".

Maybe because "serf" is a late 15th century term, and the Assize is 13th? I mean, just a wild guess.

I already told you that term "servus", from which term "serf" is derived was used.

No, that's your baseless assertion.

Let's see:

in the case of the archers, their primary objective would be the cheap and poorly equipped infantry that the lord would have collected in a nearby town and would only have given him a nicked and rusty sword and if they have any luck a shield with the blood of its previous owner , a large part of the armies of that period were largely made up of peasants, so armored units were expensive and infrequent

You may pay better attention to discussion before you decide to intervene in it.

You mean like the "people who live in the woods" from the Assize?

Freemen, or free tenants held their land by one of a variety of contracts of feudal land tenure and were essentially rent-paying tenant farmers who owed little or no service to the lord, and had a good degree of security of tenure and independence. In parts of 11th century England freemen made up only 10% of the peasant population, and in the rest of Europe their numbers were small.
https://middleages.fandom.com/wiki/Serf

Oh, and by the by, if you read on THAT subject (I'd suggest the Gies' work as a decent starting point), you'll learn that English freeman was anybody from a seasonal worker with just a shirt on their back of their own, to a wealthy landowner. Which is why the armament requirements were given based on personal wealth, not the legal class or subclass they belonged to.

Every freemen was theoretically eligible for service. That's doesn't mean that every freeman was required or called in to service. That is why all those lavs put requirements based on the personal wealth. Poor people with no wealth or property DID NOT SERVE in the medieval armies. They might have been called in to service in defense of the castles or for support duties of hauling supplies, digging trenches, but nobody in his right mind would put them in to battle line. Which is exactly point I am making. Armies made of peasants are Hollywood myth.

Another thing is that there were very few freemen (see citation above). Most of the population was in various levels of servitude or even slavery. People who managed to maintain their independence and freedom and not fall under servitude of aristocrats were as a rule not poor people. Especially outside of the towns.

Won't see what you don't want, I guess.

I won't see what's not there. Nobody can.

You're literally citing examples of peasant levy and claiming they weren't peasants because they did not belong to (according to you, anyway) specific sub-class of peasants.

A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or farmer with limited land ownership
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasant

Every single instance cited here requires ownership of the land or property of equivalent wealth. Those people were not poor peasants. They were farmers and landowners, basically middle class of medieval society, not a unwashed peasant masses from Hollywood movies. People who were wealthy enough to provide their own equipment (as cited in the sources based on their wealth) and could leave their homes for military campaigns without having their farms or business ruined in their absence. Which means there were plenty of hands left at home to run the business, either in form of extended family members or various servants.

Btw.: few words about another popular myth, that assumes that spears and shields were "cheap peasant weapons". Record from Novgorod from somewhere in 10-11th century lists value of a spear and a shield set as been worth one cow. That's a small treasure in the context of the medieval economy.

 

[hruza]

Funny, because my massed Vlandian levy crossbows (literally no other infantry troop along) coupled with a handful of cavalry to break up enemy formation (and derp the AI) don't get that many losses against various comparably-sized lords' parties. And most of that is ranged counter-fire, anyway.

Or get that many opportunities to have to switch to melee weapons in the first place.

So you do use your cavalry to distract the enemy and you still suffer casualties.

Archers are very effective IF you keep enemy cavalry and infantry away from them and allow them uninterupted line of fire at the enemy. And there is nothing OP about it. It's expected.

Now if you put your archers and archers only against combined force of the enemy that matches your in size and their, your archer army will likely get mauled. And that's not even taking in to account that AI does not use shield wall on their infantry. Archer only army against competent player is dead.

I was writing in terms of "realistic" performance, not game balance. I argued earlier on that, right now, I'd rather see changing lower-tier arrow damage to cutting type precisely to avoid overtweaking armor's resistance.

Though people who point out how quick-paced moshpit of a fight field battles are do have a point, and armor tweaks might be a good way to address that.

Field battles consist of player armies full of t4-t6 units facing AI armies made mostly of t1-t2 units. Raising armor resistance would make those battles even more quick paced and one sided.

Um... This IS a computer game. I do not understand why you are so consistently opposed to the rock/paper/scissors concept of spearmen>cavalry>archers>spearmen. Is it (slightly) inaccurate? Yes. But, it is a concession for fun gameplay and an expected trope in the genre.

What's funny about it? And it's trope in the genre of strategic-tactical games ala Total War, not first person RPGs like Bannerlord.

And bye the way, people who argue for it usually think that it is accurate and real life like. Because they take their knowledge of warfare from games and films.

 

[flavior flavius]

Now if you put your archers and archers only against combined force of the enemy that matches your in size and their, your archer army will likely get mauled. And that's not even taking in to account that AI does not use shield wall on their infantry. Archer only army against competent player is
dead.

Archers will absolutely still win in this scenario. Where have you been this entire thread? People have posted VIDEOS of this happening, with no strategic trickery and on flat terrain no less. This is the entire basis of the argument that archers are overperforming.

Um... This IS a computer game. I do not understand why you are so consistently opposed to the rock/paper/scissors concept of spearmen>cavalry>archers>spearmen. Is it (slightly) inaccurate? Yes. But, it is a concession for fun gameplay and an expected trope in the genre.

What's funny about it? And it's trope in the genre of strategic-tactical games ala Total War, not first person RPGs like Bannerlord.

It's a trope of almost all games featuring medieval era combat, strategic or otherwise. A good example that is very close to Mount and Blade (albeit with fantasy elements and a hack and slash combat model) would be Kingdom Under Fire: Crusaders. Your strange notion that only "strategic" medieval games play to this trope and that this somehow "separates" Mount and Blade from the genre (and the tropes that go along with it) is both ridiculous and perplexing. There is also the fact that Mount and Blade on some level IS a "strategic-tactical" game, with mechanics that include: mustering armies, army upkeep, and commanding forces in battle.

 

[Sheepify]

Neither Hussite Wars nor Flemish uprisings started as rural local uprisings.

I never wrote the Hussite Wars were started by peasants. The Flemish PEASANT REVOLT certainly did. Go sodding read about it a bit - even the bloody wikipedia page will tell you that much.

Hussite wars were religious wars and Flemish uprisings were about taxation and embargo on trade between Flemish towns and England. Peasants had nothing to do with them.

Peasants had major presence in Hussite armies, especially earlier on. A lot of them went on to become professional soldiers, to the point where Hussite mercenaries were present in other European countries even after the whole thing fell apart.

I don't know what Germanic bishops used in his propaganda posters but Hussite wars were religious wars and not peasant uprisings. Hussites were led by nobility just as the Imperial side was.

You're just bending words around the fact that majority of Hussite armies WERE low-class former civilians. And a lot of them were straight-up farmers.

I already told you that flails were used in warfare long before Hussite wars and their popularity among Hussites means exactly nothing. It's like arguing that since English armies fighting in the 100 year's war were using bows, they must have been composed of hunters. Nonsense.

WTF are you on about? I pointed out the flail was symbolic of the Hussites in the same way that the longbow was symbolic of the English forces in the 100 years war. Doesn't discount the presence of any other type of armament or troop type, but that they had notable and influential presence of the battlefield.

Word "peasant" is literally absent in that text. Not even a single peasant is there, much less "mainly".

You're starting to seriously annoy me, because I hate purposeful disingenuity.

The whole bloody point is that the Asseize lists people WITHOUT WEALTH OR LAND as being required to be armed. That is what the last line is about.

I already told you that term "servus", from which term "serf" is derived was used.

And I told you that contemporary laws in that respect did not look at class sub-division, but wealth of a person.

Freemen, or free tenants held their land by one of a variety of contracts of feudal land tenure and were essentially rent-paying tenant farmers who owed little or no service to the lord, and had a good degree of security of tenure and independence. In parts of 11th century England freemen made up only 10% of the peasant population, and in the rest of Europe their numbers were small.
https://middleages.fandom.com/wiki/Serf

Are you seriously quoting an uncited wiki at me? Should I go and retort with some uncited questionable claim from another blog or whatnot? Oh, you know, let me use the same "wiki" you just threw at me:

A villein (or villain) was the most common type of serf in the Middle Ages. Villeins had more rights and higher status than the lowest serf, but existed under a number of legal restrictions that differentiated them from freemen. Villeins generally rented small homes, with or without land.

That's the type of a person who has no wealth, and qualifies to bring just bows and arrows when summoned, as per the Asseize.

Every freemen was theoretically eligible for service. That's doesn't mean that every freeman was required or called in to service. That is why all those lavs put requirements based on the personal wealth. Poor people with no wealth or property DID NOT SERVE in the medieval armies.

*Citation needed. Because as far as I recall a detailed study of the 100 years war (wish I could recall and find it right now), at least in the earlier decades majority of the longbowmen were villains that saw enlistment as a way to raise their economic status (and were far less disruptive to local economy to let go than richer peasants).

They might have been called in to service in defense of the castles or for support duties of hauling supplies, digging trenches, but nobody in his right mind would put them in to battle line. Which is exactly point I am making. Armies made of peasants are Hollywood myth.

No, you're just repeating something you apparently read elsewhere, and didn't bother to research on your own. And by now are repeating it against direct evidence of their presence you yourself provided... so why do I even bother anymore.

Another thing is that there were very few freemen (see citation above). Most of the population was in various levels of servitude or even slavery. People who managed to maintain their independence and freedom and not fall under servitude of aristocrats were as a rule not poor people. Especially outside of the towns.

So, the levy did not exist, or miraculously came into existence when the lord called from twigs and leaves?

Where the hell do you think the mass formation of poor infantry, reported in next to every conteporary account of battles whenever they focus on army composition, came from? PFI Depot?

A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or farmer with limited land ownership
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasant

Every single instance cited here requires ownership of the land or property of equivalent wealth.

Stop.

No it does not. "People who live in the woods" have no "land of property." And they were the most numerous element of rural population - as per even your own greatly-unsourced article linked above.

The Asseize alone makes it clear even people with no wealth whatsoever were expected to be armed, and respond to call to arms. On top of all the other sources that make it clear medieval warfare (at least in the early periods) was not just domain of professionals. Your continued argument to the contarry is inane, at best.

 

[Tercero]

To be honest,

I think this is a typical case of people wanting to buff their classes and nerf others.

My approach would be to define how classes should behave in different situations and then let the game play, see if they act accordingly, if not, tweak, etc. but not start with an objective (cav should counter archers) and then do whatever it takes to get there.

Archers work fine now, if you place a line of archers in front of a line of infantry with in a shield wall, archers lose because the inf is using their shields properly, arrows don't penetrate and they eventually run out of ammo and the inf can charge - If player's archers destroy AI inf, is a problem with AI, not inf in general per se, so what needs to be fixed is the AI behavour, not the unit itself.

Another question is if arrows should penetrate certain armours, that is another question which is more technical and different approaches can be taken (such as the abstraction point of 1/20 arrows being deadly to a heavily armoured soldier and basically dividing that theoretical deadly blow damage by 20 for every hit if a good armour is used in order to simplify things, which I think is a good and reasonable approach).

Archers vs. Cavalry

I am less knowledgeable because I tend to use more infantry, but the times that I have made my small cav squad circle around and attack archers, even in lower numbers, they worked fine, they killed more and distracted them from my main infantry army, thus, working as intended.

I think there is a misconception that charging straight to an archer line with cavalry whatever the situation should end with archers being slaughter, it is not the fact that one is cav and the other archers. It is a combination of factors that make one unit superior to other, where the archers are placed, how heavy the cav's armour is (soldier and horse) and how fast the cav unit is.

If you charge straight with lower numbers and a poorly armoured cav unit, what I would expect is either the horse or the soldiers dying from arrows which is what basically happens until they reach the archers, which then, if sufficient numbers, will be an archer slaughterhouse - If you charge full cataphracts head on, you would basically sustain very little loses (which is what I think is happenign right now) and then it becomes an archer slaughterhouse so I don't really see the problem...

Other thoughts

Being honest again, I think the main issue right now is how poorly spears perform vs. cavalry when in real life should be the ultimate weapon vs. a frontal cavalry charge in a tight formation.

Finally, I found the rock-paper-scissor approach of archers>spears>cav always funny, because at the end of the day, what is the role of normal infantry?