oroboros
Squire
As the mod now is slowly nearing its end as far as development is concerned, I have some points of critique, some suggestions and discovered maybe a bug. And as you already know me and my love for walls of texts, some of them are quite lengthy, therefore spoilers.
1. Noble companions
2. Prices for weapons, armours and horses
3. Crossbows are too weak
Crossbows in this mod are too weak. It would solve the problem if either the crossbow dmg or the bolt dmg would be changed from cut to pierce or increase the x-bow dmg by some 20-30 points. I don't think that they then will become overpowered because I did some tests on this with my char using once crossbows + bolts with piercing dmg, and another time a bow with, same skills - the crossbow would deal about as much damage as a bow with the power draw being 1-2 points over the requirement of the bow. With 3-4 points over the requirement I still delivered more dmg with the bow than with a crossbow with piercing dmg bolts. And there are more than enough guys around who have 3-4 points more than the requirement of their bows, with an insane proficieny, like the Merghen Karvaach with pd of 7 and 375 prof, Cuman vet horse archer with the same stats, Cymry bowmen with pd 8-9 and 430 prof, while on the other hand there's only 1 unit with 300 in crossbows and that's the Genoese x-men.
4. Turkopoles in the holy lands are useless
They will either equip a bow or arrows, never both of them, which makes them utterly useless as they always will try to use their polearms from horseback and in melee, which is their worst skill (130 prof.), while their 300 bow prof with pd of 6 and their 1-h prof of 220 with ps 3 will almost never be used. To eliminate polearms from their inventory did solve the problem, if they even had only 1 plearm in the inventory, most of them would again choose the polearm. To eliminate the polearms from them isn't so devious, as other Turkomans in other countries have the same stats but no polearms. So maybe it would be good to not give them polearms so that they are at least somewhat useful and can shoot 1 or 2 arrows before they die. Or split the unit into lancer and horse archer like it is with the Mamluk turkomans.
5. Spear bracing
It should only be possible to brace a spear if the unit doesn't move and has no shield, as it is right now it is ridiculously overpowered. No reason why a war horse should receive some 50 dmg from a braced spear only because it walks out of a block of spearmen with 0.05 kilometres per hour. The horses keep dying out of shock and fear if they only see a spearman with his braced spear some distance away, it's almost like an invisible horse-redeemer. Maybe it is possible to make only certain spears braceable, like the ones with a length of above 150. Or some timer thing, so that they can only brace again after 1 minute has passed since their first braced hit or such. It is ok if the first cavs are dehorsed by braced spears but if the rest of them, that are behind them are also brought down, and the third and fourth ones also, by the same spearmen that are not even looking at them but have their spears braced, hmmm, I don't know, but I don't like it. Don't know if lances are also braceable, but if not, you could give the shorter spears the 'couchable' flag and then only the longer ones would count as spears and could thus be used for spear bracing while the shorter ones would count as lances.
6. A propos lances
They technically have the length of 280 or whatever but they still look like 180 or 190, maybe it is possible to stretch them a little bit so that their models correspond somewhat more to their real length.
7. Helmet values for open faced helmets, coifs, etc.
Are too high. If you poke someone with a pointy thing into his face or even the eyes once, he won't be that much enthusiastic to continue fighting, same if he gets a bolt or arrow into his face -> end of story.
8. I've forgotten my data for your bugtracking site and want to report something I've encountered at revision 100
Don't know if you have recognized it or if it has been reported already, but at revision 100 I've encountered the unit Sharif Fursan Al Arab on my crusades, and they have quite some extravagant stats.
I've made a screenshot from Morgh's Editor
Well, I guess that's everything I had to say. If you maybe find some ideas appealing it would be nice, I could even help you with items, companions and stuff. If not, I'll continue to play the mod with the current stuff, as it still is the best mod out there for Warband
1. Noble companions
Now that the new companion system has been integrated since long enough and it is impossible to get the all-29-powerhouse version anymore, and will last very, very long until you have gathered 20 of them, if you don't cheat, I have to say something about companions.
While I somehow can understand why the merc companions are not the best equipped and best of fighters, due to party skills and such, I have not the slightest comprehension for why noble companions, who have been asskicked and trained for combat since they were small kids, are equal or worse than any stupid peasant/militia that has never had any idea whatsoever about fighting, or at least has had a way more worse and shorter training in this subject. And to top that, the noble has partly even worse equipment than the peasant.
I think that lance, sword, shield, gambeson, horse, helmet or maybe bow, arrows, sabre, shield, etc. for the Mongols should be the default equipment of all noble companions. I will get really frustrated if I next time see a 'nobleman' without a helmet, without a sword, just armed with a spear, falchion, crossbow (hell, not even some bolts) and a shield. I mean they are nobles for Pete's sake, so why should they have worse equipment as a peasant recruit like the Huskarl/Bjaermadur in the Nordic states for instance? - Noble companion vs. Nordic peasant = no helmet, no heavy heater, partly no sword for the noble.
As well as the stats, how comes that a farmer's boy, retrobannum pedes, at lvl 5 with strength 9 has a power strike of 3, while a lvl 8 noble companion with strength 11 has a power strike of 2, prof is negligible - 70 for the farmer, 80 for the companion? With enough fighting and training it is possible to train a tier1 horseman within less than a week into a knight, that's from 147 proficiency to 325 in 6 days. A companion starts at a proficiency of 80, or even 110 if it's a noble, and needs some perceived 35 ingame years of constant fighting until he gets to 200, same stats like a homine ad arma, a tierII horseman.
Noble companions should start at roughly the same weapon proficiencies and same stats as a tier1 horseman. That means 120-150 in the 3 main weapons, strength of 10-12, agility 9, with power strike/draw 3-4 and iron flesh 1, riding/horse archery 3, shield 0-2, weapon master 1-3, with the same equipment as the tier1 horseman. They should not be some powerless hobos, who have not even the money to buy themselves some decent shield or head protection, while the completely inexperienced poor peasant next door has a sword, helmet and heavy heater... one evening a tired and wrecked Nordic peasant, called Huskarl, comes home from the fields and talks to his wife 'Hey darling, I am so sorry, I have no money and we've got nothing to eat, hun. But you know what? I've got a helmet and a heavy heater and the stupid nobleman has none of them. And what is even more funny, I could actually ambush and rob 'em. If there aren't more than 2 of them, I'll beat them around the table til Santa comes. Buahahahaha!'...
And even if they start at the same weapon profs as the tier1 horsemen they still miss out on the 3 in shield, 2 in athletics, 4 in weapon master and 5 in riding, 12 agility - so still no superiority for the companion, but that's ok, because you can level them up and they will gradually become better. Yes, ok he can't die and everything, but that doesn't mean anything if they get knocked out after fighting for half a second and then again your troops, which should be strengthened by additional units not weakened, especially if the noble unit is supposed to be a future knight, get killed more often than if you would replace the nobleman with a simple tierI horseman.
Right now the companions max. prof is 110 with some power strike of 3, that's the same as it was in Native for the noble fighter chars, but in Native the knight had only 150 prof. and power strike 5, whereas in 1257AD the knight has 325 prof. and power strike 7 - I think that's a little bit of a very, very big difference and therefore noble companions should be balanced. It still will be hard to get them somewhere near the quality of a tierIII horseman, because it is very hard to raise their weapon prof. in the higher regions - on the contrary to the regular horseman, who get's promoted from tierII to tierIII after fighting and surviving for 3 days and receives a bonus of +65 in his weapon profs, it will take for ages till the companion has raised his ability by 65 points. Even if you have a companion with a prof of 180 and power strike 10, he still will look old against an Armiger Eques with 265 prof and ps of 6 - the Armiger will always be faster and thus hit the companion first.
The solution or approach should not be to tell someone 'Well, if you don't like them, import/export them and change their stats' - this would miss the point completely. Besides all the above, it is not historically accurate for nobles to have worse equipment than peasants or to have had less combat training then militias.
While I somehow can understand why the merc companions are not the best equipped and best of fighters, due to party skills and such, I have not the slightest comprehension for why noble companions, who have been asskicked and trained for combat since they were small kids, are equal or worse than any stupid peasant/militia that has never had any idea whatsoever about fighting, or at least has had a way more worse and shorter training in this subject. And to top that, the noble has partly even worse equipment than the peasant.
I think that lance, sword, shield, gambeson, horse, helmet or maybe bow, arrows, sabre, shield, etc. for the Mongols should be the default equipment of all noble companions. I will get really frustrated if I next time see a 'nobleman' without a helmet, without a sword, just armed with a spear, falchion, crossbow (hell, not even some bolts) and a shield. I mean they are nobles for Pete's sake, so why should they have worse equipment as a peasant recruit like the Huskarl/Bjaermadur in the Nordic states for instance? - Noble companion vs. Nordic peasant = no helmet, no heavy heater, partly no sword for the noble.
As well as the stats, how comes that a farmer's boy, retrobannum pedes, at lvl 5 with strength 9 has a power strike of 3, while a lvl 8 noble companion with strength 11 has a power strike of 2, prof is negligible - 70 for the farmer, 80 for the companion? With enough fighting and training it is possible to train a tier1 horseman within less than a week into a knight, that's from 147 proficiency to 325 in 6 days. A companion starts at a proficiency of 80, or even 110 if it's a noble, and needs some perceived 35 ingame years of constant fighting until he gets to 200, same stats like a homine ad arma, a tierII horseman.
Noble companions should start at roughly the same weapon proficiencies and same stats as a tier1 horseman. That means 120-150 in the 3 main weapons, strength of 10-12, agility 9, with power strike/draw 3-4 and iron flesh 1, riding/horse archery 3, shield 0-2, weapon master 1-3, with the same equipment as the tier1 horseman. They should not be some powerless hobos, who have not even the money to buy themselves some decent shield or head protection, while the completely inexperienced poor peasant next door has a sword, helmet and heavy heater... one evening a tired and wrecked Nordic peasant, called Huskarl, comes home from the fields and talks to his wife 'Hey darling, I am so sorry, I have no money and we've got nothing to eat, hun. But you know what? I've got a helmet and a heavy heater and the stupid nobleman has none of them. And what is even more funny, I could actually ambush and rob 'em. If there aren't more than 2 of them, I'll beat them around the table til Santa comes. Buahahahaha!'...
And even if they start at the same weapon profs as the tier1 horsemen they still miss out on the 3 in shield, 2 in athletics, 4 in weapon master and 5 in riding, 12 agility - so still no superiority for the companion, but that's ok, because you can level them up and they will gradually become better. Yes, ok he can't die and everything, but that doesn't mean anything if they get knocked out after fighting for half a second and then again your troops, which should be strengthened by additional units not weakened, especially if the noble unit is supposed to be a future knight, get killed more often than if you would replace the nobleman with a simple tierI horseman.
Right now the companions max. prof is 110 with some power strike of 3, that's the same as it was in Native for the noble fighter chars, but in Native the knight had only 150 prof. and power strike 5, whereas in 1257AD the knight has 325 prof. and power strike 7 - I think that's a little bit of a very, very big difference and therefore noble companions should be balanced. It still will be hard to get them somewhere near the quality of a tierIII horseman, because it is very hard to raise their weapon prof. in the higher regions - on the contrary to the regular horseman, who get's promoted from tierII to tierIII after fighting and surviving for 3 days and receives a bonus of +65 in his weapon profs, it will take for ages till the companion has raised his ability by 65 points. Even if you have a companion with a prof of 180 and power strike 10, he still will look old against an Armiger Eques with 265 prof and ps of 6 - the Armiger will always be faster and thus hit the companion first.
The solution or approach should not be to tell someone 'Well, if you don't like them, import/export them and change their stats' - this would miss the point completely. Besides all the above, it is not historically accurate for nobles to have worse equipment than peasants or to have had less combat training then militias.
2. Prices for weapons, armours and horses
I have to say that the prices are somehow not satisfying. A warhorse was usually the most expensive good a knight had, ie. prices for weapons and armours are too high. Certainly, there were very high quality armours that would cost much money, but while you have to pay 150,000 for a basic stone castle (fortification I), you have to pay over 250,000 for a lordly coat of plates, or 180,000 for a lordly knightly plated mail, which is way too much for the increase in protection they give you. Even the default coat of plates with 35,000 or some 20,000 for a mail coat is too overpriced if I compare it to the 10,000 you have to spend for a heavy warhorse. Armours were expensive, no question, but there were also lower quality armours that could be afforded by some rich peasants or burgher, merchants in a city for instance. One example, with a leadership of 6 you have to pay roughly 250 per week for a knight. Now, let's assume that the knight can save half of his wages, which would accumulate to 6,000 dinar per year, ie. he would have to save his money for 5 years for the default coat of plates, or 3 years and 4 months for a knightly mail, while he would be able to build a basic stone castle with having savings worth of 25 years of wages, he would have to wait for 30 or 40 years in order to buy himself a lordly armour. I doubt it very much that any combat armour of whatever quality would have cost equal or more than a fully developped stone castle with proper fortifications. Of course an armour could be worth several years of a knight's income, but that would then be more something like a reinforced or lordly armour, an exception and an exceptionally well-made masterpiece, and not the usual average-next-joe knightly mail.
Same with weapons, 100,000 for a masterwork 1-h sword? That's 10 heavy war horses - really? Then weapons like shortened military scythes and glaives, weapons that regular soldiers are using, many times peasant militias - what gives, why does the default glaive cost over 20,000? Or the studded club - why should I spend almost 10,000 for a heavy wooden baseball bat with rivets in it? I would rather go into the next forest, pick myself some nice piece of wood, go to the smith and buy some nails and produce that same weapon myself, would even give it a spike, for less than 10 dinar. How does a lord supply his army with weapons/armours if he has to pay for the default equipment of one soldier some 10,000-50,000 dinar? Because the lord would certainly and undoubtedly have to supply them with gear, as surely a regular tierIII soldier, which would be a somewhat wealthy freeman/burgher, can in no way afford to buy himself a mail shirt for 10,000 dinar. He either would have to sell his home, and give his family into slavery, including the grandparents, or he would have to save all his money for the next 15-20 years in order to buy himself a mail shirt. Quasi at the high age of 40 years when most of them would barely be able to move due to rheumatism he then would have a mail shirt - helmet, weapons, boots not yet included, that's another 15-20 years.
A default armour and a default sword should cost less than a warhorse, that would be historically accurate, and not as it is right of now, where a default great helm is more expensive than a heavy warhorse. You'd still have the higher quality armours in game which would then cost much more than a regular warhorse.
On the following link, for instance, you can see that a warhorse did cost up to 80 pounds (that's 1600 shillings or 19,200 dinar; this then would maybe be some heavy or spirited warhorse) in the 13th century, while a mail armour would have cost 100 shillings in the 12th century. As there was not that much of a development in mail armour from 12th to 13th century, besides the coat of plates from around 1250 onwards, I think that this still could be a valid approach for 13th century if you take into account the price raise during 100 years, which would maybe put it to 150-250 shillings, maybe 300 shillings for a coat of plates, which would be 7-15 pounds or 1,800 - 3,600 dinar. The complete set of armour of some random knight in 1374 is given with a worth of 16 pounds 6 shillings and 8 dinar (that's roughly 326 shillings or 3,920 dinar), while the armour of some Thomas of Woodstock (the first hippy), duke of Gloucester in 1397 is given with a worth of 103 pounds (2060 shillings; 24,720 dinar) - but that would be more some kind of a reinforced armour then.
The wages for a knight were 2 shillings per day, that's 730 shillings per year, or 8,760 dinar, double as much for a knight banneret (17,520 dinar) - wages are from the year 1316. That means 1257AD is actually pretty close to reality as far as a knight's wages are concerned, as you have to pay roughly 10,000 dinar with leadership 10, and ~15,000 dinar with leadership 3-4 for 1 knight per year. In 1300, a lord would earn between 100 and 500+ pounds per year (24,000 - 120,000+ dinar / ~500 - 2,300+ dinar per week) while a higher an very rich noble, like an Earl, with much lands would earn on average between 400 and 11,000 pounds (rare) per year (96,000 - 2,640,000 dinar / ~1,850 - 50,800 d per week). In the game it is possible to make 1,000,000 dinar per year if you're ambitious into that direction, maybe even 2,000,000 if you're focussing on making money only. So income is again comparably realistic depicted in 1257AD. Wages for cav units like squire, man-at-arms were 140 dinar per week, again head on. Wages for armoured infantry, mounted archers (turkopol,-man), etc. were ~42 dinar per week, another hit. All wages for the years between 1316-1346. Although the time frame is somewhat later, it's nevertheless all pretty close to reality. And so it should be for armours, weapons and horses too.
http://whitebard.tripod.com/prices.htm
Also this paragraph would be interesting to notice:
Note: ... It was mandatory in England for all freemen to own certain types of weapons and armor. (In 1181 every freeman having goods worth 10 marks (1 mark = 13s 4d; or 264 dinar) had to have a mail shirt, a helmet, and a spear. All other freemen should have helmet, spear, and gambeson (quilted armor) [4], p. 39). Later, the government stored arms and armour in churches for use; in the 13th century anyone with an income of L2-L5 (wealthy peasants) ... that's 2-5 pounds and equals 480-1200 dinar ... had to have bows; archery practice became compulsory on Sundays and holidays...
--> eg. the 10 mark freeman had a stock of goods of 2640 dinar and was supposed to provide himself with a helmet and a mail shirt. Assuming the guy would have lived in the mod, then how in the name of god should he be able to afford 15,000 dinar for a helmet and a mail shirt, while all he owns is maybe only worth 5,000-10,000?
To get an idea about the relation between the price for an armour/sword and warhorse and prices for other stuff, converted into Euros, you can look at the following link and the price table there, prices for goods are from around the years 900-1000, and further below on the same page is a table of what a wealthy knight of the 3rd crusade (1189-1192) would carry with him and what it would have been worth in Euros around 10 years ago. Unfortunately it is in German, but maybe you get the idea (though he made some calculation mistakes)
http://www.mittelalter-server.de/Mittelalter-Geld/Das-Mittelalter-Geld-im-Mittelalter_Preise.html
I've translated and corrected the table from the above link
sword + scabbard 7.600,00
shield + lance 3.500,00
gaiters, ect. 12.000,00 this would be mail boots in the game
helmet 11.000,00
mail shirt 21.000,00
or mail coat 24.000,00 which would be a knightly mail with surcoat in the game
3 riding/pack horses 72.000,00
1 warhorse 70,000.00
------------------------------------------------------
total with mail shirt 197.100,00
total with mail coat 200.100,00
From this table we can see that a sword (given the time that's probably a 1-h sword) was around 1/3 of the price of a mail coat and the mail coat was around 1/3 of the price of a warhorse. In game the relation is roughly the same, a 1-h sword has about 1/3 of the value of a mail hauberk. What is not correct is that the prices for sword/mail are way too high, and that a war horse costs only 1/3 of a mail hauberk - the other way round would be right.
If you wanted to have a completely realistic and historically accurate depiction of prices, then you would have to reduce the value of most of the weapons and armours by 80% or more, the scythe-glaive-stuff by at least 90%, raise the prices for war horses somewhat, double the prices for other horses, and at least double the price for building a castle, it should be somewhere in the region of 500,000 dinar.
If you try it out, shop prices could then be something like the following: A knightly mail would cost some 3,000 dinar, coat of plates maybe 3,500, a mail shirt some 2,000, veteran mail/arab mail shirt 2,500; gambesons/kipchac/mongol/iberian/imarat leather armour 100-300d. A sword would be between 500 (short sword) and 1,500 dinar (longsword), cleavers, 1-h maces, 1-h axes, hatchets, fighting picks, other cheap stuff maybe 5-150 d. Helmets 500-1,500 d, mittens/gauntlets maybe 100-200 dinar, gloves 5d. Plated,splinted/chausses/mail boots 600-1,200 d., other boots some 5-20d. Scythes, 2-h axes, glaives, 2-h cleavers and stuff probably would not cost more than 100-300d, bows+crossbows too, or even less. Warhorse should cost 8,000 dinar, other horses 500-2,500 dinar. Shields, spears, throws, arrows, bolts and stuff is really cheap and probably shouldn't cost more than ~10-50 dinar, maybe 50-200 for lances.
If we take the above mentioned prices, a masterwork longsword would then still cost some 26,250 dinar, balanced some 5,250 dinar, 1-h masterwork sword some 18,000 dinar, balanced 3,900. A champion warhorse would cost 116,000 dinar, spirited 52,000 and heavy 15,200 dinar. A lordly coat of plates were in the region of 40,250 dinar (~ 4 years of a knight's wages) and a lordly knightly mail around 34,500. You could equip 11 companions for around 170,000 dinar with default stuff, ie. a knightly mail + warhorse +1-h sword + greathelm + shield + lance + mail boots + mittens. If you equip yourself with the best stuff, you would probably have to spend some 250,000 for your gear, that's still 420,000 dinar all in all, which have to be earned first. If you want to give your companions a few goodies, then this will succeed 500,000 with ease, still not cheap. Prices for various buildings in the fort. manor, village, are roughly ok, but a basic castle should maybe cost some 200,000 d, and stone fortification I some 180,000 and II some 120,000 (but only if it's not bugged and it should be really worth it and an advantage to have the fortifics).
I'm not sure if it wouldn't take some 'salt' out of the game, cause you don't have to work that hard in order to buy you some lordly champion masterwork stuff, but on the other hand, if you want your companions all equipped with nice default stuff, lordly champion masterwork gear for you, and a completely upgraded castle, including the fort. manor completely upgraded you'd still have to spend 1 million. That's 1-2 ingame years of hard work. And if you can build more than 1 castles, and upgrade more than 1 manor, there still would be some reason left to save the money for - 700,000 for another completely upgraded castle+fortified manor.
For the above to work, the loot values would have to be drastically increased, so that the loot is still something worth and can be sold in towns.
Same with weapons, 100,000 for a masterwork 1-h sword? That's 10 heavy war horses - really? Then weapons like shortened military scythes and glaives, weapons that regular soldiers are using, many times peasant militias - what gives, why does the default glaive cost over 20,000? Or the studded club - why should I spend almost 10,000 for a heavy wooden baseball bat with rivets in it? I would rather go into the next forest, pick myself some nice piece of wood, go to the smith and buy some nails and produce that same weapon myself, would even give it a spike, for less than 10 dinar. How does a lord supply his army with weapons/armours if he has to pay for the default equipment of one soldier some 10,000-50,000 dinar? Because the lord would certainly and undoubtedly have to supply them with gear, as surely a regular tierIII soldier, which would be a somewhat wealthy freeman/burgher, can in no way afford to buy himself a mail shirt for 10,000 dinar. He either would have to sell his home, and give his family into slavery, including the grandparents, or he would have to save all his money for the next 15-20 years in order to buy himself a mail shirt. Quasi at the high age of 40 years when most of them would barely be able to move due to rheumatism he then would have a mail shirt - helmet, weapons, boots not yet included, that's another 15-20 years.
A default armour and a default sword should cost less than a warhorse, that would be historically accurate, and not as it is right of now, where a default great helm is more expensive than a heavy warhorse. You'd still have the higher quality armours in game which would then cost much more than a regular warhorse.
On the following link, for instance, you can see that a warhorse did cost up to 80 pounds (that's 1600 shillings or 19,200 dinar; this then would maybe be some heavy or spirited warhorse) in the 13th century, while a mail armour would have cost 100 shillings in the 12th century. As there was not that much of a development in mail armour from 12th to 13th century, besides the coat of plates from around 1250 onwards, I think that this still could be a valid approach for 13th century if you take into account the price raise during 100 years, which would maybe put it to 150-250 shillings, maybe 300 shillings for a coat of plates, which would be 7-15 pounds or 1,800 - 3,600 dinar. The complete set of armour of some random knight in 1374 is given with a worth of 16 pounds 6 shillings and 8 dinar (that's roughly 326 shillings or 3,920 dinar), while the armour of some Thomas of Woodstock (the first hippy), duke of Gloucester in 1397 is given with a worth of 103 pounds (2060 shillings; 24,720 dinar) - but that would be more some kind of a reinforced armour then.
The wages for a knight were 2 shillings per day, that's 730 shillings per year, or 8,760 dinar, double as much for a knight banneret (17,520 dinar) - wages are from the year 1316. That means 1257AD is actually pretty close to reality as far as a knight's wages are concerned, as you have to pay roughly 10,000 dinar with leadership 10, and ~15,000 dinar with leadership 3-4 for 1 knight per year. In 1300, a lord would earn between 100 and 500+ pounds per year (24,000 - 120,000+ dinar / ~500 - 2,300+ dinar per week) while a higher an very rich noble, like an Earl, with much lands would earn on average between 400 and 11,000 pounds (rare) per year (96,000 - 2,640,000 dinar / ~1,850 - 50,800 d per week). In the game it is possible to make 1,000,000 dinar per year if you're ambitious into that direction, maybe even 2,000,000 if you're focussing on making money only. So income is again comparably realistic depicted in 1257AD. Wages for cav units like squire, man-at-arms were 140 dinar per week, again head on. Wages for armoured infantry, mounted archers (turkopol,-man), etc. were ~42 dinar per week, another hit. All wages for the years between 1316-1346. Although the time frame is somewhat later, it's nevertheless all pretty close to reality. And so it should be for armours, weapons and horses too.
http://whitebard.tripod.com/prices.htm
Also this paragraph would be interesting to notice:
Note: ... It was mandatory in England for all freemen to own certain types of weapons and armor. (In 1181 every freeman having goods worth 10 marks (1 mark = 13s 4d; or 264 dinar) had to have a mail shirt, a helmet, and a spear. All other freemen should have helmet, spear, and gambeson (quilted armor) [4], p. 39). Later, the government stored arms and armour in churches for use; in the 13th century anyone with an income of L2-L5 (wealthy peasants) ... that's 2-5 pounds and equals 480-1200 dinar ... had to have bows; archery practice became compulsory on Sundays and holidays...
--> eg. the 10 mark freeman had a stock of goods of 2640 dinar and was supposed to provide himself with a helmet and a mail shirt. Assuming the guy would have lived in the mod, then how in the name of god should he be able to afford 15,000 dinar for a helmet and a mail shirt, while all he owns is maybe only worth 5,000-10,000?
To get an idea about the relation between the price for an armour/sword and warhorse and prices for other stuff, converted into Euros, you can look at the following link and the price table there, prices for goods are from around the years 900-1000, and further below on the same page is a table of what a wealthy knight of the 3rd crusade (1189-1192) would carry with him and what it would have been worth in Euros around 10 years ago. Unfortunately it is in German, but maybe you get the idea (though he made some calculation mistakes)
http://www.mittelalter-server.de/Mittelalter-Geld/Das-Mittelalter-Geld-im-Mittelalter_Preise.html
I've translated and corrected the table from the above link
sword + scabbard 7.600,00
shield + lance 3.500,00
gaiters, ect. 12.000,00 this would be mail boots in the game
helmet 11.000,00
mail shirt 21.000,00
or mail coat 24.000,00 which would be a knightly mail with surcoat in the game
3 riding/pack horses 72.000,00
1 warhorse 70,000.00
------------------------------------------------------
total with mail shirt 197.100,00
total with mail coat 200.100,00
From this table we can see that a sword (given the time that's probably a 1-h sword) was around 1/3 of the price of a mail coat and the mail coat was around 1/3 of the price of a warhorse. In game the relation is roughly the same, a 1-h sword has about 1/3 of the value of a mail hauberk. What is not correct is that the prices for sword/mail are way too high, and that a war horse costs only 1/3 of a mail hauberk - the other way round would be right.
If you wanted to have a completely realistic and historically accurate depiction of prices, then you would have to reduce the value of most of the weapons and armours by 80% or more, the scythe-glaive-stuff by at least 90%, raise the prices for war horses somewhat, double the prices for other horses, and at least double the price for building a castle, it should be somewhere in the region of 500,000 dinar.
If you try it out, shop prices could then be something like the following: A knightly mail would cost some 3,000 dinar, coat of plates maybe 3,500, a mail shirt some 2,000, veteran mail/arab mail shirt 2,500; gambesons/kipchac/mongol/iberian/imarat leather armour 100-300d. A sword would be between 500 (short sword) and 1,500 dinar (longsword), cleavers, 1-h maces, 1-h axes, hatchets, fighting picks, other cheap stuff maybe 5-150 d. Helmets 500-1,500 d, mittens/gauntlets maybe 100-200 dinar, gloves 5d. Plated,splinted/chausses/mail boots 600-1,200 d., other boots some 5-20d. Scythes, 2-h axes, glaives, 2-h cleavers and stuff probably would not cost more than 100-300d, bows+crossbows too, or even less. Warhorse should cost 8,000 dinar, other horses 500-2,500 dinar. Shields, spears, throws, arrows, bolts and stuff is really cheap and probably shouldn't cost more than ~10-50 dinar, maybe 50-200 for lances.
If we take the above mentioned prices, a masterwork longsword would then still cost some 26,250 dinar, balanced some 5,250 dinar, 1-h masterwork sword some 18,000 dinar, balanced 3,900. A champion warhorse would cost 116,000 dinar, spirited 52,000 and heavy 15,200 dinar. A lordly coat of plates were in the region of 40,250 dinar (~ 4 years of a knight's wages) and a lordly knightly mail around 34,500. You could equip 11 companions for around 170,000 dinar with default stuff, ie. a knightly mail + warhorse +1-h sword + greathelm + shield + lance + mail boots + mittens. If you equip yourself with the best stuff, you would probably have to spend some 250,000 for your gear, that's still 420,000 dinar all in all, which have to be earned first. If you want to give your companions a few goodies, then this will succeed 500,000 with ease, still not cheap. Prices for various buildings in the fort. manor, village, are roughly ok, but a basic castle should maybe cost some 200,000 d, and stone fortification I some 180,000 and II some 120,000 (but only if it's not bugged and it should be really worth it and an advantage to have the fortifics).
I'm not sure if it wouldn't take some 'salt' out of the game, cause you don't have to work that hard in order to buy you some lordly champion masterwork stuff, but on the other hand, if you want your companions all equipped with nice default stuff, lordly champion masterwork gear for you, and a completely upgraded castle, including the fort. manor completely upgraded you'd still have to spend 1 million. That's 1-2 ingame years of hard work. And if you can build more than 1 castles, and upgrade more than 1 manor, there still would be some reason left to save the money for - 700,000 for another completely upgraded castle+fortified manor.
For the above to work, the loot values would have to be drastically increased, so that the loot is still something worth and can be sold in towns.
3. Crossbows are too weak
Crossbows in this mod are too weak. It would solve the problem if either the crossbow dmg or the bolt dmg would be changed from cut to pierce or increase the x-bow dmg by some 20-30 points. I don't think that they then will become overpowered because I did some tests on this with my char using once crossbows + bolts with piercing dmg, and another time a bow with, same skills - the crossbow would deal about as much damage as a bow with the power draw being 1-2 points over the requirement of the bow. With 3-4 points over the requirement I still delivered more dmg with the bow than with a crossbow with piercing dmg bolts. And there are more than enough guys around who have 3-4 points more than the requirement of their bows, with an insane proficieny, like the Merghen Karvaach with pd of 7 and 375 prof, Cuman vet horse archer with the same stats, Cymry bowmen with pd 8-9 and 430 prof, while on the other hand there's only 1 unit with 300 in crossbows and that's the Genoese x-men.
4. Turkopoles in the holy lands are useless
They will either equip a bow or arrows, never both of them, which makes them utterly useless as they always will try to use their polearms from horseback and in melee, which is their worst skill (130 prof.), while their 300 bow prof with pd of 6 and their 1-h prof of 220 with ps 3 will almost never be used. To eliminate polearms from their inventory did solve the problem, if they even had only 1 plearm in the inventory, most of them would again choose the polearm. To eliminate the polearms from them isn't so devious, as other Turkomans in other countries have the same stats but no polearms. So maybe it would be good to not give them polearms so that they are at least somewhat useful and can shoot 1 or 2 arrows before they die. Or split the unit into lancer and horse archer like it is with the Mamluk turkomans.
5. Spear bracing
It should only be possible to brace a spear if the unit doesn't move and has no shield, as it is right now it is ridiculously overpowered. No reason why a war horse should receive some 50 dmg from a braced spear only because it walks out of a block of spearmen with 0.05 kilometres per hour. The horses keep dying out of shock and fear if they only see a spearman with his braced spear some distance away, it's almost like an invisible horse-redeemer. Maybe it is possible to make only certain spears braceable, like the ones with a length of above 150. Or some timer thing, so that they can only brace again after 1 minute has passed since their first braced hit or such. It is ok if the first cavs are dehorsed by braced spears but if the rest of them, that are behind them are also brought down, and the third and fourth ones also, by the same spearmen that are not even looking at them but have their spears braced, hmmm, I don't know, but I don't like it. Don't know if lances are also braceable, but if not, you could give the shorter spears the 'couchable' flag and then only the longer ones would count as spears and could thus be used for spear bracing while the shorter ones would count as lances.
6. A propos lances
They technically have the length of 280 or whatever but they still look like 180 or 190, maybe it is possible to stretch them a little bit so that their models correspond somewhat more to their real length.
7. Helmet values for open faced helmets, coifs, etc.
Are too high. If you poke someone with a pointy thing into his face or even the eyes once, he won't be that much enthusiastic to continue fighting, same if he gets a bolt or arrow into his face -> end of story.
8. I've forgotten my data for your bugtracking site and want to report something I've encountered at revision 100
Don't know if you have recognized it or if it has been reported already, but at revision 100 I've encountered the unit Sharif Fursan Al Arab on my crusades, and they have quite some extravagant stats.
I've made a screenshot from Morgh's Editor
Well, I guess that's everything I had to say. If you maybe find some ideas appealing it would be nice, I could even help you with items, companions and stuff. If not, I'll continue to play the mod with the current stuff, as it still is the best mod out there for Warband
