Custom Knighthood Order Quivers

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To preface, I enjoy the introduction of your custom order and feels like it adds a lot to an already great mod. However, I have been seeing some inconsistencies between the weapon loadouts established by your steward and the actual weaponry your knights/sergeants bring to the field.

My main point is that while I have been able to equip my sergeants with two quivers of arrows according to castle stewards, I have been noticing that in battle the majority of my sergeants only carry one. While I would not consider the issue gamebreaking, I would like the option of equipping soldiers with the loadout of two quivers + bow + melee. In addition, I have noticed possibly similar issues occurring with other weapon combinations, though these have not been as carefully tested.

Observation Conditions:
- I have only tested this on my sergeants, not my knights.
- The sergeants have been without horses for the entirety of my gameplay and these observations.
- The armor my sergeants have been using are: Eventide Helm, Maltise Armor, Mettenheim Mittens, Heavy Plat Greaves.
- The other weapons slot are occupied by an Ancient Rune Axe and a Noldor Bow.
- Warband version 1.151 and POP 3.611 were used.

Initial Observations:
- I came to the conclusion that soldiers do not use "invisible" quivers in battle. If you see one quiver on a soldier, he will only use that single quiver; if you see two quivers, he will use two quivers. This is supported by observing archers in battle. You can see both the arrow type loosed from the bow in addition to the depletion of their quiver(s) during the course of firing. To rule out the possibility of two quivers of the same type stacking (i.e. two Noldor quivers occupy the same "space" on a character model), I experimented with quivers of different arrow types. To disprove this theory, any example of a sergeant firing an arrow without its respective quiver present on the character during battle would suffice. Through both casual and careful observation, I have not yet seen such an event happen.
- In the steward's item loadouts as displayed below, there are two spaces shown reserved for quivers: the lower back and the upper back. Of the 9 arrow types I have available (I assume I have all the arrows possible), only the default arrows appear on the upper back. The other 8 quivers will be displayed on the lower back. If you have two or more quivers that both go on the lower back, only one quiver will be displayed, with the arrow set lowest on the weapon loadout scale taking precedence. This observation framed a planned experiment. I used a combination of default + Melitine arrows, where there was no conflict in the preferred quiver space.

Udx3m3B.jpg

Depiction of your troops' item loadout as accessed from the steward.
- The arrows from top to bottom are D'Shar, Melitine, Noldor, and default.
- Default arrows are the only type that prefer the upper back slot and thus always appear there.
- The other 8 arrow types prefer the lower back space. As Noldor arrows are the lowest in the item loadout (default arrows are 1 space lower, but they prefer the upper back), only Noldor arrows get displayed.

Experimental Loadout (Noldor Bow + Melitine Arrows + Default Arrows + Ancient Axe):
BN39bZs.jpg

50 sergeants on hold fire while reviewing troops.
- Hold fire ensures there isn't the possibility of the axe obscuring the upper back quiver (default arrows). Note that no one is missing an axe.
- A quick glance reveals that some soldiers lack the default quiver, while others lack the Melitine quiver.
- Three trials for default quivers yielded 60%, 58%, and 52% for an average of 56.7% of sergeants possessing a default arrow quiver.
- Three trials for Melitine quivers yielded 82%, 84%, and 84% for an average of 83.3% of sergeants possessing a Melitine arrow quiver.
- Out of all three trials (150 soldiers), I did not find any sergeants missing both quivers. Based on the experimental averages and assuming the chance of having each quiver is independent, you would expect 10-11 of the 150 soldiers to be quiver-less. This suggests that the chance of a given sergeant having one quiver is dependent on whether or not they already have the other.


N1PARuK.jpg

50 sergeants preparing to fire in an actual battle.


Vtx3nfL.jpg

Sergeants firing at the start of battle.
- Note that when the bow is drawn, the axe is slung on the upper back and may or may not block the quiver from view. Thus, accurate counting of the quivers cannot be done when firing, and instead must be done during a hold fire command.
- A quick sample of the four closest archers show that the arrows they are using are Melitine, Default, Melitine, and Melitine (from closest to farthest).


07XwpxR.jpg

Review of soldiers with hold fire on.
- Reviewing the four soldiers on the right, we see that they have the quivers Default+Melitine, Default, Melitine, and Melitine (from closest to end to farthest from end). This observation is consistent with the idea that every arrow used by your archers must be represented by an visible quiver. While four is not a convincing sample size, I am using it here as an example; I have yet to find a counterexample either during casual play or careful examination.
- Reviewing the 50 total sergeants during the battle with the hold fire command, we have 58% with default quivers and 80% with Melitine quivers, consistent with the averages of 56.7% and 83.3% found when reviewing soldiers outside of battle. This simply serves as a rough check that the data derived while reviewing troops is compatible with actual combat ability.

Conclusions:
- I believe that under the conditions I am using, two quivers in the weapon loadout translates to two quivers in battle less than half the time.
- My assumption is that arrows used by a soldier in battle must be represented by quivers visible on said unit. This is supported on my end by observation consistent with this theory and no examples to the contrary. If anyone can find a counterexample, I would love to hear the details. Note that certain items can obscure quivers, such as the Ancient Axe in my loadout; hold fire or removing the item may be necessary to reveal the "space" designated for carrying quivers.
- Assuming my understanding of quiver mechanics holds, then counting quivers will reveal exactly which arrows are present. Observation based on a loadout where the preferred quiver space differed (Default arrows should go on the upper back if they exist, Melitine arrows should go on the lower back assuming they exist) revealed that units were frequently missing either one quiver or the second, but not both.
- I have noticed similar issues with other weapon combinations, though I have not tested them. A combination of doom mace + polearm/2H seemed to have a similar issue. Here, 2H/polearm weapons go on the upper back while the mace goes on the hip, while the blunt weapon command can force the use of a doom mace (if the soldier carries one).
- One possibility I haven't tested is whether or not you can simply use two quivers of the same type and thus only one quiver (containing the arrows of two) would be displayed on the unit model. To accurately determine whether one visual quiver represents two quiver's worth of arrows, you would probably have to follow a unit and count out how many arrows they used before running out. If however there was still the chance they only spawned with one, you would expect roughly half of a sample to fire one quiver's worth of arrows and the other half of the sample to fire two quivers' worth.

In summary, I am having an issue with my knighthood order that I would like outside input on. I'd like the ability to equip two quivers, and have not been successful with any item combination I've tried so far. It may be a relatively simple fix such as incompatible armor (perhaps Maltise's cape screws with item loadouts). If however, it is a common issue, I would like clarification as to whether this mechanic is intended and if not, whether it can be dealt with in any way.
 
Apparently all the quivers (except "Arrows") are on the back of the waist.

the CKO can indeed spawn with two of the same quiver, basically one will be invisible. It looks odd, they have quiver for X arrows, but might be using Y arrows to shoot.
 
Alavaria said:
Apparently all the quivers (except "Arrows") are on the back of the waist.

the CKO can indeed spawn with two of the same quiver, basically one will be invisible. It looks odd, they have quiver for X arrows, but might be using Y arrows to shoot.

I did a brief test recently with 2x quivers of the same type (Melitine specifically). I had 10 archers firing at roughly the same rate (I made sure none of them were turned around or screwing around in any way), and focused on counting the arrows shot by one archer. Around the time he reached 42 arrows (number of arrows in one quiver), five of the ten guys had stopped firing, and their quivers were empty. The remaining five kept on firing for what was probably a statistically significant amount of time past that, until they ran out (I assume this is where they had used up 2 quivers worth of ammo).

These results would suggest that even with two of the same quivers in a unit's loadout, roughly half of the units don't get double the amount of arrows. I'm not trying to complain about this result, as one quiver of arrows is powerful already, but if there is a loadout that works out, I'd like to know.
 
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