Do you think infantry with spears will be less ****?

[Innocent Flower]

So in real life, the spear was the king of the battlefield. Not just because it was cheap, but because it was a versatile weapon; It was one of the best weapons for punching through armour, the reach advantage is huge (and you can't just "get past the tip" to win). Even in modern day, Reinactments favour the spear, and HEMA thinks it's OP.  It was the rifle to the sword's pistol.

In regular mount and blade, The spear for infantry... It's really sucky, because they can win by just getting past the tip, it doesn't do a great deal of damage, stabs are very easy to block (and swings, outside of some spinning exploits and whacking someone not looking, are probably the easiest weapon to block)  Furthermore, if you're preparing for a horsecharge, well bucko, you best be onto your timing, because they'll ignore right through your readied spear and then be too close to stab.

Now, bannerlord has a physics based system damage system, and much better animations, do you think spears might possibly be less suck? 

 

[lolbash]

You can do upwards stabbing now in bannerlord. Im pretty sure they got a significant buff, but only time will tell.

 

[578]

So in real life, the spear was the king of the battlefield.

According to whom? Because as far as I know it was the most commonly used weapon, but king? Hardly.

 

[KhergitLancer80]

I usually play as cavalry and it is possible to kill spearmen with a long enough lance.
Because I control the distance between him and myself.
Yes, if I approach him with full speed I have no chance but especially as a Khergit(because they can make maunevres better than others as far as I know) and my horse is not a courser but a hunter or any kind of charger I simply approach the spearmen with a speed that I can make quick maunevres.As he thrusts his spear I turn my horse and outmaunevre his spear while thrusting my own lance and bam he is dead.

But if it is Rhodok pikemen we are talking about and I dont have a great Swadian lance I literally stand no chance against them as long as they notice me.

For the infantry I dont know they seem to be stronger than swordsmen if they dont wield their shield.

But I agree that their strength comes from wrong side.Because in WB all the thrust attacks can be blocked simply by defending downwards it kinda breaks the spears advantage of being ''hard to block'' in real life.Well I dont know what to suggest about this lol

EDIT:Now I remembered, in Bannerlord we will be able to shield bash so if they increase the speed of spearthrust we can shieldbash and thrust our spear after that quickly.Also now they added over-shoulder thrust for throwables it is something great for them to add it at least now spearmen will have 2 options to attack.

We will see how it will turn out in the game.

 

[Innocent Flower]

So in real life, the spear was the king of the battlefield.

According to whom? Because as far as I know it was the most commonly used weapon, but king? Hardly.

Easy to use.
Fast
Massive range advantage giving you a lot of defense and versatility in who you want to attack, as well as letting you control the area and where your opponents can go.
Great for use in formations and in teams


Like, what competes with that? Nothing. Anyone who's tried HEMA or reinactment knows that the spear gives you an incredible advantage over someone using a sword or whatever.
Arrows, crossbows and early guns struggled with armour.
Poleaxes are slower and, according to folks like Mussashi, sacrifice initiative for defense. 
Greatsword and similar weapons leave you open to attack and don't have the speed or reach, tire you quicker, and are way more expensive.
Swords and axes are sidearms and don't provide the reach, control or defense of a spear. They are better if you're in tight spaces.

The closest rival to the spear is probaby the dagger, for the reason of it's use in a grapple and your ability to maneuver it into the an Armour's weaknesses, but that's not a primary weapon. Thus; Spear is king. 

 

[Honved]

A pike or long spear beats a sword, but sword plus shield was a very viable alternative if you could force your way past the range advantage (usually with some losses). The spear benefits from order and organization, the sword works best in a state of chaos.  Rome started out with spears and hastas (a knife bladed spear-like weapon), but after several painful battles against Gauls with sword and shield, decided to go that route instead.  Problem was, it took a LOT of discipline and high morale to get a line of men to gather the courage to push past the spears into effective sword range.  When it worked, the sword proved decisive; where it failed to push past, or the troops wavered, the spears won.

Rome still used the spear as a defensive weapon in many engagements, and its fabled (and very misunderstood) Triarii were armed with spears, not swords: they were generally the "specialists" in the army, such as smiths, paymasters, clerks, engineers, head cooks, or others with a lifetime of service and skills that were hard to replace, NOT the elite fighting force that many game players use them as.  If they had to get involved, holding the enemy back with spears while the youngsters tried to reorganize the defense, it was already a bad day.  With large pensions at stake (a defeated Legion might be disbanded, forfeiting all of its accumulated pensions and loot), the Triarii were certainly high-morale troops (it's amazing how much a risk to 20-30 years of accumulated pension money can motivate someone), but many were past their prime or were never that good at combat (picture fighting against a professional accountant).

The spear in formation depends on having enough points focused on the enemy to stop him from blocking all of them, or the intimidation factor preventing him from getting past the business end of the spears.  That requires multiple lines.  The sword doesn't need multiple lines to be effective, since it's faster for striking at different locations to negate a shield's coverage.  You can stab several times in succession with a spear, but it takes more time to strike a different area, so it requires more than one spear targeting different locations to effectively negate the safety of a shield.  Since the spear has greater range, that's possible, given more ranks in formation.

One on one, spear versus sword is probably marginally better with the spear, almost entirely on account of reach.  Sword and shield versus spear and shield takes away the spear's strong points and hands the advantage to the sword.  Fighting in formation with a larger group, the spear again takes the top role, with swords often relegated to exploiting breaks in the opposing line or fighting on the flanks.

I guess the effectiveness of spears may depend on formation AI, and whether the troops can form ranks instead of a skirmish line.

 

[Wulfburk]

A pike or long spear beats a sword, but sword plus shield was a very viable alternative if you could force your way past the range advantage (usually with some losses). The spear benefits from order and organization, the sword works best in a state of chaos.  Rome started out with spears and hastas (a knife bladed spear-like weapon), but after several painful battles against Gauls with sword and shield, decided to go that route instead.  Problem was, it took a LOT of discipline and high morale to get a line of men to gather the courage to push past the spears into effective sword range.  When it worked, the sword proved decisive; where it failed to push past, or the troops wavered, the spears won.

Rome still used the spear as a defensive weapon in many engagements, and its fabled (and very misunderstood) Triarii were armed with spears, not swords: they were generally the "specialists" in the army, such as smiths, paymasters, clerks, engineers, head cooks, or others with a lifetime of service and skills that were hard to replace, NOT the elite fighting force that many game players use them as.  If they had to get involved, holding the enemy back with spears while the youngsters tried to reorganize the defense, it was already a bad day.  With large pensions at stake (a defeated Legion might be disbanded, forfeiting all of its accumulated pensions and loot), the Triarii were certainly high-morale troops (it's amazing how much a risk to 20-30 years of accumulated pension money can motivate someone), but many were past their prime or were never that good at combat (picture fighting against a professional accountant).

The spear in formation depends on having enough points focused on the enemy to stop him from blocking all of them, or the intimidation factor preventing him from getting past the business end of the spears.  That requires multiple lines.  The sword doesn't need multiple lines to be effective, since it's faster for striking at different locations to negate a shield's coverage.  You can stab several times in succession with a spear, but it takes more time to strike a different area, so it requires more than one spear targeting different locations to effectively negate the safety of a shield.  Since the spear has greater range, that's possible, given more ranks in formation.

One on one, spear versus sword is probably marginally better with the spear, almost entirely on account of reach.  Sword and shield versus spear and shield takes away the spear's strong points and hands the advantage to the sword.  Fighting in formation with a larger group, the spear again takes the top role, with swords often relegated to exploiting breaks in the opposing line or fighting on the flanks.

I guess the effectiveness of spears may depend on formation AI, and whether the troops can form ranks instead of a skirmish line.

great post mate!

 

[Innocent Flower]

Well, first thing I say to that, is that the convenience of the sword means you can carry both.

Secondly, as much effort as you've put in to refute my "spears are the king of the battlefield argument" (at least, in huge formations that the classical era was want to do. You must also considered that perhaps the romans suffered because they were poorly trained in the use of their backup weapons) , you must acknowledge that spears, as they are now, are terribly useless in comparison to what they were in real life, and as we go further into the future (admitedly not far enough, but think of the mods) shields become less relevant as armour becomes better and so everyone turns to two handed weapons (or we can look at oddball cases like japan that didn't use conventional shields, thus, Yari=melee king)   

Quite pointedly, Warband doesn't let us use spears to their full potential. Of course, it doesn't have all the tricks a sword could do and there's some treacherous overswing, but comparitively, spears are getting... the short end of the stick.

 

[Yabloko]

The problem with properly representing spears (and other polearms) is that they'd be cheaper and easier to use - not the best, but good enough to dominate the battlefield. Most factions would realistically just equip spears and use a sword or a dagger as a sidearm, and only the richest ones like the empire could afford the equipment necessary to make sword vs. spear an even fight.

 

[Cale]

I think there's a couple of things to address:

1) Spears really do need a fix in M&B, even in VC you can lose your shield against a spearman and hold the down block to stop everything because the AI doesn't do the upwards stab that often.

2) Spears were the most common weapon of the period that Bannerlord is going to emulate (Early Medieval) but that doesn't necessarily mean they're the 'Best' weapons. They are extremely cheap, many of them can be carried onto the field (some to throw, some to stab with, both probably of the same type rather then dedicated 'Javelins') and they do keep the foe at range. Moving beyond that, it's a weapon we still essentially use today as a bayonet on a rifle is more or less just a fancy-pants spear.

BUT

They are also very liable to break or become tangled in a shield. The ranged nature of a spear means you literally are thrusting it far out infront of you, this means exposing the wooden shaft on each attack so that, even if it doesn't shatter eventually through impact, or the spearhead goes into a shield and then can't come out, gets tangled and buried then someone with a handaxe is very likely to take a swing and might just snap it for you.

Generally, engagements would have started with a shower of spears from both sides (this is all infantry only btw, I know literally nothing about eastern horse-based armies other then...you know...horses?) and then the lines closing. Spears would have been used to start but they are essentially expected to be broken so that you draw your sidearm if the battle is still going on. This is the thing that modern re-enactment fighting can't adjust for (especially people who use extremely thin shafted spears with tiny heads on them) because we're not using sharp axes and, if a shaft does snap, it might actually stop the fight as the broken length of pointy wood is probably the most dangerous thing on the field. We're also not using sharp spear points which means they bounce off shields rather then getting stuck.

So spears are great! But calling one thing the 'best' usually ignores its weaknesses or what it was originally meant for

 

[Honved]

Have you ever tried to cut a 1" diameter hard wooden shaft that's not being held against a hard stop?  It can flex, or can be pushed to the side by the impact, but breaking or cutting it with an axe or sword is a surprisingly difficult task.  The Romans tried that against the Greeks, with zero success, and regularly got crushed unless they managed to outflank the Greeks (where the short swords were devastatingly effective, and the Greek armies essentially collapsed).

The times when spears or lances regularly broke was when a horseman charged an opponent, and the momentum of the rider, along with some of the momentum of the horse (far more in later medieval times when lances could be "couched"), was transferred to the target through the spear or lance.  That's a colossal amount of energy.  You can't break a decently made spear just by stabbing with it.

The SCA uses rattan weapons (similar to bamboo), because it's fairly light (less risk of broken bones), and doesn't form a sharp splinter point if/when it breaks ("It's only fun until someone loses an eye.").... and break it certainly does.  Don't compare that with the ash, oak or other strong wooden shafts used in most medieval polearms.

Getting a spear point stuck in a shield is a potential problem for the spear user in single combat, but look at the problem it also creates for the shield holder in a formed line battle.  The spear user now has a handle to contest the movement of the shield.  If the front rank spearman with the stuck spear pushes down, the second rank spearman can stab high (or vice versa), and the opponent has no defense against it.  The opponent is likely to drop the shield, otherwise anyone can step on the spear shaft and drag his shield arm to the ground, and him with it.  Meanwhile, the disarmed spearman (who still has a shield for defense) can draw a sword or drop back to the rear of the formation.

 

[Cale]

Short answer, yes I have. It is challenging but I've also seen spears shatter in a line fight, and had dane axe handles go on me personally. Alot of that is from use, but also sudden impacts. Additionally, any reenactment fight is, at most, the tenth of intensity of a real fight.

Also, we use oak and ash and metal weapons.

 

[KhergitLancer80]

Short answer, yes I have. It is challenging but I've also seen spears shatter in a line fight, and had dane axe handles go on me personally. Alot of that is from use, but also sudden impacts. Additionally, any reenactment fight is, at most, the tenth of intensity of a real fight.

Also, we use oak and ash and metal weapons.

What should they change about spears in your opinion ?

 

[Cale]

Short answer, yes I have. It is challenging but I've also seen spears shatter in a line fight, and had dane axe handles go on me personally. Alot of that is from use, but also sudden impacts. Additionally, any reenactment fight is, at most, the tenth of intensity of a real fight.

Also, we use oak and ash and metal weapons.

What should they change about spears in your opinion ?

It might be an idea to remove two handed slashes from pure spears (yes they can be used that way but bear with me) and instead make spears a thrust only weapon that can thrust in all four directions.

So instead of a swing, thust to face, to the left side, to the right, normal. Make it possible to beat a guard. I think close range penalties already work pretty well for all weapons.

Might have to reduce damage but increase speed for balance.

I would not recommend making them break because weapon breakages in a game like this suuucckkk, all realism aside.

 

[Innocent Flower]

I just had a thought


If the character would adjust his grip along the spear, like you would in real life to get the right distance, either automatically or with the change mode button, the spear'd be greatly improved. If they're far, hold closer to the bottom of the spear for reach, if they're very near, hold much closer to the head. It's a very intuitive thing to do with spears to change grip according to situation. I imagine holding the spear close to the head doesn't take full advantage of the weapon, but it'd be much better than the bull we have now where the enemy can get so close you can't hurt them.

 

[Rhade]

Since everyone seems to love to use real life as a measuring stick for balance, I think we should cut out all respawning mechanics.

Because, in Rome, in real life, the legions didn't respawn when they died.

So we should address that, too.

隐藏

Real life takes a back seat here. This isn't a real life simulator, it's a game. A spear is a tool and has a niche and place to be utilized, which is anti-cav and it's also useful in group-fighting situations. I tire so much of seeing people fail to understand things like that and constantly fall back on the "Well, in real life..." arguments.

 

[Dest45]

Since everyone seems to love to use real life as a measuring stick for balance, I think we should cut out all respawning mechanics.

Because, in Rome, in real life, the legions didn't respawn when they died.

So we should address that, too.

隐藏

Real life takes a back seat here. This isn't a real life simulator, it's a game. A spear is a tool and has a niche and place to be utilized, which is anti-cav and it's also useful in group-fighting situations. I tire so much of seeing people fail to understand things like that and constantly fall back on the "Well, in real life..." arguments.

This is why Battle is the best mode and all the real players play that.

 

[lolbash]

Real life takes a back seat here. This isn't a real life simulator, it's a game. A spear is a tool and has a niche and place to be utilized, which is anti-cav and it's also useful in group-fighting situations. I tire so much of seeing people fail to understand things like that and constantly fall back on the "Well, in real life..." arguments.

Ok but can the game at least try to adhere to reality, because if not, then we would be hitting overwatch levels of unrealistical

 

[Desideratus]

Barring that fact that leaving spears where they are is somehow equivalent to Overwatch- and think on that for a second- I don't think having spears be so useful and ubiquitous would be good for gameplay. The mods where spears and pikes are everywhere - barring the trashcan of a combat system that is NW - the combat isn't very fun. Once you get into the thick of fighting it devolves to the point where the brave few that wander forward are immediately killed by a wall of spears. Everyone ended up just standing around at the edge, and the first one to flank wins.

 

[lolbash]

Barring that fact that leaving spears where they are is somehow equivalent to Overwatch- and think on that for a second- I don't think having spears be so useful and ubiquitous would be good for game play. The mods where spears and pikes are everywhere - barring the trashcan of a combat system that is NW - the combat isn't very fun. Once you get into the thick of fighting it devolves to the point where the brave few that wander forward are immediately killed by a wall of spears. Everyone ended up just standing around at the edge, and the first one to flank wins.

You are ignoring a ****load of factors.

Terrain, archers, calvary, horse archers, the armor of each unit that wields the weapons.

Not to mention that NW is VERY different from standard warband gameplay.

2 handed weapons are non existent, armor dosent exist in it because guns and cannons rule the battlefield there.

I think you're making a very unfair comparison here.

This is like comparing call of duty to fallout 4.

The mods where spears and pikes are everywhere - barring the trashcan of a combat system that is NW - the combat isn't very fun. Once you get into the thick of fighting it devolves to the point where the brave few that wander forward are immediately killed by a wall of spears. Everyone ended up just standing around at the edge, and the first one to flank wins.

Speak for yourself. I personally enjoy watching the bayonets go into the french trying to reload while I flank from the side with my sword in Commander Battles.