Having another faction's faith troop

[soluuloi]

I chose natural philosophy as my faith and Zerrikanian as my starting faction so obviously, most of my army and garrison are Zerrikanian troops. But the problem is Zerrikanian's dual dragoon is too weak. Their guns are slow and inaccurate. I am fine with that actually. But I dont understand how they lost all of their iron skin skill. From 63 hp of zealous Dvor, I got 49 hp dual dragoon. Sure, their armor is slightly better but that's not enough for something that can only shoot once in a while and have to rely on melee most of the times.

I want something on horse that can either kill a lot of stuff with melee weapon or shot a lot of stuff with bow or at least can take the hit while climbing the ladder in siege battle. So, I thought about taking some noble troops from the other factions land place them in my city. But nothing happen so far. They dont even go zealous. What should I do now?

 

[Computica]

Feel free to edit the troops with a text editor. They were not fleshed out when I implemented them in the beginning. I have a different system planned for them in the next version.

 

[soluuloi]

Feel free to edit the troops with a text editor. They were not fleshed out when I implemented them in the beginning. I have a different system planned for them in the next version.

Then how about getting faith troop of other factions? I built everything in my castle and city. I only have to place the stage 3 noble units in city > wait for them to become jealous > place them in a castle > wait for them to become faith? Does having different religion matter?

 

[Computica]

You should be able to do that.

 

[Alavaria]

Then how about getting faith troop of other factions? I built everything in my castle and city. I only have to place the stage 3 noble units in city > wait for them to become jealous > place them in a castle > wait for them to become faith? Does having different religion matter?

Yes that will work.

They will become faith troops of the religion you chose, but of the factiontype of unit.

EG: You can get Natural Philosophy Villanese units this way. (A handcannon unit) I don't really like the gunpowder in this, not very good compared to bows, really.

 

[LibSpit]

Yeah I think me and computica had discussions about gunpowder units in the past and about both improving them and changing how you get them.

The historical fact was that early gunpowder weapons were pretty naff though, they were just much easier to make and use than the best archer/crossbowmen, in both equipment and training times.

So Gunpowder faith troops don't really work very well, as they are exceptionally trained troops with really unwieldy weapons!

We need to go crazy and give Faith troops sniper rifles or SMGs

 

[soluuloi]

Yeah I think me and computica had discussions about gunpowder units in the past and about both improving them and changing how you get them.

The historical fact was that early gunpowder weapons were pretty naff though, they were just much easier to make and use than the best archer/crossbowmen, in both equipment and training times.

So Gunpowder faith troops don't really work very well, as they are exceptionally trained troops with really unwieldy weapons!

We need to go crazy and give Faith troops sniper rifles or SMGs

Yeah, the only thing I hate about the firearm of Dual Dragoon is how bad their accuracy are. If they are suppose to be the best of the best, they should use the lordly version instead. XD

 

[LibSpit]

Yeah, I mean that is the basic problem of early firearms they were lucky if they hit the broad side of a barn..

So firearms on faith troops just doesn't work, that's why I never chose natural philosophy, it's a waste of elite skill, it doesn't matter how good you are or how good the gun is, it will always be inaccurate, crossbows and bows are just better for elite troops. Guns are only really good in bulk against a charging enemy.

1 situation is not what you want for your top tier troops!

 

[Alavaria]

Yeah I think me and computica had discussions about gunpowder units in the past and about both improving them and changing how you get them.

The historical fact was that early gunpowder weapons were pretty naff though, they were just much easier to make and use than the best archer/crossbowmen, in both equipment and training times.

So Gunpowder faith troops don't really work very well, as they are exceptionally trained troops with really unwieldy weapons!

We need to go crazy and give Faith troops sniper rifles or SMGs

Note that even the crossbow/longbow differences (eg: training time for longbowmen being a serious issue etc) are already sorta messed up by the mechanics as you "train" these sharpshooters in a few days... somehow.

Also, it does seem like this is around the period where decent plate armor could still stop guns of the day (if they even hit of course) so they are understandably bad. So don't use Natural philosophy for the factions with ranged nobles (Villain, Mariana, Zerrikania).


The "longbows doing cutting damage" mechanic is sorta interesting. Though it doesn't stop them from killing heavily armored guys about as fast as crossbows do (due to shooting faster) or massacring less armored guys (due to shooting faster). And in siege defenses, where they can get free ammo, the Villanese Sharpshooters do run out occasionally, but they seem much better for defense use than anything else.

 

[soluuloi]

It seems to me that the noble troops of Imperial Legion do not have zealous stage and never going to become faith units? I stoled nearly 50 Hospitaliers and placed them in my city for 40 days, none of them change or anything.

 

[LibSpit]

No, Legion and the original Calradia factions do not have faith troops, the current roster was ported from the original SOD where Legion were super tough big baddies and the Calradians were non-playable, so neither had Faith troops.

We do plan to change this for future builds.

 

[Digital Terror]

Yeah, I mean that is the basic problem of early firearms they were lucky if they hit the broad side of a barn..

So firearms on faith troops just doesn't work, that's why I never chose natural philosophy, it's a waste of elite skill, it doesn't matter how good you are or how good the gun is, it will always be inaccurate, crossbows and bows are just better for elite troops. Guns are only really good in bulk against a charging enemy.

1 situation is not what you want for your top tier troops!

This is actually quite false, early firearms were just as accurate as archery, and at longer ranges.  How accurate the firearms were depended mostly on how strong the powder charge was, i.e. how fast the shot was propelled.  Remember, matchlock smoothbore longbarrel guns were in use from the 15th century into the late 17th, which is about when flintlocks were developed.  Flintlock smoothbore guns then became the mainstay of every American and European army from late 17th to mid 19th century.  In the first 400 or so years of the early firearms, very little changed about them, and they were regularly used to hunt more than they were used in military forces.  If they were so inaccurate vs. the use of a bow or crossbow, don't you think hunters would have abandoned them and quickly returned to the older tried and true weapons?

Accuracy only really suffered when the weapons were shot repeatedly for long periods between cleanings....but then, even modern firearms suffer in the accuracy dept if they aren't kept clean, and early black powder was far worse in that regard than modern black powder.  Thus, early into an engagement the guns were very accurate and deadly, but after a few shots would become more and more inaccurate...but considering reload times, not many shots could be taken before the gunners were either forced into melee or the enemy force was routed.

Additionally, early firearms could be used with any number of things as shot...and were frequently filled with grapeshot for a shotgun like effect rather than a single slug, and everyone knows you don't need to aim to hit the broad side of your proverbial barn with a shotgun, albeit range suffers badly

This forum thread at http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.7369.html has a great discussion of early firearms and their effective accurate ranges.

The main reason that archery held on as long as it did, and the main advantage of archery over gunnery, is that of armor.  Armored troops might get knocked down, might get ribs broken or other such less lethal wounds from an early matchlock slug...but arrows with war heads would pierce the armor.  English longbows and most heavy crossbows could even pierce the heaviest of plate armor, but early firearms wouldn't do more than dent that up.

So, to wrap up this wall of text, unless some way were able to be put into the game to simulate accurate first couple of shots and then degrading accuracy for each shot thereafter, accuracy for the in-game firearms is probably a good bit lower than it should be, HOWEVER, the shot power against armor is much higher than it should be so it all balances out.

 

[soluuloi]

Actually, long bow and bows in the game in general are a little stronger than in real life. A long bow can only shoot 5 to 6 arrows per minutes and even experience archers dont fire that fast because it will put heavy pressure on their arms. It means a long bow can only shoot about 3-4 arrows per minute at most. Mean while, long bow in most if not all mods are medieval smg. A crossbowman can shoot 2-3 bolts in a minutes which is nearly as fast as long bow. If you guys are making the new version of SoD then you guys should seriously buff crossbow's reload time. And Sod got it right with the damage of long bow but not Khergit and Nomad bow. Long bows generally are not stronger than the...cough..."Mongolian" or "Turkish" bow. They have same effective range but composite bows require less draw force and can shoot faster. It's the arrow that made the different. The arrows that are commonly used by long bow are bigger, heavier and tougher which make the impact more serious and can generally penetrate more stuff than other kind of bows can do.

Also, even the long bow fails to penetrate plate armor except in perfect situations which is why from 15th century and later, most countries do not use longbow anymore. In fact, during the Hundred Years war, the British longbowmen didnt shoot the knights but shot the less armored horses.

For short, bow is generally overrared in MB. Firearm and crossbow are generally underrated.

Oh and firearm's sound scare horses. If you can mod the firearm shot to stop a horse charge....

 

[LibSpit]

Then why in every gunnery documentary I have ever watched do they demonstrate typical smooth bore guns and repeatedly show them to have about a meter radius hit pattern from the intended target.

Most hunters used 'shotgun' style firing methods, or used the first early rifles.

Most armies contnued to use smooth bore muskets, because the lack of rifling meant they could fire a larger shot and be reloaded faster as there was no resistance from the rifling in the barrel.

The use of the musket as also helped by the fact that 'modern' military tactics involved everyone lining up in tightly packed neat rowsto 'have at' each other.

 

[soluuloi]

Yeah, they have bad accuracy. Digital Error got it kinda wrong. But it is true that their reload time is too low. Later model of firearms which actually exist in the game have higher reload time. And also, later models also have very good accuracy. The long muskets for example, can hit rabbits and birds from a long distant.

Generally, I would like too see crossbow's reload time increased, around 50-60 and the better firearms's reload time increased, around 30-40.

 

[Computica]

Noted I'm gonna make these changes in future builds, though some changes like accuracy getting lower with use would be a bit difficult without effecting the agents other equipped weapons as well.

 

[Alavaria]

Maybe if there was a way to reduce their firearm proficiency or something...

the specific soldier, that is. Now the player and companions could be made to lose proficiency points (and then gain them back at end of battle...) perhaps?