Heartfelt thanks for these updates to spears

[Forlorn Hope]

Was just reading the dev update and stumbled upon the following:

SPEAR BRACING
Spear bracing is a new passive stance for any unit wielding an eligible two-handed polearm. A braced polearm damages anything that comes into contact with it above a certain speed, using a similar damage formula to couched lancing. Currently, spear bracing is enabled in multiplayer only.

HOOKED SPEAR AND DISMOUNT ANIMATIONS
Hooked spears enable infantry to dismount riders with successful thrust attacks. Currently, this mechanic is only available in singleplayer, but we do hope to introduce it to multiplayer after it’s been thoroughly tested.

I've been wanting this kind of thing for ages so I thank you for these additions. The combat system is what sustains the game for me so anything like this is really encouraging.

 

[jak1up]

This is a much needed feature, I can't wait to have spear bracing in sp.

 

[hruza]

This is a much needed feature, I can't wait to have spear bracing in sp.

Unlikely to happen. AI won't be able to cope with that. Just my guess.

 

[Dionaea]

Unlikely to happen. AI won't be able to cope with that. Just my guess.

Which is exactly Why it would be good to have
On a serious note, the spear formation would be vulnerable to arrows and crossbows and in my games the AI likes to use those

Should be fun to combine pikes and crossbows and use pike and shot tactics

EDIT I just downloaded a pike bracing mod. Time to practice and hone my commanding skills

 

[Kipsta]

I'd keep my thanks until I actually tested them.

 

[hruza]

Which is exactly Why it would be good to have
On a serious note, the spear formation would be vulnerable to arrows and crossbows and in my games the AI likes to use those

Should be fun to combine pikes and crossbows and use pike and shot tactics

EDIT I just downloaded a pike bracing mod. Time to practice and hone my commanding skills

Problem with bracing is that if implemented, it would make cavalry near useless. In real life horse would not willingly impale itself on a spear or a pike. And cavalry would not engage such formation frontally. Unless they had longer spears or lances. Implementing that in to the game would require AI of much higher complexity and I very much doubt that's going to be done.

 

[guiskj]

I am also skeptical that Spear Bracing will make its way to SP anytime soon. Coding "simple" tactics is hard enough much less something this intricate. We don't have a anything currently in the game this sofisticated.

Remeber that adding something new to one unit type is not enough, you have to add behavioral changes to all other units as well and that means Cav updates so that they don't just always suicide into pikeman units as well as any other melee unit so that they behave somewhat logically around pikeman in this stance.

Then comes the needed formation command update needed to be able to tell a formation to take a stance, as well as formation tactics themselves so that primary spear units are grouped correctly within a formation...

In MP you need almost none of that as human players can coordinate all of that by themselves.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

I am also skeptical that Spear Bracing will make its way to SP anytime soon. Coding "simple" tactics is hard enough much less something this intricate. We don't have a anything currently in the game this sofisticated.

Remeber that adding something new to one unit type is not enough, you have to add behavioral changes to all other units as well and that means Cav updates so that they don't just always suicide into pikeman units as well as any other melee unit so that they behave somewhat logically around pikeman in this stance.

Then comes the needed formation command update needed to be able to tell a formation to take a stance, as well as formation tactics themselves so that primary spear units are grouped correctly within a formation...

In MP you need almost none of that as human players can coordinate all of that by themselves.

Honestly it's a pretty innovative solution to the problem, likely one they needed to develop because spear bracing wasn't working in SP. Also spear bracing in SP would make cav totally useless, at least with hooked spears the cav have a chance to remount (although they likely will be swarmed and killed).

 

[Dionaea]

Problem with bracing is that if implemented, it would make cavalry near useless. In real life horse would not willingly impale itself on a spear or a pike. And cavalry would not engage such formation frontally. Unless they had longer spears or lances. Implementing that in to the game would require AI of much higher complexity and I very much doubt that's going to be done.

Meaning this would negate the stack spam the AI throws at you because now you have a decent way of fighting it with not too many losses instead of going all archer and horse archer and going 4 f1 f3 and 2 f1 f4

You can tinker with splitting up your infantry and splitting up your crossbows, setting up pike square and crossbows in between and have the crossbows retreat into the squares when the cavalry charges, and marching the crossbows out again when the cavalry is destroyed

Think a bit like this:




But with crossbows as your arquebusiers




EDIT, here's a beautiful example of a mod that bestmods168 is working on, it's a Macedonian phalanx with Brace, and the shields offer passive protection behold it's glory it's absolutely high on my wish list, can't wait to corner camp the AI's stack spam with it eventually when they keep sending army after army after army of escaped lords who insta recruit and seem to teleport towards you all the time when laying siege

 

[guiskj]

In my opinion, trying to implement Battle tactics in Bannerlord, like the phalanx, is folly. They don't scale down well enough to the 2000 troop max on screen.

Not to mention that, throughout most of military history, there was usually ONE winning tactic which gave the military with the knowledge and technology to implement it a huge leg-up.
But in the game, you need more of a rock-paper-scissors approach to keep things fun regardless of which Calradian faction you choose. This balance usually means keeping things as simple as possible and letting the player's brain be the one to add in the complexity.

Regardless of whether you agree with my above statmenent, as a community, let's stop asking for battle tactics from TW and let that be the realm of modders. A thousand "people" fighting is not a battle, it is a skirmish.

 

[bestmods168]

Which is exactly Why it would be good to have
On a serious note, the spear formation would be vulnerable to arrows and crossbows and in my games the AI likes to use those

Should be fun to combine pikes and crossbows and use pike and shot tactics

EDIT I just downloaded a pike bracing mod. Time to practice and hone my commanding skills

Dont forget to also download my firearm mod or weapon pack mod to get the full "pike and shot" experience.

 

[hruza]

Meaning this would negate the stack spam the AI throws at you because now you have a decent way of fighting it with not too many losses instead of going all archer and horse archer and going 4 f1 f3 and 2 f1 f4

You can tinker with splitting up your infantry and splitting up your crossbows, setting up pike square and crossbows in between and have the crossbows retreat into the squares when the cavalry charges, and marching the crossbows out again when the cavalry is destroyed

Think a bit like this:




But with crossbows as your arquebusiers




EDIT, here's a beautiful example of a mod that bestmods168 is working on, it's a Macedonian phalanx with Brace, and the shields offer passive protection behold it's glory it's absolutely high on my wish list, can't wait to corner camp the AI's stack spam with it eventually when they keep sending army after army after army of escaped lords who insta recruit and seem to teleport towards you all the time when laying siege

That video sums up the problem: AI will just suicide itself on braced spears/pikes. Which is exactly why I don't think this feature will ever be implemented in SP. It would require massive overhaul of the AI.

 

[Terco_Viejo]

Problem with bracing is that if implemented, it would make cavalry near useless. In real life horse would not willingly impale itself on a spear or a pike. And cavalry would not engage such formation frontally. Unless they had longer spears or lances. Implementing that in to the game would require AI of much higher complexity and I very much doubt that's going to be done.

If the moders have already done so, it's possible. What needs to be adjusted is the behaviour of the AI (cavalry and infantry) to flank and charge from behind or laterally.
---
@guiskj take a look at this (link)

 

[Lord Bryggan]

It is absolutely wonderful for MP though. I'm tired of noob cav charging through infantry knowing their couched lance has an 80% chance of defeating a guy who has to perfectly time his stab.

And, in SP, surely if AI can tell archers not to engage infantry it can tell cav not to attack pike holders.

But we'll see.

 

[Dionaea]

That video sums up the problem: AI will just suicide itself on braced spears/pikes. Which is exactly why I don't think this feature will ever be implemented in SP. It would require massive overhaul of the AI.

I like it, I'm sick and tired of restarting campaigns because I decided to besiege an AI and starving out the castle to not throw away my men in risky battles only to see them die in the constant battle spam because the AI doesn't have the same recruitment handicap the player has and captured lords constantly escape. This is why I aksed for an easy to defend chokepoint based defensive camp for besiegers like in viking conquest. But a total war style Macedonian phalanx would be even better

 

[guiskj]

If the moders have already done so, it's possible. What needs to be adjusted is the behaviour of the AI (cavalry and infantry) to flank and charge from behind or laterally.

It's more nuanced than that though. That is a very well orchestrated demo. During playtime things are much more fluid.
Things to take into consideration:

1. Will this require that braced pikeman be its own "formation"? Currently we have infantry and shock infantry, but no spearman formation
   1. If no, than how will units know how to behave in mixed formations. (i.e. how to shield wall + brace)
   2. What is the threshold of unit mix needed to achieve in order to stop cav charges?
2. If yes, will this replace another formation? We only have so many hotkeys to use
3. If no, is the decision to stop something that each cav unit does or do they decide as formation?
   1. If each unit, what is the hit in performance? Can the unit still maintain formation cohesiveness with the the units that did not stop and regroup?
   2. If the decision is as a whole formation, what is the threshold to trigger this behavior?

These are just questions that I thought of now, I bet it gets way more complex.

Remember, we are stills struggling with telling our guys to keep their shields up!

 

[Terco_Viejo]

It's more nuanced than that though. That is a very well orchestrated demo. During playtime things are much more fluid.
Things to take into consideration:

1. Will this require that braced pikeman be its own "formation"? Currently we have infantry and shock infantry, but no spearman formation
   1. If no, than how will units know how to behave in mixed formations. (i.e. how to shield wall + brace)
   2. What is the threshold of unit mix needed to achieve in order to stop cav charges?
2. If yes, will this replace another formation? We only have so many hotkeys to use
3. If no, is the decision to stop something that each cav unit does or do they decide as formation?
   1. If each unit, what is the hit in performance? Can the unit still maintain formation cohesiveness with the the units that did not stop and regroup?
   2. If the decision is as a whole formation, what is the threshold to trigger this behavior?

These are just questions that I thought of now, I bet it gets way more complex.

Remember, we are stills struggling with telling our guys to keep their shields up!

Don't ask me how to do it, ask Taleworlds

 

[bestmods168]

That video sums up the problem: AI will just suicide itself on braced spears/pikes. Which is exactly why I don't think this feature will ever be implemented in SP. It would require massive overhaul of the AI.

The video doesnt sum anything up. In sp, ai cavalry does not charge pike head on like 90% of the time. This is clearly a demonstration. It would be called click bait if i featured a mod and not show it in action.

 

[Dionaea]

It's more nuanced than that though. That is a very well orchestrated demo. During playtime things are much more fluid.
Things to take into consideration:

1. Will this require that braced pikeman be its own "formation"? Currently we have infantry and shock infantry, but no spearman formation
   1. If no, than how will units know how to behave in mixed formations. (i.e. how to shield wall + brace)
   2. What is the threshold of unit mix needed to achieve in order to stop cav charges?
2. If yes, will this replace another formation? We only have so many hotkeys to use
3. If no, is the decision to stop something that each cav unit does or do they decide as formation?
   1. If each unit, what is the hit in performance? Can the unit still maintain formation cohesiveness with the the units that did not stop and regroup?
   2. If the decision is as a whole formation, what is the threshold to trigger this behavior?

These are just questions that I thought of now, I bet it gets way more complex.

Remember, we are stills struggling with telling our guys to keep their shields up!

If I remember correctly from the reddit thread where Bestmods put this video, 2handed pikes have the brace mechanic and he placed the soldiers in shieldwall to make them stand closer together as a phalanx. Those shields that they have and provide passive blocking are unequipable I'm not sure how that works.


I would love a pike formation stance where the first row kneels and holds the pike angled, the second row stands and has it straight and the third line holds it straight up over their heads which is a move you can do with spears

 

[bestmods168]

If I remember correctly from the reddit thread where Bestmods put this video, 2handed pikes have the brace mechanic and he placed the soldiers in shieldwall to make them stand closer together as a phalanx. Those shields that they have and provide passive blocking are unequipable I'm not sure how that works.


I would love a pike formation stance where the first row kneels and holds the pike angled, the second row stands and has it straight and the third line holds it straight up over their heads which is a move you can do with spears

I dont know what method they used in deciding which row does what. If i were creating a game, i would have made formations animation based like you said. 1 row does this, 2nd row does that.