Imporving horse charges, hoof attacks, and horse death

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If you want to inject physics into your discussion of tactics, a 5lbs. spear braced by a 200lbs. man won't stop that 1 ton horse moving 60km/h (this is probably heavier and faster than an armored warhorse + armored rider but whatever) either. Yet we all agree that spears would've stopped a cavalry charge, right?

Nobody thought it was a good idea to go bowling with their horses.

Adding huge trample damage without the attendant risk of being thrown off and severely injured will do more to distort the tactics in Bannerlord than having slip-and-slide charges that do puffball damage. Because if you can easily and reliably trample infantry formations wholesale, then it becomes the go-to use for cavalry.

Just look at this ****:




I think you hit the nail on the head right there, back in May.I like the ideas you mentioned back then, danger of dismounting, trample damage, being run over by the friendly rider in back of you, etc.

For a more dynamic relation between infantry and cavalry cav would need to have some risk to their own safety whenever they attack (of course this risk should be in relation to the situation, eg frotnally charging prepared inafantry= high risk, running down lone fleeing looters = small risk), while as well being much more of a danger themselves, eg higher charge damage, trampling damage, etc.

What I imagine is that the decision to employ a cavalry charge should be a difficult one, because of the risk for the (expensive ) troops and their mounts involved. Could give rise to the tactic of using cav for transporting troops to an advantageous position, then dismounting them for a infantry charge.

Of couse, the AI would need to be able to deal with these circumstances. Considering like they are already parcouring up the siege towers like olympian athletes (or not), this maybe would take some time.
 
You'll smash through more than a couple of ranks of infantry. Currently you can plow through infantry eight or nine ranks deep and come out the other side, dealing some damage as you go. There is literally no realistic arrangement of infantry that could stop a charge if you increased the damage, meaning as few as 10 or 20 horses (and not only the heavy ones) can casually truck infantry over.
I haven't really played the game since mostly 1.3.X and to a degree 1.4.1 (iirc), but last time I played a peasant with a fork on a stick could stop a knight on horse at full speed if they poked at the right time and the horse would stop dead in its tracks. This I found a bit silly, hence why I wouldn't mind a change where the forward momentum takes a lot more to stop and that infantry would need to stand in ranks and build up mass that way to stop an incoming charge from cav.


Then why would you support increasing charge damage so high that it literally doesn't matter what weapons the cavalry use?

Because if 20 infantry were charged by 20 heavy cav with speed and momentum, I'm guessing they would indeed get run over unless they were many ranks deep enough and with pikes etc to be able to stop the cavs momemtum not on them, but _through_ them.

Perhaps my post was unclearly written, but wrt to the horse damage (if you miss with lance) I woulnd't mind personally to have it increased for the sole reason that it makes sense. If a man gets run over by a horse at full speed, a horse with armor and the weight of a knight upon it too, I reckon it would hurt like hell. Sure enough it would hurt more than 2 flat damage, hence why I am pro higher damage from being run over by a horse in the game. It's not about balance, it's about what I personally consider more realistic. And I, as said, would balance it out with cost so that only the richest lords could afford enough cav of this kind as to now just run over anyone. Units are way to cheap in this game overall.
 
That's not what was said. I said that running over people with the horse was not the regular cavalry tactic. There were certain reasons why cavalry usually carried weapons, lances quite often, to poke people from a certain distance.

Generally we have very scarce sources from the medieval period which tell something about the exact realities of combat. Such sources mostly come from later periods. We do not know what exactly happened when someone wrote about successful cavalry charges during battles in the middle ages. We don't exactly know why the Norman cavalry allegedly could break "through walls" with their charge (as one eastern Roman princess wrote, surely a deliberate exaggeration), but were not able to break the Anglo-Saxon infantry shield wall at Hastings despite several trials. Weird, why didn't they just ride over the infantry soldiers, as it seemingly was so easy?

You also have to take into account that most of the time cavalry mainly targeted other cavalry. Knights preferred to fight knights, not infantry, so to say. And quite often they sucked when they tried to frontally attack infantry masses in solid formations with good moral.

So (melee) cavalry in Bannerlord should become better but should not be able to ride through and over shield walls. Increasing charge damage of horses is the wrong way.

Valid points of all of them, but I disagree on your last one. Perhaps we speak over eachothers heads here and I mistunderstood you and you me. I don't particularly want horse damage to be increased to make it into a strategy per se to just run over things, but as explained in the post above, I see it as a reasonable damage anyone would get _if_ they do indeed get run over by a heavy cav (or any cav really). I just assume, not based on actual historical accounts or anything, that if I would stand around with a spear and shield and be charged by a horse but fail to stop it and the rider runs my over, that I would break multiple bones, ribs, internal organs and whatever and be out of a fight. In some cases I guess you can be lucky and escape fairly unharmed (I've seen some YT videos of crazy ppl getting slung around by bulls and still be able to run and escape for example) but I reckon you will just as often be maimed badly.

I don't care for balance in these things, I lean towards what seems reasonable. As said before, balance IMHO is better accomplished by other means, ie fiscal.
 
Valid points of all of them, but I disagree on your last one. Perhaps we speak over eachothers heads here and I mistunderstood you and you me. I don't particularly want horse damage to be increased to make it into a strategy per se to just run over things, but as explained in the post above, I see it as a reasonable damage anyone would get _if_ they do indeed get run over by a heavy cav (or any cav really). I just assume, not based on actual historical accounts or anything, that if I would stand around with a spear and shield and be charged by a horse but fail to stop it and the rider runs my over, that I would break multiple bones, ribs, internal organs and whatever and be out of a fight. In some cases I guess you can be lucky and escape fairly unharmed (I've seen some YT videos of crazy ppl getting slung around by bulls and still be able to run and escape for example) but I reckon you will just as often be maimed badly.

I don't care for balance in these things, I lean towards what seems reasonable. As said before, balance IMHO is better accomplished by other means, ie fiscal.

i like realism too,
but they also have to consider all the other nasty things to make it fair like:
- horse control is way too easy as a rider ( a little laggy control is more realistic )
- 1 arrow hit and the horse will be either down, or running freaking out
these things are bad for a game,
either go all in realism and not be bias for horses
or choose fun & balance
 
i like realism too,
but they also have to consider all the other nasty things to make it fair like:
- horse control is way too easy as a rider ( a little laggy control is more realistic )
- 1 arrow hit and the horse will be either down, or running freaking out
these things are bad for a game,
either go all in realism and not be bias for horses
or choose fun & balance
I do not agree. A horse is obviously not a motorbike; therefore it does not have an instantaneous centesimal response. However, the response that a trained horse can give you is really fast.



As for the arrows, the horse is a robust animal. Here is an explicit photo of a horse injured by crossbow bolts thrown by some soulless son of a *****. Check the horse's HP to find a balance between realism and fun; no doubt, but with knowledge.
 
I do not agree. A horse is obviously not a motorbike; therefore it does not have an instantaneous centesimal response. However, the response that a trained horse can give you is really fast.



As for the arrows, the horse is a robust animal. Here is an explicit photo of a horse injured by crossbow bolts thrown by some soulless son of a *****. Check the horse's HP to find a balance between realism and fun; no doubt, but with knowledge.


Amazing video,
But i believe thats a closed repetitive environment that Doesn't reflect a horse behavior in a painful messy battle.
the game gives 100% full control of the horse all the time.
Even if a spear Is shoved in the horse *ss
And Thats not realistic.
 
As for the arrows, the horse is a robust animal. Here is an explicit photo of a horse injured by crossbow bolts thrown by some soulless son of a *****.
Animals are really resilient, if you have watched some wildlife tv shows you know it. Even with a dozen arrows a horse would keep going fine for a while, the real damage comes later from infections or if the wounds are too deep. The same applies to humans.
As you can see they are doing FinE.
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Amazing video,
But i believe thats a closed repetitive environment that Doesn't reflect a horse behavior in a painful messy battle.
the game gives 100% full control of the horse all the time.
Even if a spear Is shoved in the horse *ss
And Thats not realistic.

Nah, in crowded environments, a well dressed horse still responds well.



Obviously I don't know 100% how I would handle in a medieval battle (I wouldn't have liked to participate in a real one?). I believe that several arrows or bolts a horse can handle unless it touches a vital point (artery or encephalic mass). One pike/spear stab, or several javelins, or several stabs to the neck...boy that's another matter.
 
Nah, in crowded environments, a well dressed horse still responds well.



Obviously I don't know 100% how I would handle in a medieval battle (I wouldn't have liked to participate in a real one?). I believe that several arrows or bolts a horse can handle unless it touches a vital point (artery or encephalic mass). One pike/spear stab, or several javelins, or several stabs to the neck...boy that's another matter.


me too i dont know exactly to what extent how well it handles 100% in a medieval battle?
But in the game u can slash a horse and it stays calm
i believe that isnt realistic

On both points of:
-crowd behavior
-and resilience
im aiming for a hostile painful environment
A “battle” Not a show or a celebration.
The videos doesnt simulate that, me too i dont have a video to prove that.
but i follow my personal logic and common sense.
 
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I assume this is just a placeholder value, but the current damage is way too weak. A horse charge full speed into a soldier does maybe 5-10 damage if that which is too weak imo. Also when horses tumble from being killed they should hurt troops that they fall on as well and basically be a rolling boulder of flesh knocking troops down like bowling pins.

In this accident a man gets run over by a horse and don't even slow them down one bit. "Mr Pacheco suffered critical head injuries, a broken jaw and severe damage to his spine in the incident. He was airlifted to hospital and has been in intensive care since the accident happened on 3 June."


So how could horse charges be improved-
  • Most importantly damage done by horses should count towards riding skill xp!
  • Realistic rag doll effects for troops hit by full speed charging horse
  • Charge damage that can kill or harm troops based on weight and speed of horse
  • Damage to horses from hitting troops if they are not wearing horse armor
  • Formations being able to stop or slow down horse if the ranks are deep enough
  • The death of the horse causing damage as they tumble through infantry
  • Hoof attack damage for war horse class mounts when they rear up (use space bar when stopped)
  • Horse on horse collision damage
I can't stress enough that charge damage and hoof damage should count towards riding skill experience otherwise these attacks are pointless.

More dynamic battles for sure!


What are you guys thoughts?

When horse get killed, the rider must take damage too.

For now, when the horse falls, the rider roll over the ground and take no damage.

Absurd.
 
Horses spoke fairly easily, I think it is fair to say they would not react well to being slashed.
True. Something like reducing maneuverability and speed reduction when riding a horse, proportionate to the health of it, could mimic the fact that the horse is wounded and would incentivize the player to avoid getting aggressive if the mount's health decreases the player's survivability and combat effectiveness. This concept goes in the same direction as the previous update #5, where:
"A horse! A horse! my kingdom for a horse!
Horses that fall in combat can now be crippled or even killed outright, with lame horses that go on to fall in future battles being permanently downed. So be sure to look after your four-legged friend or be prepared to meet the same fate as King Richard III."
 
You could penalize riding of a wounded horse by having the horse squirt blood into the face of its rider, lowering visibility. The greater the wounds, the the greater the red mist effect.
Or if you prefer gameplay over realism, the horse can get progressively smaller as it gets more severely wounded, until it vanishes on death.
 
I once used a mod which slowed horses down if they were wounded beyond a certain threshold. Did not work after some version changes any longer, but maybe a similar mechanic could be introduced, with medicine trait chances to affect the slowing.
 
I haven't really played the game since mostly 1.3.X and to a degree 1.4.1 (iirc), but last time I played a peasant with a fork on a stick could stop a knight on horse at full speed if they poked at the right time and the horse would stop dead in its tracks. This I found a bit silly, hence why I wouldn't mind a change where the forward momentum takes a lot more to stop and that infantry would need to stand in ranks and build up mass that way to stop an incoming charge from cav.

That's a big "if". It is definitely silly that a horse at full gallop can be reared but the alternative is the meta becoming a small (or not so small) group of cav, placed on F1 F2, casually mulching anything that can't present a spear. And since formations turn slower than cav rides, well...

And I, as said, would balance it out with cost so that only the richest lords could afford enough cav of this kind as to now just run over anyone. Units are way to cheap in this game overall.

Almost all horses currently do charge damage. Even if you double the damage while tripling the upkeep, players would be able to field enough horses to trample everything for around 1200/day. And winning is money so as long as they keep winning, they can keep growing their cab wing.

I suppose you could go mega-high on cav upkeep costs, like ten tines the cost, but that means giving the AI cheats to manage their finances.
 
A lot of good points brought up and I agree spears are broken currently and need to be fixed as well. There needs to be a phalanx formation in addition to shieldwall that forces the use of polearms. Pikes/spears should create a physical barrier like in the Total war series and makes it hard to get past the spear tips and if you run into them it causes damage on foot or mounted. Surely TW can come up with something that is better then what we currently have to address spears/pikes, but we need to have at least 2 ranks being able to fight with spears.

 
Nah, in crowded environments, a well dressed horse still responds well.



Obviously I don't know 100% how I would handle in a medieval battle (I wouldn't have liked to participate in a real one?). I believe that several arrows or bolts a horse can handle unless it touches a vital point (artery or encephalic mass). One pike/spear stab, or several javelins, or several stabs to the neck...boy that's another matter.


Viva España, carajo!
 
Add into the mix lances and pikes/spears that can break under certain impacts. For example lances that can break from a couple of couched lance attacks and pikes that break after receiving a charging horse attack at full speed.

 
Passive damage for static pikes; thanks to bestmods168 mod it is possible to implement it. The cavalry (without bard) will suffer the same as in the video if they dare to charge; to counteract this, cavalry charges that surprise the infantry from behind or from the side must be lethal and cause a high number of casualties for the side on foot (as I commented previously).

 
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