Silith
Recruit
The current formation system (for infantry, in particular) is rather pointless, if not entirely useless, because slash attacks will almost always be blocked by friendly units and thrust attacks are heavily penalized by the damage mechanism of M&B.
While it makes sense that slash attacks can't be performed in close formation, thrusting your sword/spear should be more meaningful than what it is in the game because that is what should happen in real combat.
I would like to rectify that my whole point is about infantry thrust attacks, and why it (or the lack of it) defies the purpose of infantry formations.
Here is how thrust attacks perform in close combat in the current game:
The advantages of a spear include:
A few easy tweaks to the current mechanism could be:
While it makes sense that slash attacks can't be performed in close formation, thrusting your sword/spear should be more meaningful than what it is in the game because that is what should happen in real combat.
I would like to rectify that my whole point is about infantry thrust attacks, and why it (or the lack of it) defies the purpose of infantry formations.
Here is how thrust attacks perform in close combat in the current game:
- You thrust your sword towards a bandit wearing essentially just a piece of linen, and he magically bounces off your sword with his belly while taking some 2-3 damage
- You thrust your spear towards your enemy. Your stance is blocked by friendly units behind you.
- You and a few other spearmen form a shield wall formation. You ready your spear as enemies charge towards you. Some dude throws a rock at you, and your stance is broken.
The advantages of a spear include:
- cheap
- easy to be trained
- longer attack radius compared to sword and axe
- can be used in dense formations such as the famous Macedonian phalanx and Tercio
A few easy tweaks to the current mechanism could be:
- adding a "spear brace" stance to polearms
- make thrust attacks no longer interruptable by units behind
- allow thrust attacks to be able to "push back" enemies when surpassing a certain damage threshold
