Just nerf ranged damage by 30%

[Mikal Manfriedson]

I think Emax has a point. The bow is an ancient weapon and people of all social standings - at least the country-dwellers used it often and were probably adept at it. Even said peasants IF free men. He pointed out correctly the game they were allowed to hunt: rabbits, fowl, foxes to protect their chicken, squirrels and what not. Noble game like deer, boars and stuff are restricted to nobles by law, right. So unless they are un-free, people usually used bows to supplement their dishes, got food in winter and similar stuff. I remember from somewhere that there even were laws upon what fur commoners were allowed to wear. Do you really think those furs grew on trees (well, squirrel: yes, they do) or that there were specialized huntsmen everywhere who shot animals for fur for the masses?
About 95% were peasants and worked the fields but it ignorant to believe that plowing and sowing was all those people were able to do. They did carpenter's work when building structures and yes, they went on the hunt if they had spare time to shoot some meat for the cauldron over their fires.
Given that those people usually worked from dawn to dusk, did much work on foot and with manual tools and I believe while uneducated, they at least were generally stronger than nowadays city-dwellers. And they trained their skills from childhood on - maybe because there was not much else to do and had to grow up fast.
Lastly, I cannot believe, that nobles would disencourage their peasants from using bows. If they were free men, they were oblieged to serve in the army in their Lord's wars and I guess a nobleman is pragmatic enough to think his peasant is better alive than dead because who will pay his taxes otherwise. Contributing to the fight with less danger is either way a good thing and was frowned upon by nobility who could not accept that this kind of warfare was indeed more effective. Nobility was originally based on martial prowess. By not accepting archery as martial prowess you can keep your definition of nobility but I guess no noble but the most foolish was neglecting the power projection of archers.

From what I see is that we MIGHT need an encumberance system so units attacking or running or performing actions should lose stamina. I guess firing a bow once is not so much a big deal, if you are used to it. But doing so after forced march repeatedly? You cannot tell me, that cadence, accuracy and power of an archer would not suffer over time in a prolonged engagement. Same with exhausted melee fighters. 3 Javelins in the shield, plate armor and still running like Usain Bolt is very much as ridiculous as complaining about archers are powerful. Of course they are when you run straigth towards them. That is, why there are skirmishers to whittle down their numbers, flanking light cavalry or heavy infantry moving with a shield wall active (which requires discipline and shields large enough). Worked for the Romans.

Most armies have reserves for a reason to pull out men who are tired or wounded and keep fighting. In the game a wounded guy hits as hard as a healthy guy, runs as fast and swinging weapons does not encumber him. And armor works weird. Might we maybe see the root of the problem? If everybody behaves like Superman or Asterix on magic potion then of course ranged beats foot every time.

The problem is not that a bow is a good weapon per se - the game simply treats behavior of cobattants wrong. At least in campaign mode. In Multiplayer buff or nerf at your leisure - this is E-sports. But if you want to immerse into what it feels like fighting in and against medieval-style armies and troops, the game should behave 'realistically' with no need for balance at all.

 

[ShadInqu]

The bow is an ancient weapon and people of all social standings - at least the country-dwellers used it often and were probably adept at it.

This is not correct. Literally themain reason the crossbow replaced the bow was that to use a bow effectively required experience and skill, and there were simply not enough people with that skill to fill out armies. Yes, there were forest villages which relied on hunting, and steppe cultures made use bows, but for settled medieval cultures, experienced archers were not widely avaliable.

He pointed out correctly the game they were allowed to hunt: rabbits, fowl, foxes to protect their chicken, squirrels and what not. Noble game like deer, boars and stuff are restricted to nobles by law, right. So unless they are un-free, people usually used bows to supplement their dishes, got food in winter and similar stuff.

Outside of opportunistic kills, peasants did not widely use bows. Again, because using a bow required substantial skill and practice. And because a good bow was a farily expensive piece of equipment. The skills of a bow hunter were completely different from those required from a farmer. Hunting crossbows were popular though.

I remember from somewhere that there even were laws upon what fur commoners were allowed to wear. Do you really think those furs grew on trees (well, squirrel: yes, they do) or that there were specialized huntsmen everywhere who shot animals for fur for the masses?

1. The bulk of common fur could be farmed (i.e. rabbit for both meat and fur)
2. Expensive fur was of course procured by trained huntsmen and traded accross the continent. See for example about the historical sable and beaver fur trade.

About 95% were peasants and worked the fields but it ignorant to believe that plowing and sowing was all those people were able to do. They did carpenter's work when building structures and yes, they went on the hunt if they had spare time to shoot some meat for the cauldron over their fires.

They of course did things other than farming, but was not that common. And most likely hunting was done with hunting crossbows, precisely because bows required much higher skill.

Given that those people usually worked from dawn to dusk, did much work on foot and with manual tools and I believe while uneducated, they at least were generally stronger than nowadays city-dwellers.

Due to the the generally poor diets and poor healt and life expectancy, the average medieval peasant was shorter and not stronger than modern day humans. Doing manual farm work doesn't help muscle growth if you don't have a good diet. And it does nothing good for your back and joints.

Lastly, I cannot believe, that nobles would disencourage their peasants from using bows. If they were free men, they were oblieged to serve in the army in their Lord's wars

This is a misconception. Nobles did not recruit peasants to war (outside of sheer desperation), because untrained peasants were terrible in fighting. A knight was typically expected to bring a small force of semi-professional men-at-arms. Other variations exist, such as fyrd, or byzantine professional troops, but the key point was that random peasant were not conscripted into war.

 

[Mikal Manfriedson]

I was under the (maybe wrong) conception that free men living in a fief had to go to war or buy themselves out. Therefore, a bow might have been a weapon of choice for a free peasant/farmer. Serfs were forbidden to carry arms but also were by law exempt from war duty.
The point boils down to: ranged weapons were common with the peasantry be it either a sling, a bow of any kind or a hunting crossbow and I believe, the people using them were also adept at using them. So I can imagine lords draft free people being able to use a bow. But then I guess we are talking about those semi-professionals: Peasant in peace-times and soldier at war. I was not talking about unarmored mobs with reforged agricultural tools like flails and scythes with the odd club or hatchet. I was just thinking: the mass of the people were neither noble nor professional. If you raise armies nevertheless you might expect to get troops like the archer or any kind of skirmishing ranged units as best compromise in battleworthyness between a unit having an effect or rabble that is more a danger to your army's morale than to the enemy. And you probably might have them in bigger numbers than your semi-professional men-at-arms.

When they started to use the hunting crossbow I do not know. If we are in the early medieval ages, the bow might be correct while in the latter the crossbow is.

I wonder, whether the historical incorrectness still invalidates the gameplay quirks I pointed out.

 

[KingEroc1st]

That's exactly the same situation... a noble line that is supposed to be OP, and rare.

i'm literally comparing 3 melee noble lines vs 1 ranged noble line and it turns out the melee only heavy cavs lose in melee vs the ranged /melee unit. when ranged units are better at melee than melee ONLY, it's the definition of overpowered, and unbalanced. i don't see how u can't understand that concept.

the fix is not to nerf noble lines because 2/5 of them are underpowered heavy cavs

the fix is to nerf ranged damage and make them more vulnerable so you can no longer field entirely ranged armies.

when it comes to players they will always without fail find the most efficient and op units and spam it. that's how people and gamers are. the point of a game maker is to create a game where there aren't clear cut op units. and players have to weight the pros and cons and suffer the consequences.

 

[MostBlunted]

i'm literally comparing 3 melee noble lines vs 1 ranged noble line and it turns out the melee only heavy cavs lose in melee vs the ranged /melee unit. when ranged units are better at melee than melee ONLY, it's the definition of overpowered, and unbalanced. i don't see how u can't understand that concept.

Custom battle, command was just F6 and the AI choosed "charge" which made sense. Still the noble cav wasn´t able to beat the noble archers in a close range battle. If this isn´t unbalanced I don´t know.

And you don´t need war horses for archers...

Same battle with the realistic battle mod:

 

[KingEroc1st]

when you have a balanced army, people start noticing that ranged units are simply much superior and actually do not need support because they are able to do the work by themselves, so why just do not bring more ranged units?

might be so when you bring ur personal party to fight a single lord and it's 200 fians vs 150 random troops. but when it comes to army battles of similar numbers, when the enemy army has 800 infantry in total. of course you can split your archers into 5 groups and rotate them back n whatnot, but if they are in a single line, you'll need some shields in front at the very least. besides. you'll have to micro manage all vassal parties within your army via troop donation to keep a high number of archers in there.

my army used to be 10% inf, 30% archer, 30% cav 30% HA (i didn't need those cavs but they looked good). but now I have a much more balanced army maybe 30% inf 20% archer, 20% cav and 30% HA. and with proper use of strategy i experience less casualties than i did before, especially fighting big battles with 2-3 thousands men in total. I also fielded a lot of my cavalry with Khans guards and companions so they can shoot as well as melee. i have shield wall in front soaking damage and 3 ranged groups taking 3 different sides and shooting enemies down the middle.

 

[KingEroc1st]

And you don´t need war horses for archers...

Same battle with the realistic battle mod:

first of all. 10 is too small of a sample size. especially since there are lords making up 10% of the number. make it at least 100, run the test at least 3-5 times

second, i was talking about Khans Guards being op in melee vs other Heavy cavs (banner knights, cataphracts and druzhinniks), not Archers vs Cavs... if u want to do archers i suggest using non-noble vs infantry, because there are no noble infantry.

if u wanna run tests. at least be objective and don't go in there with a cognitive bias aiming to prove a point

 

[MostBlunted]

first of all. 10 is too small of a sample size. especially since there are lords making up 10% of the number. make it at least 100, run the test at least 3-5 times

second, i was talking about Khans Guards being op in melee vs other Heavy cavs (banner knights, cataphracts and druzhinniks), not Archers vs Cavs... if u want to do archers i suggest using non-noble vs infantry, because there are no noble infantry.

if u wanna run tests. at least be objective and don't go in there with a cognitive bias aiming to prove a point

I was one of the lords and of course I didn´t do anything in that battle, that´s why I´m also still alive...

The sample size is fine, the realistic battle mod prooves how it can work when it´s balanced.

 

[KingEroc1st]

I was one of the lords and of course I didn´t do anything in that battle, that´s why I´m also still alive...

The sample size is fine, the realistic battle mod prooves how it can work when it´s balanced.

the sample size is NOT fine. as each unit take up almost 12% of the statistic significance... that's highly unscientific and highly biased.

besides, you didn't address the main problem of setting up a test of archer vs cavalry when you tried to disprove my point of horse archer vs cavalry...

 

[Antaeus]

Which is all besides the point, because that is not how those units are utilised by AI parties in the game.

The real world limitations on archers, crossbows or cavalry aren't based on the ideal makeup a lord has for a feudal army, they're based on the availability of skills in any locally raised peasant militia - it can be a lottery. Which is often why laws were passed to ensure enough peasants train in the hard to recruit areas. Archery takes a lifetime commitment, so archers should be highly skilled, but harder to recruit/replace. Crossbows take a particular skillset to make and maintain, so should be dangerous, but much more expensive to recruit and replace. Heavy cavalry again, should be particularly dangerous, but virtually impossible to replace. Infantry for the most part, should be rubbish militia, and easy to replace.

The problem isn't the unit strength, especially in a 10 v 10 unit type match up. The problem is in how the units are raised, paid for and maintained. With enough money, a medieval lord could raise an army of 10,000 ballistae and shoot holes in anyone if they wanted. With enough money a noble could train 10,000 archers, arm them head to toe in mail, train them as the best swordsmen in the world. With enough money, a lord could give a light crossbow to every knight in their retinue, and expand their retinue by 1,000,000. The unit isn't the issue. The issue is the cost.

Same should be true in game - if you can afford to raise an all OP unit army of what ever type, you should be allowed to. But it should be particularly hard to do it.

 

[KingEroc1st]

Archery takes a lifetime commitment, so archers should be highly skilled, but harder to recruit/replace. Crossbows take a particular skillset to make and maintain, so should be dangerous, but more expensive to recruit and replace.

you are absolutely right about their relative difficulty to produce and recruit/train which isn't addressed in the game. however, in reality, archers and crossbowmen did not have as much lethality as the game suggests. currently the interaction between projectiles and shields and armor is completely bonkers. shields seem to be completely immune to ranged damage while armor seemed to be made of thin latex. but in reality it wasn't so. here are a couple of videos demonstrating the effects:


vs shield:
This leads me to assume, without armor underneath, your shield alone will take the blunt of the projectiles, but you will still take damage. albeit to the arm


vs armor
This here is a brigandine, which is a high level armor in the game. and keep in mind this is only the outer curriase part. in game, the armor has a mail shirt under and some padded cloth. considering all that. these arrows would not be able to pierce all your armor, but will still deliver some blunt force damage might break a rib or something.

Infantry for the most part, should be rubbish militia, and easy to replace.

Here you are making a generalization that is incorrect. Medieval armies were made up of 2 parts. professional men at arms, and peasant levies.

like you would expect. the levies were largies under trained, and under equipped farmers that had poor morale, mostly infantry with spear type of weapons but many had ranged options as well.
professional men at arms however, were armored and trained, and had no other job than fighting. a lot of infantry are such fighters, and they made up the important sections of your line.

I think TW can implement a system where tier 1-2 troops have minor wages and require low experience to upgrade, could be recruited in greater numbers. while starting at tier 3, troops become immensely difficult to upgrade, have much more wages, and combat prowess.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I want Cavalry to be able to hit and kill enemies constantly and to have much greater protection per tier then they do. I wish I could do 50% Khan guard and 50% banner knights and go circle around with KH and then charge BK into them when they start to turn around, wham bam TY mam. But the Cav just doesn't kill enough and dies too much, it's just not as good as having even mid -tier ranged units instead and doing the same type of stunt but from range. Does this mean low-mid tier ranged is too good... yeah kinda, but I'd rather have other units buffed up and fixed first.

Infantry needs something else to do though, because lets be real, Cavalry basically is infantry with a couple button presses, and Sharpshooters are infantry with holdfire, archers are infantry without shields... on and on. There's no reason to use any infantry. They don't even cost less then other units thier tier and they're harder to level up because of enemies running away. Maybe something cool like a neutral fort in the map that requires infantry to take that give the player some buff or some reward or something REALL Y GOOD to make having a portion of infantry useful and rewarding. Or gamey stuff like Infantry gest the -ranged damage or -mounted damage for spear units or stuff to make them stand out and have a role. Of course they could also add cost for ammunitions and horse feed too, but that still wouldn't help infantry have a role. However I would use them in clan parties if they were significantly cheaper then Cav, HA and archers, because I just want bulk for gaining leadership, it doesn't matter what troops, but since they're all equally priced I might as well drag around prodo-fians and xbow men.

 

[KingEroc1st]

Cav just doesn't kill enough and dies too much

completely agree.
I think they can change that by increasing trample damage and knock down duration somehow. (maybe make downed enemies take increased damage from being ran over instead of having no collision till they stand up)
and reduce chance of horse stun from spears based on tier of troop. (T6 cav has almost no chance of being stunned by T1 spear, while T2 cav will almost always get stunned by T5 spear)

Infantry needs something else to do though

Indeed. they just melt away in combat, always strong 1v1 in the arena, but 10v10 or 100v100 they somehow die faster...
Maybe give Spearmen the ability to attack while maintaining shield wall. and give 1 handers (swords/axe/mace) better melee prowess in damage and atk speed maybe a spring ability to quickly close in distance while nerfing all walking speed across the board slightly to make it standout.


with some buffs to armor and nerfs to archer. it should create a situation where disciplined shield wall advances in line against enemy archers, they would be able to soak most of the arrows with low casualties. and if there's no supporting units to shield the archers, they would be able shredded by the infantry. either in a shied wall of spears or swordsmen sprinting the last 50m and cut everyone down.
Archers can still shine if you flank enemies and shoot them from behind. so maybe increase frontal armor and allow bonus dmg from behind

another thing is that arrows are actually super heavy. not by themselves. but if you are carrying 2 quivers 50 in total... that weight would massively slow down an archer.

 

[Antaeus]

This leads me to assume, without armor underneath, your shield alone will take the blunt of the projectiles, but you will still take damage. albeit to the arm

Funny, earlier, I used the same video to illustrate the opposite point - how dangerous arrows are even if you have a shield and mail. But meh. We're circling, and I think this point is er... besides the point.

Here you are making a generalization that is incorrect. Medieval armies were made up of 2 parts. professional men at arms, and peasant levies.

(Apart from the statement also being a vast generalisation) The different use of which is a question of money. Which is my exact point. Thanks.

 

[Apocal]

I remember from somewhere that there even were laws upon what fur commoners were allowed to wear.

Sumptuary laws weren't about people hunting the wrong animals. They were meant to stop lower-classes from flexing on nobles by showing how much richer they were.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

That's exactly the same situation... a noble line that is supposed to be OP, and rare.

And there's nothing wrong with a soldier training in both ranged and hand to hand weapons? Particularly a noble soldier who can afford the best tutors. Again, if there is a problem with them, it's with them being too easy for the player to source, rather than the unit itself - few Kuzait armies have more than a handful of them - certainly they don't recruit enough to change the course of a battle. Rather Kuzait armies are packed with low tier HAs which are poor archers and are toast when they stray into infantry, or get caught by cavalry.

The problem is that Khan's Guard straight up overshadow melee cavalry at their own job. Banner Knights, Druzhinnik Champions and Elite Cataphracts don't even have the melee punch of the Khan's Guard. What's the point of noble melee cavalry when they don't fight as well as a literal horse archer.

 

[Apocal]

The problem is that Khan's Guard straight up overshadow melee cavalry at their own job. Banner Knights, Druzhinnik Champions and Elite Cataphracts don't even have the melee punch of the Khan's Guard. What's the point of noble melee cavalry when they don't fight as well as a literal horse archer.

Give druzhniks glaives. Problem instantly solved.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

Give druzhniks glaives. Problem instantly solved.

Glaives or a big f*ck off axe. Gives them a niche and makes them stronk.

Only issue is that Banner Knights and Cataphracts would come across as lacking. Cavalry AI really need to hit their shots better.

But yeah, it would be great if all the noble cav had their niches. Something like...

Vanguard Faris- crazy fast horses+ cavalry killing kit
Elite Cataphracts- the tankiest unit in Bannerlord
Khan's Guard- horse archer supreme and can fight well enough in melee
Druzhinnik Champions- not the best on charge, but can brawl in melee better than other cav
Banner Knight- absolute best on the charge

 

[Dabos37]

The problem is that Khan's Guard straight up overshadow melee cavalry at their own job. Banner Knights, Druzhinnik Champions and Elite Cataphracts don't even have the melee punch of the Khan's Guard. What's the point of noble melee cavalry when they don't fight as well as a literal horse archer.

This.

Khan’s Guard units are infinitely more effective in melee than Banner Knights, and other melee cav.

On the other hand, while elite melee cav AI needs still tons of work, I find the banner knights performance close to decent now after the las test patches. I think that Khan’s Guards are too good in melee and they should be toned down instead of making melee cavalry units as OP as Khan’s Guard (I would not like to see Swadian Knights coming back to Bannerlord).

Now talking about ranged units, there are two options: nerf them or buff everything else.

Them problem with “buff everything else” (aside from harder work for devs), is that giving buffs for everything else won’t avoid ranged units wrecking everything pretty fast with easy from distance, except if all units HP would get increased. Improving armor is a nice idea but this change for itself won’t fix the main issue related to ranged units making the game excessively easy for the player.

 

[five bucks]

Glaives or a big f*ck off axe. Gives them a niche and makes them stronk.

Only issue is that Banner Knights and Cataphracts would come across as lacking. Cavalry AI really need to hit their shots better.

But yeah, it would be great if all the noble cav had their niches. Something like...

Vanguard Faris- crazy fast horses+ cavalry killing kit
Elite Cataphracts- the tankiest unit in Bannerlord
Khan's Guard- horse archer supreme and can fight well enough in melee
Druzhinnik Champions- not the best on charge, but can brawl in melee better than other cav
Banner Knight- absolute best on the charge

I'd like to see Khan's Guard's role be "best horse archers in the game", with weaker melee performance and survivability than all other noble cav to balance that; and Vanguard Faris be a generalist which is equally good at melee and ranged (but not amazing at either), representing the Arabic school of thought of a good warrior being able to master all weapons.

I like all your other placements for noble troops.