Lances

[Kamamura]

I am against wider aiming the lance while couched.

First, the tip of the lance can be aimed with mouse slightly as it is, and I think it's quite alright.
Second, if the lancer would swiwel too much, he would be thrown off the saddle on the impact. Knights did not AIM on charge. It was all the matter of maneuvering the horse - as in the game. I like the current state - gameplay-wise, the footmen should have a chance to avoid the charge

 

[Skeletor9000]

I'm sorry, but you're grossly misinformed. Knights were trained to be quite good at AIMING the lance when charging. An ill-aimed lance strike had the potential to not only destroy the lance, necessitating an unarmed retreat to get another, but to unhorse the rider. The quintain that knights used to train their lance-skills was designed so that if they struck a too-slow or inaccurate blow, they would get a nasty blow from the swingarm. http://emol.org/azrenfest/azrenjoust.html please see this page for quintain and brass ring info. I've grown to love the difficulty and practice necessary for using the current aiming system, however I still believe that there ought to be a way to couch the lance on the other side of the horse. That would be an excellent (and tactically necessary) feature.

 

[Magial]

What was the comedy movie that was based back in the day and he lied about who he was and became like a great jouster and was eventually knighted at the end of the movie?

Well whatever movie that was, although a comedy, towards his training at the beginning, it did show him training to hit certain objects center mass and getting the rings onto the lance.

So, aiming, was probably pretty important.

 

[DaLagga]

Not to mention that while the animations and character movement is good, its far from perfect. If the AI decides to try to evade your lance, you pretty much miss no matter what. They will be running in one direction, then change direction rather choppily(is that even a word?...)when you're 2 feet away, making it impossible to re-aim the lance since your horse can't maneuver that quickly. So either allow you to aim it a little, or make the damage area slightly larger. I'd also like to point out, that if this game were online, the lance would be worthless. A real player could evade one without even hardly trying, and easily slash the rider as he passed by. Conclusion - you need to be able to aim the lance, not just for realism as others have stated, but for balance as well.

 

[Skeletor9000]

And before the flamewar starts in this thread too, we're only talking about aiming the lance a small amount! Only a few degrees of angle in any direction. We all realize a charging knight couldn't concievably hit something at a 50 degree angle without toppling under the hooves of his own charger. To counteract the aimable and unimaginably deadly lance, we really do need to have settable lances capable of killing horse and rider quite easily. People crying balance have to understand that the charging knight was the equivalent of a tank at an infantry battle. Nothing but a pike could stop a charging armored warhorse. That's why longbows (equivalent to artillery) were such a paradigm shift. Suddenly yeomen could kill nobles. Then with the advent of xbows, any poor schlub could kill a knight. But against infantry, knights should be terrifying engines of death. It's a rock paper scissors thing. mounted>foot>ranged>mounted. Mounted swordsmen and archers muddy the water a bit, but they can be wedged in there somewhere.

 

[Magial]

Learn to use the lance correctly in combat, and you will find its not as difficult as your making it out to be

 

[Skelly]

If we're making the lance more powerful for realism sake, how about if you deliver very large damage (say 120+), the lance breaks - I understand they had a tendency to do so. Or maybe when they do LESS than 120 damage they break (an off centre hit??)

It would keep things from debalancing too far (the lance is already WAY powerful) without implimenting the setting of pikes. You might get two or three kills in, but then would have to switch to another weapon. You would "repair" the lance between battles.

My concern with setting pikes (which would be cool) is the potential difficulty in reprograming the AI to deal with it. I'd hate to have all my hard trained knights eviserate themselves...not to mention myself

 

[Skeletor9000]

A lot of this has already been mentioned in this thread. I really like the idea of lances breaking. I don't know about after a mere 3 people, though. Once you start getting into the larger battles, you'd need every inventory slot full of lances. Maybe if you with with the lance as soon as it came down or right before it started to go up. That "intermediate" speed would be rife with poor hits as the lance was just coming down.

RE: all the aiming issues, I've pretty much gotten used to using the lance as-is now that I know you can aim up and down. Much easier to get body hits instead of always aiming for the head. I still think shield-side couching would be a great feature, and I'm all for setting pikes. I've been stabbed by pikemen many a time, but I feel bad for them since it's really not too damaging.

I know it's been mentioned before, but if armagan is against setting pikes maybe we could have billhooks? A lancer is in deep trouble if he's unhorsed.

I'm sure it could use a new thread and has been mentioned, but it would be nice if there were things like pits and abatis randomly scattered about the field. I love the beginning of a battle when you have to hurriedly scan the field for the area that offers your units the best tactical advantage and quickly lead them over there. Work sucks. Can't wait to get back to M&B.

 

[bt1283]

I understand what people are saying about set pikes, and I agree, I think that'd be cool. But the thing is, footmen already have the advantage in every single battle (in M&B) unless they are on a large space of flat land. All I ever do is move my men to a hill or water and tell them to dismount and we all destroy the knights/whathaveyou on horseback that attack us. I don't think that footmen need much more advantages to them besides set pikes (for the sake of realism). But I could be wrong, who knows.

 

[okiN]

I wouldn't say footmen have the advantage anymore. I'd say the player has the advantage.

Before, it was clearly easier to own with an all-infantry unit. Now, though, I think it's just as easy to decimate the enemy with a party containing only knights or hired blades.

 

[Magial]

My party consists of about 15 swadian knights, 10 sword sisters, and 5 seargents. all horsed except the seargents. in a battle, against a group of about 30 dark hunters, and all but one seargent was either killed or knocked out, and i only lost one sword sister and two knights in the melee. Ive yet to see a group of footmen attack me, and win with an overwhelming victory.

I can take myself, borcha, marnid, and 10 knights, against 40 bandits, and not loose any knights. borcha and marnid are just idiots at times.

I think you just have issues riding against footman.

 

[Skeletor9000]

I don't envy Armagan and his having to try to balance this game with everyone pulling for their pet weapon or tactic. I think with regard to lances, much of the battle is determined not by troop types, but by the particular battlefield. This is one reason we really need to quickly implement the system wherein the battlefield will be dependent upon the overworld area. Stepp, forest, hills, etc. reflected in the battlefield. Then you can choose where to engage enemies. Because why would lancers engage on a mountainside?

 

[okiN]

Magial, the reason your seargeants are getting badgered is because there are so few of them, they're defenseless. If it was the other way around, with 25 seargeants and 5 sword sisters, the seargeants would kill anything, any time, and the sword sisters wouldn't last a day. A proper infantry army can be just as devastating as a cavalry force.

 

[Magial]

Because they can charge down that mountainside with killer momentum and not only impale through one enemy, but multiple ones, while knocking many others over with their horses! then after that, they need to get off their horse, and slide people off the end of the lance, or at least peices of people off his lance.

And the landscape changes are already being worked on.

[edit]
point taken okin
but none-the-less, they get killed before anyone else
[/edit]

 

[bt1283]

You're right, Okin. I see where I was wrong about that because an AI army full of say, swadian sergeants doesn't know to put themselves on a hill or water and fight defensively, and an AI army of knights doesn't know to dismount before they charge into a footman army in the water. So I agree totally with Skeletor that the one of the few solutions is that you can see the type of landscape from the map and choose your battle location.

 

[The Pope]

I'd say a small amount of aiming would be good. Lance breaking and an option to get borcha to be your squire and carry you extra lances/ammo during battle would be cool too.

 

[Talroth]

Well, as far as lances breaking go, you could always go back to your stash thing and get another. Anyway to have items stackable and inventory slot stack size? (meaning only so many items can be in one slow, like 1 lance in the equiped weapons, but 5 or 6 in your inventory)

Off topic, but would be cool if you got 2-3 extra weapon slots on your horse that you only get to select if you're mounted on your horse. (Extra ammo or your lance. but that might change the balance too much, letting you have sword, shield, club, lance, bow, arrows and the like might be too much)