Spear Bracing (1.6.2)

[Terco_Viejo]

[...]There needs to be clear vision what the devs want to achieve specifically with combat and they need to subject everything to that vision, not just tweaks.

Perhaps I'm reading between the lines a little vision™ disagreement arising from the conversations you guys held with the devs?

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Having the option of pike/spear bracing in the game is welcome (thanks to warband mods). However, depriving the player of decision-making power is undesirable; I still think that the AI (meaning ally) should not decide before the player, the former always remaining subordinate to the latter. Forcing bracing ( being held) by the player should be an option, given that it took me less than 1 minute to cheese a unit of 100 Vlandian pikemen bugging them with a mixed force of infantry and cavalry.

In Captain mode it will probably turn out to be the same, pike units easily cheesed by the player.

Forcing bracing, forcing focused fire/attack enemy unit and forcing weapon usage switch; three points in my opinion of pressing implementation. The problem? as Philozoraptor says... There needs to be clear vision what the devs want to achieve specifically with combat and they need to subject everything to that vision.

 

[five bucks]

Cavalry (only heavy cav in vanilla?) needs to couch properly which can be done by simply increasing charge distance number (combat module). Some other tweaks can increase window of sucessfull stabbing with polearms, which helps AI aim (spear performance module). Next armor needs to do more, end of story, there can be no balancing if everyone can kill everyone in 1-3 hits no matter the tier, its just too hard to do this via parry chance, there would have to be "layer" above armor in a form of defense stamina which is even more complicated than simply buffing the armor.

Once melee formations can fight for a while (which can happen only if they can resist arrows more and if they dont kill each other in a minute), only then will some sort of hammer and anvil tactics have a meaning - because it will allow you to win drawn out fight between 2 melee formations or because it will allow you to deal with enemy archers while enemy melee units are engaged with your melee units. And then and only then will some sort of infantry vs cavalry balancing make sense, in such situation cavalry loosing to spear infantry head on might make sense bacause cav can turn the tide of battle when infantry is preoccupied.

As long as battle on the frontlines is over before you can move your cav to the flank or rear of enemy to charge them, any kind of balancing is going to be in extremely fragile maybe even impossible, because little things like 20 cm length on weapon or +0.05 attack speed is going to decide outcome of battle (because everything is dead in 2 hits).

But no single small change will have significant impact in vacuum. There needs to be clear vision what the devs want to achieve specifically with combat and they need to subject everything to that vision, not just tweaks.

+1 to all of this, well written post

 

[KingEroc1st]

What you're proposing isn't balanced and makes cavalry op which was my point.

you don't seem to understand what balancing is and what op means seems quite futile keep having a conversation about these precise topics with you

 

[Apocal]

There is nothing wrong with cavalry being OP if it is then balanced by factors outside of the battlefield. Cost, availability, upkeep etc.
But it would have to be done well, unlike in both Warband and BL where you can prance around with nothing but top tier troops after a while because money is never an issue.

There is probably no way to make cavalry accessible in decent numbers for regular players without also making it possible for players who know the game well to stack a full party of them.

Making cavalry OP in tactical battles is bad for three reasons:

1. It gives a big incentive to play the game in a particular way, which players will naturally gravitate towards.
2. There is no tactical puzzle to be solved in field battles when a player has enough of the OP troop types. It might take time, grind and effort but it will be worth it if cavalry can casually overrun (almost) everything.
3. Once you have 1) and 2) working together, the strategy layer of the game becomes out of balance. The rewards would be balanced for players exploiting the OPness to the fullest or they are balanced around people playing without cheese. In either case, it reinforces 1) as you're either given scraps for playing properly or handed huge rewards for amassing enough OP troops. Or, worst of all, both at the same time.

 

[black_bulldog]

you don't seem to understand what balancing is and what op means seems quite futile keep having a conversation about these precise topics with you

It's pretty apparent you want to make cavalry op, that's fine. But when someone disagrees with you out you get mad instead of discussing it. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree since you can't seem to stand criticism.

 

[LuciusDomitiusAurelianus]

I feel spear bracing will naturally lead to tweaks in other places, but I do think that physics based damage for the charges, and trampling effects are needed. The natural counter to this is screening your infantry and archer formations with your own light cav / skirmishers and having an actual pike formation - so even if the shock cav are OP there are ways to get around it.

And as others have piped in, still need armor to mean a lot more, dedicated formations and AI profile extensions are also needed. I've been begging for the other profiles to have meaning. Right now, if you change the XML to align troops to LightCavalry, Skirmishers, etc. it will crash the game in sieges and large field battles because there are hardcoded things that cause it in the code. Giving meaning to other formation types, on top of making cav be slightly OP with obvious counters is needed.

This also opens up conversations about troop trees, outside of the Vlandian Pikeman, there are not naturally pikes or spears anywhere else. There is a historical argument to be made that the Empire troop lines should have a form of pikeman, as would the Sturgians and perhaps the Battanians as well. I don't like that my combat loop right now consists of killing their cav screens, and encircling them with HAs until they leave and I decimate them with a counter charge.

I want the AI to be devious, using counter-charges, feigned retreats into pikes, outmaneuver me and match my movements. Glad these conversations are happening, spear bracing is a huge tactical piece that was missing and I'm glad it's in.

 

[mujadaddy]

There is nothing wrong with cavalry being OP if it is then balanced by factors outside of the battlefield. Cost, availability, upkeep etc.
But it would have to be done well, unlike in both Warband and BL where you can prance around with nothing but top tier troops after a while because money is never an issue.

Horsemen should eat 3x as much as footmen. Kuzhaits -30%.

 

[Philozoraptor]

Horsemen should eat 3x as much as footmen. Kuzhaits -30%.

Actually, heavy cavavalryman had on average of 3 servants so thats + 300% food only because of that. Average horse eats 10-15 times more calories than man so thats +10-15 000% increase in grain needed, since typical warhorse cant live off just grass and needs grain to sustain itself. those servants also needs wage, lets say like recruits, heavy cav were generally nobles or at least well paid professionals so few 100% higher wage than melee infantry makes sense. Khuzait could have no food cost for horse on steppes (because steppe horses are smaller and can sustain themselves on grass) but still 50-75 % of the cav food cost on non-steppes.

 

[Reiksmarshal]

I have been wanting to run pike formations mercenary band so bad in this game, but they are a terrible unit. I use to go to SCA battles and pikes were deadly and some of the best fighting groups were pikes with a mix of polearms. They would absolutely dominate and obliterate sword and board groups.

 

[mujadaddy]

Actually, heavy cavavalryman had on average of 3 servants

True, and digesting your suggestions, maybe 300% for horses and 900% for warhorses... not sure the game can handle that difference, though.

Worrying about feeding servants is probably also out of scope

 

[KingEroc1st]

It's pretty apparent you want to make cavalry op, that's fine. But when someone disagrees with you out you get mad instead of discussing it. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree since you can't seem to stand criticism.

here is what you dont understand and refuse to acknowledge.

when cavalry charge does 300 dmg it's op. but when it does 1 damage it's wildly underpowered to the point of uselessness, might as well delete it from the game. and somewhere between that 1 and 300 there's a number that's balanced. and realistic. and fun to play with. if you can't at least understand that much, you are a lost cause.
however, currently the number is more like 10. and frankly that's closer to being useless than being balanced, let alone being op. and here's why!

there are 2 types of cavalry interaction with infantry that is not present in cav vs cav or inf vs inf. and that is charge knock down and spear rear up of the horse. presently in the game, both interactions exist under different parameters. and as a result, cavalry and infantry counter each other in a way. However, the current interaction is heavily favoring infantry due to the following reason:

-when a horse is poked and rears up, the animal is stunned in place as well as the rider for a couple of seconds, exposing them to both melee attacks and ranged shots

-when a human is knocked down, he has 0 collision till he gets up meaning he's immune to charge damage for a few seconds, he's also on the ground meaning he can avoid many incoming ranged attacks as well as melee.

it would seem that getting charged down in this game is actually an advantage to the infantry allowing them to survive longer!

now this post is about spear bracing. which is yet another counter to be implemented into the game against cavalry, from the infantry. it's clear this is intended to make spear infantry a strategic counter to cavalry. which essentially nerfs them further.
considering how a horse needs to go past the spears to even be able to hit someone for charge damage, and the fact that pikes are longer than lances... there's already a huge advantage

it is not my own personal opinion that cavalry in the game's current state is the least cost efficient unit behind archers, horse archers and infantry.
in fact most people will experience better results using them by first dismounting them all. and that's due to many reasons namely bad armor, poor attack accuracy and low charge damage.
allowing them to strategically counter the spear and shield less archers by being able to deal more knock down and trample damage is not op, but an act of balance.

 

[ShakenSpeare]

My main problem with cavalry is how it just flows through tight ranks like water... no weight to it all. They need to make it so that men have weight to them, and horses can't just run straight through a dozen men unhindered, kinda like how it was in Warband. Cavalry, especially heavy cavalry, should favor charge tactics while nerfing their ability to fight toe to toe against infantry. A cavalry charge should absolutely cause a massive amount of death and completely screw up the Infantry formation and morale, but without being able to just slide around inside or past them.

The mods that buff horse charge damage make cav so overpowered because it's impossible to counter it, but at least now we have spear bracing. If I make my infantry ranks super tight, it should stop the cav at some point in the charge. If this game was realistic, tearing the infantry formation to pieces should spell death to them and be the go-to tactic, especially when you follow up with infantry that is in their own disciplined formation. But formations matter very little in this game, which is a pity. The physics aren't right for cavalry at all and that's why it's so screwy, because they have to balance it in a very certain way to make it not insanely overpowered. You can do things with cavalry in this game that in Warband would get your horsemen killed or at the very least completely immobilized.

While I agree with KingEroc1st's idea of massively upping the charge damage for cavalry, it simply wouldn't work with this system. The cavalry physics would have to be completely different and have more than one way to counter them, and men need to weigh like, well, manly men.

 

[KingEroc1st]

My main problem with cavalry is how it just flows through tight ranks like water... no weight to it all. They need to make it so that men have weight to them, and horses can't just run straight through a dozen men unhindered,

i agree with you that horses don't slow down nearly enough after impacting infantry. but the truth is, they are heavy and fast and wouldn't actually slow down too much anyways. and most of the "flow through formation like water" is at a low speed, making no direct impact against bodies but walking around them.
meanwhile, horses come to an instant deadstop the moment they slightly bump into another horse (friend or foe), which happens a lot when you charge your cavalry formation. on top of the fact that even simple spears already stun them. now we are adding spear brace to further nerf their frontal charge ability which frankly was never strong to begin with

i've seen another similar clip of spear brace in action, they showed the kill feed and score at the end, the cavalry suffered 3x the casualties upon charge impact. it's very effective at killing a charge. therefore preventing it from even happening in the first place. keep in mind a horse needs to physically bump into the person for the charge, after bypassing enemy spear lines

KingEroc1st's idea of massively upping the charge damage for cavalry,

Never once have I ever suggested the slightest hint of "Massively" increasing charge damage. but merely going from 10 to 20, maybe 30 for the T6 units. or simply introduce a new "Trample" mechanic, where knocked down units will take extra charge damage instead of being immune for the duration.

This is in line with the already existing spear counter to cavalry stunning them and with the new spear brace implementation.
(frankly even if you make charge 500 damage, it wouldn't matter in cavalry vs spear brace because none of them would be able to connect with the charge, they'd get stunned or killed by pikes first)

the whole charge damage increase is to increase their effectiveness vs archers that don't have shields or spears. since spearmen are now the hard counter to cavalry, and have always been countered by archers. in order to achieve this, increase shield wall defense vs charge damage (there's already a perk). it will nullify the charge buff vs formed up infantry.

 

[Shaxx]

I am getting flashbacks from some of theses posts of all the 'a horse would never willingly charge itself into a wall of spears' threads on here and the Total War forums over the decades.

Anyone else remember those? Wasn't one over a hundred pages long or something like that?

Good to know, keep up your good work.

They do the butterlord's work.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

Why can't we have both? I want cavalry and spearmen to be a lot stronger. Assuming even numbers of pike vs shock cavalry on a flat open field, I think a 50/50 exchange is best.

Only two handed polearm troops should be the hard counters to cavalry (apart from other cavalry). They should be especially vulnerable to ranged troops, but make up for it with either bracing (pikes), or insane damage+reach (voulges/rhomphaia/menavs). And even then, they should not necessarily come unscathed unless they have some sort of advantage like higher tier or a terrain advantage. They should also lose if they aren't facing cavalry with their weapons (ie getting flanked). They would compensate by being cheaper to amass and maintain, meaning that cavalry would come out worse from the 50/50 as a result of being less expendable. That, and since you will usually have more infantry than cavalry, an 'even' exchange won't happen.

Spear & shield infantry should not hard counter cavalry, but have a much better time against ranged troops due to their shields. Their spears should be good at helping them stand a decent chance against cavalry, but not necessarily 'hard counter' them. These guys should just be a good all round defensive troop that can fend off all threats, without necessarily countering anyone. Just solid, reliable troops that give more specialised troops a better foundation to work from.

Now to make both these troops stand out, anyone without a polearm of some kind should straight up suffer horribly from a cavalry charge. Shield & sword troops, two handed shock infantry, archers and skirmishers without spears should take a serious beating. If uninterrupted, cavalry should just cut down and flatten these guys, if not outright terrify them into fleeing. Charge damage and a serious improvement to cavalry accuracy is necessary. The only times cavalry should lose here is if they are at a terrain disadvantage, find themselves unable to move around or if there is a serious tier/numbers disadvantage.

 

[Dabos37]

Cavalry AI is still pretty bad when the rider using a lance/spear is trying to hit someone. AI is ok at couching, but it miss a lot of hits when using regular attacks.

Just check the first 15 seconds in this video, and look hot much useless is the first horsemen in engaging the enemy:

 

[KingEroc1st]

Cavalry AI is still pretty bad when the rider using a lance/spear is trying to hit someone. AI is ok at couching, but it miss a lot of hits when using regular attacks.

agreed, and right now spear infantry have a de facto advantage against cavalry for this reason.

go watch a Khuzait town arena. some guy on foot using the same spear will 8/10 hit the guy on horse first.

And in the first seconds of this video. you see how the horses in the back line just come to a complete stop. so the riders miss their attacks completely because of timing. and start drawing out their swords. and ride through the formation. doing 0 charge and 0 attacks.

 

[Laliloluhla]

Cavalry simply lacks the cohesion to deliver truly devastating charges, this bonus to bracing is in a way a buff to infantry cohesion, which is why it's so effective. You don't have to worry as much about falling out of formation or units getting pilled up on with this brace change, cavalry still suffers from that same issue on the flipside.

 

[ShakenSpeare]

i agree with you that horses don't slow down nearly enough after impacting infantry. but the truth is, they are heavy and fast and wouldn't actually slow down too much anyways. and most of the "flow through formation like water" is at a low speed, making no direct impact against bodies but walking around them.

They would almost definitely slow down, probably even come to somewhat of a stop after a few ranks, specifically if we're talking about larger, dense infantry formations. Horses would absolutely mow through individual people and either kill them or seriously injure them, but if you charged against a tight group of people, there'd only be so many people that would be sent to the ground and/or trampled before the horses come to a screeching halt. You're knocking people down on other people, at some point they will stop falling like dominoes. A loose group of archers for example, however, should of course be completely mowed down easily, but not tightly packed, armored infantry. And yes, the flowing water horses aren't doing much damage, but that's only specifically because it's designed that way and it'd be too awfully overpowered if they did significant damage to all those troops. What I'm proposing is that the charge damage is significant and devastating, but the horses lose the ability to plow through men after a few ranks thus encouraging emphasis on the charge more than having your cavalry stuck in the thick of it.

meanwhile, horses come to an instant deadstop the moment they slightly bump into another horse (friend or foe), which happens a lot when you charge your cavalry formation. on top of the fact that even simple spears already stun them. now we are adding spear brace to further nerf their frontal charge ability which frankly was never strong to begin with

i've seen another similar clip of spear brace in action, they showed the kill feed and score at the end, the cavalry suffered 3x the casualties upon charge impact. it's very effective at killing a charge. therefore preventing it from even happening in the first place. keep in mind a horse needs to physically bump into the person for the charge, after bypassing enemy spear lines

I don't think their frontal charge against ready units should necessarily be the strongest, I should be able to have braced spears out in front to stop them. Using cavalry on the flanks and disrupted formations makes the most sense. Cavalry is not "underpowered" by any means; indeed, they are overpowered, despite their problems like terrible AI. Though this is probably less so the case with spear bracing implemented. Instead of nerfing or buffing them in a general sense, I wish the whole design was different.

Never once have I ever suggested the slightest hint of "Massively" increasing charge damage. but merely going from 10 to 20, maybe 30 for the T6 units. or simply introduce a new "Trample" mechanic, where knocked down units will take extra charge damage instead of being immune for the duration.

Yeaah, I may have used hyperbole, sorry. I'd love trampling, those guys lying on the ground should be stomped to death.

This is in line with the already existing spear counter to cavalry stunning them and with the new spear brace implementation.
(frankly even if you make charge 500 damage, it wouldn't matter in cavalry vs spear brace because none of them would be able to connect with the charge, they'd get stunned or killed by pikes first)

the whole charge damage increase is to increase their effectiveness vs archers that don't have shields or spears. since spearmen are now the hard counter to cavalry, and have always been countered by archers. in order to achieve this, increase shield wall defense vs charge damage (there's already a perk). it will nullify the charge buff vs formed up infantry.

As has already been said, I don't think spearmen should be necessarily a "hard counter", but somewhat of a counter nonetheless, with 2h pikemen being the hard counter. But yeah, charge damage needs to be far heavier, but the other mechanics are imperative to balance it.

Why can't we have both? I want cavalry and spearmen to be a lot stronger. Assuming even numbers of pike vs shock cavalry on a flat open field, I think a 50/50 exchange is best.

Only two handed polearm troops should be the hard counters to cavalry (apart from other cavalry). They should be especially vulnerable to ranged troops, but make up for it with either bracing (pikes), or insane damage+reach (voulges/rhomphaia/menavs). And even then, they should not necessarily come unscathed unless they have some sort of advantage like higher tier or a terrain advantage. They should also lose if they aren't facing cavalry with their weapons (ie getting flanked). They would compensate by being cheaper to amass and maintain, meaning that cavalry would come out worse from the 50/50 as a result of being less expendable. That, and since you will usually have more infantry than cavalry, an 'even' exchange won't happen.

Spear & shield infantry should not hard counter cavalry, but have a much better time against ranged troops due to their shields. Their spears should be good at helping them stand a decent chance against cavalry, but not necessarily 'hard counter' them. These guys should just be a good all round defensive troop that can fend off all threats, without necessarily countering anyone. Just solid, reliable troops that give more specialised troops a better foundation to work from.

Now to make both these troops stand out, anyone without a polearm of some kind should straight up suffer horribly from a cavalry charge. Shield & sword troops, two handed shock infantry, archers and skirmishers without spears should take a serious beating. If uninterrupted, cavalry should just cut down and flatten these guys, if not outright terrify them into fleeing. Charge damage and a serious improvement to cavalry accuracy is necessary. The only times cavalry should lose here is if they are at a terrain disadvantage, find themselves unable to move around or if there is a serious tier/numbers disadvantage.

I strongly agree with all of this.

 

[Philozoraptor]

Majority of the damage done by cavalry charge should not go from charge damage of horse!!! It should go from lances of the riders, ideally couched lances - this can be easily fixed by telling can AI to charge instead of advancing and by increasing the charge distance factor to 5-7f instead of 3-2.5f we currently have in vanilla.