Spears are weak.

[Timmortal]

Heres a video with a very short spear… its a metal thrusting head on a stick...

 

[GG Cannon]

Heres a video with a very short spear… its a metal thrusting head on a stick...

You could call it a "spear head" but not a "spear".
You missed the pole/shaft/long staff of wood, metal, or other material in your nonsense argument.
You lost the argument here boy.
Spears, Lances and Pìkes are all the same thing with very small criteria differing them due to specialization.
All three of them are long pieces of a material with a pointy head to pierce and stab, not necessarily cut, enemies at a distance.
If it is shorter, it's a spear, if it is longer its a pike, if it was meant to be used by cavalry, its a lance, but they are ALL THE SAME THING.
There is the possibility even that a single one might feel the criteria to be called all three of them, as what is a spear to one person can be considerable as a pike to another due to body height but also still be perfect to be used by cavalry.

Your argument to post a knife video and calling it a short spear because it is used to stab is idiotic, ridiculous and juvenile.

Instead of making nonsensical argument or posting disconnected videos that have no claim and are inherently wrong, bring me anything that actually proves that Spears, Pikes and Lances have any big difference besides what I mentioned, making them one and the same thing or shut yourself about this because you have 0 arguments on that.

 

[GG Cannon]

@Timmortal
Do you comprehend the concept of the logic "Some A's are B's and C's, yet not all B's are C's and not all C's are B's but all B's and C's are A's"?
All Pikes and all Lances are Spears. Period. Fine. Fim. That is DEFINITE.
Yet not all Spears are Pikes and not all Spears are Lances and not all Pikes are Lances and not all Lances are Pikes.
BUT ALL PIKES AND LANCES ARE SPEARS. Even Javelins are Spears.
We just gave them different names to differentiate them due to their specialization in order to be specific when mentioning them.
BUT THEY ARE ALL SPEARS.
If I mention "Spears are weak" and I also add in to the topic Pikes and Lances, I am not wrong at that.
BECAUSE THEY ARE SPEARS.
Did you understand that now?

Now, a knife is not a spear. It does not posses the all so important LONG SHAFT.

Definition of spear
1: a thrusting or throwing weapon with long shaft and sharp head or blade.

English is not even my mother language. Its my second language.
Do you really need me to school you in your language for you to be able to understand that?
The topic of this discussion is SPEARS, so that encompasses Pikes and Lances, and if it was pertinent due to the direction of the discussion, it could also encompass Javelins.
It even encompasses Glaives, because, guess what, Glaives are also spears.

So can you please stop bothering about that? Because you are being nitpicky about something you are in the wrong here and it seriously getting on my nerves.

Sorry about the anger, but it is really aggravating.

 

[Timmortal]

and you still dont get, that im making fun of you, because of what i first stated. You say the spears in game are too short. In game they are all called spears, they are not called pikes or lances, then to confirm that the SPEARS in game are too short, you post a bunch of pictures of pikes and lances, that are designed to be longer than the average spear, which is why they have their own designator; Pike and Lance. Your argument is that because pikes and lances are just spears, the weapons called spears in game are too short, to where i said, no they are not, they are spears, not pikes and lances. If you show pictures of pikes and lances, find those in game and compare them to your pictures, otherwise you need to find pictures of wepaons that are called spears and not called pikes and lances. If i was asking for a hammer du put a nail in my wall and you came with a mallet or a warhammer or a mace and said "they are all the same, they are just metal heads on a stick" I would look at you funny and not as for your help with hammering in a nail again. Your argument, that i argued against was, spears are too short, because lances were this long and lances were spears. to which i said, then you have to put javelins in aswell, that are alot shorter, cause they are spears awell. To make you short, you are completely missing the point. AKA these apples are the wrong shapes, cause they dont look like these bananas, they are both fruit and therefor they should have the same shape, while completely missing the fact that bananas are berries.

 

[Gummiel]

English is not even my mother language. Its my second language.
Do you really need me to school you in your language for you to be able to understand that?

Ohh I would LOVE to see you school Timmortal in Danish

 

[Timmortal]

Ohh I would LOVE to see you school Timmortal in Danish

Tvivler på at han ville kommer særlig langt, selvom mit engelske på nogle punkter er bedre end mit danske

 

[Big Bobby]

This just turned into a s***show.

Ok, as I read through the posted messages I saw two major complaints:
- The spearmen AI is under-performing.
- The spears appear to be too weak.

Firstly, I want to analyse my assumption about the game.
This is a sandbox video game with it's action placed in a fantasy world yet it seems to act as one based on historical reality showing some early medieval factions like the Norman Knights (Vladia), Byzantine Empire (well, Empire), Mongols (Khuzait), Egypt (Aserai), some mix of Russian/Nordic faction (Strugia) and Celts (Battania).
I would agree that a game is not necessarily required to meet requirements of reality BUT it must have some resemblance to the real world (or understandable metaphors) for us to have any kind of immersion.

In my opinion, before we even talk about a certain weapon type being weak, we need to ask ourselves two questions:
1. How does it perform in a duel?
2. How does it perform on a battlefield in formations?

1. I believe this is a question which should be asked in a poll or something like that. My personal opinion is that I can easily win a duel with a spear with AI but it would be much easier for me to use a one handed sword/axe.
2. We can all see that AI has no way of handling the battle because it quickly turns into a mosh-pit and the enemy formations act like idiots charging at you and breaking their ranks. This is why the tactic of putting your archers on a hill and shooting soldiers down is so effective - adversary troops won't cover themselves with shields - they just attack you. Even if they will create their sweet little circle with a square of archers inside it still ends up like the scenario mentioned earlier.

We need numbers and currently we have too little. The simulation of 500 infantry vs 200 horseman is something we need to conduct more often with different configurations and that must be repeatable throughout the development of the game. I think that AI is the most important thing to change for us to enjoy the battles. I would use a simple scenario to prove that AI is bonkers:
- Get in a fight, say your 300 men against 500.
- Get your archers on the hill and others to protect your bowmen.
- When you're get to even numbers, say 250 vs 250, go into your enemy's formation and die as a commander.
- Watch your troop break ranks and lose in the process.

 

[Mastigos]

500 Sturgian Spearman: 342 alive - 158 dead
200 Imperial Heavy Horseman:0 alive, 200 dead

"Tactics" used with Spearmen, with me as commander: "charge"

So yeah, no fancy tactics, no convoluted bull****. Just 500 spears vs 200 horses, and the spears absolutely dominated.

My original post still stands, and stands more firmly and truthfully than ever before (thanks to actual in-game playtests): spears are fine. They are an anti-horseman weapon, and a weapon which performs well when riding a horse.

They are weaker in an infantry vs infantry or 1v1 situation, but that is because they have strong niches that other weapons do not have.
Making spears even stronger than they are now would make them the undisputedly best "all around" weapon in the game. And regardless of your feelings about that, it would be terrible for balance and terrible design.

TLDR: Spears are fine, L2P

 

[Feldmarschall Ben]

One handed spear with shield has been the common way to fight and the most superior form of combat back in the days. In Bannerlord it feels week and atleast what I see in Multiplayer I am doing 2 Damage, Softspotting und only doing about 38 damage when I am more than half the weapons length away from my opponent.

I am not even talking about fight full plated oponnents.

Please make the Spear stronger and put in all four directions like in warband when fighting without a shield atleast as it would be more immersive and fitting. How else can we become crazy monk dudes or battle wizards?

 

[Ishtarin]

500 Sturgian Spearman: 342 alive - 158 dead
200 Imperial Heavy Horseman:0 alive, 200 dead

"Tactics" used with Spearmen, with me as commander: "charge"

So yeah, no fancy tactics, no convoluted bull****. Just 500 spears vs 200 horses, and the spears absolutely dominated.

My original post still stands, and stands more firmly and truthfully than ever before (thanks to actual in-game playtests): spears are fine. They are an anti-horseman weapon, and a weapon which performs well when riding a horse.

They are weaker in an infantry vs infantry or 1v1 situation, but that is because they have strong niches that other weapons do not have.
Making spears even stronger than they are now would make them the undisputedly best "all around" weapon in the game. And regardless of your feelings about that, it would be terrible for balance and terrible design.

TLDR: Spears are fine, L2P

There's no point in comparing an army 2.5x the size to prove your point. In fact, this example would disprove your assertion that spears are fine with an army outnumbering its opponent 2.5x and being the perfect counter to them still taking 80% as many casualties.

 

[dealman]

They are weaker in an infantry vs infantry or 1v1 situation, but that is because they have strong niches that other weapons do not have.
Making spears even stronger than they are now would make them the undisputedly best "all around" weapon in the game. And regardless of your feelings about that, it would be terrible for balance and terrible design.

I don't think their potential in infantry fights need to be buffed, but their damage against horses need to be. The current state is not realistic, it's not fun and it's not balanced.

I shouldn't have to time my thrust attack by a few milliseconds for it to deal damage to a horse coming at me at full speed.

A horseman's speed is both a big advantage and a big disadvantage, that's why cavalry shouldn't be able to blindly charge into spearmen - which they currently are very capable of doing just fine

This issue is especially obvious in multiplayer.

Under no circumstance does dealing 10-40 damage to a horse coming at you at full speed make sense, whether realism or not.

 

[Mastigos]

There's no point in comparing an army 2.5x the size to prove your point. In fact, this example would disprove your assertion that spears are fine with an army outnumbering its opponent 2.5x and being the perfect counter to them still taking 80% as many casualties.

That is precisely the numbers that another poster used in order to "prove" that cavalry somehow beats spears.
Please don't post in here with irrelevant observations. Read the thread first. There's a reason it was 200 vs 500.
And if you read the thread you'd know that I didn't pick those numbers.

And as for your point: horse-mounted units are not inherently equal to infantry. If you think 500 light cav vs 500 light spears is in any way equivalent, you should actually play the game more before posting.

 

[Razdv]

Idk why you got other result in your test.
I conducted tests multiple times being as spearmen or horsemen commander, using charge or standing, with or without shieldwall, or just f6. Spearmen lost in my tests.

 

[TheChewieShow]

I downloaded Xorberax's Cut Through Everyone mod and... Well, this mod lets me impale plenty of people at once! It's great, I feel like a badass piercing 4 guys at once with a spear lol Also sword slashes can affect all the people that are in the way of the swing, not just one... the mod is great!

 

[ratschbumm]

Why do you think they were literally the number 1 weapon of choice from stone age to when firearms were invented?

Now they are second.

 

[Caps]

Its a game if you guys didnt realise that, to balance out units spears need to poke in close range.

 

[Razdv]

I downloaded Xorberax's Cut Through Everyone mod and... Well, this mod lets me impale plenty of people at once! It's great, I feel like a badass piercing 4 guys at once with a spear lol Also sword slashes can affect all the people that are in the way of the swing, not just one... the mod is great!

Unrealistic Actually swords weren't sharpened much, and using sword as mace, holding by its blade in hands was quite common depends of situation. Medieval smiths and warriors were pragmatic. Because sharpened edge isn't practical at all - it will dull very fast, bend, break etc and almost give no advantage against even light armor. Against unarmored sharpened edge was overkill too.
And swords were very expensive and hard to replace or repair.
As for spear and shield - it is cheap, easy to replace, relative easy strike techniques: "Hey, peasant, take this and try to hit the enemy and may be you will protect yourself with this shield... Or not, who cares...".

 

[chiconspiracy]

Spears are very effective in this game. They definitely have the reach advantage by a long shot, so you lose me by claiming that swords have the same reach. That's simply not true. The main strategy when fighting with a spear versus someone with a regular melee weapon is keeping your distance and taking advantage of the superior reach. This is one of the few instances where shield bash, kicking, and shoving opponents is useful. Spears are more difficult to aim and hit with and take more practice to get better at. I would agree that they should be faster, but then again skill level may need to be taken into account. As skill level is supposed to increase melee speed.

I'd also say that it's possible that piercing damage isn't bypassing armor enough in general. I've noticed that even with a sword that cut damage tends to do more damage than piercing, even on heavily armored targets, which doesn't seem right. But this is purely anecdotal, and I haven't done any real testing on cut versus piercing damage. Though, I'm still doing way more damage on lower armor targets than you're claiming here. On average, I'd say it's in the 30s and 40s in the face and neck areas and 20s and 30s in the chest. You're playing a different game than I am, apparently.

Not just reach though, a polearm should also have superior piercing damage due to superior leverage, mass, and less energy lost to flexing (compared to most sword blades). In two hands they should also have a much faster speed of point. In the game, swords of the same tier will do equal or MORE piercing damage, which is absurd.

 

[chiconspiracy]

500 Sturgian Spearman: 342 alive - 158 dead
200 Imperial Heavy Horseman:0 alive, 200 dead

"Tactics" used with Spearmen, with me as commander: "charge"

So yeah, no fancy tactics, no convoluted bull****. Just 500 spears vs 200 horses, and the spears absolutely dominated.

My original post still stands, and stands more firmly and truthfully than ever before (thanks to actual in-game playtests): spears are fine. They are an anti-horseman weapon, and a weapon which performs well when riding a horse.

They are weaker in an infantry vs infantry or 1v1 situation, but that is because they have strong niches that other weapons do not have.
Making spears even stronger than they are now would make them the undisputedly best "all around" weapon in the game. And regardless of your feelings about that, it would be terrible for balance and terrible design.

TLDR: Spears are fine, L2P

Put them in a shieldwall and watch them fail in a situation where they should be strongest. Calling them fine is complete nonsense when they do equal or less pierce damage than swords that weigh a quarter as much and the AI can only use them somewhat effectively in a bizzare loose formation where everyone breaks ranks and runs around like a moron.

 

[Tork789]

Couch lance at full speed already one-shots everything. As for the length, there are quite long spears and pikes in the game, but you'll quickly find them not very useful in melee since they are too long to be used against a sword at a close distance, so that's why we have so many "in-between" spear lengths.

Realism is cool and all, but it's a game, not a simulator.