When there's 3 or more javelins in your shield... you pretty much shouldn't be able to use it.

[Castanietzsche]

So to sum up pila should be 1 ammo throwing weapon (so you could eventually wear 2 of them like roman legionnaries if yu want), should damage foes beyond their wooden shields, should drastically make a shield unusable if it didn't break, you should be able to use them as levers to lower shields and that's petty all right ?
For bows they should be low-damage and unaccurate at lower archery levels, you should be able to stick arrows on the floor to gather them faster than picking them from your quiver.
For formations you should have turtle ones where the second and further ranges wield their shields up to protect from upcomming projectiles.

Did I miss something else ?

 

[Gremgoblin]

Honestly shield hp needs to be nerfed a bit because you barely ever see shields broken. Even in multiplayer I think I've seen it happen one time. Axes are barely more effective. I don't think shields should become extremely weak but maybe up the damage that axes do so that picking an axe isn't mostly useless compared to say an arming sword.

I've actually seen a lot of shields break in MP, but it is usually only when some guy jumps into the middle of an enemy group and they all start beating on him.

 

[crimsonfilms]

Again, the game is not a simulation. There are game design choices made based on the enjoyment of the player not to emulate reality.

Disagree on both the javelin and shield.

 

[Gremgoblin]

So to sum up pila should be 1 ammo throwing weapon (so you could eventually wear 2 of them like roman legionnaries if yu want), should damage foes beyond their wooden shields, should drastically make a shield unusable if it didn't break, you should be able to use them as levers to lower shields and that's petty all right ?


Did I miss something else ?

Seems like a lot of work for a single item item that, as far as I've been able to try, doesn't even have the ability to be thrown in SP at the moment, just to add some novelty to them, all of which only applies to the single faction that uses pila...?

 

[Tuco]

They carried *one* (That's all you need)... that was enough to strip the line of most shields. In fact a pilum could go through a shield and pierce the dude holding it in one go.

Would be great to see this implemented in Bannerlord. A single pilum that strips any wooden shield it hits.

 

[Punchtown Hero]

One of my hobbies is chopping wood, I also need it to warm my house so I chop at least 1 cubic meter of wood each year. So i know what I'm talking about.

Sorry for laughing but that's a tiny amount of wood, easily chopped 10x that amount in a single day before lol

 

[Punchtown Hero]

I feel like there are way too many people in this thread that chop wood lol

Thats because all us guys that grew up chopping wood and using axes and mauls all love the vikings xD

 

[Ruler of Calradia]

I think people tend to overestimate ow strong projectiles were. If they would have been strong enough to piece and destroy shields that easily, they would have disappear in favor of more arrows and javelins. Which was tried btw, did not work because shields and armor are really great.
Pilums would not have disappeared anywhere if they would have been so brilliant against shields. For that kind of advantage it supposedly gives, its more than cheap enough and not too technologically demanding either. And ofc shields and armor evolved all the time.

This gives some idea how strong shields are. And that is almost ideal condition for destroying a shield, in real life hand holding it would flex more than in the video, taking a lot of power away from any impact. And this is only basic every man's shield. But keep in mind that is plywood, which i think is little tougher than you would get historically.


Armor is also harder to pierce than it would be in tests because human fat provides good cushion, taking lot of force away from impact. Like shield, it does not get crushed between 2 hard places but between soft and hard.

Problem is how to abstract entire day of battle into acceptable lenght. I think shields are still good as they are, but armor should be given small buff and arrows small nerf (but quivers should hold more arrows than currently).



General rule: people who have to walk and carry everything with them don't wear and carry around something that does not work. In fact people even ditch something that is proven to work for reasons like comfort. Some medieval sources complain about soldiers not wearing padding (some kind of cloth, i don't remember what it was) underneath their armor. Padding provides enormous protection, soft flexible padding and hard outer surface (chain mail) is incredibly difficult to pierce, its tricky even if target is not fighting back. But its hot, so soldiers sometimes ditched it.
In real life special forces have been known to ditch ballistic helmet in favor of mountain climbing helmet that provides no protection against weapons. Why? Because it was more comfortable. And they did suffer more, easily preventable, casualties because of it. It was apparently one reason why US armed forces developed more comfortable helmet for their special forces.



No armor or shield provides perfect protection. That is how in general you would damage people with shields. Aka don't hit the shield.

 

[Marcery]

I really don’t care what history says, throwing spears and axes need a buff. The type of throwing javelins and axes in this game would make any shield useless unless you’re some kind of bodybuilder who can manipulate a 50 ib shield easily. Would honestly fix the Sturgian troop problem if their throwing weapons disabled a good number of enemy shields before they meet. Also any throwing weapon that makes contact with an poorly armored enemy over a distance of 30 meters or less should be a killing blow. I’m tired of my Sturgian troops not being able to kill forest bandits or recruits with their projectiles.

 

[Alenovic]

Sorry for laughing but that's a tiny amount of wood, easily chopped 10x that amount in a single day before lol

If you read my comment then you would see that i said “At least” indicating its the bare minimum of minimum.

 

[Yangbang]

Why can't there just be an added damage factor called "Shield damage" separate from pierce/slash/blunt. Let this shield damage factor directly lead to being shield killers. because as it stands i think shield do a terrific job against normal attacks such as sword/mace and arrow blocking. but when it comes to axes and javelins, yes i think they need an additional damage factor that multiplies when hitting a shield. javelins, crounched lances, axes and actually a bit of arrows too should chip more health off those shields.