NanakoAC

Join Date 10/2012

Weapon types are not balanced

Maces suck, quite frankly. So do axes. And bows.

The best weapons in the game are swords, spears, and magic-bolt-throwing staves. The reasoning:

Swords:

Swords often give a bonus to initiative, which is a huge thing in this game. being able to take more turns than your enemy, essentially equates to a massive amount of extra damage due to attacking more often, and it more than makes up for the relatively lower damage. Counterattacks are also amazing, they simply compound the above. A counterattack is essentially ANOTHER free turn, although one in which you don't get to choose what you do. What it means is that someone with a longsword can do 2-3x the overall damage compared to a mace user, simply due to hitting more often.

Swords combine amazingly with shields. you can advance on the enemy and defend infront of them with your shield up, resuting in you taking far less damage from an incoming attack, and then getting a free counterattack against the enemy, who is NOT in a defensive stance. The athican longsword with it's two counterattacks is just overkill. Personally i think, to balance swords, the counterattack should either not be reliable (50% chance to trigger?), or counterattacking should delay your next turn by giving a temporary penalty to initiative. also lower the damage of all sword weapons.

Axes:

Axes sometimes have an initiative penalty, and we've already established that sucks. The backswing ability is kind of neat, but the AI doesn't use evasion enough for you to need it. and it doesn't compare to counterattacking. an axe is basically just an inferior sword, and they only have real usefulness against warg riders. Axes need more damage, more initiative, and perhaps counterattacks of their own. An ability to destroy shields might be fun too

Spears:

Spears have armour penetration, which is very useful in the lategame against plate armour. The immunity to counterattacks also makes them a good counter to swords. However, i feel that their damage just isn't high enough, and unless you're playing krax, the inability to use a shield with one kind of cripples you defensively. Given the long reach of a spear, i feel that spear type weapons should have an inherent initiative bonus (more than swords) or that they should be able to attack over a distance of 2 tiles, instead of 1. bonuses versus mounted units would be nice too, as the game has almost no incentive not to stick each and every soldier on a horse, as is.

Maces:

Maces suck. The initiative penalty pretty much kills them, regardless of anything else. They do tend to have the highest base damage, but this doesn't matter much - spears are better and often hit harder, due to the armor penetration. Lategame is even worse, as plate armour has double defense against blunt weapons, which just drives another nail into the coffin.

The Bash ability is a nice idea in theory, but in practical terms it isn't very useful. Unless you're already overwhelmingly more powerful, the chance of it proccing is simply too low to be reliable, and if you ARE that powerful then you don't need to stun anyone, you're probably killing them in one hit anyway. And as others have pointed out, being able to deny your enemy an occasional turn is pretty much negated by the initiative penalty giving YOU less turns, too. The only time that maces can really be useful is if you're teaming up against some huge target, such as a dragon. Get several people with hammers pounding on it, and you might be able to stunlock it into eternity, but that's assuming you don't get fireballed to death as the dragon takes three free turns at the start of the battle first.

I do have a simple suggestion to make maces better. Take away the Bash ability, and give them splash damage instead - dealing 50% of the attack's damage to all enemies within 1 tile of the target. This would give maces a purpose, a niche to fill, as crowd control.

Bows:

Bows suck. They do. The main reason is their low damage. Although a bow can be useful earlygame against bandits and darklings, all it takes is a suit of leather armour and a wooden shield to make bows virtually worthless. it feels like they're affected more strongly by defense, than other types of weapons. The tarth do have a bow with armour penetration, but it's right at the far end of the tech tree, which i feel is pointless. I think ALL bows need some amount of armor penetration if they're to be of much use at all, and less of an initiative penalty

Magic staffs:

The best troop weapon in the game by far. The ember/frost staff at 6 damage, and later the upgraded versions which do 13 damage iirc. These staves fire magical bolts of energy, and so they are ranged weapons. However, they are very difficult to resist, as they ignore both "defense" and "magic resist" entirely, dealing their full damage unless the target specifically resists that element.

In all practical terms, they fill the same role as bows, they have the initiative penalty, and you shoot them from afar, and they have roughly equivilant damage. But magic staffs are like bows if they all had 100% armour penetration. They're miles better and there's just no comparison. Magic staves need nerfing badly. The easiest way i can see, is to make Magic Resist reduce the damage from them, in addition to elemental resistance. Having a bigger initiative penalty on them compared to bows would help to balance them, too

IMO, you can steamroll any army in the game using ice staves and athican longswords, alongside some half decent armour on the sword troops. Two troop archetypes are all you need to dominate the world, even the spears are optional. The weapon types are not balanced at all, imo. to that end, i'd also say the kingdom of altar is overpowered, as they have the best unique variant of the best kind of weapon. And don't even get me started on henchmen stacking auras.....

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The only time that maces can really be useful is if you're teaming up against some huge target, such as a dragon. Get several people with hammers pounding on it, and you might be able to stunlock it into eternity

Actually, dragons cannot be knocked down prone.

This is one of the many ways in which something that works against the AI does not work against the player. The player can easily protect a hero, and even troops from elemental damage. The AI does not know how.

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Quoting Tuidjy,

reply 1

Actually, dragons cannot be knocked down prone.

oh darn you're right. all large creatures are immune to it (and all mounted soldiers too). So in that case, i change my verdict, and i will say that maces are entirely useless

Quoting Tuidjy,

reply 1

I don't agree here. With heroes, certainly, a casting of nature's cloak, and a resistance ring/cloak. But for normal troops, it's a lot more difficult. Equipping all your troops with magic rings and cloaks is prohibitively expensive in crystals, and given that there's two elemental choices for staves (three for pariden) it's not too difficult to simply build a balanced mix of ice and fire mages to ensure adaptability to any situation.

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There are some tings to take into consideration. What resources do the weapon take? Yea, that mace sucks compared to a lot of other weapons, BUT it takes no metal or crystal. Also, there are some tough things out there that are weak to blunt damage.

I disagree about bows, I use them the entire game and they work fine. They are slow, do low damage, but they can attack anyone anywhere, and that is pretty nice, my late game armies often have 4 archer units in it, and they decimate the enemy.

Spears are great weapons, fairly light, no int penalty, armor penetration, low resources and prevent counterattack. They are fine. One handed are great.

Axes...yea, axes kind of suck...no real reason to use them. the one handed is slow and backswing is only of marginal use, I would rather use a spear at that level, or a hammer even though its worse, uses no resources. The two handed axe is pretty crappy, the damage is low, the weight is high, no real reason to use it. The trog version does have some armor penetration, but is still meh and the great axe is worse than what it replaces.

Swords are great, they do good damage, have int bonuses, and have counterattack, they are great. the two handed sword is of marginal use, the damage isn't much better than the longsword. And as great as Athican swords are, and they are the best in the game for troops, you do have to have the faction trait to build them, so they are not without some cost.

Staffs are the best, but I rarely have the crystal income to really make armies out of them. I think my last game, I had two 7 man staff units, that's it. I probably could have had more, but my Sions cost 50+ crystals each...and I made four of them.

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I wish "backswing" did double damage. Since you only "backswing" if you miss, the 2x damage proc wouldn't happen that often but when it does, you'll be like "sweet!".

OP might be missing the fact that some mobs are very week to blunt. So we have four options to improve blunt:

1. OP suggests "splash" damage

2. Increase chance of bash

3. Make more mobs weak to blunt

4. Increase the normal damage of blunt weapons

Please vote now.

I agree with Xia. Bows are fine. Tarth's Clan of the Crow one-shot me all the time and I'm getting tired of it. They do not need to be helped.

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Quoting Lord Xia,

reply 3

well when it comes to resources, almost all nonmagical weapons require only metal. i personally never have problems finding an abundance of metals (crystals are harder to come by, granted Do the later maces really have no metal cost, or are we only talking about wooden clubs and the like ?

The "weak to.." thing is a little confusing actually. crrect me if i'm wrong, but as i understand it, a unit shows as "resistant to.." when it has almost any nongeneric resistance. eg, someone wearing chainmail is marked as "resistant to" cutting weapons. And from what i've observed, weak to appears on just about everything else, like the above mentioned chainmail unit will appear as "weak to" piercing and blunt weapons.

Quoting Lord Xia,

reply 3

perhaps our experiences differ. i find bows to be far less effective when leather armour is around, and they might as well not exist if someone has chainmail or higher. When you're shooting for 3 damage per hit against a unit that has 100 HP, it doesn't seem very useful to me. a unit of staves in the same situation can often hit for 30+ dmg

Quoting Lord Xia,

reply 3

Spears are great weapons, fairly light, no int penalty, armor penetration, low resources and prevent counterattack. They are fine. One handed are great.

i agree, they are fine. but i think swords and staves are significantly more than fine, so perhaps fine isn't good enough :/ i do use spears now and then though, they're pretty decent

Quoting Lord Xia,

reply 3

i agree on the twohanded swords, they just don't seem to accomplish much. more damage is definitely needed, imo. I do think that the longsword, (even the generic non-athican version) is a bit too strong, though.

Quoting Lord Xia,

reply 3

perhaps it's because i tend to focus on landgrabbing and researching crystal troves early, i usually find it possible to get a crystal income of 6-8 per turn around the midgame which is enough to make a staff unit every 5-6 turns. Always make ranged units at a strike garrison if possible (free impulsive ability is crazy).

Do you think staffs need toning down ?

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Bows are great. Especially with int bonus (from equipment)

I use them to counter Juggernauts with low armor or any unit that isn't in the guard position

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The choice of weapons comes down to your strategy and resources.

Swords-(One handed Slashing) Axes are not to viable, I'll agree here. The good swords however come about very late game. I'm fond of a troop of cheap dagger wielders early game, but it always depends on if there is any metal early enough.

Axes-(Two handed Slashing) I kind of fancy the great axes on Golems, and the Juggernaut is pretty awesome with his axe. They are also not to bad if your sov is cowardly.

Maces-(Blunt) Maces are not to bad if you get the one handed tech for them. They are slow but deal good damage to all but plate armor. Plus they are great for taking on elementals. If I am going to go with a mace with a champ I will usually pick the warrior class as that increase the chance of knockdown. Also initiative traits, and items are a must for troops with blunt weapons. Also an early lightning hammer troop is pretty deadly when leveled up.

Spears-(Piercing) This is usually my core weapon of choice. I find an early Spearman with just leather body armor and the strong trait usually lasts me till the end of the game when monster hunting.

Bows and Staffs- Bows are all around cheaper. If I have an early crystal deposit I will usually either get magic ranged or troops with lightning hammers.

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Spears:

Spears have armour penetration, which is very useful in the lategame against plate armour. The immunity to counterattacks also makes them a good counter to swords. However, i feel that their damage just isn't high enough, and unless you're playing krax, the inability to use a shield with one kind of cripples you defensively. Given the long reach of a spear, i feel that spear type weapons should have an inherent initiative bonus (more than swords) or that they should be able to attack over a distance of 2 tiles, instead of 1. bonuses versus mounted units would be nice too, as the game has almost no incentive not to stick each and every soldier on a horse, as is.

Spears already do about the same amount of damage as their same-tier equivalent weapons to same-tier armor, and perform better against higher tier armor than equivalent weapons. Against lower tier armor, spears will typically perform slightly worse against lower tier armors.

Maces:

Maces suck. The initiative penalty pretty much kills them, regardless of anything else. They do tend to have the highest base damage, but this doesn't matter much - spears are better and often hit harder, due to the armor penetration. Lategame is even worse, as plate armour has double defense against blunt weapons, which just drives another nail into the coffin.

Maces will deal at least 50% more damage to any non-plate armored target than any same-tier sword in the game. Unless your swordsmen act more than three times for every two times the mace-equipped units can act, your maces will deal damage at about the same rate as your swords if counterattacks are not involved (facing spears, or an opponent that consistently knocks your swordsmen prone). Maces will also out-damage longswords on a per-hit basis against any form of chain armor, and will out-damage greatswords on a per-hit basis against masterwork chain. There are also a fair number of monster creatures in the game that have high (10 or more) defense against cutting or piercing attacks and zero defense against blunt attacks.

Compared with a same-tier spear, maces will do slightly less damage (about 1 point less on a maximum damage hit) against a full suit of plate or light plate armor, and a fair amount more damage (about 2 points on a maximum hit) against a full suit of chain armor, or about 1 point more on a maximum hit against a full suit of masterwork chain armor. Maximum damage against full chain armor and a kite shield is 5.5 for a boar spear or 6.7 for a mace, against light plate and a kite shield we have 4.84 and 3.76, against plate and a tower shield we have 3.90 and 2.91, and against masterwork chain and a tower shield we have 4.32 as compared to 5.12. The initiative penalty certainly hurts maces, but I wouldn't say that it kills them against all targets, and I wouldn't say that maces are always useless. Certainly, I would usually take a sword or a spear rather than a mace, but maces are still useful. Also, I would say that generally speaking units which are fully armored in chain are more rare than units fully armored in leather, and units fully armored in plate are much more rare than units fully armored in chain. Against leather armors, maces will deal about 30% more damage than spears, and 50% more than swords. Mauls, the slowest weapons in the game, will deal up to about 22 damage per hit against leather-armored targets, which compares favorably to greatswords and pikes, the runners-up, at about 15.5 and 14 maximum damage, respectively.

I would actually say that swords are most hurt by armor in the game, because it's far easier to advance far enough in the warfare tree to get chain armor than to get plate armor (unless you play as Gilden or any custom faction with Light Plate, since you then will not get chain armor) and chain armor is easier to design units around - unless you're playing with Yithril or can afford to give all your units a mount, you're looking at 65 weight capacity on your trained troops if you give them both Strength and Muscle. A full suit of chain armor with a kite shield weighs in at 30 weight units, and a full suit of plate weighs in at 55 weight units. Two units with the same traits, one using a broadsword and full plate armor (65/65 weight, so (-4 +2) initiative bonus), and one using a mace and full chain armor (45/65 weight, so (-2 -4) initiative bonus), will have similar initiatives and deal approximately the same damage (roughly 2.9 maximum damage) to one another, but the guy with a mace and chain armor will cost much less than the guy in full plate with a broadsword, and takes much less research to field. If the guy with the broadsword is using chain armor instead of plate armor, the mace suddenly can do up to 6.7 damage per hit while the broadsword still deals about 2.9 per hit. Moreover, if you don't require that the units have the same traits, the initiative penalty from the mace can be worked around (at least partially) with the right choice of traits. For example, if this is a Wraith unit, you can get a +3 initiative bonus from a trait (at the cost of whatever small amount of health you'd be getting from level-ups, though, so I wouldn't recommend doing this) and the initiative of the mace unit is suddenly approximately the same as the initiative of the swordsman, if the swordsman is in full plate.

I can agree with reducing the initiative penalty on blunt weapons, but I disagree that blunt weapons are completely useless due to their initiative penalty.

About axes: I agree that they need to be buffed in some way, though I think that changing Backswing over to being a chance to make a second attack or be computed on a per-figure basis rather than a per-unit basis would make axes more competitive.

I'd also like to see all weapons gain reasonably clear development paths through the tech tree - right now, only spears and one-handed swords have this, as there are only two two-handed blunt weapons for trained units in the game (staffs, at tier 0, and mauls, at tier 3); there are only two axes unless you took Great Axes (which you shouldn't - the Trog Battle Axe is a good weapon with one good and one bad special, but Greatswords are better than Great Axes; for that matter, Trog Battle Axes are in most cases nearly as good as Great Axes, trailing by an average of about 2 points of maximum damage), one of which is two-handed and both of which are cursed with a special ability that barely works; one-handed blunt weapons disappear after tier 2 unless you took Great Hammers as a faction trait; and there is only one two-handed sword available for trained troops, available at tier 3, although the way this game works it acts as an upgrade of the Battle Axe, a tier 2 two-handed cutting weapon. However you look at it, though, you almost have too many one-handed cutting weapons at tiers one and two (four - daggers and axes at tier one, shortswords and broadswords at tier two), none available at tier zero, and only one available at tier 3 (longsword).

Tiers:

Spears, Daggers, Axes, Warhammers, Leather armor and wooden shields
Boar Spears, Shortswords, Broadswords, Battle Axes, Maces, Chain or Light Plate Armor and Kite Shields
Pikes, Longswords, Greatswords, Mauls, Plate or Masterwork Chain Armor and Tower Shields

Also, further reading for the OP (and anyone interested):

forums.elementalgame.com/435389

The thread linked is similar to this one, and on the second page, about halfway down, is a link for a spreadsheet I made which contains the stats of most of the nonmagical weapons and armors available to trained troops in the game.

Edit: for some reason it wouldn't link properly (it was linking to this thread) so I removed the hyperlink. If you put the URL in for the web address you want to go to, it will work.

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Spears are also a lot better once you start to factor in traits that adds bonus damage (charge, muscle, fury) as well as any city bonuses that does the same (sacrificial altar, weaponsmith, etc). They gain a higher percentage bonus due to lower base damage. They are also fairly light and are ideal for high init builds.

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Quoting joeball123,

reply 9

Unless your swordsmen act more than three times for every two times the mace-equipped units can act

It will...

I agree with the OP except that I find spears being rather good for its armour penetration and piercing damage.
Axes are rubbish they really need a something on trained units, maces are plain awful for the heavy weight AND severe initiative penalty, bows are ok, but I find staffs are better all-round since they ignore defense.

Another reason axes and maces loses to swords and spears are the traits "Muscle" and "Fury".

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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MarvinKosh

Join Date 08/2005

+87

I like to use spears with the Bloodthirsty trait. It means that if they survive to damage the same enemy again, they're now dealing 25% more damage. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but when you consider that they have the ability to bypass some of the target's armour, having more Attack when the enemy is wounded is a big plus to spear units.

Maces are the weapon you want to use against enemies with defence against Cutting damage, so Chain Mail or Masterwork Chain Mail. Axes and swords will be very little use against those, and if your enemy gets a counterattack it may not be worth it to try and wear them down. More to the point, because of their lack of reliance on metal as a resource, they're perfect for wresting control of an iron resource from an enemy. Suicide macemen at the front please.

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Quoting Kongdej,

reply 11

It will...

I agree with the OP except that I find spears being rather good for its armour penetration and piercing damage.
Axes are rubbish they really need a something on trained units, maces are plain awful for the heavy weight AND severe initiative penalty, bows are ok, but I find staffs are better all-round since they ignore defense.

Another reason axes and maces loses to swords and spears are the traits "Muscle" and "Fury".

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I agree that swords and spears are much better than maces and axes. I also agree that swords will act more frequently. I think, though, that generally speaking a trained swordsman in this game should be acting with an initiative somewhere around 24, and a maceman with an initiative somewhere around 16. In a one-on-one fight, this would translate into about two to three attacks by a swordsman per attack from the mace, and in a properly managed army it should be much less (closer to three attacks by sword per two attacks by mace), since most of the units ought to be concentrating on one enemy at a time.

This does leave the mace as a poor weapon to chose due to its initiative penalties, but I don't think that it's the complete crap that the OP seems to think it is. I'd still say blunt weapons are better than axes, currently.

Quoting Trojasmic,

reply 5

1. OP suggests "splash" damage

2. Increase chance of bash

3. Make more mobs weak to blunt

4. Increase the normal damage of blunt weapons

In reply to this, I would only go for increased bash chances or increased normal damage from blunt weapons. Heck, a flat 50% bash chance per group attack would probably make blunt weapons strong enough on their own to justify the high initiative penalties, or it might be too strong, but it'd be better than the generally 5-10% bash chance (if you're lucky) that you get now. Splash damage should only be available to particularly large and powerful opponents (like dragons or slags), or on expensive magical equipment, not on completely mundane guys with clubs and hammers. As for making more mobs weak to blunt - how? A fair number already have essentially no defense, and I don't think that blunt weapons should be the go-to weapon for clearing out tough monsters. Many of the moderate monsters already have no defense against blunt attacks.

Another alternative would be to give every weapon one counter attack, resulting in swords being less superior (having two counter-attacks rather than one isn't nearly as much of a benefit as having one counter-attack as opposed to zero), but it would make spears that much more attractive.

Bash, when it works, is good enough that I'd rate weapons with Bash higher than I'd rate weapons with Backswing, at least at their present trigger chances, since it prevents counter-attacks and wastes the opponent's next turn.

I wish that they would rework the encumbrance system so that it was more along the lines of 'you lose x initiative per y weight carried' rather than what it is at present, since that would also have a chance at helping out the balance between initiatives (that, or add two more intermediate stages of encumbrance, one between +0 initiative and -2 inititiative, and one between -2 and -4 initiative, with penalties of -1 and -3, respectively).

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MarvinKosh

Join Date 08/2005

+87

Maces and mauls should do piercing damage in addition to blunt (but with much of the damage remaining blunt). The spikes aren't for decoration. This would help differentiate them further from hammers.

Just giving each weapon a counterattack is boring. I'd rather that the counters were tailored to the specific weapons, and that only a few weapons have guaranteed counterattacks, for the rest it's a chance (or chances) of counterattack, and/or definitely counterattack if you successfully dodge the attack. Then you can have traits for soldiers and heroes that improve the number of counterattack chances and the chance for them to be successful, and so on.

As a specific example, ranged weapons should never usually be able to counterattack in melee, because it's more difficult to use them in close quarters. Champions would be able to offset this disadvantage with a Point Blank Shot trait which well, does what it says on the tin.

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I think everything has its place except for axes really.

Swords are the most flexible weapon, always useful, lots of actions. However, against high defence they can really start to struggle, lots of attacks for minimal damage isn't that useful.

Spears are excellent, and a great counter to swords, but the lack of a shield (except Defensive traits) drops the unit's survivability a lot. I tend to keep my spearmen very lightly armoured, give them charge, rage and accuracy for a big first hit and if they survive another round or two they still do good damage through rage.

Maces are slow, but cheap, good against elementals and troops with similar defensive traits, and againsts high defence units do enough damage to get through. For champions the bashing weapon perk path has the highest damage increase and if you have crushing blow can really lay in some impressive one hit kills.

I'm not a big fan of bows on champions, unless it's a weak champion hiding out back, but a couple of archer groups in a large army are effective. Initiative is low but if you have fortress 3 they get to act first. Use them to target poorly armoured troops early - mages / archers / spearmen. They have a particular niche in offing immobilised champions on low hit points as you invade an empire. Staves are better, sure, but crystal tends to be harder to come by and easier to spend. If you have crystal adding some of the elemental damage items to archers makes them very impressive.

Axes suck. I think they need some kind of armour damaging effect, perhaps a chance at destroying shields.

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I really think all axes should be made 2 handed and all swords one-handed. It's annoying that they currently overlap so much. The current selection of weapons is all muddled and confused. Axes shouldn't upgrade into swords and vice versa. This would make them easier to differentiate and balance, right now axes are just swords stupid cousins.

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Quoting DsRaider,

reply 16

Either this or developing the upgrade system so that there are clear lines of development for each weapon type, rather than murky lines of development based on damage type.

So, if developing lines for each weapon type:

One-handed:

Dagger -> Shortsword -> Broadsword -> Longsword (possibly have it as Shortsword or Broadsword, rather than Shortsword -> Broadsword)

Axe -> War Axe -> (suggest a name for an axe or two)

Warhammer -> Mace -> Flail -> Morning Star

Two-handed:

Shepherd's Axe -> Battle Axe -> Halberd/Poleaxe

Bastard Sword -> Greatsword -> Claymore

Long Hammer -> Maul -> Great Maul

Alternatively, if developing lines by damage type, and going by DsRaider's suggestion of only two-handed axes:

One-handed:

Dagger -> Shortsword -> Broadsword -> Longsword

Warhammer -> Mace -> Flail -> Morning Star

Two-handed:

Shepherd's Axe -> Battle Axe -> Halberd

Long Hammer -> Great Hammer -> Maul

Noting that the above are merely suggestions for names for weapons on each path, and that there is no thought provided as to what kinds of abilities or how much damage each should do.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

I have no problem with a high penalty to initiative for bows, but I do think that a bow which does less damage should understandably have less of a penalty attached. If a short bow doesn't do the damage of a long bow, it shouldn't have the same initiative malus. Otherwise, there's no reason to have a short bow, and no one will use them. Logically, every weapon in the game should have some good reason for use, beyond "it's all that's available to me at the moment."

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I'm pretty happy with the overall balance between weapons that we have now... Except for Axes.

On the face of it having axes reduce armour by one point each time they hit sounds like a way that they might be redeemed.

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No reason to make backswing do double damage imho. Maybe just have it trigger regardless of whether the attack hit or missed?

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Some options for Axes ...

Bonuses

1. "Bleed" effect (lose 1 HP each time they make a melee action, including Counter attacks, for duration of the battle)

2. stackable 'broken armor' debuff applied on strike. (-1 damage each hit ... meaning a company of 7 could deal -7 armor with one strike)

3. mild Bonus against Plate Armor (+chainmail?)

4. possible initiative bonus (remove initiative bonus from swords, instead add dodge/parry)

5. Increased Crit Chance

Penalties

1. No counterattacks possible

2. reduced Dodge

Some Options to Blunt ...

Bonuses

1. chance to Knock prone

2. Chance to Daze/Stun (not the same, aye?)

3. stackable 'bruised brain' debuff applied on strike. (-1 initiative each hit, for duration of the battle)

Penalties

1. Heavier (less initiative)

2. 2-handed Blunt weapons (other than staves) can't be used while mounted. (Like giant 2-handed Hammers and Maces)

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Wait, bows suck? Bows are probably my favorite weapon in the game. With the Tarth Archery perk, metal less bows can be unbelievably powerful on trained units. Although a reasonably poor choice for a sovereign/champion in my opinion. Also I have no problem with spears as they are now, not doing as much damage as the other weapons seems fine to me, since they do more damage against armored units. Giving them a bonus VS mounted units seems pointless considering mounted units don't trample, or inherently charge. I like them for their natural defensive qualities, avoiding counter attacks is great against some enemies, however it's a bit of a struggle taking on certain units who are weak to blunt requiring a unit designed just to beat these (usualy rock/earth anything) enemies.

Otherwise I don't have much experience using the weapons other than things like Lightning Hammer which have properties so good you almost can't not use them. Battle Axes are pretty nice if you get them early enough, I like to consider backswing being a "guaranteed" hit. However I guess a buff to axes (and other slashing two handed weapons?) could be something like "cleave", allowing the unit to hit an additional near by enemy. Good on a strong armoured unit against many weaker/faster units. But not overpowering against a big foe.

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Quoting stage62,

reply 22

With the Tarth Archery perk

You use a whole trait to boost your archers...

I find archers being ok, but usually I am better off with sword/spearmen with the charge trait.
And staff's having an easier time to eat up armoured units. When the enemy starts fielding armoured units, the bows tend to start losing ground.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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I really have no problem taking Archery. Its not like the blessing the Capitar start with... I've even tried it with Guile, didn't turn into 6 influence, and most of the game was total war and my power rating was terrible for the first half so no one wanted to make a trade pact with me... Even with a diplomat sovereign (I figured 6 influence/caravan + Silver Tongue could be good), my trades were not worth much more than usual. The war horse is probably my favorite weapon in the game, but the Mancer bonuses...

Archery is great for those games where you get snookered with no resources. The end tier (Rams-Horn) even gets a bit of armour piercing. Also allowing you to get archers fielded BEFORE setting up some iron production can be good for an blitzkrieg early on unarmored opponents and claiming their cities. Or keeping a standing army of archers just using leather and 'archery' bows for cheap defense. In a way archery is almost a strategic trait...

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I think that axes should have some "blunt bonus damage", to improve their comparation vs swords.

I would add some of them (may be not to all axes, but the biggest ones) a critical chance bonus, (instead of the backswing?)

So, with a little of blunt damage and a bit of critical, they can be an interesting alternative to swords.

This way, the circle speed+counter vs more damage+crits finally closes, and each weapon has its utility and difference.

Now, maces...I would improve the bash ability to... 2xdamage, or even x3, so having a mace really makes a difference. And, they might have like 10-20% of ignoring armour. With these changes, maces can be an interesting (and cheap) alternative. The maces with resource costs could also add a bit of critical.

Bows. I just would put the tech of bows AT THE BEGINING, because it has no sense that low-damage bows are mid-game units.

Staves. You really think they need nerfing? Maybe a little. But, they cost a lot of crystal, so I would leave them as.

First change the axes and the maces (and the bow tech) and we speak later.

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I play dense monster games on an epic pace. Backswing is incredibly useful. I can't speak for Axes once you get further into the tech tree, as I haven't played a game to completion yet, but they at least have a use early game. I haven't taken an axe to any units sporting heavy armor yet, so it could be totally useless at that point, I wouldn't know.

Axes and Swords seem to be pretty even early game.

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