I dont like SS HIP v0.8,it is not very balance like SS 6.4

[lookclap]

I hired a rank of heavy knight in mideast , and it almost took about 10000 flors . but in ss HP V0.8 ,the knight is too weak . the earlier crossbow militia can easily shoot the knights to death,but I recuit one rank of crossbow militia only need 662 florins.
the knights can be easily dead in hand-to-hand battle(in a close battle),such as before infantry.

hope SS 7.0 relead the earlier the better

[BuTAJIuK]

Perhaps with the release of the new version , you have to change the view .

SS 7.0 For a long time did not come . So wait for the new version SSHIP. Soon to be released .

[Lifthrasir]

We know that there's some work to be done in the EDU to balance/adjust the units stats. I have mentioned that countless time in the SSHIP subforum where you should have posted your thread.

[Dekhatres]

muahahaha YES, you can no longer just throw your heavy cav into the fray and expect to win or withstand hundreds/thousands of arrows, fun fact pope Innocent ll in 1139 banned the use of crossbows against christians

[Koso]

muahahaha YES, you can no longer just throw your heavy cav into the fray and expect to win or withstand hundreds/thousands of arrows, fun fact pope Innocent ll in 1139 banned the use of crossbows against christians

This.

SSHIP tries to to be historically accurate more than gameplay balanced. Sometimes cost does not match usefulness, especially if you don't use troops appropriately. Heavy cavalry cost and costs a lot of money, but it was not meant to plow through a storm of arrows, and then plow through a field of troops in hand-to-hand combat. They are meant to charge where the line is weak and unprotected and break the troops in the charge as much as possible. And like Dekhatres said, the crossbow was so deadly even to knights that the Pope banned their use.

Don't expect to frontally charge a barrage of crossbow bolts, followed by a mass of troops, get bogged down in melee, and still come out on top. No matter what the unit's cost is. Use what's efficient (money-wise too) and use it effectively. But don't complain about it not being "balanced" because high-cost heavy troops don't survive against anything and everything.

[MWY]

Youre comparing mercenaries to regular troops. First mistake. Second one, in a direct confrontation one or two units of crossbow militia will lose against almost any heavy knight unit. So what was your point exactly? Ah right non-constructive complaining. GJ at that.

At the topic, I still think knights are really strong. In my current france campaign, I almost use feudal knights only, since a fullstack of feudal knights is still the most deadly thing you can have. (And it also feels like a certain event in the last GoT-episode)

[Koso]

Youre comparing mercenaries to regular troops. First mistake. Second one, in a direct confrontation one or two units of crossbow militia will lose against almost any heavy knight unit. So what was your point exactly? Ah right non-constructive complaining. GJ at that.

At the topic, I still think knights are really strong. In my current france campaign, I almost use feudal knights only, since a fullstack of feudal knights is still the most deadly thing you can have. (And it also feels like a certain event in the last GoT-episode)

Yes, I agree that they're strong, but they should be. They are heavily-armoured, highly-trained warriors. But they can also take plenty of casualties from a couple of crossbow volleys and they will take plenty of casualties if they get bogged down and surrounded in melee against even mediocre infantry, in general. That said, if they can charge home against a unit of crossbow militia (for example), those guys will usually be minced meat, both because of the charge and then during the ensuing melee between said highly-skilled warriors and said bunch of guys who got handed a weapon and a helmet, and whoever is left will turn and run pretty fast. Which seems pretty accurate to me.

I think SSHIP has a pretty good balance overall, actually, even if that is not its primary purpose. Every unit has a chance of being useful and of being annihilated in the right situation. Because that's how things are/were. Knights were strong but not invincible.

I can't comment on GoT because I'm still trying to get halfway through the books and I don't think I've reached halfway the first season. Hopefully with summer coming I'll actually have proper weekends and evenings.

[lookclap]

We know that there's some work to be done in the EDU to balance/adjust the units stats. I have mentioned that countless time in the SSHIP subforum where you should have posted your thread.

he knights in SS HIP v.08is not very stronger like the knights in SS 6.4. In fact, the AI carry more knights in their ranks ,the stronger knights can add the hard lever in the battle and it takes the player much more interests when the they fight with AI in the battle .

[BuTAJIuK]

Actually, now at version 0.8.3 .

[Lifthrasir]

he knights in SS HIP v.08is not very stronger like the knights in SS 6.4. In fact, the AI carry more knights in their ranks ,the stronger knights can add the hard lever in the battle and it takes the player much more interests when the they fight with AI in the battle .

I always find unrealistic that a single unit of heavy cavalry could kill several units of infantry (no matter what kind) even in melee. This is not logical. You can have the best armor, the best weapon and the best training and even the best experience in combat but explain to me how 60 men can kill 250 or even more men in melee

[Larkin]

I always find unrealistic that a single unit of heavy cavalry could kill several units of infantry (no matter what kind) even in melee. This is not logical. You can have the best armor, the best weapon and the best training and even the best experience in combat but explain to me how 60 men can kill 250 or even more men in melee

Yeah, though the charges are ridiculously strong, you can wipe whole units with a charge.

I think historically the knights would probably fight dismounted if they were caught in a melee, as being mounted gave several disadvantages to combat. They also taught their horses to fight if they wanted to stay mounted.

[Lifthrasir]

Yeah, though the charges are ridiculously strong, you can wipe whole units with a charge.

I think historically the knights would probably fight dismounted if they were caught in a melee, as being mounted gave several disadvantages to combat. They also taught their horses to fight if they wanted to stay mounted.

That's true in high and early Middle Ages and for some factions like Scotland for example. But for late era, due to the weight of the full plate armor, that's not true

[Larkin]

That's true in high and early Middle Ages and for some factions like Scotland for example. But for late era, due to the weight of the full plate armor, that's not true

SSHIP, late era?!

[+Marius+]

muahahaha YES, you can no longer just throw your heavy cav into the fray and expect to win or withstand hundreds/thousands of arrows

Actually, yes, you can...and it was done.

fun fact pope Innocent ll in 1139 banned the use of crossbows against christians

...and nobody listened...and nobody stopped wearing mail armor regardless of the usage of crossbows.

Actually he also banned slings, bows and many other weapons against christians, it is a vague, useless and baseless declaration that has no meaning and the authenticity, interpretation and translation of its source is contested and has been sensationalized ever since modern "historians" wanted to prove a point without any argument.

It means nothing, people still wore armor and armor still stopped the vast majority of arrows and bolts.

but it was not meant to plow through a storm of arrows, and then plow through a field of troops in hand-to-hand combat.

That is exactly what they are suppose to do, why do you think they were obsessed with putting as much armor on themselves as possible?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monte_Porzio (500 knights flank out and destroy 10 000 men)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Muret (900 cavalry, 270 of those are knights plow through 20-30 000 men, 8 dead cavalrymen(no a single knight among the dead))
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ramla_(1101) (260 knights plow through 10 000 men)

All full charges against ready and engaged troops in formation.
All done in the age of mail armor.

There are loads of examples like these.

And like Dekhatres said, the crossbow was so deadly even to knights that the Pope banned their use.

It was not "deadly" at all, it was used in mass and killed very few armored men, its primary use was against unarmored soldiers.
The various(and completely ignored and useless) bans of ranged weapons was more about the travesty of the very possibility of a common soldier killing a nobleman with a ranged weapon than it was about the effectiveness of those same weapons.

I always find unrealistic that a single unit of heavy cavalry could kill several units of infantry (no matter what kind) even in melee. This is not logical. You can have the best armor, the best weapon and the best training and even the best experience in combat but explain to me how 60 men can kill 250 or even more men in melee

Oh, you should start reading history.
There are swarms of accounts of this happening everywhere.

This is not modern warfare, the guy behind the guy hitting you cannot reach you so no matter how outnumbered a formation of troops is, they can only be assaulted by as many men as the length of their formation allows...thus a good portion of the fighters would only fight 1 man at a time.

I think historically the knights would probably fight dismounted if they were caught in a melee, as being mounted gave several disadvantages to combat

They would usually retreat and charge again.

That's true in high and early Middle Ages and for some factions like Scotland for example. But for late era, due to the weight of the full plate armor, that's not true

What are you talking about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM6YbJ4XpjE&t=0m26s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNcKolKQ1F4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3Rm94QRREI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1YEkuWYUKM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm11yAXeegg

[MWY]

Okay.. 1. battle: Okay example I guess.
2. battle: So your saying the kingdom of aragon didn't have knights in their army? Besides that, nobody should take a battle like this as an average example.
3. battle: Okay example aswell. although they certainly didn't plow through 10k men, because the fatimids probably routed pretty fast. Troop morale is a factor here aswell.

All in all, I think knights are in a good place right now. I mean there are also examples where knights themselves where crushed and defeated. On the average, obviously they were superior to everything to a pretty large margin, but if you consider gameplay, we basically can't make them THAT good and crossbowmen or archers THAT useless without the game becoming really really frustrating. Just imagine playing a faction without the possibility of using knights. Fielding 2 fullstacks of spearmen and waiting 2 hours for 50 knights to die? I think that was annoying enough with the old bodyguards already.

[Lifthrasir]

(...) Oh, you should start reading history.
There are swarms of accounts of this happening everywhere.

This is not modern warfare, the guy behind the guy hitting you cannot reach you so no matter how outnumbered a formation of troops is, they can only be assaulted by as many men as the length of their formation allows...thus a good portion of the fighters would only fight 1 man at a time.

I've never pretended to be an expert in history. But at least, I keep my mind open (which is apprently not the case of everybody).
Against your links and examples, I can give at least the same amount of examples showing exactly the contrary from the beginning of the 12th century (battle of Bremule in 1119 AD for instance). I guess it would be more constructive if you start reading this: http://www.academia.edu/439213/The_A...alry_Revisited
That should help you to be less "categorical". Also, if you read it carefully, you will see the mention of units moving on horse and fighting on foot. No matter what kind of armor they were wearing.

Beside that, I'm joinning MWY about the morale factor, adding to that the ground type, the topography and the weather conditions.

Finally, I agree with MWY about the gameplay. So for now, no point to change the cavalry charge stats.

[+Marius+]

I've never pretended to be an expert in history. But at least, I keep my mind open (which is apprently not the case of everybody).

Oh, my mind is open, I myself also believed various other incorrect myths and skewed theories until I was reeducated.

Against your links and examples, I can give at least the same amount of examples showing exactly the contrary from the beginning of the 12th century

No you can't, especially not to the extent of numerical superiority of infantry being completely nullified by such a small number of cavalry.
The vast majority of failed heavy cavalry engagements have either weather, terrain, man made configurations of terrain or numerical inferiority as the main reason of defeat, not the supposed problem of cavalry charging dense infantry formations.

(battle of Bremule in 1119 AD for instance).

Wait, what?

That was an engagement between 400-500 knights against each other, what does that have to do with heavy cavalry failing against regular deployed infantry?

I guess it would be more constructive if you start reading this: http://www.academia.edu/439213/The_A...alry_Revisited

I have read that long ago, the man is very biased at certain arguments and is very prone to debunking stuff that aren't in need of debunking.
He is one of the crowd who shouted the imbecilic notion of warhorses not being able to charge dense formations...because....you know, modern horses refuse to charge obstacles in front of them
Guess historical sources of knights charging their horses at various wooden fortifications to take them down changed his mind.

That should help you to be less "categorical". Also, if you read it carefully, you will see the mention of units moving on horse and fighting on foot. No matter what kind of armor they were wearing.

So?
His reading also encompasses the early medieval period in which mobile infantry was more common than "absolute cavalry".

[Lifthrasir]

Ok, that might be not the right example. But what about this one from a book called "The Cambridge Illustrated Atlas of Warfare: The Middle Ages":

(...) Mounted shock combat was designed for use against cavalry. when cavalry from Northern France encountered specialized infantry - Germans at Civitate (1053), Anglo-Scandinavian at Hastings (1066) and at Durazzo (1081) - they were victorious. But knights did not overrun the sword or axe-bearing infantry, and victory was achieved by co-ordination between cavalry and archers. Only disciplined infantry was likely to have the nerve to stand before a heavy cavalry charge. Knights also had to be prepared to dismount. This long predates the 14th century, to which it is frequently dated. In 891, for example, a Frankish army dismounted to storm a Viking fort at the river Dyle. In several encounters in the first half of the 12th century in northern France and England, knights dismounted to stengthen common infantry, combined with archers and mounted reserves. This was often to neutralize the efffect of the enemy's cavalry charge, and to stiffen resolve: men on foot could not escape a mounted enemy. At the siege of Damascus (1148), the German knights also dismounted to fight, 'as is their custom in a deperate situation of war' (William of Tyr). In the 14th century, English men-at-arms began habitually to dismount for battle alongside massed archers. The dismounting was not novel, but hte large numbers of archers involved was. In the same century, densely packed common infantry armed with spears and pikes - Flemings, Scots ans Swiss - defeated mounted chivalry, for example at Courtrai and Bannockburn. This has led to the argument that feudal cavalry were now eclipsed, but the later 15th century's super-heavy cavalry, with effective plate armour and armoured horses, enjoyed a revival. From the late 1300s, the lance became much heavier and the breast-plate was equipped with a rest, enabling the lance to be steady at speed. This development made the 'mounted man into a form of living projectile whose force of impact against both horse and foot was greater than it had ever been' (Malcolm Vale).
Mounted men-at-arms combined with archery and gunfire were able to crack open the enemy formations, as renewed effectiveness with continued into the 16th century. Throughout the Middle Ages, unsupported heavy cavalry never possessed the vast superiority often attributed to them, but, combined with infantry, especially archers, they played a significant part in war (...)

And also this article published in History Today, vol. 44 no. 1 (1994) which is telling the same fact somehow:

(...)The victory won by Simon de Montfort’s greatly out numbered French force at Muret in 1213 showed what it could achieve the Crusaders burst through the enemy ranks to reach King Peter of Aragon, killing him and annihilating his army. Incidentally, this battle also offers a good example of a medieval commander directing his mounted tactical reserve in a decisive flank attack. Verbruggen also establishes that knights could be recalled from: charge and be reorganised for further assaults, rebutting a long-held belie to the contrary. A variation of this was the feigned flight, most famously employed at Hastings in 1066, a tactic devised to draw out the defences of the enemy, thereby rendering him more vulnerable to a renewed cavalry charge (...)

The various strands of war are admirably drawn together in Philippe Contamine’s classic, War in the Middle Ages (Blackwell, 1984; translated by Michael Jones). This authoritative overview stresses the interconnection of war with society as a whole, rightly holding that war is ‘the product of a whole cultural, technical and economic environment’. He places war against the background of the commercial revolution and changes in government and administration in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the outcome of which was an increasingly monetised society.
Perhaps the most obvious implication of a money economy for war was the emergence of the permanent armies identified with the early modern period. In this light the innovative indenture system of Edward I (1272-1307) is seen as instrumental in heralding the eventual decline of the feudal summons in favour of more professional, paid forces. This belief is countered in an important recent book edited by Matthew Strickland, Anglo-Norman Warfare (Boydell, 1992), which makes accessible to a wider audience a collection of eclectic academic articles by specialists, primarily written during the last fifteen years. Where recognition has been given to medieval warfare for proficient recruitment; the use of effective infantry, archery and dismounted knights, competent leadership and strategy, and the chevauchée, historians have tended to date these developments from the later Middle Ages, and especially from the revolution in tactics and organisation under Edward I. The contributors to Anglo-Norman Warfare trace these developments to an earlier period, encouraging debate between early and late medievalists (...)

The archer’s role is best recognised in the famous battles of the Hundred Years’ War, most notably Crécy (1346) and Agincourt (1415), the startling result of Edward I’s original tactics in his Scottish wars. But Bradbury clearly proves that the tactic of deploying archers with dismounted knights was a practice used in the twelfth century. Archers at Bourgthéroulde halted a cavalry charge before it reached the knights on foot. At the Battle of the Standard most of the English knights dismounted while others were kept for the cavalry reserve. Archers and spearmen were positioned in the front rank; dismounted knights were mixed in with the archers. In both battles archery was instrumental to the victory. Thus ‘it is not easy to see anything novel in the use of dismounted men-at-arms and archers in the Hundred Years’ War’. What was new and developed in the Scottish wars, however, was ‘the sheer increase in the number of archers employed’, and it was this that created such an impact in the fourteenth century (...)

So basically, I don't want to rise that discussion again. It has been done already here for instance. I'm just trying to show that the cavalry had an important role during the Middle Ages, especially between the 11-12th century and the 14 th century. However, cavalry relied on infantry support and was, most of the time, used for outflank attack or breach attack when not used against enemy cavalry. There are no or very little evidences of a frontal charge efficiency against trained infantry under a good commander during that period.
To conclude, considering the balance between history and gameplay, I think we're not that bad in SSHIP and I can't see the point of unbalancing things.

[La Tene]

I understand the difficulty in balancing these units but it does seem the heavily armored knights need better protection on the battlefield. I loved seeing their upkeep sky rocket (in SSHIP) .. but this means they aught to also be very effective. I think the team knows this already.

[Lifthrasir]

Correct. Once I'm done with the animations, I'll start working on the stats in the EDU (but for later release, not the next one or you will have to wait longer ).
Anyway, as suggested by somebody (sorry I forgot who), I might adjust the armor protection in accordance with the shield protection in order to make things more realistic without unbalancing the gameplay (hopefully).