Armor Effectiveness: Realism vs. Balance

Gameplay
#47

Now now, 230 pounds for regular warbow…

Mark Stretton from English longbow society performed some research on this - most warbows in Medieval times were around 80-100 kgs, as men were smaller and a bit weaker than we are (due to bad nutrition, too much heavy work on child age etc.)
Surprisingly, this draw weight is enough to penetrate the armor if struck dead on, but from his conclusions. the strenght of the longbowmen was not in the penetration, but in the amount of the projectiles.

As the price of the proper harness was high, most of the soldiers on battlefield did not have proper protection against arrowhail, and thus the battle was won not by piercing an armour, but simply by decimating the “weaker” protected majority of soldiers, while your infantry / cavalery only needed to worry about better armoured ones.

As an old Czech proverb says, every swordsman is worthless, when there is too many enemies.

Btw: Mark can pull to full draw 225# warbow, and on Medlanky airfield in Brno, he shot with it whole day on the tournament 2012, if I remember correctly. But, this surely was not standard in Medieval times.

#48

Hi!

From the research I’ve done, and some others (With Doctorates in Archaeology) that people in the middle ages, (Medieval Era) were not tiny people, but average sized people; like we are. But more so, it’s like saying in a thousand years, how tall were we all? We have dwarves (Sorry, can’t think of a better term) and the tallest man, reaching 8ft something, and it depends on regions and everything else; people became shorter around renaissance era (Example: London Museum of Knights of Saint John, a breastplate for an adult, the size of a childs). Now what I can tell you, is that English Longbowmen had a high draw weight due to the note in remains, showing that some longbowmen had crooked shoulders, meaning that one arm (and shoulder) is stronger than the other by a decent amount, and that they had the bone in their drawing fingers, developing from pulling the string back, and loosing; forming a hook like appearance on the bone of the fingers. If you want, I can bring in an expert on Medieval Archery to help clear some things up if you wish.

Regards,
Warrior Rose.

#49

Heavy work as a child does not make you weaker as an adult, on the contrary all evidence points to kids doing some work in their youth makes them fitter. As for the nutrition, if longbowmen were indeed mostly recruited from the yeoman class than it wouldn’t have been that bad. Sure it had a lot of cereals but they got enough protein to grow stronger.

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#50

For comparison, please see report from Mary Rose Warbows…

http://www.archers-review.com/magazine-articles/june-2010-longbows-of-the-mary-rose

#51

I don’t see anything to suggest the archers on the Mary Rose had poor nutrition or back breaking labor as a child in that article. He doesn’t even talk about them.

What this picture does show is a 6 feet tall individual with a twisted spine and malformed scapula.

#52

Right, point taken. Lets leave aside strenght of medieval common man and return to armor piercing.

http://www.theenglishwarbowsociety.com/warbow_EN.html

#53

Well I was actually surprised at how good a gambeson fares against a longbow.

#54

I hope they will add heat stroke and things like that if you are wearing full plate. That would also be cool if tired quicker than someone with lighter armor on.

#55

I hope they dont make this like war of the roses where a person in full plate can out run out jump and is much much quicker than a person in light or no armor.

#56

Plate is not especially heavier, bulkier and may be more flexible than many padded/hardened leather armours with chain/ring/scale reinforcements.

Bulky, padded cloth armour is hot, heavy and restrictive. Chain mail is heavier than plate and needs heavier padding to provide equivalent protection levels, while plate can be worn with a light arming doublet (with reinforcement built into joints only)

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#57

They can’t do that in war of the roses, either you are in a server populated entirely by hackers or you are playing a different game.

#58

why would you need an armor, battle skills an shit when you can provide sneaky backstab :3

#59

try backstabbing a knight in full plate with his buddies around. see how that works out for you :wink:

2 Likes
#60

I tend to feel that realism has its own sort of balance. Lining yourself in thick high quality armor is going to inhibit your vision, mobility, and purse, but It provides a lot of protection against many types of weapons.A lightly armored player could dictate on what terms the engagement happens on. Stamina is supposed to play a big role in Kingdom Come, so say you’re fighting three armored knights and all you have is a bow and a quiver of bodkin arrows. Keep putting distance between yourself and your opponents. They cannot keep pace with you and will tire very quickly.At this point you can just take your time and fill them full of arrows at your leisure.

That said there is the inherit choice of character development. If you’re a not fighter then you’re always going to be at a disadvantage in battle. On the flip side a non-fighter will be at an advantage outside of battle. People will like you better, you’ll be able to do things a fighter won’t. There is a trade-off.

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#61

The vision part is why most medieval helmets have a hinged visor which can even be taken off on bassinet models of this time period. The common foot soldier usually didn’t even bother with visors and such.

I doubt this would work very well considering most folks who could afford armor also had at least one riding horse. It might work in mountainous terrain like in Wales but you can simply remedy this by not going after the archers and instead burning down their village down below at the bottom of the valley.

#62

Hi!

That’s brilliant! Is there a close up of their fingers? There should be a nice few Bone Spurs on his left wrist, and right fingers.

Regards,
Warrior Rose.

#63

I know this is unlikely but a heat stroke mechanic would be cool. When you’re fighting in a battle for several hours moving around sweating and wearing thick padding underneath a tin can you’re going to get hot quickly. I think it was Agincourt were the knights were actually passing out from heatstroke and exhaustion in full plate. And of course exhaustion. I would like to see a mechanic that allows you to exhaust your opponent that would help when you’re fighting someone in full plate.

#64

As long as they don’t overdo it. I’ve seen some games that SERIOUSLY over-exaggerate exhaustion mechanics.

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#65

I like how many games have you sprint full power for only 10 seconds before tiring, however after a 5 second rest you can sprint again for a full 10 seconds. They should make the sprint last longer and the recovery too.

3 Likes
#66

Well its usually better to over exaggerate exhaustion in mp games. If you made it the exhaustion realistic then fights in games like Chivalry could go on for 30+ minutes. Instead you get tired in about 1-2 minutes of dueling someone. But its the opposite in single player games. I always hate how you can only sprint for about five seconds then you’re exhausted. I hope stamina plays a big factor in KC:D.
On the topic of armor protection i also hope armor will give you a big advantage in KC:D. Like you said pretty much every rpg the only thing plate armor does is make you slow and noisy. One of the things that made me quit Skyrim was the fact that you get damaged through your shield when you blocked.
I also did a play through of dragon age orgins with the best heavy armor in the game (paragons dragon bone armor) And it sucked. I was too damn slow and any fast rouge class just danced in circles around me.

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