Heavy Kopis Cavalry, 10+ Attack, AP

[Camcolit]

So making a few finals edits to my EDU and one of these days I might actually play the game. Have a new computer and everything. I think the newest game I've run on it so far used about 30% capacity, and it's not because the computer is a monster . Quite sad really. I might stress-test it later with Minesweeper or Doom Roguelike.

Anyway, I asked about this before but crickets. Some cavalry, namely Hetairoi, Bactrian bodyguard (same thing really), the old Acheamenid elite cav, maybe a few others, have 10+ attack secondary weapons with AP (Bactricans have 11 attack, AP). This is very far beyond anything other cavalry have. For comparison, cataphracts, more modern units, have 7, AP, while other Cav have 9 or 10 but no AP.

I read or dreamed somewhere that it's because the cav in question have the heavy kopis, an admittedly cool and dangerous looking weapon. However, convincing me that this weapon choice historically made them as more effective as they were more cool and edgy looking has failed.

Can anyone confirm that this is indeed the reason, provide some argument to justified the inflated stats, or explain something I may not be aware of such as slower animation etc. that would balance it out.

Thank you.

[QuintusSertorius]

It's the standard stat for elites with long kopides.

[Camcolit]

That doesn't answer the question, but thanks.

Edit - To be fair, my own post was incorrectly framed. But it should be obvious that the question then follows 'What is the justification for this stat being so far beyond others for this weapon?'

[randy_cat]

Since armour is relatively low in EB2, AP weapons don't make much of a difference. They become OP when fighting cataphracts or elite troops with heavy armour. I don't see why kopis should be armour piercing and not, for example, the sarissa or the gladius. It is just a sword, with a different shape, i think only axes and maces should be AP

[Ampe211]

A kopis is like any other slashing sword: although it is possible, that due to its shape it is marginally more effective when dealing with textile armour than other weapons of the same length/weight/mass distribution, cutting through any form of armour is basically impossible with the kinetic energy a human can generate. Consider the following: a spear thrust can have varying amounts of KE: According to Blyth, it is in the range of 30-45 J, although his method of obtaining this result is questionable. According to Matthews, who had a participant perform thrusts from different positions before a graduated scale, and filmed at a rate of ten frames per second to determine the velocity of the thrusts, the underarm thrusts had a KE of 46.5 J for the average of 5 motions. Matthews -and Blyth- took into account only the mass of the spear -~1.4 kg for Matthews; 0.8 kg for Blyth-, and then used this value in the KE formula to get his results. On the other hand, Horsfall used an instrumented knife to measure the force and acceleration during an impact with a standardised target, in order to find out how how much kinetic energy a knife thrust carries. He got 29 J for the average underarm, and 37 J for the average overarm thrust. Most participants in his tests were untrained, the weight of the instrumented knife was 600 gr. The tests showed that a relatively significant mass of the human hand and forearm contributes to the energy generated, which means that Matthew’s results are not to be considered accurate, and the energy of the thrusts by his participant were higher than what he thought.

According to Williams, the KE of a one handed blow from an axe/mace/sword is in the range of 60-130 J. The surface area of a cut is much greater than that of a thrust; meaning the pressure between the weapon and the armour is much lower, therefore it is much harder to even cut into the armour, instead of simply denting it. And if you want to achieve a significant depth of penetration, which is required if you aim at putting the opponent out of action, you need to cut through several centimeters of the material. Williams conducted different tests to determine if punching and cutting through armour was possible. A 18 degree steel spike with a diameter of ~10 mm needed 55 J to penetrate 40 mm through a 1 mm mild steel plate, while a piece of a blade, with a length of 40 mm could only dent the plate with a KE of 200 J. Depending on a lot of variables, modern mild steel can be worse or better than hammer hardened, 10 % tin bronze, but it doesn’t have significantly better material properties. What this means is, the concept of armour piercing (melee) weapons, at least in the context of ancient warfare, is not realistic, but if anything, then a spear or a mace should have this attribute. A sword, any kind of a sword simply cannot cut through plate/mail armour, and I think it is safe to say, that they can’t penetrate through any form of armour. If they could, spears, arrows could easily do the same. Spears were the most common threat on ancient battlefields: what is the point of wearing armour, if the masses of spear wielding warriors have no problem killing you through it?

[Pooploop]

I guess in in Medieval 2, to rationalize it, AP can refer to "weapons that can damage flesh through concussive force/take advantage of already existing gaps in protective gear and widen it/actually penetrate straight through the material". The last definition can only belong to siege engines/angry elephants/the blades of scythed chariots, while the first essentially refers to blunt weapons (e.g. a mace), or blades weighted away from the handle with the force delivered by a specialized section of it curved just for the purpose (axes, and yeah, kopises). Such blades don't just cut, they crunch through the target. It's the second possible category of ap that receives no love and a lot of under-representation, but because of game balance (there are no increasing or decreasing variables of ap, it's just AP in the EDU and then said unit can ignore half the armor value of enemy unit) the dev team probably has to pick the MOST effective personal weapons against armor to give the AP attribute. Strangely enough, I guess a big argument can be made on one handed axes/curved single handed heavy blades vs spears on who is really deserving of the attribute. The mace, the two handed rhompaia, the club, the elephant, the scythed chariot, the siege weapon, these are all pretty no-brainer to get AP. However, if spears get ap over single handed axes/"sabres", then it better be only a few high tier units with better "quality" spears (and better technique/skill using it) or nigh half the roster gets ap. Also, lances from horseback should be ap, to be consistent, but they already have massive charge bonuses...

Finally, to get to my real point, let me continue my fruitless quest to improve phalangitai!!! How about putting ap on sarissas?? They are way bigger than a rhompaia, their metal heads are nigh as long as short swords, they're shaped to penetrate armor (or take advantage of gaps), they've got massive leverage and massive weight behind their shafts and can use the momentum of charging enemies against them!! How exactly did it feel to get hit by a thrusting sarissa?? Was it a light soft poke, or a blow that could knock the wind out of you? Can it stop charging infantry dead in their tracks? If the latter, then doesn't it do the same sort of damage a mace does? A really pointy mace??? Just food for thought...

[Camcolit]

Since armour is relatively low in EB2, AP weapons don't make much of a difference. They become OP when fighting cataphracts or elite troops with heavy armour. I don't see why kopis should be armour piercing and not, for example, the sarissa or the gladius. It is just a sword, with a different shape, i think only axes and maces should be AP

Agreed. But I am not so against this heavy/long kopis having AP (whatever, any kind of sword even weighted for blunt impact is a poor man's axe for focused impact rather than cutting for defeating armor, but that's the idea behind the weapon so AP is fine with the limits of the engine). What I do think is very clear is that there is no justification forthcoming so far for why it should be AP and have an attack value several points above other AP weapons used by comparably elite troops.

If this weapon were that clearly more effective than other weapons, then everyone who could afford and manufacture it would have adopted it instead of using maces etc. and had their "11 attack" like the Bactrians instead of their "7 attack". Will wait for historical evidence that ultra-elite troops from other places didn't know about the wonders of this weapon and/or were incapable of copying it. Until then more EDU editing.

@Ampe211

Good read.

@Pooploop

Bit obsessed with the old big hard pikes there

Agree that pike thrust would be capable / more capable of piercing armor but there are legitimate gameplay reasons why spears and more specifically pikes don't have the attribute, whereas not seeing one for a massive attack number difference between comparable sidearms.