Played a bit more last night, managed to recruit some troops and get into a few fights.
I returned to the combat tutorial area because I wanted to see if chamber blocking (riposting essentially) was still possible. Turns out that it is, and you even receive a message in the combat log. I’m still terrible at it, but I was able to pull it off a few times while getting beaten down by the trainers.
I ended my gaming session outside a town with a tournament in progress, so my goal tonight is to kick some butts in the arena. Tournaments were a major source of early income for me in the previous games. I’m curious to see if it can still be the case.
I tried the chamber blocking thing off and on in Warband, it’s damn hard to do reliably. In the end I usually just go with “helicopter your sword at their head” which is pretty effective at high skill level if you combine it with good timing. I loved arena battles for practice, doing 10 in a row, trying to win 5 or 6 of them. I’m a little mad that you don’t skill up in arena battles now. So, so disappointing. Need mod, will download.
What do you mean manual blocking? Do you mean having to match the direction when you don’t have a shield? Was direction matching automatic in some Warband setting?
Fortunately blocking with a shield is far easier than with a weapon. I am just planning to never use two handed weapons. Heck, if it weren’t for certain missions forcing one to be on foot I’d never leave horseback with a bow and lance.
Anybody know if buying horses speeds up your overland map speed? I am having to toughest time chasing down looters. Any other tricks. I think the horses might help but I can’t get enough money to buy them.
If you already have extra horses in your infantry, but also have unmounted companions, assigning the horses to your companions gives a bigger boost to speed.
At least in the mod , Prophecy of Pendor, Sea Raiders were really bad news - in general, thrown weapons were incredibly deadly there. You moving towards them, and the thrown axe travelling towards you = deadly force and instant kill many times.
I gave up fighting and was using the auto-combat. Even with the shield I’m garbage. I assaulted the bandit hideout near the start, which forces you to participate. I was killed very quickly by the first random guy we encountered. I tried blocking then attacking but he was just wailing away on me with a sword. Not a lot of fun.
There’s no shame in turning down the combat AI I think, considering that enemies generally have a huge skill advantage over the player (hence better attack speeds) and they still fight competently when AI is set to “Poor”.
A few things that might help to get better in combat:
Use practice fights at some keep’s arena to practice. You can die and get back into fighting really fast, it has no effect on your campaign and, if you do well, you can earn some small money. Also, they spawn you with some random equipment, giving you the opportunity to try out different weapons.
Use shield for blocking, much easier than blocking with a weapon.
Use the “wailing away” to your advantage. If you time your clicks properly, you can deliver several blows with increased speed and kill them. So block once and then go at it.
I haven’t tried this one yet but I remember there was an option to use keyboard for directional blocking/attacking instead of a mouse. I’ll try it and report back.
Move side to side to avoid ranged attacks.
Use a bow, especially form a horseback, it’s easier than melee, especially when facing multiple enemies.
Don’t forget you can try to kick enemies back if they get too close.
You don’t necessarily need to fight yourself when fighting battles. You can mainly just command the troops. I never fight on foot in combat. If I’m unhorsed I’m usually a gonner unless my troops are nearby. Especially since my usual loadout is lance, shield, bow and arrows.
Early on use small bands of looters to practice your horse archery. If you keep a little speed their rocks will usually miss and they don’t do much damage anyway. If some break and run use them to practice hitting them with melee weapons from horseback.
