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[ountyhunter]

Lately I've been considering making a character to use a knife or dagger, but I've heard from many places on the web that knifes/daggers are just weaker swords that have a high crit. chance.
So I test to see if this crit. chance can make a difference in a battle or if they're worse than swords.
I do have the lazy newb pack, although it shouldn't affect the results.
I've looked around on the forums here and I haven't found anything on the study of knifes, sorry if I missed an earlier forum.





side 1.
9 Humans
Iron Long sword
Iron shield
Iron breastplate
iron gauntlet x2.
iron high boots x2.
Iron mail shirt
iron Helm
Iron greaves.
Proficient Swordsman/shield/armor/dodger
novice swimmer




side 2.
9 humans
They both have the same armor, shield and stats, the only difference is that this side uses iron Large Daggers and the knife user stat.






End result- 9 dead swordsman, 2 dead knife users.

I am honestly surprised that the end result was the knife users winning. I did this many times over (roughly ten) with much the same results.
I then tried to see if it was perhaps the armor, the knifes getting a crit. could puncture the armor while a sword would just bounce off.

Doing this got the same results as before (although it seemed a few more knife users died than the average previous sessions).
So I think that maybe the long sword is heavy enough to affect their speed, trying both previous processes above ended with even fewer knife users dying.

For my last experiment I try long swords vs boning knifes
They both have the same iron armor with the only difference being weapons and weapon skills.

I did this only once but yet again knife users win.


EDIT: It has been suggested that the large battles could be affecting the end result(due to the knife users ganging up on the sword users and killing them quickly). I have also decided to take out the use of shields as they can possibly affect the results.
 After trying thirty 1 v 1 tests it seems that this is the case. In 29/30 tests the long swords won, this was also done with both sides not using armor.

Conclusion: Daggers/knifes are best used in large numbers as they can quickly kill opposing opponents(even if they have superior armor), but in 1 v 1 fights knifes are outmatched(although that could change if armor is used by both parties).

[MonkeyHead]

Knives penetrate armour better - smaller contact area. Maybe consider iron weapons vs steel or adamantine armour, to see if the trend repeats when facing a superiour material. A repeat of unarmoured combatants would also check if the armour is a factor.

[i2amroy]

Also you might want to consider running some 1v1 tests. When you are running 1v1 tests each test is independent, which is good. Running anything more then that allows for the winners of a 1v1 to gang up on the rest of the tests to slide them in their favor. This then can skew the results. For example if you have 1 weapon that is better overall but another weapon that is good at getting deep strikes (and penetrating organs), 1v1 results should show that the 1st weapon is better, but the fact that the 2nd weapon can get a few fast kills can allow the winners to team up and bring down the other weapon 1 wielders if you are fighting groups.

[ountyhunter]

Knives penetrate armour better - smaller contact area. Maybe consider iron weapons vs steel or adamantine armour, to see if the trend repeats when facing a superiour material. A repeat of unarmoured combatants would also check if the armour is a factor.

I have now checked iron dagger vs steel armor, my results were much the same as before, both sides had steel with the knife users using iron large daggers. I tried this five times with varying amounts of humans(although they were always equal amounts). Knifes won each time being able to cut down their enemies with minimal losses. I will soon see how they will fare against candy and try them both unarmored again.

[ountyhunter]

Also you might want to consider running some 1v1 tests. When you are running 1v1 tests each test is independent, which is good. Running anything more then that allows for the winners of a 1v1 to gang up on the rest of the tests to slide them in their favor. This then can skew the results. For example if you have 1 weapon that is better overall but another weapon that is good at getting deep strikes (and penetrating organs), 1v1 results should show that the 1st weapon is better, but the fact that the 2nd weapon can get a few fast kills can allow the winners to team up and bring down the other weapon 1 wielders if you are fighting groups.

Thank you for the idea, I'll try it out to see if there is any change.

[Mechatronic]

I think the main thing will be the armour. Large bladed weapons like swords and axes are most often deflected by armour. Small bladed weapons, like daggers, picks and bolts, as well as blunt weapons like hammers are rarely deflected by armour. The first group are far more effective against poorly armoured targets the latter far more effective against well armoured targets.

[Mel_Vixen]

Looking through the Wiki on weapons. I cam accross the section on Daggers. First of all the "stab" cotact area for a dagger is 5 while a sword has 50, which means that the attack will penetrade more often. Secondly the dagger has 3 attacks (Slash, stab and Pomelstrike) to the swords 4 (Slash, stab, flat slap, and Pommelstrike) which means for the dagger the stab occurs more often then for the sword.

[Naryar]

Daggers are excellent armor piercers (kobold thieves grrrrr), but are generally inferior to swords because no severing parts.

[Loud Whispers]

Daggers are excellent armor piercers (kobold thieves grrrrr), but are generally inferior to swords because no severing parts.

Indeed. Short sword wielding Dwarf vs Large dagger wielding Kobold, the Dwarf will win by virtue of more grevious wounds inflicted. Doesn't stop the Kobold from puncturing a lung before dying though.

Good quality armour is a necessity.

[blue sam3]

Also you might want to consider running some 1v1 tests. When you are running 1v1 tests each test is independent, which is good. Running anything more then that allows for the winners of a 1v1 to gang up on the rest of the tests to slide them in their favor. This then can skew the results. For example if you have 1 weapon that is better overall but another weapon that is good at getting deep strikes (and penetrating organs), 1v1 results should show that the 1st weapon is better, but the fact that the 2nd weapon can get a few fast kills can allow the winners to team up and bring down the other weapon 1 wielders if you are fighting groups.

You might also want to talk to the people doing the armour testing, ask to borrow their testing map/macros. It'll save a lot of time.

[Kamamura]

The game needs to take into account the advantage of longer weapons. The user with longer weapon can prevent his opponent from successfully attacking altogether. To successfully attack, the shorter weapon user must successfully dodge or parry the attacker and use footwork to come into distance, which is always risky.

Dominions 3 have repel mechanics which is very nice - if one weapon is significantly longer, its user can "repel" the opponent, who has to pass a morale check if he cannot defend against it; upon failure, he cannot attack. This way, low morale troops with short weapons have very few opportunities to actually attack.

Think city guards with halberds suppressing an angry mob.

[NW_Kohaku]

The game needs to take into account the advantage of longer weapons. The user with longer weapon can prevent his opponent from successfully attacking altogether. To successfully attack, the shorter weapon user must successfully dodge or parry the attacker and use footwork to come into distance, which is always risky.

Dominions 3 have repel mechanics which is very nice - if one weapon is significantly longer, its user can "repel" the opponent, who has to pass a morale check if he cannot defend against it; upon failure, he cannot attack. This way, low morale troops with short weapons have very few opportunities to actually attack.

Think city guards with halberds suppressing an angry mob.

That actually sounds like a novel suggestion, and it fits in especially well considering as we're now getting morale checks into the game.  Suppressive attacks should fit in well with the new non-lethal attacks, as well.

If there hasn't been anything like this already suggested, maybe make it into a suggestion thread.

[Azated]

The game needs to take into account the advantage of longer weapons. The user with longer weapon can prevent his opponent from successfully attacking altogether. To successfully attack, the shorter weapon user must successfully dodge or parry the attacker and use footwork to come into distance, which is always risky.

Dominions 3 have repel mechanics which is very nice - if one weapon is significantly longer, its user can "repel" the opponent, who has to pass a morale check if he cannot defend against it; upon failure, he cannot attack. This way, low morale troops with short weapons have very few opportunities to actually attack.

Think city guards with halberds suppressing an angry mob.

Definitely a good suggestion. That'll finally make my elite speardwarvs far superior to those pesky goblin ninjas assassins master thieves.

[thvaz]

The game needs to take into account the advantage of longer weapons. The user with longer weapon can prevent his opponent from successfully attacking altogether. To successfully attack, the shorter weapon user must successfully dodge or parry the attacker and use footwork to come into distance, which is always risky.

Dominions 3 have repel mechanics which is very nice - if one weapon is significantly longer, its user can "repel" the opponent, who has to pass a morale check if he cannot defend against it; upon failure, he cannot attack. This way, low morale troops with short weapons have very few opportunities to actually attack.

Think city guards with halberds suppressing an angry mob.

Definitely a good suggestion. That'll finally make my elite speardwarvs far superior to those pesky goblin ninjas assassins master thieves.

+1

I can't find the quote, but Toady said something about reach of weapons a long time ago. I think, like so many other combat related issues, he is waiting for the combat arc.

edit: But again, the move/speed split was supposed to take place with the combat arc, and is in for the next version....

[i2amroy]

Of course if you were factoring in the reach of weapons then you would probably also want to factor in the opposite in the minimum effective range. If someone with a dagger manages to get inside the reach of someone with a halberd, then the person wielding the halberd can't do much to hit the person holding the dagger other then punching/kicking, but the person holding the dagger has the ability to still attack.