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[Rawl]

SOOO after experimenting in one on one fights i learned that a naked dwarf with an adamantine spear can kill one kitted in full adamantine armor and weapon without getting scrathed.

Then i went to multi man scrimmaging and found that a team of axes ALWAYS beats a team of spears.
though the one on one results still scare me.

Results: Yep axe is currently god mode

[Vester]

Have you tried a naked axedwarf against adamantine armor yet?

[Proteus]

Decided to check Axe Vs Spear. Some of the earlier posts made it sound that axe is more or less

THE weapon of choice and spear wasn't so hot. So I decided to pit them against each other 

in the arena. Same stats for each dwarf. At first the Axedwarf one everyfight no contest. Then i

took away the Speardwarf's shield. Spear dwarf never lost a fight.. almost never made it back in

one piece but had always won. Kick it up to adamantine everything and the spear got nastier. (by

the way, all skills were set to Competent)

Wait, so spears are better without a shield than with?  Can you check to see whether the speardwarf is actually multigrasping the spear?  That's very interesting.

Or am I reading that wrong?

Also, spears are actually pretty good weapons, it's just that spear-strikes don't kill immediately or even disable their victims, it takes a long while for even a totally swiss-cheesed speardwarf victim to bleed out.  And in that time they can easily cut off poor speardwarf's limbs shoudl they have a weapon more blessed with instant gratification.

Interestingly, this makes spears (and menacing spikes) a great weapon trap weapon - because targets very rarely get killed instantly the traps almost never jam.  The goblins take a few more steps and then bleed out.  Except weapon traps are really terrible against armour now.  They all have normal attack velocities (1000) and I suspect they're not getting any bonuses to that from their "strength" or anything.  Goblins routinely only get bruised by my high-quality steel spikes.

Indeed. Giving a spearman (a two handed weapon) a sheild prevents the speardwarf from weilding the weapon. This is slightly odd because sheild/spear has been a historically classic combo. Spearmen should be able to wield a spear and shield in a more defensive style as opposed to no shield which should be an aggressive style, but currently the only option appears to be no sheild.

A dwarf can wield a spear and shield, however he is more effective with just the spear. I rechecked and indeed he does stab with the spear in only one hand and the shield in the other, but he seems to penetrate more when he has just the spear.

Further research: Adamantine everything both with shields and respective weapons. Results: Spear dwarf no longer gets injured when using adamantine set with a shield. Adamantine Spear n Shield vs Adamanite Axe n Shield: 5:0

Yet another edit: Yes the spearman will multi-grasp the spear if he has no shield. misread a read out. NO he was not multigrasping...

Yet another, another edit: Take away Mr. Axeman's shield as well and then HE always wins. makes me start to question the value of shields in melee cause at this point its a game of weight=speed. (Assuming even stats)

What about Bucklers?
As they are smaller than shields (and assumed to be strapped to one arm) a dwarf  with buckler and spear/axe should  theoretically be similar to one who carries just his spear/axe (and maybe  even deadlier because  of the added protection of the buckler).

Might be worth testing out

[shadowform]

Do you guys see what this is?

THOUGHT!

TACTICS!

THIS is the essence of Dwarf Fortress!  Experimenting!  Trying new and different things!  I think the new combat system is fantastic, if for no other reason than just thinking "Hummn, gonna make some adamantine hammers and play gobbo golf" is less interesting than carefully organizing your militia to use weapons made out of whatever material best suits its own particular destructive purposes.

[Dorf3000]

Yet another, another edit: Take away Mr. Axeman's shield as well and then HE always wins. makes me start to question the value of shields in melee cause at this point its a game of weight=speed. (Assuming even stats)

What about Bucklers?
As they are smaller than shields (and assumed to be strapped to one arm) a dwarf  with buckler and spear/axe should  theoretically be similar to one who carries just his spear/axe (and maybe  even deadlier because  of the added protection of the buckler).

Might be worth testing out

It may be that given a shield, a dwarf will try to use it to deflect a blow rather than dodge, and the hit on the shield is doing some damage to them or knocking them down.  Maybe dwarves are a little too good at dodging and not strong enough to simply deflect blows with a shield.

[Nikov]

I put a steel pike through a dragon's lower body and fractured its spine in one hit. Thought I'd point that aspect of polearms out; internal organ reach on large creatures.

[Rawl]

I would like to point out at this point that when a larger melee throws down, that yes a shield is more beneficial than no, however in a one on one it doesn't seem to help as much as it seems that who ever can swing the most shots wins (Like in the case of nudist spearman vs full kit axeman). I have as of yet to experiment with the "foreign" weapons and have only used dwarf smithable items.

[Cheshire Cat]

ABSOLUTE AWESOMENESS

ive been playing a lot of adventure mode this version, which i have not done much of in the past. this table really tallies with my experiences. i started with a silver short sword, and was able to brutally murder anything wearing cloth/leather, but unable to leave the slightest mark on humans dressed in any sort of metal armor whatsoever.

human hammermen, however, were able to use a silver war hammer or maul to cause me mortal chest or head wounds through steel chain mail and a copper helm. it took them a while, i could keep fighting with damaged limbs, but a solid hit on the head or upper body would cause a slow fatal injury, either with a fractured skull or bruised heart.

in my own experience with a *bronze hammer* and very high skill, i found it nearly impossible to beat even a child to death. i could turn them into a purple and red squishy boneless meat sack, but not kill them. flails, however, were way more effective, most often causing death by smashing ribs and forcing them into lungs or hearts. i even got some brutal combat logs of bits of broken skull being forced into brains, and would sometimes get my flail stuck in a target and have to twist it out. as bronze weapons are the only thing purchaseable that i have found so far in adv mode, my flail is the only way to take down armored targets, although against unarmoured its much slower then a sword and far far slower then an axe. i have yet to try spears.

i would like to request an analysis of arrows/bolts. they really dont seem to be able to pierce even chain armor most of the time. against leather they are pretty nice, but with my metal armor i fear bowmen and crossbowmen no longer.

[se5a]

another thing to look at would be engagement time.
ie, if you send a dwarf in to engage and distract an enemy by dodging or 'tanking' while your more heavily armed dwarfs go for a kill.

I'm interested in how bucklers hold up in your tests.

also ranged vs ranged - should they have shields, bucklers, metal armor? or just leather. or even none? if you keep them up on the battlements behind fortifications do they dodge bolts better if they're light? do they fire faster/aim better if they're light?

[zagibu]

[Edit] See original post for current version of the test-setup

[Narmio]

For those doing armoured vs unarmoured tests and finding the unencumbered fighter the victor:  Do the results change when GM armour-user is given to the tankier partner?  Wearing heavy armour with no skill imposes a very large speed penalty.  I believe, although would have to check, that the same is the case for holding a shield with no shield-user.

If skill levels are to be taken out of the equation, we may wish to remove the ability to gain XP from dwarves so that consistent testing can be done - current training rates asre such that an unskilled dwarf can hit legendary before his opponent dies, and that's certainly colouring results.  Can you still take off the [CAN_LEARN] tag and get otherwise-normal dwarves?

[Rawl]

Continued my testing for single combat with some more interesting results.

Tried the naked adamant axe vs full adamant kit spear per request and spear won.
Then it was time to see who could beat the adamant spear.

So the skill kits are Competent in same weapons (so Competent Axe Competent Spear but only having one of these equiped) and Competent Armor.
First against the mighty spear: The Platinum Hammer.
Hammer wins. Then it was time to see who could beat the hammer. Mace (also plat)? no, Sword (back to adamantine) no, the infamous Axe? nope.

So none of the dwarven weapons won time for more exotic. Time for the Pike (also adamant). Finally a victory!

Now guess who was up to beat the pike? Thats right good old mister Axe. Sword beat pike as well. Spear... well it wasn't a pretty match for the spearman, he lost. Time to start testing all weapons against each other and form a proper victory/loss grid. Then onto MultiMelee based on same weapon squads.

[Rawl]

For those doing armoured vs unarmoured tests and finding the unencumbered fighter the victor:  Do the results change when GM armour-user is given to the tankier partner?  Wearing heavy armour with no skill imposes a very large speed penalty.  I believe, although would have to check, that the same is the case for holding a shield with no shield-user.

If skill levels are to be taken out of the equation, we may wish to remove the ability to gain XP from dwarves so that consistent testing can be done - current training rates asre such that an unskilled dwarf can hit legendary before his opponent dies, and that's certainly colouring results.  Can you still take off the [CAN_LEARN] tag and get otherwise-normal dwarves?

I would like to note after each fight i do use new dwarves reset to my default settings. I found about four seperate areas of the arena to place the dwarves where only those pairs can fight each other than i scrub the arena by leaving and restarting.

Also modified to Grandmaster for weapon armor and shield. At higher levels of armor ability the one with armor always wins. Generally parrying then counter striking the newd fellows first blow and then dominating the rest of the fight.

Further edit: even making the newdist GM dodger doesn't help at this level without any armor.

[Rask]

I ran some tests of my own, all iron equipment.

Summary of the first series of tests, all combat skills at skilled:

Double-wield axe > Single axe > axe + shield

The dual-wielded axe consistently defeated all other combinations of non-exotic weapons, with or without shields.


However, much changed with higher skills.

Second series of tests was done with all combat skills at grandmaster.

Axe+shield > Axe > dual-wield axe

The real surprise was who beat the axe+shield combo in 2 of 2 experiments, 10 vs 10 dwarves each:  dual-wield axe+spear.

[Pkassad]

From what I have done in adventure mode and arena.  Axes>Swords=Heavy Corpses>Spears=Crossbows>Hammers>Maces or something around that.  I have noticed in arena that clownite whips do hit hurt less then iron whips and iron hammers hurt more then clownite hammers, weight defiantly matters when it comes to bludgeoning.  However, when it comes to hacking things apart, clownite is best.