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[dennislp3]

Your taking everything I say as absolute and frankly taking it way out of context...you also seem to be disregarding the post I made earlier where I made a point that most of the grappling or so should be done if they DO NOT have a shield

Watch these vids and it will help you see what I am talking about (hopefully)

A series called "The Weapons That Made Britain" covers much of weapons and armor in the middle age...good watch and most important to illustrate my points

The Sword Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEMwcSGauY8

The Longbow Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPskCGVAsCU

The Lance Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsSS5D7GCCM

The Shield Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbK7m3w9FXI

The Armor Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbGFb1Pu-YA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osTQrJ_axfc&feature=related <== covers the fact that you cant just swing a weapon and expect it to do anything...talks about hitting gaps in the armor and such...pushing, parrying and just about anything else helps...and no your weapon is not necessarily the only thing you use or want to use unless it gives you the proper advantage or is specialized. If it is not able to do its job then YOU have to create the advantage by any means necessary...messing with another persons balance is the quickest and easiest way to create this advantage especially if they are in full armor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGmYzOi1BUE&feature=related <== more on the humor side but illustrates a point. Considering the open field one on one and sport approach the weapons got tangled up...now imagine in the wild of combat...shit happens...and what if you don't have the room to move like this...say if you have allies or enemies right beside you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKDeYLewZUY&feature=related <== medieval documents on the dagger and wrestling technique

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCVt9rRE0bk&feature=related <== unarmored and obviously stylized but it gives you an idea of how kicks and such can be used to trip...

In DF a punch and kick is very abstract....you cant always take a kick or a punch as a full hip high kick or haymaker hook punch

I never said they would be making full kicks like a god damn ninja or something...nor did I say they would be disregarding their weapon or rush the opponent for the sake of grappling...every weapon handled differently and every type of armor had its weaknesses...each combat situation is unique...

And reenactors are once again...not trying to kill each other...some of there stuff is pretty accurate (but not all of the people involved are). I have seen many videos on the subject and I have seen them "fight" they avoid anything that could cause injury cause its not their objective...swordplay is not the same as sword fighting....if you want to see something realistic don't make reenactors your source...that's not very firm evidence of much...

All I have tried to make clear is that kicking and punching are not all that unrealistic...especially if someone is using a combat style that requires you get extremely close (short sword or dagger)

Pole arms and such had the advantage of keeping distance...but to defeat that you have to get inside the range of the weapon...at which point the man with the pole arm would sure do anything he can to fend you off with or without his now pointless weapon (lots of times if it were possible they carries short swords with them as well). Polearms often had a hook to them to help pull people off horses or to help hook someone in the back of the head who just got inside the range of the weapon...spears didn't have this advantage (not all pole arms did either) Although there are fighting techniques to go with this as well.

Also have to remember that not everyone is in full plate...and therefore kicks and bunches are much more likely to be used.

Finally...this is dwarf fortress...a game where people commonly smash brains in with an untrained fist and many other oddities...its in the alpha stages and Toady himself has pointed out on many occasions that the combat system is FAR from finished...much like the rest of the game.

[G-Flex]

Even if kicking and punching and grappling are realistic things for armored and armed combatants to do, DF isn't representing those. It's representing random opportunistic attacks. In DF, right now, there is absolutely no reason for combatants to try biting through the steel plate on your arm. The attacks don't represent valid medieval fighting maneuvers, they represent random attacks of opportunity that make sense if you're fighting someone who isn't armored, but would be completely useless against an armored opponent. Basically, we're talking about different a few things here.

[dennislp3]

indeed...that's why my last point was that this is df...not life

[Shambling Zombie]

I notice the biting as mostly weird, kicks and punches seem fairly realistic to me.

I still think the biting should stay in though, just because it's funny to see one of my dwarfs charge into combat with a Dragon and bite it on the foreleg, and latch on firmly. One of my wrestlers killed a Giant Earthworm by biting it and shaking it around.

A possible fix I could think of is making humanoid bite attacks at legs, feet and lower body always miss, since you'd have to squat to do that and just get a knee in the face.

[ArcaneBoozery]

...you also seem to be disregarding the post I made earlier where I made a point that most of the grappling or so should be done if they DO NOT have a shield

Where did you make that point and they who? You first said "I think wrestling should be utilized more in the combat equations (mostly if you have a free hand)", and then "if you are fighting someone with a longsword and you have a dagger and buckler its rather easy for you to get close, grapple with him", which seems contradictory (free hand vs buckler), or do you mean the defender? But then, in DF and real medieval combat, most defenders would have a shield, and I mentioned that the combatants in my arena/game had shields. So was it just a misunderstanding, and if everyone has shields, would you agree that punching, kicking, biting and grappling on a regular basis isn't exactly realistic?

As far as the videos you linked, I didn't watch all of them, but the few I did didn't seem to be in conflict with my ideal of rare hand to hand moves as opposed to regular ones. The first one showed people wrestling against armed foes WHEN they were unarmed, which is totally fine and realistic, but my combatants weren't unarmed as I mentioned. The one with sword agains plate armor also mentioned in the same show that once plate armor came into being in late medeival times, most knights switched to other weapons than swords, like war hammers, maces, flails, etc, which were much more effective against plate. Punching, kicking, and biting would be even more useless against full plate than swords. I could see grappling being of some use in that specific scenario, if you had a narrow sword or dagger to finish your foe off on the ground, but between the guy's likely shield and the fact that HIS weapon might be very effective against you as you are closing in to grapple, makes me think that most combatants changed their main weapons to something effective against plate rather than plan on using grappling as their main attack. This is especially true in true combat, as opposed to duels, since why would you want to roll on the ground with one guy when another can easily come up and effortlessly skewer you as you are grappling around on the ground.

[dennislp3]

You do realize that bucklers are tiny? and often strapped to your forearm or wrist as opposed to being held?

Still twisting my words too....I still never said anything about biting and I still never said anything about using punching/kicking as a main weapon...also still making my words sound absolute...I'm talking about possible scenarios...not every combat situation...I already stated that they are all unique and different.

Nice of you to also take a few seconds out of the hours worth of video I provided to fit your argument...

Also ignoring the fact that in DF I stated punching and kicking are abstract...meaning not necessarily literal.

The videos I linked you to (especially the armor one) are good and talk about how real combat was...not a bunch of vids of cosplay geeks swinging fake weapons at each other (although I did link one or two to show you that they do use some hand to hand in those type of reenactments which for safety reasons cant have much punching or kicking).

Spose it doesn't matter anyways this is pretty much like arguing with a troll and I have spent to much time on it...mostly cause I am bored.

kicking and punching are a part of combat...plain and simple...and shit happens...especially in the heat of the moment...

[Roflcopter5000]

It is relevant to note that there is a huge difference between war and individual combat. Societies that had powerful martial traditions, with skilled brawlers and warriors, fell to societies that had training and discipline. Note that the average Gaul could've almost undoubtedly slain the average roman soldier in one on one combat. Yadda-yadda-yadda, well known history, yadda-yadda.

Try to stab someone, real quick. Now grab them and try to stab them. Which was easier?

The point is that pugilism has a point in armed combat... But it really depends heavily on what sort of combat. So that's a little sketchy to try to simulate. And so even if you accurately simulate disadvantages for tossing aside your shield and trying to wrestle the middle dude in that phalanx to the ground, you have to take into account that a dwarf should very rarely choose that option, or you're going to have some insanely high rates of attrition in your combat.

Not that I am at all saying that Toady can't do this, or it's impossible, or whatever. I'm just saying that since these 'attacks of opportunity' got added, this is a pretty legit place for them to be at. And I think that yes, we can all agree that dwarves should stop breaking their teeth on that dude's steel breastplate, IE, just generally, there is some stuff that gets done that really doesn't make sense at all. And I think we should also all agree that regardless of the relative efficacy of punching a dude in the face, when you have a sword, it seems a little silly for punching to get as much attention as stabbing, IE, even the stuff that does make some sort of sense is not getting represented with logical frequency.

So, yeah, combat isn't "done." But, like, duh. Sometimes Minotaurs beat Dwarves to death with their socks. Mothers use their infants as fleshy combat vests. I mean, there are some pretty damned obscene indicators that this system is far from feature complete. I think it's great, and it makes the game fun in a quirky, crazy kind of way. That's kind of what DF is about... Rolling with the absurdist punches that result from  procedurally generated gameplay that is nowhere near feature complete. But it's silly to try to rationalize what is clearly the insanity of a random number generator producing senseless results as some sort of representation of what 'Dwarven combat' is intended to look like.

[ArcaneBoozery]

@dennislp3

I think it's unfortunate that you have resorted to personal attacks on me and the reenactment people ("cosplay geeks"?), but I guess if you can't logically defend your position, that's the way to go on the web. And what is this "taking stuff out of context" and "twisting my words" business? I was just trying to understand where you are coming from, given that your entire argument is all over the place, sometimes contradicts itself, and I am not even sure which of my positions you are arguing with. In fact, it does seem like you are just bored and looking for an argument. If you actually read my posts, I never said there should NOT be punching or kicking or even biting (and I did not even originally bring up wrestling, you did). All I said is that realistically, those should be niche/fringe attacks, as in they happens occassionally but rarely, not on a regular basis as the main weapon attack. Since you yourself say that "I still never said anything about using punching/kicking as a main weapon" and "...not every combat situation...", then what exactly are you arguing with? As I've now stated several times, I fully realize a punch or a kick may very well happen in a given fight, I just don't believe there are on average 2 punches, 3 kicks, 2 bites, and a couple of wrestling moves in every fight between armed/armored combatants.

And so even if you accurately simulate disadvantages for tossing aside your shield and trying to wrestle the middle dude in that phalanx to the ground, you have to take into account that a dwarf should very rarely choose that option, or you're going to have some insanely high rates of attrition in your combat.

Bingo! That's all I am trying to say. Lots of things are theoretically possible, but usually it's the simplest that happen, especially in a  chaotic situation like combat. It's like if you watch a martial arts movie, there will be all these fancy flying kicks and sophisticated throws and joint locks, but then you watch a real fight or something like mixed martial arts, and the vast majority of moves are very basic. It's not very easy getting a tricky joint lock on a guy who is punching you in the face. Same with armed combat, sure you can try grappling with him or kicking him where it hurts, or biting his ear off, but most of the time, the simplest and most sensible thing when carrying a weapon and a shield is to attack with the weapon and defend with the shield.

As far as simulating it in DF, I think a simple way would be to just have it check for an equipped weapon/shield and your main attacking skill that was trained up the highest, and based on that, kinda lower the probability of a non-weapon strike/move occuring. A wrestler trained dwarf with no weapons equipped would have say (purely hypothetical numbers) 100% chance of a non weapon move, a wrestler trained dward with a weapon, maybe 50%, a hammer trained dwarf with a hammer equipped, maybe only 5%, just to give an example. That would let players customize the dwarves to their liking.

[dennislp3]

Please point out my contradictions...

Secondly it wasn't a personal attack...never said you were a cosplay geek (I have friends who cosplay by the way...so its not like I have anything against cosplay...its akin to calling people D&D nerds or Dwarf Fortress geeks or whatever)...I was just making a point that a lot of people that do that stuff do it as a hobby...not for the sake of killing each other...

If you watch the videos of the one on one reenactment demonstrations its the exact same crap you see in moves...a kill shot is a showy poke or slice to the armor....nothing close to what would be fatal or anything.

I also do not talk about full on grappling and stuff...which is what I mean when I say my stuff is getting twisted...because although I referenced wrestling moves I never said it would be done in full...I am trying to talk about the prevalence of punches and kicks in combat (as well as simple grabs, pushes, pulls, or throws of some sort). Meanwhile your still talking about fight moves from movies and how you cant do those in real combat....that's like saying water cant be honey....obviously I am not talking about that crap....movies and reenactments are simple actors playing a showy part...

To say that punches and kicks cant happen often is still a bit absurd...2-3 punches and kicks of some sort during an engagement with someone seems extremely likely and a higher number seems much more appropriate (although once again not in some flashy display like you see in movies and crap). You do realize that many battles went on for hours and some even days on end? The amount of kicks and punches thrown is based on too many factors to count...if you watch the video series on armor that I linked they talk about defeating armor and that just swinging your weapon is completely absurd because it will wear you out and make you extremely vulnerable. Believe it or not...weapons are mostly devices of opportunity especially when dealing with armored foes. How you create that opportunity is what I am talking about.

And your still doing this "ha checkmate!" bs....just cause someone else said that wrestling someone in the middle of a phalanx is a bad idea doesn't mean that what I am talking about is completely wrong and off base....especially considering that I am talking about small squad based combat and one on one combat...not formation combat or full on wrestling and grappling in the middle of a phalanx...


And how can you say I can not logically defend myself...I am trying to come at this from a logical stand point...you keep referencing movies, reenactments, and extreme situations that using grappling examples and stuff would obviously be stupid and nearly impossible (unless you didn't care about dieing)...

[ArcaneBoozery]

Please point out my contradictions...

Secondly it wasn't a personal attack...

Spose it doesn't matter anyways this is pretty much like arguing with a troll and I have spent to much time on it...mostly cause I am bored.

Where I come from, comparing someone with a troll is typically considered a personal attack. That's contradiction #1. Contradiction #2 is where you first want the "grappler" to have a free hand, and then to have a buckler in that hand. And no, bucklers weren't worn on an arm, they were held in the hand, this is from Wikipedia for example:

"A buckler (French bouclier 'shield', from Old French bocle, boucle 'boss') is a small shield, 15 to 45 cm (6 in to 18 in) in diameter, gripped in the fist;"

You knock combat reenacters for being geeks, but these are people who actually study historical combat manuscripts, often make their own weapons and armor, and learn to use them first-hand in a fairly realistic manner (not 100% but still), and yet then you offer as examples videos from mainstream shows meant for entertainment rather than realism. I would personally put much more stock in the former than the latter, and if kicking, punching and wrestling was used regularly back then, why aren't these reenacters doing it at all? It's much safer to play punch or play kick someone or wrestle with them than to hit them with a metal weapon (even a dull one), so seems to me like they would definitely incorporate it if it was indeed effective and historically prevalent, yet seems like they generally do not.

You say that swinging a weapon is tiresome, but in that video they were only talking about swinging a flail, because you have to keep swinging it all the time, otherwise it becomes useless. Most weapons like war hammers and axes and especially swords were very light and relatively easy to wield, so it makes no sense to me that you think that will wear a person out, but throwing a punch/kick (by nature more tiring than swinging a weapon, since hands and feet arent designed to be weapons, so you have to put your weight behind them more) or wrestling a guy in plate armor will not.

[dennislp3]

so you claimed there were contradictions and waited for one to be "made"....nice...

And when I said it was like arguing with a troll...its simply because you take what I say out of context and your points are accurate to the max and mine are fluff...much like a troll would...if you take offense to that then I guess I am sorry...its just my view...aka...nothing personal.

by the way I never said grappler (you put it in quotes so I assume you are quoting me)...a grappler is akin to a wrestler..."grappling moves" and a "grappler" are 2 different things

The wikipedia article on grappling

Grappling refers to techniques, manoeuvres, and counters applied   to an opponent in order to gain a physical advantage, such as improving   their relative position or to escaping, submitting or injuring them, through the application of various Grappling techniques, and the counters to these. Grappling is a general term that covers techniques used in many disciplines, styles and martial arts that are practised both as combat sports and for self defence. Grappling does not include striking or most commonly the use of weapons, however some grappling discipline teach tactics that include strikes and weapons either along side grappling or as part of it.

The stuff I linked you too was a PBS (public broadcasting, hardly mainstream) type channel and the history channel.

You just are saying that these people study this stuff and you have no proof of it...I was not sending you links to things to watch the fighting I was sending you links to videos full of information delivered by people with credentials...I have no doubt that these people study this stuff and I know they make there own armor and all that stuff...and that's great...but what you are showing me has nothing to do with that...once again you are showing people sword playing...they aren't even talking about it or even showing they know anything or even making it clear that they are anything more than actors...


and what was that about a buckler not being worn on the arm? (from the Merriam-Webster dictionary)

Definition of BUCKLER
1 a   : a small round shield held by a handle at arm's length
   b   : a shield worn on the left arm
2   : one that shields and protects

Worn on the arm =/= held in hand (although both apply obviously...but I never said either was absolute).

As for the "swinging a weapon isn't tiring as a punch"...

I was in the marine corps...we trained and fought and did everything with armor on...we also did everything with our rifles. including hand to hand combat because they have bayonets.

The m16 weighs about 8 pounds...but swinging just that 8 pounds around gets very tiring very quick. A jab or a short stroke to create a pommel strike (in the case of an m16 a butt strike) or letting go of a two handed weapon (or one handed weapon with a two handed grip) with one hand to create a quick punch or even performing a quick kick to create an advantage that allows your swings or strikes to matter is much easier then just swinging the weapon...

We were also taught knife fighting and wrestling...same principle...knife isn't the only weapon you have just cause its the only "weapon" you have.

speed is also the advantage with punching and kicking...not power...I'm not talking about beating people in the face with your fist til they die. its much easier to feint or strike with a quick jab rather then having to create proper momentum with a weapon.

"You say that swinging a weapon is tiresome, but in that video they were only talking about swinging a flail (try the armor vid where they state that swinging a weapon is tiring if you so require the words to be said word for word), because you have to keep swinging it all the time, otherwise it becomes useless. Most weapons like war hammers and axes and especially swords were very light and relatively easy to wield, so it makes no sense to me that you think that will wear a person out, but throwing a punch/kick (by nature more tiring than swinging a weapon, since hands and feet aren't designed to be weapons, so you have to put your weight behind them more)(last time I checked you have to put your weight behind a weapon to make it effective to kill with...oh and you have to create momentum through a much longer and tiring motion then a punch or kick unless jabbing) or wrestling a guy in plate armor will not."(PLEASE show me where I said that...wrestling is about the most tiring thing you could do....and I have stated that I am not talking about full on wrestling especially with guys wearing full armor)

as for that lovely bit as a whole...I dont even know what to think of it...especially the highlighted stuff...it tells me you have little grasp on the true effects and causes of fatigue through combat.

[Deon]

There's too many discussion on "how it should be in real life"... DF combat is too far from being detailed enough to be like that.

Once we get distance between combatants, it could become more realistic... Now we don't even have a real direction of facing (only a weird placeholder).

If biting bothers you too much, it's possible to mod that out. Sadly we have no other options now.

It would be nice to have some system which calculates teeth material vs armor/clothing and makes a check based on that, but it would rise a new question... Do the combatants know the material of the enemy's armor*? Do they know can they bite through it?.. Etc. Too complex IMHO for a combat engine, at least now .

If you think it's not too complex and should be realised, then you should post a detailed suggestion in the Suggestions forum, Toady One reads them all.

* It's a big issue IMHO. Would you like dogs to start kicking you instead of biting because you wear a bronze armor? A kobold biting your armored arm is Okay for me, they may not know what is it. But not a dwarf. So it asks for a totally new layer of complexity: for creatures to actually recognize materials and items around them. I think it may happen eventually, then we may have peasants and kids running away from you when you have a nasty weapon...

So my point is as long as kids jump on your swords and peasants raise their forks against your pikes, there's nothing wrong with people biting armor .

[Indricotherium]

Lot's of good stuff here.

FWIW I did medieval re-enactment back in the day with real(ish) armour and helmets (they would have been able to serve as the real thing but wouldn't IMO have been high quality) and padded rattan weapons that had a much looser combat code than the SCA (for example). You were allowed to grapple, kick, punch, head butt, attack from behind, whatever. Full on swings were the norm. Weapons broke on bodies all the time. Thus, rattan (which breaks before bone, huzzah!).

In close lockups with weapons it was fairly common to quickly punch the faceplate of your opponent to try to distract them. Or grab them to try to throw them. Or even just push them. I once, using a partisan vs an opponent with a halberd, found myself in a lockup and let go of my weapon to grab theirs and twisted it from their grasp, throwing them in the process. Other times I had spears pulled from my grasp after missed strikes allowed my opponents to either grab the shaft or, in one memorable instance, stamp down on the spear just behind the head.

In my several years of (Viking to Hastings time period) re-enacting I'd say that in a general melee non-weapons techniques accounted for about 10% to 20% of your 'maneuvers' if you had a hand free or were using a polearm (or two handed weapon like a battle axe) and about 5% or so if fighting with weapon and shield (though there charge-pushing with the shield was very common).

Though combat in DF seems to have a bit more HTH than that the only thing that really seems out of place when I read my combat reports is the biting. For humanoids it seems to be too often and too damaging.

[ArcaneBoozery]

@dennislp3
Congratulations on the essay post.  In the interest of saving myself a lot of time, since I don't see this going anywhere other than an endless back and forth, I'm just gonna reiterate the notion that we'll just have to agree to disagree on this.

In my several years of (Viking to Hastings time period) re-enacting I'd say that in a general melee non-weapons techniques accounted for about 10% to 20% of your 'maneuvers' if you had a hand free or were using a polearm (or two handed weapon like a battle axe) and about 5% or so if fighting with weapon and shield (though there charge-pushing with the shield was very common).

Yeah, 5% sounds good for weapon/shield fighting. In my games and arena matches, many fights with hammers and shields had way more, some up to 50%.

[dennislp3]

agreeing to disagree sounds good...I was gonna post that too if you had any more of a response...