Greetings, medievalists!
This is the last MMT before Update #14 goes live. If you missed the previous fire talks, be sure to read them here (MMT 53, 54 & 55). Now, let's talk about combat changes and improvements.
First, we are revisiting the drafted stance. As you know, when settlers are drafted, their behavior has been pretty basic: ranged fighters would attack enemies within their range, while melee fighters only retaliated when attacked. Now, we’ll be adding two stance types for you to choose when the settler is drafted and ready for battle. Default stance functions like before - settlers will engage in combat as soon as the enemy is in their line of sight. Hold Ground stance will make them ignore anything around them and engage in combat only when something is close at hand. For archers this will mean that they’ll not be moving and pursue others beyond their range, and for melee fighters you can form a living wall and protect the hallway (or any other particular area of your settlement) much easier.
Shields will also receive an overhaul. We’ve split their cover percentage into two distinct categories: ranged cover and melee cover. This means shields will differ in how well they protect against specific types of attacks. For example, the buckler shield provides excellent melee protection but is less effective against ranged attacks, when compared to other shields.
Cover angle will also play a big role. In Update #14, attacking a shielded enemy from behind will result in a direct hit. Additionally, melee attacks temporarily reduce the ranged cover provided by shields. Makes sense, right? Engaging in melee leaves you slightly exposed to ranged attacks. The good news is that settlers with shields will automatically turn towards their attackers (if enemies are attacking them with ranged weapons). Raising shields will be a clearly visible animation, just to emphasize shield effectiveness a bit more. We didn’t stop there - sparks and other VFX will appear when the shield blocks hit. Also, it will turn red and flash a bit during that time, indicating that the shield has taken damage and not its owner.
But you know what’s the best thing when it comes to shields? All weapons can be used as a shield. Depending on the weapon, the cover amount will vary, but isn’t it cool to see, for example, a melee raider attacking an archer, only for the archer to block strikes with their bow? Of course, two handed weapons will be used for blocking, too. This will not come without a cost as each hit they give/receive will impact the weapon's durability. You might want to revisit the materials that you use for making weapons as now, more than ever, that will influence battle outcome.
Each weapon can have an alternative animation, damage and ruleset depending if the combat is ranged or melee. Archer won’t fight barehanded anymore—they’ll use their bows like staff in close combat.
Thanks to these changes, we can finally introduce new weapons - things like throwing axes, light javelins, slings and sling staffs. These are primarily ranged weapons that can be used as melee if the target gets close. Each offers unique tactical benefits: Throwing axes are short-ranged and lose precision with distance, but are massively strong against shields and armor. And since this is a one-handed weapon, your settler can pair it with a shield on the other hand making your ranged units pretty well protected. Light javelins have a bit better range than axes and are also great at taking down shields. Sling and sling staff are, essentially, low-tech low-cost variants of the other two, but hey - you gotta start with something. All of these weapons are a great addition to the attacking forces, because they can also damage buildings. Does that make them better than arrows? We’ll let you decide that. And also, some of you will probably fine tune these mechanics to your liking via modding.
Finally, to round everything up nicely, a thing many of you have been requesting for a while - training buildings. It’s not a surprise to us that Going Medieval players preferred ranged fighters over melee ones. Archers can be leveled by simply hunting animals, and when you put them on elevated surfaces - leveling archers becomes a go to solution for the majority. Meanwhile, melee training has been less… ideal, with some of you resorting to settler sparring sessions. Well, why not do both of those things in a safe confined space that will not hurt your settlers in any way? Archery Range and Practice Dummy are production buildings where settlers can level up their ranged and melee skills respectively. They’ll do that by bringing dummies and training targets to those buildings and “working” on them. The higher the level, the slower the training. But at least no one gets hurt, right? Right?
That’s everything for this series of Medieval Monday Talks! All of the features discussed here and in previous posts will be included in Update #14. While we don’t have a release date just yet, it’s close—experimental players are already enjoying that update (minus the new weapons part) and helping us test it. Feel free to join if you want, but remember, experimental branch is a version of Going Medieval containing bug fixes and other work-in-progress things that we're preparing to get into the main version of the game. We want to make sure that our official update release launches with as few issues as possible.
Let us know what you think of these combat improvements, and stay tuned for the official update log. Until next time…
Stay medieval!