[Saber Cherry]

FrankTrollman said:

Cherry has made the following weapons ignore shields:

Arbalests
Boulders
Blow Pipes
Lances

These weapons are not often used. Boulders should ignore shields, period. Lances should arguably ignore shields and are NOT the reason shields are used... Shields protect from light projectiles like arrows and slings stones, and melee weapons. Cavalry lances will go right through most shields, as I understand it.

The questionable ones are Blow Pipes and Arbalests. My rationale is that blow pipes are exceptionally accurate and used at very close range on tiny game like songbirds. So, ignoring the shield (and, say, hitting a unit's neck) should not be difficult, but it does not matter anyway as nobody ever uses them. Arbalests ignore shields experimentally to see if that makes them useful and balanced... the rationale being that the projectile has enough energy per unit area to rip through a standard wooden or leather shield. This may or may not be realistic, but I like it, and it was the majority choice in the ranged-weapons poll.

You can hardly claim that those changes make shields noticably weaker, let alone irrelevant! Blow Pipes and Hurlers are never used in the default game. Arbalestiers are very rarely used (you mainly encounter them as province defence). Lances are nice but only used once per battle, by very expensive and hungry units, or by Tien Chi cavalry which is still hungry but less expensive, and belong to a weak nation. Shields are no less vital than before, and Barbarian Swordsmen are still just as vulnerable to arrows, slings, blade wind, and melee units as before those changes.

The following weapons have been made armor piercing:

Jaguar Bites
Niefel Axe Explosions
Niefel Swords
Mauls
Boulders
Alicorns

I honestly don't understand why any of this happens.

Jaguar bites can (and do) crush turtle shells; they have the strongest (in pressure) bite of any animal, I believe. Mauls are designed for crushing stone (and so forth) rather than harming flesh, like normal weapons, and as such should do massive armor damage on rigid armors and easily cause fatal damage through (for example) heavy chain mail, without actually piercing it. Boulders have immense momentum that ignores armor, and a similar effect to mauls. And Alicorns are magical, armor-melting organic rods of spiraling death that are quoted in the definitive book "The Last Unicorn" as being used to kill Dragons. This is not possible with a non-AP Alicorn, as dragons have thick armor.

Again, these are pretty rare weapons, except for the Maul, which had no reason for existance. Mauls have a quite low attack now, and are essentially a great weapon for cracking Ulmish armor and Hoplites; reducing Living Statues and Gargoyle to dust; defrocking Monoliths and Sphynxes; mobbing protection-30 SC's; and possibly nothing else. So now they have some great specialty uses instead of no uses at all.

It's possible Niefels are overpowered (and if so, I'll change something) but I did raise the price, and they're a lot cooler now .

The more you make weapons ignore the defenses of your opponent, the more you encourage people to run around naked with a big sword. In general, armor piercing should be extremely rare - as it's a specialized damge bonus against Ulm (and those losers need all the help they can get).

I do want to encourage people to run around naked. Unmodded Dominions makes naked or low-armor units generally worthless, and mid-armor units quite bad. 2-handed weapons are usually a terrible idea, giving a small damage or length increase at the expense of 2 defense and 3 protection; the Greatsword is the main exception (though many people like the Flail and Pike). However, I accomplished this encouragement through stat and pricing changes, not through the shield-piercing and armor-piercing changes, since those only affect rare weapons. Except the Maul, which was not rare (only useless) but now has been given a niche.

Remember, AP just means it bypasses half your armor. It doesn't mean it bypasses half your protection. If you want unicorns to be able to threaten dragons, just have them do more damage, do not give them a specialized bonus against Ulm.

AP halves all protection, not just armor protection. There is never a distinction between protection sources after the final value has been calculated. Unicorn horns are very special in that they melt through the offending obstacle, like a lightsaber. I don't want Alicorns slaying a Queen of Elemental Air in two hits, but I certainly do want them to damage a Dragon in accordance with history and physics.