Who likes the new combat?

[Adonnus]

So the combat has been noticeably changed since the older releases of AGOT, I just noticed upon getting the latest version today. The pursue phase does 95% of the battle damage, and it's quite different to vanilla combat. I've tested the War of the Usurper twice, once as player, once as spectator and both times Aerys won fairly easily, compared to older versions where his victory was more difficult and rarer.

So who likes the new combat of short melee, powerful pursue? I don't mind it really, but I just hope it doesn't screw up the scenarios, and I'm not sure if the vanilla combat system really needed replacement.

A possible problem with the system I've noticed is that terrain modifiers now do hardly anything since the skirmish and melee phases are so short now. Which means that the side with the bigger numbers almost always wins. I preferred the old system much more here. I hope the AGOT devs change it back to vanilla combat.


Something else I'll fit into this thread: Aegon's Conquering is too easy.

It used to be a challenge, at least, the dragons would give you a powerful edge but you could still lose battles if you weren't careful. Added to that, the fact that lords 100% of the time surrender if you're strong enough makes it just too easy to conquer the entire world simply by mass DOW's.

The chance of lords surrendering because of the futility should be fairly low, maybe 5-10% at the start and growing higher as you get more warscore. People aren't rational! They don't think "Oh well, I can't win against dragons so I'll just give up." They are prideful, or gamble that they can win somehow, or stubborn in relenting their power. Hell even Tohrren Stark actually showed up at the field of battle before giving up, he didn't just surrender as soon as the war began.

Edit: Ahhh cmon, does nobody agree with me here? It's ridiculous. A few clicks, boom. World conquered.

Oh, any one more thing because why use up valuable thread space?

The Blackfyre rebellion scenario is massively lopsided in the scenario in terms of numbers, and well cause of the latest version numbers *always* win. In the books I remember the sides being roughly even.

 

[DorlasAnther]

And yet, all Aegon had to do to create his kingdom was to:
Defeat Harren´s sons in battle and then destroy Harrenhal (Aegon + Balerion)
Destroy Arryn fleet (Visenya + Vhagar)
Defeat Argilac Durrandon (Rhaenys + Meraxes)
Defeat Lannisters and Gardeners in one battle (everybody)

Yep, those were all the battles/sieges Aegon had to do to win. Out of all kingdoms, only Dorne was willing to fight war CK2 style, with multiple "battles" and sieges of castles. All other kingdoms gave up after one battle or even before they actually fought.
Also, what should be noted is that those who surrendered (Starks, Arryns, Ironborn (Aegon had to fly to Iron Islands few years after Harrenhal, but there was no fight, because dragon) did that after Aegon conquered big chunks of Westeros, so, in CK2 logic, he had bigger army than they did.
Yes, all those cases required presence of dragon, but there is no option to "fly to meet the king and show him that you have bigger penis than he does". You can´t replicate event of Ironborn/Torrhen Stark/whoever that mother/regent of young Arryn king was seeing dragon and then surrendering. So, what do we have in this great mod? Option for defender to give up immediately, used by AI when attacker is much stronger than they are. Which is great, IMO.

About world conquest: How could you make it hard, when you have dragons and hundreds of thousands of troops at your disposal? Simple answer: You can´t. Only thing that effectively prevents players from conquering the world are players themselves.

 

[Adonnus]

Option for defender to give up immediately, used by AI when attacker is much stronger than they are. Which is great, IMO.

About world conquest: How could you make it hard, when you have dragons and hundreds of thousands of troops at your disposal? Simple answer: You can´t. Only thing that effectively prevents players from conquering the world are players themselves.

I'm not quite sure you get my point. You don't have to do anything except click a few times on characters and the declare war panel, and bingo you've won. It just makes no sense. How realistic is that exactly? And of course all those examples you listed required actually doing something, not just declaring war from far away to receive an instant surrender. And no you can't replicate those events every time, so that is why I suggested changing the "dragon conquests" to how I described. So that it actually feels like a conquest. I say this after conquering "New Valyria" and, wanting Westeros too, simply declared war on all their rulers. Bam. Now I own Westeros too. Rinse and repeat for the rest of the world and you have a pretty unfulfilling experience.

Hard, well, maybe at least having the AI, or some of them put up a fight? Allowing the AI to surrender with, past a certain point, a 100% chance of capitulation seems like a lousy "shortcut" to having the player actually do something themselves. Even if the result is the same the player's experience is vastly different. And makes no sense too.

 

[DorlasAnther]

I'm not quite sure you get my point. You don't have to do anything except click a few times on characters and the declare war panel, and bingo you've won. It just makes no sense. How realistic is that exactly? And of course all those examples you listed required actually doing something, not just declaring war from far away to receive an instant surrender. And no you can't replicate those events every time, so that is why I suggested changing the "dragon conquests" to how I described. So that it actually feels like a conquest. I say this after conquering "New Valyria" and, wanting Westeros too, simply declared war on all their rulers. Bam. Now I own Westeros too. Rinse and repeat for the rest of the world and you have a pretty unfulfilling experience.

Hard, well, maybe at least having the AI, or some of them put up a fight? Allowing the AI to surrender with, past a certain point, a 100% chance of capitulation seems like a lousy "shortcut" to having the player actually do something themselves. Even if the result is the same the player's experience is vastly different. And makes no sense too.

And you didn´t get my point. After Aegon gained enough power, 3 out of 4 kingdoms that were still independent gave up after they saw his dragons. CK2 can´t replicate those events, where attacker flies to defender/defender marches to meet attacker and he then either gives up or chooses to fight. Instead, it is done automatically based on strength.

Also, you want challenge and interesting wars...as Aegon. Yeah, sure. Do you know what is the only counter against insanely powerful king with dragons? Another insanely powerful king with dragons.
Let me ask you a question: Do you really think that Pentosh, Myr, Volantis, Meereen or even Yi Ti stand a chance against Iron Throne, controlled by player who also has 3 extremely powerful dragons?
We all know answer to that question: They don´t. Free Cities are capable of raising up to 40k soldiers, which is equal to Crownlands. Only Yi Ti could prove to be challenge, if LPs don´t help at all...unless you, of course, have 3 dragonriders as commanders of your army, in which case you don´t even have to use dragons and you defeat armies much bigger than yours because of great martial and awesome strategies you and your sister do on battlefield.
And that event with Brindlemen invaders and new emperor of Yi Ti, who get big dragons is just laughable. You can easily plot to kill them and then those dragons will never be tamed again, due to no culture bonus for Yi Tish and Brindled men. And dragons from Asshai are apparently untamable, which raises question: Why are they even in game?
Dragon conquests are laughable, when you get huge empire, no matter how you win them. You are complaining about game being easy when you play in easy mode. If you really want to do world conquest, do it as house Baelish. That should be enough challenge for you, shouldn´t it? (although, I managed to get new High Valyrian houses during game by seducing HV women of my dynasty and producing HV children who eventually became their own dynasty, so you could theoretically get HV culture and also dragon egg from Summerhal, so dragon conquest once again)

Also, one more thing. If your only goal in this game is to conquer the world, then it might not be the right thing for you.

 

[Adonnus]

And you didn´t get my point. After Aegon gained enough power, 3 out of 4 kingdoms that were still independent gave up after they saw his dragons. CK2 can´t replicate those events, where attacker flies to defender/defender marches to meet attacker and he then either gives up or chooses to fight. Instead, it is done automatically based on strength.

Thanks for disregarding the entirety of what I was saying which is, may I quote myself, "Even if the result is the same the player's experience is vastly different. And makes no sense too." Think about it. What kind of experience is that? what kind of story, instead of "My dragon Emperor conquered these kingdoms, moving his armies to their capitals, sacking them and destroying their armies" it's "Oh I just declared war and instantly won everything. Now I'm gonna play another game cause there's nothing else to do."

Your argument essentially boils down to "Dragons are easy to play with so there's no point in having any semblance of realism in the game, you may as well just have the AI give up immediately." Also I don't know what your assertion that it can't be implemented is based on, since there are so many examples of generic event chains depending on your situation working, why not dragon conquest events? Or just making them weaker as in older patches if dev's don't have time?

As for "they [the AI nations] don't stand a chance" thanks for also disregarding what I was saying about dragons being too insanely strong since the latest version where in older patches, may I again quote myself since you don't appear to have caught me at all the first time, "It used to be a challenge, at least, the dragons would give you a powerful edge but you could still lose battles if you weren't careful."

By your same logic there shouldn't be sieges when a large kingdom attacks a small one since the war is already decided. They may as well just surrender immediately. Don't think this is good? Too bad! Play as a more challenging nation! *Facepalm.*

Also, one more thing. If your only goal in this game is to conquer the world, then it might not be the right thing for you.

Whoa whoaaaaa, put a stop on the condescension brakes here people! I think I will decide what is the right thing for me. Not you. That added to the fact that I never said it was my only objective, just something possible to do when you are a dragon rider?.

 

[DorlasAnther]

Thanks for disregarding the entirety of what I was saying which is, may I quote myself, "Even if the result is the same the player's experience is vastly different. And makes no sense too." Think about it. What kind of experience is that? what kind of story, instead of "My dragon Emperor conquered these kingdoms, moving his armies to their capitals, sacking them and destroying their armies" it's "Oh I just declared war and instantly won everything. Now I'm gonna play another game cause there's nothing else to do."

Your argument essentially boils down to "Dragons are easy to play with so there's no point in having any semblance of realism in the game, you may as well just have the AI give up immediately." Also I don't know what your assertion that it can't be implemented is based on, since there are so many examples of generic event chains depending on your situation working, why not dragon conquest events? Or just making them weaker as in older patches if dev's don't have time?

As for "they [the AI nations] don't stand a chance" thanks for also disregarding what I was saying about dragons being too insanely strong since the latest version where in older patches, may I again quote myself since you don't appear to have caught me at all the first time, "It used to be a challenge, at least, the dragons would give you a powerful edge but you could still lose battles if you weren't careful."

By your same logic there shouldn't be sieges when a large kingdom attacks a small one since the war is already decided. They may as well just surrender immediately. Don't think this is good? Too bad! Play as a more challenging nation! *Facepalm.*

If by logic you mean to attack bigger force with dragons, then yes, this mod is illogical.
Let´s look at Aegon´s conquest once again:
Stormlands: Bigger army than Aegon, chose to fight. Lost and surrendered.
Riverlands controlled by Iron Islands: Bigger army than Aegon, second most powerful castle in Westeros, chose to fight. Lost most of land, remains fell into civil war.
Reach + Westerlands: Still bigger army than Aegon, chose to fight. Lost and surrendered.
4 out of 8 "kingdoms" (Riverlands were controlled by II and Dorne is principality, but whatever) had bigger armies than Aegon and chose to fight. This is the same thing kings do in this mod. Now let´s look at second part of War for Conquest, which occured when Aegon had bigger armies.
Vale: Fleet destroyed while they had bigger army than Aegon. Now, smaller army than Aegon. Surrendered before fight.
North: Smaller army than Aegon, moved army to Riverlands. Surrendered before fight.
Dorne: Balls bigger than Sun. Smaller army, lost, only to rise in rebellion and then fought for years, using tactics that are impossible to do in CK2. Eventually remained independent.
Iron Islands: Smaller army than Aegon. Surrendered after being allowed to choose their LP.
So, out of 4 remaining kingdoms, only 1 didn´t immediately give up.

If what you propose, a.k.a. 5 - 10% chance of surrendering after declaration of war (which would be equivalent to Visenya landing on courtyard of Eyrie/Aegon arriving on Old Wyk/Rhaenys flying to Sunspear), you would make this mod unfaithful towards its source material. 3 out of 4 means 75% chance of giving up before fight.

Also, what player experience are you talking about? How is it challenging to kill 30k army with your 50k, supported by 40k from your allies? I did dragon conquest myself, where enemies chose to fight and there was no challenge after you got bigger amount of troops than they do. It wouldn´t be challenge even if I didn´t have dragons. You are talking about player experience, but it seems we have different opinions on what good player experience is.

About dragons, didn´t Aegon, Visenya and Rhaenys defeat army ten times stronger with their dragons? You forget that those dragons you own as Aegon are extremely powerful. I did dragon conquest in North Valyria with small dragons and trust me, those battles were much more even than what you experienced with Aegon.
You really just complain about dragons which conquered almost all of Westeros being able to do exactly the same (and thread dedicated to funny pictures shows us it isn´t always like that...those dragons can die in battles).

Last thing: Being dragon rider is not about being able to conquer world, but to controll it. If you really think you win the game by conquering everything, you are foolish. Just wait until you get first succession crisis, with your brother leading rebel forces that are much stronger than yours and also have dragons of their own. Then tell me being dragon rider is easy, when you face your own version of Dance of Dragons, only much bigger, because you controll whole world.
Aegon´s conquest itself wasn´t the hard part. It was rule over land that was problematic, and it was shown after his death, when people rose against Aenys and Maegor. Only Jaehaerys, one of the best Targaryen kings, brought realm back together.

 

[Adonnus]

Also, what player experience are you talking about? How is it challenging to kill 30k army with your 50k, supported by 40k from your allies? I did dragon conquest myself, where enemies chose to fight and there was no challenge after you got bigger amount of troops than they do. It wouldn´t be challenge even if I didn´t have dragons. You are talking about player experience, but it seems we have different opinions on what good player experience is.

Well IMO a good player experience should not be instant rewards for no effort. Even if you are going to win you should at least have to send your army over there to give the game's narrative internal consistency.

About the examples you cited: Did Aegon actually have to do something with his dragons, or did the enemies instantly submit with no questions asked?

And last point: You think I don't have enough CK2 experience to know about all those potential problems? Come on. The likelihood of that occurring is quite low, I assure you, after he had been assassinated. Gavelkind is absent, so that's one problem gone. And if you're a dragon rider then putting down revolts will be a walk in the park. The likelihood of another dragon rider being in the revolt is rather low, unless I'm mistaken and there are event chains. Still. A small price to pay for world conquest. Too small.

 

[DorlasAnther]

Well IMO a good player experience should not be instant rewards for no effort. Even if you are going to win you should at least have to send your army over there to give the game's narrative internal consistency.

About the examples you cited: Did Aegon actually have to do something with his dragons, or did the enemies instantly submit with no questions asked?

And last point: You think I don't have enough CK2 experience to know about all those potential problems? Come on. The likelihood of that occurring is quite low, I assure you, after he had been assassinated. Gavelkind is absent, so that's one problem gone. And if you're a dragon rider then putting down revolts will be a walk in the park. The likelihood of another dragon rider being in the revolt is rather low, unless I'm mistaken and there are event chains. Still. A small price to pay for world conquest. Too small.

Every dragon rider gets weak claim on his liege title, even if he is lowborn. Dynasty members get strong claim and all Targaryens and Blackfyre automatically have strong claim on IT. If you land your dragon rider relatives, you can be sure that they/their descendants will one day come to claim what they think is theirs. Especially if your oldest son, who owns Dragonstone, dies and your younger son inherits IT instead of your grandson. Suddenly, you have branch of Targaryens with their own dragons and only way to prevent them from rebelling is to have really high relations with them.

But rewards for almost no effort aren´t good player experience either. What does it matter, when I can land my army on theirs and win decisively even with 50% morale and then use dragon to immediately take their main holding?

And yes, Aegon had to do something. He had to land in Nagga´s bones. He also had to bring Balerion, Meraxes and Vhagar with him to face Torrhen Stark. And Visenya had to land on courtyard of Eyrie. So, no fighting, no use of dragons for any hostile activity. Just bringing them there. Something you aren´t able to do in GoT mod (and honestly, why would they even bother to add pointless event of "showing your dragon to enemy leader to make him surrender", when eventually, it will all come down to character and power of mentioned leader).

 

[Adonnus]

To me, it just seems like you are defending the mod for the sake of just keeping it the way it is. It's not a huge feature granted. That's why the main part of the thread, initially, was about something else. Your line of thought seems to revolve around "why change it to make more sense when it's going to end the same way anyhow." Immersion? That is a pretty key part of the player experience. The mod can be better. It's a fantastic mod, one of the best out there for any game. But they don't get better unless flaws are pointed out and fixed.

And I get your arguments. But at the end of the day, can you answer the question "Does it make sense to be able to conquer the world, without doing anything or even events to explain it in the in game world, in a heartbeat" with a no? That is the heart of what I'm saying here.

 

[SgtSmuckers]

 

[DorlasAnther]

To me, it just seems like you are defending the mod for the sake of just keeping it the way it is. It's not a huge feature granted. That's why the main part of the thread, initially, was about something else. Your line of thought seems to revolve around "why change it to make more sense when it's going to end the same way anyhow." Immersion? That is a pretty key part of the player experience. The mod can be better. It's a fantastic mod, one of the best out there for any game. But they don't get better unless flaws are pointed out and fixed.

And I get your arguments. But at the end of the day, can you answer the question "Does it make sense to be able to conquer the world, without doing anything or even events to explain it in the in game world, in a heartbeat" with a no? That is the heart of what I'm saying here.

But you still don´t get my point: It is not immersion. I don´t consider it to be. What is immersive on fighting one battle, assaulting one city and enforcing demands? And then repeating it again and again and again to eventually controll the whole world? That´s not immersive, that´s just repetitive war of 3 steps.

In your opinion, you are talking to person who is defending mod and doesn´t want problems fixed. But in my opinion, I am talking to someone, who just can´t accept that rulers can surrender when being threathened by dragon riders with armies much bigger than their own, even though books kind of show many people doing it (Lannisters and Gardeners lost about 5k soldiers on Field of Fire...compare it to their full forces and think again about your idea of lords trying to defend against dragons...only Dorne tried, but Dorne had advantage like nobody else had).

About logic of world conquest without fight, we must first talk about logic of world conquest. During thousands years, which are recorded history of Planetos, there were only 2 really big empires: Valyrian Freehold and Seven Kingdoms. It took Valyrians thousands of years to create their empire and it took Targaryens decades to stabilize their realm. And yet you come here, asking about logic of rulers surrendering to someone, who during few years managed to do more than dragonlords in centuries.

 

[blackninja9939]

Both of you please clam down, we are gonna be keeping aegons and his dragons the same as they are now.

 

[Adonnus]

Both of you please clam down, we are gonna be keeping aegons and his dragons the same as they are now.

Oh well. It was just a rather minor complaint at first that spiraled into a massive argument somehow. Thus goes the internet.

Can you tell me the same about the new combat?

 

[knuckey]

So the combat has been noticeably changed since the older releases of AGOT, I just noticed upon getting the latest version today. The pursue phase does 95% of the battle damage, and it's quite different to vanilla combat. I've tested the War of the Usurper twice, once as player, once as spectator and both times Aerys won fairly easily, compared to older versions where his victory was more difficult and rarer.

So who likes the new combat of short melee, powerful pursue? I don't mind it really, but I just hope it doesn't screw up the scenarios, and I'm not sure if the vanilla combat system really needed replacement.

A possible problem with the system I've noticed is that terrain modifiers now do hardly anything since the skirmish and melee phases are so short now. Which means that the side with the bigger numbers almost always wins. I preferred the old system much more here. I hope the AGOT devs change it back to vanilla combat..

Combat is something that hasnt been revised in detail for quite a while now. The original idea of our system was to make the martial stats of the commanders much more important. What you bring up about the pursue/melee phase sounds interesting. I must admit I'm not too familiar with how the combat engine works when compared to vanilla,how long does the melee/pursue last in vanilla?

Something else I'll fit into this thread: Aegon's Conquering is too easy.

It used to be a challenge, at least, the dragons would give you a powerful edge but you could still lose battles if you weren't careful. Added to that, the fact that lords 100% of the time surrender if you're strong enough makes it just too easy to conquer the entire world simply by mass DOW's.

The chance of lords surrendering because of the futility should be fairly low, maybe 5-10% at the start and growing higher as you get more warscore. People aren't rational! They don't think "Oh well, I can't win against dragons so I'll just give up." They are prideful, or gamble that they can win somehow, or stubborn in relenting their power. Hell even Tohrren Stark actually showed up at the field of battle before giving up, he didn't just surrender as soon as the war began.

Edit: Ahhh cmon, does nobody agree with me here? It's ridiculous. A few clicks, boom. World conquered.

We definitely want to keep the option of the AI surrendering, but this doesnt mean we cant tweak the AI logic. I'll take another look and see about the AI perhaps taking into account things like distance to make some rulers less likely to surrender

 

[Adonnus]

Combat is something that hasnt been revised in detail for quite a while now. The original idea of our system was to make the martial stats of the commanders much more important. What you bring up about the pursue/melee phase sounds interesting. I must admit I'm not too familiar with how the combat engine works when compared to vanilla,how long does the melee/pursue last in vanilla?

Thanks. I haven't measured it exactly, but for me it's usually about 1/4 of the battle, the first 2/4 being the skirmish phase. In AGOT recently though it's only one day for me, sometimes it just goes from skirmish to pursue. I don't have a huge problem with this beyond the fact that it means the side with bigger numbers almost always wins which is a step down from vanilla IMO, where while numbers were the main factor you could at least use terrain to try to help you. However I have seen big terrain modifiers like crossing Blackwater Rush to be of little or no consequence at the end of the battle.

One other thing: archers are definitely a rarity in AGOT's Westeros, is this intentional?

 

[SgtSmuckers]

One other thing: archers are definitely a rarity in AGOT's Westeros, is this intentional?

I think most definitely. In an irl since it takes a whole lot longer to train archers due to it requiring more patience, precision, and *insert how it relates*

Also in the World of Ice and Fire (Talking just about Westeros) the nobility view archery as a less honorable way to kill someone, and more of a peasants weapon. They can afford thick shiny clothing and sharp stabbing things compared to a tall woody thing with flax that is relatively cheaper to make and gets a lot less ooos and ahhhs from the plebs and nobles alike.

The Summer Islanders and Wildlings (somewhat) seem to be the exception, favoring the bow to close up grunts and stabs

 

[Adonnus]

Also in the World of Ice and Fire (Talking just about Westeros) the nobility view archery as a less honorable way to kill someone, and more of a peasants weapon. They can afford thick shiny clothing and sharp stabbing things compared to a tall woody thing with flax that is relatively cheaper to make and gets a lot less ooos and ahhhs from the plebs and nobles alike.

Wouldn't this mean there are actually more archers, since peasants make up a much higher proportion of medieval (and ASOIAF) armies than nobles?

 

[SgtSmuckers]

Wouldn't this mean there are actually more archers, since peasants make up a much higher proportion of medieval (and ASOIAF) armies than nobles?

I'd say no, as it is much easier to have someone pick up a sword and teach them to move it up and down and side to side. Keep in mind they probably do not have any education whatsoever unless you consider plowing So basic sword wielding 101 is not too tough for them to learn. Bows would require much more training and as a lord you typically don't have time to train the peasants nor wish to spend more money on them.

So the majority of peasants would make up your light infantry rather than your archers. Your men-at-arms most likely are your archers, those who are not your heavy infantry of course.

 

[Adonnus]

I'd say no, as it is much easier to have someone pick up a sword and teach them to move it up and down and side to side. Keep in mind they probably do not have any education whatsoever unless you consider plowing So basic sword wielding 101 is not too tough for them to learn. Bows would require much more training and as a lord you typically don't have time to train the peasants nor wish to spend more money on them.

So the majority of peasants would make up your light infantry rather than your archers. Your men-at-arms most likely are your archers, those who are not your heavy infantry of course.

True, but if we are talking medieval history the longbow was a potent and very powerful weapon - plus the fact that, as I'm sure you already know, in medieval England for one many peasants owned shortbows they had practiced with since youth for hunting. Shooting arrows at targets with shortbows will take a while to muster but it's reasonable that most peasant conscripts already have some experience in that department, and it wouldn't be expensive - again IIRC often in medieval times the peasants brought their own weapons, or at least bows, to war.

I found this quote on another forum, and as far as I can tell seems accurate:

Spoiler

Archery was actually rather undervalued in our real history, particularly in medieval Eurpoe, so it isn't terribly surprising for it to be undervalued in the relatively close parallels of Westeros, which was deliberately based in many ways on medieval Europe.

In the feudal systems of Europe, knights, the backbone of medieval armies, were the elite nobility who could afford heavy armor and good steel weapons.

Archery was relegated to low paid professional soldiers or peasant conscripts for centuries. Many knights disdained archery as "beneath their station" or "unchivalric".

It wasn't until relatively late in the history of feudal Europe that longbows became recognized as an important strategic asset in warfare.

One of the most famous early battles where longbows featured heavily was the Battle of Agincourt. During the battle, the English forces were outnumbered somewhere between 4-3 and 6-1. However, the vast majority of the English forces (5/6th of the total troops) were archer units.

This was actually seen by many as a crippling shortcoming at the time, as evaluations of comparative strength were frequently based on the number of armed knights on either side.

In fact, one account overestimated the already severe imbalance of troop ratios up to "ten French nobles against one English", dismissing the archers altogether.

Yet the archers were incredibly decisive during that battle, resulting in thousands of deaths and prisoners on the French side, and scant hundreds of English casualties (possibly as few as 113).

OFC we don't have exact ratios for types of troops in Westeros. But I hope it can be assumed archers made up a larger and more important part of armies than currently represented in the mod... after all, the other troop ratios are all assumed.

 

[Wandering Sentinel]

In fairness, an archer can't really kill a White Walker as easily as good old Valyrian Steel, so in the world of ASOIAF the nobles with weapons made of said steel will feel quite justified in placing the sword as the superior weapon. However, isn't there a noble family that favors the bow over the sword? I'm not really that knowledgeable when it comes to the lore, but if there is, it'd make sense if you could somehow decide if your family should favor the sword or the bow, as well as decide if they favor fighting on foot or horseback, but I'm not sure how to do that without the inclusion of retinues, a decision to raise a unit of event troops of a specific type, or have two sets of laws that allow you to build certain buildings that add soldiers of a specific type to the holding's levy (which I don't think would work that good if you changed the law type)