That's only about 3 rounds of combat, though - you attack 3x, enemy attacks 3x, 3x counterattacks each. You should be doing about 6 to each other each round - okay, less a bit for dodging, but still - call it 4 rounds. That isn't what I'd call a long battle, although opinions will vary, and it certainly feels longer when you have to click three times to make three attacks each round (this is just bad interface - AoW2 did it better, you got up to three attacks per round, but only had to click once and it would use them all, with no option to move after attacking to reduce kiting).

But anyway, consider what would happen if they buffed attack a little, which seems to be the way to go - make it 8/6 vs. 8/6 instead. You'd be hitting (very roughly) for about 2 average a hit, combat would be taking 2 rounds total. This is still reasonable I think, but attack/def seems to outpace health as you tech up, and we're dangerously close to 1-round kills already at 8/6 vs. 8/6. A few armor/weapon tiers later and units will be dying before they get the chance to do anything but counterattack. That's not very tactical =/

Edit: On further thought, let me restate what I said earlier - health scaling should increase. Early game battles can get too long, even if we see a further armor nerf/attack buff they'll probably still be long enough. It's late game when the attack/def values vastly outpace health, nerf armor too much without a corresponding health buff and squads will be easily killing each other in one round.

As an aside, auto resolve really needs some work. If it were a more viable option - if it modeled tactical battles better and the tactical AI wasn't so horrible - then you wouldn't feel the need to micromanage every little battle, especially those early game fights that can last 4+ rounds, which I respect seems too long for many people. You could save your time for the few decisive battles that really do matter and are worth spending several rounds on.

Blunt/crushing weapons should do permanent damage to portions of the armor.

Perhaps a better way to balance this would be to separate penetration from damage.  So a weapon has a chance to penetrate and if it penetrates then it does damage.

Then you could have armor reduce each separately but not below a minimum chance to penetrate and a minimum damage.

That exists it's called dodge.

I'm sorry if I misunderstood something but

I did not mean to come off rude.

Well to be comprehensive, a weapon would have a chance to hit and then if it hits, a chance to penetrate, and then if it penetrates it would do some amount of damage.

The difference between chance to hit and chance to penetrate would be that chance to penetrate would be governed by attack and defense whereas chance to hit as I understand it is just governed by dodge.

But I doubt the developers would change their equations that much.  Instead of the more complicated thing I proposed maybe defense should not reduce damage below N so that weapons,  if they hit, do at least N damage.  You could make N, 1 or 2.  Or you could leave the current system in place but make the defense roll be anywhere from 0 to the defense total so that even with a club you will do damage once in a while against a heavily armored opponent.

I don't think adding hit points is going to compensate for reduced armor effectiveness as the hit points are going to go to both the player focusing on armor and the player focusing on weapons, though you may want to add more hit points anyway.

You know I thought about it some more and I'm liking your proposal.  Let's hope they incorporate it or something like it for 1.2

weapons 1.11 http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=tdUvU4fw

armor 1.11 http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=baViWpi1

ok here is an updated list of weapon and armour combinations for comparison followed by another message for comments.

I will assume a base dodge of 5% for all units with a dex of 10

Tier 1 weapons with no armour

this is your starting gear.

club       3 attack, 0 armour dodge 5     I will write this down as 3/0 d5

staff       5/0 d5

tier 2 weapons with padded armour and light steel shield

this is unlocked by equipment, tools of war

                                          cuirass      +helm      +armlet       +greaves

spear + padded                  9/2 d5        9/3 d5       9/4 d5        9/5 d5

ax + padded + shield         7/3 d6        7/4 d6       7/5 d6        7/8 d6

dagger + padded + shield  5/3 d6        5/4 d6       5/5 d6        5/6 d6 +1 accuracy +1 attack

tier 3 weapons with leather  armour and heavy wood shield

this is unlocked by weaponry, offence, armour and defence.

                                                            cuirass      +helm      +armlet       +greaves

war staff + leather                                 15/3 d5      15/5 d5    15/7 d5       15/9 d5

short sword + leather + shield               9/5 d7        9/7 d7       9/9 d7        9/11 d7 +1 attack

mace + leather + shield                       11/5 d7       11/7 d7      11/9 d7      11/11 d7

crude bow            attack 4  - dangerous in the hands of a hero with boosted str, otherwise it is just a delivery system for the arcane weapon spell. I usually skip over and tech straight to more dangerous bows as a kingdom player

tier 4 weapons with light plate armour and light steel shield

unlocked by cutting, blunt, slaying, light armour and general armour

                                                            cuirass      +helm      +armlet       +greaves

warhammer + L. plate + shield    16/8 d7       16/11 d6    16/14 d5    16/18 d4

battle axe + L plate                       23/ 5 d3      23/8 d2      23/11 d1    23/15 d0

broadsword + L plate + shield     15/8 d8       15/11 d7    15/14 d6    15/18 d5 +2 accuracy

reaper + L plate + shield              15/8 d9       15/11 d8    15/14 d7    15/18 d6 +1 attack

scimitar + L plate + shield           16/8 d9       16/11 d8    16/14 d7    15/18 d6 +1 attack

cedar short bow       attack 12

tier 5 weapons with heavy plate and heavy steel shield

unlocked by superior or mighty cutting, superior or mighty blunt, piercing, heavy armour, battle armour - I don't think the faq was updated compared to the current xmls

                                                   cuirass      +helm      +armlet       +greaves

longsword + H plate                   23/5 d3     23/9 d1    23/13 d-1     23/18 d-3   +1 attack

battle hammer  + H. plate           30/5 d3     30/9 d1    30/13 d-1     30/18 d-3

trog scimitar + H. plate               28/5 d3     28/9 d1    28 /13 d-1   28 /18 d-3  +2 attack

tier 6 weapons with master plate and master heavy steel shield

unlocked by ultimate or expert cutting, ultimate or expert blunt, smiting, expert armour, master armour

                                              cuirass       +helm         +armlet       +greaves

lord hammer + H plate          40/8 d8     40/14 d-1     40 /20 d-4    40/28 d-7

claymore + H. plate               40/8 d8     40/14 d-1     40/20 d-4     40/28 d-7    +6 accuracy

tier 7 waepons with legendary plate and legendary shield

unlocked by victory weapons, arcane armour

                                              cuirass      +helm      +armlet       +greaves

great scimitar + L. plate       50/18 d2    50/26 d2       *****       50/34 d2    -3 accuracy

Tier 1 weapons are a simple slugfest.

Each weapon should be clearly labelled in the xmls as either blunt, piercing or slashing/cutting.

cuirass should give base protection

helm, armlet and greaves should be used to boost this within limits.

helm would give a bonus to blunt defence

armlet gives bonus to piercing defence

greaves gives bonus to slashing/cutting defence

shield gives  bonus to dodge (it should be higher than it currently is)

The area where the system really breaks down is when everyone is running around in full armour - which I think the devs thought would be controlled by the amount of resources available, however that decision was first made when we were limited to one of each building per city, which had the result of city spam

side note: I was thinking of prestige  and city spam because of this issue and I was wondering about the cost of having more cities. Apparently you get a prestige penalty the more towns you have. What about increasing this penalty so there is the possibility of having zero population growth in your cities. This makes prestige buildings like the inn and pub more valuable. Take over enough cities and then the only way you will be able to grow your population is to have the series of prestige buildings and have a high charisma hero stationed in the town to make it popular enough for people to make their way into it. The prestige boosting buildings act as spreading the news this place is safe.

I think  a good way to deal with the armour issue is to introduce an encumbrance system.

The techs that are used to increase unit hp can also be used to grant a larger encumbrance pool. Better trained soldiers are more able to maintain and use their equipment.

for example a peasant could carry a variety of starting items

          attack/defence                                                                     weight

club     3                                                                                                1

staff     5                                                                                                2

cloth armour 1                                                                                        2

buckler shield  1                                                                                    1

crude bow   3, range 4, -1 accuracy                                                       2

throwing knife  2, range 2, +1 accuracy, 4 shots - 2 throws per turn    2

scout pack  +1 move +1 sight                                                                2

longstrider boots      +1 move                                                               1

hunting arrow  quiver   +1 range +1 damage                                       2  (backpack item)

normal                     training 1              training 2                 training 3                 training 4

encumbrance

(3)                           +1(4)                    +1 (5)                       +1 (6)                      +1 (7)

bow                          club                      bow

longstrider boots      cuirass                  hunting arrows

                                 shield                   longstrider boots

club                           staff

shield                         cuirass

                                  club

                                  shield

                                  throwing knife

                                  bow

                                  hunting arrows

Updates figures to bring stats in line with 1.19 ninja changes.