It seems like everyone has changed their avatars back except for me, I don't plan on it either!

Recently I'm doing some random experiments with Heroes' weapon proficiency and their combat effectiveness, and I'm getting somewhat interesting results. Note that I haven't checked the actual scripts yet, so these are based on in-game observations. Worth to mention that I still haven't got any distributed Skill or Attribute points when I started this little project - this time it was for testing purposes, so even though they have like 25k experience technically they're still with their starting skills. Sure, I made some (thanks to different save slots, irreversible) adjustments on fly to see if it's ensuring or weakening my theory, but at the end of the day the situation remained the same as above.

One of the questions I wanted to answer is whether 2H viable for companions. On the long run I believe a Shield is a must for Sieges so it's probably more favourable to develop every actively fighting companion to 1H'ers, but as the game is not all about that it could be beneficial to throw some diversity to the mix and have at least one Companion with almost exclusively with a 2H'er. What I found out is they're more effective from horseback (battles on terrain) then on foot (Bandit Lair quests). Alayen was my numero uno in this area, from day he's only using 1H swords - after I got him a 2H'er Axe, his proficiency went from (his default) ~100 to ~130+ in a minute.

In theory, this could come handy, since their effectiveness with Polearms (or more exclusively, Spears) seemed like questionable for me. The long Reach is obviously a crucial attribute, but the low damage output (unless couched, but that's rare and not always available) and the Heroes hit and miss ratio makes the usability of these weapons below expectations. Still, most of them has one huge advantage compared to 2H'ers: the ability to use Shields with them. This could be literally a life saver, because while the Player is wise enough to avoid projectiles Heroes are mostly not. From what I see, as long as they have a Shield in their inventory, they're only switching to 2H when enemy is in near melee range - be it on foot or horse, it doesn't matter. Problem is that this way they become vulnerable to enemy archers / horse archers, who can shot down them in a blink of an eye with a well-placed shot. In this category Matheld was the most successful to me - which means that even if her development was remarkably slower (thanks to the fewer kills) compared to others, she almost got away from battles with only minor injuries.

Third point is about a few Heroes' incomprehensible Blunt fetish. Honestly, why would they favour some random Mace over a Masterwork Nord Sword? The latter overperforming the former in every aspect (maybe there's one exception: speed), and they're still picking the it over anything else. Yes, I checked various Weapon Slot combinations but it seems like they're mostly ignoring them. The major example for that is Firentis, who don't give a damn about having two ~2k valued Sword in his inventory, he constantly using his outworn mace from our Prisoner Capturing days. Thanks to this little feature I always have to micro-manage their Weapon Slots before different tasks, eh.

Last but not least, it would be nice to being able to restrict Throwing Weapons for only ranged use. Aside from my character Rolf is the only who can use such toys from the team, so he's always loaded with a dozen (2 slots × 6 piece) of them. Which sounds great (especially on Bandit Lair missions where he's using them like it's no tomorrow), too bad he's sticking to them even when the enemy is near. Even though he's equipped with a Masterwork sword too, switching into Polearm mode with his currently used Throwing Weapon is his typical behaviour in such situation - needless to say, the aforementioned sword is better in every aspect, eh.

So that's it for now. These aforementioned issues are disturbing because it will be hard to give everybody the layout I planned, not to mention that I can't use Heroes for storing backup weapons (therefore saving inventory space). If anybody has experience with these suboptimal AI behaviours, feel free to his / her two cent to the conversation. Yes, I already did my homework about the topic but most information is outdated and / or lacks explanation when it comes certain working mechanisms.

Since I only played Warband with Native module, I can't speak from personal experience but I just finished browsing total conversions for the game (mostly from http://www.moddb.com/games/mount-blade-warband/mods?filter=t&kw=Search+...&released=1&style=def&theme=&type=&sort=ranktoday-asc / http://mountandblade.nexusmods.com/mods/top//?) and I'm surprised. Game of Thrones? Star Wars? Lord of the Rings? Wow!

Oh, definitely. But that's why one should set goals to himself, even if it could be tiresome sometimes. The process of climbing the ladders is the most interesting in this game imho, and it takes time and energy to be authentic from a roleplaying perspective.

Two-hander builds for companions is absolutely a viable build - I'd say it's probably second to only the morningstar + shield combo as far as companion effectiveness goes. Whenever I give a companion a two-hander he/she always starts leveling up faster. I once played a game that was companions only, and and outfitted them all with chargers and two-handers, and once properly levelled and kitted my tiny warband (I called us the Paladins of R'hllor) was a brutal wrecking ball that smashed anything it attacked. That's partly because despite the horseback attack speed penalty, a two-hander on horseback is still a murderer. It's best if you give them something like the shortened military scythe or the great bardiche, but regular greatswords will work too. My experience with two-handers in sieges isn't bad either - some get taken down on the way but when they do get to the fight they last long because of their reach. There's a reason why the Vaegirs are so tough to siege once they dig in - and that's the great bardiche. (Well, that and their bowmen.)

Like horse archery and throwing weapons, polearms can be devastatingly effective in the hands of a player, but the AI doesn't know how to use them. On horseback they don't know how to use the movement speed bonus (it's most apparent in tournaments, where you'll see all the AI just poke at each other by the wall), on foot they too often use the terrible blunt swing. Weirdly, the spear that the AI works the best with is a short one with no swing, like the boar spear.

And yeah. I've said it before, but Warband really falls apart in the late game. It's very much at its best as a small fish commanding a small warband and desperately trying to survive. The game at the stage where you can influence the map is kind of bad because you can't delegate much and when you can, not have your subordinates squander your usually limited resources. There's nothing more rage-inducing than watching Count Alayen raid some poor village while there's a massive host camped outside your capital.