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[UristMcArmok]

Firstly, maces/mourningstars are just warhammer with larger surface area and less velocity (better for nonlethal I guess??). Is there any decent reason to use them? Also mauls are kinda garbage because their surface area isn’t way too high in my opinion. Lastly two-handed swords/ pikes, does their extra attack power balance out the fact that they don’t have a shield?

From what I can tell, Historical arms and Grims has fixed these a bit by giving smaller weapons faster swing speed and better contact area, etc. but I wish the vanilla weapons like that had more utility/viability?

[Paralyzoid]

This is purely based on anecdotal evidence, but from my experience maces tend to be better at pulping or crushing than hammers are. So they're especially good for countering necromancers/reviving biomes, and somewhat decent as a compromise between weapons to quickly take down unarmored opponents and weapons to chip away at armored opponents.

Purely anecdotal evidence though.

[Fleeting Frames]

Well; pulping accumulates exponentially but maces start with larger number and hit with more total force so they are faster. That said, armored enemies generally take more damage from hammers; and doubled weight isn't double damage but is still doubled weight (for the dwarf).

Morningstars, though...Go recheck your raws - they have same surface area as warhammers, are 25% heavier, and will happily sever nerves and tendons (and toes, unfortunately) before converting their impact to larger blunt damage than what hammer provides. Near as I can tell, they're flat-out better (expect for using mace skill), limited mainly by dwarven inability to craft good ones.

When I tested putting down smallest undead before they were made easier to kill, they performed at the top along with whips there too (while some sharp weapons were utterly unable to harm the same enemy). Though whips also have tendency for removing small parts. (I think a third weapon was close, too, but cba to find my notes; testing would have to be redone now anyway.)


Maul you can use bit better with larger creatures (such as goblins' trolls/ogres), and their large contact area doesn't matter as much if you aim at smaller extremities in adv mode, to which they can thus do more damage. Also, since they have more force, they also do more damage by force twisting. I don't see myself using them in fort mode, though.


Giving up a hand is extremely not worth it, as shown by the pikegoblins in fragfish's combat testing. Dual-wielding two of same weapon is okay - against armed opponents good, even - as long as you don't face fire thanks to parry and backup ability. However, one can be buff enough to wield "2H" one-handed, in which case the bigger swords may perform better (more contact area isn't always good; need sharpness to scale.) and pike is flat-out upgrade to the spear.

[Blastbeard]

It may just be my own opinion, but bows are pretty much useless. Mechanically, they exactly the same as crossbows, except dwarves can't produce ammunition for them. If they could fire/reload faster than a crossbow, it would be another matter entirely.

I've gotten decent mileage out of morningstars whenever I have/am a maceman/dwarf and need to make something bleed, but that's a little situational. With bigger enemies with a lot of fat or redundant vital spots, or both in the case of a hydra, bleeding the monster out is sometimes the most effective way to defeat them.

I'm beginning to suspect I've got some Swiss ancestry because I've grown to love pikes. It's best you get strong enough to take a shield before endangering yourself, but the damage I've done to humanoids and large beasts is just

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

When playing as modified humans in fortress mode, I've used multiple squads of nothing but fully-armored, unshielded, steel-clad pikemen and the results are just

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The only way it could get better is if the weapon could reach further than one tile away.
But you should take all that with a grain of salt, as I may or may not have an ancestral bias.

Strangely, I have never once seen a scourge used in combat. Never so much as even seen a lasher wielding one at that. Can anyone account for their performance?

[Adequate Swimmer]

I can confirm that hammers are flat out superior to maces. I'm also convinced swords and spears aren't worth using compared to axes or blunt weapons. The numbers seem to confirm this at least partially. Also iron scourges seem to be good if you can get them through dwarf tourism.

[George_Chickens]

In my experience, most of which is pre combat overhaul, maces tend to cause far more damage to bones and organs without armour, whereas hammers are much more general purpose and perform at an acceptable baseline, armour or not.

Morningstars, however, are stuff of nightmares. Armour piercing balls of death.

[Sver]

I can confirm that hammers are flat out superior to maces. I'm also convinced swords and spears aren't worth using compared to axes or blunt weapons. The numbers seem to confirm this at least partially. Also iron scourges seem to be good if you can get them through dwarf tourism.

Spears are worth using, if you want to cause bleeding without having too many bodyparts flying around. Morningstars are better in the same category, but they aren't as easily available to dwarves, at least, not without modding.

[Dragonborn]

My experience with maces versus undead hasn't been good in recent versions.  There was a recent release that fixed armor equipping for invaders.  Now tower sourced undead come fully armored, rather than them just wearing a few armor pieces or nothing at all.  Maces do not seem to do well when you are fighting fully armored undead humanoids.  I kept seeing messages in the log that "the mace was deflected by the copper mail shirt/helm!"  Maces would still probably be good for undead/reanimated animals though.

[Saiko Kila]

Lastly two-handed swords/ pikes, does their extra attack power balance out the fact that they don’t have a shield?

They are for humans, big humans. I have a human master pikeman, who wields the pike (just +silver pike+) in his right hand, and a ☼wood shield☼ in hist right hand. He destroys limbs, heads or spine of goblins with his stabs... He can also parry with pike, even the arrows in midflight somehow. I like that he doesn't produce tons of body parts, but is still very effective.

He has LEV 29 in melee combat, LEV 21 in pike, and LEV 14 in shield, so he sometimes uses the shield too. He weighs 115 kg (muscle),  has strength over 3x human average, agility 2x, and I'm only worried that he will die of old age (90 years old). If you can find someone like this guy then pike is awesome.

[Ziusudra]

The main problem with melee weapon balance is that they all have a reach of ~6.5 feet (or ~9.2 feet on a diagonal). And melee combat would need to be reworked to happen on a smaller grid to fix that.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

You've assigned a definite size to tiles? How?

[Ziusudra]

You've assigned a definite size to tiles? How?

Regular elephants would qualify as multi-tile if we are particular about it.  It depends on how much we want to fudge the "2m x 2m x 3m" tile guesstimate we float around.

The real point being that all weapons have the same reach whether brass-knuckle, dagger, pike, whip, etc.

[PatrikLundell]

You've assigned a definite size to tiles? How?

DF in-game tiles are supposed to be 2 * 2 meters, and I believe the height is supposed to be 2.5 meters.