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Welcome to Dev Blog #4! This one's all about Mounted Combat: cavalry fighting with lances is officially ready to go.
At a glance
- Lances, a new weapon in iron, gold and diamond
- Damage scales with momentum, built by riding at full speed
- Group charges stack damage fast, while a solo rider can't dominate alone
- Jousting can knock an opponent clean off their horse
How it works
- Lances are a new weapon made specifically for mounted combat, and come in iron, gold and diamond.
- Damage isn't a flat number: it scales off momentum.
- Ride your horse at full speed over distance to build momentum, tracked by a bossbar at the top of your screen.
- The more momentum you've built, the harder the hit lands when you connect.
- After a hit, momentum resets to zero and the lance goes on cooldown.
Solo riders vs group charges
Because momentum resets and the lance goes on cooldown after every hit, one rider can't just camp on a target and keep swinging. A single charge is a real hit, but not something that ends a fight by itself.
Where it actually gets dangerous is group charges. Riders hitting the same target back to back stack damage fast, and since cooldown is per rider, there's nothing slowing that chain down. A target that's fine after one hit can go down quickly if a second and third rider follow right behind.
It's less about any one lance being strong and more about riders timing it and hitting the same target together.
That's the whole idea behind the system: no single rider should be able to dominate a fight alone, but a group riding together is genuinely something to watch out for.
Jousting
Mounted vs mounted fights work a bit differently. Two riders going head to head comes down to positioning and timing your charge right, and there's a real chance to knock your opponent clean off their horse mid-clash.
It adds a good bit of unpredictability: you can play it perfectly and still end up on the ground.
Why this matters for roleplay
This has been something we've wanted for cavalry factions and military guilds for a while now: a way to actually feel like cavalry, instead of just being foot soldiers who happen to be on a horse.
Nations can:
- run their own jousting tournaments for prestige,
- organize proper cavalry charges as part of larger battles,
- and build an identity around how they fight.
That ties into the bigger picture for us too. We want every part of Pactoria to feel like it has weight and purpose behind it, and mounted combat having its own real mechanics, its own risks and its own counters is part of that.
More stuff is in the works, as always.
See you in the next one!