Experiments with units and results

[alhoon]

Here are the results of some experiments others and I have made. Some of the results will be obvious to some people, but they were all answers to questions I had when playing around with unit attributes.

Results

- Armor piercing reduces shield bonus too.

- Light spears add a -3 to attack vs infantry (or -6 defence).

- The "Good in snow, woods or desert" adds to the defence of a unit, not to attack.

- Attack vs armor is effective 1 to 1. This means that an increase in armor by 3 for infantry is almost as effective as an increase in attack by 3. However armor has other benefits. In my opinion, this makes armor the most important combat stat in the game, until gunpowder becomes widespread.

- Knights on armored horses have no benefit against other knights, little benefit against arrows but because of mass, great benefit against infantry.

- Experience affects accuracy for ranged troops

- Bonuses to attack from experience are as effective as normal attack. I.e swordsmen with attack 11 are as good as swordsmen with attack 8 +3 from experience.

- upgraded weapons give more than a +2 to attack. Can't tell if it's around +2.5 or +3 yet. It's 2.5

[alhoon]

Spears vs infantry:

This thread here.

Results: In my tests Light spears have a -3 attack (or -6 defence) against infantry.
In Taji's tests normal spears a -6 attack (or -12 defence) against infantry.

NOTE: Differences in killing speed of animation mean that the differences aren't so profound in the battlefield. If you want to test yourself, use the same type of unit and add the spear attribute.

[alhoon]

Armor piercing attribute vs shield:

Experiment:
100 archers missile 6, range 180 vs 150 serg spearment with shield value 8 (and slowed movement to 70% speed). ====> 55 spearmen dead by the time they reached the archers.

100 archers missile 6, range 180, armor piercing arrows vs 150 serg spearment with shield value 8 (and slowed movement to 70% speed). ====> 88 spearmen dead by the time they reached the archers.

Result
-Armor piercing reduces shield value too.


Which means that mace and axe units are increadibly effective.

[alhoon]

Units good in x enviroment test

Experiment:

150 Spearmen with defence 5, shield 8 +4 in snow vs 150 spearmen with defence 9, shield 8. Fight in Scottish Glen in winter (snow). ===> Fights about even.

150 Spearmen with defence 5, shield 8 +4 in snow vs 150 spearmen with defence 9, shield 8. Fight in grassy plain (no snow). ===> Not suprisingly, the higher defence units won all the time.

result:
The good in snow, woods, desert etc increases the defence value.

[alhoon]

Attack vs Armor

In this experiment, I increased attack by 5 against increased armor by 5.


Experiment:

100 Spearmen with armor 0, defence 5, shield 8, attack 14, charge 0 vs 100 spearmen with armor 5, defence 5, shield 8, attack 9, charge 0.

Both armies had locked morale.
High attack: lost 100 killed 89. Close defeat
High attack2: lost 100 killed 92. Close defeat
High attack3: lost 81 killed 100. Clear victory :hmmm:
High attack4: lost 69 killed 100. Clear victory
High attack4: lost 100 killed 87. Close defeat

NOTE: In this test, lost and killed don't take into account casualties healed. The winner of these battles usually healed about 15-20 of his casualties.

In the tests, whoever lost the general first, lost the battle. It's reasonable the high armor general would fall later. Also after the units became tired, killing ratio dropped, but armor remained as high. I.e towards the end of the battle, the high armor units had an advantage because their high attack enemies didn't attack as often.

Experiment2:

100 Spearmen with armor 0, defence 5, shield 8, attack 14, charge 0 vs 60 dismounted feudal knights. Then 100 spearmen with armor 5, defence 5, shield 8, attack 9, charge 0 vs 60 dismounted feudal knights.

High attack: lost 73 killed 60
High attack2: lost 73 killed 60 (I did the test twice, the results were the same)
High attack3: lost 69 killed 60
High attack4: lost 92 killed 60
High attack5: lost 64 killed 60

High armor: lost 100 killed 45
High armor2: lost 53 killed 60 (I didn't do anything different. I just charged a bit later.)
High armor3: lost 71 killed 60
High armor4: lost 90 killed 60
High armor5: lost 73 killed 60

OK the first two test with the high armor units gave weird results. I would say that on average the high attack units were slightly more effective.

result:

Attack vs armor goes at about 1 vs 1. Against powerful infantry killers, high attack is a bit better. However, armor is slightly better for other reasons like resistance to arrows and being as effective even when the unit is tired.

[Csatádi]

+rep.
keep coming.
How much time do you test a certain battle? I used to play 4-7 times and calculate the average.

Another info: armor upgrade increases armor by 2-2,5 points. In kingdoms, too.

[alhoon]

Yeap, correct. Armor upgrade increases armor by at least 2. I'm forced to change the armors of all units in a mod I'm making at the time just for this. So a unit that starts with armor lvl 3 and gets 2 upgrades will have mostly the same armor with a unit that starts with armor level 5.

[Taiji]

There are no protective benefits at all to armored horses you have to adjust the armor of the rider to make them more than aesthetic.

Keep it up mate, very interesting stuff

[alhoon]

Experience and ranged Units:

Experiment:
An army with 2 genoese crossbowmen units. One unit had 3 gold chevrons, the other had no experience at all. The Genoese were fighting against dismounted feudal knights, no skirmish mode. I stopped the battle at the time the swordsmen reached the Genoese, in order to count just ranged efficiency.

The experienced Genoese killed about 50% more than the unexperienced Genoese. I ran the test three times with the general being the experienced Genoese and two times with the general being the unexperienced Genoese. The results were mostly the same.
Since the feudal always chose to engage the general, i.e being closer to the general unit for the final volley, the general unit always had a slight advantage. Still, the experienced Genoese killed more each time. About 40-55% more each time.

Result:
Experience matters in accuracy for ranged troops. Perhaps it also affects attack efficiency in melee combat too, but I haven't test it yet.

[alhoon]

Weapon Upgrades

It is well known that an armor upgrade equals to an increase of about 2 in armor instead of 1. I decided to check for the weapons also.

After an initial test with a unit with attack 10+weapon upgrade vs a copy of the same unit with attack 11 showed that indeed, weapon upgrades give more than +1 to attack I made the following test.

Test
150 dismounted crusader knights with armor 4, defence 5, shield 5 and attack 13 vs 150 dismounted crusader knights with attack 11 + weapon upgrade.

First battle: Close Defeat for the upgraded weapons. They killed 117 and the un-upgraded killed 124. The upgraded weapons swordsmen have lost their general first (and I didn't time the charge very well).
Second battle: The upgraded weapons won. They killed 140 and the un-upgraded killed 108. If the un-upgraded have broken earlier the difference in ration wouldn't be as high.
Third battle: Upgraded won. Killed 131, unupgraded killed 113.
Fourth battle: Again, upgraded won. They killed 103 and the unupgraded killed 77.

Now, I change sides and play the un-upgraded weapons.
Fifth battle: Unupgraded lost. They killed 101 and the upgraded weapons killed 133.
Sixth battle: Unupgraded lost. They killed 124 and the upgraded killed 128. Quite close this time.
Seventh battle: Unupgraded lost again. They killed 125 and the upgraded killed 145.

Result:
It seems the upgraded weapons are actually more than +2 to attack. Perhaps +2.5, perhaps +3. I'll need more tests.

[alhoon]

Weapon Upgrades

Result:
It seems the upgraded weapons are actually more than +2 to attack. Perhaps +2.5, perhaps +3. I'll need more tests.

It seems it's +2.5 after all.

[Csatádi]

It seems it's +2.5 after all.

Never tought

[alhoon]

Experience and land units

Experiment:
150 swordsmen with Armor 4, defence 5, shield 5, morale 9 // Base attack 8 + 3 (from 3 gold chevrons)
vs the same unit, with no experience but base attack 11.

I played as both the experienced and the inexperienced. In each case, the armies were mostly as effective, with the experienced unit killing slightly more (around 2-5%) than the inexperienced mainly because they hold their line better.

Result:

Attack bonus from experience is the same as normal attack bonus. Experienced units are slightly better since they better hold the line.

[Csatádi]

Experience adds its bonus to defence, too.

[Theodotos I]

Just saw this. Good work. +rep

[alhoon]

Experience adds its bonus to defence, too.

Not in kingdoms, where these experiments take place.

Also from what I saw from the 3 gold chevrons att 8 vs no exp att 11, they don't seem to have defence bonuses. They die as fast as the other guys.

[Taiji]

What were the experiments you did that brought you to that conclusion?

[alhoon]

many many campaign battles and a couple of custom battles I did long ago and I forgot to update this thread. I also did a couple more morale breaking tests and I forgot about the results. They were kinda sketchy. I'll repeat them when I have the time.
Weapons upgrade is about as tough as armor upgrade.

[Taiji]

It looked more like +1 when I tested it.

I think I used 2 attack vs 1 attack plus weapon upgrade to test. Same anims, everything else minimal. Flat ground, 2 units on each side, let the 2 non-generals fight for 20 seconds, pause, count difference, repeat 20 times. Pretty sure it was about +1 attack.

[alhoon]

Eh... with just 2 attack, the effect is minimal since they're near the lowest edge of the scale. Also if you used spears it would also penalise it further down to 1 even if you had 4 attack.

I suggest the following kind of test:

Clone a mercenary unit (sword or spear) and place their attacks at 8 + upgrade and 10 respectively along with armor 4, shield 6 and defence 4. Remember, the SAME unit, cloned.