Casualties healed theories?

[leemyster]

Hey all, being a veteran of rtw and its respective mods i have always wished to know the definitive way in which the value of 'Casualties healed' is determined at the end of a battle. There are currently multiple theories going around and i would like to know what the definitive opinion of other veteran players.

Edit: For all theories we take into the account the effect of ancilliaries and the values which they can give to casualty recover rate

Theories
1) You can only heal a pre determined amount of casualties after a battle, a number that is determined by the starting size of your army as well as your commanding general's ancilliaries (i.e. chirgueon, doctor, priest of...)

2) The amount or percentage of a unit's casualties being healed depends on what weapon 'type' you were killed by. Missiles, in percific low value ones will heal more than deaths due to 'light' and 'heavy' weapon types. E.g. Sticks (arrows) and stones might break their bones but they can still get healed, whereas it isn't the same with stabbing wounds

3) The amount healed depends upon the amount of armour as well as hitpoints a unit has. Lightly armoured infantry take less damage to be taken out of action whereas as heavy infantry, typically with more armour, need a serious blow to be taken out and such a blow is more likely to be fatal than a lower damage blow that would take out a light infantrymen. Likewise, spartans, with hitpoints of 2 (the value in RTR) will heal less because spartans literally fight to the death. Unlike that great 1998 pop song when they "get knocked down" they don't get up again...

4) Depends at what stage of the battle in which the casualties are taken. E.g. casualties taken at the end of the battle will have more chance than those at the beginning because they are left unattended.

Likewise, their could be another way in which this is determined or the way it is calculated could be a combination of the things listed above. Though the value is hard coded into the game, thus making it hard to work out it does not explain some very strange abnormalities that we all have undoubtly experienced. E.g. you can have 2 identical units, they take casualties at roughly the same time and amount but one gets nearly all casualties healed while the other gets next to none.

[♔DARTH LEGO♔]

well for one your generals traits and ancillary characters play a big role.

from then on imo i think its completely randomly generated, taking factors like:

difficulty settings.
generals command ability
the above mentioned factor
unit veterancy and upgrades.

hehe i know that sounds rather hypocritical but it in my mind it makes sense

[Punic Hoplite]

I think its how they're 'killed' on the battle map. If you get shot by your own archers, I've found that those units get more healed than other ones. Or if (in this case) your light chariots are chasing down routing Romans, and a falling body (recently killed) TRIPS the chariot and kills it, that one gets healed.

Yes, it actually happened. Someone tripped to death.

[Kiwiphoenix]

I've always thought it to be pretty random - I always seem to get rougly ~1/4 to ~1/3 of my losses back after battles. Although it does seem (to me at least) that units that take a lot of casualties tend to get a lot of heals, while units with light losses tend to keep most of those losses.

But I do reeeeeally doubt that weapon type factors into it, cause I once had a siege where I lost a single man... to friendly fire. Flaming scorpion bolt to the back. But somehow, after the battle, his crispy husk must've picked itself up and brushed itself off, because I left the field with full numbers.

[HERO_331]

I'm going to agree with everyone else and say that the ancillaries of the commander and the manner of unit death determine how many casualties will be healed.

[Genius of the Restoration]

I'm going to throw a spanner in the works now and post the results from an old campaign that I took a screenshot of at the time because of how hilarious it was.

See the unit of Chosen Swords? It died first in the battle trying to go through a gate. It died in melee against other heavy infantry. Difficulty vh/vh. It died completely. Yet after the battle was restored to a full complement. It wasn't the only unit that had odd healing results either.

I say random, but only because Ive failed to see a pattern in my years of playing.

[Chris Death]

From a programmer's point of view it would absolutely make no sense to store such a lot of
variables like who killed whom with which kind of weapon and what armour he was wearing for how
long during that battle if all he needs for his program to get a believable result is a single line creating a random number.

I'd vote for random - like i said - it's a one liner in a program (even with consideration of ancilaries/traits).

:edit - seeing your Genius' post and the screenshot i should probably take back "believable"
and only say "result"

~S~ CD

[Hopit]

I saw 4 units that resurrected on that lsit o.O

[Genius of the Restoration]

Only one unit came back from the dead after being completely destroyed, but the Swordsmen units also behaved strangely (down to one man and then full strength etc.). How a unit that was obliterated can come out of the battle at full strength bewilders me. Zombies is the only explanation I can think of.

[Punic Hoplite]

Those Surgeons (or whatever they're called) must've had a pretty good brew to bring them all back lol.

[Delta21]

One of the things that I've noticed in my entire RTW playing time is that casualties are more likely to heal if they were "killed" by missile troops.

[Julius Barca the Great]

Genius, those are some impressive casualty records. I think I figured out how you can win campaigns so quickly...heh heh

[Genius of the Restoration]

I think that was one of the last battles of the campaign and I wanted to ensure my Headhurlers didn't die because I couldn't retrain them in Italy and wanted to have them for the SPQR battle. The number of healed casualties certainly isn't normal

[nhinhonhinho]

I thnk unit healed depend on

1.Generals trail
2.Experience and armor
3.Your guys get shootdown
4.If one unit completely destroyed in combat they will be healed at least 1/4 after battle.However if that unit have one or two men left then none of them can be heal and you you lose unit!So if your units take too much casualties just "destroy" it in battle

[♔DARTH LEGO♔]

Well i cant see why its such a big surprise for 'wiped out units' to come back from the dead, it wasnt as if tactical logistics and battlefiled coms. were at their most modern and in pitched battles it was common for whole units to go MIA only to be discovered that they misinterpreted orders or got lucky.... may be it was the devs. way of illustrating this little quirk in the battle stats?

[Emperor of The Great Unknown]

Well what I ntice, is when I send out one unit of cavalry out alone, and they get slaughtered and they all die, with no allies near them. I notice that none of them come back. While when beign fired at with missles into my formations, most of the dead heal from their wounds.

Also when winning a melee fight, and my units overcoem the enemy there are a few healed. But this never seems to happen when they die isolated.