Several questions

[Somerandomdude2]

First off, even though some of these may seem basic, I do use the search feature but haven't been able to find the answers I'm after.

Excuse the large amount of questions, don't feel obliged to answer all of them if you don't want to. Also, these questions are all related to the vanilla version of the game.

So:

1: Merchants. I still cannot understand why my merchants tend to make better money off of rebel-owned timbuktu and similar great trade regions than the same (but now higher leveled merchants) do when I capture (and occupy - nothing gets destroyed) these settlements. Frequently this is a difference as big as their income going from 3 figures down to less than 20 florins per turn. Can anyone explain?

2: Hit points.
If something has 1 hit point, does 1 fatal hit = dead, or does 1 fatal hit = no more hit points and will die next time it takes a fatal hit?
I assumed the former, but some stats have me a bit confused. Specifically on some random website I can't find, it lists 1 HP for the dude on the horse and 0 HP for the horse (it is possible I read it wrong). Kind of makes sense given the amount of hits some infantry take, and how cavalry pretty much fall over dead as soon as the horse gets struck (in my experience, anyway).

3: Crossbows on walls. Archers too I guess.
What is the best way to position them to get as many as possible firing in a straight line?
My issue here is mostly that they have a very small angle (even horizontally) in which they have a clear line of sight before the... what-do-you-call-'ems block their view (stone things on top of castle walls that are supposed to provide cover from in-coming arrows).
In other words, if the crossbow unit is looking dead forward, most of them have a clear line of sight. But if they have to look 45 degrees to the left or right, suddenly they've got a massive wall of what-do-you-call-'ems blocking their view, and they start shooting into the sky, apparently attemtpting to literally shoot themselves in the foot.

4: Fire arrows.
Does the arrow itself have to wound the enemy for the fire to take effect?
Example A:
Arrow bounces off armour or causes a minor flesh wound. Fire isn't taken into account at all.

Example B:
Arrow bounces off armour or causes a minor flesh wound. Fire still has a set probability of lighting bad guy on fire.

5: Quality of units training.
This appears to be a huge hidden factor in the game, some units are just very good fighters and don't take many hits, while others are just begging to get hit. So far, I just use this to assume that:
Militia shouldn't be used against professional soldiers, if you can avoid it. (there are other reasons for this too, such as morale)
Anything either wielding a sword or that has the word "professional" in it's description will perform very well.


6: Experience.
Does experience carry over from one fight to the next? Let's say your unit kills 40 enemies in a fight but gains no experience. Are they now closer to their next experience point, or is it as if the fight never happened?
Also, why do some unit types (typically, melee) gain experience much faster than others (typically, ranged)? - By this, I mean I've faught entire battles without letting melee troops join the fight, I've also at times had melee-capable ranged units get into melees, and they STILL seem to gain experience very slowly. I want some robin hood like snipers and some crack-shot trebuchets!

[Nosjack]

First off, even though some of these may seem basic, I do use the search feature but haven't been able to find the answers I'm after.

Excuse the large amount of questions, don't feel obliged to answer all of them if you don't want to. Also, these questions are all related to the vanilla version of the game.

Glad to be of help

So:

1: Merchants. I still cannot understand why my merchants tend to make better money off of rebel-owned timbuktu and similar great trade regions than the same (but now higher leveled merchants) do when I capture (and occupy - nothing gets destroyed) these settlements. Frequently this is a difference as big as their income going from 3 figures down to less than 20 florins per turn. Can anyone explain?

The amount of money made from a merchant depends on many things.
1. If the merchant is trading in a region owned by a trade parterner, then a small boost of income will be taken on. The opposite for being in a region of a hostile country.
2. The type of trade resource, gold in Timbuktu is worth a lot more than lumber or tin.
3. The experience of the merchant, no explanation needed here.
4. The amount of AI merchants in the same region. If your merchant is the only one, then *POW* bonus to income, and he usually gets some good traits.
EDIT: as inglorious said, the farther a merchant is from your home cities, the more money he makes

2: Hit points.
If something has 1 hit point, does 1 fatal hit = dead, or does 1 fatal hit = no more hit points and will die next time it takes a fatal hit?

The former.

3: Crossbows on walls. Archers too I guess.
What is the best way to position them to get as many as possible firing in a straight line?
My issue here is mostly that they have a very small angle (even horizontally) in which they have a clear line of sight before the... what-do-you-call-'ems block their view (stone things on top of castle walls that are supposed to provide cover from in-coming arrows).
In other words, if the crossbow unit is looking dead forward, most of them have a clear line of sight. But if they have to look 45 degrees to the left or right, suddenly they've got a massive wall of what-do-you-call-'ems blocking their view, and they start shooting into the sky, apparently attemtpting to literally shoot themselves in the foot.

Takes awhile to get used to setting up your archers, but here some tips:

1. Place the archers on the walls before melee units, thus the archers have a (somewhat) clear view of fire.
2. Place the archers where they have a direct line of site towards the enemy.

4: Fire arrows.
Does the arrow itself have to wound the enemy for the fire to take effect?
Example A:
Arrow bounces off armour or causes a minor flesh wound. Fire isn't taken into account at all.

Example B:
Arrow bounces off armour or causes a minor flesh wound. Fire still has a set probability of lighting bad guy on fire.

I'm not sure on this one, but I do know that fire arrows do better against armored units, thus the latter example makes more sense.

5: Quality of units training.
This appears to be a huge hidden factor in the game, some units are just very good fighters and don't take many hits, while others are just begging to get hit. So far, I just use this to assume that:
Militia shouldn't be used against professional soldiers, if you can avoid it. (there are other reasons for this too, such as morale)
Anything either wielding a sword or that has the word "professional" in it's description will perform very well.

Yes, if you look in the unit files, then you'll see "is well trained" or "peasant", but you are correct.

6: Experience.
Does experience carry over from one fight to the next? Let's say your unit kills 40 enemies in a fight but gains no experience. Are they now closer to their next experience point, or is it as if the fight never happened?

I really have no idea, sorry.

Also, why do some unit types (typically, melee) gain experience much faster than others (typically, ranged)? - By this, I mean I've faught entire battles without letting melee troops join the fight, I've also at times had melee-capable ranged units get into melees, and they STILL seem to gain experience very slowly. I want some robin hood like snipers and some crack-shot trebuchets!

I think it's because units only get experience due to how many enemies they kill, thus cavalry will get huge experience bonuses after chasing down routing enemies. When it comes to archers though, I would guess that it makes more sense realistically that an archer would gain less experience from shooting a bow, than a man wielding a sword and shield in a single battle. So CA implemented this into the game.

[Somerandomdude2]

Thanks for the responses.

The amount of money made from a merchant depends on many things.
1. If the merchant is trading in a region owned by a trade parterner, then a small boost of income will be taken on. The opposite for being in a region of a hostile country.
2. The type of trade resource, gold in Timbuktu is worth a lot more than lumber or tin.
3. The experience of the merchant, no explanation needed here.
4. The amount of AI merchants in the same region. If your merchant is the only one, then *POW* bonus to income, and he usually gets some good traits.
EDIT: as inglorious said, the farther a merchant is from your home cities, the more money he makes

1. Rebels=Enemy. Me=Freely trading with myself.
2. Remain the same.
3. Same merchants, only they gain experience since first standing on the resources, so this again should indicate an increase in profit.
4. Middle of desert so not a whole lot of competing merchants around.

Still, when capturing the rebel town, the merchant income drops dramatically. It be more specific about circumstances but this has happened in every game I've played, regardless of faction, location, etc.
I can only assume this happens to everyone playing without mods though.

Well I know the farther (from you) the goods travel the more money you make with a merchant. So that would be my guess.

My understanding was that it was the distance of the first instance of the goods from your capital that determined their value. But this situation seems to indicate that you're right.
It doesn't seem right though that a faction owning the region and building the settlement up specifically to make better use of the resources would generate less income than attempting to trade in enemy territory. Seems like a bug, or maybe I'm doing something wrong.

[Nosjack]

Still, when capturing the rebel town, the merchant income drops dramatically. It be more specific about circumstances but this has happened in every game I've played, regardless of faction, location, etc.
I can only assume this happens to everyone playing without mods though.

Well if you think about it, since you own the region, sending out merchants isn't needed anymore since the average Joe could just take some gold and sell it in the market.

[Inglorious]

I will answer the ones I know.

1: Merchants. I still cannot understand why my merchants tend to make better money off of rebel-owned timbuktu and similar great trade regions than the same (but now higher leveled merchants) do when I capture (and occupy - nothing gets destroyed) these settlements. Frequently this is a difference as big as their income going from 3 figures down to less than 20 florins per turn. Can anyone explain?

Well I know the farther (from you) the goods travel the more money you make with a merchant. So that would be my guess.

6: Experience.
Does experience carry over from one fight to the next? Let's say your unit kills 40 enemies in a fight but gains no experience. Are they now closer to their next experience point, or is it as if the fight never happened?

The experiance carries over. HOWEVER, lets say you have a unit with 60 people in it. After the battle they have gained three chevrons but only have 14 people remaining in the unit. 90% of the time when you retrain the unit you will still most likely have some chevrons but most likely only one or two. This makes sense, new recruits lack the same experiance. In some cases I have had a similiar situation and all three chevrons were kept so idk.


Oh, and I believe the arrows have to hit the person but I am not sure.

[painter]

1. Three figures down to two figures may have been because you move your capital into a region with the same resources. Not much value in buying expensive gold from Timbuktu if you can go to a nearby stream and pan for gold, is there? Keep track of where you capital city is.

Also, you can increase your merchant's revenue at any region by upgrading the region's settlement's markets and ports.

3. Missile units are useless on the walls when shooting outside of the settlement. Don't expect them to win a siege battle in this manner. But they are very dangerous when shooting inside of the settlement from the walls.

6. Experience does carries over. And it appears to me that experience is remembered on a per person level. If you were to suicide a mid-level unit, you may see the unit's experience fluctuating higher and lower as the unit is destroyed.

[Somerandomdude2]

1. Three figures down to two figures may have been because you move your capital into a region with the same resources. Not much value in buying expensive gold from Timbuktu if you can go to a nearby stream and pan for gold, is there? Keep track of where you capital city is.

Also, you can increase your merchant's revenue at any region by upgrading the region's settlement's markets and ports.

Capitol didn't move. Capital being Corboda, Milan, Venice or Jerusalem (each in various games) before and after conquering Timbuktu from rebels in each game. Same drop in merchant income happened each time.

3. Missile units are useless on the walls when shooting outside of the settlement. Don't expect them to win a siege battle in this manner. But they are very dangerous when shooting inside of the settlement.

Hehe, I know.

[rebelyell2006]

Gold and ivory in the Timbuktu region would be considered "exotic" for the faction, especially given how far away it would be from the player's faction and how it is not common compared to the player's faction's resources. For example, when I played as Scotland, eastern European amber and silk are valuable resources, but when I play as an eastern European faction or as the Byzantines, the resources are not valuable. If the resources can be traded directly via roads or ports from other settlements, or if it found directly through the player's trading posts or mines, then the value through merchant agents would be low. The only real exception to this as far as I can tell is the Central American resources, especially chocolate and gold. No matter what faction I play I get a massive trade boost through both merchant agents and settlement buildings for Mexican gold and chocolate.

[Inglorious]

It doesn't seem right though that a faction owning the region and building the settlement up specifically to make better use of the resources would generate less income than attempting to trade in enemy territory. Seems like a bug, or maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Depends on where you are from. Think of it like this. If you lived in a place with no access to water and I offered you a single bottle of water for $50 you think you would take it?

EDIT: By where your from I mean what faction you choose/what resources they have in abundance

[FootSoldier]

On #6 Experience.

I'm sure experience is on a per person basis, which carries over.

This started with M1TW. After a battle you could consult a battle log, which had a line for each person in a unit. This showed the start experience, number of kills in that battle (including friendly fire kills for archers as a separate total), and the end experience - per person. The shown experience of a unit on their card was the average of all members.

In the units files each unit had a number of kills needed to go up a level. This was a high number for militia and peasants, lower for medium units, and a low number for elite units, especially elite cavalry.

I've read that it's the same in M2TW, but haven't unpacked the files to verify this.

Curiously all my units keep their experience value when I retrain them. If I have a unit of 10 men with 3 chevrons and retrain then I have a unit of 60 men with 3 chevrons. I don't know how the game handles this on an individual level.