Casultie rates for men explained.

[mesor]

A few months back i answered a question on this but at the time only knew the basics of it and a lot of people seemed not to have any idea about it until id explained it.
I know a lot more about it now ( and ive got time to kill ) so i figured id explain it in more detail .

The first factor involved is armor.
A unit in heavy armor is much harder to kill then one in light or no armor ( obvious i know but i was surprised how many people didnt realise it ).
For the simple fact that where it is an arrow or a sword armor will reduce or repel the impact.

The next is where they are hit.
Taking the hit from the front the odds of survival are higher ( most units have some form of shield and even those who dont in general the armor is more effective from the front so if they are then hit in the side or back you lose a lot more men from it ( so watch your back's especially for enemy horsemen one of them hits you in the back and you can pretty much say goodbye to that unit ).

The final is what they were hit by.
The initial impact of cavalry always going to kill a lot of your men because of the momentum of the horse which drasticly increases the impact of there weapon on you even in heavy armor.
Once they have charged your survival rate increases because they lose that bonus from momentum.
Then most cavalry's close range weapon is a sword which is good for stabbing but on average very pore in terms of slashing against medium to heavy armor because it's going to glance straight off and if your lucky your only going to wound the enemy you hit.

Missile units it depends on distance and the weapon.
At range archers will do very little damage to a unit of armored enemies because an arrow is pore for penetration to begin with so anything about short range odds are your going to wound more then kill but as you get closer the rates go up because the arrow hits with more force.
Crossbows have less range but higher force and are armor piercing so again rates go up and even more so as the range shortens the same again with gunpowder weapons which pretty much laughing in your armored mens faces then blow a chunk out of there chests.
Nexto gunpowder spears are probably the most effective mostly due to the very short range an iron tipped spear at short range with rip clean through armor and come out the other side causing huge internal injuries and even against a shield odds are it will go through and at the very least come out the other side of your arm half crippling your ability to fight.

Then onto melee weapons.
A mace is great against armor or unarmored but against armor it wounds more then kills because the armor absorbs enough impact so that you only get a broken bone and it dosnt do much more damage although a hit to the head will still kill.
A sword is best used against light to no armor because after that a stab may penetrate armor but a slash will probly just glance off and if ur very lucky may wound them.
An axe is your best weapon against armor simply because arms and legs are more lightly armored so an axe can take the limb clean off and the shock and blood loss will kill most enemies so survival rate's are slim.
A spear is kinda iffy but on average will kill more then wound until the enemy get's inside its range at which point any porly trained spear units are totally doomed vs any half decent closer ranged melee unit and will be killed in short order.

Artillery kinda a no brainer no matter how good your armor and shields are a scorpion bolt is going to go through you and the man behind you and probly the man behind him and a 100 ton piece of rock fired from a catapult will squash you like a bug.

Hope this helps guys and girls if you have any questions feel free to ask and ill do my best to clear it up for you .

Sorry for any spelling or grammar mistake's ive never been much good at it im more interested in killing things .

[Double A]

Yeah, that's all kind of obvious. Well, to me any way. Likely not to a new player.

Anyway, I'd be more interested in casualty recovery rates. Why do units that take 90% casualties get back most of their guys some times? And why do units that take 1-10 not always get back the men unless they were hit from friendly fire?

[mesor]

A certain part of it is random chance ( headshots will kill almost always while limbs have high recovery chance chest depends on weapon and armor)
The rest depends more or less on what hit them and if it was front back or sides.
If they were hit the first time front the front the second from behind more will recover the first time then the second.
Then on weapons if there armored and hit by swords then by axes more will recover from the swords then from the axes because a sword is designed for light or no armor while an axe is armor piercing.

I tailor my battle lines so in offence my axe or maces hit armored men while swords hit weak armored or unarmored men because it puts them in places they will be effective.
My missile troops target lighter armored men at mid to short range.
On defence my armored men make up the centre and the far left and right of my line while lighter are in between so that my centre and wings are hard to break through or fold up and i keep my reserves behind the lighter units because there more likely to need them.
I always have my cavalry flank the enemy and against mid to heavy armored units i never allow them to stand and fight i charge them in let them fight for 4-5 seconds then pull them out and charge again into a different units causing large numbers of casulties and a morale drop in 1 place then falling back out of danger before they lose many men and repeating it so that i make there whole line waver rather then just 1 area.

[Primo]

A certain part of it is random chance ( headshots will kill almost always while limbs have high recovery chance chest depends on weapon and armor)
The rest depends more or less on what hit them and if it was front back or sides.
If they were hit the first time front the front the second from behind more will recover the first time then the second.
Then on weapons if there armored and hit by swords then by axes more will recover from the swords then from the axes because a sword is designed for light or no armor while an axe is armor piercing.

I don´t think the game engine is that smart. I think a random number between 1-99 is thrown and if the number is >50 it is halfed. So the maximum recovery would be c. 49%

This is based on the traits and ancillarys which give a general a higher rate of recovery, regardless what hit his soldiers.

How come the AI heals around 50% casualties when they win a battle against me, but I only heal around 15%?

Do you play on VH? That would explain it.

[D00d]

Bollocks!

Where did you get this crap, mesor? you're using real life examples to try explaining what happens in the game. Headshots kill more than body shots? Spears cause internal injuries? Swords don't kill a lot because they glance off?

Everyone, forget what the OP said. Remember that this is a game. Killing rate is based on numbers, nothing else. As far as the game's engine is concerned, there are no maces, spears, axes or swords. Axes and maces happen to have the 'armor piercing' trait and spears have a bonus against cavalry. Some pole-arms have both.

To know what that means, first you must understand how defense works. Defense total = armor + shield + skill. Missile weapons and back attacks ignore skill. Back attacks ignore shield, while flank attacks (any flank) halve the shield value. Armor piercing weapons halve the armor value (but not the shield).

So, now what? Just calculate how effective a weapon is at killing a certain target by comparing their stats. Take a shield 8, armor 6, skill 5 unit. Attack it from the front with an attack 8, AP unit (maceman or axeman in the game). Since the attacker has AP ability, armor is reduced in half, to 3. Total defense of the target is now 8+3+5=16. Attack 8 vs. defense 16. If the attacking unit was a swordsman with attack 10 but no AP, the defender would get 8+6+5=19. Attack 10 vs. defense 19.

There are some other factors in the game, such as attack animation speed (2-handed weapons attacks are slower), mount crush (based on mount weight vs. unit weight - spears are better vs. cav because they have a higher weight stat), but combat is based on engine calculations.

If you edit the game files and give a swordsman attack 20, he will be better against armored troops simply because his base attack better compares to enemy defense than standard game units with AP. You can also give sword units AP, remove AP from maces, give axes bonus vs. cavalry, increase the 'weight' of archers so horses can't trample them. In short you can change the unit stats however you wish, within the limitations of the game engine.

No more BS about realistic combat in a computer game, please.

[AJenny58]

Bollocks!

Where did you get this crap, mesor? you're using real life examples to try explaining what happens in the game. Headshots kill more than body shots? Spears cause internal injuries? Swords don't kill a lot because they glance off?
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Everyone, forget what the OP said.
No more BS about realistic combat in a computer game, please.

No need for the hostility, D00d. mesor was just explaining something to people who might be curious. If he wants to do so by painting a nice, graphic and violent picture for the reader then that is fine. The reasoning in the original post sounds a lot cooler than numbers do. Plus these are likely the reasons that the certain weapons are given the numerical value that they are.

I apreciate your input on the way that the engine works, but there was no need to shoot down mesor in your post.

But for mesor, plus Rep to you, good sir. Thank you for taking your time to write and share this.

[Aeratus]

How come the AI heals around 50% casualties when they win a battle against me, but I only heal around 15%?

[Aeratus]

I've looked around into this question.

The answer is that healing is based on the order in which troops get killed. THEREFORE, the first troops who die first have a relatively high chance of getting healed, while those die last have no chance if the healing pool has been exhausted

Source and proof: http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...=1#post2399153

I believe this is correct. So type of weapon has no effect. Troops killed by arrows tend to get healed more often because they are the first troops to die in battle.

So now, you have to rethink whether you should save your Gold Chevron Gothic Knights for the final charge, or whether you should send them in for the first charge!

[Kine]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I've looked around into this question.

The answer is that healing is based on the order in which troops get killed. THEREFORE, the first troops who die first have a relatively high chance of getting healed, while those die last have no chance if the healing pool has been exhausted

Source and proof: http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...=1#post2399153

I believe this is correct. So type of weapon has no effect. Troops killed by arrows tend to get healed more often because they are the first troops to die in battle.

So now, you have to rethink whether you should save your Gold Chevron Gothic Knights for the final charge, or whether you should send them in for the first charge!

Thanks for the link Aeratus!