command attribute

[Hengest]

Can anyone confirm or know of proper evidence that the command attribute works for non-general units?
The command attribute is meant to inspire friendly troops

[Ishan]

Afaik command only helps in auto resolve of a battle on campaign map, that is despite the BOP ratio not in our favour a general with high command can turn the tides, you may have noticed this while auto-resolving naval battles among admirals and in battle map it has no use.

The inspiration\morale is only dependent upon only chivalry & his survival (his death whether captain or general definitely hits morale instantly), dread helps in reducing it in the enemy troops, atleast that's what the battle advisor says to us & what i have experienced personally, so i take his word.

Apart from export_advice.txt there is no file that can give us something concrete on command that is any technical details or proof.

Your admiral's command attribute affects how likely he is to win a naval battle.

Other than that, on battlefield certain battle speeches are dependent on command etc.

[Hengest]

Sorry it's early morning here just to clarify there's a command attribute in the edu, I'm wondering if that has direct proven effects on the battle map

[Ishan]

The command that you're talking about in EDU is a RTW leftover, it's not used in M2TW.

[Taiji]

That unit attribute didn't appear to do anything when I tested it.

[Ishan]

Yeah in RTW vanilla 2 units have them, that carried the legionary eagle. It would've been cool though if it still worked in M2TW.

[Taiji]

Yep, was hoping they'd still carry the little eagle too.

[Hengest]

Cheers lads! Yeah I was thinking it was another of the Rome survivors since no one uses it. Just wanted to confirm it. Could have had some uses indeed.

[Withwnar]

I used it once and I'm pretty sure that it did work. I seem to recall moving the unit next to another unit whose morale was crumbling and it helped. That was a long time ago though; it's possible that I'm thinking of something else.

[Noobio]

one thing i know for sure, is that the general's BG has a morale bonus..when playing around with hero abilities, with morale effects, the units near to the general suffered less, when a morale-malus was activated..so maybe that's kind of an "innate" command attribute

[Taiji]

That's the 'command' character attribute, as opposed to the unit attribute.

[Withwnar]

Yes, it might have been a general I was thinking of. Hence my disclaimer. But I'm reasonably sure it was the Eagle thing.

[Hengest]

Well thereis the carracio which I suppose works like the eagle standard in Rome, I'm not sure if that's a separate attribute though- can't recall just now since I'm at work but if it is an 'inspires troops' effect then there should be an attribute code that can be added to a unit

[Taiji]

Yes, it might have been a general I was thinking of. Hence my disclaimer. But I'm reasonably sure it was the Eagle thing.

What you observed is normal for normal units in the right circumstances (flanking+morale mechanics)

Hross, here's something to look at (in your break lol):

type Carroccio Standard V
dictionary Carroccio_Standard_V ; Carroccio Standard
category siege
class light
voice_type Heavy
banner faction main_spear
banner holy crusade
soldier Carroccio_Standard, 24, 1, 1
engine great_standart_venice
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, hardy, can_withdraw, standard
formation 1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 4, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 12, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 25, 0.6
stat_pri_attr spear, spear_bonus_8
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 25, 1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 5, 5, 6, metal
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 2
stat_ground 0, 0, 0, 0
stat_mental 11, disciplined, highly_trained, lock_morale
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 750, 85, 100, 75, 750, 1, 180
stat_stl 4
armour_ug_levels 2
armour_ug_models Carroccio_Standard
ownership venice
era 0 venice
era 1 venice

But apparently (check them out) they don't affect the morale of nearby troops any more than other units normally do.

[Withwnar]

What you observed is normal for normal units in the right circumstances (flanking+morale mechanics)

I dunno Taiji, unless you're positive that the command attribute doesn't work. I remember doing the test - I'm just not certain if the positive results were from that test - and it involved moving these guys behind my floundering-morale guys. No flanking or anything like it.

EDIT: I just gave it a few tests and it looks to me like it works.

Custom battle. Me = 2 units, one with command, the other without and has poor morale, enemy = 1 unit, superior to both of my units. I let the enemy engage the non-command one and kept the command one way back until morale started dropping. Once it hit Shaken I ran them up to stand behind the first, not engaging. As they get near the first unit's morale goes back up to Steady and stays there until their numbers are too low and they rout.

Exactly the same battle, this time removing the command attribute. Moving the second unit up made no difference. They stayed Shaken and routed not long after.

I tried both three times with similar results. In every test the first unit was always at "defeat seems inevitable". They were hopelessly outmatched; battle swings were not the cause of morale improvement.

[Hengest]

Ok that's two great nuggets of info Taiji and Withnwar, cheers.

Taiji, if the lock_morale doesn't have any extraordinary effect- what is it that makes the carroccio work? Is it hardcoded? Or does it just not do anything much more than other units?

Withnwar if that's the case (looks like you did dig up the evidence I was after in the OP) the question now is if the command attribute can be modified or graded, so that we can tweak how strong the effect is. Or on the other hand, what are the attribute's limits -what range of effect and to what extent does it work/stop working on the allied unit?

Edit: -keeping in mind the non-command unit did rout in the end

[Withwnar]

lock_morale will prevent that unit from routing but not others.

If command can be tweaked I don't know how. Hmm, I'm not sure how to describe the distance at which it seemed to start working. Perhaps two to three units away, as a typical prebattle formation would go? I don't know if being closer has more effect.

[Taiji]

It's probably been more than a year since I last checked, and I might be confusing it with 'standard'. So maybe command does work in some way, but I am certain there is no eagle lol

Still, your description of your initial observation matches normal units and normal morale behaviour.

Promising results from your recent testing though.

[Withwnar]

Ah, command is named "Eagle ... um ... something" in the game. On the unit info scroll.

"Eagle inspires nearby troops". That's it.

EDIT: oh, you mean a model of the eagle in the unit. Just as well as it wouldn't suit a lot of cases. But it does create a "what eagle?" situation.

[Taiji]

Just tested one match either way to see if units fighting alongside a command attribute unit will rout with less men - Result seemed the same (they actually routed later without the command attribute, but I'd ignore that...).

One thing to note about testing unit morale: Exclude the general.

So if you wanted to test with 2 units (command+not) then you need 3, one to be the general. Then you move the general somewhere before the lines clash. And also keep an eye on the AI general - He can have an effect and has routines to make it felt.