Units have hit points? Or is it just the effect of fatigue?

[SirRobin]

I read in another thread that units have 'hit points' in Rome 2. How does that work?

And is it really hit points, or just the effects of fatigue kicking in after a certain amount of time fighting?

Example of how hit points would work:
A fresh unit comes under arrow fire. After one minute, the unit has maybe 2/100 hit points left, but full number of soldiers, as HP limit has not been reached. The unit now engages in melee, and all soldiers are quickly cut down, because the unit started out with low HP.

Example of how fatigue system would work:
A fresh unit comes under arrow fire. After one minute, 15 soldiers have been killed, but the rest are still fresh for battle. They go to fight, and after being tired, they again get hit by arrows. A similar number of soldiers drop, as fatigue has nothing to do with resisting the arrow fire. But if the enemy attacks again, this unit will quickly be killed, as the soldiers are too tired to fight.

[karamazovmm]

why dont you freaking test things for once before posting things?

yes they actually work that way, fatigued units suffer more casualties and morale penalties. there are hit points like there were in all games

[cevap]

Its really hitpoints. When you fire at them with arrows or anything ranged no units will die in the first voley, some will die in the second and after 3 or 4 voleys they will drop like flies. Idk if patch 4 made any changes to this though.

[karamazovmm]

no they didnt.

the hitpoints are valid for melee as well

[SirRobin]

I don't test because I don't have the game. I don't have the game because I wanted to read about it before buying it. The hit points being one of the things I would like to know about beforehand. Thanks for replying.

Now, as far as I remember, the old games had hit points as well, but only for some units. Generals and elephants for example.

Are there hitpoints for all units in Rome 2?

Are hitpoints calculated per soldier or on a unit basis?

[karamazovmm]

all units had hit points in all games

the hitpoint is AFAIK calculated on unit basis

[Naked Emperor]

all units had hit points in all games

the hitpoint is AFAIK calculated on unit basis

Hitpoints in TW have always been calculated on soldier basis and in Rome 2 as well. The reason for why nobody dies in the first volleys of missiles is simply because they dont do enough damage to kill with a single missile but will wound multiple soldiers.

If a soldier is hit by multiple missile in the first volley he might die depending on his armor and how lucky he is on his armor roll.

Hp are used for melee as well.

Fatigue gives penalties to unit stats like attack, defense, reload and movement

[Rasic]

Hitpoints in TW have always been calculated on soldier basis and in Rome 2 as well. The reason for why nobody dies in the first volleys of missiles is simply because they dont do enough damage to kill with a single missile but will wound multiple soldiers.

If a soldier is hit by multiple missile in the first volley he might die depending on his armor and how lucky he is on his armor roll.

Hp are used for melee as well.

Fatigue gives penalties to unit stats like attack, defense, reload and movement

And this is exactly why we need blood in the game. You need some kind of visual reference to know the hit points of your guys. I can't tell you how many times I've scrolled away for 10 seconds from a full unit to come back to them decimated by missile units.

[GixTheMage]

As far as I recall in Rome or Medieval 2 most normal soldiers had 1HP while some special units (elephants, generals, berserkers?) had 2 or more.

Soldier deaths in those games were fairly stable.

In Rome 2 when soldiers start dying they drop faster and faster. This is especially noticeable with heavily armoured elite troops.

This behaviour seems to have lessened in Patch 3.

[SirRobin]

I always liked the fatigue-element.. that tired soldiers fight worse and worse, and so you are throwing them away if you don't cycle in some reinforcements. I guess the hitpoint thing is an attempt at doing something like that, but I always supposed that was what the fatigue level was for...

[karamazovmm]

the hit points was to bring more shades to the units in the battlefield, its another element for you to balance units

[mcantu]

the hit points was to bring more shades to the units in the battlefield, its another element for you to balance units

in RTW1 it was possible to use the leathality stat to add those 'shades' to battles. i used it to very good effect in the stats for RTR so that not all hits through armor/defense were kills. the 'enhanced' hit point system used since ETW just seems forced and contrived to me...

[karamazovmm]

in RTW1 it was possible to use the leathality stat to add those 'shades' to battles. i used it to very good effect in the stats for RTR so that not all hits through armor/defense were kills. the 'enhanced' hit point system used since ETW just seems forced and contrived to me...

the same can be said with the lethality

both work the same way

[karamazovmm]

I stand correct so its calculated on soldier basis then

[War lord]

In Rome only certain units had 2 HP or more, kill chance was based on an equation involving Lethality, attack and applicable defense. Medieval scrapped Lethality and replaced it with Animation speed. I'm unsure what Warscape actually uses.

[Modestus]

Don’t have the game so you will have to forgive me if I get things wrong but as far as I can tell the mechanism as it stands now creates the rather odd situation that the offensive strength of a unit will remain largely intact (until individual soldiers start to die) while its defensive strength (Health) will always degrade.

So rather then soldiers being either killed or surviving they are always slowly dying and even when a unit withdraws from combat its health will remain diminished. In an extreme but unlikely case your unit could appear to be 100% intact capable of 100% attack but have little or no defensive strength left which could result in a sudden and catastrophic collapse of that unit if it enters combat again.

If we take the example of a Barbarian unit that blobs around a Roman formation under these conditions there would appear to be two factors at play.

1\ The Barbarian unit is spreading the damage to health among more of its own soldiers making it less likely that those soldiers will die.

2\ Its inflicting multiply hits to the health of the Roman formation especially those on the sides making it more likely that those on the edge of the formation will die.

3\ And importantly once the Romans do start to die the overall offensive strength of the Roman unit will quickly diminish which means that less and less Barbarian soldiers will die resulting in a snowball type effect.

Question: Will a unit that has all of its soldiers at 50% health be stronger then a unit that has half of its unit at 100% health and half at 1% ?

It seems to me that since both units regardless of their individual soldiers health retain their offensive strength (until individual soldiers start to die) the unit that starts to loose soldiers first will be the one most at risk even if its remaining soldiers are at full health.

This suggests to me that a tightly packed formation is possibly the worst way to organise a unit,
of course there are other factors to take into account but its seems to me to be a very unnatural situation and AP makes things even worse.