On Unit "Heaviness"

[ThatWhichThinks]

This may seem like a dumb question, but what determines the "heaviness" of a unit? What separates a Medium infantry from a Heavy Infantry?

I used to think it was just a quick way to see which unit has more armor/damage or moves more slowly, but I have seen units that have nearly identical stats, but one is listed as "Heavy" and the other as "Medium". Is there any particular effect of being Heavy vs Very Heavy, or is it just a label?

I guess my question really is: if I had two units with exactly the same stats, where one is medium and the other light (Epirus's Peltastai and Peltastai Agrianoi, for example), will there be a difference in unit performance?

[antred]

Yeah, the heavy / medium / light categorization is a total mess. There are even some units were it says "(Light Infantry)" in the description text but then when you hover the mouse over the unit icon it says "Heavy Melee Infantry" and such silliness. IMO most of these categorizations are completely arbitrary. It's sort of like with modern combat ship classifications, where two ships may have nearly identical capabilities and even have similar displacements but one is a destroyer and the other a cruiser.

[JObadiah]

It's linked to battlefield entities that define movement speed etc. (and in vanilla and most mods, hp; in DeI all men have the same base hp of 48 though). It's not derived directly from armor or anything, no. It's a separate categorization.

[meerkatology]

It's linked to battlefield entities that define movement speed etc. (and in vanilla and most mods, hp; in DeI all men have the same base hp of 48 though). It's not derived directly from armor or anything, no. It's a separate categorization.

i think diff infantry weight classes have different hps. you can test the heavy archers vs regular archers, even when they have the same armor. i.e syrian archers vs. bosphorus heavy archers... the heavy archers will win pretty handily, because of higher hp with rest of stats the same.

the same is even more apparently in cavalry. most heavy cavalry have around 50 armor, but cataphracts are DRASTICALLY more durable than the rest, even though the armor values are similar. the only explanation is either cataphract soldier or the mount gives a huge hp bonus.

i've ran tests, letting an elite archer unit empty their ammo on a group of cavalry, the results were:
-cataphracts : lost an average of 2-5men
-half cataphracts i.e nakharars : lost around 10-15
-elite germanic cavalry : lost around 20-30
-roman general : lost 20+ and routed on volley 7 or so

all the above have around 50 armor, only explanation is significantly higher hp on the heavier cavalry classes


chariots also seem have a harder time charging through heavier units, which reduces their effectiveness alot

[JObadiah]

Lots of heavier units have more hp than lighter units, but DeI does this via bonus hp to particular units in land_units (for whatever reason). Also, mounted units use the combined hp of their horse and man entities + bonus hp.

Edit: And you're right. Unit mass is linked to battle entities 'weight' class. I forgot about that.

[meerkatology]

Lots of heavier units have more hp than lighter units, but DeI does this via bonus hp to particular units in land_units (for whatever reason). Also, mounted units use the combined hp of their horse and man entities + bonus hp.

Edit: And you're right. Unit mass is linked to battle entities 'weight' class. I forgot about that.

its confusing because the bonus HP section in the land units is about the same for all of them, usually between 5-20. but i think the soldier itself has a base hp that varies too.
and the mount hp is listed at 0 for all mounts in the db so im not where the actual hp for the cataphract mount is.

[JObadiah]

All the horses have hp 5, except for the cataphract horses, which range from 20 to 35.

A range of 5-20 bonus hp in DeI is a pretty huge one, considering how tightly balanced damage vs hp is. I've also heard that because of the way damage vs. bonus hp is calculated can result in far more lopsided casualties between units whose primary hp differences are in bonus hp rather than base hp from their battlefield_entities type, but I haven't tested that.

[meerkatology]

All the horses have hp 5, except for the cataphract horses, which range from 20 to 35.

A range of 5-20 bonus hp in DeI is a pretty huge one, considering how tightly balanced damage vs hp is. I've also heard that because of the way damage vs. bonus hp is calculated can result in far more lopsided casualties between units whose primary hp differences are in bonus hp rather than base hp from their battlefield_entities type, but I haven't tested that.

well a unit with higher hp might suffer far less casualties vs a set number of ranged attacks, since the ranged attacks are spread over the unit, you might have a bunch of them at 10-20% hp and not dead

[JObadiah]

I haven't tested this, but from what I've heard, bonus hp to units acts kind of like a buffer that soaks up damage before any entities in the unit start taking any damage as 'individuals'. This may well be bullspittle, but it seems plausible.