Initiative versus deadliness

[Summary]

I can't find any material on initiative versus deadline. Not which is better but which does what and in quantifiable numbers and stats. Any help appreciated

[luck_ponte]

From my observations in the db, deadliness is the equivalent of AP damage in weapons, that is, the damage that will land regardless of armour with every successful hit. Initiative rules who hits first, that is, the higher the initiatize, the more likely it is you will hit your enemy before he hits you, and it stacks up with the melle skill of the unit to determine the number of hits a unit will strike. Could be wrong, so any corrections are welcome, but I am almost sure that this is it (at least about the deadliness)

[Scythion]

Are the team ever described this?

[zonks40]

I'm pretty sure Weapon Deadliness is the bonus vs Infantry, although there is both "armor penetrating" and "armor piercing" stats for the units, so I'm not 100%.

[luck_ponte]

I did some changes in weapon statuses for my own game, and the stats in 'deadliness' changed as I messed up with some weapons AP damage, so I'm sure deadliness is AP. Plus, I remember Selea metioning it a while ago in another discussion

[Matmannen]

I think Deadliness is what AP is called when melee weapons are involved. Becasue if you look at the stat of a ranged weapon and hold the mouse courses over weapon damage a tool tip wll be lowerd telling you the amount of base damage and AP damage...

[m_1512]

What exactly is the query here? Please elaborate.

[zonks40]

What exactly is the query here? Please elaborate.

What is weapon deadliness? is it Armor piercing, Armor penetration, bonus vs Infantry or something else?

[Summary]

What exactly is the query here? Please elaborate.

What is the correlation of the different stats in DeI? Basically what it means is that what happens when two units fight how are all the stats computed. How does melee attack work and what counters it and how? How does weapon damage work and what counters its and how? What does initiative and deadliness actually do? How to deal with units with high initiative or deadliness? Basically everything there is to know about stats in DeI and how they work and relate to each other. Understanding how stats work will allow me (or even other players) to decide which units to recruit to counter a particular faction that is say initiative intensive or deadliness intensive or melee defense intensive, etc.

I want to know if a unit has 28 melee attack, in what way does he perform better than a unit that has say 11 melee attack. I want to know if a unit has 15 weapon damage in what way is he performing better than a unit with 9 weapon damage. The "math" behind it all, the formulae that govern the outcome the match after computing the stats of the two units.

P.S. I apologize if my initial query vague.

[Damocles]

No matter what a unit's melee attack or deadliness, they'll still kill at a glacial rate. Veteran legionaries can barely kill routing troops running through them. Every battle in DeI is won by a rear attack at the right moment. That's the only occasion serious enough (absent some unit taking mass missile fire casualties) to induce a cascade of waverings. Which is also, the only time it's worth using war cry.

Battles seemed challenging at first in DeI, but eventually, when I learned that almost any number of enemy troops could be held for a very long time by an 'anvil' unit, each battle, whatever the odds, becomes an elaborate setup to the rear attack. Sometimes a battle has to be broken up into a few mini-fights, and then rear-charge each in turn. Hollow square formation, or some strategic placed shield walls/phalanxs is superb for this. And you only need 1-2.

What DeI's combat lacks, is the shock factor, whereby a large mass of units can build up momentum to slam into and crumble a flank. I've won a dozen sieges, with just the garrison against 1-2 20 enemy stacks, by waiting until the huge mass of enemy troops were crowded into a boulevard...Then sneaking a few units around to threaten them in the rear.

Dozens of barbarian units, with 270-290 men will break. But then hunting them down becomes nearly impossible, without a great deal of cavalry.

I once trapped about 5000 Gauls inside a road, and had their broken units all break out and reform...and which actually put them in better position than beforehand.

It also means that abilities like Second Wind or Battle Rhythm are a DEATH SENTENCE. They will not last even remotely long enough to justify exhausting your troops.

[Summary]

No matter what a unit's melee attack or deadliness, they'll still kill at a glacial rate. Veteran legionaries can barely kill routing troops running through them. Every battle in DeI is won by a rear attack at the right moment. That's the only occasion serious enough (absent some unit taking mass missile fire casualties) to induce a cascade of waverings. Which is also, the only time it's worth using war cry.

Battles seemed challenging at first in DeI, but eventually, when I learned that almost any number of enemy troops could be held for a very long time by an 'anvil' unit, each battle, whatever the odds, becomes an elaborate setup to the rear attack. Sometimes a battle has to be broken up into a few mini-fights, and then rear-charge each in turn. Hollow square formation, or some strategic placed shield walls/phalanxs is superb for this. And you only need 1-2.

What DeI's combat lacks, is the shock factor, whereby a large mass of units can build up momentum to slam into and crumble a flank. I've won a dozen sieges, with just the garrison against 1-2 20 enemy stacks, by waiting until the huge mass of enemy troops were crowded into a boulevard...Then sneaking a few units around to threaten them in the rear.

Dozens of barbarian units, with 270-290 men will break. But then hunting them down becomes nearly impossible, without a great deal of cavalry.

I once trapped about 5000 Gauls inside a road, and had their broken units all break out and reform...and which actually put them in better position than beforehand.

It also means that abilities like Second Wind or Battle Rhythm are a DEATH SENTENCE. They will not last even remotely long enough to justify exhausting your troops.

While I agree with part of your discussion and know how to win a fight, decisively most of the times, I am more bothered about gaining a stronger understanding of the stats of each unit that has to do mainly with their attack and defensive capabilities. Morale is an all together different topic.

Yes I will soon open a new thread on how flanking a hoplite phalanx works. And how and where do they make the modifier that adversely affects a hoplite phalanx if its flank/rear is compromised.

Historically units routed far more often than they fought to the death. 700 Roman Maniples charging the rear cause 14,000 Macedonians to panic, rout and surrender. I think in DeI the morale effects on a charge to the rear is quite accurate, but the ability to wipe a complete army of deserters is impossible. When you have 14,000 Macedonians rout, you kill some, you capture some, but if you order your cavalry unit of 100 men to follow them to the ends of the earth, sooner or later they will see that they out number you 100 to 1, stop running and whoop your a**! However, in Rome 2 and DeI one cavalry of 65 men can rack up more than 1000 kills from routing enemies! Ideally there should be an effect that beyond a certain radius from the main core of the army, the enemy will not only rout but, fight back to escape in safety. Meaning if your cavalry chases them to beyond the area of control their army can intervene, then they should experience casualties as well. This is discourage players from routing enemies till the end of the map some 3000 yards away from main army! The result, much less casualties, much slower expansion, because entire army stacks of 20 do not suddenly hit rock bottom "0". If retreats ended that way, then I am assuming at some point humans would be smart enough to know retreat doesn't change the outcome and would rather sit around and fight to the death. The whole point behind a retreat is survival.

Decisive Roman victory against 25,500 Macedonians at the Battle of Cynoscephalae had 8,000 men killed (around 30%, highest standards for any battle) and 5,000 men killed (around 20%), the balance 50% of the troops escaped! Not to mention the reason for such high casualties is because when the pike phalangites raised their pikes (a gesture commonly known in Ancient Greece as a sign of surrender), the Roman's did not understand the significance of it, and continued fighting, which even worsened things and increased casualties. In Rome 2, these 25,500 Macedonians would be 500 dead from skirmishing, 25,000 routing after a attack on the rear or flanks, and 25,000 dead from one cavalry unit mopping up the battlefield.

[Master.Mind]

Yes I will soon open a new thread on how flanking a hoplite phalanx works. And how and where do they make the modifier that adversely affects a hoplite phalanx if its flank/rear is compromised.

Historically units routed far more often than they fought to the death. 700 Roman Maniples charging the rear cause 14,000 Macedonians to panic, rout and surrender. I think in DeI the morale effects on a charge to the rear is quite accurate, but the ability to wipe a complete army of deserters is impossible. When you have 14,000 Macedonians rout, you kill some, you capture some, but if you order your cavalry unit of 100 men to follow them to the ends of the earth, sooner or later they will see that they out number you 100 to 1, stop running and whoop your a**! However, in Rome 2 and DeI one cavalry of 65 men can rack up more than 1000 kills from routing enemies! Ideally there should be an effect that beyond a certain radius from the main core of the army, the enemy will not only rout but, fight back to escape in safety. Meaning if your cavalry chases them to beyond the area of control their army can intervene, then they should experience casualties as well. This is discourage players from routing enemies till the end of the map some 3000 yards away from main army! The result, much less casualties, much slower expansion, because entire army stacks of 20 do not suddenly hit rock bottom "0". If retreats ended that way, then I am assuming at some point humans would be smart enough to know retreat doesn't change the outcome and would rather sit around and fight to the death. The whole point behind a retreat is survival.

But before we do that, we have to do something about the two defeates means destroyed army mechanic. That is especially annoying when you order your army to retreat and instead of fleeing to safety the run into the arms of another enemy army.

[Summary]

But before we do that, we have to do something about the two defeates means destroyed army mechanic. That is especially annoying when you order your army to retreat and instead of fleeing to safety the run into the arms of another enemy army.

Well wouldn't that make an army nigh uncatchable?

[Damocles]

While I agree with part of your discussion and know how to win a fight, decisively most of the times, I am more bothered about gaining a stronger understanding of the stats of each unit that has to do mainly with their attack and defensive capabilities. Morale is an all together different topic.

Yes I will soon open a new thread on how flanking a hoplite phalanx works. And how and where do they make the modifier that adversely affects a hoplite phalanx if its flank/rear is compromised.

Historically units routed far more often than they fought to the death. 700 Roman Maniples charging the rear cause 14,000 Macedonians to panic, rout and surrender. I think in DeI the morale effects on a charge to the rear is quite accurate, but the ability to wipe a complete army of deserters is impossible. When you have 14,000 Macedonians rout, you kill some, you capture some, but if you order your cavalry unit of 100 men to follow them to the ends of the earth, sooner or later they will see that they out number you 100 to 1, stop running and whoop your a**! However, in Rome 2 and DeI one cavalry of 65 men can rack up more than 1000 kills from routing enemies! Ideally there should be an effect that beyond a certain radius from the main core of the army, the enemy will not only rout but, fight back to escape in safety. Meaning if your cavalry chases them to beyond the area of control their army can intervene, then they should experience casualties as well. This is discourage players from routing enemies till the end of the map some 3000 yards away from main army! The result, much less casualties, much slower expansion, because entire army stacks of 20 do not suddenly hit rock bottom "0". If retreats ended that way, then I am assuming at some point humans would be smart enough to know retreat doesn't change the outcome and would rather sit around and fight to the death. The whole point behind a retreat is survival.

Decisive Roman victory against 25,500 Macedonians at the Battle of Cynoscephalae had 8,000 men killed (around 30%, highest standards for any battle) and 5,000 men killed (around 20%), the balance 50% of the troops escaped! Not to mention the reason for such high casualties is because when the pike phalangites raised their pikes (a gesture commonly known in Ancient Greece as a sign of surrender), the Roman's did not understand the significance of it, and continued fighting, which even worsened things and increased casualties. In Rome 2, these 25,500 Macedonians would be 500 dead from skirmishing, 25,000 routing after a attack on the rear or flanks, and 25,000 dead from one cavalry unit mopping up the battlefield.

I'm sorry, I got sidetracked and my original point was lost.

My point is...A unit's melee attack and deadliness currently does not matter, unless all you do is stand there and slog it out for 15 minutes. There is really no need to upgrade troops (provided you got the essentials covered). You will virtually never kill enough of the enemy in a straight up fight. With 5 deadliness vs 0, I've noticed maybe a half dozen more enemy deaths over the course of a few minutes.

There is no unit in the game, whose melee attack/deadliness is so great (absent some charging chariots, horses, elephants but that's a different mechanic altogether) that can 'break through' an enemy line or start butchering them with any noticeable rapidity on the strength of their attack/deadliness.

Yes, the game has hard coded triggers for certain units to break when fighting their rock/paper/scissors weakness (archers vs light cavalry, etc), but you'll notice even those combats go very very slowly.

So slow in fact, that I've had instances where cavalry has charged one skirmisher/slinger/archer unit, and required so long to break them, that the others skirmishers/archers/slingers nearby, could direct missile fire at the stopped cavalry and kill them in the meanwhile. Ideally, even one cavalry unit among two or three unprotected slingers, should be like a fox amidst the hen coop.

If you still want to know about weapon deadliness and such, from an intellectual curiosity, then I hope someone breaks it down. But if you're interested in efficiency, it's not a stat worth tracking.

EDIT: And I agree with your Macedonian example. But it's already very hard to kill routing troops. I've had broken units rout through my units numerous times and take only a dozen casualties before getting far enough away to reform (these were battles where I had no cavalry). Cavalry seems hard coded to kill routers far more easily...something about the collision effect I think.

[Gilad]

It also means that abilities like Second Wind or Battle Rhythm are a DEATH SENTENCE. They will not last even remotely long enough to justify exhausting your troops.

I disagree with this statement. You need to time these abilities to justify their usage. When two units are about equally exhausted, using 2nd wind to give your troops temporarily fresh status will completely change the course of those fights. Fresh troops slaughter tired+ troops. Battle rhythm is something I personally have more limited experience with so I will not defend it however I do think that the mechanic behind it would be much the same as 2nd wind.

[Master.Mind]

I would like armies to disintegreate at about 30%, not when they are more or less still intact.

[FlashHeart07]

I dont really see your point, Damocles about deadliness not really mattering? I have played around with deadliness for a couple of units to see what difference it makes and yes deadliness is only really deadly when combined with initiative but still it is of use. Foot companions vs praetorians. With their original stats they are almost equal but with the praetorians winning slighty in the end. If I change the deadliness of the foot companions to 1 or 2 they become a powerhouse compared to the praetorians.
I will agree with you that upgrading troops is of no use but seeing as a small increase in deadliness noticeable increases that units ability to kill enemy troops proves to me that deadliness does matter.
And you cant complain about battles taking longer in DeI because that has been their objective from the start to prolong battles by decreasing the kill rate.

The thing about sieges is as you properly also know, CA's fault.
And chasing down routing enemies has become much easier. Again I can only speak for my own games but killing 90% of the enemy army is no rare thing.
Dont take all this as criticism or me saying that all you wrote is a lie, I just wanna question your observations since I have seen little or none of these things you speak of.

I know that we all encounter different things while playing perhaps because we play the game differently.

[Damocles]

I dont really see your point, Damocles about deadliness not really mattering? I have played around with deadliness for a couple of units to see what difference it makes and yes deadliness is only really deadly when combined with initiative but still it is of use. Foot companions vs praetorians. With their original stats they are almost equal but with the praetorians winning slighty in the end. If I change the deadliness of the foot companions to 1 or 2 they become a powerhouse compared to the praetorians.
I will agree with you that upgrading troops is of no use but seeing as a small increase in deadliness noticeable increases that units ability to kill enemy troops proves to me that deadliness does matter.
And you cant complain about battles taking longer in DeI because that has been their objective from the start to prolong battles by decreasing the kill rate.

The thing about sieges is as you properly also know, CA's fault.
And chasing down routing enemies has become much easier. Again I can only speak for my own games but killing 90% of the enemy army is no rare thing.
Dont take all this as criticism or me saying that all you wrote is a lie, I just wanna question your observations since I have seen little or none of these things you speak of.

I know that we all encounter different things while playing perhaps because we play the game differently.

I don't take it as criticism. It's perfectly true that if you sit back and let them fight it out to the bitter end, over the course of 10+ minutes, you will see one edge the other.

In fact, I've had several siege battles, that I didn't really have a hope of winning, so I put the troops on the wall and let em fight it out. I saw my garrison levy last nearly ~20 minutes against elite gallic infantry, and even my roman mob...albeit without killing more than a dozen, stayed in the fight for 5-10 minutes. The roman mob lasts longer than than the javeliners (who I think are hard coded to break against some infantry). One hollow square of legionaries plugged the gates for ~30 minutes against gallic bodyguard infantry.

Over the course of that agonizing half hour, where only a sick, morbid curiosity kept me from quitting the battle, I definitely noticed that the unit with the higher deadliness slowly got the best of it. But it was soooo slow, that in an actual battle, it would not have mattered.

The trick is to tick off formation attack once the battle is over. This way your legionaires will kill much more routing enemies.
What I've found to be the best flanking units are some javelin throwers with plenty of ammo. They are fast to get behind the lines and their jav will hit them in their back for max damage. Once the enemy is broken they can slaughter a fleeing army

The formation attack trick is good to know. And yes, javelins are extremely lethal. Virtually all of my serious losses come from the spears that barbarian infantry units hurl as they charge. For my Caesar in Gaul campaign, it's actually required staying in testudo until the men are in melee combat. Their javelins seem far more lethal than the legionary pilum, so I never both throwing it.

I disagree with this statement. You need to time these abilities to justify their usage. When two units are about equally exhausted, using 2nd wind to give your troops temporarily fresh status will completely change the course of those fights. Fresh troops slaughter tired+ troops. Battle rhythm is something I personally have more limited experience with so I will not defend it however I do think that the mechanic behind it would be much the same as 2nd wind.

That should be the case in theory, but in my own experience, such a situation has rarely come up, where everyone is equally exhausted. Although, there'd be nothing to lose by triggering it then.

Basically, however, the stamina effect only lasts for a very short amount of time. I've seen fresh troops fighting exhausted, and maybe the kill rate was 2-3 higher over half a minute. The dangers of Second Wind is using it in any other situation but one where everyone nearby is exhausted.

So you're right. Battle Rhythm is more the death sentence, since it encourages you to use at the peak of battle. Second Wind is merely highly situational.

Honestly, though, the only ability I get major use out of is war cry.

[Summary]

Imho exhaustion and fatigue should be a more complex formula. Yes I understand that fighting over time increases fatigue. But these apply to only the front most units that are in combat. The remaining ranks standing the back just cheering the men in front should not be exhausted. When the men who fought die, the average fatigue of the unit should drop down as it is now fresh men that are doing the fighting, not the ones who are exhausted and dead. This also gives advantage to the fresh men to rack up some kills before he dies instantly. And then after he kills an exhausted enemy, he himself is exhausted and meets a new fresh enemy and is killed instead. So it is a vicious cycle. Unfortunately fatigue applies across the whole unit, and units who haven't killed of defended a single blow the entire battle also gasp and pant like they did so much.

[Agostinos]

The trick is to tick off formation attack once the battle is over. This way your legionaires will kill much more routing enemies.
What I've found to be the best flanking units are some javelin throwers with plenty of ammo. They are fast to get behind the lines and their jav will hit them in their back for max damage. Once the enemy is broken they can slaughter a fleeing army