Unit stats

**Seecat46** · February 21, 2016, 01:45 AM

I used to the old TW games like mediaeval 2 so all the new stats on units make no says to me.like health or armour lests say. And what should I be expecting for each value for different unit types? Please help out a noob.

**LordInvictus** · February 21, 2016, 02:20 AM

Melee attack is the chance a unit has of hitting a person. For example, a melee attack of 50 is a 50% chance of hitting.

Weapon damage is the lethality of a weapon. For example, a weapon damage of 50 will take away 50 health. However, this damage is split into base (which can be blocked by armor) and armor-piercing (cannot be blocked by armor). Mousing over weapon damage will tell you what these two values are for a unit.

Health acts like hitpoints and is the amount of damage a unit can take before dying. Health is affected by weapon/missile damage. Previous total wars had most units have one health, so it takes one lethal hit to kill a person. In Rome 2, that is no longer the case and there is a lot more variability in the damage calculations.

Charge bonus is a value applied to melee attack and weapon damage (?). A unit with a charge bonus of 40, melee attack of 50, and weapon damage of 20 will have 90 melee attack and 60 weapon damage.

Melee defence is the chance a unit has of evading or defending against an attack. It counteracts the hit chance provided in the melee attack. This stat is also split into two: base (the unit's defense capabilities) and shield (the bonus a shield provides to their defensive abilities; only taken into account from front and left sides).

Armor is a value that subtracts from incoming damage. However, it is not a flat value but is a number chosen randomly within the number provided. In other words, an armor of 50 will roll 1<X50 when taking damage. If the number rolled is greater than the incoming damage, no damage is dealt. If it is lower, the numbers are subtracted. This stat is also split into two: base (the unit's own armor) and shield (the shield's ability to mitigate damage; only taken into account from front and left sides).

However, these are only the basic mechanics and there are several caveats that occur due to unit abilities, attributes, hidden mechanics, etc. Feel free to ask for an explanation

**emcdunna** · February 21, 2016, 07:20 PM

Charge bonus is the weirdest one. in many cases the bonus is like 200, which goes beyond the maximum values for damage and melee attack.

Also charge bonus is applied for a period of time. It's not just the first singular attack they make upon impact.

**LordInvictus** · February 21, 2016, 07:41 PM

Originally Posted by emcdunna

Charge bonus is the weirdest one. in many cases the bonus is like 200, which goes beyond the maximum values for damage and melee attack.

Also charge bonus is applied for a period of time. It's not just the first singular attack they make upon impact.

Yeah, charge bonus is probably the least clear in terms of effects. It does last for a period of time (like 15 seconds or so), but is it a constant bonus or does it decay? Does its bonus apply to the base weapon damage, armor-piercing damage, or both? The bonus of 200 is usually reserved for heavy shock cavalry, which explains their excessive power in Attila.

**Seecat46** · February 21, 2016, 10:44 PM

Thanks and why do my heavy armed spear's get destroyed by swords with low armor-piercing.
Also you were talking about cavalry charge, I fond a video were they removed the cavalry's weapon an it still killed troops on the change so they think most of the damage is impact damage.

**LordInvictus** · February 22, 2016, 12:05 AM

Originally Posted by Seecat46

Thanks and why do my heavy armed spear's get destroyed by swords with low armor-piercing.
Also you were talking about cavalry charge, I fond a video were they removed the cavalry's weapon an it still killed troops on the change so they think most of the damage is impact damage.

Yeah, cavalry deal two kinds of damage: one from the unit's charge (based on charge bonus, melee attack, and weapon damage) and one from the collision of the horse (based on speed, mass, and bracing bonuses). This collision damage can range from 20 to 1000, half of which will be AP damage; so yeah, cavalry are very powerful. As for the spears, if the unit has a low melee attack, then they will not have as much of a damage output as the sword unit and slowly but gradually lose. Something to note is that many spear units have the expert charge defence attribute, which allows them to "reflect" the charge of the enemy unit. In game terms, the charge bonus is applied to the spear unit, boosting its melee attack and weapon damage. Because of this, it is very useful to use braced spears against cavalry and shock infantry, which have high charges.

**Seecat46** · February 22, 2016, 06:26 AM

on a side note apart from aggressive AI are there any other gameplay improving mods?

**Fanest** · February 22, 2016, 08:54 AM

ofc there are many campaign and battle mods

**emcdunna** · February 23, 2016, 12:04 AM

This game is extremely Rock-paper-scissorsy

Swords beat spears, spears beat cav, cav beats skirmishers, skirmishers beat shock troops (no shields) and pikemen, and axemen beat armor.

**axicup** · February 23, 2016, 01:54 AM

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I've got a related question.

Playing as the ERE now (I've never played Roman factions before). By stat comparison comitatenses spears beat cohorts overall. Cohorts get very weak attack rating, almost no charge bonus and yet they come out on top in every battle. While comitatenses spears suffer heavy losses and don't do nearly enough damage to count for it, cohorts easily mow down up to 300 barbarians each unit every fight with almost no losses.
Granted, I use them differently - I mostly send cohorts to flank and support the spears, but in the last battle against Ostrogoths I had to put them all in testudo and cohorts still performed much better, taking enemy charges like champs and turning the tide of battle in the counter-charge later on. They mostly fought against gothic warbands and germanic levies, and afaik gothic warbands boast better stats than cohorts except for armor values.
What am I missing here?

**vin2579** · February 23, 2016, 04:43 AM

Originally Posted by LordInvictus

Melee attack is the chance a unit has of hitting a person. For example, a melee attack of 50 is a 50% chance of hitting.

Weapon damage is the lethality of a weapon. For example, a weapon damage of 50 will take away 50 health. However, this damage is split into base (which can be blocked by armor) and armor-piercing (cannot be blocked by armor). Mousing over weapon damage will tell you what these two values are for a unit.

Health acts like hitpoints and is the amount of damage a unit can take before dying. Health is affected by weapon/missile damage. Previous total wars had most units have one health, so it takes one lethal hit to kill a person. In Rome 2, that is no longer the case and there is a lot more variability in the damage calculations.

Charge bonus is a value applied to melee attack and weapon damage (?). A unit with a charge bonus of 40, melee attack of 50, and weapon damage of 20 will have 90 melee attack and 60 weapon damage.

Melee defence is the chance a unit has of evading or defending against an attack. It counteracts the hit chance provided in the melee attack. This stat is also split into two: base (the unit's defense capabilities) and shield (the bonus a shield provides to their defensive abilities; only taken into account from front and left sides).

Armor is a value that subtracts from incoming damage. However, it is not a flat value but is a number chosen randomly within the number provided. In other words, an armor of 50 will roll 1<X50 when taking damage. If the number rolled is greater than the incoming damage, no damage is dealt. If it is lower, the numbers are subtracted. This stat is also split into two: base (the unit's own armor) and shield (the shield's ability to mitigate damage; only taken into account from front and left sides).

However, these are only the basic mechanics and there are several caveats that occur due to unit abilities, attributes, hidden mechanics, etc. Feel free to ask for an explanation

Thanks!

**Fanest** · February 23, 2016, 05:08 AM

Originally Posted by axicup

They mostly fought against gothic warbands and germanic levies, and afaik gothic warbands boast better stats than cohorts except for armor values.
What am I missing here?

usually if gothic warband charges any spear unit - even high tier it destroys them in seconds and that is because of their high charge bonus, melee attack and melee damage. These stats make gothic warband a melee shock troop essentially, and best way to counter these units is either by focus firing projectiles at them (usually they have low missile block chance) or by a straight horse charge - any horse charge, after which u follow in with your melee troops.

**emcdunna** · February 23, 2016, 07:56 PM

Cohorts are very good in early game. The spearmen unit the Romans have... not so much.

To be honest, the actual stats are kinda garbage.

You should just remember anectodal evidence of how units perform well or not.

If you send cohors vs comitatenses spears, the cohors win.

This is because swordsmen almost always beat spearmen. Even tier 1 swords can beat tier 3 spears, in the right set of circumstances.

Spears always beat Cavalry, even tier 1 lowly armored guys can take on enemy tier 3 heavy cav and do decently.

Axemen usually beat swordsmen (because of AP damage) but more often they have worse abilities at blocking missiles and kill skirmishers/spearmen (soft targets) slower than swords.

Any cav crushes skirmishers in melee, and any cav can cause 1000 men to rout from battle if they charge them in the rear when they're engaged to the front, have been hit with whistling shot, and have lost their general. Many times i've defeated full stacks of barbarians and sassanids by putting cohorts in testudo, mixing flaming + whistling shot for a double debuff from my archers, and then flanking their whole mob of guys with one or two scout equites units.

Shock cav obviously have good charge bonus, but don't use wedge formation. Less actual guys hit the enemy to attack during the charge, causing less casualties on both sides.

Instead heavy melee cav should use wedge when charging into shock cav. This limits how many people fight during the charge bonus period, and then you should switch back to normal mode after 10 seconds. This method let's medium melee cav crush heavy shock cav while losing minimal casualties.

Skirmish cav is really only there to shoot enemies (preferably in the back) and run down skirmishers.

Finally pikemen and spearmen make great defensive bunkers even against infantry. They hold out for a long time (but eventually lose). They kill any cav who faces them, especially on the charge. The only difference is that pikemen do everything better but will die 3 times faster to missile fire.

Shock infantry are like shock cavalry except that they have bad missile block chances and don't do that we'll when facing enemies in the front. Instead, use them as slow flannking units. Often times I either get 20 kills with them because I couidnt flank anyone.. but when I use them well I often get 300 kills. You never know. Even in the same battle you can get some units which get low kills and others with high kills.

**axicup** · February 23, 2016, 08:29 PM

Thank you very much! I wish it was better explained in the game.
Axemen sound like the most versatile unit type.

**econ21** · February 24, 2016, 04:59 AM

Originally Posted by emcdunna

This game is extremely Rock-paper-scissorsy

Swords beat spears...

To be honest, the actual stats are kinda garbage

I agree. I wonder if there is some "hidden" maths at work which favours swords vs spears? I seem to recall there was in an earlier TW game. It doesn't "feel" as if the public stats explain actual unit performance. (It would be possible to test this by modding identical stats on swords and spears and seeing if they performed equally well.)

Originally Posted by Axicup

Axemen sound like the most versatile unit type.

I am not sure. Personally, I think the "cohors" line of infantry (swords with javelins and defensive tetsudo) are the most versatile. Defensive tetsudo means they shrug off most missiles. As swords, they (slowly!) beat spears. Spears and missiles tend often to be the mainstay of AI armies. Defensive tetsudo also means they can block cavalry - it will be mutually assured destruction, but most cavalry won't survive the charge. They lose to good swords, but as swords, if they are high enough tier etc they can put up a fight. Their missiles are very lethal (e.g. if your fire a volley into the rear of a high value target) but you only have two (or three) ammo.

Of course, being versatile also means they are far from the best at any given task. Different unit types would be better at each role. Jack of all trades, masters of none.

Axes to me are very specialised killers of heavy infantry. They tend to be vulnerable to missiles and cavalry, so not a frontline unit. As a Roman player, I don't have much experience of them. The 2H "falx" type mercenaries you can recruit around Thrace are awesome killers but die quickly (especially in auto-resolve, it seems). The IH axe and shield merc German warbands always seem to disappoint me.

**KAM 2150** · February 24, 2016, 06:28 AM

There is a bonus vs infantry for certain weapons and AP damage is the most important. If you give the same weapon and unit stats to a spear unit and sword unit, they will be fully equal.

Overal stats in Attila are the most ridiculous I have ever seen in TW to date.

**emcdunna** · February 24, 2016, 06:27 PM

The most versatile unit, by far, is cohort style units. Heavy sword infantry who have 2 or so volleys of javelins or axes are amazing.

They can deter enemies (and get lots of kills) with their missile weapons, then hold the line in close combat. Axemen do often beat them, but having testudo and shieldwall give these units good tanking abilities.

See, you'd think that axemen were the best all-round, but axemen often have less armor/block chance (so skirmishers kill them easily) and also they don't hold up as well against cavalry charges.

So if you run all axemen then i'll just cycle charge your battleline with lancers. If I tried to do the same thing to cohort units, they could throw spears into my Lancers and then go into shieldwall or testudo right before impact, suffering far less damage than the axemen would.

Yes technically the only thing that matters is the stats for a unit, BUT many of the most important stats are completely hidden from the player in-game. This includes bonus vs cavalry, bonus vs infantry, difference between AP and base damage, etc.