Unit stats Explained.

[Kalis]

This might belong in the battle planning sub-forum. If a mod wants to move it there instead i have no complaints
It's a pretty long post explaining some MTW2 battle mechanics. None of this is direct "from the game files". It's just stuff I figured out from testing and experience, but it's quite accurate.
Warning: So this makes it a thread for people who are less aware of the game dynamics, rather than for the vets who understand the system very well.

Edit: my theory on defense might be wrong, and the FAUST might be right.
According to FAUST, defense = what direction you're attacked from.
Front attack: Defense = armour + def skill + shield
Right attack: Defense = armour + def skill
Left attack: Defense = armour + shield
Back attack: Defense = armour
I believe mine is more accurate because peasants always beat my unarmoured spear militia, and most end-game units carry no shields at all (yet they're harder to kill than earlier units with higher defense who carry shields). But either way, the conclusions you draw are practically the same.

Defense
Defense is actually split into 3 sections: armour, defense skill, shield.
- Armour protects vs melee and ranged attacks. As a result, it has a huge impact on unit survival.
- Defense skill has an effect on melee combat, but does nothing vs ranged attacks.
- Finally, the shield seems to be the opposite of defense skill, as it applies against ranged attacks only. It also seems to be the only armour that protects against cavalry charges (I found that shield carriers like spear militia and dismounted knights suffer fewer charge casualties than billmen, woodmens, halberds, etc.).

Defense seems to max out at 15. Oh the knight orders have 16-17 defense total, but that's because they have a shield. You'll note that all the later units no longer carry shields, and just have great armour and defense skill. For example, gothic knights with 10 armour, 5 defense skill are harder to kill than the knight orders who have 16 defense (7 armour, 5 defense skill, 4 shield).

Attack
- Very simple. Higher is better. Because of defense (and how it maxes out), it seems to be separated into damage ranges. 4-6 attack value is crap. 7-9 is average. 10-14 is good. 15-19 is great, and 20+ mean every hit is a kill.
- Spearmen and pikemen get a huge damage boost against cavalry. +8 attack value! So spear militia has 12 vs cavalry, and pikes, merc spears, and sergeants have 15-16.
- Good vs armour is incredible because it virtually eliminates the armour from the equation, making it attack vs shield or attack vs defense skill only. So instead of being vs 10-15 defense. It becomes vs 6-8 defense! This is especially the case against crazy armour units like gothic knights Only way to kill them is with armour penetrating attacks.

What this means:
Simplified, the formula for doing damage works this way:
Chance to wound = attack - defense.
The higher this number, the higher the chance for a kill (note: with the current formula, I think the range goes from around -8 to +23. Thus, 0 or negative numbers don't mean no chance of kills.)

For melee: defense = armour + defense skill
For ranged: defense = armour + shield.
For cavalry charges: defense = shield only (or so it seems in my experience).

Battle Examples:
Example 1: Peasant vs Spear militia.
Peasants win. By a base stat analysis, this is absurd! Peasants are 4/3, while spear militia are 5/7!!!! But look closer. Peasants with 4 attack, 3 defense skill. Spear militia are 5 attack, 1 defense skill, 6 shield (no effect on melee). So you have 4/3 units fighting 5/1 units.
Peasant attack: 4-1 = 3 chance to wound
Spearmen attack: 5-3 = 2 chance to wound.
So you'll see that the peasants will be winning the battle, which also means their morale stays high.

Example 2: Peasants vs Spear militia with 2 armour (blacksmith).
Spear militia beat the peasants easily with low casualties.
With 2 armour, the situation becomes 4/3 peasants fighting 5/3 spearmen.
Spearmen attack: 2 chance to wound (5-3).
Peasant attack: 1 chance of getting wounded (4-3).
Losing battle = lower morale for peasants, and combined with their poor morale of 1 (militia has 3, light cav has 5, and heavy cav tends to have 9 or 11), you'll see the peasants rout very fast.

Example 3 Mercenary spearmen (aka. armoured sergeants) vs 0 armour spear militia (the most common AI unit).
Mercenary spearmen beat spear militia easily.
Mercenary spearmen stats: 7 attack, 3 charge, 5 armour, 4 defense skill, 6 shield (all unit stats will now be listed as 7/3, 5/4/6).
Spearmen militia stats: 5/2, 0/1/6.
So... 7-1 = 6 to wound for mercenaries
And 5-(5+4) = -4 to wound for spearmen militia.
The mercenary spearmen will slaughter a spear militia (until they start getting tired). Use 1 mercenary spearmen to charge through the gate in early-game sieges. 1-2 merc spears will hold and beat the 2-4 spearmen militia (even after getting tired)! In fact, you'll notice most the merc spears do not die until the unit starts to get tired (and, defense dropping, so their chance of wounding increases from -4 to wound).

On a side note, 2 armour spear militia also slaughter 0 armour spear militia. Not as well as mercenary spearmen, but well enough.

Effect of Morale and Stamina
Battle effectiveness is primarily determined by effective combat time (aka. morale, stamina, and and survivability).
Having the unit traits of good stamina is incredibly important. Good stamina means they don't get tired, and will fight longer at full efficiency. Tired units have reduced defense making them easier to kill! Tired units also seem to suffer morale problems (making them easier to rout).

Good morale is great as it makes sure a unit stays in combat, but really secondary to stamina.

Example Swordsmen militia vs sword and buckler men.
Swordsmen militia stats: 100upkeep, 11/2, 5/7/6, 5 morale
S&B stats: 150 upkeep, 13/3, 5/8/6, 9 morale.
By stats, they're nearly equal. In fact, 100 upkeep swordsmen militia should be far superior! In practice, swordsmen militia are crap offensively or in open field battles. They run out of stamina very quickly, which leads to a major drop in survivability when tired. In addition, the 5 morale means when 1 of them rout, you'll see a lot of the others rout. In practice, they're only combat effective until 45/75 units, or 30 seconds of combat (estimation).
Sword and buckler men have good stamina and morale. They basically combat effective until they're down to 15/75 units, or 70-80 seconds of combat (estimation).

When defending a city, morale and stamina aren't big issues since they fight to the death in the center square, and both sides will be exhausted by the time they get to there anyways.

Additional unit analysis: Infantry
- Heavy infantry are just as good as spears vs cavalry. However, support costs for heavy inf is so expensive you're better off making 6 spear militia, and 2-3 heavy inf as 2nd-line infantry (to plug into the holes in the spear militia battleline). They're crucial for sieges (where high unit stats are very important for taking control of a location). At most though, you want 3 of them an army, with 2 being enough. Note: this doesn't apply to armoured swordsmen, whose upkeep is only 150. But dismounted knights are 225, which really hurts. 3 dismounted knights have more upkeep than 5 spear militia, and you can't stick them into a city for free upkeep! And an army with 5 spear militia, 3 dismounted knights, and 2 knights is more useful and powerful than an army with 6 dismounted knights and 2 knights.

- Italian spear militia are 7/3, 4/3/6, 5 morale. So they aren't as good as mercenary spearmen, but your whole army are these units with 4 armour, and their upkeep is 125 as opposed to 185 for merc spears. Huge advantage over the spear militia everyone else is using at this time (which also only have 3 morale too). And the free upkeep in cities is huge too.

- Sergeant spearmen are terrible. High upkeep, and 0 armour. If you want spearmen, use your spear militia and hire some mercenary spearmen (who have 5 armour!).

- Halberds (5-8 attack) really suck in practice. They have no survivability because of no armour and no shield. They don't seem to form a "halberd wall" properly (so no anti-cavalry or anti-infantry effect like pikes). Their only effective use is vs armoured/mercenary spearmen, and you don't really need an infantry unit for that. Honestly, halberds are never worth it.

- English billmen, Scottish highlanders, and eastern european woodsmen are absurdly deadly when they can do attacks without taking much damage. They have 15, 11, and 13 armour piercing attack respectively, which lets them kill anything with ease (including knights and generals!). The weakness of these units is morale, and survivability. So they suck at sieging (where survivability is everything to seize control of areas like the gate), and you'll always suffer heavy losses using them. Basically, great 2nd-line units, so you can conserve their stamina and charge them in where they're needed.

- Heavy billmen, on the other hand, are awesome! Great armour with that 15 attack! Incredible battleline units that rape everything, including knights! Pikes can give them trouble, but that's it. Slaughter heavy infantry, cavalry, and anything they can get their hands on.

- spanish/portugal almughavars are the ultimate unit. 13 melee attack (17 vs cavalry), 13 armour piercing javelins. 11 morale (same as generals and the knightly orders, so they will always fight to the death), and very good stamina. Their only weakness is 0 armour, but that can be upgraded twice (so they would have 2 armour with 5 defense skill). And honestly, they don't even really need that armour. 17 melee demolish knights. 13 melee outfights all infantry but dismounted knights. And against dismounted knights they would just skirmish and weaken them with javelins before closing into the melee to force the rout. Their only weakness is Archers and horse archers (who they can never get close enough to melee or throw javelins against), but that's why spain has jinetes.
So unbalanced. Their javelins should have 6 attack that's armour piercing, not 13.

Additional unit analysis: Cavalry
- Heavy cavalry are really hard to kill. Mailed knights are 10/6, 5/5/4. Feudal knights have 7 armour as opposed to 5. This means they got 10 (or 12) defense vs melee, and 9 vs ranged. Enough to survive anything but spearmen, especially with their charge killing soo many enemies at the start of combat.

- Light cavalry die in combat. Their defense is either 4/5/4, or 4/5/0. 9 melee defense and 4 or 8 ranged defense means they die easily to ranged attacks, and are easier to kill with melee. Exception: Jinetes, with 7 defense skill, so they have 11 melee armour.

Additional unit analysis: Archers
- Peasant archers (and archer militia) are vastly underrated. Because of rate of fire, they make more kills than crossbows against spear militia, and fire arrows causes the enemy to rout. The only disadvantage is that they don't have long ranged missiles. I had one battle with 5 archer militia as egypt, vs 5 spearmen (no cavalry). I won with no losses just leaving my units on skirmish, and shooting fire arrows and forcing the enemy spears to rout. Horse archers are incredible because you can't melee them. Well, the same with peasant archers against infantry (so if you can eliminate all enemy cavalry, you've won). The Egyptian and Moorish Desert archers are just peasant archers with long range missiles.

- Turkish Janissary Archers, Byzantium guard archers and Venetian archers, are incredible. High rate of fire lets them eliminate low armour/shield infantry, they can shoot fire arrows, and have 13 melee defense. In fact, they can beat heavy cavalry in the melee (as long as the enemy doesn't keep charging)! Sicily muslim archers and Scottish Noble Archers have 10 and 9 melee defense respectively, so take much heavier casualties, but they can melee decently too.

- Longbows are absolutely incredible. Armour piercing and high rate of fire slaughter everything at range! Only weakness? Longbows and yeomen longbows cannot melee because of no armour and barely any defense skill. Retinue longbows can, but they need citadels to make. But as long as you can keep the enemy away from your longbows, you will battles easily.

- Crossbows suck because of rate of fire. If you were fighting heavily armoured opponents, I'm sure they're brilliant (MP). But in the campaign, peasant archers and archer militia are way better than crossbows. Note: pavise or mercenary crossbows have 6 melee attack, 8 melee defense. They beat spear militia in the melee, and can give merc spears a good fight! On the other hand, they're useless vs cavalry. Still, I use merc crossbows in the melee when attacking a city just like mercenary spearmen. They're just dead if the enemy has any heavy cavalry to charge into them with (a problem merc spears do not suffer). On the other hand, what else are mercenaries for but as suicidal troops you hire right before a siege begins?

[zerathule]

I'd like to point out a few things i'm sceptical :
- armor piercing is supposed to take half the armor into acount, not none, at least according to the EDU or do you have other infos ?
- melee defense is supposed to be, from the front and left armor+defense skill+ shield bonus. Where did you found that shield wasnt used in melee ?

Now, your explanations are nice, especially for people that dont know a lot about the game mechanisms, but when i opened this subject, i really thought you had an answer to the question most every one ask on the forums : what and how are the hidden stats, explaining that some units beats another despite having lower stats.
So basicaly, all your post might be right for RTW, i sincerly doubt it is for M2TW :-/

[Korinthos Hoplites]

What you explained here can be found in the F.A.U.S.T.

[Kalis]

zerathule:
yea made numerous edits as I was checking out FAUST.

About the shields and melee combat:
It's fitted into the edits I made, but essentially...
1. peasants just seem to beat spearmen militia, no matter what.
2. all the end-game cavalry carry no shield, yet are definitely harder to kill than higher defense knights with a shield. In particular, gothic knights, with 10 armour, 5 defense skill, are insanely hard to kill unless you got some armour piercing attack.
3. Sergeant spearmen. No armour, 4 defense skill, 6 shield. They're really really crappy. In fact, they can barely outfight 2-armoured spear militia.

I'm not entirely sure how it works, but maybe the shield is used initially or something. But the more I play, the more it seems the shield has barely any effect on melee combat. Compare scottish highlander survival to european woodsmen survival for example. They both die like crazy in the melee (although they dish out really heavy damage too), the higherlanders with 3 extra defense from their shield just don't die any slower.
Or (completely theory here) maybe shield defense has something to do with experience level. I.E. low experience units get barely any benefit from the shield defense in melee, but it really applies if they have silver or gold chevrons.

On a side note as well, try using byzantium guard archers (5/8/3) or venetian archers (7/6/0) as your infantry force sometime. Both units have 11 melee attack (the same as dismounted knights). And as long as they're not tired or exhausted (which can be a problem with archers, as they don't have good stamina), they don't seem to suffer any casualties. In fact, I find that the venetian archers suffer less casualties in melee than the byzantium guard archers.

A good test on armour effect:
Since venetian archers have no shield and 6 defense skill, try to get someone to hit venetian archers from the left, and then the right, and compare battle results. I would do it, but you can't really command an AI to hit your unit from the sides .

Say... 1 venetian archer vs 1 mercenary spearmen (or armoured sergeant) which attacks from the left, and then the right.

About armor piercing:
- my bad. You're right on the half part. Nonetheless, it's still a very dramatic effect, especially since almost all armour piercing attacks are above 10 (except halberds, which again, are crap).

Ultimately, you're right in that this really is more of a newbie explanation post than an advanced post explaining everything. It's just that I noticed a lot of players who are a bit confused about some of these things. Added the warning to the top so the vets won't read over what they already know.
Either way, whether I'm right (on shield not applying), or you're right (shield applies on right, and defense skill on left), for almost all the units there's no real difference (because they generally have 3-6 defense skill, and 3-6 armour, and units get all mixed up when fighting in the melee anyways. It still makes armour the most critical aspect.
Or it just might be units end up fighting with their left side facing the enemy (so shield doesn't apply very often). There has to be something to it for peasants to beat spear militia.

Korinthos Hoplites:
All the basic facts can definitely be drawn from the FAUST.
But the conclusions? Not really.

The stats are listed in-game as well, but a lot of people don't seem to understand exactly what the stats actually mean (and do).

[Korinthos Hoplites]

The conclusions can be drawn by anyone with an inch of brain and an hour of playing.

EDIT: if you look wisely to the combat you'll see men blocking with their shields.

EDIT2: perhaps the 'hidden stat' is mass value? In RTW it was 'hidden' and it played an important role in the outcome of a battle.

[Kalis]

Korinthos:
well... a lot of the things can easily be figured out, but for some reason people don't. A good example is economy, which a shockingly high number of players cannot grasp because they insist on keeping high upkeep armies everywhere.

As for the shield... I would argue that's more animation than actual battle effect. Because if it was, there's no way that peasants with 4/1, 0/4/0 beat spear militia, who are 5/2, 0/1/6.

Again, the venetian archer test I suggested above would be a good determinator in whether shields actually have any effect.

[maartenfabre]

wouldnt the easiest way to test this be to mod a copy of a unit, change the different stats and then let them fight against the original. that is the easiest way to see the result of the different stats

[zerathule]

Perhaps the 'hidden stat' is mass value? In RTW it was 'hidden' and it played an important role in the outcome of a battle.

By mass value you mean the last number of this line ? :

soldier Tlaxcalan_Archers, 48, 0, 0.8

I've tried to change for some units, but i really didnt saw any differences.
The problem is that "perception" of abilities is not accurate at all. The only way we could find out how things are dealt with is by doing hundreds of tests with the same parameters to be able to deduce accurate paterns.
Some people have proven with the 2hander bug fix that the animation clearly has an impact on combat effectiveness.
Now it would be good to know how much impact, and better have a mention in the unit stats and ability of their effectiveness (like fast attack, very accurate etc ...).
About the shield armor bonus, some people have claimed that shields dont have a lot of efficiency in melee as most soldiers are miwed up when fighting.
I doubt anyone has tried to push some tests on the subject (like a few dozen times at least) to have any accurate hypothesis on this mater.
I hope we'll get some official answers on all those hidden stats. I know some people dont care, but it hinders the game play, for me at least, since i like to know what i bring on the battlefield.
On this subject, has anyone saw an official post confirming of denying the fact that animations has a direct effect on combat resolution ?

[Trifler]

The conclusions can be drawn by anyone with an inch of brain and an hour of playing.

Despite what some people think, I found the original post very helpful. For the longest time I've been just looking at the overall Defense value and ignoring the breakdown because for all I knew the three values were just for history buffs and didn't actually have any effect in battle. I feel they should have allowed right-clicking on the individual stats to get a description of what each one means. Before reading this post I was theorizing that Defense Skill might affect the unit's chance to dodge a hit (since they dodge some hits in combat), but would have no effect when the unit actually got hit. Now that people are saying that it is added to armour when the unit is hit on the right side, I guess that means it's really a parry rather than a dodge.

[Zhou]

Please also note that there is a "shield bug" where shields are currently a BURDEN for the unit that carries it in melee combat. This is the reason that Peasants can kill Spear Militia. So in your example, the spearmen will have a negative defense rating (which is bumped to 0 automatically). This was first proven by The_Foz over on the .org site.

In regards to mass -- the mass of a unit is reflected in the game by how much "space" they take up basically, hence how heavy cavalry has a much greater mass than any other units in the game. I believe that this correlates to the splash damage that they do when charging (although I'm not quite sure as charge bonus might be a more meaningful measure).

[carlisimo]

I know all this information can be found elsewhere, but you made it easy to follow. Now I'm ready to read the deeper stuff.

Thanks!

[Andaran]

As a matter of these tricky game mechanics, I have manually worked around the entire stats of all units in my own personal mod. I have added 2 hit points to all units, but more importantly I have given all units 0 shield defence and slightly increased their respective armour. That way around spearmen are able to kill peasants.

I have also discovered that even if two units have the exact same stats, if one of than has swords and the other one spears, then the swordsmen will win fairly easy.

it was claimed that the shield portects cavalry charges, it is possible. But the main facttor indicating the impact on the casualities, is the mass of the unit. Spearmen have more mass thus they withstand charges.

[JaM]

Please also note that there is a "shield bug" where shields are currently a BURDEN for the unit that carries it in melee combat. This is the reason that Peasants can kill Spear Militia. So in your example, the spearmen will have a negative defense rating (which is bumped to 0 automatically). This was first proven by The_Foz over on the .org site.

In regards to mass -- the mass of a unit is reflected in the game by how much "space" they take up basically, hence how heavy cavalry has a much greater mass than any other units in the game. I believe that this correlates to the splash damage that they do when charging (although I'm not quite sure as charge bonus might be a more meaningful measure).

I think that this should be that way. Spearman in close combat equipped with that shield and 2.5m spear will be not very effective in melee,but he will be able to resist missile fire and keep cavalry at bay with his spear. That why all spear infantry always fought in formation and were killed imidiatelly after formation was broken. I know that Romans used large shields in melee, but they didnt use them with large swords. Gladius was stabbing sword and therefore was easy to use with large heavy shield in formation.

[Lusted]

I think that this should be that way. Spearman in close combat equipped with that shield and 2.5m spear will be not very effective in melee,but he will be able to resist missile fire and keep cavalry at bay with his spear.

No it's a bug, CA have confirmed it and are more than liely going to fix it in 1.2.

And if you are going to use an analogy from RTW, how about Triarii v Peasants. Triarii have long spears and large shields, so by your logic they should lose to peasants. They dont, and rightly beat peasants as a spear was a common wepaon even used in melee, and large shields could be rather useful defensively.

[JaM]

Ok, Lusted its a bug. But that Triarii comparation is not good. Triarii were armed same way as Greek Hoplites, only much later were rearmed same way as Principes and Hastati. They had a spear,but they had a galadius too. so in close combat, they were able to use gladius. Triarii would eat peasants alive as they were the elites. No way compare them to militia spearmen. Why i like the idea that shield should not provide in melee? because there is already stat for melee - defence stat. and none for missile protection. THere is no way how to model Pavise Cosbowmen realistically. Those big pavises were totally unusable in close combat, but if shield will provide a protection, they will be quite good in melee... (in reality, every Pavise Crossbowmen had at least one servant to help him with Pavise and load second Crossbow.

[Lusted]

Triarii in RTW did not have a gladius unless you used a mod. In normal RTw they just used a spear.

A shield is useful in melee, thats why most infantry used one.

[JaM]

I know that they didnt had it in RTW, in reality they had it. Large shield was effective in melee only because of Roman tactics and short sword, that didnt needed much space to work in melee.

[ruffeh]

i done a speed read on what u said, but i see no mention of units such as generals guard and units like hashashim that have 2 hit points

i think i know what it is but i let the expert tell me

[Mooncabbage]

I know that they didnt had it in RTW, in reality they had it. Large shield was effective in melee only because of Roman tactics and short sword, that didnt needed much space to work in melee.

The point was made in regard to game mechanics, not reality, and so you're point is moot.

Seems lame to me, that the DIRECTION of the attack should have a particular bearing on the outcome... obviously flanking or rear attacks should be, for the lack of a better word, better, but different defense values for attacks from the left or right seem... Pointless? I would like to think that Armour protected against melee and ranged attacks, shields protected against ranged attacks, and defensive skill protected against melee attacks in general, but I don't know. What is it here? Who is right? What applies to what?

[Caden335]

I just read over this and almost everything seems right except the defense. From my experience, I think the stats are slightly different. Armor is pretty simple: it's applied when you are hit by a weapon, be it an arrow or a sword. Defense skill is applied in melee, I think only when it is facing the attacker though.

The shield is where it gets interesting. I think, though I'm not sure, that it only applies if something hits the shield itself. The modeldb fs_test_shield seems to confirm this. If a weapon hits the shield, then the shield bonus is applied. Technically it applies in melee too, but most of the time the units are running through their 1v1 combat animations, and the shield is never actually in a blocking position. My guess is that if you made the shield value 60, then any arrow that hits the shield is useless, but it won't matter if it hits the person. This would make shields far more useful and effective.