How Bodyguard Sizes Work

[Serious Potato]

Jojo00182 and I have been looking into the math behind bodyguard unit sizes and wanted to share our results.

There is a 2014 post about this topic by Withwnar (link), but we have come to different conclusions and I did not want to necropost.

For the purpose of this article, I will be referring to the "max bg model count" as the maximum number of bodyguard soldiers a given general unit can regenerate to.

We have been testing on small unit size as it corresponds to the soldier count in the EDU. Multiply the results for your desired unit size. The multiplicators are: small 1.0, normal 1.25, large 1.88, huge 2.5

Different contributors to the bg size:

Base: The base is always the number of soldiers in that unit defined in the EDU.

PersonalSecurity: Each point = +1 max bg model count

BodyguardSize: Each point = +1 max bg model count. In contrast to Withwnar's and Kiliç Alì's findings we can not confirm that this attribute only adds 0.5 to the max bg model count.

Leader: The faction leader gets a hardcoded bonus of +6 to his max bg model count. The Factionleader trait grants +3 PersonalSecurity, which corresponds to a total of +9 to the max bg model count. Keep in mind that the leader & heir traits could have different effects depending on your mod.

Heir: The faction heir gets a hardcoded bonus of +4 to his max bg model count. The Factionheir trait grants +2 PersonalSecurity, which corresponds to a total of +6 to the max bg model count.

Officers: Officers count towards the limit, but do NOT get factored into the calculation of said limit.

Upper Boundary: The upper boundary for the max bg model count is 31. Many of you are probably familiar with the number 77 in that context, which is 31 x 2.5 (on huge unit size).

Alright, let's give some examples:

Example 1: A faction leader within a cavalry bg unit (same principle applies for all unit classes) has a max bg model count of 10 and his unit contains 2 officers. He will start the game with a displayed unit size of 12. The total bonus to his max bg model count is +9, +6 from being the leader and +3 from the PersonalSecurity attribute in his Factionleader trait. This bonus gets applied WITHOUT the officers, so we reach a total value of 19 for his limit. And sure enough, after a few turns he will reach an exact unit size of 19.

Example 2: A faction heir within an elephant bg unit has a max bg model count of 4 and no officers. Keep in mind that the max bg model count for elephant units is the actual elephants, not their riders. Applying the same principle, we add the bonuses to the max bg model count, this time not having to account for any officers, and reach a value of 4 + 4 + 2 = 10. The bg unit will reach a total of 10 elephants.


A practical application for the math behind it would be a trait that caps the bg unit size for certain generals. This can be especially desirable for very powerful low model count units, such as elephant generals who are leaders or heirs. Not only can they become quite overpowered with a high model count, but they might also drain their faction's treasury as those type of units are usually very expensive. Here is a blueprint for a pair of traits you could assign in those cases:

Trait CapLeaderBG
    Characters family
    Hidden

    Level Cap_Leader_BG
        Description Cap_Leader_BG_desc
        EffectsDescription Cap_Leader_BG_effects_desc
        Threshold 1

        Effect BodyguardSize -9

Trait CapHeirBG
    Characters family
    Hidden

    Level Cap_Heir_BG
        Description Cap_Heir_BG_desc
        EffectsDescription Cap_Heir_BG_effects_desc
        Threshold 1

        Effect BodyguardSize -6

Let us know if you have anything to add or came to different conclusions.

[es157]

Do negative values for BodyguardSize and PersonalSecurity produce any effects? Just wondering if I could use those to make a bodyguard the smallest possible.