Valour, Explained?

[Demequis]

Hi guys,

I've been reading these forums and I've seen a lot of questions about valour, how it is calculated...how it applies to a unit...etc. I read frogbeast's guides and the intro section documents. Very helpful I don't think I've ever seen the mechanics of valour laid forth in a post however.
How is valour calculated? each unit has a "kills to level" column? What does this mean? And how do these kills to level go up as a unit rises in valour, or do only high valour kills count? etc....

I'm really curious about this. Thanks a lot

[el_slapper]

each valour point adds 1 point of attack & defence, in other words adds 20/100 bonus to hit/to survive.

The bonus is exponential, not flat. a 2 valour bonus adds 44/100 to the kill probability.

I do not have VI, therefore I guess the "kill to level feature" is from VI. Simply said :
-The game keeps track of the valour of each soldier.
-The unit valour is an average value from people in the unit.
-Every kill counts, but some more than others(killing a king once skyrocketed 1 lone billman from 0 to 6, while others in the unit remained at zero).
-Each valour level costs the double(in total kills) than the previous one.

[The_Emperor]

So 1 Valour Point has the same effect as a seperate Weapon and Armour Upgrade? (With an extra Morale Bonus of course)

[Sociopsychoactive]

Yep, one valour point counts like an armour and weapon bonus, with the moral as an added axtra, but there are other bonusses aswell.

Ranged units accuracy goes up with valour. Tho the amount is small, you will notice the difference if you do a custom battle and pit an artillery piece of valour 0 against an exact same artillery piece of valour 4.

When shooting at walls it makes it far more effective, but when shooting at smaller targets, towers and men, you will still seem to be rather innacurate, especially at longer range.

I always assumed that the valour worked on an experience style scale. Each kill adds the value of the unit killed to the scale (taking the killed units valour and rank and type into account). Every kill does not necessarily add a point of valour to the unit that performed the kill, just adds onto the scale untill it reaches the value for the next valour point.

General granted valour still gives +1 attack and defence, but as far as I know does NOT give the +2 moral bonus. However, units in very close proximity to the general will gain a moral bonus (immpressed buy the generals reputation) which equates roughly to the moral based valour bonus, and the bonus diminishes with distance, theres a thread or two listing the numbers for distances and bonusses for generals stars but you may have to search for them.

I also am pretty sure the circumastances of the kill affect valour gained. Charging head on into a unit gains you more valour, even if its a foolish move like cavalry into spearmen. Killing (or rather apturing) routing troops incurs less valour, but you still get some, and still seem to gain more for head on attacks (into the front of the routing unit, not into the back).

THe way it seems then is you gain valour like experience, and you gain more experience for being honourable, noble and downright stupid.

Just my opinion, I may well be wrong.

[katank]

general induced valour also appear to not improve the missle units' accuracy as in bridge battles in kiev vs. mongols, my catapult's kills went from 27 to 58 in gaining 1 valour for the battle whereas it had 4 valour from the general as base so I think that general induced valour doesn't affect missles.

also, the kills to gain valour is kinda strange in that kills are counted differently. In my unit of halbs during that bridge battles, one that gained four valour had 5 less than 1 that gained three valour.

Also, I think there may be a cap on valour during a battle as one of them killed 45 and only gained 5 valour.

lol, that's like a whole unit of mongol cav by a lone halb.

[Kristaps]

Quote[/b] (Sociopsychoactive @ Feb. 24 2004,08:07)]Yep, one valour point counts like an armour and weapon bonus, with the moral as an added axtra, but there are other bonusses aswell.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

1 valor point is not exactly like a combination of +1 armor and +1 weapon... The armor upgrades also improve protection against missiles besides giving a +1 defense bonus whereas higher valor does not affect the chance of getting killed by a flying stick with a sharp point...

The defense bonus from valor will not bog a unit down when deployed in the desert whereas the armor will.

On a similar note, a unit with higher valor will have better chance against armor piercing units than the same unit that has achieved the same defense level not through valor improvment but through armor upgrade.

I just love that handball...

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/handball.gif

[Demequis]

I appreciate you guys responding, thanks
However all of this information is in the beginner's guide. Does anyone know the formula for how a unit actually gains valour? We all know that by slaughtering low valour units with your v8 JHI they won't rise in valour (right?), whereas 0 valour troops battling the same units will get a valour gain...can someone explain the mechanics of this in the game?
I understand that valour is calculated for each individual soldier. So what I am asking is how does the game determine the "valour" of any given soldier? I've seen people mention that a king is worth "50 kills" and a prince is worth somewhat less.... Does the amount of kills for a soldier to "level" increase exponentially as they rise in valour?

Thanks

[Yoko Kono]

its the same as shogun i believe ie 1 kill 1 valour, 2 kills 2 valour, 4 kills 3 valour, 8 kills 4 valour, 16 kills 5 valour, 32 kills 6 valour, however im pretty sure killing captives dosent grant valour and i think killing higher valour soldiers gives more than 1 kill point
valour is calculated on a per man basis with the unit valor the average valour of all men in said unit
command is calculated on the same basis although having said all that im sure there are also some hidden factors at work as it doesnt always seem to add up the way it did in shogun

[Chaffers]

It depends on the unit, and what it's killing. For missile units it appears that the individual troops, as a rough guide, will go to 1 valour after 120 kills and 2 valour after 240 kills. This works well as a rule as the troops rarely go far above this on missile kills alone, the exception being the seige units. Each soldier gets 1 valour with his first kill and 2 valour with his second, though if you notice the number of kills per volley it will seldom top 6 even against peasants. In other words if you leave them firing long enough then they will advance quite nicely...

For other units it depends on their status, as opposed to missile kills which don't seem to take this into account. For instance if you play a spear line against a unit of Royal Knights you'll rarely find that any single spearman will get more than 1 kill, yet those individual spearmen go straight to 3 or 4 valour. On the other hand the Kiniguts have to chop their way through several spearmen, usually 5 or 6, to get their second rank. Its not just the cost of the unit though, elite units get very little valour from chopping peasants to pieces, indeed they will often need 15-20 of the beggars to advance to 3rd level. Try playing a bridge battle with a single unit of Gallows against 3200 peasants.... The Gallows tend to win but rarely come out of the battle with more than 1 valour as a unit. Watch the way the Gallows fight and you'll see why, individual troops detach themselves after being attacked and go on the rampage, often smashing their way through 30-40 peasants before perishing. Those individuals tend to die with 4 or 5 valour, but don't increase the valour of the unit one iota due to their Norwegian Blue status.

Try the same battle again with upgraded Handgunners and you'll see a slightly different story, the Handgunners still come out on top but fight in a slightly more cohesive way keeping the valour in the ranks. They also go up in valour much more quickly due to their non-elite status, though slaughtering peasants dosnt give anyone all that much valour.

Generally speaking the only units which do the killing are the front rank, unless a real furball develops as it often does with polearm weapons. In other words your CMAA who appear to be 1 valour probably has a front rank at 3 or 4 valour with the rest being pretty much green. Some git stations a couple of units of arbs which take out said front rank and the whole thing falls apart. Trouble is CMAA are elite and therefore take a long time to go up in valour.

If you really want to get a unit to high valour then they either need to be a general unit (V+Vs plus the many lives of the general which leads to v high valour after time) or a low ranking unit capable of taking the big boys out on its day. Elite units probably only get 1/4 of the effect of killing peasants et al whereas low ranking scumbags get a great deal of valour for slaughtering tired and grumpy elites who are losing the battle. In a complete unit of h2h troops it is generally only the front rank which fights, so unless you charge in line abreast to try to get all of your troops a kill or two its always going to be a long slog.

Hmm...It also matters how the unit was killed, look at the log files and you'll see that unit x got 7 kills and 3 valour, whereas unit y got 9 kills and only 2 valour.... You'll often see, even with evenly matched units, that individual troops get the lions share of the kills. This is simply because a) they are on the front rank and b) they fluked early kills which gained them valour, therefore giving them a big advantage in the later fight...

Hope some of that makes sense, I'll blame the Tetley's else

[Kaboom]

Quote[/b] (Demequis @ Feb. 25 2004,14:22)] I've seen people mention that a king is worth "50 kills" and a prince is worth somewhat less.... Does the amount of kills for a soldier to "level" increase exponentially as they rise in valour?
King, Prince, and generals have more than one "life", or it is called "health". The "health" is refilled after battle, so you may risk their lifes a bit when you need

Not sure about the default health of King-prince-general though.

[motorhead]

Quote[/b] ] Not sure about the default health of King-prince-general though.

See this thread about hitpoints. (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=7;t=9867)