Elite and Disciplined Units

[Xaltaer]

Check out my post here:

http://p223.ezboard.com/fshogun....9.topic (http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm5.showMessage?topicID=14059.topic)

Basically, I have run alot of tests, and Elite and Disciplined Units take on a full morale penalty when ANY other nearby friendly units rout. I think this is a major bug that nobody has noticed for the past 2 years, and just assume that it is fine. (and I've done searches, and not even the hardcore MP players have noticed it, except one poster named Schrodinger's Cat sorta noticed it). Basically, if you go into custom mode and set up a good test like this one:

For example, one test involves taking Urban Militia (non-E non-D) and Byz Inf (non-E, but D), which both start off at 0 morale, then putting them into loose formation, making them very tired, giving them 50% casualties. Then I line them up, and put a long line of pairs of peasants in front of them. Then I rout the peasants right through the Urban Militia and Byz Inf (yes I have checked to make sure it is all symmetrical and whatnot). The Urban Militia and Byz Inf go uncertain at the exact same time, go wavering at the exact same time, and rout at the exact same time.

It becomes obvious that the Elite and Disciplined status is broken. I'm running MTW + VI + 2.01. Unfortunately, it is hard to get this noticed in the appropriate places. I wish I could get it to the Jousting Forums, since they are the ones who seem to care about such things, but I can't post there.

Anyway, if anybody just runs some tests in custom mode, they will find out that Elite and Disciplined status doesn't make a difference (except Disciplined does prevent the panic when general dies).

Thanks.

[Papewaio]

Where is your elite unit?

Elite ignore non-elite routing.

Disciplined means they are easier to control on the battlefield... they don't go charging off when you tell them to hold position.

[motorhead]

disciplined units do cycle thru the Ignore units that are not disciplined or elite attribute when on the battle map.

Here's a repost of my own tests (also in the linked thread) which shows there is a difference between disciplined and non-disc. troops:

steppesinland1 map, summer, temperate, normal difficulty, time limit off, morale on, fatigue on.
Player: 1 kat (general), 1 byzinf, 1 UM, 12 peasants (all V0)
AI 3 ballista (V4 - just to make sure they stay on the field)

- immediately withdrew kat (general's unit get +2 morale, and if he routs immediate -8 morale to army. so just remove him from the equation).
- form two groups of 6 peasants plus either the UM/BI. set them a fair distantce apart to isolate their reactions to routing friendlies. peasants formed up in a straight line with the UM/BI behind and directly in the middle
- all units show as zero morale on F1
- routed the peasants in pairs - one from each group, from the same position in each line:
== after one pair, both UM/BI remain steady
== after 2nd pair, UM uncertain, BI steady
== after 3rd pair, both uncertain
== routed remaining 3 pairs, both uncertain.

- slight surprise that BI went uncertain at 3 routing peasants. Given the low starting morale, 1.5 routers (taking into consideration their disciplined status) may have been enough to push them down to the lower morale state. Perhaps if both UM/BI were given +1V the results would be different.

[Xaltaer]

As for Byz Inf being steady while Urban Militia went uncertain, I also found that there was some slight variation in time, but all in all they took on the same status at about the same time. When I made effort to bring their morale to Uncertain pre-rout, and then routed a mass of peasants through them, they began to rout at the same time. If there was a difference, it was very slight. I don't think it was close to a 1/2 negation.

It's best to see when they rout. The morale level for routing is so low that it makes it much easier to measure and get substantial results. If there was a 1/2 negation, then they shouldn't have routed anywhere close to the same time.

[Papewaio]

What is the base morale of a Byz Infantry and a Urban Miltia?

Again note that it is Elite that ignore non-elite routing.

Field an elite unit in the test and see what happens.

[katank]

hmm, maybe because you routed them in pairs, it would register more.

had it been a single unit routing, the byz inf woudl have considered it half a unit while the UM would consider it a full unit.

perhaps at that time, having a full unit rout was already enough and the effect on the byz inf is the same as that on the UM which saw 2 units running.

1 unit breaking point, perhaps?

I agree that you should test it with elite units.

[Maeda Toshiie]

What is the base morale of a Byz Infantry and a Urban Miltia?

Both base morale is 0

Again note that it is Elite that ignore non-elite routing.

Did the same test as Motorhead, but with additional v0 varangian guard, and both BI and urbies at v1.

Both BI and urbies went uncertain at the same time when averaged out.

VG steady all the way, but the worried by routing friends message appears.

[Xaltaer]

Again note that it is Elite that ignore non-elite routing.

Ok, so far on this thread and the other thread I have gotten this suggestion like three times. There is a lack of understanding about how Elite and Disciplined units work (probably because there are so few Disciplined and Elite+Disciplined units. Please read what I put down on the other thread:

Elite Units display Ignore Routers who aren't Elite

Disciplined Units display Ignore Routers who aren't Elite or Disciplined (also not be panicked by the death of a general, but that works completely fine)

Both Elite units and Disciplined units should ignore friendly routing non-elite, non-disciplined units.

A Byz Inf unit should ignore a friendly routing Urban Militia unit.

Either way I've done tests with Elite units and it does the same thing.

[motorhead]

Just to clarify my tests, when I said I routed the peasants in pairs, i said a pair was one from each group - i.e. one peasant from the UM's line, one peasant from the BI's line == 2 peasants total or a pair, I did not mean to imply I routed two from each line (i.e. 4 peasants). In my tests the UM went uncertain after 2 peasant units were routed while it took 3 peasant units for the BI to go uncertain. If there were no difference between disc. and non-disc. they should have gone into the uncertain state at the same time - which they didn't.

edit: ran some more tests with the same roster (1 kat general, 1 UM, 1 BI, 12 peasants, all V0), same settings as before. This time i didn't withdraw the general.
- I formed two seperate groups of 6 peasants plus either the UM or BI. Peasants set in double-line formation (formation 3) with the UM/BI directly behind this line.
- I routed one peasant from each group simultaneously.
- UM went uncertain after 2 peasant units in front of them were routed
- BI went uncertain after 4 peasant units in front of them were routed

-- I repeated the test with V1 UM and BI. This time both UM and BI went uncertain after 5 peasant units were routed from their groups

-- I repeated the test with V2 UM and BI. Oddly, at the start of the test the UM were impetuous while the BI were steady. (I forgot to note if their morale state was lowered when peasants routed - sue me)

*NOTE - i don't know why in my first set of tests the BI went uncertain at 3 routing peasants but it took 4 in my 2nd round of tests. I was careful to space the two groups apart so there would be no spillover effect from routing peasants. I also made sure to rout the peasants quickly (pause, rout, un-pause for 1 sec, check UM/BI for change, pause, repeat) to ensure the routers didn't get too far away (and hence have no morale effect).

====================================================

- obviously, disciplined and elite units don't ignore lesser units, despite what the in-game message says. The official stratguide does state that elite/disc. units consider lesser unit types to be only half a unit but even this doesn't always hold true. However, if there was NO difference between disc. and non-disc. units, I think the tests with V0 units should have resulted in both units going uncertain at the same time - which they didn't.

- The in-game info and even the official strat-guide aren't perfect so I don't try to hold the game to strict adherence. If we believed all the in-game info, we should be clamoring for CA to implement compound bows, since that's in the unit description for Treb archers - instead we just know that trebs use SBOWS like every other archer (except longbows who did get a seperate LBOW in the projectilestats file). I don't consider these major bugs, just undocumented features http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif

[Ludens]

In old Shogun, it was said that samurai do not get afraid of fleeing ashigaru. But samurai did get a morale penalty when ashigaru routed, though it was a minor one. The penalty for fleeing samurai was much greater.

It's probably the same here: elite and disciplined units do take note of fleeing non-elites, but it won't scare them as much.

This is pretty much what Motorhead said.

[Puzz3D]

I ran four tests in custom battle, and it supports what Xaltaer is saying. I don't know if these results apply to multiplayer. This was the test:

Arid, flat map, fair weather, 7 peasants and 1 general. I chose the Scorpion formation because that puts the 7 peasants in a line in front of the general's unit. I edited the stats so that the general's unit type had morale = 0. This means the general's unit should have +2 morale to start each test, but some other tests indicate it might be different than that. In any case, it should be the same for each unit type tested. I tested Urban Malitia, Byz infantry, Order Foot and Knights Templar as the general's unit. After hitting begin, I routed different numbers of peasants. I know from previous testing that a routing unit inflicts a fixed morale penalty on any friendly units within a 1.8 tile radius. It doesn't matter if the routing unit passes through the friendly unit or not. I ran each test more than once to make sure the results were repeatable. I restarted for each test and each test repeat to keep the initial conditions constant. I know there is a hysteresis in the system of at least 2 points and morale bonuses for supporting units. Those bonuses can stick on a unit after it moves away from supporting units due to the hyseresis. Since I started my test with the general's unit behind the peasants, it didn't get any morale support bonuses from them.

In every case, the general's unit started out as steady and remained steady with up to 5 peasants routing, but went to uncertain when 6 peasants were routing. It didn't matter whether the general's unit was undisciplined, disciplined or elite. I also ran a 5th test with the Knights Templar general where I substituted feudal foot knights for the peasants. It didn't make any difference. With 5 foot knights routing the templar general remained steady, but with 6 foot knights routing it went to uncertain.

So it looks like the feature doesn't work. My multiplayer experience has always indicated that there was some kind of morale penalty being felt by units who saw friendly routers no matter what type of units were involved. I can't say I'm surprised that the text messages about disciplined and elite are wrong with regard to routers.

[Papewaio]

So the elite/disciplined status is broken or the tickertape does not accurately reflect the morale status of elite/disciplined.

Just wondering if you have an elite and a non-elite in the backline with the same morale, whom will wimp out first?

[barocca]

both will whimp out together

[katank]

interesting. that only backs up ideas that buffed units like v4 MS are powerful as so what if they aren't elite or disciplined

[Petronius]

It looks like, Does not care about x routing unit isn't actually true, but effected by a variety of factors. Which makes sense, I guess. I'm happy that CA made it more realistic than portraying disciplined/elite troops as superhuman.

[CBR]

Hm yesterday I made a few quick tests with UM and BI that showed a difference: 2 routing peasants was enough to make UM uncertain while it took 3 for the BI.

Today I ran some more tests with BI only and modded away their disciplined status to see if there was a difference.

Army was BI general and 7/8 peasants and I used the Scorpion formation too.

Unmodded BI started as steady and took 3 routing peasants before goting to uncertain. Ran several battles and got same result but saw a difference when I routed the leftmost peasant. That unit was over one tile away and didnt seem to effect the BI. I switched to 7 peasants in army and then neither left or right peasant seemed too far away.

I modded away the disciplined status and then it took only 2 routing peasants before BI turned uncertain.

A few times I let the routing peasants pass by the BI to see when the effect stopped and that seemed to be about 1.8 tiles before BI stopped worrying about them and it went back to steady.

I tried a few times with more peasants and routing only those that was more than a tile away (but less than 1.8) and it did look like it had no effect on BI general.


CBR

[Puzz3D]

The Strategy Guide says that units consider lower level routers as half a unit for this calculation. I did one more test and made the general a peasant. I changed peasant morale to 0 in the stat file. Now I see a slight difference in my routing test. The general's unit goes from steady to uncertain at 5 routing peasants rather than 6 in the uban militia, Byz infantry, orderfoot and templar tests. Could it be that the undisciplined, disciplined and elite units are considering the 100 man peasant as 50 men which is so close to the foot knight's 40 men and that the test shows no difference, but teh peasant gen sees the peasants as 100 men? I don't think I made an error in modifying the stat file, but I recheck it later.


CBR,

When I choose Scorpion formation the peasants are all in a line slightly forward of the general and not more than 2 tiles wide which puts them all within 1 tile of the general. I've switched to 12 peasants for further testing and their line is still not more than 2 tiles wide. There supposedly is a morale bonus for not being in the vicinity of enemy units, and that bonus might also depend on the number of friendly units in the vicinity. It's possible that the starting morale of your BI general is lower than in my setup. I already have indications that my gen is starting with something higher than morale 2 despite my editing the honor stat to be 0 for each unit type that I use as the gen.

[Papewaio]

So need to make a set of identical vanilla units with the only difference being elite/disciplined... need four versions.

Also as their may be extra factors at play don't use the general (what if the general is automatically considered a quasi-elite).

So
non-elite/ non disciplined
non-elite/ disciplined
elite/ non disciplined
elite/ disciplined

[Puzz3D]

Yes, and I think you can expidite the testing by using the replay feature. Create your initial setup with the test unit behind a line of units, such as 12 peasants, that you are going to rout. Deploy the general's unit far away from this setup so he doesn't introduce morale bonuses. It's helpful to do the deployment as quickly as possible so you aren't waiting a long time for the test to start each time you run the replay. Start the battle and rout the peasants one by one in quick succession. I've made several tests with units routed simultaneously and in succession and didn't observe any difference in the morale penalty on the test unit which was the general in my tests. You have to get the last one routed before the first one gets beyond 1.8 tiles. You can then modify the test unit's elite/disciplined stat and run the replay for each of the 4 settings and observe how many routing units cause the test unit to become uncertain. In this way, the conditions of the test are identical except for the parameter you are changing. I believe you have to restart the game between each run so that the newly edited stats are loaded into memory.

[CBR]

I just checked again. If its banner to banner then there is slightly more than one tile distance from the left peasant to BI banner with 8 peasants. I routed the left peasant and it had an effect when I used 7 peasants but not with 8 peasants.


CBR

[Puzz3D]

Well 7 peasants isn't the same as 8 peasants. Something might be going on to alter the starting morale of the test unit when a different number of friendly units are around. You can't see the exact starting morale of the test unit.

[CBR]

I saw same effect using both 7 and 8 peasants.

Just now I made test with 7 peasants but deployed BI to the right so 2 peasants were more than 1 tile away and had no morale effect even when routing both peasants. So I ended up routing 5 peasants before getting to uncertain. If I routed the ones closer to the BI I still only needed 3.


CBR

[Puzz3D]

Ok, this is more complex than we thought. I see the apparent lack of effect of routing the end units in that scorpion setup. However, I also see a difference depending on the number of peasants on the board. Using an Urban Militia general which is steady to start and keeping all routed peasants withing 1 tile:

with 1 peasant, gen remains steady with 1 routed
with 2 peasants, gen goes uncertain with 2 routed
with 3 peasants, gen goes uncertain with 3 routed
with 7 peasants, gen goes uncertain with 5 routed
with 12 peasants, gen goes uncertain with 8 routed

In addition, with 2 peasants (one positioned less than 1 tile in front of the gen and the second positioned more than 2 tiles in front of the gen) I routed the first and then the second in quick succession. The Urban Militia gen went uncertain when the second peasant got within 1.8 tiles, and the gen didn't return to steady until the second peasant was more than 1.8 tiles behind by which time the first peasant was even futher away.

[Sociopsychoactive]

You are forgetting another set of moral bonusses/penalties.

Bonus for outnumbering the enemy, I can't remember the stats, but it's larger the more you outnumber them, outnumbered 2-1, 3-1, 4-1 and so-on.

Also, penalty for destruction of your army, (routing counts as destroyed for this) 30% of army, I think 50% ad 70%. The stats should be in froggy's guide or searchable.

I will see if i can find the time to run the tests with an equal number of enemy, and get my units to rout and test befoe the enemy get close enough to inflict a penalty of their own.

[Puzz3D]

It isn't the outnumbered penalty causing this because that penalty has a range limit, and I'm nowhere near the enemy which is a stationary ballista. There is a +4 morale bonus for no enemy nearby, but that's a constant. I think destruction of the army refers to casualties, but you're right that there is definitely some other effect coming in to play.

[LestaT]

Interesting to read. Anyway don't understand much of the terminology. Don't find it important though as my armies are never routed (yet).... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[I]to kill or to be kill.... life is preferable to death..