Compare units here... first up: Order Foot vs Saracen Infantry

[JRock]

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~jinman/comparo1.jpg

From those stats alone it appears the Order Foot have better stats, although they cost 100 florin more.

The only other Muslim unit with 100men is the N00b Spearmen and they cost 200 florin less but their stats are even worse.

So basically the Muslim factions can field more units which helps make up the deficit in performance.

Basically a good balance. Also the Italian Infantry seem sort of pointless when for the same price you can get Order Foot with slightly better stats. The benefit comes when you want to field an army with 8 units of advanced spearmen, because with the Italians you can go with 4xOrderFoot and 4xItalianInfantry and avoid the price penalties for having more than 4 of one unit.

Although I can't think of many instances where one would want quite so many spearmen.

[This message has been edited by JRock (edited 09-09-2002).]

[FasT]

General Canditate....What does this mean?

[Kraxis]

How likely the unit is of producing a good general (to get rid of the hateful situation of ashi-generals).

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You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[MeSlayer]

I'm sure this is a dumb question, but what program are you using to view those stats JRock? Is it something universally available, or some program your clan cooked up for internal use?

[JRock]

I don't have a clan. It's from Wolf clan. It's nice, but this website is much better:
http://www.totalwarassembly.com/waracademy.cfm

[MeSlayer]

Oh well stupid me, I had seen that link in the fourms, but the layout of your screenie was a little different so i was hoping it was some kind of offline frontend that you were using. Oh well, back to loading this stuff up on my modem http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[pdoan8]

My guess is it is more preferable to be the commanding (of the whole army) unit over the one being compared with.


[This message has been edited by pdoan8 (edited 09-10-2002).]

[Puzz3D]

JRock,

Those two units are close, but compare the V1 Saracen inf (375 florins) against the V0 Order Foot (350 florins). The V1 Saracen will cost 375 and have 0 att, 4 def and 2 morale. It has 1 more combat point and is equal in all other stats to the Order Foot for 25 florins more. That extra combat point represents a 20% combat advantage for only 7% more florins. So, I would conclude that the Saracen inf is the better unit to buy, but they are close as you say. A 5th V1 Saracen would cost 425 which is 21% more than a V0 Order Foot. So, it's a toss up there if you want 5 spear inf unless you need the 75 florins for something else. Above 5 spear, you should definitely fill out with the Order Foot unit.

[JRock]

Interesting! Btw, how do you calculate how much a 1point increase in valour affects stats?

[Puzz3D]

+1 valor = +1 att, +1 def, +2 morale and cost 50% of the current unit value
+1 weapon = +1 att and costs 30%
+1 armor = +1 def, +1 armor and costs 35%

[ShadeHonestus]

Quote Originally posted by Puzz3D:
+1 valor = +1 att, +1 def, +2 morale and cost 50% of the current unit value
+1 weapon = +1 att and costs 30%
+1 armor = +1 def, +1 armor and costs 35%[/QUOTE]

I had been busy making a unit selection tool that would allow people to choose these upgrades without being in the game and also a printer friendly version. However it seems these numbers and calculations only hold true until you reach plus 2 armor and plus 3 weapon. Then the calculations start deviating by at least a point or two.

Does anybody know the precise equation or how many decimal points are used in the game for calculation. Thats the one variable that may correct this...

[Puzz3D]

ShadeHonestus,

I just checked Chiv Knights 5/5/7.5/8 at various upgrades all the way up to V4 W3 A3 which gives 12/12/10.5/16 att/def/armor/morale and it looks fine except for a starting value for armor of 7.5. That unit is supposed to have armor = 7 to start. On what units are you seeing a deviation?

[ShadeHonestus]

Thanks for your help in this Puzz.
So far I have been testing with many units.

Lets use the basic Archer at a base cost of 225.

Everything is correct when I populate a table until I usually get to Weapon 3, Armor 2,(Valor 0). (its at Weapon 3 Armor 2 that I usually deviate in all instances of Valor).

The equation for that cell is:

BasicUnitCost * 1.3 * 1.3 * 1.3 * 1.35 * 1.35

I get 901 rounding respectively like I have with the other cells, but MTW says cost is 900.

If I increase valor to 1
I get the cost of 1351 while MTW has it at 1349.

I've noticed this point of deviation with most units I've done. I'm probably just missing something incredibly elementary.

[andrewt]

Try converting it to hex before solving and rounding differently. I tried round and round down after each addition but it gave different answers.

[ShadeHonestus]

Okay, I'll give hex a whirl.

I was rounding only the final product of each equation and was correct to the point I stated above...

[Puzz3D]

ShadeHonestus,

Here is how I think the game comes up with 1349 for V1 W3 A2 archers (225 florin base).

In Shogun the honor, weapon and armor upgrades were all calculated separately from the base and then added together. This has been changed by longjohn to be proportional to the current value of the unit to prevent low base cost units from receiving excessively cheap upgrades in all 3 categories. However, I suspect that the underlying algorithm derives from the one used in Shogun. If you compute the upgrades in the order valor, weapon and armor but round before computing the next one, you get 1348.6 for a final answer, and rounded it becomes 1349.

Here is how it would work out for V1 W3 A2:
225 * 1.5 = 337.5
337 * 1.3 * 1.3 * 1.3 = 740.4
740 * 1.35 * 1.35 = 1348.6

If you change the order of the computations it does not give you the same answer.

[ShadeHonestus]

Quote Originally posted by Puzz3D:
ShadeHonestus,

Here is how I think the game comes up with 1349 for V1 W3 A2 archers (225 florin base).

Here is how it would work out for V1 W3 A2:
225 * 1.5 = 337.5
337 * 1.3 * 1.3 * 1.3 = 740.4
740 * 1.35 * 1.35 = 1348.6

If you change the order of the computations it does not give you the same answer.

[/QUOTE]


So basically, it really it comes down to rounding each subtotal to one decimal point, then adding them together.
In your calculation above did you leave the numbers within the calculation or did you round between?

If not, then all I have to do is add a mask to represent only the one decimal point and I can still multiply in one expression without the need to add.

[Puzz3D]

No. You round each subtotal to a whole number before computing the next upgrade in the sequence. The sequence is: valor, weapon, armor. There is no adding except for the fact that multiplication is really just a form of addition. The single decimal place in each subtotal is just me rounding to one place, but I should have given more decimal places because a number like 337.51 would round to the integer 338, but 337.50 would round to the interger 337. However, in this case, there were no numbers like that. If the calculation is being done in 16 bit, floating point, signed arithmetic, then you probably have about 10 bits for the mantissa with the rest going to the exponent and one for the sign bit. That would give 3 decimal places of accuracy. If it's being done in 32 bit arithmetic then you would have something like 8 decimal places.

[spmetla]

Lets not forget that Saracen Infantry are able to be built while Order foot soldiers only appear from Crusades.
I guess for custum games it isn't fair though.