Missile Attack Index

I've been wanting to quantify the impact of various missile units in "combat conditions" in RTW. Now that friendly fire is fixed we can use units properly in skirmish mode (horse archers have some issues, but they aren't plugging their own anymore.) So now seems a good time to get a feel for the innate missile capability of typical units. I came up with a rather simple formula to use as a rough index of a missile units relative strength. It factors missile attack, range, and skirmish/reaction zone.

It is a relative scale for determining how much damage a missile unit can be expected to cause vs. an advancing enemy before it is forced to withdraw. Melee is not considered, nor are any special abilities, nor ability to flee and re-engage with missiles, etc. Pila units are not included since they have armour piercing and are melee units. (The basic relationship even holds for armoured and shielded units, although the kill rate falls about four fold going from 0/0 armour/shield to 4/5 in some tests.)

It is fairly easy to calculate:
Missile Attack Factor = missile attack rating * unit size * (max range - reaction zone)

Reaction zone is assumed to be 30

The Factor is then converted to a Missile Attack Index by using the weakest missile unit, Libyan Mercenaries (5 attac, 50 range, 40 men) as 1, the baseline. Divide all values by the factor for the Libyan mercs. and you have the unit Index.

Here are some sample Index values:
Libyan Mercs = 1
Peltasts = 1.2
Heavy Peltasts = 1.4
Skirmisher Warband = 1.8
Slingers = 2
Merc Slingers = 8.1
Archers = 6.3
Egyptian Bowmen (oversized unit) = 9.5
Archer Auxilia = 12.6
Cretan Archers = 15.4
Chosen Archers = 16.8
Pharaoh's Bowmen = 19.6
Forester Warband = 21
Scythian Horse Archers = 4.3

As you can see, slingers are really shortchanged vs. archers. And all of the long range units have a lot of killing power. I did a test with archer auxilia (9 missile, 170 range) vs. chosen axemen and the axemen were nearly eliminated before reaching them--falling from 82 men to 23. The new shield usage while marching has noticeable impact on archer accuracy though since hastati only declined from 81 to 71 vs. the auxilia.

Note: This is not a pure killing potential measurement, it doesn't factor in the number of missiles available, nor armour piercing.

I posted this about the same time as the patch came out (after we had the readme and info on the FF fix.) I haven't gotten around to retesting everything, but I was fooling around with projectile stats and thought some folks might be interested in some calculations of range limits.

These are the ideal theoritical limits I calculate for the max range in the game for various projectiles on level ground. Higher values can be put into the unit stats, but from what I can tell the unit won't be able to fire that far, because the speed is listed in a seperate file by weapon type.

Max. Range
Javelins = 92 meters
Pila = 64 meters
Slinger stones/bullets = 367 meters
Arrows = 235 meters
Scorpion projectiles = 826 meters

Note that many weapons use the same velocity as the slingers (60 m/sec): boulders/darts/axes/bolts/ballistae.

I have not confirmed most of these in the field, although I did notice that javelins fell considerably short of 120 when I experimented with that particular value next to an archer unit.

How do you figure range?

I have been trying , with custom battles, to verify whether or not there are range differences between archer units; and if so, what the difference is.

The motivation for my research is that some folks swear that there is a significant range difference between some archer units from different factions. My anectdotal evidence seems to agree: with Foresters seemingly out-ranging Roman Archer Auxilia on the campaign game. Others say there is not any difference at all: That all archer units in RTW 1.5 (no mods) is "170." 170 what? 170 meters, 170 yards, 170 meters/sec, or some contrived unit of measure?

Anyone have any insight into this?

Thanks!

Some archers have better range than others. The easist way is going through the units in export_descr_unit.txt located in Rome - Total War\Data or Rome - Total War\bi\data in the line stat_pri.

Range is in meters.


CBR