Armor Upgrades Work Properly

I don't know if this debate was already settled previously, but if not - I've just done some tests which confirm that the Armor Upgrades function properly, it is merely the numbering in the unit descriptions which is incorrect.

For those unfamiliar with the question at hand. Armour is in 7 levels.
Lvl 0 = Flesh, 0 defense
Lvl 1 = Leather/Padded, 4 defense
Lvl 2 = Light Mail/Chain, 6 defense
Lvl 3 = Heavy Mail/Breastplate, 7 defense
Lvl 4 = Partial Plate, 8 defense
Lvl 5 = Full Plate, 10 defense
Lvl 6 = Advanced Plate, 11 defense
Now, this means that when you upgrade the armour on a light unit - from say lvl 0 to lvl 1, you should notice a 4 point increase in defense. However, the ingame description will only show you a 1 point increase. Thus, the question becomes, is the proper armour value being used, and not reported correctly - or is the game using the value shown and causing units to not benefit fully from armor upgrades?

In all tests I used Normal unit size, Medium difficulty, a single unit of player controlled Desert Archers firing upon a unit of computer controlled Pikemen, and the Grassy Plains map. Nothing was clicked, I de-selected Skirmish mode before starting the battle, then allowed the archers to fire upon the pikemen until melee was reached, at which point I exited battle and recorded pikemen remaining...

Test 1: Desert Archers vs. unaltered Pike Militia (Defense vs Arrows: 0)

Battle I: 21, Battle II: 31, Battle III: 33, Battle IV: 30, Battle V: 22, Average: 27.4

Test 2: Desert Archers vs. gold armour upgrade Pike Militia (Defense vs Arrows Listed: 3, Proper Defense vs Arrows: 7)

Battle I: 41, Battle II: 48, Battle III: 50, Battle IV: 45, Battle V: 41, Average: 45

Difference: 17.6

Test 3: Desert Archers vs. unaltered Tercio Pikemen (Defense vs Arrows: 0)

Battle I: 24, Battle II: 22, Battle III: 21, Battle IV: 16, Battle V: 29, Average: 22.4

Test 4: Desert Archers vs. silver armour upgrade Tercio Pikemen (Defense vs Arrows Listed: 2, Proper Defense vs Arrows: 7)

Battle I: 40, Battle II: 46, Battle III: 49, Battle IV: 40, Battle V: 47, Average: 44.4

Difference: 22

Test 5: Desert Archers vs. unit file altered Pike Militia (Defense vs. Arrows: 3)

Battle I: 37, Battle II: 36, Battle III: 38, Battle IV: 37, Battle V: 28, Average: 35.2

Difference from Test 1: 7.8
Difference from Test 2: 9.8

Adding three points to the Pike Militia directly gave results in-between the unaltered Pike Militia and the upgraded Pike Militia. Clearly then, the upgrade raised the armour of the Pike Militia by 7 points, not 3. Also, it is plain that upgrading the Tercio Pikemen resulted in an additional 7 points of defense, not 2. Two points of defense is not sufficient to explain an average difference of 22 men in the time it takes a pike unit to close to melee.

The results are clear to me. If anyone disagrees, please do your own tests and post them.

FURTHER CONFIRMATION:

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Originally Posted by tests by pat the magnificent

1 unit of pike militia (player) vs 1 unit of peasant archers (computer)

normal unit sizes. grassy plain, 3 sets of 10 tests. archer's ammo capacity reduced to 10. pike militia taken out of spear wall and defensive stance. clear weather for all tests.

Set 1, unmodified pike militia with 3 armor upgrades. (armor stats says 3, should be 7)

Men Remaining
test 1= 57, test 2= 50, test 3=52, test 4= 50, test 5=50, test 6=53, test 7=46, test 8=54, test 9=56, test 10=51.

average men remaining= 51.9

Set 2, modified pike militia with armor stat set to 8, no armor upgrades. (armor stat 8)

test 1=55, test 2=55, test 3=61, test 4=57, test 5=56, test 6=54, test 7=54, test 8=55, test 9=57, test 10=63

average men remaining= 56.7

a difference of 4.8

Set 3, modified pike militia with armor stat set to 3, no upgrades. (armor stat 3)

test 1=47, test 2=46, test 3=46, test 4=44, test 5=45, test 6=46, test 7=44, test 8=48, test 9=46, test 10=47

average men remaining 45.8

which is 6.1 men less than the unmodded upgraded pikemen.

clearly the upgraded pikemen are performing better than their stats reflect

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Originally Posted by tests by Foz

Alright, I've set out to settle this stupid debate. In the first test, we have longbows vs italian militia modded to have 7 armour. The second will feature italian militia (copied a second time into the file w/ a tweaked name) modified to have 0 armour and given 3 armour upgrades, which the OP has speculated should confer them the same 7 armour the first unit has. Results follow.

7 armour unit losses:
35
36
36
31
30
---
168

3 upgrade, 0 armour unit losses:
27
36
35
35
34
---
167

As anyone can readily see, this result cannot in any way be explained if the armour upgrades only grant +1 each, as the unit stat sheet says they do. The units suffered practically identical losses, which is extremely strong evidence that the OPs assertion is the correct one: the armour upgrades function exactly as they are described by type (4 for leather, etc), and not as the stat sheet reports them as simple plus 1s for any given upgrade. As it turns out this makes the leather shop a ridiculously important upgrade since it adds a full +4 to all applicable units.

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Originally Posted by tests by Lusted

All battles Very Hard difficulty, Spanish plains at midday with clear weather. All done with unmodified M2Tw with me controlling the non-missile unit. All tests done v peasant archers.

Units tested were Billmen, Berdiche Axemen, Heavy Billmen.

They have the following armour levels:

Billmen:
Flesh(0)
Leather/Padded(4)
Light Mail(5)

Berdiche Axemen:
Light Mail(5)
Heavy Mail(7)
Partial Plate(9)

Heavy Billmen
Heavy Mail(7)
Partial Plate(9)

So there is an overlap between the different armour levels to see whether armour upgrades do give more than the +1 indicated on the unit card.

Test results(number is men remaining):


Billmen:
Flesh(0) 3 8 4 6 4 Average 5
Leather/Padded(4) 22 14 15 18 26 Average 19
Light Mail(5) 34 28 41 38 36 Average 35.4

Berdiche Axemen:
Light Mail(5) 40 37 33 30 34 Average 34.8
Heavy Mail(7) 62 60 55 58 59 Average 58.8
Partial Plate(9) 74 81 85 76 79 Average 79

Heavy Billmen
Heavy Mail(7) 59 64 63 56 54 Average 59.2
Partial Plate(9) 82 78 82 85 79 Average 81.2

So as you can see Berdiche Axemen unupgraded, and Billmen with level 2 upgrade have basically the same amount of men left, which is what should happen as both have the same armour level.

Same with Berdiche Axemen level 1 upgrade and Heavy Billmen, and Berdiche Axemen level 2 upgrade and Heavy Billmen level 1 upgrade.

So armour upgrades are working properly, just an incorrect value is shown on the unit cards.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by tests by Carl

Here some test results of mine. Firing unit was peasent archers, target was scots pike militia, with arrows modified to have 25% accurracy all the time and only 6 volleys of ammo.

Armour Silver Upgrade, Basic 0

12
10
12
13
12

Total Kills: 59

Armour Basic 5

19
14
17
13
16

Total Kills: 79

Whilst it tells us somthing weird, (Silver armour upgrade is more effective than 5 armour in the EDU file), Regardless it proves beyond ANY shadow of a doubt that armour upgrades ARE NOT just +1 per level.

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Originally Posted by tests by JaM

Ok, i finished with my tests. What i found? There IS something behind armor upgrades. I can definitelly confirm, that armor upgrades adds a bonus to the upgraded unit.

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Now, this means that when you upgrade the armour on a light unit - from say lvl 0 to lvl 1, you should notice a 4 point increase in defense. However, the ingame description will only show you a 1 point increase. Thus, the question becomes, is the correct armour value being used, and not reported correctly - or is the game using the reported value and causing units to not benefit fully from armor upgrades?

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If its being reported wrong, thats great. But experience from myself is that it's being reported correctly.

well... the tests I just did are right there... I think the results are pretty clear - what numbers have you gotten that make you think differently?

Random point SMZ, Terrico pikes have 0 armour normally, so they have no missile defence without upgrades. so Silver Armour Terrico pikes should have a lower armour value than Gold Pike Militia, a much BETTER way to check would be to re-run the first Pike Militia test, but with them altered inn the EDU file to have 7 armour defence.


Lastly, your armour typ listing is wrong, it should be:

Lvl 0 = Flesh, 0 defense
Lvl 1 = Leather/Padded, 4 defense
Lvl 2 = Light Mail, 5/8 defense
Lvl 3 = Heavy Mail, 7/8 defense
Lvl 4 = Partial Plate, 7/9 defense
Lvl 5 = Full Plate, 9/10 defense
Lvl 6 = Advanced Plate, 10/11 defense

In fact I don't think their IS a standered value for ANY of the armour levels, they all have variances, just look through the western Knights at the top of the EDU file and see how many are wrong.

lol, I know the txt file is very inconsistent, but that's what the values are listed as supposed to be, in my own txt file I went thru and manually set each unit to the correct numbers, although on mine I put full plate at 10 instead of 9

secondly, it's true, I forgot that defense skill doesn't count to dodging arrows, however that doesn't alter the conclusion at all... if the Tercios only received 2 points of armor from being upgraded to silver, why would they all of a sudden have 23 fewer casualties? That's not a 2 point difference... that's a 7 point difference... as it is supposed to be.

Nonetheless, I'll run the test you suggest with the Pike Militia first altered to have an armor rating of 3 and then an armor rating of 7

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secondly, it's true, I forgot that defense skill doesn't count to dodging arrows, however that doesn't alter the conclusion at all... if the Tercios only received 2 points of armor from being upgraded to silver, why would they all of a sudden have 23 fewer casualties? That's not a 2 point difference... that's a 7 point difference... as it is supposed to be

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Good, point, would still be intresting to see the result though.

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lol, I know the txt file is very inconsistent, but that's what the values are listed as supposed to be, in my own txt file I went thru and manually set each unit to the correct numbers, although on mine I put full plate at 10 instead of 9

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Ahh, right, fair enough.

Arrows are a very random factor, unless you change their accuracy to near 100%. They miss more the less soldiers remain in a unit.

You probably want to run your test in a melee situation with defense values set to 0.

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Arrows are a very random factor

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the grouping of my results says they are reliable enough... the results in the tests are pretty consistent

and I did arrows because it removes one less variable from the testing - if I do a melee contest, then the rate at which the enemy kills me also affects how quickly I kill him, the rate at which both units are swinging, the location of the generals, etc, etc, etc - all come into play.... arrows makes for a much easier measurement... but lemme go do the new manual alter tests

alright, I went back and did two more tests on the upgraded Tercios to finish that set of five, and then I did 5 tests on Pike Militia which I'd altered in the unit file with 3 points of armour....

as I was hypothesizing, the results landed in between - it's clear therefore that the armor is working correctly



Actually I'm going to guess that any tests done previously probably were borked due to the shield bug... there would've been no way to tell what was going wrong until ppl knew about that - undoubtably leading to all sorts of weird results

Thats, most intresting, thanks for that.

I just wish I knew how to make it say the right thing now...

oh, and as I was fixing the armor numbers earlier today I was thinking, I bet a lot of ppl would like having this cleaned up... but since I can't even remember all the other little tweaks I've done, I can't just upload my file for ppl to get =/

I just did some tests and I'm sorry to say, I'm absolutely certain your conclusion is incorrect.

here's the test...

1 unit of pike militia (player) vs 1 unit of peasant archers (computer)

normal unit sizes. grassy plain, 2 sets of 10 tests. archer's ammo capacity reduced to 10. pike militia taken out of spear wall and defensive stance. clear weather for all tests.

Set 1, unmodified pike militia with 3 armor upgrades. (armor stats says 3)

Men Remaining
test 1= 57, test 2= 50, test 3=52, test 4= 50, test 5=50, test 6=53, test 7=46, test 8=54, test 9=56, test 10=51.

average men remaining= 51.9

set 2, modified pike militia with armor stat set to 8, no armor upgrades. (armor stat says 8)

test 1=55, test 2=55, test 3=61, test 4=57, test 5=56, test 6=54, test 7=54, test 8=55, test 9=57, test 10=63

average men remaining= 56.7

a difference of 4.8

considering that the armor stat difference is only 5, I'd say thats fairly significant and isn't likely the result of a statistical anomaly.

conclusion= the armor upgrading system not only appears screw up, its also functionally screwed up. i wish it weren't so, but it is.

Actually your tests confirm armour upgrades work, as a 3 armour upgrade unit of pike militia should have a defense of 7, despite only 3 being shown on the unit card. So having a difference of 4.8 between them and a unit of pike militia with their defense set to 8 is about right.

I'm rethinking my conclusions, i just ran a third set of tests.

modified pike militia with armor manually set to 3. no upgrades

results as follows

47, 46, 46, 44, 45, 46, 44, 48, 46, 47

average men remaining 45.8

which is 6.1 men greater than the unmodded upgraded pikemen.

clearly the upgraded pikemen are performing better than their stats reflect

here's another question that needs to be posed, what value does the autocalc engine use, the real defence value, or the displayed defence value?

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Originally Posted by pat the magnificent

here's another question that needs to be posed, what value does the autocalc engine use, the real defence value, or the displayed defence value?

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We've been told that the autocalc engine uses the same mechanics as the battlefield does, so it is reasonable to assume anything you find out about the battlefield engine applies similarly to autocalc. This may not always be the case, but it's generally supposed to be so we should assume they mirror each other in the absence of contradicting evidence.

As for the find, I'm glad someone finally took the time to do it. In truth I had actually forgotten this issue was still hanging around. I would point out though, SMZ, that if you speculate that a given upgrade makes the unit have 7 defense, then the way to prove this is not really to modify it to 3 in the EDU and note that the results seem better with the upgrade - it's to set the unit to 7 in the EDU and more or less prove that you get identical results. That way you're not just generalizing by saying the upgrades do more than the sheet says, you're actually quantifying the value it does apply.

In other news, now I find myself wondering if each armor upgrade adds a base value (i.e. an armor bonus) or if it actually replaces the value the unit listed with the given value for the set of armor it's been upgraded to. That is, there are two real possibilities I see, and am curious which is used. Let's look at lvl 1, leather/padded:

1. Any affected unit has its armor value replaced by a 4 in the calculation.
2. Any affected unit has 4 added to it's armor value in the calculations, because leather has value 4 and no armor has value 0, so 4-0 is +4 armor.

The main thing that has me concerned, then, is the shield fix - if the values are replaced instead of given as a bonus, then shield fixed units actually take an armor penalty for achieving their first armor upgrade. It would probably have been easier to code as a bonus from a lookup table, but one never knows...

@Foz: It's got to be an addition because not all units have the same Armour value at a given Armour level in vanilla, so if it was fixed you'd get the same issue you describe possibly happening with the shield fix.

Guys, Darth did good research about animation files, and i can confirm that in vanila game there is nothing that links unit look to unit resistance. All units have the same values used.

Standard values are -0.090000004 0 0 -0.34999999 0.80000001 0.60000002

where

-0.090000004 = min effective pitch for left hand (animation node)

0 = max effective pitch for left hand (animation node)

0 = max effective pitch for right hand (animation node)

-0.34999999 = min effective pitch for right hand (animation node)

0.80000001 = probably works as an attack modifier for the skeleton (The bigger the more)

0.60000002 = probably works as a defense modifier for the skeleton (The bigger the less)

Same line is applied for armor upgrades. so there is no secret system that links unit look with armor protection.

I cannot help but feel Darth is wrong in this matter given what the test results show.

Guys, its not that hard to test it... just remove shield value from spearmens and put italian militia against seargant spearmen with bronze upgrade. In your teory, they should have same protection - leather, but Italian with armor 4 will kill seargants with much lower looses than if they had armor 1 or 2 or 3 or anything...

As i wrote on TW, try Point Blank EDU with shieldfix, it clearly shows, that armor upgrades gave +1 point only, and unit with +1 benefit will have advantage. That EDU is the most balanced EDU for M2TW yet.

Italian Militia are better in close combat then sergeant spearmen. You need to test both of them against missile troops.

Not just that, but their are a hell of a lot of other factors going on in melee that can bugger things up quite badly. Missile tests are the only ones where you can draw accurrate conclushions in this case.

Lusted, Point Blank even created his own armor classes, he has 12 upgrade levels instead of vanila 6. Burrek created lots of new units, Darth modified animation factors, with all that below, if there is any background system behind, it should definitelly screw those mods with faulty battle results.Opposite is true. I got realistic results when i used that EDU - Dismounted knights were able to do a lot of damage to low quality units,but were innefective against units in heavy armor because sword is not very good at fighting somebody in Plate... Spear units without armor upgrade were beaten by same type upgraded units ... try it! and you will see it. many mods are starting to implement that system (ask Re Berengario f.e...)

And yet im not as the evidence points to armour upgrades working correctly in M2Tw without Darths fiddling around with a number no one really understands, or knows how it works.

Missile damage is working differently. I had looses even if i lovered missile attack to 1 and left unit to be under arrow fire...(not big thou) Shield is not working as it should, it has just 9 degree coverage. + it decrease armor value in melee.

Yes shields are not working correctly. Why do you think the tests in regards to armour upgrades have been done using shieldess units?

If you remember, i send you an IM to ask developers about that. I posted same question on Totalwar.com forum and i was told that there is no backbround system behind armor upgrades. It was planned, but something went wrong, so they removed it.

You asked me about an unused stat line in the export_descr_unit.txt file. At the time i knew people had been testing the armour upgrade system, but there had been no definitive test results due to the shield bug. Now there are definitive test results.

Because i did lots of tests with all kind of units. I had a big disscusion about that with TimeCommander Bob few mounths ago (at that time we didnt know anything about shield bug) he did all his tests using melee, I used missiles.His tests show that italian militia has same resistance that unit with upgrade armor 1 - leather, but shield substracted -6 from protection.

I tested pikes and billmens, and my tests show that unit with armor 1 is worse that unit in armor 2 and unit in armor 3 etc... no mather whic armor level unit had.

Units have mortality factor 0.6 right now, so even if unit has no armor at all it will not die immediatelly if hit. (it ignore 40% of hits)

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Units have mortality factor 0.6 right now, so even if unit has no armor at all it will not die immediatelly if hit. (it ignore 40% of hits)

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Im guessing CA set it as that because of the armour system that is in game, and is working based on the test results shown here. I'll go and do some tests if you want to see if i can reproduce the results the opening poster got.

Lusted, you can still chceck that message i send to you, it was really about explanation how armor upgrade works. I can resend it to you if you already deleted it

Try this, use archers against Billmen with 0,1,2,3 upgrade and then do the same against Heavy Billmen.(plate armor)

Well i've found a pm from you asking me to ask the CA devs how it works. No explanation or anything.

For more information about Point Blank EDU check this: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=82671

Another thought.
Ever tried peasants with 7 armor and nothing else vs an upgraded pike unit with true armor of 7 (unit card may show something else) vs a missile unit with 7 armor and nothing else?

It could well be that the type of unit may react differently?

You can have different results due to a different formations units use. Arrows are not that good for tests, lots of them didnt hit anything. I suggest use crossbows for tests, (ofcourse remove AP ability...) and use very low attack values. if you will use damage 1, unit with armor 7 should be quite resistant, right? much more than unit with armor 1...

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Well i've found a pm from you asking me to ask the CA devs how it works. No explanation or anything.

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Yea, because at that time, there was lots of unknown, so i wanted you to ask them if there is any background system behind armor upgrades.

Well im almost half way through my tests,and everything points to armour upgrade system working properly despite what the unit card says. I'll post the full test results when im done.

Alright, I've set out to settle this stupid debate. In the first test, we have longbows vs italian militia modded to have 7 armour. The second will feature italian militia (copied a second time into the file w/ a tweaked name) modified to have 0 armour and given 3 armour upgrades, which the OP has speculated should confer them the same 7 armour the first unit has. Results follow.

7-armour unit losses:
35
36
36
31
30
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168

3 upgrade 0 armour unit losses:
27
36
35
35
34
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167

As anyone can readily see, this result cannot in any way be explained if the armour upgrades only grant +1 each, as the unit stat sheet says they do. The units suffered practically identical losses, which is extremely strong evidence that the OPs assertion is the correct one: the armour upgrades function exactly as they are described by type (4 for leather, etc), and not as the stat sheet reports them as simple plus 1s for any given upgrade. As it turns out this makes the leather shop a ridiculously important upgrade since it adds a full +4 to all applicable units.

Why dont you ask developers about that, they can confirm it or deny it, everything will be clear after that...

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Originally Posted by Foz

Alright, I've set out to settle this stupid debate. In the first test, we have longbows vs italian militia modded to have 7 armour. The second will feature italian militia (copied a second time into the file w/ a tweaked name) modified to have 0 armour and given 3 armour upgrades, which the OP has speculated should confer them the same 7 armour the first unit has. Results follow.

7-armour unit losses:
35
36
36
31
30
---
168

3 upgrade 0 armour unit losses:
27
36
35
35
34
---
167

As anyone can readily see, this result cannot in any way be explained if the armour upgrades only grant +1 each, as the unit stat sheet says they do. The units suffered practically identical losses, which is extremely strong evidence that the OPs assertion is the correct one: the armour upgrades function exactly as they are described by type (4 for leather, etc), and not as the stat sheet reports them as simple plus 1s for any given upgrade. As it turns out this makes the leather shop a ridiculously important upgrade since it adds a full +4 to all applicable units.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Well im almost half way through my tests,and everything points to armour upgrade system working properly despite what the unit card says. I'll post the full test results when im done.

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Did you removed the shields?

In my tests, im doing billmen, berdiche axemen and heavy bilmen, all upgrade levels. All units without shields.

FOZ: As i told, i'm using EDU with 12 armor levels. Developers had just 6. that would mean PB levels are not hardcoded,so how do you explain that they actually work?

About your test: Longbow has AP arrow, that means only half of armor counts, so 3.5+6 vs 1.5+6 is not that big difference, especially if 40% hits are ignored.

To test it correctly you need to remove all special abilities as AP bonus, because they a re creating a lot of confusions.

Try that metod i mentioned earlier : arrow damage 1, unit with armor 4 leather, unit with armor 1 (after upgrade to leather), that means damage 1 needs to overcome 4times greater prottection than against 1.

Here are my test results.

All battles Very Hard difficulty, Spanish plains at midday with clear weather. All done with unmodified M2Tw with me controlling the non-missile unit. All tests done v peasant archers.

Units tested were Billmen, Berdiche Axemen, Heavy Billmen.

They have the following armour levels:

Billmen:
Flesh(0)
Leather/Padded(4)
Light Mail(5)

Berdiche Axemen:
Light Mail(5)
Heavy Mail(7)
Partial Plate(9)

Heavy Billmen
Heavy Mail(7)
Partial Plate(9)

So there is an overlap between the different armour levels to see whether armour upgrades do give more than the +1 indicated on the unit card.

Test results(number is men remaining):


Billmen:
Flesh(0) 3 8 4 6 4 Average 5
Leather/Padded(4) 22 14 15 18 26 Average 19
Light Mail(5) 34 28 41 38 36 Average 35.4

Berdiche Axemen:
Light Mail(5) 40 37 33 30 34 Average 34.8
Heavy Mail(7) 62 60 55 58 59 Average 58.8
Partial Plate(9) 74 81 85 76 79 Average 79

Heavy Billmen
Heavy Mail(7) 59 64 63 56 54 Average 59.2
Partial Plate(9) 82 78 82 85 79 Average 81.2

So as you can see Berdiche Axemen unupgraded, and Billmen with level 2 upgrade have basically the same amount of men left, which is what should happen as both have the same armour level.

Same with Berdiche Axemen level 1 upgrade and Heavy Billmen, and Berdiche Axemen level 2 upgrade and Heavy Billmen level 1 upgrade.

So armour upgrades are working properly, just an incorrect value is shown on the unit cards.

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Originally Posted by JaM

Did you removed the shields?

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Yes. As I invented the shield fix, my units have been without shields since the first version of said fix was out. Sorry I didn't make that explicitly clear, but you can assume it's always the case when I test.

Very nice testing Lusted. I call that... definitive. I now consider the matter closed, as there's a mountain of evidence that it works correctly and only unfounded comments suggesting it does not.

But hey... it's nice that the armor upgrades do in fact work like they are supposed to.

As for your 12 levels of upgrades, JaM... I'm gonna guess that they're whacked out beyond belief. Your first 6 levels may in fact give the bonuses that the 6 levels in the vanilla game are supposed to give (which are wildly different than just +1)... and who knows if your top 6 levels work at all, and in what amount. I suppose this is what happens when people go about changing things before they actually know how they operate.

Of course it's also possible that when a different number of levels are used, the game ignores the predetermined setting of what the values of the levels should be, but I certainly wouldn't count on that.

thanks muchly Pat, Foz & Lusted for confirming my results

the reason I didn't go back and mod the pike militia to 7 armor, was just I was getting tired of testing, and I thought the testing I'd already done was sufficient, lol - I know it wasn't scientific neccessarily, but the further results you guys got should be scientific enough for anyone.

To the people still mentioning different results from melee contests, allow me to repeat - Melee has MANY factors to determining who wins. It is much harder to isolate a single factor, such as armour upgrades. As I said, something as simple as where the general is standing can make all the difference in a melee contest, if he lands in the midst of a group of the enemy, he'll proceed to slay all the weaker men around him - if he lands out on the edge, he might spend the whole battle trying to slowly sidle around the flank, and maybe get approached by only one or two enemy, while in the mean time the enemy general is slaughtering away

doing a missile test in the fashion I described removes almost all variables except the unit defense of the target - the killing power of the archers will be generally the same each time - you can isolate your variable (defense) and figure out clearly what it's doing

the results are clear over and over, the unit with the better armor has a definitive difference in men surviving, as they should

Dont wanna be so negative, but: your test didnt proof one base thing: Armor values are ignored, only type of armor counts.

Unit without armor is overmatched by any attack value 100% so even attack 1 overmatches it. Thats why you see unit with armor 0 to be killed so much.
All you need to try is use two same units, one with armor 4 leather and second with armor 1 leather. attack it with missile 1. If your teory is right, both units will take similar looses. If I'm right, unit with armor 1 will take more looses. easy like that.

i'm in work right now, but i will post my tests very soon.

huh? I wouldn't expect a unit with 4 armor to take similar loses to one with 1 armour - i'd expect the 4 to take less casualities... that's three more points of armor

I think you're either slightly confused about my conclusion from these results or about the issue at hand...

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Armor values are ignored, only type of armor counts.

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4 people have now done indepentent tests establishing that units both with armor upgrades and manually set armor values have the same defense... what more do you need? getting the first 3 armor upgrades and manually adding 7 points of armor to a unit do the same exact thing - as proved, over and over

are you playing with the shield fix? and why would you expect your play experience to establish anything as regards to vanilla when you're using a customized upgrade system?

Here is my disscusion with Olmsted:
JaM1977
Registered User
Posts: 2
(1/18/07 1:55 pm)
Reply Armor Upgrades
Can someone from Developers explain how armor upgrades are coded in game? There are some units that have base armor much higher than if unit became upgraded to the same armor type - Italian militia - leather armor 4, Town Militia after upgrade to leather armor 1. Is there a some secret code and all unit with leather armor have the same protection or upgrades just add+1 point?

Thanks

Olmsted
Admin
Posts: 7298
(1/18/07 2:32 pm)
Reply Re: Armor Upgrades
Upgrades just add 1 point to the armor value. The more advanced method that would have made more sense was never fully implemented.

JaM1977
Registered User
Posts: 4
(1/22/07 7:46 pm)
Reply RE Is there a plan to fully implement new system for upgrades? (that with " ; " in EDU)

Olmsted
Admin
Posts: 7482
(1/22/07 8:57 pm)
Reply Re: RE We don't know. We can only hope for those changes...

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If your teory is right, both units will take similar looses. If I'm right, unit with armor 1 will take more looses. easy like that.

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No my theory is that armour upgrades work correctly, which they are.

You may be right in that armour value is being ignored, but the main point is that the armour upgrade system works.

JaM, Olmsted is not a CA employee. He is an admin at the official forums who works for free in his spare times. He has less contact with the devs than i do.

Well, I'd like to see his comments on the test results from 4 different people which have led each person to come to the same conclusion.

Considering that CA devs themselves were unaware of some of the habits of their engine (ie: shield bug), whatever Mr Olmsted thinks was going on, isn't neccesarily the same thing as what is actually going on... well, anyway - I'm not going to argue about it - I don't see the point - it's like arguing about how many registered users are on this board or something... the numbers are there - you can't argue with numbers

I'm not confused. All you are talking is that unit with armor 4 leather has same protection like unit with armor 1 leather (after upgrade)

The whole method you are suggesting is quite hard to implement from code perspective> Just imagine - game has specific file for units, there are values for protection of unit,but it is not used, instead of this there is some other table where upgrade 1 means armor 4, upgrade 2 armor 5 etc... That dont make sense. Right now we know file structure quite well. Darth can confirmed that there is no bonus for armor upgrades in animation file.

I spend a mounth playing a game with EDU where all attack and armor,shield defence values were halved. (because with that metod +1 armor add means same amount as if you add +2 to normal vanila unit) With that table in mind, all my spearmens upgraded to armor 1 with upgrade 1 had armor protection 4 instead 1 that was displayed. But those units were not ! They were as storng as those with base armor 1. no benefit 3 more points!

Im not quite sure what you are getting at JaM. What we are saying is that the armour upgrade system works. So that despite the unit card only showing an increase in defense of 2, a unit going from flesh to light mail will infact have an increased armour factor of 5.

So armour upgrades are working properly, just the incorrect details are shown on the unit card.

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The whole method you are suggesting is quite hard to implement from code perspective> Just imagine - game has specific file for units, there are values for protection of unit,but it is not used, instead of this there is some other table where upgrade 1 means armor 4, upgrade 2 armor 5 etc... That dont make sense.

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It actually makes quite a bit of sense, as it allows them to define an armour system seperate of the unit stats, with the armour values in the edu allowing for more initial variety.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

No my theory is that armour upgrades work correctly, which they are.

You may be right in that armour value is being ignored, but the main point is that the armour upgrade system works.

JaM, Olmsted is not a CA employee. He is an admin at the official forums who works for free in his spare times. He has less contact with the devs than i do.

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I'm not telling that armor values are ignored. I'm just pointing, that if your idea works, it means armor values are ignored!

Olmsted is admin for MTW II AI discussion and Code feedback , so i think he must have atleast some connection to devs too. (why he is admin in section for code feedback...)

My opinion is that armor upgrades just add +1 and nothing more. Units with armor 0 are heavily overmatched by any attack value, thats why they took such looses. Its because from mathematical point of view 1/0 = 5/0= 100000/0, but 1/1 = 1/4 ?

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All you are talking is that unit with armor 4 leather has same protection like unit with armor 1 leather (after upgrade)

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well, actually armor 7 flesh (what moded pike militia have) ends up being the same as armor 3 (*7) breastplate (what upgraded pike militia have) - which shoots your whole theory to pieces

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Just imagine - game has specific file for units, there are values for protection of unit,but it is not used, instead of this there is some other table where upgrade 1 means armor 4, upgrade 2 armor 5 etc... That dont make sense.

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have you even looked at the file? there IS such a table! look, right below stat_pri_armour, is ;stat_armour_ex in which the values to use after upgrades are listed - we know those values aren't just for display, because the display doesn't use them - the display uses +1, +2 & +3... so what are those values for? answer: the game mechanics

Code:

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type            Pike Militia
dictionary      Pike_Militia      ; Pike Militia
category        infantry
class            spearmen
voice_type      Light
banner faction  main_spear
banner holy      crusade
soldier          Pike_Militia, 60, 0, 1
attributes      sea_faring, hide_forest, can_withdraw, free_upkeep_unit, pike
formation        1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 4, square, phalanx
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri        4, 2, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 25, 1
;stat_pri_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_pri_attr    spear, long_pike, spear_bonus_8
stat_sec        0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 25, 1
;stat_sec_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  0, 1, 0, flesh
;stat_armour_ex  0, 4, 5, 7, 1, 0, 0, flesh
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        2
stat_ground      1, -2, 3, 2
stat_mental      3, normal, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 10
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 150, 125, 75, 60, 150, 4, 30
armour_ug_levels 0, 1, 2, 3
armour_ug_models Pike_Militia, Pike_Militia_ug1, Pike_Militia_ug2, Pike_Militia_ug3
ownership        france, hre, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, sicily
;unit_info        7, 0, 1

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Olmsted is admin for MTW II AI discussion and Code feedback , so i think he must have atleast some connection to devs too. (why he is admin in section for code feedback...)

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I've spoken to Olmsted, he does have less connections to the devs to me, im not sure if he has any. Just because he is an admin at the official forums does not mean he is talking to the devs.

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My opinion is that armor upgrades just add +1 and nothing more.

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And you've been shown to be wrong. The test results definitely show otherwise. For instance despite the fact the armour upgrade level 2 billmen only have 2 armour according to their unit card, they take the same amount of losses as unupgraded Berdiche Axemen with 5 defense. So the billmen must have the same defense.

You guy's are very scary...

...and I love your work!!!

Great job all :2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by SMZ

well, actually armor 7 flesh (what moded pike militia have) ends up being the same as armor 3 (*7) breastplate (what upgraded pike militia have) - which shoots your whole theory to pieces


have you even looked at the file? there IS such a table! look, right below stat_pri_armour, is ;stat_armour_ex in which the values to use after upgrades are listed - we know those values aren't just for display, because the display doesn't use them - the display uses 1, 2 & 3... so what are those values for? answer: the game mechanics

Code:

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type            Pike Militia
dictionary      Pike_Militia      ; Pike Militia
category        infantry
class            spearmen
voice_type      Light
banner faction  main_spear
banner holy      crusade
soldier          Pike_Militia, 60, 0, 1
attributes      sea_faring, hide_forest, can_withdraw, free_upkeep_unit, pike
formation        1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 4, square, phalanx
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri        4, 2, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 25, 1
;stat_pri_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_pri_attr    spear, long_pike, spear_bonus_8
stat_sec        0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 25, 1
;stat_sec_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  0, 1, 0, flesh
;stat_armour_ex  0, 4, 5, 7, 1, 0, 0, flesh
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        2
stat_ground      1, -2, 3, 2
stat_mental      3, normal, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 10
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 150, 125, 75, 60, 150, 4, 30
armour_ug_levels 0, 1, 2, 3
armour_ug_models Pike_Militia, Pike_Militia_ug1, Pike_Militia_ug2, Pike_Militia_ug3
ownership        france, hre, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, sicily
;unit_info        7, 0, 1

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If you look at that line you will see ; - thats mean this line is ignored! You can easilly remove it and game will work without any problems. That line was linked with that system Dev's wanted to add, but they disabled it before release as it didnt worked. If you remove that ; - game will crash...

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If you look at that line you will see ; - thats mean this line is ignored! You can easilly remove it and game will work without any problem. That line was linked with that system Dev's wanted to add, but they disabled it before release as it didnt worked. If you remove that ; - game will crash...

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Yes the game will, but i think the values are representative of the hidden armour system which we cannot edit.

More important is: armour_ug_levels 0, 1, 2, 3 - this line actually says which upgrades you are using + armour_ug_models Pike_Militia_ug1, Pike_Militia_ug2, Pike_Militia_ug3 - that means model Pike_Militia_ug1 will be used for upgrade 1 etc... In model file there is a line for animation capabilities (attack offset, deffence offset etc... look at some of my previous posts ) but ! all units in vanila use the same values!

Wow, excellent work, testers. :2thumbsup:

Nice to have people find that armour upgrades work the way they should. I only hope they fix the +1 representation in the patch. (Any chance of mentioning that to Palamedes, Lusted)?

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Originally Posted by Foz

As it turns out this makes the leather shop a ridiculously important upgrade since it adds a full +4 to all applicable units.

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Indeed. Rushes to put this info in the FAQ and tell the other players in our HRE PBM. :charge:

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Yes the game will, but i think the values are representative of the hidden armour system which we cannot edit.

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Or system that was ignored by Dev's becouse it was not working, or they were not able to make it work, M2TW is still RTW engine after all...

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More important is: armour_ug_levels 0, 1, 2, 3 - this line actually says which upgrades you are using + armour_ug_models Pike_Militia_ug1, Pike_Militia_ug2, Pike_Militia_ug3 - that means model Pike_Militia_ug1 will be used for upgrade 1 etc... In model file there is a line for animation capabilities (attack offset, deffence offset etc... look at some of my previous posts ) but ! all units in vanila use the same values!

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Correct, those numbers, 0, 1, 2 represent what 'type' or armour the unit has each upgrade level. and despite what Darth might say he is wrong in this case, the evidence is overwhelming that armour upgrades add more than just +1.

Oh, and there is absolutely no documentation about what half of the numbers in the battle_modles.modelsdb file do.

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Nice to have people find that armour upgrades work the way they should. I only hope they fix the +1 representation in the patch. (Any chance of mentioning that to Palamedes, Lusted)?

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Im certainly going to talk to him about him the next time i have a chat with him.

Here some test results of mine. Firing unit was peasent archers with arrows modified to have 25% accurracy all the time and only 6 volleys of ammo.

Armour Silver Upgrade, Basic 0

12
10
12
13
12

Total: 59

Armour Basic 5

19
14
17
13
16

Total: 79

Whilst it tells us somthing weird, (Silver armour upgrade is more effective than 5 armour in the EDU file), Regardless it proves beyond ANY shadow of a doubt that armour upgrades ARE NOT just +1 per level.

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Just imagine - game has specific file for units, there are values for protection of unit,but it is not used, instead of this there is some other table where upgrade 1 means armor 4, upgrade 2 armor 5 etc... That dont make sense.

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Of course it dosen't make sense, with base, (i.e., what a unit has before any upgrades), armour values for a given level varying by 2 or 3 points for almost all values and some tests relating to EDU's modified with the sheild fix it's quite clear that each level of upgrade ADDS to the existing Armour value. All they have to do their is specifiy how much each level of upgrade adds to a units base value. So level 1 would be +4 for example.

What was the unit in question?

Scots Pike Militia.

WOOPS, sorry about that missing peice of data.

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Originally Posted by Carl

Here some test results of mine. Firing unit was peasent archers with arrows modified to have 25% accurracy all the time and only 6 volleys of ammo.

Armour Silver Upgrade, Basic 0

12
10
12
13
12

Total: 59

Armour Basic 5

19
14
17
13
16

Total: 79

Whilst it tells us somthing weird, (Silver armour upgrade is more effective than 5 armour in the EDU file), Regardless it proves beyond ANY shadow of a doubt that armour upgrades ARE NOT just +1 per level.



Of course it dosen't make sense, with base, (i.e., what a unit has before any upgrades), armour values for a given level varying by 2 or 3 points for almost all values and some tests relating to EDU's modified with the sheild fix it's quite clear that each level of upgrade ADDS to the existing Armour value. All they have to do their is specifiy how much each level of upgrade adds to a units base value. So level 1 would be +4 for example.

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Again: thats not a proof! What was arrow attack value? what were resoults against unit with base armor 2?

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More important is: armour_ug_levels 0, 1, 2, 3 - this line actually says which upgrades you are using + armour_ug_models Pike_Militia_ug1, Pike_Militia_ug2, Pike_Militia_ug3 - that means model Pike_Militia_ug1 will be used for upgrade 1 etc... In model file there is a line for animation capabilities (attack offset, deffence offset etc... look at some of my previous posts ) but ! all units in vanila use the same values!

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I'm sorry I lied earlier, but this is really the last time I repeat that:

armour 7 flesh is the same thing as upgrade 3 breastplate

I'll admit without being prodded that I know very little about modding, coding, etc - all I know is the results... I don't know how it works - I just know it works... ppl can argue about HOW the game does it til they're blue in the face, and I'll have to just keep referencing them back to the first post which now has results from 4 people and something like 100 test runs all leading to one inevitable conclusion... it's not an anomaly, it's not an isolated case - it's a simple test which can be repeated by anyone over and over and over, and they will get results consistent with those already shown

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Of course it dosen't make sense, with base, (i.e., what a unit has before any upgrades), armour values for a given level varying by 2 or 3 points for almost all values and some tests relating to EDU's modified with the sheild fix it's quite clear that each level of upgrade ADDS to the existing Armour value. All they have to do their is specifiy how much each level of upgrade adds to a units base value. So level 1 would be +4 for example.

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Good to hear.

And JaM, just read through this thread gain, more than enough evidence has been posted by me, SMZ, Carl and Foz. If that is not enough to convince you, nothing is.

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Again: thats not a proof! What was arrow attack value? what were resoults against unit with base armor 2?

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I didn't do the test but I don't need to. The Scots Pike Militia have a LOWER loss rate with silver armour than with 5 armour, Higher armour=better missile defence, their no WAY the Scots Pike Militia could suffer less dead from the attack AND have a lower armour value at the same time, it's IMPOSSIBBILE, unless armour dosen't ork right against missile fire, and a low armour value actually provides the best missile defence.


Lastkly, having a Higher attack than your opponnents defence DOES NOT instantly give a 100% chance of a kill. According to others in the know, the values range from 0-64 to +64. So peasent archers will not have a high enoughj attack (at 5), to get the maximum possibbile value,. which is where 100% kill chances per hit come in.

oh yeah, and if you're doing any tests, make sure you clean up the file for at least that particular info first

given how inconsistent the file was, I can't remember if scots pike had a 5 a 6 or a 7 for the second upgrade number, before I cleaned mine up - did you already check that beforehand Carl? it might explain why they did better than 5

and as I said, I don't know much about coding - but if the ';' character says a line is to be ignored, then how does the last line: ';unit_info' still work? if I change a value there it will show up in game in the descriptions... so it would seem to me that lines prefaced by ';' do still have an effect =/

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and as I said, I don't know much about coding - but if the ';' character says a line is to be ignored, then how does the last line: ';unit_info' still work? if I change a value there it will show up in game in the descriptions... so it would seem to me that lines prefaced by ';' do still have an effect =/

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Wait, what? Changing the unit info will result in changes ingame?

Guys, i will post my tests soon. My point is: Unit with armor 0 will take much higher looses than unit with armor 1. its because any attack value will overmatch armor 0 by extreme margin in mathematical formula. It is not that big margin against armor 1 or 2 or3 etc... Simple mathematic.
All you need to test, how resistant will be unit with armor 1 leather in comparation to armor 4 leather.

it changes what is displayed... maybe I'm wrong, I'll check - I was certain a second ago, now you've got me wondering - but I was positive that the unit_info line determines what text is displayed for the units numbers

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Originally Posted by SMZ

oh yeah, and if you're doing any tests, make sure you clean up the file for at least that particular info first

given how inconsistent the file was, I can't remember if scots pike had a 5 a 6 or a 7 for the second upgrade number, before I cleaned mine up - did you already check that beforehand Carl? it might explain why they did better than 5

and as I said, I don't know much about coding - but if the ';' character says a line is to be ignored, then how does the last line: ';unit_info' still work? if I change a value there it will show up in game in the descriptions... so it would seem to me that lines prefaced by ';' do still have an effect =/

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;unit_info dont work too, they wanted to implement different system, but didnt worked. same like upgrades.

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it changes what is displayed... maybe I'm wrong, I'll check - I was certain a second ago, now you've got me wondering - but I was positive that the unit_info line determines what text is displayed for the units numbers

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Your wrong, i just tried it myself. I was worried for a second as a ; before a line should mean it is not read.

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My point is: Unit with armor 0 will take much higher looses than unit with armor 1. its because any attack value will overmatch armor 0 by extreme margin in mathematical formula. It is not that big margin against armor 1 or 2 or3 etc... Simple mathematic.
All you need to test, how resistant will be unit with armor 1 leather in comparation to armor 4 leather.

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That test DOES NOT MATTER AT ALL.

It is IMPOSSSIBILE for a unit with less than 5 armour to suffer LESS kills than the same unit modified to have 5 armour. That what my tests show, it dosen't matter what the diffrance between 0 and 1 is. what matters is the diffrance between 5 armour and 2 silver on Scots Pike Militia, the results CLEARLY show that 2 silver is BETTER than 5 armour. T

This CLEARLY shows that Silver Armour MUST give Scots Pike militia a BETTER armour value after the upgrade than 5.


Not just that, but the diffrance in overmatching is a mere 1 point diffrance betwen 1 and 0. the maximum overmatch is 64, so clearly 4 and 5 respectivly can't be that far apart or the uper end of the 64 scale would be meaningless. This clearly isn't the case.