Alchemist's lab/school/university = uselesS?

[TheLastPrivate]

The thing is, if you check the stats their melee damage goes up by 1, with no change to missle attack value. If it gave some sort of accuracy upgrade, why would it upgrade melee dmg in the first place? I still think this is another game flaw, but I can't be sure yet.

[Kobal2fr]

It's always a possibility, of course. I suppose it's a hard thing to accurately test...

For what it's worth, experience chevrons - while they do up the defense skill and melee skill values on the unit card - do not increase a unit's missile attack value either, yet they have been proven beyond any shade of doubt to increase missile kills (that is, for bows and crossbows - the quirkiness of gunmen rankswitching mechanisms back then made it hard to get reliable data IIRC). Wether it was caused by higher accuracy, higher lethality, better concentration of shots/volleys or whatnot has never been conclusively found AFAIK. Couldn't provide you with a direct link to the research post I'm thinking of, but search is your friend ;). Siege engines also fire much more accurately with XP, but their unit card doesn't show it.

With that in mind, it's not alltogether improbable that a weapon upgrade could make a difference without showing it on the unit card.

[Old Geezer]

Caveat: I never tested gunpowder units with various chevrons to see if they get more kills. Archers certainly do get more kills and each chevron gives a little boost. The melee values go up 1 for the first chevron and for the first silver and first gold, I believe. I don't think anyone has tested to see if the intermediate chevrons help with melee kill, as the testing would be very problematic requiring such a large number of tests that almost any normal gamer's boredom tolerance would be exceeded.