Attack and defense compare

[Cyrus]

Hi to all
in my noumerous campaigns i've noticed very peculiar things, such as the stats for various celtic units and of other regions, but to a lesser extent. allow me to elaborate, i'm shure many have noticed this before me but there is no thread on it, if we take the celtic levy spearman and read his stats well' see:

attack 15 total defence 17, his attack is higher than that of the pricipes, seems kinda weird to me, what about yall? let's go on, the golbery curoas (northern gallic mercenary swordsman);

he has 10 in attack..... even he has less than the lugoae.......... of course in the battles you can tell who always has the upper hand between an untrained, hastily-raised levy and a professional merc, but if you are a noob such as myself you think the lugoae is a great unit and the curoas suck,
so my question is why are some unit stats so very wrong?

[Onehandstan]

It isn't wrong, it's just there is a third stat, lethality that you can't see, the Attack stat decides whether the blow will hit and lethality whether it will kill, swords generally have a higher lethality then spears but they are also for different roles.

[Strategos Alexandros]

No. It does get a bit confusing though, because some stats, such as lethality are not shown in-game.
As I understand it, attack determines whether or not an attack hits, but lethality determines whether or not it kills the enemy. The swordsmen have high lethality longswords and better morale than the Lugoae.

Edit: argh, damn my slow typing!

[Mediolanicus]

Swords have a +4 bonus.
Plus there is also lethality to take in account.

But there are some who say the spear attack should be lowered. Maybe a team member can explain better.

[Ludens]

There are two factors at work here. Firstly, all spear units receive a +4 bonus against cavalry and a -4 penalty against infantry. So the Lugoae actually has an attack value of 11 when fighting the Botroas. Secondly, the attack value determines the chance of a hit occurring, but not whether the hit is deadly. The deadliness of a weapon is determined by the lethality. The lethality of a spear is 0.125 (= 12,5% chance that a hit kills the target), but that of a Celtic longsword a wopping 0.225. The Lugoae may score a few more hits than the Botroas, but the hits of the Botroas are almost twice as likely to kill.

[Onehandstan]

speaking of lethality, what is the most lethal weapon of all? Close combat weapons not ranged

[Strategos Alexandros]

Probably either the Thraikian Rhomphaia or the Indian axe/sword/thingymabob that those guild warriors use.

[Cyrus]

ok so how can i tell how strong a unit is without having to do all that reasoning?

[Onehandstan]

welllllllll, generally the unit description is very helpful and trial and error is perhaps the best way but the rule of thumb is swords = high lethality, spears = low lethality.

[antisocialmunky]

speaking of lethality, what is the most lethal weapon of all? Close combat weapons not ranged

The Uncircumcised Wrathe of a Gaesatae's +9 Staff of Penetration - 100% Lethal

[Ca Putt]

XD

you can add the extra rule: the letality increaces with lenth and strangenes.

[Watchman]

Dagger/knife (like many crap slingers and archers wield) - 0.04
War-club (some Germans, Africans) - 0.09 IIRC (also -1 attack value, AP)
Short sword - 0.1 (also +2 attack value)
*Good* short sword (eg. gladius hispaniensis) - 0.13 (and +2 attack)
Spear (over- and underhand) - 0.125 (+1 attack, "light_spear" weapon attribute funk)
Xiphos (Greek mid-sized sword and similar) - 0.13 (+1 attack)
Sica (Thraco-Dacian funky curvy blade) - ditto
Kopis/falcata/machaira (concave-curved "recurve sabre") - 0.11 (AP)
Axe/mace - 0.165 (-1 attack, AP)
Longsword - 0.225
Rhomphaia (the Indian longbowmens' big swords are treated as the same IIRC) - 0.26 IIRC (-something attack, AP; the Thracian peltasts' are slightly nerfed, as they're used one-handed)
Big two-handed sword (some Celts, Indians) - 0.285 (-something attack, AP)

Pikes had 0.15 IIRC, as do cavalry overhands. Cavalry underhand spears were 0.33, AP, 160 delay, xyston lances 0.38, AP, 180 delay and kontos lances 0.4, AP, 200 delay - and all had seriously low attack scores. IIRC.

So yeah, Ca Putt's rule of thumb works pretty well.

[Aemilius Paulus]

speaking of lethality, what is the most lethal weapon of all? Close combat weapons not ranged

The cavalry of course, their spears & lances have lethality as high as .35