The Caravel Mod

[Stazi]

Reagrding xbows/arbs having an ap attack:

I have made much more melee tests with these units against medium melee units (FMAA) and light melee units (UMs) and the tests show that the ap attack makes hardly any difference at all.

You won't see any difference when fighting with low armor units.

AP forumula is (armor - 1)/2 for foot, and (armor - 2)/2 for horse. And, shields don't count when making this calculation.

It's rounded down so the bonus +1 for attack starts with 3 armor foot and 4 armor cavalry. You have to start a fight with at least 5 armor infantry to see any difference. IMO now xbows will be useful for flanking heavy armored units like kata, gothic or chivalric knights. Say +5 for flanking (or +7 rear) , +3 for AP, + 3 if in wedge ... nice. I'll probably change my favorite pavise arbalesters for the faster shieldless version.
btw I didn't say that this bonus is a bad idea. I only wanted to know the purpose of giving such a bonus to units like xbows. Thanks for the very detailed info. I really appreciate it.

About unit size. I personally don't like the bigger unit size. Most of the maps are small and with huge units there is not much space left for tactic, only frontal charges.