A New Take on CFK vs. JHI

[Gilrandir]

I may be mistaken, but it seems to me you miss an important thing - difficulty level. Again I may be wrong, but I believe that the same mini-battle would yield different results if you play on hard or expert as the AI gets a special bonus on these difficulties.

[FinalLegendZero]

You bring up a valid point, Gilrandir. I tested on Normal for these fights, since neither player nor AI gain any bonuses on that level.

In the infantry vs. infantry test, I had the less-armored fighter charge the more-armored, as that led to a more even fatigue comparison (when the more-armored unit charged, it would tire out by the time it reached its target and usually lost, even if it was statistically superior). It should be noted that the other unit always counter-charged as the charging unit when it got close, so both got their charge bonus.

And since I just realized that formation might play a role in battle outcome, I'll note here that I always made sure that both units had the same number of men on the front line.

[VersusAllOdds]

A long time ago, when I was still able to play battles in M:TW, I discovered a certain paper/rock/scissors infantry triangle. It's members were the Swiss Armoured Pikemen, Janissary Heavy Infantry and Gothic Foot Knights. Can't really remember who could beat who, but you can easily test it.

Did you not add the Swiss into the equation just because the faction isn't playable? I suggest you do.

[FinalLegendZero]

I'll run some calcs, but I have a hard time imagining a pike unit beating JHI, VG, GFK, or even CFK.

[drone]

I would imagine GFK/CFK might have trouble with Swiss Armoured Pikes due to the numbers. SAP are pretty good, but the small frontage due to the ranks hurts them. When an infantry unit wraps around them (like JHI will), I expect the SAP to start taking serious casualties. There might be a sweet spot setting up their formation where the SAP ranks aren't optimal for the pike bonus, but the increased frontage makes up for it.

[FinalLegendZero]

It seems I owe an apology to the SAP; assuming equal fronts, and given a full rank bonus, they beat all four of CFK, GFK, VG, and JHI, though all four win if they have superior fronts. Unfortunately, the numbers for the tests were too sporadic to give even ranges. At least, that's how it was for infantry; with my cavalry tests, even Lancers were considered lucky if they killed even one man of the SAP.

Unless someone can provide a mod that allows me to control two opposing forces simultaneously, I unfortunately cannot test for optimal SAP formation, as the AI always tends to keep the "standard" fronting with all units (at least, in my experience).

[drone]

You can change the unit prod file to change the AI's default rank setting, the SwissArmouredPikemen line has a column with: FORMATIONS_PREFERRED_NUM_ROWS( 5 ). You can change the number to spread the formation out some.

SAP are tough though. 4/2/5/4/6 base stats (charge/attack/defense/armour/morale, no AP though), becomes 4/4/11/4/6 against cavalry, and this is without the rank bonus. With a proper formation, you get 8/4/9/4/6 against infantry and 8/6/15/4/6 against cav (yes, 15 defense!). Properly supported/protected in battle, SAP do very nice work.