Game mechanics questions for CA

[JeromeGrasdyke]

Ookaaay... that's a lot of questions. I'll have a go at answering some, although I probably won't have time to do them all, and the info probably won't be at hand for some. Here goes:

What is the effect of being heavy or light infantry?

None. This is a tag for the AI production mechanisms which corresponds to unit stats; generally all units with armour ratings above 7 should be considered heavy. The unit category is more important than class.

What bonuses do weapons have against other weapons, eg swords vs spears, long spears vs other spears

The spear bonusses are fed into the stats system in a couple of different ways, via the mounts bonusses (which are direct attack modifiers against units mounted on that particular mount type) and via the 'spear' weapon attribute. Units which are marked with spear gain a +4 combat bonus against cavalry and use the cavalry's charge bonus against them, while cavalry get a -4 attack penalty against them.

What is the difference between "heavy" and "light" weapons?

Again, this is a tag only, used by the sound I believe.

What modifiers or effects do the "special" unit formations have, e.g. phalanx, Cantabrian circle, tetsudo, wedge?

Phalanx formations gain rank bonusses when in formation, while testudo's get large defense bonusses against missile attacks. The Wedge gives an attack bonus based on superior concentration of weight at the point. The Cantabrian circle doesn't give an outright bonus, but gains its benefit from the actual battlefield behaviour.

What exactly makes a unit gain experience? Killing peasants gives less than killing elite units, but what exactly determines this?

Actually, a kill is always considered a kill for xp bonusses, except when the unit is routing (in which case it drops to a 20% chance of counting as a kill). Kills and xp are tracked on a per-soldier basis, and what is displayed is the unit average rounded to the nearest integer. There is a non-linear relationship between kills and xp which resembles a Fibonacci series. Then units which have been engaged in combat in a battle which started with a close to even strength balance may be awarded an extra kill per soldier at the end of combat.

What are the effects of capturing another faction's capital or losing your own capital? Does the location of your faction leader have any effects? (Is it best to keep your faction leader in the capital? Does it matter?)

None (other than what's normal for capturing a city), and no. The movement of the faction leader as used in Medieval caused so many annoyances during play that we decided to drop it.

When I have reinforcements and there is a general present in that army, why does the general rush into battle, instead of staying behind his lines to add morale and to stay alive?

We actually found this to have a whole slew of causes, the most common of which was that often the general's cavalry is the strongest unit in the army (especially early during a campaign). This means he'd generally look at the enemy army and say, "wow, I'm much stronger than any one of these units individually", and hurl himself into combat, expecting the rest of his army to follow... with unfortunate consequences. We've made the general's unit a lot more cautious in the 1.2 patch, but it still occasionally happens.

The one game mechanic question that comes to mind for me, I'd like a detailed run-down of the strategic AI settings (caesar, mao, balanced, fortified, etc.). That would make customizing my game really easier.

This was released onto the forums recently, you should be able to find it if you do a search.

What influences probability of hit in fight?

The most significant factors (in order) are: unit stats, height differential, relative facing, experience, fatigue, scissors-paper-stone, and the general's command bonus. There are a whole slew of special-purpose bonusses, such as ground and mount type, formations and so on as well. Detailing the whole system is well beyond the scope of this post...

I would like to know (if this isn't anwered already) the effects of armor vs defense skill and shields.

Armour is applied as a modifier to attacks from any facing, while defense is a parry-style bonus on the front and right flank, and the shield bonus applies front and left flank. Missile weapons ignore defense.

Is "Provincial campaign" going to be in the patch?

No, as you've probably already seen. It was intended as a mechanism for showing multiple campaigns other than the Imperial Campaign or the Sons of Mars, and I believe it still works as such. Any subfolders in data/world/maps/campaign/custom will get searched for extra campaign maps, and if they contain a valid campaign it will activate the Provincial Campaign menu. From this menu you can pick a campaign, which then leads to the 'pick-a-faction' menu, and so on. Could be quite useful for modders ;)

How does one get the chargebonus of the pikes in a phalanx unit? If you charge them in they will use the weaker swords (and thus the weaker charge), and in phalanx they don't run, so it isn't obvious if the chargebonus is added or not (doesn't seem so).

Pike units cannot charge while using pikes, and so cannot receive a charge bonus.

What is the slave bonus and how is it caused? What is the grain bonus and how is it caused? Can these be removed?

The slave population growth bonus, like the grain one, is caused by resources on the map. If you enslave a city, it generates a slave resource, and any cities connected to that province by completed road links (city-to-city) benefit from one growth pip's bonus. This is cumulative per resource in the road network - 2 cities taken with Enslavement connect to a third city by road, that third city should show *two* pips of slave growth. This is part of what makes Egypt such an economic powerhouse - the Nile delta contains two grain resources, and so as soon as the Egyptians start building roads to connect all their cities, the overall population starts to rise quite quickly... And no, the bonusses cannot be removed.

Well, I hope that's been useful to you guys.