Game mechanics questions for CA

[Kraxis]

Totally nice Jerome. Cool with some direct info.

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.

Interesting... I seem to notice a lot of penetration of spearformations by cavalry, especially by the better chargers. Light Lancers are good candidates for this as they have weak defense and a strong charge. Yet they do not get wiped out by the anti-charge bonus, which one would expect if they recieved the charge right back. Is it because the charge is only handled in regards of the first line of cavalry? Then after them the other riders can ride down any spear?

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.

All units are equal... How about the officers in certain units, such as in the Triarii. I think it was mentioned that they had 2 HP (all officers), so it would only be reasonable they gave 2 XP and generals even more.

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.

Hmmm... Very good to know. I thought defense was allround defensive ability that just didn't give the protection against missiles. So a very experienced unit that does not carry any shields (Cilician Pirates for instance) should be as bad at protecting itself from the rear or the left as a green one?

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.

Ok. That was pretty much what I figured, but then I wonder why they get a bonus at all. I mean some poor fellow has been forced to balance or add something that was not to be used.