Investigation of unit attributes

[therother]

Well, I did a few quick tests. As Duke John points out, there is definitely a morale bonus from units with the "command" attribute. Working out if there is a bonus to attack is a little more complicated.

One way to test at what level of bonus, in comparison to the General command stars, the "command" attribution gives would be to measure the radius-of-effect of the unit. But that would require the ability to measure distances accurately on the battlefield.

Does anyone know of a reliable way to measure distances on the battle map? There is a RomeShell command -- output_unit_positions -- but AFAIK that is not activated in 1.2.

Anyway, for comparison, I setup a test battle between two groups of peasants, with either a command unit or a general. To be honest, I didn't see much improvement in combat ability with the general on the field. From Jerome's rules of thumb, my 10 star general should have given my peasants +10 to attack. With that advantage, I would have expected them to mow through their counterparts. But the test battles were usually close, although my peasants usually won (although not always) with 75-80% losses, or thereabouts.

So I modded my peasant's attack to 11, and retested. The battles now went more as expected. The opposing peasants were all killed for the loss of only ~20-25% of my men, and there never seemed to be any doubt on the outcome. So there may be a problem with the General's melee bonus. Either that, or they've changed it for 1.2.

[Epistolary Richard]

There's also the mercenary_unit attribute. As well as making the unit able to be used in mercenary recruitment pools, is there any other impact? Don't mercenaries disband in a different way to regular units?

Also, Monkwarrior has discovered that this attribute is what the game uses to refer to the Mercenary folder for unit cards. Not very interesting for you game researchers, but maybe useful for us modders!
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[Cesare diBorja]

There is also

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

power_charge

which allowsa unit extra benefits during the initial inpact of a charge, usually cavalry only

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

shield_wall

units get and extra protection bonus in formation. These are in 1.5, 1.6

diBorgia

[Ludens]

There is also power_charge which allowsa unit extra benefits during the initial inpact of a charge, usually cavalry only

What is the exact nature of these benefits? Because AFAIK several cavalry units lack this attribute despite being good chargers. So perhaps it does something other than increasing charge bonus.

[Cesare diBorja]

power_charge seems to add extra shock value to charging units. Probably only meant for cavalry, medium to heavy, at that. At least thats what I use it for.

diBorgia

[Mr Frost]

power_charge seems to add extra shock value to charging units...

That , or it is to recharge the batteries in those new-fangled cordless horses .

[lottrbacchus]

what on earth is the purpose of sea_faring? i load all sorts of troops onto ships and send them here and there.

well never mind. i was just confused because i remember seeing druids as explicitly sea faring while other units weren't, but looking through EDU i see that most units have this trait.