Eyg

[Puzz3D]

No armour = more effective versus AP?

That's not the whole story. When a unit is given +1 armor it also gets +1 defend. What the armor piercing weapon does is halve the portion of the defend value that comes from armor:

attack bonus = (target armor - 1)/2.
Contributions to the armor value from the horse or shield are removed before calculating the attack bonus.

I'm encouraged to hear that serveral of the other factions will aquit themselves well, suitably valoured up. How about when the florins are limited and there's no leeway to valour up anything? Would you recommend taking fewer units, with adequate valour improvements, or chance it with 16 x v0?

Generally, you want to take 16 units simply because upgrades are overpriced. For instance, a valor upgrade costs 70%, but only provides a 40% increase in combat power and a 2 point increase in morale. A weapon upgrade costs 33%, but only provides a 20% increase in combat power. An armor upgrade costs 35%, and provides a 20% increase in combat power and 1 point of armor. Also, the more ranged units you have the more total ammo you have.

So for instance, a cmaa costs 250 florins and has 8 combat points. To double it's combat power you have to add 4 combat points which will be a double valor upgrade costing 472 florins (722 total unit cost). However, you could buy 8 combat points by getting another cmaa for 250 florins which would also double the number of men you have and give you two maneuverable units. So, it comes down to how well you can coordinate two weaker units against a single stronger unit. If you simply send in your weaker units one at a time, they will probably both loose to the stronger unit.

Valor upgrades are also used to raise the morale of low cost units which otherwise would rout very easily. For instance, highland clansmen at 100 florins can be boosted to morale = 4 and 7 combat points with a double valor upgrade which brings the unit's cost to 288 florins. A cmaa with no upgrades costs 250, has 8 combat points and morale = 4. So, the clandsmen are close to that, but still slightly weaker and slightly more expensive.