Unit Combat and Charging; Intuition vs. Testing vs. Animation

[Whacker]

Reapz, at what point did you record the final numbers of survivors? Did you end the battle early having done a manual count, or did you just go by the victory screen? Reason I ask is because on the victory screen, the winner will invariably get some "survivors" that recover post-battle, thus it almost a given that the number for the victor does not match the number that was left on the field when the game ended.

[Reapz]

Whacker, I used the numbers from the victory screen simply because that is what you will get in the campaign after a battle. In other words if you were down to the last man on the battle screen, but the victory screen says 20 survive then you will get 20 troops for the next campaign move. So I thought those were better numbers for planning campaign strategy.

I assume the disparity between the casualty number in battle and what is on the victory screen is allowing for those who are wounded but not killed?

I do have numbers for dead on the battlefield for the first twenty or so trials but I stopped tabulating them for the above reason.

[econ21]

Reapz - have you posted in the sticky on researching battlemap mechanics?
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72168
It might be good to have a summary of your points there.

[JeffBag]

The disproportionate number of kills from the mailed knights is mainly because they are charging into the flanks of the pikemen as well. Had they charged into a solid line of pikes they would all have died.

[FactionHeir]

The casualties healed is a random variable so you'd want to subtract that from your final unit count to get better results.

Also, try doing a few t-tests to see whether your results (after subtraction) are actually statistically relevant...

[Ulstan]

Conceptually, I have no problem with the idea that knights who walk slowly at a unit of pikes in a wider formation and chip away slowly at the flanks and where opportunities present itself fare much better than a tight mass of knights who rush pell mell head into the waiting mass of spear tips.

Now, if you're not at risk of being impaled, (say, vs sword infantry or archers)the tight charging formation should do more damage than the loose 'walk slowly up to the enemy' formation.

[RomoR]

In my post in the battlemap sticky the horse charges where against spears and not pikes, pikes seem to have hidden bonuses that counter a charge with heavy damage, did you make the same tests with spears or any other melee unit, in any case my tests were more focused on the receiving bit of charges as the player with a melee unit but if I recall correctly I ran a series of 5 tests of mailed knights charging in a loose formation against spears and they did not do better than a tight charge.