Battle engine: Peasants vs Armoured sergeants

[R'as al Ghul]

Hello,

I've made some tests on Peasants. The idea is to understand the combat model/battle engine better. We're all aware of the fact that Peasants can be a dangerous unit. They're able to beat Armored sergeants in melee or at least inflict enormous casualties. Peasants have an attack of 4 (charge 0) while Armoured Sergeants have an armour value of 5 (plus a shield of which we don't know if it's used in melee). Because of the armour value of the AS, the Peasant shouldn't be able to inflict much casualties. yet it does. Why is that?
My test setup:
Grassy plains, fine weather, medium difficulty, unit size=75.
Human controls 5 units of AS, AI controls 5 units of Peasants.
Human issues no orders but clicks "Start battle".
All tests play out like this:

Human and AI are default deployed in a line of 4 units, Gen behind the lines not engaging. The Peasants march up to the AS and charge them. AS just receive the charge and defend. After a while the attacking Peasants will route. When a (Peasant-) unit displays Routing/broken the game is paused and the remaining number of soldiers is noted. I unpause to wait for the next unit to rout. When all 4 line units are routing the battle is aborted and the number of casualties for each side is noted. The general units do not engage in fighing for the whole time.

Results of 3 tests:


This is just to display a trend. I've more results but am reluctant to copy them all manually. Note that of the 300 men engaged in the 4 units the AS lose between a third and half of their soldiers.

Now, I've edited the Peasants to have 0 combat values (0 charge, 0 attack, 0 defend skill). AS remain as they are, same setup as above. Only noteable difference: The Peasants stop after marching at a distance and wait for a while, then they walk up to my AS and start fighting.
3 exemplary results:


So, the Pesants kill a lot of spearman although they don't have any combat points. With 0 attack they shouldn't be able to kill at all inflict that much casualties. Of 300 AS at least a third are killed.
If somebody has an explanation, I'd be happy. Right now, I'm as clueless as this guy:



I agree that the number of samples is low but I've done more tests than I've documented here and the results displayed can be taken as exemplary. BTW, the tests are easy to setup and repeat for yourselves.
The results leve me with the question how the combat really works/ is calculated. Obviously the combat values aren't of high importance!? Shouldn't a difference of 4 attack points less result in less inflicted casualties for the AS?

[econ21]

I'm not sure why you think a zero attack statistic means no attack. The formula for kill probabilities in STW and MTW depended on the difference between attack and defence stats. A negative difference was common, but still led to kills.

[R'as al Ghul]

I'm not sure why you think a zero attack statistic means no attack. The formula for kill probabilities in STW and MTW depended on the difference between attack and defence stats. A negative difference was common, but still led to kills.

Yes, I'm aware of that. I think you're referring to this sentence:

With 0 attack they shouldn't be able to kill at all.

That was a bit exagerated. When I initially said:

Because of the armour value of the AS, the Peasant shouldn't be able to inflict much casualties.

it's more what I meant.

However, we do not have any negative combat values as in MTW.
I think that a difference of 4 points less in the attack value (regardless of the fact that it's zero now) should have a noticeable effect on the results. The only change that I can see is, that taking away their 3 defense points results in more casualties for the Peasants. Why is the change not noticeable in their kills?

[R'as al Ghul]

I realise now that the thread title may be a bit misleading.
Change it as you see fit, please.

[R'as al Ghul]

I've changed the attack value for the Peasants to -5.
It doesn't change anything. AS still loose 1/3 to 1/2 of their unit.

[sapi]

Maybe it's another occurance of the wraparound effect seen in traits?

Either that or the game has a 'sanity check' which disregards anything below 0 and reverts to defaults.

Oh, and you can change teh title by editing the first post in the thread.

[R'as al Ghul]

Either that or the game has a 'sanity check' which disregards anything below 0 and reverts to defaults.

Oh, and you can change teh title by editing the first post in the thread.

I agree. I don't think negative values are used anymore, if you edit them in they are displayed as zero value.
Thanks for the edit tip.

So, what are your ideas on the results? What factor makes peasants kill?
The attack animation alone?

[sapi]

That may well be it...

[todorp]

Wow, never I used Peasants, now I will.

[Ulstan]

What would happen if you were to boost the peasants attack to 8?

[Carl]

What does it is the spear attribute. This gives the AS a penalty in melee, plus theirs the now confirmed sheild bug.

The thing is we don't know if the penalty is just an attack penalty, or an attack AND defence penalty. If it's the latter I can see how this could happen.

[Foz]

Yeah... to expand on what Carl just said, the "shield bug" as we've come to call it means that the shield is subtracted instead of added in melee. Thus the armored sergeants in this test, who carry big six-point shields, are not 5 armor + 3 skill + 6 shield = 14 melee defense, but rather are instead 5 armor + 3 skill - 6 shield = 2 melee defense. In and of itself this immediately explains why the peasants can beat them down...

Applying something like my shield fix to make shield units have correct armor value in melee makes the fight go like you think it should. When all 4 line peasant units were routing, stats looked like this:

- They had sustained between 62 and 69 casualties each
- They had inflicted between 9 and 14 casualties each

This result seems to be in line with the very large stat difference between the units, as well as their cost difference.

[Doug-Thompson]

re: the_foz_4 point about shields.

I also wonder if the shield bug isn't a big factor here.

[R'as al Ghul]

I also wonder if the shield bug isn't a big factor here.

Yes, it is.
I had abandoned this thread because of low interest and the Shield thread

I'll repost what I posted there:

Hello,

I thought I drop in to compliment you on your findings. I've followed a different approach trying to find out how the stats actually influence combat. I've worked with zero stats etc. but didn't expect one value like the shield to be so completely bugged as it is.
I've just done some tests where I set the shield of ASergeants to zero and otherwise kept their stats as they are. I pitted 5 of them against 5 Mailed Knights (also with zeroed out shield).
Now those units actually work like the advisor tells you and like it's supposed to be. If the AS receive the charge in default formation they may win but take horrendous casualties. Before the fix they would've just been run down by the knights. Now they stand a chance and are actual anti-cav units.
What's even better, the Shiltrom works. It really does. When placed in shiltrom your AS won't take much losses from repeated charges and will eventually rout the knights.
If you still feel you want Spears to be stronger, change the shiltrom to shield_wall (unused feature) and the knights don't stand a chance.

Width of the shield_wall (unit in the back) compared to default:


Spear wall ready to receive charge:


Charge at shield_wall


Charge at Shiltrom


I was surprised that this simple fix makes it unnecessary to toy around with other values like collision mass or skeleton comp. factor.


R'as

So, the bottom line is:
The shield bug screws the stats of the AS because they carry a big shield. The Peasants don't have a shield. When you take away the shield from the AS, they win against the peasants but still take too much casualties. (See results in the_foz_4's post.) So, setting the shield to zero is an improvement, but that can hardly be the last word.
I want the shield to work as intended.

[Von Nanega]

I will do multiple test changing shiltrom to shield_wall, and post results later!!!

[R'as al Ghul]

I will do multiple test changing shiltrom to shield_wall, and post results later!!!

The formation icon for the shield_wall will look like "drop the siege equipment" but works correctly.

[Von Nanega]

The formation icon for the shield_wall will look like "drop the siege equipment" but works correctly.

Thanks for that information. That pre cleared up some confusion I would have had. I wonder though.... would it be possible to import the correct icon from RTW BI and use it?

[R'as al Ghul]

I wonder though.... would it be possible to import the correct icon from RTW BI and use it?

I guess that's possible.
Of course I've tried to, but couldn't find the location of the required file.