"Effective Against Armor"

[FuzzyBunny]

Translated, what does this mean?

[macsen rufus]

It means the attack values increase when the unit attacked is armoured, giving a bonus against armoured troops. If it's applied to missiles, then the missile will have greater effectiveness against armour in similar vein. Hence vanilla archers won't do much damage to say halbardiers, but longbows will. Crossbows and arbalests are also armour-piercing.

For melee units it's generally axes and polearms that have AP bonuses.

There is a more detailed breakdown of the actual formulas in Frogbeastegg's wonderful guide (follow links from the MTW Guides section), but generally the more the armour, the better the AP bonus!

[Knight of the Temple]

I've been looking through the armour piercing specifics recently, so I thought I may as well post them while they're fresh in my mind.

This only applies to melee.

A unit that is described as being 'Effective against armour' will receive a bonus to their attack when fighting an armoured opponent: the more armour an apponent has, the bigger the bonus. If you want to know specifically what the bonus is, there are simple formulae for working it out.

Attack bonus against an unmounted opponent = (opponent's armour level - 1) / 2

Attack bonus against a mounted opponent = (opponent's armour level - 2) / 2

It's also important to note that shields don't factor into this.

To properly calculate everything yourself and see exactly how much of a difference it's really making, you'll have to know the basic attributes each unit has in the first place. If you are new to MTW then this will take time. As mascen rufus said, the MTW Total Unit Guide by Frogbeastegg is very helpful in getting to know the stats behind units. Checking the F1 screen during the battle phase is also a good way to learn about stats, but it's easier to get confused this way because of all the potential things influencing these stats: unit valour, weapon/armour upgrades, shield bonuses, General command bonuses, General virtues/vices, terrain bonuses/penalties, provincial building bonuses, etc.

The surest way to be clear about the attributes of a unit (especially shield bonuses and things like that) is to go through the actual stats file used in the game. In your MTW folder it'll be called CRUSADERS_UNIT_PROD11.TXT. You'll need a bit of patience for that though.

Here are some examples of attack bonuses gained and how much a difference it really makes.

Example 1: Militia Sergeants (MS for short) versus Chivalric Men At Arms (CMAA). Both have 0 valour, no upgrades.

Bonus = (Armour - 1)/2

CMAA have an armour level of 4. They also have a shield which adds 1 to their armour (which is why their armour will appear as 5 in the F1 screen), but as I said earlier, this doesn't factor into the bonus.

So, Bonus = (4 - 1)/2
Bonus = 3/2
Bonus = 1.5
Bonus = 1

As far as I know half points aren't counted, so MS will gain an attack bonus of 1 when facing CMAA. MS have a base attack of 2, so when fighting CMAA their attack will be 3. So it's a bonus of 50% - not that much, but better than nothing.

Example 2: Militia Sergeants versus Chivalric Knights (CK). Again, both valour 0, no upgrades (CK have +3 armour to begin with, as you need an Armourer's Guild to train these knights).

Bonus (against a mounted opponent this time) = (Armour - 2)/2

CK have an armour level of 10. 0.5 from their shield.

Bonus = (10 - 2)/2
Bonus = 8/2
Bonus = 4

So Militia Sergeants will gain a bonus of 4 against Chivalric Knights, giving them a total attack of 6 instead of their normal 2.

So the armour piercing bonus does make a considerable difference against very heavily armoured opponents.

Here is one last example. An optimised polearm unit with all the bonuses against the same CK.

Billmen (BM) vesus Chivaric Knights.

The BM have been trained in Mercia giving them a valour bonus, and another point of valour is gained from the Master Spearmaker, giving the BM a starting valour of 2. The CK are standard.

The BM gain the same attack bonus of 4 as the MS do as it's the same opponent. BM have a base attack of 2, the same as MS, but BM are a proper polearm unit and therefore have an additional bonus of 3 to their attack against cavalry (Halberdiers have this bonus also). So that's 2 + 4 + 3, and their starting valour of 2 gives them an additional 2 to their attack, giving them a total attack of 11 against Chivalric Knights! An attack of 11 is more than double the attack of the Knights themselves, which is 5. Knights have a big charge bonus though, so they're still very powerful during that phase, but once the charge is over they only have an attack value of 5 (and maybe another +1 because of a special cavalry versus infantry bonus) compared to the Billmen's 11, which shows just how powerful they can be.

Hope this wasn't too much to digest.

[Caerfanan]

That was very interesting, as many posts here.

I have two questions though

1/ When we consider the stats of a unit. What does the armor do? does it stacks wis the defence stat, or does it give some "saving throw" to a man stricken to death, like "if I'm dead and I have a 4 armour bonus I have 50% of staying alive"?
2/ speaking of this, clearly a weapon upgrade gives a +1 attack. But what does give an armor upgrade? +1 defence due to armor, or +1 defense AND +1 armor (them stacking, or giving at the same time a better defence stat and a better chance of avoiding death while effectively hit)

And two very simple and technical questions (I hope this is not to bad a behavior...):
1/ what does the F1 key do? Do we have acces to actual figures, instead of "good attack", "poor defense" and the like?
2/ Is it possible to build battles choosing the units to train oneself? I read stuff about people making some very precise testing on some very specific units?

Thanks!

[caravel]

That was very interesting, as many posts here.

I have two questions though

1/ When we consider the stats of a unit. What does the armor do? does it stacks wis the defence stat, or does it give some "saving throw" to a man stricken to death, like "if I'm dead and I have a 4 armour bonus I have 50% of staying alive"?

Armour is a separate stat to defence. Armour is all about protecting against a successful hit from an opponent's weapon or missile, wheras defense is all about evading the hit in the first place IIRC. Armour has better protection against missiles, though units that are armoured will tire more quickly in the desert.

2/ speaking of this, clearly a weapon upgrade gives a +1 attack. But what does give an armor upgrade? +1 defence due to armor, or +1 defense AND +1 armor (them stacking, or giving at the same time a better defence stat and a better chance of avoiding death while effectively hit)

Armour upgrades (Armourer) give +1 armour. Weapon upgrades (Metalsmith) give +1 attack. Neither give valour bonuses at master level.

And two very simple and technical questions (I hope this is not to bad a behavior...):
1/ what does the F1 key do? Do we have acces to actual figures, instead of "good attack", "poor defense" and the like?

It shows the unit stats for the units on the battlefield. You will see the actual stats, including morale, of those units while they are in battle. This may change completely once you get back to the campaign map.

2/ Is it possible to build battles choosing the units to train oneself? I read stuff about people making some very precise testing on some very specific units?

Thanks!

Custom battles are the way to do that.

[Ludens]

Armour is a separate stat to defence. Armour is all about protecting against a successful hit from an opponent's weapon or missile, wheras defense is all about evading the hit in the first place IIRC.

I guess that is what it is supposed to represent, but in the melee-combat calculation defence and armour are added up to the total defence value, which the determines the odds of a strike being successful or not. If a strike is successful, the target dies (unless he happens to have multiple hitpoints, but most soldiers have only one). However, like you say, only armour protects against missiles.

[The Grand Inquisitor]

Armour protects vs missiles. Defence vs melee. They do not add together, though 'armour bonuses' are added to both armour and defence.

[Deus ret.]

I guess that is what it is supposed to represent, but in the melee-combat calculation defence and armour are added up to the total defence value, which the determines the odds of a strike being successful or not. If a strike is successful, the target dies (unless he happens to have multiple hitpoints, but most soldiers have only one). However, like you say, only armour protects against missiles.

Armour protects vs missiles. Defence vs melee. They do not add together, though 'armour bonuses' are added to both armour and defence.

If this is correct how exactly would the armour piercing bonus work? I found match-ups like the BM-CK described by libra683 to be quite in favour of the armour piercing unit, nonwithstanding a possible high defense rating of the -in this case- mounted victim. It seems like the units' defense rating doesn't really count any more once they wear heavy armour and are attacked by an armour piercing unit.