Question about EDU

[Suraknar]

Hello,

I have been playing with unit stats as of late however, there are some queestion marks about some unts that I have not been able to answer.

Specifically it has to do with Spear using units.

The EDU is not very explicit about all this, I am assuming this is due to patches (I am running 1.5), and the notes not being updated while the stat entries are being updated.

Now I did some searches and found several discussions about the behavior of spears, many of which were prior to 1.3 which addressed many issues about spears and phalanxes.

Still some questions remain unnanswered (or at least I havent found the good threads if they exist).

For instance, the attribute spear is what defines that a unit receives bonuses against cavalry and while receiving negative bonuses against infantry.

It seems that previous to 1.3, these bonuses were hidden, and made open in the form of spear_bonus_x

1 - But did this also made the spear or light_spear attributes to now only affect visuals of spears in game?

Second, I am guessing that the way the game determines how to apply this positive or negative bonus depends on the category attribute of a given unit, for instance, a unit armed with spears will have a bonus vs a category cavalry whiel get negative bonus vs infantry category.

So far so good, but now another question arises from this since, some units are of class light yet they are armed with spears and have stat_pri_attr spear, spear_bonus_8.

2 - What exactly is affected by the class spearmen attribute, and how would a unit armed with spears of the category infantry and class spearmen be different from another unit category infantry armed with spear and with class light or heavy?

Finally there is this:

; short_pike = Use shorter than normal spears. Phalanx capable units only
;

There isnt any units using this attribute.

3 - Has the effects of this been replaced by some other attribute? and if yes which one?

Thank you for any clarification on these questions, also it would be nice to have a thread that explains all of the attributes that can be found on units in EDU, unless it already exists and I was not able to find it, would appreciate if you can point me to the good direction here.

Cheers!

EDIT: Oki I mixed some attributes here :P Modified the thread for clarity :P

[Suraknar]

Oki I have been doing some tests with various configurations.

The "spear" attribute, is what seems to give cavalry bonuses, so that much is ok.

The "light_spear", does not give bonuses, the unit does not receive bonus fighting cavalry in its Info scroll.

"Phalanx" formation equips units with longer spears, without it they get shorter ones,(this is well known).

The interesting attribute is "short_pike", this equips the unit with a spear that is as long as a unit without phalanx capability (shorter than Greek Hoplite), however, this has a different animation, the unit holds the spear straight under the forearm, and remains in a phalanx fashion even if not in that formation, so they run with spears extended in front of them like if they were in phalanx formation instead of holding the spear upwards.

Here is a unit of auxilia, with short_pike, no phalanx capability.


And a unit of Greek Hoplites with short_pike, phalanx capability removed.


The Hoplites do not fight with it because they have a secondary weapon and they always switch to swords when ordered to attack.

Finally, the class does not seem to be doing anything significant.

A class Light or Heavy unit, with spear attribute will receive bonuses.

A class spearmen without the spear attribute will not receive bonuses.

So...what "class" does really elludes me at this time.

Also, still remains to be confirmed if the "spear_bonus_x" attribute, actually gives some type of bonus even if it does not appear on the unit's info.

[Aradan]

To the knowledge of the FATW testing/balancing team (me and xerex):

A) Spear attribute gives a -4 combat against infantry and a +8 against cavalry.

B) Light spear appears to have the same combat effects.

C) The difference between them is that spear-units gain some pushing power (probably a CA effort to simulate in-game the pushing that occured when phalanxes fought). It's as if the unit that is assigned the 'spear' attribute gets a mass increase. That's why such units withstand better cavalry charges (compared to light_spear) and also why you *should* always pair 'spear' with a cohesive formation, like phalanx, short-pike or shield-wall, otherwise the unit's soldiers tend to push their enemies too much, mingle with them and ruin their formation with very unpleasant results.

D) The 'bonus fighting cavalry' will not show up with light_spear, but it doesn't mean that the unit doesn't get the bonus.

E) Class is used by internal campaign mechanisms to determine what kind of unit should the AI train in this or that city on this or that time etc... It has no effect in actual combat nor is it used to determine which unit the AI will assign against which during battle.

F) spear_bonus_x does work. 'x' can only take even numbers as values, min=4 and max=12 (I think).

G) short_pike (apart from the special formation) appears to give the unit some bonus vs both infantry and cavalry, but we're not sure yet about how much exactly.

Anybody who knows that sth is different, plz correct me, if I'm mistaken somewhere.

[Suraknar]

Thank you very much Aradan.

This does explain much here, and answer most questions.

Now the question becomes, is the bonus of "spear" determined by "spear_bonus"? Or does "spear_bonus" adds itself to whatever default bonus the "spear" attribute has?

It would semm (havent tested this), that according to the discussions, the "spear_bonus_x" used to be hidden prior to 1.3, and that it came out after it. If we follow this logic then that would mean that the "spear" attribute by itself does not give any bonus whatsoever. Would this be correct?

From what you have said, maybe "short_pike" was intended for Roman units, in order to simulate the close formation of an advancing unit of spear wielding romans yet not necessarilly a Greek base phalanx.

Alternativelly this may have also been an attempt to make a difference between Classical Greek Dori Phalanx and Alexandrian style Sarissa Phalanx

I am somewhat happy of this new find to be honest here, I will used it for all units in game that do not have pikes, and see how a campaign will go like that.

And since...Classical Greek phalanxes were used in Infantry vs Infantry engagements, it does not make sense that they receive a negative bonus against infantry.

[Suraknar]

oki have been doing some more tests here...

really need to understand how "spear_bonus" is aplied and vs what, is the bonus vs infantry or cavalry or both?

"short_pike" seems to do wonders visually and functionally against cavalry.

But against infantry its rather poor, I need to do more tests there.

any ideas anyone?

[wlesmana]

A) Spear attribute gives a -4 combat against infantry and a +8 against cavalry.

B) Light spear appears to have the same combat effects.

Are you sure about this part? I tested two similar units, one with spear and the other light_spear. The light_spear always wins out against the spear in straight up battles.

The short_pike feature was changed since 1.3. Before that it was similar to the phalanx except shorter range. Since 1.3, it's now mostly a graphical feature. To remove the "changed their weapon when in close combat" just remove their secondary attack value and they'd keep using the short pike.

[Aradan]

Wles, did you exit the custom battle setup and then start a fresh one every time or you just clicked 'fight this battle again'? I've spent countless hours pondering on incredible results just to discover (to my ever-lasting dissapointment) that CA has programmed CBs in a way that if you just hit the 're-fight battle' button, the same root for the random function is used for every single one, thus producing an inaccurate result.

I will test this further once I find time and report back.

I believe that spear_bonus_x does replace 'spear' bonuses. The default values CA gave BI units (4 for lighter units and 8 for heavier ones) also point to that direction, as a bonus of 16 seems a tad too much, since there are a dozen or more units that get it... It's bonus is applied against cavalry.

short_pike is still an unknown quantity for me. It's obvious it's a lesser-scale phalanx of sorts, but can't figure out *exactly* what it does. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated! :)


EDIT: Checked again spear VS light_spear.
Medium difficulty, custom battles (no fatigue, no morale) on flat ground with no obstacles, exactly same unit stats (except of course that one had 'spear' and the other 'light_spear'), same skeleton (as it too effects battle outcome) and played as both spear and light_spear units.
Result: 7-7 and very close results. I believe this confirms that they're equal.


Will also do short_pike, but I'm a bit over-loaded atm. Soon though.

[mcantu]

Has anything else been found out about spear/light_spear and the spear_bonus_x tag?

[Aradan]

Latest findings (to my knowledge) are in the Complete EDU Guide...

[mcantu]

Latest findings (to my knowledge) are in the Complete EDU Guide...

Does anyone know then if spear and light_spear need to be used together with spear_bonus_x?

In the RTW 1.5/BI 1.6 EDUs they are always used together

[Aradan]

Quoted from the EDU guide:

spear_bonus_x (BI only): 'x' may be any even number between 4 and 12 inclusive. Must be accompanied by spear or light_spear attributes, otherwise it has no effect. It stacks with the default bonuses of these two attributes.

[mcantu]

Quoted from the EDU guide:

Ah...I missed that part about the bonuses stacking. Now, are we sure that the spear_bonus_x stacks with their bonuses and doesn't define the bonus? I'm just asking because in the RTW 1.5 and BI 1.6 EDUs spear and light_spear are always used in conjunction with spear_bonus_x

I've always seen it mentioned that spear gives +8 and light_spear gives +4. It seems like too much of a coincidence that in the vanilla 1.5/1.6 EDUs all units with spear have spear_bonus_8 and all units with light_spear have spear_bonus_4

Also, did CA ever comment on what light_spear actually does? I've been looking everywhere for something with no luck.

[Aradan]

Yes, I'm pretty sure the bonuses do stack. The reason spear_bonus_x always appers coupled with spear or light_spear is because if the two latter are not present, then spear_bonus_x has no effect. Btw, as the Guide also mentions, light_spear doesn't give +4, it gives +8, but contrary to 'spear', it gives that to defense.

No I don't think CA ever made a comment on that. The numbers in the Guide are results of long months of hard testing.

[mcantu]

I noticed that in the MTW2 EDU there are quite a few units that have spear_bonus_x without spear or light_spear

[mcantu]

Here are the results of tests I did with light_spear and spear_bonus_x

Test was in EB; Thessalian Cavalry vs Classic Hoplite; on flat ground
I charged the cavalry into the hoplite front using alt-right cick so they would switch to swords after the charge.

In every instance the classic hoplite easily defeated the thessalian cav

#1 Hoplites w/light_spear:
Time to cav rout/hoplites remaining
1:50/72
1:45/72
1:45/65

#2 Hoplites w/o light_spear
Time to cav rout/hoplites remaining
1:55/49
1:40/75
2:30/60

#3 Hoplites w/ light_spear; spear_bonus_4
Time to cav rout/hopites remaining
1:10/76
1:12/72
1:18/67

#4 Hoplites w/light_spear; spear_bonus_8
Time to cav rout/hoplites remaining
1:00/74
:50/73
:35/76

[Aradan]

And your conclusion is? (btw we're talking RTW EDU here, right?)

In any case, I believe you are using a wrong method to test things. When you test you must keep *every* paramtre equal and vary only the one you are investigating. So what you need is: two identical units, with identical stats, no officers, same skeletons, no other attributes, no heat penalty, no ground modifier, same morale, custom battles, flat ground, medium difficulty and multiple tests. Perhaps I'm forgetting sth here, but you get the point.

[mcantu]

What seemed to happen was that there was very little effect on the cavalry when light_spear was used alone or when it was removed. Also, the cav unit would lose only 0-2 soldiers during the initial charges into the hoplites. With light_spear and spear_bonus_x used together, the cav would lose 3-6 soldiers in the initial charges and the rate at which they were killed was much faster

And those were the test perameters I used except for the heat and ground modifiers which didnt come into play...

[Aradan]

The light-spear gives only to defense, so perhaps that's why it didn't make much difference regarding cavalry deaths. The spear_bonus_x on the other hand gives to attack, so again that should explain the difference.

I advise that you don't charge the cavalry into the infantry if you want to getnot seem like a big difference, but it is if you try to be precise. accurate results. Charge bonus comes into play (even if you have set it to 1) and various other stuff, like the mass of the cavalry that disrupts the infantry formation, and can have an effect on the battle outcome. It might not seem like a big deal, but it is if you're trying to be precise.

Since we're on the topic, have you run any tests with short_pike? I never find the time to them myself... :)