Question about EDU

**Aradan** · 05-30-2007, 14:09

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** · 09-09-2007, 15:55

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

**Aradan** · 09-09-2007, 16:12

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

**mcantu** · 09-09-2007, 19:57

Originally Posted by Aradan

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** · 09-09-2007, 20:36

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** · 09-09-2007, 22:24

Originally Posted by Aradan

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** · 09-10-2007, 12:03

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.