Effects of Attack Value

[Kobal2fr]

However I want to throw another point into the discussion: Since soldiers are playing attack and death animations, and soldiers don't really die before finishing their death animation, there probably is an influence of the actual animation length to the unit's performance, and I think this could be what Palamedes meant when he once talked about good and bad animations in conjunction with unit performance. It's like "meh I just stabbed someone, gimme a break"
This could explain my experience that slow 2h axe units have a worse performance than sword or 1h axe units.

Well, as I did a lot of billmen vs swords test I had to do a lot of idly staring at both movesets, and I'm not sure there's any clear speed advantage either way. Both movesets have fast attacks and slow attacks, protracted finishers and quick "bang, you're dead" ones in about equal measure. The swords do look faster on cursory glance because they seem to be able to cue a lot of slashes in a row but 1) they only do so when said slashes are parried/blocked ; and blocked/interrupted bill strikes also result in a flurry of bill moves sometimes and 2) swords seem to have more long finishers, when bill strike have a long preparation before the strike (arming their blow) but once the move is fired, it's very quick and the enemy keels over almost instantly.
Of course, short of obsessively spelunking in the animation files there's no clear way to know the proportion of fast to slow anims, their precise timing, or even if all anims are used in equal proportions, but from what I've seen they more or less even out. At least, when comparing sword+shield Vs 2h axe, but I'm not about to crosscheck every moveset. Even chronic anal retention has its limits .

The discrepancy Palamedes mentionned might have been this "quick attack, slow death" vs "long protracted attack, quick death" ? But that's not to say it's a discrepancy inter-units, could be intra-unit as well (this billman using anim A is more efficient that that billman using anim B). But if all anims are used in equal amounts, this wouldn't matter.

Has anyone witnessed attacks being actually interrupted ? I.e. one soldier is about to strike an enemy, but a second enemy cuts him down before he finishes ? If so, then that may be a point against longer attacks (I've never ever seen a soldier be attacked mid-finisher, nevermind killed)...but wether it's really significant is doubtfull in my book. But I'll setup another batch of these tests, this time using the vaunted über JHI anim, just to be sure.

In the meantime, I'd theorize that as of 1.2, 2H suck 1-on-1 because they have generally much lower defense (-4/6 for no shield, -3 for no sword parry bonus) and higher skeletal compensation (skimmed over the vanilla unit file, 2Hers are on the whole in the 1.25 - 1.35 range, all 1H axes/maces 1.2, all swords/pikes/halberds are 1) than 1Hers, coupled with the fact that their mass+charge bonus are usually not high enough to make up for them in sheer charge kills.

Wether that state of affairs is OK or not is another matter - after all, if they performed the same as their 1H+Shield counterparts there wouldn't be much point to them. Right now they're mainly tools suited to charge flanks/rear like so much cheap-and-slow cav, and to form a second line behind the main battleline, opportunistically charging in gaps/weak points. Using them as linemen is suicidal.
"Is that what we want them to be/what they historically were ?" is the real question.

[econ21]

Does anyone know what skeletal compensation is and why should it affect combat outcomes?

[FactionHeir]

Kobal: Try DEK vs NK with equalized everything. I have a feeling that billmen have a slightly better anim than the dismounted knights.

[Kobal2fr]

OK, did the test with JHI, and again the results fly in the face of my understanding. First, I pit them against Highland Rabble upgraded to JHI stats. Both units took similar losses on the charge, but the JHI always won the following brawl, with 20-30 men left. I figured "well, maybe they have a reach advantage. Also, the peasants are not designed to fight in highly_trained formation, that might be it".
The problem is that most western highly_trained units are pikemen, who wouldn't do. So next I pit Lamtuna Spearmen (with JHI stats) vs JHI. The fights were less lopsided, but still the JHI won quasi-all the time.

The thing is, all those fights followed the same math : units reduced to 45-50 on the charge, then both reduced to 30ish during the initial melee, then the JHI stop taking as many losses as their opponents. I looked even closer, and I noticed that sometimes, JHI "turn" attacks. That is to say, they do a normal attack, their enemy blocks, enemy starts to attack, but then the Janissary blocks it AND follows the block with a killing blow, in one fluid anim. Seems to happen more often when soldiers are spaced out than in close knit melees. Could be a mere "attack made to look like a counter", of course, but it really looks like it's triggered by the opponent attacking them.

DEK vs NS resulted in DEKs getting smashed all the time, wether the DEK had Sword stats or Swords having DEK stats.

So there *is* something about animations, and the initial result was a fluke. And I'm an idiot, but that went without saying.

However, I do believe it still proves that while attack is determined by anim+stats instead of stats alone, the defense stats have the same "value" no matter what animation set is used. Or, to put it another way, that models who have a shield are not inherently more resistant that models who don't - high defense 2 handers parry/block just as often as they do, only using the butt of their weapon instead of the shield. Which gives us a sound basis for balance : pitting units with the exact same defense would allow us the quantify how much "attack value" each anim set really has, and we could balance from there.
So my time was not TOTALLY wasted. Was it ?

[Husar]

I think the anims determine the attack frequency, higher frequency = more possible kills per minute = better overall performance.
You could take a stopwatch and take the time for every single attack animation of every unit type and then calculate the average attack animation time for that unit type, if they're the same, we have to find something else, if not, we have any answer.

[econ21]

So my time was not TOTALLY wasted. Was it ?

No, it's is good to know for sure, one way or the other.

Personally, I wish you had been right. It would be hard enough to balance the game on stats, without having to worry about quantifying the effects of animations.

And maybe I am alone on this, but I never see the animations. I guess I am jumping the view around and playing too zoomed out, but for me it is as if the animations don't exist. (I have the same problem with Dawn of War, which has great death animations, but is too frenetic to watch passively.)

[alpaca]

Kobal: Are you playing on medium? I have a feeling that on medium the player gets some advantage over the AI.

[Kobal2fr]

Well, in campaigns I always play on VH, but all of the tests were done in custom battles where there...is...no...

CURSE YOU, YOU HORRIBLE BEARDY GIT ! Now you've gone and made me notice that there *is* a difficulty setting in custom battles too, and that I left it on medium all the time, for all these tests. For all the battle tests I've *ever* done, in fact.