Night battle and missile accuracy, once and for all.

[TheLastPrivate]

I know FactionHeir is going to yell SEARCH, but after doing a bit of research,
I found out that

a) There is no concurrent agreement whether night battle affects missiles or not,

b) Nobody has any evidence other than ad-hoc assumptions regarding shogun and BI.


Has there been any conclusive research done on this, and I mean with either CA response or actual study done on it. A simple "they do" won't solve the problem imo.

[DVX BELLORVM]

I just did a simple test, fighting 4 day and 4 night battles. HRE pavise xbow vs English peasants, without any upgrades. All battles had the same conditions, grassy plain, VH difficulty, dry weather. In each battle the xbows fired three volleys to the approaching peasants.

The results:
DAY: 32 27 28 33 - Average:30
NIGHT: 35 30 29 24 - Average:29.5

edit: I forgot to mention that those are the numbers of soldiers killed in each battle

[FactionHeir]

Those are within confidence bounds, so no difference, although you could argue the sample size is a bit small.

[Darius]

That's somewhat disappointing, I wonder if it would be possible to mod it so that missile accuracy COULD be reduced during night battles.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

From BI I always assumed that it was the missile units lead by a general with the nightfighter trait that got improved accuracy.

[econ21]

Interesting test, DVX BELLORVM. I'm convinced (if disappointed). Sometimes I would not attack at night for fear of nerfing my missiles (or attack to neft the enemy). I won't worry about that any more.

This one's going in the FAQ.

[DVX BELLORVM]

Interesting test, DVX BELLORVM. I'm convinced (if disappointed). Sometimes I would not attack at night for fear of nerfing my missiles (or attack to neft the enemy). I won't worry about that any more.

This one's going in the FAQ.

It is a bit of a small sample, as FactionHeir mentioned, but I guess that if there is a difference in accuracy, it would show up.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

It is a bit of a small sample, as FactionHeir mentioned, but I guess that if there is a difference in accuracy, it would show up.

The test is inconclusive in that it only tests for a penalty and not whether a generals units get a bonus.

[Shahed]

There isn't any difference from what I can tell, without having done any tests. It's just like the heat factor, or fatigue rate.
It does not make any difference worth bothering about (in vanilla).

Also I'm quite unconvinced that using flaming arrows increases accuracy at night.
From what I can tell, it doesn't. It's better to use normal arrows at night, and use normal artillery projectiles. You clearly get more kills per volley using standard ammo at night than using fire ammo. Someone should have thought of flares !

[TheLastPrivate]

That's quite disappointing since Horse archers traditionally hated night fights due to lowered vision/accuracy during night battles...
But fatigue rate is still important, no? Not that it has anything to do with night battles...

[Sentinel]

Just did a quick test
Custom battle set to VH, grassy plain, AI controlling a unit of Gaelic Archers (missile attack 7) recorded below the number of kills after archer fired 10 arrows.
The test was done first a Night to force the AI to use flaming arrow. Then repeated at Midday for normal arrows

Noble Pikemen - Unit size 76, Armour 7(upgraded), Defence 7, Shield 0

Night attack 15, 12, 25, 22, 20, 19, 21, 17, 23, 14 = Avg 18.8
Midday attack 33, 25, 26, 31, 26, 25, 27, 32, 32, 24 = Avg 28.1


Highland Pikemen - Unit size 76, Armour 0, Defence 6, Shield 0
Night attack 39, 37, 45, 53, 43, 35, 43, 39, 50, 47 = Avg 43.1
Midday attack 44, 57. 62, 67, 59, 55, 61, 64, 54, 52 = Avg 57.5

The number of kills per 10 arrows is higher for normal arrows, than for flaming arrows, on target with or without armour.
In addition the rate of fire for normal arrows is about twice of flaming arrows.
If the battle was allowed to continue the Noble Pikemen unit would route only after >70 men had been killed. The Highland Pikemen routed after >60 had been killed.

There is no indication that faming arrows have any advantage against armoured units

My archers will continue to draw normal arrows for both night and day battles.

[Grombeard]

So what are flaming arrows good for then?

Well, besides the fact that they look really cool at night, and at that moment when a volley of them hits the ground it looks like hundreds of little flares stand there and enlighten the night... *sigh* It's christmas time... :D

[FactionHeir]

Flaming missiles reduce troop morale slightly.

[TheLastPrivate]

Wait, so Sentinel's data is now contradicting bellorum's test results?

[FactionHeir]

Sentinel did the test using flaming missiles at night, so no, they don't contradict each other.

[Sentinel]

Wait, so Sentinel's data is now contradicting bellorum's test results?

Not necessarily.
There are differences in the test method. I think DVX BELLORVM controlled the missile unit and let the AI control the peasants. Since the Pavise Crossbow cannot fire flaming arrows / bolts he will have used the normal bolts for both the night and day battle. Since he is using the same missile it is not surprising that the results for the two battles would give similar result. Thus indicating that the time of day, (night / daylight) has no significant effect on accuracy.

The test I did involved the AI controlling the missile unit and myself controlling the Pikemen. One of the disadvantages of my method is that I could not set up a test with the missile unit using normal arrows in a night battle to compare with the same unit using normal arrows in a day battle.
The reason I did not use the same method as DVX BELLORVM was that I wanted to keep the infantry target still, in the same formation, and run the test for longer in this state without the AI charging the archers.

One of the things I was also going to test for was the effect the direction of the arrows had on the Pikemen.
I was going to get a set of results with the Pikemen facing away from the archers, so their arrows hit the backs of the Pikemen. This proved to be impossible. Every time I test up this battle, the archers did not even bother firing an arrow. They just charged and engaged the back of the Pikemen in melee, and slaughtered them twice as fast as they could have done with their bows

[DVX BELLORVM]

Every time I test up this battle, the archers did not even bother firing an arrow. They just charged and engaged the back of the Pikemen in melee, and slaughtered them twice as fast as they could have done with their bows

That's exactly why I decided to control the archers in my test. When they were controlled by AI, they sometimes charged, sometimes they moved to a different firing position, changing the distance. And it seems that distance does have an effect on accuracy.

Those test should really be performed in a MP battle to assure maximal control over the conditions. The other option would be to mod the speed to 0, if possible

[WhiskeyGhost]

That's exactly why I decided to control the archers in my test. When they were controlled by AI, they sometimes charged, sometimes they moved to a different firing position, changing the distance. And it seems that distance does have an effect on accuracy.

Those test should really be performed in a MP battle to assure maximal control over the conditions. The other option would be to mod the speed to 0, if possible

hmm, with that being said, maybe the "Penalty" for ranged units at night, might be a scaled difference based upon how FAR your shooting. With a normal unit such as peasant archers vs a long range unit, both shooting at their maximum range, that the long range unit (aside from of course the statistical difference due to AP dmg, and the difference in the base accuracy/dmg between the different units), that maybe fighting at night reduces accuracy more for longer ranged units?

Ok, summary: i think if theres a range penalty at night, it might be based on distance to target instead of a base penalty figure.

It would be quite hard to test this though, maybe if i tried it with xbows......*begins scheming*

[FactionHeir]

All weapon accucary is based on range. They have a certain chance of going off target with each distance unit, specified in the projectile file.

[Old Geezer]

Range can make a huge difference in accuracy as I recently noticed with catapults. I attempted an assault and my catapult at extreme range ran out of ammo before breaking down a low level town gate! On relpay I moved the catapult in very close and it looked like ever launch hit the gate. I have also noticed that when the gate is greatly recessed sometimes the artillery has the devil of a time hitting the gate.

I have not noticed any drop in accuracy at night.

[Discoman]

The only usage of nightbattles is,
1. Have a reason for Generals to get more Command
2. Attack at night to catch the enemy by surprise and deny them reinforcements.

Honestly it is dissapointing due to the fact that weather has little to no effect on the battle.

[pike master]

in a modification i made i removed flaming arrows and other flaming projectiles and when attacking castles my men are getting shot down a lot more. on the battlefield when im up against the ai and he has bombards the solid shot kills more of my men than the flaming shot.

flaming projectiles arent very good in my opinion especially when it comes to the ai judgement concerning when to use them and when not to.