Modding Trade Goods?

[Gaiseric]

Double Post, I got a few questions about unit stats and game mechanics.

I was wondering if anyone had the formula the game uses for calculating battle losses when two units meet on the field of battle? I had a look at the unit stats and found the charge bonus, melee bonus, defense bonus, armor level, and honor level for each unit in the game. I am just trying to figure out how all these numbers work on the battlefield?

Also, does anyone know how I can disable the auto-merging that the computer does to my troops after each battle or is there a way to do it manually?

Thanks:)

[caravel]

Also, does anyone know how I can disable the auto-merging that the computer does to my troops after each battle or is there a way to do it manually?

Thanks:)

Click the arrow button to the right of the minimap and uncheck "tidy up units after battle".

-edit: for your other other query, have a look at the old numerology thread at the (old) .com http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/1701

[drone]

I was wondering if anyone had the formula the game uses for calculating battle losses when two units meet on the field of battle? I had a look at the unit stats and found the charge bonus, melee bonus, defense bonus, armor level, and honor level for each unit in the game. I am just trying to figure out how all these numbers work on the battlefield?

Combat is determined man-on-man, with a combat cycle of about 1 second where each man in contact with the enemy strikes once (and can be hit by many, up to 6?). The kill chance is determined from the unit stats plus all the other factors (fatigue, terrain, formation, etc.). The official strategy guide had the details, a crude overview can be found here.

[Gaiseric]

Thanks for the links!!! Bookmarked em both :)

How does the game figure out who dies or survives if the Combat Formula gives fractions like 0.31 and 0.76 for a Kill Chance? I am guessing the guy with the lower kill chance would die, but if there is not much of a margin the man to man combat would go to round two. I will have to watch more closely the next time I play to see if I can spot some good matches.

[drone]

Each man in combat gets a roll, so to speak, so each attack can kill if the roll falls within the kill chance. On a given turn, two combatants can kill each other.

[Gaiseric]

I didnt know that the TW Engine uses dice:( Combat still seems to work very well in all the TW games I have played. The ability to maneuver and control the battle as well as all of the economic options available in TW games has not been matched in any of the other strategy/grand strategy games that I have played in the past 20+ years. ( The one exception that I would rate second place would go to Imperial Glory, which has many of the same features as other TW games.) These other strategy games use dice for battles but you really have no control. If two equal, opposing armies battle, it is usually a coin toss on who would win.

I wonder how the game determines who dies from archer fire? On that note, I was wondering how to use archers successfully in MTW? I would like to keep them in back of my army as I engage the enemies line, but I was wondering how much friendly fire there is in the game? If my archers are killing as many friendlies as I think it may not be worth having them in my army. I might try out some skirmish tactics for them today, but I would appreciate any advice on how to best use archers. Thanks:)

[caravel]

]On that note, I was wondering how to use archers successfully in MTW? I would like to keep them in back of my army as I engage the enemies line, but I was wondering how much friendly fire there is in the game? If my archers are killing as many friendlies as I think it may not be worth having them in my army. I might try out some skirmish tactics for them today, but I would appreciate any advice on how to best use archers. Thanks:)

Archers fire over an arced trajectory, so it really depends on terrain, distance, etc.

[drone]

There needs to be some randomness to combat, but the various factors make things somewhat predictable.

Missile kills are based on different missile type stats in the projectile_stats.txt file. The big stats are Range, Accuracy, Lethality, Power, and ArmourMod. To the best of my knowledge, the only thing that affects a unit's missile performance is valour, which improves the accuracy.

There is friendly fire in the game, the computer is more than willing to let you shoot your troops in the back. The velocity stat affects the trajectory of the missile, a flat trajectory like bullets and crossbow/arbalest bolts really need a clear shot to prevent lots of friendly casualties. This is compounded because armour is the only defense against missiles, and these are AP projectiles. With regular archers, shooting into melee is a little better, especially if your own troops are more heavily armoured. The arc keeps the hits on your own men down, but they will still get hit.

[Stazi]

From the totalwar.com forum:

Shats (04/20/04 17:24:30)

uhhmm 'Bif, archer accuracy does actually get quite noticable over 4 valour. >D Sad but true, significant in campaign, but ellusive in custom and MP. I suspect archery 'quantification' is from a maximum, like 100%-20-valour (rough and innacurate (heh) example). As archer valours get higher, the delta gets larger with each increase. Considering there are other so many dilutary factors, like unit redress making near random (but not quite) numbers of target individuals walk about... wind n' weather, terrain height and facing differences, target angle yadayada finding significance without the higher valour values available in campaign becomes futile... as we both discovered.

I ran some 7s versus some 2s and it, the kill difference, was silly in the 7s favour (vanilla archer versus vanilla archer). Around a 5% per volley which extrapolated to final sizes, before enemy rebel leader killed and rout, at maybe 70% versus their 6%. If it had been several of each, versus several of each, I think three 6s versus three 2s would have had even less loses from tripple teaming causing instant routs every time for no real loses.

Valour on archer accuracy is significant, as long as it's significantly higher than mp maximum. >D

Have you tried to change this value: AccColDec ? Description says :
"y if this projectile should always accurate collision detection against models. This is computationally expensive".
It's only enabled for artillery now. I'm curious if it kill my cpu when I enable this option for every shooting unit in game? Checking each arrow against each soldier - interesting.
btw Does the projectile like arrow/bolt/bullet stops when hits first soldier or the double/triple hits are possible? Maybe it depends on lethality?

[Gaiseric]

There is friendly fire in the game, the computer is more than willing to let you shoot your troops in the back. The velocity stat affects the trajectory of the missile, a flat trajectory like bullets and crossbow/arbalest bolts really need a clear shot to prevent lots of friendly casualties. This is compounded because armour is the only defense against missiles, and these are AP projectiles. With regular archers, shooting into melee is a little better, especially if your own troops are more heavily armoured. The arc keeps the hits on your own men down, but they will still get hit.

This is good to know. I was shooting into the melee with my troops only starting out at armour level 1. They were dying like flies and I think a lot of that was from friendly fire:( I am going to have to find a differant way to use archers effectivly in combo with these poorly armoured troops.

I might be able to skip putting archers in my army but I will then be faced with the dilema of how to get the enemy off of the high ground. I'll play around with tactics a little and post back the results.