Mother of all bugs--missile and melee

**Red Harvest** · 01-17-2005, 08:53

Wow! A fellow over at twcenter figured out that CA appears to have a major bug in the missile vs. melee stats (pri and sec in units files respectively.) In melee the missile stat is being used instead of the secondary stat. I did the following to confirm:

Test 1.
Default Numidian Javelinmen (skirmishers) attacking one unit of Principes. Turn off skirmish, turn off fire at will, charge the Numidian at the Romans as you close using ALT attack. The Numidians switch to their knives (visible in animation.) Result--lots of dead Numidians, no dead Principes.

Test 2.
Mod primary (missile) stat for the Numidian Javelinmen from 6 to 20. Turn off skirmish, turn off fire at will, charge the Romans as you close using ALT attack. The Numidians switch to their knives again, and nearly whip the Principes, inflicting ~75% casualties before routing.

Test 3.
Up the missile attack of Numidians to 30. Repeat...and the Numidians beat the Principes narrowly.

Considering Numidians have very low defense, and Principes very high defense, this makes sense if the game is using missile stats for melee. Add to this the realization that Principes have 11 missile attack and 16 defense... 11 + 16 = 27 while in test 2 Numidia was getting 20 + 4 = 24... a little short.

Lots more testing to go...but this could make sense of a lot of wierd goings on in the game.

No wonder most infantry sucks versus Rome's infantry...they are using the danged pila attack value! And those chariot archers? Are they using their high missile attack for melee? How about Balearics and Forester Warbands?

**zhuge** · 01-17-2005, 09:17

Dear me, that's a HUGE bug.... but it kinda makes sense too in a way... I've been reading reports on the official forums that state that skirmishers seem to do quite well in melee against cavalry which they shouldn't (I've experienced this myself as well, to a certain extent). I guess we have the answer now and your tests confirm the issue.
Might be applicable to archers too as you said. Wouldn't surprise me. They appear to do quite well Vs cav when charging, which is odd.

If it's a general "missile value taken instead of melee" switch for all units, I suppose we'd need a hardcoded fix for it. Can't see how we can mod it. Hope it's already in the coming patch, since it's already with Activision for testing... otherwise we'll have to wait a long time to get this one rectified... till an expansion?

Thanks for the notification.

**sapi** · 01-17-2005, 09:26

Does this work the other way round too?
I wouldn't think so, as the foresters still have good missile too...

**Red Harvest** · 01-17-2005, 09:34

Missile stats actually work for missile attack. I've tested and modded the missile attack enough to know that it is working properly off its own stat (although I have not checked to see if the secondary stat might be contributing as well.) What I didn't know, but is now obvious, is that the missile stats are also getting used for melee!

And we've been wondering why skirmishers fought so well in melee at times! Turns out the little buggers have been using their rather high missile attack values as melee. If they had decent defense they would be great frontline infantry.

**AquaLurker** · 01-17-2005, 09:28

That explain why I was able to kill 5 cataphracts with 20 archers in melee lol.

**zhuge** · 01-17-2005, 09:36

Wasn't too clear. I meant missile values were taken instead of melee for all units which have a missile attack. I agree that it doesn't occur the other way round. Sorry for the bad wording.

The original post on this at the TW forums:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index...howtopic=19393

I'm quite upset... can't see sitting down to play a serious game with these kinda bugs around...

**zhuge** · 01-17-2005, 09:47

In case we need to live with this bug... could we mod down ALL missile values. Red Harvest was suggesting taking off about one-third of missile attack for various units in that Rock/Scissors/Paper thread. I believe that would put missile attack at about the same values as melee... or at least closer. What units have the biggest missile Vs melee difference?

Dunno... I really hope CA fixes this one.

EDIT: This probably isn't that important... comparatively... but could we also confirm/refute if charge bonuses are working properly for missile units.
I mean I see Forester Warbands getting a Missile attack of 15 and a charge value of 5 for it and a Melee attack of 11 and a charge value of 8 for the melee weapon. So which charge value is actually used? I'm getting pretty confused.

**Colovion** · 01-17-2005, 09:53

Originally Posted by zhuge

In case we need to live with this bug... could we mod down ALL missile values. Red Harvest was suggesting taking off about one-third of missile attack for various units in that Rock/Scissors/Paper thread. I believe that would put missile attack at about the same values as melee... or at least closer. What units have the biggest missile Vs melee difference?

Dunno... I really hope CA fixes this one.

hopefully they caught it in the patch

wow I wish there was like a list of fixes that will be in the patch so that if there was any glaring missing bugs they could be fixed in a more proactive fashion