Do Merlons stack?

[jiyuuishi]

Hello everybody.

Short question this time:

If I put two Merlons in a row and have an Archer behind, will the cover effect be higher than if its only one Merlon?

Archer
Merlon
Merlon

(Just to clarify)

Has anybody tested that or simply knows?

Greetings

[Wantoomany]

I doubt it. Merlons provide 55% cover. If they stack, there would have to be some level of diminishing returns or you could easily get over 100% cover.

[jiyuuishi]

Well, that they don't stack additively is very obvious, I was thinking of multiplicatively stacking.

Basically: 1 Merlon = 55% Cover (or 45% of getting hit)
and with 2 Merlons = 55% x 55% Cover (or a 20,25% of getting hit)

The question now is whether thats true or not :D

But yeah, I also have my doubts thats its true. Thats why I asked whether anybody knows :D

[sf]

Originally posted by jiyuuishi:

Well, that they don't stack additively is very obvious, I was thinking of multiplicatively stacking.

Basically: 1 Merlon = 55% Cover (or 45% of getting hit)
and with 2 Merlons = 55% x 55% Cover (or a 20,25% of getting hit)

The question now is whether thats true or not :D

But yeah, I also have my doubts thats its true. Thats why I asked whether anybody knows :D

I tot it was like this too. I don't really know for sure, but I think it helped me turned previously impossible tides at hard-survival level (e.g. 10 of your militia archers vs 50 "master archers" of theirs). Basically I failed the raid many, many times until I tried a lot of things, including double-merlons and also micromanaging (gang up on enemy archers to kill them fast, and quick retreat any villager who got too injured to eat and rest a little, then perhaps rejoin the fight from a safer angle, or choose targets that don't shoot back)

[Jambie Lionheart]

I depends on how close your settler has to be in order to utilize them. If it's just one tile then no, infact you'd be handicapping yourself because you'd be giving the enemy coveer, but they'd probably stack for every tile after that. So if your settler has to be two tiles away instead of one, you could line up two of them and they'd give a collective bonus but probably not their full definsive bonus.

[sf]

Originally posted by }P.B{ CtMurphy:

I depends on how close your settler has to be in order to utilize them. If it's just one tile then no, infact you'd be handicapping yourself because you'd be giving the enemy coveer, but they'd probably stack for every tile after that. So if your settler has to be two tiles away instead of one, you could line up two of them and they'd give a collective bonus but probably not their full definsive bonus.

I don't know what you mean by "full bonus", but I suspect that you are computing it wrong. it is not additive. the cover chance is probably the chance of blocking an arrow through it. For an arrow to hit a target, it prob has to travel through all the tiles in its trajectory, and not be blocked. So unless there is a "100% cover" tile in the path (like a solid wall), the chance of blocking the arrow will never reach 100%.

The computation from jiyuuishi is almost correct.
It should be:
55% + 45%x55% = ~80%

i.e. the chance of arrow being bocked by 1st merlon is 55%
+ the chance of the arrow missing the 1st merlon (45%) but blocked by the 2nd merlon(55%)

[kelsobluebane]

Not sure if merlons stack cover bonuses but I'm finding merlons in front of windows provide very good cover. I've gone from being massacred early game by heavy crossbow men to rarely being hit. Occasionally you have to close a window in front of your archer but it's rare and once I can get or craft some armour in this play through I doubt they'll ever be a problem.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2533276895

It's a little fiddly to build you have to do the merlons before completing the wall sections between the windows but very effective.

[sf]

Originally posted by kelsobluebane:

Not sure if merlons stack cover bonuses but I'm finding merlons in front of windows provide very good cover. I've gone from being massacred early game by heavy crossbow men to rarely being hit. Occasionally you have to close a window in front of your archer but it's rare and once I can get or craft some armour in this play through I doubt they'll ever be a problem.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2533276895

It's a little fiddly to build you have to do the merlons before completing the wall sections between the windows but very effective.

Yes, this is a nice compromise which I used as well. Open windows actually offers slightly less cover than Merlons, but has the flexibility of being able to close (though you have to undraft the person in front and order him manually so that the window is closed immediately).

It does have one disadvantage from actual usage experience: the FOV seems more restrictive (i.e. there are more spots where you cannot directly fire at the enemy. I usually "resolve" this by manually ordering an archer to target a target, so that he usually have a take a few steps left/right to auto-adjust his FOV so that he can hit the target.

[SeVerin]

Can confirm that after passing the first merlon (45%), and upon encountering another one in its path, it will have another (45%) chance to pass it.

So yeah - by building 10 merlons in a row, that means for each merlon there will be a 45% chance for an arrow to pass through it. If it does - that's one super lucky arrow.

[Jambie Lionheart]

Originally posted by sf:

Originally posted by }P.B{ CtMurphy:

I depends on how close your settler has to be in order to utilize them. If it's just one tile then no, infact you'd be handicapping yourself because you'd be giving the enemy coveer, but they'd probably stack for every tile after that. So if your settler has to be two tiles away instead of one, you could line up two of them and they'd give a collective bonus but probably not their full definsive bonus.

I don't know what you mean by "full bonus", but I suspect that you are computing it wrong. it is not additive. the cover chance is probably the chance of blocking an arrow through it. For an arrow to hit a target, it prob has to travel through all the tiles in its trajectory, and not be blocked. So unless there is a "100% cover" tile in the path (like a solid wall), the chance of blocking the arrow will never reach 100%.

The computation from jiyuuishi is almost correct.
It should be:
55% + 45%x55% = ~80%

i.e. the chance of arrow being bocked by 1st merlon is 55%
+ the chance of the arrow missing the 1st merlon (45%) but blocked by the 2nd merlon(55%)

It's because firing angle matters in this game. The further away your settler is from the merlon the less cover they have, but it also matters how far away the ranged attacker is too, with further away actually being better up until the half range point, after which it gets worse again (because accuracy is a factor too).

I've actually been playin' around with merlons lately so I've seen them in action, and have had one or two archer shootouts.

So while the dev isn't wrong, he's only taking in to account one particular variable. Which is an arrow passing through the exact path of a merlon. But because angle (and therefore accuracy) matters, the changes of that happening vary far below and up to 45% and will fluctuate wildly during each battle..

Almost forgot but how high off of the ground level the merlon is, will also be no small factor since that has a drastic effect of line of fire and exactly how much of that line of fire the merlon covers.