Troop Quality

[Talok]

*sigh*

[The Former]

Knights were inflating the quality before. They're not anymore. It's a little more strict about what constitutes "elite" now, that's all. Keep in mind that to my knowledge, troop quality has no mechanical bearing. It's just a UI feature showing you at a glance the collective stat values of individual soldiers in a given army.

[DaniTheHero]

Originally posted by World's Coolest Old Guy:

Knights were inflating the quality before. They're not anymore. It's a little more strict about what constitutes "elite" now, that's all. Keep in mind that to my knowledge, troop quality has no mechanical bearing. It's just a UI feature showing you at a glance the collective stat values of individual soldiers in a given army.

I haven't seen anything over the 2 cubes thing (decent?) including mercs

[Ulfberht]

I have an army with about 2000 men at arms and 13 knights. It is still "decent" and looks like peasants. Only pure knights gets me higher up the tier. Cant be meant to work like that?

[BoydofZINJ]

Originally posted by Ulfberht:

I have an army with about 2000 men at arms and 13 knights. It is still "decent" and looks like peasants. Only pure knights gets me higher up the tier. Cant be meant to work like that?

the Men-At-Arms troops also increase quality. Some are better and worse than others. Skirmishers are low quality while heavy Calvary (if you have access) and Armored Footman are on the higher end schedule. Try to get more of them. You can also increase the size and the number of Men-At-Arms using cultural techs.

[Ulfberht]

Even the most badass and expensive mercenaries is only decent... needs rebalancing

[Zomgerd]

Originally posted by World's Coolest Old Guy:

Knights were inflating the quality before. They're not anymore. It's a little more strict about what constitutes "elite" now, that's all. Keep in mind that to my knowledge, troop quality has no mechanical bearing. It's just a UI feature showing you at a glance the collective stat values of individual soldiers in a given army.

You must not look at before battle tooltips at all then as it's one of the determining factors in how well you'll fair in a battle and can mean the difference between winning and losing a battle you're out numbered in.

[The Former]

I've heard people say that it starts to tick up a bit more later on, when you start piling stat upgrades onto your men-at-arms.

Originally posted by Zomgerd:

Originally posted by World's Coolest Old Guy:

Knights were inflating the quality before. They're not anymore. It's a little more strict about what constitutes "elite" now, that's all. Keep in mind that to my knowledge, troop quality has no mechanical bearing. It's just a UI feature showing you at a glance the collective stat values of individual soldiers in a given army.

You must not look at before battle tooltips at all then as it's one of the determining factors in how well you'll fair in a battle and can mean the difference between winning and losing a battle you're out numbered in.

Again, I could be mistaken, but I believe that's just a condensed way of saying "Be careful, their army has a higher stat average than yours, therefore they're more likely to win."

[Zomgerd]

Originally posted by World's Coolest Old Guy:

I've heard people say that it starts to tick up a bit more later on, when you start piling stat upgrades onto your men-at-arms.

Originally posted by Zomgerd:

You must not look at before battle tooltips at all then as it's one of the determining factors in how well you'll fair in a battle and can mean the difference between winning and losing a battle you're out numbered in.

Again, I could be mistaken, but I believe that's just a condensed way of saying "Be careful, their army has a higher stat average than yours, therefore they're more likely to win."

Which literally makes it have mechanical bearing..

[The Former]

Originally posted by Zomgerd:

Originally posted by World's Coolest Old Guy:

I've heard people say that it starts to tick up a bit more later on, when you start piling stat upgrades onto your men-at-arms.



Again, I could be mistaken, but I believe that's just a condensed way of saying "Be careful, their army has a higher stat average than yours, therefore they're more likely to win."

Which literally makes it have mechanical bearing..

You misunderstand. Quality itself does not have a mechanical bearing. It's a representation of aggregate stat averages within a given army. In other words, it's text output warning you that underlying mechanics give one side an edge. Having higher quality does not make you more likely to win, having substantially higher stat averages makes you more likely to win.

Previously, the stats of knights were inflating that number more than the developers felt they should, so they tweaked the algorithm so that knights don't affect it so heavily. None of the actual stats involved have changed.

What you're saying:

If this army's quality is higher than the enemy's, apply +X Advantage.

What I'm saying:

If this army's stat average is higher than the enemy's, report higher quality in prediction tooltip. Do not apply any Advantage.

[Zomgerd]

Originally posted by World's Coolest Old Guy:

Originally posted by Zomgerd:

Which literally makes it have mechanical bearing..

You misunderstand. Quality itself does not have a mechanical bearing. It's a representation of aggregate stat averages within a given army. Having higher quality does not make you more likely to win, having substantially higher stat averages makes you more likely to win.

Previously, the stats of knights were inflating that number more than the developers felt they should, so they tweaked the algorithm so that knights don't affect it so heavily. None of the actual stats involved have changed.

What you're saying:

If this army's quality is higher than the enemy's, apply +X Advantage.

What I'm saying:

If this army's stat average is higher than the enemy's, report higher quality in prediction tooltip. Do not apply any Advantage.

I'm not misunderstanding at all and I'm not saying it doesn't do what you say it does in that it is an aggregate of state averages; What I'm saying it is that it's in the game to tell you your odds against an army which in-affect makes it have mechanical bearing as it tells you, the player, that just because you out number them does not mean you will win (depending on how much you out number obviously). It is a mechanic of the game just like anything else and simply ignoring it will just cause more confusion on the players part until suddenly "OH My army quality matters!" though much like EU4, commanders ability carry A LOT of weight.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

i.e. Quality is purely cosmetic.

It is only a short-hand to give you a quick estimate for how powerful that stack coming at you is relative to it's size.

If you've 1,000 super soldiers (with aduchy worth of tier 4 building upgrades/approriate duchy building for the type of MAA used), and 20,000 levies, you're still only decent, because, while strong, they make up so little of the total damage/durability of the army, they basically don't matter.

However those same super soldiers if split off, would be elite quality, and you'd know that you'd really need to pay attention to them, since they are SIGNIFICANTLY stronger for their size.

Which is what quality is supposed to do. Give you a quick metric for sizing up enemys without having to get in close and examine every single troop if two similar quality armies were about to fight.

This was a massive issue in the pre-patch, because EVERYONE was elite, but it was entirely based on a handful of knights that weren't an actual representative force of how strong an army really was.

Which is why there were posts and posts of people complaining that their "elite" forces were getting murdered by "weaker" forces, just because those weaker forces had no knights and thus were showing their true quality based on MAA strength relative to size alone, while the player's forces were being abnormally inflated.

[Noma]

Originally posted by Zomgerd:

I'm not misunderstanding at all and I'm not saying it doesn't do what you say it does in that it is an aggregate of state averages; What I'm saying it is that it's in the game to tell you your odds against an army which in-affect makes it have mechanical bearing as it tells you, the player, that just because you out number them does not mean you will win (depending on how much you out number obviously). It is a mechanic of the game just like anything else and simply ignoring it will just cause more confusion on the players part until suddenly "OH My army quality matters!" though much like EU4, commanders ability carry A LOT of weight.

It's exactly how he said it is. Read the patch note, the devs wrote that its value has no impact on gameplay, it's pretty much just flavor text. It's supposed to tell the player his soldiers have more hp and offense than the norm for the same numbers of soldiers, but there's so much parameters which you have to consider that it doesn't matter.
If you bring 400 MaA and 5000 levies, it's still vastly better than, say, 300 MaA and 1000 levies, even if the quality might be worse.

The label itself doesn't mean anything, because it's up to the devs to modify the values to show something else, when there's no difference in practise. More useful, the icon that says if you're going to win the battle as been ajusted to be more accurate. If you want a quick look, it's far more effective at assessing your chances.

[ZCAE]

If every army is flat out stuck at 'Decent Quality' and it doesn't matter then why bother to have it in the game at all ?

[N7 Zulu]

Originally posted by ZCAE:

If every army is flat out stuck at 'Decent Quality' and it doesn't matter then why bother to have it in the game at all ?

Yep, they should have kept the army/troop sprite system from CK2. It was based on culture. What's the point of having the current system where your army looks like peasant mobs regardless of men at arms and knights in the army. In CK2 if the composition of archers, cav, or infantry was high in an army. You would see a representation of that sprite on the map when you raised your army.

[Crim]

Originally posted by Ulfberht:

I have an army with about 2000 men at arms and 13 knights. It is still "decent" and looks like peasants. Only pure knights gets me higher up the tier. Cant be meant to work like that?

Originally posted by "Talamare, post: 26972147, member: 856753":

Originally posted by "Talamare, post: 26973487, member: 856753":

In my current game on 1182 using 3600 Heavy Infantry (117/84), 2400 Pikemen (88/89), 240 Trebuchets, as well as 9 Knights (100% Effectiveness, highest 15, average is definitely lower)



and It states Elite Quality



Removing the Knights, and it's still Elite Quality, and the Knight Stack of 9 Knights is also Elite Quality



Adding over 2000 Levies bumps me down to Superior Quality

Adding roughly less than 2000 Levies keeps me at Elite Quality



Adding roughly 11,000 Levies bumps me down to High Quality

Adding roughly less than 11,000 Levies keeps me at Elite Quality





Overall, yea the requirements are stricter, but absolutely working correctly

Apply a little "inaccurate math"



3600 * 117+84 = 723,600

2400 * 88 + 89 = 424,800

2000 * 10 + 10 = 40,000

11000 * 10 + 10 = 220,000



(723 + 424 + 40) / 8 = ~148 or 74

(723 + 424 + 40 + 220) / 17 = 82 or 41



Hey, we are starting to see a possible pattern



Over 75 Quality per man = Elite

Over 40 Quality per man = Superior