General's pips vs. unit pips

[Edhelras]

In the early game, my units have none or almost none fire pips, only shock and morale pips.
If I get a lucky general with, say, 6 fire pips - will they matter at all? Do the general's pips require that the units have something more than zero pips in that combat phase? Are the usefulness of the general's pips dependent on the units having anything in that phase (fire or shock)?

Sorry for basic question, but very hard to understand this. When I must choose which general to discard.

I've understood that shock is more important early game, fire more important especially when artillery gets prevalent (from about Mil tech 16 or something?). What I don't understand is if fire is next to useless early game, or if it will still be of some use.

Also, I wonder if fire pips are useful for admirals throughout the game, or if it's for naval battles as for land battles that fire gets more important late-game?

[Nicol4sUnc4ged]

Your general pips add to the diceroll of the fire or shock phase in battle.
The more unit pips you have the more they'll make damage during a phase.

In the early game with a 6 fire pip general you'll make better rolls on the phase your units have the least amount of damage outputs.

That's why early game you want shock general and cav.
End game you want fire general and full backrow filled with Guns.

And you always want a lot of pips in siege.

[Edhelras]

Aha, that's clarifying. But just to make sure I understand: Will early units make any damage at all during the fire phase, where they have no fire pips? Or will they make none, only shock and moral damage?
I've seen videos of this, but it's still hard to understand.
Anyway, it seems like an early general with 6 fire pips is a waste of pips, whereas a general with 3-4 shock pips would end up doing more damage with the units he's got at an early stage.

[Nicol4sUnc4ged]

If you look at a early game battle ticks closely you'll seen that armies takes and inflict (small) damages during fire phase.

"Anyway, it seems like an early general with 6 fire pips is a waste of pips, whereas a general with 3-4 shock pips would end up doing more damage with the units he's got at an early stage."

This is exact.

[grotaclas]

Have you looked at the combat formulas on the wiki? They should help to clear this up. If your general has more shock/fire pips than the enemy, the difference is added together with your diceroll and the offensive fire/shock pips of your regiment. And the defensive pips of the enemy regiment is subtracted from that. And then there is some base damage added as well. To determine how many enemies you kill, all that is multiplied with various other factors like infantry/cavalry/artillery shock/fire(almost exclusively available from mil tech), discipline, number of men in your regiment, and several more. The reason why shock is better in the early game is because the average infantry/cavalry/artillery fire for your units is much lower than its shock counterpart. The point at which fire becomes more important depends on your army composition, because Cavalry always does more shock than fire damage and artillery always does much less shock damage than fire damage and for infantry it flips around several times

[Mr.M]

Originally posted by Edhelras:

Aha, that's clarifying. But just to make sure I understand: Will early units make any damage at all during the fire phase, where they have no fire pips? Or will they make none, only shock and moral damage?
I've seen videos of this, but it's still hard to understand.
Anyway, it seems like an early general with 6 fire pips is a waste of pips, whereas a general with 3-4 shock pips would end up doing more damage with the units he's got at an early stage.

Unit pips only give you MORE damage. The base damage are their shock/fire damage you can see in the tech tab.

Originally posted by grotaclas:

and artillery always does much less shock damage than fire damage

Except if you play Smolensk ;)

[grotaclas]

Originally posted by Mr.M:

Originally posted by grotaclas:

and artillery always does much less shock damage than fire damage

Except if you play Smolensk ;)

You are correct. I should not have used the word "always". I think custom nations can also get more artillery shock than artillery fire