Battle math...

[VDmitry]

At this point everything below is pure speculation... Still some understanding of battle mechanics would be useful.


== DEFENCE / ARMOR

First I believe that Armor is included into Defence stat. Hint for that is that each Armor level gives +2 / +2 to both Defence and Armor.

For example Miltia Light Spearmen have Defence 8 but Armor 5, what means Defence Base 3 + Armor 5 (due shield).

Armor is used vs Missiles and also referenced because some troops have Armor Piercing x0.5 ability, what effectively reduces Defence stat by half of Armor rating.


== ATTACK / DEFENCE

I believe this is what determines kill ratio in melee for each soldier inside unit. For example:

Noble Axemen: 10 / 14 (+ Armor Piercing)
Militia Light Spearmen: 4 / 8 (4 / 5 if vs Noble Axemen)

Attack 10 vs Defence 5 should mean 66% kill chance (10:5)
Attack 4 vs Defence 14 should mean 6% kill chance (4:14)

That explains that in such a battle Spearmen will have 10x more casualties than axemen.


== CHARGE

There is no indication anywhere, but I believe Charge is actually taking place (sometimes). This is especially visible for Cavalry units which may eleminate 80% of enemy unit charging into it. But simply based on casualties rate it seems charge is implemented for foot units as well, just not so effective.

This has to be a reason why Defend battle plan is not perfect idea, unless it provides some defensive bonus, what is unlikely.


== EXPERIENCE

Looks like each unit may have up to 2 bonus experience levels.

No idea what that actually means. May be each gives +10% effectiveness, something like that.


== MORALE

Morale 4 should mean the unit takes 40% losses easily and breaks after 50%. It blinks when at 40-50% range.

The same way Morale 2 means 20% losses are still ok, but unit breaks at 30%

No evidence that flanking provides any morale hit. Though flanking is so rare due very strange movement behavior of cavalry. Anyway enemy usually breaks sooner than flanking happens.

Since weakest units in the game (in particular peasant rebels) have Morale 2 it explains that they flee loosing usually not more than 30%, and so it takes not less than 2+ battles to eleminate them. (I still don't know conditions when an army eliminated)


== READINESS / EFFECTIVINESS

First I believe Readiness and Effectiveness is all the same thing. In particular Sickness event directly says that Effectiveness drops, what is graphically represented by dropped Yellow bar of the units.

Then I believe Effectiveness at 0% doesn't mean a unit fights with 0 or close to 0 stats.

My current assumption is that both readiness, as well as effectiveness bonus from techs, as well as bonus from General are all increasing Base unit stats, for example Attack and Defence.

For example tech that increases Effectivenes by 10% does this increase for Base unit stats.

General with 4 stars should increase Effectivenes by 28% the same way (but no any evidence here)

Readiness greater than 0% should give similar bonus, but not sure how much. I believe that 100% readiness should give not more than 100% bonus to Base stats, what means that absolutely tired unit is 2x times weaker than fresh one. (Or alternatively, exhausted unit gets -50% to its effectiveness)

Readiness is recovered slowly if army moves, but do not fight.

Seems likely that other bonuses/penalties are implemented through increase or decrease of efficiency (+/- to base unit stats). For example terrain penalty or unit experience bonus.


== MISSILES

Actually I have not great experience with missile troops (other than for breaking walls), so not sure they could be effective in the field.

Still Missile Attack should be compared with target Armor, the same way as Melee Attack vs Melee Defence.

Best Melee attack ratings are around 9-13. Best Defence is around 28-31.

Best Missile attack ratings are around 6-7. Best Armor is around 21-25.

So missile troops may look reasonable, assuming they don't have also hit chance and actually capable to skirmish properly. Additional disadvantage of missile troops is that they hit your own troops too.

[VDmitry]

== BATTLE PLANS

Battle Plan can be set to each unit in an army individually. So for example it is valid to have an army as follows:

1st row is 4 Spearmen set to Attack
2nd row center is 2 Archers set to Harass
2nd row left flank is General set to Reserve (to avoid fighting)
2nd row right flank is Cavalry set to Flanking

CHARGE plan may also mean that unit which attacks city should go to assault first, according to the developer. Though in my experience it's definitely not always so.


== BATTLE DISTANCE, BATTLE MOVEMENT and REINFORCEMENTS

FIELD battle starts when 2 armies are separated by just 1 hex and one of them has an intention to move into that hex. That hex is then considered as a center of battlefield.

I'm saying has an intention, rather than moved into, because:

- battle starts before such movement actually happens
- it seems possible that battle happens if unit has planned movement but it's planned for next turn (not absolutely sure)

As really bad point here is that when battle starts an army may fail to rotate into enemy direction (because the movement did not actually start). So its formation is basically broken. I would consider this as a bug.

Not sure at what exactly distance should be other nearest armies to join the battle, still it's somewhere around 2 hexes from battlefield center. But even armies moved from outside may join the battle in progress. Exception - 3rd party armies wait till battle ends before continuing movement.

SIEGE battle starts similarly, but battlefield is larger. Looks like every unit inside 3 hexes radius from city center joins the battle.

STRATEGIC movement is interrupted if battle outcome is defeat or "indecisive" battle. Latter is usual case for Sieges. So if you plan for example to move one of your armies out from siege you should NOT attack the city that turn (by other armies). Probably there are exceptions here, for example if besieging armies are not very close to city - so battle starts with a delay.

Strategic movement seems has no influence to any battle movements. AI is fully responsible how to move units in battle (though it somehow takes battleplans into account).


== HOW SIEGE WORKS

Unwalled city has 4 entrances. Undamaged walled city has 0 entrances, but attacker may use archers (not crossbowmen) or siege weapons to breach holes in the wall or gates (even more than 4 holes possible). Without archers or siege weapons one may only attack a walled city if it has some holes in the wall/gates already (due previous sieges or fire, or earthquake).

Each turn city repairs up to 2 towers/holes. So to succeed you may need to damage the wall faster than it is being repaired.

It is rumored that garrisoned archers/crossbowmen help city towers to shoot more attackers. Though I'm not sure how much that helps, or what is good ratio of archer units in a garrison. Actually I rarely defended own cities, and it seems you may need to fear food shortage more than enemy army. (At least with how Granary works at the moment)

There are 2 ways how to capture a city:

1. If one of attacker units reaches an undefended hole/gate (or entrance), city surrenders
2. If one of attacker units kills a unit which defends a hole/gate/entrance, city surrenders


== BATTLE LENGTH

Any battle is limited in time. This is especially important in sieges, because archers have limited time to break walls (after what defenders may repair them), and melee units then have even more limited time to assault. It's better to have a hole remained from previous turn, so melee units may start assault immediately.

Not sure if battle time depends if battle starts sooner or later during a turn.


== OTHER

At this point it's unclear when an army is destroyed. Should it have less than 25% people remaining after defeat or what?

At what direction defeated army retreats? Quite often enemy retreats very much unpredictable. And this is important because retreated unit may pillage your farms.

[Neutron]

Well observed.

[VDmitry]

added more points: about siege and movement in particular

[VDmitry]

Looks like an army is destroyed when there is no units left in it, meaning there is no special mechanic to destroy an army.

A unit seems destroyed after it looses certain amount of people. Miltia spearmen seems need to loose 60%. Noble cavalry seems may get larger hit. So may be related to Morale somehow.

So to destroy rebel stack of militia you need 3 battles on average, unless cavalry makes successful charge.

Additonal unclear points:

- seems 2 damaged similar units may be merged automatically
- could winning unit being destroyed or unit must have been routed to be destroyed

[Cao Cao Mengde]

Originally posted by Neutron:

Well observed.

Well observed, but is it correct? :)

[DarkThug]

Originally posted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi:

Originally posted by Neutron:

Well observed.

Well observed, but is it correct? :)

The answer seem to be as mysterious as the game mechanic itself :p

[VDmitry]

Just discovered that if besieging army stands on "gate tile", then enemy can't recruit its stack from city pools there. Though it still can recruit inside the city.

A city normally has 4 gate tiles (unless some are blocked by terrain) - 2 tiles north/south/east/west of city center.

[Neutron]

Well observed, but is it correct? :)

It wouldn't be well observed if it was incorrect.

[VDmitry]

Btw I seen a case where units were fighting like with 0 strength on both sides. The battle was on forest tile - I attacked bandit spearmen and archer units with noble cavalry. (It is difficult to see forest when there are units on it)

1st combat went OK - spearmen were destroyed, archers halved. Still outcome was undecisive. All next battles trying to finish the archers went at 0/0 losses.

So, fighting at forest gives a penalty like -50% for cavalry. Then let's assume tired units get another -50%. So the final result is that no one was able to kill anyone.

I believe this is possible if ATT / DEF were affected, but armor is not.

Similar may happen when fighting at river tiles.

[NoNameSteak]

VDimitry needs to make a "Game Mechanics" page in the Wikia!

[avnar]

Cavalry/chariots should chase running enemy. At this moment killing enemy takes a lot effort even when you have much bigger army. Running enemy not dies or I didn't see it.

Some tactics are pointless: defence do nothing and using it wiill only kill your unit. It should let atack for archers or atack when enemy is very close.

Ambush dont work for me - it should work as invisibility in forests and allow atack on enemy when battle ocure but works as defence so your units are whipped one by one by enemy.

Archers in a city should shoot to enemy. I have seen they do it but they didn't kill anybody.

Also you should have option to atack from city without leaving it. Maybe archers only.

[Neutron]

To make an ambush work effectively you need to use another stack to lure the enemy past the ambushing troops, so that they can attack in flank or rear. The ambushers are waiting for this chance, which is why they appear to be on defend if the enemy approach straight on. The enemy only know about your ambush if there aren't any other units in the battle.

So you want to set things up so the ambush is one or two hexes in front of your main battle line, and a hex to the side. Your main line will probably need to be on defend to keep it place and draw the enemy to it.

Units on defend can attack enemy close by, but I'll try to tweak the rules a bit to make them more useful.

[avnar]

Thanks for answer.
I will try to ambush as you said, but looks complicated to use. At this moment most used tactics by me are: attack, outflank (but sometimes its just a movement dance :)) and harass. Defence didn't work for me. My units were dying. Maybe as it said, best defence is to atack ;P.

Is it a chance Charge may interupt enemy harass and help reach missle unit before they will run?

What about cavalry chasing running units? Is it possible? Or it will break your battle mechanic?

Game is not perfect, but it has something what catch my attention. I like your battle mechanic. Its simpler than Total War so game is more strategical not tactical.

I am happy you still want to improve things to make it better. Good lack and I will wait for some DLC or mods.

[Sanvone]

Defence fails hard especially against ranged troops or when you want to fight with every unit.

So far I found few uses for:
- when you want or don't want to enter difficult terrain (some units get penalties)
- when you fight with single unit against single melee unit (it usually allowed me to win many evenly matched battles),
- under city walls to lure enemies into range of city towers (which also can potentially dismount cavalry),
- to safeguard artillery (as it cost a lot and want to make sure it reaches enemy city intact)
- in big battles when you are trying to outmanouver enemy to create favourable battle scenario with some big flank happening,
- potentially in MP when you have some ranged duels for melee infantry,

That said It is more of strategic than tactical stance for me. Still it does provide some small defence bonus so I don't have an issue with it's overall balance.

[Neutron]

Defend is also useful for defending hills or river banks, or when have missile superiority and want the enemy to come to you while you shoot them.