Mechanics of the battle

[HRdevil]

Because horses has more  HP than spearmen thus the spearmen even with x4 attack cannot kill the horse in 1 blow it must be 2 i suppose + the province in wich your in.

[fragmaster]

i never said in one round  . i know hp/dmg and stuff . Light cav has 400hp ,paladin have 1200hp ,and if u switch units in calc ,u have exactly 3 times difference in number of dead horses in that round .5 spearman kill 1 light cavalry in 1 round

[fragmaster]

Because horses has more  HP than spearmen thus the spearmen even with x4 attack cannot kill the horse in 1 blow it must be 2 i suppose + the province in wich your in.

u didnt even read what i wrote.dmg bonus is not 4x ,its between 7.5x-8x im not certain.

Plz anyone that knows? no improvisation answers...Cmon people ,forum full with pro players ,impossible that nobody knows the answer...

[gharn]

well I don't deal with some statistical numbers as HP ratio or sth like that but I know sth.

the research lvls are so effective on the battle moral..phalanx is a good instrument but if you use calculator and run it for several times you will be surprised to see that the moral bonus change is so different if you have too many phalanx against paladin
if that too many phalanx has succesfull damage esp in their first and second rounds the battle goes in favor of them..but if they fail at that rounds they may be defeated because of the moral...

I usually run the battle calculator minimum 10 times and attack if and only if I see that I will win % 100 of it...I don't risk the battle even if I see that I win with 49 moral...

as all that you know ..moral going under 50 has a chance of loosing the battle and this loosing chance increases with the decrease of moral 49 to lower numbers.

this is all the same between light ..heavy..and elite units...

I see that phalanx is deadly against cavalry when you use it in defence rather than offense..

[tinodunks]

just outnumber the paladins  by 3 to 1  with phalanxes     simple.........   also consider that the swordmen  will massacre some of those phalanxes...........   so you should  think abt how much phalanxes  you would have after that  to fight against the  paladins 

[fragmaster]

moral drop is only body count rate from both sides .carefull mix can make that u lose 1 moral in almost every round ,making wins with 60 start moral easily.Good in early game v4 wars.

ok ,im interested in numbers . any opinions welcome. I measured some data in old calculator with special stat levels ,and found out order and effect of armor/melee for any unit. For example armor helps paladins much more than melee ,because base armor of every unit is 0 ,and phalanx will deal 30 dmg x 8 = 240 dmg ,but if u have higher armor than opponents melee ,they deal 29 x 8 = 232 dmg .While having attack increased gives (120+1)/2 dmg ,which hardly helps,even against units where they have bonuses. So attack  helps on smaller units ,armor helps on both cheaper and expensive units .Armor is not detectable .Having (armor-enemy attack )= +30 gives ur paladins immunity to enemy phalanx AND ur phalanx immunity to elite archers.(on unselected terrain) .terrain acts like multiplier on (attack skill adj+dmg) so it pierces those +30 armor.Also flank pierce .Unit bonuses dont pierce (applied after substraction).

so i would like to hear some advanced thinking not some stuff that i figured out first day on IO

[Merrydown]

Bonuses:
Fights with an enormous bonus against Cavalry. When fighting a Cavalry it is x4 more cost effective. Against higher class cavalry is not as effective.

does anyone know anything about this? i figured out that bonus dmg is 7.5x - 8 x ,dmg resistance 50%   but i cannot find difference between classes .

And description what cost effective means is not quite accurate ,simple because 50k planaxes cannot defeat 50k paladins on neutral terrain at all.50k spearman cannot defeat 50k light cavalry

50k Phalanx COST a gold equivalent of (((75 x 50,000)/2) + ((30 x 50,000) x 2.5))/1000 = 5,625
50k Paladins COST a gold equivalent of (((300 x 50,000)/2) + ((120 x 50,000 x 2.5))/1000 = 22,500

22,500 is four times 5,625 so you expect your Phalanx to win.

What you forget is not all 50k Paladins fight in the centre, 10k will fight on the flanks where the effectiveness of the Phalanx is halved. In order to defeat 50K Paladins using just Phalanx you need an army that is a quarter the cost of the Paladins charging down the middle PLUS half the cost of the Paladins on the Flank.

So, the 40k Paladins in the middle can be matched with 40k Phalanx, but the 10k Paladins on the flank need to be matched by 20k Phalanx. Therefore, you need 60k Phalanx in order to win, all other things being equal.

[fragmaster]

thats not the point . planaxes should defeat 4 times more expensive army of paladins according to this sentence from manual  witout great loss

 "By cost effective we mean that with cavalry, for example,  you can annihilate 4 times more expensive army of archers without great loss.."

They cannot defeat them at all.i know how it goes ,which army can defeat which ,i know it very well, my point is that "cost effective" is not well explained and defined.

flank doesnt halve effectivness of oposit company ,they have 50% bonus dmg .

anyway stronger charge of higher class cavalry is answer to original question .

[fragmaster]

speaking about that 1000 light cavalry loses against 16000 archers too ,making everything wrong  .
16k archers are 4 times more expensive than 1k cavalry

[fragmaster]

not only that "real" mechanic is hidden behind calculator ,i understand if owners want to protect implementation of "unbelivable realistic battles" ,but was it nessesary to give false information to make total mislead ? 

[Merrydown]

speaking about that 1000 light cavalry loses against 16000 archers too ,making everything wrong  .
16k archers are 4 times more expensive than 1k cavalry

16k archers is gold equivalent (((22.5 x 16,000)/2) + ((9 x 16,000) x 2.5))/1000 = 540
1k light cavalry is gold equivalent (((90 x 1000)/2) + ((36 x 1000) x 2.5))/1000 = 135

540 is four time 135 so you expect your light cavalry to win.

What you forget is the archers get a bonus attack at round 2 in which the light cavalry cannot retaliate. The archers wipe out about 200 of the light cavalry in that first salvo, hence by the time the battle is engaged, there are only 800 light cavalry fighting against the 16k archers. The cost ratio is now five times different, so the archers win, all other things being equal.


And as for '50% damage bonus' versus 'effectiveness being halved' I can't be bothered with the numbers right now, but it's simpler to think of the effectiveness of spears as being halved, rather than cavs doing half as much more damage. 

[fragmaster]

and now we all should forget all special bonuses of all units??cavalry has flank and charge ,archers have free shot .i just say that manual is wrong .

besides that i measured that archers have only 5x dmg bonus to spearman ,unlike 8x that spearman have to cavalry ,probably to nerf free shot . So they calculated it in ,dont worry. why do u defend manual statements if they are wrong?

[Merrydown]

Elite Archers get TWO free shots against the attackers before the battle is engaged 

[fragmaster]

yes but paladins have stronger charge.i tested 1k paladins against 16k elite archers,paladins still lose

[Merrydown]

You realise none of these facts really matter? Any attacking army that isn't used purely for raiding should consist of all four types of soldier. If you only send 1 or 2 or even 3 of the different types of unit into battle you stand the risk of losing, even against vastly inferior opposition. I've decimated armies with just Phalanx before because the attacker didn't bother sending Elite Archers... kept all my Guardians and Paladins out of the fight so I could follow my enemy's troops back to destroy his army even further.

If you mess around with the calculator long enough you'll find some very interesting situations that defy anything the manual says. Did you know for example, under certain conditions it is possible to stack the odds in your favour so that an attacking army will flee due to low morale AFTER starting the battle against the garrison, hence they lose an additional 50% of their troops? And by stack the odds, I mean eight times out of ten this is the only outcome... one out of ten the attacker flees while bashing the fortress and loses the usual 20% extra troops... the other one time the attacker actually wins...

Don't get too caught up in 1k light cavs beat x amount of archers and 10k phalanx will slaughter x amount of Paladins. It doesn't work like that because most battles involve more than one type of troop and they don't always go head to head with their nemesis. Swords don't march off across the battlefield to fight the archers and spears, ignoring the cavalry, the cavalry don't just seek out archers or swords and the archers don't only use their arrows on the enemy spears. It's not as clean cut as that. In a battle involving a mix of troops on each side, some of your archers might find themselves up against the enemy cavs, while some of the enemy spears decide they fancy their chances against your swords.

Back at the start of this thread Isolde tried explaining the Mechanics of the Battle. Basically, you want to make sure each of your 'units' is crammed with as many troops as possible and you have more 'units' than your enemy. That's something you learn as you go, but using the 'old' battle calculator you download is a good place to start, the ingame one is useful to see if you win or lose, but not for much else.....

And if all else fails, just make sure your army outnumbers the enemy 4 to 1 in terms of actual size and it's packed with cavalry. Seems to work for everyone else