Questions about Game Mechanics

[rbodleyscott]

Note that unresolved melees are actually resolved at the start of the other player's turn, not at the end of your turn. The AI doesn't actually choose to resolve any melees individually in its turn, but just lets the automatic resolution resolve them. The play can choose to resolve them during his turn, or let them resolve automatically at the start of the AI's turn.

Sorry, just trying to understand the implications of this...so if one of my units is in melee with an enemy unit, and the enemy units breaks and moves away during the enemy's turn (actually my turn because of how AI melees are resolved), then my unit can't move during my turn? Is that true for all melees, or only if my units was supposed to have pursued?

All melees. If the UI shows 0 AP, and does not show "No CC", and your unit did not break off, they may still be able to make a free 45 degree turn if their general is in command range and not in close combat, and they are not an unmanoeuvrable troop type.

If it shows "No CC" they cannot do anything at all.

[76mm]

All melees. If the UI shows 0 AP, and does not show "No CC", and your unit did not break off, they may still be able to make a free 45 degree turn if their general is in command range and not in close combat, and they are not an unmanoeuvrable troop type.

So is it correct that if I have a fragmented unit locked in melee with an enemy unit, if I resolve the melee during my turn and the unit breaks, then the enemy unit is free to move during their turn, but if I don't resolve it during my turn and the melee is resolved at the beginning of my opponent's next turn and my unit breaks then, then the enemy unit won't be able to move during his turn?

If so, that seems like a significant nuance.

[rbodleyscott]

All melees. If the UI shows 0 AP, and does not show "No CC", and your unit did not break off, they may still be able to make a free 45 degree turn if their general is in command range and not in close combat, and they are not an unmanoeuvrable troop type.

So is it correct that if I have a fragmented unit locked in melee with an enemy unit, if I resolve the melee during my turn and the unit breaks, then the enemy unit is free to move during their turn, but if I don't resolve it during my turn and the melee is resolved at the beginning of my opponent's next turn and my unit breaks then, then the enemy unit won't be able to move during his turn?

Probably. Although if you resolve it in your turn, whether the enemy can move or not in its next turn will depend on whether it is pursuing.

If so, that seems like a significant nuance.

True. But you have the advantage of choosing which way to do it, which the AI does not. I can see few benefits to resolving such a melee in your turn anyway, unless you are trying to lure the enemy to pursue past another one of your units so you can charge it in the flank.

[76mm]

OK, I'll stop pestering you for now; thanks much for your detailed explanations.

[rbodleyscott]

OK, I'll stop pestering you for now; thanks much for your detailed explanations.

My pleasure. Now to go for a little lie down.

[jamespcrowley]

In the first example, the unit has "No CC" which means you can't issue it orders at all.

Not sure I understand this.

I thought "No CC" meant it wasn't in command range and therefore is not entitled to a 45deg free turn.

[rbodleyscott]

In the first example, the unit has "No CC" which means you can't issue it orders at all.

Not sure I understand this.

I thought "No CC" meant it wasn't in command range and therefore is not entitled to a 45deg free turn.

No, that is "Reduced CC"

[Cumandante]

I have a related case of confusing mechanics here:

In this first image you can see that if I let the game auto-resolve the unit's path for me, it can reach the indicated square.

move1.jpg (949.4 KiB) Viewed 2328 times

However, in this second image, you can see that if I try to manually set the path for the unit it can't reach the target square, regardless of which path I take.

move2.jpg (969.53 KiB) Viewed 2328 times

I was able to replicate this in a controlled experiment:

move3.jpg (917.8 KiB) Viewed 2328 times

Apparently going around a friendly unit manually costs more than if done automatically, but only for certain unit types:
Heavy and Medium Foot, as well as Cavalry behave in this strange way, but Light Foot and Light Horse don't. The skirmisher units can go just as far manually as they can automatically, BUT, they don't lose their free turn if done auto.

Apparently the system is not properly consuming a unit's free turn when moving it automatically around an object.

[rbodleyscott]

Well while perhaps unintuitive, this is nevertheless working as intended.

A unit only takes into account the angle between its starting square and facing and its final position. Otherwise a "knight's move" would use up the free turn, which it in fact doesn't, because overall the angle travelled is less than 45 degrees.

This can lead to a bit of free twisting and turning when the route is unusual, but we are happy to live with that because overall the rule works well.

You won't be able to do the same move step by step for the same reason as the previous example - if you move a unit in stages, the angle involved in each move stage is considered separately.

[Cumandante]

I'm currently in the middle of a British campaign and noticed that my Chariots can fight a much more numerous Cavalry unit without suffering a combat strength penalty. The manual states that "Mounted troops generally have 33% more combat strength per man than foot.", so I assume that chariots have an even greater combat strength per 'man' (per chariot I suppose). What would that number be? How about the other chariots and elephants?

I also noticed that chariots don't have an armour property. Are they treated as unprotected cavalry when shot at?

How are casualties calculated? If My unit shoots chariots they will kill a lot less that if they shot cavalry. Is it based on a percentage of the unit's max strength?

[rbodleyscott]

I'm currently in the middle of a British campaign and noticed that my Chariots can fight a much more numerous Cavalry unit without suffering a combat strength penalty. The manual states that "Mounted troops generally have 33% more combat strength per man than foot.", so I assume that chariots have an even greater combat strength per 'man' (per chariot I suppose). What would that number be? How about the other chariots and elephants?

Chariots and elephants have the same "Combat Strength" as Cavalry units. This is the "UnitSize" column in the squads file, with a maximum of 400 UnitSize applying to combat strength of mounted units, and a maximum of 600 UnitSize applying to combat strength of foot units. "UnitSize" does not directly relate to numbers of men- it actually effectively relates to "bases" in the tabletop game, though the men per "base" ratio is different.

I also noticed that chariots don't have an armour property. Are they treated as unprotected cavalry when shot at?

No. Armour considerations are ignored for chariots.

How are casualties calculated? If My unit shoots chariots they will kill a lot less that if they shot cavalry. Is it based on a percentage of the unit's max strength?

Partly.

[Cumandante]

I'm currently in the middle of a British campaign and noticed that my Chariots can fight a much more numerous Cavalry unit without suffering a combat strength penalty. The manual states that "Mounted troops generally have 33% more combat strength per man than foot.", so I assume that chariots have an even greater combat strength per 'man' (per chariot I suppose). What would that number be? How about the other chariots and elephants?

Chariots and elephants have the same "Combat Strength" as Cavalry units. This is the "UnitSize" column in the squads file, with a maximum of 400 UnitSize applying to combat strength of mounted units, and a maximum of 600 UnitSize applying to combat strength of foot units. "UnitSize" does not directly relate to numbers of men- it actually effectively relates to "bases" in the tabletop game, though the men per "base" ratio is different.

I'm confused (and that squads file is a mess in notepad ).
If we keep this in the terms displayed in the interface, Light Chariot units have 100 chariots by default, while Cavalry has 240 horsemen. As they fight on equal terms, is it safe to assume that each chariot has 240% as much combat strength as a horseman? According to the manual, mounted troops have 33% more combat strength per man than footmen. So 2.4 * 1.33 = 3.192, a chariot has 319% as much combat strength as a footman. Is this correct?

[rbodleyscott]

I'm currently in the middle of a British campaign and noticed that my Chariots can fight a much more numerous Cavalry unit without suffering a combat strength penalty. The manual states that "Mounted troops generally have 33% more combat strength per man than foot.", so I assume that chariots have an even greater combat strength per 'man' (per chariot I suppose). What would that number be? How about the other chariots and elephants?

Chariots and elephants have the same "Combat Strength" as Cavalry units. This is the "UnitSize" column in the squads file, with a maximum of 400 UnitSize applying to combat strength of mounted units, and a maximum of 600 UnitSize applying to combat strength of foot units. "UnitSize" does not directly relate to numbers of men- it actually effectively relates to "bases" in the tabletop game, though the men per "base" ratio is different.

I'm confused (and that squads file is a mess in notepad ).
If we keep this in the terms displayed in the interface, Light Chariot units have 100 chariots by default, while Cavalry has 240 horsemen. As they fight on equal terms, is it safe to assume that each chariot has 240% as much combat strength as a horseman? According to the manual, mounted troops have 33% more combat strength per man than footmen. So 2.4 * 1.33 = 3.192, a chariot has 319% as much combat strength as a footman. Is this correct?

That is what your figures suggest, but I think you are looking into this unnecessarily deeply. In the vanilla game, a non-light mounted unit has 2/3 of the combat strength of a standard non-light infantry unit. That is all you really need to know, unless you are modding.