Slitherine

I haven't played for a few weeks and was playing around with some battles and browsing the manual in anticipation of getting back in to some multiplayer again. A couple of questions.

1. I seem to recall that the colour of the display of losses indicated whether there was a cohesion test for the losing unit. In the manual it only indicates that the losing side in a melee which I assume is the one that has largest loss undergoes a cohesion test.

2. I was playing a scenario and when I clicked on a Auxilia Palatina the display for that unit was as follows:

Armour: Protected
Capabilities.
Bow 20% Darts 80% Light Spears 80%

I looked in the manual but couldn't find what the percentages for the three weapons meant.

Any replies or comments would be much appreciated.

canuckgamer wrote:I haven't played for a few weeks and was playing around with some battles and browsing the manual in anticipation of getting back in to some multiplayer again. A couple of questions.

1. I seem to recall that the colour of the display of losses indicated whether there was a cohesion test for the losing unit. In the manual it only indicates that the losing side in a melee which I assume is the one that has largest loss undergoes a cohesion test.

A unit that loses a combat badly will have their losses displayed in red and will take a cohesion test (although if the unit has already made a cohesion check from the same source that turn it will keep it's previous dice-roll, so it won't have any further effect unless later checks apply penalties as well). However, I think all cohesion tests are flagged by text saying the unit held or not as well so it should be clear.

canuckgamer wrote:2. I was playing a scenario and when I clicked on a Auxilia Palatina the display for that unit was as follows:

Armour: Protected
Capabilities.
Bow 20% Darts 80% Light Spears 80%

I looked in the manual but couldn't find what the percentages for the three weapons meant.

In general, I think % weapon use simply modifies the PoA bonus for that keyword by the specified %. E.g. 80% light spears gets 80% of the bonus for light spears rather than the full bonus.

The 20% bow is a special case: this is included in the description for historical reasons but in terms of game mechanics they simply work like darts (i.e. those units are essentially 100% darts 80% light spears). There's a forum thread about this somewhere but the designer wanted to avoid having lots of low-damage missile units so bundled them up with the same effect as darts.

Although the exact effects of sub-100% capabilities are not detailed in the manual, they are displayed in-game in the detailed unit information (CTRL-L click on unit) and in the Detailed Tooltips (turn on in Settings or by holding down CTRL key) and Close Combat Reports (turn on in Settings).

Kabill wrote:In general, I think % weapon use simply modifies the PoA bonus for that keyword by the specified %. E.g. 80% light spears gets 80% of the bonus for light spears rather than the full bonus.

This is true for some capabilities but not for others. For example Light Spear and Lancers only need 50% to be fully effective - this is because they are impact capabilities and 50% of an impact capability means that all of the front ranks have it. The guys without those capabilities are assumed to be in the back ranks, and their lack of the capability does not alter the effect at impact.

Non-light units that are 50% bows shoot half as well as those with 100% bows at long range, but at close range they shoot 2/3 as well. (This is to follow the tabletop rules where non-light bow units at close range shot with the whole of the first shooting rank of bases, and half of the second rank. As units with 50% bows only had one shooting rank, they would get to shoot with that 50% at full effect at close range, whereas the 100% bow unit would only get to shoot with 75%.

20% Bow in a unit with Darts are treated as Darts for POA purposes. They are only listed as Bow for historical verisimilitude.

There are a few other twiddles like this, but they would only take effect if people used modded units with proportions not anticipated in the design.

Other capabilities are proportional to the % in the unit.

As mentioned above, all of this information is readily accessible in game in the detailed unit information, Detailed Tooltips and Detailed Close Combat Reports.

Thank you rbodleyscott. I need to look more at those info panels in game.
I always thought 20% bow was a super weak bit of ranged ability like maybe the soldiers grab some hay & mouse droppings off the ground and toss it at the charging enemy just before impact.