OK, we now know how units fight – but how are they picked, and how do they pick targets ? That might be interesting.
Who fights ?
As explained by the AGE wiki, the chance of a particular element to be engaged is random and is modified by:
• After the first round, whether the unit is already engaged (big increase in chance to be engaged again).
• The number of hits (i.e., health) an element has (the less hits, the less chances to engage,
• If routed, chance to be picked is reduced.
Who is their target ?
For units that are not "support units (i.e. with at least one element which is not a support element), the attacking element first picks an enemy unit at random. Any unit in a stack involved can be picked, provided it has at least one non-support element, even if it is not “engaged” in the round. The probability to target each unit is the sum of all the (remaining) strength points multiplied by the combat signature (a stat whose target picking is the only purpose) of each element in the unit.
Note, for non-AJE purposes, that the “unit” is taken at the division level ; so having artillery in your division makes sure that that artillery actually shoot at enemy combat division and not support division (think about it when making your ROP divisions…)
Support units behave the same, except that their target can be support units or not (still picked at random).
To know the combat signature, you will have to look at the /model file. For your information, archers have 20 in combat signature, cavalry 50 and heavy infantry 100 (default, when it is 100 you will see nothing in the model file).
Once the unit is selected, an element will be picked :
- First, among any non-cavalry element (including artillery),
- If none if found, then, among any cavalry element
- If none if found, then, among anything else.
For naval combat, it will be :
- Among any combat element (warships),
- If none if found, then, among transport ships,
- If none if found, then, among troops onboard the transport ships.
In these 3 “categories”, there will be some “smart” targeting, for instance
- cavalry elements (charging / disrupting elements) are more likely to target low cohesion elements (to avoid counter-charge),
- elements are likely to "fight back" the enemy units attacking them
- (for non AJE games) artillery elements of a given units are more likely to target whoever is targeting the infantry element of the unit, and oppositely, your non-artillery element will attack whoever was targetted by artillery.
Finally,
- all elements from one unit will target elements from the same enemy unit in a given round. If the unit is destroyed before everyone shoots at it, the extra attacks are "lost" (rare case).
- There is a saturation limit for both land and naval : once an element has been attacked twice, it is not considered as a potential target anymore until everyone has been hit twice. This allows for instance troops transported on ships to be attacked before all transport ships are sunk. If all elements in a unit have been attacked to the limit, the remaining attacks are not lost but spread out over anyone (no more "priority"). Thus, an element can be attacked more than the limit if there are really a lot of attacking elements for a small unit.
Pocus : Please correct me if I mistunderstood something
