Mercenary vs regular discipline, how to mod/test combat

[TheMeInTeam]

The topic of mercenary discipline came up in some discussion around a modded version of the game (Anbennar). Anbennar changes modifiers on units, but not combat mechanics themselves, so this is a question/potential bug related to vanilla also.

A few players claimed that mercenary discipline works differently from regular discipline. Namely, that merc discipline doesn't impact unit tactics and therefore doesn't reduce damage taken by mercenaries the way regular discipline does for regular units. They pointed to Johan's Feb. 5 dev diary with hegemon giving way more merc discipline compared to other hegemon giving regular discipline as an argument in favor of this assertion.

I don't like to believe these sorts of claims without empirical evidence, but while they told me tests were done none were linked to me. On the other hand, EU 4 has a proven history of lying and internal consistency in its UI (ZoC, what you can take in peace deals, pre-war screen, rebel screen/needing fort to break country as longstanding examples). So I can't just dismiss what they say.

I know that tactics displayed isn't the same as tactics used by all regiments involved (IE when you join a lower tech ally in battle), so it's possible that the combat display is simply not reflecting the mercenary discipline modifier and that the players were simply misinterpreting the UI. However, it's also possible that they are correct and the UI lies that mercenary discipline actually gives discipline to mercenaries (as opposed to combat ability), since numerous vanilla mechanics have the UI lie to the player on a routine basis.

So I have two questions:

1. Has anybody actually tested and logged combat outcomes with mercenary discipline vs normal discipline in vanilla? Mod would be fine too, with some caveats to using that. If someone has already done this and posted it somewhere, could you please provide the link?
2. If this testing hasn't been done or documented, how would I go about installing/setting up the mod that rolls fixed dice to test whether a 5% mercenary discipline group of regiments performs the same as a 5% discipline army of same comp?

 

[Jarvin]

Here I made a rant that I then figured was probably rude so .-.

With all that said I appreciate your interest in actually testing this out, so to answer your questions:

1. Mercenary discipline works exactly the same way as discipline does, obviously, because in combat each unit has its own individual stats, including military tactics. The only modifiers that are shared is part of the result of the base dice equation like terrain penalties and general(each unit still has its own individual unit pips) and, for example, horde's shock bonus/penalty. That's really the end of the story here
2. So the most basic way to test combat in EU4 is to just go into the game, change the setup to dynamical, enable flat province development, create 2 custom nations with equal national ideas minus whatever you are trying to test, start the game, type "ai" in the console to disable AI and then "combat_dice 5" to equalize the combat dice result throughout the battles, and then just have fun fighting battles and measuring outcomes. Modding out the minor effects of AT, prestige etc. is a possibility, but not necessary.

That said, throughout like 2017 to 2018 I believe that we've figured out at least 99% of combat intricaties in the game. I documented most of these in my old unfinished guide https://docs.google.com/document/d/18E2gXXtffW9Llq48oiVOcapNhwnUglVQtoOT9_iCaF8/edit?usp=sharing , even tho it's far from finished it still should be of decent use to some. Note the appendix with exact formulas(more accurate than on the wiki) for combat.

So ye that's all I guess, once again appreciate you posting this thread instead of just going with whatever those people told you.

 

[Wethospu]

Here I made a rant that I then figured was probably rude so .-.

--

That said, throughout like 2017 to 2018 I believe that we've figured out at least 99% of combat intricaties in the game. I documented most of these in my old unfinished guide https://docs.google.com/document/d/18E2gXXtffW9Llq48oiVOcapNhwnUglVQtoOT9_iCaF8/edit?usp=sharing , even tho it's far from finished it still should be of decent use to some. Note the appendix with exact formulas(more accurate than on the wiki) for combat.

So ye that's all I guess, once again appreciate you posting this thread instead of just going with whatever those people told you.

One way to help spreading information is to make sure that the wiki is reliable and accurate. If I remember correctly there was a pretty long period when the wiki had wrong combat formulas.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Thanks. There's always "press X to doubt" when it comes to some claims, but I do partially blame EU 4's UI design for this too. There are numerous cases where the at-a-glance battle info just doesn't give an accurate description of unit modifiers and can lead to unexpected outcomes.

 

[Jarvin]

One way to help spreading information is to make sure that the wiki is reliable and accurate. If I remember correctly there was a pretty long period when the wiki had wrong combat formulas.

The wiki had wrong formulas because it took us an insanely long to figure out the full details of how morale casualties work. We eventually made sure to update the wiki though. The current version of the formulas there is not 100% accurate but it's good enough. 1000 times better than the "morale dmg = physical dmg / 600 or 520" that you could find there in the past

 

[TheMeInTeam]

After testing, there's no apparent difference between mercenary discipline for mercs and discipline for regulars:





Same damage every day, same numbers of troops exactly on battle finishing.

 

[Jarvin]

<3

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I can see why they were confused though. The merc disc isn't obvious here, and at other techs you might even see a tactics differential in the battle screen that isn't real because the merc discipline isn't displayed the same way. At tech 30 I got some very different looking stats displayed on either side but when push came to shove...same casualties again (and same performance against a control nation).

 

[grotaclas]

The current version of the formulas there is not 100% accurate but it's good enough.

I think it would be better if the wiki contains the 100% accurate formula. What is the reason for not adding the correct formula there?

 

[FrogCrusher]

I think it would be better if the wiki contains the 100% accurate formula. What is the reason for not adding the correct formula there?

Because it's a reverse engineering formula. The devs don't give the formula. So we don't know the precise formula in fact.

 

[Jarvin]

Because it's a reverse engineering formula. The devs don't give the formula. So we don't know the precise formula in fact.

Except we do

 

[FrogCrusher]

Except we do

Oh my bad. So then good work !!