Schiltron better with bad leaders?

[doktarr]

I noticed an odd quirk of the Combat Tactics tables today and was curious if I was reading it correctly.

The Scottish-only "Schiltron Formation" tactic is pretty godly, and it seems like maximizing the chances of it firing is a good target for any army. However, Schiltron has a strong tendency to get crowded out by other tactics. It's always competing with Force Back, and it's impossible to give Schiltron a higher weight than Force Back gets (without dropping Pikemen percentages way down, anyway).

In order to increase Schiltron's chances from firing above the default weight of 3, you need either 20% or 30% Heavy Infantry, but adding Heavy Infantry means that Advance and Slow Advance become possible tactics as well.

So, anyway, here are the best odds I can figure out for Schiltron with a good leader:

(All numbers assume not Forest Terrain; if in Forest then Stand Fast eats into these percentages)

• M16+ leader, 100% Pikemen* : 23% chance of firing
• M16+ leader, 60% Pikemen, 20-30% HI: 26% chance of firing
• M16+ leader, 50-60% Pikemen, 20-30% HI: 30% chance of firing
  
• M16+ leader, 60% Pikemen, 30% HI: 34% chance of firing

* When I say 100% Pikemen I really mean at least 70% Pikemen and nothing else in high enough percentage to roll melee tactics. So <1% Heavy Infantry, <20% archers, etc.

So... you can mix Schiltron and Shock retinues in a 1:1 ratio and actually hit the the ratios that give you a 34% chance, with 7% archers lying around to get you shieldwalls in skirmish. You'll roll Force Back or Slow Advance most of the time, both of which are OK, and only rarely screw up and throw Advance.

However, it's very easy to look at those numbers and conclude that it's not worth buying less efficient units in order to get a better tactic 11% more often. You're probably better off running pure Schiltron (with a few archers tossed in to get Shieldwall) and just accepting that you will use Force Back most of the time. I'm pretty sure this is, by far, the most common approach for Scottish players.

However... consider this little nugget:

• M16+ leader, 100% Pikemen : 23% chance of firing
• M12-15 leader, 100% Pikemen : 31% chance of firing
• M8-11 leader, 100% Pikemen : 40% chance of firing
• M7 leader, 100% Pikemen: 50% chance of firing.

Wait, what?

Once you've abandoned Heavy Infantry, a better Martial rating just boosts the chances of Force Back without boosting the chances of Schiltron. So you're actually more likely to trigger Schiltron with a leader whose Martial rating isn't high enough to get the Force Back multipliers. Once your leader is Martial 7 or worse, they are both at their base weight and which one you use is a coin flip.

With most tactics, something like this would be a curiosity, but Schiltron is so amazingly good that I think it's worth actually going this route. Force Back gives Pikemen Offensive +240%, Archers Offensive -100%. Schiltron gives Pikemen Defensive +360%, Pikemen Offensive +240%, Archers Offensive +60%. That massive defensive bonus, plus having your archers do some damage in melee, is a pretty enormous boost, and triggering that more than twice as often might actually swamp the advantage of having a top notch leader over a Martial 7 chump.

 

[CaptainPolyp]

Using a bad commander, to you also increase the likelihood to trigger bad tactics?
If yes, maybe a good commander is better anyways???

 

[doktarr]

Using a bad commander, to you also increase the likelihood to trigger bad tactics?
If yes, maybe a good commander is better anyways???

Nope. Bad tactics are all triggerd by traits, not by a low Martial rating. In the case of a pikeman army, the only bad traits you really need to worry about are Slothful and Shy which can trigger Hesitant Commander. If you have some Archers sprinkled in, then also avoid Lisp and Stutter to avoid Confused Orders in skirmish.

 

[Rationalsanity]

Huh. Good to know for my eventual repeat of a 1066-1453 Scotland game. Should probably be addressed though, but ten again combat as a whole needs attention.

 

[doktarr]

It's always competing with Force Back, and it's impossible to give Schiltron a higher weight than Force Back gets (without dropping Pikemen percentages way down, anyway).

One last addenda along these lines:

If you have upgraded city holdings with at least as many upgrades to "Mustering Grounds" as "Barracks" (one or two more to Mustering Grounds later in the game), then you end up with levy ratios that look like 41-54% LI, 18-24% Pikemen, and 28-39% Archers. This keeps Pikemen percentages below 25%, so Force Back can't fire. However, you've got enough archers that Barrage fires, so it's kind of the same story. The upside is that the multiplier for Barrage doesn't kick in until Martial 12, so a M11 commander is fine.

This is hardly a gamebreaking thing, but if you call up your levies with a decent-sized kingdom, it's probably worth pooling all your city levies together into one flank and putting a Scottish M11 leader in charge, to get another flank that rolls Schiltron half the time. Schiltron does give Light Infantry Defensive +120%, too, so the Light Infantry certainly benefit from this.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Wow, it looks like you're right. You get just 2% extra damage for each marital point, but an utterly massive multiplier differential from the right tactic triggering. I'm totally checking the numbers when I get home but moving Shiltron trigger frequency from less than a quarter of the time to half the time is huge.

 

[Dragatus]

Wasn't it +5% damage per point of Martial?

 

[doktarr]

Wasn't it +5% damage per point of Martial?

According to the wiki it's 2%. So if that's right, choosing a M7 leader over a M17 leader for a 95% Pikemen flank means giving up 20% of your damage (is that multiplied on after tactic? If not, it's much less significant) for an increased incidence of the +360% defensive bonus of the Schiltron Formation. Seems like a pretty easy trade to make, even if the martial damage bonus is multiplied by tactics bonuses.

 

[Dragatus]

I think the Wiki must be outdated becuase this is what it says in the defines.lua game file:

LEADER_MARTIAL_DAMAGE_BONUS = 0.05, -- Percentage bonus to damage for each point of martial the flank leader has

Mind you, the increased chance of getting Schiltron is still worth having a poorer commander, at least in melee phase. But in the skirmish phase you need a good commander (12+) to have a better chance of triggering Shieldwall.

So it becomes a question of how much damage the enemy can do to you in skirmish phase and whether taking more loses there is worth the improved chance of Schiltron in melee. My estimate is that against a melee heavy opponent it may well be better to go for the poor commander and Schiltron, but against an army that's really strong in the skirmish phase (like say the Mongol's 70K event spawned Horse Archers) you're still better of going with a good commander.

 

[Zyzyfer]

i never quite understood the way wiki calculated the weight and modifiers to certain tactics.
Going by wiki things like force back and schiltron seem to have same weight/modifiers (but i remember horselords dlc-last time i played schiltron one couldn't get chance to trigger schiltron past about 24'ish% - going from memory here).
...AND why does a 7M commander even trigger schiltrton!? Wiki clearly states 8M commander.

 

[Dragatus]

It states 8M under Modifiers, not under Eligibility.

The wiki lists Eligibility, Weight, and Modifiers:
- Eligibility are the conditions you need in order to get the tactic at all.
- Weight is the base weight for a tactic to trigger. The chance of a tactic to trigger is it's weight divided by the sum total of all eligible tactics' weights and multiplied by 100%.
- Modifiers lists multipliers for the tactic if you meet additional conditions.

 

[Zyzyfer]

It states 8M under Modifiers, not under Eligibility.

The wiki lists Eligibility, Weight, and Modifiers:
- Eligibility are the conditions you need in order to get the tactic at all.
- Weight is the base weight for a tactic to trigger. The chance of a tactic to trigger is it's weight divided by the sum total of all eligible tactics' weights and multiplied by 100%.
- Modifiers lists multipliers for the tactic if you meet additional conditions.

This never made much sense to me. I remember I could basically limit pikes with Scottish commander (when not fighting in forest), to x2 tactics- schiltron + force back (wiki lists their weight + multiplies identically).
Yet force back would always trigger about 75% of times to 25% of schiltron (or something similar going from memory here). Shouldn't they be 50/50?

edit: after some calculations and thought, it would seems to me that the x1.5 modifier for schiltron doesn't apply to pure pikes (due to lack of HI)!? Can someone else confirm?

...makes more sense now, by reducing commander to under 8M you would also negate the x1.5 to such tactic as force back, therefore reducing force-back weight hence indirectly improving other tactics such as schiltron ( in this case assuming were dealing only with x2 tactics it would be 50%/50%).

:/ rather lame this is ...in any case i am gonna fire up the game and see for myself.
If this is true then I am simply going to add 'Pikemen OR HI ' to 'schiltron' modifier code to fix such bs.

 

[Dragatus]

Yep, you just figured it on your own.

To get the 1.5 multipliers on the Schiltron weight you need both 40%-60% Pikemen and 20%-30% Heavy Infantry among your melee troops. So a pure Pikemen army will only ever have the base weight. And by having low Martial skill you allow a pure Pikeman formation to avoid getting weight multipliers for other tactics.

 

[Zyzyfer]

Yep, you just figured it on your own.

To get the 1.5 multipliers on the Schiltron weight you need both 40%-60% Pikemen and 20%-30% Heavy Infantry among your melee troops. So a pure Pikemen army will only ever have the base weight. And by having low Martial skill you allow a pure Pikeman formation to avoid getting weight multipliers for other tactics.

Wikipedia wording is not very good. But having look at code it's more clear.

edit:
I deleted HI prerequisite. So for anyone that doesn't want this low martial score bs copy/paste code below.

Spoiler

# Scottish
schiltron_formation_tactic = {
   days = 18
   sprite = 3
   group = stand_fast

   trigger = {
     phase = melee
     pikemen = 0.01
     flank_has_leader = yes
     leader = {
       OR = {
         culture = scottish
         culture = pictish
       }
     }
   }

   mean_time_to_happen = {
     days = 3
     modifier = {
       factor = 1.5
       flank_has_leader = yes
       leader = {
         martial = 8
       }
       heavy_troops = {
         who = pikemen
         value = 0.6
       }
     }
     modifier = {
       factor = 1.5
       flank_has_leader = yes
       leader = {
         martial = 12
       }
       heavy_troops = {
         who = pikemen
         value = 0.5
       }
     }
     modifier = {
       factor = 1.5
       flank_has_leader = yes
       leader = {
         martial = 16
       }
       heavy_troops = {
         who = pikemen
         value = 0.4
       }
     }
   }
[/spoiler][code]

 

[Stolen Rutters]

I think the Wiki must be outdated becuase this is what it says in the defines.lua game file.

Thanks. 2% sounded utterly insignificant compared to the other modifiers. At least 5% is 50% for 10 points difference, but it looks like the Shiltron trigger math is still more important, though.