In short: I don't think (unit-type) Leader traits do anything right now, besides look shiny and change what the tooltip reads.
In detail: I was trying to figure out what (exactly) the various leader traits do, which meant I was just tweaking a save file to give very simple armies and leaders.
Here was the setup in detail:
Attacking army crosses river onto plains tile (I'd just loaded up the starting 1066 Harold, and sent the army to attack Harald to get an easy combat to tinker with).
Attacker left flank (flank 0) has a general with two traits: Brilliant Strategist, Flat Terrain Expert. He has 11 "innate" martial (for 20 total). He leads 10k light infantry.
Defender left flank has a general with one trait: Brilliant Strategist, with 11 "innate" martial (20 total). Leads 10k light cavalry.
Home provinces are set to have 0 tech levels in all military techs.
Attacker selects Generic Skirmish (of course); defender selects Harass.
Attacker displays average offense of 1.2, defender average offense of 4.0. Attacker displays average unit defense of 2.7, with an army-wide 40% bonus.
Defender displays average unit defense of 5.0.
Attacker takes 150 casualties, defender takes 30 casualties.
So far, all as expected.
The center flank had the exact same setup with only one difference: the center leader had the Light Foot Leader trait, which supposedly gave Light Foot troops a "+40% combat modifier." The center defender selected Harass, just like the left defender.
But each side took the same number of casualties as on the left flank (150, 30). Each side had the same morale afterwards.
So as far as I can tell, the Light Foot Leader's +40% "combat modifier" didn't... modify anything in the combat.
I did a similar test with Cavalry Leader and horse archers, light cavalry, and knights, and could find no impact from any of those either.
In detail: I was trying to figure out what (exactly) the various leader traits do, which meant I was just tweaking a save file to give very simple armies and leaders.
Here was the setup in detail:
Attacking army crosses river onto plains tile (I'd just loaded up the starting 1066 Harold, and sent the army to attack Harald to get an easy combat to tinker with).
Attacker left flank (flank 0) has a general with two traits: Brilliant Strategist, Flat Terrain Expert. He has 11 "innate" martial (for 20 total). He leads 10k light infantry.
Defender left flank has a general with one trait: Brilliant Strategist, with 11 "innate" martial (20 total). Leads 10k light cavalry.
Home provinces are set to have 0 tech levels in all military techs.
Attacker selects Generic Skirmish (of course); defender selects Harass.
Attacker displays average offense of 1.2, defender average offense of 4.0. Attacker displays average unit defense of 2.7, with an army-wide 40% bonus.
Defender displays average unit defense of 5.0.
Attacker takes 150 casualties, defender takes 30 casualties.
So far, all as expected.
The center flank had the exact same setup with only one difference: the center leader had the Light Foot Leader trait, which supposedly gave Light Foot troops a "+40% combat modifier." The center defender selected Harass, just like the left defender.
But each side took the same number of casualties as on the left flank (150, 30). Each side had the same morale afterwards.
So as far as I can tell, the Light Foot Leader's +40% "combat modifier" didn't... modify anything in the combat.
I did a similar test with Cavalry Leader and horse archers, light cavalry, and knights, and could find no impact from any of those either.
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