Question about armor

it seems to me that upgrading armor for chariot archer makes a great difference in chariot archer wars.

So it means that armor upgrade arre effective against arrow.

Infantry have a special shield armor upgrade to protect them against arrow.
Doest that mean that it stakup with normal armor?.

for example if my infantry have 0+4 armor and 0+3 shield
Does it mean it has a 7 armors against arrows?

Thanks.

Arrows damage is only mitigated by that shield (pierce armor) while the armor (slash armor) only mitigates melee damage , so for example if you have 0+3 pierce armor you should take about 1-2 dmg per arrow from most archers.

You will take a minimum of 1 dmg regardless or armor value and type. Some unit do bonus dmg against some unit type, so for example slingers VS slingers, even though it says they have 2 dmg (pierce/range damage) and they have 2+2 pierce armor you will notice they still do more than 1 dmg as they do bonus dmg vs range units.

In terms of range combat , except for woodcut upgrades that provide range there are not a lot of upgrades that help your archers in range vs range combat (exception being +1 dmg from chemistry and ballistics )

Sorry but chariot archer with 0+2 armor win againt chariot archer with 0 armor. thats why every expert do the upgrade even on assyrian vs assyrian range only combat.

You are suppose to get the upgrades regardless of expert or not, what you are probably experiencing is the base accuracy of a range unit (which is not 100% - hence the micro management value in range vs range combat) and maybe hill advantage (where a unit above another unit does more dmg and receives less dmg is above incoming damage)

By base accuracy i mean that range units miss their target (i do not know the exact %, but without ballistics it is not 100%). So what ballistics does is that besides that it increases the base accuracy to 100% it also makes archers fire not at the position of the moving target but at where it should be when the arrow lands.

If you do not have a base accuracy of 100% even though your arrow does hit there is a chance that it will not do dmg at all or it will do only partial damage. Partials damage happens when a unit is hit by an arrow that was not intended for it , so for example a stray arrow.

Another thing worth mentioning is that if an archer died while the arrow was in the air and the arrow actually hits the mark it will 0 damage. I am not sure if this is true for catapults, although from what i can tell it is not. However this principle is still true in AoE2 , which makes for some interesting effects in trab wars :). I hope this gives you more insight of how range combat works

@BornPants34 said:
In terms of range combat , except for woodcut upgrades that provide range there are not a lot of upgrades that help your archers in range vs range combat (exception being +1 dmg from chemistry and ballistics )

Ballistics do not add damage to ranged units only Alchemy does.

@Tgaud
Sorry but chariot archer with 0+2 armor win againt chariot archer with 0 armor. thats why every expert do the upgrade even on assyrian vs assyrian range only combat.

The +2 armor is used so that villagers couldn’t fight against archers. Having 2 armor reduces villagers damage from 3 to 1.

By base accuracy i mean that range units miss their target (i do not know the exact %, but without ballistics it is not 100%).

All ranged units have 100% accuracy even without Ballistics. Only unit to not have 100% is hunter (80%) and Ballistics does not increase it.

If you do not have a base accuracy of 100% even though your arrow does hit there is a chance that it will not do dmg at all or it will do only partial damage. Partials damage happens when a unit is hit by an arrow that was not intended for it , so for example a stray arrow.

Arrows deal always 50% of damage if it doesn’t hit the primary target.

As far as I know, in Age of Empires / RoR, arrows that miss, miss. Only because a unit is moving. It cannot hit another target. Archers armour doesn’t affect damage taken, but range upgrade will mean enemy group of chariot archers will have 2 rows shooting at you while yours are stuck in the back row due to not enough range. Nobility gives CA more hitpoints. Hills give bonus damage in RoR at least. Note such things as Assyrian CA fires faster or Hittite has +1 damage. Egyptian has more HP.

Ballistics simply means the archer fires to where the target is headed and not to where it currently is. “Accuracy” is always 100%, and arrows can only affect the target unit, doesn’t affect others (except for catapult stone ball projectiles).

You could always test this using a friend and some CA.

Another thing that might affect things is how well you micro - you could dodge arrows by moving when the enemy shoots, shooting straight after, moving away when enemy shoots again etc. . If it is a massive group of CA, you may be better off focusing 2 targets since there is no point firing extra arrows at a unit that will already die from a few arrows. You can move the targeted unit so that the enemy group wastes shots since they will most likely be focusing one target.

I tested the elevation bonus in Scenario edit. (couldn’t find the code anywhere)

  • you gain 50% bonus damage when elevated. No matter how much higher you are.
  • Bowman deals 4,5 damage. It is not rounded to 4 or to 5. It is also not every other hit being 4 and the other being 5.
  • Damage bonus is calculated after pierce armor reduction.
  • 5 damage archer in elevated against 3 pierce armor unit deals 3 damage.
  • 4 damage archer in elevated against 3 pierce armor unit deals 1.5 damage.
  • 3 damage archer in elevated against 3 pierce armor unit deals 1 damage.
  • Being on a cliff grants bonus.
  • Being on a cliff with -1 elevation won’t grant bonus.

@pate623 thanks for cleaning things up from the mess i wrote. When i said ballistics there in the brackets i mend it as a bonus to range combat not that it provides +1 dmg (although the way i added in there i can see it was confusing), anyway , thanks again for improving the answer !

very useful information, thanks for the research all of you

@Tgaud said:
it seems to me that upgrading armor for chariot archer makes a great difference in chariot archer wars.

So it means that armor upgrade arre effective against arrow.

Infantry have a special shield armor upgrade to protect them against arrow.
Doest that mean that it stakup with normal armor?.

for example if my infantry have 0+4 armor and 0+3 shield
Does it mean it has a 7 armors against arrows?

Thanks.

Maybe the this new version will fix it.

@pate623 said:
I tested the elevation bonus in Scenario edit. (couldn’t find the code anywhere)

  • you gain 50% bonus damage when elevated. No matter how much higher you are.
  • Bowman deals 4,5 damage. It is not rounded to 4 or to 5. It is also not every other hit being 4 and the other being 5.
  • Damage bonus is calculated after pierce armor reduction.
  • 5 damage archer in elevated against 3 pierce armor unit deals 3 damage.
  • 4 damage archer in elevated against 3 pierce armor unit deals 1.5 damage.
  • 3 damage archer in elevated against 3 pierce armor unit deals 1 damage.
  • Being on a cliff grants bonus.
  • Being on a cliff with -1 elevation won’t grant bonus.

I think this must be somehow mentioned in the tutorial because I didn’t even know about this elevation bonus before. Is this true for AoE II too?

@Fetandrey said:

@pate623 said:
I tested the elevation bonus in Scenario edit. (couldn’t find the code anywhere)

  • you gain 50% bonus damage when elevated. No matter how much higher you are.
  • Bowman deals 4,5 damage. It is not rounded to 4 or to 5. It is also not every other hit being 4 and the other being 5.
  • Damage bonus is calculated after pierce armor reduction.
  • 5 damage archer in elevated against 3 pierce armor unit deals 3 damage.
  • 4 damage archer in elevated against 3 pierce armor unit deals 1.5 damage.
  • 3 damage archer in elevated against 3 pierce armor unit deals 1 damage.
  • Being on a cliff grants bonus.
  • Being on a cliff with -1 elevation won’t grant bonus.

I think this must be somehow mentioned in the tutorial because I didn’t even know about this elevation bonus before. Is this true for AoE II too?

Yes, this goes for 1 and 2.

@RWNorthPole said:

@Fetandrey said:

@pate623 said:
I tested the elevation bonus in Scenario edit. (couldn’t find the code anywhere)

  • you gain 50% bonus damage when elevated. No matter how much higher you are.
  • Bowman deals 4,5 damage. It is not rounded to 4 or to 5. It is also not every other hit being 4 and the other being 5.
  • Damage bonus is calculated after pierce armor reduction.
  • 5 damage archer in elevated against 3 pierce armor unit deals 3 damage.
  • 4 damage archer in elevated against 3 pierce armor unit deals 1.5 damage.
  • 3 damage archer in elevated against 3 pierce armor unit deals 1 damage.
  • Being on a cliff grants bonus.
  • Being on a cliff with -1 elevation won’t grant bonus.

I think this must be somehow mentioned in the tutorial because I didn’t even know about this elevation bonus before. Is this true for AoE II too?

Yes, this goes for 1 and 2.

Thank you!

Units that are also uphill in aoe2 take less damage from units on a lower elevation than them , this goes for melee units as well, so for example if you have a Clubman fitting an identical Clubman on a lower elevation, your Clubman should win the fight with about half his hitpoints left. That is why sometimes it is ok to take some dmg just so that you can to a higher ground and change the tide of a fight.

There are also a few other hidden bonuses. For example Cavalary line (the heave one) they all do bonus damage vs infantry (i think it was +5).

Chariots (archer and normal) are SUPER resistant to conversion and also do bonus dmg vs priests.

Slingers do a lot of damage vs any archers.

And there are a lot of other hidden bonuses there. They are part of the manual when you install AoE form the disk or you can read about them on the wiki pages (they can give you the exact numbers).

That is why building Forts or Towers on the top o a mountain is a very good idea in AoE 1 and 2.

Cav only do +5 damage versus barracks, not academy infantry.

@BornPants34 Let me help you:

was looking for that exact list :smiley: … haven’t played the game in so long that i was starting to forget some of ins and outs of it :stuck_out_tongue:

I like that slingers get +2 pierce armour vs balista and helepolis. It works really well!