GAME INFORMATION
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GAME BUILD #: 101.101.59165.0
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GAME PLATFORM: Steam
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OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 10
ISSUE EXPERIENCED
The Saracens Team Bonus (Foot archers +2 attack vs. buildings) grants +3 damage instead of the stated +2. Also, the team bonus applies to skirmishers (not sure if intended).
FREQUENCY OF ISSUE
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100% of the time / matches I play (ALWAYS)
REPRODUCTION STEPS
Here’s the steps to reproduce the issue:
Load into a post-imperial game (or scenario editor) as the Saracens, create an Arbalester (and Elite Skirmisher), then have it attack an enemy house.
Both the Arbalester and Elite Skirmisher will do 3 damage per hit due to the team bonus. Normally, they’d do just 1 damage per hit.
EXPECTED RESULT
The Technology Tree should say: Foot archers and skirmishers +3 attack vs. buildings
1 Like
It’s actually doing it correctly. A post imp house has 10 pierce armor. An Arbalester deals 9 pierce damage per shot with all upgrades. Units will always do a minimum of 1 damage, so it does 1 damage. Bonus damage is then added on as a separate thing, so it then gets +2 damage, hence dealing three. That’s my understanding of it.
I reran my post-imperial test in the scenario editor of a Saracen Arbalester vs a Chinese House. The Arbalester deals 10 pierce Damage (Skirmishers are 7 Pierce Damage), while the house has 12 Pierce Armor.
Using the damage formula on the wiki, the arbalester should deal 0 Pierce Damage but (based on the tech tree notes) should do 2 Bonus Damage. The final damage value is the higher of the two values in the formula: Max(1, Pierce Damage + Bonus Damage). However, the house is taking 3 damage per hit; meaning the bonus damage is actually +3.
1 Like
No. Units take a minimum of 1 damage per shot. The house could have 500 pierce armor, but the Arb will still do 1 damage per hit. It cannot do 0. Ever. Bonus damage is then added, giving it 3 attack.
Yes, attacks will always do 1 damage per hit regardless of armor values. However, bonus damage is part of the damage calculation; it’s not just added on to the end after the rest of the calculations.
Otherwise (post-imp), a Saracen Elite Skirmisher would do 5 damage per hit to an Elite Rattan Archer instead of just 4; the 4 damage comes entirely from the Bonus Damage.
1 Like
On an unrelated note, I want to mention that I think the Archer armor class on Mamelukes should be removed.
There is already a Mameluke armor class, so any existing units/technologies that should have bonus damage against mamelukes could just be given bonus damage against the Mameluke armor class instead. Currently skirmishers, huskarls, and the Manipur Cavalry unique tech are amongst the units that grant bonus damage against mamelukes due to it having the Archer armor class. It’s not clear whether all of those are intended, but mamelukes having the Archer armor class is not as intuitive as explicitly giving those units bonus damage against mamelukes.
2 Likes
Hey TheBattlizer
That is a sharp observation based on the damage/armor formulas and how they interact 
It says +2 in the tooltip by design, because as you mentioned for foot archers attacking buildings, the damage is increased from 1 (minimum) damage to 3 (building bonus damage), which is +2 damage against buildings in effect.
The tooltips are meant to tell the player about the effect in practice, not the values in data files.
Those cursed with the knowledge that in detail it is actually +3 bonusdamage, also need to remember that the Saracen TB tooltip “subtracts” the minimum damage to be accurate for the majority of players.
1 Like
Thanks for the explanation. I’d originally seen a note on the AoE wiki stating that the tech tree was incorrect, but I wanted to confirm that the wiki was correct and wasn’t sure if someone had actually reported it. I’ve attempted to update the wiki to clarify that the +2 is intended.
As noted in one of the comments on the wiki though, there is an inconsistency in how archer bonuses are worded. The Mayans team bonus (and Italian’s Pavise, and possibly others) doesn’t affect Skirmishers and Slingers, but the Saracen team bonus does. Based on how the other archer bonuses work, I would’ve thought that Skirmishers and Slingers shouldn’t be affected by the Saracen team bonus.
In most cases, the actual effect is +2 since pierce armor cancels archer attack. But there are some low pierce armor exceptions such as Outposts and Gates, and in that case the damage is +3.
The problem is that that it isn’t always going to go from 1 damage to 3.
@TheBattlizer Get the improved extended tooltips mod, it improves this type of problem for all civs that need it.
