Please Help Me Understand Untransformed Rogue Attacks

[Mulldiv]

I am a fairly new player and am at the very start of the early middle ages. I am struggling in the battles on the continent map because I am facing all EMA units while I have very few EMA units. I had what I thought was a good idea. I would send 2 mercenaries and 6 rogues up against 8 enemy heavy cavalry. I would wait for the heavy cavalry to advance and then, when in range of the rogues, the rogues with their 100 attack would run out and 1-hit kill the heavy cavalry. This worked great. The rogues did not even transform so they got to 1-hit kill other heavy cavalry units on the next round. The defense of the heavy cavalry was 13. I have +33% attack bonus so my understanding of the math of the battles is that I would have a 100*1.33 = 133 attack versus the heavy cavalry defense of only 13 with no added or subtracted bonuses. This ratio of 133/13 = 10.2 should yield a damage of 9-10. This should 1-hit kill the heavy cavalry about half the time since, I believe, they have 10 hit points. However, my rogues 1-hit killed the cavalry EVERY time in about 7 attacks. I suppose I could have just gotten lucky and "rolled" a 10 on the 9-10 scale 7 times in a row but this seems unlikely.

Now to the stranger part of the situation. I tried the same strategy against 8 barbarians who only have a defense of 6. I will assume they were all in the rocks (+3 defense) and that when being attacked by a light rogue unit, they get a +3 defense. This makes the ratio 133/(6+3+3) = 11.1 for the same 9-10 damage. Despite this, my attacks with untransformed rogues killed exactly zero barbarians in about 5 attempts. Again, I suppose I could have rolled a 9 on the 9-10 scale 5 times in a row but this seems unlikely.

What is more likely than me getting 7 lucky rolls and then 5 unlucky rolls is that I am misunderstanding something or overlooking something. Can anyone help explain these results to me? Thanks.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

Units have bonuses against other units. Rogues are a light unit, which in Iron/EMA have an attack bonus against fast units (cavalry). Barbarians are heavy units, which have an advantage against light units. Mystery explained.

 

[xivarmy]

It appears he accounted for the heavy's unit bonus (6+3 (terrain) + 3 (matchup)) in making the comparison - that's not the issue.

But only until you've killed a barbarian would this hold true (that last stand can get nasty as it stacks; i.e. after 4 barbarians are dead it's 6+3+3+3*4 = 24 defense). If your 5 samples were all before you killed a single barbarian though, it is a little unlucky at least imo.

One other detail: did you infiltrate against the cavalry? Infiltration reduces all units to 9 hp. and thus 9-10 damage will always finish them off.

I do believe more than the damage range matters... that internally the closer you get to the 10-10 range without reaching it, the less likely a 9 is. Around 10-11 ratio is in the low end of the 9-10 range (which starts at ~9.3 and goes to ~18.9) though so I expect 10s to be relatively rare compared to 9s at the ratio specified. And the experience with the barbarians to be more representative (though maybe a little unlucky) than the experience with the cavalry. So my best guess is that the cavalry were actually infiltrated and at 9 hp.

 

[xivarmy]

Not connected to the question, but connected to how to handle the barbarians, if you don't want to solve it yourself:

Spoiler

Short of excessive boost (which you don't have yet, but is relatively easy to acquire these days), the key is to do some damage to all of them before you trigger their Last Stand and make them nasty. The best option is to bring in 8 artillery, shoot them all once. Then on the 2nd turn finish them off from highest hp remaining to lowest (as after each kill, their defense goes up and you do less damage)

 

[Mulldiv]

xivarmy, You may be onto something. For a previous daily quest, I had to infiltrate three sectors and I very likely did so on the sector containing the heavy cavalry. The sector with the barbarians was in another region entirely so I know for sure they were NOT infiltrated. I bet this is the answer - coupled with the "last stand". Thanks.

As for artillery, I only have ballistas at this point and I suspect they would not do enough damage to kill the barbarians before the hoard descended on my weak ballista army.

 

[xivarmy]

As for artillery, I only have ballistas at this point and I suspect they would not do enough damage to kill the barbarians before the hoard descended on my weak ballista army.

They can. It's a bit tougher and I usually wait til catapults - but i have done it with ballistas. You have 3 turns before most of the barbarians reach your artillery (some may reach you in 2) - as long as you follow the rule of hitting the highest hp one first to avoid driving the survivors defense up with early kills it can work (with the possible exception of killing the most forward one(s) with your last artillery fires before it's about to be their turn again)

with your stats 4*1.33 + 4 (vs heavy) = 9.3 attack vs their 9 defense. You should average 5 damage pretty consistently until they start dying.

I've also done it with mounted archers before, and it works, but it's bloody. Wounding all 8 (heavily) lowers their damage enough that your mounted archers can take a couple hits - until last stand kicks in at least.

 

[Emberguard]

Rogues are a light unit, which in Iron/EMA have an attack bonus against fast units (cavalry).

Rogues don't have a attack bonus, it's just a 100 stat. And the Heavy Calvary won't have any bonuses in this scenario either as it's only against Ranged units

I'm thinking xivarmy's theory of infiltration being in play would be the answer here.