Unit Melee Weapons Value ?

[TheGrayMouser]

Hi wondering if anyone could answer the following?

There are several types of melee weapons the engine recognizes ie Pike Sword Halberd, Lance and Spear
except for the hard coded limits/advantages give to pike/halberds when in block, are there any other undocumented attributes to the other weapons? (all other items being equal?)

for example, if 2 identical units fought , except one had Sword and the other Spears, would there be any modifier(s) ?

as i recall from the Nap engine, Lances gave a 10% bonus when attacking but had a penalty when defending and was wondering if any other weapons had similar features

 

[TheGrayMouser]

Checking in after the year and a half anniversery of my question to see if any answers forthcoming, nope, guess Ill be back in 2013

 

[Gary McClellan]

The answer is... that depends. (heh, no, I won't leave it there).

The coding on weapons makes them all identical for melee except for one thing:

A weapon can be flagged as "no bayonet" which makes it 1/3 as effective. For instance, a rifled musket (which is in 1776, though not in Ren) takes a penalty on this. I THINK that Bow armed units get nailed with this in game, though I'd have to ask Rich White. It's possible that he gave them credit for their long knife they also carried, and didn't penalize them.

However, you can always modify the melee value of a unit directly (by giving it a melee modifier. To see if a unit has this, right click on the unit information box.

Now, in your example, (sword vs spear), any advantage would be found in the individual unit characteristics (melee mod, the ability to form pike block, such and so).

 

[TheGrayMouser]

Thanks for the reply Gary, I suspected as much but one can never be sure The Ren Engine is pretty robust and much more flexible than the napoleonic one, but i think with just a few more teaks it could capture the era a lot better. For example, what if the unit line in the OOB's had one xtra spot for that individual units melee modifier, say one for infantry/artillery, and a second for cavalry? Heck, allow negative #'s as well. That way you could tailor make say a unit of sword and buckler men with a decent modifier vs infantry, but a zero or agian even a negative modifier vs cavalry. The lowly spearmen that the eastern armies still used might be the opposite. Cheers!