Unit Stat Research

[Seekster]

I know that the unit stats are subject to change in patches but in general they have remained in a general ball park area the same. I have been recording the stats of units in the most current release and though I am still less than halfway done I have completed large parts of the Swadian, Nord, and Rhodok troop tree and would like to release some of my early findings.


1. This is probably common knowledge but the Rhodoks have by far the best crossbowmen in the game. As I favor crossbowmen over archers for a variety of reasons which I could fill another topic with, Rhodok Sharpshooters are hands down the greatest foot ranged units in the game (and may be the best ranged units period).

Here are the current stats I have found for Rhodok Sharpshooters, note that I only recorded stats that are relevant to the unit. I ignored Intelligence and Charisma and for foot soldiers I ignored their riding skill, horse archery skill, etc.

Strength: 19 (no this is not a typo)
Agility: 9
Health: 64
1H Prof: 110
Crossbow Prof: 140
Ironflesh: 5
Power Strike: 4
Shield: 4
Athletics: 6


I havnt recorded the stats for a Swadian Sharpshooter yet but judging by the fact that for the most part a tier 3 Rhodok Trained Crossbowman has notably better stats than a tier 4 Swadian Crossbowman (in other words more bang for a cheaper price) I imagine Rhodok Sharpshooters will still be superior.  To give you a close combat comparison, the Rhodok Sharpshooter is essentially the melee equivalent of a Nord Warrior based on my research. Here are the relevant stats for a Nord Warrior:

Strength: 12
Agility: 7
Health: 55
1H Prof: 115
2H Prof: 115
Polerarm Prof: 115
Throwing Prof: 115
Ironflesh: 4
Power Strike: 4
Power Throw: 3
Shield: 3
Athletics: 4

As you can see the Nord Warrior is slightly more proficient with melee weapons than the Rhodok Sharpshooter but in terms of skills and durability the Rhodok Sharpshooter is equal or in some cases a bit superior to the Nord Warrior when it comes to close range combat. Incidentally the tier 4 Rhodok Veteran Crossbowman is only slightly inferior to the Nord Warrior when it comes to close combat (looking at only stats, though equipment wise the Rhodok Veteran Crossbowman and to a lesser extent the Rhodok Trained Crossbowman can serve as viable light infantry when the situation calls for it).


2. Swadians as a faction have the best units overall.

Lets face it a Swadian Knight has always been the best unit in the game all things considered. Now they have been nerfed but last I looked the only thing that comes close in terms of cavalry is the Sarranid Mameluke and even then the Swadian Knight has a percievable edge in terms of both statistics and equipment.

In addition, Swadian Footmen give you a respectable light infantry unit that can make up the backbone of your army given its relatively cheap cost and respectable stats for a tier 3 unit:

Strength: 10
Agility: 8
Health: 49
1H Prof: 105
2H Prof: 85
Polearm Prof: 95
Ironflesh: 2
Power Strike: 2
Shield: 2
Athletics: 3

Now they are somewhat inferior to the tier 3 Nord Trained Footman who boasts 51 health and 3 points in both Ironflesh and Power Strike (not to mention that some of them are equipped with throwing weapons) but my favorite advantage of the Swadian Footman is that it can be upgraded to the Swadian Man at Arms who can then be upgraded to the Swadian Knight. In general when I play a Swadian character I like to travel around with about 5 to 10 Swadian Knights with a few Swadian Men at Arms and a fairly large number of Swadian Footmen (10 to 20 depending on what I am doing). When I get to these numbers I do not upgrade my Man at Arms or Footmen unless a Knight dies (which given their durability and my preference to keep a high surgery skill on my character, rarely happens). So lets say after a tough battle I lose 1 or 2 Knights. I bump up my Man at Arms who are ready to be upgraded to Knights which replaces my losses instantly and then bump up a few Footmen to Men at Arms to start training the backup force again.

In terms of Infantry I havnt completed my analysis of the Nord or Rhodok infantry troops but my guess is that the Nord probably have by far the strongest Infantry (tier 6 Huscarls especially) but the Swadians are probably a solid second with the Rhodok Seargeants edging out Vaegir guards for 3rd. I do have the stats for the Swadian Sergeant and they are quite impressive:

Strength: 14
Agility: 10
Health: 57
1H Prof: 155
2H Prof: 135
Polearm Prof: 145
Ironflesh: 4
Power Strike: 4
Shield: 4
Athletics: 4

Now those stats are pretty good but then tack on the fact that most Swadian Sergeants come equiped with some of the toughest armor in the came (Coat of Plates or something like that I think) and you have yourself a tank that can hold its own in sieges pretty well, better even than the Knight who has 0 points in athletics which make its slow but sturdy on foot).

One surprising discovery I made was that in terms of stats the Swadian Infantry is only somewhat superior to the Swadian Footman (granted the Swadian Infantry has notably better equipment in terms of armor). Swadian Infantry have only 9 str to the Footman's 10 but they have 11 agi to the Footman's 8. Swadian Footman have 1 point of health more than the Swadian Infantry (this does not make up for the Footman's weaker armor) and the Swadian Infantry has a weapons profs which are a fair amount superior to the Footman in all related categories. In terms of skills the Footman and Infantry both have 2 points of Ironflesh and Power Strike and both have 3 points in Athletics but the Swadian Infantry has 3 points of shield to the Swadian Footman's 2.

Personally I keep about 10 Nord Warriors or above as heavy infantry and use Swadian Footman as a back up light infantry whose main job is to become Men at Arms whose main job is to become Knights whose main job is to kill large parts of the enemy army before the Infantry even makes it to the fight (which in most cases they do).

3. As everyone as already guessed, Nord archers are not worth it.

I still remember the days before Nords even had archers and were composed entirely of kick ass Infantry. Then one day the Infantry were lightly nerfed in order to give the Nords which are arguably the worst foot archers in the game (I havnt completed my unit analysis but so far it looks like this will be the case). Now on their own Nord Archers and above are decent close range fighters but the Nords dont need close range fighters (and with their infantry sometimes carrying throwing weapons I would argue that outside sieges they dont need archers either). The Nord Huntsman is pitifully bad in terms of stats and equipment. Really its basically a slightly stronger Nord Recruit who traded in his point in Power Strike for a point in Power Draw and who has a weak bow. If you play the Nords I advice you to make up an army of mostly kick ass Infantry (basically anything Warrior or above though the Trained Footman are looking to be the best tier 3 infantry in the game so far) and steal a few Archers or Marksmen from Vaegir villages you take when you absolutely need archers. Really Nord Infantry are notably fast (they have high agility and athletics and their armor is relatively light weight for the most part given the protection it provides) so in most land battles archers just dont make a lot of sense for Nords. They do work ok in sieges though.


Note that all these are highly preliminary findings of my independent study (meaning that I am not going to refer to any other resources except my own game, which except for a food tweak and the Diplomacy mod without edits to unit stats, is native Warband). These findings are subject to change and I intend to publish them on the forums when I am done but I would like some early feedback if you dont mind.

 

[Seekster]

Good guide! 
Perhaps include mercenaries aswell?

隐藏

"Study on the Quality Difference between Troops in the Calradian Kingdoms"
                                  Requires 10 INT to read
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LOL maybe but I want to get through the faction troops first. Personally if I had to predict how the factions will stack up in terms of units here is how it would go:

Swadians - Best units overall and best Cavalry in the game in the form of Swadian Knights, these advantages are balanced because the Swadians are in the middle of all the factions geographically and so in Campaigns they tend to get the **** beat out of them in Auto calc battles when they are at war with two or more factions at once.

Nords - No cavalry and crappy archers are balanced out by the best damn infantry in the game, especially the incredible tier 6 (most factions do not have a tier 6 unit and in fact the Nords may be the only one) Huscarl. Their infantry are relatively fast too so dont be surprised if they catch you on the world map.

Rhodoks - Like the Nords they lack cavalry which can hurt them a lot but geography helps negate this disadvantage because Rhodok lands are almost all mountainous which gives them a home field advantage against cavalry (in theory, Swadian Knights still kill them most of the time, just takes a bit longer to scale the mountain to kill them). Their spearmen are fairly solid infantry I think but their crossbowmen are the best in the game. Someone once said that Rhodok Sharpshooters are like the Space Marines of Caldaria (WH40K reference) and I believe that is a fairly accurate comparison. They have perhaps the highest strength stat of any unit in the game and in melee combat they are almost on par with Nord Warriors! Unfortunately as awesome as Rhodok Sharpshooters are, they are not good enough to save the Rhodoks from spearmen that dont work against cavalry (though they are getting better at that than they used to be) and the lack of Cavalry.

Vaegirs - Don't know much about them because I never really liked them much or played as them but I have always held the belief that they are basically a cross between Swadians and Nords. Their Marksman have long been held as the best foot archers in the game and my experiences would support that. Their infantry is pretty decent and their Cavalry has been solid. One unit of interest is the Vaegir Veteran which can spawn at the beginning of battle on a horse sometimes. Not sure if this is still the case.

Khergits - If it weren't for the fact that doing so would probably kill you, close your eyes next time you siege a Khergit castle...it will sound like it is raining only the raindrops are arrows. It used to be that Nords and Khergits were specialized factions with only one unit type (now with Nords having crappy archers this isn't technically true anymore). All Khergit troops except for Tribesman are mounted (I think Tribesman are like Vaegir Veterans in that sometimes they spawn with a horse) and most of them have bows or some other projectile. Fighting the Khergits can be tediouious if you are the Swadians, Vaegirs, or Sarranids who have heavy cavalry that can simply chase down and tear the (mostly) lightly armored Khergits to pieces (time consuming but it usually works), or it can be terrifying if you are playing as Rhodoks or Nords and dont have Cavalry units with you from mercenary or other factions. In that case your best chance is to use the terrain to your advantage, hold position, bunch up, and try and lure the Khergits in close. If you try and chase after them on foot you will only die tired while the Khergits laugh at your slow dead ass.

Sarranids - The new kids on the block who showed up wearing funny pajamas. Seriously though I used to think that the Sarranids were sort of like the Vaegirs or Khergits but it turns out they are most similar to the Swadians (if my intial unit analysis is correct). Nearly all Sarranid Infantry and Cavalry have stats that are inferior to their Swadian counterparts but only just. The Sarranid Mameluke is notable for being the first unit capable of fighting on almost equal terms with a Swadian Knight thanks to the new Armored Steppe Horse (whatever its called) and their heavy armor. So why you are laughing at their Skirmishers who wear those bright yellow pajamas the Mamelukes run up and cut your buttocks off and when you turn it around they offer it to you on a silver platter.

 

[StinkyMcGirk]

Some of your assumptions are close, some not so much.  In particular, your statements regarding the Nords, Sarranids and Vaegirs. 

Nord Veteran Archers are the cheapest bang-for-your-buck in the game as a level 19 unit - this means they are easy to train, maintain, and as archers can potentially destroy forces with few casualties - If you're killing sea-raiders in the early game, what else could you ask for?  They have 3 power strike, strong hand weapons, 5 power draw, medium armor, and 7 SEVEN athletics.  This makes them easy to set up at the start of a battle, better in a melee than any other (more expensive) archer, excellent filler for garrisons, and makes them the an ideal flanking force when going up against a lot of rhodoks - just send in your shield wall to absorb the shots, and move the archers off to the side.  They also give you a way to be proactive instead of just waiting to be charged when going up against cavalry-heavy forces.  Never underestimate the combination of archers and axes.  A softened up shield is easy pickings for an axeman.

Sarranids are pretty much a highly mobile cavalry / archer faction.  There's just no point in using infantry with them at all - there's no guaranteed power strike on them until the last infantry tier, and these guys are only 3 iron skin 3 powerstrike.  Before 1.132, Sarranids had the speed bonus associated with using 5.0 weight armor, but now that isn't there either. 

I see Swadians as a mostly slow moving cavalry/ infantry faction since their crossbowmen are expensive, low proficiency, and use poor weapons.  While their armor tends to be better than other factions' equivalents, it is also heavy - and Swadians lack good athletics.  Their shields are often poor quality combined with low/average skill.  This makes them one of the worst factions to go up against the Khergits with.  Since both Sarranids and Swadians have their late tier infantry and ranged units marked as 'mounted,' their move speed on the map can be faster than that of a rhodok, nord, or vaegir army.

Vaegirs are probably the most 'jack of all trades' army, and depending on the results of the system I explain below, they can potentially be the strongest overall faction.  Unfortunately, they require some preparation and army modification when facing different factions, which is why they work best in the hands of the player, and not particularly well in the hands of the A.I.

Vaegir Guards are flagged as mounted.  This means that on the field, and when finishing a siege (i.e. not just inflicting casualties on a garrison), the ideal force is probably a mix of vaegir knights and vaegir guards when going up against anything but Rhodoks and Nords.  However, Vaegirs also have the highest damaging archers in the game.  So you have the option to field armies of entire archers for the sole purpose of moving in on a large garrison, and shooting the defenders on the walls, then simply withdrawing until the enemies either vacate the castle, or you deliver a coup-de-grace with your cavalry / infantry.

Every time you start a new game, the game randomly assigns some stats and points to units.  The amount of stats and points depends on the unit's level, and what guaranteed stats and points it already has.

Vaegirs are the biggest wild-card every time you start a new game.

All Swadian, Sarranid, and some Khergit troops have 2 inventory management, 1 prisoner management, 1 leadership, 2 trade.  Useless wasted points.  All Vaegirs do not have those wasted points.  Rhodoks and Nords have too many guaranteed skill points assigned.

Since the game automatically places random points into skills to make up the difference between a troops level and their skills totals, this gives them 6 more skill points that can potentially be randomly applied to useful skills than most other faction troops.  While Nords, Rhodoks, and late-tier khergit troops also lack those points in useless skills, it is much rarer for them to have random points in useful abilities because they have much higher natural automatic skills.

The game also randomly assigns stats, which influence where automatic skill points will be places.  Since many archers in the game have much higher natural strength than other units (14 guaranteed strength vs 7 for most other units), archers are much more likely to receive randomly assigned points in their useful abilities like ironskin, power draw, and power throw.

So, Vaegir units can potentially become much more powerful than their guaranteed stats in the troops.txt suggests.  Of course, lucky rolls on other factions can produce some interesting and skewing results as well.  For instance, on my last clean native game, Nord Veteran Archers ended up with 6 power draw.  Naturally, this made them quite formidable for their cheap cost.

There seems to be patterns to this, but I just haven't started enough games to comment definitively on it.  Just by observance, though, here are the most common skill differences I see in faction troops:

Sarranid Veteran Footmen:  1 powerstrike instead of 0
Sarranid infantry:  2 powerstrike instead of 0
Sarranid archer:  1 powerstrike instead of 0, 4 power draw instead of 3
Sarranid master archer:  5 powerdraw instead of 4
Swadian Sergeants:  5 or even 6 powerstrike instead of 4
Swadian Knights:  6 powerstrike instead of 5 (this made these guys complete steamrollers)
Vaegir Veterans:  3 powerstrike instead of 2
Vaegir horsemen:  4 iron skin 4 powerstrike instead of 3/3
Vaegir knights:  5 iron skin 4 powerstrike instead of 4/4
Vaegir infantry:  4 powerstrike instead of 3
Vaegir archer:  1 powerstrike instead of 0
Vaegir marksmen:  2 powerstrike instead of 0

So, my own theory is that depending on what the unit in question has flagged as guaranteed (horse, shield, ranged weapon), the random points are skewed into corresponding abilities.  No way to really no for sure though.

 

[CounterPoint391]

A quick look at the MS indeed confirms weapon proficiency is slightly random. It assigns a number, and the game automatically randomly chooses a weapons proficiency close to the number defined in the MS.

I would base your research off of the module system scource files, with anecdotes based off of your in game observations. Good commentary so far, though..

 

[Occam]

These are the stats of the top tier cavalry (and a few other units) in my current game:

Sarranid      Swadian      Vaegir      Khergit  Khergit Veteran  Slaver    Mercenary                  Swadian      Swadian          Mercenary          Camp                   Mamluke      Knight        Knight      Lancer    Horse Archer      Chief      Cavalry                      Sergeant  Sharpshooter  Crossbowman    Defender Health            59                62              57            53              53                  52            56                              57              54                      48                  47 Strength        14                17              12              10              12                  15            15                              14              17                      11                  10 Agility              12                11              11              15              10                  11              9                                9                13                      7                  10 Ironflesh          5                5                5                4                3                    1              3                                4                1                        1                      1 Powerstrike      5                5                4                4                                        5              3                                5                2                                                2 Powerthrow                                                      (forgot)              3                                    1 Powerdraw                                                                                  5                                                                                          3                        1 Shield                5                5                3                2                1                                    3                                4                                          1 Athletics                              1                                                                                                                              4                2                        4                      3 Riding                5                5                5                7                7                    6              5 Horse Archery                                                            1                7                                    1 1hand prof    150              150            120          110              90                130          120                            155            100                    90                    100 2hand            130              130            140          110              90                130          120                            135            100                    90                    100 Polearms        130              130            120          150              90                130          120                            145            100                    90                    100 Archery                                                                                      130 Throwing                                                                110            130                                120 Crossbow                                                                                                                                                                              120                  130                  100 Wages            51                53              46              38                32                  46            64                              26              24                      23                    11

 

[StinkyMcGirk]

I should also note that the version of warband you started your campaign on factors into it.  If you read Occam's notes, you'll see mercenary cavalry has 3 / 3 iron skins / powerstrike - he likely started his campaign at an earlier version.

 

[LBaeldeth]

Thanks to this thread, I decided to actually take a closer look at the Veteran Nord Archers in my game. I managed to find a couple in one of my castles and peeked at their stats. What an eye-opener!They have as much power draw and HP as a Vaegir Marksman (at least the types that were generated for my current game). Given their higher Athletics, melee skill, and armour quality, they're actually superior, and they're way better than the Vaegir Archer.

I've got a new garrison fodder unit. Thanks a ton, guys. 

 

[Seekster]

First off yes I would like to retract most of what I said about the Nord Archers, they are the worst foot archers in the game up until the upper tier archers. The difference between Nord Archers and Nord Veteran Archers is outstanding.

As to stats being random, I have heard this before and so I realized that any stats I record are subject to slight fluctuations. So if I have two units whose stats are very close to one another I will say they are about even. However I have played multiple new games on the latest version of Warband and found that in every instance the stats that I check for all units (Str, Agi, HP, Profs, Ironflesh, Power Strike) are the same in every new game I play. This goes against what I understood about the game which was what some of you were saying about random stats. Maybe the nonused stats like inventory management or looting are random but based on what I am seeing in my games the stats which a unit actually uses do not change from one new game to another. I am still double checking this but so far I have seen no differences from one new game to another.

Obviously stats will likely change a bit from one version to the next but now that the game is fairly stable and balanced I think its a good time to have this study.

As to my current progress:

Swadians - 100% complete
Rhodoks - Only missing the Sergeants
Nords - Only missing a few top tier units
Sarranids - Only missing a few top tier units
Vaegirs - Missing 1 T4 and 3 Tier 5 units.
Khergits - Will start them today.


I confirmed that the Swadian Sharpshooter is greatly inferior to the Rhodok Sharpshooter and is actually somewhat inferior to Rhodok Veteran Crossbowmen too.

Based on what I have seen from the Vaegirs so far their Infantry is not as far behind the Nord Infantry as I expected. Still I fully expect that the Nords have the best infantry.

I also confirmed that Vaegir Veterans do indeed spawn with a horse sometime (though they are still flagged as Cavalry which can be annoying when you are trying to hold back your units or something).

I look forward to presenting my final analysis soon. When I do I will post it in a separate topic so that my data appears on the first post on the first page.

I would like to ask someone else to look into the random stats in each new game thing. I have long believed that some stats or random and maybe they are but I cannot deny that the stats I am looking at seem to remain constant in my game for each new game.

 

[LBaeldeth]

Vaegir Veterans that spawn with a horse are listed as Infantry, not Cavalry.  When I use combined arms I set up cavalry off to the side for a flank, but Veterans on horseback always stand with the infantry line.

It used to be that they were considered cavalry when they had a horse (the latest I can confirm this is pre-Warband; I didn't play between then and now) but they aren't anymore.

 

[Charlie Brooker]

It used to be that they were considered cavalry when they had a horse (the latest I can confirm this is pre-Warband; I didn't play between then and now) but they aren't anymore.

Yeah the new grouping system screwed that. For example in the original if a knight was dismounted, he would go and stand with the infantry. But now, because he's in the cavalry or a custom group or whatever, he continues to follow whatever orders that group has.

I think the Khergit recruits also work under the same "ooh I have a horse, no I lost it agai-THERE IT IS" system that the Vaegir veterans have.

 

[LBaeldeth]

It used to be that they were considered cavalry when they had a horse (the latest I can confirm this is pre-Warband; I didn't play between then and now) but they aren't anymore.

Yeah the new grouping system screwed that. For example in the original if a knight was dismounted, he would go and stand with the infantry. But now, because he's in the cavalry or a custom group or whatever, he continues to follow whatever orders that group has.

Argh, how I miss that.  An unhorsed cavalryman simply reinforcing the infantry's shield wall, instead of wandering around on foot in the open and getting his stupid arse killed. It's kind of annoying at times.

Oh well, more incentive to give a non-cavalry faction a try I suppose ...

 

[CounterPoint391]

Naw, only the weapon proficiencies are random. Just checked the module system....

 

[Seekster]

The weapons profs look consistent on my end. This is odd.

 

[Caba`drin]

Did you look at the unit's XP at their various levels? I don't see it recorded here...but if you collected that data, I'd be interested.

 

[Seekster]

I'm about done so I will leave that to someone else. Just 1 Rhodok and 1 Sarranid top tier unit left.

Turns out Nord Veteran Archers may be the best foot archers in the game believe it or not. Vaegir Marksmen have a bit higher archery prof but the Nord Veteran Archers are better in pretty much every other category. They are probably the most athletic unit in the game to be sure. God help us if the Nords ever get cavalry!