Skills for Artillery Genrals: Damage Comparison
Dec 5, 2020 0:34:41 GMT
Nobunaga Oda, scipioafricanus, and 1 more like this
Post by jonblend on Dec 5, 2020 0:34:41 GMT
Some time ago I tested the most promising skills (at level 5) and their combinations for artillery generals. Only skills that increase damage are considered. So, no Dogfight, Deterrence, Suppress, etc. Pierce has been shown to not be so great here link. I used Beseler as a representative for top tier generals, Italy 7 Challenge Campaign for "late game" and a howitzer combined with lv6 technology for "strong unit that you would use for artillery generals". All terrain skills are represented by Plain fighting.
I chose to attack a city with a unit inside since that is how I use artillery the most time. This will also generate results for vs unit and vs city defense at the same time and will allow us to see if the EW6: 1804 damage formula is applied.
How to read the spreadsheet:
The blue area summarizes the results of each skill combination. Average damage (avg dmg) as well as minimum and maximum damage should be considered to evaluate the skills. Critical hits were not included. I did not delve deeper into Standard deviation (std dev) and probability distribution...
Red cells show critical hits (the general had no crit% improving skill so we can determine the base critical hit probability)
Yellow cells show tactic master hits (I was curious about its actual probability and it helps to generate more test results without having to reload)
(I hope you can forgive the decimal separator , instead of . 
)
)Results:
- The damage formula explains all results with the exception of Artillery Commander (changed) and Artillery Expert (which didn't exist).
- The stronger the unit (which you place your general on) the lesser the contribution of Storm Fortification. I'd even say it's not a must have skill.
- Salvo suffers the same dilemma but at least it will always contribute, regardless of terrain or vs unit type
- Artillery Expert is really good. It increases the average damage by ~15 % which could fit 0.25/(1+0.6)=15.625 % (skill description / 1+"attack floating damage coefficient for artillery from the damage formula").
- Artillery Commander is percentage based and not a flat bonus (which everybody knows by now) so it's worse than terrain skills. But it can stack with them and is independent of terrain.
- Basic critical hit ratio is ~5-6 %.
- Tactic Master skill description is accurate, making it (imo) the best skill in terms of damage and utility. I did not count the "second hits" because I can't see if they would trigger a successful tactic master which is then denied because it already is the second hit (confusing? what I'm trying to say is that my method for calculation might result in a less accurate number)
So, a good skill set for high maximum and average damage would be Salvo, Tactic Master, Artillery Expert, Artillery Commander and a Terrain skill (I won't do a mobility vs availability discussion here). Having more than one terrain skill makes it hard for them to contribute simultaneously (I know, jungle+mountain, but it's extremely rare), giving Terrain+Commander the advantage.
Whether or not there is another Aura general nearby that might "steal" the effect is up to your play style.
(Initially, I wanted to reply here link but then I considered the topic worthy of its own thread.)
