Missing:
There is no explanation of what Ceasefire is as a status, what it does or why it should be used.


Confusing:
In the explanation of the combat system it says that damages are assigned to a unit and then the next unit for excess, however never is it explained what the line up is for the choice of the target unit.

It also does not match up with experience for example having a multi stack of inf/cav/art/colonial inf/ etc
the description would seem to indicate that the damage would be done on the first two units but I have seen damage on all categories of units in the same combat. How does that happen if the description is correct.

It is a nice effort and I will pay more attention to it as I get time and try to help you with clarifications or new areas ,,,or simply to display my own ignorance at times.

Undestanding the Combat Engine (link to forum article)

I wrote this in September I believe it to still be a better explanation of the combat engine than the manual.
Although the manual is supposedly not guessing at the matter.

Missing:
In describing the morale of a province it does not (and should) state that the max for being at war with countries is -25 so if you are at war with 5 or 55 the deduction is the same.

Interesting, I had missed that in the description.
I can confirm that I am now "at war with 6 countries", however the Morale peaked at -25.

Your description of the combat system is not "general", but erroneous and misleading at least.

The game manual states that units fall one by one, and that the excess damage is being applied to the next unit "in line", whatever line you mean. This is not correct in case of armies with more than one unit type. In such cases the usual way of events is that the damage is being applied to more than one unit type that is participating in the fight, and no full-health unit getting killed, even if the damage of the attacker would be more than sufficient for that.

Furthermore there is only a fraction of the excess damage that is being applied to the "next unit in line". I usually attack with a stack of 10+ infantry units, and I've never killed 2 full health units of the defender in one blow, although the attack strength would have been more than enough (except for civilian units - here the system seems to work as described.)

The manual also states that in case of a stack of armies, the added strength does affect (affect, not effect) one unit of the opposite army. This is not true.

Example: I just attacked with 11 light inf, moral 98%, 214 HP a town defended by one light inf (all lvl one, forest terrain, no fortress.) Attack strength is 54, strength of the defender is 5. 54 should kill a unit with 20 HP at least most of the time in a single round. The actual result of the first round was 9 damage dealt to the defender, but 10 dmg dealt to the attacker.

If this was just one extreme, very improbable result, this would be upsetting enough (54 dmg transformed to 9, 5 dmg to 10 - that really xfactor randomness?) - the issue is that this is a typical fight.


If you designed your battle system in a way that it is meant to screw the attacker, why not be honest? As it currently stands, the strength of the attacker is fractioned, while the defender usually gets to hit fully. Rolling dices like in Risk would be more reliable than the system that you currently have - so why bother designing different units with different stats if the oh so funny Xfactor is meant to do whatever the hell it wants anyway?

I don't see your battle system as fit for a strategy game as it currently is - unless the game strategy is "haha, I just lost another unit due to the very funny xfactor, I'm just gonna give Bytro some money to make up for that" - ya, the Xfactor is really what makes this game enjoyable - not.

It might help if this mysterious ''health points'' data was displayed in the front end on unit's info.

currently, hit points are NOT SHOWN... and morale is not hit points, its a different attribute of the unit entirely and I suspect the two have become a little confused.

information on health points is to be found in the description of each unit - for whatever mysterious reason you always have to click on each unit to see its current HP. (both actual unit and general description of the unit type.)

In NWE condition = hitpoints, there is no morale for units so to speak. So the morale bar represents the average percentage of hitpoints of the stack. You can also see the hitpoints in the unit details.

Regarding how damage is applied: It is indeed applied to one unit and after that unit died to the next unit, but that happens per unit type. So if multiple unit types are in an army, then they all can get damaged. But within that unit type always one unit gets the damage and after it is defeated the next unit gets damaged.
The manual was more speaking in general terms here, but maybe we could clarify that.

Thanks for a reply on this Freezy

the morale bar [as it is currently named] is going to continue to defy explanation then ... so we shall cease trying

We renamed it in CoW to condition some weeks ago, it wasn't done for NWE yet.

So to make it clear: All units use condition aka hitpoints, provinces use morale.

A Chapter on buildings would be nice

What sort of questions or further details on buildings are you looking for blue moon?

Perhaps I can help.

Are you currently playing in a game?

if you share the number in a pm then we can discuss more easily in greater detail.

yes, in game probably better. in research each tile for military units or buildings has a tiny blue button in upper right corner. if you tap it there is a ton of info. Outside of game when you look at games there is also a blue button in those tiles as well, in my games there's one so you can archive a game, if games over so you don't have to choose it in your games selection

Indeed, found the info.
Adding it to the manual would be an improvement still imho.