How is defending unit chosen?

[Webb]

Just curious. Was playing a game where Monty declared war on me, he had horse archers while I had Pikemen and macemen. I noticed that when both were in a stack defending, the macemen would be chosen to defend (both units at full health). With +100% vs mounted units I would assume the pikeman would be chosen as defender first.

So then I would promote my pikemen with combat 1 and cover, making them more effective against archers. This too found the macemen the first unit to defend my stack which made no sense to me.

So a couple of questions:

1. Wouldn't a 12 str (pikeman 6 x 100%) be greater than an 8 str?

2. Are horse archers considered an archery unit, or just a mounted unit? This would affect promotions in the future.

Thanks in advance.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

1. Well something else must be going on here. What terrain are both units sitting on and what are the promotions of your two units and the horse archer? Are you sure both units were at 100% health? Usually the unit with the highest combat odds is selected to defend. There must be something about that maceman causing it to have higher odds than a pikeman.

2. Horse archers are a mounted unit.

 

[Webb]

1. Well something else must be going on here. What terrain are both units sitting on and what are the promotions of your two units and the horse archer? Are you sure both units were at 100% health? Usually the unit with the highest combat odds is selected to defend. There must be something about that maceman causing it to have higher odds than a pikeman.

The terrain was flat land (no defense bonus, either grass or plains). The macemen had city raider 2 or better, no defense bonuses. Each defender was 100% health.

2. Horse archers are a mounted unit.

Kinda lame that they are not considered both mounted and archers. Now I know not waste the cover promotion on them to counter horse archers.

 

[jimbob27]

I'm sure I've seen the computer pick the wrong defender occasionally. I reckon there a bug in there that crops up every now and again.

 

[Zombie69]

I've seen the computer pick the wrong defender sometimes, and everytime, it was to pick a defender with higher base strength. Could be just a coincidence but i think there's something to it.