Hitrate, Skilltrees, XP and other infos [DeI 1.3.3]

[Alantin]

Ave commilitones!

Documentation on Rome 2 and DeI is quite scarce in some areas. So I decided to list some of the info I gathered over the last 2 weeks.
If you have also some infos and "good to know things" that aren't included in the official guides, fell free to share them here.

Hitrate and damage:
Hitrate = 25% + MA - MD [Min-Hitrate = 5%; Max-Hitrate = 80%]
with MA: Melee Attack // MD: Melee Defence // BaseHitRate: 25%
Info Kam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Ih26KMiQc

Armor vs Damage:
As a good thumbrule you can estimate that { Dmg = D_ap + D_normal - Armor/2 }
(with Armor only being able to reduce normal Damage to 2-3 dmg. Those will always go even trough the toughest armor because of dimishing returns)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Damage dealt when hit gets substracted from the units Health:
Dmg = { D_ap } + { [D_normal - RAND(Armor)], if > 0 }
with D_ap: armor piercing damage // D_normal: not armor piercing damage //
RAND(Armor): roll random number between 1 and Armor-Value (if number ≥ D_normal, no normal damage will be dealt)
with some math you can calculate the Average Damage per hit:
AvgDmg/Hit = { D_ap } + { 1/2 * (Damage^2 - Damage) / Armor } (only true for Armor ≥ Damage)
AvgDmg/Hit = { D_ap } + { 1/2 * [(Armor ^2 - Armor ) - ((Armor -Damage)^2 - (Armor -Damage))] / Armor } (only true for Damage ≥ Armor )

Experience, XP gain:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(also when admiral is inside port)

Agent Skills:
You have to unlock the skills from top to bottom: "rank 0" unlocks the 2 associated "line 1" skills; the "line 1" skill unlocks the one "line 2" skill directly beneath. (so its different from the general skill tree)
You get more skillpoints on higer levels, in the end you can rank up all 10 skills (1 at start, 9 to choose) to max.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Overview: I noted the most relevant stats for myself. Bold are the skills I find worth taking, and colored the skills I usually take.

General Skills:
Overview:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Army leader:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

My army leaders: first 2 yellow, first 2 red, then as it fits. Often I add some of the blue line in (+P.Order, +Culture, +Money saving).

Governor:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

My governors: the bold marked, rest when I know where he shall use his paper work skills.

Army skills:
The red/green/blue flags unlock differrent skills. With reaching army lvl 4 you can unlock some hidden skills:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I noted just the most important aspects of the skills for myself:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Good to know:

1. "-/+% empire maintenance" on skills is multiplicative! So if you have "-30% empire maintenance in the city" (red) and you get a character with "-2% emp. maint." (green) --> you will get from -30% in all cities to 30%*0,98=29,4% (yes it is wrong described ingame)
   
   1. I assume the effects of tech "% empire maintenance" is also multiplicative, but I didn't test it
   
   
2. Charge:
   
   1. the charge bonus is applied to melee attack and damage. The bonus decays over 30 sec (read it 2-3 times in the forum, not tested by myself).
   2. Horse charge: The first hit of charging horses is very deadly because of a seperate mechanic: Mass of horse and speed of horse give an invisible 1. hit applied (knocking infantry over; very high damage; this is why retreating to charge again is so effective). After that the normal charge bonus is applied for the melee fight.
   
   
3. Buildings:
   
   1. when planning a city, look which techs you need to unlock. Sometimes high lvl buildings use e.g. the last siege tech (which is the lowest tech prio for my playstyle).
   2. similar named buildings might have different effects wether you build them in a capital or town (e.g. canals give 2 sanitation more in the capital)
   
   
4. Technology:
   
   1. can give boni to: Public order, sanitation, loyalty, culture, empire maintenence, bandits
   2. effects of unlocked groups are additive (info from discord)
   3. what buildings can I build? Well there is no overview. I usually install some cheatmods, conquer 1 province, raize all building and then use the ingame info menu (hover over building -> right click) https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...ficial-Submods
   
   
5. Exempt from Tax: no gold from province; tax set to minimum (+7 p.order coming from normal taxes); Food gain/consumption is completely disabled (-> you can make -30 food provinces and just exempt taxes)
6. Shields work on the front and left side of the unit. Shields have a chance to block missiles (info can be found on the DeI homepage -> units)

Influence and loyalty:
A good way to balance influence is: use many members of the other parties and use "Gather support" now and then. I usually make the party leaders my army generals, as this cannot lead to someone establishing a new party.
Keeping influence (e.g. for tribal confederation) - reference point for other players: I have 3 own members and 13 party members and even out about 25% influence.
Keep loyalty up: have many married members with each party. Use "Send diplomat" and "Organize games" to level up the women (does not work on men).
Cheesy way:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1. get 3-4 members for each party, do not get them married!
2. wait until any member has 65 gravitas, then use seek spouse and immediately divorce. Now you got a new party member. (preconditions for divorce: 44 gravitas (first time in a turn); spouse has <20 gravitas; party loyalty <+5 --> use e.g. "gather support" as needed to lower loyalty)
3. repeat as long as you like and get all those members for free
4. care about the negative loyalty penalty for the divorce
5. works wonderfull in the first 20 rounds (no civil war)

Questions:

1. what do all the generals active skills really do (inspire, inspire group, rally&inspire, ...)? Has someone info about boni, numbers, durations, etc.?
2. Do archers have hidden sats that vary? Some archers have very high costs, but from the visible stats, I can see no maior difference (+2 dmg, + some armor or range). In medieval 2 SS the used projectiles had quite different accuarcy - is it here the same?
3. how do you insert tables here? they show during greating the post correctly. But submitting, it gets only converted to text. [Bug?]

I hope you found something useful.
I also can recommend the discord, the community is active and very helpul.
As mentioned in the beginning, if you have some documentation or tipps, share them here. It will save new players much time testing.

Per aspera ad astra.
Best regards, Alantin