Infantry Combat ability vs discipline (2024)

Arinsar said:

Depend when , early in the game discipline doesnt matter that much so 20% combat ability is huge (later its also a lot due more pips unit have but with higher value of military tactics discipline modifier kickcs in and gives more tho 5% is not that much but enough to give you advantage in the battle especially that you have a lot of artilery at this stage of the game +/- 1600-1650)

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Sounds like you're confusing Combat Ability with Morale.

Discipline and Combat Ability have effectively the same main effect: increase enemy casualties. The two crucial differences are that discipline also increases Tactics, indirectly reducing casualties on your side. And Combat Ability only applies to one unit type (infantry, cavalry, artillery) while discipline applies to all.

So while Discipline is a little more generally useful than Combat Ability on a per-point basis, I would pick 20% infantry CA over 5% discipline any time. Cavalry CA is less interesting for most nations though.

Junuxx said:

Sounds like you're confusing combat ability with morale.

Discipline and Combat Ability have effectively the same main effect: increase enemy casualties. The crucial differences are that discipline also increases Tactics, indirectly reducing casualties. And Combat Ability only applies to one unit type (infantry, cavalry, artillery) while discipline applies to all.

So while Discipline is a little more useful than Combat Ability point for point, I would pick 20% infantry CA over 5% discipline any day. Cavalry CA is less interesting for most nations though.

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And Artillery CA is godly...even if no one has it Although, historically speaking, France most definitely should in the late game

If I recall, combat ability effects damage done and taken from the specific unit types (Infantry CA obviously benefits your Infantry and so on) and is mostly effected by your units (that increase in power with techs) which means it has immediate bonuses. This, and Morale are probably the two biggest boons for your troops early game, and always positively effect them later on.
Discipline effects regular damage (taking/giving) morale damage (taking and possibly giving?) and also benefits from tactics I believe, which means later in the game, especially when cannons come around the bonus is enormous.

Overall I think 20% is better then 5% no matter the timeline, but having both (Prussia?) is phenomenal, which is why Prussian ideas are so great. +20% morale, +7.5% Discipline, +20% Infantry combat ability means that even without military ideas you'll have some of the best troops on the planet, taking things like Offensive and Quality means even if Aliens where to invade you'd smash them.

Combat ability increases damage dealt. Discipline increases damage dealt and reduces damage taken.

Discipline is better to take, but combat ability, especially for artillery, is perfectly good too.

Combining the two through say Quality is also very handy.

funguide said:

What is better to have 20% infantry combat ability or 5% discipline. Please explain. Some numbers would be great.

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Roughly speaking, 5% discipline is as good as 10% combat ability across the board. How much of your army's damage is done by infantry? Unless you are fielding very cavalry-heavy armies, I would guess it is more than half for a large part of the game, up to and including tech 21, so for all those tech levels, 20% infantry CA beats 5% discipline. From tech 22 onwards (standard year: 1687), artillery starts getting huge fire modifiers and can potentially deal more damage than infantry (although the infantry continue to contribute a lot of damage - it's a mistake to imagine late-game infantry as pure cannon fodder). So 20% infantry CA is better than 5% disc before tech 22, maybe slightly worse afterwards, but it's still a very good bonus to have even right at the end of the game.

paulatreides0 said:

And Artillery CA is godly...even if no one has it Although, historically speaking, France most definitely should in the late game

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Smolensk would have a word with you! They have +10% artillery combat, although they almost never exist for long.

Junuxx said:

Sounds like you're confusing Combat Ability with Morale.

Discipline and Combat Ability have effectively the same main effect: increase enemy casualties. The two crucial differences are that discipline also increases Tactics, indirectly reducing casualties on your side. And Combat Ability only applies to one unit type (infantry, cavalry, artillery) while discipline applies to all.

So while Discipline is a little more generally useful than Combat Ability on a per-point basis, I would pick 20% infantry CA over 5% discipline any time. Cavalry CA is less interesting for most nations though.

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No I am not confusing anything, Morale isnt even subject of this conversation and OP was talking about INFANTRY CA didnt even mention cavalry. Early in game discipline gives almost nothing unless you manage to get 10% (in example 5% out of 0.7 military tactics doesnt make any visible diffrence) when 20% infantry CA will make diffrence (swedish infarntry roll over almost anyone early in game).

paulatreides0 said:

And Artillery CA is godly...even if no one has it Although, historically speaking, France most definitely should in the late game

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Replacing France's tolerance idea with artillery CA and nerfing Elan! would make so much sense...

Incompetent said:

Roughly speaking, 5% discipline is as good as 10% combat ability across the board. How much of your army's damage is done by infantry? Unless you are fielding very cavalry-heavy armies, I would guess it is more than half for a large part of the game, up to and including tech 21, so for all those tech levels, 20% infantry CA beats 5% discipline. From tech 22 onwards (standard year: 1687), artillery starts getting huge fire modifiers and can potentially deal more damage than infantry (although the infantry continue to contribute a lot of damage - it's a mistake to imagine late-game infantry as pure cannon fodder). So 20% infantry CA is better than 5% disc before tech 22, maybe slightly worse afterwards, but it's still a very good bonus to have even right at the end of the game.

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I hit agree and I mostly agree, but 5% disc probably starts winning when massed arty is really viable (~16). Infantry take damage in combat, and taking damage reduces the damage you inflict. Disc, in addition to reducing damage on the infantry, also increases the damage dealt by artillery, which does not diminish across a battle unless you're already losing badly.

While the multipliers allow infantry to do comparable damage across a battle to arty, that only holds up in the first round or two of combat, after that the infantry are inflicting substantially less than 100% damage.

Markusmiless said:

A thing I noted about discipline vs CA is that Rebels of your country is affected by what morale and discipline bonuses your troops most of the time while they never get any CA bonuses at all.

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Rebels get your discipline (for some unknown/inexplicable reason). However, the morale they get is fixed based on type, and they do not get CA. As a result, morale and CA are particularly good against rebels. High piety nations with defensive/quantity using the religious/quantity policy and possibly having morale NIs can make rebels at comparable numbers a complete joke. Morale advisor > disc advisor when fighting rebels for this reason also.

Arinsar said:

Early in game discipline gives almost nothing unless you manage to get 10% (in example 5% out of 0.7 military tactics doesnt make any visible diffrence) when 20% infantry CA will make diffrence (swedish infarntry roll over almost anyone early in game).

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That doesn't really make any sense. 5% is 5%, regardless of whether the actual number is small or not. If discipline is useless, then casualties have to be useless, so CA is also useless. That can sometimes be the case if morale is the overwhelmingly decisive factor. However, it is not an advantage CA has over discipline.

5% discipline does have much less effect than 20% infantry CA early game, but that's because the latter is a much larger modifier.

ChildeR said:

That doesn't really make any sense. 5% is 5%, regardless of whether the actual number is small or not. If discipline is useless, then casualties have to be useless, so CA is also useless. That can sometimes be the case if morale is the overwhelmingly decisive factor. However, it is not an advantage CA has over discipline.

5% discipline does have much less effect than 20% infantry CA early game, but that's because the latter is a much larger modifier.

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It's both a larger modifier *and* infantry is a much greater percentage of troop composition in the early goings than later on.

IMO CA falls off considerably more than morale. People talk about how much more important morale is early game than late, but when you're going into battles with 10+ morale against opponents in 7.5 territory the advantage is stark, and this advantage typically takes *less* investment in SP than gaining a 10% discipline advantage. In MP you want as much of both as you can get.

The correct answer depends on the military tech and your army composition. Early game 20% infantry CA will in principle be better than 5% discipline. The exception being if you run a heavy cavalry composition.

Once cannons start dealing more casualties than infantry and if you use a full backline of artillery in all your battles, 5% discipline will greatly outclass 20% infantry CA, especially since it also affects the 4 to 6 flanking cavalry you might have.

Concretely, for most Western armies, 5% discipline is better than 20% infantry CA starting from mil tech 22. The math is quite easy to do.

When comparing CA to others CA's or to discipline:
1) you multiply discipline by 2 because it also affects tactics;
2) you divide your CA depending on the percentage of troops it affects in your army composition;
3) you multiply CA by a coeffecient determined by the percentage of casualties the CA unit type is responsible for ( on average) depending on the unit pips and the shock and fire modifiers (also don't forget artillery deals only 50% casualties from the backline);
4) you increase artillery and cavalry casualties coefficient slightly because artillery and cavalry do not take casualties for the majority of the fight meaning they deal full or close to full casualties throughout the battle.

Basically, you use this equation:

grommile said:

unfortunately wherever you got your LaTeX from is generating mostly-transparent output that is unreadable when posted

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Just copy the image and insert it in MS Word.