Combat strength

Combat Strength (CS) is exactly what it sounds like - the strength of a unit in combat . The higher the number, the more effective the troops are. It is determined by training, cohesion, the number of men in the unit, equipment quality and damage, and the morale of the unit. Note that not all troops are good for doing the all things. A two-hundred strong peasant militia is not likely to be terribly effective at damaging their opponents. However, they will absorb a great deal of punishment and therefore might have a CS rating of 500 or more simply because there are so many of them that the troop is hard to eliminate. A group of twenty well trained/equipped cavalry could easily do more damage in one charge then the peasants will do in the entire battle, yet the cavalry might have a CS rating far lower than the militia. This is because the cavalry would be decimated by half or even a third of the damage that the peasants could absorb. Therefore it could be said that the CS rating describes how well the unit will fulfill its role, rather then the true strength of the unit.

Per unit ratios

The CS/man ratio can tell you a lot about the quality of the troop. It can also be very misleading for small units. It is not unusual to see a unit of less then ten infantry with a CS of 20+/man . This is because the unit is made of battle hardened veterans that can deal out damage of a unit twice its size. Most troop leaders will avoid leading such units though because if the company took the full force of a charge then the troop leader would have a very high chance of being wounded.

	Poor	Mediocre	Good	Excellent	Notes
Inf/Arch/MI	< 10	10-12	12-15	15+	Poor infantry units are useful for Takeover and as Damage Sinks
Cavalry	< 12	12-15	15-20	20+
Special Forces	< 15	15-20	20-25	25+	These guidelines are loose as SF units are dark horses.