What, no histogram?!
lol you can joke about it but I did originally have the pie-in-the-sky idea of doing just that...
This is a histogram (I drew in paint) of expected hitpoints normalized against unit surviving.
What, no histogram?!
++-------- 0HP
+++------- 25HP
+++------- 50HP
+--------- 75HP
+--------- 100HP
[COLOR="seagreen"]Victory[/COLOR] 75.11% ([COLOR="seagreen"]3XP[/COLOR]) ([COLOR="seagreen"]53.0HP[/COLOR])
[COLOR="seagreen"]Retreat[/COLOR] 7.47% ([COLOR="SeaGreen"]1XP[/COLOR]) ([COLOR="SeaGreen"]15HP[/COLOR], [COLOR="red"]36.8HP[/COLOR])
[COLOR="SeaGreen"]Withdraw[/COLOR] 0.00%
[COLOR="seagreen"]--+[/COLOR] [COLOR="SeaGreen"] 100HP[/COLOR]: 5.31%
[COLOR="seagreen"]------+[/COLOR] [COLOR="SeaGreen"] 83HP[/COLOR]: 11.80%
[COLOR="seagreen"]--------+[/COLOR] [COLOR="SeaGreen"] 66HP[/COLOR]: 15.71%
[COLOR="seagreen"]--------+[/COLOR] [COLOR="SeaGreen"] 49HP[/COLOR]: 16.28%
[COLOR="seagreen"]-------+[/COLOR] [COLOR="SeaGreen"] 32HP[/COLOR]: 14.45%
[COLOR="SeaGreen"]---------+ 15HP[/COLOR]: 19.02%
[COLOR="Red"]Defeat[/COLOR] 17.43% ([COLOR="red"]2XP[/COLOR]) ([COLOR="Red"] 36.8HP[/COLOR])
[COLOR="Red"]+[/COLOR] [COLOR="Red"] 100HP[/COLOR]: 0.77%
[COLOR="Red"]--+[/COLOR] [COLOR="Red"] 78HP[/COLOR]: 2.56%
[COLOR="Red"]-----+[/COLOR] [COLOR="Red"] 56HP[/COLOR]: 4.97%
[COLOR="Red"]-------+[/COLOR] [COLOR="Red"] 34HP[/COLOR]: 7.37%
[COLOR="Red"]---------+ 12HP[/COLOR]: 9.23%
In that little graph, you'll see green and red lines that are brighter - they are the actual possible HP amounts. I merely connected the peaks to make it easier to glance at.
Your idea about making an ASCII histogram got me thinking... You'd need a different font though right? - a constant width one or whatever you call them.
# |right edge
# |
## |
## |
### |
### |
#### |
#### |
...
####################|
####################|
########### 20HP
#################### 40HP
######################### 60HP
-----+++++ 10
-------+++ 20
-------+++ 30
---------+ 40
+++++----- 10
+++------- 20
+++------- 30
+--------- 40
Oh? I thought retreat worked like this:
If the attacker takes a hit that would kill it, but it has a withdrawal chance > 0%, and it rolls under that %, then the last hit effectively doesn't count and the unit retreats.
Ok I have a number of posts to reply to so bear with me for a minute.
FWIW, I prefer the medium detail level. I think very few will want more than medium, to be honest.
What minute, what time of timescale are you living in? I've been reading for half an hour through your discussion with Emperorfool!
I'm hoping that for this sort of information you can get a loose estimate by looking at the particular HP probabilities. With a medic, your healing rate in enemy territory will be 15HP. With a M3 medic it would be 30HP. With M3/W3 super medic it would be 45HP IIRC. etc. If you know your base healing rate is 30 for example, then you would be able to see that, in my example above, 17% of the time it would take 1 turn to heal, 32% of the time 2 turns to heal, and so on.I would be interested in knowing the odds whether my unit needs 0 turns to heal or 1 turn to heal.
IMO they are basic enough variables that are so essential to how combat works that they should probably be included at the medium setting. In particular, the R value which I just added, is very important and I plan to refer to it in the Drill Promotions article I'm in the process of making. For example, I intend to recommend that people don't use Drill IV troops to attack unless R is at least 1 and ideally less than 1.33 if they want to earn 3XP.A more useful question: why do you and emperorfool think that the info
22,17 HP * 5,6 hits at 55,6%, R=1,25 would be interesting enough that most users (those who play at the average setting) would like to see it. I do like the info from a mathematical point of view as it gives insight into the calculation, but I don't see how I could use the information ingame. In fact, I think it's even less interesting for ingame use than some of the more detailed odds given at the high setting. Would any of you care to explain the use of these figures for gameplay?
The last line in the average setting: defender unharmed might be useful in some rare cases (using weak units to kill a strong one), but will typically also not be used a lot because players rarely employ such a strategy.
By the way, it's starting to look pretty polished.
I'm hoping that for this sort of information you can get a loose estimate by looking at the particular HP probabilities.
.
.
.
but that's probably getting a bit crazy
IMO they are basic enough variables that are so essential to how combat works that they should probably be included at the medium setting. In particular, the R value which I just added, is very important and I plan to refer to it in the Drill Promotions article I'm in the process of making. For example, I intend to recommend that people don't use Drill IV troops to attack unless R is at least 1 and ideally less than 1.33 if they want to earn 3XP.
The number of hits required for each combatant are pretty much what determine the odds, so I feel they're important to see at a glance if I want to know why my odds are so bad or so good. I have to agree the damage per hit is not quite as useful information, but this is also why I have this information at the bottom.
I agree with the Defender Unharmed not being useful too frequently, and I think I will remove it from the medium setting following your comment. The only reason I might keep it there is for symmetry's sake.