Interesting chart on the Poisson data, Celebethil. That seems much more intuitive to me. Interesting how it seems to give lower odds for those high-odd attacks. Something I can think about while driving across Illinois tomorrow.
So, here's what I have gleaned from snepp's first strike tests....
Test 2:
You CAN see first strike misses when the first striker is defending. They show as "Defender is hit for x dmg (orig_hps/100)". x is apparently just the last damage it had calculated (more testing could confirm this, I believe). My guess is that if the non-first-striker wins, the "damage" module is just never called, so that the damage value is never updated and so the old damage value is just displayed out to the combat log.
And 4-7 appears to mean 4-7. The number of first strikes was 5/6, 6, 4/5/6, 4, 5, 5. Never 7. The /s indicate that it couldn't be determined from the log (because the archer hit). Diminishing chances of each successive first-strike hitting? Fixed chance? We can rule out a hypothesis that "A failed first strike means no more first strikes" or that "A successful first strike means no more first strikes" or any hard and fast rules like that. Softer, odds-changing rules can't be, of course.
Test 3:
I can conclude nothing, for certain. Do attackers not get first strikes? That's possible, but then an archer hit first in all 6 cases, which is definitely against the odds. Are attacking first strikes not displayed? That could well be, as the distribution isn't too out-of-whack for what we might expect if the archer is getting 4-7 first strikes and only the hits are displayed. Does the attacker with a first_strike advantage just get one guaranteed first strike hit? Again, not ruled out by the data. A larger sample of something like test 3 would be good -- maybe with 4 fixed first_strikes with drill 2 and 4 or something (but see comments on test 7). It might help clarify some of these cases.
Test 4:
Exactly what I would expect after test 2. The defender has exactly 4 first strike rounds (successful or not telling whether the damage is actually updated/accrued or not).
Tests 5 and 6:
Immune to first strikes puts the opponent's first strikes value down to 0. The unit with immunity still gets its total number of first strikes. A unit with one first strike and immune to first strike facing a unit with 100 first strikes would still get one first strike and the opponent zero. That seems pretty well determined.
Test 7:
I would expect the archer to always get 3 first strike rounds. That would follow the DeepO/Solver article. BUT it's not the case. Sometimes the archer gets 4 first strike rounds. Sometimes 3. It doesn't appear to be the archer gets 4 first strikes then the tank 1 (although that's hard to eliminate) because of results like...
Snepp's Tank (28.00) vs Bismarck's Archer (3.00)
Defender Odds: 9.6%
Bismarck's Archer is hit for 47 (100/100HP)
Snepp's Tank is hit for 8 (92/100HP)
Bismarck's Archer is hit for 8 (100/100HP)
Bismarck's Archer is hit for 47 (53/100HP)
Bismarck's Archer is hit for 47 (6/100HP)
Bismarck's Archer is hit for 47 (0/100HP)
That's clearly 3 first strikes and NOT a fourth one. But other results clearly have 4 first strikes for the archer.
I just don't know what to do with test 7. I think x first_strikes against y first_strikes is very uncharted territory. That's where I'd focus our efforts. That combat-logger utility is very handy. Probably easier to test and definitely easier to read!
First step: I'd like to narrow down the attacker has first strike, the defender doesn't case. That's test 3. 20 iterations of 4 weak first strikes should be enough to make some fairly compelling arguments one way or another, I think.
After that, we can look at x vs. y in more detail. I need to think about what I would even hypothesize for that case and try to test. Any suggestions of what's going on would be greatly appreciated! I just can't even get a first feel for what's happening. I still have to wonder if snepp got Drill I and Drill II messed up or something. If I weren't so lazy and did my own testing (cough, cough), that would be the first thing I would retest -- several times.
Arathorn