Benefits of First Strike

[ronnybiggs]

What are the benefits of a first strike? Or more precisely, how large is the benefit of each strike?

The reason is that I started playing as Chinese, and I get the Cho-Ko-Nu, which gets two first-strikes. I'm wondering if I should keep upgrading them with Drill (giving them even more first strikes) or upgrade their other capacities.

 

[angelus512]

Yeah good question its something I'm curious about too. HOw effective are first strikes? Because nowdays i'm tempted to only go for strength, collateral damage and what not.
Tend to avoid health related bonuses and first strikes because i'm not seeing tangible benefits.

 

[Mutineer]

Search the forums and you will find a lot of discussion about it.
In short conclusion was: First strike the most benefit you when your unit have >= power then opponents, as it let your units to win a battle why taking a little damage. So, one of your units can kill more then one opponent and still survive.

 

[Commander Bello]

As Mutineer already advised you, first strikes benefit you the most if your unit is stronger than the opponent's.

About upgrading: This should be related to which kind of units you expect to meet. There are some units which are completely unharmed by first strikes, so if you are going to meet those you would have lost a promotion.

 

[AndreasS]

OK, but how is it calculated? I think thats the question here, and its hard to find threads about it!

Examle: 1 crossbowman, 50% vs melee bonus, promotions with 2 first strikes
vs
1 maceman, 8 strength, no promtions, no bonuses vs crosbowman

The crossbow attacks, there are no terrain bonuses/maluses.

The 2 first strikes from the crossbow hits the maceman. How much is the Maceman wounded before he can strike back?

 

[Commander Bello]

OK, but how is it calculated? I think thats the question here, and its hard to find threads about it!

Examle: 1 crossbowman, 50% vs melee bonus, promotions with 2 first strikes
vs
1 maceman, 8 strength, no promtions, no bonuses vs crosbowman

The crossbow attacks, there are no terrain bonuses/maluses.

The 2 first strikes from the crossbow hits the maceman. How much is the Maceman wounded before he can strike back?

The crossbow has a basic strength of 6, right? Since he has 50% against melee units, this brings it up to 9.
In this case, he would subtract most probably 21 hitpoints per hit from the maceman's internal "health", which is 100 for unwounded units.
So, the maceman "enters" the battle with 58 hitpoints left.
As he only delivers 19 hitpoints to be subtracted per successful strike, he needs 6 hits to kill the crossbow, which in turn will only need 3 hits more to kill the mace.
Therefore, the chances of the crossbow to kill the mace should be something like 75%.

(all very roughly calculated, and most probably not accurate, but you should get the picture...)

 

[AndreasS]

The crossbow has a basic strength of 6, right? Since he has 50% against melee units, this brings it up to 9.
In this case, he would subtract most probably 21 hitpoints per hit from the maceman's internal "health", which is 100 for unwounded units.
So, the maceman "enters" the battle with 58 hitpoints left.
As he only delivers 19 hitpoints to be subtracted per successful strike, he needs 6 hits to kill the crossbow, which in turn will only need 3 hits more to kill the mace.
Therefore, the chances of the crossbow to kill the mace should be something like 75%.

(all very roughly calculated, and most probably not accurate, but you should get the picture...)

Thanks for that quick answer, but where are the numbers 21 hitpoints, and 19 hitpoints taken from? After regular bonuses the crossbow have 1 more strength then the mace when he attacks, 9 in total. Why is each first strike 21 hitpoints per hit? It cant be 3 times 9, because then the strength value of the target wouldnt bother much, if it was a spearman (4hp) for instance, and still a mellee unit?

 

[gdgrimm]

Just to add to the complexity....

The manual clearly distinguishes between 'first strike chance' and 'first strikes'. So they may be handled differently in combat, as well.

'first strike chance' wouldn't really amount to much (AFAIK), since it'll be the luck of the draw as to whether you get any benefit from it at all. 'first strikes', on the other hand, would be much more useful, as the opponent would be gauranteed to be wounded before the battle really occurs.

Then again, it's possible that the manual is wrong in trying to draw the distinction.

 

[Commander Bello]

Thanks for that quick answer, but where are the numbers 21 hitpoints, and 19 hitpoints taken from? After regular bonuses the crossbow have 1 more strength then the mace when he attacks, 9 in total. Why is each first strike 21 hitpoints per hit? It cant be 3 times 9, because then the strength value of the target wouldnt bother much, if it was a spearman (4hp) for instance, and still a mellee unit?

Each unwounded unit has an internal set of 100 hitpoints.
Combats are done in a set of internal strikes, which would subtract 20 hitpoints in case of two units being of exactly the same strength (all modifications taken into account).
If one is slightly stronger than the other, this will be reflected by the "internal damage" it does to the other unit.
Therefore, in the above example I assumed that the crossbow would subtract 21 hitpoints instead of just 20 (it could be 22 against 18, though).

So, the 2 first strikes would subtract 2*21 hitpoints from the mace, leaving 58 of those. This is done prior to the "real battle", when both sides try to achieve a hit at the opponent.
Then, the "real battle" starts, with the crossbow having still 100 hitpoints (and its internally calculated "hit-strength" of 21 hitpoints), whilst the mace would start with 58 hitpoints (and its internally calculated "hit-strength" of 19 hitpoints. This leads to 3 hits needed for the crossbow to win, in comparison to 6 hits needed for the mace (100/19 ~ 6 [as 5 hits would leave 5 hitpoints on the crossbow]).

To get a better picture of how the combat is carried out, I would advise you to check with the event log (CTRL-TAB), switching to "combat" then. There all the internals will be listed.

Hope to have been a little bit of help.

 

[icemanjsg]

when the computer generate combat odds with a unit for first strike they dont show it do they ?

 

[AndreasS]

Yep, its a bit clearer, thanx for that. I will try out the event log when I come home from work... But one thing. I guess that if a unit with 10 in strength (after all bonuses/maluses), attacking a unit with strength 5 (after all bonuses/maluses), will then substract 40 hp per sucsessfull strike vs 20 hp for the opposing unit? If thats the case, I now understand this completely.....

 

[KrikkitTwo]

OK the complete technical meaning

How combat works
1. each unit starts with 100 hp

2. Each Round of combat someone gets 'hit'

3. The chance that you are hit depends on your strength v. the enemies
I am Str 1, they are Str 2 there is a 2/3 chance they hit me, a 1/3 chance I hit them

4. The one that gets 'hit' is damaged
The damage is calculated as strength of (Attacker is the one that hit, Defender is the one that Got hit)
(3A+D)/(A+3D) *20 hp
OR...
0 if this is a Defender's first Strike round


So 'First Strike' is a turn of Damage Immunity

So CKN v. Maceman
Damage done by CKN->Mace= (3*9+8)/(9+3*8)*20 = 21 (assuming it rounds off not down)

Chance of CKN hitting Mace=9/(8+9)=~53%
Chance of Mace Hitting CKN=8/(8+9)=~47%

So that means that in the first two rounds there is a
53% chance of the CKN doing 21 damage to the Mace and a
47% chance of the Mace doing 0 Damage to the CKN

After the first two rounds, the numbers change for each round
53% chance of the CKN doing 21 damage to the Mace and a
47% chance of the Mace doing 19 Damage to the CKN


Highly technical side note, if a unit is damaged, the Strength used to calaculate 'odds to hit' and the strength used to calculate 'damage per hit' are different. (one takes the undamaged strength into account)

 

[Carewolf]

when the computer generate combat odds with a unit for first strike they dont show it do they ?

Yep. I am quite sure the odds are not counting first strike.

 

[Watiggi]

A first strike round is a normal round. If the first striker looses the round, no damage is done. If the first striker wins, then damage is caused.

A first strike DOES NOT guarantee that the first striker damages the other unit. It ONLY means that there WILL be a first strike round. If it looses the round (via the normal means), then it will not suffer any damage.

A first strike chance is just a chance at having a first strike round.

Iow, if you have 4-7 first strikes, before combat begins, a random number between 4-7 is essentially thrown. That is how many first strike rounds will occur for that battle, for that unit. Then collateral damage is delt, then normal combat begins (which includes the first strike rounds). From here the combat rounds are calculated as normal. The random number is thrown to see which unit wins the round. IF the looser is a first striker and in a first strike round, then no damage is done and the number of available first strikes is decreased by one and the next round continues. Whether the first striker wins or looses doesn't matter, the number of first strike rounds are decreased for both units - even if both of them have first strikes.

In a nutshell, the ultimate effect of the first strike is to increase the chances of the unit striking first. The more first strikes you have, the more chance you have of winning the first one, two or maybe more rounds. A first strike does not automatically result in doing damage.

Watiggi

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Also the computer odds DO take first Strike into Account... they just don't take it into account properly (this is how odds of >100% show up)

 

[Zebra 9]

Very interesting. I'm going top have to try giving First Strikes to my archers.

 

[ronnybiggs]

The manual clearly distinguishes between 'first strike chance' and 'first strikes'. So they may be handled differently in combat, as well.

I was looking all through the manual and found nothing about first strikes. It's very annoying.

 

[eric_]

I thought first strikes only applied when a unit defends itself. Is this not the case?

If not, I'll consider them much more frequently.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

General rule on the pormotions, Combat is usually better, Unless you
1. are going to get up to Drill 3+4
2. are much more powerful than those you will be fighting...but will be fighting a lot of them

And they apply all the time (unless the other unit has Ignore first Strikes)

 

[ronnybiggs]

I guess where I was going with this question was whether it's worth using Cho-Ko-Nus to ward off massive unit attacks. If you can get a Cho-Ko-Nu three promotions, you could make them all Drill and then he'd have six first strikes. If this is an effective enough promotion he could sit there and take out a whole horde of lesser or equal units if he was garrisoned in a city.

Unit immunities to first strike isn't really an issue, as I'll put units that can cover that weakness. A couple of spearmen to handle horse archers, for example.

Thanks for all the info guys. I'm gonna have to experiment with this more. Sure wish the manual talked about this.