Combat Explained....

[ZippyRiver]

Damaged units can inflict the same damage as a full health unit This is the damage potential for the unit.

However, I have plenty of examples where the damaged unit won rounds at a rate expected from one undamaged. So it appears that damage is not taken into account when determining who wins the round. Give the AI a mixed stack of defenders, and give yourself 2 specialized units. If the first unit gets destroyed, but damages the defender, note the combat log. Attack with your second unit. Even if the first defender is damaged to a point that the second-in-line defender (slightly lower base potential damage) should step up, it will still select the damaged one instead.

You also see this regularly when attacking with fighters. Hitting a city with say 2 infanty, one of them has city defence 1. The city def one unit will still defend after sustaining damages.

edit:
To simplify my point, I believe the only thing damage does is reduce hit points. It has no effect anywhere else.

 

[Roland Johansen]

According to tests done in version 1.09 of this game, it works as described in the first post. Chance to hit is based on actual strength modified for the unit's hitpoints. It could have changed in version 1.52. I haven't seen any tests with that version, so maybe the article is not up to date and you are right that it has changed. It is clear (by looking at the combat logs) that damage done is based on full unit strength in version 1.52. It was based on actual unit strength in version 1.09.

But on the other hand, your observations aren't really scientifically presented. If you think the article is wrong, then you should do some tests that show that the chance to hit is based on full hitpoint strength.

I believe that the original writer of the article has become slightly less interested in researching the combat mechanics as he hasn't posted a lot in this thread for a while. It is quite understandable as he has done a lot of work to establish the formulas in the first post and in the patch they changed some things again.

 

[ZippyRiver]

Oh yeah. I am very appreciative of the OP and the work put into this. But alas, some of the info is outdaded. I was replying to a post, keeping 1.52 in mind as that is the most current and wide spread version.

There currently is good discussion going on (including screenshots) on combat 1.52 under general discussions (combat 1.52). We're just looking at numbers and probabilities of specific examples.

 

[Celebithil]

I'm too lazy too test it myself now, but with the new real combat odds given in patch 1.52 next to the strengths of units, you can easily calculate what the odds of winning a round should be, and thus test if it's based on full health units or not.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I'm too lazy too test it myself now, but with the new real combat odds given in patch 1.52 next to the strengths of units, you can easily calculate what the odds of winning a round should be, and thus test if it's based on full health units or not.

This assumes that the ingame combat odds calculator is correct which is not true. There have been multiple reports in the bug forum that the ingame calculator produces victory percentages of over 100% which obviously can't be correct.

 

[TheVictor]

Hello,

I have another question : I have a few swordsmen, all level 4 ( 3 promotions and 10 of 17 XP ) who fight only against barbarian archers. The problem is, they don't get any more XP from these fights once they've reached this level.

Why?! I thought the minimum XP you get is 1?

Thanks

Victor

 

[Zombie69]

XP from animals is limited at 5 total, and from barbarians it's limited at 10 total. Try using more inexperienced units instead and bring them up to 10 XP as well.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

Great original post.

Quick question - When a warrior attacks an animal of strength 2 in the early game the strengths read something like "2 vs. 1.8" There are no other attributes listed in the odds window to explain how a 2 strength animal got reduced to 1.8 (or something similar). Is this a game difficulty issue? This happened on noble.

I believe the same happens with barbarians as well.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Quick question - When a warrior attacks an animal of strength 2 in the early game the strengths read something like "2 vs. 1.8" There are no other attributes listed in the odds window to explain how a 2 strength animal got reduced to 1.8 (or something similar). Is this a game difficulty issue? This happened on noble.

I believe the same happens with barbarians as well.

These handicap adjustments are specified in Civ4HandicapInfo:

Handicap    iAnimalBonus    iBarbarianBonus

Settler          -70             -40
Chieftan         -60             -30
Warlord          -50             -20
Noble            -40             -10
Prince           -30             -5
Monarch          -20              0
Emperor          -10              0
Immortal         -5               0
Deity             0               0

I don't know exactly how these translate into the combat statistics.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

Ok, at least I'm not crazy. It's clear that some kind of advantage is given to the player over animals and barb units at lower difficulties. This handicap definitely applies when attacking barb units, but it will be hard to know if it has an effect defensively. Either way, this answers my question so thank you!

 

[Roland Johansen]

The numbers in DaviddesJ's post show the negative percentage applied to the strength of the animal or the barbarian. These percentages are applied when the animals or barbarians are attacking and when they are defending. There's another special defence bonus of 25% when your units are in a city defending against barbarians.

you can view the effects of the all modifiers on the results of combat by looking at the combat log. It can be quite interesting to take a look at this log, when you've never done so.

 

[DaviddesJ]

The numbers in DaviddesJ's post show the negative percentage applied to the strength of the animal or the barbarian. These percentages are applied when the animals or barbarians are attacking and when they are defending. There's another special defence bonus of 25% when your units are in a city defending against barbarians.

That makes sense, but it doesn't explain why the popup window shows "1.8" for the strength of a lion at noble difficulty. It seems like it should either be 2.0 or 1.2.

 

[Roland Johansen]

That makes sense, but it doesn't explain why the popup window shows "1.8" for the strength of a lion at noble difficulty. It seems like it should either be 2.0 or 1.2.

If I take a look at the table that you posted at your previous post, the 1.8 value seems to be the strength of a barbarian of strength 2 (warrior) at noble level. According to your table, the lion should indeed have strength 1.2. Could it be that you mixed those two up?

 

[DaviddesJ]

I just tried a test game at Noble, and the popup shows 1.3 for the lion. I'm not sure why it's not 1.2, but at least it's close.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I just tried a test game at Noble, and the popup shows 1.3 for the lion. I'm not sure why it's not 1.2, but at least it's close.

Ah, sorry, my mistake.

The actual strength of the lion should be 2/ 1.5 = 1.33333 rounded to 1.3

The 1.5 is acquired by adding the barbarian bonus to the animal bonus to 1. Animals are also considered to be barbarians.

Positive bonuses are added so a 10 strength unit with a 50% bonus has a strength of 10 * 1.5 = 15. Negative bonuses are applied by dividing the original strength by 1+bonus. So a 10 strength unit with a 50% penalty has a strength of 10 / 1.5 = 6.66666 rounded to 6.6. This last information is also noted in the first post of this thread.
Note that this way of applying bonusses means that in a fight between unit A and B, giving unit A a 50% bonus will have the same effect as giving unit B a 50% penalty.

 

[lz14]

Sorry I didn't read the whole thread, just wanna ask does the combat animation make any sense in terms of the success of the battle ? e.g. If I got hit, it means I just lost a bunch of HP.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Ah, sorry, my mistake.

The actual strength of the lion should be 2/ 1.5 = 1.33333 rounded to 1.3

The 1.5 is acquired by adding the barbarian bonus to the animal bonus to 1. Animals are also considered to be barbarians.

Positive bonuses are added so a 10 strength unit with a 50% bonus has a strength of 10 * 1.5 = 15. Negative bonuses are applied by dividing the original strength by 1+bonus. So a 10 strength unit with a 50% penalty has a strength of 10 / 1.5 = 6.66666 rounded to 6.6. This last information is also noted in the first post of this thread.
Note that this way of applying bonusses means that in a fight between unit A and B, giving unit A a 50% bonus will have the same effect as giving unit B a 50% penalty.

That is unless part of the bonus is not applied (as with strength bonuses), in that case if Either side has a strength bonus and Neither side has a defensive bonus, then the attacker has a slight advantage.

 

[Roland Johansen]

That is unless part of the bonus is not applied (as with strength bonuses), in that case if Either side has a strength bonus and Neither side has a defensive bonus, then the attacker has a slight advantage.

True. To get all the details of the combat right, you'll have to read the whole article in the first post. It can't be summarized in a few simple lines.

 

[qwestion2]

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[qwestion2]

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