Combat log for Clutch-3

[Ferd]

Hey Clutch-3, you offered to do a statistical analysis if someone logged all their combat for an entire game. Julian I did just that. I'm interested in seeing the results.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?threadid=9555

I realize it would be more useful if he had also included how many hits the winning unit had left when it was done, but this might be enough to shed some light on the controversy about skewed combat results.

 

[Clutch-3]

Ugh, it's in text format? Hmm, once I figure out how to get that data into a format that some software can easily recognize, I'll give it a go.

By the way, there are percentages listed for each battle for the "theoretical result". Am I to trust these percentages; are they pretty well accepted to be calculated the way the game claims to do things? I was wondering also, if the defensive bonuses ADD or MULTIPLY. As in, if you are attacking a spearman fortified (+25%) in a city (+50%, right?), does the defense come out as:

Def = 2*(1+0.25)*(1+0.5) = 3.75

or as:

Def: 2*(1+0.25+0.5) = 3.5

anyone know this? Other than those questions, I think I am ready to go.

cheers,
clutch

 

[Flynn]

Don't have any real knowledge of it, Clutch, but *most* games that have those kinds of percentage modifiers add the modifiers then apply to the base.

So it would be 2*(1+.025+.050) = 2*1.75 = 3.5

 

[Ferd]

Originally posted by Clutch-3
By the way, there are percentages listed for each battle for the "theoretical result". Am I to trust these percentages; are they pretty well accepted to be calculated the way the game claims to do things? I was wondering also, if the defensive bonuses ADD or MULTIPLY. As in, if you are attacking a spearman fortified (+25%) in a city (+50%, right?), does the defense come out as:

Def = 2*(1+0.25)*(1+0.5) = 3.75

or as:

Def: 2*(1+0.25+0.5) = 3.5

I think he used the handy dandy Combat Calculator

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3combatcalc.html

or something similar. No way of telling how the game really does things short of disassembling the code or analyzing the data. I was hoping maybe your analysis might help in that area.

The combat calculator assumes the defense bonuses are added.

I was thinking of doing some combat logging of my own. Is there a particular format that would make things easy for you? What information do you REALLY need for analysis? I was thinking of logging:
attackers -- unit and nationality, current health/max health
defenders -- unit and nationality, current health/max health, fortified? terrain type, river? city size and walls? Fortress?
fight -- who won each round, who won each fight, whether a unit retreated, and if there were any promotions
bombardment -- what was hit and, if a unit, how much damage it did.

 

[Clutch-3]

If you save the data, the easiest thing for me is to put EACH combat on a separate line, and only put numbers to indicate the conditions. For example, I would need the attackers attack and HP, the defenders defense and HP, the terrain bonus, the river bonus, the town bonus, and the foritification bonus. I also would like to know the FINAL HP of each unit. For example, you could do something like:

4 5 2 3 10 0 50 25 3 0

would mean: the attacker (longbowman) had 4 attack and was an elite (5 hp) and the defender (spearman) had 2 defense and was regular (3 hp). The defender was in terran (grassland) with a 10% defensive bonus, the attacker was NOT attacking across a river (hence the 0: it would be 50 I think if the attack were across a river). The defender was in a town (size 7-12, with 50% bonus) and was fortified (25% bonus). The final HP of attacker was 3, final defender HP was 0 (so attacker won). As far as I know, that is all the relevant information according to what Firaxis says about combat. Who won each round shouldn't matter, just the total number of rounds won by each unit, which is included in this information. Please correct me if I am wrong (and can someone confirm the river bonus is 50%?).

cheers,
clutch

 

[Flynn]

Originally posted by Clutch-3

4 5 2 3 10 0 50 25 3 0

would mean: the attacker (longbowman) had 4 attack and was an elite (5 hp) and the defender (spearman) had 2 defense and was regular (3 hp). The defender was in terran (grassland) with a 10% defensive bonus, the attacker was NOT attacking across a river (hence the 0: it would be 50 I think if the attack were across a river). The defender was in a town (size 7-12, with 50% bonus) and was fortified (25% bonus). The final HP of attacker was 3, final defender HP was 0 (so attacker won). As far as I know, that is all the relevant information according to what Firaxis says about combat. Who won each round shouldn't matter, just the total number of rounds won by each unit, which is included in this information. Please correct me if I am wrong (and can someone confirm the river bonus is 50%?).

River bonus is 50%, yes.

May I suggest a modification? Rather than putting down the attack/defend values for each unit, why not map the individual unit types? This would allow resolution on whether, for example, Pikemen defend better against Horsemen than they do against Archers. (Which they definitely should.)

Would you always be aware whether the opponent unit was fortified? That's only discernable via they icon, isn't it?

Perhaps a key index for the terrain and a key index for cities/fortifications?

0 = open terrain
1 = town
2 = city
3 = metropolis
4 = fort
5 = colony

Make across river a binary. 0 = no river, 1 = river.
Make fortified defender a binary. 0 = unfortified, 1 = fortified.

A key for the terrain?

1 = grassland
2 = plain
3 = tundra
4 = forest
5 = jungle
6 = hills
7 = mountains
8 = flood plains
9 = desert

Just some thoughts. It would probably be easier for the person keeping the log that way, and from your end, the programmatic translation should be easy. (If it's not, I'll be happy to whip up an Excel sheet or something to do the calcs for ya.)

 

[Flynn]

Combat Log suggestion...

Attached is an Excel Spreadsheet to use as a template for combat logs. It contains a Unit/Terrain key on the first sheet, and a template for logging with a couple of examples on the second sheet. My recommendation is to print the first sheet to keep handy for reference. I found it useful to highlight the lines representing the units I commonly use.

Clutch-3, tell me if you like the format. It should make it easy to analyze all possible variations of results.

 

[Clutch-3]

I'm sure the keys for terrain and such are okay; can just map those numbers directly to matrix of combat values. And I'm sure the template is okay, although I haven't seen it. I deleted excel from my HDD a while ago in a fit of rage. i only mainly matlab since they let me out of the looney bin :crazyeyes

cheers,
clutch

 

[Ferd]

I'm going to suggest using a letter instead of numbers for terrain and cities/fortifications. It's much easier to remember F for forest than 4. The only conflicts are city/colony and forest/floodplains. We can use L for flood plains and L for colony. We probably also need W for town with city walls.

Also, add coast/sea/ocean squares to the terrain list. I'm also going to add a column for promotions, and one for max health of both units. You may not be interested in that, but if I log it, you can just ignore it.