combat still borked

[daladinn]

i wish i could find what is going totally wrong witht he combat but i am still seeing way to many combats where the weaker side is not getting hit at all. i have no idea whats going wrong , according to the combat log the damage values make sense (the stronger side is hitting for more). more often then not its a issue of only one side can seem to hit.

last night i had a wonderful combat where my stoneskin ogre was killed by an archer. i had a 92% chance to kill it according to the combat odds (which i know are ALWAYS wrong when stoneskin is involved). so i attacked. my ogre got 2 hits on the archer, 2 WTH is with that? the archer killed my ogre. he must have hit the ogre a dozen times.

i can understand things like this happening every once in a while, but to happen often is crazy. atm this mod is not even playable do to the combat issues. i am going to try playing the change that increases HP and see waht happens.

PLEASE PLEASE fix this

 

[Gamestation]

Did you try what the removing the randomness thread suggested?

 

[Grey Fox]

Maybe the Archer had many first strikes and got lucky with them?

 

[vorshlumpf]

Was your ogre injured?

The combat randomness can easily make you feel like things are broken when they aren't. To truly investigate such a possibility, you need to gather consistent stats (not just the occasional unlucky combat).

If you'd like a specific combat analysed, at least paste the entire combat log because there are too many variables that could account for things happening the way they did.

 

[Bringa]

Ehm, gamestation, the "removing the randomness" thread proposes a very experimental idea to make the game more balanced in multiplayer. If anything, it breaks things rather than fixing them. If what daladinn is observing here is really happening due to a bug, my fix would only amplify the bug.

Note that I am in no way affiliated with the FfH team. I'm just a guy who opened an xml file and prodded it with a sharp stick. I got lucky in getting an Interesting Result, but due to the soundness of my, uhm, Scientific Method, I would be rather surprised if that Interesting Result didn't bring with it a whole bunch of Fascinating Sideeffects, by which I mean horrible, game-breaking bugs.

Just pointing out that if you want to use my poke-it-with-a-sharp-stick method as remedy for a real illness you may shorten your lifespan *considerably*.

 

[Gamestation]

Ehm, gamestation, the "removing the randomness" thread proposes a very experimental idea to make the game more balanced in multiplayer. If anything, it breaks things rather than fixing them. If what daladinn is observing here is really happening due to a bug, my fix would only amplify the bug.

Note that I am in no way affiliated with the FfH team. I'm just a guy who opened an xml file and prodded it with a sharp stick. I got lucky in getting an Interesting Result, but due to the soundness of my, uhm, Scientific Method, I would be rather surprised if that Interesting Result didn't bring with it a whole bunch of Fascinating Sideeffects, by which I mean horrible, game-breaking bugs.

Just pointing out that if you want to use my poke-it-with-a-sharp-stick method as remedy for a real illness you may shorten your lifespan *considerably*.

Well if the bug gets amplified, then we definitely know something is wrong. But to me, it looks a lot like a case of bad luck which may be reduced the ideas that were posted in your thread. If the archer managed to hit the stoneskin ogre 50-100 times in a row, then we know that something is wrong.

 

[jonottawa]

Here's another example. A gorilla (strength 4) attacking my unpromoted warrior (strength 3) across a river. The 4.00 vs 4.20 (140% of 3) is correct, but why does the gorilla have a 55.9% chance of winning?

 

[jonottawa]

And here's an unpromoted Scout thinking about taking on a Tiger across a river. This time it's the combat strengths that are way off (the % seems about right.) The Scout's maximum strength is 3.00 (the extra .80 seems to come from applying the 40% river attack penalty as a bonus.) And if the Scout is left at 3.00, then the 40% should be increasing the Tiger's strength. But the Tiger seems to be getting a 50% penalty for fighting a Scout (even though the Scout's received a 50% bonus already) and a 40% upgrade.

Then after all that, a fully healed unit with adjusted strength of 3.80 has only a 12.8% chance of winning a combat against a unit with adjusted strength of 3.63. It doesn't make sense.

Before 0.23 I had 100% faith in the combat system. It seemed to work perfectly. Sure I'd suffer a 'bad beat' on occasion, but that's to be expected. The numbers always made sense, though (with the occasional 100.1% glitch being the only exception I can think of.)

 

[brainpan]

Was your ogre injured?

The combat randomness can easily make you feel like things are broken when they aren't. To truly investigate such a possibility, you need to gather consistent stats (not just the occasional unlucky combat).

You make a good point. Probability can make patterns seem to exist where none are present. In a normal game in which hundreds of individual combats occur, the probability of losing a few battles in which you're heavily favored becomes a near certainty. Also, the odds that a complex probability equation will perform precisely at its most likely outcome is pretty remote.

 

[Grey Fox]

@Jonottawa's first example; I think the combat log shows the defenders odds, not the attackers.

 

[vorshlumpf]

As far as I know, the combat odds are always for the attacker.

Those examples seem pretty bad, jonottawa. I saw something funny with scout vs animal in my game, but nothing that extreme. Since you didn't mention it, I must ask: you are on the latest patch, right? Assuming 'yes', I'd suggest submitting those in the bug thread (if you haven't already).

 

[Sureshot]

i dont know if the system is messed, but i know im forced to treat anything below 99.0% as 50% and anything 99.0% or above as still a risk.

 

[w. irving]

@ jonottawa

there is currently (0.23c) a bug that causes phantom boni to be applied to the effective strengths in the mouseover combat window (not the combat log) and sometimes alters the combat odds in both locations.

this does not effect the actual execution of combat and is therefore only a very annoying cosmetic issue.

as it happens one of these phantom boni is a +40% (applied to the attacker) when attacking across a river, thus you're incorrect odds.

@Grey Fox

in the combat log the odds are for the attacker while the boni listed above the odds are from the perspective of the defender. strange but true

I put a more detailed analysis of the problem in the current bug thread somewhere around page 10

 

[Nefelia]

I have experienced some strange combats, but only on defence. On offence, I have been winning 80%+ odds reliably. I've been avoiding recon class units though.

 

[w. irving]

nefelia, are you playing on patch b? there was problem with units not getting certain defensive boni after loading a saved game in patch b.

 

[jonottawa]

Those examples seem pretty bad, jonottawa. I saw something funny with scout vs animal in my game, but nothing that extreme. Since you didn't mention it, I must ask: you are on the latest patch, right? Assuming 'yes', I'd suggest submitting those in the bug thread (if you haven't already).

I downloaded 0.23 2 days ago and when I asked in another thread I was informed that it came pre-patched (the readme file says 0.23c and the filename was something like fallfromheaven023c.exe) So I'm about 95% sure that I'm on the latest patch.

 

[kenken244]

the main reason in ffh that you seem to lose combats lots of times is because you get a lot of combats due to summoning/magic. if youve ever glanced at the combat odds for a meteor you can sometimes see you r meteor winning at about 30% combat odds

 

[Bluenoise]

I agree I have the same problem. The combat odds just aren't right anymore. As mentioned previously anything below like 95% odds I just consider 50%. Before the latest version things work perfectly. But now it's rather messed.

 

[Bluenoise]

Okay so my strength is 4. My bonuses are +20%, + 25%, +10% which should give a final of 55% or an effective strength of 6.2.

The strength of the elephant is 8. It has a 75% terrain bonus which should give it a strength of 14.

So the odds are really 6.2 vs 14.

Not 10.00 vs 4.21 95.5% for me!!!

Combat works fine though. There are a few elephants around and this same problems occurs for all of them. I can't kill a single one.

So Yes it is a cosmetic issue. But a serious one. The game is basically unplayable. What am I supposed to do?? Pull out a calculator and do the math every time I approach a battle??

 

[vorshlumpf]

Elephants don't get terrain defence bonuses, do they? I'm sure they don't.

Oh, and so you know, any attacking bonus that isn't a Combat promotion actually affects the defender's STR, not the attacker's.

If you wish to learn more about how it works, this link should help:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137615&highlight=combat+explained

Note: None of the above was meant to refute your observations; they're just FYI's.