Fair combat, need!

[MetalMilitia-]

First of all, thank you so much for the new patch! I especially like the new terrain features, takes me back to good ol SMAC.

ok hugs and kisses aside. In .23 i usually played with smarter orcs and ihve come to be horribly dependent on the increased hp which made combat much less of a headache (with only a few unfortunate side effects). Im a very bad looser but rather than giving up playing i was wondering if this could be made for .25 aswell. that would be sweet!

 

[Senethro]

Would you like a win button as well?

Encountering one or two unit deaths shouldn't be considered a setback. Just take a look at the stats of a completed game and count how many archers/warriors have been slaughtered in the course of it. Why must every battle be a >99.99%?

As you move to BTS you may find the AI somewhat upgraded anyway, I've encountered some real stacks of doom and have lost cities on occasion.

 

[Pandemonis]

It's not about having a win button, it's about having a combat system where sending 8 warriors at Orthus will actually make him lose some HP so that you can then attack with your stronger units.

 

[Copper Golem]

It's not about having a win button, it's about having a combat system where sending 8 warriors at Orthus will actually make him lose some HP so that you can then attack with your stronger units.

What’s wrong about it? It is rather realistic.
Such tactic (Sacrificing troops to gain advantage
) was (well and not only “was” ) very popular in our word.

 

[Vulcans]

It's not about having a win button, it's about having a combat system where sending 8 warriors at Orthus will actually make him lose some HP so that you can then attack with your stronger units.

This is a misconception: actually the opposute is true, on average you'll have less chance to take down orthus as you will do much less dammage to him on average.

e.g you have 50% chance of getting in one hit before he kills your warior. But if you get in that hit you’ll do something like 18 damage, making it much easier for future attackers to bring him down. Where as with the changed system you’re guaranteed to do something like 3 damage (I haven't calculated this example, but get something like this from similar ratio calculations), meaning that the next attacker will have to fight a 4.85st unit(still very hard to take down), instead of the next unit having 50% chance of fighting a 5st unit and 50% chance of fighting a 4.1 st unit(much easier).

So yes you can be guaranteed to “make him lose some HP” but I’m not after being guaranteed to take him down to 97% health (and attacker 2 taking him to 94%), I want to kill him, and would do much better if the first warior in the stack of 8 couldd have 50% chance of taking him down to 82% health so subsequent attackers would stand a chance at actually taking him out.

 

[MisterBenn]

I believe that both "fair" and "vanilla" combat are both viable systems are are subject to personal preference more than either being right or wrong. Having seen the impassioned debate and numerical dissection of the topic already, I am loathe to wade into the debate, but here goes.

My personal preference is with the unmodified combat system. I'm not sure that being certain that a slightly stronger unit will survive against a slightly weaker one IS realistic. History tells us that the stronger of two opposing armies doesn't automatically win. In game, should a unit of crossbowmen unleash their weapons at a hero, what's wrong with having an outside chance that a bolt catches him in the eye and kills him? Or that being charged at by cavalry runs the risk of being caught by a lance rather than always emerging slightly injured? Battles don't always play out as expected; tactics, confidence, and some luck play a part in the outcome as much as starting strength, and my belief is that the role of luck in the combat models that.

I also believe that in gameplay terms, "fair combat" leads to predictable battle outcomes, which plays into the human players' hands. It's easier to predict how much of a defensive force will repel a given enemy, and those leftover troops that would otherwise have been contingency defence can be put to other use. In tandem with the AI's lesser ability to use the terrain of combat compared to the player, I think it would just be another tool with which to confound the AI.

That is of course just my stance; I do respect the fair combat viewpoint and also admire the maths that went into the analysis!

 

[Sureshot]

myself i like the concept of the fair combat though i think its a bit too far with it.
i definitely think that my ideal combat is somewhere between vanilla and fair combat.

 

[Senethro]

Its not "fair", its rewarding human tech-turtling, unit-spam rushing and hero abuse.

 

[Pandemonis]

Its not "fair", its rewarding human tech-turtling, unit-spam rushing and hero abuse.

And use of magic, too, which the AI still can't really handle. Isn't it what FH is about ?

 

[Bringa]

Hey, I have a preliminary version of fair combat alone for 025. This will not include Xanaqui's awesome changes for smarter orcs and may very well cause a lot of unexpected things.

For one, you won't be able to trust the combat odds (the percentage value), while looking at the two effective combat strengths SHOULD give you a very good indication of how the combat will turn out (like 9.00 vs 7.00 should be pretty much unlosable). Also there's a good chance immediate damage based spells won't perform well (stuff like ring of fire, pillar of flames etc). Xanaqui made me some awesome hooks for this stuff in 023c Smarter Orcs were you could adjust all those effects with one value. Until he gets around to doing the same for 025, I'm afraid we'll have to make do with this faulty version.

So in short, things that will work:
1) Fair combat with predictable outcomes
2) Should apply just fine to summons and pseudo summons (fireballs), but I haven't tested this.
3) Healing normally on a plot

Things that won't work:
1) The percentage value in combat odds
2) Most direct damage spells
3) Healing spells?

I had a version for 2025c with lots of other changes in the globaldefines (making the rift between alignments more pronounced etc), so just give me five minutes to make a version for the latest patch that only has Fair Combat changes in it.

 

[Bringa]

Okay, here's a version for 2025e. I tested a little: direct damage spells will definitely not work (they only seem to do a fraction of the damage they're supposed to, and multiplying their iDamage and iDamageLimit by 10 makes them into killer spells somehow. I'll ask in a separate thread about this).

Simply extract the attached file into your assets/xml dir, overwriting the existing files. As always, if you want to undo the change, just install the latest patch, which will overwrite these changes again.

 

[MetalMilitia-]

cheers bringa! allthough i think ill hang on for the spell-friendly version. does first strikes work properly with it?

Senethro, loosing 1 or 2 units is not a huge setback when fighting with a vast army of faceless tanks. Its somewhat more painfull when those happen to be your hero or your favorite spellcaster loosing to 98% odds, which does unfortunately happen in vanilla.

Anyway, i wasnt exactly posting to have a debate. you like playing your way and ill play my way.

Pandemonis, i think i read somewhere, think it was Kael saying that the ai does use magic now, woopeh!

 

[Bringa]

MetalMilitia: I don't think it will work with first strikes either. As I said, xanaqui provided me with very nice hooks for that kind of stuff in smarter orcs. I could experiment with simply multiplying the number of first strikes by 10. Stoneskin, similarily, won't work very well.

If you look at the iDamage thread, we've found the problem with spells already. If it's not too much work for Kael to change those two ifs, we can have damage spells very soon.

Of course I *could* ask Xanaqui if he couldn't look at porting only his hooks to 2025, but I really don't want to pull him away from the OOS bug in Smarter Orcs. I miss playing smarter orcs cooperatively vs the AI.

You may notice I'm ignoring the whole discussion about the merits of Fair Combat, and I suggest you do the same. Some people are immune to logic and mathematics and confuse arbitrariness with difficulty. Of course that's no problem; not everyone needs to be smart. It gets a little annoying, though, when they seem to feel the need to convince others that they're right. Fair Combat applies to AI and humans equally; it does not suddenly favor humans. But no, I wasn't going to get dragged into this discussion

Sureshot, once we have a stable version (probably after Shadow's gone stable) of Fair Combat, we can make the exact factor easily changeable. For instance, I would play with Fair Combat factor 10, ending up with 1000 max hp, 200 city_heal, etc. You could then just set that factor to 5 or 6 or whatever you want.

 

[Pandemonis]

Okay, here's a version for 2025e. I tested a little: direct damage spells will definitely not work (they only seem to do a fraction of the damage they're supposed to, and multiplying their iDamage and iDamageLimit by 10 makes them into killer spells somehow. I'll ask in a separate thread about this).

Simply extract the attached file into your assets/xml dir, overwriting the existing files. As always, if you want to undo the change, just install the latest patch, which will overwrite these changes again.

Good news ! do you need any play-testing or can we sit and wait 'till it's complete ?

 

[Bringa]

Nah, I'm just waiting for an answer from Kael. I don't want to download the C sources and compile that change in myself, that would just take too long. I may have a look at heal as well. Of course if you find other spells that manipulate unit hp and which don't work right now, tell me and I'll have a look. I won't sink *too* much work into this though To stress this again: I'm just messing around here. I'm nowhere near a real modder or coder, all I do is tweak some numbers.

 

[Pandemonis]

Sure, no problem

I suppose the whither promotion are based on same mechanic as healing and therefore their tweak will be including in the healing tweak ?

Thats all I can think of

 

[Sureshot]

Sureshot, once we have a stable version (probably after Shadow's gone stable) of Fair Combat, we can make the exact factor easily changeable. For instance, I would play with Fair Combat factor 10, ending up with 1000 max hp, 200 city_heal, etc. You could then just set that factor to 5 or 6 or whatever you want.

ya thats what im looking for, i like a bit of randomness, but the current situation is a bit too random for me and the 10times factor is a bit too certain. definitely a good concept overall tho.

 

[Bringa]

Nope, but I should be able to adjust this. It may be enough to just multiply the healChanges in the withered promotion by ten. Can you tell me what the spell usually does? (i.e., make a single player game, enter world builder, create a unit with some hp for the barbarian (I'd suggest an elephant because it cannot attack you while you wait for it to wither), create a unit capable of casting wither for yourself (it will need the entropy I and the channeling I promotions), cast wither, and let a few turns pass. Document how the hp changes) If you could quickly do that I could try if I get the same hp progression with withered healingchanges times 10.

 

[Vittra]

I don't see why it's necessary to insult someone for requesting a previous feature that proved popular to be implemented again with the new version.

If you think it's imbalanced and skews the game, DON'T USE IT. There's absolutely no need to publicly degrade someone because they don't share your opinion. That's uncalled for, and isn't wanted by anybody.

 

[Bringa]

Alright, here's a version of fair combat for 2025j. Install the 2025j patch first and then just extract this into your xml dir (overwriting the existing files).

These files change the following settings:

In globaldefinesalt.xml, introduce MAX_HP 1000 and HEAL_RATES for enemy, neutral, friendly, and city * 10 their original value.

In CIV4UnitInfos.xml, all iCombatLimits * 10

In CIV4SpellInfos.xml, all iDamage and iDamageLimits * 10.

This does not affect things like stoneskin, first strikes, etc. The percentage odds will be off but you can trust the absolute values (i.e. 9.20 vs 4.30 will always succeed). Damage spells should work (tested ring of fire), but note that there's an aesthetic issue: the in-game text says "... damaged xxx% by fire" with impossibly high percentage values (340% for instance). Divide these by ten (hope you can do that in your mind ;P) and you've got the accurate values.

This hasn't been tested much beyond basic functionality. If something doesn't work that should, mention it and I'll look at it, but I can't promise anything.

Enjoy