Fleeing

Sarisin

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Is it just me, or is there too much fleeing going on in the game? I'm talking mostly about defending units fleeing.

First, kudos to the team for fixing the problem of fleeing in cities and in the field. Units seem to move away in the field and stay put in cities now. :goodjob:

However, depending on the civ you are up against, I think there are a few things regarding fleeing that need change (I am going up against the Illians and they have apparently mastered the art of fleeing):

1. The chance to flee needs to be reduced. Here is an extreme example in my game: I am attacking an Illian city. Seven units in the city flee from seven attacks. I cannot attack again with my units. My units are damaged and take more time to heal than those that fled in the Illian city. I know promotions increase the chances, but it is getting a little silly trying to fight a civ like the Illians that flee from more battles than fight.

2. Units should be permitted to flee ONCE. I've seen many units flee after two attacks and can remember one fleeing three times.

3. Along those lines, units with 0.X strength shouldn't be allowed to flee any further. They should die when attacked.

4. Workers shouldn't be able to flee. Too many times I've seen them with their 0.0 strength flee. It doesn't make sense that they could get away.

5. The amount of damage given to your unit by the fleeing unit is out of whack. Here are two examples:

I attacked a simple Worker with a strong Ranger. The Worker fled and my Ranger needed 3 turns to heal.

I attacked an Illian Warrior with my strong HN Sword Spider. The Warrior (inside a city) fled and the Spider needed 22 turns to heal.

The Combat Odds in both cases was 99.9%

Any comments are appreciated. :)
 
I've noticed this. My Trolls are running rampant acrost my continent, but in Nantane's land the units are fleeing far more than 10% of the time (even without boasters).
 
I don't have a problem with fleeing units, personally

I do think that there needs to be some mechanism in place to stop the attacker taking so much damage though. And only fleeing once per turn, regardless of movement.

Or, how about, make fleeing only possible if the defender has >= the attacker's movement. There's no way an axeman should be able to run from a horseman. He'd just get run down. But vice versa, the horseman should escape easily. This would also mean that the Mobility promotion makes it harder for enemies to flee.
 
I just attacked a Worker with a HN Spider with over 120 XP. The Worker fled and the Spider needs 7 turns to heal. :(
 
The damage your attacker is taking is simply the damage it would have taken if it had won out right. There is no difference there.

The reason your spider took 22 turns is due to a lot of damage but also the fact that I am willing to bet you were in Enemy territory. You heal MUCH faster in home territory than in enemy lands. But again that has nothign to do with fleeing.

Remeber that the Flee, or withdraw, mechanic is simply when the killing blow lands, the dieing unit checks for chance to flee. If it is successful, they it runs away and DOES NOT take that killing blow. If it fails it dies. Either way you have the damage on your unit, which is the same whether the target flees or stands and dies.
 
The damage your attacker is taking is simply the damage it would have taken if it had won out right. There is no difference there.

The reason your spider took 22 turns is due to a lot of damage but also the fact that I am willing to bet you were in Enemy territory. You heal MUCH faster in home territory than in enemy lands. But again that has nothign to do with fleeing.

Remeber that the Flee, or withdraw, mechanic is simply when the killing blow lands, the dieing unit checks for chance to flee. If it is successful, they it runs away and DOES NOT take that killing blow. If it fails it dies. Either way you have the damage on your unit, which is the same whether the target flees or stands and dies.

Breez, my point exactly...

My HN Spider has 147 XP. Many promotions and a high strength. The Worker 0.0 strength. How in the world can that unit cause any damage to my Spider? How can a unit with no strength flee?

Maybe it is the whole 'damage system' that is whacky then. I just don't get units that are way overmatched causing significant damage. When your combat odds are 99% or off the charts (like with the Worker), I don't mind damage, but I think it is out of proportion.

HN damage is at times absurd and this is probably a good example of it. I realize the HN units are almost always considered to be in enemy territory, but again, I think you have to look at the Combat Odds and they should figure in on the damage given to the unit and healing turns.

Fleeing units in cities stay put. They heal much fast there than your units in Enemy territory, especially HN units. Yes, you can move them out and they should heal faster, but by the time you do that, the enemy units are fully healed. Just too much fleeing going on IMO.

Here's another example where it is annoying.

My Spiders cannot be detected...until a Hunter comes along. I have to watch for those guys as they light up my Spiders for the whole Illian army. I have the Hunter that appears lined up, 99.9% combat odds - a dead duck. Uh no, he flees inside the city all the units in the city can now see my Spiders and attack killing them all.

Bad luck for me, I guess, but I really think the fleeing is just too much for some civs.
 
My HN Spider has 147 XP. Many promotions and a high strength. The Worker 0.0 strength. How in the world can that unit cause any damage to my Spider? How can a unit with no strength flee?
If you REALLY want to know....

0.0 really means 0.09 or 0.01 or 0.000007, jsut less than 0.1

As I understand it the way the combat system works is...

Spoiler :

from http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/combat_explained.php

The actual combat

We now have the attacker and the defender’s modified strengths. We will call these A and D going forward to help the discussion. If a bit of algebra scares you, just jump ahead to repercussions....

Round odds

The odds that the attacker will win each round is given by A/(A+D), so the odds the defender wins a round is D/(A+D).

I’m now going to introduce a new variable – the ratio between the attacker’s and defender’s modified strength. This value is R. It is A/D and it controls all of combat. The greater R is, the better the attacker’s odds of winning.

Each round, the attacker wins with odds R/(1+R) and the defender with odds 1/(R+1).

Damage per hit

The attacker and defender both start with their current number of hps (NOT 100 as was previously stated). The attacker’s damage is given by floor(20*(3*A+D)/(3*D+A)). That is, you calculate the value and drop any fractional remainder. The defender’s damage is given by floor(20*(3*D+A)/(3*A+D)).

Going back to R notation, the attacker does floor(20*(3*R+1)/(3+R)) damage and the defender does floor(20*(3+R)/(3*R+1)) damage.

The maximum damage one size can do is 60 per hit. The minimum that can be done is 6. Only those values are possible, regardless of the relative strengths of the units.

Once one side goes below 0 hps remaining, it is destroyed (or retreats). The winner has strength remaining equal to starting_strength*hps/100, but it has fewer hps, so it is more likely to die in further combat. Modified strength no longer matters.

Basically the 0.00007 defending unit got REALLY REALLY lucky by winning several combat rounds in a row. As soon as you won your 1st round it got its withdraw chance and was successful.
 
I don't think this worker was seriously that lucky. Those odds are incredibly low, and incidents like these happen with significant regularity.

Personally, I think that whenever a defender flees, the attacker should recover 20% health after the battle.
 
Fleeing should be blocked completely inside cities. There's nowhere to run.

Actually there were counter-attacks with cavalry which fled back to the city after the strike, but it works with cavalry only, I don't see how fast should an axeman run :).

Anyway, it's just a mechanic so don't judge the system. I can say the same about strength: "how can a victorious unit which almost died become 20-40% stronger? Most of the experienced fighters are dead and new recruits become stronger than previous veterans? WTH."

So, if fleeing promotions become nerfed (which are low as they are now) they will be totally useless.
 
If you REALLY want to know....

0.0 really means 0.09 or 0.01 or 0.000007, jsut less than 0.1

As I understand it the way the combat system works is...



Basically the 0.00007 defending unit got REALLY REALLY lucky by winning several combat rounds in a row. As soon as you won your 1st round it got its withdraw chance and was successful.

You can't be serious. How many Workers with 0.0 strength have you seen win ANY battles? However, they do seem to flee quite frequently.

I can't see how a unit that starts out with 0.0 could have any digits to the right of the decimal. I remember the Workers being able to get some defending pts, but I thought that was gone. Even so, I am certain all these Workers fleeing have 0.0.

Likewise, I don't think a unit that is damaged at 0.X after the first battle should be able to flee a second or third time.

Again, I have to mention you don't see this with all the civs, just a few like the Illians. Come to think of it, I can never remember having one of my units (not Illian) that was defending flee. They either win the battle or get killed.
 
Auric has defender, which gives all/most of his units 10% withdrawal chance, or 10% extra if they already have it.
 
Auric has defender, which gives all/most of his units 10% withdrawal chance, or 10% extra if they already have it.

In the immortal words of somebody, if the fleeing rate of the Illians isn't MUCH higher than 10% in actual gameplay, I'll eat an orc. ;)

Do Workers get the Defender trait too?
 
I am very serious =) that is how combat works for the game of Civ.

The 0.0 worker should win 1 in 10000000 battles.

Do the Illian have Defender trait? (isn't that the one that gives the homeland promo that has a 10% withdraw chance?)

They should fell 1 in 10 if they have homeland promo (or more if they have the hardy promotions, which SIGNIFICANTLY increased withdraw in patch K)

BAH faster typers beat me too it

Edit: I am making a few assumptions here
1) workers don't defend them selves unless they have a defensive strength
2) 0.0 you mean a wounded worker not 0/0 unit that doesn't defend itself at all (typical worker)
3) Since you took damage and said the worker was 0.0 not 0/0 then it MUST have had some sort of promotion, since withdraw seemed high my guess is that promo would be hardy which gives a defensive str to the worker AND increases its withdraw rate.
 
Just to test if withdrawal from battle mystically damages the opponent, create a 0 strength, 0 defense unit, give it a 100 for defensive withdrawal (caps at 85, so just any number over that really) and load the game. Create a few of your new unit under Barbarian control right next to a few warriors under your control and attack away. Most of them should withdraw and show 0.0 for strength, see if any of your warriors are harmed. None should be since the opponent had 0/0 for str/def.
 
Actually there were counter-attacks with cavalry which fled back to the city after the strike, but it works with cavalry only, I don't see how fast should an axeman run :).

That's reflected in the fact that cavalry inside the city can strike out at attackers, and retreat back after killing something.

Here, we're talking about defence. The enemy breaks down the gates, or climbs over the walls, and cuts down your cavalry in the cramped streets where they have little room to manouevre
 
The defender still gets a bonus from walls, so the assumption would be that the defenders are fighting with you from on top of the walls, so withdrawal just means ducking behind cover and crawling off the wall. Or in the case of having the defense bombarded to 0, it means they had to fall back to another defensive line.

It could be argued that if a unit is in a city and is the best defender (after all the damage has been applied) then he shouldn't be able to withdraw anymore because there are no troops to offer him cover while he beats a retreat.

Blocking withdraw to only happen once per turn would be tricky. Would be easier to link it to movement left after the previous turn, making it so that if you move as far as you can you are incapable of withdrawal at all until your next turn refreshes the move points for you. Then a horseman in a city (hasn't moved previously) could withdraw multiple times, but a warrior in a city (without mobility) would only be able to withdraw once (or 3 times if we include road movement bonuses, which would be mildly silly, but would mean we also include terrain/feature bonuses, letting elves withdraw twice in forests)
 
Just to test if withdrawal from battle mystically damages the opponent, create a 0 strength, 0 defense unit, give it a 100 for defensive withdrawal (caps at 85, so just any number over that really) and load the game. Create a few of your new unit under Barbarian control right next to a few warriors under your control and attack away. Most of them should withdraw and show 0.0 for strength, see if any of your warriors are harmed. None should be since the opponent had 0/0 for str/def.

That's a complicated test for a computer dope like me to attempt, xienwolf. ;)

All I can say is that I had at least a dozen case in my game of a Worker with no strength or defense pts fleeing and causing damage to my units. In some cases the damage seemed excessive to me.

So, you have two issues:

1. Should units with 0/0 be allowed to flee?

Logically, to me anyway, if a combat unit lands on the same tile as a non-combatant, that unit should automatically be killed/captured. I think this is the same as if you come across an Illian Great Merchant making his way to a city. Does he flee when you land on the same tile. I doubt it. Shouldn't it be the same for plain Workers?

2. Should those units cause damage?

If what Breez is saying is true, that newly created Workers don't really have 0/0, but a bit higher I can see some damage. However, logically again, how much will a Worker cause to a combat unit, HN or not? Probably none. Definitely not 11 turns worth. ;)

It is true that in each case the units attacking were HN - Giant Spiders, Ranger (from CoE) and HN Hill Giant. So, you not only get the damage, but the HN uber damage. Maybe, again, it is something to do with that HN damage bit. I can recall getting a bit of damage from using non-HN units too, though.

The other related issue is the actual % of fleeing that is going on with Illian defenders. It just seems high to me.
 
I could test out a game later on today to see if the Illians spam me with epic fleeing workers. :)
I'll let you know if they damage me a lot too. Sure wish there was a worldbuilder cheat thing to restore health to full...
 
MOST newly created workers will be 0/0 but ones that are not newly created very well may not be
 
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