Is reloading battles an exploit?

[Teeninvestor]

Sometimes if i consider a battle crucial I will reload it until I get a satisfactory result.
Is this considered cheating? Cause sometimes I swear, the RNG cheats!

 

[TheOverseer714]

In competitive play it is against the rules, and most other aspects it is frowned on. It is a bad habit anyway, you don't learn what will work by reloading. However, in your personal games, it is only your conscience that you ave to check with.

 

[Aabraxan]

Also, in most of the SGs and competitive play, "Preserve Random Seed" will be on, which means that a battle played out the same way will get the same results, so reloading in those cases won't do you any good. Now, if you turn the Random Seed off, you've got a different matter on your hands.

 

[civverguy]

The RNG doesn't actually cheat. You'll find out that the defender gets more bonuses than it seems. If you turn on Preserve random seed you don't really have to worry about reloading anything.

 

[vmxa]

The RNG can be brutal at times, that elite cav died attacking a red lined archer, oh well. If you read the reports in AW SG games, you will see some of that, but you will see many runs of 60 to 150 or more straight wins, so just roll with the punch.

 

[Northen Wolf]

The RNG doesn't actually cheat. You'll find out that the defender gets more bonuses than it seems. If you turn on Preserve random seed you don't really have to worry about reloading anything.

Actually, 'random seed' and battle outcome can be changed, not just one battle outcome but entire one turn battles. If you load - you can attack with stronger/healthier or weaker unit (that depends of whatever stronger unit wins or loses, if it loses, reload and attack with weakest). If you attacked with different unit, 'seed' changes for next battle(s).

If you attack different unit on battlefield, again seed or luck changes and you might not lose battle, that you lost before you loaded.

Based on personal exep.

 

[Teeninvestor]

ya i knew about reloading/attacking with different units thing and the defender bonuses.
I had random seed on last game and it was brutal losing tanks to musketmen
Anyways I feel in Singleplayer games as long as you have the patience to reload u deserve a different result. I do know what works due to hanging around the war academy a bit/experience gained when preserve random seed was on, but sometimes you can't help but hate it when a 5 hp tank is destroyed by a 1 hp musketman

 

[timerover51]

Ah, you can now join the We Hate The RNG Club.

 

[Northen Wolf]

Actually I meant if 'preserve random seed' option is on, with loading/saving battle outcome can still be changed.

 

[Spoonwood]

The thing about probabilities comes as that we often over-estimate them in our favor... even people who know this do it! I did it in my Monarch OCC Space game, and when I actually did the calculations I saw that I had done so.

 

[Pyrrhos]

Well, there are automatic round losses built into the pRNG [screams of outrage from certain quarters... ]. If the most powerful unit in the game, Modern Armour, can lose a round to a warrior, the random number added to the combat outcome equation is greater than the attack value of the MA, hence guaranteeing the loss.

Also, but it cannot be proven or disproven since it requires cracking the code, I am mortally convinced that there is a +1/0/-1 added to the pRNG depending on the status of the combatants - an attacker representing a weak nation will have +1 added to its A whereas a strong defendant will suffer a -1 penalty to its D. All in order to prevent the runaway and help the runt.

 

[Chamnix]

• There are no automatic round losses built into the RNG.
• There are no adjustments to the A and D values depending on the relative strengths of the tribes.
• Both of the above assertions can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

No screams of outrage - just a right back at you.

 

[sixtysix]

Is it an exploit? By definition yes. You're doing something the AI can't do. I've yet to see the AI loose a battle and ask for a re-do.

That being said; on more then one occasion I've decided that "hmmmm maybe I wasn't ready to invade." and "accidently" hit the load auto save and made three turns vanish into thin air.

I didn't mean to! Honestly my finger and mouse just slipped a few times.

 

[Pyrrhos]

• There are no automatic round losses built into the RNG.
• There are no adjustments to the A and D values depending on the relative strengths of the tribes.
• Both of the above assertions can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

No screams of outrage - just a right back at you.

Wrong.

When the strongest unit of the game can lose a round of combat to the weakest because the pRNG has at least one number added that insures such a result, then it is by definition an automatic round loss built into the pRNG.
You can say what you will, Chamnix, but you are wrong.

 

[Chamnix]

Pyrrhos I read what you wrote over and over again because I had to believe that I was misunderstanding what you are saying, and I think I've finally got it. I originally read "automatic round loss" as every time a modern armor attacks a warrior, the modern warrior is guaranteed to lose at least 1 hp.

What I finally think I understand you are saying is that if, in a given battle, a modern armor loses 1 hp to a warrior, then in any other battle put in its place, the attacker would "automatically" lose.

However, that is still not true. A modern armor will lose 4% of its battles against a defending warrior (ignoring defensive bonuses). Sometimes the RNG will pick a number that results in a modern armor loss. However, as you are well aware, you can mod the game. If a unit with attack 48 attacks a warrior, suddenly 1/2 of the battles that you just called "automatic losses" are now wins.

I think I get what you're saying, but to my way of thinking, it is not so much an "automatic loss" as it is the fact that there are no 100% battles.

 

[timerover51]

Hmm, Chamnix, with modern armor, even with my modified ones, I am loosing hit points at a rate of more like 33% when attacking a warrior, not 4%. Worse when I attack spearman, then it is about 50%.

 

[Pyrrhos]

Well, with the current combat system, there are but two ways to achieve realistic results - and by that I do not mean that the more "advanced" unit will always win without ever losing any hp - and that is either reloading or modding.

Reloading an exploit? If you play in a tournament, against other human players or in order to get a game into a public HoF, reloading is an exploit. But if you play for your own amusement only, who the eff should care?

Modding. A realistic warrior (elite) would have 1-1-1 with 3hp whereas a realistic Mech Inf (elite) would have something like 1200-500-24 with 500hp. Within the limits of the combat system, this is not a guaranteed win as the very unlikely event that the warrior band might bludgeon one or two soldiers and transmit Ebola to seven more through the blood spatter sprayed as they were blown to pieces by M-16s, M60s, ARs, Kalashinikovs, MGs, mortar and artillery shells or whatever, is accounted for and possible. The Mech Inf might even use chemical weapons, in which case it is a guaranteed no-hp-loss guaranteed win...

 

[Sweetchuck]

I read a write-up on the various civ-type games out there, and the article suggested that the turn-based aspect of CivIII allowed for "cheating" unlike the RPG games.

For what it's worth.

 

[psweetman1590]

Arrrgh, you still on about the prng, pyrrhos?

I can tell you the critical mistake you're making quite easily; you're assuming that the image and name the game assigns to a unit with the attributes of 24-16-3 is the actuality of the unit. That is, you assume a "Modern armor" is, in fact, a modern armor, which it is not. It is merely a thing that has 24-16-3 stats, and an image and name slapped on to it.

This means that, however prosaically you describe the carnage that would ensue if a warrior tried to take on a modern armor, that is not what is happening. What IS happening is a simple matchup of numbers.

The modern armor has a 24/25 chance of winning (96%, with 4% losses, as Chamnix said earlier) without factoring in defensive bonuses. There will, given enough battles, come a time when that 4% chance happens four or five times in a row... and you've just lost your MA. Given that defensive bonuses can jack up a defender's strength to more than twice their intrinsic value, you have greater than 8% chance to lose any given round, and it is exponentially more likely that you will lose four of those in a row, again resulting in the loss of your MA.

It's all numbers, man, chill. It's all just numbers, and numbers are impartial. If you want to find fault with the fact that your MAs lose to warrior, blame the fact that defenders get insane bonuses on defense, or blame the way the stats were constructed (I know I've done both). Blaming the RNG will just look silly.

 

[Spoonwood]

Seriously psweetman... probabilities do NOT work as random. As we get a larger and larger sample size, actual probabilities get closer and closer to the probability we expect.