Massive Humans vs Humans Game/Lets Player Tracker

[Thunderbrd]

Back to Magnus...

I see the trash-talk is starting, even if reasonably well-mannered thus far ;-)

It's kinda mandatory so those who aren't able to see the action directly can get an idea of it. I wish I could trust that if I ran my video program it wouldn't slow me down as much as I know it would. Besides, it would nearly be years before I'd be willing to show how it all panned out. And that would drive me nuts. No... I've gotta focus more on the board and less on the tech running in the background.

 

[MagnusIlluminus]

Totila is up.

 

[Spirictum]

Besides, it would nearly be years before I'd be willing to show how it all panned out.

This means you wouldn't share your movements in this game for IRL years? Or am I understanding this wrongly?

I'll start recording this war as soon as I'm not doing anymore tests. They've been postponed at least until friday. And I'll share them once the conflict is over.


Turn Done, Joseph is up

Now that the 1st regiment of the Horde has arrived in that square, things will become more interesting. My survival on that square was decisive this turn.

 

[JosEPh_II]

War Dog next!

 

[Thunderbrd]

Turn Taken! Koshling is up!

Ok, so I figured out how to go about recording this thing, at least a limited portion that shows the war front. I'll probably release them once the conflict is done. I've really limited the frame of the shot so as to not give away too much civil data.

 

[Koshling]

Back to Magnus...

 

[Spirictum]

BTW, I generated 14 Great Generals, I forgot to tell that last time. TBH this felt less then what I used. I'll recount my commanders and attached Generals (those that don't already come with a unit) to check if this number makes sense.

 

[Koshling]

Interesting. I generally (sic) use my generals differently. Typically I create a pool of great commanders (3ish depending on how many fronts I expect to be ultimately needing to fight on) and use the rest as super-specialists in my primary military production city to boost XP of all units produced, rather than attaching them to generate single super-units per general.

I can see pros and cons either way. Possibly neither pure strategy is optimal.

 

[MagnusIlluminus]

Totila is up.

 

[Spirictum]

I'm on college now, so my turn will have to wait until I get home, which I'm not sure yet when it'll happen today.

Interesting. I generally (sic) use my generals differently. Typically I create a pool of great commanders (3ish depending on how many fronts I expect to be ultimately needing to fight on) and use the rest as super-specialists in my primary military production city to boost XP of all units produced, rather than attaching them to generate single super-units per general.

I can see pros and cons either way. Possibly neither pure strategy is optimal.

I understand your PoV, it suits a game like C2C, where Generals not only can become commanders (which are far more useful then attached Generals) but can also build several stuff. With Heroes (some which even already come with the attached general promo) the value of an attached general decreases even more.

I initially followed a plan like yours, as Commanders are still new territory to me. I only played a few games in RAND and C2C to get used to them. What made me start attaching Generals was the amount of GGens I was generating. We aren't even in the medieval age, yet the game says I generated 14 of them (and maybe even more). There is no need to have 10 Commanders, nor there are enough buildings that I can already make with them. Also, the GGen points keep increasing, and I believe I'll stay in war for a very long time still.

This was the reason to attach some. The biggest advantage of Uber units is their ability to attack with very high odds in their favor in many more situations. Paired with a strong defensive army (as defending is easier then attacking), and with its speed boosted, to me it was the best strategy against those overwhelming Deity AIs, and that's why I'm so used to it.

 

[Spirictum]

@Thunderbrd
I started my turn and I didn't expect you to come. Very well, let's see how this goes.

And BTW, I've heard Joseph talking about vanilla combat mechanics vs C2C new combat mechanics a while ago, and I remembered that because I was doing some math and the odds seemed a bit off from what I'm used to. Could you tell me where I read about it? It came from the following example:

My Mounted Infantry (attacker) vs your War Elephant (defender) showed the following defender modifiers:
- 50% Strength
- 125% vs Mounted
+ 25% vs Mounted
+ 25% Jungle

As far as I know, first we apply the strength modifier to the base . As your War Elephant is 7 it then becomes a 10.5 unit. Then the other modifiers are added to reach the real modifier applied to the defender. In this case it's - 75%. Being a negative number, this means the formula will be: 10.5 * 1.75 = 18.375.

But the game tells different, there it results in 19.25

I went further: I considered a scenario with a possible "bug" in the way Commanders affect Strength. Your Elephant has 20% strength on its own, and gets 30% extra from your Commander. What if first its own strength was applied, and then the strength coming from the commander applied? It would be: 7 * 1.2 => 8.4 * 1.3 => 10.92 * 1.75 => 19.11

It's closer but still not exactly. I'm confused, and I'd love to check the info related to that. Also, if I'm oversighting something obvious please tell me because when doing maths, every now and then I make some really silly mistakes.

 

[Thunderbrd]

@Thunderbrd
I started my turn and I didn't expect you to come. Very well, let's see how this goes.

And BTW, I've heard Joseph talking about vanilla combat mechanics vs C2C new combat mechanics a while ago, and I remembered that because I was doing some math and the odds seemed a bit off from what I'm used to. Could you tell me where I read about it? It came from the following example:

My Mounted Infantry (attacker) vs your War Elephant (defender) showed the following defender modifiers:
- 50% Strength
- 125% vs Mounted
+ 25% vs Mounted
+ 25% Jungle

As far as I know, first we apply the strength modifier to the base . As your War Elephant is 7 it then becomes a 10.5 unit. Then the other modifiers are added to reach the real modifier applied to the defender. In this case it's - 75%. Being a negative number, this means the formula will be: 10.5 * 1.75 = 18.375.

But the game tells different, there it results in 19.25

I went further: I considered a scenario with a possible "bug" in the way Commanders affect Strength. Your Elephant has 20% strength on its own, and gets 30% extra from your Commander. What if first its own strength was applied, and then the strength coming from the commander applied? It would be: 7 * 1.2 => 8.4 * 1.3 => 10.92 * 1.75 => 19.11

It's closer but still not exactly. I'm confused, and I'd love to check the info related to that. Also, if I'm oversighting something obvious please tell me because when doing maths, every now and then I make some really silly mistakes.

As far as odds go, there are possible oversights or bugs in the displays of individual items that total up to the final end result. Some items affecting things MAY not actually even BE displayed. How the actual math sorts out is a lot a matter of what we inherited. I haven't tried to even achieve a full understanding of that. You'd almost have to follow the math as it processes the resulting odds/strength totals to ensure it's all going as it should. I'd welcome that kind of audit assistance and if you're willing to do it, I can let you know of a few things I'd like the combat help to consider that it currently doesn't(which is partly why the effects aren't in play yet.) At the moment, I pretty much just trust that it's accurate because all individual checks into accuracy have not revealed any direct flaws. But that level of math is not my strong point.

However, what I HAVE done to adjust things that you'd want to know is that each round of battle, the odds recalculate. This is the key difference. And it means that stronger odds are yet more likely to be trustworthy as far as placing bets goes and lower odds are much more dangerous than it would be under normal CivIV rules. Each round of battle, the units that are damaged are weakened and that immediately adjusts the odds of that battle moving forward. This also means that first strikes are much much more effective because free rounds to damage your opponent can make a huge difference. The odds may not really accurately take that into full account as much as its intended to. (and that may be also be a factor that is affecting the end displayed total but not factored in among the individual modifier list because it can only be estimated based on a final analysis of the total odds.)

Hopefully that kinda answers your questions.

 

[Spirictum]

Turn Done, Joseph is up

As far as odds go, there are possible oversights or bugs in the displays of individual items that total up to the final end result. Some items affecting things MAY not actually even BE displayed. How the actual math sorts out is a lot a matter of what we inherited. I haven't tried to even achieve a full understanding of that. You'd almost have to follow the math as it processes the resulting odds/strength totals to ensure it's all going as it should. I'd welcome that kind of audit assistance and if you're willing to do it, I can let you know of a few things I'd like the combat help to consider that it currently doesn't(which is partly why the effects aren't in play yet.) At the moment, I pretty much just trust that it's accurate because all individual checks into accuracy have not revealed any direct flaws. But that level of math is not my strong point.

As soon as my tests end I'll look into it with you. You can already start a topic somewhere about it, or tell me where to go, but I'll have to wait these tests to really be able to help.

However, what I HAVE done to adjust things that you'd want to know is that each round of battle, the odds recalculate. This is the key difference. And it means that stronger odds are yet more likely to be trustworthy as far as placing bets goes and lower odds are much more dangerous than it would be under normal CivIV rules. Each round of battle, the units that are damaged are weakened and that immediately adjusts the odds of that battle moving forward. This also means that first strikes are much much more effective because free rounds to damage your opponent can make a huge difference. The odds may not really accurately take that into full account as much as its intended to. (and that may be also be a factor that is affecting the end displayed total but not factored in among the individual modifier list because it can only be estimated based on a final analysis of the total odds.)

This is the part which I had the most trouble trying to understand mathematically on vanilla mechanics. And you changed it to what I first believed was the vanilla system . I remember when I realised the odds kept constant, and then I had to rethink everything from start. I'd guess I prefer this way you implemented, it feels more intuitive and maybe more realistic too. It makes sense that high odds will be even more favorable to attack, low odds the opposite and First Strikes even more powerful.


BTW, talking about First Strikes. It happens that you got a pretty incredible Promotion in almost all unit categories that one of your religions gives for free. Aside from my little frustration on the matter, it made me think about how our First Strikes (FS) are then calculated. As far as I remember: First all range of possible first strikes are calculated and added to the certain FS to see how many FS in total each unit will have in that combat. Then the defender's FS are deducted from the attacker's FS. If positive the attacker has FS, if negative the defender has FS. But what happens when one of them is Immune to FS?
E.g.: Horsemen is Immune to FS and has 3 FS and is attacking an Archer with 4 FS. Which case is true?
1* - Horseman attacks with 3 FS; or
2** - Horseman attacks with 0 FS.


* Ignores any FS from enemy prior to calculations
** Ignores any FS from enemy after calculations

 

[Thunderbrd]

Case 2 The first strikes still tally as normal but immunity means if there are any left against you, they are then brought down to 0. But if YOU have any left against the opponent then you still get them.

 

[MagnusIlluminus]

I understand that this game's turn is too involved to take before the tests are done, but could you do your turns in the Conservative game?

Thunderbrd, you are still up in the Progressive game.

 

[JosEPh_II]

T-brd next

 

[Spirictum]

I understand that this game's turn is too involved to take before the tests are done, but could you do your turns in the Conservative game?

It skipped my attention, will do it right away

 

[Thunderbrd]

I've only had time for this turn so far. Jo and I will take the progressive either later tonight or tomorrow... been super busy this weekend with some tasks outside the usual stuff.

@Koshling is up here.

@Spirictum... I figured it was too much to hope that you'd react any differently. But you can't blame me for trying

 

[Koshling]

Back to Magnus...

 

[MagnusIlluminus]

Over to Totila.