Removing the randomness
- Thread starter Bringa
- Start date
In cIVRPG I changed the HP to 10000. I was going to change it to an individual amount, and I did so successfully, but I got some bugs with damage per rounds so I have pulled that out for now.
But we also have Accuracy/Evasion, physical/magical resistance, critical hits, shield blocks, and other stuff like that.
@Chip: I don't think you should multiply the commerce with 10. It wouldn't make the yields look nice for one thing. And this will be solved in BtS since they got decimal values on all commerces.
But we also have Accuracy/Evasion, physical/magical resistance, critical hits, shield blocks, and other stuff like that.
@Chip: I don't think you should multiply the commerce with 10. It wouldn't make the yields look nice for one thing. And this will be solved in BtS since they got decimal values on all commerces.
That doesn't happen. Combat is decided in milliseconds way before the animations even start. Even with 10 or 100 or 1000 times as many rounds as now.
Just in case you didn't catch it when I first said it: the combat animations have nothing to do with the actual combat rounds. I'm no expert in the graphical side of this (or any side, really) but the way I see it the game looks at the outcome and then plays the appropriate animation, letting the right number of units stand.
wilboman
Hibernorse Frost Giant
This looks like an interesting modmod (well, an interesting concept in general). I'm truly a fan of the weasel saves (i.e. reloading when something "unfair" happens), but it would be interesting to see how this change impacts game play on a larger scale - after all, no "absurd losses" also means no "lucky saves". And I know I love lucky saves.
wilbo: There still is an element of luck, but only in close situations. A 4.9 vs 5.0 combat may still go either way. What irked me was losing 12.0 vs 3.0 combats due to sheer bad luck. I realize that in a single player context the whole save/load approach may be meaningful, but if you consider for a moment multiplayer games you'll see that there's always going to be one person in favor of and another opposed to reloading.
In the end, in SP there's only one human involved who could take good and bad luck seriously so the absurd losses are balanced by lucky saves, but in multiplayer each excessively random combat outcome is an absurd loss for someone and since I know there's another human being at the other end of that combat who will be pissed off by the arbitrariness of the combat system, I cannot enjoy my lucky win either.
Having said all that, I've played a number of games this way against the computer (and I'm running an epic game of BtS with the 1000hp fix) and I really, really cannot imagine going back. When I first tried playing Age of Ice I just COULDN'T play it because of the randomness until I figured out what to do with iCombatLimit so the max hp patch also works in BtS. Now I'm some way into the scenario, enjoying it a lot, and I can confirm that it still is very challenging even with the predictable combats. At least I can attack with Belenus practically every round without fear of losing a 75% combat.
In the end, in SP there's only one human involved who could take good and bad luck seriously so the absurd losses are balanced by lucky saves, but in multiplayer each excessively random combat outcome is an absurd loss for someone and since I know there's another human being at the other end of that combat who will be pissed off by the arbitrariness of the combat system, I cannot enjoy my lucky win either.
Having said all that, I've played a number of games this way against the computer (and I'm running an epic game of BtS with the 1000hp fix) and I really, really cannot imagine going back. When I first tried playing Age of Ice I just COULDN'T play it because of the randomness until I figured out what to do with iCombatLimit so the max hp patch also works in BtS. Now I'm some way into the scenario, enjoying it a lot, and I can confirm that it still is very challenging even with the predictable combats. At least I can attack with Belenus practically every round without fear of losing a 75% combat.
![[NWO]_Valis](https://civfanatics-data.community.forum/avatars/m/110/110973.jpg?1475248361){kind=avatar}
[NWO]_Valis
A bad kitty!
Dont you have to power up the damage done by the spells also?
wilboman
Hibernorse Frost Giant
Hmmm... As I say, Im intrigued by the idea. I could get used to it.
Nikis-Knight
Deity
Most (all?) of the spells are either % damage, or attack by a unit (which should also be aefected by his changes).
I could go either way on incorporating this, I think.
I could go either way on incorporating this, I think.
getCombatOdds contains the odds calculation displayed. The AI uses AI_attackOdds instead.
Note that you could get a similar effect by decreasing COMBAT_DAMAGE (probably to 2) instead of increasing HP to 1000. It's possible that it would work better. It would have the advantage of fewer side effects (no need to change healing rates, spell damage, etc.)
From GlobalDefines.xml:
Code:
<Define>
<DefineName>COMBAT_DAMAGE</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>20</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>
<Define>
<DefineName>AIR_COMBAT_DAMAGE</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>30</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>
<Define>
<DefineName>COLLATERAL_COMBAT_DAMAGE</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>10</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>
<Define>
<DefineName>MAX_HIT_POINTS</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>100</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>
<Define>
<DefineName>COMBAT_DIE_SIDES</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>1000</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>Only if they arent integers (which they are in vanilla if Im not totally wrong).
Because then you would get 1 damage instead of every damage between 10-19.
So 19 vs 20 damage (before changes) would be 1 vs 2 and that would affect chances even more)
xanaqui, that was my first line of thought as well, but then I looked into the code and like chip says, we seem to be dealing with ints here so you're losing all kinds of resolution. It would probably break more than fix. Unless of course I'm blind (entirely possible) and the values aren't used as ints in the code at all?
vorshlumpf
Emperor
???
This thread is discussing changes you can make to the combat system, with one example provided in a file. What consensus are you looking for? Try some things out yourself if you want a quick change - the way to do so has been explained in this thread.
By the way, the current version of FfH works just fine for me.
Sureshot
Goddess
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2006
- Messages
- 3,771
id be interested in seeing this just for heroes or more hitpoints available for promotions as well. but either way itd be nice for this system to be incorporated to some degree.
if this system was used itd be nice if the combat odds didnt show the odds of winning, or rather, if the odds are fairly certain one way or the other, that they would show percentage damage likely to be taken (the expected value of the damage to be taken).
if this system was used itd be nice if the combat odds didnt show the odds of winning, or rather, if the odds are fairly certain one way or the other, that they would show percentage damage likely to be taken (the expected value of the damage to be taken).
I'm unclear as to your argument; proper calculation with ints looses less resolution than an approximation via floats (although in this case, the level of resolution we care about is small enough that you wouldn't note the float problem). In any case, I tried a game with COMBAT_DAMAGE set to 2, and it seemed to have much the result you were looking for, but Combat Odds appeared to be displaying correctly - for example, when an unpromoted Warrior attacked an unpromoted undamaged bear, the odds were 0%. The first two warriors reduced the strength of the bear by 1 each, the third one by 1.8, and the fourth one won, after taking some damage. I did not play a lot of combats, but the damage numbers seemed remarkably consistant.
If you want to try it and don't want to change the XML (it's 0.22h, and it's just a replacement for GlobalDefinesAlt.xml):
it's here
It would not take a lot of code to emulate either of your suggestions; there are relatively few combat functions.
The last suggestion would take a bit more effort. Frankly, with 100 HP, and 20 points of damage per hit (in non-bombardment cases), the average is pretty tenuous. Obviously, it would be more useful the higher the ratio between HP and damage/hit.
Combat Odds is insanely skewed by the amount of damage you do each round. For example, if you do 19 damage you need 6 successful hit to kill your target instead of 5, a MASSIVE increase in %. If you lower the damage range to 2 instead of 20 you would increase this skewyness by a ALOT. Someone doing 1 damage would need 50 more rounds than someone doing 2 damage, 66 more rounds than someone doing 3 damage.
There is a reason why HP can currently change the odds alot.
Currently, if the ratio between two units is 1.01 vs 0.99 in strengths and they are somehow of full HP, the 0.99 unit has 38% to win, cause he does 19 damage per round and the 1.01 unit does 21.
The damage each round isn't always 20, its a variation from 6-60, and replacing 20 with 2 would make that range from 1-6, now that is a bit extreme don't you think?
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