RNG Value: Two

[Gogf]

If Civ4 includes a Civ3 style RNG, they should draw two numbers, and then average them. This way, we can keep some of the luck, but it will be much less likely that spearmen can beta tanks.

This idea originally came from Warpstorm.

 

[Arathorn]

I hate this idea with an incredible passion. It simply serves to make strong units a lot stronger and really serves to weaken any balance. Immortals would rule every game, even more than they do now.

Now, I would be all in favor of exposing the PRNG some, so that people can write Python scripts to do this...so y'all can see how unbalancing it would be.

Arathorn

 

[Red Ant]

What the heck is an 'RNG'?

 

[Gogf]

I hate this idea with an incredible passion. It simply serves to make strong units a lot stronger and really serves to weaken any balance. Immortals would rule every game, even more than they do now.

Now, I would be all in favor of exposing the PRNG some, so that people can write Python scripts to do this...so y'all can see how unbalancing it would be.

Arathorn

It would be unbalancing if it was done four times, as was originally planned in the 1.22 patch. My way, it isn't unbalancing, as spearmen still have a good chance against immortals, but it's closer to the 25% chance of survival that you would predict.

 

[Arathorn]

It would be unbalancing if it was done four times, as was originally planned in the 1.22 patch.

Definitely true.

My way, it isn't unbalancing, as spearmen still have a good chance against immortals, but it's closer to the 25% chance of survival that you would predict.

Why would I predict a 25% chance of survival?
Assuming vets, spear fortified on level ground.
Current model, immortal wins 70.4% of the time.
Your model, the immortal wins 84.1% of the time -- just like if he had an attack of 5.6 in the current model. I'd call that unbalanced, and BADLY so.

It just gets worse when you look at average damage done. I can make a chart, if you're curious.

What possible justification could there be for including such a horribly broken and decidedly counterintuitive element to the game?

Arathorn

P.S. RNG = Random Number Generator. Should really be PRNG, since it's a Psuedo Random Number Generator, but it's good enough to think of it just as a random number source.

 

[judgement]

I agree with Arathorn. If they want to decrease the odds of spearmen beating tanks, they should make the relative difference between their stats greater, not monkey with some non-uniform distribution of random numbers.

 

[Gogf]

Well, assuming no defensive bonus at all (I know that's hard to do, but still), the spearman should win roughly 25% of the time. That is my goal. I may be going about it the wrong way, but that is my intent.

 

[Arathorn]

Why is that your goal? You want the spearman to win 25% of the individual rounds? Or of the total battles, with hps included? Which? But more importantly, why?

If you want him to win that high a percent of the rounds, just give the immortal an attack strength of 6. Seems completely crazy to me, but to each his own, I guess. Just don't muck with the PRNG. You can get similar effects, as judgment alluded to, by simply changing the A/D values of various units (which I do think should get serious consideration).

Arathorn

 

[Gogf]

25% of the individual rounds. Why should the spearman win 25% of the individual rounds? Well, discounting the defensive bonus (as I said), in my opinion a 4 attack unit attacking a 4 defense unit should win 50% of the time. Therefore, a 4 attack unit attacking a 2 defense unit should have twice as good odds. 25% is half of 50%, so unless I'm really wrong here, it would make sense for the spearman to win 25% of the inidividual fights, if you forget about defensive bonus.

 

[socralynnek]

But this is not achieved with averaging two numbers.

The current system is: if one unit has twice the strength of the defending unit, it has twice the chance of winning the round. This sounds very logical to me and I think it's fine the way it is.

But I think with Python, you can have your own model, but I think, it would be harder to program and balance...

And whats with a unit of attack 4 attacking an unit with defense 12. Should then the defending unit have a 150% chance???? (So for me your argumentation sounds unlogical)

 

[Gogf]

[1]The current system is: if one unit has twice the strength of the defending unit, it has twice the chance of winning the round. This sounds very logical to me and I think it's fine the way it is.

[2]And whats with a unit of attack 4 attacking an unit with defense 12. Should then the defending unit have a 150% chance???? (So for me your argumentation sounds unlogical)

[1] Yes, the current system is supposed to be like that, but the random numbers that are drawn are too random, and from too large of a scale. I've lost two HP from a modern armour to a longbowman (I was attacking with the modern armor, this was a small isolated civ, so they were way behind in tech). That should not happen.

[2] No, it's how the two percentages are related. Okay, I was wrong earlier. The spearman should have a 33% chance of winning, and the immortal 66%. So, the attack four unit should have a 25% change of winning. No, because that's way too high of a chance of winning...

Okay, what we need is to draw the number twice. It's not game-breaking, and it's helpful. Stop getting me confused !

 

[The Last Conformist]

Excuse my honesty, but this idea sucks. Here's why:

1) It's horridly opaque compared to the current system. Not everyone is an Arathorn, who does higher combinatorics with both hands tied behind his back!

2) Tanks getting beaten by Spearmen wouldn't be an issue if decent players stayed away from Chieftain.

3) It, as Arathorn mentioned, throws the existing unit balance out of the window. I'm 99% sure than the developers will stick to values like 1.1.1, 1.2.1, etc for the early units, which means early combat will be an unbalanced mess, even if later units are fixed.

4) There are easier solutions; combat randomness can be reduced by increasing HP counts. Differences between tech levels can be increased by boosting A and D values of later units.

5) The fact that they considered including the four-roll system in that C3C patch shows they're pretty clueless when it comes to statistics. We shouldn't let clueless folks mess with a system that works!

 

[Gogf]

Well, using my idea has the same effect as doubling units' HP.

Also, ever seen a civ off on a three city island in the ocean ? Kills them on tech, and resources, even on Emporer. They had Military Tradition, just no resources. Does it make sense for the Modern Armor to even be injured at all here in real life?

 

[Commander Bello]

I hate this idea with an incredible passion. It simply serves to make strong units a lot stronger and really serves to weaken any balance. Immortals would rule every game, even more than they do now.
[...]

I still don't see any reason, why a stronger unit shouldn't be allowed to be stronger and more effective.

Of course I understand the frustration of people being outraced and presented by superior enemy units and being beaten by them. At a certain point of the game, there is almost no chance anymore to defend against the superior enemy.
But this is less caused by the units stats, but by the fact that the steps between units are too big. The balancing issue is not that the stronger units is to win, the balancing issue is that there is almost no continous improvement in the units rows. The next problem is, that you are enabled to build huge numbers of units, even if your nation is rather small.
This are the real problems.

A stronger unit should almost every time win against a weaker one. If the difference between both becomes just too big, the stronger unit should win EVERY time (the infamous "spear-tank" situation). There is no way for a spear to win against a tank at all. There is no way for even a rifleman to win against a tank. Period.

If you are that way backwards that you have no other chance than to throw your rifles, pikes/whatever against an enemy, who already has tanks, then you should loose the game.
Next time you should concentrate on being better in your development.

 

[Jon Shafer]

I don't see why Tanks vs. Rifles should mean an immediate death. Tanks and Riflemen aren't all that far apart on the tech tree, and someone bee-lining for Tanks (especially if they're large and get ToE) could get to Tanks before anyone else can get to Infantry.

 

[Commander Bello]

I don't see why Tanks vs. Rifles should mean an immediate death. Tanks and Riflemen aren't all that far apart on the tech tree, and someone bee-lining for Tanks (especially if they're large and get ToE) could get to Tanks before anyone else can get to Infantry.

In principle they ARE far apart.
The rifleman is almost the soldier of the American Civil War, of the Prussian soldier of the Prussian-Austrian War (both in the 60ies of the 19th century), whilst the tank is - well, just the tank (the one of WW2).

Since that discussion is not new, I know about all the arguments for the rifle to kill the tank: "Imagine the tank battalion is sitting there with broken chains, but without any ammunition", "Imagine they have been caught in bad terrain, and without ammunition", "Imagine they [the tank personnel] are all sleeping and they don't have any ammunition" and so on....

The fact is, however, that in Civ all units are not sleeping, that there is no concept of running out of ammo and that all units have the same level of skills (except for there experience).
All this leads directly to the conclusion, that after a certain "distance" between both units (in regards of technology) there is no reason to assume that the superior unit should loose a given combat - except for the desperate hope of the player: "I didn't play well enough to be still competative - but I dislike the idea to be confronted with the consequences of my bad play".

 

[The Last Conformist]

Well, using my idea has the same effect as doubling units' HP.

That's simply not true.

If we increase the HP counts enough that an Immortal has the same raw winning chance against a Spearman as your idea would achieve, the expected lost percentage of HP for the Immortal is still higher than with your idea.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I still don't see any reason, why a stronger unit shouldn't be allowed to be stronger and more effective.

Thing is, there's a dozen ways to achieve this that are less opaque than Gogf's idea.

 

[warpstorm]

I would prefer linear use of RNGS or smooth bell curves. Any other result will not be obvious to the non-mathematically inclined. The other alternative it to go retro like Korsun Pocket did and actually show the dice results (as dice).

 

[socralynnek]

[1] Yes, the current system is supposed to be like that, but the random numbers that are drawn are too random, and from too large of a scale. I've lost two HP from a modern armour to a longbowman (I was attacking with the modern armor, this was a small isolated civ, so they were way behind in tech). That should not happen.

Too random??? That sounds funny... All tests that have been made, shows that the (P)RNG works as expected.
That means, if something is supposed to happen in 1% of the time, it WILL happen in 1% of the time, so if you have made enough fights than surely you will see a spearman beating a tank. Don't blame it on the RNG... (call it friendly fire...)
So, one can discuss if the stats should be changed or units should get bonuses against older units, but the idea of averaging two results is imo bad, because then it is almost impossible to balance the stats, for example the Immortals vs spearman thing: The Immortal would win almost all fights against a fortified spearman in the open, but would almost have no chance against a spearman that is fortified on a mountain.
Small bonuses would have a huge impact on chances, so it is a lot harder to keep the units balanced!