Should we be able to choose which unit to defend?

[aeoniq]

Currently the game automatically chooses the strongest unit in the tile to defend for you. This is not always a good idea. Here is an example:
You have in your city
- an archer, fully fortified (+25%)
- a spearman, fully fortified (+25%)

The enemy attacking your city has
- a spearman with Combat II (+20% strength)
- an axeman

A good defender would match the archer with the axeman and the spearman with the spearman.
However, the enemy can fool the computer by using the following attacking order:
1. spearman attack
2. axeman attack

In the first attack, the game will choose the archer for defense. If the spearman can do considerable damage to the archer (>= 1.9), the game will choose your spearman for defense in the second attack which the enemy's axeman has an edge from +50% vs melee units ability.

In short, if the enemy is wise in choosing the attacking order, you are screwed unless you can also strategically choose your defending order.

 

[Qwack]

Yes, your right, but why would you do this? To give human a bigger advantage in warfare? As far as I can see, AI would simply not be able to make full use of this feature, so it just makes the human a stronger warmonger. This is not something we need when the human can already beat any AI with 70% of the AI's army...

On a unrelated note, one thing that annoys me is when there is a tie in strength of defender, it should always pick defender with least experience. For example, sometimes I have 1 CR3 swordsman and some other swords in a stack. When someone attacks that stack, my CR3 swordsman goes out to defend.

 

[automator]

I did notice just recently one maddeningly poor decision made on my behalf:

I was being attacked by gunships. My city had mostly machine guns and SAM Infantry. What was being used as defense? THE DAMN MACHINE GUNS. When the AI swiched to attacking with his Infantry, what was being used as defense? THE DAMN SAM INFANTRY.

Even using the "algorithm" that's supposed to choose your defender (which works reasonably well in that more than 50% of the time I would agree with it), this is a bad decision. SAM gets a 50% boost against the Gunship, making it an effective 27 power defender. The machine gun gets a 50% boost against the infantry, making it an effective 21 power defender. But defending as the algorithm did gives them respective powers of 18 and 14.

So why would the weaker defender be chosen?

 

[svv]

Not everybody can pick last. If the defender is allowed to pick, then the attacker would want to re-pick to better match up against the defender. SOMEBODY has to be able to have last word, and it makes sense to have that be the defender. It would not make sense to have the human player get to pick last, because (1) that would give the human an advantage over the AI, and (2) that would not resolve what would happen in combats between humans in multiplayer.

 

[aeoniq]

Not everybody can pick last. If the defender is allowed to pick, then the attacker would want to re-pick to better match up against the defender. SOMEBODY has to be able to have last word, and it makes sense to have that be the defender. It would not make sense to have the human player get to pick last, because (1) that would give the human an advantage over the AI, and (2) that would not resolve what would happen in combats between humans in multiplayer.

I think you are confused about the rules. It's always been the attacker picks first, then the defender picks. This thread does not discuss about changing this order at all. This thread is about when it's our turn to pick and we are the defender, the computer automatically picks the strongest unit for us but what we really want is to pick the defending unit ourselves.

In multiplayer, this would give defending players more strategies and makes it harder for the attacker.

Of course, the AI would have a harder time against a human but we should focus on improving the AI, not giving them handicaps. It's no fun when you lose to the AI at diety level just because the AI has a huge handicap.

 

[cabert]

chosing the defender would be cool ... when playing single! In MP, this means either slowing down the game (even more) or often poor choice of defender (no time to select).

So basically, it's for single player that you could have an option (the autoselect needs to be available too!).

This could open multiple strategic opportunities, like
- saving the stack rather than the unit
- giving a specific unit (the one lacking only 1 xp!) the opportunity to gain xp

For MP, it would be too tedious IMHO.

 

[DaveMcW]

The computer tries to maximize the chance of keeping the tile, rather than minimize casualties. I agree with it.

 

[ProbStat]

My initial thinking, were I allowed to hand-pick defending units in a stack, would be to go with whatever unit has the best combat modifications against the attacking unit, even if this is not the unit most likely to win the combat. So automater's SAM would almost certainly be the defender against the Gunship.

I think always choosing the unit that has the best chance of winning (if that is even what the algorithm effectively does ...) overlooks an important and reasonable consideration in mixed stacks: sometimes you want to have a relatively weak unit to address an attack that your stronger units are vulnerable to. Particularly with addressing counterattacks, where maybe you've put together a stack of strong units to attack a city, you'd want them to have "escorts," basically, to make maximize their likelihood of getting to their target intact. Winning a single, one-on-one battle is often not what you really care about.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

My initial thinking, were I allowed to hand-pick defending units in a stack, would be to go with whatever unit has the best combat modifications against the attacking unit, even if this is not the unit most likely to win the combat. So automater's SAM would almost certainly be the defender against the Gunship.

I think always choosing the unit that has the best chance of winning (if that is even what the algorithm effectively does ...) overlooks an important and reasonable consideration in mixed stacks: sometimes you want to have a relatively weak unit to address an attack that your stronger units are vulnerable to. Particularly with addressing counterattacks, where maybe you've put together a stack of strong units to attack a city, you'd want them to have "escorts," basically, to make maximize their likelihood of getting to their target intact. Winning a single, one-on-one battle is often not what you really care about.

This would lead to people marching their modern armies around with a bunch of spearman in front to sacrifice. Unless you came up against a bunch of blitz promoted units, you could sacrifice crap units all day long and have your real army reach the city untouched. I don't think I like the sound of that.

 

[aeoniq]

This would lead to people marching their modern armies around with a bunch of spearman in front to sacrifice. Unless you came up against a bunch of blitz promoted units, you could sacrifice crap units all day long and have your real army reach the city untouched. I don't think I like the sound of that.

That's what siege units are for. If you use spearmen to defend, the opponent will be able to run cannons into your stack all day long, actually, as long as your stack lasts which shouldn't be long.

Matching up defenders to attackers is like matching up teams in a tournament. If you do it carefully, you can get whatever result you want e.g. make your favorite team a winner. There are some caveats but that's the idea.

 

[efendi]

In short, if the enemy is wise in choosing the attacking order, you are screwed unless you can also strategically choose your defending order.

Yes. We should also see the combat odds during defending (not only when atacking)

 

[Qwack]

Once again, let me just point out that this would be impossible to use by the AI as effectively as the human can use it, because the code currently for the AI picks the highest percentage defender(and that will probably stay if you allow this option, since we arent changing anything other than just letting the human pick defender), so you just make the human a stronger warmonger. Not something we need, war is so easy right now in this game it isnt even funny. I have sometimes won wars with 60% of the AI's army, and with 70-75%, its almost guarantedd you will win.

 

[Elrohir]

The computer should, though, use the lowest-promoted unit in a stack, if two units have the same defense value. For example, you just took a city, and moved your stack into it: You have two Axemen at full strength in the city - one with a simple Combat 1, the other with City Raider 3, and Combat 1. The computer, using the absurd logic that since the second one, the City Raider, has more promotions, it's automatically a better defender, and uses it to defend.

Having your City Raider units torn apart by Level 2 enemies is really annoying, when there is no added defense value, and much greater risk. It's really irritating to lose such a valuable unit when a new Axeman, right off the assembly line (So to speak) would have fought just as well in that situation.