What if combat wasn't RNG dependent?

[Jouzou]

How would you handle two units with equal strength and no bonuses to either one? I have a hard time imagining a non-random solution to those kind of encounters.

 

[civac]

To add to Karadoc's example 5 axes vs 5 archers example. If the axes are sligthly stronger the defenders best move would be to pull her archers back letting the city be captured and come back later with more/better units.

To do this correctly the defender would have to calculate beforehand the battle strengths of both sides including promotions and level of fortification. That would make Tmit's battle system unsuitable for casual players I would say.

 

[lindsay40k]

Coming from a wargaming background, for me the biggest fault in Civ (I should make it clear I can't run Civ5) as a whole is the 'fight to the death' aspect. War Weariness reflects one element of morale, but not really at a battlefield level of charges breaking and retreating.

You could have heavy fire cause a unit's morale to break, whereupon it raises a white flag and and can neither attack nor be attacked. You could have 'Courage' promotions that make it less likely for a melee unit to break after a ranged unit shot down their front ranks, and 'Cruelty' promotions that increase damage to foes who break in a fight and enable you to give the order to fire on a white flag. Siege weapons could also break morale.

Getting rid of the 'two units enter, one unit leaves unless someone's on a horse' paradigm would do a lot to sort out some of the issues, I suspect.

Thinking about it, the way this'd have to be run is for ranged units to have their strength reduced, but gain a bunch of first strikes; all lost rounds to have a chance of breaking the loser; and for first strikes to have an elevated chance of breaking the opponent. Also, Flanking and the more agile mounted units should just offset a number of first strikes, not ignore them ALL.

On top of all this, where broken units disengage and the other side have Cruelty and can fire on retreating troops, the standard modifiers to withdrawal chances should be taken into account.

You could even have an 'enmity' mechanic, where each time you declare war on someone, the more of a Cruelty bonus they get against you as you're clearly a barbarian who deserves no mercy.

 

[Sonereal]

I think removing the RNG from combat wouldn't be bad for balance in terms of fairness / strategy, but I don't think it would be good for gameplay. (I don't want to spend ages trying to explain why I think it might be bad for gameplay, because it falls under the umbrella of personal preference. The gist is that removing the RNG would remove a lot of the risk vs. reward elements of the game.)

I think it would too unless healing comes at a cost. However, there is still a RvR element in that if healing cost gold/hammers and the fact that units can still be lost if attacked by superior numbers, and assuming that the strategic element still has some randomness (new units built, terrain, promotions), then those count as "risk" with "reward" being cities.

Also, there would certainly be some major balance / strategy differences created by such a change, particularly in the early game. For example, imagine a city with 5 archers defending it; and think about how many attackers you'd need in order to capture that city. If the attackers are just a little bit stronger than the defenders, then you only need 5 attackers and then you are guaranteed to take the city; whereas if the defenders are a little bit stronger, then essentially you'll need 10 attackers - because the first 5 will all be defeated without killing anything. (Of course, if you're confident that there will be no counter-attack or reinforcements, you could still attack with fewer than 10 and it may still be worth while, but the point is that the small strength difference has resulted in a huge difference in the number of attackers you'll need.)

That is if you're attacking with a homogenous force and/or defending with one. A force that is crippling overspecialized would either be an asset (archer defenders) or easy to break (the same archer defenders). Yes, it means invasions are more expensive, but that isn't a bad thing. After all, under the current system, if your units are only slightly stronger than the defenders, than the odds are 50/50 so you would have to bring more units to bear than five in the first place.

Not to mention that when armies assault cities, the first guys in are usually the last guys out on the back of a stretcher dead anyway.

It seems a bit chaotic to me, in the sense that a small difference can lead to a really massive huge difference. Having 10% stronger units from being "aggressive" could potentially be huge - because rather than leading to, say, 20% less loses, it may lead to 100% less loses - because it may put you in a situation where the enemy has no units which can beat you without special bonuses.

A fortified unit has a 25% defensive bonus. Place that on a city and in a hill, and it changes rapidly. Hence, the only danger is from aggressive leaders with a high amount of military infrastructure and experience, and this problem can be solved with siege units or through superior numbers. (A Combat I Warrior versus Combat I Aggro Warrior would lose, but not two Combat I Warriors I bet).

Also, there are some units and promotions which are based around 'withdrawal chance', which is intrinsically probabilistic. That would need to be completely redesigned.

*shamelessly plugs withdrawal rate idea on the last page*

Basically, the idea would be that the withdrawal chance is how much stronger the enemy has to be to completely kill the unit, instead of forcing it to flee. So, to kill a full-health Strength 6 unit with a 10% withdraw rate would require an opposing strength of at least 6.6. Between 6 and 6.6, the unit can withdraw with 10% of its health left. The Drill/Flanking promotions would be best for the system, since I keep figuring drill to be useless in the deterministic system. The caveat would be that if promotions allows for a withdrawal chance of over 50%, the health returned to a unit never passes that.

That way, if a unit somehow accrued a withdrawal rate of 100% (meaning that Str6 unit needs at least a 12 strength unit to kill it), it can't keep withdrawing from combat with a 100% health and therefore be unkillable during its time period.

Of course, I'm not entirely sure how hard this would to implement by TMIT's friend. I'm pretty illiterate in actually working with code, but I don't figure it would be that much more in calculation than a morale system.

How would you handle two units with equal strength and no bonuses to either one? I have a hard time imagining a non-random solution to those kind of encounters.

They either destroy each other (which is reasonable) or, if that withdraw system from last page is a good idea, they both withdraw from combat with little strength left.

To add to Karadoc's example 5 axes vs 5 archers example. If the axes are sligthly stronger the defenders best move would be to pull her archers back letting the city be captured and come back later with more/better units.

That's a terrible idea. The best bet of the defenders would be to either A.) Send more units to reinforce the city or B.) Let the archers die, damaging the attacking axes.

If withdrawing without combat from a city is actually a sound idea at that point, the war is probably not going your way in the first place. Not to mention that it seems that the problem could be solved just by sending one extra unit to the city to increase the amount of time the defender has to reinforce the city. It is a non-issue.

To do this correctly the defender would have to calculate beforehand the battle strengths of both sides including promotions and level of fortification. That would make Tmit's battle system unsuitable for casual players I would say.

Not really. It is possible to take a rough guess at how strong you are compared to your enemy. Casual players don't invade other civilizations if they think they're only at parity (even when factoring in their own skill).

Coming from a wargaming background, for me the biggest fault in Civ (I should make it clear I can't run Civ5) as a whole is the 'fight to the death' aspect. War Weariness reflects one element of morale, but not really at a battlefield level of charges breaking and retreating.

The game also doesn't reflect supply or weather.

You could have heavy fire cause a unit's morale to break, whereupon it raises a white flag and and can neither attack nor be attacked. You could have 'Courage' promotions that make it less likely for a melee unit to break after a ranged unit shot down their front ranks, and 'Cruelty' promotions that increase damage to foes who break in a fight and enable you to give the order to fire on a white flag. Siege weapons could also break morale.

These sound like interesting ideas, but it seem that simply giving units health would be a better solution. In CivIV, just giving units withdrawal rates would probably do better.

Getting rid of the 'two units enter, one unit leaves unless someone's on a horse' paradigm would do a lot to sort out some of the issues, I suspect.

There is nothing wrong with the system in the sense that units are relatively cheap. The two units enter, one leaves system is only flawed because battles are random. There is already withdrawal, and the best quick fix to the "two enter, one leaves" would simply be to give all units a withdrawal rate (higher for faster units of course) and allow defensive withdrawal.

Thinking about it, the way this'd have to be run is for ranged units to have their strength reduced, but gain a bunch of first strikes; all lost rounds to have a chance of breaking the loser; and for first strikes to have an elevated chance of breaking the opponent. Also, Flanking and the more agile mounted units should just offset a number of first strikes, not ignore them ALL.

How does first strike work in a non-RNG system? It seems that if battles are deterministic, then getting an extra first strike if you're still Strength 3 means nothing.

A morale system sounds interesting, but it sounds slightly harder to implement and balance than the number-driven, non-RNG system TMIT and company are coming up with. Though, I wouldn't mind playing a mod that tests morale.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

We test ran this mod yesterday among our group and it went very well. I'm thinking that units that are much stronger need to win with more health than currently (it's currently just a strength ratio -----> damage inflicted thing, so a 1 str unit attacking a 10 str unit would hit for 10 hp and bring the target down to 9 str then die.) It's not nearly as static as purported by some on this thread; promotions, variance in fortification bonuses, sudden reinforcements, and being threatened by aggressive AIs should they try to attack are all very real considerations.

One argument in favor of leaving the "winning unit takes gobs of damage most of the time" is that it's very difficult to progress in a war even with a tech lead unless you have a lot of units. Take the "5 axe vs 5 archer" example from above. If you attacked with only 5 axes there, you'd wind up with 5 0.4 str axes or something. You'd better defend them with something, because if you don't they're easy pickings, not to mention that if your 5th axe took the city and an enemy archer reclaims it, you might struggle to make any headway at all. I'm still trying to come up with a good Strength:damage ratio; we've decided to leave it for now.

How would you handle two units with equal strength and no bonuses to either one? I have a hard time imagining a non-random solution to those kind of encounters.

They both die. That's pretty non-random, and it's not hard to imagine .

To do this correctly the defender would have to calculate beforehand the battle strengths of both sides including promotions and level of fortification. That would make Tmit's battle system unsuitable for casual players I would say.

Let me get this straight. A game where people need to do some basic arithmetic (which isn't even hard to do in one's head) is unsuitable for the casual player. However, a game that hides some of its rules from the player? TOTALLY FINE FOR CASUALS.

The answer to quoted argument is no. Next.

Getting rid of the 'two units enter, one unit leaves unless someone's on a horse' paradigm would do a lot to sort out some of the issues, I suspect.

I seriously considered it, as did my friend, but the dangers of pushing that into the current game which is designed around stack combat are enormous. You'd have even more problems with tech vs war rate, even larger defender advantages than ever, and super medics going god-mode such that we'd have had to rework far more than just combat mechanics and a few stupid xml decisions.

The gist is that removing the RNG would remove a lot of the risk vs. reward elements of the game.)

It removes SOME. And healing IS a serious issue when winning close battles redlines you as badly as withdraws. Even with a medic 1 those units are out of commission for >5 turns unless you can duck into a city + use a medic 1 which with the movement will still take 3-5 turns to heal.

Also note that this flip in win/loss means that a surprise defensive catapult or (in human hands) suicide fodder units can COMPLETELY screw you. You still have risk/reward, but you actually have to think a little more than "let's just bring tons of units and hope luck favors"

After all, under the current system, if your units are only slightly stronger than the defenders, than the odds are 50/50 so you would have to bring more units to bear than five in the first place.

You would need to bring more than 10 under the RNG-based rules, and considerably more unless you like to rely on luck **** and are fine with quitting under failure. Under the non-RNG, 10 will take the city but that stack will be completely crippled and vulnerable to being wiped out for half a dozen turns. It's not actually that different in #units needed in practice, though it does require more planning. Planning in a strategy game isn't a bad thing though.

These sound like interesting ideas, but it seem that simply giving units health would be a better solution.

Every unit in the game has 100 hit points, and that's from Firaxis, not the mod. We're making use of it though.

We left withdrawal and withdrawal promotions as-is for now. We're considering what to do with it in the future, but it's not a game-breaking chance element.

How does first strike work in a non-RNG system? It seems that if battles are deterministic, then getting an extra first strike if you're still Strength 3 means nothing.

For first strikes, we made it reduce the damage a winning unit takes (another risk/reward thing, since it doesn't help you if you lose). Currently a unit that wins and has a first strike takes (damage/FS+1). Obviously, having a 1 first strike advantage is a big deal as it reduces the damage you take by 1/2. You get diminishing returns after that, but still pretty significant. This system places first strikes more along the lines of "armor", but obsolete often called them that anyway . Functionally, this is a way to make first strikes still both effective and a tradeoff from combat promotions in deterministic battles.

Morale sounds fun, but that would indeed be quite a leap in terms of the work put in to get the game right. We're still doing things like removing missionary fail chances, making reactor meltdowns and desert fairy magic stop happening, and making sure the BASE combat system is acceptable.

On a side note, we still had a few people get rolled by the AI yesterday, so it's not like deterministic combat is greatly easier .

 

[lindsay40k]

How does first strike work in a non-RNG system? It seems that if battles are deterministic, then getting an extra first strike if you're still Strength 3 means nothing.

Good question.

Non-RNG system proponents, we've got units that have n first strikes, and units that have y chance of withdrawing. Where does a non-RNG system leave those abilities? I can see withdrawal chances determining the amount of HP a unit flees with - but if your retreat was guaranteed, why would you not attack?

The more I think about introducing unit-level morale into the existing RNG, the more stuff like surrendering units, surrounded units going stubborn and fighting to the death (check out Sun Tzu), POWs, and captured Great General units comes to mind. All this could affect interciv relations as well; 'You have a reputation for cruelty'; 'You have a reputation for mercy'; 'You lack the killer instinct'; 'You released our POWs'; etc.

 

[lindsay40k]

Oop, got inb4'd on the first strikes. Ta! Look forward to reading how withdrawal works.

(Equally matched foes) both die. That's pretty non-random, and it's not hard to imagine

Erm, actually it's very hard for me to imagine total MAD for every instance of equally matched foes. It's even harder for me to imagine that in a situation of one side having slightly better troops of equal number, the other side's casualties will be total and not a single unit on the other will have no survivors - which, of course, will mean each unit has at least +1xp. Assuming a well organised line of retreat to keep the veterans alive, isn't that just asking for snowballing?

Is there a preview of who'll win and how much HP they'll have? Because if every member of your entire stack has 51% against the best defender and your stack outnumbers the defenders, you can guarantee the death of the entire enemy stack and happily stack attack.

Now, under RNG, you'd have to be desperate or a habitual quicksaver to risk a massive 51% stack attack. Under determinism, the only thing deterring you is the level of uncertainty that your own stack will survive the next few turns of enraged harrying.

Hang on.

The fact that a lone survivor of a Century (1% unit health remaining) can effectively train every replacement (regained unit health) immediately to their exact same veteran level is one issue with the combat system as is; making the player able to completely do away with the risk of losing a powerful unit is a big concern for me.

Stand on a hill next to a city with a stack of heavily drilled Longbows and good medical support. Couple of Crossbows and Pikemen, give a Maceman Charge as well. Have a single Maceman Warlord with CRIII, Tactics and Leadership smack a defender; who cares if your chance is 51%, you definitely won't die, you'll definitely farm at least 2xp, and your healing is well assured. Your man's getting stronger and stronger, you're spawning more and more GG's, and he's never going to die on his incredibly risky charges. You'd never risk a Warlord on 51% under RNG. Under determinism, as long as your stack can't be budged, he can survive Kamikaze and laugh about it, force-feeding the enemy War Weariness as he goes.

 

[civac]

That's a terrible idea. The best bet of the defenders would be to either A.) Send more units to reinforce the city or B.) Let the archers die, damaging the attacking axes.

So rather losing the city you would prefer to lose the city and 5 archers? You probably assume their are reinforcements close by which could retaliate on the damaged axes. But that's may not be the case at all (quite common occurance). If there aren't any additional troops (close by!) you sacrifice 5 archers and for a few turns of healing. Healing is free and the axes will gain a promotion in the battle likely as not.

Let me restate the example: Suppose you have founded a new city defended by 2 axes and a spear. Your opponent invades with 3 C1 Shock axes. The correct move would be to sacrifice the city after you have calculated the culture defense fails to make up for the better promotions. Do you disagree?

If withdrawing without combat from a city is actually a sound idea at that point, the war is probably not going your way in the first place. Not to mention that it seems that the problem could be solved just by sending one extra unit to the city to increase the amount of time the defender has to reinforce the city. It is a non-issue.

That the war is going badly is completely beside the point. Moreover, losing a fringe city early on is hardly a big loss. In many cases you can whip some troops and take it back anyway. Sending one extra unit means losing the city and 6 units while killing 1.

Not really. It is possible to take a rough guess at how strong you are compared to your enemy. Casual players don't invade other civilizations if they think they're only at parity (even when factoring in their own skill).

That's the point. A rough guess is insufficient. Due to the huge jump at strength parity you will need to know exactly whether you are stronger or weaker at least.

@tmit:
Yes a casual player can calculate the modified strength of both sides. however, they would much rather not be bothered with such a tiresome task. That's what it means to be casual. Many players will not even know about the the weird ways Civ4 battle modifiers are tallied up. Regarding the hidden rules: Again that's completely beside the point. However, I suspect they wouldn't worry about it unless it's something important (battle, city management).

 

[Sonereal]

We test ran this mod yesterday among our group and it went very well. I'm thinking that units that are much stronger need to win with more health than currently (it's currently just a strength ratio -----> damage inflicted thing, so a 1 str unit attacking a 10 str unit would hit for 10 hp and bring the target down to 9 str then die.) It's not nearly as static as purported by some on this thread; promotions, variance in fortification bonuses, sudden reinforcements, and being threatened by aggressive AIs should they try to attack are all very real considerations.

You sure about that? It seems that the system is fine that way because it would take 10 1 str units to kill a 10 str unit. That system sounds legit.

They both die. That's pretty non-random, and it's not hard to imagine .

Every unit in the game has 100 hit points, and that's from Firaxis, not the mod. We're making use of it though.

I meant CivV-styled health, but you already stated why that wouldn't be good (wars taking even longer, etc).

For first strikes, we made it reduce the damage a winning unit takes (another risk/reward thing, since it doesn't help you if you lose). Currently a unit that wins and has a first strike takes (damage/FS+1). Obviously, having a 1 first strike advantage is a big deal as it reduces the damage you take by 1/2. You get diminishing returns after that, but still pretty significant. This system places first strikes more along the lines of "armor", but obsolete often called them that anyway . Functionally, this is a way to make first strikes still both effective and a tradeoff from combat promotions in deterministic battles.

Would it be possible for first strikes to cancel each other out? Using the Axeman v Archer example above, an Axeman with Drill 1 can kill an archer (who has a first strike) without suffering the wrath of the archer's bonus. That way, a Drill 1 Axeman still wins, but suffers normal damage. Since the Risk/Reward is that drill doesn't make the unit any more powerful and, on the defense, having three first strikes versus an attacker with 1 means that the attacker only has normal damage dealt to him still anyway.

The reward to having extra first strikes for a unit means that attackers can suffer up to normal damage. The risk is that the unit isn't stronger, still can be lost, and doesn't deal more than normal damage if its defending and has multiple free strikes. This makes Drill a heavy offensive-oriented promotion with moderate defensive use.

Morale sounds fun, but that would indeed be quite a leap in terms of the work put in to get the game right. We're still doing things like removing missionary fail chances, making reactor meltdowns and desert fairy magic stop happening, and making sure the BASE combat system is acceptable.

What's wrong with missionary failure chances?

On a side note, we still had a few people get rolled by the AI yesterday, so it's not like deterministic combat is greatly easier .

The AI might actually play better using deterministic combat actually if it understands the result of its giant stack attacking another giant stack.

Erm, actually it's very hard for me to imagine total MAD for every instance of equally matched foes. It's even harder for me to imagine that in a situation of one side having slightly better troops of equal number, the other side's casualties will be total and not a single unit on the other will have no survivors - which, of course, will mean each unit has at least +1xp. Assuming a well organised line of retreat to keep the veterans alive, isn't that just asking for snowballing?

An equally matched battle would destroy both units, reasonably. Equally matched battles are rare anyway. It makes perfect sense because units aren't single people, but masses of people. Casualties on the other side reflect things like morale breaking/rout/etc. The other unit still takes damage so it isn't like it is all or nothing with "all" meaning no health loss.

Yes, a well-organized line of retreat to keep veterans alive should result in reward. I don't understand what is bad about that since the AI can snowball as well.

A good idea though would be to remove the promotion-relating healing or make it difficulty-dependent (higher for AI at higher difficulties, lower at lower).

Is there a preview of who'll win and how much HP they'll have? Because if every member of your entire stack has 51% against the best defender and your stack outnumbers the defenders, you can guarantee the death of the entire enemy stack and happily stack attack.

At 51% odds, you're looking at a lot of very damaged units left over.

Now, under RNG, you'd have to be desperate or a habitual quicksaver to risk a massive 51% stack attack. Under determinism, the only thing deterring you is the level of uncertainty that your own stack will survive the next few turns of enraged harrying.

The deterministic system is therefore better in a way because it makes a 51% stack attack more viable while offering a strategic decision.

The fact that a lone survivor of a Century (1% unit health remaining) can effectively train every replacement (regained unit health) immediately to their exact same veteran level is one issue with the combat system as is; making the player able to completely do away with the risk of losing a powerful unit is a big concern for me.

See difficulty promotion-heal thing above.

Stand on a hill next to a city with a stack of heavily drilled Longbows and good medical support. Couple of Crossbows and Pikemen, give a Maceman Charge as well. Have a single Maceman Warlord with CRIII, Tactics and Leadership smack a defender; who cares if your chance is 51%, you definitely won't die, you'll definitely farm at least 2xp, and your healing is well assured. Your man's getting stronger and stronger, you're spawning more and more GG's, and he's never going to die on his incredibly risky charges. You'd never risk a Warlord on 51% under RNG. Under determinism, as long as your stack can't be budged, he can survive Kamikaze and laugh about it, force-feeding the enemy War Weariness as he goes.

It would take an insane number of turns to do that though. It means you are laying siege, continuously, against one city. That force is a rather small force and unless you're fighting a city-state, those units are tied down doing that and not doing something useful. The only way this system can work is if the defender doesn't have the many units to begin with, otherwise, you're dedicating a gigantic stack to...this. Meanwhile, if the enemy begins to outnumber you, then there is the very real chance that the enemy stack attacks and does heavy damage to your stack just through sheer numbers.

Think of it as "field training". Sure, a single super awesome GG unit is awesome, but less so in a war with dozens of units on both sides. Even less so in later wars with hundreds of units going at it. Even less so since those wars will have siege units.

In the end, this sounds more like an exploit that a player can choose to use, but doesn't have to if they don't want to.

So rather losing the city you would prefer to lose the city and 5 archers? You probably assume their are reinforcements close by which could retaliate on the damaged axes. But that's may not be the case at all (quite common occurance). If there aren't any additional troops (close by!) you sacrifice 5 archers and for a few turns of healing. Healing is free and the axes will gain a promotion in the battle likely as not.

I would rather lose a city and five archers than lose just a city.

If you move the units out, then you just gave up a city for free and did no damage. You didn't even delay the invasion since they can keep moving on if they raze the city.

By defending the city, you delay the invasion. Even more so if the city is razed.

Either way, those five units will be out of commission for a few crucial turns.

Of course, the whole problem can be solved by whipping up one extra unit, buying one extra turn. If the city is that far away from reinforcements, that means I made very poor strategic choices up to this point.

These are all defensive strategic decisions that should be taken into account before they settlements are created and the hypothetical war started.

That the war is going badly is completely beside the point. Moreover, losing a fringe city early on is hardly a big loss. In many cases you can whip some troops and take it back anyway. Sending one extra unit means losing the city and 6 units while killing 1.

Losing a fringe city without a fight is a loss. If I settled the city, then I wasted hundreds or thousands of hammers on the settler it took to build it and the buildings built. If I can whip some troops to take it back, why didn't I whip troops to defend it in the first place? Better yet, why didn't I have units whipped already? Sending one extra unit delays the taking of the city by one turn. Whipping a unit delays it by one turn. In a war where I'm apparently getting my ass kicked by a guy who only sent five axes, one extra unit and a turn delay can make all the difference.

That's the point. A rough guess is insufficient. Due to the huge jump at strength parity you will need to know exactly whether you are stronger or weaker at least.

A rough guess is very sufficient. The odds still show I think in the mod, so you can make a rough guess that at 99% odds, the unit will be relatively fine. At 51% odds, it will be limping. At relative tech and starting unit parity, you can be sure that the side with the higher production should win in most cases, but over a long grueling war.

Yes a casual player can calculate the modified strength of both sides. however, they would much rather not be bothered with such a tiresome task. That's what it means to be casual. Many players will not even know about the the weird ways Civ4 battle modifiers are tallied up. Regarding the hidden rules: Again that's completely beside the point. However, I suspect they wouldn't worry about it unless it's something important (battle, city management).

It isn't important to calculate specifics since "specifics" change rapidly while rough estimates can be rather solid. If the odds at 50.1% or higher, your unit wins (albeit at greatly reduced health). The odds already take strengths into account (at least, in the most basic mods I do so I'm assuming it does in vanilla).

 

[civac]

Please think your points through before answering. Of course the mod could show who wins taking which amount of damage. But if you are being attacked this will not help you in the least. If you take your defending archer and click on the approaching axe you will get the information how bad your odds are should you attack it in the field. The value of this information is of course zilch when defending hence my example.

Buying 5 turns or so (and giving the enemy promotions) by sacrifing 5 archers is usually not worth it in the early game. You have ample time to produce more troops while the attacker crawls through your territory at the pace of 1 plot per turn. But I admit there may be cases when it is feasable. However, in my second example (axes vs shock axes) you will almost alway be better off by running away and coming back with 6 axes later (for the sake of argument, of course chariots would be even better).

Lastly, regarding the precison of the odds. Often, one side (the defender) will have clearly superior combat strength. But there are enough cases when it's close and then you need to know exactly if your units are stronger or weaker. Otherwise there is no way you can make informed strategic decisions.

 

[Sonereal]

Please think your points through before answering. Of course the mod could show who wins taking which amount of damage. But if you are being attacked this will not help you in the least. If you take your defending archer and click on the approaching axe you will get the information how bad your odds are should you attack it in the field. The value of this information is of course zilch when defending hence my example.

Then it comes down to basic math. This is an unlikely situation in the first place since a sane player wouldn't send just five axes to take a city of five units and the AI hardly ever does that.

Buying 5 turns or so (and giving the enemy promotions) by sacrifing 5 archers is usually not worth it in the early game.

But losing a city that took how many hammers to build, plus the buildings in it, is worth the lost? Not to mention the improvement damage the axemen can do if they kept pushing? Again, the best solution to this problem is not to get in the problem in the first place.

You have ample time to produce more troops while the attacker crawls through your territory at the pace of 1 plot per turn. But I admit there may be cases when it is feasable. However, in my second example (axes vs shock axes) you will almost alway be better off by running away and coming back with 6 axes later (for the sake of argument, of course chariots would be even better).

Not if the enemy stack is reinforced in the newly captured city.

Lastly, regarding the precison of the odds. Often, one side (the defender) will have clearly superior combat strength. But there are enough cases when it's close and then you need to know exactly if your units are stronger or weaker. Otherwise there is no way you can make informed strategic decisions.

If it is |that| close, then you can do a rough estimate to say "either way, I'm going to take heavy damage or he's going to take heavy damage and I need to plan for either". Instead of enabling stack attack, it is possible to do a few battles and gauge things on the fly.

Most of the problems presented so far can be solved through planning.

 

[Kesshi]

We test ran this mod yesterday among our group and it went very well. I'm thinking that units that are much stronger need to win with more health than currently (it's currently just a strength ratio -----> damage inflicted thing, so a 1 str unit attacking a 10 str unit would hit for 10 hp and bring the target down to 9 str then die.) It's not nearly as static as purported by some on this thread; promotions, variance in fortification bonuses, sudden reinforcements, and being threatened by aggressive AIs should they try to attack are all very real considerations.

One argument in favor of leaving the "winning unit takes gobs of damage most of the time" is that it's very difficult to progress in a war even with a tech lead unless you have a lot of units. Take the "5 axe vs 5 archer" example from above. If you attacked with only 5 axes there, you'd wind up with 5 0.4 str axes or something. You'd better defend them with something, because if you don't they're easy pickings, not to mention that if your 5th axe took the city and an enemy archer reclaims it, you might struggle to make any headway at all. I'm still trying to come up with a good Strength:damage ratio; we've decided to leave it for now.

This, along with all ideas you have presented in this thread, sound incredibly fun. I would love to have access to this mod when you guys are ready to release it.

 

[plasmacannon]

I saw mentioning of First Strike and yes, that part of the system needs an overhaul too.

For first strikes, we made it reduce the damage a winning unit takes (another risk/reward thing, since it doesn't help you if you lose). Currently a unit that wins and has a first strike takes (damage/FS+1). Obviously, having a 1 first strike advantage is a big deal as it reduces the damage you take by 1/2. You get diminishing returns after that, but still pretty significant. This system places first strikes more along the lines of "armor", but obsolete often called them that anyway . Functionally, this is a way to make first strikes still both effective and a tradeoff from combat promotions in deterministic battles.

First strikes are suppose to do damage to the target before they get to you. If each archer first strike wounds the incomming axeman by 1 attack strength, then the incomming axeman should rethink charging into oncomming fire. The amount would go up for higher strength units. I machine gunner should take down dozens of riflemen or infantry.

Would it be possible for first strikes to cancel each other out? Using the Axeman v Archer example above, an Axeman with Drill 1 can kill an archer (who has a first strike) without suffering the wrath of the archer's bonus. That way, a Drill 1 Axeman still wins, but suffers normal damage. Since the Risk/Reward is that drill doesn't make the unit any more powerful and, on the defense, having three first strikes versus an attacker with 1 means that the attacker only has normal damage dealt to him still anyway.

The reward to having extra first strikes for a unit means that attackers can suffer up to normal damage. The risk is that the unit isn't stronger, still can be lost, and doesn't deal more than normal damage if its defending and has multiple free strikes. This makes Drill a heavy offensive-oriented promotion with moderate defensive use.

The problem again is that first strike is suppose to hurt a foe Before they get to you. The enemy attacking you usually dies from thousands of arrows striking the formation of melee. The same for machinegunners mowing down infantry or Hwachas damaging units befoe they ever reach it.
First Strike should be something like the collateral system, but for only vs 1 target.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Under determinism, as long as your stack can't be budged, he can survive Kamikaze and laugh about it, force-feeding the enemy War Weariness as he goes.

It's a good joke, but how about something that would actually happen in-game? What's stopping a defender from slapping a tiny bit of collateral on that force and then cleaning it up in its entirety with a few mounted units (which do still ignore first strikes)? You can come up with any wonky pretend scenario you wish, but what's important is what happens in practice, and only a very poor player would just sit there taking abuse from a super CR warlord without giving him some hell to pay. Besides, why is there a stack of units like such there in the first place? Hell, even the shoddy AI could clean such an attack up once in a while lol.

You sure about that? It seems that the system is fine that way because it would take 10 1 str units to kill a 10 str unit. That system sounds legit.

Not really, because you're not attacking a 10 str unit each time. Damaged units fight less effectively. Also, when you attack something that you're 2x the strength of you still take a LOT of damage. Like I said, jury's still out. Just because it feels different from what I'm used to doesn't mean it's wrong. I want to see it in action longer and see what it does for the game.

Would it be possible for first strikes to cancel each other out?

They did and still do.

This makes Drill a heavy offensive-oriented promotion with moderate defensive use.

It's still a good defensive promotion. Things like longbows with drill are going to be taking small enough damage that unlike most other defenders in this mod they have the ability to kill multiple attackers in a lot more situations and that's huge.

What's wrong with missionary failure chances?

What purpose does it serve, aside from lowering the return on investment for what is often already a poor investment? It's also frustrating and when we try to pass religions between human players, not very fun. I didn't hesitate in getting rid of this one...well...my friend had to do it. It's dll based!

The AI might actually play better using deterministic combat actually if it understands the result of its giant stack attacking another giant stack.

Even if it doesn't, it's no worse than before. How many times in the base game have we seen the AI throw away 30+ units attacking a city, killing maybe 2 units inside while the defending forces still number 20+? Fixing the AI is a whole different can of worms.

A rough guess is very sufficient. The odds still show I think in the mod, so you can make a rough guess that at 99% odds, the unit will be relatively fine. At 51% odds, it will be limping.

Even at high 90's%, the damage is significant. I attacked a damaged medieval troop with a cuirasser and even a random mace would have been able to clean that cuirasser up guaranteed if I left it exposed.

Also, to those who are saying healing is "free": please understand the concept of opportunity cost before spouting such nonsense. You certainly get discounts on slower game speeds, but healing is *never* "free".

The value of this information is of course zilch when defending hence my example.

Are casual players incapable of understanding terrain bonuses listed by the GUI and unit descriptions? That's a rather low opinion of casual strategy players if that's what you're saying.

Buying 5 turns or so (and giving the enemy promotions) by sacrifing 5 archers is usually not worth it in the early game.

Rather than "buying time", you could use the delay in their healing to easily and soundly stomp them with follow-up forces.

The alternative application of first strikes suggested here, the "do damage before starting the combat proper", is interesting too. You could probably make it balanced either as a damage reducer or as a initiative damage-inducer, depending on numbers chosen. I'll give it some thought too.

 

[Sonereal]

First strikes are suppose to do damage to the target before they get to you. If each archer first strike wounds the incomming axeman by 1 attack strength, then the incomming axeman should rethink charging into oncomming fire. The amount would go up for higher strength units. I machine gunner should take down dozens of riflemen or infantry.

EHEHEH. Sounds really really really really stupid hard to balance. Would be easier to just rename First Strikes something if its that big of a deal.

The problem again is that first strike is suppose to hurt a foe Before they get to you. The enemy attacking you usually dies from thousands of arrows striking the formation of melee. The same for machinegunners mowing down infantry or Hwachas damaging units befoe they ever reach it.
First Strike should be something like the collateral system, but for only vs 1 target.

I don't think that's a good system. In a deterministic battle system, the order of combat doesn't matter in individual engagements as much as the final damage. An axeman attacking an archer in a city on hills with walls is already in for a assload of hurt so there's no reason to give it an auto 20 HP strike on top of the usual damage.

 

[civac]

Tmit, you do not appear to read my posts only skim them. Understandably maybe, since Sonereal and I were arguing about a side issue. I propose to let it lie.

The thing I was trying to point out that the sharp shift in battle odds at equal combat strength may cause problems. I'm not sure whether it really does. One would have to play a few test games with competent players who have time to think (Pitboss or Pbem). I suspect such a game would get rather spreadsheety. (Which may not be a bad thing. I know a lot of people would love it.)

Against the AI I strongly suspect that you can abuse the fixed battle resolution. The unkillable warlord is one idea. I'm sure there are scenarios where it would work. For example as part of a choking effort in the early game (before siege emerges). But as the combat/tactical AI is bad and can be abused even as it stands that wouldn't be a big problem.

 

[Sonereal]

What purpose does it serve, aside from lowering the return on investment for what is often already a poor investment? It's also frustrating and when we try to pass religions between human players, not very fun. I didn't hesitate in getting rid of this one...well...my friend had to do it. It's dll based!

Didn't think of it that way. I thought it was a low chance given that it doesn't seem to happen often (I would say in 1 in 20 missionaries I've sent failed).

Even if it doesn't, it's no worse than before. How many times in the base game have we seen the AI throw away 30+ units attacking a city, killing maybe 2 units inside while the defending forces still number 20+? Fixing the AI is a whole different can of worms.

True.

Even at high 90's%, the damage is significant. I attacked a damaged medieval troop with a cuirasser and even a random mace would have been able to clean that cuirasser up guaranteed if I left it exposed.

Would halving the damage done to the winning unit work better?

The alternative application of first strikes suggested here, the "do damage before starting the combat proper", is interesting too. You could probably make it balanced either as a damage reducer or as a initiative damage-inducer, depending on numbers chosen. I'll give it some thought too.

The First Strikes could make it so the unit deals up to 5x (with x being the number of free strikes) percent of its strength in damage to the other unit.

So, an Archer with 1 Free Strike would deal .15 off the bat. Drill I would do .3, and so on.

At this point, I'm clearly just throwing out ideas for consideration.

 

[karadoc]

I don't really have anything new to add; I just want to quickly point out that the point I was trying to make with the 5-archers example wasn't about how many attackers you'd need, but rather about how relatively minor events can instantly change your odds of winning 5 fights from 100% to 0%. - And I'm not saying it's a bad thing; I'm just saying it's a notable difference to the current system.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't really have anything new to add; I just want to quickly point out that the point I was trying to make with the 5-archers example wasn't about how many attackers you'd need, but rather about how relatively minor events can instantly change your odds of winning 5 fights from 100% to 0%. - And I'm not saying it's a bad thing; I'm just saying it's a notable difference to the current system.

It definitely is, but you'd be surprised at how this flip isn't so consistent as imagined. Archers have differing promos, the axes have differing promos, and units that just moved into the city vs moved into the city x turns ago have different % bonuses. It's not as static as you'd expect at first glance unless you're pulling a VERY early rush (like warrior rush or something)...especially because walls or 20%/40%/50% culture are all very common in the early goings also.

The big thing I took away from our first full test game with it is that in addition to consistency of outcomes, units wind up *very* damaged consistently. I alluded to the fact that healing isn't "free" earlier, but it's very true on normal speed that if you spend 5 or more turns healing for every city you take against a 10+ city AI with bonuses, you'll find that their #'s and ability to slam forces into your units...promoted or not...starts to become problematic. It's not so easy to "just heal", unless you have a supermedic to cut down on turns. Even then the last thing you want to do is extend the war 10-20 turns to stop to heal constantly...and your recon will go a long way to determining how much stack splitting is viable vs suicidal.

I'm pleasantly surprised so far. We'll see if that lasts through more test iterations. I've also gained an appreciation for how the less RNG dependent war games have managed to be great titles (in circumstances where that is the case).

 

[lindsay40k]

Will events be turned off, being a RNG type thing? Having a load of units magically get Combat I or suchlike is going to be a breaker moment. And with quests, it can be planned.

Here, got a question. Precise knowledge becomes a LOT more important with autokills. Any chance of a 'click on visible enemy unit and check their odds against your units' function?

You can come up with any wonky pretend scenario you wish, but what's important is what happens in practice, and only a very poor player would just sit there taking abuse from a super CR warlord without giving him some hell to pay. Besides, why is there a stack of units like such there in the first place?

Waiting for reinforcements and it's safer to stay fortified on a hill than to run home with cavalry nipping at your heels? Exploiting the AI to get that next GG you need to deploy units at 11xp, whilst keeping its hammers pouring down the drain? Keeping a Settler away from Iron? You've pillaged a frontline Horse and need to stop them reconnecting it, and whilst keeping the stack safely reinforcing are taking the opportunity to exploit 51% autokills?

If withdrawing without combat from a city is actually a sound idea at that point, the war is probably not going your way in the first place.

True story: couple hours ago, I took a city off Stalin. It was isolated, but I needed a safe healing place and the upkeep was less than that of keeping my stack outside my borders. I'd got an Ikhanda and Walls and Monument built, when Cyrus DoW'd. Tried to get some defensive units marched in, but Stalin cut me off and my defences were chipped down.

Instead of losing my stack full of CRIII to a bunch of upstart CRI's on a forest hill (was chopping when they DoW'd), I stepped out the city, let them take it, and then slaughtered them all. Lost hammers? Pfft, with Fishing Boats and whip I rebuilt before long, and their units were worth more. And gave me GG#2.

It's not an extraordinary situation for a pair of hostile CR stacks to come up against one another, is it?