06MAR12 - Gaming the Combat Casualty Algorithm
Printed From: Illyriad
Category: News & Announcements
Forum Name: News & Announcements
Forum Description: Changes, patch release dates, server launch dates, downtime notifications etc.
URL: http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/forum_posts.asp?TID=3265
Printed Date: 19 Apr 2024 at 00:49
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Topic: 06MAR12 - Gaming the Combat Casualty Algorithm
Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Subject: 06MAR12 - Gaming the Combat Casualty Algorithm
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 02:07
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Hi everyone, Many players have recently made us aware of a number of combat outcomes that are "unusual". Let me say, first up, that the algorithms that generate these unusual outcomes haven't changed since the early days of Illyriad. There's nothing "new" here, except a much better understanding amongst the playerbase, through trial and error, of how the Combat Resolution and Casualty Assignment algorithms actually work. There are 2 different issues going on at different edges of the combat bell-curve: the very small unit grouping, as well as at the very large "stacked army" end. THE TWO ISSUES ISSUE 1: Casualty Assignment Avoidance by "combat grouping" Many players have realised that by grouping small numbers of units into multiple divisions and armies, they can avoid casualty assignment where the overall attacking army has insufficient force to produce a number of casualties greater than one casualty as a floor rounding (rounding down) issue on <1 casualty. Using a ceiling rounding (rounding up) function would have the same issue, just in reverse. ISSUE 2: Large-scale Combat Critical Hit Probabilities A second issue has been occurring with stacked defenders on a square, whereby substantial numbers of defensive forces defending against a large attacking force can cause the critical hit/miss random-number-generator to produce less than random outcomes. This isn't a failure of the random-number-generator itself, it's that the probability threshold of a critical hit increases too substantially depending on the number and level of the commanders occupying a square in defense. PATCHING THE ISSUES Both these issues are (generally, but not universally) applicable to defense rather than attack, and both have been in the game forever. It's simply now that players are taking them to the extremes that they're becoming clearly visible. We have patched both issues, effective immediately. Issue 1 Resolution: After the first pass of combat casualties has been completed (with percentage casualties being assigned according to the force differential, as has always happened)... there is now a second pass which basically says "OK, so what casualties were actually taken here and how many casualties should there really have been?". This second pass then adds in further casualties to the army, to compensate for the rounding issue. These further casualties are taken from the troops who benefited from the rounding issue, and are assigned by XP value with the weakest defensive groups perishing first. This assignment is also done based on attack/defence strength vs unit type of the inflicter. So if an attacker wins the battle but the defender had its defence strength highest against spearunits - the spearunits of the attacker would be the first to take the brunt of this second pass. We have chosen XP value for the second pass, as this still permits future situations where a reasonably-sized army could attack a single very powerful entity (eg a single Dracolich) and not actually kill it - despite doing substantial damage to it. Please be aware that you may well still see groupings within divisions that took zero troop casualties - and this is to be expected: we can't make every single divisional grouping take at "least one casualty", as that would be just as likely to reverse the rounding error to the benefit of the other party. However, since this patch the total "casualties taken" level will go up and the total xp damage done will add up to the required casualty xp according to the force differential. This will also slightly change the dynamic of the raid stratagem as previously if casualties inflicted to a unit group were 1 or 2 the casualties would not be divided by 3 (giving zero). However now they are and the extra damage is mopped up in the second pass. Issue 2 Resolution: We have smoothed the critical hit algorithm to disregard many of the "stacking divisions" factors. One-on-many combat (as is the case with any stacked defense) now applies consistent random probability curves to both sides. As said before, these issues have always been in play and we've patched them as fast as we could since being made aware of them. We will not be considering reimbursements for any players affected by either of these issues. OTHER PATCHES RESEARCH POP-UPS Should now remain on screen.NEGATIVE BUILDING LEVELS Occasionally for some players, the negative resources level down function would de-level buildings to negative levels - this has been resolved.BUILDING UPGRADES Occasionally for some players, after some circumstances (see above) - upgrading a building would fail with the message "Arithmetic overflow error converting expression to data type int.". This has now been resolved. Regards, SC
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Replies:
Posted By: Bartozzi
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 02:35
 Kudos to the Dev team for fixing a shaky, easily-exploited (obviously) mechanic -- in the middle of a tourney! Takes chutzpah and moxie to risk angering some of your player base, but I for one am impressed.
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Posted By: Bonaparta
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 03:05
No more 0 casualty commander training... 
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Posted By: SugarFree
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 04:17
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serves exploiters right ------------- Nuisance |
Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 04:30
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The "exploiters" (or knowledgeable gamers, as they might prefer to see themselves) are actually the ones who benefit the most from this mid-tournament change. Their armies are mostly intact and they are now free to go after those of us who have been wasting our troops like water attacking positions that would now be relatively easy pickings. So they benefit twice. Ah well, time to take a deep breath and remind oneself that this is one tournament that is half over and will soon(tm) be a distant memory. Not a game changer. Fixing the problem at some point was the right solution for the long term, although it once again tilts the balance more in the direction of the attacker in most battles, and toward larger players rather than teams of smaller players, thus toward established players rather than newer players. These are the Illy dynamics with which we are familiar. The game is now back to working as intended.
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Posted By: rajab
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 05:51
| an exploit of this magnitude should cause the tournament to be canceled :P |
Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 06:32
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lol, do I get the sense that someone else is getting tournament-weary as well? I think tournaments should last 2-3 weeks. A month is too long! But that's just me.
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Posted By: Gilthoniel
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 11:39
| Where is Creat these days? |
Posted By: SugarFree
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 16:01
ooo if you can't keep you you shall just give up! ------------- Nuisance |
Rill wrote:Posted By: Createure
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 17:10
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/me lurks... |
Posted By: Createure
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 17:36
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Thanks for the changes SC&co. I'm sure this is something we can all
enjoy getting our heads round and adjusting our tactics to. Couple of thoughts tho:
Agree with you on that one - but can you honestly complain about it? It's like saying "The fishermen who knew the best places to fish used those places and have an unfair advantage" - it is not a crime that people who spent time earning knowledge then go and use that to their advantage - particularly in a game like Illy where knowledge is everything. I completely rebuke this idea of the previous combat mechanics being glitched and people who used them to the best of their ability being bug-abusers. At the end of the day this game belongs to the Illy Dev team - if they view something as a glitch then that is what it is - and SC made it quite clear that the combat mechanics were the original+intended mechanics throught 2 years of Illyriad. The fact that they now needed some tweaking does now that things ingame have evolved does not make what we had previously a glitch.
Honestly my first reaction on reading this is "Baaaaawaawaa....!!". You've made it clear to me in your opposition that you don't enjoy PvP combat in general and now I can understand why. I can only see these changes being to the benefit of large groups of well-organised smaller players in numerous situations including trying to defend themselves in PvP and capture tournament squares. That's all I got to say rlly, sorry for the long double post. |
Posted By: Mandarins31
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 19:08
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Many thanks and congratulations to the GMs for their work and for the way they handled that situation. Changes in that old (but impressively good) combat algorithm were really needed. And that so young 5th tourney can already be writen in the rock for announcing a new age of fairness in combat outcomes, by pointing out the obvious Rounding Down issues, and the less obvious Crital Hit probabilities. About the rounding down issues, I know i was the one who first wanted to develop it on a large scale (basically for alliance's self defense). This "tactic" was used during this tourney, but we used it on a certain way (spread and not stack), to avoid to use its true potential (which would have been more than unfair), by stacking all on the same square, withough big plug armies: in those conditions, single armies with less than 20k units would have inflicted 0 casualties... and we really wanted to avoid that for a tourney. By spreading them, they just act as some commander self defense: a certain amount of def power added to overall power, at each encounter... This thing had to be known by all to have the merit to be changed. And i'm also glad some large encounters revealed some unfairness about other factors when attacking and defending armies were pushed to extremes. Again, i must thank the developpers for their excellent work. |
Posted By: Aurordan
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 19:09
| Well, the title of this thread does imply that they consider this something of an exploit. Still, I don't blame you for taking advantage of it. |
Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 19:12
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Createure, I tried to strike a balance in my post, to describe what I see as the effects of the change without making a judgment about them. I don't think I used any negative or pejorative terms. Indeed, I suggested the term "knowledgeable gamers" in place of a more pejorative term. Your perception that I was complaining or making negative comments regarding this change is perhaps based more on your perception of me than of anything I actually said. With regard to the idea that I don't enjoy PvP combat, my alliance mates and some extremely dead dorfs in Taomist would beg to disagree with you.
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Posted By: geofrey
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 19:43
I can vouch for Rill's willingness to kill dwarves.
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Posted By: Miklabjarnir
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 20:36
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I am really sceptical about fiddling with the combat system in a live game. Such things should happen only after a reasonably long notice period, like any important game change. In principle, bugs should be fixed. However, if there is no documentation to the user of how the combat system works the the way it actually works is the specification. I have many issues with the entire combat system in Illyriad, but that does not mean I think it is buggy and must be fixed. It means I think it should be improved in a planned and predictable way. I kind of like the lack of specification for the combat system. It means there is a challenge for the players to explore it and find out for themselves. If somebody discovers that it does not work the way they believed, they should not be bailed out by a quick change. Lazy or sloppy players should not be rewarded at the cost of those who actually test their tactics and do some research. For me this is merely a statement of principle. I do not take part in the tournament, so I have no personal interest in this case and do not have big enough armies to see any large-scale combat effects. My biggest gripe with the combat system is that outcomes are way too binary. It is highly unrealistic in any kind of warfare, and pre-gunpowder in particular, to have large numbers of casualties. Losers should not be annihilated except in unusual circumstances. 10% casualties due to battle is heavy. More than 50% is a historical disaster, like end of the German Order as a power after Grünefeld. |
Posted By: geofrey
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 20:41
I like where your head is at. I think the "not total annihilation" concept is suppose to be represented by raiding. Maybe you can post something in the suggestions forum about different combat mechanics?
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Posted By: JimJams
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 22:33
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This fix doesn't change a thing. Issue 1 was well know but only a few alliances were using it deeply (at its real potential). Issue 2 was only a critical hit chance and I wonder how much it will change things, not a lot I think. Eventually it will be reverted, or somehow changed, because of its impact on defense. Actually it look very odds and completely wrong when I see a little army attacking, being wiped, and do 4-8x damage to the defenders. It has no sense at all. But I have time to wait and see .... If something has to be fixed is all the broken diplo system, and I am sure I don't need to explain why... ------------- 
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Posted By: Mandarins31
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 22:50
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Miklabjarnir, anihilation is needed... and i can take the exemple of the siege: as far as it isnt anihilated, it continues, and consequences of a non anihilation system would be pretty bad in that case. Then, there could be ways for an attacking army to focus on certain units (Siege engines here) in certain conditions. Though, here isnt the subject of that. You have interesting points though; as said Geofrey, you should develop your ideas/vision through a thead in the Suggestions part of the forum. To come back to the subject, JimJams, the thing about the roundings down really had to be updated. And about the critical hit chance, it depends on def stack, but Also on attacking power. The higher the both are, the higher the critical hit chance is... that also means that it will rarely aply to "casual attacks" even if def stack is big. So this change here doesnt change anything for usual use of armies, so from what you are talking about, i see your problem is much about the already present unbalance def/attk and not something brought by this update. Though, something im understing through this, is that big attacking armies might not be the best if they make the citical hit chance increase against them... I always made sure to hve big single armies... these mostly permit to eat the coms self def only once... though i may change that maniac obsession... even if that have been substantially smoothed, i'd advise to be carefull with that :p. |
Posted By: SunStorm
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2012 at 23:58
 ....apparently spinach had nothing to do with it after all  . hummmm..... (only joking - please don't take me seriously or send me hate mail - k, thanks) (^_^) -------------
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Posted By: SugarFree
Date Posted: 08 Mar 2012 at 00:04
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lost battle (= 75% defenders dead/ death of commander?) rest heads home in shame? new battle command like "massacre"? ( exactly like today's attack? ------------- Nuisance |
Posted By: Mandarins31
Date Posted: 08 Mar 2012 at 00:20
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I suppose that you are talking about a spot in plains that has been attacked by some T2 cavalry. If yes, massacre is normal there, that's the consequence of defending on plains, you expose yourself to the great hazard of being attacked by cavalry. Plains really arent a place to defend on. |
Posted By: Aurordan
Date Posted: 08 Mar 2012 at 02:20
I've always taken the casualties to include troops that may have survived but are no longer under your functional control, like a routed army would be. Makes sense to me.
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Posted By: abstractdream
Date Posted: 08 Mar 2012 at 03:02
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It's a game, with game like limitations. Combat is good enough that it doesn't need to be a SOON(tm) item. If the DEVs focused on and released pathfinding, who would care about this, really? ------------- |
Posted By: Brids17
Date Posted: 08 Mar 2012 at 07:37
Sometimes it's the small stuff that matters the most. -------------  |
Posted By: SunStorm
Date Posted: 08 Mar 2012 at 14:39
I am sure this was an easy fix...and I am sure it has not set path-finding behind at all. Plus, there is that unfounded rumor Rill started that new features wont be released until we figure out the Heart of Corruption (aka Audrey II). *though I wonder if Ryelle put her up to that* http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/heart-of-corruption_topic2004_post39774.html#39774 -------------
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Posted By: geofrey
Date Posted: 08 Mar 2012 at 14:45
Rumor? I thought it was well known that solving the mystery of the Heart of Corruption will allow your troops to find paths...
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Posted By: SunStorm
Date Posted: 08 Mar 2012 at 16:37
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lol
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Posted By: JimJams
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 01:27
Yes, you are right, it is not the changes, it was already present... -------------
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Posted By: Bonaparta
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 04:20
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This update gave cavalry it's reigning status again. The casualty reports after this update changed significantly. On some tourney squares there were combats that favored the defender in 2:1 ratio over many many battles . That is now gone and we again see that attackers have huge advantages over defenders and cavalry is the reason. To restore some kind of balance I propose that production times for units change. The game should reflect exact EXP values of the units. Basic spear unit should take 4 times less time to train as advanced cavalry. Even so the attacker would still have advantage but much less. |
Posted By: rajab
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 08:18
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basic spear = orc favouring :P make all t1 units on shorter queues |
Posted By: Aurordan
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 09:04
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I too think there should be a shorter production time for my race's specialty unit.
Though to be fair, this should also apply to all the resources involved in their creation(Chain mail, plate, horses, cows+saddles).
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Posted By: Mandarins31
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 11:54
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The thing about production time is logic indeed, but you have also to keep in mind the difficulty of production and cost. just as an exemple, T2 Human Spear need 1 cow per unit, while T2 Human Cav needs 4 Cows per units. Not even counting the other stuff needed, that means that the Cavalry builder will pay much more (through taxes for Cattle sov, or through trading to buy his lacking Cows or saddles-as cows production can hardly follow a constant saddle production). So the Cav builder deploys lots of energy and accumulates some disadvantage in the case he wants to keep a constant production of saddles, and then a constant production of Cavs. Defenders "disadvantage" can be compensated by defending on the adequat spots and with the adequate units. The ratios means less than the difficulty of production of units. Though, i agree that in plains, where Cav can achieve between 1:3 and 1:7 ratio, attacks have the advantage... but that's due to the terrain. Talking about mountains, a T2 human cav could make between 1:1 and 1:1,5 ratio against a large and well trained T2 elven Ranged army... seeing their difference of production time, but also the difference of difficulty of production (2 cows vs 4 cows), the unit gold unkeep, and the fact that you can produce Bows in all of your cities and make a large use of your commanders in defense... in these conditions, a 1:1 or a 1:1,5 or even a 1:2 ratio is a very big fail from the attacker, who just suicided on it. The defender will recover pretty much more easily and quickly than the attacker. There might be some unfairness because there is not necessarly the terrain types you need, where you need, but if there is an unbalance between attack and defense, it is light... Decreasing production times for def units or make it easyier to produce (less unkeep, less equipment) isnt good... and that's the same about increasing production difficulty of attacking units... that would become insane. |
Posted By: Ander
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 13:56
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Actually it *is* easier to produce defensive units. T1 Elven archers and Orc spearmen units doesnt even cost anything (a bow and a beer or a spear and a beer). Cavalry costs saddles. +2% archer production or +3% spearmen production sovereignty squares are plenty. Cavalry production squares are had to come by - pastures are sought after for their food value as much as for their cavalry production boost. Who needs a boost for cavalry production anyway, when you don't have enough saddles? |
Posted By: JimJams
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 14:14
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While I feel cavalry as overpowered (and not only on plain, but also on mild), this is not my main concern. What I dislike the most is the lack of advantage (or if it is present is too little) of large defending armies with multiple commanders versus small attackers with single commander. May be I am wrong, but when I see attackers with 1:10 power ratio, wiped, but still killing many defenders I feel it as badly wrong. If you send 100 tiny armies against an huge armada should be way less effective as sending the sum of all them in a single hit. In reality if you send 1000 ten men armies against a 100000 man army, all of them will be killed ten by ten, with probably no casualties on defenders. Instead it looks to me sending many tiny attacks is a better tactic than sending a single one, if not else because you mitigate a lot the risk of a critical defensive random result. But overall I can play with actual rules anyway. What instead is really broken is the diplo side. -------------
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Posted By: Mandarins31
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 16:36
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You have good points JimJams. Indeed, only advantage a single big army has, instead of sending the same amount in various little armies, is that you take the self def of the def commanders only once... if the coms you use for the smaller armies are the same as the one for the big single one, then, that is truely the only advantage... I agree somehow about your vision: logically, a smaller group of attacker should cause less casualties than a big groups, against a large defense. From the start, i always planned to only build big single armies, as i thought there were an important advantage for that, or at least, that it would permit to put yourself at the same level of the defense. I think there could be some enchencements about that, making comparatively small armies less effective... Though playing with that would require to be very careful as it would really penalize smaller players if it asked to build too large armies... and imo, bulding monster attacking armies shouldnt be an aim. Also, starting from a certain comparative size, logically, a medium army should achieve ratios close to a big one, as they are numerousous enough not to let the ennemy surround them... So, comparative armie's efficiency could follow some Logarithmic curve: poor whe comparatively small, but increasing as far as the size is "correct" (to define... and that is the hard part), and then smoothly go toward a certain floor. That is my vision about what you evoke, though, if you have already ideas on that and/or want a debate; best would be to continue that discussion on suggestion forum. Same goes to the "broken diplo system". I also agree there could be some things to think about this subject, and i would love to participate if you opened a debate about that. |
Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 16:57
| I like the fact that multiple smaller players can work together against a much larger force. Perhaps one way to model both things would be to introduce an element that took into account coordinated attacks -- essentially the time since the last attack; closely spaced attacks could have more effect. However, I imagine this would be time-consuming to code and hard to balance, so I don't imagine it would be a priority. |
Posted By: geofrey
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 18:57
Cavalry has better stats, hence their statistical advantage. Avoidance is a military tactic for a reason. Choose your battlefield wisely. The only complaint I have is that I can't scout a moving army. Leaving much of the strategy up to guesswork.
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Posted By: Mr Damage
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 21:24
| Good point Geofrey, you used to be able to hover over a moving army and see total numbers, what happened to that? I liked being able to see some of those big armies numbers, as well as like you say it aided with strategy. |
Posted By: Salararius
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 21:39
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Army size alone shouldn't matter in relation to how effective the army is. There are other variables that play a role in this determination. For example, a small army is easier to coordinate and a coordinated army can more precisely direct it's force. Thus a small army could surprise a large army or adjust it's attack/defense to take advantage of terrain or defender/attacker deployment opportunities. In warfare, force is only effective if you can properly apply it. A smaller army's lesser force is balanced by it's inherent advantage in more efficiently applying that smaller force. Then again, if the larger army is equally efficient at applying it's larger force then it has an even greater tactical advantage. |
Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 21:52
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I like that you can't scout a moving army. Really adds an element to the fight, where you have to interpret who it came from and its likely composition based on past behavior of players and recent events. It's more fun to develop flexible responses to a number of possible scenarios than to just stick something that will kill a known incoming force.
The ability to hover over an (allied) force and determine player and number of troops disappeared with the map changes in July, part of "fog of war."
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Posted By: Mandarins31
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 22:43
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Interesting points Salararius. Though, which factor would be used to mean that or that army has better efficiency? Maybe smaller army can more easily find the best formation, naturally by it's size, but also because a lower amount of soldiers is easyier to coordonate... and on battlefield, coordination is handled by the commander. So the lvl of Commanders would simulate their experience and army's experience. Then, a smaller attacking army would receive a bonus from being small, and also a bonus from being lead by high lvl comander(s). Though, in attack, amount of commanders is restricted to 5, unlike in defense. So a larger defense would be harder to coordonate, but a large a amount of high lvl commanders can counter that, against a comparatively small attacking army, and even give advantage of efficiency to defender. Though, that already sounds like the critical hit factor... but maybe there could be other ways to simulate the comparative size VS number and lvl of commanders, that could be added to critical hit (if it has been substantially smoothed), or to replace it. That could be a hint for future improvements... though, this, imo, isnt a priority in dev list. |
Posted By: Salararius
Date Posted: 10 Mar 2012 at 03:02
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Funny I almost posted the same thing. I reasoned to myself that to the extent that commanders influence combat the devs have already factored them in. To factor them in again would be redundant although I agree with your thoughts that any advantage/disadvantage achieved through unit size would be through the commander's relative skill. One way to implement asymmetrical warfare could be through units that specifically fight better in little vs big situations. Perhaps ranged units or light cavalry or some sort of light infantry would be better at striking quickly in small numbers and then flowing away and they would need to be countered by small quantities of the same to avoid asymmetrically skewed losses. Those losses in any given encounter couldn't amount to much but would more so favor the smaller unit. Similar to how historical armies required cavalry screens to cover their movement or face a similar type of attrition warfare. |
Posted By: Aurordan
Date Posted: 10 Mar 2012 at 04:11
Commanders already contribute to the organization of the army through the unit bonus abilities. It seems redundant to make another factor that does the same thing.
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Posted By: Mandarins31
Date Posted: 10 Mar 2012 at 10:38
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Salararius, i see no point of this, as in defense, people always put all sorts of units.... there are high chances your specific units fall against their similar kind in def. Aurordan, indeed that's redundant with Commanders skills, but critical hit already is. Here that's about efficiency of Small units against large stacks mostly... though, indeed, for small armies, commanders heroism already permits to achieve better ratios. |
Posted By: geofrey
Date Posted: 12 Mar 2012 at 13:46
I think this is in the game now, it just requires some creative strategy. Example as follows:
Having 1 large army does not always = a win. But it does if your silly enough to face a larger army head on with a smaller army. Avoidance, subterfuge, deception, and coordination are the tools to make up for small numbers. Currently it is very easy to confuse your opponent since they can't ascertain the purpose of your oncoming army until it hits. And they can't know how many troops you send in that army. I really think scouting (troops count) and spying (purpose/siege-location) moving armies would add another layer of strategy to the game; so long as there was a counter to it (send scouts and spies with your army to act as scout/spy defense). |
Posted By: surferdude
Date Posted: 12 Mar 2012 at 14:13
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Posted By: SunStorm
Date Posted: 12 Mar 2012 at 15:28
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Posted By: JimJams
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2012 at 10:22
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OK, yesterday we had a very big fight in Tor Carrock and we got a lot of data to work with. From my preliminary analysis I have this to say:
So we have forest (and buildings) for infantry, plain for cavalry, mountain for everyone but spear. No surprise, but still somewhere broken... PS A note about little vs big army. While I still think big armies should have advantage, I also know actually an attacker cannot stack armies like the defender can. So, with actual mechanics, it would be unfair to give huge advantage to big armies vs little armies. But I think something can be done to introduce a bonus for large armies, while giving coordinated little armies attacks count more. For example we can introduce a system like that:
With this mechanic we give big standing armies a bonus from single not coordinated attacks (even big, but very littler that the defending army). This way a single hit of 10K cavalry on 500K defenders will do less damage than today. But if several hits are added to the squares without a long enough break, the defender casualties bonus will lowering and lowering, and even turn negative if enough attackers arrive. What you think ? JJ
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Posted By: Daefis
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2012 at 10:27
| I like that idea. An escalating modifier as more hits take place. It would certainly reward a well coordinated attack and give a real bonus to smaller alliances sending lot's of small armies. |
Posted By: HonoredMule
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2012 at 11:57
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I love it. It's a lot like my "non-instantaneous battles" idea, simplified to have the basic tactical balancing effect while skipping the complexity of battle duration. I liked my earlier idea better because it offered other things as well (excitement, mid-battle tactical decisions, stalemates, etc.), but that's never going to happen and maybe this will. One thing though: the combat modifier needs to be based on somehow aggregating the size of attacking armies, not number of them, and the effect needs to be organically related to how tightly coordinated are the attacks (i.e. combat modifier decays rather than suddenly expiring). ------------- "Apparently, quoting me is a 'thing' now." - HonoredMule |
Posted By: Mandarins31
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2012 at 12:51
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HM, your instantaneous battle idea was wonderful... but it may not show its nose, indeed. I like the coordinated attack decreasing a defensive bonus for big stack army. Though i argree it would need to be refered to attack efficiency (total of attack power brought during a certain time), and not on armies count. Though, i still see it exploitable... that is easyier to land few big armies than lots of small ones from different players. With that current idea, that would be possible to send tons of Little/medium armies over 20/30 minuts non stop, and end that action with the large ones, once the def stack bonus has been largely reduced or even became negative. So, following that idea, maybe should that be calculated regarding number of different players attacking, lvl of coms, Etc... as it doest for def... that thing would sound like the grouped attack possibility we talked a lot about in old suggestions subjects... would be a very clever way to intruduce that "grouped attack" thing and more defensive possibilities. Though, draw back of that is that it asks time to prepare a coordinated offensive/defense: need to set up a far enough time, for a maximum of players to be able to arrive in said time, depending on their travel times. In the case of a siege, the siegers would have all the time to prepare that... the siegers would really benefit of the surprise effect: the time the siege wipers prepare a coordinated attack to have a chance to destroy the siege, and do it efficiently, a city could be destroyed... well, you'll tell me that this is already the case, seing that a city can be destroyed in 24h or so from the siege engines arrival. It's also harder to coordinate an attack (moslty on a 10-20 minutes intervall), than coordinating a defense, for which arriving in a 12h range is pretty good (still surprise effect: aknowledgment, reaction, time of performing the plan (travel time)) I still like the idea, it's just that it would need to be developped to see the drawbacks, advantages, eventual unfairness, and adaptate in consequence. |
Posted By: Albatross
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2012 at 16:23
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This could be summarised in a single (new) attribute for an army: Stamina. It's not so exploitable, is quite simple, and can be applied to travelling, attacks, sieges, raids, defensess, etc. Occupying and staying home would give a recovery proportional to occupation time. The only dev problem would be when troops return home, and are redistributed among armies - what to do with the Stamina?
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Posted By: Salararius
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2012 at 17:10
The trivial option is to divide the "stamina" among the troops. For example, a returning army of 100 units with 50% stamina and an army at home with 100 units and 100% stamina. Transfer 50 units to the home army and you get 150 units with 83% stamina and 50 units remaining at 50% stamina. Transfer those 50 units back and you have two armies with 100 units each, one with 83% stamina and one with 66% stamina. If you keep doing that you will eventually have two armies with 100 units each and 75% stamina each. That math is pretty easy to code. Another option (to avoid the mm) is to automatically spread the stamina (mathematically) across all troops from the same player in the same square. Same end result, two armies with 100 troops (or whatever the original ratio was) and equal stamina. That's also easy to code. Final option is to have a switch that allows the player to select between the two modes. That would be somewhat difficult and would raise issues. You could also track stamina on a per unit basis, but that would not be easy to code and would be a PITA from a player perspective. |
Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2012 at 19:21
| Stamina could also be a commander bonus/penalty applied to his/her division. |
Posted By: JimJams
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2012 at 10:49
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After a few days (and a lot of battle report) I think this change has to be revised again. Why? The redistribution of casualties is not fair. Let see this little piece of a report:
This is a result of a tiny attack against an huge stacked army. As you can see here there are several different kind of units and all got 1 casualties. I think the last army (Crossbowmen) didn't partecipated in the redistribution and its 1 casualties is the original 1/1000 casualties hit. Why this is wrong and bad ? Because the program is redistributing casualties regardless of armies size. Zoccolduro had an army of 120 units, and got 6 victims which is 5%, while the attack force was about 1/1000. This way 20 attacks with 1/1000 strength will completely wipe Zoccolduro army. This is really a big damage for defenders, especially when we have MANY LITTLE PLAYERS helping a few bigger defending a place, which is usually what happen with new and little alliances. I propose the redistributing has to be revised, it should take care of army size and avoid to wipe the litte one. May be using a limit, for example if the attack power is 1/1000 of the defender power, casualties should only touch armies where 1 units lost is no more than 1/100, or so.... |
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Posted By: Mandarins31
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2012 at 11:40
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I suppose that what you are showing is the particular case of the 0% casualties. The programe must have estimated all units was benefiting of the rounding equally and spread the casualties regardless to army size. I suppose this is what happens for each rounding at 1% of casualties close. If you get 25% casualties, it means you suffered a bit more than that as its rounded down as well, and that, enters in the 2nd pass calculation i guess. Though, indeed, from what i understood, it didnt work as intended here, as only the weakest units should have been hit by the second pass and not all losing 1 unit... So yeah, in the case of a large stack that suffers less than 1% casualties multiple times, if that does that each time, that could be unfair for smaller players... |
Posted By: JimJams
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2012 at 12:00
Yes. And it also make defenders weaker, because wearing units from the little armies you also have an impact on commanders value and at a point, the army will be 0 units and the commander will disappear (I think this is happening, have to check because notifies are not clear to me atm). So removing units from those little armies make a lot more damage than if they were removed from bigger one.
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Posted By: Bonaparta
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2012 at 13:10
| Divisioning is simply not profitable anymore, actually it makes you loose more units. One huge stack would loose 1 unit as well. |
Posted By: JimJams
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2012 at 14:11
I would be ok if it was just not profitable, but actually there is a relevant negative effect.
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Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2012 at 17:55
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I agree that there seems to have been an overcorrection in terms of allocating casualties. My city was attacked by one chariot and the losses were a chariot, a pikeman and a militiaman, in spite of the fact that I had around 5k defenders on the square and a level 20 wall. Perhaps a third check needs to be made the ensure that the total casualties is not larger than it would have been if there had been no divisions? Or the logic should determine the number of "defense points" lost and only deduct that many defenders, choosing randomly from among the weakest units? That was the way I thought it was supposed to work, but it doesn't seem like it's working that way.
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Posted By: Mandarins31
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2012 at 18:19
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No, 1 large army only, suffuring the same casualties should have suffered more than a 1 unit loss. As i said, i suppose that here, the large army received only 1 casualties, because it was counted as a group that was profiting of the round up (maybe because of a glitch about the 0% casualties)... but the total def power the large army didnt lose was lost by the rest of the small groups. If you only had the big one, it would have sufferd 9-10 units loss. that's not unfair in terms of amount of def power lost, but in terms of repartition of the loss... but still i guess there were a glitch... though, JimJams didnt show the full report so we cant know... maybe other small groups in that army received 0 casualties. |
Posted By: HonoredMule
Date Posted: 19 Mar 2012 at 12:18
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One of my "participation credit" armies just sacrificed its one commander + one swiftsteed payload and took out 7 units against a force so overwhelmingly large I got no battle report. Yay me, but no it doesn't seem right. Keep in mind the commander's personal stats aren't supposed to be able to exceed the army total, equivalent to one swiftsteed. ------------- "Apparently, quoting me is a 'thing' now." - HonoredMule |
Posted By: Ander
Date Posted: 19 Mar 2012 at 13:23
commanders personal stats must be the commanders basic unit stat+ the bonus provided by the army to heroism right? A knight commander with heroism upgrade moving with a T1 pike will be as strong as 1 knight attack + 1 pike attack + (1 pike's worth of attack bonus through heroism) I suppose? Assuming that, the attack of 3 swiftsteeds killing 7 units doesn't seem very skewed. 3x35(attack of swiftsteed)=105 , 7x13(defense of T1 pikes or archers)=91. |
Posted By: Createure
Date Posted: 19 Mar 2012 at 13:45
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knight commander+pike... gives you (1 knight + 1 pike) doubled with heroism... ignoring all divisional bonuses the commander might have. If you set up an army and leave it at home you can see the exact offence/defence values modified by commander heroism/div bonus in the military overview. IMO commander bonuses are still too high in small armies though... the commander's heroism should not be acting on the commander's own base attack strength... otherwise pairing a commander with a weak unit like a spearman effectively turns the commander into a 1 man missile for sniping 6-10 enemy troops... something we have seen alot of since the rounding-error updates. |
Posted By: Ander
Date Posted: 19 Mar 2012 at 14:14
cool! I never thought of it!  1 man missiles are ok imo, since you can have only 5 commanders in a town and a newly promoted commander doesn't have any heroism bonus. (so you need to resurrect a commander to use him again)
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Posted By: JimJams
Date Posted: 15 Apr 2012 at 00:37
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What I dislike in the way it works now, is the way it chose which sub-army get the casualties. I would prefer if the second pass would get casualties from the most numerous sub-armies and not the way it does now.
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Posted By: Albatross
Date Posted: 15 Apr 2012 at 01:00
| Commanders shouldn't earn exp if they die in the battle. |
Posted By: Aurordan
Date Posted: 15 Apr 2012 at 01:55
Seems like an excellent learning experience to me. Pain is the best teacher. I think they should get double experience.
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Posted By: abstractdream
Date Posted: 15 Apr 2012 at 02:02
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May as well take away resurrection while you're at it. ------------- |
Posted By: Gemley
Date Posted: 15 Apr 2012 at 03:45
Honestly I don't think you should be able to bring adead ccommander back to life after a battle because THEY DIED in the battle. ------------- �I do not love the bright sword for it's sharpness, nor the arrow for it's swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend� - J.R.R. Tolkien |
Posted By: Rohk
Date Posted: 15 Apr 2012 at 04:00
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I think that resurrection is a good thing. It is costly in both time and gold making you not want to have to do it while at the same time if you have to do it, you are not losing all of the time that you put into levelling the commander and having to get one back up to that level. I think that the commander should get experience even if they die. After all, after dying in battle, and being resurrected, they would learn what not to do for next time. They would learn more from a failure than from a success just like in real life. "Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure." -Kenneth Boudling
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Posted By: Bartozzi
Date Posted: 15 Apr 2012 at 04:28
| Perhaps resurrection should be a spell? I'd sacrifice some cows and horses to bring a commander back to life. |
Posted By: lokifeyson
Date Posted: 15 Apr 2012 at 12:07
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commanders gain exp, i like gaining exp.... -------------  |
Posted By: lacetaffeta
Date Posted: 13 Jul 2012 at 07:53
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serves exploiters right,Some players may love facebook game, and even some social city games http://www.dotmmo.com/simcity-social-10269.html" rel="nofollow - simcity social from ea, while there is a new game from zynga called http://www.dotmmo.com/the-ville-10663.html" rel="nofollow - the ville that takes on the same gameplay with simcity |
Posted By: Darkwords
Date Posted: 13 Jul 2012 at 12:13
| I think the resurrection system is fine, whilst highly advanced commanders take days to ressurect, by the time you get them highly advanced you should know better than to kill them off all the time. |
Posted By: dunnoob
Date Posted: 13 Jul 2012 at 14:42
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Posted By: Avion
Date Posted: 13 Jul 2012 at 14:58
Odd, but so is magic. ------------- Suppose they gave a war and nobody came? |