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Topic Closed06MAR12 - Gaming the Combat Casualty Algorithm

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rajab View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 08:18
basic spear = orc favouring :P
make all t1 units on shorter queues
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Aurordan View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 09:04
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).


Edited by Aurordan - 09 Mar 2012 at 09:06
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Mandarins31 View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 11:54
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.


Edited by Mandarins31 - 09 Mar 2012 at 12:01
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 13:56
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?

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 14:14
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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Mandarins31 View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 16:36
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.



Edited by Mandarins31 - 09 Mar 2012 at 16:41
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Direct Link To This Post 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.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 18:57
Originally posted by Bonaparta Bonaparta wrote:

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.

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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Direct Link To This Post 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.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2012 at 21:39
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.

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