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Rill 
Postmaster General
Player Council - Geographer
Joined: 17 Jun 2011
Location: California
Status: Offline
Points: 6903
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 Posted: 09 May 2012 at 19:25 |
 Gasterix wrote:
quick question: is HonoredMule a Dev in disguise? (it actually rhymes)
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Nope.
And my initial reaction was that it was alliteration rather than rhyme. However, I looked up the definition of rhyme, and it can include various kinds of phonetic similarity, including alliteration, so that shows me.
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Gasterix
New Poster
Joined: 30 Apr 2012
Status: Offline
Points: 12
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Posted: 09 May 2012 at 19:28 |
HonoredMule wrote:
The "stuff" we have is the result of a philosophical avoidance of "rock, paper, scissors" balance which, in large numbers abstracted to a simple algorithm, actually results in oversimplification and promoting blanket use of mixed armies.
Illyriad's goals happily sacrifice realism wherever it conflicts with the greater goal of fun and tactical diversity. And it is quite right in avoiding rock, paper, scissors balance, as doing so merely reduces tactical and strategic decisions to an elaborate 50/50 gamble or the consistent mediocrity of aforementioned mixed armies. In a mess like that, all that ultimately survives is the general principle that the biggest army wins. Many other browser-based games have in just that fashion reduced tactics to a farce, and I'm far happier that my tactical choices have actual impact that is both more diverse and more profound.
I had some sympathy for your point of view right until you spoke on what a "business analyst" could accomplish. That alone shows how little you comprehend the complexity involved in reducing realistic warfare to a scalable and efficient multi-variable agorithm that uses minimal lookups and produces near-instantaneous results without taxing a busy processor.
You need to understand the difference between simulating battle and modelling the results. This difference (and the fact that the diversity is applied through the defending unit instead of the attacking one) are the primary reasons that the games unit stats tend to differ from what "realists" expect. The results are actually quite appropriate, especially when you take into account the effect of guerilla tactics (which the presumed inappropriateness of your examples seems to discount).
Ultimately, the results do sometimes differ from what many would consider realistic. But it is a mistake to presume that realism is the primary goal to which a fantasy game should aspire in the first place, let alone do so ignoring how broadly even experts in a non-fantasy setting would differ on what constitutes "realistic."
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HonoredMule - thanks for this. I don't think the technology platform this game is build on (not that I know anything about it) provides the flexibility you are looking for. Rock-paper-scissors is a good way to start in my humble opinion. Terrain bonuses is not. I should not have mentioned the examples as I'm not really looking for realism. Just something that makes a little sense. I hammered the range- speed combat mechanics in Evony back in 2009 but at least it provided tactical options. In Illy the tactical option of "Feint" means that your army returns after it has arrived. That is not my understanding of how to feint. Just as an example.
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Bonaparta
Postmaster
Joined: 03 Nov 2011
Location: Milky Way
Status: Offline
Points: 541
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Posted: 09 May 2012 at 19:31 |
Combat mechanic in Illy is great.
I actually like the fact that even small forces can damage huge amount of troops, which is by the way totally realistic.
Gasterix when you will gather some experience, you might change your mind about combat mechanic. No offence, but attacking with such small forces is really not relevant to large battles and especially not to alliance versus alliance battles...
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scaramouche
Forum Warrior
Joined: 25 Apr 2011
Status: Offline
Points: 432
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Posted: 09 May 2012 at 19:32 |
Diomedes wrote:
Well said, Rill. I, for one, abhor the cold analytical processes that seem to excite a small minority of players in Illy. The essence of the game is surely to experiment with what might work in practice - which, if one thinks about it, is more in tune with real life. I thoroughly enjoy the inherent uncertainties of combat, and would lose interest quickly if I had to depend on a calculator before sending troops into combat. "Go, my brave warriors - go and kill, and if perchance you fail, I'll just send some more."  |
Nicely put.
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Khèlbên Khál
New Poster
Joined: 03 May 2012
Status: Offline
Points: 13
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Posted: 09 May 2012 at 20:41 |
Warfare is invariably about having more men around at any stage who haven't hid or run away yet than the other guy. What they have in their hand is almost irrelevant.
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Babbens
Wordsmith
Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Status: Offline
Points: 165
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Posted: 10 May 2012 at 08:03 |
Like the Carthaginians at Cannae in 216 BC? Or the Germans at Teutoburg Forest in AD9? Or the English at Agincourt in 1415? 
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Drydenn
New Poster
Joined: 04 Nov 2011
Location: The Dirty Jerz
Status: Offline
Points: 17
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Posted: 10 May 2012 at 11:33 |
HonoredMule wrote:
You need to understand the difference between simulating battle and modelling the results. |
What is the difference between these two things? Anyone? Preferably without using math that will make my eyeballs bleed? 
- Drydenn
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Albatross
Postmaster General
Joined: 11 May 2011
Status: Offline
Points: 1118
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Posted: 10 May 2012 at 12:17 |
Simulation takes account of all the detailed events that happen within the process; modelling guesses the results by making general assumptions.
It's really a sliding scale, rather than being one or the other: | REALITY --- SIMULATION --- GENERAL MODEL --- (no resemblance) |
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HonoredMule
Postmaster General
Joined: 05 Mar 2010
Location: Canada
Status: Offline
Points: 1650
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Posted: 10 May 2012 at 13:15 |
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Simulating, as Albatross implies, involves taking a battle through its paces actually processing what happens in several steps (archers soften target, then cavalry charges center, then infantry moves in, etc.--or at higher levels of detail, soldier one of 24M holds left corner of a center box formation until stubbing his toe which causes the man behind him to stumble outside the shield protection, taking an arrow...). Basically, think of flight simulator, where realism is carefully sought in real-time.
Modelling is (mathematically) based on statistical analysis, where the differences between many wildly different situations is reduced to the smallest and simplest set of variables and an algorithm is artistically produced which takes those basic inputs (troop and terrain type, equipment and training, etc.) in the form of figures which generically quantify them (terrain modifiers, unit atk and def stats, whether attacking or defending), and skips straight to an assumption of results which hopefully match what would be the statistical average result of any realistic battles that qualify as satisfying the input parameters.
To be truly modeling realistic battles the algorithm would have to also consider things like standard deviation which would take into account the massive variability of results in real-world warfare--especially when the inputs are so simplified as to leave many whole categories of input unconsidered altogether (starvation, disease, luck, etc.). But that wouldn't make for a good game mechanic. I think we'd all be unhappy if the consistency of our results regularly varied by 50% or more.
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"Apparently, quoting me is a 'thing' now."
- HonoredMule
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Rorgash
Postmaster
Joined: 23 Aug 2011
Status: Offline
Points: 894
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Posted: 10 May 2012 at 14:46 |
i brought up something a while back about another browser games that has a more realistic combat system, now one of the problems that was brought up here was that a more detailed combat was server load, i dont know but this game made the combat take time, a normal sized battle 4k vs 4k troops would take 4 hours or so, so i would guess that this time was what they added to make up for the extra server load.
i dont mind the current combat system, but i would like a longer combat system where you can reinforce a ongoing battle to help your friends. but thats a huge update which im sure wont come soon :P
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