View Full Version : Creative Assembly Real Affect of Weapons
How does adding 1 weapons upgrade to ur unit effect it's killing power?
Do they kill faster?
How many more kills does it give u in combat 1v1
Same goes for 2 weapons and for 3 weapons.
Noticed alot of ppl use YA high honor with weapons 3 etc.
And are these weapons ungrades really worth the koku?
Anybody do any test on these?
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Grey Wolves
FastCub
Well, I can tell you from experience.
Honour upgrade is the best.
Try an hon4 nod vs an hon3 wep1 nod.
But weapon upgrades can be very useful especially in 10k+ games.
A practical example:
A no-dachi hon5 costs A LOT.
But a no-dachi hon4 wep1 costs MUCH less and basically it will have the same effect if used in the best way!
Tera.
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evil is within us... http://terazawa.totalwar.org/emo.gif
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[This message has been edited by Terazawa Tokugawa (edited 03-02-2002).]
FasT,
Expanding a bit on what Tera said:
The upgrades work like this:
+1 honor = +1 attack and +2 morale and costs 40%
+1 weapon = +1 attack and costs 40%
+1 armor = +1 defend and +1 armor and costs 60%
Note: Honor upgrades add to attack or defend alternately. So, a +2 honor upgrade adds +1 to attack, +1 to defend and +4 to morale.
The combat calculation is attack - defend + bonus = probability to kill on each combat cycle. I've haven't tried to determine the base probability that 0 represents, but we have it from one of the CA/DT question times that each 1 point change is a factor of 20% in the probability to kill. That means +5 points would be 100% or 2x as good. If you are 20% better than the enemy unit, you will probably win. If you are 40% better, you will certainly win if all other factors affecting combat are equal which they rarely are.
The cost of the three upgrade types is figured independently, and based on the cost of the basic H2 unit. For example, an H3 W1 A2 YA would be 100 x 1.4 = 140 for the honor upgrade. Then add 100 x 0.4 for the weapon which brings the cost to 180. Then add 100 x 0.6 for the first armor upgrade making the cost 240. An finally add 160 x 0.6 for the second armor upgrade for a final cost of 336.
In the case of the H4 ND vs the H3 W1 ND. The H4 ND costs 300 + 120 + 168 = 588. The H3 W1 ND costs 300 + 120 + 120 = 540. The attack/defend combat stat for the H4 ND is 7/0 with morale = 16. The H3 W1 ND is 8/-1 with morale = 14. The H4 ND will stand longer due to the higher morale and higher defend value, but the H3 W1 ND is nice for attacking a flank because it can kill faster.
MizuYuuki ~~~
Clan Takiyama ~~~
theforce
03-04-2002, 00:32
Done some testing yestrday. A h6 ys totally wiped out a h4 ys with 3 weapon upgrades. Test were made on green on a nice day.
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Don't use only honour, use theforce, too.
DeathOnaPaleHorse
03-04-2002, 04:14
Wow, Puzz 3-D sure knows his statistical analysis.
BarryNoDachi
03-04-2002, 20:39
looks like puzz3d should of got that pi symbol a long time ago http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
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Clan Kenchikuka (http://pub14.ezboard.com/fclankenchikukakenchikukacouncilchamber)
i tested some weeks ago the following...
h6 nd vs h5 nd +1W, the h6 nd won, not coz the h6 nd has more moral and hold longer, they won coz they killed more ???
but normaly it should be same,...h6 8/1
h5+1w 8/1
but the h6 cost 1154 and the h5+1 958
normaly i would say, the h5 runs early away, but they should fight and kill same...but it wasnt like this... so is it possible that lower honourd units get faster tired?
this would be the only solution for this...
at the end it isnt the unit which decide over the vict, its mostly ur skill and a bit of luck
koc
Kocmoc,
H6 ND is a 8/1 att/def
H5 W1 ND is a 9/0 att/def
In theory that's still perfectly balanced since 8 - 0 = 8 and 9 - 1 = 8. However, the ND has a high charge value of 8 which is added to the attack value for the first second or two of combat. This gives the ND a very high initial kill rate against another ND. Needless to say, whichever unit gets the first attack cycle in will have a big advantage. Now even if you charge both units at one another, the attack cycle has to alternate between the men in the two units. So, who gets the first strike? If you cut down 10 men in the enemy unit right off the bat and loose none yourself, they cannot recover unless they have a combat advantage. I'm just pointing out that the ND is a very volatile unit, and tricky to test. I do intend to run some tests on honor vs weapon vs armor upgrades since many players now think honor gives you some extra advantage.
MizuYuuki ~~~
shingenmitch2
03-06-2002, 02:00
Yuuk,
The "who attacks first" might not be on a full unit basis either --- they say each man in a unit calculates for himself many factors including morale.
Thus each man in the unit as he engages another enemy man might have to gain "initiative." Two ND units of 60 vs. 60 going at it might have each little man -on-man calculate who goes first. This would help mitigate the first-strike problems you raise.
Could honor (supposedly being reprentative of skill/ unit training) play a role in who strikes first?
Question: Is Armor strictly a "missle survivability rating" having no other effect on melee combat?
[This message has been edited by shingenmitch2 (edited 03-05-2002).]
Mitch,
The attack cycles are on a man-to-man basis, and, if they are randomized, then they would tend to balance out. But, with fast killing units, I don't think it takes much one way or the other to be decisive.
I believe longjohn said morale was a global unit parameter. Units rout and rally as one.
Armor is only used to calculate resistance to ranged weapons, but an armor upgrade also gives the unit +1 defend, so the defensive capability in h2h in improved by the armor upgrade.
MizuYuuki ~~~
Konnichiwa,
H6 ND is a 8/1 att/def
H5 W1 ND is a 9/0 att/def
are quite equal in stats, as yuuki pointed out, a 1 point advantage MIGHT make the stronger unit win. Here the 2 units are equal and will kill each other (that could be at an equal rate both have 8 points 'change' to kill the other). When both units are down to say 20% the 2 pointsmorale difference MIGHT cause the H6 to continue fighting while the H5 thinks:' I lost enough, I'll rout'.
Yuuki mentioned the initial kill due to charge, a unit needs a large advantage in combatpoints to overcome those initial loses (a H2 NC (7 points) could destroy a H2 wm unit (9 points) when the NC charges the WM only because the NC can kill a lot of WM during the charge.
There's yet another thing: each man in a unit has personal stats (MTW could make very good use of this in online games: personal weapon for elite knights sword, mace, warhammer, axe). When you buy a H2 WM unit, all man will be Honor 2 (9 combatpoints 12 morale). When one man inside that unit makes some kills he'll earn 1 Honorupgrade (1 combatpoint and 2 morale). More kills will give that 1 man yet another Honorupgrade (+1 combat +2 morale). While you still face a unit that is H2 on average, some WM in it are H3 or even H4. Only when enough men gained honor, the unit will become H3 (I don't know when this occurs, new average is 3 or all are 3).
The same will happen in your unit, but you can have the bad luck that the ones who die are those men which just gained honor. Thus when you pitch 2 fresh H2 nods against each other, 1 can grow stronger while the other remains all H2, even if both units kill each other at a same rate (academics, but this illustrates what can happen during a fight).
When you buy a H0 Kensai, 2 kills are enough to make him (and the entire unit, unless 120 unitsize is used) H1. Some 20 kills are enough to make a H0 Kensai H4. 20 Kills aren't enough to make H4 H8.
I don't think that this is realistic, while killing enemies would boost the MORALE of a man, I can't believe that his HTH skills would improve like that, right there (a H0 YariCav goes from 1 melee to 2 melee when it kills 2 enemies). The 9 Honorupgrades should be Morale only (at best only very little melee upgrade like 0.1) and the 3 Weapons/3 Armor should upgrade a units special skills in combat (maintains the rock paper scissor): melee for shocks, better cavkilling for pikes (main part), better accuracy/stronger bows/heavier arrows for archers, better manoeuvrability/charge and melee for cav.
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
Kocmoc,
It's not fatigue. Are you saying that H6 ND always beats H5 W1 ND? When a unit routs, it could have more kills than losses at that moment, but it will suffer many losses as it tries to disengage. When you look at the final kills the winning unit killed more, but that's not necessarily why it won. The only way this is not a factor is if the unit fights to the last man.
MizuYuuki ~~~
longjohn2
03-07-2002, 05:31
To save you all scratching your heads, you actually get 1 attack, and 1 defence factor bonus for each honour point upgrade. The F1 stats report the effects of honour incorrectly.
As regards who gets to fight first in charge, it depends who runs into who on an individual man level. All the men of one unit are moved before the next unit, so if the units hit each other absolutely straight on with all the men perfectly lined up, then one unit would get an advantage all along the line. However, you all know how likely that is :-).
Quote Originally posted by longjohn2:
To save you all scratching your heads, you actually get 1 attack, and 1 defence factor bonus for each honour point upgrade. The F1 stats report the effects of honour incorrectly.[/QUOTE]
Cant the f1 stats report effect be put right?This way we would have NP seeing the effect each upgrade has? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
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Grey Wolves
FastCub
Ok thanks longjohn! I guess no F1 screen would have been better than a wrong F1 screen. After reading your post, I set up four H6 ND vs four H3 W3 ND to emphasize any difference between honor and weapon upgrade. Charging the units 1v1 at each other on flat ground the difference is very apparent. H6 ND won all 4 battles with 232 total kills. H3 W3 ND only managed to get 132 total kills. I see now why weapons only cost 20% in WE/MI v1.0.
MizuYuuki ~~~
LOL, so we have been wrong all along!
Guess many have to work out new formula for their "ideal" set up again.
Gothmog,
Yes. Certainly an honor ugrade is worth more than 2x a weapon upgrade because you get +2 morale with it as well. And, just so everyone knows, I did verify the +2 morale with my own tests. It's funny because I only did that because morale is not on the F1 screen.
I agree with TosaInu's idea that honor upgrade should only increase morale. That way the units would stay within their role. Right now in 10K koku online games you have super YA running around that are practically unstoppable. There was no way to fix this with unit parameters without making the unit useless in the single player game. That's why we say the game is balanced at 7K koku. That puts a bit of a limit on the super ashi.
MizuYuuki ~~~
Quote Originally posted by Puzz3D:
Ok thanks longjohn! I guess no F1 screen would have been better than a wrong F1 screen. After reading your post, I set up four H6 ND vs four H3 W3 ND to emphasize any difference between honor and weapon upgrade. Charging the units 1v1 at each other on flat ground the difference is very apparent. H6 ND won all 4 battles with 232 total kills. H3 W3 ND only managed to get 132 total kills. I see now why weapons only cost 20% in WE/MI v1.0.
MizuYuuki ~~~[/QUOTE]
H6 ND having better defence, +3 more?, also influence the outcome. Better to try H6 ND vs H3 W3 A3 ND. I think this make morale being the main factor left in deciding the outcome?
BTW Longjohn, do you mean that every honour upgrade will give +1att +1def, or is it some value 1.0 < x < 1.7 for defence?
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tootee the goldfish
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Quote Originally posted by tootee:
BTW Longjohn, do you mean that every honour upgrade will give +1att +1def, or is it some value 1.0 < x < 1.7 for defence?
[/QUOTE]
Gee, am I missing this much?
Where did the fractional number 1.0 -- 1.7 come from?
Care to enlighten us first, Tootee?
shingenmitch2
03-07-2002, 21:11
If Honor gives you +1 attack +1 Def +2 Honor -- it should be way more expensive than the weapon upgrade. This blows the W-upgrade pricing structure out the window.
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***** I hope the developers consider this next part *****
One interesting/ disturbing aspect of flat-line ADDITIVE combat factors, is that they will benefit a low-level unit more than a high level.
Ex.: unit "A" with a base (H0) attack of 1 is increased to attack 9. It is now 9 TIMES more powerful than the the base level. However for unit "B" which started at base attack 9 and got the same +9 (now it is attack 18) it is ONLY 2 times more powerful than the base unit.
And this effects how their combat interacts. Say those A and B go at it at base level (1:9) ratio--- slaughter in favor of B ---vs. 2 top level units fighting (1:2) ratio--a much closer win for B.
Rarely in combat (all other things being equal -- leadership, tactics, weapons, etc) is one fighting man more than 2 times more effective than his counterpart. It seems in MI that the difference between H0 of a unit and H9 of a unit can be far more than a factor of 2 (particularly with Ashis). That ability curve needs to be examined and I'm sure this would impact the Koku price structure as well.
By adding both attack and defense simultaneous, it really is TOO much of an addition of power. When we thought it alternated, the best you could add would be +5 att, +4 def. -- fairly significant, but nothing like +9 att, +9 def. And THEN in theory you could upgrade to +12 att, +12 def with weapons/armor. This is especially true when an average ability range of (-1 to 6) for most scores.
In theory you could have an Ashi about 12-13 times more powerful than the base Ashi. No Ashi should be 12 times better than another Ashi. No monk 4 times better than another monk. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
_____
Yuuk, yes a much better structure is that Honor builds morale (or maybe a much more limited attack/defense effect)
I always thought that "in reality" a super experienced Ashi was an oxy-moron. The top Ashi should be barely better than a competent YS.
[This message has been edited by shingenmitch2 (edited 03-07-2002).]
I agree 100% with shingenmitch2. the current upgrade system favours the low cost units. I think that the simplest solution would be to limit the available upgrades at different levels. For example, MAX 4/5 honour/weapon/armour upgrade for the ashis, MAX 7/8 H/W/A upgrade for YS and allow H9/W9/A9 upgrade only for the elite units such as monks, HC. I know that someone proposed this earlier, so I agree with him 100% http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
H6 ND vs. H5 W1 ND
Yuuki, it must be something with fatigue.
Quote Kocmoc,
It's not fatigue. Are you saying that H6 ND always beats H5 W1 ND? When a unit routs, it could have more kills than losses at that moment, but it will suffer many losses as it tries to disengage. When you look at the final kills the winning unit killed more, but that's not necessarily why it won. The only way this is not a factor is if the unit fights to the last man.
MizuYuuki ~~~ [/QUOTE]
I did a few test runs (only three so far, but I will do more). There are a few things that show up clearly:
1) The initial advantage is random.
2) Each unit is capable to recover from an initial disadvantage (i.e. there is no positive feedback).
3) H5 ND do not run earlier! They almost always fight to the last man. (first run: Taisho was last to die; second and third run they were routed when down to 3 and 4 men respectively)
4) For a very long time they are on level with H6 ND.
5) However, at the end the H6 ND always won! Even if only just a few men remained (8 or 10).
I think that the inescapable conclusion is that there have to be something related to stamina/fatigue. Are you sure that morale has no effect on it?
[This message has been edited by Cheetah (edited 03-07-2002).]
shingenmitch2
03-07-2002, 23:32
Cheetah:
The reason was cleared up by LongJohn. It is not fatigue. It is the Defence value and to a lesser degree the morale.
H6 ND has: +6 Att, +6 Def, +12 morale
H5 W1 ND has: +6 Att, +5 Def, +10 morale.
H6 should always win --all other factors being equal.
(It was previously thought that Attack and Defence additions due to Honor alternated on odd and even honor upgrades, it is now known to be a simultanious upgrade for both. Yuuk was thinking a H6 ND had +3 Att, +3 Def, and that the H5w1 ND would have +4 Att, +2 Def and thus be equal)
hm, now I see. thx shingenmitch2!
longjohn2
03-08-2002, 03:52
Hi shingenmitch2
Just thought I'd clear up a point about honour upgrades being more effective for lower factor units. This isn't the case, because although the factors are added in a linear fashion, the chance of a man making a kill does not depend linearly on the factor. Instead an exponential system is used, where an increase of 1 factor will always result in a 20% greater chance of a kill.
For example if a unit at a given factor has a 10% chance of making a kill, and its factor is increased by 1, then it will have a 12% chance of making a kill. If it had a 50% chance of making a kill, it will now have a 60% chance.
This is why each honour upgrade costs 40% nore than the previous step, because that is roughly the increase in fighting power.
The result of this that increasing a unit's factors by 4 (2 honour levels) results in a doubling of its combat effectiveness.
Seems to me like a very complex system http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/confused.gif
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Grey Wolves
FastCub
Konnichiwa LongJohn sama,
shingenmitch2 is right, the upgrade system is broken and it spoils the game. Low cost units (having low stats) gain a lot. What's worse, it breaks the nice Rock Paper Scissor system.
Perhaps you are interested in why we think it is, here's part of my view: http://www.totalwar.org/Stats.html
This is not intended as an offense.
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
shingenmitch2
03-08-2002, 07:02
Hi LongJohn,
That would certainly changes things.
[This message has been edited by shingenmitch2 (edited 03-08-2002).]
RustyGalaxy
03-08-2002, 08:55
That totally stunned me. No wonder I lost those games when I try to maximize the attack/defense/armor upgrade with respect to cost and no little interest of morale, where my "superior" units are unfunctioning head-on.
Sir Longjohn, do you actually mean that an honor upgrade does no additional effect- the increase of a factor- to the defending side? What if the defense value is greater?
Fast, as I understand, the system is that a fight of dead/alive is decided by (1+ bonus percentage of the factor as 20%) to the power n, where n is combat difference.
However, I'm not sure what the combat value means here.
And if that is the case, then ,lol, longjohn, it's (1.2*1.2=)1.44 times the chance! Or is that a sum of the percentage you mean?
--Quote--
Instead an exponential system is used, where an increase of 1 factor will always result in a 20% greater chance of a kill.
--End of Quote--
--The suggestion to MTW system--
My suggestion is all about a very easy implementation for the programmer so they can improve other aspects, and a different systemetical allocation of ability to each successive honor upgrade.
In addition to each +1 morale to each honor upgarde from 0, the bonus value gives to it is respectively
+1morale,+1attack,+1defense,
thus starting from 2, it's additionally
+1defense,+1morale,+1attack.
[This message has been edited by RustyGalaxy (edited 03-08-2002).]
Quote Originally posted by Gothmog:
Gee, am I missing this much?
Where did the fractional number 1.0 -- 1.7 come from?
Care to enlighten us first, Tootee?
[/QUOTE]
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002815.html
Perhaps I should rephrase. I did some test on SP couple of mths back. Basically using WM2 as dummy, and attacked by various units with different honor upgraded (w/o weapon/armour upgrade). Primarily I used YA and YS as control since they dont have charge bonus, and the WM dummy doesn't have charge bonus if its was attacked.
I tried to determine at which honor of YS/YA are they evenly matched with WM2, i.e. equal win/loss out of 6. I assume the formula attack - defence = chance-to-kill. When they are evenly matched, this value should be close for both side. At that time I didnt know 1 pt difference = 20% improvement in chance-to-kill.
I try to recall now (threw all the data away when I read somewhere that +att and +def alternate between honor upgrade, which turned out to be incorrect). I think (if I remember correctly) that
YS5 and YA7 quite evenly match WM2, with WM2 winning more. I also assume each +1h gives +1w+1a which worked out to be
unit att def morale
WM2 5 2 8
YA5 3 5 8
YA7 4 4 6
which to me didn't look rite. I divide all defence bonus by 1.5 to 1.6, and then they looked better.
unit att def(%1.6) morale
WM2 5 2 8
YA5 3 3.875 8
YA7 4 2.125 6
I carried with other test, and the best fit is that for every +1h, it gives +1att +1/1.6 defence.
Of cos then i realised that probably the game engine is not computing in floating point, but fixed point, thats why I didnt publish my results.
FYI.
PS WM3 vs YA8, based on +1att +1def, give YA8 lots of bonus(+1pt fro WM3 vs +2pt for YA8), which we know arent true.
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tootee the goldfish
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[This message has been edited by tootee (edited 03-08-2002).]
[This message has been edited by tootee (edited 03-08-2002).]
ok.. let me get this right.
for each honor upgrade, one get
+x attack and +y defence.
Assume chance-to-kill is proportional to att pt of attacker - def pt of defender, it is quite equivalent to adding up the att and def pt of a unit, and compare to another to see who is better, i.e.
A1 - D2 > A2 - D1
=> A1 + D1 > A2 + D2. If true then unit1 has higher chance of winning unit2.
For each honor upgrade regardless of unit type, the bonus pt is the same. However the cost is different. Hence it penalises the more expensive units. What balance all this is the base pt of the unit at h2, e.g.
YA = A+D = -2
WM = 5+2 = 7
ND = 5-2 = 3
Gah.. too longwinded..
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tootee the goldfish
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[This message has been edited by tootee (edited 03-08-2002).]
and that probably explained why for a weaker unit to matchup to a higher one, the honor difference needed is around
(Base pt of stronger - Base pt of weaker) / 2
assuming each +1h = +1att +1def.
e.g. to matchup WM2 of base pt 7, ND need (7-3)/2 = 2 level higher -> ND4.
e.g. for YA (7 + 2)/2 -> need YA7
Right? LOL i must be crazy...
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tootee the goldfish
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Konnichiwa,
The simplest proof that the upgrade system doesn't work is that H7W2A2 Yariashis are frequently used online, and that they easily kill more expensive No-dachis and cavalry alike. The YA is the cheapest and one of the weakest units at H0.
http://www.totalwar.org/Stats.html (this is not an old post).
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
RustyGalaxy
03-08-2002, 19:03
Chance of a kill:= (1+ factor percentage as 20% here)to the power (attack-defense)
I lost my mind when I made my first post, how stupid is that equation.
However my question lies to what if attack is smaller than defense.
does it become a returned kill to yourself?
Quote Chance of a kill:= (1+ factor percentage as 20% here)to the power (attack-defense)[/QUOTE] http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/confused.gif
Sorry Galaxy, but this cannot work, assuming that the chance of kill have to a number between 0 and 1 (or not? Am I missing something???). (i.e. the above equation results a number bigger than one provided that A>D.)
-------
Quote This isn't the case, because although the factors are added in a linear fashion, the chance of a man making a kill does not depend linearly on the factor. Instead an exponential system is used, where an increase of 1 factor will always result in a 20% greater chance of a kill.[/QUOTE] http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/confused.gif
longjohn2, this seems to me a fixed rule rather than a function. That is, what kind of function can give you a 20% increase regardless of the independent variable?
Let's have the following equation:
f(x)=y Eq.(1)
where x is the factor,
y is the chance of killing,
and f is the function that relates the two.
Now, according to your statement we have:
f(x+1)=f(x)+f(x)*0.2 Eq.(2)
Right? Question: what is f? The only solution I could come up is:
f(x,x')=g(x)+g(x)*(x'-x)*0.2 Eq.(3)
where g(x)=y,
x is the base factor,
and x' is the new factor of the given unit.
Alas, there is no exponential in eq.3. However, I could come up with no exponential equation that fulfils your statement as formulated by eq.2.
Last but not least, what do you call as "factor"??? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/confused.gif
Could you enlighten me?
[This message has been edited by Cheetah (edited 03-08-2002).]
Quote Originally posted by RustyGalaxy:
Chance of a kill:= (1+ factor percentage as 20% here)to the power (attack-defense)
I lost my mind when I made my first post, how stupid is that equation.
However my question lies to what if attack is smaller than defense.
does it become a returned kill to yourself?[/QUOTE]
I think they mean that for an attacker, a +1pt means 20% more chance of a kill. -1pt i will take it to mean 20% less likely. I don't know what is the starting percentage, but if we assume 50% that means
-3pts = 28.9%
-2pts = 34.7%
-1pts = 41.2%
0pts = 50%
+1pts = 60%
+2pts = 72%
+3pts = 86.4%
Correct me if i'm wrong guys.
Could we now have a simple rundown of what all this means http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/confused.gifPuZZ?
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http://homepage.ntlworld.com/markuk/t.gif/wolf11.gif
Grey Wolves
FastCub
Konnichiwa,
It means that MTW should have a better system than STW.
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
longjohn2
03-09-2002, 07:21
TosaInu you may be right that the costings for weapon and armour upgrades are broken. I wasn't at CA when they were added, so I'm not sure exactly how they work. If they do indeed work the way Puzz3D describes, then they'll be much better value than honour upgrades after the first couple of steps.
I looked at your thoughts on improvements for Medieval. Thanks for taking the time to write them. However, I'm not allowed to talk about what we're actually doing yet.
Cheetah, Tootee has the combat calculations correct. The chance of a kill is
killchance = baseChance * (1.2)**fd;
** means to the power of
fd is the factor difference, and may be positive or negative
The basechance is around 18 or 19%.
Sword_Monkey
03-09-2002, 11:08
Quote Originally posted by longjohn2:
I looked at your thoughts on improvements for Medieval. Thanks for taking the time to write them. However, I'm not allowed to talk about what we're actually doing yet.
[/QUOTE]
Just a suggestion since you're early enough in the development: Please don't keep this "under the hood" information so secret next time. Shogun players shouldn't need to comb two dozen threads on a web board to know what the actual benefits of building a Golden Palace are. Strategy gamers love stats http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
This stuff should be in the manual or, if not there for fear of scaring off the casual player, on a website similar to what Blizzard did with Diablo 2. It makes a game come much more alive when we know how it works and can emphasise what we want instead of just guessing.
I'm pretty sure the Mizus and others, that include me, have lots of fun trying to play detective and figure out how the engine work http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif.
I believe Yuuki even setup up his own network just for testing MI online?
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tootee the goldfish
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Konnichiwa Longjohn sama,
Thank you very much for discussing this.
Not only the weapon and armor upgrade breaks the RockPaperScissor. The Honorupgradesystem like it is now, does that too.
H4 Nod 9 melee 2 defense 588 Koku
H7 YA 6 melee 6 defense 538 Koku
The upgraded YA is cheaper than the nod, has 1 more normal combatpoint (11 vs 12)and has the yari vs cav bonus. And the YA had more armor to protect it against arrows. The YA is a great danger for the Nod, and kills any cav. It's a No Risk unit.
Instead of the requirement to balance your army (some pikes to stop cav, shocks to kill pikes, exactely what STW does for all H0 units), you only have to buy Multi Purpose SuperYA, and slay anything before you by making more mouseclicks than your opponent.
The only drawback of YA is their Ashistatus (which can be a pro too) and their lower morale. But the pros outweight the cons.
Just recently I'm using 4 superashis too, winning battles is very easy now.
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
Kraellin
03-09-2002, 23:20
all this math is putting me to sleep, but an interesting discussion nonetheless. fortunately when we did the testing for 1.02 our tweaks were based on empirical results and not so much on math formuli. we spent a lot of time on staged battles, taking one unit and pitting it against one other unit. had we tried to rely on just math for all this, we'd prolly still be tweaking.
the point i guess i'm making is, you can do all the formulas, math and whatnot you like, but in the end, it goes back to something like kocmoc said, it's your ability, and your knowledge of the how the units act, and react, and operate, and a bit of luck, that will make the difference in the end. knowing the numbers behind the units can certainly help you come to know how the unit operates, but knowing the unit by having used the unit is a much better way of knowing.
ok, with that said, i'd now like to punch CA in the face...or maybe it's dreamtime we shld punch...i'm actually getting to like longjohn and target, for they actually talk to us. thanks guys :) a shame that the ones who actually talk to us also take the brunt of our abuse...gee, i wonder why they dont talk to us more often?
ok, those that dont want to read a long post can now leave the room.... also, all you math majors can exit as well; no formulas here.
this goes back a ways to when i first started playing the game. i used to lose a lot, was often routed easily and really couldnt figure out how all this stuff worked. honor, to me, had nothing to do with skill. honor has something to do with your character, your ability to stand your ground in the face of force to try and make you not do so. it's got to do with principles and agreements and ethics. it has nothing to do with skill in combat. when i finally found out that honor increased one's combat abilities i was a bit perplexed. sure, skill might make you a bit more confident and thus able to stand your ground better, but that's taking it backwards and the stat shld have been called 'skill', not 'honor', if that was the case.
it also bugs me that 'honor' increases from killing (or decreases with death). that again is not honor; that's morale, and it's true in just about anything one undertakes. when you do a thing well, your morale or confidence increases and you move on to try and increase it some more. but, this is NOT honor. honor has nothing to do with how many kills you make or how many of your men die. you could say that that is 'honors', but it's certainly not honor. and those 2 words are completely different. we give a person honors for winning, but you cant give him honor. that's a subjective thing, first person only.
the same is also true of the points system in the game. we call it the 'honor system', but it's not. it's an honors system. it's a reward system for triumph. that's honors, not honor.
so, what i'm getting at here is that there are some base items that have been mis-defined, right from the start. if you wanna call the honor stat 'skill', then fine, i've no problem with that. a higher skill would tend to give one more confidence and an increase in staying power on the field. that's fine, but then why would you then need a separate weapons and armor upgrade and why in the world would those be based on the base unit cost? armor is armor. you take a chunk of metal and bang it out into the right shape and it would have a simple, single cost based on the price of steel and labor. why in heaven's name would it be based on the maintainance cost of a unit of men? same with weapons. makes no sense. it's a non-sequiter in the game.
so what are the factors in this game? we've got a willingness to stay and fight. we've got skill, both offensive and defensive and both for melee and missile. we've got weapons and armor grades. we've got confidence, represented by in-field upgrades of 'honor'. there's hidden influences that make the rock, paper, scissors stuff work so that a ys can kill a cav. there's guns, horses (anybody ever figured out the stats for a horse?) and we've got fatigue.
now, for a first effort into this game genre, i think CA did a stellar job. how they streamlined code to make 9 or 10,000 units on a battlefield work is quite remarkable. and all my earlier remarks aside, the game was fun. bottom line, it was fun. that's quite evident by the fact that here we are, years later, still debating stats and internal configurations and how we think they shld and shldnt be. quite amazing in today's quick-shove-it-out-the-door game arena.
now, we can understand that in order to get those 10,000 units on the field of battle there might have been a bit of condensation going on. honor and skill and morale get lumped into the same stat, the gun model isnt quite a true representation of arq's or muskets. (and it's not, btw. ask any of the 1.02 beta guys). some shortcuts were taken on a few things. you shld stop and figure out sometime how many calculations per second this game engine does. it's a staggering figure. i'm still surprised that i could play shogun on my 333 mhz machine and with a 56k connection. some of that net code is quite remarkable also. hats off to the guys that figured that one out.
and as far as whether you got an attack bonus every other honor upgrade is moot. in play, it actually works out pretty much the same no matter which way it had been...because it was the same for everybody. yeah, i know some of you nigglers out there wanna know every 1000th decimal place and calculate every koku point and upgrade to nth degree, but i'll almost guarantee you that the best players are the players that play and simply KNOW the units and how they interact with each other. so the stats are always less important than simply playing and knowing by doing. kocmoc and magy and amp are good players because they play. they may also understand the stats to give them an extra little edge, but i've played all of them and i'll guarantee that when magy surrounds you with mongol heavy cav and mongol light cav and dances his little dance those units, he's not relying on stats to win. he's relying on skill and KNOWING what the unit can do cause he's simply played the thing so often it becomes 2nd nature.
ok, told ya it was going to be a long post.
what i'd like to see CA do is hire someone for pr, first off. that the programmers are here once in a while to give us an answer or two is great, but CA has always been a bit, ummm, reclusive. but my understanding of the setup of the 'triad' of EA, CA and DT said that CA didnt have anything to do with pr. that wasnt their job. that target and longjohn come here at all is a bit of a bonus. my understanding is that DT actually owns the game; at least their company is credited with the copywrites in the credits, so where is there pr guy here in the dojo? when's the last time you saw mr. de plater (sp?) here in the forum? lol. i dont blame anyone for staying out of the .com forum. i saw that mess in my first month of playing and left and havent been back since. and longjohn, we do understand that you cant tell us anything about M:TW. that's not going to stop us from making recommendations, however ;)
so, what are my recommendations?
1. first off, call a spade by its right name. 'honor' is honor. it's not honors, it's not morale, it's not confidence and it's certainly not skill. that honor translates into morale which translates into staying power, ok. no problem with that, but separate out skill from this. they are completely separate entities.
2. start units at H0, not H2. selling back 'honor' or skill is just a bit weird. yuuki can explain why better than i, but i agree with him completely on this.
3. make armor and weapons upgrades at a fixed cost for each grade and NOT based on a unit's cost.
thus, you might have 4 values you could sink your extra koku/gold into: morale, skill, weapons, and armor. you could even break skill down into offensive and defensive but at least separate it out from morale.
4. change the points system and please quit referring to it as an 'honor system'. those points by the side of your name do NOT reflect honor at all. they reflect victory and loss. change the competitive rating system. frankly, i'd just ask the players how they want to keep score and what they want to see displayed or not.
5. remodel the gun system to reflect more accurately how guns really work. we need a power curve in there. this has been discussed elsewhere so i wont rehash it much here.
6. if any of the above bog the game down too much, dump it, but tell us you had to because of game speed. 'guys, we tried to remodel guns, but it just bogged things down too much so we had to scrap it'. a little communication goes a long ways.
7. kick DT in the arse once or twice and if they're not in charge of pr, then kick activision. tends to keep em awake if nothing else.
there's more things we could discuss, but i shld sorta keep this on topic and a lot of the other stuff is discussed elsewhere, so, i'll wrap this up.
some of the guys are concerned with this 20x thing in an H9. i could care less. magy recommended this quite a while back, limit the honor upgrades to like H5 or something. that's fine either way. everyone gets the same koku and units available in shogun/we/mi. what i'm curious about is if in M:TW we're going to play different units against different units as in the mongols vs the japanese and how this stuff is going to interact online.
at any rate, good to see ya again, longjohn. please excuse any ranting and raving on my part. if i could code worth a damn, i'd prolly be sitting on the other side of the fence and going, 'man, these yo-yo's dont have a clue' ;)
K.
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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
Quote also, all you math majors can exit as well; no formulas here.[/QUOTE] http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif
Quote some of the guys are concerned with this 20x thing in an H9. i could care less. magy recommended this quite a while back, limit the honor upgrades to like H5 or something. that's fine either way. everyone gets the same koku and units available in shogun/we/mi.[/QUOTE]
I think the question is not whether everyone gets the same units available or not but whether this H9 upgrade system ruins the rock-paper-scissor game or not. The fact is that it ruins, so this has to be changed. Too bad that no one listened to Magy's recommendation.
BTW, with respect of other things I cannot agree with you more. It would be indeed very nice to separate honor, morale, and skill. Additionaly, there could be stamina/endurance upgrade as well. After all, the very idea of training is that after it is done you can do more of anything before you get tired.
Quote Originally posted by Kraellin:
3. make armor and weapons upgrades at a fixed cost for each grade and NOT based on a unit's cost.
[/QUOTE]
or prorate the bonus these two adds base on the unit's base pt. To work, drop all negative stat (i dont see the point of having negative number). Make YA base att1 def1 at honor0. Each weapon upgrade at a factor of, say 1.2. Thus
YA0 Att1
YA0 W1 Att1.2
YA0 W2 Att1.44
YA0 W3 Att1.73
Thus a ND get more bonus for each upgrade b'cos his att base is higher, and he pays more for it.
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tootee the goldfish,
headmaster of Shogun-Academy (http://shogun-academy.tripod.com)
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