New Developer Blog: AI and Battles

[Ituralde]

http://totalwardev.blogspot.com/

Some major heads-up for all the folks out there complaining about stupid AI, fast kill rates and ridicolous movement rates degenerating the game into a clickfest. The best news I've heard so far regarding Medieval 2: Total War. :2thumbsup:

Site seems to be down at the moment but hopefully it will be up in a few minutes.

Cheers!

Ituralde

[Stig]

It's down yes, Shogun hopes to get it back online somewhere today

[AussieGiant]

Damnation!! Now I really want to read it :laugh4:

[Wishazu]

well its back up. just scroll down a bit.

Good news then, seeing the ai use a proper tactic :)

I hope they removed the ai behaviour which made it send units under fire to auto attack the units shooting at them, easiest way to break up an ai army in rtw. esp phalanx`s.

[Mount Suribachi]

With slower combat speeds and greater control, strategy now plays a bigger part in battles.

:2thumbsup:

[AussieGiant]

Maybe screwtype and Puzz can shed light on what...

"As a little teaser I must mention unit sizes! For those that have played TW since STW you will know what the magic numbers are and should be really be happy to see them make a return in M2TW."

...means.

[R'as al Ghul]

I must send out a big thank you to all the players that have spent time with me discussing their wants and needs for AI and combat. For the last few months QAOZ has been in contact with a few of the veteran players that have been playing TW games for years.

Now I'm curious. Who might that be?

The bits about speed and battles being more about tactics sound promising.

[R'as al Ghul]

Unit sizes have traditionally been 60 (normal), 80 (large) and 120 (huge).
Rome had smaller units on default and used different steps to large and huge.

I guess that means that a default unit will have 60 soldiers.

[Ironside]

Sounds really, really promising :2thumbsup:


Maybe screwtype and Puzz can shed light on what...

"As a little teaser I must mention unit sizes! For those that have played TW since STW you will know what the magic numbers are and should be really be happy to see them make a return in M2TW."

...means.

60 men units on normal size. Almost all units had that size (2 had 12 and one had 1 and 2 of those units came in MI).

The cav didn't have a smaller sizes in STW right? :inquisitive: Too long since I played it.

[econ21]

I guess that means that a default unit will have 60 soldiers.

Yes, I think you are right. You can see the Portugese and Turkish roster on two of these screenshots:

http://www.g4mers.com/screenshots.aspx?id=499&type=1&page=5

On normal, it seems you have:

60 - basic infantry
48 - archers + good infantry
32 - cavalry + dismounted cav
16 - general's unit + artillery

The Turks also have a 24 and even a 16 sized infantry unit (the latter maybe naptha?). They lack any 32 sized dismounted cav (their one 32 sized unit does not seem to be dismounted cav whereas the 24 sized one might concievably be).

I can't quite recall how the unit sizes scale up on large, which is my preferred setting.
IIRC, in MTW, you had 100 for basic infantry and 60 for good infantry, cavalry was 40 and I think generals' units did not actually scale up, making them less important in larger scale campaigns.

[Ciaran]

In RTW the higher settings double the unit size for each step, i.e. a unit that has 60 men (officers not included) on default will have 120 on large and 240 on huge. The MTW, and I think the STW system too, are slightly different in their scaling factors. I can´t say I prefer one system over the other, and we´ll see how it´ll turn out in MTW2

[AussieGiant]

Ok, but what does he mean by "Magic numbers".

What do they do? I get the impression it is some type of "balancing" issue, but I really have no idea.

[Soulflame]

Glad to hear about the AI, and it proves that what I experienced at the demo probably wasn't a fluke, but really built into the AI.

Even though I played from Shogun, I'm not sure what he means with the unit sizes and 'magic numbers'. I wasn't really bothered with the changes in unit sizes in Rome.
More important is how hard it is to handle units on the screen, I couldn't play huge and even large sometimes lagged me a bit, so in Rome it's normal for me. But we'll just have to see.

[shifty157]

In STW all types of units had the same number of men (except for yout daimyo).

Well I guess the post is impressive although i have to say that im still very unsure. As far as the AI goes i really wont believe anything until I have the game in my hands and i see it happen. Ill probably play my first game on hardest difficulty and if i am defeated by the computer then ill proceed to laugh out loud and fall in love with the game.

[SpencerH]

It sounds promising but it's still a 'wait and see' for me. Another side of this AI behaviour may be being forced to chase horse archers who wont retreat round and round the map in a futile attempt to catch them.

[shifty157]

Maybe if we're lucky the demo will ship with a limited custom battle feature so we can actually see how well the AI fights without the help of all those historical battle scripts.

[Dracula(Romanian Vlad Tepes)]

The ai is improved.

[Zatoichi]

Another good blog - very promising stuff.

"Regarding combat the user must now get more involved, “Ctrl-A’’ double click wont be good enough. It’s back to the days of maintaining lines and issuing orders on the way to battle. Gone are the days of the AI determining what are the best targets and the user having to continually try and drag them out of unwanted combat. With slower combat speeds and greater control, strategy now plays a bigger part in battles."

That just made my day!

[TB666]

:medievalcheers: M2TW is gonna rock hard.:thrasher:

[Barbarossa82]

Reluctant to get too carried away before playing the actual game, but this is absolutely fantastic news. Now all we need is someone to port RTW to to M2TW engine....or maybe that's the missing RTW 1.7 and 1.8 that sit before Alexander?

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

Now all we need is someone to port RTW to to M2TW engine....?

OMG! The hell on earth.

[The Blind Samurai]

yes me likey th ai but lets just see what happens if i charge them forward head on will it be sucdail

[professorspatula]

A developer blog mentioning AI. Remember to take a pinch of salt with you before clicking on the link.

[Jambo]

Bear in mind that a developer's blog is likely to be on the biased side. It's all part of the marketing and they're not exactly going to berate the AI now are they...

Still, at least they're putting their money where their mouth is and being up-front. If the AI doesn't do exactly what it says on the tin when it arrives, then they won't have lived up to their promises.

[Barbarossa82]

I agree caution is needed, but the mere fact that a developer acknowledges that slower and more cohesive combat is a selling feature to be promoted bodes well. They could have slowed down RTW with every patch they brought out but they chose not to. Even if the MTW AI isn't as great as they make it sound at least this time they appear to be aiming at it, rather than writing it off as a niche concern.

[Soulflame]

Bear in mind that a developer's blog is likely to be on the biased side. It's all part of the marketing and they're not exactly going to berate the AI now are they...

Still, at least they're putting their money where their mouth is and being up-front. If the AI doesn't do exactly what it says on the tin when it arrives, then they won't have lived up to their promises.

And they are giving straight examples of situations. It's not a gamble what they mean, they describe in detail a situation (in this case a skirmisher army) where the AI improved. I don't think there is a better way to make clear statements about what's possible.

And like you said, if it isn't in the end game, they'll be branded liars, so chances of it being untrue is very, very small.


I'm still not sure about the 'magic number' units, because like Econ21 pointed out , there are already screenshots that prove that unit sizes won't be one single number. So maybe they changed the ratio's a bit, but that doesn't sound like me as 'magic', but more like 'balancing'. Personally I'd be happier if there was a distinction between unit sizes (like the screenshots prove). Oh well.

[Vlad Tzepes]

"To say I was impressed is an understatement, I think I called the replay “Golly gosh” well to be honest it wasn’t that politically correct but you get the idea."

"Golly gosh"? Vat iz zat? :inquisitive: Well if he was impressed, that raises some hope!

And... I might be wrong, but he said something about a... replay? We'll have the option to record battles?

[Nathanael]

Custom battle replays were savable in Rome, weren't they?

The numbers I remember from MTW were 100 for most defensive infantry (spears, pikes) and peasants, 60 for most offensive infantry (swords, axes, polearms, etc) and missile units, 40 for cavalry, 20 for royal cavalry, and 12 for special units like hashishin or naptha throwers. There were obviously a few exceptions (muwahid foot soldiers (an offensive spear unit) and gothic seageants come to mind).

Looking at the Portugeuse units, it looks like the ratios are similar (at a smaller unit size). Respectively, 60, 48, 32, 16, (no special units). Biggest difference is that it looks like the javelin type units are in the large, defensive infantry and peasant category rather than the offensive and missile category. All the 32-men infantry are probably dismounted cavalry (just like foot knights in the first game).

The Turkish units hold up to this theory, with similar unit sizes. Again, there are differences - naffatun are 16 instead of 12, and there's that curious 24-man unit. I doubt they're dismounted anything (as there's no corresponding 24-man cavalry unit). My guess is that they're a new take on hashishin, losing the bows but getting a larger size unit. I imagine they're much like arcani from RTW. It also looks like they have one or two regular javelin units (the guys with their arms up) at the 48-man size like most missile units, and a 32-man size one. I imagine the 32-man unit is dismounted cavalry, and maybe the 60-size javelin unit the Portugeuse have is more of a peasant unit. 48 is probably the standard javelin size.

[Martok]

I agree caution is needed, but the mere fact that a developer acknowledges that slower and more cohesive combat is a selling feature to be promoted bodes well. They could have slowed down RTW with every patch they brought out but they chose not to. Even if the MTW AI isn't as great as they make it sound at least this time they appear to be aiming at it, rather than writing it off as a niche concern.
All good points, Barbarossa. I naturally still have my doubts as to whether the battle speeds have been slowed down enough, but I'm glad they're at least touting slower battles speeds as being a good thing.

As for the AI, we can only wait and hope that it's been vastly improved. It is somewhat encouraging they're actually talking about it, however. It's nice to see them acknowleding its importance to the fans.


And... I might be wrong, but he said something about a... replay? We'll have the option to record battles?
Wow, I totally missed that! I hope that means we can now save our campaign battles like in the original MTW; that would be very happy. :2thumbsup:

[Dutch_guy]

Wow, I totally missed that! I hope that means we can now save our campaign battles like in the original MTW; that would be very happy.

Same here :2thumbsup:

:balloon2:

[Bob the Insane]

Wow, I totally missed that! I hope that means we can now save our campaign battles like in the original MTW; that would be very happy. :2thumbsup:


Well he started off by saying this was a custom game and you could always save custom battles, so nothing new there...

I know that many out there have pretty exacting standards, but it would not have taken all that much to improve the battles in RTW. The mods do half of it already with speed, stat and morale tweaks. Simple things like getting the AI to maintain a formation and make intelligent decisions as to when to attack and when to retreat and keeping the commander safe would have made a very large impact into the game. (Note I mean simple in concept, not necessarily in code)

What I mean is that RTW would have been way better with a few little improvements in the battle AI so if they have made big steps in improving the battle AI, well I am pretty excited...

[Midnight]

I'll be very happy if the AI now uses its forces intelligently. Slower combat speeds also sound great.

[Martok]

Well he started off by saying this was a custom game and you could always save custom battles, so nothing new there...
Now don't you go ruining my optimism. ~;p We want saved replays for campaign battles! Let's hear it!


I know that many out there have pretty exacting standards, but it would not have taken all that much to improve the battles in RTW. The mods do half of it already with speed, stat and morale tweaks. Simple things like getting the AI to maintain a formation and make intelligent decisions as to when to attack and when to retreat and keeping the commander safe would have made a very large impact into the game.
Indeed. If Rome's AI had been able to at least follow some of the simpler aspects of battle, I think most people's opinion of it would have been much more favorable. I really hope they've fixed the AI in Medieval 2 so it doesn't make as many blatantly bone-headed mistakes.

[Puzz3D]

The magic number for unit size in the original battle engine was 60. When that was coupled with the 1 second combat cycle and a chance to kill that nominally ranged between 0.5% (NI vs NI) and 10% (ND vs ND), you got frontal combat resolution times ranging from 3 minutes to 30 seconds. You also got predictable results vs melee and missle combat factors within a reasonable degree of uncertainty. With a 20% advantage in melee combat factor (1 point) you could expect to win 6 out of 10 times, and with a 40% advantage (2 points) you could expect to win 9 out of 10 times.

MTW introduced variable unit size. Although it still ranges around the 60 man size, it makes balancing harder because of the fixed 20% step in melee combat factor (The steps in RTW are apparently 10% which is better). Combat factor has to be used to compensate for the disadvantage suffered by smaller units vs larger units due to multiple attacks on individual men, and it's not a linear relationship. I remember Tosa and I tried to balance 100 man yari ashigaru units in STW/MI against the rest of the 60 man units, and we weren't successful to the degree necessary to ensure balanced gameplay. Variable unit size also complicates balancing ranged units because the ranged unit's overall effectiveness on a target will vary depending on the size of the target unit.

Also, in RTW artillery apparently gets the same number of kills regardless of the size of the target unit which doesn't mesh well with the morale system, if it's similar to the system used in STW/MTW, which applied a morale penalty based on the percentage of men in the unit killed in a combat cycle.

I think it's important to use the original game, STW, as the standard of comparison when you talk about playbalance and gameplay. If MTW is used, you have the situation where, although improved, M2TW could still be inferior in terms of playbalance to CA's original standard, and if you use RTW as the basis, inferior in not only playbalance but overall gameplay (missing features in the engine) as well.

In terms of AI, it's certainly a big improvement to have the AI wait until it has used it's ammo and then charge forward as a whole army rather than use piecemeal attacks where a unit goes forward only to decide that was a mistake and turns around and walks back to its lines. If you don't have a strong rock, paper, scissors battle system, then making individual unit matchups isn't as important. However, the AI is still going to be predictable unless it varies its strategy for similar situations the way a human would. Original STW had an AI that varied its strategy over about 3 different choices for the same initial battle situation.

[Dutch_guy]

Now don't you go ruining my optimism. ~;p We want saved replays for campaign battles! Let's hear it!


Hear, Hear !

:balloon2:

[Geoffrey S]

I can't for the life of me remember where it was, but there was a developer somewhere saying replays of campaign battles was being considered. Must add my voice to those hoping they'll be included.

Blog is interesting, but AI before release is always suspect; particularly in FPS, where a hyped-up AI turns out to be simple, predictable scripting. The explanation from Puzz3D on the magic numbers is interesting too, definitely a step forward for particularly multiplayer if results are consistant.

[screwtype]

Maybe screwtype and Puzz can shed light on what...

"As a little teaser I must mention unit sizes! For those that have played TW since STW you will know what the magic numbers are and should be really be happy to see them make a return in M2TW."

...means.

Thanks for the vote of confidence AG but I'm really just an opinionated casual gamer. There are heaps of guys who know more about TW than me. I'm not even in the same league as Puzz, TW-wise - he's the real deal.

But since you asked - I really have no idea what is meant by this sentence, perhaps they mean a return to classical TW sizes, ie 60/80/100/120 men per unit or something.

[screwtype]

IIRC, in MTW, you had 100 for basic infantry and 60 for good infantry, cavalry was 40 and I think generals' units did not actually scale up, making them less important in larger scale campaigns.

I think in STW you only had a unit of 10 heavy cav for the general didn't you?

Mind you, those 10 heavy cav still came in pretty handy...

[screwtype]

It sounds promising but it's still a 'wait and see' for me. Another side of this AI behaviour may be being forced to chase horse archers who wont retreat round and round the map in a futile attempt to catch them.

Actually that happened sometimes in Shogun. If you only had foot units, you would chase the horse archers around the map getting peppered until your footsoldiers got exhausted, then the HA would charge and route your forces.

I thought it was quite realistic actually. That's what should happen if you try to run down HA with footsoldiers...

[SpencerH]

Actually that happened sometimes in Shogun. If you only had foot units, you would chase the horse archers around the map getting peppered until your footsoldiers got exhausted, then the HA would charge and route your forces.

I thought it was quite realistic actually. That's what should happen if you try to run down HA with footsoldiers...


I'm not discussing the tactics of a HA army v foot army. I'm taliking about after I've obliterated the AI standing army but one or two (usually) HA units refuse to retreat off the map and must be chased endlessly round and round. I've even 'lost' battles in this fashion.

I know it happened in Shogun, MTW, and RTW. Isnt it about time it was fixed. I'm not saying this will contribute to the problem BTW, I'm just pointing out the possibility. Given that the tone of the article suggests that the author was pleased and surprised by the AI behaviour I have to wonder if there hasnt been sufficient playtesting.

[econ21]

I know it happened in Shogun..

Actually, I don't think it did happen in Shogun. STW had what has been called "Benny Hill" code, whereby a unit that repeatedly tried to evade combat would eventually rout. It's not there in RTW, so you can win a (timed) defensive battle with only one cavalry unit if you have taken out the enemy cav.


Given that the tone of the article suggests that the author was pleased and surprised by the AI behaviour I have to wonder if there hasnt been sufficient playtesting.

Well, it often does take a while to find faults. But IMO this issue is pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things. Certainly not the key factor to decide if M2TW has better AI than RTW.

[Drake]

Did anyone else get caught in Rome, usually always with an Egyptian army that when you defeat 99% of it there's one chariot left who runs around for bloody ages and you end up chasing it around and around the battlezone.

I hope the battle AI is fixed up so that should this happen in MTW2 that this unit catches a grip and runs for the hills when faced by about 500 men.

[Puzz3D]

But since you asked - I really have no idea what is meant by this sentence, perhaps they mean a return to classical TW sizes, ie 60/80/100/120 men per unit or something.
I think Palamedes is speaking from a multiplayer perspective when he talks about magic numbers for unit sizes.

In STW multiplayer, the default size was 60 men and the consensus was that that offered the best balance between fighting and maneuverability, although, cavalry was considered to be a bit cumbersome at that size because the maps were small and if one man in the cav unit caught the edge of an enemy unit the whole cav unit got drawn into a fight with that unit.

In MTW, the default was cav = 40 men, most non-spear inf = 60 men and spears = 100 men. The 40 man cav helps maneuverability and the 100 man spears helps with the rank bonus, but overall it's still based around the 60 man size. We can see in Samurai Wars for MTW/VI that maneuvering 60 man cav units isn't as much of a problem on large maps, and that 60 man size means the cavalry retains its usefulness for more encounters than do 40 man units. Also, after STW, you could disengage cavalry from a fight.

In RTW, the default seemed to be based around a 40 man unit size, and there was no way to get it to 60 because the next size was x2. The perception by many veterans at the time was that the default size of 40 was causing the fast routing in multiplayer and that 60 was preferable while 80 would reduce maneuverabliity too much. Gil Jaysmith posted that the solution to fast routing was to play at huge unit size which made him seem oblivious to the importance of maneuverability to the gameplay. Huge setting can also reduce multiplayer fps a lot.

I can understand wanting to cover a wider range of unit size than the factor of 2 that 60/80/100/120 provides. However, why were the steps made larger when all you have to do is increase the number of steps? Increasing the size of the steps demonstrates an insensitivity toward providing multiplayers the kind of control over game parameters that they need to improve playbalance. You can also see this in the on/off nature of the morale, fatigue and ammo settings, and further in the condensing of what were once 3 separately controlled parameters into a single on/off setting. You also see this in the removal of separate money settings for attacker and defender, and the reduction of the money settings to discrete values in RTW v1.0. It wouldn't matter if CA balanced the game well to begin with, but they didn't. Multiplayers were left not only with an unbalanced game, but no way to improve it either. The money setting was changed back to a continuously variable amount in RTW v1.2, and M2TW apparently restores separate money setting for each team. However, the game mechanic simplifications in the new battle engine are apparently still there. Magic unit sizes aren't going to fix that, and those numbers would change anyway with the new engine. What's important is having the units and armies fight long enough for flanking tactics to be employed, and for those flanking tactics to be effective unless the idea is to have a shoot and rush type of gameplay.

[SpencerH]

Actually, I don't think it did happen in Shogun. STW had what has been called "Benny Hill" code, whereby a unit that repeatedly tried to evade combat would eventually rout. It's not there in RTW, so you can win a (timed) defensive battle with only one cavalry unit if you have taken out the enemy cav.


Well, it often does take a while to find faults. But IMO this issue is pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things. Certainly not the key factor to decide if M2TW has better AI than RTW.

You could be timed out while chasing cav in Shogun too. Actually as I was writing this I was thinking of chasing mounted crossbowmen and being timed out. Hmmmm, that doesnt fit!

In any case, I dont think it's a big deal either. I'm just pointing out that without other AI improvements to prevent the 'infinite chase sequence' this seemingly positive change could have unforseen repercussions.

[screwtype]

Actually, I don't think it did happen in Shogun. STW had what has been called "Benny Hill" code, whereby a unit that repeatedly tried to evade combat would eventually rout. It's not there in RTW, so you can win a (timed) defensive battle with only one cavalry unit if you have taken out the enemy cav.

Yes, but that was only for the human player as I recall. The AI could avoid combat as long as it liked and not rout.

[screwtype]

I'm not discussing the tactics of a HA army v foot army. I'm taliking about after I've obliterated the AI standing army but one or two (usually) HA units refuse to retreat off the map and must be chased endlessly round and round. I've even 'lost' battles in this fashion.

I know it happened in Shogun, MTW, and RTW. Isnt it about time it was fixed. I'm not saying this will contribute to the problem BTW, I'm just pointing out the possibility. Given that the tone of the article suggests that the author was pleased and surprised by the AI behaviour I have to wonder if there hasnt been sufficient playtesting.

Yeah, that could be a problem, but the solution was to have a unit of Yari cav of your own to deal with those pesky horsemen.

You're right it could be annoying, but since it's something that could be avoided with proper preparation, I don't see that it was such a big deal. To me, the occasional mismatch of armies just added to variety and the imponderables of battle, but it's different strokes for different folks I guess.

[screwtype]

In STW multiplayer, the default size was 60 men and the consensus was that that offered the best balance between fighting and maneuverability

Well regardless of what he meant, I agree that the 60-man unit size seemed much more appropriate than the 40 man default in RTW. Also those silly odd numbers for cav were rather annoying in RTW. So I'd welcome a return to the 60 man default size if that's what occurring.

I never played RTW much above the default size, because quite frankly I didn't like the game much and by the time I got a system capable of handling larger sizes, I had lost interest. So I don't remember what the actual larger sizes were, only that there was no 60-man size you could play which was annoying. But I liked the 20-man increment in unit sizes we had in STW and I saw no reason as you say to have larger increments in RTW.

RTW in general was remarkably lacking in settings for a game of that sophistication. Compare it, for example, to Imperialism II, a modest little strategy game that nevertheless has a very large number of difficulty settings from anywhere between 100 or less to 400. Or to the Panzer General series which again has a great many different settings the gamer can tweak to his desires. Give us more choices please CA!

[Bob the Insane]

One of the nice things about playing RTW on huge was that it actually made the republic era cohorts the correct size, 160 men (two centries stood next to each other).

Also the phallanx units looked better with large numbers and the masses of men simply looked right on the ancient battlefield...

And unlike MTW it did not take twice as long to build huge units. I remember trying huge in MTW but I did not like the doubled recruitment times nor how unweldly everything got on the battlefield.

I wonder how MTW2 will play?

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

One of the nice things about playing RTW on huge was that it actually made the republic era cohorts the correct size, 160 men (two centries stood next to each other).

Also the phallanx units looked better with large numbers and the masses of men simply looked right on the ancient battlefield...


I agree with you. In my opinion they developed RTW with huge units size, but while testing they recognized, that the graphic engine cannot handle enough men. So they shrinked the size to 20 men units :( Therefore huge unit size looks better than normal.

[Jambo]

lol Puzz, the yari ashigaru balancing discussions... man those were a real headache.

one minute :idea2:, next minute :no:

[L'Impresario]

An annoying thing with RTW default (or even large) settings is that you can end up having a handful of men still in the fight if they manage to avoid annihilation by any cav giving chase. In earlier games of the series that was the exception for logical morale settings. Sure, you could end up with that odd cav or 10 inf men, but not so often as to hurt any suspension of disbelief.

[AussieGiant]

Thanks for the vote of confidence AG but I'm really just an opinionated casual gamer. There are heaps of guys who know more about TW than me. I'm not even in the same league as Puzz, TW-wise - he's the real deal.

But since you asked - I really have no idea what is meant by this sentence, perhaps they mean a return to classical TW sizes, ie 60/80/100/120 men per unit or something.

Hey screwtype,

Well, your opinions seems well thought out and accurate to me.

Certainly Puzz is "Yoda like" when it comes to the whole topic, but your always on the mark, or very near it.

I've been off-line a bit so, it seems Puzz has given us the explanation on this page of the thread.

[screwtype]

Hey screwtype,

Well, your opinions seems well thought out and accurate to me.

Certainly Puzz is "Yoda like" when it comes to the whole topic, but your always on the mark, or very near it.

Modesty prevents me from an outright endorsement of your views, so let's just say you are obviously an individual of superior tastes ~;)

[Puzz3D]

An annoying thing with RTW default (or even large) settings is that you can end up having a handful of men still in the fight if they manage to avoid annihilation by any cav giving chase. In earlier games of the series that was the exception for logical morale settings. Sure, you could end up with that odd cav or 10 inf men, but not so often as to hurt any suspension of disbelief.
In MTW, there is a global morale penalty for level of decimation of the army. It helps prevent a battle from being dragged out by a handful of units which have suffered heavy casualties. I don't know the level of decimation at which this penalty is incurred. I don't think this penalty was in STW because all units routed towards the original entry point on the map so it's much easier to chase off a defeated army. MTW introduced routing away from the threat which makes it a lot harder to mop up after a battle, and I think that's why the level of decimation penalty was introduced.

[AussieGiant]

Modesty prevents me from an outright endorsement of your views, so let's just say you are obviously an individual of superior tastes ~;)

LOL. Classic comment.

Puzz, just how much time have you spent on this whole "Thing". By "thing" I mean, how do you know so much?

And are you a professional gamer?

[Puzz3D]

Puzz, just how much time have you spent on this whole "Thing". By "thing" I mean, how do you know so much?

And are you a professional gamer?
I'm an electrical engineer. As part of my job, I did Monte Carlo simulations on scintillation detectors coupled to phototubes through light guides for a couple of years which involves using computer generated random numbers and mathematical models to simulate the light distribution from an array of scintillation detectors onto an array of phototubes, and then use a maximum liklihood algorithm on the phototube outputs to determine from which detector the light originated. I'm also a chess player with a 2000 USCF rating. I went from playing competitive chess for about 25 years to playing Shogun Total War online in Oct 2000. I was intrigued by STW's use of a statistical model to simulate combat, the emphasis the game put on tactics, coordinating units of various types and protecting your daimyo ala chess, and the prospect of playing as a team which chess lacks. I was amazed at how well the system worked, and LongJohn should be justly proud of developing the battle system. I've also been on four CA beta teams, and don't ask me about that because CA NDA's never expire.

Shogun was incredibly well balanced, but there was a bug in the cavalry charge which I only recently became aware of when developing the Samurai Wars unit stats for Barocca's STWmod for MTW/VI when ShingenKrypta and I went back and ran some online tests in original STW. There is an unofficial guide on IGN published back in 2000 with a chart Shogun Guide (http://guidesarchive.ign.com/guides/8631/charts.html) that clearly shows that Heavy Cav was supposed to defeat Warrior Monks. Due to the bugged cav charge which made cav behave more like mounted infantry, HC wasn't very effective against WM, and this lead to the infamous monk rush which was the only really serious problem with the online game. Expert players have claimed they could regularly defeat the monk rush. Unfortunately, although original STW had the capability to save replays using a commandline option, CA didn't reveal how to do it at the time, so no battles from those days exist today.

Back then I remember many players asking, "Why did my units run away?". Very little was known about the morale system and CA wasn't talking. We did know the unit stats from the Official Strategy Guide and a couple of online guides, but not the projectile stats. None of these parameters were in external text files in original STW like they are now. Since I had two computers on a LAN, I started designing tests to figure out the morale system. I determined the numerical transistion points of impetuous, steady, uncertain, wavering and routing. Then I was able to geometrically determine what constituted a flank, how close a unit had to be to inflict a flanking morale penalty, the size of that penalty and where you had to position a unit so that covering a flank cancelled the penalty. I discovered the cause of the Benny Hill effect, and this was confirmed by LongJohn. I also determined the size of the outnumbering morale penalty, that only the number of enemy banners within a certain radius contributed to it, that the size of the penalty diminished with the total number, that it had a maximum cutoff value of 3 banners and that it didn't matter if the enemy units were hidden. I measured the size and range of the morale effect of friendly units rout, the supporting effect of the general and the effect of the general dying (-8 morale) or leaving the field (no effect on morale). I measured the morale effect of being on higher ground, the morale penalty for being disrupted, the penalties from being targetted by archers and guns, and observed the hysteresis in the morale system. I went on to measure fatigue rates for walking, running and fighting and different weather conditions vs armor, the loss of accuracy for archers in light, medium and heavy rain and the misfire rate of guns in light, medium and heavy rain. Kraellin's map, Ranges, was instrumental in being able to repeat the tests at precise ranges. Later after MI was out and the parameters were in external files, I measured the effectiveness of archers and guns vs armor rating and power rating, and the ratio of kills in units adjacent to the targetted unit. I determined the ballistics of guns, and around this time LongJohn confirmed a lot of my measurement and revealed the chance to kill algorithm. I also discovered that the cause of the strange gameplay in WE/MI multiplayer was a +12 morale being added to all units. This was later confirmed by CA, and they removed it in the v1.01 patch to WE/MI. I believe that our interest in the game mechanics influenced LongJohn to write those two fine chapters about teh game mechanics in tehe Official MTW Strategy Guide. However with RTW, CA has closed the door on that.

I know some players discovered things about the game and kept it to themselves to use to advantage in multiplayer games. Since I was a chess player and that game is played with both players knowing all the rules of play, I always posted at the org everything I discovered about the game. I don't ascribe to the idea of keeping information about the game mechanics secret for personal advantage in a multiplayer battle. From my experience playing chess, I know that mastering tactics is the lowest level of playing the game. Once players have mastered the tactics, the gameplay rises to a strategic level and that's when it becomes really interesting especially in a game such as STW where teamplay is possible. The plethora of units and factions and upgrades (STW only had honor upgrades) places too much emphasis on buying the best units with the best upgrades which robs the multiplayer gameplay not only of its strategic potential, but even it's tactical potential. The fast gamespeed, lack of options and loss of battle engine features in the current incarnation of Total War takes the game further down that road and away from the outstanding accomplishment in terms of gameplay that original STW achieved.

Currently I don't do any testing on RTW/BI because I don't think the new engine warrants the time and effort to do those tests.

[Nobunaga]

:bow: :bow: :bow:

[hoom]

they recognized, that the graphic engine cannot handle enough menThe graphic engine has no issues with enough men.
Most peoples PCs have issues with handling enough men (but it doesn't take that much PC to handle Huge size, I handled it with a 2.2ghz single core with 1GB ram & a 9800np GPU, though it chugged on the bigger battles)

PS: Puzz = legend.

[Bob the Insane]

In MTW, there is a global morale penalty for level of decimation of the army.


I think they have this in RTW, at least during a custom battle that I had as good as won I noted one still intact enemy unit (most of the rest where routing off the feild at this point) had a morale level of Steady with the note "dismayed at the loss of the battle".

Now the note usually refers to whatever morale bonus or penalty the unit is experiencing at the time and this note seems to indicate some form of global "we lost" morale penalty...

[SpencerH]

Yeah, that could be a problem, but the solution was to have a unit of Yari cav of your own to deal with those pesky horsemen.

You're right it could be annoying, but since it's something that could be avoided with proper preparation, I don't see that it was such a big deal. To me, the occasional mismatch of armies just added to variety and the imponderables of battle, but it's different strokes for different folks I guess.


I'm not sure if its my writing or your reading, but I am talking about my (usually) winded cavalry chasing winded AI cav round and round the map edges. It is not something that can be "avoided with proper preparation" (although it can be dealt with in the battle with a blocking force to cause the AI cav to slow and be caught of course).

[sunsmountain]

I'm an electrical engineer.

That was a nice read, good to know you a little better. Monte Carlo simulations imply you know a thing or two about statistical physics and explains why you're strong with numbers. I'm sure you could re-test the RomeTW or MTW2 engine if you wanted to and find those numbers again.

Even with a game like STW, with only a limited number of units, balancing turns out to be difficult. But an army is only broken if it doesn't have a counterarmy. In RTW, the all-cav place-them-on-top-of-each-other army seems invincible, but I'm sure that that army will no longer be possible in MTW2. What other options of unbalance are there?
- spears/swords/cav/archers too strong
- 2 out of 4 too strong (MTW, 8 men-at-arms and 8 knights)
- none of them too strong (STW, though monks can be nasty)
I don't know MTW2 will turn out in advance, but I hope every army has a counterarmy.

More important is more clever AI however. Perfect balance may lead to chess and a discovery of new numbers, but perfect AI makes you playing the campaing game for a long time. Multiplayer would be better with balance, singleplayer with AI.

I would aim to perfect one before trying to perfect the other.

[screwtype]

I'm not sure if its my writing or your reading, but I am talking about my (usually) winded cavalry chasing winded AI cav round and round the map edges. It is not something that can be "avoided with proper preparation" (although it can be dealt with in the battle with a blocking force to cause the AI cav to slow and be caught of course).

Hmm, I must say I've never experienced this problem. That has certainly never happened to me in Shogun - my Yari cav always chases down the enemy, LOL - and I can't recall it ever occurring in MTW or RTW either. Spear cav can usually catch HA pretty easily in my experience. Have you tried, say, not clicking on the HA, but clicking on the ground past them, or to one side of them and then wheeling round to get them before they start retreating?

[SpencerH]

I wont say that it's exceedingly common in RTW but it's happened enough times to be of note. A typical situation for me will be a fairly open battlefield with AI HA or light cav moving forward against my flanks followed by a line of AI inf units. The inf battle usually requires almost all of my attention once they are engaged because of the ridiculous battle speeds. Therefore, my counter to the AI cav is to simply to 'click attack' with my cav and get back to the inf battle.

Fast forward to the end of the battle ...

Most enemy units have routed and have left the battle field but 1 unit (usually) of winded AI cav remains pursued by whatever winded cav I have left. I have watched them chase such a unit round the battle square 3 times. Adding additional units to the chase usually does nothing since they will simply join in the game of 'follow the leader'. Perhaps pausing and clicking on the ground might do it but given the lag that occurs after orders, I doubt it and if they didnt catch them at that point they'd be even further behind with the lag after new orders.

[AussieGiant]

Hi Puzz,

Great post and thanks for the indepth explanation of how you have been involved over the years.

I gotta say, you do scare me...but in a good way :laugh4:

I really don't think MTWII will be as pure and as well done as Shogun when it comes to AI and balancing, but I do hope that they put enough thought and balancing into this version for it to be able to stand as a good game by itself.

Comparison's are always dangerous and rarely fair but I get the impression that MTWII will stand a head taller than everything that has gone before...but still look up to the oldest brother of them all...Brother Shogun, "the number one son, in the family".

:2thumbsup:

[Jambo]

The chasing of skirmisher cavalry round the 4 corners of the battle maps in RTW was one of the most tedious aspects of the game. For that reason alone I always hated fighting against those factions which had loads of horse archer units, e.g. Persia.

In Shogun there wasn't this problem since horse archers weren't the fastest cavalry. Yari's could and would catch them making them not the irritating omnipotent nuisance that they are in Rome. I can only hope that M2TW, with its newly introduced "impassable terrain", will prevent similar ridiculous escapades chasing skirmishing horse units round the 4 corners of the battle maps...

[Puzz3D]

Comparison's are always dangerous and rarely fair but I get the impression that MTWII will stand a head taller than everything that has gone before...but still look up to the oldest brother of them all...Brother Shogun, "the number one son, in the family".
Really? Consider this:

The melee battle mechanic has been changed between the older STW/MTW battle engine and the new RTW/BI battle engine. In the old engine, multiple attacks occured within a combat cycle with death resolved at the end of the cycle. Each man could strike once and parry multiple times within a single combat cycle. A man had 8 sides, so could in theory be attacked 8 times with combat bonuses applied if the strike came from the side or back. Since each man got to strike before death was determined, two men could kill each other, and I've seen this happen. This is important to playbalance because the outcome of combat is not biased by an arbitrary determination of who strikes first. I've tested 60 man units many times in STW, and it's extremely rare for equally matched units to come back to win once getting behind by a 15% deficit in men which is 10 men.

This mechanic was change in RTW. You can see by observation that the strike and counterstrike are now taking place in two different combat cycles. The man who strikes first is getting an advantage. I'd like to know how first strike is being determined because it makes a difference. I have observed the same man getting to strike twice before his oppenent strikes back, so maybe there's been an attempt to mitigate the first strike advantage. However, I'm not sure the double strike is necessarily going to the man who was struck first. Even if it's a randomized effect, it's going to contribute to uncertainty in the combat results.

I just ran two tests in RTW of three 122 cohorts fighting three 122 man cohorts. These units are perfectly balanced against each other, but the combat resulted in a very lopsided win for one side. For example, the second test resulted in 291 kills for one side vs 128 kills for the other out of a total os 367 men on each side. This wasn't the result of killing routers. Does the concept of balancing have any meaning when the uncertainty is that high? Does it make sense to spend time and energy trying to master such a game?

Multiple attacks are retained by not allowing a man who is engaged to turn and face a second attack from the side or rear. I'm not sure if I've seen triple attacks, but I may have. It seems to me that the old engine was a better simulation of combat, and it had several features that enhanced that further which have been lost in the new engine. The lower level of uncertainty in the combat model rewarded a well executed battleplan, and there was more depth to the tactics because small advantages weren't swamped out by the random factors. You could actually accumulate small tactical advantages over the course of a battle, and it paid off. The accumulation of small advantages is a basic concept in the game of chess. There is concern now that the finishing moves are going to further denegrate the combat model as a simulation of hand-to-hand fighting.

[AussieGiant]

Officially Considered Puzz...

...thanks...I think.

Oh well, we will see. That's about the only true statement left to make.

The kill moves do seem to imply a need for some large modification of how individual combat is handled.

Do you get to insert your concerns into CA's development at all now?

[Jambo]

I used to send the Rome developers the odd mail every now and then during the beta testing process. These were often ideas to improve or enhance the game and granted probably outwith the scope of patch, but as to whether they got read or considered for future projects is a different matter.

In the past, during LongJohn's involvement with TW, there seemed to be more interaction between parties and discussison on game mechanics were commonplace. Because the TW franchise wasn't as commercial and "big business" as it is now, maybe the community had a bigger influence on certain things? - but that's just speculation of course. :D

[Puzz3D]

Do you get to insert your concerns into CA's development at all now?
No except what I post on the forums. I've never emailed CA because I know several people who have tried this and they never got a response.

[AussieGiant]

No except what I post on the forums. I've never emailed CA because I know several people who have tried this and they never got a response.

Fair enough.

I think they do read a lot here. This forum seems to be to most robust and informed, and that is always of value when companies are trying to maintain their business success.

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

Fair enough.

I think they do read a lot here. This forum seems to be to most robust and informed, and that is always of value when companies are trying to maintain their business success.

Hopefully.But why they don't speak with us directly. E.g. I played more than 4000 (or 5000? ;) ) MTW Vi battles in multiplayer and i guess I know the game better than some MTW2 developer ;)

[Bob the Insane]

A man had 8 sides, so could in theory be attacked 8 times with combat bonuses applied if the strike came from the side or back. Since each man got to strike before death was determined, two men could kill each other, and I've seen this happen.

....



I do remember reading (in this forum maybe) that there was a limitation in the MTW being so that any individuals could only be engaged by 3 others at most at any one time. This was one of the reason behind the superman kings... They had loads of hit point, good stats and even when completely surrounded where still only fighting three men at once. I agree withthe rest though...

I too would love to know how the battle enigne functions now...

[sunsmountain]

I just ran two tests in RTW of three 122 cohorts fighting three 122 man cohorts. These units are perfectly balanced against each other, but the combat resulted in a very lopsided win for one side. For example, the second test resulted in 291 kills for one side vs 128 kills for the other out of a total os 367 men on each side. This wasn't the result of killing routers. Does the concept of balancing have any meaning when the uncertainty is that high? Does it make sense to spend time and energy trying to master such a game?

With permission, Puzz, I'm sure you are not biased, but did you mouse over the 3 cohorts who suffered 291 kills to make sure they contained (367-291)/3 = 25.3 men on average versus 80 on the other side? If you simply used the battle results page (which pops up once the enemy army routs) the 291 number may have been polluted by simulated routing kills even though you didn't kill any routers (assuming we're in custom battle). Still though, the results are staggeringly close to random results. Was the difficulty at normal?


It seems to me that the old engine was a better simulation of combat, and it had several features that enhanced that further which have been lost in the new engine. The lower level of uncertainty in the combat model rewarded a well executed battleplan, and there was more depth to the tactics because small advantages weren't swamped out by the random factors. You could actually accumulate small tactical advantages over the course of a battle, and it paid off. The accumulation of small advantages is a basic concept in the game of chess.

I wholeheartedly agree with this and think the increased random factor is due to the following:
- separate attacker and defender attack rolls, going first matters a lot
- fewer number of attack rolls
- higher chance to hit for units in general, to compensate for the fewer attack rolls
- higher chance to hit for lower tech units as the attack - defense difference doesn't matter as much anymore, (let alone things like height difference, spear vs cav bonuses, etc.)

The new engine will change the following:
- higher number of attack rolls
- lower chance to hit due to higher defense values overall


There is concern now that the finishing moves are going to further denegrate the combat model as a simulation of hand-to-hand fighting.

I therefore do not share this concern.

[Puzz3D]

I do remember reading (in this forum maybe) that there was a limitation in the MTW being so that any individuals could only be engaged by 3 others at most at any one time. This was one of the reason behind the superman kings... They had loads of hit point, good stats and even when completely surrounded where still only fighting three men at once. I agree with the rest though...
I can't find the post, but CA did clarify that in MTW more than 2 men can strike at a single man. They said it's only limited by the number of men that can fit around the enemy man. Each sprite has 8 sides. In practice with two units fighting, you don't often see more than two men attacking one because the men tend to stay in formation even when they are in engage-at-will. I might be wrong, but as I recall there was a better swarming effect in STW.

Generals in STW and MTW multiplayer had 6 hitpoints, and more than that in SP depending on their health. The superman kings were also affected by battlefield upgrades which increased their combat power making them even more difficult to dispatch especially since they were usually a strong unit to begin with. In MTW/VI v2.01, LongJohn removed battlefield upgrades from multiplayer because we successfully argued that they could swamp out the anti-cav bonus and players were using a trick of taking good units such as chiv knight cavalry at valor = 0, and then getting free valor upgrades, which would otherwise be very expensive, by using those valor 0 units against weaker units. It was reported by multiplayers that 3 man cav units were beating 30+ man anti-cav infantry units towards the end of a battle. Now we see that battle field upgrades have made a return in RTW/BI multiplayer. What happened to the agreement between CA and the multiplayers that battlefield upgrades were not a good thing to have in multiplayer?

[Puzz3D]

With permission, Puzz, I'm sure you are not biased, but did you mouse over the 3 cohorts who suffered 291 kills to make sure they contained (367-291)/3 = 25.3 men on average versus 80 on the other side? If you simply used the battle results page (which pops up once the enemy army routs) the 291 number may have been polluted by simulated routing kills even though you didn't kill any routers (assuming we're in custom battle). Still though, the results are staggeringly close to random results. Was the difficulty at normal?
Normal difficulty in custom battle which isn't the best since the test should be carried out on LAN or online battle to eliminate the AI. I didn't end the battle prematurely so I don't think I got any simulated routing kills, but there is a possiblity of an unknown effect since the result was in the AI's favor both times. I actually didn't run the test to look for that. I only ran it to look for triple attacks.



I therefore do not share this concern.
I just recently saw a post by someone at .com raising a concern about the game allowing more than 2 on 1 fights and how finishing moves might affect the combat. It has been mentioned here before that a man is probably invincible while he carries out the finishing move animation. If so, this would clearly be another artificial effect introduced into the combat model.

None of the stuff I've brought up in this thread will be a concern to players who don't care about reasonably predictable combat results which is apparently the vast majority of players. It just doesn't really matter anymore. Right now I'm no longer willing to pay $50 for gameplay that I will probably find to be irritating, and I certainly can't recommend that the 10 members of my clan should purchase the game so that we can all play online again.

[x-dANGEr]

I think you should cool down Puzz3D. I respect you and your opinions, but you don't need to get mad over it.

I don't care how they do it, but I do care that it is a game that can be understood. And, for what I know, RTW is "really" predictable (Sometimes it can be unclear, but then, it is experience that differs), and I guess M2: TW will be the same.

[Puzz3D]

I don't care how they do it, but I do care that it is a game that can be understood. And, for what I know, RTW is "really" predictable (Sometimes it can be unclear, but then, it is experience that differs), and I guess M2: TW will be the same.
One side winning a perfectly balanced encounter by over 2 to 1 is predictable? The result could easily flip the other way. This is called chaos, and it works against thoughtful gameplay.

[SpencerH]

One side winning a perfectly balanced encounter by over 2 to 1 is predictable? The result could easily flip the other way. This is called chaos, and it works against thoughtful gameplay.

I wouldnt mind an occasional lopsided result such as you describe, say 1-20 battles. After all, its not chess we're playing.

[Martok]

I wouldnt mind an occasional lopsided result such as you describe, say 1-20 battles. After all, its not chess we're playing.
You can still get that lopsided result on your own, however, simply by outmaneuvering and outthinking the enemy--which is originally what Total War battles were all about (and still should be, IMO).

If two units of 60 men are perfectly identical in every way--same type, same valour, same weapon/armor upgrades, they're facing each other on the same terrain (i.e., not on a hill), etc.--then they should lose men at roughly the same rate.

The only thing that would really change that is if the "random"-number added to attack/defense rolls ended up favoring one unit over the other. Now of course this can and will happen from time to time (since statistics allows for clustering of unlikely events), and that's perfectly fine. But the vast majority of the time, two units (or groups of units) that are identical to each other and attack each other head on should suffer losses at approximately the same rate.

Eventually one side will win (because of the random dice rolls), but it's usually not going to be by a huge margin--nor should it be. I'm not a numbers guy like Puzz, but I still understand the basic concept behind what he's saying.

[x-dANGEr]

Well, basically all my experience comes from MP playing, and that's my reference when talking about battles, their speed and balance.

And so.


One side winning a perfectly balanced encounter by over 2 to 1 is predictable? The result could easily flip the other way. This is called chaos, and it works against thoughtful gameplay.

It is predictable that a side that flanks at the right time in the right spot through the melee encounter will win. Or a side that manages to keep his men off dart-fire, or missile fire, or even safe till the last moment, or a man who retreats his whole infantry line before contact because the morale level of his men is low, and then strikes back with an organised charge/flank setup..

@Martok: If you put 2 identical units against each other with identical circumstances, you won't get much of a difference in their men rate at the end of the battle. Though, if you enter moves such as flanking, "messing" (Messing that unit's formation), you might get what you're talking about. And, that is normal.

[SpencerH]

Of course tactical movement, terrain, etc should be able to effect the battle outcome between two identical units. I'm simply stating that a battle is not a chess match and that there should be an 'imponderable' occasionally included in the battle calcs. Clustering of random numbers may do it but given the large number of 'rolls' required to perform a unit-unit battle I doubt it (and I havent seen it happen). It would make it interesting if just once in a blue moon a heavy cav unit got repulsed by peasants.

[Furious Mental]

Perhaps but then we'd have people on the forums saying "WHY DID MY GOTHIC KNIGHTS GET DESTROYED BY PEASANTS? CA WHY? DIE IN A FIRE!!!"

[rory_20_uk]

After the charge - why not? Knights can (relatively) easily get pulled off their horses. Maybe then horses then might be used to charge, then regroup, and recharge again!

And from that, why nt have that as the cavalry unit's standard "attack", and for them to remain in melee requires the alt btton to be depressed.

~:smoking:

[SpencerH]

I think a way to do it would be to have the possibility for a unit morale upgrade or downgrade once a particular unit v unit combat has commenced.

[Puzz3D]

I'm simply stating that a battle is not a chess match and that there should be an 'imponderable' occasionally included in the battle calcs. Clustering of random numbers may do it but given the large number of 'rolls' required to perform a unit-unit battle I doubt it (and I havent seen it happen).
I've seen it happen, and it's repeatable in tests. With a 2 combat point advantage (44% stronger) in STW using 60 man units, a unit will loose 1 out of 10 fights. With a 1 combat point advantage (20% stronger) a unit will loose 4 out of 10.

[SpencerH]

When I say that I havent seen it happen I was refering to a totally unpredictable effect ie regular peasants beating knights (for example) on an otherwise even playing field. A unit with a 44% advantage losing 1/10 and a A unit with a 20% advantage losing 4/10 seems a little skewed toward the weaker but does not seem to include an 'imponderable' factor.

[x-dANGEr]

Spencer, that does happen you know.. I remember awkward times when my bunch of catas got beaten by 1 Praetorian Cavalry unit..

[SpencerH]

But I assume that was in a campaign battle where the cata's could have been low morale from loss of general, winded, charging uphill against a fresh high morale Praetorian Cavalry unit, not in an 'even playing field' custom battle test.

In any case, the fact that Puzz gets lopsided battle results in a custom battle test suggests that CA have included an 'imponderable factor' in the battle calcs and as you have suggested there may be a significant effect on unit v unit combat from the inclusion of a 'random number'.

All I'm saying is that if Puzz did his 3 v 3 custom battle 1000 times I would expect to see kills results that followed a normal distribution with a tight SD but what I'd also like to see is some 'outlier' results and even some 'extreme outliers' (such as the results he described) to take into account the weird 'stuff' that happens in battle.

EDIT and what I'd like to know is that the outliers occurred on purpose and weren't just another bug.

[Puzz3D]

In any case, the fact that Puzz gets lopsided battle results in a custom battle test suggests that CA have included an 'imponderable factor' in the battle calcs and as you have suggested there may be a significant effect on unit v unit combat from the inclusion of a 'random number'.
I don't think it suggests that. It suggests that the uncertainty in the combat model is high. This means that tactical advantages have to have strong enough effect to overcome that uncertainty. This leads to the kind of black and white tactical gameplay that's in RTW where for instance, striking at a man's back is practically a sure kill, or routers can be mowed down like a lawnmower going over grass or shields provide an inordinate amount of protection from arrows to a unit that otherwise gets obliterated by arrows.

You can't make intelligent tactical decisions if what should be good decisions are thrown back in your face as mistakes. It isn't as though you can recover from a major mistake in a fast moving battle. Having a cheap enemy peasant unit beat your expensive knight unit is going to cost you the battle in MP. If you make it a rare event, it's blatantly unfair to one player. If you make it a likely event to remove the unfairness, the battles will devolve into a game chance.

We know that compared to STW the anti-cav bonus was reduced in RTW. That isn't logical in a game that has an increased level of uncertainty. I doubt the game is being "designed" to provide a certain level of statistical uncertainly. It's as though that's just falling out by happenstance as a result of some other decision making process such as, "We have to speed up the battles to appeal to a wider audience.". I've certainly seen plenty of interviews and posts by CA employees justifying the "new" gameplay with the argument that's it's being done to appeal to a wider audience. I would say that wider audience is oblivious to statistics, and that allows poor design in this area of the game to be satisfactory.

Just look at the load/save issue to see what this company tried to put over on the customer. Remember they said it was "designed" to work that way. The only reason it was changed is because of the bad publicity that resulted once it was discovered that important parameters were not being saved in the savegame file. CA can make the game any way they want, but I hope it's clear to people that the Total War series is no longer a serious strategy/tactical game.

[Empirate]

M:TW was supposed to have all the good things you have been talking about, right? It was supposed to be predictable and provide a deep multiplayer experience.
In some custom battle tests I found M:TW to be just as random as you make R:TW out to be. Pitting Chivalric Sergeants against Saracen Infantry (two units with equal stats) produced massively one-sided results: four out of five times the CSs won, with about sixty men left in the unit while the Saracens had only 25 or so left. The one time the Saracens won, they had only slightly more men than the CSs (whose general happened to die).
Making things even more equal out of personal curiosity, I pitted two units of CSs against one another. Results varied, but what almost always happened was that one of the units would take many more casualties than the other. Charge bonuses seemed to be of low consequence (the charge being stopped the second of impact due to high defence rating).
So if even units with high defense and low attack produce results this skewed in M:TW, perhaps R:TW isn't so far off? The way I see it is, it's not a given which of two units will lose. But once it has begun to lose, penalties accrue due to being outnumbered (if only slightly, and very locally), and in the long run, these give results that are not consistent with units being exactly equal from the start out.
Or are they consistent? Isn't it, in a way, realistic for a unit that has begun to lose, to continue losing, and losing badly in the end? It's the same we see in women's tennis: Even between roughly equal rivals, it's rarely more than two sets, and these are usually quite clear. Even if it's three sets, tie-breaks are rare.

Historical realism is another venue to explain these findings: It wasn't uncommon for one army to be routed and decimated by a smaller one or by an equally strong one, with no historian being able to identify the cause. I think it's just human to misinterpret the general situation and develop a panic that spreads through the ranks.
Warfare in medieval times was a VERY chancy and risky affair. That is the reason there were so few, yes: FEW, big battles during the whole period. Most warfare was economic and political: Damage the other one's assets (land, peasants, castles) enough so he can't sustain his armies or at least can't keep his allies from frowning on him. Rare was the time it came to a big, decisive battle, and these were even more rarely decided by the generals' decisions. The way some battles played out, it seems one side had acknowledged from the start that they had no chance, and after some fighting quit the field. It's not really human to create a great carnage and stay in the fight, still hoping to win, after half of both armies are dead. There were exceptions, like the battle of Bosworth in the War of the Roses, but these were, again, rare.

[CBR]

Spears in MTW could produce very different results. Main reason was the rank bonuses. Disorder and losses would remove the rank bonuses and shift the balance even further to the winning unit.


CBR

[x-dANGEr]

That's the same in RTW CBR.

Try this:

Use a cata silver weapon/defence against a Triarii golden weapon bronze defence. The cata will lose. Now try it again with the cata wedged, it will win. Why? Because it will break the Triarii's formation..

Try it with a phalanx. You can beat any phalanx unit no matter how strong is it with a normal cata if you to mess their ranks..

[CBR]

Result is the same I guess but different mechanics and its cavalry using a special formation in your example.

Empirate's posts is about spears v spears in MTW. The rank bonus for spears give a total of 3 combat points (+1 attack and +2 defense) The third rank is the one giving most (+1 attack and +1 defense) so when losses starts to be taken from that rank a spear formation loses a lot of combat power. So a winning unit would face a weaker and weaker enemy spear unit and that explains why there sometimes are very lopsided results when spears are involved.

Swords using wedge formation also had a special bonus in disrupting the spears, and it would lose a lot of its rank bonuses that way.


CBR

[Slammer]

In one of the first things i read about this game it siad you could run up to 10000 man armys is that what you can run or what the screen will run with AI armys on the battle field

[CBR]

In one of the first things i read about this game it siad you could run up to 10000 man armys is that what you can run or what the screen will run with AI armys on the battle field

That would be around the maximum a PC can run without framerate dropping down so much that it becomes unplayable. At huge unit size setting one army can be of about 4800 men (20 units of 240 men each) In RTW you could on rare occasions have 4-5 armies involved in battles although 2 armies would be the most common.

High end PC's can do 14000 soldiers or more. Older ones would run into problems at 6000 or lower.


CBR

[Puzz3D]

M:TW was supposed to have all the good things you have been talking about, right? It was supposed to be predictable and provide a deep multiplayer experience.
In some custom battle tests I found M:TW to be just as random as you make R:TW out to be. Pitting Chivalric Sergeants against Saracen Infantry (two units with equal stats) produced massively one-sided results: four out of five times the CSs won, with about sixty men left in the unit while the Saracens had only 25 or so left. The one time the Saracens won, they had only slightly more men than the CSs (whose general happened to die).
That's not the result I get with CS vs CS in MTW/VI v2.01 custom battle using 100 man units on Steppe map, arid climate.

I used 3 CS vs 3 CS. These units are in hold formation by default. The formation was two CS in front with the general's unit behind them. The AI engaged my two front CS with two CS, and then sent its general's unit into the fray of one of the CS. I did the same, but I followed the fight between the other two CS who were fighting 1 on 1. I don't like to use the general's unit in tests because the general gets 6 hit points and can skew the results.

The fight I followed lasted about 5 minutes. At no time did either unit get ahead by more than 5 men, and this happened only briefly for a couple of seconds. A couple of times one unit got ahead by 4 men for a few seconds. The two units tracked losses very closely oscillating between +3 men to -3 men from 100 men all the way down to 44 men at which point the enemy unit routed with 47 men. In fact, at 50 men the two units were equal, although one unit arrived at 50 while the other was still at 52. My unit gained a +1 valor battlefield upgrade. I don't know at what point that happened, but that's probably why my unit didn't rout despite higher losses. I can check the replay later to see when it got that battlefield upgrade.

Overall results for the 300 men vs 300 men were 151 kills vs 139 losses. I got more kills, but lost because my general routed. This rout happened shortly after the two single CS units resolved their fight with my unit routing the enemy unit despite my unit suffering slightly more losses: 44 men vs 47 enemy men. I estimate the battle lasted 5 minutes, but I can time it later since I saved the replay. By this time my units were very tired.

This is very good tracking of losses under equal conditions, and much better than I observered in my RTW tests.

[Myrddraal]

Has anyone noticed these from the latest blog:


no longer can you just push through infantry unable to make contact with your horsie


Anyway I have some much anticipated news for the multiplayer crowd, but you will need to wait for the next blog. Oh it will be happy days!

[Maizel]

Has anyone noticed these from the latest blog:
Hm Maybe they're going to announce a playable multiplayer campaign in the expansion anyway?

I don't even dare to hope.

It's probably about how they improved the matchfinding online

[Puzz3D]

It's probably about how they improved the matchfinding online
I think that's what it will be about. Somehow they have steamlined choosing a game to join and picking armies. Apparently, picking maps when you host is streamlined as well. Possibly you just select a terrain type, and the computer chooses a map of that type. The computer might pick your army for you after you choose a faction and indicate the type of army you want: cav heavy, inf heavy, skirmisher heavy, etc. Maybe the host can still set a money level, but it's one less thing for a joiner to consider if the money level is the same on all games. Choosing a game could be as simple as looking at the era selected, the number of players involved, the terrain type and if it's arcade or not arcade. As far as I'm concerned, this would all be an improvement over the way online is currently done because it would eliminate "gaming the unit stats and ungrades" or picking a particular map because it offers a particular advantage.

[x-dANGEr]

I think that's what it will be about. Somehow they have steamlined choosing a game to join and picking armies. Apparently, picking maps when you host is streamlined as well. Possibly you just select a terrain type, and the computer chooses a map of that type. The computer might pick your army for you after you choose a faction and indicate the type of army you want: cav heavy, inf heavy, skirmisher heavy, etc. Maybe the host can still set a money level, but it's one less thing for a joiner to consider if the money level is the same on all games. Choosing a game could be as simple as looking at the era selected, the number of players involved, the terrain type and if it's arcade or not arcade. As far as I'm concerned, this would all be an improvement over the way online is currently done because it would eliminate "gaming the unit stats and ungrades" or picking a particular map because it offers a particular advantage.
??!?!?!?

[Ulstan]

"One side winning a perfectly balanced encounter by over 2 to 1 is predictable?"

Conceptually, sure. Suppose you had two men fighting, perfectly balanced. Eventually, one of them will win. One side has taken 100% losses, the other 0%. It's not the outcome that determines whether an encounter was balanced, but the likelihood each side had of winning. Anyway, the outcome of perfectly balanced encounters is by definition completely unpredictable.

I don't know, maybe you are imagining that both sides would fight each other down to 0 men over the course of several minutes and mutually annhilate each other. While I would find this type of combat a lot more attractive than the more frenetic RTW pace, I think it's not unreasonable to assume that small imbalances early on would snowball, and eventually one side would run away, thus leading to large #'s of routing losses and a very lopsided victory for one side in what was still an essentially balanced battle.

[Puzz3D]

"One side winning a perfectly balanced encounter by over 2 to 1 is predictable?"

Conceptually, sure. Suppose you had two men fighting, perfectly balanced. Eventually, one of them will win. One side has taken 100% losses, the other 0%. It's not the outcome that determines whether an encounter was balanced, but the likelihood each side had of winning. Anyway, the outcome of perfectly balanced encounters is by definition completely unpredictable.
It was 367 men vs 367 men. What I'm pointing out is that the statistical error seems high. It has nothing to do with the likelihood of each side winning.


I
don't know, maybe you are imagining that both sides would fight each other down to 0 men over the course of several minutes and mutually annhilate each other. While I would find this type of combat a lot more attractive than the more frenetic RTW pace, I think it's not unreasonable to assume that small imbalances early on would snowball, and eventually one side would run away, thus leading to large #'s of routing losses and a very lopsided victory for one side in what was still an essentially balanced battle.
Imbalances do snowball, and that's fine. There were no routing losses that I noticed, but the units did exchanged pila. That might have introduced an imbalance that rapidly mushroomed. When I ran these tests I was only looking for individual 3 on 1 matchups, so I wasn't concerned about them having pila. I'll try some other tests with units that don't throw anything.

[ToranagaSama]

Just logged in to the Org to post a 'heads up' to the OT forum and to my incredible astonishment I am greeted with this news. I'll have to wait until the weekend to delve into the details.

Here I sit staring at my monitor and all I can think is OMFG!

OMFG!!


"Gone are the days of the AI determining what are the best targets and the user having to continually try and drag them out of unwanted combat. With slower combat speeds and greater control, strategy now plays a bigger part in battles."

OMFG!!!


"With slower combat speeds and greater control, strategy now plays a bigger part in battles."

OMFG!!!

OMFG!!!!

OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guess I can't wait til the weekend.


...“WOW” just like STW and MTW....

It would appear that CA has is finally taking a more 'hard-core' direction toward the AI and it's related attributes and accompanyments, but I can't fail to note that comments such as the above truly belie the ---mis-direction--- taken with the development of RTW.


...M2TW is as much a top down strategic game ....

Fundamental change in the correct direction. Thank you.


Well, there's a couple things to realize:

1) "Jason" is NOT a developer, he's a 'Play Tester' or to be more accurrate a QA Tester; a bit of a difference.

Play-testers don't develope/code their purpose is to *break* code. Ideally, for Org interests, it'd be best if he were a BA, but I'm not sure they have those in regards to 'game development'. (QA-Quality Assurrance; BA-Business Analyst (BAs are the human interface between Users and Developers. If CA had people in BA equivalent positions, they would be the ones we would talk to most in the forums).

2) It's a 'Blog' not a .plan (which is what I believe I requested), which accounts for the 'fluffy' nature of the writing (which is pretty good).

The great thing is that they are opening up communications a bit (thank you!). The bad thing is its all so 'fluffy' and 'Puffy', which is typical of The Shogun.


And they are giving straight examples of situations. It's not a gamble what they mean, they describe in detail a situation (in this case a skirmisher army) where the AI improved. I don't think there is a better way to make clear statements about what's possible.

Yeah, but not all that much in the way of *telling* detail for hard-core dessemination. The most significant is the manner in which the *archer* army reacted to an advancing army---GOOD.

But, after they run out of arrows (one would think an MTW2 AI capable of realizing its wasting arrows; stop firing and engage with **directed** fire), contact is made, and all he says is:


It continued to do this until it ran out of ammo at which stage it threw its infantry at my staggered infantry lines and flanked with its cavalry.

Sorry, "threw its infantry" sounds much like normal RTW combat; and

what exactly does "flanked with its cavalry" mean?

For example (at the risk of repeating myself ad nausem), the Shogun AI was only capable of flanking in just one direction or the other. The MTW AI was capable of flanking SIMULTANEOUSLY in two directions. Both were capable of using terrain for cover-to-advance; both were capable of pre-positioning units pre-battle; Both were capable of feigning (battlefield attacks) and counter-moving; and most importanly, reacting (adroitly and intelligently) to player feigns and counter-moves.

With MTW2, one would expect some advance in flanking capability, as well as regarding all the above I mentioned (and more). The Blog does not provide evidence of such. Remember the Poll, you all voted for an AI better than STW/MTW.

As we all know, AI flanking in RTW was non-existant to pathetic, so to say that MTW2's AI "flanked with its cavalry" means what exactly? Moreover, with STW and MTW flanking was not reserved to just calvalry.

What did the *reserve* footmen do? Flank? Fill-the-gaps? or just Press-the-backs of the front-line (which is unexceptable!)?

I *need* a complete battle description.


To cut a long story short....

WHY cut it short??? What's a blog for? It's obviously not a .plan so what's with the short-cutting? I don't get it. There is absolutely nothing else to blog about. This from a play-tester??

I could care less if that catapult had taken his head off! Give me battle details W/O the eye-candy touring.

For what its worth, I applaud CA (and specifically The Shogun) for the effort, but give me less Fluff n Puff and more detail.

Speeds are slower? Good, so what did it allow the player to accomplish that he couldn't in RTW.

Greater control? Good again, so tell me how having greater control allowed the player to do more than he could with RTW.

Strategy now plays a bigger role in battles? Welllll, show me some strategic thinking and application on the part of the player in response to the AI----a bit more than:


To cut a long story short I advanced to engage...

Moreover, I want to hear how the "greater control" allows the player to play with innovation!!!!! This is what its all been about since the inception of Shogun. We don't want to be stuck with the typical RTS rock/paper/scissor *race-to-build* battle model. Control, AI, battle and terrain, as well as weather EFFECTS is what allowed this tired model to be broken by Shogun: Total War

I repeat, I MUST be capable of innovating upon the battlefield in order to defeat a superior in numbers and/or capability AI (or even human) opponnent.

Note, it wasn't stated whether he won or lost, nor how long the battle took (this fact alone would be rather telling).

Frankly, for the remainder of AI development, I call for a **true** developer .plan. Why? For one, the nature of a .plan eliminates the Fluff n Puff.

The Blog is good, and that it be done by a play-tester, just give us detail. Sales to hard-core players will depend majorily upon the AI, battle and terrain effects (ala STW/MTW). I, for one, still won't be a first day of release purchaser, and will only purchase upon positive reviews from **known and original** hard-core Org members (if there are any left!).

And, NO, I will not be a purchaser based upon the Demo, nor comments from CA regarding anything they might change as a result of the community's reaction to the demo. (Sucker me once, shame on me, it won't happen twice.)

Nor will the five other people who will wait for *my* say so, before they purchase MTW2.

~TS~

[ToranagaSama]

...I hope it's clear to people that the Total War series is no
longer a serious strategy/tactical game.


Absolutely worth repeating! Quite right, they are appealing to a wider audience.


It was supposed to be predictable and provide a deep multiplayer experience.

No.

The MP that is apart of all versions is NOT what was intended.

Shogun's game design from the outset included a Campaign Multiplay option. Unfortunately, they didn't attempt to work out Campaign Multiplay until after STW's game engine was completed and the SP game was virtually finished. At which point, they discovered that the STW engine was not conducive toward implenting Campaign Multiplay. Campaign Multiplay would need a *new* engine.

So what STW, MTW, and, consequently, RTW have is a bastardized version of what was intended. No, "deep multiplayer experience" included.

What you say, RTW *is* a new TW engine, so why no "deep multiplayer experience", read that as Campaign Multiplay? For the answer, see the Puzz3D quote above.

[ToranagaSama]

The magic number for unit size in the original battle engine was 60. When that was coupled with the 1 second combat cycle and a chance to kill that nominally ranged between 0.5% (NI vs NI) and 10% (ND vs ND), you got frontal combat resolution times ranging from 3 minutes to 30 seconds. You also got predictable results vs melee and missle combat factors within a reasonable degree of uncertainty. With a 20% advantage in melee combat factor (1 point) you could expect to win 6 out of 10 times, and with a 40% advantage (2 points) you could expect to win 9 out of 10 times.

MTW introduced variable unit size. Although it still ranges around the 60 man size, it makes balancing harder because of the fixed 20% step in melee combat factor (The steps in RTW are apparently 10% which is better). Combat factor has to be used to compensate for the disadvantage suffered by smaller units vs larger units due to multiple attacks on individual men, and it's not a linear relationship. I remember Tosa and I tried to balance 100 man yari ashigaru units in STW/MI against the rest of the 60 man units, and we weren't successful to the degree necessary to ensure balanced gameplay. Variable unit size also complicates balancing ranged units because the ranged unit's overall effectiveness on a target will vary depending on the size of the target unit.

Also, in RTW artillery apparently gets the same number of kills regardless of the size of the target unit which doesn't mesh well with the morale system, if it's similar to the system used in STW/MTW, which applied a morale penalty based on the percentage of men in the unit killed in a combat cycle.

I think it's important to use the original game, STW, as the standard of comparison when you talk about playbalance and gameplay. If MTW is used, you have the situation where, although improved, M2TW could still be inferior in terms of playbalance to CA's original standard, and if you use RTW as the basis, inferior in not only playbalance but overall gameplay (missing features in the engine) as well.

In terms of AI, it's certainly a big improvement to have the AI wait until it has used it's ammo and then charge forward as a whole army rather than use piecemeal attacks where a unit goes forward only to decide that was a mistake and turns around and walks back to its lines. If you don't have a strong rock, paper, scissors battle system, then making individual unit matchups isn't as important. However, the AI is still going to be predictable unless it varies its strategy for similar situations the way a human would. Original STW had an AI that varied its strategy over about 3 different choices for the same initial battle situation.


Nice post. Really nice post.

[ToranagaSama]

I'm not discussing the tactics of a HA army v foot army. I'm taliking about after I've obliterated the AI standing army but one or two (usually) HA units refuse to retreat off the map and must be chased endlessly round and round. I've even 'lost' battles in this fashion.

I know it happened in Shogun, MTW, and RTW. Isnt it about time it was fixed. I'm not saying this will contribute to the problem BTW, I'm just pointing out the possibility. Given that the tone of the article suggests that the author was pleased and surprised by the AI behaviour I have to wonder if there hasnt been sufficient playtesting.

What you describe doesn't appear to make sense. Unless you had VERY few foot soldiers left.

If you have defeated "the standing army", then the game's *fear* factor should have caused those HA to flee the battlefield.

I don't believe the game needs to be fixed in this regard.

What needs be is a good dissemination to the casual gamer of just how the *fear* factor works and how to effect it upon the enemy AI.

One mistake, a great many people make in playing both STW and MTW is the idea that you need to physically defeat every single enemy unit or even the majority of enemy units.

You don't.

You just need to instill the fear factor thoughout the opposing army and it will rout. Once routing, you just need to maintain (or increase) the level of the fear factor.

In your rough example, I would ask why the HA are still on the field in the first place. Putting that aside, in the circumstance the fear factor principal is still in effect.

You simply need to instill the fear factor in those remaining HA. If the "standing army" has been defeated and majorily has routed save the a few remaining HA, then once the fear factor is instilled----the battle should end!

Once the fear factor has reached a certain balance---the battle is over. This is the way the game is coded.

The only exception in the circumstance you describe, is if you have a lessor number of men. That is the HA outnumber your remaining men (and/or a significant quality difference). If this is the case, then the HA's fear factor might be roughly the same (or possibly greater) as your own.

I'm sure you're not playing STW/MTW anymore, but it just takes a little practice and/or someone to show you just how the fear factor works in depth.

The underlying battle factors within STW and MTW are hugely significant, though the overwhelming majority of players NEVER comprehended nor mastered them to any seriously effective degree. Which is why CA disregarded them, for the greater part, in RTW!!

In STW/MTW you can rout an entire standing army by simply killing the
general---this is the fear factor in effect. The thing of it is you don't *need* to kill the general. You simply need to instill the fear factor within certain *key* units and cause them to flee; the rest of the army, including the general, will follow. Once in flight, never allow the fleeing army to get organized, use your cav to run down the toughest units, and keep advancing your main (foot) body. Whenever the AI appears to be organizing, simply advance your archers ((HA) are good for this) and hit the front line with a few arrows---this is why you should never use up all your arrows.

Mastering the 'fear factor' will allow a player to take on any number of AI stacks with just a single (good) stack. 1 to 100 and you can still come out the winner. I've got the replays (somewhere) to prove it.

Sorry for the post---I just had a flashback! :)

Long way to say nothing needs to be *fixed* re STW/MTW.

RTW, on the other hand is simply unplayable!


I'm not sure if its my writing or your reading, but I am talking about my (usually) winded cavalry chasing winded AI cav round and round the map edges. It is not something that can be "avoided with proper preparation" (although it can be dealt with in the battle with a blocking force to cause the AI cav to slow and be caught of course).

(Theoretically) How many units do you have left? Don't understand why you cannot use a "blocking force" just the same. I think this is a tactical problem.


Originally Posted by Puzz3D
In MTW, there is a global morale penalty for level of decimation of the army. It helps prevent a battle from being dragged out by a handful of units which have suffered heavy casualties. I don't know the level of decimation at which this penalty is incurred. I don't think this penalty was in STW because all units routed towards the original entry point on the map so it's much easier to chase off a defeated army. MTW introduced routing away from the threat which makes it a lot harder to mop up after a battle, and I think that's why the level of decimation penalty was introduced.

Yes, in MTW it did make it somewhat harder. Generally, because reinforcements could, in MTW, enter the field from virtually any point (of the oppossing side's map edge). Whereas, in STW, reinforcements would enter the field from, virtually, the same point.

The key was to not allow the entering reinfocements to move much beyond the map edge. If this was accomplished, they would rout easily, given the majority of the 'standing army' was routed and/or had a high fear factor.


The plethora of units and factions and upgrades (STW only had honor upgrades) places too much emphasis on buying the best units with the best upgrades which robs the multiplayer gameplay not only of its strategic potential, but even it's tactical potential.

Could not agree more.

I respect to the utter utmost your testing ability and knowledge, though, at times, I've had issue with the certainess of your conclusions when applied to a dirty (real world) environment, as opposed to a sterile testing environment.

For example,


I measured the size and range of the morale effect of friendly units rout, the supporting effect of the general and the effect of the general dying (-8 morale) or leaving the field (no effect on morale).

Was the "supporting effect" and "the effect of the general dying or leaving the field" measured through the full +/- spectrum of morale; and inconjunction with each and every unit, as well as each and every combination of units. Furthering, how many units, in addition to the General, was included within the test(s); what combinations of units; what 'quality' level; what combination of level 'quality' did the units (as well as the general) comprising the test(ing) have?.

How can any prediction be absolutely true, given the virtual if not real infinite possibilities and probabilities? Which does not take into account the introduction of a dirty environment---which is the gaming environment.

As I've said, I do not doubt your conclusions, I have some concern/issues with the application (or at least some) in a real world environment.

The question(s) is/are posed in a general sense, so any response (if any) can be posed generally as well. The above may or may not be a good example, I choose it because it stuck out to me, I use it just as an exampler to bounce off my questions, thoughts and concerns.

Thank you.


I also determined the size of the outnumbering morale penalty, that only the number of enemy banners within a certain radius contributed to it, that the size of the penalty diminished with the total number, that it had a maximum cutoff value of 3 banners and that it didn't matter if the enemy units were hidden.

Super interesting.


NOTE: Nothing above was meant nor intended to be of any insult whatsoever.


~ToranagaSama

[ToranagaSama]

I
In the past, during LongJohn's involvement with TW, there seemed to be more interaction between parties and discussison on game mechanics were commonplace. Because the TW franchise wasn't as commercial and "big business" as it is now, maybe the community had a bigger influence on certain things? - but that's just speculation of course. :D


I don't know about the "commercial" motivation, but everything else is right on the money.

Personally, I think it has a lot to do with brining a whole crew of *employee*, as opposed to origional creators. Employees aren't as invested in a creation as are the creators.

[ToranagaSama]

Of course tactical movement, terrain, etc should be able to effect the battle outcome between two identical units. I'm simply stating that a battle is not a chess match and that there should be an 'imponderable' occasionally included in the battle calcs. Clustering of random numbers may do it but given the large number of 'rolls' required to perform a unit-unit battle I doubt it (and I havent seen it happen). It would make it interesting if just once in a blue moon a heavy cav unit got repulsed by peasants.

That "imponderable" as you put it should NOT be applied by the AI. Like Puzz3D stated such is chaos. It results in an 'implied' unpredictability, the game then becomes **random**; and as a result quite un-chesslike.

Not fun! Much like battles exist now in RTW.

The "imponderable" should be inputted by the Player through his actions or inactions. The AI should be effected by the "imponderable"(s) of terrain, weather, etc.

Rather than Chess, "clustering of random numbers" would produce a Dice game, as would the inclusion of even "occaisional" *inputted* imponderables into the battle calculations.

Imponderables s/b circumspect and (weather partially withstanding) the result of decisions of action or inaction. Such is war.

The fact of the matter is that in MTW, Peasants could repulse Heavy Cav, given the correct circumstances or "imponderables", such as weather, terrain, morale, fatigue, armour, bonuses, numbers, etc.

Certainly, 1st level (non-peasant) spear unit could do it given the right mix of imponderables.

This is what was so great about MTW, even more so than STW. Tactical **application** was the true key to victory (if you played the game honestly). The problem (which resulted in that which is RTW) is that so few players mastered MTW's tactical possibilities, and even fewer played the game honestly----giving the AI every advantage reasonable.

Reality isn't random, victory in battle (be it real world or STW/MTW) isn't random. RTW is certainly random---though, perhaps, not deliberately so.

The one thing about Puzz' testing is that I do not believe that it accounts for the "imponderables" as well as is necessary for the conclusions to be considered absolute. That is just my very humble opinion.

---


Perhaps but then we'd have people on the forums saying "WHY DID MY GOTHIC KNIGHTS GET DESTROYED BY PEASANTS? CA WHY? DIE IN A FIRE!!!"

I recall many such posts in the early days of MTW. In the beginning (same with STW (and I might have been one of them), LOTS of people didn't immediately comprehend the full effect of the battle "imponderables". Most were used to a straight rock/paper/scissor model.

[Bob the Insane]

Rather than Chess, "clustering of random numbers" would produce a Dice game, as would the inclusion of even "occaisional" *inputted* imponderables into the battle calculations.

I think you have a point there... The TW design was based not on chess but on table top war games, which are at their core dice based games. There is lots of modifiers thrown in there to make unit A much per likely to defeat unit B, but it is always probability and never a dead cert... Well you can buff unit A to the point were unit B has next to no chance of victory and that is the closest you will get to total predicability. Peasants defeating Gothic Cavalry, impossible? No. So improbable that you will likely never see it in you lifetime? Yes...

The battles are fought on the individual soldier level and essentially each soldier has stats, a bunch of modifiers based on their status and location, etc. Two soldiers fight, a virtual die is cast and either one is victorious or the fight continues. Everything else is a conseqence of that result, except perhaps for morale. Morale appears to be at the unit level and if it did not change too much from the previous MTW version is much more predictable. It is obviously affected by the fight results but there are many more factors involved. But basically reduce the morale below a set level and the unit always breaks.


I do not think CA have purposely put in an inponderable, it has always been there. It is just the setting of the unit stats that makes it more apparant. Most of the units in RTW had much higher attack stats compared to defense stats which made the battles very bloody and quick. It was down to which unit killed the most of the other quicker rather than anything else.

A lot of mods have demostrated how you get a slower paced battle where you tactical decisions really count just by tweaking the stats.

[Puzz3D]

I respect to the utter utmost your testing ability and knowledge, though, at times, I've had issue with the certainess of your conclusions when applied to a dirty (real world) environment, as opposed to a sterile testing environment.

For example,

Was the "supporting effect" and "the effect of the general dying or leaving the field" measured through the full +/- spectrum of morale; and inconjunction with each and every unit, as well as each and every combination of units. Furthering, how many units, in addition to the General, was included within the test(s); what combinations of units; what 'quality' level; what combination of level 'quality' did the units (as well as the general) comprising the test(ing) have?.

How can any prediction be absolutely true, given the virtual if not real infinite possibilities and probabilities? Which does not take into account the introduction of a dirty environment---which is the gaming environment.

As I've said, I do not doubt your conclusions, I have some concern/issues with the application (or at least some) in a real world environment.

The question(s) is/are posed in a general sense, so any response (if any) can be posed generally as well. The above may or may not be a good example, I choose it because it stuck out to me, I use it just as an exampler to bounce off my questions, thoughts and concerns.
The morale system is deterministic, and the things I measured were mostly confirmed by LongJohn. That's why I'm certain about conclusions concerning the morale system. The system isn't very complicated. The only morale numeric value I don't know is the penalty suffered as a result of the ratio of the size of the unit before and after a combat cycle in which it has suffered casualties. That is extremely difficult to measure. LongJohn was going to look at the code and tell us the size of that penalty, but he never got to it.

The combat system is also fairly simple, but since it uses random numbers there is an uncertainty in the results. There is no uncertainty in the algorithm being used since LongJohn told us the algorithm. The physical environment is a very simple vacuum physics model for projectiles.

[x-dANGEr]

What you once were used to, isn't necessarily the best you can get to.

[JR-]

is there any indication that these layers of tactical depth that were present in M:TW and then then stripped from R:TW, will make an appearance once again in M2:TW?

Explanation: I am one of those people that has put thousands of hours into M:TW over the last 4 (?) years, and yet played R:TW for only a week before i gave it away due to boredom.

I desperately want to believe that M2:TW will return me to that gaming nirvana i first experienced with M:TW.

[Puzz3D]

is there any indication that these layers of tactical depth that were present in M:TW and then then stripped from R:TW, will make an appearance once again in M2:TW?

Explanation: I am one of those people that has put thousands of hours into M:TW over the last 4 (?) years, and yet played R:TW for only a week before i gave it away due to boredom.

I desperately want to believe that M2:TW will return me to that gaming nirvana i first experienced with M:TW.
There is indication that M2TW tactical depth will be better than RTW, although with some missing tactical features compared to the older STW/MTW battle engine. We don't know if the battle systems of combat, fatigue and morale will be as well balanced to one another as in the original STW game which I believe is necessary to bring out the kind of tactical depth where little things make a difference. I'm talking about little tactical things that the player has control over not random things which the player has no control over.

[JR-]

cheers, it's a start i suppose.

i would be mortally disappointed if i got that same feeling of utter indifference playing the new game as happened with R:TW.

[SpencerH]

What you describe doesn't appear to make sense. Unless you had VERY few foot soldiers left.

................

RTW, on the other hand is simply unplayable!


As I said in a later post, the effect has occured mainly in RTW but it I've seen defending AI units (usuually cav archers of some type) in MTW that refused to rout along with the bulk of the AI army (and that could occasionaly turn an obvious victory into a draw).


(Theoretically) How many units do you have left? Don't understand why you cannot use a "blocking force" just the same. I think this is a tactical problem.

~ToranagaSama

I could use a blocking force to slow the HA. The point is that it shouldnt happen IMO. This is not a tactical problem, it's an RTW gameplay problem.

As far as I can tell from your long post above we seem to be in agreement that the developers description of the AI tactical maneuvers seems promising but more info is needed as to 'long term' effects of this AI behaviour (which is all that I was illustrating with my HA run-around example).

[SpencerH]

That "imponderable" as you put it should NOT be applied by the AI. Like Puzz3D stated such is chaos. It results in an 'implied' unpredictability, the game then becomes **random**; and as a result quite un-chesslike.

Not fun! Much like battles exist now in RTW.

The "imponderable" should be inputted by the Player through his actions or inactions. The AI should be effected by the "imponderable"(s) of terrain, weather, etc.

Rather than Chess, "clustering of random numbers" would produce a Dice game, as would the inclusion of even "occaisional" *inputted* imponderables into the battle calculations.

Imponderables s/b circumspect and (weather partially withstanding) the result of decisions of action or inaction. Such is war.

The fact of the matter is that in MTW, Peasants could repulse Heavy Cav, given the correct circumstances or "imponderables", such as weather, terrain, morale, fatigue, armour, bonuses, numbers, etc.

Certainly, 1st level (non-peasant) spear unit could do it given the right mix of imponderables.

This is what was so great about MTW, even more so than STW. Tactical **application** was the true key to victory (if you played the game honestly). The problem (which resulted in that which is RTW) is that so few players mastered MTW's tactical possibilities, and even fewer played the game honestly----giving the AI every advantage reasonable.

Reality isn't random, victory in battle (be it real world or STW/MTW) isn't random. RTW is certainly random---though, perhaps, not deliberately so.

The one thing about Puzz' testing is that I do not believe that it accounts for the "imponderables" as well as is necessary for the conclusions to be considered absolute. That is just my very humble opinion.

I recall many such posts in the early days of MTW. In the beginning (same with STW (and I might have been one of them), LOTS of people didn't immediately comprehend the full effect of the battle "imponderables". Most were used to a straight rock/paper/scissor model.

Terrain, weather, facing, etc are not 'imponderables', they are known. Imponderables are things that cannot be predicted. As an example for TW, one could imagine a unit who's morale is much higher than anticipated because the officer or NCO's 'rise to the occasion'. Alternatively, one could imagine a unit whose training or weapons are above average because of the activities of a local officer or lord.

History is filled with the results of 'imponderables' in battles at the large and small scale and I can say from personal experience that 'imponderables' do influence the outcome of engagements (ie one can look back and say that if that unforeseen event hadnt occurred then the outcome or sequence of events would've changed).

As I made clear before (I think) I agree that most (almost all) unit v unit battles should be predictable within a normal distribution based on all the tactical factors present in TW, I just think there should be the possibility of an occasional surprise.

The odd corollary to this is that I find CIV4 combat results to be too unpredictable (which is especially annoying since one knows the exact combat odds and there are no tactical factors).

[econ21]

The odd corollary to this is that I find CIV4 combat results to be too unpredictable.

Off-topic - I agree, there's many a time when I've lost a precious veteran Civ 4 unit against the odds. I'm not sure of the maths, but I think it may be because there is not much averaging going on - in TW, you have scores of men hacking away for a fair time and so if they have a 3% kill chance or whatever, these random outcomes are being averaged over quite a large number of repetitions. With civ, it's more one-on-one and while there are combat rounds, there's presumably some kind of momentum effect whereby one bad roll disadvantages you in later rolls.

On the other hand, I think Civ4 combat "works", particularly in getting a decent trade off between quality and quantity. I have happy memories of trying to fight Russian tanks without having discovered oil. I felt like the Wehrmacht encountering the KV-1 for the first time.

[Bob the Insane]

I remember once many moons ago playing Warhammer 40K with my Imperial Guard company (I really did have around 200 of the little guys all painted up) and we were fighting my friend's Bad Moon Orks...

This was first edition rules and he had made an Ork Walker which resembled a giant pair of mechanical legs with platform on top for a sqaud of orks...

Well he charged it up the centre of the battlefield and I had everyone shooting at it...

Well you have never seen some many 1s and 2s rolled in your life, everyone missed, every single guardsman missed the giant mechanic thing... :wall:

And the Heavy Lasers and Missile launcher every squad had should have reduced it to a smoking ruin!!

How is that for an impondererable... If it had happened in Dawn of War I would have been tempted to launch the PC out the window for "cheating"! :laugh4:

[Myrddraal]

That's because unfortunately Dawn of War isn't really a 'wargame'. It's just cool to see the guys move.

TW is a wargame. I like the random factors of the game, they provide the challenge. Imagine a chess computer game, once you've mastered the difficulty level, the game becomes extremely repetitive and boring as you beat the ai the same way again and again. Now imagine that once in a while a pawn doesn't get taken buy destroys your bishop; you now have to adapt to the situation, adjust your tactics and overcome the problem. Fun! :thumbsup:

[Polemists]

True but let's talk about limits. It is unrealistic to think that they are going to put e nough code in a game that is going to change every single time you encounter it. Coders who make games do not seem at that stage yet regardless.

What you can hope for is a certain set of variables that will at least offer some variety. I look forward to the AI, I think new units provide new tactics, and the world seems more immersive then RTW. Then again I would advise you all to wait until the demo. You've got two weeks come monday, depending who you believe maybe more.


Regardless this is all speculation. You are judging a entire game on ONE play testers, ONE battle, with a few paragraphs of info. I'm sure once everyone plays it and test it they'll all be going crazy. Point remains though buying is a choice, it is a way to support or not to support your game. Those who enjoy the combat will buy, those who don't won't. Modders are welcome to try and change what they wish. I'm just saying don't judge a entire AI system on one post(blog) without testing it.

[Bob the Insane]

That's because unfortunately Dawn of War isn't really a 'wargame'. It's just cool to see the guys move.

TW is a wargame. I like the random factors of the game, they provide the challenge. Imagine a chess computer game, once you've mastered the difficulty level, the game becomes extremely repetitive and boring as you beat the ai the same way again and again. Now imagine that once in a while a pawn doesn't get taken buy destroys your bishop; you now have to adapt to the situation, adjust your tactics and overcome the problem. Fun! :thumbsup:

Sorry, but I totally agree with you and that was the point I was trying to make, TW is a wargame like WH40K (but not the RTS DoW) and as such sometime your unit of gothic solders will all roll a 1 and miss and sometime sthe peasants will all roll a 6 and do okay...

Mind you peasant stats are so rediculous that I do not wonder if most of the time they really not have a something like 1% chance of making a kill...

I mean I tried this the other day; one unit of Cataphracts verses a full stack of peasants, no upgrades (huge units). Yes the Cataphracts won easily causing ome rediculous amount of casulaties 2000+ before the peasant army's morale completely collapsed. But the Cataphracts did take some casulaties so even with a attack of one for the peasants and a defense of 23 for the Cataphracts there was some some chance of the peasant's attacks succeeding in there...

Maybe it is a bonus of using huge units, the statistical oddities even out for huge units producing more predictable gameplay?

[SpencerH]

Sorry, but I totally agree with you and that was the point I was trying to make, TW is a wargame like WH40K (but not the RTS DoW) and as such sometime your unit of gothic solders will all roll a 1 and miss and sometime sthe peasants will all roll a 6 and do okay...


That was the problem with playing wargames with 1 six sided die. The smallest chance for an event to occur was 1/6 which is too high for what should be rarely occuring events.

We dont have that problem with PC games though. It would be easy to code for a morale or weapons upgrade (or something else) that is calculated during the battle setup with a probability of occurance of 1/1000 and that remains active during that battle.

[Myrddraal]

Regardless this is all speculation. You are judging a entire game on ONE play testers, ONE battle, with a few paragraphs of info.

But what else will we do to kill the time? :laugh4:

Seriously, everything in these forums and online cannot give a full picture of what the game's going to be like, but that's not going to stop us speculating. :smile:

[Puzz3D]

TW is a wargame. I like the random factors of the game, they provide the challenge. Imagine a chess computer game, once you've mastered the difficulty level, the game becomes extremely repetitive and boring as you beat the ai the same way again and again. Now imagine that once in a while a pawn doesn't get taken buy destroys your bishop; you now have to adapt to the situation, adjust your tactics and overcome the problem. Fun!
This demonstrates the conflict of interest between SP and MP. In MP, there is no AI which makes predicatable moves therefore you don't need 'imponderables' to make battles interesting. What you need is reasonably predictable results so that good moves aren't thrown back in your face as mistakes.

[Bob the Insane]

This demonstrates the conflict of interest between SP and MP. In MP, there is no AI which makes predicatable moves therefore you don't need 'imponderables' to make battles interesting. What you need is reasonably predictable results so that good moves aren't thrown back in your face as mistakes.

But surely the chance of something going awry is equal for both sides in the MP game?

Though I do see your point, no one wants to be accused of winning by luck...

But going back to my WH40K example, on the table top wargame, luck sometimes happens. This does not seem to have dulled the popularity of that franchise...

[Puzz3D]

But surely the chance of something going awry is equal for both sides in the MP game?
If it's a rare random event, it's not going to be evenly distributed.

[SpencerH]

I can see where it might be less useful in MP. Surely, it would be easy enough to code it as a selectable (or not) option.

[AussieGiant]

I'm not sure if I am even on the same planet as Puzz, Bob and Spencer, but....

IMO, the only difference that should be between SP and MP, is the use of AI or a human to control the opposition.

The mathematics of the game should be the same.

In the end you should have a series of statistics for all the units. Plus upgrades.

Then a series of modifiers for all the "variables".

ie Terrain, General's skill, high ground, cover, concealment, range, etc etc.

Then the mathematics should be calculated and a result given.

Using a 1-100 percentile range where the maximum is 2 or 99, you should still be able to have a 1% chance of critical failure or success...just to leave some uncertainty in :)

Fresh, Veteran, Gothic knights, charging downhill, in the middle of the day, on flat ground, against Green Peasants should result total in slaughter. But there is still a 1% chance that a few peasants could survive and after the initial charge there would still be a 1% chance of a successful hit by a peasant on a Gothic Knight.

For me war is uncertain...many Generals over the centuries have written that time and time again. In some instances these small chances can change the course of a battle or an entire conflict.

Therefore there should be some uncertainty.

If being a world class general was simply memorising unit stats and the variables that affect those statistics then we would all be experts if we could remember them or reference them fast enough.

When the odds are no where near 99% probable...and in reality they never are, especially if the opposition is even vaguely proficient....it should be possible, and especially so if the opposition has used the variables to the best of their ability, to have "unexpected results".

The trick of course is to get these "variables" balanced and accurate.

As an example, that is why table top military games, using a 100% range of probability can be very accurate simulations of WWII conflict. This can be applied to the Medieval period also.

I'm oversimplifying this but I thought it might be needed:laugh4:

[Martok]

IMO, the only difference between SP and MP is the use of AI or a human to control the opposition.

The mathematics of the game should be the same.
Good points, AG. I confess I don't fully get why the numbers matter so much more in multiplayer than singleplayer. I'm not disagreeing with Puzz & Co., mind you; I'm just curious as to what the difference is (since the numbers would still be the same regardless if your opponent is human or AI).

I do think the numbers should still be reasonably predictable (ala Shogun & MTW), but I've never quite understood why it's more important in online play.

[Polemists]

Well if there must be speculation can we at least keep the math aspect out of it, for those of us who don't enjoy math :help:

[x-dANGEr]

Well you're spot on right on that one Puzz3D.


I do think the numbers should still be reasonably predictable (ala Shogun & MTW), but I've never quite understood why it's more important in online play.

Basically, in SP, if your Gothic Knights unit gets killed by a peasant, you wouldn't care too much.. This is SP after all, and you can get hundreds instead of it. Though, imagine that happening in MP.. It would be an event that may as well lose you the battle.

Another such event occured with me in the last week.. I was in a 3 on 3 with my Sith clan mates. My Gothic Cavalry (RTW) were riding to flank the enemy's infantry battleline. At the contact of the charge on the flank of the already pinned, scared and horrified Urbans caused my cav to die instantly and raise the morale of the Urbans to Stedily..

Another example I guess is on the many times my numerous charges in the enemy's pinned infantry line won't break them, and when the enemy gets one charge on mine, my infantry routs.. (Knowing that the 2 infantry units forming the lines are identical)

[Nobunaga]

why didn't they post the new blog yet?

[cutepuppy]

Fresh, Veteran, Gothic knights, charging downhill, in the middle of the day, on flat ground, ...

~:confused:
~D

[R'as al Ghul]

Sigh!
In my days we had to charge uphill to the battle....both ways. :wink:

[Barbarossa82]

I don't think the player's tactics should be the only "imponderable" that can affect the outcome of a battle, although they should be the main influence. Luck has always been a part of the reality of war, as have small events that have large knock-on effects. With precisely equal forces, the side that uses the best tactics should win 85%+ of encounters, but not 100%. A certain random element is needed to represent individuals, units, generals etc simply having "a bad day". That shouldn't be a a powerful enough influence on gameplay to make the pursuit of tactics unworthwhile, but it should have some influence nonetheless.

[x-dANGEr]

If that is the deal Barba, there is a chance your clan, and your 4 on 4 team will lose the final of one of the most famous team tourneys around in the community to a 15% percent of "luck". Does that feel right?

Of course, luck is around in RTW, which is really annoying..

[Puzz3D]

Fresh, Veteran, Gothic knights, charging downhill, in the middle of the day, on flat ground, against Green Peasants should result total in slaughter. But there is still a 1% chance that a few peasants could survive and after the initial charge there would still be a 1% chance of a successful hit by a peasant on a Gothic Knight.

For me war is uncertain...many Generals over the centuries have written that time and time again. In some instances these small chances can change the course of a battle or an entire conflict.

Therefore there should be some uncertainty.
There is uncertainty in the STW/MTW engine, but Gothinc Knights are 32x better than peasants in MTW. Adjusting for the size difference, that still leaves the knight 12.8x better than the peasant. In STW, the best cavalry unit was only 5x better than the worst sword unit, and the best sword unit was 5x better than the worst spear unit. In a properly balanced game, a weak unit is more likely to damage a strong unit, and therefore the uncertainty in the battle's outcome is maintained longer because it's harder to gain a decisive advantage.

Other players have noted the mushrooming of apparently small effects in the combat model of RTW/BI, and that's showing up as big wins in unit matchups of equally balanced units. I postulate that this doesn't help weaker units in strong vs weak matchups because the stronger unit has a better chance of getting these small advanatages. This idea seems to be reinforced by the call by some players for a random factor to be introduced which allows the weaker unit to sometimes win. I think that CA, who claim to be the world leaders in this area, should reduce the level of chaos in the combat model and then balance the game to achieve a designed level of uncertainty in the battles. I doubt that they will do this because their emphasis is apparently on graphical effects such as watching the finishing moves and fire projectiles.

[Barbarossa82]

If that is the deal Barba, there is a chance your clan, and your 4 on 4 team will lose the final of one of the most famous team tourneys around in the community to a 15% percent of "luck". Does that feel right?

Of course, luck is around in RTW, which is really annoying..

Well I was really talking about singleplayer. With multiplayer I agree you would want an even smaller luck element but I would want it to still be there. After all, why play a game that has the "skin" of a wargame if you want it to operate like chess under the bonnet, with no unpredictable elements? Doesn't it make more sense to have a gameplay mechanic that reflects the inherent unpredictability of the game's subject matter? I do agree the luck element is far too prominent in RTW though, being another major factor along with combat speed that reduces the effect of intelligent tactics.

[AussieGiant]

~:confused:
~D

"Originally Posted by AussieGiant
Fresh, Veteran, Gothic knights, charging downhill, in the middle of the day, on flat ground, ..."

ahhh...good spot there cutepuppy :laugh4:

You get my drift though?

:2thumbsup:

[AussieGiant]

There is uncertainty in the STW/MTW engine, but Gothinc Knights are 32x better than peasants in MTW. Adjusting for the size difference, that still leaves the knight 12.8x better than the peasant. In STW, the best cavalry unit was only 5x better than the worst sword unit, and the best sword unit was 5x better than the worst spear unit. In a properly balanced game, a weak unit is more likely to damage a strong unit, and therefore the uncertainty in the battle's outcome is maintained longer because it's harder to gain a decisive advantage.

Other players have noted the mushrooming of apparently small effects in the combat model of RTW/BI, and that's showing up as big wins in unit matchups of equally balanced units. I postulate that this doesn't help weaker units in strong vs weak matchups because the stronger unit has a better chance of getting these small advanatages. This idea seems to be reinforced by the call by some players for a random factor to be introduced which allows the weaker unit to sometimes win. I think that CA, who claim to be the world leaders in this area, should reduce the level of chaos in the combat model and then balance the game to achieve a designed level of uncertainty in the battles. I doubt that they will do this because their emphasis is apparently on graphical effects such as watching the finishing moves and fire projectiles.

I agree with you Puzz, especially in your second paragraph.

A question about the first...

You compared Gothic knights and peasants (MTW) to Best Cav unit and worst sword unit (STW). That's not apples vs apples, that's apples versus grapes.

What is the Gothic Knights vs worst sword (MTW) unit and best cav vs worst sword unit (STW) comparisons like?