Defenders Advantage

[Tomisama]

A question from the CWC forum.

Quote[/b] ]It's not mentioned anywhere I know of but I wonder if the game designers incorporated a defense advantage. If that's the case than a tie-breaker (single deciding battle) lends an inherent disadvantage to the team lined up as "attacker."

Can anyone help us out with this?

Thanks in advance

Tomi

[Puzz3D]

Not that I know of except the attacker has to walk to the defender. Walking incurs a higher rate of fatigue than standing, but walking fatigue is recoverable while standing fatigue is not recoverable. To equalize fatigue with the defender, the attacker would have to stand still for a while after getting close to the defender's position. In arid climate, standing units which have never moved drop to 3 bars fatigue after 20 minutes and to 2 bars after 40 minutes. So, if the attacker has to walk a long distance, he will have to wait a long time to equalize his fatigue level with a defender who has not moved.

[Shahed]

Well most people turned to steppe to keep things flat.

I would recommend, in all honesty, just to play the game. Take your turn when it comes and give it the best you got, enjoy it. There is no way I can appreciate to make it featurelss and bland which I could suggest. If it's harder for you than for your opponent then you have more to look forward to.

Maybe this is not something you can put in the tournament rules or can you ?

[The_Emperor]

Ok so the defender has the advantage of his men standing still for slightly longer...

However the attacker has the advantage of taking the initiative. By forcing the other player to react to his or her's actions on the field.

[Chimpyang]

however the defencder can take the initative and cath the attacker unawares by a surprise counterattack

[ichi]

I know that my enemy always has the advantage in pavs wars

ichi

[Tomisama]

In 12 even-army test battles, with the computer acting as both attacker and defender (I had one unit that never saw combat). The attackers won 4, and defenders 8 times.

Considering the fatigue factor, and that the defenders always get in the first shot, I was kind of amazed that the attackers would win any battles at all. But they did

The attackers never rested to help replenish their energy, but I think if they had, we would have seen more even results

(reprint of post on CWC Seasonal Contest Rules - Tie break rules topic)

[Nikodil]

Clausewitz identifies three decisive factors:
1) surprise
2) terrain
3) concentric attacks

The first two is clearly an advantage to the defender (the fatigue factor discussed above falls into the terrain category). The attacker has to resort to number 3, but as Chimpyang points out, it can be countered by the defender.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

In a few hundred battles played, personal statistics show no difference between attack and defense. Actually Attack wins more often...

Take all your logfiles, and look at it for yourself...

It does not mean there is no bonus for defense, but maybe attack finds way to compensate, or good player flock to attack... Who knows? But overall, it does not seem to make a difference whether one is in attack or defense.

Louis,

[Puzz3D]

Louis,

To use battle results to answer this I think you would have to play against a defender who is your equal in skill, has exactly the same army as yours and knows enough to conserve movement. I think both the shooting and fatigue disadvantages can be reduced to the point where they don't determine the outcome, but you have to be aware of them or else you won't take the necessary steps to minimize the effects. Minimizing the effects is going to limit to some extent the tactics you can successfully employ. Starting a melee one bar down in fatigue isn't good, and I think it's suicide two bars down provided there isn't some compensating factor such as lots of flank hits or a big outnumbered penalty. We know that the fatigue rate was optimized by CA for the smallest map size, but 4v4's are often played on the largest map size where there is a lot more walking involved so it's more of an issue there.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Yuuki,

To answer the question 'on the blackboard', I'd agree that one needs to test everything in same environment; preferably on a symetric map, with players of exactly same skill, and with the same army.

Given the rather large sample of my logfiles, I think that it equalizes those factors; ie I play nearly equally on both sides with all kind of different people. Sure, if I were playing with always the same group of players, and that those players were always playing either attack or defense, I'd have a stat bias and a problem.

To answer the question 'on the blackboard' is interesting... But the FACT that in my few hundred logfiles, there is no difference between attack and defense, is also, IMO interesting. And that's real games. Not laboratory experiment.

Louis,

[Nikodil]

I have now analyzed some of my logfiles (315 fought to close out of 413).

They say that defenders won 173 times, attackers only 141, (or 55.1% of total).

Now I realizise a have been a defending more than attacking (179 vs 135 times or 56.8% of total). So it might be that I'm above average .

So, if I instead count the number of times I have won as defender vs as attacker, I get 107 vs 69, or 59.8% vs 51.1%.

To me, the figures seem to support the principle that defence is the stronger form of fighting.

[Puzz3D]

Louis,

As I recall, you also came to the conclusion by looking at logfiles that hilly maps confered no advantage on the defender. This may be true for battles which include a wide cross section of players, but in something like CWC or any tournament the teams are selected and those teams are further filtered with each round of elimination. You're going to end up with teams competing in later rounds that do not represent a random cross section of the community. The players involved are going to be utilizing factors that most players don't even know exist. Concluding that fatigue isn't a significant factor could lead a player to adopt techniques that leave him at a disadvantage against the better players.

One thing I learned from my experience playing chess is that you can't learn solid technique by playing inferior opponents. A move or strategy that shouldn't work might work because the opponent didn't know how to refute it. It takes a lot of discipline not to get draw into messy and unsound tactics when the opponent is playing that way. Now I don't want to incorporate a flawed tactic or strategy into my repetoire just because it works against a lot of players only to find out that it fails against a better opponent. That's why the conventional wisdom in chess is to play the board and not the opponent. So, I think there is something to be said for playing mtw as you would on the blackboard.

[Muneyoshi]

Well Blutzeit, I tend to disagree that those stats tell that the defender has an advantage. For me personally, the stats are opposite for me, I attack almost every single game I play in, win/loss ratio would prolly be 60% to 40%.

But that said, I do believe their is a advantage to defenders, if nothing else at least for the pav battle. Seems to me like 90% of the time in a battle where both sides have the same upgrades on all their pavs, same amount, etc. etc. that the defender will get the edge there.

I dont know about how it is for inf and cav, but one would assume defenders would also have the advantage here but imo its because more often then not, the attacker is the one that will move in after the pav battle at which point they have the disadvantage generally.

Think its more a matter of personal view on if theirs a defensive advantage or not, me personally I feel their is but some others might not.

[ElmarkOFear]

It would depend on the players attacking. For instance, if I am on the defending team, the stats for the attackers winning will go up It is more a matter of what side I choose to fight on, rather than the designation defending/attacking.

[tgi01]

Well defenders have a distinct advantage, exactly as Puzz was saying you need to use the same armies for the results to be relevant ... how big that advantage is depends on the map / era ( we all love the ppl who realised they can host hillydesert and defend :P )

For those of you counting statistics , dont forget that good players prefer to have the initiative and be attackers ....


TGI

[Nikodil]

Hmm, i've done some more number crunching to account for different map types. I seem to be winning about as much on steppe maps as on non-steppe maps (55% and 57%). On the steppe, I am winning far more often as defender (68% compared to only 40% as attacker). However, on non-steppe maps i win more often as attacker (60% vs 55%). Not what i expected

True, to draw accurate statistical conclusion a much more varied samples of logfiles would be needed. My own logfiles are probably too biased by my skills (or lack thereof).