Why are the stats so high?

[Aelwyn]

STW stats were pretty low. MTW stats seemed normal to me. RTW stats seem seriously high. Yes/no?

v0 Chiv Knights in MTW had att/def of 5/5, didn't they? So why do the elite cavs in RTW have stats like 9/21, or 12/22? Why did the numbers go up so much? Is there a reason I'm not seeing, other than to have higher numbers?

Anyone know?

[econ21]

CA said the formulae used for combat have changed beyond almost all recognition,. Hence a high RTW stat does not necessarily mean high compared to MTW. Kind of comparing 3cm to 1inch. However, I wonder if this is not wholly true and some of the "fast combat" people have complained off may be due to a higher variance in attack and defence stats?

Having more variance in stats might seem to be a good thing, in allowing more variety but personally I thought the gradations seen in MTW were historically reasonable - trying to cut things finer starts to stretch creduility.

[CBR]

In RTW the lowest quality unit (the peasants) has been set to 1/1 in attack/defense while MTW had them at -2/-4.

We dont know how the combat formula works but Im guessing that one point in STW/MTW has about the same value as two points in RTW (based on how much valor/experience upgrades cost as well as cavalry charge values and overall spread)

The killing speed has also been changed so when a unit had same attack as defense in STW/MTW you now need about 8-9 points more in defense to get same killing speed in RTW.

So with the peasants used as "base", as each point only counting as half and a need for higher defense values for the higher quality units you get that big difference compared to STW/MTW.

If we look at the difference between MTW peasants and chiv knights, thats 16 combat points. Difference between RTW peasants and Preatorian cavalry thats 32 combat points. Twice as much

I would have preferred peasants to stay with negative values as well as the spread we had in MTW as there is no real need for added details as that just gonna make remembering stats more difficult for us poor humans while the PC doesnt care I guess. But Im just a MTW lover of course


CBR

[Mus]

CA said the formulae used for combat have changed beyond almost all recognition.

No wonder RTW is broken so badly. What was the reason for changing the formula on top of dumbing down the terrain and heigh effects and other things they did to simplify RTW?

[Puzz3D]

What was the reason for changing the formula on top of dumbing down the terrain and heigh effects and other things they did to simplify RTW?

I think it was done to attract a more mainstream and therefore larger market.

[Duke John]

The brother of my girlfriend went to China to research what could be done to lessen the amount of failures caused by a certain machine. Besides mechanical problems there was also the human factor.
There was a person who assigned to control the settings of the machine and it was noticed that the amount of failures increased each time there was a shift. Apparently the person "banged" a few times on the machine just to make sure that he was needed. After all if he didn't adjust settings then why was he employed? The fact that the machine ran fine before banging on it didn't matter. After a few hours the person had found more optimal settings (probably the original) and then the new shift began.



One advantage I can come up with is the smaller impact of weapon/armour upgrades. Or did they multiply that by 2 too?

[Aelwyn]

In RTW the lowest quality unit (the peasants) has been set to 1/1 in attack/defense while MTW had them at -2/-4.

We dont know how the combat formula works but Im guessing that one point in STW/MTW has about the same value as two points in RTW (based on how much valor/experience upgrades cost as well as cavalry charge values and overall spread)

The killing speed has also been changed so when a unit had same attack as defense in STW/MTW you now need about 8-9 points more in defense to get same killing speed in RTW.

So with the peasants used as "base", as each point only counting as half and a need for higher defense values for the higher quality units you get that big difference compared to STW/MTW.

I was thinking you'd be the one to respond logically m8. I suppose my question was answered in tandem with the speed of the game. With a higher "velocity" the stats had to be changed as well. If you were, for instance, to play RTW with STW-type stats, I wonder how it would feel. Probably far far too quick, if my logic is correct. So yes...

I would have preferred peasants to stay with negative values as well as the spread we had in MTW as there is no real need for added details as that just gonna make remembering stats more difficult for us poor humans while the PC doesnt care I guess. But Im just a MTW lover of course

Me too. I suppose if you think about it though, basic stats of 1/1 do make more sense. How could you be completely negative at attacking someone? If anything you'd be "zero" at it...having no skill whatsoever. So, stats of 1/1 make a lot more sense to me.

What was the reason for changing the formula on top of dumbing down the terrain and heigh effects and other things they did to simplify RTW?

I think it was done to attract a more mainstream and therefore larger market.

Kocmoc would be spinning in his grave right now. Erm...wait...

The brother of my girlfriend went to China to research what could be done to lessen the amount of failures caused by a certain machine. Besides mechanical problems there was also the human factor. There was a person who assigned to control the settings of the machine and it was noticed that the amount of failures increased each time there was a shift. Apparently the person "banged" a few times on the machine just to make sure that he was needed. After all if he didn't adjust settings then why was he employed? The fact that the machine ran fine before banging on it didn't matter. After a few hours the person had found

So basically like Puzz said, dumbing it down so the masses can cope with the gameplay. But, those of us with years of experience in this exact same type of game don't view it in the same way...so what...were they creating a new type of game? Well of course. But, why wouldn't you BUILD on your previous success, rather than discard it? If there are certain parts of the equation that have been previously tested and proven to have positive results, why not include them?

I know this was covered in many threads before....but this thread has followed a logical progression to this point for me so....

One advantage I can come up with is the smaller impact of weapon/armour upgrades. Or did they multiply that by 2 too?

IIRC each weapon upgrade is +1 attack (with the added bonus of having +1 missle attack for units that fire them). Also its only +1 defense for armour upgrades...but doesn't that equate into more??? Or did that stop with MTW as well? For instance, a unit would be slower and less receptive to arrow fire with armour upgrades in MTW...however the unit would tire quicker, iirc. What does the increased armour do in RTW? There are units with seriously high armour that benefit from it, and units that seem to more than benefit from armour piercing abilities.

Will this be balanced?

[CBR]

One advantage I can come up with is the smaller impact of weapon/armour upgrades. Or did they multiply that by 2 too?

Actually they did. Although weapon and armour upgrades only show a +1 increase in attack and defense values on unit info, tests show its actually 2 points. But missile attack seems to be only increased by +1 for each weapon upgrade.


CBR

[Puzz3D]

I was thinking you'd be the one to respond logically m8. I suppose my question was answered in tandem with the speed of the game. With a higher "velocity" the stats had to be changed as well. If you were, for instance, to play RTW with STW-type stats, I wonder how it would feel. Probably far far too quick, if my logic is correct. So yes...

You'd be able to come from great distances to assist fighting units, and the ranged weapons would seem very weak.

I suppose if you think about it though, basic stats of 1/1 do make more sense. How could you be completely negative at attacking someone? If anything you'd be "zero" at it...having no skill whatsoever. So, stats of 1/1 make a lot more sense to me.

Not really. The combat equation is continuous through zero. There is no discontinuity at zero. The difference factor = attack - defense + bonus, and has a range of -20 to +20. The df plugs into an equation that calculates the chance to kill and that maps to a range of 0.05% to 72.84%. So, there is no negative chance to kill.

Smaller steps in the combat factor is good in theory because you can balance things to a finer degree. I always thought the 20% step size in STW and MTW was too large especially in view of the range of the battlefield upgrades. We had a long thread at one time where Mitch posted that highly experienced units in the real world are only about 1.5x better than green units. In STW and MTW it was common to have units boosted by much more than that by upgrades. A boost of 4 honor or 4 valor makes a unit 4x better. In RTW, a boost of 4 experience is only going to make a unit 2x better if the steps are half the size.

Kocmoc would be spinning in his grave right now. Erm...wait...

Is he dead?

So basically like Puzz said, dumbing it down so the masses can cope with the gameplay. But, those of us with years of experience in this exact same type of game don't view it in the same way...so what...were they creating a new type of game? Well of course. But, why wouldn't you BUILD on your previous success, rather than discard it? If there are certain parts of the equation that have been previously tested and proven to have positive results, why not include them?

Go back a year and look at the "Fatigue is too high" thread. That wasn't started by newbies. A lot of vets wanted less fatigue, and now they have it in RTW. Mike Simpson said in an interview why the games are not being developed in series. They can stay ahead of the competition better by having two development teams that work on two games in parallel. RTW gameplay will evolve, but players had better think about the consequences of changes they ask for because some of the things asked for in the past and implimented by CA didn't result in better gameplay.

IIRC each weapon upgrade is +1 attack (with the added bonus of having +1 missle attack for units that fire them).

Just remember that the F1 screen in STW never showed the correct upgraded unit stats.

Will this be balanced?

Samurai Wars for STWmod is balanced as are some other mods for MTW/VI. No official stat has ever been particularly well balanced.

[Aelwyn]

Is he dead?

No, was kidding. I don't want to start any rumors. I just was commenting on the decrease in effect from terrain and height. He always hated that it was changed so much.

The df plugs into an equation that calculates the chance to kill and that maps to a range of 0.05% to 72.84%. So, there is no negative chance to kill.

Ok, that makes more sense to me then. And yeah I do remember that fatigue thread. I suppose its a hard thing to find the correct balance. Well thats pretty obvious actually, but its hard to find the correct balance in more than one aspect of the game...both stats and gameplay.

[econ21]

We had a long thread at one time where Mitch posted that highly experienced units in the real world are only about 1.5x better than green units.

That sounds interesting - any hints on how to find the thread? Or would it be so long ago it is lost? I wonder what kind of evidence could bear on this.
When MTW came out, I used to wonder if differences in armour - reflected in the the raw unit stats, not the strange armour upgrades - had too much effect but it was very hard to find any quantitative evidence one way or the other.

[Puzz3D]

CBR has the reference that Mitch used, and he'll post about that. When I said 1.5x better, I got confused with the hill bonus. It wasn't combat efficience that Mitch was talking about. It was the average size of the hill bonus in historical battles.

I did quantitative kill measurements on armor values from 1 to 8 in STW and MTW, and the kills from arrows were linearly related to the armor value. If the armor value is doubled, the kills are cut in half. An archer could get a maximum of about 80 kills on an armor 1 infantry unit and that would drop to about 10 at armor 8.

[ElmarkOFear]

The big problem with getting what the community wanted in the next game in the TW series was not that the community had a bad idea, it was how it was implemented into the game. Good idea: Bad Implementation.

For example: One thing I noticed in my 4 hours playing RTW, was the idea presented at the .com to have the general be able to stop routing troops by implementing a large morale bonus when he was near them. The way it was implemented in RTW is the general is the only unit to be able to rally your troops. The community did not want the easy-to-use rally button on the interface hidden as a special ability of a specific unit. They just thought the general unit could be made more useful by being able to chase down routing troops. What we wanted was a benefit of using the general, not a punishment by increasing the difficulty of rallying units.

I also wrote that the reason we have not been given any information at all on the way battles are calculated, was that it was changed to simplify it for the new players and to help the game run smoother. The Graphics/Battle Complexity is a zero-sum affair. If one is increased the other has to be decreased. Also, the battle calculation formulas which were given for STW/MTW will not be given for RTW, since CA knows the community would, once again, start flaming them for simplifying the game.

[CBR]

The way it was implemented in RTW is the general is the only unit to be able to rally your troops.

And that didnt have to that bad really. I still say a general button for rally is better than RTW but what has made it much worse is the higher speed of the game.

I also wrote that the reason we have not been given any information at all on the way battles are calculated, was that it was changed to simplify it for the new players and to help the game run smoother. The Graphics/Battle Complexity is a zero-sum affair. If one is increased the other has to be decreased. Also, the battle calculation formulas which were given for STW/MTW will not be given for RTW, since CA knows the community would, once again, start flaming them for simplifying the game

Well if you look at RTW you will see a decrease in FPS as well as broadband being required for RTW MP. The game is now both more graphic and CPU intensive. There are added details like a pikes ability to keep an enemy from doing any damage at all and different impact from a cavalry charge based on the infantry classes (light and heavy)

If they dont release the combat formulas its more because it no longer can be expressed in a simple formula to understand it all


CBR

[CBR]

Simon Appleton:

Its called the "quantified judgment model" (QJM) Basically lots of battles have been analysed trying to calculate the effect (force multiplier) of terrain, defensive positions, numerical superiority, effects of surprise etc etc. And also used to predict average losses.

There will always be some randomness in combat but by having a good understanding of all these force multipliers one is able to use the needed resources to take an objective without spending too much that could be used somewhere else.

As Yuuki already stated the 1.5 multiplier is what a defender gets from rugged, heavily wooded terrain. This is of course for modern combat so Ancient/Medieval times could be different.

I think there are some more info on this site: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/

I got two of Trevor N. Dupuy's books about it:

Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War

Understanding War: History and Theory of Combat

They are both very interesting and I recommend them.


CBR

[Puzz3D]

The downhill bonus is something like 60/40 for OrderFoot on about a 45 degree slope according to some measurements I made back in Dec 2002. That's 1.5:1.

[ElmarkOFear]

Everything can be quantified, and you guys are intelligent enough to figure it out, even if it IS complicated. To really Mod a game you have to understand the underlying battle engine. This obviously isn't going to happen without the information provided like in previous TW games.

I did not see the game increasing in both graphics and battle complexity. Complexity has a lot more to do with useful battlefield tactics and not the number of units and thier special abilities.

"The general unit as the only unit able to rally your army" was a terrible decision. The units should be able to be rallied by a button on the interface and not one which forces you to click on the general, then click on the rally button. The whole initial idea behind that feature was to continue with the rally button on the main interface, but use the general as an added bonus to morale to make that unit be used instead of hiding the entire game. Now the general unit has to hide even more.

It was said the game was to be easily modded. Are there any mods out there, besides the few which change the speed and a few other small details? I haven't been keeping up with the game, and would be interested to read about what has been made. I would be surprised if anything has been done, thus far, given the lack of information on everything concerning the game's inner workings and lack of an editor. Hard to make changes to anything without first having an idea of how a stat fits into the overall scheme of things.

I am hopeful the patch will improve the MP experience to the point where I will find it entertaining to at least play a bit more and increase my knowledge of the underlying new game engine. As it stands, the frustration of playing online, does not make it worth the time involved.

[CBR]

Yes it would be nice if we can get some more info on the battle mechanics. Some things right now is guesswork for modders.

The battleengine might be more complex without seeing it while playing and tactics becomes simpler. A combination of stats perhaps some unintended features of the battleengine.

Big mods takes a lot of time to make so no one has finished total conversion mods yet. But you can check our modding sections for hosted mods and see screenshots of several mods. AFAIK some things have been made easier while other things might be less easy than MTW. Im not in a position to say if RTW overall is better or worse.


CBR

[ElmarkOFear]

I know you guys will eventually figure it all out, but after all this time, I was hopeful you would have been given a little help by someone at CA. If they were really wanting to push the mod-ability of RTW, they would have backed up the statement, if not with tools, then at least with info. I have seen people ask for such things, (who would normally receive a response from CA), and this time there is nothing. The only time I have seen a response (since the initial release of RTW) was when something was said to anger someone at CA, and that doesn't bode well for either CA or the TW community.

I purposely distanced myself from everything to get a fresh perspective on the game and the events surrounding the game. I must say, I do not see any improvement in relations between the community and CA, nor any progress towards mending the problems between the two parties. Just silence from both sides. Very sad, but not surprising.


On another note: How close are you guys to getting the Shogun maps all made using the MTW engine? If you are near, I can begin finalizing the STW campaign. I am in limbo, until I find out if it will be able to use MTW or will have to use STW.