Idea: Intelligent Autocalc

**SwordsMaster** · 04-15-2005, 00:12

So you basically want to record "log" files. The thing is, to calculate results you have to store them all in one single file and then you have to produce some actual code to deal with it, although that would be probably doen in a script kinda format.

The thing is, the players victories depend greatly on the players army composition, so unless you have a record of all units available on the battlefield your results wont be that accurate anyway. I mean, if you are fighting Numidia with an all hoplite army, chances are you are going to lose even of you have the advanage of numbers. So a pretty detailed composition of the army would be needed, and including some 200 units would be quite a bit of work...

But if you can dedicate it enough time I think ot would be a nice feature.
Good Luck

**Red Harvest** · 04-15-2005, 01:01

Not quite recording a log file. More a scoring of the log file and only saving characteristics that emerge from the scoring. More detail than won-loss, but far less than a battle log. The only thing that would be saved are whatever factors would be fed into the autocalc engine. Ideally, I see this as adding only a few lines to a save file. Or optionally, it could be done as a seperate small text file, with different factors and abbreviated logs for each difficulty level, that way it could span across campaigns. Otherwise, you have to repopulate the factors whenever a new campaign begins.

It is something a developer would have to do since it is hardcoced (or some folks working with the developer could do a fair bit of grunt level testing to tune it.) Most importantly, it is going to require substantial playtesting in conjunction with coding. With a little tuning it should be possible to "model" typical human battle performance...even among different humans and on different levels.

**Oaty** · 04-16-2005, 03:13

While on the subject of autoresolve I think the A.I. gets punihed too. What I've noticed is A.I. against A.I. is both side get slowly dwindled down. At least it seems that way but I play with fog of war on so my observations are limited.

The attacker loses close to the same casualties as the defender

I hate those rebel battles too along with small A.I. stacks. The easy way to make this more enjoyable is the more you outnumber them the more likely they will auto disband without a fight. As far as the small A.I. stacks maybe give them a good chance to retreat to the nearest city. As that is what most small garrisons would do retreat to a stronger army or fortification and hope they don't get caught by the enemy army.

**Red Harvest** · 04-16-2005, 03:25

I should also add that since the player is likely to run a high net positive in his/her autocalc scoring, these factors would NOT apply to naval combat or any thing else that can only be autoresolved.

The idea is merely to make autocalc a more natural extension of the campaign, where players can fight battles because they want to, rather than being compelled to for every battle no matter how trivial.

**The Stranger** · 04-16-2005, 10:37

seems like RH is brusing (sp?) with ideas

**ShellShock** · 04-16-2005, 11:10

I don't like this idea as the AI is weak enough already, so that I usually win most battles easily, whereas I'm more likely to lose auto-calced battles. With "intelligent" auto-calc, the AI would lose even more battles.

If you want to give the AI a better chance, auto-calc ALL your battles.

Also how would this work in AI vs AI battles? Presumably they would auto-calc as of now, which would probably put the attacking AI at a further disadvantage compared to when you are the attacker.

**Red Harvest** · 04-16-2005, 17:00

Shellshock,

You completely have missed the reason for this. This is not to let the player win more battles. It won't do that. What it will do is make it so the player won't have to fight all of the tedious walkovers that are so annoying. Why? Because the player will be able to get approximately the same result without taking the field. The point is to remove a substantial portion of the tedium from the strategic game. With a representative autocalc the player could choose to only fight interesting battles.

In fact, if the player autocalcs the obvious wins, and plays the tougher ones out, then the ratios will be closer. As a result the autocalc adjustment will be less in their favor than if they also played out the easy wins (e.g. typcial 360 killed, 2 losses type combats that are not uncommon for fighting small stacks.)

Plus there would have to be some upper limits on the autocalc adjustment. Becoming invincible in autocalc is not the idea either. There would still be risk.

**screwtype** · 04-17-2005, 04:10

Originally Posted by ShellShock

If you want to give the AI a better chance, auto-calc ALL your battles.

ROFL. You know, that ain't such a bad idea! You'd have much more realistic battle results, and a much tougher campaign, if you did that!

Hmmm....might have to try this some time...

**Shambles** · 04-16-2005, 17:18

Personaly i dont use auto calc,
Becous I like the battles, So i cant say iv ever noticed anything wrong with it,

And if the state of auto calc Right now means You either do it your self Or dont do as well, then id say Keep it like it is,
Becous even with a large army if you have no skill You could loose,
But the auto calc may just say you won,
And newbie players would be compelled to use auto calc Instead of actualy Playing the game.

**Bhruic** · 04-16-2005, 18:02

I don't think he's suggesting replacing major battles with autocalc. But when you are taking your 1000+ man army vs 200, what's the point in firing up the battle map? If I play that battle, I won't take more than 10 casualties (often none). But if I autocalc it, I'll lose a lot more.

So in order to avoid losing troops for no reason, I'm forced to fire up the battle map and fight out the tediously pointless battle. Multiply that by a few dozen such combats over the course of a playing session, and it gets really annoying. If I could be sure that autocalc would handle the battle intelligently, I could just autocalc all those battles, and have more time to play the rest of the campaign - and the battles worth fighting out.

Bh

**Shambles** · 04-16-2005, 18:12

Originally Posted by Bhruic

I don't think he's suggesting replacing major battles with autocalc. But when you are taking your 1000+ man army vs 200, what's the point in firing up the battle map? If I play that battle, I won't take more than 10 casualties (often none). But if I autocalc it, I'll lose a lot more.

So in order to avoid losing troops for no reason, I'm forced to fire up the battle map and fight out the tediously pointless battle. Multiply that by a few dozen such combats over the course of a playing session, and it gets really annoying. If I could be sure that autocalc would handle the battle intelligently, I could just autocalc all those battles, and have more time to play the rest of the campaign - and the battles worth fighting out.

Bh

You may not use auto calc for The battles where you have 1200 units and the computer has 1000,
But newbies may, And win becous of it,
where if they had gone in them selfs they possibly cvould have lost,

Id call this a Trainer,
Something I frown upon (till my for-head hurts)

I still think The "tedious battles" would have been fought in real life,

and only yester day I was fighting a large enemy force with only 1 group of archers.
My men eventualy routed But with only minimall losses.
and i devistated most of the enemys forces,
So i beleve that its possible for the computere to do so as well.

I really beleve you shouldnt play with the auto calc.

becous honestly, If you cant be botherd Going down to the battle,
You deserve to be punished for being a bad general.

**screwtype** · 04-17-2005, 04:06

Originally Posted by Red Harvest

The idea is merely to make autocalc a more natural extension of the campaign, where players can fight battles because they want to, rather than being compelled to for every battle no matter how trivial.

Yup. Makes sense to me!

**SwordsMaster** · 04-16-2005, 23:53

Originally Posted by Red Harvest

Not quite recording a log file. More a scoring of the log file and only saving characteristics that emerge from the scoring. More detail than won-loss, but far less than a battle log. The only thing that would be saved are whatever factors would be fed into the autocalc engine. Ideally, I see this as adding only a few lines to a save file. Or optionally, it could be done as a seperate small text file, with different factors and abbreviated logs for each difficulty level, that way it could span across campaigns. Otherwise, you have to repopulate the factors whenever a new campaign begins.

It is something a developer would have to do since it is hardcoced (or some folks working with the developer could do a fair bit of grunt level testing to tune it.) Most importantly, it is going to require substantial playtesting in conjunction with coding. With a little tuning it should be possible to "model" typical human battle performance...even among different humans and on different levels.

Yep, thats what I thought, you probably cant make the game access some files other than the ones its using now unless you write actual code. And you technically arent allowed to do that. Thats why I suggested a script... But if the variables need to be stored then a script is probably not going to do the job.