Question about battle mechanics

[Agent Smith]

Could anyone here point me to a thread or site that explains how the battle system works in RTW? I'm interested to know how the computer uses the Defensive skill, armor, and shield compared to attack.

I've found things here about the defensive skill being used on the front and right, shield on front and left, and armor on all facings. But, comparing such high defensive skills to relatively low attack values for most units, I don't know how some units hit an enemy at all.

Any help would be appreciated!

[Ciaran]

To the best of my knowledge, we don´t know for sure. The part with the shield protecting the front and left I´ve seen quite often, so that´s probably correct. The defense, I think affects only melee combat, while armor and shield protect from missiles as well.

As to how the values work, I *think* they represent virtual dices, much like in a P&P roleplaygame. Each dice (one point of attack/defense) has a certain chance for sucess, either to score a lethal hit (since most units have only one point of "Life energy") or to block a hit. Mind you, in combat, it´s not the unit as a whole that is fighting, it´s always the individual men in it (which, being clones, have all the same statistics)

[Agent Smith]

So, each attack value is a dice roll? It still seems out of balance to me. With things like Sacred Band spearmen, who have a total defensive value in the front of 23, I think, there isn't anything out there with an attack value that comes even matches that.

But, if I see it correct, if each roll is say, a d6, and someone with an attack value of 7 rolls all 5's for a total of 35, and a guy with defense of 23 rolls all 1's for a total of 23, a hit is scored?

[Ludens]

I think Puzz3D said sometime ago that the combat calculation for R:TW was essentially the same as for S:TW/M:TW, except that one number was changed (but I cannot remember which). CA themselves have been silent on this matter.

[Ciaran]

So, each attack value is a dice roll? It still seems out of balance to me. With things like Sacred Band spearmen, who have a total defensive value in the front of 23, I think, there isn't anything out there with an attack value that comes even matches that.

But, if I see it correct, if each roll is say, a d6, and someone with an attack value of 7 rolls all 5's for a total of 35, and a guy with defense of 23 rolls all 1's for a total of 23, a hit is scored?

No, it´s not a "normal" dice, each toss can be either sucessfull (1) or not (0), what matters are the (unknown to us) chances for sucess. The 1´s are added up and are the figure with which the soldier attacks. Then the defense throws their dice, their 1´s get summed up and compared to the attacker´s value. If the defense value is higher, the defender survives, if the attacker´s value is higher he gets a kill. This mechanism, doesn´t go on between the units involved in a fight but between the individual men, basically a lot, simultanous one-on-one duels. I hope that makes it a bit more transparent, I don´t have any unit stats at hand so I could set up a more detailed example.

And keep in mind, this is but a theory on the very basic dynamics. Everything else, morale, valor, armour upgrades, exhaustion, flanking... is handled by an internal modifying model to increase or decrease the number of "dices" used in the fights.

[Agent Smith]

Ok, that is very different from MTW then. In MTW the attacker and defender numbers are generally compared (including flank attacks, terrain, fatigue, etc.) and you get a number from 20 to -20. That number equates to a percentage chance for an attack to be successful, with 20 being about 75% and -20 being about 0.05%.

But, if RTW works the way you stated, it would be completely different, because MTW is essentially finding a success percentage and then rolling a d100 to see if it is successful.

I'm just asking because I love the way the game works and wanted to figure out the mechanics for a pen and paper game I'm making.

[Ciaran]

I don´t know whether it works the way I stated, it´s an educated guess at best, working from what I know from other games. It could very well work similar to the MTW system you described, it´s just that this is the first time I read about that mechanic. To the best of my knowledge, we simply don´t have any real hard data, so guessing is the best we can do.