Multiplayer game discussion

[R'as al Ghul]

Since we went off topic into all directions in the other thread, here's a fresh one for game discussion (only).

For starters here's a little screenshot I just had to take from yesterday's King of the Hill: TosaInu

[R'as al Ghul]

We've had a very nice 3v3 match this week:
TosaInu R'as Tomisama vs Asanorin CBR Alexandros

Especially teppo units had to suffer a lot. Poor ashis:

[Jochi Khan]

An interesting Thread Title.

Some nice battle scenes there R'as

[Puzz3D]

Failed center attack in 3v3.

Defenders: White, Light Blue, Violet
Attackers: Yellow, Green, Red




Red outlined YA and YS are bad matchups against black outlined WM.
Yellow outlined hatamoto and YS represent leading with the wrong kind of unit.







Red outlined YS is a bad matchup against black outlined WM.
The 4 green outlined WM units are bunched up, and the red faction has a YS partially overlapping a WM which is also overlapped by one of the green WM.
Men fight at 1/2 combat ability if they are squeezed too tight.
The 6 yellow outlined units are advancing in unsupported charge on the enemy wing instead of holding position and protecting the left flank of the center attack.























The left flank of the attack has collapsed, and the central salient is eventually crushed from the sides by white and violet.

[R'as al Ghul]

The 4 green outlined WM units are bunched up, and the red faction has a YS partially overlapping a WM which is also overlapped by one of the green WM. Men fight at 1/2 combat ability if they are squeezed too tight.

Red/Yellow/Green is attacking, right?
That looks horrible. (no offense) Red/Yellow/Green puts 10 units against three light blue.
After they finish the light blue units, green repeats the same mistake on the right in the last pic.
Yellow attacking on his own on the left is probably a mistake that occurs more often. I think it's an urge to do something when your allies are already fighting h2h. I think people tend to think that it wouldn't be right to not attack but stand there.
But from these pictures we can clearly see that yellow is moving too far away from his allies.
There's also a good chance for yellow to be surrounded or at least flanked by white, that isn't taken care of. (not sure where that red cav from pic 1 went)

R'as

[Puzz3D]

Defenders: White, Light Blue, Violet
Attackers: Yellow, Green, Red

I added a few more screens between the second and the last screen. What's interesting to note is that, despite the attackers having 10 units (6 of them WM) vs 3 light blue units (1 YS bracketed by 2 WM with a 4th supporting cav arriving) in the center, the light blue units don't rout until they are flanked by additional attacking units.

[Tomisama]

Yes, it was an unfortunate starting into the attack to close together that got my monks clumped like that. And once fighting, they were almost impossible to break off. But later I did manage better control.

You have to watch the whole replay to get the true picture. For example what is missing above is that those monks stayed fighting in the center long past the events above, taking a whopping 281 heads between the four units.

[R'as al Ghul]

Yes, it was an unfortunate starting into the attack to close together that got my monks clumped like that. And once fighting, they were almost impossible to break off. But later I did manage better control.

It's often difficult to break units off from melee. That's why one needs to plan these manouvers better. One of my own main flaws, I think, is that I don't execute the line attack moves properly.

You have to watch the whole replay to get the true picture. For example what is missing above is that those monks stayed fighting in the center long past the events above, taking a whopping 281 heads between the four units.

That's a good kill count but also indication that kills aren't always relevant. If you had taken your monk units and had formed a line between the building and the red encircled unit in the first picture, you would've covered more ground, would've been able to get into the rear of the light blue and substitute the Hatamoto on the right for a monk unit.

I've noticed that the defenders are often forced to move close together when they loose teppo protection or run out of ammo. Both things happened to Tomi and me when we defended in a 3v3 with Tosa. Tomi had lost some teppos and I'd run out of ammo. Tosa then moved closer to add more protection with his guns. I've experienced similar scenes in other games. The question for me is if that's really a good move because one gives away maneuvering space to the enemy and it can result in being vulnerable to backkills. It's quite a dilemma because if it's not starting to rain one is forced to attack. And if it starts to rain one is also strongly inclined to attack while the attacker's teppo advantage is useless.

BTW, is that okay for you Tomi, that your play is picked as a bad example (together with your allies) in this context? Since Yuuki posted this without reference and you spoke up I guess it's okay. Just making sure that there're no hard feelings.

It just crossed my mind that the moving speed combined with the holding power of units can be deceptive. I mean that I often ponder whether there's enough time to move my unit in the back of an already engaged enemy or if I just attack the flank or maybe just join the attack from the front. When I've decided to just go for the flank I'm often surprised at the staying power of the enemy unit and regret my decision not to have circled to the back.

[TosaInu]

Hello,

Controlling engaged units is very hard indeed.

[TosaInu]

I've noticed that the defenders are often forced to move close together when they loose teppo protection or run out of ammo. Both things happened to Tomi and me when we defended in a 3v3 with Tosa. Tomi had lost some teppos and I'd run out of ammo. Tosa then moved closer to add more protection with his guns. I've experienced similar scenes in other games. The question for me is if that's really a good move because one gives away maneuvering space to the enemy and it can result in being vulnerable to backkills. It's quite a dilemma because if it's not starting to rain one is forced to attack. And if it starts to rain one is also strongly inclined to attack while the attacker's teppo advantage is useless.

Hello R'as al Ghul,

Being seperated makes vulnerable to being doubled by the opponents.

I recall that we also lost some meleeforces (I was largely left unattended, so the loses were on you and Tomisama, while it seemed more distributed for the opponents).

Just cramping together and waiting is not a good thing as you'll lose the one sided missile duel.

[Noir]

Imptuous engaged units are quite hard to disengage in my experience indeed - others however appear to be more easier (such as YS or YC). The withdraw command enables reliable disengagement most of the time without giving the risks that the rout command does (cntrl+w=withdraw, cntrl+o=rout), i found out.

Noir

[Puzz3D]

You have to watch the whole replay to get the true picture. For example what is missing above is that those monks stayed fighting in the center long past the events above, taking a whopping 281 heads between the four units.

They did separate out into a line later. The 281 kills is average for 4 WM if we say that each player on a 3 man team needs about 720 kills if they expect to win. A unit costing 1000 would need 80 kills to be cost effective, although that depends upon the monetary value of those kills.

total kills / total cost = 720 / 9000 = 0.08 kills/cost on average

[TosaInu]

They did separate out into a line later. The 281 kills is average for 4 WM if we say that each player on a 3 man team needs about 720 kills if they expect to win. A unit costing 1000 would need 80 kills to be cost effective, although that depends upon the monetary value of those kills.

total kills / total cost = 720 / 9000 = 0.08 kills/cost on average

Hello Puzz3D,

It depends a lot what they kill indeed.

A 1,000 koku monk could keep several enemy units busy, while say a cost effective nod is erasing sprites. The monk isn't thrown away when it means the nod could do much more than expected.

I could use an anvil army with mainly ni and ys and put all units on hold. I'ld probably not get more than 300 kills and still be on the winning team.

[R'as al Ghul]

The withdraw command enables reliable disengagement most of the time without giving the risks that the rout command does (cntrl+w=withdraw, cntrl+o=rout), i found out.

Noir

Why would you rout a unit if the game is not yet over? Doesn't the rout command work by lowering the morale? The loss in morale is not easy to get back.

[Puzz3D]

A 1,000 koku monk could keep several enemy units busy, while say a cost effective nod is erasing sprites. The monk isn't thrown away when it means the nod could do much more than expected.

Yes, and you see 2 light blue WM holding off 6 attacking WM. The 4 green WM performed about as you would expect in head-to-head fighting based on their cost which is proportional to their combat power. It was raining and their were no enemy archers shooting them. They were helped by the 2 YC and 1 ND flanking the center group.

I

could use an anvil army with mainly ni and ys and put all units on hold. I'ld probably not get more than 300 kills and still be on the winning team.

Only if your two teamates combined for 1800+ kills.

[Noir]

I did that in occasions where the unit in question is decimated (say YC confronting 2 spears) and there is a viable retreat for them to fall back and so rally.

I was doing this at extreme cases only, until i discovered that the withdraw option is just as effective in disengaging without pienalising the surrounding units.

Noir

[Puzz3D]

Why would you rout a unit if the game is not yet over? Doesn't the rout command work by lowering the morale? The loss in morale is not easy to get back.

A routed unit disengages immediately. The unit gets morale back when it leaves the vicinity (75 meters) of enemy units, and you can infuse +8 morale with the Rally key. The main problem with intentionally routing units is that friendly units get a morale penalty when in the vicinity (75 meters) of a routing unit. This can trigger a chain rout if you do it at the wrong time.

[TosaInu]

Only if your two teamates combined for 1800+ kills.

Isn't the army engaged with the anvil wearing itself down then? There's fatigue and morale, not just attrition.

[Puzz3D]

Isn't the army engaged with the anvil wearing itself down then? There's fatigue and morale, not just attrition.

Lowered fatigue and morale are temporary factors. Of 16 3v3 battles fought in Aug, Sept and Oct, the winning team's total kills were over 2100. In the other 2, the winning team had 2011 and 1924 total kills.

[Tomisama]

They did separate out into a line later. The 281 kills is average for 4 WM if we say that each player on a 3 man team needs about 720 kills if they expect to win. A unit costing 1000 would need 80 kills to be cost effective, although that depends upon the monetary value of those kills.

total kills / total cost = 720 / 9000 = 0.08 kills/cost on average

I wish we had some actual counters to be able to better judge where we are numerically in the battle. Or would that be to much like pinball…lol

But seriously, using the red/green bar indicator in a multi-partner game, is there any way to tell how well you might be doing against the needed kills to support your allies? Or is the representation just a vague, general indicator as I have always thought?

Do you use it to judge anything, or just basically ignore it?

A routed unit disengages immediately. The unit gets morale back when it leaves the vicinity (75 meters) of enemy units, and you can infuse +8 morale with the Rally key. The main problem with intentionally routing units is that friendly units get a morale penalty when in the vicinity (75 meters) of a routing unit. This can trigger a chain rout if you do it at the wrong time.

Good to know. Thanks!

And how big are the map squares in meters? And the ranges of our guns and arrows again, if you would be so kind?

Alzheimer’s kicking in here

[CBR]

I generally use the bar as an indicator of how well Im doing during the missile/skirmishing phase.

Map tiles are 40x40 meters and guns/bows have a range of 100 meters (hatamoto 120 meters)


CBR

[Puzz3D]

I wish we had some actual counters to be able to better judge where we are numerically in the battle. Or would that be to much like pinball…lol

But seriously, using the red/green bar indicator in a multi-partner game, is there any way to tell how well you might be doing against the needed kills to support your allies? Or is the representation just a vague, general indicator as I have always thought?

Do you use it to judge anything, or just basically ignore it?

I ignore the red/green casualtiy indicator, and I'm not suggesting that players track kills during a battle. Play the battle intuitively utilizing good tactics as much as possible. After the battle, individual unit kills can be analyzed to identify those units that underperformed. You can then go back to the replay to see why those units underperformed, and perhaps make adjustments in how you utilize those unit types.

In the example battle I posted, the 2 red WM performed very poorly with 22 and 33 kills. Not shown is that after the blue units in the center broke, the 2 red WM advanced deep into the enemy lines, and were surrounded and routed. In fact, the entire red army underperformed achieving only 490 kills which was the lowest total by far in that battle.

[Puzz3D]

Some typical results of WM matchups. Both units charging in engage-at-will.

unit vs unit....men remaining when the second unit routs:

WM vs YA.....56 vs 44 in 6 sec
WM vs YS.....52 vs 15 in 30 sec
WM vs ND.....50 vs 10 in 24 sec
WM vs NI......41 vs 19 in 73 sec

[R'as al Ghul]

So, you're saying that when you want to have anything left after charging WM, it's best to attack with YA?

Just kidding, I'm learning a lot here.

[Puzz3D]

So, you're saying that when you want to have anything left after charging WM, it's best to attack with YA?

Maybe you could use it to lure a WM out into the open or away from the battle.

[R'as al Ghul]

unit vs unit....men remaining when the second unit routs:

WM vs YA.....56 vs 44 in 6 sec
WM vs YS.....52 vs 15 in 30 sec
WM vs ND.....50 vs 10 in 24 sec
WM vs NI......41 vs 19 in 73 sec

Yuuki,

do you have similar stats for other unit matchups?
I'm asking because I'd like to get a better feeling for how long certain units can hold and how much time I have to bring another unit to the flank or rear.

R'as

[Nikodil]

Hmm, anyone tried to calculate these kind of battle values?
I.e. given unit X vs unit Y:
- what's the expected kill ratio X / Y at time T
This theoretical value would disregard morale effects but still would be useful for balancing and army building.

[Puzz3D]

do you have similar stats for other unit matchups?
I'm asking because I'd like to get a better feeling for how long certain units can hold and how much time I have to bring another unit to the flank or rear.

Krypta and I did some tests on STW and Sam Wars back in March 2005. We matched a WM vs NI in hold formation to check length of fight and margin of victory in a head to head fight.

In STW, the WM beat the NI in 1 minute and 22 seconds. The WM had 37 men left, and the NI routed at 12 men.

In SW, the WM beat the NI in 1 minute and 13 seconds. The WM had 41 men left, and the NI routed at 19 men.

To check the flanking we matched two YS vs one WM. The YS are side by side and the WM attacks one which is in hold formation while the other YS, in engage at will, moves forward and makes a couple of turns to flank from behind. The timing starts when the WM makes contact with the blocking YS.

In STW, the two YS beat the WM in about 20 seconds. The blocking YS had 38 men left, and the flanking YS had 49 men left. The WM routed at 24 men.

In SW, the two YS beat the WM in 55 seconds. The blocking YS had 27 men left and the flanking YS had 33 men left. The WM routed at 9 men. It took 20 seconds for the flanking YS to make the maneuver and contact the rear of the WM. In STW, the WM has already been defeated 20 seconds after contact with the blocking YS.

We also tested two no-dachi vs one WM, and two WM vs one HC. In both cases the double unit won easily, but they win faster in STW and by a larger margin than in Sam Wars. This might be due to the faster turning rate of the men in STW which appears to be quite a bit faster than the turning rate in Sam Wars. We don't have any control over the turning rate in Sam Wars.

Two units of the same type do win in Sam Wars as they do in STW, but it took longer to make the turning maneuvers and longer to defeat the flanked unit after contact in SW. However, we can see from WM vs NI tests that the kill rate is about the same for STW and SW, and the front/back ratio of survivors in the YS test is the same at about 80% for STW and SW. The WM did fight down to 9 men in SW, but only 24 men in STW. That may be why it took longer to resolve the combat in the SW test after both YS were in contact with the WM.


Note: The WM vs NI result I posted previously in this thread is for NI in hold formation. I'll have to repeat that test for NI in engage-at-will.

[CBR]

Hmm, anyone tried to calculate these kind of battle values?
I.e. given unit X vs unit Y:
- what's the expected kill ratio X / Y at time T
This theoretical value would disregard morale effects but still would be useful for balancing and army building.

Dont think any of us have focused too much on actual time to defeat units. But one can simply add attack and defense and the combined number represents the overall combat power of a unit. Then there is charge value with a rule of thumb of 4-5 in charge equals 1 extra in attack. Each point in difference multiplies the kills with 1.2

If we just look at the basic attack+defense stat for infantry units we get the following:

Teppo -11
YA -2
SA +0
YS +2
ND +3
NI +6
WM +7

If we forget about a winning units beginning to outnumber the losing unit and getting more and more 2 or 3 on 1 duels we can get some basic idea about how much stronger a unit is by using: 1.2^difference

Example: WM v YA would be 1.2^9=5.15 which means that around 5 YA are killed for every WM killed.

Now as you can see the ND only has one extra point over YS but they do have a charge of 8 which would be worth around 1.5 to 2 extra points. That just shows how important it is to charge properly with ND to really gain an advantage of YS.

edit: and then remember the effects of fatigue:

quite tired -2
very tired -4
exhausted -6
totally exhausted -9

It doesnt take much to offset the balance between the different units.


CBR

[Noir]

Just an observation:

lately it seems that... automn came upon SamuraiWarsLand as we get rain even in games that we do not wish so apparently - could it be because of the default host setting being Spring? Spring gives showers often enough IIRC. I guess when there is a desire to play a more "guaranteed" rain free game, hosts can choose summer for more... reliable results

Noir