Multiplayer game discussion

[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.

[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

[Tomisama]

Monday night reviews of my worst battles for this Sunday, not counting the Onin disasters (for me) which can be talked about later over on that topic.


CB, you ask what I was doing after that mizulands 18 game, referring to my total left flank positions destruction. I could not answer at the time, being to distraught. “Suicide” was the only thing that came to my mind, and I couldn’t spell it right, so took a walk.

If and when you watch the replay, please note that in the battle I could not see the five units on Fool’s hill, as they were hidden. I somehow counted wrong and thought there were only two. My YC attempt to test flush the area got caught, and the whole thing went off in a hand-basket after that. My apologies


And Yuuki, later after the mizulands 10 game, you said that you had helped me as much as you could with that flanking operation, and this was true, thank you. I think if I would have seen your attack and had pushed at the same time, things might have worked out differently, but I was a bit to far out on a limb there anyway, and should have been more conservtive. My apologies again

[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.