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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:15
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I recently ran a batch test to check efficiency of support units (read archers).
Here are the results:
I ran 3 tests, a tournament between bowmen, hordes and phalanxes. As phalanxes are stronger, there were 10 bowmen, 10 hordes, 7 phalanxes.
The results were consistently:
bowmen beat phalanxes beat hordes beat archers.
I like it because it means archers outnumbering phalanxes can pound them to dirt from afar (effective support fire) but they are smashed by hordes if these can get close, even though hordes are less powerful than phalanxes in close combat.
Now does anybody have ideas about how to give reasonable prices (econ) to these units so that there be no one uber-unit?
In particular:
If unit U1 beats U2 unless they are outnumbered X vs 1, should they cost X times U2 or less? (X times means you'd get units faster building U2).
How much do higher tech units cost?
They usually have an advantage in terms of fight outcome, but should they be cheaper? If one knight is worth 2 light cavalries in combat and costs twice as much but additionnally requires extra tech, you'd better research other techs and build more light cavalries?
Decreasing the population when building a new unit offsets some of these concerns a bit, but I'd be for having smaller prices for stronger/higher tech units because -you wait more before you get them -it makes it reasonable to research new military techs.
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Mark_Everson
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Canton, MI
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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Hi Laurent:
That was an good experiment to do! First I'll answer your question on face value, not considering reality. IMO if the resuts for 10A/ 10H/ 7P come down to rock-paper-scissors, then the cost to create all these armies should be equal! Since they give equal expectations of a win game balance demands it... giving costs using an arbitrary scale of 1:1:1.4 respectively per unit or so. Now of course this analysis ignores a lot of factors, like how effective are these units as part of a combined force. In other words given an assumed combined force of 3/3/2 what is the incremental benefit of adding one unit of each type? This may alter the cost. Also since we have multiple basic goods going into a unit we'd expect the Archers to have proportionally more Services cost (lots of practice) and the horde less, etc. This means that for different players with different economies it may be more advantageous to build one than the others considering the cost of those basic goods in the civ.
Now Reality (or our pale version of it)
We like game balance, and we as a project have a predisposition to reality (if the reality isn't too expensive, in terms of not killing fun...). So my first question would be, are these the results you'd expect for similar armies in classical antiquity? I don't care if things are a little off reality, but I'd prefer not to have people who know something about ancient battles laughing. So it would be good to get someone who knows their stuff look at it, or maybe simulate a few ancient battles? Another point is that your experiment is, I bet, assuming good flat ground. I expect the results would be completely different in woods, where the horde would win hands-down all battles. So in future tests you may want to have a suite of 3 or 4 terrain types to use.
After all my comments about refinements etc. I think your test fight was a really good idea. It will allow us a good initial way to balance costs of units. In terms of practicality, I think we should just assign the costs to make units roughly cost-effective in terms of battle outcomes. Then we can, for fine-tuning get feedback from playtesters that "I always build X" know that X should be made a bit more expensive.
Great Job 
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:15
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quote:
Another point is that your experiment is, I bet, assuming good flat ground. I expect the results would be completely different in woods, where the horde would win
hands-down all battles. So in future tests you may want to have a suite of 3 or 4 terrain types to use. |
Well, I still have to put in the terrain mods and then to decide on values for the various terrain types... I am not sure what had been specified for these, although I am sure that rough terrain should lower the effect of support fire (try shooting an arrow at someone in a wood). The phalanx would lose cohesion, but again, I am not sure how to handle it.
quote:
are these the results you'd expect for similar armies in classical antiquity? |
As far as horde/phalanx are concerned, this is ok. Paul said 1 phalanx should be able to resist Persian warbands twice as numerous, so 10/7 is correct. The question is 10/6, 10/5. I didn't check the limit. As for archers, it is a bit hard to say, because I don't know of battles of only archers vs. something, and I am really knowledgeable only with longbowmen and crossbow armies.
We have a lot of figures to tweak here anyway. I'll try to make more tests and dress up a table of relative unit efficiency.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:15
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Here is a summary of batches I ran to evaluate the various strengths of units.
Based on the first results, I changed a few values and put costs which were approximately proportional to units effectiveness (costs being element-wise).
Units are classed in the number of WarriorBands needed to match evenly 10 units of one kind. So WarriorBand is worth 10:
Bowmen (8) WarriorBand (10) Horde (12) Chariot (14) Phalanx (22) Light Cavalry (22) Legion (23).
Legion is 7 heavy spears, 2 skirmishers and 1 engineer, which may not be accurate. I just wanted to throw an engineer in for field defense code.
Bowmen are low on the scale, but they are always less efficient than other units in melee. The figures are a bit complicated, but they translate as: You need from 2 to 5 bowmen in support of weak front units to beat 10 of anything.
I nerfed the chariot down because chariots were replaced by cavalry when people learned to mount, so I guessed they shouldn't be too powerful.
What do you think of those figures (please note there is no defense/offense bonus considered in this test, which takes place on "neutral ground")? Should a phalanx be more or less strong than a light cavalry for instance (currently, phalanx is slightly weaker but defends slightly better against archers)?
Bowmen stats: Bowmen tip a fight for a weaker front line when there are the following number in support against 10 opponents:
WarriorBand: 2, Horde: 3 or 4, chariot: 3, Light Cavalry: 4, Phalanx: 4 or 5, Legion: 5.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:15
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Gary, here are the classes/methods to get on/down ships:
MovementElement.isCarrier() returns a CarrierElement. Only units that can carry other units return a non-null CarrierElement. It is then used to unload on a given square (you have to check the square is adjacent to the unit because I just teleport the armies there).
To get on board, use MovementElement.board(CarrierUnit). It will return true if it managed to board (i.e. had enough space). There are of course various methods to check there is enough space, know how much there is, list units and elements.
As for naval combat, it is coded, and sunk ships should cause the death of carried units, but that is untested. Note that it is actually the ground-fight on ships, since this only covers ancient ships.
I didn't add a roundboat so the trireme still carries units, because we don't have an image for roundboats.
You can also look at game.military.test.testBoard if you need some example.
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Richard Bruns
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NC, USA
Nov 1999
time: 06:15
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Note on archers: In antiquity the power of bowmen varied greatly based on the skills of the general. For example Surenas used Parthian horse archers to annihilate a Roman legion with seven times as many men, but when fighting archers in places like Gaul the legions could butcher enormous enemy armies.
To simulate this, bowmen should probably start weak but recieve a big boost as your Military Tactics technology increases.
How do you simulate Tactics in your battles anyway? Does it do anything, or is it only a requirement to get units at present?
What's the status of generals in the character model? Can they provide a temporary boost to the Tactics technology that only affects the army they lead?
By the way, this looks good overall. I am wondering; where do spearmen and javelin throwing auxiliaries come in? Do you simulate the fact that Roman legionnares had about half a dozen javelins per person that they tossed before they entered melee combat?
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:15
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Are you sure archers skill depended on general? I would bet on equipment/training. In Gaul, celts were more proficient with slings than bows, and used short bows of poor quality. Slings are quite slow, too, and take a lot of place, and are bad for ballistics shots so that was not very efficient. Did the Paths use composite bows? A composite bow is much much more powerful than a single-curvature bow, but they weren't known by latins celts or germans (greeks had them, but didn't use them much, while persians, indians used them a lot).
Tactics are not really modelled, but there are scouting and manoeuver phases which give a bonus. Generals have some influence in the model over these phases in particular.
As for spearmen and javelins, there are 2 things in the model which allow to model it:
Skirmisher elements on one side (which are in D5), and fight at various range (which is not yet coded but I'd like to do it next): All elements have attack ratings at various ranges, and attack at that range, then go forwards if their morale didn't break, fight at closer range and so on. This is in addition to support fire like archers or artillery can provide.
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Richard Bruns
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NC, USA
Nov 1999
time: 06:15
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You are right about the mobility and power of the bows; but I still remember that only a few generals used the bowmen properly.
You mentioned that units fight at one range and then move closer. What if it is to their advantage not to move closer? If a unit has long-range firepower and more mobility than its opponent, it seems like it keep shooting at that range until it runs out of ammunition.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:15
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quote:
You mentioned that units fight at one range and then move closer. What if it is to their advantage not to move closer? If a unit has long-range firepower and more mobility than its opponent, it seems like it keep shooting at that range until it runs out of ammunition. |
Yes, the model is a bit vague here. It supposes the attacker always wants to reach melee, which is often wrong in modern times/long-range weapons. Since there is a test to advance at next stage, the attacker, if it won the manoeuver phase (has better mobility) should be able to decide whether it wants to get closer. We should also check if both attacker and defender want to remain far range. Basically, if they have better long-range firepower than short-range, they would stay away, but that doesn't work well when you want to seize fortifications / trenches...
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Gary Thomas
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New Zealand
Mar 2001
time: 17:15
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The annihilation of the legions at Carrhae has been attributed to the fact that the Parthian general, Jaselin (or some such name, I am going from memory), loaded 10,000 camels (surely an exaggeration) with spare arrows, so when the horse archers had shot off all their arrows they could go and get some more. The legions were stuck in an open plain without shelter. When the horse archers (who were armed with composite bows) attacked, all the Romans could do was hide behind their shields. The casualties and lack of water gradually wore them down.
So, generalship in the sense of providing spare ammunition. Equipment in that the horses and composite bows gave the Parthians an advantage on the specific terrain. Probably, however, the deciding factor was not good generalship, but bad generalship since Crassus should not have got himself in that position in the first place.
Crassus was the richest man in Rome. The Parthians captured him and executed him by pouring molten gold down his throat.
Cheers.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:15
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I have been preparing something for D7, which is fight at different ranges. I describe what Krenske's model originally proposed:
Fight at initial range (long/mis/short,maybe determined in actual lengths), and advance at end of a round if morale checks are made.
I coded that, so that archers can be used not only as support fire (although they better be if the opponent closes in).
The current model and code are not very deadly each round. It takes a lot of rounds to seriously harm anything. This means fighting one or 3 rounds at a long distance before closing in makes little difference on the end results (perhaps that managed to make a few opponents flee, at most). The model also fails in that long-distance armies will not want to close.
I will code this for soon:
Early Distance rounds. If all armies would rather fight at closer range, proceed as currently in the model. If a defending army is in a city, only allow it to want to get closer (they won't leave the city undefended so they can better shoot at opponents sacking it). If an army tries to close in and the other doesn't want to, check the chance of success based on manoeuver output.
I am also tweaking the morale code every way round so it is more accurate. In D6, managing flight is sometimes impossible, where I wanted it to be difficult.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:15
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Currently, there is a bonus for the defender in the manoeuvre phase. It is arounf 15%, and then it is scaled down since the manoeuvre phase output gives only a small bonus. It can probably be increased.
I didn't manage to reach your page. What I mostly need for terrain is figures. Terrain effects should modtly lower attack values, and lower mobility. I will try to check the page again when my internet connection feels more like it.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:15
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I managed to read the page, and checked the code and some fight results.
The current situation is the defender has 15 bonus to scout phase, which roughly translates into a +4% bonus after manoeuvre, everything else being equal, due to knowledge of terrain alone. I think a defense bonus should be added only in cities, since in the open it is more a question of manoeuvering. One should note that, if they have engineers (only legion unit has any now), the side that wins the manoeuvre phase gets a defense bonus due to the engineers (+1 per engineer - needs tuning, but that will wait).
I suggest a defense bonus be given only if there is a city (I suppose a good-sized city has defenses, defenders have better morale, etc.), and 30% as you suggest sounds good. It could be interesting to find out if there are city walls, ditches, forts, etc. to give additional bonus. These are different from field defense built during battle in the sense they take months or years to build, thus are really infrastructure. Considering just the code, I suggest a 30% bonus if in a city, and nothing else.
Terrain is divided in several subcategories. I'll add a defenseFactor: Defense is multiplied by (1+defFactor), and mobility divided by (1+defFactor) for infantry, (1+2*defFactor) for other units. Mobility is only useful for scouting, manoeuvre phases and morale/fleeing so it is probably not enough a penalty for mounted units. I may also decrease attack for non infantry by dividing by (1+defFactor), based on test results.
Here are suggested defFactor values, additive:
Rolling, Broken, Massif: 0.25,0.5,0.75
Forest, Jungle, Dune, Swamp: 0.15,0.3,0.3,0.5
I don't think soil type is important.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:15
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I decided that it would be easier to code if, to simulate defense bonus, I decreased attack by the ratio between optimal mobility and actual mobility: So f.e. a cavalry with attack 80 def 30 against infantry attack 80 def 30 we get:
flat: 80/30 vs 80/30
swamp: 40/30 vs 53.3/30: The infantry gets a bonus in rugged terrain.
Using KRenske's model, I think I'll propagate the defense bonus of 15% in scout phase to the manoeuvre phase and test what the results are. Should become a final figure around 20%, more or less depending on the troops mobility.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:15
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I put a few features in the code for D7. Here they are (beyond bug fixes):
Fight at different ranges:
Krenske's model provided fight at various ranges (5 or 6, I don't remember). I have a few rounds at long, medium and short range before fighting melee. Advance between ranges depends on whether the armies want to advance (archers usually don't), and their mobility, defenders getting a small bonus. This allows to simulate properly javelineers who send their weapons before closing in.
Here is how it works: Fight starts at long range. At the end of one round of fight, morale is checked, and armies who want to advance (based on whether they have better firepower at shorter range) advance by a step equal to mobility. When armies have advanced enough, fight gets on at medium range, then short, and last melee. For now, the attack strength is binary: distance/melee. The number of rounds at each range and attack strengths will have to be playtested. When adding more elements with short or long range capability (javelineers, slingers, catapults), I'll cut down the distance strength into more categories.
I also added defense bonus for terrain. Currently, all units benefit from it. Its main effect is to reduce offensive power of mobile units more than that of infantry. I can square the penalty for attackers to increase the defensive value of mountains, hills etc. The figures are as given in my previous post.
I also put in a bonus for defenders based on ownership of terrain. It gives an 80% chance to win a fight for the defenders if they have the same numbers as their attackers. Additional bonuses based on the orders (sentry, forced march, etc.) are already in the model, although there is currently no interactive way to give such orders to the units.
Last, the tech/military hookup seems to work, as I gave myself an exponential tech progression in Military Tactics, resulting in monstrous light cavalry units. I still have to be able to say I can build units based on tech requirements. I don't know if the tech model itself is interested in knowing it, so right now I'll code it as methods in UnitArchetype/ElementArchetype.
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Richard Bruns
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NC, USA
Nov 1999
time: 06:15
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark_Everson
I think at some point it would be really great to get some simple descriptive info on what won the battle. That way the player can get the feel for what is going on under the hood of the model! I'm not sure about a good way to implement it... Something that said that "Withering arrow fire from our archers" won the battle would come up if the battle was half won before troops even reached melee range would be a good start. I wouldn't put this before 'hard' features like ship boarding/ fighting and tech, but when you've gone as far with those as you can (you may be there already) a simple "battle description" seems a good feature to me. What do others think?
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I think that this should be included and given top priority. I think there should be, at least for now, a popup with a detailed accvount of every battle. I can already tell that the game mechanics will lead to a few monumental battles. Players will build up huge task forces, which will meet in decisive engagements. This is a good thing, and accurate to the anciant world. But if no account of a massive battle is given other than "The romans won" it will be really anticlimactic.
The user interface is the first impression someone gets, and first impressions of games are vitally important. When I played I had no clue what was going on with the military. The game just didn't tell me. I just made heaps of legions and bowmen and sent them to enemy cities when the power circle looked big enough.
I think that there should be some kind of in-game advisor or tutorial, at least to tell the player what units are best for what uses. I had no clue what was best to build.
quote:
Originally posted by LDiCesare
Additional bonuses based on the orders (sentry, forced march, etc.) are already in the model, although there is currently no interactive way to give such orders to the units.
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If they are already on the model, why don't we add them to the interface? It would make the game a lot better.
It seems that the interface is really lagging behind the rest of the game. We have great models, but the player can't interact with them well. This is just one example.
On a different note, I think we should limit the size of the task forces. In order to prevent abuse of stacking, the Logistics technology level should limit the size of task forces. As a very simple model, can we say that the top size of a TF is limited to the level of logistics tech? So if you have a tech level of 12 you can have a TF of 12 units. Does that sound good? It should prevent mega-armies form being built, which is good for play balance and more realistic.
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Mark_Everson
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Canton, MI
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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You've got some good points, Richard. The tutorial idea has already been put forward by Gary, and is in the D7 & 8 Planning list. I need to think about some of them a bit more. But there is one response I can give right away...
quote:
Originally posted by Richard Bruns
On a different note, I think we should limit the size of the task forces. In order to prevent abuse of stacking, the Logistics technology level should limit the size of task forces. As a very simple model, can we say that the top size of a TF is limited to the level of logistics tech? So if you have a tech level of 12 you can have a TF of 12 units. Does that sound good? It should prevent mega-armies form being built, which is good for play balance and more realistic. |
TF size will be limited by Game behavior, not arbitrary rules! Fairly soon, when military quartermasters come into the game, there will be a Natural limit on how many units you can keep in the field. It will depend on infrastructure and Logistics techniques. It won't be fixed though, but just depend on features like how much money you're willing to spend, where you want to go, etc. I would like to get that part working first and see how it goes. If needed we could throw in an arbitrary rule, but I don't want to confuse people by putting in too many temporary things.
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Richard Bruns
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NC, USA
Nov 1999
time: 06:15
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There is nothing arbitrary about the rule I suggested. Keeping big armies in the field is a constant logistical headache, and there was a limit to how biug armies could be. The logistics tech would be a natural way to reflect this.
But I didn't know you had a more detailed system on the way. Where can I read about it?
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21-11-2001 13:29
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