29-01-2002 17:44									#121
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Gary:

We can certainly try most of this stuff out. But I think its all longer-term. If there are any restrictions in the code to making this happen, then we should try to get rid of them. But as Laurent said, much of it is doable, much with no or very small tweaks.

quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas The other is that the present model precludes a player making some of the significant changes that have affected military history. The Marian reforms of the Roman army, for example, would have to be presented externally under the present model ("OK, now you are able to build a manipular legion"). I like the idea of players being able to experiment with different organizational patterns (or not, if they don't wan to).

I'm not sure exactly how this would work. We had some extensive discussions a long time ago, I think in the previous mil thread, about military doctrines for elements, units, or civs. And you could express the Marian reforms as a change to a doctrine representing more flexibility. But you're the mil lead, go ahead and throw together a spec on how this would work in your copious spare time. Gotcha You might want to skim the old threads first, since they do contain a lot of good ideas. But again I think this is a thing for four or five months from now...

quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare Training: I will build units with 0 training. It is also easy to put experience in the code at the same level as training except gained differently, (even though I don't like it much).

I still think building all units with 0 training would be very bad. The default level of training in building a unit should be set similarly to the way it is now. A Roman Legion or tank battalion with no training is Militarily Useless. Several experiments of this type have been carried out over history, with the predictable results. I do not think Clash will be improved in any way if we give the player the flexibility to build useless units! OTOH units like a horde can be built with very little training, and should be reasonably successful at fighting that way.

If we do the slider for training idea, we can let the slider go all the way to 0, and the player can experience no-training for themselves. This ties in with the idea of having a function that determines the result of training. Types of units with complicated or flexible structure should be Severly penalized at the low-training end.

	29-01-2002 18:46									#122
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Mark, you are right it was a language issue, recruits are the input, soldiers are the ouput. I was referring to the output.

I think having two scales for training and experience would be a little confusing.
I like better having a 0-100 point system for experience, where units start out at f.instance 60 and can be trained to a max of 80 -/+ maybe depending upon tech/cultural attributes. To reach 100 experience the unit would have to see real combat.
A higher level of training could also be achieved by introducing live fire exercising, like they did with Waffen SS troops during the war.
With live fire I do not mean firing with live bullets at fixed paper targets, but doing training in various situations while real bullets are fired above and around their heads.
Some would die during training but at the advantage of the men already being baptised by fire, and less likely to loose cohesion the first time they see real combat.

When a unit looses men in combat and need replacements, these replacements could come in at the 60 exp leve, raising the total men in the unit, but lowering the experience (and morale?).

Training after a unit is formed is often executed in the field by commanding officers of the unit itself, so any training facility would not really be necessary to do it. I think units should be able to train, or automatically gain experience each turn, without the presence of any military training facilities, but the rate should be low. The presence of training facilities in the civ could accelerate that rate.

I agree with Gary that the player should be able to control the default amount of men that goes into a unit (it's TOE).
I don't think it should be by a slider. I propose something similar to todays structure.

If I am not wrong, the SNLF units were battalion or regimental sized. So even if they were not used in division size numbers, they are still represented by a military structure that is a building block of a division.

In the game we could allow the smallest unit to be a battalion. The different arms always come in battalion formations that are purely of their own arm. Then we allow the user to customize the composition of the bigger formations by using these battalions as building blocks. F. instance, The Phalanx unit could be 9 battalions of spearmen, 2 battalions of skirmishers.

Whenever a player wishes to build his military he trains x number of battalions of that type.

Maybe we could leave out completely the idea of getting a new complete military unit with technology.
New techs would instead give a new military building blocks: spearmen, riders, musketmen, riflemen, engineers, armoured reconnaisance etc.
The player would customize his own units using these building blocks.

Maybe too much micromanagement?
That could be resolved with new techs also bringing new predefined structures that the player could use, modify or throw away.

Last edited by colorrr on 29-01-2002 at 18:55

	29-01-2002 19:32									#123
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Training + Experience is currently modeled (and half-coded) as 0-5 + 0-5, so you have a 0-10 scale for the sum of both, and cannot get more than 5/10 without seeing real fights.
I think real fire exercises are a bit too detailed to include or model.

Training is considered training beyond minimal value. That means when building a unit with 0 training, you do have some services cost. You don't get bowmen by just giving them arrows and bows and saying go ahead, shoot. You at least drill them on how to string the bow, aim and shoot. That is 0 training. More aiming/shooting will raise to 1-2, and synchronisation, explaining how to shoot at what distance will increase to 3-4. Intensive drilling will lead to 5. So level 0 still requires more training in the sense of services than a warrior (anyone can use a club). Thus the training I am interested in is not the economic cost of training, but the military value of training beyond base drilling. Minimum required training is reflected only in the cost of the unit, as the services cost. Indeed, archers or spears need more services than warriors, and mounted troops need training in order not to fall from their mount too, so they have higher training cost than their foot equivalent.

	29-01-2002 22:10									#124
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Laurent, sorry I misunderstood you on the minimum training level. I do think that having five levels in the code is too restrictive. We must Avoid those big discontinuous jumps IMO. It should be a float like everything else, with a function determining the effectiveness. In terms of reporting to the player, five levels is just fine!

Colorrr, I agree with you that training in the field is important also. In fact one of the big determining things between army qualities IMO was that the good armies would train continuously whereas the worse ones would just slack off and do fun things when there wasn't a battle. Another possible place for a social model connection? And as you say training in a dedicated facility would of course be more productive.

	29-01-2002 23:15									#125
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In my comments (somewhere or other, probably in emails when the forum was defunct) I said that the instruction from the economics sector to build a unit should not know about training.

Unfortunately I have lost the text of my email on the subject (perhaps Mark or Laurent can dig it out). Generally my perceptions was something like this:

1. Administration constructs an order to build a unit (a "buildable" object).

2. This order is passed to the economic sector, which queues it.

3. Eventually (or immediately) the order is executed by passing the order to the (newly created) buildable object.

4. The buildable object (the new unit) informs the originator of the order that it has been built (or not, if building is not possible), the administration then informs the economics sector that the order has been completed.

5. The buildable object knows how to deploy itself.

The part of this that is missing is that the original order could be "build and train a legion", with the training level specified at that point.

Cheers

	30-01-2002 16:28									#126
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Mark, training is a float, it is just taht it values are between 0 and 5, but it can be 3.42 if you like. (I bet only the AI would do that, unless some player fancies that 3.141592 is a pretty value for training.) The figures/examples I gave were just interpretation in English of the figure.

Gary, I think I still have your mail somewhere, do you want me to post it here?
I do agree with you anyway. Econ mustn't know training, but something between the UI and the econ must know it, and can either give correct input to the econ, so the buildable result will have the training needed, or create a unit and, when it is created, issue orders for drilling, which are econ orders too.

	14-02-2002 15:18									#127
	Fleeing Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

The military model models flight (fleeing). However, I have trouble presenting this as an output of the model to the player.
The reason is that there can be up to 10 fights in one square in a turn (10 ticks), thus a unit may stand its ground 5 times, then flee three times, then stay again.
Currently, a fleeing element is out of the fight, but will remain in the square, ready to fight during next tick or turn.
Thus it is very difficult to tell the player what happened, as elements that fled may have been killed later and some fled several times but not always. Thus I feel I can't tell the player in the CombatReports in any understandable way.

However, the player can see units fled by seeing them move away:
I tried to have fleeing units move back to their previous square. That had 2 bad consequences:
1) It screws up the TFs, leading to drawing problems. That can be fixed, but: I am unsure the player would like to have his 10-unit TF split in one 5-unit remaining and 5 1-unit TFs in the neighboring square because each unit fled at a different tick.
So maybe there is something to see between the TF box and the command system so that the drawings follow the command system. Trouble would also appear displaying a scattered Command's path.
2) This may be subject to balance. I tested with one element fleeing means the unit flees. We can decide only if 50% of elements flee does the unit flee. Anyway, fleeing is pretty common, particularly when outnumbered. Thus, armies tend to remain on the screen much longer, because they flee when they see a huge horde. To eliminate totally enemy units, you must use a small part of your army that looks not too dangerous so the others will be lured into fighting and killed, or get archers who always get a chance to shoot at opponents before someone can flee. It means mopping up forces to chase small armies. Note it can make guerilla worthwhile, and forces you to split your huge TFs so it is not necessarily bad.

Based on this input, do you think I should move the fleeing units back to their previous square? I think I should, even considering the whole bunch of problems I just described, because it is the only way to have a blocus. Currently, if you put an army in a square, opponents can go thru, sustaining some petty damage, but go thru nonetheless.
Also, they will be able to move back to a previous square in one tick, which is pretty fast.
Another option would be that we could stage flight in 3 ways:
Suppose a unit has 100%elements:
If less than 30% flee, it stands its ground and remains in square next turn.
If less than 80% flee, it moves to previous square immediately.
If more than 80% flee, it surrenders and just disappears. This could be based on another morale check, though, but battles have been gained without fighting, and armies disbanded, so it seems correct, and would avoid chasing one-element damaged units round the countryside.

What do you think?

Last edited by LDiCesare on 14-02-2002 at 15:28

	14-02-2002 17:13									#128
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I think the solution at the bottom of your post is a good workable one for the near future. Eventually there should be a commander AI that decides after a battle whether it wants to stick around or not. We will have to work on that sometime soon. But until then I like your solution! We definitely don't want Clash looking like a fight-to-the-death system!

	15-02-2002 02:01									#129
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Two military orders that were in demo 4 that I'd like to see again… I may have mentioned them before, but don't think so.

Support (this was actually a default behavior rather than an order)
Commands should support friendly commands that are defending in adjacent square combats. After a tick, when it is determined where combats will happen, any friendly units that are in adjacent squares can attempt to join the combat. To do this they must have not moved the previous tick. This is to simulate detection of the enemy army nearing before the actual combat, and the massing of any nearby forces available before combat. Eventually the model should be much more detailed than this. In the old demo TFs attempting to support friendly units in combat stood like a 40% chance of being able to make it to the battle in time. If we get agreement between all the military 'stakeholders' we can work out a spec

Sentry TFs try to support adjacent friendly units or squares if they come under attack. Having a unit on Sentry duty should guarantee it can support a friendly force in combat. After that combat the sentry TFs should automatically return to the original square on which they were stationed. This order allows for construction of decent pickets. These are most useful against barbarian raids, and other light battles, which we don't have much of yet. But I'd like to see them sometime.

	15-02-2002 11:36									#130
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I don't really like the idea of 5000 men moving 100 km because some troops there are under attack. The actual logistics of the move would mean that it was all over by the time they got there. In the meantime, some baddies could have sneaked through where they were supposed to be guarding.

If these units are to be regarded like Civ2 units - sort of chess pieces, there isn't much problem. If we want to have it a bit closer to reality, we have to realize that a square is quite a large distance for 5000 men to move. Another factor to consider is that a substantial majority of historical battles cannot be represented in the Clash system, because the numbers involved were too small. In the Dark Ages in particular, 5000 was quite a large army, getting close to the limits of most areas to support logistically.

Cheers

	15-02-2002 17:56									#131
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Hey Gary:

quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas I don't really like the idea of 5000 men moving 100 km because some troops there are under attack.

"This is to simulate detection of the enemy army nearing before the actual combat, and the massing of any nearby forces available before combat." Which of these words didn't you understand? This does Not begin when the fight starts, waiting for the fight to start is what we do in the code so it doesn't require AI that isn't there yet. The mechanism is simulating when side A knows side B is coming and is still some ways off. The estimation of When different commands find out about an impending battle, and how far they could move could be quite sophisticated, but not at this point. The AI could make assessments given current info and automatically issue orders for nearby troops to mass as appropriate previous to a battle. But we're not there yet.

quote: If these units are to be regarded like Civ2 units - sort of chess pieces, there isn't much problem.

We can see, but this may be one of those cases where even if it weren't realistic (and I do not concede that point) it would be worth doing for gameplay purposes. Essentially it is a technique to reduce micromanagement.

quote: If we want to have it a bit closer to reality, we have to realize that a square is quite a large distance for 5000 men to move. Another factor to consider is that a substantial majority of historical battles cannot be represented in the Clash system, because the numbers involved were too small. In the Dark Ages in particular, 5000 was quite a large army, getting close to the limits of most areas to support logistically.

We already dropped the 5000-men assumption IIRC. TFs can have any number of elements, composed of any number of men is the definition I thought we adopted for long-term use.

	27-02-2002 01:33									#132
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For nomads: thge non-miliart units cannot attack, but should have a defensive value.

Militia created from nomads and minor civs/despotic civs/narbarians need not rely on supply routes and shouldn't get as much attrition when living oiff the land as they are more used to it...mercenary iunits hired from here should be at your discretion (your meaning who's in charge of this model) as to wheter they should apply with those rules or not.

	01-03-2002 02:33									#133
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I coded the 30%/80% flight stuff, but it doesn't work. Here is why:
Units flee all the time, and that is how fights end. In one tick, the fight ends when one of three conditions is met:
-One side is dead
-One side has fled
-A certain number of rounds has passed.
The problem is currently, rounds end because elements flee. Units are destroyed only because there are ten ticks in a turn, and after several ticks fighting, they get killed.
Tuning the 80% margin changes nothing, as 100% of remaining units flee.
I added another control, checking morale afterwards, based on the number of surviving elements in the unit, but that still gives outrageous results, like all units surrendering on the second tick of fight instead of the first.
I'd like to be able to show that fleeing exists, and possibly give it more effect than it currently has, but I am running out of ideas as to how to deal with it.
Any suggestions? I will try tweaking numbers around, but anything more clever would be better.

	01-03-2002 05:28									#134
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Hi Laurent:

I will try to make some suggestions that I hope help. However I don't understand the line below.

quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare Tuning the 80% margin changes nothing, as 100% of remaining units flee.

There are some other things I don't completely get, but here goes...

If I understand, I think there needs to be a high-level decision to tactically withdraw made before each tick's fighting. If a side is almost certain to lose it should attempt to withdraw. Note this is not the same as units fleeing, but I don't think you can show that to the player, other than as a combat statistic for the last battle in a square. This is an attempt for the whole army involved (on one side) to disengage, so you don't have to worry about splitting TFs. I expect if the odds are more than 2:1 against it a side should want to disengage. They're Not going to accomplish anything anyway. Of course eventually there will be orders that prevent attempts to disengage and other details.

When a side attempts to leave the square, it can for now, get a 50% or so chance. We can get more detailed later, with things like "horsemen can always get away from infantry" etc. If they Make the chance to leave, then they immediately get a temporary protected status that prevents combat, and begin moving to another square. If they were the attacker, I think for now they should have to return to the square they came from. I guess for now a defender can go anywhere they want (pick random if no friendly forces adjacent).

I think this will handle the issues you present, but of course only if I understand them!

You mentioned before that even strong forces don't "block" enemies from moving through them. I'm not sure how this happens since the sides should fight for at least 2-3 ticks. But assuming that isn't enough, I propose a new rule. When you try to move through a square where there is opposition, you can only continue your movement if you win the fight. Any time before victory you can go back to the square you came from, if you disengage as discussed above. But the only time you can continue moving forward is if the overall battle is won by you.

Hope this helps! If you like the rule changes, we'll need to see what Gary thinks too.

	02-03-2002 18:15									#135
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I put the oddsToAttack/oddsToDefend stuff back in use, so it allows modelling the flights. These values are described in the "tactical" order given the unit.
For now, orders are not given to units, so their default order is their preferred order, which is ranged fight if available, else sentry. Sentry means you don't attack, so that is poor. I can either change all values so that for the moment, fights happen at strength ratios between 0.5 and 2, or we can plug in orders for units now. The first one requires much less code, of course. It can be interesting, though, as it would allow fortify orders, and giving various levels of attack ratios (as in D4). What do you think?

	02-03-2002 19:40									#136
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Hi Laurent:

Thanks for putting the odds back in!

quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare Sentry means you don't attack

Why? If it is our territory, has an enemy in it, and there is no order to avoid combat I think default sentry activity should be to attack if opportunity presents itself, and the attack would be at reasonable odds.

quote: I can either change all values so that for the moment, fights happen at strength ratios between 0.5 and 2, or we can plug in orders for units now. The first one requires much less code, of course. It can be interesting, though, as it would allow fortify orders, and giving various levels of attack ratios (as in D4). What do you think?

I favor the first one for now. Its simpler, so not much is lost if we decide to do it differently in the future. We should really discuss how orders are going to work in more detail, and come up with a coherent plan before going much futher on orders IMO.

	04-03-2002 19:44									#137
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quote: quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare Sentry means you don't attack Why? If it is our territory, has an enemy in it, and there is no order to avoid combat I think default sentry activity should be to attack if opportunity presents itself, and the attack would be at reasonable odds.

To clarify a bit, I consider "attack" when you are not in your territory, and "defend" when you are in your territory.
So currently, a sentry order means you would attack only at 9 vs 1, but defend at 1 vs 1 (I don't remember the figures), and a fortify order would mean attack at 9 vs 1, defend at 1 vs 2.
This means that a unit on sentry, seeing a trespasser, will attack it.

I'll tweak things so that odds are predetermined like 3 vs 2 to attack and 1 vs 2 to defend. Since attackers may not be able to retreat, that should allow fights where defenders have an advantage.

I still have to code the go back to last square stuff. Note that if previous square is occupied by enemies, I suggest the army being surrounded should surrender or disband or something.

	06-03-2002 22:21									#138
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Bonjour Laurent:

quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare To clarify a bit, I consider "attack" when you are not in your territory, and "defend" when you are in your territory.

I think we will need to modify that definition as things go forward. The relevant factor for figuring a defender bonus for terrain or whatever, is the tactical defender, which is not necessarily the same as the strategic defender. One can be the strategic attacker while the tactical defender by heading for targets that the enemy must prevent you from reaching. Say, important cities. Even though you are strategically on the attack, you will have choice locally of good defensive ground when the enemy does engage. Eventually the military-general equivalent AI will make a decision whether they want to attack or not. Based on what the generals from two sides pick there can be a determination if there is a tactical defender (usually the one with the weaker army, but not always).

quote: So currently, a sentry order means you would attack only at 9 vs 1, but defend at 1 vs 1 (I don't remember the figures), and a fortify order would mean attack at 9 vs 1, defend at 1 vs 2. This means that a unit on sentry, seeing a trespasser, will attack it.

I think seems to be a reasonable approach in general, but 9:1 seems extremely long odds to use as a requirement to attack. But as you say after the quote it should be smaller.

quote: I still have to code the go back to last square stuff. Note that if previous square is occupied by enemies, I suggest the army being surrounded should surrender or disband or something.

For the short term that sounds ok. But the relative sizes of the forces need to be taken into account. And perhaps making them go back to the exact square they came from is too constrataining. Maybe it should be the square they came from or the two 'flanking squares' of the origin square. The details can be worked out when we get some playtesting in...

	13-03-2002 00:40									#139
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Having settled (lost?) the dispute with Mark over cross-country chariots, I was about to change the terrain xml file to allow chariots to cross mountains at infantry rates, when I realized that the category for chariots is "wheel". But so is the category for truck, bicycle, motor bike, Conestoga, motor car and bullock cart.

A light chariot can be carried, as can a bicycle. But none of the others can.

It rather seems to me that we need a new category of "lightwheel" or "portable" or some such.

Cheers

	13-03-2002 06:33									#140
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Hey Gary, sounds good to me. I'd prefer light wheel or some similar name. Portable sounds confusing to me...

	13-03-2002 06:42									#141
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Unfortunately xml tags have to be single words (because anything after a space might be a parameter), so "light wheel" is out, the reason I threw "portable" in is that it is a single word. The other possiblity is "chariot", but that does violence to the rights of the 2nd Bavarian Bicycle Battalion.

However, so far the choice appears to be between "lightwheel" (one word) or "chariot".

Another possiblity is to introduce another level of category: "light", "medium", "heavy" (and possibly "extraheavy"). As a generic grading this could well have other uses. Just a thought.

Cheers

	13-03-2002 06:50									#142
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Yeah I knew why you had no space. I just thought it was clearer to write it "light wheel". I'm with you that the designations heavy and light could have merit on their own. I'll be happy (for the moment ) whichever way you would like to do it.

	18-03-2002 02:31									#143
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Damn, another decision.

Laurent, if you happen to see this, what do you think?

Cheers

	18-03-2002 15:23									#144
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I don't have an opinion on this, thus I said nothing...
Since we must choose, however, here is what I propose:
portable is hard to understand. It applies only to wheeled elements as far as I can think (chariots, jeeps).

The medium/light/heavy categories I can see the use of only for wheels, unless we have mounted instead of horses, and light would be horses, heavy elephants... but even elephants can cross mountains (Hannibal).

So in conclusion, I'd tend to use lightwheel.

	20-03-2002 02:58									#145
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Agreed. "lightwheel" it is.

Cheers

	28-03-2002 22:18									#146
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Rodrigo made a few comments in the following thread:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...&threadid=45946
I answered a bit there and more here:
The idea is: Warfare should cost a lot. This is to prevent people (and AI) from being at war at all times.

Rodrigo's proposal:
Rodrigo suggests we could change the timescale in order to adjust to small wars. This means tweaking the non-military models by a scale factor. Thus, we should have a parameter used a bit everywhere which is turn-length. However, I see a glitch with this proposal: If AI1 and AI2 want to wage a war, can they switch the turn length down to 1 month for the player? If the player changes the turn length, how does it affect far-away peaceful AIs? Worse, how does it affect other players in multi-player?
It is not that I don't like the idea, I believe it is hardly applicable in multi player, and may be difficult for the AI to handle.

Another proposal:
Ways to handle that include not having a fully operational army all the time (historically, there were very few standing armies). Looking at the MOO3 specs, I saw they have an active fleet and a reserve fleet. The active army costs more than the reserve army to maintain, the reserve army being in a "void" and not usable or seeable on the map. CtP2 had something a bit similar, in which the army supply cost could be halved, which halved the hit points of units.
I think such a system could be used, but I know that CtP2 scheme doesn't work, because a 1/2 cut is not enough to make a difference. I also think that military units could be mobilised very fast in order to defend their territory.

We could give orders to a unit/TF like "reserve". With this order, the army would have to be in friendly territory, would cost maybe 1/10th of its normal cost to maintain, and be unable to move or receive other orders. They would probably have a defense penalty, but not as severe as 50%. Getting the army out of reserve could take one or two turns.

	28-03-2002 22:46									#147
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Laurent, thanks for moving this discussion here!

On the turn-length thing...

I think it could work with the following prohibitions: It works for Single-player only, and only the player is in charge of the change. I *think* it can be made to work under those circumstances. We will need rules for how to handle varying time scales as we go from antiquity (long turns for everything but military) to modern (short turns). So this is the matter of putting in a switch under player control. If it doesn't work, then we can get rid of it, but it seems to me it should work fine. Since some players like Rodrigo may really value the option, and it should be very little work, it seems to me we should provisionally support it, and only ban it if it turns into a quagmire.

For mobilization/demobilization we already have plans to definitely have it but details are TBD. Searching on "mobilization" or "demobilization" would I hope point to the relevant discussions which could be in either military or econ threads.

	28-03-2002 23:06									#148
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I'm putting here this as Mark suggested (from the "From CIV3 to Clash" thread):

quote: Warfare: defense vs. attack points and terrain Why in Civ my bronze-age soldiers have the same attack rating a stone-age warrior has? Why my bronze-age soldiers defend greatly but are useless to attack? I don't understand why the Civ series makes such a sharp distinction between units, where some are meant to attack and others to defend. Maybe it's a requirement of the AI they used. I don't know. But I sure know I don't like it. Once I develop bronze working, I want to use it and attack those stone-age neighbors. I don't understand why I only can defend myself better. In general, IMO, the whole concept of attack and defense is incorrectly handled in the Civ series. Did you see the movie Braveheart? Sure you did. Two armies met at some point in the countryside and fought each other. You can't really tell who's attacking and who's defending. Both armies are attacking and defending at the same time. They are just "fighting". IMO, there's a problem of scale. We know some type of military, like cavalry, were used to "attack", in the sense they were more effective when launched against the enemy than waiting for the enemy to come to them. But that's true only at the battlefield level. When the player moves a unit to other square to attack an enemy, his troops are traveling hundreds of km's to meet the enemy and start a battle. The map isn't a battlefield. It is at a higher scale. If someone attacks my cavalry unit on the map, that doesn't mean my men have to stupidly see the enemy come from afar and decide not to charge. The cavalry should attack/charge them once the enemy has come in range. On the game map, my cavalry should have the same strengths (in the general sense of the word) no matter if it's attacking or repelling an attack. IMO all (or at least most) units must have the same attack and defense rates. I bet some of you would refuse this arguing it'd be boring because you wouldn't have to make "tactical" decisions (attack with the cavalry first, then send the legions, etc), but in Clash, really, that type of tactics is already dead once we chose to use task forces. (at least that's what I expect if the task force sums up all strengths from all units) The important tactical decision is, like IRL, where the battle takes place, due to the relation between different types of units and the terrain. In the Civ series you can use your cavalry to attack a unit in a jungle..... give me a break! The cavalry shouldn't be of any use attacking a walled city either. Nor defending it! What's my cavalry inside the walled city supposed to do if the city is being attacked? Open the door to attack them outside? No way, leave that door closed! Shouldn't also cavalry be more effective in plains than in a forest? The Civ series doesn't treat terrain correctly IMO. The terrain defensive bonus only covers some situations. I think Clash must do better than Civ in this regard. Finally, note that fortifying a unit is a special relation between a unit and terrain. When you press "f" what you're saying is "take a defensive stand, taking advantage of the terrain". IMO that should be the only case where a terrain defensive bonus can be applied. If the attacked unit isn't fortified, then both attacker and defender are in the same type of terrain (it's the place where the battle takes place) with no advantage for neither of them, so terrain shouldn't give a bonus to the defender (remember the issue about scale).

LDiCesare answered this way:

quote: There is no such distinction in Clash. There is a bonus to defense in terms of: 1)Scouting phase bonus, 2)We will have fortify orders to increase defense. Mixed warfare is achieved through an advantage of having high mobility units (cavalry), long range weapons for fire support (archers), and units that have strong attack values (infantry). Terrain defensive effect depends on the type of units. In the code, currently infantry is advantaged in rough terrain. Ultimately, each terrain/unit type will yield different bonus/malus.

That is a big relief for me. Thanks LDiCesare!

	04-04-2002 18:08									#149
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I still have a problem with odds to attack. I coded it so that the attacker will attack at 1.5 vs 1 or better, and the defender will defend up to 1 vs 2. Even if a party doesn't always manage to disengage, the result is boring as you attack at 3 vs 1, deall little damage, then retreat a bit, attack with 2 thirds of your strengths, deal good damage, but then the defender is so weak they always flee and you never manage to get rid of them.
Is it enough if attackers attack only if they consider they have a good strength and defenders always defend? It may not be good form an AI or historic point of view, but gameplay-wise, it would help a lot: You attack a square only if you are numerous enough, and you don't have to run around smallish armies that escaped total destruction but managed to survive due to their small numbers.

On another topic, it may be soon needed to open yet another thread for the military model.

	04-04-2002 18:43									#150
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quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare Is it enough if attackers attack only if they consider they have a good strength and defenders always defend? It may not be good form an AI or historic point of view, but gameplay-wise, it would help a lot: You attack a square only if you are numerous enough, and you don't have to run around smallish armies that escaped total destruction but managed to survive due to their small numbers.

Hi Laurent, your solution sounds fine to me for the time being. I'd like to have good ways to handle defender retreats at some point, but there are more pressing things to get done for now!