WIP Fix Pack 1.2.2b - Battle Stats Overhaul, come help us test! (Updated Oct 30)

[Grigal]

I like the new changes to battle, combat seems more dynamic, charging infantry does more damage.

[Beedo83]

This is definitely a large step in the right direction. I thought battles before this adjustment were fine and the new combat feels much better.

[Mietek88]

I'm Play Epirus. Chalkaspides are almost indestructible. Probably a little too much. Roman armies are destroyed.
PS.Playing Epirus still can't recruit samnite warriors.

[Vardano]

Sorry for a bit of off topic but I was testing today this pack and noticed next thing: when I'm controlling exact same units against AI, without use of any type of tactics like flanking etc., my units always win those battles, I tested today around 10 battles and results are the same. It was tested on a normal difficulty, why is it so?

[popovic]

Sorry for a bit of off topic but I was testing today this pack and noticed next thing: when I'm controlling exact same units against AI, without use of any type of tactics like flanking etc., my units always win those battles, I tested today around 10 battles and results are the same. It was tested on a normal difficulty, why is it so?

-What are the units in question?

-Did you charge with them? Did you time that charge?

-Were the battles close? Or did you win decisively?

This interests me, but I doubt there is really something to it...

[Falco]

So I just tried a battle with Roman polybian units vs late greek units. I had hill advantage and outnumbered the greeks by 3 units and lost. Casualty rates are really high seems like.

[Dresden]

Thanks for the feedback guys, keep it coming if you can We have to keep working on the balance here but we think its going in the right direction with the changes. As you can see we need various tweaks still but its a work in progress - so we are dependent on your feedback and help.

[KAM 2150]

Most of the issues should be gone by the next update to this patch I am also working on some other changes to improve immersion like proper spacing for ranged units (non-disciplined ones) like here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...?id=1183862816

[Bento]

...I am also working on some other changes to improve immersion like proper spacing for ranged units (non-disciplined ones) like here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...?id=1183862816

That ... is awesome !

[KYREAPER]

I wonder if the minimum hit chance % should be increased to about 3% instead of 1%...
Since if a unit ends up hitting that 1% minimum, that basically means that weaker unit will only hit 1 out of 100 weapon swings(if lucky). And i feel like thats entirely impossible in real life.
Like SOMEONE in that army is going to hit probably about every 30 swings atleast, regardly of how good an enemy unit is compared to them. Even a blind squirrel can find a nut every once and a while.

I think 1% min hit chance may make some weaker units completely useless..
Like if a unit has 15% chance to hit... they will hit 1 of every 6 swings..... but then the weaker unit would hit 1 of 100 weapon swings...
To me... that causes TOO MUCH disparity between elite and weaker units.

I think there needs to be SOME decently effective minimum...
If its at 1% - then thats 1 of 100 weapon swings, MAYBE...
if its 2% - suddenly its 1 of 50 weapon swings.... a HUGE increase by only increase 1%... Percentages suffer from diminishing returns.. so more percentage from a low number REALLY helps.
If its 3% then now its suddenly 1 of 30 swings and someone will at least hit SOMETHING(and the weaker unit probably has lower weapon damage, and their opponent probably has higher armor, so they most likely do EXTREMELY little damage at only 1%...

So i think 3% is just enough to give them SOME effectiveness. Heck, we may find out that 5% may be just right.

But 1% is wayyyy too low.

Hell, you could give me a sword, and with my minimal training i promise you I atleast hit a decent soldier more than 1 time out of 100 swings.

[Dardo21]

Hit chance. This value is calculated like this: (Melee Attack + Base Hit chance) - Melee defence = Hit chance. They don't have just 1 % hitchance, read the op.

[FlashHeart07]

He is talking about units that will hit a calculated hit chance below the minimum one. So if a levy unit is fighting an elite unit, the hit chance of the levy unit might be a negative number, thus having a 1% hit chance. He wants to have this increased to allow weak units to have a better chance at hitting more elite units.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dardo21]

Oh okay, then again I thought the purpose of this change was to make the difference between levy units and elite units more visible, turning the hit chance back up just so you can take on elite units with levy ones doesn't make much sense. Besides I suspect Kam didn't work this all out on the fly.

[KYREAPER]

Oh okay, then again I thought the purpose of this change was to make the difference between levy units and elite units more visible, turning the hit chance back up just so you can take on elite units with levy ones doesn't make much sense. Besides I suspect Kam didn't work this all out on the fly.

Well, for one hes testing it, which is why he made it available to us... so we are trying to help him calculate it. But anyways..

Yes, you DO want the difference between levy units and elite units to be MORE visible... but you dont want it TOO big of a difference where it makes levy units almost 99% useless against elite units.

Previously minimum hit chance was 10%... which meant a levy unit that hit that minimum would hit and deal damage to an elite unit 1 of every 10 swings... and that caused levy units to be too effective and basically made mid-tier units not that much better than levies... since levies could still be THAT effective.

So they lowered the min hit chance to 1%... but look what that does if a unit hits that 1% min versus a strong defensive unit....
---Instead of 1 of 10 hits(or 10 of 100).... NOW they only get 1 of 100 hits......
Now if they increase that minimum to 2% then it suddenly jumps to 1 of 50 hits... which is a 100% increase in their chance to hit...

Like i said, percentages come with diminishing returns.... so adding a tiny 1% to a large number like... 50%.. so making it 51% basically does nothing...
But adding 1% to an extremely small number(below 8) and suddenly it increases their CHANCES by a huge percent...

So thats why I think you can still keep a bigggg power disparity between levy and elite units at 2% or 3%... while also atleast letting those levy units be effective.
because 1 of 100 hits vs an elite unit(usually always with high defense) seems impossible.. basically a levy unit may not even hit that elite unit one time.

At 2% or 3% atleast someone HITS, but the damage may get mitigated some by armor and such.
-------------
Previously, it was a 10% chance... so 10 of 100 hits... or 1 of 10 hits... or 100 of 1,000 hits.

Now its 1%... so 1 of 100 hits..... or 10 of 1000 hits.... think about that.... out of ONE THOUSAND SWINGS... they only make contact 10 times...

At 2% this becomes 2 of 100 hits... or 1 of 50 hits... or 10 of 500 hits(MUCH more fair yet still powerful enough of a difference between elite vs levy).

Now at 3%... this becomes 3 of 100 hits... or 1 of 33 hits.... or 10 of 333 hits(not a full 100% increase, as diminishing returns cuts it hard, lowering it less than half).

Thats why I feel 2% or 3% would be the best.

Remember... hit chance isnt the only thing making a disparity between levy and elite units... We still have Armor rating and weapon damage..
So just buffing the minimum hit chance from 1% to about 2-3% simply makes these grown levy soldiers fight like men... instead of like children when fighting elite units..... but still super weak compared to elite vs elite.. or middle-tier vs elite...

Sorry for the book, i just have a lot going on in my brain.

[KAM 2150]

Well, for one hes testing it, which is why he made it available to us... so we are trying to help him calculate it. But anyways..

Yes, you DO want the difference between levy units and elite units to be MORE visible... but you dont want it TOO big of a difference where it makes levy units almost 99% useless against elite units.

Previously minimum hit chance was 10%... which meant a levy unit that hit that minimum would hit and deal damage to an elite unit 1 of every 10 swings... and that caused levy units to be too effective and basically made mid-tier units not that much better than levies... since levies could still be THAT effective.

So they lowered the min hit chance to 1%... but look what that does if a unit hits that 1% min versus a strong defensive unit....
---Instead of 1 of 10 hits(or 10 of 100).... NOW they only get 1 of 100 hits......
Now if they increase that minimum to 2% then it suddenly jumps to 1 of 50 hits... which is a 100% increase in their chance to hit...

Like i said, percentages come with diminishing returns.... so adding a tiny 1% to a large number like... 50%.. so making it 51% basically does nothing...
But adding 1% to an extremely small number(below 8) and suddenly it increases their CHANCES by a huge percent...

So thats why I think you can still keep a bigggg power disparity between levy and elite units at 2% or 3%... while also atleast letting those levy units be effective.
because 1 of 100 hits vs an elite unit(usually always with high defense) seems impossible.. basically a levy unit may not even hit that elite unit one time.

At 2% or 3% atleast someone HITS, but the damage may get mitigated some by armor and such.
-------------
Previously, it was a 10% chance... so 10 of 100 hits... or 1 of 10 hits... or 100 of 1,000 hits.

Now its 1%... so 1 of 100 hits..... or 10 of 1000 hits.... think about that.... out of ONE THOUSAND SWINGS... they only make contact 10 times...

At 2% this becomes 2 of 100 hits... or 1 of 50 hits... or 10 of 500 hits(MUCH more fair yet still powerful enough of a difference between elite vs levy).

Now at 3%... this becomes 3 of 100 hits... or 1 of 33 hits.... or 10 of 333 hits(not a full 100% increase, as diminishing returns cuts it hard, lowering it less than half).

Thats why I feel 2% or 3% would be the best.

Remember... hit chance isnt the only thing making a disparity between levy and elite units... We still have Armor rating and weapon damage..
So just buffing the minimum hit chance from 1% to about 2-3% simply makes these grown levy soldiers fight like men... instead of like children when fighting elite units..... but still super weak compared to elite vs elite.. or middle-tier vs elite...

Sorry for the book, i just have a lot going on in my brain.

Like I said before, your post if both right and wrong.

You are right in case of the potential issues and what can be problematic with 1% hit chance and some units that after melee vs def calculation have something like 40% hit chance. I am fully aware of those things but I am slowly working my way to tweak those, I just don't want to do extreme changes in base units stats because if I will be wrong and I will make too much changes, I might corner myself without any means to go back (And we know that manually tweaking each of those 2000 units separately is not an option).

Now why you are also wrong? Except few of the worst mob units and some few others, there is little chance for anyone to hit only 1%. Due to base hit chance being added, there are few places where levies score only 1%, most of "real" troops score much above that even on top units. But even in case of those few 1% hitters, even they do not hit only that. They will hit 1% only when facing said elite unit frontally and if that unit is not suffering any melee defence penalties from fatigue (which kick in from "active" fatigue state). As you probably noticed, unit rarely stay fresh. Top infantry units sport around 40 melee defence, which once they are exhausted goes to around 20-25 (depending on shield bonus), at which point even crapiest levies score around 15-25% hit chance. If you also count in flanking or rear penalties to defence, those values are even higher. In case of showing that those penalties finally work check out regular hoplites vs hastati, frontally, hoplites will be winning but if hastati are allowed to go around them, they will have an upper hand.

Overal the system will take a bit time to get finished and it will be a bumpy ride but I hope that final version will be to your liking. For next patch I am increasing minimum hit chance from 1% to 5% but that is temporary unitl I will get base unit stats in place I want them to be, in the end I still want it to be that 1% New pack will also bring back some stuff from the past so stay tuned

[FlashHeart07]

And thanks for teaching us how much 10 and 1% is

[KYREAPER]

And thanks for teaching us how much 10 and 1% is

I know everyone here knows math.

But even experts sometimes lose perspective of just how practical these numbers can be.

You can tell someone "oh bring it to 2-3%, itll work" .. but sometimes it doesnt click in their head that its 1 of 50, or 1 of 33(which is a much more practical application of the numbers).

*Part of being a good educator is being able to present information in multiple ways so that people with different perspectives can see things the same way.

[Uljas]

Cavalry seem to be a lot more susceptible to infantry attacks, which i think is basically good, as previously even the best spearmen couldn't really kill heavy cavalry. But I'm not sure how the unit balance is after this change. Against some infantry, like the thracian noble rhomphaia, even the heaviest cavalry suffer heavy casualties, even while in the process of charging. In my mind super heavy cavalry's very high cost was partly justified for their veritable invulnerability in melee.

Phalanxes in general remain defeatable with flanking or just overlapping, while they win if the opponent stays in front of their shieldwall. Maybe it's too easy for any basic medium pike unit to defeat an elite melee infantry (such as armenian pikes vs praetorians: at least twice as many casualties inflicted, without giving any further commands once melee begins). I don't remember how different the outcome is than from before, but it is faster. At least unarmored phalanxes are unable to defeat elite infantry 1v1.

Specifically, the Lusitanian Ambakaro is still op. They easily destroy in a fair fight, without charging/javelins, the more expensive Praetorians for example. The Ambakaro are almost able to compete with the thracian noble rhomphaia in a fair fight. And the thracians seem to destroy anything except pikes and best hoplites, I don't know if that's balanced.

[KAM 2150]

I had only few minutes at my PC today so I will prepare proper reply and some tweaks tomorrow

KYREAPER, what you wrote is basically both true and false but I will reply to that (and with some ideas) tomorrow.

[Maetharin]

Damn you all, having time to test out these delicious yummies