It would probably help if rather than health, you view "hit points" as a measure of cohesiveness of a unit. In a system like that, 1 HP doesn't mean the unit is almost dead, it just means that the unit is very close to not being able to fight any more. The unit is still there, and can still do damage, but if it takes another hit, the unit is going to pack it in, leave the battle, and go back home to live on the Hydromiel farm.

Propbuddha wrote:
You do understand that this system is a turn, based model of a battle between many individulas and not one guy "hitting" another, then waiting to get hit back, then swinging, then getting hit, etc... Life is an abstraction, not 1HP = lying on the ground almost dead.



This mechanic is not unique to this game, A LOT of turn-based strategy games (board and computer) do this.

Yes, I do. I've been board gaming, table top gaming, role playing and computer gaming since the 80's. Because everyone uses it, doesn't mean you should. I made mention of an antiquated 4x template from the early 90's in my other thread. It is obvious that this late in the game, the combat system will stay put, but you guys are wrong in the math. I am not a mathematician in the sense that I have a higher end degree in mathematics, but in my profession, I have been exposed to and had to learn such math, I can see the shortcomings of this current system. I don't want you to think that I am somehow picking sides between the major groups trying to get the combat system changed in their favor, but the math here is off. Have you ever played any games workshop types of games(WH40h, WHFB, BB etc...)? In my opinion, that combat system is pretty good. If the current system would normalize damage to a a curve that sits at 66% (1-3 SD) or so, I think combat would be a lot more predictable.

badken wrote:
It would probably help if rather than health, you view "hit points" as a measure of cohesiveness of a unit. In a system like that, 1 HP doesn't mean the unit is almost dead, it just means that the unit is very close to not being able to fight any more. The unit is still there, and can still do damage, but if it takes another hit, the unit is going to pack it in, leave the battle, and go back home to live on the Hydromiel farm.

Doesn't change my stance. My complaint isn't that the unit it's armless and legless, but a unit with 1 hp of: health, cohesiveness, gumption, or attitude should not be able to do that kind of damage to multiple units unless it's either a hero unit or a titan (dragon/dinosaur/mage etc) type of unit. Swing a sword in a circle over your head doesn't "cut it".

Yes, I'm too bored to see "hit points" when it doesn't make sense (like in the old RTS of WW2... I mean... a tank has "hit points" ?)

Tieing the effectiveness of a unit to its overall state is a good idea, more realistic, that gives more incentive on who strike first. Some units could have the "hero" trait that would let them hit as hard with 1 HP as with 100 HP.

The best system I ever played comes from an PnP RPG : "Rêve de dragon" (Dragon's dream, translated Rêve: the dream Ouroboros in english) where everyone hasn't "Life" points, but can sustain different kind of wounds. Once you get the "mortal" wound you're dead. Armor, damage will just help/mitigate which kind of wound you get. Each wound will also decrease your effectiveness. It's a very lethal and interesting system.

Having injured units deal lower damage (perhaps -1% for every 2% life?) would certainly help make initiative more useful. As is, unit building 'strategy' is just to maximize damage, then hp.

EcthelionHelm wrote:
Having injured units deal lower damage (perhaps -1% for every 2% life?) would certainly help make initiative more useful. As is, unit building 'strategy' is just to maximize damage, then hp.

Exactly what I was thinking. Initiative as far as I have seen so far has the following uses:



1. Get high ground first

2. Attack ranged units before they fire (if you have high enough movement speed)

3. Force a melee unit with a special attack (Line, swipe) to waste their action point in a counterattack.



The thing is that those options are not as important as more damage, attack or defense in my opinion always. Short of one shotting the enemy, your unit has no actual damage advantage over the defender.



I think one of 2 things should happen. Either provide a penalty for missing health even if its not so much so as to value first striking more, or make counterattacks inherently weaker like maybe 75% of the units attack + no crits.



Also I want to ask a question. Can you tie up a unit in melee so as to prevent them from bypassing your melee units to hit the ranged? Does it happen if they are attacked before their turn comes and forced to CA? Then init maybe would have some value on tankier units just to stop this.

The only thing that would be accomplished by reducing damage for injured units is for them to die more quickly. It would also imbalance the stats to favor initiative.

The matter at hand is whether init is unbalanced on the weak side as it is though. I am not saying that the units damage should dramatically go down. Maybe something like 1/2 damage to health loss ratio. So that at 1 hp it will do roughly 50% damage less. The unit is not gonna be useless but you would have a good incentive to pull it back.



Also the counterattack suggestion that I made could also solve this situation by favouring first stike a little bit more.

Diamondius wrote:
Also I want to ask a question. Can you tie up a unit in melee so as to prevent them from bypassing your melee units to hit the ranged? Does it happen if they are attacked before their turn comes and forced to CA? Then init maybe would have some value on tankier units just to stop this.

Diamondius wrote:
The matter at hand is whether init is unbalanced on the weak side as it is though. I am not saying that the units damage should dramatically go down. Maybe something like 1/2 damage to health loss ratio. So that at 1 hp it will do roughly 50% damage less. The unit is not gonna be useless but you would have a good incentive to pull it back.



Also the counterattack suggestion that I made could also solve this situation by favouring first stike a little bit more.

I'd rather keep it at the same level of damage for attack and counterattack (both hit before any HP modifiers, should there ever be any), so initiative doesn't become alternativeless, especially as it is a threshold attribute. If you got more, you hit first.

How about giving some infantry units a special ability to increase movement point costs for terrain arouind them by 1? That would make placement of troops even more strategical.

VieuxChat wrote:
Yes, I'm too bored to see "hit points" when it doesn't make sense (like in the old RTS of WW2... I mean... a tank has "hit points" ?)

Tieing the effectiveness of a unit to its overall state is a good idea, more realistic, that gives more incentive on who strike first. Some units could have the "hero" trait that would let them hit as hard with 1 HP as with 100 HP.

The best system I ever played comes from an PnP RPG : "Rêve de dragon" (Dragon's dream, translated Rêve: the dream Ouroboros in english) where everyone hasn't "Life" points, but can sustain different kind of wounds. Once you get the "mortal" wound you're dead. Armor, damage will just help/mitigate which kind of wound you get. Each wound will also decrease your effectiveness. It's a very lethal and interesting system.

Interesting. Something like this would already be an improvement. Since no one engaged my Warhammer questions.. How about another game instead.. Hearts of iron?



By the way, Dust = Money. Health = Make the change and we'll go from there. This is a different game that the standard 4x, at least I'd like to think so.

Damage diagram:

Excellent diagram! Should be put in the OP.

Just curious what the patch changed wrt combat - in particular, the "now defense and attack are within the same range" comment. Does it mean that attacker's att and defender's def are no longer added together? Played a bit earlier and it does seem more balanced, but I like to know what's actually going on behind the scenes.

Meedoc wrote:
Hi guys,



Talking about this new combat system, here are some enlightenments:

• We have 4 types of hit:
  
  
  • Critical Fail: you’ll do 0 damages
  • “Fumble”: you’ll do 50% of your damages
  • Normal hit: you’ll do 100% of your damages
  • Critical hit: you’ll do 150% of your damages
    
    
• Each time a unit tries to hit another one, a dice is rolled between 0 and Attack (of the attacker) and Defence (of the target). Depending on the result, it will select the appropriate type of hit. With a defense equal to the attack, the attacker has as much chance to do a critical hit as a critical defense, as much chances to do a fumble as a normal attack.
• When the attack is twice the defense, you have 80% to do a normal attack et 20 % to do a critical. having half the attack, will give the opposite result.
• being on a higher ground will give you a 30% attack bonus, 60% in winter.
• being in a forest gives you a 30% defense bonus.
• each morale point adds +15 % to both attack and defense. to gain morale have friendly troops close to you (+1 per unit); or be in a friendly city tile (center or district) to get +3 morale
• Weapons have damage bonuses against specific unit types: bows against flying, swords against infantry, spears against cavalry etc...
  
  

Thanks again for your support and feedback!



Cheers,

Actually, I think the percentage are wrong, the buff bonus are too high. 20%; 60% etc... Same thing about unit leveling.. It should be more like 5-15%, else its quite to much and it fastly become unbalanced.

So, this combat system is definitely better than the immediate pre-release one.



One major issue I have with it though - defense is better than attack.



As an example, consider a situation where you and an enemy both have 50 atk/def. You can either add 50 atk, or 50 def.

As it, you will do .75* damage on average (10% each 0 and 1.5, 40% each .5 and 1)

If you add 50 atk, you will do 1.1*damage (80% 1, 20% 1.5). This is a decent 46% damage bonus

If you add 50 def, you will take .4*damage(80% .5, 20@ 0) This is a 46% damage reduction.



Still seem balanced? Its not. Why? Because these bonuses / reductions are symmetric around a 75% damage baseline. Adding to this gives diminishing returns. Reducing from this gives accelerating returns. (A quick example, from 100% to 150% damage dealt means you kill an enemy in 2/3 the time. From 100% to 50% damage taken means it takes double the time to kill you. Taking both of these together give 4/3, showing that the double resilience outweighs the 50% damage boost).



How could this be fixed? Outside of some complex formula change, the easiest way would be to increase the value of the attack bonuses gained.

Eg, add a new category power hit that does 125 or 133% damage, and/or increase criticals to 166 or 175% damage. Now attack / defense changes are no longer symmetric, which balances out the diminishing/accelerating returns.

This would balance it for all but very extreme defense/attack ratios.

I don't understand much of that...



I like the current combat. It's lovely. Dunno if it can be done, but after the battles done, maybe have a little cinematic showing how it played out? With your troops holding the weapons and armour they had equipped.

EcthelionHelm wrote:
So, this combat system is definitely better than the immediate pre-release one.



One major issue I have with it though - defense is better than attack.



As an example, consider a situation where you and an enemy both have 50 atk/def. You can either add 50 atk, or 50 def.

As it, you will do .75* damage on average (10% each 0 and 1.5, 40% each .5 and 1)

If you add 50 atk, you will do 1.1*damage (80% 1, 20% 1.5). This is a decent 46% damage bonus

If you add 50 def, you will take .4*damage(80% .5, 20@ 0) This is a 46% damage reduction.



Still seem balanced? Its not. Why? Because these bonuses / reductions are symmetric around a 75% damage baseline. Adding to this gives diminishing returns. Reducing from this gives accelerating returns. (A quick example, from 100% to 150% damage dealt means you kill an enemy in 2/3 the time. From 100% to 50% damage taken means it takes double the time to kill you. Taking both of these together give 4/3, showing that the double resilience outweighs the 50% damage boost).



How could this be fixed? Outside of some complex formula change, the easiest way would be to increase the value of the attack bonuses gained.

Eg, add a new category power hit that does 125 or 133% damage, and/or increase criticals to 166 or 175% damage. Now attack / defense changes are no longer symmetric, which balances out the diminishing/accelerating returns.

This would balance it for all but very extreme defense/attack ratios.

I don't think it's that big of a problem. I find that the needs of each unit differ depending on their traits and how you're using them. Specifically how much time they really spend getting hit.

It's better now because the critical hits and the total misses are a lot more rare, buuuuut... some of the defense stats I see are insane, especially with the Broken Lords (ahem)....

Nasarog wrote:
It's better now because the critical hits and the total misses are a lot more rare, buuuuut... some of the defense stats I see are insane, especially with the Broken Lords (ahem)....

I like it very much. You get these "Whaaaaat" moments... I mean, I had massive attack and damage on some Cultists the other day, with all the relevant items, T3 Mithrite bows, with an Ardent Mages hero and boosters and empire plans... and I was critting left, right and centre, until I ran into the Broken Lords... it was awesome.

EzekielMoerdyk wrote:
I like it very much. You get these "Whaaaaat" moments... I mean, I had massive attack and damage on some Cultists the other day, with all the relevant items, T3 Mithrite bows, with an Ardent Mages hero and boosters and empire plans... and I was critting left, right and centre, until I ran into the Broken Lords... it was awesome.

Similar experience here. I thought I was the bees knees with my Wild Walker army. So I went through a stroll in everyones territory as I Indiana Jones'd their heritage sites. The Broken Lords surrounded me and preceded to beat the ever living piss out of the 8 unit army. I escaped with the hero (A necrophage infantry master) and one custom made longbowman unit. OMFG.... that's when I knew that the game is getting close to having the right mix in combat. It's not there eyer, but it's on it's way.

My only feedback, which is based on ES. Please make sure the system is:



1) Easy to understand.

2) That may choices have strong definitive outcomes.





There was so much math to the ES system, and much of it ultimately didn't amount to much. Bottom line, when I look at weapons and armor, I need to clearly understand what +10 attack gets me, and if its better for my unit than +10 defense for certain situations.