I agree with pretty much everything and hope that they fix the damage calculations too for all the same reasons you've noted. A small change to the damage formula would fix a lot of issues I have with the current balance too.

As for an exact formula I'm not the biggest fan of the one you proposed there. I saw a table a while back that would be a decent compromise based off the Lucy Opendev

https://www.reddit.com/r/HumankindTheGame/comments/kk0z2j/combat_adjustment_suggestion_description_in_first/

It's not the best but it's certainly close to what I'd say is a perfect damage table. Maybe add some granular minimum damage numbers like the ones you've added to yours.

The combat system tweaks between Lucy and Victor caused the damage scale to change with the most significant change bring minimum damage from 5-10 (7.5 avg.) to 5-25 (15 avg).

I believe the primarily reasons for the change include: 

1. Combat rounds reduced from 5 to 3 in Victor
2. Player feedback from Lucy Opendev

rararasputin wrote:
I know that the CS difference between units of different eras is fairly small in this game, so it makes sense to potentially take about 25 damage at around a 5 CS difference, but if there could be more gradations as the combat strength difference becomes greater, it would help immersion. We only got to the early modern era in Victor Opendev, but imagine modern infantry attacking peasants and taking a quarter of their health in damage... that would just feel wrong. 

Yes, additional down-scaling of minimum damage could make combat more realistic in regards to the peasant vs. infantry example. However, does such a change make gameplay better?

Additional down-scaling would make it harder for an already behind culture to dig themselves out the a hole and become competitive again. With how Humankind already snowballs cultures, this would just add insult to injury and cause players that are behind in multiplayer to not see the game through (early resignation).  

rararasputin wrote:
I also get really sick of seeing 5-25 damage on every combat projection after a while. I would love to see them add more gradations of combat rolls just so I could see different numbers from time to time I'm technologically ahead of the AI.

Just because a damage range is repeated often does not reduce it viability or effect on combat. Having an easily understandable and intuitive combat system were players can reasonably predict their damage output is conducive to making combat & rounds quicker. Cultures that fall behind should have a chance to pick themselves up and further increasing the graduations on minimum damage is counter intuitive to this principle. 

With so many gunners and ranged attacks that do not incur a counterattack, units at the high enough str. difference will essentially take 0 damage while dealing 100 damage in many scenarios. There is really no reason to include such a cut-off in the damage scale. 

Under the current combat round length I managed to consistently defeat enemy forces with the first 1 round. I think combat only bled into the second round three times or so, rarely needing more of them. Gaeseti and jaguar warriors are are overall worse in this patch because dealing minimum damage as a melee unit just means you die much faster, so fast that their ability (doesn't take CS penalties for being wounded) I found almost never became meaningful, I'd even say never. The disadvantage melee units have starts as soon as archers get unlocked and never stops, there's no decline, archers are immediately better.

High industry units didn't need this much of a nerf, while it's true in Victor you can take on forces many times larger with a few units this is too far in the opposite direction. I discussed the advantages of going first and I do agree the defence modifier was a good addition, the bigger problem with going second is defenders can't see their deployment zone options before they get attacked, so they don't know if they'll be able to set up in a good position. Being able to preview your deployment zones on the map so you don't get screwed by some odd geometry would in my opinion balance out the turns in combat, favouring the attacker but giving the defender knowledge of good positions to hold and a small CS buff.

"Yes, additional down-scaling of minimum damage could make combat more realistic in regards to the peasant vs. infantry example. However, does such a change make gameplay better?"

Yes
This change doesn't only benefit cultures that are behind either, nullifying bonuses so that stomping on players backed into their cities is even easier now. It also makes it much easier for players who are ahead to drown their enemies in bodies since they can afford the population of many low industry cost units.

"Just because a damage range is repeated often does not reduce it viability or effect on combat. Having an easily understandable and intuitive combat system were players can reasonably predict their damage output is going to look like is conducive making combat & rounds quicker. Cultures that fall behind should have a chance to pick themselves up and further increasing the graduations on minimum damage is counter intuitive to this principle. 

With so many gunners and ranged attacks that do not incur a counterattack, units at the high enough str. difference will essentially take 0 damage while dealing 100 damage in many scenarios. There is really no reason to include such a cut-off in the damage scale."

Repetition means nothing in this scenario, a pattern (one that's easy to follow) would offer a similar level of player understanding while also making combat choices more meaningful. Such a large damage range also makes combat less predictable, quicker though is up for debate and even I don't know if this new system made things faster to play, felt the same going off the top of my head.

As for catching up, there are already cultures like the Zulu designed to give players a chance to come back from being out-teched. Again I don't think this solves the issue of snowballing and just makes combat overall worse. being able to do slightly more minimum damage means your enemy will have to make 1 more crossbow to take out your horseman, that kind of difference only matters very early on. This turns humankind's combat into less of a game about proper combat tactics and more into who can make more archers.

Also your 100 instakill scenario is far more rare in Humankind now, I think there should be an instakill level at some point, and the 16 CS difference in Humankind seems like a good level. I am a bit worried looking at the tech tree though and seeing how quickly CS ramps up in the later eras. Amplitude may want to reign that in.

Laliloluhla wrote:

"Yes, additional down-scaling of minimum damage could make combat more realistic in regards to the peasant vs. infantry example. However, does such a change make gameplay better?" - RNGZero -

Yes
This change doesn't only benefit cultures that are behind either, nullifying bonuses so that stomping on players backed into their cities is even easier now. It also makes it much easier for players who are ahead to drown their enemies in bodies since they can afford the population of many low industry cost units.

Further down-scaling minimum damage (from 5-25 to [example] 1-15)  puts cultures that have fallen behind deeper into the pit. Such a change allows cultures that have kept pace to stomp players backed into their city even easier by taking less damage or losses (if any). Why would it be a good idea to provide cultures that are already ahead more advantages when it is in the game's best interest to keep other cultures/player/AIs around longer? 

Quickening the pace which cultures fall behind only encourages players resign earlier such as transitioning up a couple turns later into the classical era. 

Laliloluhla wrote:
High industry units didn't need this much of a nerf, while it's true in victor you can take on forces many times larger with a few units this is too far in the opposite direction.

During Lucy, high str./high ind. units were uncounterable. At least with the updated damage scale, these high str/ind units need to actually position tactically or move strategically to prevent accumulating too much damage from massed together units.

Once again this comes back to providing opportunities for players/cultures to come back into relevancy and accommodate different play styles. Otherwise the entire game would devolve into whoever could transition into the culture with the highest str. EU first. 

Making Damage scaling so wide and do so much at low levels means city taking is even easier due to cities giving even less benefit now. I never said that'd it be a good idea to quicken the pace at which cultures out-perform the last eras, I even said it felt like the industrial was starting to ramp up too much. (It probably starts with the musketeer being 46~ CS which is too much, hell maybe even the arquebusier)

This also doesn't change the fact that cultures that are further ahead in the game production wise can roll over their enemies by producing a large amount of weak units, which their target wouldn't be able to outpace production wise.

For the second point, sorry I meant to say Lucy instead of Victor. As for positioning I already said that with this new system positioning matters less, for both sides even as no matter what happens minimum damage means a unit is very likely to die due to happenstance. Now positioning is primarily used to increase how much damage a unit does, mainly offensive and rarely defensive. Meaning when you're behind CS wise good positioning still means you still take massive damage especially against ranged units, and your opponent takes an average amount. Also it's funny you mention era rushing considering how lopsided science is, with certain focuses either giving very little or far far too much, and science is generally the main enabler of EUs. Speaking of era rushing the Nomadic civs and Zulu(potentially) are all prime candidates for very powerful EUs that don't require technology, and you know how powerful the first two are due to minimum damage.

Actually now that I think about it, it really is the start of the early modern era where CS starts to get out of hand, hell even halberds are 10 CS more than pikemen, the transition from warriors to swordsmen was 8 CS.

This is something I haven't actually considered before wow, CS scaling really does start going off the rails by this point in game and not a lot of people are talking about it. I hope amplitude takes notice and fixes it before it becomes an issue and units that are only 1 era ahead begin one-shotting their last era counterpart (and I'm talking generic units here).