Strategic Combat in CoM

[Nelphine]

On note 2: No that's not QUITE right. Armor is more effective the more times you've been attacked. Generally, that means more hit points means armor is more effective, but for instance, whether you have 2 or 10 hp, your armor only applies once when you're attacked by a great drake. So yes, I get your point, but number of attacks is the key factor, not the hit points.

As to Seravy's point.

In tactical combat, you focus fire. Assume you have an opponent with 9 single figure units. It's completely reasonable to assume if you damage any of them, that you're going to pour all your damage into that one unit. This regularly means that by the time the enemy attacks, that unit is actually dead. Therefore, by doing 1/9 the hp of my enemy in tactical, I have also done 1/9 of their offensive capability.

Thus, in a fairly significant number of situations, in tactical, offense IS reduced proportionally to defense.

[Seravy]

A (figures+1) modifier to simulate this effect actually isn't such a bad idea, but you're trying to apply it to the wrong side.

As you say, having fewer figures allows the "dead" parts of the unit to survive and deal damage, by being part of the main body instead of being a separate figure that can die. So it's a defensive capability that needs to be incorporated into the defense rating, not offense.
Also, "+1" is very excessive. Assuming it's a 1 figure stag beetle unit, and it has an equal chance of having 0 and 19 damage on it, it would be fighting as if it had ~0.5 extra figures, compared to something that has many figures with low health each. However in reality it's not that much damaged - either it will have a low damage on it, or the enemy will focus attacks and it'll die and not get another turn. So in reality this effect is closer to an extra .25 figures, than .5 figures.

So the correct implementation would be to have (figures+0.25)*health per figure instead of (figures*health) for the unit health. Unfortunately, as the actual input is the total current health of the unit, and not the figures and the health per figure, this can't be done. (Unless I remember wrong, but I'm 99% sure the input is the total health calculated as figures*health per figure-damage on the unit.)

Either way the effect of this modifier wouldn't be very large, less than 25% advantage for 1 figure units vs many figure units. And it would likely be completely wrong for units that already have damage on them.

[Nelphine]

I disagree with that Seravy. It isn't a defensive ability, it doesn't add to the units ability to live longer. It purely allows the unit to do more damage as if it has taken less damage. So adding it in the offense side actually makes more sense, although I think that it would be more likely to be +0.5 than 0.25. (that way half the time the figure is doing more damage than its supposed to, and half the time it's doing less damage than its supposed to, so on average it comes out to the damage it's supposed to do.)

It also wouldn't replace the -2 at all, as it doesn't have any relation to the armour.

So I think modifying figures to figures+0.5, in the offensive formula only, would actually be helpful, and it would be more helpful to single figures than multifugures, and it would be a big enough benefit to outweigh if it isn't totally accurate with damaged units. Actually by putting it in offense, it should accurately reflect damaged units.

[Seravy]

it doesn't add to the units ability to live longer. It purely allows the unit to do more damage as if it has taken less damage.

It doesn't matter though, as it's not possible to do on the defense side anyway, but you might be right.

On the offense side though, the problem with that, well, basically if the unit hasn't taken any damage yet, it'll still deal more damage. Which it has no real reason to do. So it makes the effect work the exact opposite way as it should (undamaged units dealing the most "extra" damage, while damaged units dealing the least.) and that's quite questionable. Especially as this is the rating the AI uses during normal combat - so it'll consistently overrate the undamaged single figure units in the battle, and underrate the damaged ones. As there are usually far more undamaged units, this would be quite bad.

It would be more doable if the attack procedure knew the max and current figures, and damage on the unit, but it does not.

Probably the best solution would be if the defense rating would ignore the damage on the unit entirely, merely using the number of figures still alive and their health - then the total rating of the unit would be exactly what the unit is capable of doing - from an offensive viewpoint, but at the price of overrating its defensive ability.

Either way, we went with the assumption that low figure units generally have more armor than high figure units, and made armor have a quite powerful effect on the total unit value, so I don't think we need to do anything extra for them on top of that.

[Nelphine]

Actually I did that wrong. At +0.5 it would do more damage 1/3 of the time, and less damage 2/3 of the time. So it does need to be +1.

For a 6 figure unit, at +1, it would start out at 7/6 of its expected damage. After taking 1/6 of its health, it would be doing ~41/42 of its expected damage, which is still higher. After taking 3/6, it would be doing 23/42.

So here too with 6 figures, roughly half the time it's doing higher than expected damage, and 1/2 the time it's doing less than expected, so it should average out to the expected amount.

[zitro1987]

I'll add that it's offense, not defense, where single-figures get 'strategically' nerfed by failing to act like tactical combat, particularly in 'melee vs melee' (not as much ranged vs ranged).
* of course, boosting defense indirectly is an improvement anyways, but less intuitive to me.

Given melee and range are separate, it may not be a bad idea to boost melee (where the single-figure issue applies the most) more than ranged .. or even just adjust melee alone.

(Unit melee attack - 2) x (unit figures + 0.5) x 18    (applies minor adjustments to figure and melee calculations)
(Unit melee attack - 1) x (unit figures + 0.5) x 17    (in case the minus 2 requires too much space)
(unit melee attack) X (unit figures + 1) X 13  (a full +1 figure calculation)

I think figure + 0.5 is sufficient to moderate the overall concern without introducing new problems. Figure +1 might apply too much 'extra damage', so it'd need something on the melee side that helps multi-figures.

Elite Berserker with holy weapon or magic weapon:
Before: (9-2 + 5-2) * 20 * 6 * 5/3 = 2000 offense
After: (9-2 + 5-2) * 18 * 6.5 * 5/3 = 1950 offense 
With the +1 figure:  (9+5) * 13 * 7 * 5/3 = 2124 offense (uh oh that's more, thanks thrown!)

Flame Blade Veteran Orc Horde / magic weapon:
Before: (11 - 2) * 20 * 8 * 4/3 = 1920 offense
After: (11 - 2) * 18 * 8.5 * 4/3 = 1836 offense
With the +1 figure: (11) * 14 * 9 * 4/3 = 1716 offense

Regular magic weapon beastmen halberdier or regular non-weapon high elf halberdier:
Before: (7-2) * 20 * 6 * 4/3 = 800
After: (7-2) * 18 * 6.5 * 4/3 = 780
With the +1 figure: (7) * 13 * 7 * 4/3 = 850

Great Lizard with survival instinct:
Before: (18-2) * 20 * 1 * 6/3 = 640 offense (that is kind of low at 1/3 of berserker/enchanted horde and quite lower than even a halberdier)
After: (18-2) * 18 * 1.5 * 6/3 = 864 offense (that seems reasonable 1/2 of enchanted horde/berserker  or comparable to the halberdier)
with the +1 figure: (18) * 14 * 2 * 6/3 = 936 (also roughly under 1/2 of enchanted horde/berserker or comparable to the halberdier)

[Nelphine]

We did make armor quite powerful, but, multifigure offense is still the source of the biggest swing in units. And buffs to armor are the most controversial in the game already even in tactical, so I don't know that is a good reason not to put a modified on the offense side.

However, you're right that undamaged units (especially ranged units) would cause problems due to how damage is split up in strategic combat generally resulting in unhurt units.

But I think it's not going to do badly throw off results of strategic combat that it would make a huge difference, but it will make a drastic difference in ai ability to choose targets. 

I think that's worth it. If unhurt ranged units are a problem in strategic, we could reduce the number of ranged turns again.

[Seravy]

My problem is still that it adds the bonus in the opposite "direction" as it should.

The unit with the most damage on should get the most bonus and the unit with the lowest damage should get the lowest. Adding +X figures would add the most bonus to the least damaged unit and the least bonus to the most damaged one.
While the change might improve strategic combat and related AI decisions, it would undermine the AI's ability to make good decisions in normal combat.

[Nelphine]

I'm not seeing how it would negatively affect tactical combat decisions. I'm assuming I'm just missing something obvious, but all I can think of is that it's going to think unhurt single target figures are more dangerous than they are. Which should make them higher priority targets? I don't see the problem.

[zitro1987]

I don't see the problem either in tactical battle choices, running two different scenarios with similar results (a figure + 0.5) and a more extreme (figure + 1) without the multi-figure nerf of attack-2. Comparing similar damage-dealing units (great lizard vs halberdiers) or how much more a berserker (or enchanted halberdier) is to the lizard. Results are very nice (though I don't recommend them for ranged combat much)

I think in fact it may help AI with tactical combat decisions. This is a very basic example but if an AI has 3 berserkers or flame-blade orc hordes (let's pretend with resist magic), wouldn't you prefer it attack a similar or lower count of great lizards?

(Unit melee attack - 2) x (unit figures + 0.5) x 18 (applies minor adjustments to figure and melee calculations)
(Unit melee attack - 1) x (unit figures + 0.5) x 17 (in case the minus 2 requires too much space)
(unit melee attack) X (unit figures + 1) X 13 (a full +1 figure calculation without the minus 2 nerf for proper balance ... though it may be a problem for thrown/firebreath)

Elite Berserker with holy weapon or magic weapon:
Before: (9-2 + 5-2) * 20 * 6 * 5/3 = 2000 offense
After: (9-2 + 5-2) * 18 * 6.5 * 5/3 = 1950 offense
With the +1 figure: (9+5) * 13 * 7 * 5/3 = 2124 offense (uh oh that's more, thanks thrown!)

Flame Blade Veteran Orc Horde / magic weapon:
Before: (11 - 2) * 20 * 8 * 4/3 = 1920 offense
After: (11 - 2) * 18 * 8.5 * 4/3 = 1836 offense
With the +1 figure: (11) * 14 * 9 * 4/3 = 1716 offense

Regular magic weapon beastmen halberdier or regular non-weapon high elf halberdier:
Before: (7-2) * 20 * 6 * 4/3 = 800
After: (7-2) * 18 * 6.5 * 4/3 = 780
With the +1 figure: (7) * 13 * 7 * 4/3 = 850

Great Lizard with survival instinct:
Before: (18-2) * 20 * 1 * 6/3 = 640 offense (that is kind of low at 1/3 of berserker/enchanted horde and quite lower than even a halberdier)
After: (18-2) * 18 * 1.5 * 6/3 = 864 offense (that seems reasonable 1/2 of enchanted horde/berserker or comparable to the halberdier)
with the +1 figure: (18) * 14 * 2 * 6/3 = 936 (also roughly under 1/2 of enchanted horde/berserker or comparable to the halberdier)