Strategic Combat in CoM

[Nelphine]

Right now, I can do a strayeic combat 15 times, and literally never get a different result. I don't mean win vs lose. I mean the exact amount of damage my units take. There is no randomness if you have a decent number of units (7+)

[Nelphine]

However, to answer your question, I don't mean changing the 1-10. I actually mean changing the ratio of attack to defense. Looking at these numbers, I'm winning not due to ranged bias - I'm winning because I'm using high life tactics + 9 ranged units. That's the onkybway for the ranged units to do a noticeable amount of damage. This also has the advantage of giving very defense ratings via life magic. High enough that the combination of doing at least a decent chunk of ranged damage that most of the enemy can't retaliate against means that even with terrible melee ratings my life enhanced defense is just way too high. Then the piddly amount of damage done per turn against me is just very little compared to the overall, so my melee hardly goes down at all; then even with a small melee strength it ends up being a higher percentage of my enemies defense.

The system is aimed at 50+ rounds of combat. That isn't ever random, and individual turns (and anything based on it, like magic, isn't impactful.

[Seravy]

I still don't understand the purpose and direction of the change. I thought we wanted to reduce the role of luck?
A (stronger) ranged army winning against a melee army is normal and luck has no way to affect that because melee units don't deal damage during ranged turns.

[Nelphine]

I'm OK with that, i just wanted to more accurately reflect tactical combat. Its too bad ammo isn't one of the pieces of information we can use.

[Nelphine]

OK so a few pages back we calculated the stats on halfling spearmen with focus magic. And I may have screwed up the numbers, so I'd like to revisit that. 8 halfling spearmen with focus magic and a flight endurance trireme. How can a stack with a total range of 221*8 = 1768 ranged attack, plus the first 6 turns get 4 life books times * 15 mana * 30% /5 /20 = 18% increase per turn = ~316 more attack, plus 5 sorcery books times 15 mana * 50 attack /5 = 750 attack.
6 rounds of 2834 ranged attack, 4 rounds of 1768 ranged attack.

That's an average damage of ... What... 1100 damage or something?

So how is that absolutely massacring everything, including things like multiple great drakes with chimera support?

[Seravy]

So how is that absolutely massacring everything, including things like multiple great drakes with chimera support?

It shouldn't be. Bug maybe?

[Umbral Reaver]

I just had a game where an AI's (10 sorcery, warlord) group of three berserkers busted through a tower containing multiple great drakes. What's going on? D:

[Nelphine]

Berserkers are amazing units for strategic combat. Elite is the most important level by far for strategic combat. Elite berserkers are very strong. Add in some damage from sorcery books, and yes. 6

[Nelphine]

Seravy, assume it was 3 great drakes and 4 chimera. Can you run the numbers (I'm asking you because I've been making mistakes) and just show the results of the battle? (Assume elite spearmen since I've been running around a long time with them.)

But, while focus magic halfling spearmen are the weakest unit I've ever done with strategic combat, this isn't actually all that much worse than other tests I've done. So its hard for me to guess what the actual bug might be.

[Umbral Reaver]

Berserkers are amazing units for strategic combat.  Elite is the most important level by far for strategic combat. Elite berserkers are very strong. Add in some damage from sorcery books, and yes. 6

I never get to crack a tower before an AI does these days.