Whats the deal with harbors?

[make]

Harbors are supposed to give +50% traderoute yield.

I have noticed that this is very random. Sometimes it gives nothing, sometimes up to 500%.

Is this a bug or whats going on here?

Has anyone noticed this to?

I also never have the option to select the navigation promotion on my navy.

[Verrucosus]

There's certainly more to harbours than meets the eye. I'm still slightly uncertain about all the details, so please look here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=142610

[Quillan]

Harbors don't give naval promotions; you need drydocks for that (same as barracks for land units, plus doubles construction rate of naval vessels). As to the "+50% trade", I'm not certain about that. It has been suggested on this forum that what it really does is make the city more likely to get good trade routes, which would increase the value of the trade routes. However, I don't know that anyone has figured it out with certainty. DeepO has a thread someplace on here about harbors, but I don't know exactly where it is, and don't have time to search for it. A customer just pulled in, so I have to go back to work.

[proviisori]

Re: Whats the deal with harbors?

Originally posted by make

I also never have the option to select the navigation promotion on my navy.

You need to get the flanking I -promotion first. After that, when you gain enough xp for that unit, you can select navigation promotion.

[make]

Originally posted by Verrucosus
There's certainly more to harbours than meets the eye. I'm still slightly uncertain about all the details, so please look here:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=142610

Thanks Verrucosus. It was most interresting reading. Although Im still puzzled about how harbors work. One thing is fore sure,...its not as simple as (traderoute yield +50% = traderoute yield with harbor), as the description of harbors states.

[make]

Re: Re: Whats the deal with harbors?

Originally posted by Flamer(fin)
You need to get the flanking I -promotion first. After that, when you gain enough xp for that unit, you can select navigation promotion.

Thank you Flamer. The manual states that Navigation has no prerequesites, but thats obviously not true.

Not that I would use Navigation fore any ships I plan to sent into battles, Combat promotions is much better IMO. I was just wondering why it where not availible from scratch as the manual says.

[make]

Originally posted by Quillan
Harbors don't give naval promotions

I know. Sorry for the confusion.

[Yosho]

Re: Re: Re: Whats the deal with harbors?

Originally posted by make
Not that I would use Navigation fore any ships I plan to sent into battles, Combat promotions is much better IMO. I was just wondering why it where not availible from scratch as the manual says.

It depends what you need...sometimes, what you need most are faster battleships that can intercept protected enemy transports before they can land troops.

[axisworks]

I've been playing the game since it came out and I'm still not entirely clear... what does the "first strike" promotion do?

[Ijuin]

There are First Strikes, and then there are First Strike CHANCES.

In a First Strike, you are assured of getting in one hit before the enemy can hit back. What this means is that you get one round of combat where your unit is guaranteed to knock a hit point off the enemy without losing one itself. This means that essentially it is like a -1 hit point penalty to every enemy that the unit fights against.

In a First Strike Chance, you do not get the assured victory. Instead, your odds of winning the round are the same as the odds of winning a normal combat round, but the bonus is that if you lose the round, you do not lose a hit point.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Ijuin
There are First Strikes, and then there are First Strike CHANCES.

In a First Strike, you are assured of getting in one hit before the enemy can hit back. What this means is that you get one round of combat where your unit is guaranteed to knock a hit point off the enemy without losing one itself. This means that essentially it is like a -1 hit point penalty to every enemy that the unit fights against.

In a First Strike Chance, you do not get the assured victory. Instead, your odds of winning the round are the same as the odds of winning a normal combat round, but the bonus is that if you lose the round, you do not lose a hit point.

Nope.

A first strike is a *chance* to knock some hitpoints off, it is a pre-combat combat round. If the FS unit wins that round, the other unit takes damage. If it loses the round, neither unit takes damage.

A FS chance is a chance to get a chance to knock some hitpoints off .

The expected number of free hits for a battle where both units have equal strength is calculated like this:
(MinFS + MaxFS)/4. For example, an archery unit with max Drill shows 4-7 First Strikes, on average it will get 2.75 free hits. It may get as few as 0, or as many as 7.

On average, 2 FS chances are equal to 1 FS, however the 2 chances will be streakier, since there is the possibility of hitting twice, but there is also a higher probability of not hitting at all.

[Ijuin]

My error. What is the probability for a first strike chance? A full first strike is a free combat round, but what are the odds of getting a first strike with a chance?

[Blake]

A chance is simply a 50% chance of getting a FS round.

I'm not sure what the cumulative probability is - if 3 FS chances is a random number between 0 and 3 (linear distribution), or if it's 3 separate coin flips (normal distribution). This will have a significant effect on streakiness.

Since FS's are already weird in many ways and so random, it will probably be easiest to just read the exact workings straight out of the SDK code...