Military Model IV

[LDiCesare]

Topic 1: Morale -
I implemented the morale stuff and it definitely changes the results. An outnumbered phalanx now resists more than before.
I think I am too much of a berserker to have thought of the impact of morale before...
Anyway, I have one question on the model: The morale formula is quite absolute, i.e. it is always the same whatever your orders may be. In demo4, Mark provided a figure you could twitch so that your TF would be more or less inclined to attack the opponent. I think this same factor could be used in the morale computation, like a bonus given the orders:
Orders like "you can yield terrain" could give -10 morale (break off earlier), while "fight to death" would give a bonus. Additionnally, I didn't see in the formula something to do with being outnumbered. The (perceived?) ratio of firepower could be used, but which way? A multiplier to morale seems a little extreme, how much of a bonus/malus would a +50% firepower yield? A +100%?

Topic 2: Training and experience -
I changed my experience code to be consistent with the model. I suppose the scale of experience is 0-5, and progress is sqrt(number of fights done), maxed to 5.
About training, I can add it easily, but how do we integrate training with the econ model? It clearly wants services, but what UI/orders would be given? In particular, you will want to send untrained troops to fight when in a crisis, but train them later, so training can occur at a time different from building unit. How does the econ handle that? As for figures, given the model, I suppose 0-5 would do (training and experience are very similar in the model).

[LDiCesare]

Is there any support of mercenaries planned?
I was wondering (while getting tons of friendly mil units in villages in a civ2 game) whether we could have something like that. I was also playing the Greeks, and Greeks used to be mercenaries. The same could be said of Celts a little later, Franks at the end of the Western Roman Empire and Swiss during Renaissance.
Could we hire mercenaries from nearby civs (or barbarians or neighboring Ethnic Groups) and could we have our own armies for hire? Of course, civs would never hire armies of a civ which seems even moderately threatening, but that might be fun to have. What do you think?

[Krenske]

Mark,

Ahh I see, I believe the test value you were refering to was a test based on the overall morale at the end of the battle and if the actual test score was less than 20% of the test value then the unit would actually increase in value. meaning that the morale test was so good it would have passed if the test value was only 1/5th what it was. This is dropped from the current model though.

Would it be best for me to just overwrite games\civ with the contents of games\g ?


Laurent,

I am glad that the morale effects equal things out a bit.

We can certainly apply a Ferocity/tenacity/divine leaders insistence variable to the morale test. Maybe a fanatical government could effect the test by upto +50% eg, Iranian islamic guard, Japanese troops, German SS etc. The reverse effect for flexible defence and delaying actions can also take place.

Your right there is nothing in the formula for situational modifiers like outnumbering etc. I would expect there to be a modifier based on pure number disparity as well as a modifier for firepower disparity and maybe for a defence disparity as well. Maybe we could use something like, A force outnumbered loses %outnumbered x 10 off of their morale test value. EG. A phalanx outnumbered 4/1 is outnumbered by 300% so it loses 30 off its morale test value. A similar test with firepower helps out numbered modern forces vs hordes of savages.

A test for defence is more tricky but would reflect the times when certain troop were near invincible and so caused much panic in the opposition. Eg. Tigers at Kaserine pass and for effectively the next year vs the western allies, Tanks in WW1, Heavy knights vs low grade troops in medieval periods. I don't know how we judge this, maybe instead we just use a comparrison of losses caused in the combat round.

Your idea for experience is quite good, sqrt of fights. Maybe we could flesh it out with the following
- realistic combat maneuvers etc give a couple of free fight points to start with.
- Unit cadre training drops a fight point from higher experienced units and gives them to new units.
- Troop transfer policies can do the same after initial creation with transfering units giving up some points to other units with say less than 50% of the fight points of the lending unit.
- Once a War is over natural attrition should drop a unit by a fight point per year until 'experienced' rating is reached, meaning that 16 or so years after a war your previous veteran units have reverted to experienced status as they lose the veterans through old age.
- Losses of more than 50% actually drop the the fight points by 1 while losses more than 33% nullify fight points for that combat. New replacements coutner the experience gained.
How does that all sound.

Training is easier to implement, it is the skill the unit has with its weapons. A rating of 1 is really low, effectively the equivalent of handing out weapons at parade and going to battle with them the next day. 3 would be the equivalent of 2 months or so's familiarisation with the weapon, 4 would include long term use, 5 would include real world exercises and multi purpose training etc. Effectively we could use a time of build value to closely link to the training of the unit. Raw trooper in 1 week, Basic trooper in 6 weeks, effective after 3 months, specialist after 6 months and Elite after a years delay in training. Of course if a unit starts a war at a certain training level then has to accept lower trained replacements then the overall unit rating will drop. The replacements themselves will probably have a training rating. EG. During WW1 and WW2 the Germans spent 6 months training up most of their troops until near the end when demands made them shorten the period and quality went out the window. So when replacements were received by forward formations they were already trained to a high level, so the overall training rating of the german forces remained high.

We can send units off to training after they are constructed, maybe we could use a point system like your idea for experience. For each month of training gain a point most units would start with 5-6 points. Make in service training cost a fraction of the unit cost, (ammunition expenditure etc) So you don't train all units all the way to elite status. Some units would be trained higher and a slow drop in training of 1 point per year could also apply as units lose their training edge unless maintenance is paid.

Mercenaries - We certainly could have some but they would be computer generated units from the relevant civ. They would probably have lower morale and would go away completely once support stops while native units would slowly melt away. Mercenary units would also be less reliable, twice as likely to be bought out etc. The ability to hire your own units out could be good. Some hostile civs would even supply mercenaries to fight against themselves. In lots of situations this is what roman auxiliary troops were.

Q. How should we treat the situation where one side is willing to give up territory in a battle because it has better distance fighting abilities. EG. Mongol Horse Archers striving to keep the distance open while the medieval european cav want to close. Should it just be a decision for the AI or player intervention? What if we applied a extra test in situations like this where one side wants to keep the range open. The pursuer(side wanting to close) must pass a mobility test to close a range band else fighting stays at the previous range. Obviously neither side gets fortification benefits and the runner will probably get 1/2ed terrain benefits. The test could be 50% + ((pursuer mobility - runner mobility) * 5). A high mobility force would have little difficulty closing while a slower force would still be able too, but it would be hard. We could include terrain modifiers to mobility so infantry could have a easier time catching faster forces in forest etc. What do you think?

Read you later

Paul.

[This message has been edited by Krenske (edited April 03, 2001).]

[Richard Bruns]

Question about naval combat:

In the pre-industrial world, many 'naval' combats were actually ship-to-ship ground combats. The preferred tactic of the Roman navy was to draw up to an enemy ship, lash them together, and send over a century or two. The end result was usually a lot of dead troops and two relatively intact Roman ships.

Will this be implemented in Clash?

[LDiCesare]

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 04-03-2001 08:49 AM Question about naval combat: In the pre-industrial world, many 'naval' combats were actually ship-to-ship ground combats. The preferred tactic of the Roman navy was to draw up to an enemy ship, lash them together, and send over a century or two. The end result was usually a lot of dead troops and two relatively intact Roman ships. Will this be implemented in Clash?

Sounds feasible, but I am not going to code the naval stuff yet. I think that ships could have different orders for attacking and defending at close range, e.g. ramming against boarding. If we can have a good model of what Paul suggested above (i.e. that some parties don't want to close in), then it might fit easily in.

Paul: Thanks for the answers and suggestions. I think that you can also have cases where both parties want to avoid getting to assault (like ships which don't want to ram into each other, or artillery fighting artillery if that happened). Thus each army could say which range they want to stop fighting at, and specify whether they want to flee or continue combat at that range (e.g. the mongol horde in your example will try to fight from afar, but you could give orders to archers like "fight till the knights are close, then run away").

About decay of experience, that should be easy. As for training, I need to have some ideas from Mark or the econ people as to how much pay/training the army receives.

[Krenske]

Richard
On Ancient Naval combat. You are quite correct most fights were indeed boarding actions up to the Elizabethan period. The armada battles lasted for a huge period of time compared to previous naval battles due to the unprecedented refusal of the english to close to contact.

How could this be handled???? We have a assault value for naval vessels that can be used but I think it could be used in different ways. You could order your task force to go for the capture or the sinking, The default being the capture until a certain tech application like advanced wooden hull form (allowing Mass gun ports). At this point we swap to a default of sink for naval task forces. A force ordered to sink the enemy that finishes off the enemy at assault ranges will 70% of the time sink the enemy, Due to putting ruddy huge holes in the sides of them. A force ordered to capture would have a 70% capture rate for ships finished off at assault range. Note some ancient navies did not have the necessary manpower to support additional captured vessels and so they set out to sink the opposition.
Also certain weapon types on board could alter these percentages somewhat. If a ship uses Greek Fire then the capture chance should be halved, If the ship has castle construction then the capture has a better chance. As well at time of construction a ship could have a additional marine contingent added for extra assault firepower in capture mode for a cost. How do these ideas sound??

At present though we are looking mainly at land combat.


Historical abbarition question. How do we cater for well advanced tech features in minor powers that appear and then vanish for 500 or so years. I am thinking of Greek Fire, Korean Iron clads, Archimedian (??) solar reflector arrays, etc. I am sure there are more but they do seem to fall outside of the standard tech system but have had some large effects on world history. IE, The Japanese lost so badly to the Koreans it put a 200 year freeze on their expansion during a time of chinese weakness. Maybe occasionally a minor power should just get a massive advantage for 20 or 30 years or something ??????

[Krenske]

Mark,
Yes that would be the way to handle the training build all units raw and assign money and time to training right then. Maybe initial, on construction, training could be half cost for the first N points based on tech advances in military theory and improvements. (A barracks allows you to train cheaply for 4 points, a Training centre allows 8, a simulator tech allows 12 and a virtual reality system allows 16 or something.)

As to low morale/demoralised troops receiving stand and die orders they can work if you are willing to be sufficiently ruthless. Ie. The commissars are only 100m behind you and have already shot sergi, petr and ivan for doubting you can stop the yankees/germans/french/poles/swedes. The mongols also used chinese assault troops to take chinese cities, how did they guarantee these low morale troops would do the job? They brought their families along behind and simply executed some and said the rest will die unless you take that city, repeat with the new cities population. This is a major reason for the 20% population drop in china over the decade long mongol invasion. Of course international diplomacy and civilian morale should suffer in these situations.

Of course a civilised leader would not use these techniques but could still issue the orders. A 50% bonus to something small is just 50% bigger than small so it will probably have a lower effect then giving the same order to a force with huge morale.

Radical idea, Governemnts with fanatical tendancies could buy morale in a similar way to training through indoctrination techniques etc. A complete fanatical society could buy massive morale over time where as other societies would not start with high morale but their forces could gain morale through wins etc.

[Richard Bruns]

In the tech system, small states are certainly competitive, and tech loss is a possibility. So some of that may already be in teh system. After testing, we'll tweak it to add details like that if needed.

For the naval battle, can we just treat it like any other battle, involving all the troops on the ships. The ships themselves would classified as artillery. If the 'artillery barage' does enough damage at long range, some ships will sink. (This artillery phase would also include ramming, etc.) Then after that it switches to close range, like a normal battle, the land troops present will slug it out. So you can go for an artillery based navy like the Greeks or a troop based navy like the Romans.

[Mark_Everson]

On Training/Experience:

Right now econ only handles building of a unit with some predetermined amount of training. In the future we plan to have
1. stockpiling of weapons (and trading of weapons as such)
2. demobilizing of troops (weapons kept maintained, optional training too)
3. purchasing of training for already-built units
I think small modifications of these can allow the player to do virtually anything they want.

Since I think we need to have separate training costs supported anyway, my best guess is that we should build new units at the "stick weapon in guys hands" level. Then you can optionally train them or not. So by that definition the current econ code has too much services cost in the build...
So the player will have 1. Build Legion, 2. train legion (perhaps done automatically unless overridden), 3. optionally invest in more than the usual training.

As to pay, that will have motivational effects, and perhaps quality effects (recruiting better people). But I haven't thought much along these lines, so comments are welcome.

Does what I've said seem adequate for now? If not, let me know where you want things more refined.

Morale/Orders:

I just want to say that giving demoralized or unmotivated troops a "fight to death" order will not have Any significant effect, so that needs to be included in any model changes.

Mercs: Yes we'll have them, and they have been discussed from time to time. Try searching on "mercenaries" maybe. Agree with Paul's basic take on it.

Experience/Training:

The outline you guys are working on sounds good!

Keeping distance sounds reasonable also... I basically support Laurent's statements about naval aspects of keeping distance in combat.

[LDiCesare]

Mark, a suggestion on training costs. I agree that default training is 0.
It would be nice though to have an option in the UI for the player to specify basic training for units (want level 1 - 5). This would add to the services cost, the troops would then come out fast with the appropriate training level so you don't have to train them all by hand. I think I can put the necessary stuff in mil model code this sunday.
Also, from a user interface point of view, we could have a "initial training" slot in some panel, (and later a "train units in cities up to level X" slot in the same panel).
I think it would be good to limit the training based on existing facilities(barracks...). I don't know how this can be modelled.

Paul, a remark on experience: I currently compute experience at the element level, thus the effect of big losses will be taken into account: When the unit is filled with new elements to replace losses, you have an overall experience decrease. e.g. A unit of 10 elts loses 6, the other 4 manage to survive undamaged. They have reached individually experience level 2. The unit when replenished will have an experience of 0.8.

[Mark_Everson]

Paul: I agree about 'buying' morale, and having this be cheaper if suitable techniques or ideologies are available. I don't think this would be too tough to handle.

Laurent: Yes we'll definitely have default training available. And things like training depending on cost-effectiveness can be easily handled using a return-on-investment parameter just like much of the econ stuff uses. Essentially where training is cheaper per unit (due to training infra) more training will be done. The thing that will require a little extra effort is the idea of rotating troops thru the training facilities. But we can sure do something reasonable, if not optimal, on that front too.

[Mark_Everson]

Laurent, there's a thing we need to discuss about the TF Movement code:

TF move orders shouldn't actually move the TF... but they should move it in graphics so the player can see what has moved. Do you have a way in mind to handle this? I think something like moving the TF to "targetSquare" in graphics with an arrow that starts at "currentSquare" or whatever would look good and give the player enough info. Sorry I didn't bring this up sooner, but I forgot it was an unresolved issue.

[Krenske]

Laurent,
So the experience is used as an average of the elements experience within a unit. This may as well be called and worked out as unit based experience. All we need to do is at the time of determining the new rating we just apply a system of breaking down the current strength of the unit and determining average experience each time. We then factor in the new elements and refigure the unit average.

[LDiCesare]

quote: Originally posted by Mark_Everson on 04-04-2001 07:27 PM Laurent, there's a thing we need to discuss about the TF Movement code: TF move orders shouldn't actually move the TF... but they should move it in graphics so the player can see what has moved. Do you have a way in mind to handle this? I think something like moving the TF to "targetSquare" in graphics with an arrow that starts at "currentSquare" or whatever would look good and give the player enough info. Sorry I didn't bring this up sooner, but I forgot it was an unresolved issue.

Currently, orders and move are implemented this way:
Unit receives an order to do something in square x (attack, garrison,...).
A MovementManager manages ticks in the turn (probably we have one tick in a turn until we get all tested). Each army then moves to its target square if it is not already there, and complains if it is too far (but goes there anyway for the moment).
I could call army.notifyObservers("NewOrder") when a new order is received. The UI could observe its TFs and then ask them where they want to go and paint them there although they didn't move yet. (Must be methods like getCurrentOrder().getTargetSquare() to do that).

Now when we get a path algorithm and units move by themselves rather than teleport, what will happen?
(New turn) Player can move whatever they like, the above visual applies with a perk like getCurrentOrder(). getSquareYouWillHaveReachedAtEndOfTurn()) (I'll find a better method name when I code it).
(End turn). Actual move resolves. The unit may just run into another one before completion of the move. That means it may fight in a square between the one it started the turn in and the one it was depicted in. Could this happen? It would be somewhat startling, I'm afraid:
e.g.
Squares 0,0 to 4,4. Army 1 in 0,0 could normally go to 0,4. Player says so, it appears in 0,4. Moves are resolved. Unfortunately, Army2 went from 2,2 to 2,0. When it reaches 2,0, it meets Army 1 on its way. A fight happens there, and army1 is so exhausted that it stays there at the end of the turn. How do we handle/avoid that?

[Mark_Everson]

Laurent, I'm in agreement pretty much with all you say in the top. When can I have it ?

quote: Now when we get a path algorithm and units move by themselves rather than teleport, what will happen? (New turn) Player can move whatever they like, the above visual applies with a perk like getCurrentOrder(). getSquareYouWillHaveReachedAtEndOfTurn()) (I'll find a better method name when I code it). (End turn). Actual move resolves. The unit may just run into another one before completion of the move. That means it may fight in a square between the one it started the turn in and the one it was depicted in. Could this happen? It would be somewhat startling, I'm afraid...

That's not a bug its a Feature . First of all, we have thought of this and discussed it before you came to the project. The land forces combat movement rates are set up so that in a turn you can only go about 2 squares, meaning your plans can only be dirupted a certain amount without a chance to react. (200km per month is about all that can be managed for a combat advance except for extreme cases in the real world.)

But unexpected collisions Can Happen. A good plan should not fall apart because of a lack of complete predictability. This is a problem real generals face that is completely ignored in civ2 and other games. The surgical precision will be gone from combat, and I for one think it will be great... I guess think about it a bit, and see if it Really bothers you. We will test it out soon, and of course if it turns out to be not fun, then we'll abort to a different plan.