Military Model VI

[Mark_Everson]

Hi jbl18, I just wanted to welcome you to the forums! I am about to leave on vacation, so unfortunately I won't have time to reply to your comments for some time.

Cya,

Mark

[LDiCesare]

The build proposal sounds good. I may have some trouble implementing it, because if attacker and defenders entrench themselves, that causes a few problems, but I can probably find some way around that.

Flankereffectivity must be at least 1. What it does is divide the fronting, so:
Suppose several men with flankereffectivity N attack 1 man. 1 man is in front. N others will flank. So flanking = 1 means 2:1.
There is no plan for formations. I should already order the attackers somehowe so that the most efficient flankers flank, but that is not done yet.

jbl18,

a) Sightings should be 2 squares away

Maybe. But keep in mind the scale factor.

b) Combat engagement can occur when any unit is adjacent any other unit, rather than once they enter the same square.

I think the way to do it would be to allow units to move to the adjacent square automatically, allowing better interception...

c) A combat “half-turn” should occur as the battle is resolving; the army may retreat at any stage while giving a free shot to the opposition.

Actually there are 10 ticks per turn, and defeated units can start fleeing at each and every tick. The other side will keep fighting until they manage to get out of the square, which may take some time.

Plans include having merchants for supply lines. That's not yet coded. As for the rest (danger in terrain, etc.), this may be interesting (I know terrain damaging units is cool for gameplay). I won't comment much on it because I don't have time to code anything of that kind in the foreseeable future.

[LDiCesare]

Cross-posting form Demo 7 comments thread:

(combat) has to have a degree of uncertainty or there's no tension, and no tension means no fun.

I wonder whether I should multiply all the figures at the start of the fight by a random number between say 0.5 and 1.5 for each side to make things more random? Currently, random rolls are lost by the statistical effect of there being so many of them.
What do you think? I think that's not the only time this concern has been voiced.

[Mark_Everson]

I am going to start by reproducing Heffalump's comments that are relevant here, just so they're available in this thread.

Originally posted by Heffalump
Military model
- I liked the simultanous movement. Sure it was frustrating to 'miss' the enemy at times but it added a bit of unpredictability. Such confusion often existed in eras (unlike today) where communication as difficult and intelligence often old.
- I did not like the combat itself. Whoever has the most guys wins ... and wins in a big way from the looks of things. Aside from being patently untrue many times thoughout history, it's also boring. Combat has to have a degree of uncertainty or there's no tension, and no tension means no fun.
- How do I know what units have what particular strengths/weaknesses? I was just building things at random.
(snip)
-There seemed to be a lot of interesting things going on behind the scenes when I read the combat log. Am looking forward to it getting fleshed out.

On the issue of inadequate randomness, I agree with Heffalump's comments. Some overall randomness should be coming from the scouting and other pre-battle phases. Laurent, do those end up making much difference, or are the also lost in all the die rolls? I agree with a solution of the sort Laurent proposed, that would arbitrarily move the effective odds either way by something like a factor of 2. Maybe done using a normal distribution or some such would be best. But I don't want to lose the importance of the scouting phase etc in an overpowering effect of one random number. I think this can be fixed fairly easily after playing around with a few solutions.

Laurent, where is the most accessable documentation on unit strengths and weaknesses. Is it the military XML code, or do we have something better? There is certainly a lot of discussion of this stuff in the mil threads (and maybe some in tech), but other than his skimming them I don't know of a way for him to get that info.

[Gary Thomas]

I have (and actually have always had) a big problem with one aspect of the military model.

The actual model concerns itself with combat at a very detailed level, and does a considerable amount of calculation. However, a "military move" is supposed to be a month. I have (a while ago) played some Clash games in which the SAME battle lasted for a number of moves - that is, several months. Historically, I do not know of any non-seige battle that ever lasted more than a few days, and even the seige ones were occasional attacks. So, in a month, the battle should be well and truly over.

Also, I do not think that "retreat from battle" should be into a different square - a force that routs back 100km will always be destroyed in real life.

Personally I would like the square occupation rules to be rationalized, with an option of not fighting if neither side wants to fight.

Routed troops should remain in the same square, but unable to fight.

An army is beaten when all its troops are routed, though there should be provision for a fighting withdrawal. This would leave at least some of the losing troops in a combat worthy position if attacked next turn.

It is my view that the model contibutes nothing to the game (as a game), but could eventually be useful when the game reaches the stage of having tactical visuals. Watching the Peloponesian right wing (with the Spartiates) crumble because Epaminondas had heavily reinforced the Theban left wing would be, to say the least, entertaining.

However, the present system makes it impossible to assess the relative strengthes of the forces, and makes it extremely difficult to make sensible military decisions. The tendency is to just hurl what you have into the fray and hope.

As noted in the previous posts, God appears to be on the side of the big battalions.

There is, in fact, esentially no generalship available.

Cheers

[LDiCesare]

I have implemented something which allows the taker of the capital of a province to take the whole province. This should trigger a popup message explaining what happened.

Now to Gary's remarks (that I should have answered a long time ago).
The model does indeed a lot of calculation.
Retreat from battle includes a move order, so it is not immediate. The assumption is that the winner would keep fighting and so the loser has to flee or keep being beaten. It is perfectly possible for 2 units in the same square not to fight, although currently the decision is solely taken based on diplomatic statuses.

I don't really get what a routed unable to fight unit would mean. Would it be able to fight the next turn?

A simplification of the combat model could be useful in order to lower the amount of calculation and make it easier to understand what happens. I agree that the big amount of code I've written to implement the model provides little added value wrt a CtP2-like model.
Currently, the factors that affect fight are: attack*defense*helath, distance strength. Archers do have an effect on the fights. Then walls and siege work quite fine IMO.
Some fights last forever because the defending unit remains in the square and can only be attacked, roughly at 2 vs. 1, thus any bigger advantage (except for that provided by archers) is lost.

The scouting part is almost unused because there are very little scouts and skirmishers, and usually as many is both armies so they cancel one another.

[LDiCesare]

About taking capital implies taking the province:
In a mail, Mark said:

I would also add a threshold such that if the militia strength of the remaining squares is large compared to the invading army strength that there would be no switch. This will prevent a single anemic unit from taking a large and prosperous province all by itself.

I think it would also be possible to systematically check militia in every square so they could launch a fight by themselves, or maybe not every squares but only those which have one or several of these: capital status, walls and/or a city.

[LDiCesare]

As I said, I implemented the fact that, if you take a province capital, you lose the whole province. Units on squares in the province immediately conquer them back. This may cause trouble when there are allies/neutrals since your squares may become allied squares, but well. Also, right now, walls remain where they were and with their previous owners, which will lead to weird things. I may have to devise a new systems for walls so they are civ-less, but then their stats would be problematic.
The resulting popup's main problem is that when you take one square back from a lost province, and then lose it, the panel will show. That can be annoying. Gameplay will tell.

A way to see immediately that square X is the province capital would be welcome.

It should also be a good thing to have the player pay for moving a capital and, when a capital is conquered, there should be automatically the option for the invader to make this old capital the new capital (i.e. instead of the first square Hannibal conquered be the capital of Gaul, let it be Marsaglia).

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
A way to see immediately that square X is the province capital would be welcome.

It should also be a good thing to have the player pay for moving a capital and, when a capital is conquered, there should be automatically the option for the invader to make this old capital the new capital (i.e. instead of the first square Hannibal conquered be the capital of Gaul, let it be Marsaglia).

I agree that both of these are good things to do.

Perhaps a small star in the civ color (maybe on a white background so it stands out) could show provincial capitals, with a larger star on the civ capital?

For the second one, we could make it such that the first city conquered in a province would automatically become the capital?

[Martin the Dane]

I have a few questions that needs to be adressed in order to make that proposed capital system work.

What about recapturing capitals?

Would a player recapturing a province automatically have his/her (provincial) capital moved to the first city he/she recaptures?
If so will this first city be a temporary or permanent provicial capital?
What hapens when the player recaptures his/her old (provicial) capital?
What hapens when the player captures the new rulers provicial capital, if this is not he same as his/her old one?

What about cities and surrounding land, when a player looses/gains control of a province by taking the provicial capital? (rememer ther is one capital for each player holding parts of a provice)

What about terrain ocupied by alied troops during a capital takeover?

To take an example:
A and B are allied and at war with C and D who are also alies. (do we have aliances implemented?)
A has a provice with a number of cities where C has captured the capital, D currrently has troops in 4 squares including one city, A and B both have troops in several squares including at leas one city each. Now A takes back his old capital. What would happend?

[wombat42]

Originally posted by Gary Thomas

It is my view that the model contibutes nothing to the game (as a game), but could eventually be useful when the game reaches the stage of having tactical visuals.
...
The tendency is to just hurl what you have into the fray and hope.

As noted in the previous posts, God appears to be on the side of the big battalions.

There is, in fact, esentially no generalship available.

Just out of curiousity... Is a smaller-scale tactical control mechanism planned for somewhere in the future of the development of Clash? Just about every other part of the game is micro-manageable right now except for military operations. Maybe a subroutine that would open a new window in which time and space were scaled down to enact individual battles?...

I would just like to suggest it, if only as a goal for future versions. It might help solve problems with the tactical realism of the game. Like I said before, everything else is pretty micro-manageable (or soon will be) except this, as far as I know - although if there is something in the works I didn't know about, I wouldn't be surprised. And it could be set as an option, with another option to revert to the standard calculations and forego the battle... Maybe you could make different levels of tactical management, from its current state through campaigns or invasions of provinces or individual battles, depending on the preference of the user.

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by wombat42

Just out of curiousity... Is a smaller-scale tactical control mechanism planned for somewhere in the future of the development of Clash? Just about every other part of the game is micro-manageable right now except for military operations. Maybe a subroutine that would open a new window in which time and space were scaled down to enact individual battles?...

Hi wombat, thanks for your input. One of the reasons we went with combat as it is was indeed to have the option of a tactical combat mini-game. Another reason was to enable semi-realistic descriptions of the combat and why a player won or lost. That would be a game texture and feel issue independent of a tactical combat mini-game. Given our resource constraints, though, both things are far in the future. . . Know any java programmers interested in complex games?

[wombat42]

Hmmm... Well, if I could program Java, I would be jumping to help out, but as it is...
If I do learn sometime in the near future, I'll offer my services, though.

[LDiCesare]

Tactical combat is not going to be in anytime soon unless we find someone who wants to code it (would be welcome).
I find the system quite complex and some data in the model are not very precise (mobility in particular). Sometimes I wish I had coded something simpler.

[wombat42]

By the way - is there any way to look at the source code for the game? I'm having mucho trouble trying to open stuff in Notepad...