Military Model VI

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Wombat:

Send me an email saying you want the source code and I'll reply. Best to have an acct that doesn't freak for attachments somewhat larger than 1MB.

[yellowdaddy]

Gary said:

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.

I take it that with your "non-square" Garymap, this will no longer apply? (at least not precisely the same way)

[Gary Thomas]

Under the polygon system every unit will have co-ordinates, not merely a square occupancy. So a unit could rout back 5km, for example. If that put them in another polygon, they would then be in the new polygon.

Cheers

[LDiCesare]

Note I have lots of ideas about things that could be redone in the military model, in particular how morale works, but then it's working for now so that's not top priority.

[alms66]

As suggested here, by Mark, I'm bumping this thread to discuss changing the current military model.

Other useful discussions:
Fortifications & Sieges
Military Coding Status
Military Interface & AI

The first thing we need to figure out is what we all agree needs to be fixed. To that End, we should make a list of what we each believe to be wrong with the model.

At the moment, my main gripes are:
1. The model is, in general, too complicated. It can be vastly simplified and achieve the same effect (realistic combat outcomes and casualties), given that the player sees, and wants to know, but one thing, “Who won?”
2. The model focuses too much on tactical details, rather than strategic ones, which… again, brings us to the one vital question, “Who won?,” as the most important part of the combat, the second being “By how Much?” or casualties, of course.
3. Armies unable to stop oncoming units. This is a major issue with the current demo. I hate it when I see a unit coming, but on the turn when I should ‘hit’ it, it ends up one or two squares behind me. This stems from simultaneous movement (which I support and don’t want to get rid of), and scouting (which I feel is an unneeded complication in 99.9% of cases).
4. Automate non-combat units into a generic cost of running the army. Simple. Easy. Enough said.
5. Lack of ‘Superiority’ concept (Air superiority, cavalry superiority, etc.)

One and two are really big gripes, the others are smaller, but still main gripes.

Edit-
Thus, I'd be in favor of starting from scratch on the design, reusing as much code as possible to match the new design, and sucking it up as a worthwhile loss on code that can't be saved.

[alms66]

I went ahead and typed up (yes, it was hand written on paper) the model I mentioned that I had. It's very rough, as copying the thing in it's entirety would have been pointless at this point, but it should be understandable enough for people to say what they think about the basics of it. It's in "rtf" so everyone should be able to open it, let me know if you have trouble with it.

[Mark_Everson]

My old military model

I checked it out Alms, but don't have much intelligent to say about it at this point. I do agree that there should be bonuses or other benefits for cavalry, etc. superiority as you have in your writeup and comments above.

As I've said before, I'm not in favor of ditching the whole system. But I think there are certainly some fixes that can be applied to make it much better. I haven't got my list of ToDos for the near future for the mil model together yet. Two big things:
1. As you said. . . auto ways to chase down enemy military units in a civs terrain. Also a better handling of the status of territory that is taken over and then the enemy leaves. Many times the square should revert to the previous civ's control.
2. A better handling of supply. I think units not in good supply should move much slower, since the have to forage for food. They should also cause economic damage to the areas through which they travel.

For the record, I just wanted to post My first Clash Military Model because it also has some good ideas (IMHO ) that we could try to include in the existing model. I have not put up the whole old clash web site, so the links at the bottom of that page don't work.

[edit] much added to the middle of the post

[alms66]

Re: My old military model

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
I do agree that there should be bonuses or other benefits for cavalry, etc. superiority as you have in your writeup and comments above.

This is certainly a missing component in the current model.

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
1. As you said. . . auto ways to chase down enemy military units in a civs terrain. Also a better handling of the status of territory that is taken over and then the enemy leaves. Many times the square should revert to the previous civ's control.

I’d even go so far as to set up a provincial defense force, which intercepts enemy units as they enter the province. This would cut down on micromanagement of armies in a BIG way. The player shouldn't have to do anything to set this up, it should be automatic for all units stationed in an owned province.

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
2. A better handling of supply. I think units not in good supply should move much slower, since the have to forage for food. They should also cause economic damage to the areas through which they travel.

As a quick fix, I’d implement a cost factor for being away from an owned tile. For example, if a unit has 2 movement points and it costs 1 to cross flat tiles, he could go on forever, however, with a cost factor of [.25] it would cost 1.25 movement to cross the first flat tile outside of owned territory, 1.5 for the second, 1.75 for the third, etc., until the cost rose to a point where the unit could no longer move (effectively). There’d also have to be an attrition value which rose in the same manor, killing off or forcing settlement of men in the army.

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
For the record, I just wanted to post My first Clash Military Model because it also has some good ideas (IMHO ) that we could try to include in the existing model.

If the player was able to say “I need 20% of my forces to attack Spain, and 35% to guard my homeland, another 35% to guard my colonies, and 10% to secure my Spanish conquests” by using some sort of football-style interface, as you propose, this would be a great tool for players.

[LDiCesare]

Let me stress quickly the points I consider bad in the current model/code:
- Not random enough
- Not enough importance given to morale
- Cavalry has little effect wrt infantry. The only difference that is valid at this point is archers/non archers (there's also artillery for siege which I think is OK).
- Several variables are unused or not very useful, and could be either ditched or reworked
About the point:

2. The model focuses too much on tactical details, rather than strategic ones, which… again, brings us to the one vital question, “Who won?,” as the most important part of the combat, the second being “By how Much?” or casualties, of course.

I slightly disagree. We could show some tactical results so the player understands what happened (showing the battle the way CtP does it, or Dominions, for instance, or giving some details on what went wrong).

Armies unable to stop oncoming units.

This probably has more to do with a set of bugs than a revision of the model itself. The only thing I can think of which could be useful is an order to 'block/intercept' instead of move. That isn't part of the military model per se, but the movement code.
I'm not sure I get your point about scouting. Again, I think it's not entirely military. Spying should give info on what forces are in far away squares, but we haven't implemented spying yet.

Automate non-combat units into a generic cost of running the army. Simple. Easy. Enough said.

I don't get this one either since the non combat elements are not shown currently, they are just abstracted into a cost of the elements.

[alms66]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
I'm not sure I get your point about scouting. Again, I think it's not entirely military. Spying should give info on what forces are in far away squares, but we haven't implemented spying yet.

I don't get this one either since the non combat elements are not shown currently, they are just abstracted into a cost of the elements.

Scouting as a phase in combat is useless. If two units enter a square, they should fight (if enemies), not scout to see if they notice each other. Spying, I agree should provide benefits as you say, but it has nothing to do with the combat itself.

Non-combat elements are added to various units. Get rid of them, and replace them with a cash cost to maintain the unit. This way, players don't have to worry about engineers, miners, etc., but just swordsmen, spearmen and siege towers, etc. I know that currently the player doesn't even see them, but a scenario designer does. Personally, I'd rather drop them all together, or simply increase the cost of all units by a tiny bit to account for the 'extras' in the military. It's not that major an issue with me, and I can live with it, I suppose, if that's what people want.

[Mark_Everson]

Just for the record, I like the scouting phase, and also the ability to add the support elements to units.

[LDiCesare]

Engineers are not non combat. They are just useless except in sieges, and will fight if noone else is left.
Scouting phase adds details that aren't seen by the player and doesn't affect the result of the battle a lot, so I agree it could be ditched or reworked. It changes about 5% of the strength of your army, then manoeuvering about 15%, but these figures are far too small to have much effect considering that, in practice, the armies are usually about matched in these areas.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Laurent:

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Let me stress quickly the points I consider bad in the current model/code:
- Not random enough
(snip)

From my recent play testing I think we need to increase the randomness further for demo eight. It is still the case that when you have a 2:1 advantage you are guaranteed to win. Can you just double the easily-modifiable random factors in the code so that we can evaluate the results? if I recall correctly the randomness in the Scouting say is should be easy to change. If that's not practical, anything you can do to increase the randomness somewhat would be valuable.

[LDiCesare]

It's pretty easy to add some randomness just about everywhere. I'll do that. I think the current state is already better than what it used to be, as I managed to be surprised by the outcome of a battle when I played this week, which wasn't usually the case.

[Mark_Everson]

This is a crosspost from the Fixing the enemy units behind-the-lines problem thread.

After my most recent set of play testing last weekend I had the following thoughts:

1. Eliminate all units that fall to below 10% of starting strength. (If a similar unit exists in that square that could take the reinforcements that it should get them.)

2. Any unit that is in a fight at worse than 10:1 odds should be annihilated. (There may be some exceptions, for example if the weaker force has higher mobility it should have some chance of getting away.)

Number 2 above points out what I think is a big flaw in the combat system. It restricts the number of units that can fight a given unit to a very small number. (I think it is either one or two.) In the real world there are many ways were the excess troops can make a huge amount of difference. I think that at a minimum the combat matching should allow greater odds. Perhaps such a change is beyond the scope for demo 8, so I will just copy this part of my post over to the military thread.