Re: Information hiding.
 

Heh. The "broad side of a barn" / accuracy issue is always a worthy question, given that archers with 13/14 accuracy can still generate more friendly casualties than enemy. But then again, some question exists whether that's accuracy or AI.

Re: Information hiding.
 

I usually script specifically for every major battle. And of course, everybody who can hide is hiding until then (in particular gem and item carrying scouts). Any reasonable opponent will make reconnaisanse attack (and not with a scout, but with something more serious to better identify enemy's plans), so you never reveal what you have in mind.

I think the points about optimizing your scripts against unknown enemy plans is moot. You really need to figure out what the opponent is going to do. If you can do it accurately you usually win without any simulations. That's a real challenge though. I can only see simulator as a help in exploring unfamiliar troops and situations. Good for general Dominion education, but not something that allows you to win games by itself.

Re: Information hiding.
 

The entire thought of a battle simulator being of advantage in multiplayer is somewhat moot.

As already pointed out, your unlikely to get the same random numbers generated (unless you can force the same seed, but even that could be screwed up with multiplayer).
Secondly, you don't know your enemy's script, powers or similar. No matter how many times you win in the simulator, if you don't realise that the enemy has six mages scripted to spam blade wind, it's going to be a somewhat devestating shock, or the fact that the enemy commander has Tempest and your strategy relies on archers...
Finally, you run several thousand simulations, get the optimal army to defeat your opponent and finally attack, only to find a completely different army. If your opponent is also using the simulator, then surely he's just as likely to alter their forces to the 'optimal' build as you are, at least if he realises an attack is imminent.

I doubt a battle simulator would actually be of any benefit to multiplayer in the sense most seem to think it would (in fact, I'd go so far as to say it might actually be detrimental, for the reasons listed above). What it would be useful for is running experimental combats - how many Androphag archers do you need to defeat 300 barbarians. Is it possible for a ***** Queen to kill a VQ if tooled up with the right equipment. That kind of thing...

Re: Information hiding.
 

Of course, Vampire Queens can have VERY different magics and battle scripts. If your ***** Queen happens to be able to cast Faery Trod, and you know where that one particular Vampire Queen attacked and what her script was, though, would give you the simulated results of a battle and the best item combination (especially when you only choose from items you can make yourself in a game).

It COULD change the game. I don't know whether or not it would - but it could.

A full-flexed battle simulator doesn't work for all the things it has been requested. I'd rather see what my army would look like in a battlefield - because, as Taqwus said, large squads act strangely, sometimes. This has nothing to do with a battle simulator that wouldn't affect the gameplay, because such battle simulator can't be used test squad-positioning (you can't copy squad locations with enough accuracy).

Re: Information hiding.
 

In that case, you'd be hoping you either had the items at hand, or could forge them before the VQ moved off somewhere. Your still going to be relying on the random numbers generated too - a single hit doing less damage than it did in the simulator could result in an entirely different outcome.

I'd assume the simulator would be accessible from the main menu rather than from within the game itself. You could then pick your forces, mages, scripts et al without worrying about research (would be annoying if you simply wanted to find out the effect of having a mage cast one spell or another, but had to first research the spell in the game). As a side bonus, it might actually give some purpose to the battlefield designer too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif (by allowing you to use the custom battlefields in the battle generator).