another questions thread [gameplay restricted please]

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Pocus:
is poison damage cumulative?


if you feel courageous, feel free to elaborate on this morale recovery rule.

Poison is cumulative.

Ugh! I'll try, but this is treacherous grounds. The lands of morale checks is ancient, dark and filled with sink holes. I do not believe there are any scouts left that know what lies hidden in that foreboding marsh.

When a unit is hit, repelled or if a squad-mate dies he is forced to make a morale check. This probably works in the same way as an attack/defence roll. Depending on the failure of the defending morale the unit is subjected to a morale loss of 1-3. This does not (IIRC) affect the actual morale of the unit. The sum of the morale losses are added. Each turn the total morale loss of the squad are compared with the number of units in the squad and the average morale (IIRC) of the squad. In ways I can't remember there are dice added and a resulting rout may occur.

Each turn a standard reduces the morale loss of all units it affects by one.

Sermon of Courage etc also reduces the morale loss of units affected. Not sure if this is limited to one point of morale loss. It might be more.

The sum of these checks are:
A cowardly unit in an otherwise brave squad will get morale losses as his friends die even though his brave friends don't. If he's chicken enough he will most likely cause the squad more harm by being a coward than the squad will gain from having him in the squad.

Larger armies rout less easily. They are also less affected by random chance. Larger armies needs more total morale losses to risk a rout. Thus a squad composed of five wardens might be unlucky if one of them is repelled, while a large squad of LI is unlikely to rout until several of their numbers are dead.

Mindless units might be useful to avoid routs as the rout check is based on average morale (IIRC), but in the case of soulless the sheer number of slain units in the squad might cause the living to rout regardless of the mindless units. The soulless will then dissolve.

Hope this clarifies something. I'm not clear myself (hello Hubbard ) and I'm not likely to become any clearer. I have occasionally grasped the mechanics, but they seem to be elusive theories

[HJ]

Thank you very much for taking the time to write the clarifications! I really appreciate it, and appreciate the game even more when I realise how cool and intricate its mechanisms are.

One question:

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
Mindless units might be useful to avoid routs as the rout check is based on average morale (IIRC), but in the case of soulless the sheer number of slain units in the squad might cause the living to rout regardless of the mindless units. The soulless will then dissolve.

Does this mean that they will dissolve even though there are still undead leaders present? I thought that the mindless units work in the same way as berserkers do: if the rest of the squad routs, they will still hang on a continue to fight on their own. They do not? How about mixing berserkers with regulars then, will their 99 morale help with average morale as well, or is their "normal" morale taken into account in calculations?

[ November 03, 2003, 20:24: Message edited by: HJ ]

[Pocus]

Thank you very much Kristoffer. Many will appreciate the infos which were ungatherable by testbeds!

You comments on old code made me laugh. At work we have exactly the same feeling when we enter 5 years old code portions made by another team

some triggered questions :

i would have though that mindless units were not counted as in the morale average check, from my experience it is better to add ghouls and not mindless in a living squad. I must be wrong.

is fanatism better compared to sermon, or the reverse, when dealing with minimal morale loss? Sometime I see that level 4 priests will prefer sermon other fanatism, so I say to myself that the sermon effect is slightly more potent.

any idea on the radius of standard?

is the formula for rout like this :
morale losses > number of units + average morale, then rout (with dices or not)

can morale loss for a given unit superior to his base morale (milicia have 8 morale, can they have more than 8 penalty), that would create a sinkhole effect indeed, as they would fail often, and then get a big morale loss very detrimental to everybody.

[HJ]

Originally posted by Pocus:
any idea on the radius of standard?

Check out the first Kristoffer's post in this thread.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by HJ:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pocus:
any idea on the radius of standard?

Check out the first Kristoffer's post in this thread.

---

"the value is his area of effect".

I dont understand the answer.

[Alneyan]

Originally posted by Pocus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by HJ:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pocus:
any idea on the radius of standard?

Check out the first Kristoffer's post in this thread.

---

"the value is his area of effect".

I dont understand the answer.

---

I gather it means the value for Standard (say, +6) is the area of the effect for the bonus. (In this case, it would affect all units up to six sectors away) I don't recall if the value affects the strength of the effect as well though.

[HJ]

Originally posted by Alneyan:
I gather it means the value for Standard (say, +6) is the area of the effect for the bonus. (In this case, it would affect all units up to six sectors away) I don't recall if the value affects the strength of the effect as well though.

That's my understanding as well. The only thing I don't know is whether the value is a "radius" in squares, or the squares themselves. Let me try to explain. Each square has 8 squares surrounding it:
000
0X0
000
where X is the square in question and 0 are the squares around it. But the "radius" is 1, i.e. only one square in each direction. "Radius" of 2 would look something like this:
00000
00000
00X00
00000
00000
So in other words, is the area of effect calculated as all other areas of effect, say for the spells, or is it the number of concentrical circles around the unit? If it's just the squares, then how is it decided which squares are under the influence of the banner if the value is, e.g. 6? Does it change from turn to turn? If so, the standard could be somewhat unreliable, since it could end up affecting the empty squares and not affecting the ones with the units.

[ November 04, 2003, 14:24: Message edited by: HJ ]