Unit Cost Equation

[Scott Hebert]

sushiboat said:
Why is size a positive value? I guess the ultimate answer would have to come
from Illwinter. If I remember correctly, size, HP, and strength are highly
correlated with each other, so having more than one in the equation makes
interpretation tricky.

Ah, that would answer it. Sort of like my idea to 'prorate' Strength and HP gains by the size of the unit?

You are welcome to use the equations in any way you like. At the moment,
they cover only national units, not independents. (Maybe next weekend I'll
add the indies.) I have not included magic paths for mages yet. The only
special ability I have looked at is flying. I would like to add other special
abilities and magic paths later. The three equations below are the ones to use
for now.

Oh, well, that's good, since I don't have the independents in there either.

If I could give you values for commanders without any 'specials', could you calculate a regression formula based on that?

[Scott Hebert]

Also, why is the mage commander different from the non-mage commander?

[BigDaddy]

Sushiboat's equations don't answer "why" questions, they answer only "what" questions. Such as, what is the price correlation between this and that for mage commanders. . . The fact that mixing the commander types together decreased his significance showed him that he needed to seperate them.

In this case, he's reverse engineering the pricing method.

[BigDaddy]

Its quite nice to see regression analysis used this way. As I stated, I believed it would work quite well for "normal" units. I still have my doubts about its usefulness for powerful units, so in these cases, your use should be more reserved (higher prices).

Sushiboat, I think you'll see a significant changes to the pricing of mages when you add magic paths. I'm curious as to whether or not after testing all the magic paths really turned out "even" in terms of pricing. Don't worry, I appreciate the difficulty of your working in figuring that particular question out (are their combinations that are more expensive, do you need to put a variable in for lvl2 earth path, or just lvl2 path?). Happy hunting!

[sushiboat]

BigDaddy, I am toying with the idea of converting cost to percentile scores
and then giving a table for converting back from percentiles to gold cost for
someone who uses the formula. I think that would address nonlinearity more
efficiently than various curve fitting schemes. I bet that math professors
everywhere are feeling mysteriously uneasy that someone somewhere is
using linear modeling with percentile data, but I think that it should work
alright from a practical perspective. Of course, it's extra work, so who know
whether I will get around to it.

[BigDaddy]

Nah, normalizing the data is a straightforward method of "tabling" it. I'm sure the practice is commonplace. It will also give people an idea of what the "upper-bound" of your study is; They would then know when they can no longer use your numbers to determine cost.

I think it might be just as easy though, to just type out a cumulative cost chart for each stat. Then you don't need to normalize, just plug and chug. Just dump the equation parts in a spread sheet and...

Oh, and by the way, you may want to remove outliers from the unit lists. Any units which break the mold by being too cheap (likely for nation balance purposes by the devs) where never meant to meet your "entrance criterea."

[BigDaddy]

Well, here's the ugly beta version for you to mess with sushi. Anyone else, use the higher numbers at your own risk!

See next post. . .

[Scott Hebert]

BigDaddy said:
Sushiboat's equations don't answer "why" questions, they answer only "what" questions. Such as, what is the price correlation between this and that for mage commanders. . . The fact that mixing the commander types together decreased his significance showed him that he needed to seperate them.

In this case, he's reverse engineering the pricing method.

I understand. My question is if I can remove the specials and magic paths from the equation, so that only the stats matter.

Presumably, a stat is a stat, right?

[BigDaddy]

OK, so I felt guilty about dropping that crappy spreadsheet on you guys, so heres a more useful and straightforward version. . .

SushiUnitPriceCalcV02.xls

Hope you have Excel.

[BigDaddy]

Well. . .
I'd say that different stats make a mage commander better, like Defense and HP. So, the "a unit is a unit" priciple probably isn't the way it is. Anyway, without the path prices included the cost method is sketchy for mages at best. . .