Very serious combat bug?

[Endoperez]

vfb said:
Do you still think it's huge positive damage from a DRN roll?

Each flagellant did negative 71 "dmg". You just need average DRN rolls to get this. It's not a bug in the RNG, it looks like a calculation bug.

The negative 71 "dmg" turns into:

Strength 7 Flagellant: 36 damage
Strength 11 Flagellant: 32 damage

I finally understood what you meant by the "negative 71 dmg". You got that wrong. The flagellants didn't deal negative damage, but had negative modifier to their damage (the flail's damage ration minus the King's prot value)

The lines similar to:
hitunit 221 16083 dmg-34 spec96 ba2
happen before the flagellant's attack roll. It means that IF the flagellant hits THIS body part, the damage dealt by his str+random is lowered by 34. It is done for both parts of the body every time an attack hits. The damage that is actually dealt is stated on this line:
damage 36 on King of Flames, spec0x60 ba2

The first flagellant dealt 36, the second 32 points of damage through the armor. Neither dealt negative damage.

The hits would have had to deal total of about 70 points of damage, or about 60 without strength counted in. That's about 14 re-rolls on the dice, even if the protection roll gave straigth ones.

However, this also means that to overflow from the negative side, the defender's roll would have had to be much higher than the attacker's. The overflow point can't be -32, because SCs would hit that all the time - the King's base protection was better than that. The next lowest exponent of 2 would be 2^6 or 64, and going under -64 would take the defender a roll of 32. This would take about 6 rerolls in optimal case, less than 0.1% chance - so even if the bug was in negative roll-over, it would be VERY rare, but much less so that the chance of a unit dealing damage through extreme protection.

However, as I said before, I think overflow bug is VERY unlikely, given that the positive damage can go up to 1000 or so at least. Besides, if a human-form Dragon gets hit in dominion 10 under Gift of Health, he gets (dragon's hp - human's hp) amount of "negative damage". All shapechanges work that way. That's why you can see -50 damage coming from an elemental that went from size 6 to size 5, or from a Hunter Spider whose rider died.

[Kristoffer O]

Also, don't forget thet fatigue increases at triple levels when your pretender has a name that starts with an F, B, M or Q. This might lead the Fire King to have enough fatigue to have his protection value halved. There is also a chance that The armor is negated if the sum of the attack skills during one turn is less than the sum of the alphabetical positions of the units name. Hence it is all pretty obvious it was not just bad luck, but an expected outcome of the battle.

[llamabeast]

Good point KO.

[Edratman]

Kristoffer O said:
Also, don't forget thet fatigue increases at triple levels when your pretender has a name that starts with an F, B, M or Q. This might lead the Fire King to have enough fatigue to have his protection value halved. There is also a chance that The armor is negated if the sum of the attack skills during one turn is less than the sum of the alphabetical positions of the units name. Hence it is all pretty obvious it was not just bad luck, but an expected outcome of the battle.

I have never previously encountered a reference to an alphabetical relationship to any skill or game factor. (Maybe I have't read the manual closely enough.) Please explain.
Also, does the alphabetical relationship apply to the unit name i.e "Fire King" or the units individual name? And if it is the individual name, if I change the units name will that work?

You reference letters with negative connotations, are thee letters with positive influences?

Or are you just pulling my leg?

[Edi]

Edratman said:

I have never previously encountered a reference to an alphabetical relationship to any skill or game factor. (Maybe I have't read the manual closely enough.) Please explain.
Also, does the alphabetical relationship apply to the unit name i.e "Fire King" or the units individual name? And if it is the individual name, if I change the units name will that work?

You reference letters with negative connotations, are thee letters with positive influences?

Or are you just pulling my leg?

The latter. Wherever it is that you got your sarcasm detector, go there and get a refund. The thing is obviously broken.

[Edratman]

Edi said:
The latter. Wherever it is that you got your sarcasm detector, go there and get a refund. The thing is obviously broken.

OUCH. GOT ME. Now I know why I didn't get a Noble prize again this year, extending my steak to 56 consecutive years.

Actually this game has so many enjoyable quirks that it would not be a major surprise to find out that there was an alphabetical surprise hidden in the code.

I've gotten a Hall of Fame hero awarded the "Dumbass" medal and once had a hero that gave his troops leprosy. I think the only thing I haven't encountered (yet) is a female commander who gives the clap to her troops.

[Sombre]

You've never had the Scabrella event?

[Edratman]

Sombre said:
You've never had the Scabrella event?

I have. I think it was in 1979 in Atlanta. Took 4 rounds of penicillin before I was able to rid myself of the memento.

[vfb]

Endo, thanks for clearing up the meaning of dmg. Sorry, I didn't understand what that number represented. So it does look like 2 massive DRNs at the moment. If I get a bit of time, I might duplicate the battle in the simulator map, and see what happens.