Repel attempt bonuses

[Keir Maxwell]

Although I'm a realism fan I'm cautious of attempts to understand ancient combat in a mechanistic fashion ie you do that, I do this . . . We simply don't know alot of the answers and can't be reasonably epected to.

What we can do is have a fair idea of the overall strength of troop types versus each other and the likely results of there interactions. From details provided by ancients we get clues as to the fashion in which one troop type defeated another and Dom does a reasonably good job of resolving a the combat in a way related to the details and still (hopefully) giving the right result.

The repel rules are an abstraction which represents the advantage of longer weapons. the main advantage of repel other than the morale hit is canceling the incoming attack which is huge. It is quite reasonable that the success of the repelling (or is repellant?) soldiers attack is resolved in their phase as they have just canceled their enemies attack and should they survive till their turn we will find out wether they managed to impale their opponent.

My doubts around the repel rules are wether or not weapons used in a largely irregular fashion should repel at all. Say barbarians with two handed swords vs men at arms. I find it difficult to imagine what the barbarians repelling the men at arms represents here? I tend to think repel is a function of a formed, drilled unit using weapons which utilise reach as part of their way of fighting - or even legionaries using their shields. But hey its not like I'm seriously concerned and if you changed this you would have to strengthen the weakened troop types in other ways . . . and so I think the existing abstraction is fine.

Cheers

Keir

[ November 06, 2003, 04:48: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

[PvK]

Hmm. My main concern is a basic one - a significantly longer weapon should usually have the first opportunity to strike. This is generally a deterrant to closing ranks, so the repel morale check is nice.

One big weakness is if you take say units with strong attacks and high morale. In the current system, the high morale tends to let a strong attacker with a short weapon move in and attack, shrugging off a measely 1-point hit even from something like a magic giant-wielded flaming two-handed sword, and get the first real blow with the shorter weapon.

The artificial "1-point damage" and the "infinite repel attempts per repeller" seem to me like they don't model the basic situation very well, unless accidentally and abstractly in certain (perhaps many) situations.

Another thing that could help the whole combat resolution, would be to shuffle the moves of all melee units, rather than having an entire side all move at the same time. Missile units could still all fire in Groups. This would help reduce an entire mob getting to attack before their enemies, based on an accident of which entire group moved into range first.

PvK

[ November 06, 2003, 16:53: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Nagot Gick Fel]

If I had to implement the effect of longer weapons in Dominions, I'd just deduce the (negative) length difference from all weapons in the target square from the attacker's AR. Examples:

A barbarian with a length 2 greatsword attacks a square holding 3 pikemen (pike = length 5), the barbarian gets a (5-2) x 3 = 9 malus on his AR roll.

The same barbarian attacks a square holding 1 pikeneer (lg 5), 1 hallberdier (lg 3), 1 swordsman (lg 1), the malus is now (5-2) + (3-2) + 0 = 4.

If a defender has several melee weapons, only the longest one counts. If the attacker has several melee weapons, every attack suffer maluses using the above formula (may yield different maluses).

This would emphasizes the effect of tight phalanxes formations better than the current system, I think. Historically deep pike formations were able to repel knights effectively, but in Dominions a high-morale knight will just accept a light wound before slaughtering his vis-a-vis as if they were slingers.

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by PvK:


Another thing that could help the whole combat resolution, would be to shuffle the moves of all melee units, rather than having an entire side all move at the same time. Missile units could still all fire in Groups. This would help reduce an entire mob getting to attack before their enemies, based on an accident of which entire group moved into range first.

PvK

A long time ago we tried to implement simultaneous moves, but it introduced several problems and the battles were much more difficult to inspect and understand with mages casting spells from side to side. We decided it was not a good solution.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by PvK:
Hmm. My main concern is a basic one - a significantly longer weapon should usually have the first opportunity to strike. This is generally a deterrant to closing ranks, so the repel morale check is nice.

While we see the whole combat played out in detail in dom to me what is key is that the unit vs unit balence is good.

In understanding how different units interacted individual weapon usage considerations should largely be put aside in favour of trying to understand how the two bodies literally physically impacted upon each other - the results of which are very counter intuitive at times. We are not modeling a man with two handed sword vs a man with a spear but a body of men with two handed swords vs a body opf men with spears.

HI with two handed weapons fought very differently to how people often imagine. Some of the best known examples (Huskarls, Varangians) fought in a dense body wielding their weapon over handed in a regular chopping motion and relying on their close support of each other, good armour and a large shield hung over their shoulders. Others such as medievil halbadiers relied on the greated length of their weapon but must have still wielded in a fairly regular fashion or they would have become a hopeless tangle. Such troops were resilient to frontal knight charges because of their high morale, high defense, and dense formation. Despite the fact that the lances of the Knights are longer the knights are described as struggling to close. Hastings and Dyrrachium were won by the Normans and the Huskarls/Varangians beaten - but not through direct frontal assault and only after repulsing the Normans many times.

Hopilties vs other foot relied physically on acting as concerted unified body which litterly drove their oponents front ranks flying off their feet and then trampled them undefoot. One of the uses of the spike on the bottom of spear was to dispatch foe trodden underfoot.

Hopilites Vs other hopilties was a pushing match -if both sides stood up to the initial terrifying charge. Brave, veteran, soldiers pissed themselves and shook in fear as they approached the enemy - but when the crunch comes they did their job. Grind out the victory and the deaths don't really come until one side breaks. At times units were pushed back over long distances due to their high morale and refusal to break and be slaughtered.

Part of what I'm trying to say is that ancients combat is not something you reason out using commen sense. You need to read as many primary and secondary sourcs as possible and focus on what the ancients consider the salient features of combat. The Spartans focused on fear - phobos - and how to deal with it.

With dom the key for me is how the overall matchups work. The details are cute but I would not change one to be more "realistic" unless it improved general balence so I think thats the sort of question we need to ask. How does a body of Knights match up to a body of Pike, of armoured Axe men, of heavy cavalry and so on.

So how should a Giant hitting a body of spearmen be represented? I think if the Giant manages to close then there is no problem in it getting the first real strike. It has brushed aside the opposing spears as the holders trembled in fear and burst into their ranks.

Cheers

Keir

[Psitticine]

As far as I know, one-shot attacks (like the lance) aborted due to Awe or being repelled are not used up. I can't confirm that though.

The repelling process comes into play when an attacker takes a swing at an opponent, so hitting a wall of pikemen is still going to create only one repelling attempt.

I suspect the limit on repelling damage is to represent the fact the unit doesn't lose its next attack. The repel isn't full-force, so it doesn't do full damage, but it doesn't cost the unit its regular attack either.

I do think a better system might be for a repel to do full damage but cost the unit its next attack. That seems more logical to me, and shouldn't unbalance things unduly.

Just my 2¢ though . . .

[PvK]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
... While we see the whole combat played out in detail in dom to me what is key is that the unit vs unit balence is good.
... The details are cute but I would not change one to be more "realistic" unless it improved general balence so I think thats the sort of question we need to ask. ...

Keeping in mind my Version of the suggestion (i.e. as below, giving full-damage in repel attacks, but never more than one attack per turn, and no repel for units which had just attacked)... I would expect that the balance implications would be:

* Weapon length would be slightly more important.

* High-morale units would be more affected by enemy weapon length.

* High-damage-capacity units would be more affected by enemy weapon length.

I don't expect it would be unbalancing. I think it would just make the length factor a little more important, and a little more important in situations where it currently isn't important (especially, high-morale units who aren't about to die froma 1-point hit). I would expect balance to be improved.

Part of what I'm trying to say is that ancients combat is not something you reason out using commen sense. You need to read as many primary and secondary sourcs as possible and focus on what the ancients consider the salient features of combat.

I agree with that point, particularly for a game trying to be historically accurate. While Dominions has some nice elements of historical accuracy, however, it's about pseudo-historical units, often a-historical matchups, and also lots of fantastic and magical elements. There is a really enormous number of possible match-ups, most with no historical precedent, so I would contend that the main effort should be to have mechanics that make some sense, so that as many matchups will play out in reasonable, intuitive, and understandable ways.

Moreover, for the question at hand, for the point you made to be relevant, one would have to assume or imply that the existing mechanic is the result of careful historical research, and that it offers superior results to a more common-sense mechanic. I don't know the devs' reasoning for the 1-point max damage on repel, but my expectation is that it's not because of scientific/historical group-combat results analysis.

I assume the reason IW has repel do max one damage is a design decision to only apply so much complexity to the problem. It might be a bit of a chore to implement something more like I suggest, and the current mechanic at least gives some fairly-reasonable effect of weapon length, without the over-simplification leading to unbalanced results. That is, if you allow a full-strength attack, you need to keep track of who has attacked and when they can next attack, in order to avoid someone getting too many attacks per turn. That would be more complicated to implement and more complicated to explain to players, so I expect they decided it wasn't worth the effort and the current solution was good enough.

To stay on track, what I've been saying all along is that ideally, if IW agrees it'd be worth their time, I'd like to see it work this other way. Overall, the existing mechanic is ok, just a little bit silly and insignificant in some cases that don't seem to make sense, because of the 1-hit damage part.

...
So how should a Giant hitting a body of spearmen be represented? I think if the Giant manages to close then there is no problem in it getting the first real strike. It has brushed aside the opposing spears as the holders trembled in fear and burst into their ranks.
...

How a giant plays out versus a bunch of spearmen is relevant, but is only one combination of a nearly-infinite number. However, it's as good example as many of how the current situation is somewhat unfair and inappropriate. Why would you say there is no problem and assume it has brushed aside spears? Why would anything do that without a specific ability to do so? I'd say it should only be able to do that if it in fact does manage to avoid, brush, or shrug off the attacks, and that ideally there would be appropriate mechanics for this. Mechanics that make sense are the best way to get results that make sense, when an infinite number of detailed combinations are possible.

PvK

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
So how should a Giant hitting a body of spearmen be represented? I think if the Giant manages to close then there is no problem in it getting the first real strike. It has brushed aside the opposing spears as the holders trembled in fear and burst into their ranks.

The closest historical equivalents I can think of are all those colorful battles that took place in the hellenistic era. Elephants routed light troops easily, but when facing steady pezetairoi they were in deep, deep trouble.

[Keir Maxwell]

Not quite the right analogy Nagot as I did say spearmen and a Giant not a pike block or even a hopilite phalanx. Better to use the example of an elephant crashing into spearmen which is much more of an unclear issue and very dependent on morale and organisation of the spearmen in question. Repulse attempts should probably include the morale of both sides in the calculation.

In general I feel it is not worthwhile trying to amend the Dom II combat system to make it fit better with the realities of individual combat. Rather we should be looking at the troop type matchups and trying to get them right and improving the unit feel of the game. I'd love to see push backs and well trained troops showing greater cohesion etc. However I recognise these are major changes and not part of the immediate priorities.

I do think history has a huge importance for understanding the way combat in dominions should work. While there are obviously many departures from reality in dominions there is a historically inspired core to Dom and getting that "right" will make the rest fell more plausible.

Enough from me.

Ciao

Keir

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:

quote:

---

Originally posted by PvK:


Another thing that could help the whole combat resolution, would be to shuffle the moves of all melee units, rather than having an entire side all move at the same time. Missile units could still all fire in Groups. This would help reduce an entire mob getting to attack before their enemies, based on an accident of which entire group moved into range first.

PvK

A long time ago we tried to implement simultaneous moves, but it introduced several problems and the battles were much more difficult to inspect and understand with mages casting spells from side to side. We decided it was not a good solution.

---

this is very intriguing. Would you care to expand your answer? Why it posed problems? A system with simultaneous moves seems to be far more realistic AND fun. Was it a balance question, or a coding problem?

Have you played the GMT serie of ancient battles? There was this kind of system, with better leaders trumping the weaker ones. I always liked the game flow resulting from this mechanic.