Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: jmlima

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
... So, the lower the attacker morale, the harder it is for them to cause the defender to RFC. This makes it particularly hard for a low proficiency force to make progress against a high proficiency force. ...

I may be missing something here but, is the above noted as being a problem?...

(I'm completely baffled if so, because the above makes absolute sense in terms of what history as been showing us. If that's the way the game is working, then it's working fine.)

It is a problem if combat odds don't matter. That means that a really huge low prof force can't make much progress against a really small high prof force. And that's not historical. Remember the saying: "Quantity has a quality all on its own".

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: jmlima

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
... So, the lower the attacker morale, the harder it is for them to cause the defender to RFC. This makes it particularly hard for a low proficiency force to make progress against a high proficiency force. ...

I may be missing something here but, is the above noted as being a problem?...

(I'm completely baffled if so, because the above makes absolute sense in terms of what history as been showing us. If that's the way the game is working, then it's working fine.)

It is a problem if combat odds don't matter. That means that a really huge low prof force can't make much progress against a really small high prof force. And that's not historical. Remember the saying: "Quantity has a quality all on its own".

quote:

ORIGINAL: shunwick

Guys,

I can't help feeling that it is the ignore losses order itself that is the problem. It is much too easy for players to set their units to ignore losses and in TOAW, as Bob confirms, ignore losses literally means ignore losses. I believe that this is unreasonable.

Now, it is not difficult for a commander to tell his troops to fight to the death. But getting the troops to obey that order is something else. It happens in real wars, yes, but only rarely.

In short, I agree that there is a problem but I am not so sure about the solution.

On the whole, I think that I would prefer keeping ignore losses to remain as they are now but I would make them dependent upon on a % chance that can be set for both sides in the editor. If the chance fails then they would defend at limit losses with maybe a small bonus and with the bonus being defined in the editor as well.

Players, therefore, will still be able to give their troops ignore losses settings but they would not be able to rely 100% on compliance. Note also, this would allow designers freedom to model some campaigns a little better.

I certainly feel that we need some more thoughts on this.

Best wishes,
Steve

quote:

I can't help feeling that it is the ignore losses order itself that is the problem.

quote:

ORIGINAL: shunwick

Guys,

I can't help feeling that it is the ignore losses order itself that is the problem. It is much too easy for players to set their units to ignore losses and in TOAW, as Bob confirms, ignore losses literally means ignore losses. I believe that this is unreasonable.

Now, it is not difficult for a commander to tell his troops to fight to the death. But getting the troops to obey that order is something else. It happens in real wars, yes, but only rarely.

In short, I agree that there is a problem but I am not so sure about the solution.

quote:

ORIGINAL: shunwick

On the whole, I think that I would prefer keeping ignore losses to remain as they are now but I would make them dependent upon on a % chance that can be set for both sides in the editor. If the chance fails then they would defend at limit losses with maybe a small bonus and with the bonus being defined in the editor as well. If the bonus is negative it would even punish players for giving ignore losses settings.

Players, therefore, will still be able to give their troops ignore losses settings but they would not be able to rely 100% on compliance. Note also, this would allow designers freedom to model some campaigns a little better.

I certainly feel that we need some more thoughts on this.

Best wishes,
Steve

quote:

ORIGINAL: shunwick

Guys,

I can't help feeling that it is the ignore losses order itself that is the problem. It is much too easy for players to set their units to ignore losses and in TOAW, as Bob confirms, ignore losses literally means ignore losses. I believe that this is unreasonable.

Now, it is not difficult for a commander to tell his troops to fight to the death. But getting the troops to obey that order is something else. It happens in real wars, yes, but only rarely.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: shunwick

Guys,

I can't help feeling that it is the ignore losses order itself that is the problem. It is much too easy for players to set their units to ignore losses and in TOAW, as Bob confirms, ignore losses literally means ignore losses. I believe that this is unreasonable.

Now, it is not difficult for a commander to tell his troops to fight to the death. But getting the troops to obey that order is something else. It happens in real wars, yes, but only rarely.

But that's just how it works in TOAW: You can order your troops to fight to the death, but they must pass a morale check to do so. So, low prof units will not stand for long, even if ordered to.

quote:

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Rorkes Drift worked out perfectly, a couple thousand Zulus can't budge the British.

quote:

ORIGINAL: burroughs

Indeed as it seems. So now we are in a vicious circle; everything works fine, but many a player has a profound feeling that there is something badly wrong with the effects we get.Is it possible that that many people are all wrong in the same respect?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: shunwick

Guys,

I can't help feeling that it is the ignore losses order itself that is the problem. It is much too easy for players to set their units to ignore losses and in TOAW, as Bob confirms, ignore losses literally means ignore losses. I believe that this is unreasonable.

Now, it is not difficult for a commander to tell his troops to fight to the death. But getting the troops to obey that order is something else. It happens in real wars, yes, but only rarely.

But that's just how it works in TOAW: You can order your troops to fight to the death, but they must pass a morale check to do so. So, low prof units will not stand for long, even if ordered to.

quote:

But how does Isandlwana work out?

quote:

ORIGINAL: shunwick

Bob,

Right, I think I am finally getting there. So the problem is specifically with high proficiency troops plus ignore losses since they will tend to pass their morale checks quite easily and ignore losses has no other way of causing them to retreat.

Am I right in thinking then that you mean applying a calculation for the odds on the ignore losses setting only?

Best wishes,
Steve

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: shunwick

Bob,

Right, I think I am finally getting there. So the problem is specifically with high proficiency troops plus ignore losses since they will tend to pass their morale checks quite easily and ignore losses has no other way of causing them to retreat.

Am I right in thinking then that you mean applying a calculation for the odds on the ignore losses setting only?

Best wishes,
Steve

I'm not sure how it works with lower tolerance settings. Obviously, there is another complicating factor added to the decision - loss %. But I suspect that morale impacts that determination as well.

My first thought was to divide the defender morale by the odds (scaled in some fashion). But we'll have to see how that works. I'm still not clear on the how part, just the what part - apply the odds to the RFC test somehow.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

My tests show that the 3.4 adjustments are working just as designed. Fortified units (as well as units in Fortified terrain) are about 6.3 times as hard to dislodge as mobile units in clear terrain – all else being equal. (...) They could be adjusted a little, but I don’t think they are out of line.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

The problem is that the only other factor that determines whether the unit retreats or not is the morale of the defender and attacker. (Remember that morale is a combination of the unit proficiency, readiness, and supply.) The higher the morale of the defender, the harder it is to dislodge. Attacker morale affects this in that if the attackers all drop out, the defender doesn’t have to make a RFC check. So, the lower the attacker morale, the harder it is for them to cause the defender to RFC. This makes it particularly hard for a low proficiency force to make progress against a high proficiency force.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
It must have been that way from the beginning of TOAW.

quote:

ORIGINAL: shunwick

So the problem is specifically with high proficiency troops plus ignore losses since they will tend to pass their morale checks quite easily and ignore losses has no other way of causing them to retreat.

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ORIGINAL: Oberst_Klink

the problem was addressed, it was verified and it is going to be fixed. I am quite confident that that's the course of action.

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ORIGINAL: Oberst_Klink

So let's all pull together on one string, nein? Friedrich der Große once said, and ye'ole fellow was right - Those who try to defend everything will defend nothing at the end.

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ORIGINAL: Sekadegas

I can't agree more with you. The adjustments are working as designed. The problem is they were clearly overrated.

3.4 RFC adjustments (especially with fortified units / fortified terrain) are the main source of the problem evebody is feeling and not losses settings or unit proficiencies.

quote:

This isn't a problem. This is exactly how it should be. But what we have today is opposite to your description. We always had elite units resisting longer and harder and nobody claimed about it.
Nowadays we have to stand crappy fortified proficiency units resisting against incredible odds.
Or do you think is a nice simulation when i'm defending a town for more that 4 turns with 2 small fortified, red units 1-2 with 5 and 11% proficiency (!!) against 6+ units (5-6) with normal proficiencies between 50 to 65%? If my small units were on defending status (instead of fortified) they would not have a chance no matter if they were on ignore losses or not.

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That's funny to hear...

TOAW always had a "obscure" combat system resolution but it was one of it's "best weapons" allowing the game to be around for so long. The combat resolution always produced sound results.

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ORIGINAL: Panama

Perhaps instead of using a small number of people for testing you should release a public beta to the community to be tested and the community can report back anything they feel is not working properly. It's because of a strange desire for secrecy that some things have survived to release that should have been squashed. Yes, you'll get some crazy stuff going on. But you will also get a well tested product in the end.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sekadegas

I can't agree more with you. The adjustments are working as designed. The problem is they were clearly overrated.

3.4 RFC adjustments (especially with fortified units / fortified terrain) are the main source of the problem evebody is feeling and not losses settings or unit proficiencies.

I appreciate your passion. However, we can't fix anything unless we get the facts right. That's why our tests have to be rigorous.

Let me describe my tests a bit more. The test scenario has 10 identical attacks for 16 different terrains and deployments (160 attacks total). I ran 10 trials with each scenario setup, and 5 different versions of the scenario. That's a total of 160 x 50 = 8,000 individual combats - 500 combats of each terrain/deployment type. Each attack was narrowly constrained to limit the number of factors involved to a minimum. That's why I can feel pretty confident in the conclusions I reached.

Playtest data are valuable as well, but can never be as rigorous. Too many complex factors are involved in every attack. And players don't diligently record each result. In fact, they tend to get emotionally involved in the results - skewing their observations further.

Without rigor, we soon find our selves "proving" cold fusion. Then the next thing you know, you're burning witches at the stake.

quote:

This isn't a problem. This is exactly how it should be. But what we have today is opposite to your description. We always had elite units resisting longer and harder and nobody claimed about it.
Nowadays we have to stand crappy fortified proficiency units resisting against incredible odds.
Or do you think is a nice simulation when i'm defending a town for more that 4 turns with 2 small fortified, red units 1-2 with 5 and 11% proficiency (!!) against 6+ units (5-6) with normal proficiencies between 50 to 65%? If my small units were on defending status (instead of fortified) they would not have a chance no matter if they were on ignore losses or not.

If you'll look at my tests, I increased the attacker proficiency from 70 to 100 and the number of retreats increased about 30%. Higher prof attackers do proportionately better.

Also, I decreased defender morale from 100% supply & readiness to 1%/33% readiness and retreats increased about two fold. Defender morale definitely affects RFC chances.

quote:

That's funny to hear...

TOAW always had a "obscure" combat system resolution but it was one of it's "best weapons" allowing the game to be around for so long. The combat resolution always produced sound results.

I expect that one of the reasons it has always seemed so "obscure" is because it never considered combat odds in the RFC decision. But I can't say for sure, since I didn't do any legacy tests, because that doesn't get the problem fixed. Regardless of when it happened, my tests show for certain that combat odds don't affect RFC chances. I did tests at 3:1 odds, 10:1 odds, and 30:1 odds. All produced about the same number of RFCs.

And, for sure, the combat resolution system was not producing sound results. The whole correction was triggered by a player providing test data (rigorous, by the way) that clearly showed that terrain did not affect RFC chances. So it was as easy to kick a unit out of a Maginot line hex as clear terrain. Rather, I expect that the combination of no terrain effects and no combat odds effects tended to cancel each other enough so that no one could easily spot them during general play.

And, my tests show that Fortified terrain/deployment is about 6.3 times as hard to dislodge as clear terrain - all else being equal. I still don't think that's out of line. We just need to get it so that combat odds matter - then you can gang up on that fort enough to clear it faster.

quote:

ORIGINAL: shunwick

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: shunwick

Bob,

Right, I think I am finally getting there. So the problem is specifically with high proficiency troops plus ignore losses since they will tend to pass their morale checks quite easily and ignore losses has no other way of causing them to retreat.

Am I right in thinking then that you mean applying a calculation for the odds on the ignore losses setting only?

Best wishes,
Steve

I'm not sure how it works with lower tolerance settings. Obviously, there is another complicating factor added to the decision - loss %. But I suspect that morale impacts that determination as well.

My first thought was to divide the defender morale by the odds (scaled in some fashion). But we'll have to see how that works. I'm still not clear on the how part, just the what part - apply the odds to the RFC test somehow.

Bob,

This is why I am unsure about the solution. We agree on the problem.

Best wishes,
Steve

-Jeff
Veritas Vos Liberabit
"Hate America - love their movies" -Foos Babaganoosh - Anchor - Jihad Tonite

quote:

ORIGINAL: altipueri

For what it is worth I just played the Anonymous Heroics tutorial scenario following the notes pretty much exactly (which include putting almost every grey defending unit on ignore losses at the beginning). But when I ran the game the defenders (me, grey) suffered hardly any losses compared to the notes ("several of our units have a red band across them") and of the "five hexes that Red has gained" - I think it only got one in my game.

Does this indicate that ignore losses is now stronger than when the scenario and walkthrough were written?

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I expect that the combination of no terrain effects and no combat odds effects tended to cancel each other enough so that no one could easily spot them during general play.

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ORIGINAL: Oberst_Klink

The model was changed *to my knowledge* becasue of the Ant-Attack bug... (snipped)

Klink, Oberst

quote:

ORIGINAL: Oberst_Klink

The model was changed *to my knowledge* becasue of the Ant-Attack bug...