Combat and Unit mechanics discussion

[MadDjinn]

Tonites topic is on units, their formations and possible feedback towards the 1.1 patch, or a fix after that if need be.

In the game we have the usual rock-paper-scissors expectations.

Anti-cav beats cav.

Cav beats archers and infantry.

Infantry beats anti-cav and archers.

Siege.. dominates everyone? Yeah, the AI loves it's siege engines, and for the life of me I can't figure out why every unit in the game doesn't wipe the floor with them.

For example:

I have a Diamond Legion formation of: one Pikeman, two bowmen, one War Elephant. Base 51 strength, modified up to 81.

The AI charged me with two Legion formations (style doesn't matter as they aren't filled correctly) of one bowman and three catapults each. Their bowmen is modified down, I assume due to the War elephant, but the catapults are not. So they end up at 54 strength each. So combined, they end up at a higher overall strength, with each getting some minor modifications, though all siege units are shooting at a 1x, despite having nothing to protect them.


So this got me poking at the various parts of the combat mechanics.

Issue one: Each unit inside a formation is damaged individually by the opposing units, and every formation is damaged by every opposing unit.

It takes a lot of effort to go around punching everyone on the battlefield in the face individually, but that seems to be the style chosen here. There were some comments by the dev that this might change, so hopefully they're on this one.

You can see it most obviously when you attack an animal. If you have a single unit, say a Scout, boop a bear, it will take a high or low amount of damage. If you use a wedge formation to boop that same bear, all three of the units inside that formation take the same damage; be it high or low. That means it's perversely (and unrealistically) better to use a single unit to attack formations.

Rather, the formation should take the damage given, and then mitigate it over the units (and types) inside the formation. The bear should be dinner if a Square Legion decides to boop it, not a mass slaughter of the army.


Issue two: This expands issue one into formations.

One formation fighting three formations equally damages all opposing formations. You can set yourself up with the best utilization of the formation mechanics, outnumber the enemy three to one, and still end up screwed by the mechanics.


Issue three: The rock-paper-scissors concept isn't being translated into formations well, especially in larger battles of multiple formations.

If you choose to use some formations, such as a Line and two Wedges (each with a spearman in it), and run up on a a formation that has a single horse, your archers are all going to be reduced in power. I had such a fight where all told I had One swordsman, three spearmen and five archers. The AI had one formation with a sword, a war elephant and an archer. All of my archers were subdued despite the 3-1 ratio of anti-cav to cav. There were four melee units on my side to their two, but somehow that didn't matter?


Issue four: Siege units don't get countered.

This is clearly an oversight, but Siege units should be countered by anything that moves. It's possible that was the case, but modifiers got lost, or forgotten. At the moment, it seems like the AI also thinks they're the only thing that matters.


Issue five: Make formations matter more in the larger combats

It's possible fixing the first few issues with make this one be less of a problem, but the tiny bonuses you can get for slotting things in correctly to match the formation doesn't actually do much. For example, a few Phalanx facing off against a similar number of Wedges should overrun them. Meanwhile, Shield walls should be able to hold back an equal number of opposition melee formations. Thereby letting the wedges and Diamonds in the back utilize their projectile units more.



I think those are at least a good starting point to look for better solutions to the combat mechanics problems. Thoughts?

[alexleshok]

Also considering late Act II and Act III unit balance and historical progression

0. Bring The Line Inf into the Enlightenment (has been accepted, is being implemented)
1. Swap Musketeers and Samurai dudes combat strength - 28 with swords, 33 with guns (but requiring expensive gunpowder for build and for maintenance). It's easy - just swap XML values.
2. Move The Fusiliers to The Enlightenment and get a new Tercio anticav unit (strength around 28-33, does require gunpowder to build, but has gunpowder-free maintenance).
3. Move The Battleship into The Atomic Age from The Enlightenment. If unit upgrade is introduces - it's gonna be a weird Ironclad -> Battleship path. Let it be The Ironclad (The Enlightenment) -> The Dreadnought (The Industrial) -> The Battleship (The Atomic) -> The Guided Missile Cruiser (The Information).
4. There are 2 tiers of submarines, 3 tiers of capital ships and ONLY ONE Destroyer tier in the Atomic a.k.a. WW II - Vietnam age, Make a WW I Destroyer version please into The Industrial Age.
5. There is no advanced Stealth Jet Fighter (while there is an advanced B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber).
6. There is no Trench WWI Bolt Action Rifle guys in The Industrial (a large gap between The Line Infantry - OK it will belong to The Enligthenment and The AR-15 Vietnam GI guys). And there is a Gatling gun in the Atomic Age. Make it into The Industrial Age and make a new MG-42/M2 HMG into The Atomic.
7. Napoleonic style mortars in The Industrial?

WE NEED A COMPLETE NEW SET OF UNITS EACH ERA TO AVOID HISTORICAL GAPS:

So my suggestion to unit sets:
LAND UNITS:
1. Renaissance. Musketeer (Strength 33), Samurai (Strength 28), Tercio - new anticav, Arquebusiers, Cannons.
2. Enlightenment. Line Infantry, Fusiliers, Dragoons, Mortars (from The Industrial Age).
3. Industrial. Trench Infantry (new, Garands or Lee Enfields), Flamethrowers, Gatlings (from The Atomic Age), Early Tanks, WW I Howitzers.
4. Atomic. Seems OK to me

NAVAL UNITS:
Make Ironclad + Ship of The Line (new) + Frigate (Enlightenment)
Make Dreadnought + WW I Destroyer (new) + Submarine (Industrial)
Make Battleship, Carrier, Nuclear Sub, Destroyer (Atomic)

AIR UNITS:
Seems fine to me. But an attack helicopter would be a nice Information era new unit, though different from UAV drones. And a Stealth Jet Fighter new Information Era would be a nice thing.

NUKES
Bring the nukes into the game please!

[MadDjinn]

The Act II horse units seem to be oddly set up for failure, but perhaps that's just due to the knights and lancers appearing in the same era as the anti-cav unit. It's hard to consider them dominant (knights) when the pikes can be had first. Also, despite the knights being stated as the dominant horse unit, the lancers have more strength.


edit: As to the Tercios, could those not become a formation of anti-cav and gunpowder units? Since the Tercio was more of a blending of style of combat, rather than weaponry.

[Cryten]

I want to question 1 assumption. The 1 unit vs a formation thing. On a hunt the damage is not spread out but given to all units in the hunt. But in a fight between normal units the damage is spread out. So a single swordsmen will spread his damage out across a formation of 3 units. Making the opposite of your assumption true, having a single unit face a formation is inherently unfavourable, even for a stronger unit.

(using made up numbers if a swordsmen unit did 30 it would do 10 across 3 units in a wedge formation, if vs an army of 10 it would do 3 damage each (all before modification).

However this is anecdotal and I would welcome better explanations if it is wrong. It just seems this way from fights I have observed.

I am genuinely interested in how debuffing works, being able to debuff an entire stacked army with a single opposing unit seems unbalanced and once again makes seige far superior.

[MadDjinn]

I haven't looked at the code for the mechanics, so I'm just going by what I see in game. Coincidentally, I happen to have a single Scout unit available to attack a Legion of bowmen (4 in a square, but that doesn't really help much).

Coincidentally, it's a fight where the lead AI (over 10k prestige in Act II) declared war on me and promptly failed to pay maintenance. Meaning, it's almost a fair fight.

On the one side we have:

A second level Scout with 4 base Strength and a nice x1.75 multiplier; bringing it up to 7 Strength.

On the other side we have:

One Legion of Bowmen in Square Formation.

They have 44 base strength with a poor x0.2 multiplier; bringing them down to 8.8 Strength.

For context, they are hit with -33% +10% -50% -20% modifiers. Inside their own Capital City territory. (Security apparently sucks there)


Round one (because health loss does reduce strength over the fight)

The Scout loses 16 health. 84/100 health left. (Scouts should probably have less health than a real unit, but I digress).

The Legion of Bowmen lose 52 health. 348/400 health left.
A perfect 13 health lost to each individual bowman.

Somewhat clear to infer that the 7 vs 8.8 strength calculation kicked out 13 vs 16 damage done. The Scout will lose the fight, but not for another 6 rounds.


For secondary context, because there's nothing better to do with Oracles right now, Round 2:

Three individual Oracles take on a Shieldwall of two Trebuchets, one Longbow and a Lancer! I wonder who'll win??

Round one:

Oracles each have 10 base strength, modified by x1.3 for 13 each, or 39 combined strength.

The shield wall has 102 base strength, modified by x0.57, for a 57.9 combined strength.

Each Oracle takes 19 damage, while the Shieldwall takes 44 combined (11 each).

It will still take 5 turns to defeat the Oracles.

So, I'm not sure if the game is merging all of the oracles into a single 'formation' for the fight, but it does look like a number is derived in the combined strength vs strength and then applied to everyone, just like the wedge vs bear and single unit vs bear.

Interesting to note that the % modifiers all seem to be a summation game. The enemy lancer and Longbow each had a +25% Open terrain bonus that the Trebuchets were missing, and it showed. Which may lead to a future suggestion around how and when to properly apply modifiers. (no pay happens first, the terrain bonus should apply to the post-pay and security issues number. +25% of 100 is much bigger than +25% of 20).


Oh, and Round two of the Oracle fight saw the introduction of a Legion of Knights from my side.

35 damage was done to my side, 5 HP each (7 total units). So it's not like there was a number made per formation for damage done. The Shieldwall took 168 damage. Of course, only the Longbow got modified down to 0.5 due to the Knights being there. The Siege units didn't seem to mind.

[Cryten]

That certainly seems fascinating. It suggests two things. Total strength matters most, and secondly for reducing damage taken having individual units until you need formations to expand your forces strength would work best.

HOWEVER given the lack of unit upgrades and the potential for wasted production it is still impracticle to have throw away single units in most circumstances, where a formation can be useful for longer before needing retirement.

It also suggests that the more you have a stacked army the less this individual unit damaging a whole formation matters.

[Filo90]

really nice feedback, combat needs a serious overhaul

[MadDjinn]

Originally posted by Cryten:

That certainly seems fascinating. It suggests two things. Total strength matters most, and secondly for reducing damage taken having individual units until you need formations to expand your forces strength would work best.

HOWEVER given the lack of unit upgrades and the potential for wasted production it is still impracticle to have throw away single units in most circumstances, where a formation can be useful for longer before needing retirement.

It also suggests that the more you have a stacked army the less this individual unit damaging a whole formation matters.

Tactically, if I can keep your formation grinding down for 4 turns with a single unit, then pounce in with a formation to finish (since health loss reduces strength) it would be stronger than if I just tossed the first formation in by itself; even if it would have won. A ground down formation is an easy target for the next attacker.

[alexleshok]

Originally posted by MadDjinn:

The Act II horse units seem to be oddly set up for failure, but perhaps that's just due to the knights and lancers appearing in the same era as the anti-cav unit. It's hard to consider them dominant (knights) when the pikes can be had first. Also, despite the knights being stated as the dominant horse unit, the lancers have more strength.


edit: As to the Tercios, could those not become a formation of anti-cav and gunpowder units? Since the Tercio was more of a blending of style of combat, rather than weaponry.

1. Considering Tercios - well you may name the unit as Pike & Shot (Like Civ VI).
2. In general. Ara has large gaps in unit progression. I'd like to have 10-12 unit tiers per 12 Acts - so each act would have its own versions (tiers) of Infantry, AntiCav, Cav, Siege, Capital ship e t c. This would be cool in terms of realism, balance and immersion.
For example. Current version has:
Dudes with muskets and dudes with katanas as Infantry in Act 7 (weird - Samurai are stronger than firearms-wielding inf).
Dudes with flintlock muskets in Act 7 (hopefully Line Infantry is being moved into Act 8).
Dudes with AR-15 Cold War Era Assault Rifles in Act 10
Futuristic cyborgs in Act 12

What I would like to see:
Act 7 - Musketmen & Samurai swapped
Act 8 - Line inf
Act 9 - WW I Bolt Action Trench Inf
Act 10 - M1 Garand WW II GI Inf
Act 11 - AR-15 modern inf (portrayed by IFV + infantrymen)
Act 12 - Cyborgs.

The same applies for instance to Anticav
Act 7 - Tercio
Act 8 - Fusiliers
Act 9 - Flamethrowers/Machinegun
Act 10 - AT Gun
Act 11 - ATGM
Act 12 - Some futuristic dudes

To Capital SHips
Act 8 - Frigate/Ironclad
Act 9 - Dreadnought
Act 10 - Battleship
Act 11 - Missile Cruiser
Act 12 - ???

To Fighters
Act 9 - Biplane
Act 10 - WW II Fighter/Early Jet
Act 11 - Stealth Fighter
Act 12 - Something X-wing or Rapier style

I hadn't touched the first part of the game. But again - Cataphracts, Horse Archers, etc... Fill in the gaps at every tier in every act pwease...

[MadDjinn]

Ok, I just relooked at the Tercio formation that's ingame and it gives you nothing. Which is bad, since it really did make a leap in how battles were fought. Formations generally feel more like they got added for a sketch of things to come, and we have to wait for the real meat to make them viable.

As per units. I agree there are some gaps, but I think part of the issue is the openess of choosing what to tech each era and the compacting of 1000 years of history into 2-3 neatly filled eras. The footman (anti-knight) shouldn't come in the same era as the Knight (and questionably has anything to do with the Stirrup). There was a major reorganization around Knights being the 'new infantry' and the Swiss didn't start making that era end for a few hundred years.

So I'd even go so far as to cut the Knights speed down to 1, as those are the heavier well armoured ones, and leave the later Lancers as the speedy manoeuvrable ones.

edit:

Side thought for the Lancers. To have them actually be a problem in the game, I wonder if we can giver them a mechanic similar to bows and siege, in that they can attack into another region without staying there. As it's melee combat, they'd still take a bit of damage, but it would befit their roll of shock attack and formation breaking.

Secondary to that is if the enemy has enough anti-cav units, the lancers could get stuck in the fight rather than retreating.

[alexleshok]

Originally posted by MadDjinn:

Ok, I just relooked at the Tercio formation that's ingame and it gives you nothing. Which is bad, since it really did make a leap in how battles were fought. Formations generally feel more like they got added for a sketch of things to come, and we have to wait for the real meat to make them viable.

As per units. I agree there are some gaps, but I think part of the issue is the openess of choosing what to tech each era and the compacting of 1000 years of history into 2-3 neatly filled eras. The footman (anti-knight) shouldn't come in the same era as the Knight (and questionably has anything to do with the Stirrup). There was a major reorganization around Knights being the 'new infantry' and the Swiss didn't start making that era end for a few hundred years.

So I'd even go so far as to cut the Knights speed down to 1, as those are the heavier well armoured ones, and leave the later Lancers as the speedy manoeuvrable ones.

edit:

Side thought for the Lancers. To have them actually be a problem in the game, I wonder if we can giver them a mechanic similar to bows and siege, in that they can attack into another region without staying there. As it's melee combat, they'd still take a bit of damage, but it would befit their roll of shock attack and formation breaking.

Secondary to that is if the enemy has enough anti-cav units, the lancers could get stuck in the fight rather than retreating.

Yup. I agree with your thoughts on how the Formations and the Combat Mechanics are underbaked. But again. This. Game. Needs. Moar. Units

At least more units as I've suggested would really fit the upgrade mechanics.

P.S. The same thing happened with Civ VI (5 tiers of units comparing to 8-9 tiers of Civ V BNW). And Firaxis filled the gaps with Pike & Shot, Men at Arms and Line Inf 4 years after release. So why not to fill the gaps in Ara right now in the 1.1 or 1.2 update?

[Cryten]

The problem with more units is they become useless to produce if you have too many unlocks. If you add a tier 1.5 unit why produce it when you only have to wait 15 turns for a tier 2.

[alexleshok]

Originally posted by Cryten:

The problem with more units is they become useless to produce if you have too many unlocks. If you add a tier 1.5 unit why produce it when you only have to wait 15 turns for a tier 2.

9 tiers (11 in VP) had never been a trouble in Civ V. Anyway - an upgrade each 50-60 turns seems okay to me

[Ara: History Untold]

Closing this thread for now! If anything else comes up feel free to start a new thread!