Combat Strength

[HEU3BECTEH]

How exactly does combat strength works? Is it sort of a chance to win to use with random number generator? For example, if you have 16 combat strength and your enemy has 8 - you have 16/8=66% chance to win?

It seems that something is bugged/broken for me or I am extremely unlucky. My Frigates lose to enemy Privateer almost all the time, I win around one battle out of five with 24 (16+50%) vs 8 combat strength. It almost looks like probabilities are inverted. My Privateer with Attack and Francis Drake bonus lose in around 50% of the cases against enemy Privateer (8+50%+50%=16 vs 8). With other battles I did not notices things like that.

It did seem very stupid when two of my Frigates were destroyed at once by one Privateer after it did survive the Attack and did strike back.

[cptsavarus]

Yes, annoyingly it's quite normal for Privateers to beat Frigates more times than not.

While the combat strengths indicate that the Frigate should technically never loose, Privateers are granted an invisible bonus to their RNG chances.

From what I remember of the manual it was all quite well thought out. I don't remember the exact paragraph or wording but it was explained something like this...

A privateer could be any class of ship. Usually they were fast, light & manouverable - moreso than 2nd or 3rd rate ships of the line (represented in-game by Frigates).
For example, a sloop or pinace of say 28 guns could easily outmanouver (& therefore outfight) a far more powerful war Galley or Barque of 50 guns.
Privateers could also disguise themselves under false colours, which would enable them to get in close without being fired on, then escape quickly before the enemy ship could get under way or bring its canon to bear.

From a gameplay perspective it *does* feel like getting jipped when a Privateer kills 3 of your Frigates in a row... much like it did in the original "Civilization" when you'd loose a Battleship to a Militia.
In my opinion Microprose overthought the finer details of ship combat & the result was an unbalanced & confusing gameplay mechanic... but it's kind of cool that they stopped to think about that stuff & actually found a way to (sort of) emulate it.

Moral of the story is save your Frigates for war & only send Privateers to fight Privateers.

[Skleedle]

Nothing rolled is fixed. (incl battle, ruins, meet-the-chief, recruit profession) though some of the strings are really long, you can force any result if you're willing to restart however many times it takes. Usually a lopsided battle is an outlier and you can get a favorable result quickly.

[msrachelm52]

The "Combat Resolution" process is too simplified, for those of us , as experienced in Life, by ages. There always three results for Land or Navel Combat.

Naval: 1) Damaged 2) Evade 3) Sunk%

Sunk is about 15% of the time
Evade is about 25% of the time
Damaged is about 60% of the time


Land: 1) Defeat (reduced to Infantry from Cavalry or Cannon damaged)
2) You Lose (reduced much the same as example 1)
3) loss of Horses or Muskets when Indians attack

Those of you whom can remember the Old board games of Avalon Hill and SPI with Steve Jackson and other smaller companies know of CRT or Combat Resolution Table. AH used 6 sided die or 2 D6 with Combat Ratios (1 to 1. 2 to 1 and 1 to 2 upto 6 to 1 and 1 to 6) AH used "Overrun" results at 7 to 1 ratio or higher, in Afrika Korps (circa 1964) then a 1 to 6 die results of "A Back 2", "A Elim", "D Elim", "D Back 2" and "Exchange". Overruns required no Die roll and was Automatic loss to Defender.

I am telling my age because I began playing "Strategy Games" at 12 years old, in 1964.

SPI took it even further to include many elements of affect like, Weather, Formations, even more terrain modifiers, psychological affects and even Regimental integrity with Morale levels and numerous other Modifiers. These lasted until the late 1980s and even into the 1990s and some of these games had to be played on 8ft x 8ft Tables with hours of Die Counter set-ups in Historical location. The coming of Computers brought problems and many of these companies went broke or were bought out, by other Corporations and TSR.

Computer Gaming forgets one very important aspect of Gaming historical games... historical fact, as best we know it. For example, the 101st Airborne can not parachute into the "Battle of the Bulge" because the entire 101st AB was trapped at Bestonge, in 1944, by the Germans of the Ardennes Offensive, as in "Men of War". How does this happen?

Lack of Historical fact of History but Creativity? Yes. "Make it exciting!!!!! Right!

Very few Soldiers lose their Helmets because of "Chin Straps", but for "dramatic affect" so it is in "Men of War". y the way, you lose your helmet, you pay for it out of your Paycheck. I served in the US Army, as a Male and I am a Female; anatomically, now, by Law and Medically... so none of that 'God crap' about "God made you a Man"... nonsense my Mother and Father made e in bed.

When "the Play" is not the thing then Fantasy takes over, Okay. Just one Point-of-View or POV, in Jargon. I think most of you get the point. There is always some who would argue with a sign board... ego!!!

Peace and Love, to the Community,

ms rachel m 52

[[EH] Genie]

To answer the question, it depends on the difficulty setting you are playing it on.
On hardest difficulty (Viceroy), you NEED drake bonus else your privateers do nothing
Besides the standard attributes presented there is a hidden bonus modifier based on the difficulty setting

[curtis.schierling]

As an addendum, can any of you confirm how the combat multiplier is applied? If my dragoon has 3 + 50% + 50% + 50%, my assumption is their combat strength is 3 + 150% = 7.5, but I can't help but wonder if each is applied in succession for a strength of 10.125...

[cptsavarus]

^ I've often wondered the answer to that one myself but never wanted to know it badly enough to sit down with pen & paper and work out the pattern over the course of a game! Maybe someone here has.

Standard logic says the answer is 7.5, so I'm betting that's the one.
If it's done the other way, those 2 extra decimal places just seem like more hassle than they're worth. There'd be no point making the sim that deep for a yes / no result, surely.