Veterancy,Leadership,Morale,Fitness

[Lacroix]

does anyone know exactly what those stats/mechanics  do in a game?

 

i guess, if someone is veteran he ll shoot faster/more precise.

someone who is better leader will direct soldiers to shoot in right direction?

someone who is fanatic wont pass out when he sees blood and so on

 

but what is the exact , or close to exact math behind this , IN* game

 

is there a difference between BN,FI,BS stats ?

are there stats at all or its some sort of targeting mechanic

[womble]

does anyone know exactly what those stats/mechanics  do in a game?

Charles and Phil. And maybe Steve.

 

i guess, if someone is veteran he ll shoot faster/more precise.

someone who is better leader will direct soldiers to shoot in right direction?

someone who is fanatic wont pass out when he sees blood and so on

That's about the size of it. Apart from leadership which has been described as being a small benefit to all the other things.

 

Experience (what you're calling "Veterancy") affects accuracy, ability to remain concealed, ability to use cover (reflected as a bonus on the "terrain save"). It affects call times for artillery in a very broad manner. I get the impression it has an effect on the decisions of the TacAI when it decides to make its own decisions (for self-preservation, for example) Precisely how it affects all these is deliberately obscure.

 

Motivation affects how quickly a unit will be affected by negative morale influences like casualties and suppression. It affects how quickly they recover from a degraded morale state. Again, the mechanisms are deliberately obscure. It also affects how likely they are to stick to the orders you've given them (advance into fire, maintain a Target Arc even though there's a threat just outside it) which can be a double-edged sword.

 

but what is the exact , or close to exact math behind this , IN* game

 

You and I will probably never know. Because BFC don't want us to know. Just accept that "better" is "better", and learn to get a feel for how different combinations work.

 

 

is there a difference between BN,FI,BS stats ?

Does it really matter whether the soft factors have different base numbers behind them in the different games? It's not like they're going to ever interact, and each tactical environment is so different from the others that it would be, practically, impossible to determine by observation. I would guess that they're all the same, because people haven't changed that much in the basic psychology of combat since WW2; what's changed is the training, so that, at least in Western armies "Green" troops aren't generally thrown into the front line outside of desperation circumstances, and the modern military has better ways of training its officers, so "typical" settings would be higher.

 

 

 

are there stats at all or its some sort of targeting mechanic

 

 

I really don't know what you mean by that. There have to be numerical values; it's a computer game.

[Kieme(ITA)]

BFC never revealed the detail math behind stats so we can only guess and, in conclusion, it's a matter of perception.

 

There are for sure a series of fixed numbers and a series of dice rolls, but for a reason they never revealed anything on this matter, in order to avoid number crunching and leaving a degree of necessary credibility to random generated numbers.

 

 

Personally I really like it this way. It leads to some strange cases that nobody can explain, and weird situations sometimes, but the average feeling of the game is much more interesting and there's Always space for personal improvement and different gameplay styles.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Kieme(ITA)

[A Canadian Cat]

Spot on Kieme(ITA) I feel the same.  Sorry Lacroix I don't think you will ever see numbers like that.  I put all the die roll, save throw and look up table stuff right out of my head when I play this game.  And that all by itself is just glorious.  Just the way I always wanted to play wargames.

[herr_oberst]

does anyone know exactly what those stats/mechanics  do in a game?

 

 

I don't think there is an easily statable "formula" for what those stats do in a game. I wouldn't think that it is as simple as "motivation +1 adds 0.13 to X where X is chance to hit target".

 

I've always thought of the soft factors (as well as other attributes) as affecting the probability distribution of inputs, which then affect the outcome. If you think of motivation as a bell curve, perhaps a +1 skews the distribution slightly in the positive direction, making a favorable outcome more likely than otherwise. You still "roll a die" to see where you fall in the motivation distribution at this moment, and you aren't guaranteed a better outcome because you have a +1. 

 

These factors could be additive as well, affecting different attributes of the distribution -- skewness, kurtosis, deviation -- enough to make statisticians giddy with possibilities.

 

Think as well of low versus high velocity cannons - wouldn't be unreasonable to see a wider distribution around the aim point for a low velocity shell versus a high velocity one with a much flatter trajectory.

 

If you had the time, patience, and requisite skills, you could probably monte carlo a large-scale sample, and from the results be able to infer the average effect of a +1 versus a 0, but I think you're still talking probability, not certainty.

[Kommissar]

I played the Wargame series (Airland Battle, Red Dragon) where they do reveal all the stats at play.  It leads to hilarious posts containing complex mathematical formulas crunching all the numbers together to suggest e.g., that the veteran T-80U should be 5 points cheaper to buy in the game.  I agree with the other comments about the benefit of the "mystery".

[John Kettler]

Lacroix,

 

Your odds of figuring out women are far better than your chances of ever finding out the real numbers affecting or pixeltruppen, vocal cords and hair density. Also beer consumption.

 

herr_oberst,

 

Full marks for using "kurtosis" in a conversation. That's a first for me.

 

Kommissar,

 

You missed the raging QB cost debates which began with CMx1's CMBO, a game in which practically every ETO weapon was available, depending on time frame, and in which people could and did buy large formations and strip them to nothing to get things like economy priced FOs, HMGs and other goodies, rather than pay for them in far more expensive discrete force buys. We had people who had optimum force buys, for given point sizes, in specific time periods and defined terrain. They knew what things cost, what firepower they generated at what range, what their resistance to fire was and a whole lot more. BFC's CMx2 QB force selection procedures have now imposed some real world constraints on QB force buys, made terrain and its behavior vastly less predictable, and generally added a lot of uncertainty to the battle plans of the system gamers.

 

Finding out via severe losses that being a certain distance inside the woods was no longer absolute protection from being seen (the case in CMx1) has been, for those who started with CMx1, a painful and ugly learning process. Indeed, I've screamed with frustration after being nailed deep in the woods via a needle threading shot clear through great stands of large trees. Such a thing would've been impossible under the earlier games. The dynamics of battle are only broadly predictable, and CMx2 helps us remember that point.

 

Regards,

 

John Kettler

Edited April 11, 2015 by John Kettler