Combat Mechanics

[licker]

From what I've gleaned if you look at the attrition value and your units is lower than the unit you are attacking you are more likely to win.

So that helps a little, but is it possible to see the actual mechanics behind combat somewhere?

Thanks

[N3rull]

The higher the attrition in a unit's chart, the better it is against that opponent.

For example - Tactical Bomber class 2 has attrition of 28 against a SAM vehicle, which means it sucks against it. On the other hand it has 70 attrition against artillery class 3, so it will very like wipe the floor with that artillery unit.

The exact mechanics are higher, under "Attack".

Tactical Bomber class 2 has 2.0 to-hit against air targets, meaning it's quite sensible against other airborne units. But then, fighter class 2 has 3.8 to-hit against air targets, which means it's 90% better.

Of course you have to calculate other factors - are the units entrenched, in city, docked/landed etc.

That's what the unit analysis tool is for. It allows you to check how good one unit fares against another.

You can look at attrition as "chance that I'll win" while the time given below is "how long the fight is likely to last".

[rich12545]

That isn't the whole picture. Attrition takes into account the unit's cost as well. Brit wrote a great explanation in another thread.

[licker]

I read that but it doesn't really answer the general question.

What values are compared? What kind of RNG is applied?

I don't mind the nitty gritty, if anyone knows what the formula actually is.

[EoS]

Somebody certainly knows...

Brit, could you explain about combat mechanics. Otherwise it is difficult to define the reason of mysterious battle. Was there a bug or it can fix with change in ruleset.

[hoolaman]

I don't think attrition is directly related to how combat is calculated. It is an effect rather than a cause.

The only combat stats I can see are:

value to hit against a certain class of unit

defence (including modifiers for terrain, entrenchment and "docked")

speed?

So how does it stack up? When a battle takes two turns what is happening under the hood?

[drrowley]

a level4 tac bomber attacked an empty city12 and was shot down.

a level2 bomber attacked an city10/w 2 battleships in port and was shot down.

a level4 tac bomber attacked a level4 tank and was shot down.

(bombers didn't do any damage to anything).

what were the odds for these bombers?

granted, unit would have some air defence, but i would have figured damage to those bombers, not shot down, otherwise, whats the point of airdefence units?

[N3rull]

Well, as you order your unit to attack the enemy (granted that you had it revealed, i.e. you know what's in there), hover the mouse over the target. A tooltip will pop up next to the mouse cursor and at the bottom of it it says what are the estimated outcomes of the fight (how much damage will be dealt to which units).

Remember though that these are very random, i.e. a fight between two equal tank groups will most likely NOT go evenly. I would say that it is more common to see one group wiped completely while the other doesn't take any damage or one tank gets damaged.

As I wrote in another thread, I have had my Class3 battleship, C4 Destroyer, C3 sub and a c3 tac bomber all killed in the same round by a DOCKED class 2 battleship of the enemy. So the Forces of Chaos are strong in this game. It is how it should be though, war wasn't usually going all as planned.

[Brit]

I'll have to get back to you on the combat numbers, maybe figure out how to make the dynamics of combat more obvious inside the game. (I could explain it here, but it seems lots of people are having trouble understanding it. I don't want to require people to read the forums to understand the basic game dynamics.) Also, attrition is not the entirety of combat. Attrition is sort of a "bang for your buck" calculation (how much damage can I do to the other guy, and how much money did I spend on building my unit).

[rich12545]

I think the attrition calculations are nice, but in gameplay I pay zero attention to it.

[EoS]

It seems, results of battles correspond to the law of normal distribution.

The relation my_attack/enemy_defence shows a expected value of damages which will be put to the enemy unit. And on the contrary, the relation enemy_attack/my_defence show damages which can be put to my unit. The unit will be destroyed if damages is more as current HP. It is possible to receive result considerably different from expected, but as a whole, results correspond to the "bell curve".

I have noticed that one unit can destroy several units in a one turn. Pop-up help says that in case of "one unit against several units" battle, one unit attacks simultaneously all enemy units with full power. It seems, about it spoke Brit, he does not want that power grew exponential with growth number of units. And I will agree with he.

Duration of combat does not influence on damages. Your unit can appear in fire zone only at the end of a turn, but all the same will put\take full damages.

Though I can be mistaken...

[hoolaman]

And yet combat can run through two or three turns?

Duration might only be a result of a tight battle but the number of "rounds" per turn still is vital to understanding how it works.

[N3rull]

From what I've seen, combat happens a few times per turn, each time the damage is rolled again. Every unit shoots a number of times and each shot will have its own consequences. I believe it's something like one shot every 0.25 turns.

I'm not sure how aircraft handle it. Do they attack whenever they fly over a unit or they too have will only attack if 0.25 turns had passed from the previous attack.

Or am I completely off?

[EoS]

The aircraft have very low atttack/defence value and they are in contact very small time. I think they receive full damage irrespective from duration of fight.

[N3rull]

I think they receive just one 'tick' of combat.

I have been using aircraft a bit more recently. You can build aircraft fast, they're relatively cheap and move around very fast. I don't have a quarrel with their effectiveness against tanks and infantry anymore. I still think artillery is a bit too good vs. aircraft. At the same time, FLAK/SAM and ships totally annihilate aircraft, which makes aircraft a tactical use force for surprise attacks.

That's some way to put aircraft in the game.

[Brit]

Each turn is actually split up into 100 different "tics". So, when combat occurs, it occurs on each tic. This means that two units who start combat on turn 1.10 will have 0.90 turns to process combat until turn 2 starts. Damage is 9x as likely to happen between those units as between units who come into combat range on turn 1.9.

Aircraft are different. They come in, do one full turn of attack and receive one full turn of counterattack simultaneously. Aircraft are setup so that they have to land (to be re-armed) before they can attack again.

[EoS]

Very intresting. I had at once some questions:

1. Whether it means that each unit does 100 shots (if battle last full turn)?

2. What probability to destroy unit for one shot?

3. If a plane flew over enemy units twice, he attacks only 1 time but will be attacked twice. Is it right?

4. How changes a radar the mechanics of air fight?

[hoolaman]

I can't find this in-game manual combat info and I still can't find a comprehensive explanation on the forums of how combat is calculated.

For example I am working on a very simple ruleset, and I want to know how to get a simple 50% chance of hitting and doing 1 hitpoint of damage in each combat round/"tic". I don't know how the "To Hit", Damage, and Defence values interact.

Say if I wanted to prolong an infantry fight to last three or four turns so I could reinforce the infantry is this possible? Is it possible for fast units to disengage and not kill each other?

Also in the city combat section, what are the hits per turn and damage ratings? If you want 10 points of damage per turn you can either say 1 hit and 10 damage or 10 hits and 1 damage right? That would make hits per turn a bit redundant I guess.

[rich12545]

For your hit percentage, that's in the attack and defense values. Make the defense value double the attack value for 50%. You can choose different attack values for each class of unit. If you want to break it down in more detail you can make more classes. For example, instead of "ships" you can add destroyer, cruiser, etc.

I believe they will continue combat until one is dead. That's what I've seen, never seen where they can walk away.

It's really so much damage per hit. Has nothing to do with per turn.

I can understand your problem. Probably the biggest weakness is the lack of a comprehensive manual especially for the ruleset editor.

[hoolaman]

Defense value double the attack value doesn't intuitively sound like a 50/50 odds. What makes you say that? For example if the defense value and attack value were identical I'd imagine a more like 50/50 matchup.

Actually I just now found the unit combat simulator which is quite s udeful tool despite revealing little of the under the hood calculations.

[rich12545]

It works differently each way. If a BB has attack of 10 against a CR of 5 you have 2-1 odds of hitting. But it can be different the other way. The CR can have 7.5 attack against 5 BB defense for 3-2 odds of hitting. If attack and defense values are the same then it's 1-1.

[Brit]

I can't find this in-game manual combat info and I still can't find a comprehensive explanation on the forums of how combat is calculated.

For example I am working on a very simple ruleset, and I want to know how to get a simple 50% chance of hitting and doing 1 hitpoint of damage in each combat round/"tic". I don't know how the "To Hit", Damage, and Defence values interact.

Say if I wanted to prolong an infantry fight to last three or four turns so I could reinforce the infantry is this possible? Is it possible for fast units to disengage and not kill each other?

Also in the city combat section, what are the hits per turn and damage ratings? If you want 10 points of damage per turn you can either say 1 hit and 10 damage or 10 hits and 1 damage right? That would make hits per turn a bit redundant I guess.

I'll be sure to add this information to the manual for the next update. As far as the combat hits, the chances of a hit within a single turn average to (attack to-hit) / (defense). So an attack of 5 versus a defense of 5 will, on average, cause 1 hit per turn. Combat is actually calculated 100 times each turn, so it's possible for multiple hits within a turn. The way this is handled is, each tic (100 tics per turn) calculates a 0.01 * (attack to-hit) / defense chance to hit. An attack to-hit of 5 versus a defense of 5 = 1% chance to hit each tic.

If two units have high attack values, but low defense values, combat will happen quickly. On the other hand, if two units have low attack values and high defense values, combat might take several turns.

[hoolaman]

Thanks for the explanation Brit that is exactly the info I was looking for.

So I figure I need to make an attack of 50 and a defence of 1 to have a 0.5 odds of hitting each turn. Plugging that into the combat simulator gives exactly the results I was looking for.

Another question, have you considered the implications of setting combat to last for 3 or 4 or ten game turns? I can easily set very high hitpoints and have combat run long enough for units to theoretically withdraw or for reinforcements to be brought in. If this were based on unit speed giving some chance to disengage it would make the combat so much more versatile.

Realistically most units like a bomber fleet would not be completely destroyed and it would be nice to have the option of limping home and having to seriously repair or refit your depleted units.

I know that is a pretty big deal, just something to think about.

[hoolaman]

Ok now I'm really confused.

In the combat simulator, I have two different ships with identical stats (ie a cruiser vs a modded carrier) and they give me a 100% kill on the carrier. But if I matchup two identical ships (ie two cruisers) they give me the results I expect.

Very strange.

[Brit]

Thanks for the explanation Brit that is exactly the info I was looking for.

So I figure I need to make an attack of 50 and a defence of 1 to have a 0.5 odds of hitting each turn. Plugging that into the combat simulator gives exactly the results I was looking for.

No, no. An attack of 0.5 against a defense of 1 will you an average of 0.5 hits per turn.

Maybe I should've been more clear about the calculation. The calculation is: (0.01 * Attack to-hit / Defense) each tic. There are 100 tics per turn. So, an attack of 50 versus a defense of 1 will give you a 50% chance to hit every tic.

Another question, have you considered the implications of setting combat to last for 3 or 4 or ten game turns? I can easily set very high hitpoints and have combat run long enough for units to theoretically withdraw or for reinforcements to be brought in. If this were based on unit speed giving some chance to disengage it would make the combat so much more versatile.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I've considered a few ideas to deal with this. One is that some of the damage could be permanent - i.e. it can't be repaired. In a real-world setting, this might mean that tanks go into battle, some of them are damaged and can be repaired, and some of them are destroyed and can't be repaired. This is even more true of soldiers - some soldiers die, and you can't simply move back to a city and get repaired to full strength. I think Rich had also suggested that units that are more than 50% damaged move more slowly - which would allow for the possibility of running them down and finishing them off. Admittedly, that doesn't work quite as well if you have a bunch of units, and you send the damaged ones away - because the healthy units will still block the path of the enemy.

Realistically most units like a bomber fleet would not be completely destroyed and it would be nice to have the option of limping home and having to seriously repair or refit your depleted units.

Yeah, right now, bomber squadrons either take one point of damage, and can be repaired when they get back to base, as if they were never hit. Or, they can be completely destroyed.