Updated combat

[Armuss]

"Updated combat to include an awareness of relative unit upgrades resulting in less bloody combat between similarly upgraded opponents. For example, two Level-2 Tanks attacking each other will incur damages similar to two Level-0 Tanks."

My question:

In fight army(with AT 2 level) versus tank(2 level) incur damages too (similar army 0 AT level and tank 0 level)?

If too in fight tactical bomber(with AT 3 level) versus corps(3 level AA? or other?)?

Armuss

[SeaMonkey]

I sure hope you're right about that AAA upgrade for corps units(IW, AT, Mobility presently).......but somehow I'm not optimistic. Probably this is only for similar type units, army vs army, corps vs corps, tanks vs tanks, fighters vs fighters, etc.

[Hubert Cater]

The way it works is it will work to cancel out any differences research may have applied to improve a unit, but it still works only with the applicable combat target types.

For example, Corps have a 'Soft' type so when they are attacked the attacker is attacking the Corps with the 'Soft Attack' value and the defender is defending with the 'Soft Defense' value.

If for any reason there is applicable research that has improved the Soft Attack value for the attacker and the Soft Defense value for the defender then the difference between these improvements is canceled out.

So let's say we have a Attacker and Defender with the following default 'Soft' values:

Attacker = SA 2

Defender = SD 2

Now let's say the attacker has had some research that improves their SA value by 2 points and the defender has some research that improves its SD value by 1.

In previous releases combat calculations would be calculated with the following improved values:

Attacker = SA 2 + 2 = 4

Defender = SD 2 + 1 = 3

In this release since there is only the difference of 1 between the improvement levels between the attacker and the defender the resulting combat would be as follows:

Attacker = SA 2 + 1 = 3

Defender = SD 2 + 0 = 2

Essentially it looks for the difference whenever applicable and uses that value to calculate the difference in combat from research level improvements.

Hope this helps,

Hubert

[Nupremal]

There is one small problem here I would ask you to correct, Hubert.

Since AT tech increases tactical bomber SA, but has no effect on an Army SD - you get an inconsistency. The Tac bomber won't get balanced.

It should work for tanks, since they increase in Tank Defense.

There may be some other inconsistencies - I think AA may cause issues too.

[Hubert Cater]

First I should clarify my example above as being one of a Corps vs Corps attack and defense but in Nupremal's example it might look something like this:

Attacker (Tactical Bomber) = Soft Attack 2

Defender (Corps) = Bomber Defense 1

Now let's say the Tactical Bomber has Anti-Tank Level-1 applied the attack and defense values would look as follows:

Attacker (Tactical Bomber) = SA 2 + 1 = 3

Defender (Corps) = BD 1

Nupremal is right in the sense that as there is no research level that can be applied to a Corps that will increase the Bomber Defense value so there is an imbalance but this has always existed and is outside of the scope of the new combat changes, i.e. if we were to add a research level of some type to increase the Bomber Defense value of Corps then the new changes would also apply.

In terms of the imbalance it is a tough call as we then run the potential of Soft Targets like Corps becoming too powerful in their defense to air attacks and the preference was simply to leave air defense to Fighters and Anti-Aircraft units where applicable, i.e. maintain the importance of having these units in your arsenal etc.

For another example, let's have a Tank attack an Army:

Attacker (Tank) = SA 4

Defender (Army) = TD 2

In the old system if we had the Tank at Level-3 Heavy Tank attacking an Army at Level-1 Anti-Tank combat values would look like the following:

Attacker (Tank) = SA 4 + 3 = 7

Defender (Army) = TD 2 + 1 = 3

In the new system it would be as follows since there is a difference of 2 between applicable research levels:

Attacker (Tank) = SA 4 + 2 = 6

Defender (Army) = TD 2 + 0 = 2

Hubert

[Snowstorm]

Hubert,

In the example you set forth, it seems to me that the lower casualties (benefit defense, hinder offense) would lead to longer battles. Has this lead to issues for the beta testers with the amount of time needed in the game? At least on the surface of it, it seems as though more time would be needed in the game to progress to certain objectives needed to be obtained.

For example, Germany invades Russia. With the different combat calculations, it may take more turns for a attacker to wear down Kiev, since the defender may be able to hold out longer with fewer casualties taken per turn than with the old way. :confused:

[Hubert Cater]

For the most part I'd say no as we are still not lowering the casualties below the base defaults.

For example, since the base values are already set appropriately, i.e. think of Germany at the beginning of the game where it only has a slight edge in tech yet is still able to gain victory through Poland, the Low Countries and France with relative ease, the game should still play out as expected.

What this really does is lower the mutual knock out punches that you start to see near the end game where a Level 5 tank versus Level 5 tank both pretty much destroy each other in combat. Now only the lower researched unit suffers the greatest casualties in an exchange and equally researched units may live to fight another day without having to reinforce immediately. However, if let's say two Level 5 tanks engage in combat and the attacker has the edge where they can then throw additional units into the fight to finish off the defender, it actually gives the attacker the edge because like I said, that level 5 tank attacker likely did not suffer as much damage as it would have in previous releases and as a result is likely to be ready to either defend or attack on its next turn.

Hubert

[Nupremal]

I see what you mean but this causes a problem for me the way I set it up - a pretty large one - tacs will get out of proportion very strong.

[SeaMonkey]

Just cheapen those AA and fighter units in the build Q. Reinforcing those TAC bombers will keep their experience levels down as well as cost a pretty MPP.

There are many ways in the editor to even things out and I know we can depend on you, Nupremal, master modder, to get it right.