Strategic Combat in CoM

[Nelphine]

So if I simplify that:

Nature: 5/3*mana*books attack + 1/10*mana*books percent attack + 1*mana*books defense.

Sorcery: 5/3*mana*books attack + 2*mana*books defense

Chaos: 4*mana*books attack

Life: 3/10*mana*books percent attack + 2*mana*books defense

Death: 3*mana*books attack + 4/5*mana*books defense.

[Nelphine]

Average unit without buffs has ~800 attack, 800 defense (total spitballed numbers, not too helpful but it is somewhere in the middle even if it doesn't match anything).

With 100 mana spent (ignoring the flaw you've just mentioned), and 5 books, chaos gets 2000 attack. Life gets .. 150% of the units attack? I did something wrong.. And 1000 defense.

So, assuming there's a decimal missing somewhere, life gets 120 attack per unit, 9 units means 1080 attack.

That's pretty good.


For your flaw: what if we make ranged get the first 6 turns, and melee get the last 21 turns? Yes specifically to have 2 turns of overlap, and kinda sorta matches actual numbers? You still use 40% of your mana before melee happens, but at least you get some of it.

[Seravy]

For your flaw: what if we make ranged get the first 6 turns, and melee get the last 21 turns? Yes specifically to have 2 turns of overlap, and kinda sorta matches actual numbers? You still use 40% of your mana before melee happens, but at least you get some of it.

It does not work that way. It's like this :

While (either side living ranged power>0) and (turn<10) do {ranged turn}
While (both sides living melee power>0) do {melee turn}

Original had fewer then 10 ranged turns but that undervalues the ranged power too much. Casting happens in the first...6 turns I think. Pushing it later is not an option, if the combat ends in fewer turns, there is no chance to cast that way.
Meanwhile I gave up on trying to fix that percentage problem. I suppose wizards will tend to have ranged units in garrisons and melee as attackers so this benefits life wizards on defense which is good, and benefits the defender in general which is also good.

[Nelphine]

Right, but I'm wondering if you can do both a melee and a ranged turn on the same turn. So, if on turn 4+ if either side gas ranged, they get both a ranged turn and a melee turn, and if its turn 7+ then neither side can get a ranged turn any more.

[Nelphine]

Reviving this thread due to recent topics.

Seravy can you confirm what I did wrong 4 posts above where I get 150%, but 5 posts up you got 15%?

Also can you verify it is not possible to have some turns with both melee and ranged attack?

[Nelphine]

On the current topic of ranged bias:

9 halfling spearmen with focus magic against purely melee units:
Halfling Spearmen have 8 figures, 1 melee, 3 ranged, 1 defense, 1 health, +1 to hit, +1 to defend
Total ratings:
Per unit: Melee 53, ranged 211, defense 160 or 211 if +to defend works like +to hit.
Total for 9 units: 1899 ranged, 467 melee, 1440 or 1899 defense

However, 10 rounds of 1899 ranged can (IF they roll max) only do 1899 damage, and average is 1045. That shouldn't be enough to destroy big things like great wyrms (defense rating 2160), let alone great wyrms with anything else support (possibly even other great wyrms).

But, there are spells involved. My spells were: 100 casting skill (so 100 mana), 2 life books, 5 sorcery books.

The life books is: That adds 12% more attack (228 max, 125 average) , a bunch of defense (does nothing since great wyrm can't attack anyway... unless this adds? Does defense from spells ADD to maximum defense???? That could probably be why this is destroying things... 10 rounds of added defense when the enemy can't attack is MASSIVE. 40 defense per turn is an extra 400 defense!)

And the sorcery books are: An extra 833 attack + 100 defense per turn for an extra 1000 defense.

So, the total becomes: average ranged damage is 1045+125+833 = 2003 - still not enough to kill a single great wyrm. And defense is 2880 or 3299 (which is ~double what they started with, which is a pretty huge change, but realistically, that's still only about the defense of 4 halberdiers...)


Ok so the first thing that I see is that any flat attack bonuses from spells should still work during ranged combat rounds even if that side has no ranged combatants. This would prevent chaos from being hugely worse than the other realms. (It might also already work this way.)


The second things is.. I have no idea why my halfling spearmen are destroying things. 2 great wyrms and 3 war bears should wreck them. (Does strategic combat count node bonuses? That would make this even stranger.)

Any ideas?

[Seravy]

Reviving this thread due to recent topics.

Seravy can you confirm what I did wrong 4 posts above where I get 150%, but 5 posts up you got 15%?

Also can you verify it is not possible to have some turns with both melee and ranged attack?

I think that's 150%, my post is missing a 0. (wow, that's a lot for 50 MP, Life is OP?)

Yes, it's not possible to have melee and ranged in the same turn.

Yes, defense is an addition.
No, spells won't be cast for 10 turns. or idk, don't remember. Used to be 3 turns, but I think I raised it to 6. Either way, the total casting power is the same, if you have 300 skill then you either do 10x30 or 5x60 or 3x100 or 6x50 etc. more turns just make the effect apply slower so less of it happens if the battle ends early.

flat attack bonus from spells does work in the ranged step as far as I remember. It basically simulates direct damage.

Yes node bonus counts.

[Nelphine]

150% would be terribly op edit: see below.. That could be part of the result I'm seeing. That would change it from ~2000 ranged damage to ~3000. (Except right all mana gets thrown in the first few rounds.. So that would drop it to... ~2500 - which actually keeps life on par with sorcery in this example. And also probably works really well in the original with its lower casting skill, and lower overall army attack ratings. Might want to look into late game combats though, as life might have become op due to the mod changes.)

[Nelphine]

I think this could certainly explain my halfling spearmen success, although maybe not against the hardest nodes/towers. It would also skew AI vs AI wars in favor of life, but only later in the game. I'd like to know what else I can do to help you with this investigation.

[Seravy]

Try the same battles but without the books - use the tweaker to set all your books to zero. Alternatively set your casting skill to 0.