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nice read...lucky fella with the pops...I agree this should be disabled, that's why huts were removed as well...
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Hi,
pindicator Wrote:A tough break on those Crossbows  How did the rifle hold up with Drill IV? Don't know - he never met any worthy opponent.  Drill IV crossbows are insane against swords, maces, horse archers and such, and I'd really liked to see if a Drill IV rifleman/infantry would be similarly good against units of his era, but alas that wasn't meant to be in this game. If I remember correctly, he never needed to defend, not once was his stack attacked.
-Kylearan
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
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Hi,
mihau Wrote:is this a bug?? 
I always thought it was made on purpose... I'm quite sure this is a bug of some sort. The whole combat engine relies on the fact that always the best unit is selected as defender if attacked. That not the Combat II/Formation pikeman, but the Drill crossbowman gets selected against war elephants has to be some sort of calculation error, possibly involving the first strikes.
-Kylearan
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
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Kylearan Wrote:I'm quite sure this is a bug of some sort. The whole combat engine relies on the fact that always the best unit is selected as defender if attacked. That not the Combat II/Formation pikeman, but the Drill crossbowman gets selected against war elephants has to be some sort of calculation error, possibly involving the first strikes. Did you look into the combat log at the time for the odds on any of these battles, that may shed some light? It may well be the First Strikes distorting the combat odds, but there could be other things to account for; if the Elephant was highly promoted and had Shock that may tip it over the edge, also if the Pike had just moved and the crossbow was drawing fortified bonuses ... just throwing a couple of ideas out there.
You may be right that there's an element of mis-balancing of the First Strikes in the combat calculator - although I suspect it's most likely for the potentials rather than the definites - might be interesting to test situations with Drill II, III & IV (2-3, 2-5, 4-7 respectively) and see whether the issue occurs between II and III, or III & IV....
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Hi,
Dreylin Wrote:Did you look into the combat log at the time for the odds on any of these battles, that may shed some light? No, unfortunately I didn't think about that. Are the odds listed there if you get attacked? That would be interesting. (Can you tell I've never really looked into the log? )
Quote: It may well be the First Strikes distorting the combat odds, but there could be other things to account for; if the Elephant was highly promoted and had Shock that may tip it over the edge, also if the Pike had just moved and the crossbow was drawing fortified bonuses
With the pike's inherent bonus against mounted units, it should be stronger against elephants in all cases compared to crossbows. Both have a base strength of 6, and my pikeman had +145% (+100% inherent, +20% Combat II, +25% formation) while the crossbow only had +20% (+10% Combat I, +10% vs. mounted from Drill IV). Even if the boni get reduced by the elephant's promotions, it should never make the crossbow look stronger - the difference is too big.
Additionally, both the pike and the crossbow were part of my moving attack stack, so had equal fortify boni most of the time.
Quote:You may be right that there's an element of mis-balancing of the First Strikes in the combat calculator - although I suspect it's most likely for the potentials rather than the definites
I agree. I think somehow the game overestimates the potential of first strikes doing damage. This bug is a bit annoying, but fortunately it only occurs very seldomly, as first strikes are not that common. I only have trouble with it with elephants and crossbows, and now that I know about it, I can try to play around the bug.
-Kylearan
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
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Hmm, I just tried running a quick test (unpromoted pants against promoted pike+crossbow, and the elephant dies on the spike just like you would expect). I don't suppose you've got an autosave or anything to look at?
Edit: ah, it's the shock promotion that makes the difference. A combat I elephant still faces the pike, but combat I + shock gets lined up against the crossbow, even though the odds against an individual pike are much worse.
Demonstration: use worldbuilder to to put your elephant (CI+shock) adjascent to a single crossbow (CI+D4), a single pike (CII+formation), and a crossbow+pike pair with those promotions. If you then run the game, the combat odds against the pike are about 9%, the crossbow 40%, but looking at the odds against the stack the odds are at 40%.
I wonder if a look at the SDK will prove productive
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I ran the same test under Warlords with the same given odds and results. Unfortunate.
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OK, I've got a bead on this one right now.
It appears that when comparing defenders, the selection routines are giving a 16% boost for each first strike, and an 8 % boost for each first strike chance. See CvUnit::isBetterDefenderThan()
So your 7.2 strength crossbow is being rated (for this purpose) as strength 13.536, therefore he is preferred to your strength 13.2 pike.
(Note: this is consistant with the earlier remark about Shock. Without the Shock promotion, the pike would have strength 14.7.)
Test: add a second elephant, promoted with Combat I, Shock, Flanking I, and Flanking II. This elephant draws the pike as a defender, but the original elephant draws the Crossbow.
Beating the test beyond the point of recognition - Keshiks are the attacker you can reasonably worry about taking on your crossbows in preference to a superior unit. War Chariots, Horse Archers and Knights (and unique knights) are all first strike immune, so the xbows get to hide behind the pointy sticks. Immortals get an archer bonus, so again the crossbows hide. Chariots are far enough back in strength that you likely don't care very much, and if your crossbow is defending against cossacks you've got bigger problems anyway.
(All testing in vanilla 1.61)
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Is drill IV a defensive promotion, or is it effective on the offensive as well?
Edit: oh, forgot: another excellent report, Kylearan
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VoiceOfUnreason Wrote:Beating the test beyond the point of recognition...
Excellent investigation. Thanks. 
Fortune favors the bold.
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