Strategic combat

[Seravy]

Can we disable the video and force the AI vs AI combat to use the tactical combat?

No. I already said that. Even if there was a hidden switch somewhere in the video subroutines to do that (I doubt), the game would still wait the time required to display the effects because the Pause function is called separately.

I had plenty of time looking at Call Chaos in the past days, in that one, there is a loop for all frames of animation, each calling an "Update Screen" procedure and a Pause for 2 gameticks procedure.
Even if there was no video output displayed, the game would stop for 2 ticks, unless we force to bypass the pause as well, in every spell, movement and other animation that calls it. Which cannot be done with a reasonable amount of work.

Of course this assumes there is a switch to disable video output, which is quite unlikely.

[Nelphine]

Hello Seravy,

I've registered specifically because of Insecticide, and your mod CoM. They are amazingly well done, with so many bugs fitched, AI restored, and the game developed extensively.

So thank you and Kyrub for that.

Now, strategic combat has always been a bit of a sticky spot for me. I absolutely adore fighting nodes and lairs, and for me, that's the most important part of the game - the AI are there so that I can't freely roam around and build up until I can defeat all the nodes and lairs. I've read several of the threads where you've discussed this, but it always aggravates me that the computer has the chance to win battles that I do not, simply because of strategic combat. (Yes, I could use strategic combat myself, but, that's just as aggravating.)

However, for some reason, I haven't been able to find what you have done for strategic combat (in terms of details) for CoM.

Have you made extensive changes (not just bug fixes) for it?

The biggest problem seems to be that it lacks unit enchantments that do not directly affect the 3 combat stats strategic combat uses (whether innate or from overland casts). While it also lacks unit enchantments from combat casts, at least it already includes mana available, and skill available, and so (presumably) if its casting lots of mana, then whether its granting an enchantment, or just directly attacking an enemy, the mana is going to have (at least roughly) comparable effects. (Obviously not true in all cases, but at least it's in there as a modifier already.)

[Seravy]

Have you made extensive changes (not just bug fixes) for it?

I adjusted the number of ranged "turns" before the battle switches to using melee stats. (number of ranged turns was a joke, contributed like 10% to the total battle)
I adjusted the amount of influence spent mana has and how much each realm contributes to the three possible effect groups.
I made it so that + To Hit and + To Defend counts into the attack, ranged or durability of units/armies.
I fixed bugs that caused the AI to win these battles when it had no way to do so based on stats.
I removed the hardcoded bonus the AI has vs neutrals (that was outright cheating and on a large scale too!)
I implemented raising undead if the attacker has death books, create undead units or life steal units.

The biggest problem seems to be that it lacks unit enchantments that do not directly affect the 3 combat stats strategic combat uses (whether innate or from overland casts).

Since these have specific effects affecting a single unit, and the entire point of strategic combat is to not have single units but an "army vs army" fight, making these do what they meant to is impossible. At best, they could add to the unit rating but I don't think that's a good thing, since it will make the unit stronger even if the enemy is not the type that ability works against. For example Missile Immunity adding health against melee armies is just as wrong as it not adding any against ranged.
There is one exception : Eldritch weapon grants the attack flag "eldritch weapon" to the enchanted unit, which is counter into the unit score as a +25% modifier, since that's how it is in the original game. There are no other offensive buffs that I know of, aside from ones that grant actual stats (which works). Defensive buffs, unless granting defense or hit points, do nothing. On the other hand, most of these are situational anyway and not used very often by the AI.

Fortunately there aren't so many defensive buffs that do not grant stats, I think it's Guardian Wind, Invulnerability, Magic Immunity, Flight, Resist Magic, Resist Elements, Bless, Wraith Form and Elemental Armor only. Out of these, Life and Sorcery contribute the most to the army durability rating through the use of mana so I suppose that should make up for it to some extent.

[Nelphine]

Ah ok, thank you for that explanation.

On the topic of those enchantments, I'm not only thinking in terms of AI wizards - nor about things that are only castable. First strike for instance would be included.

Hum. I have all these ideas, but.. I have very little idea how the code is actually laid out. I'd rather not simply suggest things that completely won't work.

How easy is it to look at that particular function (the strategic combat one), and the information it calls (so for instance, it has to get information about a swordsman unit - so I'd want to see how it actually calls that information, to see what can be modified).

Unfortunately, I haven't done any modding with this game, as I hadn't realized there was such an extensive community on it.

[Nelphine]

Well, just read your thread on disassembler code. Just looking at it would be... Be very difficult for me.

So, up to you if you want suggestions. (Was going to try to cone up with something to penalize multi figure units, and something generic for non direct combat stat enchantments.)

[Seravy]

Changing attack and defense ratings to include new stuff is very hard, I have no plans to do so, I believe considering to hit and defend is enough.
For reference this is what attack rating includes by default :
Poison (ignores strength of poison, but does consider number of figures)
All gaze and touch attacks including from items (again, ignores the save modifier, includes stoning, death, lifesteal, destruction)
Armor piercing (+25% to the total)
Doom (2x the total)
Illusion (2x the total in 2.66b CoM, 5x in vanilla MoM)
Eldritch Weapon (+25%)
First Strike (+25%)
+ To Hit in 2.6x CoM
Thrown and breath attacks (calculared the same way as normal melee but worth 50% more than those)

Defense rating only includes health, figures and armor, and + To Defend in CoM.

[Nelphine]

Right, and you'd said that previously. That's why I wanted to see how it was getting the information in the first place, and see if it would be easier, instead of adding lots of exceptions for non stat based enchantments, to instead just add a fourth factor 'enchantments', and add it up by rarity of the enchantment. It obviously wouldn't be nearly as accurate as tactical combat, but it would at least make strategic combat recognize the fact that these armies are stronger in general - and since strategic is about army, it wouldn't matter if those enchantments were actually useful against the specific individuals of the opposing army.

However that would double dip on enchantments that directly add to combat stats, so either you'd have to make enchantments a lower value in general to average that out (which still double dips, and just makes other enchantments weighted less for no reason), or (my preferred method, but again I don't know what information is easily available) you would have combat stats based on the unenchanted unit. So, if a golem had holy armor, it wouldn't count the +2 armor in the defense rating, it would instead count the +y (for a common enchantment) in the enchantment rating.

However having said all this, why didn't they just base strategic combat on the cost of the units involved? In theory, more expensive units are better, and balanced as such. If they can't use all the individual things anyway, why not just make it completely non individual?


(Again, reminder that all my ideas come from AI beating nodes/lairs too easily compared to tactical, due to abuses in the strategic equation.)

[Seravy]

However having said all this, why didn't they just base strategic combat on the cost of the units involved? In theory, more expensive units are better, and balanced as such. If they can't use all the individual things anyway, why not just make it completely non individual?

Interesting question. I believe it's because they didn't intend to go by the "more expensive = better" rule in the first place. Just look at races, a Gnoll or Lizardmen spearmen costs 10, a halfling spearmen is 15 and a klackon is 20...even though the gnoll and the lizardmen are the best and the klackon is probably the weakest of these 4. Orcs, high men etc also cost 10 and they are far inferior to gnolls.
Although ironically, in several places like AI decisions and astrologer bar they did use the unit cost, or the maintenance instead. (maintenance is an absolute joke to use, and has even less relation to how good the unit is than the production or mana cost)

[Nelphine]

So, I wanted to see how powerful strategic combat is, in the hands of the human player.

Its.. impressive. (Colossus? Sky Drakes? Why sure, your Draconian Halberdiers will destroy them!)

It also makes for a much faster game if you happen to be interested in the overland play more than the tactical combat.

Being able to switch back and forth between tactical and strategic combat is even more devastating (9 hell hound packs with a wizard supporting them beating your increased movement charmed hero? go back to tactical and win!)

I'm thinking of trying an impossible game now (in CoM). Although I expect to lose badly, I might just have a shot at learning enough to eventually one day play even a tiny bit better against the AI (I normally never go above hard.)