Current Impossible Strategy

[crusader.mike]

Ah, yes, I forgot that Alchemy gives magical weapons to all units. That is actually not "icing" -- that is +1 to-hit and it matters a lot going from 30% to 40%. 1/3rd of extra damage (before defense reduction).

Alchemy is soooo OP ;-[

[Nelphine]

No, it's icing. When your unit one shots any rare summon in the game, and with the right buffs, one shots a hydra, that +1 to hit doesn't matter (my unbuffed bezerkers average.. 61 damage before enemy armor. Reducing that to 'only' 51 really doesn't matter, which is what alchemy gives it. And damage without individual buffs (so nothing that can be dispelled in combat) can reach upwards of 120 average damage before armor; buffed gets.. much much higher..) Its like tactician, or the entire sprites strategy. It sounds crazy.. Until you realize that its crazy without that piece, and that piece is really just win more.

The economy boost on the other hand is unbelievable. And can't be replicated by anything else. (From a pure damage point of view, there are actually better units to use with alchemists guild. But that much extra damage simply doesn't matter.)

[crusader.mike]

How did you end up with 61 dam for unbuffed berserker? I mean, what is the math?

Edit: Trying your strategy (4life 1death Alchemy Warlord Specialist Spellweaver) on (humble) advanced, built 9 cavalry (while scouting with starting units and two spirits), once stack was completed -- ran to nearest AI and killed him, only 3 cavalry survived (he had ghouls). Could not clear any nodes or dungeon (out of ~10) on the way there -- at best only 1 or 2 units would've survived. Could barely afford any buffs really -- finances were real tight (though I forgot to put all power into mana, my bad)

I am getting jitters now :-) -- it is July 1403, second AI is quickly growing and 3rd one is forward settling me while I am trying to get to berserkers.

All 3 AIs are guardians, lol

[Nelphine]

Only reason for cavalries existence is to get you bezerkers faster. If you can take lairs that get you gold, assuming it's enough gold (~1200?) that's always worth it even if you lose 8 cavalry.

[crusader.mike]

I see... Any comments to this question:

How did you end up with 61 dam for unbuffed berserker? I mean, what is the math?

?

I don't understand how did you end up with this number -- what combination of global enchants and passive (hero?) buffs allows you to reach this high?

Another note -- as I understand combat formula each berserker has to overcome full defense of enemy, i.e. against one with 10 shields you end up pitting 61 vs "70*0.3=21" (unless opponent has to-def bonus). Not sure if thrown damage has to do the same check, if yes -- formula will be more complicated (you wouldn't be able to add thrown and melee damage together).

[Nelphine]

+3 to hit, 11 melee, 6 thrown. 6 figures. 6*17*0.6 and yes absolutely, every individual bezeeker has to overcome enemy defense with both melee and thrown. But raw numbers win over defense, unless the defense is crazy good.

[crusader.mike]

My Ultra Elite berserk is: 10 melee, +2 to-hit. How do you get extra 1 mele and 1 to-hit?

[Nelphine]

Prayer and an angel (and upgrading to high prayer and archangels when possible)

[jsb]

Nelphine, I have been reading a bit on your Impossible-strategy and it seems very strong. But it also seems to me that you are always using Berserkers as a benchmark for ... well, everything really? I haven't played that much CoM yet or played much Life magic before that for all that matters, but wouldn't you think that Berserkers simply need a nerf instead of us aiming to balance the game towards them?

[crusader.mike]

Huh... Spent some time figuring out formula to calculate average damage berserkers will do against given defense. Tried to implement these formulas in Google Spreadsheet without success. Ended up sinking few hours to learn a bit of Wolfram and produced this calculation. It shows you how average damage changes depending on target defense and to-def ratings.

Calc is made on assumption that thrown damage is calculated exactly in the same way as melee (i.e. same to-hit, to-def, etc). Please, let me know if it isn't the case.

That link is anonymous and will eventually expire. Here is the code just in case:

Code:

(* Probability of rolling precisely k successes in N attempts, p is probability of success *)
P[N_, k_, p_] := Binomial[N,k]*p^k*(1-p)^(N-k)

(* Avg damage done to defense D (with to-def pd) with attack A (with to-hit pa) *)
AvgDam[A_, pa_,D_, pd_] := Sum[P[A,a,pa]*Sum[(a-d)*P[D,d,pd],{d,0,a-1}],{a,1,A}]

(* Ultra Elite berserker without buffs *)
Melee := 10
Thrown := 6
ToHitBonus := +2
EnemyToDefBonus := +0

ToHit := (3 + ToHitBonus)/10
ToDef := (3 + EnemyToDefBonus)/10

(* Average damage 6-figure berserker does vs D defense *)
BerserkAvgDam[D_] := 6*(AvgDam[Melee, ToHit, D, ToDef] + AvgDam[Thrown, ToHit, D, ToDef])

(* Average damage done depending on defense *)
DiscretePlot[BerserkAvgDam[d],{d,0,40}]

(* in grid form, rounded to nearest 0.01 *)
Grid[ {Range[0,15],Table[Round[BerserkAvgDam[d],0.01], {d,0,15}]}, Frame -> All]

Press Shift-Enter to run it. I was too lazy to add deviation calcs (how much damage is expected to deviate from average) or distribution graph. It should not be too hard, though...