Not a bug! - v1.0 Battles significantly harder

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Not a bug! - v1.0 Battles significantly harder

Postby dizt3mp3r » 02 Jul 2012, 00:57

I note that v1.0 Battles are significantly harder especially when playing at AI levels greater than 5. This is good. What are the fundamental changes to allow this, is it a simple extra weighting factor in attack/defence or is there some corresponding improvement to the AI too? (here's hoping)
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Re: Not a bug! - v1.0 Battles significantly harder

Postby Kroah » 03 Jul 2012, 21:23

You are rights.

Some changes have been made to give a better game experience along the Atari ST/800 XL gameplay.

- One of the main change is a scale down "retreat factor" = the amount of losses needed to retreat are higher = you retreat after more losses.
For example, with 1000 army, Russia retreated after 62 losses, now it retreats after 125 losses. So battles are more effective.

- Another change concerns a scale down of the "mass effect" : (everything below is for an equal defense/attack factor)
Having number superiority is not as much effective as before. This encourage attacking sooner with a smaller army, instead of waiting for a big big army then crushing everything on the way.
You can attack three times with 200 vs 600 and be "almost" as effective as attacking 1 time with 600 vs 600. Of course it's still better to attack 1 time with 600 vs 600, but the first option is now to be considered.
With the old way, as soon as you had stacked enough army, you could stomp anything. And to do some damage to a X millions army needed a minimum army size of ~X/2. And even then, the attacker had 4x the losses of the defender.
Now for example (without taking into account the retreat factor, terrain & fortification), attacking 1000 vs 2000 = you loss 1000, he losses ~870 / 1000 vs 1000 = both losses 1000 => you do 130 less kills 1000 vs 2000 than with 2000 vs 2000 => having 2x army is ~13% more effective in this case.
Don't take those numbers as is, it's only some examples to explain th "mass effect" change.
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Re: Not a bug! - v1.0 Battles significantly harder

Postby dizt3mp3r » 03 Jul 2012, 21:54

It certainly changes the gameplay - before, even when the enemy had the maximum weighting factor applied, it was fairly easy to lay low, build up countries then build a big enough army to blunt any attacks, then roll through the defences when you have a million or two men. Now when playing as Russia against Germany with the maximum effectiveness weighting applied it can be a challenge even to survive. Much more enjoyable.

Any changes to the AI are welcome. Unpredictability is also welcome as it makes for a more interesting game when you can't always divine what your opponent is going to do.
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Re: Not a bug! - v1.0 Battles significantly harder

Postby Kroah » 04 Jul 2012, 00:18

dizt3mp3r wrote:Any changes to the AI are welcome.

Yes, this is on the todo list. I will wait a little before working again on this.

dizt3mp3r wrote:Unpredictability is also welcome as it makes for a more interesting game when you can't always divine what your opponent is going to do.

I agree, and i learned this from my previous attempt. Imho, unpredictability is the most fun in a AI. We dont want a perfect AI, only a challenging and unpredictable one.
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