CoCoNet battle system development

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CoCoNet battle system development

Postby Monty » 11 Apr 2008, 12:19

ok, i have now rebuilt those "simplified" battle-algorithms in excel and played a little bit with them.
plus, i have created some custom battle systems based on the XL-system.

concerning the ST-system, i have to say that it's totally crazy and mind-screwing. it seems that they made a mistake in the conversion and then, because they realized that something was wrong, but didn't realize what exactly it was, they tried to correct it by changing other rules, too. in aggregation that led to chaos and it's a miracle that the game is so playable on ST.

in contrast to that, the XL-system seems to include no bugs, although it has its imperfections, too.
right from the start i always felt that
- the retreats happen way too early in a battle and/because
- they do not correspond in any way to the battle-progress

if i'm in a battle it's my aim to conquer the attacked country or to defend my attacked country. and if that aim can be achieved with the present amount of men i will try it as long as it's still possible and won't retreat (too) early.
therefore i hate it when for example it's winter and i want my army to conquer a country to fortify it in spring and they retreat very early even if they would have conquered it if they fought along...

you know, pascal, i once complained in a mail about a retreat of my men even though they were on the road to victory (having more men than the opponent and losing them slower). this would never happen in a real battle, wouldn't it?

however, i have created 4 custom battle systems based on the XL-system of which the last one is the "highest evolution" of the previous ones.

custom1:
like XL but no retreat at all (retreat amount = amount of men)
custom2:
like XL but no retreat as long as the own army is bigger or equal to the opponent's
custom3:
like XL but no retreat as long as the own penetration factor is higher than the opponent's (penetration factor = killed enemies per every played man)
custom4:
like XL but no retreat as long as the own penetration factor is higher than the opponent's. if the penetration factor is smaller or equal to the opponent's there will be no retreat as long as the own army is bigger than the opponent's

i recommend custom4, of course.

you maybe won't be too happy about it, because i'm implementing new rules that have never been used before in any coco-version.
but what can you do when you have 2 imperfect versions?
ST-version: IS illogical, but FEELS correct and offers a good gameplay (apart from several situations, where the action makes no sense)
XL-version: Is logical, but FEELS incorrect at times whereby the gameplay suffers
possible solution: try to enhance the logical XL-version by further logical rules and get a logical version with best possible gameplay ;)

i want to give an example of all battle systems to make it more illustrative:
attacker: 38 men, attack power 1
defender: 100 men, defense power 3
terrain: 2, fortified
random factors will be 0,1,2,3,0,1,2,3,0 for the attacker
and 3,3,3,3,3,2,1,0,3 for the defender (whatever...)

With this setup the attacker always loses/retreats, no matter which battle system is used.

XL-system: retreat after first round (19/88 [attacker/defender] soldiers left)
custom1: total loss after 3rd round (0/84)
custom2: retreat after first round (19/88 )
custom3: total loss after 3rd round (0/84)
custom4: total loss after 3rd round (0/84)

but if you add only one more man to the attacker's army, you get different battle results depending on the system you use.

XL-system: suddenly the defender retreats after the first round (32/87)
custom1: attacker still gets eliminated after 3rd round (0/83)
custom2: attacker still retreats after first round (19/87)
custom3: like XL-system, suddenly the defender retreats after first round (32/87) (because of the bad penetration factor in round 1 due to the random factor)
custom4: attacker retreats after 3rd round (1/83)

it seems illogical that the addition of one man completely turns around the battle result in the XL-version.
plus, the defender would have won the battle if he had fought it to the end (custom1 shows it).

different from the XL-version, in the custom4-version the attacker's total elimination just slightly changes into a retreat with an elimination-like amount of 1 retreating man.
in this system the attacker will still retreat up to an attacking amount of 87 men (6/15; after round 8).
then, with 88 men, for the first time the defender retreats (47/47; after round 3) (due to the defender's smaller retreat amount).

to me this development of the battle result seems much more realistic. plus, the amount of possible retreating men is much lower than in the XL-version and closer to the ST-version.

of course custom4 is not perfect either.
if you have a very big army against a small one (5000 vs 30), the 30 men should better retreat even if their penetration factor was greater, because they can't do much against the enemy. on the other hand it doesn't seem to matter that much if 20 men retreat or not if the enemy has 5000 men in the neighbourhood...

what do you think?
Monty
CoCoNet Beta Tester
 
Posts: 70
Joined: 24 Jun 2007, 23:03

Postby Kroah » 12 Apr 2008, 18:26

Hi Monty,

Very interesting! It's a pleasure to read you with such good ideas.

Like you, i dislike the behavior of both versions:
- ST 'seems' good but is incorrect
- XL is correct, but too far away from the ST

I think the XL version is close to the wanted result if the retreat behavior is fixed. I think the two main ideas to keep are:
- an army with a good factor (=smaller) retreats less and with fewer men than army with bad factor (=bigger)
- if an army retreats with lots of men, they weren't close to victory:
Code: Select all
Defender retreat:  big  small         no     no    no
Attacker retreat:   no     no         no  small   big
Defender result:  loss   loss  uncertain    win   win
Attacker result:   win    win  uncertain   loss  loss

So, i agree with you that the following example you've given must not happen anymore:
Monty wrote:XL-system: retreat after first round (19/88 [attacker/defender] soldiers left)
XL-system: suddenly the defender retreats after the first round (32/87)

I Think your suggestion is a good compromise between XL and ST: updated XL rules with ST feeling ;) I like it, sincerly. I'll need to test it in several battle contexts to see there isn't any regress.

Actually i haven't much free time. Even if i'm eager to test it, i'll not be able to post a new version soon.

Thank you, and if you have new (or updated) ideas, i'll enjoy to read them!

Cheers,
Pascal
Kroah
Site Admin
 
Posts: 430
Joined: 07 Feb 2006, 01:01
Location: France

Postby Monty » 14 Apr 2008, 08:40

thanks, pascal, cool that you like it. :D
Kroah wrote:Actually i haven't much free time. Even if i'm eager to test it, i'll not be able to post a new version soon.

no problem, mate. you did an impressive amount of updates the last few weeks and i was already thinking "damn, how fast is this man?".
so thumbs up for your great work so far and a big THANK YOU! 8)
cheers,
monty
Monty
CoCoNet Beta Tester
 
Posts: 70
Joined: 24 Jun 2007, 23:03


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