Could We Please Have a Random Element to Combat?

[Doppelsoldner]

As it is, combat still has no random element once a battle has begun. This doesn't simulate warfare very well at all, and it needs to be fixed. Warfare is not the focus of CKII, but it should not be neglected as it is still quite important. If this were incorporated, the political situations that emerge would not be as repetitious, and the game would be far more interesting and unpredictable. The character who has the most levies as of now is pretty sure to win any encounter. My proposition is not to ruin the system by making the random element the decisive role, but rather to make outcomes be forged on probability.

What I suggest is for each flank to have it's own die (this could be displayed in the corner of each flank's icon). All other modifiers and mechanics would remain the same, but for each flank in a battle there would be a die with a range of -3 to +3, which would give a corresponding advantage (or disadvantage), to combat with 10x the number rolled in a percentage. For instance, a dice roll of -3 to a flank, would give that flank a -30% modifier to all combat done by that flank. Yet, a +1 would grant a 10% modifier to all combat done by the flank that rolled the die. In this way, there would be a maximum of 6 dice for any given battle. Similarly to EU3, the dice would be re-rolled every 5 days.

What are your thoughts concerning this?

[LordNeidhart]

Gods, no. How'd that be justified in-game? How does a -3 or +3 for the entire flank translates into actual combat variables? "Sorry sir, Murdoch from Connacht did this hilarious impression of a chicken last night and we're all still laughing too hard to hold our shields properly"

If anything, there should be variables added in a county-by-county basis, something along the lines of what province each army crossed from to get in this county, what month it is, etc. etc. Leaving it to the whims of luck brings memories of the lovely Spearman Beats Tank mechanics from Civilization.

[Prime624]

No. The side with more troops does win the war. There are commander skill points which noticeably affect battles, and the defensive bonuses are giant.

EDIT: And how does a dice roll make it more realistic? Physics is not random at all. Everything can be predicted.

[Prime624]

If anything, there should be variables added in a county-by-county basis, something along the lines of what province each army crossed from to get in this county, what month it is, etc. etc. Leaving it to the whims of luck brings memories of the lovely Spearman Beats Tank mechanics from Civilization.

I agree with that. More so than just river or hills.

[Kwinno]

I wouldn't mind seeing the combat system expanded (somewhat), but random dice rolls would really annoy the chips out of me. Besides, with certain ifs and buts, smaller armies can still beat larger ones. Superior commanders and the terrain are of influence... I'd be nice to see expansions on this. Army fatigue (in whatever shape or form) and seasonal influences would be nice.

Ah well. I'm against too much luck, basically. If I wanted to rely on luck, I'd play Yahtzee...

[perpetualmuse]

I agree that it would be nice to see the combat system expanded slightly.

Going into a battle where you have only a very slight advantage in troop numbers and knowing you will win seems somewhat unrealistic to me. I understand that other factors (e.g. martial scores of the army leaders, morale, terrain) play a part, but it seems to be a minimal one in most cases. I think that either the effects of the existing variables need to be increased, or some other ones should be added with the ultimate goal of making the player a little less sure of whether they will win before a battle. Perhaps adding some kind of random mid-battle event that reduced troop numbers (similar to during sieges) might work well.

I'm against too much luck, basically. If I wanted to rely on luck, I'd play Yahtzee...

I can totally understand this, but if there were reasons for the underlying "randomness" then you can think of it more like improving how well it simulates reality. I guess that you like to be able to know for certain if your army will win a particular battle before you start fighting, but in reality that is never something the rulers would have known unless they had a massive advantage in numbers.

I will say that I wouldn't like to see the dice idea as proposed by the OP as it would add randomness without adding any realism or explanation.

[Prime624]

I agree that it would be nice to see the combat system expanded slightly.

Going into a battle where you have only a very slight advantage in troop numbers and knowing you will win seems somewhat unrealistic to me. I understand that other factors (e.g. martial scores of the army leaders, morale, terrain) play a part, but it seems to be a minimal one in most cases. I think that either the effects of the existing variables need to be increased, or some other ones should be added with the ultimate goal of making the player a little less sure of whether they will win before a battle. It seems to me that perhaps adding some kind of random mid-battle event that reduced troop numbers (similar to during sieges) might work well.

That rarely happens though. A slight advantage in numbers can usually be offset by better commanders. And with terrain penalties, a smaller army can wipe the floor with the bigger army.

[Moltke]

That rarely happens though. A slight advantage in numbers can usually be offset by better commanders. And with terrain penalties, a smaller army can wipe the floor with the bigger army.

Yeah, I've seen it happen a time or two. Only when I'm the attacker though.

Maybe I should start fiddling with the flanks. Oh yeah... I said that.

[perpetualmuse]

That rarely happens though. A slight advantage in numbers can usually be offset by better commanders. And with terrain penalties, a smaller army can wipe the floor with the bigger army.

While that's true, I just think the modifiers that affect the outcome need to have more impact or there need to be more of them. The terrain and morale seem to play the biggest part in the existing variables, but if you are fighting in a province with no terrain bonuses (as is the case a lot of the time) and you don't send armies in with low morale, then the impact of army composition and martial score seems to have too little of an impact to make any real difference. In these cases you pretty much always know whether you will win and I feel that is unrealistic.

I'm not trying to say that the combat system doesn't work properly or is flawed, but that it could certainly be improved to make it more on a par with the realism of the rest of the game.

[Comradebot]

Clearly, the OP has never seen a flank's leader get the "Hesitant Commander" tactic.

[Hootieleece]

I just don't want having a 10% or more advantage in numbers mean automatic victory.A Smaller(maybe 30% less) force with better commanders and or better quality troops should have about an even chance of winning.That being said you still wouldn't be able to duplicate Crecy,Poiters, or Agrincourt.

Maybe if they added a Betray Army commander button to the Diplomatic/intrigue interface.(Make the variables like murder plots) That would be a more historical way of influencing battles.Many Battles during this timeframe were "won" by duplicity.

[Prime624]

The modifiers that are already there, are IMO perfect. There just needs to be more modifiers. And the terrain mod could be more specific and detailed.

[Doppelsoldner]

Random elements do occur in real combat that could not possibly be simulated by a computer game. I understand that the obvious factors, (numbers, troop quality, terrain, leader, etc.), are included in the game, even if only superficially, but there are still anomalies that should be represented IMO. Take Washington's victory at Trenton, for instance. Washington's exhausted and hungry men who had spent the winter at Valley Forge were up against a fresh, well equipped, numerically superior army, yet they won due to variables that a computer game could never have accounted for. These variables; a fog settling over the patriots as they crossed the Delaware River, then leaving shortly after they got off of their boats, the Hessian mercenaries who were hung over due to the previous day being Christmas Eve, and routed. It is to these sorts of things, (which I'm sure history provides more example of), that I would attribute luck to. In this way, I think that luck should play a more prominent role in battles.

Think of this, a medieval, (and thus, more applicable), example of how random factors have granted a numerically inferior army victory; Agincourt. Would we ever see an Agincourt in CKII as it is? Probably not. Did a real Agincourt occur, and give the small, tired, inferior English army victory? Yes, and for this reason I think luck should be more prominent.

[Lessing]

Could We Please Have a Random Element to Combat?

No, oh god no, please. The game is a mess of random rolls of dice already.

I don't want to win or lose battles because of random stuff. If there were little tweaks I could do (like assigning flankers to the flanks, and a cavalry leader to a cavalry flank) and that the AI could do, too, then fine. But no more random bs. Why bother campaigning if it's mostly down to luck whether the big battle is lost or no?

[binTravkin]

And how does a dice roll make it more realistic? Physics is not random at all. Everything can be predicted.

Your comment indicates that your knowledge of historical warfare is seriously lacking.

Randomness is a MAJOR element in history.
There are so many accidental outcomes.
Of course they are not die rolls, but situations where a person takes a decision and it is either right or wrong and the difference between those can be a complete loss of everything (see Arabs vs Persia) or a decisive victory.
Yes, it depends on the character's "martial skill", but good commanders are not guaranteed to make good decisions and vice versa.
Stronger countries should win because they can afford the losses, not because they can win every battle.
See history of Ancient Rome for a brilliant example.


The argument should be "do we need it to make more random to be more historical, or will the randomness annoy the hell out of many players, thus we should stick to more predictability", not "this was not so in history", because it's a well known fact for anyone read in history, that battles have a major element of randomness.

[AUTOMATIC]

But there is randomness. Your three leaders in the army choose tactics at random. The better their skill is, the better they choose, but it still is random. And the outcome is dependent on his choice.

[binTravkin]

That's like 10-30% random vs 60-80% random.

[AUTOMATIC]

binTravkin if your reply is directed at me then I have no idea what you are trying to say.

[Prime624]

Your comment indicates that your knowledge of historical warfare is seriously lacking.

Randomness is a MAJOR element in history.
There are so many accidental outcomes.
Of course they are not die rolls, but situations where a person takes a decision and it is either right or wrong and the difference between those can be a complete loss of everything (see Arabs vs Persia) or a decisive victory.
Yes, it depends on the character's "martial skill", but good commanders are not guaranteed to make good decisions and vice versa.
Stronger countries should win because they can afford the losses, not because they can win every battle.
See history of Ancient Rome for a brilliant example.


The argument should be "do we need it to make more random to be more historical, or will the randomness annoy the hell out of many players, thus we should stick to more predictability", not "this was not so in history", because it's a well known fact for anyone read in history, that battles have a major element of randomness.

Everything besides free will (although that's debatable) can be predicted. Especially something as simple as medieval combat.

[Aardvark Bellay]

Random elements do occur in real combat that could not possibly be simulated by a computer game. I understand that the obvious factors, (numbers, troop quality, terrain, leader, etc.), are included in the game, even if only superficially, but there are still anomalies that should be represented IMO. Take Washington's victory at Trenton, for instance. Washington's exhausted and hungry men who had spent the winter at Valley Forge were up against a fresh, well equipped, numerically superior army, yet they won due to variables that a computer game could never have accounted for. These variables; a fog settling over the patriots as they crossed the Delaware River, then leaving shortly after they got off of their boats, the Hessian mercenaries who were hung over due to the previous day being Christmas Eve, and routed. It is to these sorts of things, (which I'm sure history provides more example of), that I would attribute luck to. In this way, I think that luck should play a more prominent role in battles.

Think of this, a medieval, (and thus, more applicable), example of how random factors have granted a numerically inferior army victory; Agincourt. Would we ever see an Agincourt in CKII as it is? Probably not. Did a real Agincourt occur, and give the small, tired, inferior English army victory? Yes, and for this reason I think luck should be more prominent.

Luck or bad luck for no apparent reason would drive me up a wall, while an event based on some values would at least make sense.
Concerning your example, i guess we will see weather for CK2 as they had it in mind and do so for EU4 afaik. So weather/season, terrain and leadership could cause some events (knights got stuck in the slush, fog eases your retreat/surprise attack ect.).
Then again, how often should they occur and and how big should be the influence on the actual battle without it becoming a nasty senseless mess ?
Surprise is nice and gives flavour, but it surely is hard to balance.