So there is much frustration over extreme combat casualties in the early game and dozens of men dead everyday in late game battle
To get to the bottom of things, I created a custom testing mod to check influences of various factors.
MAJOR EDIT:
So originally I thought weapon modifiers act like simple multipliers, so that was my assumption when I got this conclusion:
new TLDR: The weapon modifiers are influencing combat, but not in a way to counterbalance tactics increase for similar tech enemies.
in this post, Balor kindly clarified that in 1.2.2, only the difference in weapon_modifier influence combat. So for instance, you are still gonna slaughter Aztecs fine as Spain, however if you are fighting same-tech France you will notice damage decreasing with tactics rise. While I don't agree with this design, they are certainly changing things to make early/late game combat more balanced (look at later posts from Balor).
/END MAJOR EDIT
Some other important insight from the simulations:
- morale damage you inflict is proportional to your own morale
- damage scaling from dice+modifiers is not linear: It is (from 0-9): 12, 16, 20, 24, 32, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 (-1 is 8 on this scale, have to do more test)
- morale has no influence on strength loss whatsoever
- peasant rebels do NOT have reduced morale (it says it's 80% in tooltip: it's NOT!)
EDIT: updated some conclusion from later test (also shown in this thread)
- as people already worked out, the pips act like modifiers to rolls (just like leaders and terrain)
- combat ability is currently useless too (Sorry quality tree! Bye Polish hussars!)
- discipline did not decrease damage taken
- rebels do not benefit from ideas
So to carry out a truly scientific test, I kept all other confounding variables constant while changing the factor of my choice.
For combat, the confounding factors are many: weapon modifiers, tactics, discipline, morale, troop number, leaders, rolls etc
To achieve that, this is implemented in the mod:
- All techs from level 4-32 are set to year 1445. All adm techs now gave 0.5 morale, all dip techs gave 0.25 infantry fire, and all mil techs gave 0.25 tactics. No other effects for these levels.
- made test country Kongo westernized, reduce basetax and base manpower in Anziku to 1 (so it spawns exactly 2 rebels)
- made an event to create presant rebellion in Anziku, or to create 2 infantry in Anziku for perfectly repeatable combat (Both won't have any generals)
Alas there is no simple way to fix dice rolls. So as a side effect I am able to tabulate dice roll effect on damage
The test itself went like this:
I start as Kongo, go speed 1, spawn troops, spawn rebels, record combat stats for day 1, go speed 5 and let combat resolve, clean up remaining troops/rebels, repeat.
After some tries, I console command for some monarch point to tech either tactics or infantry_fire, and redo many trials.
Here's the simulation results. I planned to do more, but I got my answer early. I would of course love to test other aspects of combat with this later:
Insane as it sounds, it explain perfectly what we observe in the game. Tactics does it's job to nerf damage, but weapon modifiers didn't compensate by increasing damage, making late game combat extremely humane. It also solves the mystery of early game slaughter after patch 1.2: weapon modifiers are effectively 1 instead of 0.25 and 0.5 for infantry, and 0 and 1 for cavalry! Basically everybody dies in the fire phase.
PS: Where should I put the mod if anyone else wanna try do their own test or check results? Steam workshop?
To get to the bottom of things, I created a custom testing mod to check influences of various factors.
MAJOR EDIT:
So originally I thought weapon modifiers act like simple multipliers, so that was my assumption when I got this conclusion:
TLDR: The weapon modifiers (infantry fire etc) are currently NOT influencing combat at all!
EDIT: for those who are not familiar the formula, in general damage should be proportional to *weapon_modifier*discipline*combat_ability/target_tactics, this is implied from tooltips
new TLDR: The weapon modifiers are influencing combat, but not in a way to counterbalance tactics increase for similar tech enemies.
in this post, Balor kindly clarified that in 1.2.2, only the difference in weapon_modifier influence combat. So for instance, you are still gonna slaughter Aztecs fine as Spain, however if you are fighting same-tech France you will notice damage decreasing with tactics rise. While I don't agree with this design, they are certainly changing things to make early/late game combat more balanced (look at later posts from Balor).
/END MAJOR EDIT
Some other important insight from the simulations:
- morale damage you inflict is proportional to your own morale
- damage scaling from dice+modifiers is not linear: It is (from 0-9): 12, 16, 20, 24, 32, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 (-1 is 8 on this scale, have to do more test)
- morale has no influence on strength loss whatsoever
- peasant rebels do NOT have reduced morale (it says it's 80% in tooltip: it's NOT!)
EDIT: updated some conclusion from later test (also shown in this thread)
- as people already worked out, the pips act like modifiers to rolls (just like leaders and terrain)
- combat ability is currently useless too (Sorry quality tree! Bye Polish hussars!)
- discipline did not decrease damage taken
- rebels do not benefit from ideas
So to carry out a truly scientific test, I kept all other confounding variables constant while changing the factor of my choice.
For combat, the confounding factors are many: weapon modifiers, tactics, discipline, morale, troop number, leaders, rolls etc
To achieve that, this is implemented in the mod:
- All techs from level 4-32 are set to year 1445. All adm techs now gave 0.5 morale, all dip techs gave 0.25 infantry fire, and all mil techs gave 0.25 tactics. No other effects for these levels.
- made test country Kongo westernized, reduce basetax and base manpower in Anziku to 1 (so it spawns exactly 2 rebels)
- made an event to create presant rebellion in Anziku, or to create 2 infantry in Anziku for perfectly repeatable combat (Both won't have any generals)
Alas there is no simple way to fix dice rolls. So as a side effect I am able to tabulate dice roll effect on damage
The test itself went like this:
I start as Kongo, go speed 1, spawn troops, spawn rebels, record combat stats for day 1, go speed 5 and let combat resolve, clean up remaining troops/rebels, repeat.
After some tries, I console command for some monarch point to tech either tactics or infantry_fire, and redo many trials.
Here's the simulation results. I planned to do more, but I got my answer early. I would of course love to test other aspects of combat with this later:
Code:
Our_side_roll Our_side_damage Our_side_morale_damage Rebel_roll Rebel_damage Rebel_morale_damage Our_max_morale
t = 0.5 f=0.25 m=2.5
8 140 0.79 0 24 0.15 2.63
5 80 0.53 7 120 0.67 2.63
7 120 0.71 2 40 0.27 2.63
7 120 0.71 8 140 0.75 2.63
5 80 0.53 8 140 0.75 2.63
6 100 0.62 8 140 0.75 2.63
3 48 0.35 3 48 0.34 2.64
1 32 0.31 2 40 0.27 2.64
7 120 0.71 5 80 0.50 2.64
6 100 0.62 5 80 0.50 2.64
2 40 0.28 3 48 0.34 2.64
0 24 0.21 5 80 0.50 3.12
0 24 0.21 -1 16 0.14 3.12
0 24 0.21 9 160 0.84 3.12
4 64 0.52 4 64 0.42 3.12
4 64 0.52 8 140 0.75 3.12
2 40 0.33 7 120 0.67 3.11
t=1.0 f=0.25 m=2.5
8 70 0.46 6 50 0.29 3.11
5 40 0.30 3 24 0.16 3.11
6 50 0.36 2 20 0.14 3.11
7 60 0.40 3 24 0.16 3.11
5 40 0.30 9 80 0.42 3.11
8 70 0.46 7 60 0.34 3.11
4 32 0.25 7 60 0.34 3.11
2 20 0.15 7 60 0.34 3.11
t=1.0 f=0.5 m=2.5
5 40 0.30 9 80 0.42 3.11
4 32 0.25 2 20 0.13 3.12
5 40 0.30 3 24 0.17 3.12
9 40 0.51 5 40 0.25 3.12
5 40 0.30 1 16 0.10 3.12
3 24 0.19 3 24 0.17 3.12
t=1.0 f=2.0 m=2.5
6 50 0.25 8 70 0.38 3.12
8 70 0.45 1 16 0.10 3.13
7 60 0.40 0 12 0.08 3.13
Insane as it sounds, it explain perfectly what we observe in the game. Tactics does it's job to nerf damage, but weapon modifiers didn't compensate by increasing damage, making late game combat extremely humane. It also solves the mystery of early game slaughter after patch 1.2: weapon modifiers are effectively 1 instead of 0.25 and 0.5 for infantry, and 0 and 1 for cavalry! Basically everybody dies in the fire phase.
PS: Where should I put the mod if anyone else wanna try do their own test or check results? Steam workshop?
Last edited: