I agree. At the very least, percentage bonuses should be applied before the difference is calculated.
Extensive combat testing in 1.22, and why combat number are so skewed
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I agree. At the very least, percentage bonuses should be applied before the difference is calculated.
I find this troubling, and I don't agree with it. I hope they change this.
I haven't done the math just yet but wouldn't that rebalance combat too far in the other direction, in essence stack those bonuses across the whole of the damage calculation?
edit - Those raw bonuses are multiplied, which is huge when your base modifiers are so high compared to the differential. A couple centuries of tech advancement could be swamped by a couple ideas and decisions, instead of simply buffing a tech advantage as it currently works.
edit 2 - I'm not saying it's a bad idea necessarily. Regardless of which way they go, the developers would need to rebalance the values to make sure a "plausible result" comes out of the relative match-up between two entities that made different choices.
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I think you are overestimating the impact that combat ability boosts would have. Most of them are around 10%, with the highest being 25% as far as I know. There is no way that such a boost would negate 'a couple centuries of tech advancement', or even one century of it. You also have to consider that a combat ability boost only affects a part of your army. Fixing it would make a noticeable difference, but I don't see how it would cause the sort of balance problems you describe. At most, it might be necessary to downgrade the largest CA bonuses by 5-10%.
Thanks.
I am not at the game so I was imagining numbers like 25-33% stacking up. Applied to the base values, I would have imagined them allowing someone to keep military parity alive while letting mil tech lapse quite a few levels.
This problem with casualties could be easily avoided if tactics is applied in the same manner; i.e., no effects when on the same level. I guess now we'd have to see how they redesign it in 1.3 first though (pretty certain no change before then would be feasible at this point).
Well, I'm not at the game either, which is why I didn't actually check what the fire and shock modifiers from tech added up to at various points in the game. However, I did recently skim the wiki's list of NI's for those that improved combat ability, and the largest boosts I recalled were 25%. That being said, I did just realize that Poland has something like 20% to cavalry CA though, so I was a bit off earlier. Even so, I don't see this becoming a massive balance issue. Like I said in my previous post, a nerf of 5% or so to the highest CA boosts (Poland, Prussia, and maybe a couple of others) would be sufficient, and may not be needed at all. In fact, I doubt that any cavalry CA bonus would be OP, since cavalry is almost always going to be the smallest portion of your army.
Prussia has +25% for infantry, and it can get another +10% from Quality. I can't run the game at the moment so I don't know what lategame fire values are, but let's assume they reach 2 at some point. Under the new system Prussia would get 2.7 weapons fire while other countries stay at 2. That's 3 tech levels of difference, and the difference gets higher the higher your weapons level is. This also has the effect of making combat ability useless in the early game, when the weapons levels are all fractions.
So if paradox decides to change how combat ability works, they can't just hotfix it because that would completely change the current gameplay mechanics in unforeseen ways. They have to wait until 1.3.
If that is the case with Prussia, I think we're going to see that blob, or the potential for it to blob. It'll be winning wars it probably shouldn't be in, simply because they can slaughter the other country's army. Then again, the AI is kind of dumb (not the level of a player) so it probably won't take advantage of it.
I'd be interested to see what they can do to alleviate the issue, so I'll be waiting to see what happens.
I'd be interested to see what they can do to alleviate the issue, so I'll be waiting to see what happens.
You have a good point about it scaling problematically with tech, and that is something that would have to be addressed. However, having combat ability start out being worthless and becoming useful sounds much better than the current situation, which is that this is a useless stat for many countries (assuming that it really is based on the difference between the modifiers, as seems to be the case).
That idea (the Goose Step) is late in the set, so I don't think that we'll see a huge Prussia very often still. They don't get any big military boosts in their first few ideas. Besides, it's still only strengthening one part of the army. Infantry are often the most numerous unit type, but they shouldn't be the majority, so the idea only boosts 1/3-1/2 of the army typically. This is true of all CA boosts. For that reason, I don't think that they really compare to the power of discipline boosts, which are what can truly be unbalancing.
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Im fine with this, historically Prussia did blob and in a lot of my games I see them vastly underperforming expectations.
So, uhm, what happens right now if 4000 infantry fight against 4000 cavalry? How much more damage do the cavalry do than the infantry? I always thought this could be deduced from the weapon values but apparently that was wrong.
For those who miss it, it is explained that only the difference in weapon modifiers act on the damage. There are some theories regarding how this would work, especially with regard to combat ability granted by ideas. So being curious I went to test that too.
Again, for those who wanna skip to results:
- Weapon modifiers indeed affect damage when there is a difference. Actually, it also decrease damage you take when you have higher weapon modifier than enemy.
- Combat ability works to increase weapon modifiers, regardless of whether there is a difference in weapon modifiers.
- HOWEVER, both the damage increase and damage reduction effects appear small. (You certainly won't see anywhere near 10% damage difference for 10% combat ability)
- tactics and discipline act as totally independent multiplier to damage.
There are also earlier test I did for cavalry and shock phase (using a trick!), I didn't release them since insight from Balor. I now see that they obey exactly same rules as infantry.
EDIT: it struck me now:
- combat ability from ideas affect your own rebels!
I have even figured out a tentative formula for those interested; There is still a discrepancy when I try to fit some of the data, you will see. Scale of magnitude seem correct...
for example, if I have tech cavalry shock 2, cavalry combat ability + 50%, attacking an infantry with infantry shock 1.0, my damage will be multiplied by 1+(2*150%-1.0)/20 = 1.01, a 1% increase in damage...
EDIT: I must be sleeping... That evaluate to 1.1, a 10% increase in damage, thanks to Meneth to pointing this out!
Okay, here's how I test it. So the idea is that I cannot test with rebels, since they take my tech, and maybe my combat ability bonus from ideas (Unlikely, since they definitely don't get discipline nor morale from my ideas). However, I quickly stumbled upon the solution when I accidentally triggered the Kongo event when I am testing cavalry in Ryukyu...
I can test my army against another country's rebels!
So here's the new combat summoning event, now with cav testing and cleanup function. I'm summoning troops in that old battlefield Anziku here:
After I click the corresponding option, a combat between me and Kongo rebels will start in terra incognito... Luckily I can easily select the combat from outline to check results
The funny thing is, when I lose the fight sometimes... The Kongo army came to help!
Anyways here's boring data section for those who is really motivated: (Again, keep in mind that base damage for 2 regiment is, from 0-9, 24, 32, 40, 48, 64, 80, 100, 120, 140, 160)
Again, for those who wanna skip to results:
- Weapon modifiers indeed affect damage when there is a difference. Actually, it also decrease damage you take when you have higher weapon modifier than enemy.
- Combat ability works to increase weapon modifiers, regardless of whether there is a difference in weapon modifiers.
- HOWEVER, both the damage increase and damage reduction effects appear small. (You certainly won't see anywhere near 10% damage difference for 10% combat ability)
- tactics and discipline act as totally independent multiplier to damage.
There are also earlier test I did for cavalry and shock phase (using a trick!), I didn't release them since insight from Balor. I now see that they obey exactly same rules as infantry.
EDIT: it struck me now:
- combat ability from ideas affect your own rebels!
I have even figured out a tentative formula for those interested; There is still a discrepancy when I try to fit some of the data, you will see. Scale of magnitude seem correct...
Code:
Actual weapon modifier = weapon modifier from tech * (100% + combat ability)
Damage modifier = 1+((Attack actual weapon modifier) - (Defender actual weapon modifier))/20EDIT: I must be sleeping... That evaluate to 1.1, a 10% increase in damage, thanks to Meneth to pointing this out!
Okay, here's how I test it. So the idea is that I cannot test with rebels, since they take my tech, and maybe my combat ability bonus from ideas (Unlikely, since they definitely don't get discipline nor morale from my ideas). However, I quickly stumbled upon the solution when I accidentally triggered the Kongo event when I am testing cavalry in Ryukyu...
I can test my army against another country's rebels!
So here's the new combat summoning event, now with cav testing and cleanup function. I'm summoning troops in that old battlefield Anziku here:
After I click the corresponding option, a combat between me and Kongo rebels will start in terra incognito... Luckily I can easily select the combat from outline to check results
The funny thing is, when I lose the fight sometimes... The Kongo army came to help!
Anyways here's boring data section for those who is really motivated: (Again, keep in mind that base damage for 2 regiment is, from 0-9, 24, 32, 40, 48, 64, 80, 100, 120, 140, 160)
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So, bottom line, battles get less bloody as the game goes on because the ratio of weapon modifiers is all that matters, and the effect of weapon modifier and combat ability is 1/100 of what the naive player would imagine?
Is the answer to the second question really that paradox just dropped a percent somewhere?
Is the answer to the second question really that paradox just dropped a percent somewhere?
So essentially, even a huge differential would cause very little difference? Something like 1 vs. 5 for example would only make the 5-army 20% stronger, no?
Though surely that'd equal 1.10, not 1.01?
1+(2*1.5 - 1)/20 = 1+(3 - 1)/20 = 1 + 2/20 = 1 + .1 = 1.1.
Or compared to without that 50% bonus:
1+(2 - 1)/20 = 1+1/20 = 1 + .05 = 1.05.
1.10/1.05 = 1.048 = 4.8% increase.
Still way too small, but not quite as bad as just a 1% increase.
Specifically, the 4:4 dice roll resulting in 64:62 damage ratio.
Basically, combat ability from national ideas and the Quality tree is next to useless. Did someone forgot to * by 100 when they did the formula?
But armies get a lot more pips as you tech. 25% on a 1 pip tech-1 is going to get you 1.25. Not really going to negate the next tech level which takes you to 2.
But I guess I always imagined combat ability working like discipline and tactics, but on a unit type basis. e.g. combat damage=base*(discipline+combat_ability) But not actually affecting the rolls themselves.
