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Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 00:35
by EDMatt
Sieg-fired, I challenge you to explain what happens in this replay?
watch the replay, 1 barbarian fights at the end 1 pike , he kills the pike and right afterwards he engages 2 scouts simultaneously, kills 1 scout and then demolishes the 2nd.
Please do watch the replay and explain to me how this could happen?
This is also a perfect example of what Bo kept saying, maths can never explain all factors, as seen on this video.
Try to convince me that the units are fairly balanced after you see this replay!
Why am I challenging Sieg-fired? because he seems to know alot of things and have this notion that the game is fairly balanced, but single player players or average players often overlook situations such as this, and are rather clouded by the more technical side of it.
Re: Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 00:36
by Bo_
Wake up matt, math will explain everything.
Re: Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 00:36
by EDMatt
Wake up matt, math will explain everything.
I can't wait, should be interesting.
Re: Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 01:08
by Lewin
Barbarians have so much attack they will hit with most strikes so they can pull off things like this. I haven't watched the replay, but were the pikemen/scouts injured from other combat like arrows? If they were hit by arrows in the previous 20 seconds or so they could be on just 1hp. Also remember a lot depends on random numbers, technically 1 barbarian could kill 100 units with the right sequence of random numbers, it's just very improbable.
Barbarians are super soldiers that can't be made during the game. I don't think it's unbalanced at all, they need to be terrifying when you fight them in the campaign like they always have been.
Re: Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 06:51
by Bence791
That's a Warrior
anyway amazing, but you know, a warrior has strong attack and good armor also, and he proves it in this replay
Re: Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 07:11
by Siegfried
@EDMatt
well, the principle of the fighting system is random-based, so in very rare circumstances everything can happen, even that one milita takes out a formation of knights. This happens, but significantly infrequently.
I'm at work right now, so I can't watch the replay here. It would provide the details needed for a correct calculation. I mean numbers like how many strikes did the scouts perform etc.
But even if it ended up with a probability of below 1% that would mean, that it happens 1 time out of 100.
Math is abstract. So especially percentages and probabilities are hard to understand. There are several cases where you can test how good judgement fails when it comes to probabilities. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem for example. You have to face the fact that math explains more than common sense. Sad, but true.
Re: Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 07:24
by Bence791
Hm, it's very interesting.
I made some tests to try it:P
1 Warrior vs 2 Scouts
9 times 2 scouts left
once 1 scout left
twice 1 warrior left
So it seems possible for me, but with very low probability (about 16,66%)
Re: Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 09:16
by The Dark Lord
What concerns me more is the way Kruci's first archer died. Watch it: Bo is shooting at the pikemen, but one arrow misses and hits an archer that should actually be out of range. That happens too often if you ask me.
Still, great battle.
Re: Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 11:12
by Bo_
So we SHOULD have won.
Math is abstract. So especially percentages and probabilities are hard to understand. There are several cases where you can test how good judgement fails when it comes to probabilities. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem for example. You have to face the fact that math explains more than common sense. Sad, but true.
Well I love math, realy. I agree that you can use math to understand almost everything, but that doesn't mean that you can prove everything with math. You're great with math, but not everybody is. So you can use you maths to try to understand something, that others won't understand, the problem with math is that it's also very tricky. You forget to use 1 parameter and your result is completely different. So in the game let's say that you can predict everything with math, but in the end it's the way players act, that is the right argument and not some calculation someone made. I think it's stil to have the most enjoyable game, not about the greatest calculations.
Re: Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 13:21
by Lewin
What concerns me more is the way Kruci's first archer died. Watch it: Bo is shooting at the pikemen, but one arrow misses and hits an archer that should actually be out of range. That happens too often if you ask me.
Still, great battle.
I debugged it, the random jitter from the arrow can cause it to land +0.5 tiles from the maximum range. In this case it was about +0.4, which was just inside the bowman's tile and by chance it happened to kill him.
Now, we could enforce the random jitter from arrows to not exceed the maximum range, but this would actually have the effect of making archers far more accurate when shooting at their maximum range because half of the jitter would be cancelled out (force to land at the maximum range). So yes I agree it's bad that units out of range can sometimes be hit, but unfortunately I'm not sure what we can do about it...
In regards to the barbarian (warrior) making all those kills at the end, I checked it, here's the HP of units:
Warrior: 4 (full)
Pikemen: 1 (all but dead)
Warrior (after killing pikeman): 3
1st Scout: 4
2nd Scout: 3
Warrior (after killing 1st scout): 1
So yes, he's one lucky man, but barbarians/warriors do massacre scouts in general, and the pikeman was basically dead.
IMO it doesn't show that the game is unbalanced at all, I would expect one barbarian to be able to kill two scouts without much trouble.
Re: Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 13:41
by -George Stain-
very misleading Bo.. You don't know how many life points had scouts when they started fight with the Warrior.
Re: Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 13:50
by The Dark Lord
Well archers are pretty weak now, so I don't think it would be bad if they are slightly more accurate. It's still better than killing units that are out of range.
Re: Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 13:54
by Lewin
I disagree. IMO a barbarian should be able to kill two scouts, not every time, but sometimes.
Well archers are pretty weak now, so I don't think it would be bad if they are slightly more accurate. It's still better than killing units that are out of range.
But if archers are 2x more accurate at maximum range (which they would be approximately), people who know about it would use them at maximum range where possible. It seems like a very unintuitive exploit. Maybe we can make arrows scatter further in the opposite direction in cases like that... I'm not sure.
Re: Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 13:57
by EDMatt
Probability wise, who is more probable to miss, scout or barbarian?
Re: Scouts and barbarians ... what the f?
PostPosted: 31 Aug 2012, 14:01
by The Dark Lord
Well archers are pretty weak now, so I don't think it would be bad if they are slightly more accurate. It's still better than killing units that are out of range.
But if archers are 2x more accurate at maximum range (which they would be approximately), people who know about it would use them at maximum range where possible. It seems like a very unintuitive exploit. Maybe we can make arrows scatter further in the opposite direction in cases like that... I'm not sure.
But... Nobody will know... Hehehe...
Seriously though, you're right. People shouldn't be able to exploit it. On the other hand: out of range is out of range. Maybe arrows that hit the unit on the next tile shouldn't count as a hit? It would just be a miss then. Or a combination between your idea and my idea: arrows 'prefer' to scatter further in the opposite direction but IF they scatter to a tile that should be out of range, it doesn't count as a hit...
It's not ideal but I can't come up with anything better now.
Edit: actually using archers at maximum range is already stronger because they will all focus on a couple of units, whereas their targeting will be much more random if they can hit more units.