http://test.weewar.com/specifications

Okay, so we finally have something meaty to sink our teeth into.  Thanks Weewar dev team. 
 

So it looks like the unit and terrain specs are there to make an ADJUSTMENT from a 0.5 probability.  This was very unclear and unknown up to this point, though I had some inkling about it from the old days when the inspector showed infantry having 5 out of 10 bullets for attack and defense.

Factoring in all adjustments to the base values, we see that if your unit is superior to your opponent's unit by 10 points, you have 100% probability of inflicting or deflecting damage, as the case may be.

In practice, I think I've only once seen 10 damage inflicted, but it's no secret that we see plenty of times where the damage taken is 0.

A couple things remain slightly unclear:

1) It's not described what happens when you have a fractional remainder when dividing by 6.  Is that rounded, ceilinged, floored?

2) The Gang Up Bonus is not entirely clear.  Are they cumulative?  Bullet point 4 is clear, but then it makes bullet point 2 unclear.  I do note, though, that you have a little blurb at the bottom of the combat results popup that describes any bonuses that came into effect for that attack, and that should help.

hmm hmm

Also, if we could get full disclosure on which units exert ZOC on which other units, that would be great.  If you please. 

The Gang Up bonus is indeed confusing. To add on to Pistos,

"

If a unit is attacked multiple times during the same turn the attacker receives an additional bonus (B) as follows:

• + 1 if the previous attack was carried out from a distance (e.g. by an artillery).
• + 1 if the previous attack was carried out from an adjacent hex.
• + 3 if the previous attack was carried out from the hex on the opposite side of the defender.
• + 2 if the previous attack was carried out from any other hex adjacent to the defender's hex.

"

The previous attack can either be from a distance or from an adjacent hex. There aren't any other cases (right?). If they give the same bonus, why different bullet points?

It looks cumulative, because otherwise bullet 2 is nulled out by 3 and 4 since 3 and 4 are the only cases of 2. But then you might as well stick bullet 2 within 3 and 4 and say that opposite side = +4 and non-opposite side = +3...

adjacent here means adjacent to the attacker. e.g  2 tanks attacking frontal

Okay, so... a previous attack that is adjacent to BOTH the attacker and the defender gets a: +1 +2 == +3 bonus?

And is it just the most immediately previous attack?  Or can we get more bonuses by attacking with a third, fourth, fifth unit?

I'm curios on what is considered opposite side of the defender.

madmike: i.e. backstab.

If one unit attacks from the east, and the second unit attacks from the west, then the second unit gets the +3 bonus.

@Pistos: The bonuses don't stack. It only checks the 1 previous attack and not the entire string of attacks.

moJoe: Okay, but according to the rules, a side-by-side attack should give +3 (1+2) to the second attacker.  I have a feeling that in practice it only gives +2.  Rules 2 and 4 are confusing. 

Starting at the northeast position, numbering the defender's adjacent hexes clockwise from 1 to 6, here's what I think happens:

Assume first attacker attacks from position 1.

If attacker 2 attacks from position 2, it gets +2.

pos 3 +1

pos 4 +3

pos 5 +1

pos 6 +2

Seems to me that positions 3 and 5 should get +2 where as 2 and 6 should get +1.

some nice visuals on rules 1-4 would be great. For some reason I though there was no front/back facing hexes.

Front is determined by the direction of the previous attack.

Let's say if I sent my light infantry in to attack your heavy tank from the west the Tank is now facing in the direction of my light infantry and it's back is now east.

The bonuses do not stack and only gives the highest bonus so in the case you described of a side by side attack (1+2) you would only get the bonus benefit of a +2 to attack.

                                 +2    +1

attacker >>         0  Defender  +3

                                   +2    +1

my scientific analysis indicates that this is pretty super.

well your scientific analysis is the most scientific I've ever seen, screw Scientific American

   agreement with π on this point: why do the two front/lateral attacks get a higher + than the lateral/rear attacks?

I'm thinking front/lateral is the bonus for an assault from a group of units together, to give recognition to their groupiness despite the time lapse due to them having to take turns, whereas the full-rear bonus is the "got them from behind when they weren't looking" bonus

rear/lateral.. probably should get some more bonus, except they don't quite fit into either of the above categories

(so they should just get some more bonus to be fair )

This is how I understand the rule.

                               +1    +2

attacker >>         0  Defender  +3

                                +1   +2

if the 2nd attack is made in an adjacent hex from the previous attack, it is +1

if the 2nd attack is made in a head opposite from the previous attack, it is +3

if the attack was made on any OTHER hex...ie not in the first two categories....by process of elimination, that leaves the last two +2 hexs in the diagram.

@ the devs:

is this rule being implemented on the test server only or is it already incorporated into the main game site?

i definitely see some cool attack combinations with this new multi attack rule...Opponents BEWARE!!!

Oh sorry, I made a mistake on my little diagram haha. What dpache1 wrote is correct.

thank you, sir.

Okay here is the advantage diagram from above:

                                a        b

                               +1    +2

   attacker >>         0  Defender  +3   c

                                +1    +2

                                   e      d

In the following:

   My unit attacks from <attacker> - no bonus

   My second unit attacks at <a> with a bonus of 1

   My third unit attacks at <c>.  What is its bonus?

  or

   My second unit attacks from a distance with a bonus of 1.

   My third unit attacks from <c>.  What is its bonus?

Alex,

   This is your computation for p(hit)
 

p = 0.05 * (((A + Ta) - (D + Td))+B) + 0.5

And here is where is gets skewed.

if p < 0 set p to 0

if p > 1 set p to 1

The easiest solution to remove the skew is to decrease the multiplier (0.05) such that it never yields a value outside the range 0-100.  Although p(hit) should never be zero or 100 - not good game effects and counter-intuitive.  I would try 0.03 or 0.025.

The value of the modifier should be something like:

(0.48 [2% chance of failure/success]) / max((maxAtt-minDef),(maxDef-minAtt))

something like BZ on plains from rear -> LtArty in desert = (8+0+3)-(3-0) = 11 - 3 = 8

and  LtInf in desert -> BZ in plains = (16-(1-1)) = 16-0 = 16

Yields: multiplier = 0.48 /16 = 0.03

Then you can dispense with the floor & ceiling that skew the outcomes.

Third unit's attack is based on 2nd unit's position. When the second unit attack from position A the front of the defending unit is shifted to position A and the back of the unit shifted to position D. The third unit's bonus is now +2.

slugthog: I think they're using the floor or ceiling to show/effect that there are various ways of having 100% chance of hitting.  Sort of like whether you use a phone book, a sledgehammer or a steamroller, they're all 100% chance of squishing a bug, even though each of the three have varying degrees of strength, and may not each have 100% chance of squishing, say, a can of soup.  Based on this, I think having the ceiling and floor is acceptable.

Personally, what I would love to see is an overall adjustment of unit defense values such that nobody can ever get away with receiving less than 2 damage.  This would change the strategy of games a lot, because you can't ever send any single unit (I'm thinking of the berserker) brazenly into a crowd of opposing units.  5 infantry would be able to take it down, even if sacrificing themselves.

-1 to minimum damage levels, if I sent a large tankity death machine against a low-health trooper then I wouldn't be expecting to take damage.

Plus this would mean (as you said) that any unit could be defeated by 5 infantry, therefore anything costing more than 375 credits would be pretty much a waste of money

Perhaps it's just my nostalgia about Wesnoth, which I consider a great game.  I prefer that you must think carefully about your unit positioning and movements, and can't just brashly send out lone units into enemy territory.  Think of it like chess: the queen is powerful, but any unit can take her out -- you have to move and position her carefully.

Well.. that kind of play would certainly be more strategic, but I think Weewar would need some major restructuring to get away from the situation where (for the most part) a numeric advantage will win a battle. More emphasis on terrain effects, more distinctions between units maybe, more options of what to do with a unit, maybe smaller hexes but more of them and larger attack/ZOC areas to compensate (to allow more subtlety in positioning)

Not sure if I'd like the end result - part of Weewar's charm is its simplicity

Changing specs doesn't really alter the simplicity, I think?

And, in Wesnoth, maps are probably 2-4 times as large as weewar maps, and units have movement ranging from 4 to 8 hexes, so it's a different sort of feel.  I think the weewar units could use some speed improvements, too.   Most units deserve a +1 hex movement per turn.

The really bad thing about the floor/ceiling is that it skews the outcomes without providing any real benefit.  More often than not folx truncate values because they have bothered to do the math.

Setting the multiplier value to 0.03 is a trivial change to the combat function that removes that skewness and otherwise leaves the game much the same.  It does add, though, a small chance of a hit by anything against anything and a small chance of a miss by anything.  Both of which add to playability.

Adding one to all movement just means that folx will make larger maps.  Net change to game is nil.  Adding some mobility to certain units will, OTOH, effect the play of the game.

Minimum damage doesn't particularly appeal to me either.  Changing the multiplier will give a similar outcome.  A full strength unit with its 60, the gods help us rolls, would do an average of 2 1/3 sure hits and 2 1/3 sure misses.

> Adding one to all movement just means that folx will make larger maps.  Net change to game is nil.

If most (but, as you say, not all) units get a movement upgrade, then the change is somewhat significant, because most ZOC is still 1 hex.  A game with 1 hex ZOC, but movements as high as 9 hexes is different from a game with 1 hex ZOC, but movements only as high as 4 hexes.

I did not mean an artificial floor on the damage, I meant an approriate adjustment in unit specs so that it turns out that some damage is caused in most cases when churned through the combat formula.
 

really large mobility stats would make ZOC of a single unit less useful - you could just go around it if the space exists, but I guess that prevents  single unit holding everything up at a minor chokepoint unless it has a real advantage by virtue of the landscape

The attack bonus for attacking a single target multiple times adds up. I'd agree that the looring and ceiling  makes the whole thing a bit less elegant. On the other hand: It just states the obvious. In cases where the two rules (if p<0 then p=0 respectivly if p>100 then p=100) apply the defender cannot be hit or is hit all the time.

Upon checking the specifications page we came across an error. The shown attack values are the result of a division by 2. We're sorry for that.

Hm... so is the page updated now?  I don't really the difference...

Okay, wait, you said it adds up.  So that if I attack someone with multiple artillery, let's say, then the second art gets +1, the third art gets +2, then +3, and so on?  Or is it +1 +1 +1?

Perhaps I object mostly to "always hits - always misses".  Sometimes an infantry squad managed to take out a Tiger II and sometimes the USS Missouri blew the top off the wrong steeple.

we have updated the specs (only on test for now) to better illustrate the behavior of the attack bonus: http://test.weewar.com/specifications

I'd hope this is much clearer. Nothing else was changed.

i've been meaning to ask about this for a while:  So, when a unit is capturing a base, it says that the defense stat goes down to 2 (regardless of the unit type).  Well, what about the attack stats?  Do they change or stay the same?  I.e. is a capturing heavy inf. going to be able to fight back against a tank better than a capturing light inf.?  even though they have the same .png

also, do capturing units get the same bonus effect from being in a base (+2 for attack and +2 for defense)?

thanks!

 

this is a good question - I actually do not know. Will find out.

I dunno about defense bonuses, but capturing units never fight back.

Alex: The text is a bit clearer, but I think I understand it now only via experience.  The very best would simply be a picture.   But that's good enough, please spend effort elsewhere. 
 

Do capturing hovercrafts share the same armor change when capturing?

Pluto: Capturing units never attack back.
 

Yes. The armor of Hovercrafts is also reduced.

ah, thanks for the info... i guess i never noticed they don't fight back.  what about the defense stat though?  is it capped at 2, or is it 2 plus an extra 2 for being in the base?

I think it's just 2 with no bonuses from being on base as capturing units become extremely easy to kill.

Base defence bonus is still applied.