Does anyone know the formula for the odds of winning a battle between two armies? For example I think you can assume that if a 12 attacks a 12 there is a 50% chance of winning but what about a 15 attacking a 12 and a 18 attacking a 12. The game seems very formulaic to me and I'm sure there is a formula I was just wondering if anyone knew what it was?
If you have the time, check out this thread: http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65680
There's a lot of stuff in there, but you'll have to mine for it. There's a link to a video in which Sid explains some stuff about combat that answers some questions too.
Basically the numbers shown are the odds of winning a round of combat, but units and armies have differing numbers of hit points, so combat usually goes for several rounds until one side is defeated or retreats.
At least that's what I got out of it.
So does this make sense?Originally Posted by elthrasher
My warrior unit attacks your horsemen unit 1v1.
I have 3 HP and you have 2 HP
Therefore, I have a more than 50% chance of winning?
That's my theory, yes. This is arguably (judge for yourself) supported by the video with Sid talking about combat in CivRev.
The part that is unexplained is why a horsemen attacking even odds against a warrior will win more often than not AND why a warrior attacking a horsemen even odds will will more often than not.
There appears to be some underlying "secret sauce" that takes into account whether an attacking unit is a defensive or offensive unit and whether a defending unit is an offensive or defensive unit that goes beyond just the numbers themselves. At least that's what I perceive/observed in my travels.
Maybe it's only considered (or only observed to matter) when the odds are even or very close?
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
Last edited by Pedal2Metal; 05-10-2010 at 04:14 AM.
It doesn't seem like a very common occurrence that a horseman will have even odds when attacking a warrior. Have you seen this enough to have an opinion on who will typically win?
The warrior will win more often because he has more hit points as mentioned above.
This has been speculated about a lot. I haven't seen much evidence of it. A few nights ago someone attacked me several times with an archer army and never took a wound. From this I can conclude that archers make excellent attackers! No wait...from this I can conclude...nothing at all! The guy had some lucky battles.
When odds are close it can go either way by definition. I don't know there's a whole lot of use to dig in much deeper, like if you knew for certain you had a 62% chance of winning a battle, would you LOSE YOUR FREAKING HEAD if you lost? Well, maybe you would and maybe you wouldn't, but you shouldn't because obviously there's a perfectly likely chance of your losing there.
What's useful to know is that close odds can go either way period. So you don't bet the farm on a 6-5 battle if you don't have to. So you realize that a vet fundy horse army CAN beat your archer army. So that you know that sometimes attacking at even odds or close odds is all you have, like if you random the French against Aztecs and your warrior walks up to empty Tenochtitlan as a horse army gallops toward your empty cap. You should attack, even if a flag goes up. I've won a ton of 1-1.5 battles and those are much better odds than a single warrior holding onto Paris for you.
I have no real idea honestly, and maybe you are correct. And I haven't watched any of the videos either.
But I would assume that 1 is your total strength, not the strengh of each HP.
So since you have 3 HP, each individual HP would be .33 for the warrior, making for total strength of 1.
While for the horseman it would be 2 HP, each individual HP would be .50, making for a total strength of 1.
I base this finding off seeing what happens to your non-vet warrior at the beginning. It has a .67 strength if you need to heal once, and a .33 strength if you need to heal twice. So each HP is .33.
And with the horse your attack is 2 with 2 HP, and 1 if you need to heal once. You never need to heal twice with horse either, because there are only 2 HP.
But again, this is just assumption based off of how I interpret that it works, I don't have proof or anything.
It's possible that the game uses a sliding scale during the battles.
I've noticed that if my horse army charges in and kills a few archers right away, I'm more likely to actually win the overall fight (even odds fights). But if the archer army opens a volley and kills a few horses (and especially the case where the HA doesn't actually 'attack' for a few volleys) then I'll retreat after a little bit knowing the battle will be lost.
for warrior vs warrior battles, usually the one who kills in the 'first round' of the battle will win. though I've watched battles where the first 2 HP get taken out, but the final warrior takes the rest. It's all random.
It's nothing that can be fully quantified yet though. But I'll venture the opinion that each round uses the 'current' HP attack/defense values to determine the fight. It does seem that there's only one attack per round though, and that it doesn't just go back and forth (watching an archer army shoot 3 volleys before the HA even attempts an attack is rough)
I have the opposite impression. I've seen battles where a horse army attacks an archer (maybe 6-5 or something) and the horses kill two archers before the first volley comes, then the last guy finishes the whole army by himself. It doesn't seem to me like the odds went 6-5, then 6-3.33, then 6-1.67 and then won several times at those low odds. My impression has been that the starting odds remain for the entire fight, but of course that isn't possible to prove and if memory serves, the Sid video doesn't address that question.
Just to add more to my point, Pedal said he noticed that warrior defeat horseman more often than not, if I do the math on how I thought (see my other post) it is done, then the warrior would win 52.48% of the time against the horse even though each horse HP would have a 60% chance to win. The warrior only has to kill 2 HPs, the horse has to kill 3HPs to defeat the warrior
Warior hit point would win 40% of time, horse hit point would win 60% of the time
So, the 6 ways the warrior could win
W,W - 16% (.4 *. 4)
No need to heal after victory 16%
H,W,W - 9.6% (.6 * .4 * .4)
W,H,W - 9.6% (.4 * .6 * .4)
Heal once after victory 19.2%
H,H,W,W - 5.76% (.6 * .6* .4 * .4)
H,W,H,W - 5.76% (.6 * .4 * .6 * .4)
W,H,H,W - 5.76% (.4 * .6 * .6 * .4)
Heal twice after victory 17.28%
If you add that all up you get 52.48% for the warrior to beat the horse in a "1 vs. 1" match up.
So there may be a bit of credence to what Pedal said about warriors winning more often in a 1 vs 1 against a horse, at least it is consistent with my thoughts on how things are calculated.. But who knows?
All I can say in defense of Pedal, is that the VAST (like 90%) of the times I have lost when attacking a barb hut (a 1 vs .5) I have attacked the hut with an archer instead of a warrior. Personally, I never attack barb hut with archers anymore unless I have naval support.
I completely subscribe ot the defensive unit gets some secret negative multiplier when used in attack. Go research BW and spam out archers and see how often you lose them to huts.
It's not about the unit in this case. It's about the time. After about 20 turns, or if you advance an era, you will start losing 1 vs. 0.5 battles against barbs. If you use the Chinese, and spam archers, and attack the barbs within 20 turns, you shouldn't lose to the barbs. I think the earliest I have seen them lose is around 2200BC, but I was already in Medieval.
I've tested this before, and I used to never horserush with the Chinese and just spam archers by 3500BC or so.
The reason why it seems like archers lose more often than warriors is that it takes a little longer to get archers out, so you'll be attacking them a few turns later than you would with warriors.
If you attack barbs after 2000BC with warriors, you will lose some with those too, if your warrior is not vet.
Still, immediately teching BW in 5 turns, then 2 archers 5 turns later means youll have 2 archers roaming by 3000, the barbs are not strong yet. And the archers will lose. Ive used this strat 5 times straight in FFA when i was a noob who thought defense = win, and trust me, the archers lost much more often than one would expect.
I personally believe in the hidden disad when defending with offense units or attacking with defense units.
Btw, to those who say 'yeah well archers have killed my units all the time', this is because theyre attacking your offensive unit, which should not be defending, meaning it comes down to the numbers, and im guessing the archer army had a higher attack than your offensive units defense.
Of because they won despite the disadvantage. Happens all day long, you know.
I'm still not completely buying it. For one thing, it's not in the Revelations of Sid video. Seems like the kind of thing he would've mentioned. I've done fine attacking barbs with archers. I don't lose constantly when I do so, just occasionally. I think the losses just stick out more in peoples' memories.
So, you beleive the math of attacks change at 20 turn but refuse to beleive in a defense unit attack disadvantage. Does this video state that huts get stronger after so many turns? If so, then good deal, but if not, then you have simply put your faith into one theory with no more evidence than another competing one.
In the words of Rowan Atkinson as he portays the devil the hour after the end of the world...
"Christians? Christians? Are you here Christians? Yes, I am sorry, it seems the Jews were right."
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