Everything is being built/handled in squares for now... production, infrastructure, eventually trade. We will see how things time out, and then if and where necessary agregate up or use other. We also plan to have an option to run the economy on the province level, but I'm trying to get the guts of the model working before I take on that one. There will really be fairly little extra work to take what I have now and convert it to a prov-econ model, since I'm keeping that in mind while coding the square-level one.

I still have some concerns about a square-level model taking too many clocks, but we'll address them when we have better information. That's the current plan, and has been for quite some time. I think the reason you were unaware of it is that much of the mentions of doing things on the square level happens in places like "Economy Model OO Planning" that you may not have checked out. Sorry you were unaware of it... I'll try to be more careful next time!

It is some impressive whitespace, isn't it. I can't find the problem though all I was after was a properly formatted table and according to the source for the page that is what I should have gotten??? Anyone else have a weird experience with HTML tables on Apolyton, If this is normal I will have to use fixed text tables that don't look as good.

As to unit transport and the splitting of transporting TF's. If a task based approach is used for navies then the transports will not get a chance to split up as their task is transport unit X from A to B. Let me explain in an example. Your ancient Navy is made up of 3 transports, 7 triremes and 2 light transports (actually units not individual ships). You can assign these various units to certain duties for the length of a turn. For example 2 transports are assigned to trade supporting water based trade routes and generating money and moving food and goods. The last transport is assigned to a conveyance pool. This conveyance pool allows land units( not just military units but diplomats and trade ligations etc, as well) to relocate between friendly ports (the limit on moves will be derived from a lovely formula based on total capacity, speed and distance covered).
Four of the triremes are assigned to patrol duties giving them achance of intercepting pirates and hostile forces. The chance of intercept here uses the home port of the trireme as a key factor. The last three triremes are formed into a task force to transport land units a,b,c and d to a point on the enemy coast. The taskforce executes this task (it may be intercepted and aborted or suffer adversely due to wheather etc.) as a group, there would be no opportunity to split the taskforce after it has been sent on its way. After the Taskforce has landed the troops they could be given a different task. One of the light transports is given explore orders and a direction. It will uncover and map a chunk of the world in that direction. The other light transport is being used to transport a settler to a previously discovered tin mining area on a coast.

Is this a good enough explanation. I do not forsee the traditional National leader maneuvering individual ships approach. Rather a setting of goals and tasks for the groups of ships as a whole. During times of peace there would be minimal fleet management with only a small bit of work reassigning some ships between tasks. During times of conflict there will be the ability to control military missions quite closely without necessarily using a huge amount of player time.

What about suppression?

Will range units suppress, as well as kill? The idea is common with WWII games, but I think it applies equally here.

I was thinking that since the combat takes place in 'phases', that one phase is 'ranged combat (it is, isn't it?) and that during this phase the archers could do 2 kinds of 'damage' -- kills and suppression.

Kills, of course, are permenant.

2) Krenske:
In beginning to code the manoeuvre phase, I had a question: You use a square root:

Total Covering strength =
(The square root of the (sum of (friendly cover elements still in the covering force * (1/2 mobility - terrain mod) ) + (total elements * 2)))* scouting bonus * (Generalship factor ^ rounds of maneuvering).

If I use this directly in your example it gives out 10%, not 16. I suppose the square root must be applied after you subtracted both armies covering strengths in order to make the total. That would give:
Covering strength = (sum(1/2 mobility - terrain) + 2 * total elements) * scout bonus * generalship ^ rounds,
Manoeuvre output = sqrt(higher covering strength - lower covering strength), being a bonus for the higher strength army.
Am I correct?

For modern firearms, we will absolutely have to include suppression. That is the biggest use of heavy weapons. An infantry squad carries a heavy machine gun which is mainly used to lay suppression fire down on an enemy so that the foot soldiers can close with the enemy position -- usually to get close enough to use grenades.

But the idea holds for ancient ranged weapons and units also. The Roman legionairre launched his pilum at the enemy just before attacking. The pilum would render shields useless and cause the enemy to fall over themselves to avoid the incoming missles. Then they closed to fight with sword and sheild.

It would depend on the ammunition and weapon type, and the experience level of the troops under fire, I think. No 'decisions' to make at combat time. All ranged fire would have 2 types of effects, instead of 1.

When a Pike Square of men sees the sky darkened with arrows coming their way, one of 2 things happens -- either the soldiers stand fast, or they seek cover. The ones who seek cover are the 'suppression' results of that fire -- they are not immediately available to repel the oncoming cavalry charge that was coordinated with the ranged fire.

So the result likely would be determined by first checking to see how many people bolted, then see how many who stayed were killed.

Unfortunately I have been very busy and have just made it back on the board after almost a week, sorry I took so long getting back to you.

F_Smitty
Suppression is quite hard to model at operational levels, it is more of a tactical effect and I have decided to treat it as such. High suppression effects give a increase in resulting firepower later on at the tactical level. In the 3hr of operation combat phases that I am modelling suppression is really just additional firepower. In your example of the legionaries and several mixed weapon types as combine arms that is catered for by using higher firepower for the legionarie than either a javelin man or a pure swordsman. The ability of certain weapons to have a major suppressive effect (like MG's) during the tactical advance to contact in modern times is still a firepower effect causing damage and disruption to combat elements.

Are the units or elements put in front line/reserve/support?
If it is the units, it means an archer element in a light infantry unit is quite useless because its ranged power is not useful (it will close to hand to hand with the others). I'd find it better if it were the elements. I'd just have to make sure that support elements support their own unit rather than others. I could do it the following way: have little battles inside the big ones; i.e. put units in front line, and then once they are matched to another unit, match the elements in front/support/reserve there too. What do you think?

Dispersion and frontage:
I can use dispersion to compute frontage, but how do I compute dispersion? Is it based on what kind of elements make up the unit? Why don't elements have dispersion too?
If 2 units, frontage 10 and 2, face 4 units of frontage 3, should we match them 10 vs 3 +3 +3 and 1 vs 3 (outnumbered) or 10 + 1 vs 4*3 (no outnumbered, but bo real matching either)? I am afraid there will be strange groupings sometimes.
For the moment (no units in reserve), the code output looks like this:
Civ1 : 5 units
Civ2 : 10 units
Army 1 front line
4 armies: elements = 1: elements = 2: elements = 1: elements = 1
Army 2 front line
4 armies: elements = 2: elements = 2: elements = 1: elements = 1
Army 1 support
1 armies: elements = 1
Army 2 support
4 armies: elements = 1: elements = 1: elements = 1: elements = 1
I have to tweak the code in order to get the supporting elements go help the outnumbered front line.

It looks like Krenske has forgotten about us . Probably you should just e-mail him and let him know you have questions...

I think your suggestion on putting elements in the frontline/reserve/support is quite reasonable, and don't see how it could work any other way!

As to dispersion, I have indeed left out a dispersion value at the element level.

As to matching up the units, we could work it this way:- We could break the units up into the various elements and match them. The elements can be defined as combat and support in the unit description. So we could have 2 units with a pool of 12 combat elements and 4 support elements.

These are matched element to element with the oposition. Some elements will be left over from a side and they start to double up on the opposition elements. If they get to the point of getting to more than double then support elements are forced into combat.(this example assumes identical element dispersion) Dispersion complicates it by expanding the potential number of oposition elements before the elements are overmatched. EG. 5 combat element with a dispersion of 7 could each take on 7 dispersion 1 elements before they are matched and could take on 14 by being overmatched. I see some modifiers being applied to a element that still has remaining dispersion vs the opposition due to having some troops effecting the flanks of the opposition, while a element that is overmatched is stretched extra thin and will suffer -ve modifiers to its firepower.

The other alternative is to match up the units based on dispersion and if the dispersions are not equal, force support elements into combat or apply modifiers.

2 Hordes vs 1 Phalanx: 7 rounds: 4% chance of phalanx dying. 9 rounds: 16%. 10 rounds: 28% 12 rounds: 54%
1 Phalanx vs 1 Phalanx: 6 rounds: 2% chance of 1 dying. 7 rounds: 5%. 9 rounds: 16%. 12 rounds: 30%.
1 Light cavalry vs 1 phalanx in 12 rounds gives 30% vs 13% in favor of the cavalry.
Note these are non-experienced, non-trained troops with no leader. Also, defenders don't use fortifications yet.

Now the hard work of playtesting the model starts! I hope Krenske he will have some time available soon... Do you have methods to provide detailed output of what happens during a battle? I haven't looked at the test methods you sent me, so they may be in there already. But if you don't have those yet, I think that is the next step. That will allow playtesters to see what happened in detail, and fix any unforeseen problems.

The results you show are somewhat surprising to me, in that I would really expect a single phalanx to win against two hordes. Greek phalanxes very frequently won battles in which they were seriously outnumbered against the Persians, because of the many advantages of the phalanx shock attack. I would also expect a phalanx to win vs. light cavalry unless the light cavalry had bows and refused to close with the phalanx. Also, I want to dispel this idea that the battle should always go to the death of a unit or TF. Unless one side manages a complete encirclement as at Cannae, the losers will always retreat well before they are annihilated IMO. I seem to recall there are morale checks somewhere in the model, do you have those working yet?

I could make guesses about bonuses for terrain fortifications and defense, but would prefer to wait for Krenske to take a shot at it.

code:

---

Meeting of armies of civs Civ1, Civ2 in square game.data.MapSquare@6ed786
Army:
Attacker of civ Civ1:Att Horde0 of civ Civ1	Att Horde1 of civ Civ1	Att Horde2 of civ Civ1	
Army:
Defender of civ Civ2 ef Phalanx3 of civ Civ2	Def Phalanx4 of civ Civ2	Def Phalanx5 of civ Civ2	
Scout output phase: 0.0 in favor of Civ2
Fire support for Civ1: 0.0
Fire support for Civ2: 0.0
Fire support for Civ1: 0.0
Fire support for Civ2: 0.0
Fire support for Civ1: 0.0
Fire support for Civ2: 0.0
Manoeuver output phase: 0.13484573 in favor of Civ2
End of manoeuvre: Status: 
Attacker of civ Civ1 : 25.0 health	
Defender of civ Civ2 : 22.0 health	
Fire support for Civ1: 0.0
Fire support for Civ2: 0.0
End of combat: Status: 
Attacker of civ Civ1 : 23.0 health	
Defender of civ Civ2 : 20.0 health	

---

It looks good to me, aside from the bloodless result, which you are working on .

I think for testing, the output needs to be a bit more detailed. You could write it out to the temporary output IO.out I've set up, or to a file as you said. What we want the player to see will be the result of a lot of testing and refinement, so I'd say just take a quick stab at that, and playtesters will tell you what they really want to see. But we should at a minimum see who remains in posession of the battlefield, losses of men, etc. In the long run we were thinking to put out a narration of the battle (4-5 sentences) that could give the player info on why they won or lost.

What you say sounds reasonable in the absence of morale. But what would happen in the real world (at least on open ground) is that the phalanx would crush one of the hordes, its broken remains would flee, and the other one would likely decide it doesn't want to be there either.
So to see what morale is supposed to do, I looked at Krenske's model page. I'm completely mystified about the morale model, since it does things that don't match reality in any way. I suspect there's some typos or other errors in the formula:

Morale test% = (((morale + experience + training + terrain mod) x 5) - 1 per hit below established strength) x multiplier effect

Since given what the table says morale will decay to a low value quickly, and moreso if a unit is winning ?!? (In table high numbers are worse for morale).

In old threads from 1999, I read about the possibility of "Task Force Workshops" that allowed players to customize their army groups by adding to gether the basic units. They combine the available units of infantry, cavalry, archers, and auxiliaries to create a special army type. Players could experiment with these, trying to make the most cost effective unit or the one that fits their style best. Once the player creates a TF template, it becomes a production option in the Economy model.

Are we still doing this?

Another option is to make TF composition depend on technologies. For example, the game default Phalanx might be a task force of 3 Hoplite units. This technology gives a 15% power bonus to the three units organized in this manner, thanks to the new tactics developed that allow this military organization ot be more than the sun of its parts.

If we did this, we would have to abandon the TF workshop idea or restrict it. If players automatically get the bonus fo combining the 3 units themselves, the technology is useless. We could set things so that combining the 3 units before the Phalanx application is researched wouldn't get the benefit, but that might make the workshop pointless.

Elements are the fundamental building block of the system. See Krenske's post of 2/15 for some sample element and unit designations. Elements are (will be) Applications in the tech model.

Units are built up of elements. We will have standard units. Players will be able to specify non-standard units, composed of any elements they can build, in a Unit Workshop. There will of course be some limitations on how may elements you can cram into a unit depending on technology etc. You can't swap around elements between units in an arbitrary fashion (I think...), but you may be able to fuse two badly beaten up units.

Sorry for not being Active I am just about drowning in work at the moment. I literally have a stack of papers 2 feet high on my desk.

I will try to comment-

Laurent - Two perfectly equal forces will lose strength at a similar rate. They will not just sit around there and take it till they reach 0 strength though. One will quit the field, possibly both. As an example - a phalanx unit with total firepower of 80 vs 4 hordes with firepower 20 each may result in similar losses to each side (Although the phalanx almost certainly has higher experience and training values thus skewing in their favour, but lets pretend.). The phalanx will lose troops at the same base rate as the opposition (although the hordes will probably receive a bonus for surrounding the phalanx) but at a higher percentage rate. That assumes that the actual manpower strengths of the units are in a 4-1 ratio.

The units involved in the combat need to take a morale check to determine if they continue in combat. The Phalanx will suffer penalties for being outnumbered and for the casualties suffered, they will probably pass their morale check and stay for the first 3-4 rounds of combat, until losses really start weighing heavily. The opposition with 4 units will not suffer as many negatives but as there is four of them, there is a greater chance of one of them failing the check . As soon as one fails and retires then the balance of the fight swings towards the phalanx, their morale check value improves due to less damage and not being as outnumbered. In the following rounds the phalanx will do more damage than the remaining hordes and it will be even more likely that more hordes will withdraw from the fight. The last side remaining wins (It may be a costly win but it is still a win.). This is the plan for a encounter battle.

Where one side is defending and has some levels of fortification then a loss of morale will not remove a unit from the fight but will instead drop their fortification level by one. Once that hits zero then they have been pushed entirely out of the fortifications and the next failure forces them out of the fight. Most fortifications until the 1700's were of the single point but high strength type, namely castles and solitary forts etc, occasionally there would be extra large castles or towns with multi walls etc and they may reach level 2. As well some areas would have numerous castles etc and so the square could be rated as having a +1 fortification level. Around the late 1700's more extensive fortifications developed that could reach higher levels. By WW1 fortifications reached the point that they could be given a value of 4 or 5. This means that the attacker could not normally hope to breakthrough and would expend troops attriting the enemy and reducing their fortification level. The defender could then respond with reserves and block the attack and rebuild the defences. (One of the effects of attacking armour may be a check to see how many fortification levels they remove with a successfull attack.)

I think the situation you describe of 4 hordes v 1 phalanx should end up with a 2-1 win rate to the hordes but if the phalanx brings just one friend with it the battle would rapidly swing its way. 4 to 1 manpower odds are hard to overcome if the forces are equally skilled etc. Mind you if the phalanx was a veteran, super trained unit lead by Alexander against average hordes then it will give more and take more and probably win a 4-1 battle.

Mark,
the morale test you quoted is actually an old one, I have revised a chunk of the design and the page is at - http://www.usq.edu.au/users/krenske/game/g/assault.htm
I think I posted this before.

The morale check (or as I have called it the Advance/stay in combat check) itself has been given a formula as follows -

Advance test = ((morale + training + experience + (Mobility / 2) + Generals morale bonus) * 5) - 2 per 1% damage taken so far in the battle.

A high morale(10), well trained(4), veteran(4), inspirationally led (4) panzer(mob=12) division rolling into russia at the begining of Barbarossa could have a very high morale test value for that turn. In fact plugging the values into the formula gets us (10+4+4+(12/2)+4)*5 = 140%. The unit will have a manpower strength of around 100 and so will need to lose 20 strength before it will even consider stopping combat.

Quite often this test will lead the sides to fight several rounds at least before finishing the battle. I would also consider the use of a willingness to take casualties factor (maybe call it ferocity) that would alter the morale check value. This means that the commissars are lined up behind the peasant or the glorious leader has ordered the forces to stand to the last etc. This could be a player settable factor at the TF level each turn.

I was using the link I put at the top of this thread to your model. I guess I never updated that one... will now! So anyway I was checking out the model at /game/civ/ when I should have been looking at /game/g/
I understand the current version better and it seems to make sense, thought I haven't checked it out in detail. BTW the link to the scouting model on the new page is broken. If you get a chance to fix it can you let me know here? In the meantime I've updated the link at the top of the thread so it avoids the deadlink... but its kinda a kludge.

Good Luck getting out from under the paperwork!

The part of the old (/game/civ/) page I was having trouble with (still do!) is the "Morale check at conclusion of combat cycle" section. Big numbers are good there, just like in the advance case you cited a few posts above. Then there's the Table. It has things like:

Test value__In combat
<20%________Gain 1 morale

Ahh I see, I believe the test value you were refering to was a test based on the overall morale at the end of the battle and if the actual test score was less than 20% of the test value then the unit would actually increase in value. meaning that the morale test was so good it would have passed if the test value was only 1/5th what it was. This is dropped from the current model though.

Would it be best for me to just overwrite games\civ with the contents of games\g ?

Laurent,

I am glad that the morale effects equal things out a bit.

We can certainly apply a Ferocity/tenacity/divine leaders insistence variable to the morale test. Maybe a fanatical government could effect the test by upto +50% eg, Iranian islamic guard, Japanese troops, German SS etc. The reverse effect for flexible defence and delaying actions can also take place.

Your right there is nothing in the formula for situational modifiers like outnumbering etc. I would expect there to be a modifier based on pure number disparity as well as a modifier for firepower disparity and maybe for a defence disparity as well. Maybe we could use something like, A force outnumbered loses %outnumbered x 10 off of their morale test value. EG. A phalanx outnumbered 4/1 is outnumbered by 300% so it loses 30 off its morale test value. A similar test with firepower helps out numbered modern forces vs hordes of savages.

A test for defence is more tricky but would reflect the times when certain troop were near invincible and so caused much panic in the opposition. Eg. Tigers at Kaserine pass and for effectively the next year vs the western allies, Tanks in WW1, Heavy knights vs low grade troops in medieval periods. I don't know how we judge this, maybe instead we just use a comparrison of losses caused in the combat round.

Your idea for experience is quite good, sqrt of fights. Maybe we could flesh it out with the following
- realistic combat maneuvers etc give a couple of free fight points to start with.
- Unit cadre training drops a fight point from higher experienced units and gives them to new units.
- Troop transfer policies can do the same after initial creation with transfering units giving up some points to other units with say less than 50% of the fight points of the lending unit.
- Once a War is over natural attrition should drop a unit by a fight point per year until 'experienced' rating is reached, meaning that 16 or so years after a war your previous veteran units have reverted to experienced status as they lose the veterans through old age.
- Losses of more than 50% actually drop the the fight points by 1 while losses more than 33% nullify fight points for that combat. New replacements coutner the experience gained.
How does that all sound.

Training is easier to implement, it is the skill the unit has with its weapons. A rating of 1 is really low, effectively the equivalent of handing out weapons at parade and going to battle with them the next day. 3 would be the equivalent of 2 months or so's familiarisation with the weapon, 4 would include long term use, 5 would include real world exercises and multi purpose training etc. Effectively we could use a time of build value to closely link to the training of the unit. Raw trooper in 1 week, Basic trooper in 6 weeks, effective after 3 months, specialist after 6 months and Elite after a years delay in training. Of course if a unit starts a war at a certain training level then has to accept lower trained replacements then the overall unit rating will drop. The replacements themselves will probably have a training rating. EG. During WW1 and WW2 the Germans spent 6 months training up most of their troops until near the end when demands made them shorten the period and quality went out the window. So when replacements were received by forward formations they were already trained to a high level, so the overall training rating of the german forces remained high.

We can send units off to training after they are constructed, maybe we could use a point system like your idea for experience. For each month of training gain a point most units would start with 5-6 points. Make in service training cost a fraction of the unit cost, (ammunition expenditure etc) So you don't train all units all the way to elite status. Some units would be trained higher and a slow drop in training of 1 point per year could also apply as units lose their training edge unless maintenance is paid.

Mercenaries - We certainly could have some but they would be computer generated units from the relevant civ. They would probably have lower morale and would go away completely once support stops while native units would slowly melt away. Mercenary units would also be less reliable, twice as likely to be bought out etc. The ability to hire your own units out could be good. Some hostile civs would even supply mercenaries to fight against themselves. In lots of situations this is what roman auxiliary troops were.

Q. How should we treat the situation where one side is willing to give up territory in a battle because it has better distance fighting abilities. EG. Mongol Horse Archers striving to keep the distance open while the medieval european cav want to close. Should it just be a decision for the AI or player intervention? What if we applied a extra test in situations like this where one side wants to keep the range open. The pursuer(side wanting to close) must pass a mobility test to close a range band else fighting stays at the previous range. Obviously neither side gets fortification benefits and the runner will probably get 1/2ed terrain benefits. The test could be 50% + ((pursuer mobility - runner mobility) * 5). A high mobility force would have little difficulty closing while a slower force would still be able too, but it would be hard. We could include terrain modifiers to mobility so infantry could have a easier time catching faster forces in forest etc. What do you think?

Read you later

In the pre-industrial world, many 'naval' combats were actually ship-to-ship ground combats. The preferred tactic of the Roman navy was to draw up to an enemy ship, lash them together, and send over a century or two. The end result was usually a lot of dead troops and two relatively intact Roman ships.

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 04-03-2001 08:49 AM Question about naval combat: In the pre-industrial world, many 'naval' combats were actually ship-to-ship ground combats. The preferred tactic of the Roman navy was to draw up to an enemy ship, lash them together, and send over a century or two. The end result was usually a lot of dead troops and two relatively intact Roman ships. Will this be implemented in Clash?

Paul: Thanks for the answers and suggestions. I think that you can also have cases where both parties want to avoid getting to assault (like ships which don't want to ram into each other, or artillery fighting artillery if that happened). Thus each army could say which range they want to stop fighting at, and specify whether they want to flee or continue combat at that range (e.g. the mongol horde in your example will try to fight from afar, but you could give orders to archers like "fight till the knights are close, then run away").