How is the new battle system working for you?

http://afterwind.com/events/news_comments.php?news_id=27

Scris de Garde, 20.02.2011 at 10:13

I say it works alot better, before you could lose 100 tanks to 5 infantry (1/1000000 of course) but now with this "hp" system, it seems a whole lot fairer and strategic. I'm also looking forward to these upgrades for the new system you spoke of, they sound excellen-tei

Seconded.

It's fairer now. I truly hate when I lost battles because of the 'lucky' factor. Also, no more Masters of Stacks winning games so easily.

Scris de Pinheiro, 21.02.2011 at 11:07

It's fairer now. I truly hate when I lost battles because of the 'lucky' factor. Also, no more Masters of Stacks winning games so easily.

Right. I forgot to mention that all multipliers depending on the number of troops have been removed - meaning the number of troops will no longer influence the damage you deal. The new system is pure!

The new battle system you introduced made a brand new game.The fights seems less random.

But I think you should put some of the stack multipliers back; stacks are part of tactical choice from a player, and as it is a simulation game : a big army allways got some advantages over some little "guerilla".

I've done some math too after testing this system today, and the money influence became too high in some games.We loose too many units and can't reinforce well.So the china side of Asia is now unbalanced, in my opinion.

Speaking of balance, it appears too that the units are too balanced.I'm meaning they aren't very different from each other now.I've tested tank general tanks, MoS marines and Sky menace bombers, they are all the same now (ratio units destroyed/lost), and the perfect defence is no more representative too.

Scris de LiodaGobert, 21.02.2011 at 13:54

The new battle system you introduced made a brand new game.The fights seems less random.

But I think you should put some of the stack multipliers back; stacks are part of tactical choice from a player, and as it is a simulation game : a big army allways got some advantages over some little "guerilla".

I've done some math too after testing this system today, and the money influence became too high in some games.We loose too many units and can't reinforce well.So the china side of Asia is now unbalanced, in my opinion.

Speaking of balance, it appears too that the units are too balanced.I'm meaning they aren't very different from each other now.I've tested tank general tanks, MoS marines and Sky menace bombers, they are all the same now (ratio units destroyed/lost), and the perfect defence is no more representative too.

I disagree about multipliers - I don't think big armies should have more advantage than they already have (in numbers).

Money are supposed to play a big role. Just because you have reinforcements doesn't mean you should definitely be able to buy them all out. Anyway, we're planning to introduce some money-making methods.

Units are indeed close to each other by attack/defence - we might be able to tweak that carefully. However, it's not necessarily a bad thing. There's still enough difference between Tanks and Infantry, for example, to warrant building one or the other depending on your needs.

Tanks in TG, MoS Marines and SM Bombers are supposed to be similar by power - otherwise the strategies would be unbalanced and people will only choose one over all others.

I apologized for my english, it isn't my first language.And I didn't want to be rude.

I understand the game is still in developement and things are in move, keep the good work.

About multipliers - I don't know the real math you are using in the new combat system, but a stack should have some little advantage over isolated units(most of the large strategic scale "paper" wargames got such bonuses).
By the way it's a matter of scale of simulation, so little Europe and Eurasia maps are two differents games, that's why I talked about balance - knowing it's one of the most difficult part.

I agree that units must be close to each other and after re-reading my reply, I missed the point.

After saw some changes, i fear that this game became too much arcade... look wow, d&d 4.0

balancing isnt about "all doing the same hurr". Is about not existing exploits. right now the game is about who have more money and units, and THAT is arcade.

i hope that things will become better, like AA units wrecking airbones, tanks combined with infantry and bombers having bonuses unlike taks alone, bombers alone and infantry alone, defense lines that close and make rings....etc etc

right now i only see vain arguments.

PROTIP: Arcade is BAD. unless you want monkey-like players without mind playing this game.

(english isnt my native language, sorry for bad writing)

The game is complex enough, and there's plenty of room for strategy. However, those who just like to wreck havoc without giving it much thought are still able to build a bunch of Tanks and go about their simple business. That's fine too.

If you expect a mind-blowing complexity with a steep learning curve, I'm afraid you're in the wrong game. We try to keep AW accessible for everyone (without dumbing it down).

I feel like marines got nerfed with the new system. I was playing against a tank general the last game and whenever I attacked one of his tank stacks with equal numbers, I lost close to all of my marines, or even lost the battle.
On the contrary, when he attacked 98 of my marines with 48 of his tanks, he took 78 with him. This was the first game I ever had more deaths than kills overall.
Was that just bad luck or did anyone else notice that? They seem to underperform since the update.

Edit: could that be because of the +1Hp tank generals get? Since even militia and infantry get that bonus when using PD, why don't the marines get it when using MoS?
That really is a nerf.

Um not sure about the new system. I love the graphics and everything, they are a definte keeper but i allways liked to see the acctual roles. Also it seems like i cant defend anymore. It might be an issue with the using tank general but i will have to test it out more.

edit: Took a new look at the numbers and it makes since to me now. Before when using tank general infantry and malitia used to be worth something but now i dont see a point in building defence any more considering tanks have the same defence as infantry.

How I feel so far:

Infantry are more powerfull than ever, infantry focused strategies are very powerfull now. Large stacks of infantry seem a bit to powerfull. They are cheap enouth that you do not care about any small loss and they can now be used to attack as well as defend in the new system.
Tanks also seem very very strong with this update.

No one seems to be using marines or bombers that I can see.
From personal use bombers seem quiet weak now for some reason. Also now that you are almost guaranteed to have some bomber loss no matter what you attack it's incredibly hard to have a good early game even with sky menace. Tanks seem to be a much better option now in every way except for mobility. But you can normally attack twice as many targets with tanks as you can with bombers in early game.
Prehaps some expensive upgrades help bombers but I now have 18000 SP and I do not see any yet.
Battleships seem the same but this might be because what feels like weaker bombers they do not really have anything to challange them in the sea except for other battleships.

TLDR

I've given up sky menace and gone back to tank general

I have to agree the new battle system blurs the differences between all the units and make it feel too arcade like. There was something strategic about the old system where what strategy/unit you used really mattered that is missing now. Having a huge stack of tanks/battleships/whatever being able to wipe out whole other armies depending on what strategies people were using. Like, 20 battleships taking out 50 infantry, when I was using naval commander. Or when someone killed my huge tank stack with much less units when I was using tank general. Now the tank stack may survive, but just because of sheer attrition through the number of units/their HP.

You could also take entire neutral cities with just militia in it with only a few powerful units. Like 7 militia vs 3 battleships, you'd win with rolls most often. Now, through attrition on their HP, the battleships get destroyed and you can't win with such few units. Maybe that is the point of the new system, but that was part of the fun before.

The point is the "major victory" or "major loss" battles I've described are harder to come by, and they were one of the best parts. With HP on it just feels like every type of unit is too similar strength wise - doesnt really make THAT much of a difference what you use. Of course I will continue to play, and this is not to complain - just wanted to give my feedback of why I voted for the old one.

We might give unit stats some tweaking so that they stand apart more. Still, our battle simulator says that even a difference in 1 HP or 1 attack/defence can lead to a very different outcome in a battle.

Scris de Ivan, 23.02.2011 at 08:27

We might give unit stats some tweaking so that they stand apart more. Still, our battle simulator says that even a difference in 1 HP or 1 attack/defence can lead to a very different outcome in a battle.

It does. And that's why I don't understand how you could give perfect defence and tank general + 1 HP. Both strategies where pretty good and much used before the update.
But now they are even better compared to others that don't get the bonus.
It's true that they also get -1 HP to infantry/tanks, but that doesn't affect them the way the +HP affects the other strategies.
Attacking tanks will now most certainly make you lose the same amount of units your enemy would, maybe a little less. But on the contrary, the tanks still can take out a far greater amount of enemies, that don't use pd or tg. The -Hp to infantry makes them more vurnable in the defence, but tanks now became a pretty good defensive unit too.
And then there is perfect defence, which profits even greater. I never saw a perfect defence player use any tanks. So they basicaly get +1 HP without an effective disadvantage.
I don't see any logic behind that. Please revert that change or give the +HP/-HP to all strategies.

Well it's natural there needs to be some tweeks but the current system is not to bad. I guess the system can not give smaller change to stats like 0.5
If that is the case can the value of 1 be changed to 10 for everything and then you could make smaller changes... This might be an extremely stupid idea lol.

Scris de learster, 23.02.2011 at 09:09

It does. And that's why I don't understand how you could give perfect defence and tank general + 1 HP. Both strategies where pretty good and much used before the update.
But now they are even better compared to others that don't get the bonus.
It's true that they also get -1 HP to infantry/tanks, but that doesn't affect them the way the +HP affects the other strategies.
Attacking tanks will now most certainly make you lose the same amount of units your enemy would, maybe a little less. But on the contrary, the tanks still can take out a far greater amount of enemies, that don't use pd or tg. The -Hp to infantry makes them more vurnable in the defence, but tanks now became a pretty good defensive unit too.
And then there is perfect defence, which profits even greater. I never saw a perfect defence player use any tanks. So they basicaly get +1 HP without an effective disadvantage.
I don't see any logic behind that. Please revert that change or give the +HP/-HP to all strategies.

I did some testing myself to underline my statement. The tanks are used with tank general, the marines with master of stealth.
It's always 40vs40. 2x tanks attacking marines and winning both fights. 2x tanks defending against marines and winning both fights.


I didn't test sky menace and perfect defence, but this example should explain it well enough. The +1Hp is too heavy. Please revert the changes made to pd and tg.

I was the orange player in Learster test.So I agree with him, the hp introduced are a good thing, but they are a third stat and add to attack and defence.
Learster didn't wrote about the TG versus the new Iron fist strategy : we 've done the same test, tank being TG and marines being iron :the Marines became better in attack but they didn't get better in defence..... what's the point of a better defence so ?


I explain : (even if you know your system better than us) : adding hp for defence purpose add more attack power to the unit too, and we don't understand strategies like this (PD should have good def but poor attack, TG should have good attack but poor def...)

Concerning stacks : there should be some more bonus, in large game it's now a pain to keep the attack going.
All units are hard to manage but the high hp tanks and battleships.That means you're on the good way, because 1 or 2 hp do all the difference.

I think the HP should have been introduced in a way that would have the least impact as possible on the balance of the previous system. In other words, all units should have the same hp... to start. From there, you could see exactly what impact, both offensively and defensively, the new HP has.

I think with the way it was implemented, there are too many changes to really isolate what it is that is causing such a disturbance in game balance.

I suggest removing hp bonuses from strategies that do not use HP as the primary focus (TG and PD, etc) and then assign each unit type the same amount of HP across the board. This amount could be determined by the average of all offense and defense ratings of all units (excluding support units such as militia, sentry planes and aa)

Id also like to point out that I fully support Learster's and Lioda's research. I have found that the tanks are simply overpowered, especially defensively. There was a time when you had to evade tanks because they would crush you offensively, but you could still defeat them if the Tank General left them in the wrong position and you could attack them, putting them on defense, thus winning the battle due to a logical, strategic decision. Now, it's more like "I took out this many tanks by attacking them... they are still coming... I took out this many this time... they are still coming". I would not be surprised in the slightest if 3 days from now, the only strategy on the field is Tank General (again).

I am also in full support of Guest14502's post. It almost seems that with the new system, certain elements that make AW the great game that it is have been lost.

I still think that the new mechanic is a great idea. I think having a new 'stat' for units is good thing as it allows for more customization and distinguishability (not sure if that's a word lol) of specific units (another way to differentiate units abilities from each other). I just don't think that adding this feature should take away from what is already, hands down, the best browser based strategy game on the web.

OK, here's one of the ideas we have on how the stats could be revised:

Attack Defence HP
Militia 3 5 7
Infantry 5 7 8
Tank 8 5 8
Marines 6 5 8
Battleship 8 7 10
Submarine 7 5 8
Stealth 7 5 8
Bomber 7 5 8

Main idea here is to increase further the unit specializations, meaning that offensive units will get +1 to attack, defensive +1 defence, as well as some HP corrections.

Maybe its best to keep thinking on it and testing the current system before doing another large change, things might get confusing.
A blanket +1 to defence or attack might be a bit drastic.

Maybe I should post this in the ideas section but what about stances? Like defence or attack, takes a turn to turn it on (while you do this you can not move or get some kind of penalty)
it would either give you +1 hp or +1 attack or something Anyway this is a less drastic way to make units specialized but its a pain to program I bet.

Scris de Amok, 23.02.2011 at 14:13

Main idea here is to increase further the unit specializations, meaning that offensive units will get +1 to attack, defensive +1 defence, as well as some HP corrections.

So why are marines and subs not getting such an extra point?

Scris de learster, 23.02.2011 at 14:27

Scris de Amok, 23.02.2011 at 14:13

Main idea here is to increase further the unit specializations, meaning that offensive units will get +1 to attack, defensive +1 defence, as well as some HP corrections.

So why are marines and subs not getting such an extra point?

We hate Marines, that's why. And Submarines got the boot because they sound similar

Scris de Ivan, 23.02.2011 at 14:30

Scris de learster, 23.02.2011 at 14:27

Scris de Amok, 23.02.2011 at 14:13

Main idea here is to increase further the unit specializations, meaning that offensive units will get +1 to attack, defensive +1 defence, as well as some HP corrections.

So why are marines and subs not getting such an extra point?

We hate Marines, that's why. And Submarines got the boot because they sound similar

I seem to lack the humor for this. Please give me a serious answer. Why do you think that they have to be nerfed again?

This was just an example, not final stats.

So you would like us to discuss this here? Then why is noone willing to answer me? If I would know why you don't seem to think that marines need that +1 attack stat, I would be able to argue with you. Fighting perfect defence players already is extremely difficult as a master of stealth user. Give infantry +1 defence and marines nothing, it'll become impossible.
I'm not overreacting here, since I already switched to using perfect defence. But I was hoping you would fix marines again, because they perfectly fit my playstyle and I enjoy playing stealth very much.
Also, as you didn't mention that: are you going to leave tank general and perfect defence as they are now? With the +/-HP bonus?

Yes, I admit, marines are indeed a complicated topic and require a careful aproach. As of now, we haven't settled on any particular values, since the new combat system completely changed the game balance. To be honest, we weren't expecting the change to be so drastic, but we'll balance it out, eventually.

Learster I think the reason you were confused was because that example was directed towards the tank general strategy. Tank General obviously doesnt get a boost for mariens or subs. The example for MoS could be completly diffrent.

I think you're on the right way.

Hp : strenght of a unit, worse (militia) to best (Battleship), Hp add both attack and defence power.

Attack and defence could be more "different", but with strategies it's a matter of scale.
Example : tank could have 9 attack and 4 defence, but the tweakings with strategies will be hard.

Here in the main problem in my opinion, as the game was designed with thoses strategies.
First step is to balance classic units, but what's the point with upgrades and such ?

So the tweaks we don't speak about here is the cost of units, perhaps is this a way to explore .....
If TG tanks or MoS marines are overpowered, the cost of the units should be high.

And last but not least, I came back with the stack bonus.I still have a "not so good" experience this morning on and Eurasia/frica game(so large scale).
A player asked for allied victory because his very big stacks couldn't beat my defences.

As I consider we're still on test phase, I didn't do a hard def with lots of lines and all, but a brainless one with infantry jumping here and there.
He sent 3 stacks of 80, 65 and 60 infantry, he took 5 cities but 3 turns later I took them back.And I didn't have 30+ units in my cities, but something like 11/14.
That's what I want to explain : I didn't have to move any units to counter him.I've done some math, and got the conclusion that after 4 or 5 cities his stack will be out. With one or two back strikes, I could then retake them. The stacks are part of the tactic, with no stack bonus, no more tactic or strategy.

Let's test your new tweaks, enough speaking, back to game.

Scris de specter, 23.02.2011 at 16:19

Learster I think the reason you were confused was because that example was directed towards the tank general strategy. Tank General obviously doesnt get a boost for mariens or subs. The example for MoS could be completly diffrent.

You are reffering to Amoks example, right? Every unit except marines, submarines and militia got a boost in his example. Doesn't seem like it's directed towards tank general, more like they want to alter the basic stats of units.