That's only about 3 rounds of combat, though - you attack 3x, enemy attacks 3x, 3x counterattacks each. You should be doing about 6 to each other each round - okay, less a bit for dodging, but still - call it 4 rounds. That isn't what I'd call a long battle, although opinions will vary, and it certainly feels longer when you have to click three times to make three attacks each round (this is just bad interface - AoW2 did it better, you got up to three attacks per round, but only had to click once and it would use them all, with no option to move after attacking to reduce kiting).

But anyway, consider what would happen if they buffed attack a little, which seems to be the way to go - make it 8/6 vs. 8/6 instead. You'd be hitting (very roughly) for about 2 average a hit, combat would be taking 2 rounds total. This is still reasonable I think, but attack/def seems to outpace health as you tech up, and we're dangerously close to 1-round kills already at 8/6 vs. 8/6. A few armor/weapon tiers later and units will be dying before they get the chance to do anything but counterattack. That's not very tactical =/

Edit: On further thought, let me restate what I said earlier - health scaling should increase. Early game battles can get too long, even if we see a further armor nerf/attack buff they'll probably still be long enough. It's late game when the attack/def values vastly outpace health, nerf armor too much without a corresponding health buff and squads will be easily killing each other in one round.

As an aside, auto resolve really needs some work. If it were a more viable option - if it modeled tactical battles better and the tactical AI wasn't so horrible - then you wouldn't feel the need to micromanage every little battle, especially those early game fights that can last 4+ rounds, which I respect seems too long for many people. You could save your time for the few decisive battles that really do matter and are worth spending several rounds on.

Hi guys, nice to see that people are crunching the numbers on this, i wanted to do the same but then my comp died. We are going to buy a new laptop for my wife tomorrow so it MIGHT be able to run it, i dunno.

meanwhile i just wanted to double check some of the numbers i have to make sure i have the right ones

                       Chest    Bracer   Legging    Helmet

padded & cloth   2              1        2            1

leather               3             2        3            2

light plate           4             3        4            3

heavy plate          5           4         5           4

master plate       6             5         6            5   (i think this one is wrong)     

                            defence dodge

Light wood shield   1              1

heavy wood shield  2              2

light steel shield     3             3

heavy steel shield   4              4

I dont have numbers for elentium equipment

cloak can give +1 move  or +1 sight or +2 armour or a dodge bonus  (i think 2) or was that magic cloak just +2 armour

leggings can give +1 move

blunt weapons

club 3

mace 11

staff 5

warstaff 15

battlehammer 30

lord hammer 40 (i think)

cutting weapons

dagger 4 +1 attack

short sword 9 +1 attack

long sword 15 +1 attack

ax

battleax 23

great sword 22 +1 attack

claymore 40 (i think +1 attack)

bows

crude 4

short (i dunno)

long (i dunno)

If someone could please correct my numbers and fill in any weapons i missed i would appreciate it. I dont have the dodge numbers for cutting weapons and it is important to have that info

There is the formula for hp gain somwhere on the website. I believe base hp for units is 14, wraiths have a penalty which gives them 12. pieces pf the puzzle i a m missing are the modifiers of str on weapon damage starting from 5 str and the dodge bonus from dex starting from 5 dex.

Thank you very much for your help. (modern computers are very squishy, you open the cover and breath on them wrong and they go poof - very annoying)

              EDIT: ok i got the hp formula from the sovereign creation faq

hp= Floor (10 + 0.4 * con * level)

so i believe that con 10 at level 1 gives you 14 hit points. hmm level 2 would give you an extra 0.4 hp... so maybe units are doing this differently.

Blunt/crushing weapons should do permanent damage to portions of the armor.

Glowing_Ember even if you can't run the game you can check the xml for values.

Perhaps a better way to balance this would be to separate penetration from damage.  So a weapon has a chance to penetrate and if it penetrates then it does damage.

Then you could have armor reduce each separately but not below a minimum chance to penetrate and a minimum damage.

no i can not.

It will not even turn on. Poof. gone

going to salvage my pictures off the hard drive tomorrow

That exists it's called dodge.

Defense doesn't increase dodge but defense would decrease the chance to penetrate so they wouldn't be the same thing.

I'm sorry if I misunderstood something but

I did not mean to come off rude.

There is a stat that allows attacks to bypass armor, and there's nothing stopping anyone from putting it on stuff.

Well to be comprehensive, a weapon would have a chance to hit and then if it hits, a chance to penetrate, and then if it penetrates it would do some amount of damage.

The difference between chance to hit and chance to penetrate would be that chance to penetrate would be governed by attack and defense whereas chance to hit as I understand it is just governed by dodge.

But I doubt the developers would change their equations that much.  Instead of the more complicated thing I proposed maybe defense should not reduce damage below N so that weapons,  if they hit, do at least N damage.  You could make N, 1 or 2.  Or you could leave the current system in place but make the defense roll be anywhere from 0 to the defense total so that even with a club you will do damage once in a while against a heavily armored opponent.

I don't think adding hit points is going to compensate for reduced armor effectiveness as the hit points are going to go to both the player focusing on armor and the player focusing on weapons, though you may want to add more hit points anyway.

There is also a Accuracy stat. Some weapons decrease or increase it.

You know I thought about it some more and I'm liking your proposal.  Let's hope they incorporate it or something like it for 1.2

arg i did not inlude accuracy on my request for weapon info

incidentally,

i believe the order of events you would be referrring to is

attack, chance to hit, see if you hit, check if dodge kicks in, check if penetration kicks in, roll damage, roll armour roll for damage reduction if there is no penetration.

I want to follow up this post but i can't until i get full weapon info.

(beats dead computer with a sledgehammer)

EDIT: You know, if no-one wants to write out the info you could send me a copy of the xml and i will write it out myself - that works too.

weapons 1.11 http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=tdUvU4fw

armor 1.11 http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=baViWpi1

heavenfall your a umm godsend... yeah sounds funny.

ok here is an updated list of weapon and armour combinations for comparison followed by another message for comments.

I will assume a base dodge of 5% for all units with a dex of 10

Tier 1 weapons with no armour

this is your starting gear.

club       3 attack, 0 armour dodge 5     I will write this down as 3/0 d5

staff       5/0 d5

tier 2 weapons with padded armour and light steel shield

this is unlocked by equipment, tools of war

                                          cuirass      +helm      +armlet       +greaves

spear + padded                  9/2 d5        9/3 d5       9/4 d5        9/5 d5

ax + padded + shield         7/3 d6        7/4 d6       7/5 d6        7/8 d6

dagger + padded + shield  5/3 d6        5/4 d6       5/5 d6        5/6 d6 +1 accuracy +1 attack

tier 3 weapons with leather  armour and heavy wood shield

this is unlocked by weaponry, offence, armour and defence.

                                                            cuirass      +helm      +armlet       +greaves

war staff + leather                                 15/3 d5      15/5 d5    15/7 d5       15/9 d5

short sword + leather + shield               9/5 d7        9/7 d7       9/9 d7        9/11 d7 +1 attack

mace + leather + shield                       11/5 d7       11/7 d7      11/9 d7      11/11 d7

crude bow            attack 4  - dangerous in the hands of a hero with boosted str, otherwise it is just a delivery system for the arcane weapon spell. I usually skip over and tech straight to more dangerous bows as a kingdom player

tier 4 weapons with light plate armour and light steel shield

unlocked by cutting, blunt, slaying, light armour and general armour

                                                            cuirass      +helm      +armlet       +greaves

warhammer + L. plate + shield    16/8 d7       16/11 d6    16/14 d5    16/18 d4

battle axe + L plate                       23/ 5 d3      23/8 d2      23/11 d1    23/15 d0

broadsword + L plate + shield     15/8 d8       15/11 d7    15/14 d6    15/18 d5 +2 accuracy

reaper + L plate + shield              15/8 d9       15/11 d8    15/14 d7    15/18 d6 +1 attack

scimitar + L plate + shield           16/8 d9       16/11 d8    16/14 d7    15/18 d6 +1 attack

cedar short bow       attack 12

tier 5 weapons with heavy plate and heavy steel shield

unlocked by superior or mighty cutting, superior or mighty blunt, piercing, heavy armour, battle armour - I don't think the faq was updated compared to the current xmls

                                                   cuirass      +helm      +armlet       +greaves

longsword + H plate                   23/5 d3     23/9 d1    23/13 d-1     23/18 d-3   +1 attack

battle hammer  + H. plate           30/5 d3     30/9 d1    30/13 d-1     30/18 d-3

trog scimitar + H. plate               28/5 d3     28/9 d1    28 /13 d-1   28 /18 d-3  +2 attack

tier 6 weapons with master plate and master heavy steel shield

unlocked by ultimate or expert cutting, ultimate or expert blunt, smiting, expert armour, master armour

                                              cuirass       +helm         +armlet       +greaves

lord hammer + H plate          40/8 d8     40/14 d-1     40 /20 d-4    40/28 d-7

claymore + H. plate               40/8 d8     40/14 d-1     40/20 d-4     40/28 d-7    +6 accuracy

tier 7 waepons with legendary plate and legendary shield

unlocked by victory weapons, arcane armour

                                              cuirass      +helm      +armlet       +greaves

great scimitar + L. plate       50/18 d2    50/26 d2       *****       50/34 d2    -3 accuracy

this man speaks the truth: listen to him.

Tier 1 weapons are a simple slugfest.

Each weapon should be clearly labelled in the xmls as either blunt, piercing or slashing/cutting.

cuirass should give base protection

helm, armlet and greaves should be used to boost this within limits.

helm would give a bonus to blunt defence

armlet gives bonus to piercing defence

greaves gives bonus to slashing/cutting defence

shield gives  bonus to dodge (it should be higher than it currently is)

The area where the system really breaks down is when everyone is running around in full armour - which I think the devs thought would be controlled by the amount of resources available, however that decision was first made when we were limited to one of each building per city, which had the result of city spam

side note: I was thinking of prestige  and city spam because of this issue and I was wondering about the cost of having more cities. Apparently you get a prestige penalty the more towns you have. What about increasing this penalty so there is the possibility of having zero population growth in your cities. This makes prestige buildings like the inn and pub more valuable. Take over enough cities and then the only way you will be able to grow your population is to have the series of prestige buildings and have a high charisma hero stationed in the town to make it popular enough for people to make their way into it. The prestige boosting buildings act as spreading the news this place is safe.

I think  a good way to deal with the armour issue is to introduce an encumbrance system.

The techs that are used to increase unit hp can also be used to grant a larger encumbrance pool. Better trained soldiers are more able to maintain and use their equipment.

for example a peasant could carry a variety of starting items

          attack/defence                                                                     weight

club     3                                                                                                1

staff     5                                                                                                2

cloth armour 1                                                                                        2

buckler shield  1                                                                                    1

crude bow   3, range 4, -1 accuracy                                                       2

throwing knife  2, range 2, +1 accuracy, 4 shots - 2 throws per turn    2

scout pack  +1 move +1 sight                                                                2

longstrider boots      +1 move                                                               1

hunting arrow  quiver   +1 range +1 damage                                       2  (backpack item)

normal                     training 1              training 2                 training 3                 training 4

encumbrance

(3)                           +1(4)                    +1 (5)                       +1 (6)                      +1 (7)

bow                          club                      bow

longstrider boots      cuirass                  hunting arrows

                                 shield                   longstrider boots

club                           staff

shield                         cuirass

                                  club

                                  shield

                                  throwing knife

                                  bow

                                  hunting arrows

i think units should be limited to one back pack item with the addition of a new category - a satchel pack, something that is kept at the waist.

These two items can be linked to the level up routines to grant bonus skills and ability points to units as the level.

a ranger pack might give a ubit more movement or a pathfinding ability when the hit level 3

a sniper pack might give an aiming ability that gives +2 to damage for a round of shooting when the unit reaches lv 4

items can be granted by unique faction techs and racial techs to provide unique units.

I don't think all weapons should be provided by the warfare tech tree - too much is dependent on warfare. civilazition can provide farming based weapons and construction base weapons, diplomacy can provide assassin type weapons, duelling type weapons, martial art weapons, arcane can provide magical type weapons staff of striking, wands that shoot or contain charged spell item casting.

we need a bigger variety of weapons - piercing are lacking, most late tech weapona are 2 handed weapons.

Updates figures to bring stats in line with 1.19 ninja changes.