Bad dice

[KGB]

Igor,

I thought only razurandal does so

It's actually good strategy to do this. It's only crazy not to make this kind of attack.

I absolutely disagree with such method because it brakes the game. Weak player can win skillful player because of big luck. I think that Piranha makes great thing that luck doesn't work when 90-85-80% chance to win.
Only I can't understand why it didn't work in my case.

Actually being against the underdog having a chance breaks the game. Some luck is necessary in a game like this to keep it interesting. In real life underdogs take huge risks all the time (pulling the goalie in Hockey, Hail Mary passes in Football etc) in order to have a chance to win. It has to pay off occasionally or else the game becomes boring and too predictable. I think the current 90% rule is fine meaning you have to be a 9-1 favorite to win. If anything the number should be higher (95%), not lower as your example above shows how easy 80% is to achieve.

KGB, imagine that it's real ancient war. General sent a little group to attack big group. Little group knows that they all will die with 85% chance. Do you think they will go to attack?

Actually this happens a lot in real life. The whole premise of the movie 300 (where 300 men went to sacrifice themselves to hold back an enemy invasion against overwhelming odds in ancient Greece) explores this. In more recent times look at 'Pickets Charge' in the US Civil war or 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' in WW I or what the Japanese did in WW II with Kamikaze attacks and the fact their men fought to the death rather than surrender. Even Stalin's 'Not One Step Back' (Ни шагу назад! / Ni shagu nazad!) order is an example of this

KGB

P.S. If the guaranteed winning % is going to be lowered from 90% the XP should be lowered from those battles. After all these are 'risk free' battles where the hero can't die so the reward should be less. Maybe changed to give the equivalent XP of defending (ie 50% XP instead of 100%).

[Igor]

It's actually good strategy to do this. It's only crazy not to make this kind of attack.

This means all players, except 2 or 3, are crazy as KGB understand this.

Some luck is necessary in a game like this to keep it interesting.

Dice already is in battles below 80%, looks enough to make the game unpredictable. When you lose 1st hero at 1st turn with 69% advantage it shows that dice works good. But when your main hero stack is under attack with your advantage 85% and you lose the battle it's not game as I understand it, it's poker where game result depends on what card will be opened and skill means almost nothing.

KGB, imagine that it's real ancient war. General sent a little group to attack big group. Little group knows that they all will die with 85% chance. Do you think they will go to attack?

Actually this happens a lot in real life. The whole premise of the movie 300 (where 300 men went to sacrifice themselves to hold back an enemy invasion against overwhelming odds in ancient Greece) explores this. In more recent times look at 'Pickets Charge' in the US Civil war or 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' in WW I or what the Japanese did in WW II with Kamikaze attacks and the fact their men fought to the death rather than surrender. Even Stalin's 'Not One Step Back' (Ни шагу назад! / Ni shagu nazad!) order is an example of this

Leonid and Stalin defended motherland, their forces were in defense, not in attack. If Leonid said to their 300: go to occupy Persia and die there - they wouldn't go. To defense own city with risk to die is heroic thing, but an attack of enemy's city when weak attackers have 80% chance to die - is stupid thing for attackers, isn't it?

(Correction: added answer to KGB about real life examples)

[piranha]

I think this game needs luck too, thats what keeps battles entertaining as well as don't mean the game is over as soon as someone have a slight advantage. But if using my idea to make the luck margin smaller as the armies grow in size there is still room for luck.
If you have 2 super armies attacking each other, then winning with 26% chance must be considered very lucky. Being good at this game also means being good at taking calculated risks and making the right estimations. When doing that right you shouldn't robbed of the game.

However I agree with you about the problem of lowering the percentage at too low numbers. Perhaps there is something else to go by than battle value. Otherwise it needs to change to higher numbers.

Igor: I'll take a look to make sure that it is including the bonuses.

If we talk about realistic battles I'd say that the 300 is comparable in Warbarons to putting a really good small army in a narrow passage where the enemy needs to pass. The skill lies in getting the right army in the right position in the right time and bonuses etc will make your army hard to beat. What I mean is that historical battles where a big side loses against a smaller one are often because they are using the terrain, to their advantage when being so few. Narrow passages, getting a higher position, the right equipment, preparations and of course having the right fighting morale.
Then of course luck also makes a difference.

[Igor]

May be would be good to downgrade safe percent even to 75% on small maps (may be only against neutrals), where first-second hero move can mean all the game: if small hero stack will die at 1st turn this almost means opponent will win on small map. May be on such maps hero will not ought to die if his advantage is 75% or higher.

[Zaque]

I do kinda like the idea of having different levels of "safe" odds on different maps, as it is much easier to recover losses in the large map, however I think it would be more useful to have different levels of "safe" odds at different turns (say 80% turns 1-5, 85% turns 6.10 and then 90% the rest of the game), which you could even scale to the various maps in a similar way to the number of ladder points taken on various maps based on when the game was won. Well that is if you want more chess like games.

[KGB]

I would prefer to go with Igor's suggestion of lowering the 'safe' zone on Neutrals. Neutrals shouldn't be deciding games in the early turns.

I'd be more than fine with 80% on battles against Neutrals and 90% on battles involving players. Of course this means the 1st turn Barb becomes even more powerful because he'll be >80% on a lot of 1-1 battles. At 75%, you start reaching areas where you simply walk through everything too easy (eg. A Red Dragon (50) always beats an Elf (22) because it's 75% likely to win).

KGB

P.S. Piranha, winning with 26% isn't very lucky. That happens 1 in 4 times. I don't consider something that happens 1 in 4 times to be very lucky. It's just an upset that should happen a few times a game in a longer game where you fight many battles at such odds (ie if you fight 12 battles as a 75% favorite, you should lose 3 of them or else the game is rigged). Something that happens < 1 in 10 times is very lucky and may not happen at all in a game (or over a couple of games). That's what the original reason was behind having this rule.

[Chazar]

1. I am kinda outraged that there is 90%-85%-80% rule in place already. The game itself should clearly communicate such rules, as many player don't track the forum or crawl through the warpedia. Maybe write "sure win" / "hopeless loss" below the battle outcome, to indicate that such a rule is in effect, whatever it may be. (Keep it simple so people can understand it.)

2. I agree with KGB: 75% is way too low for battles against human players. 90% seems quite right to me, after running some numbers. Taking more risks the more desperate ones situation becomes is an essential part of the game, since it is hard enough to recover from a single decisive battle. Having games decided by a single battle does not seem appealing to me.

3. Reducing luck against neutrals is a good idea. Nobody likes a spoilt game due to bad luck against neutrals. I just lost a ranger in a 89% battle against a neutral elf in the forest in the second turn. No fun conquering someone like this. I am also in favor of having a 90% rule for ruins within the first 5 turns. (BTW, a hero with 19UL still cannot die agains skeletons in a L2 - I can provide a screenshot.)

[piranha]

Take a deep breath and relax .

It's not a bad idea to have some information about the % rule on the battle popup. I'll add that to the todo.

since it is hard enough to recover from a single decisive battle. Having games decided by a single battle does not seem appealing to me.

This is what I'm talking about. You don't want the game to be decided by one battle. If its going to be decided by one battle it should at least be somewhat fair, meaning one player played better and had a stronger army. It should not be because one player was lucky in one battle but overall played worse.

There needs to be room for luck, I absolutely agree.
The thing here is its not only about winning or losing a battle. It's also about the damage done and that become important as armies grow big. With the 90% rule you have 2 things to care about.
1. A player may draw a lucky shot and win which will impact the game.
2. The player who got lucky and won might also have been so lucky that he only lost a few units which he can replace and bam, a good hero+morale units and some good units and some new crap can just rip through the other players defence and its was only because of luck.
By lowering the allowed outcome the impact from one single battle isn't as great. Okay lets drop the 75% idea and keep it at 80% the way it is now, increase the battle value for the first step and then make it gradual. That should only be improvements from the way it is now.

[KGB]

Piranha,

I'm not sure what cut off points you are going to use. I think it has to be at least 400 points for 85% and at least 600 points for 80%. A battle as common as 8 Giants (200 str) vs 8 Hv Inf in a L3 city (200 str) will qualify for the 400 pts. To me that's not a battle that really needs to be changed from the current 90% rule as it's not something that's going to decide a game. Certainly the current low value of 60 is WAY WAY too low and is affecting battles that get fought dozens of times a game between 2v2 and 3v2 units.

Also I suggest using raw unit total strength (including bless) and NOT total strength after bonus's. The reason why is that all the negative units (Ram, Catapult, Yeti, Medusa and the poor DK hero) are going to be penalized because they subtract strength and thus can move a battle *under* one of your cut off points. So you might get a situation where using the Ram takes you from the 85% category to the 90% category. Meanwhile positive bonus's like city walls/towers can move battles into another category

Lastly, the problem with what you are attempting to do by changing the cut off points (90, 85, 80) is going to lead to players 'gaming' the system in what is going to be strange ways that are non-obvious to anyone but hard core simulation players.

For example, lets say I want to make a highly improbable attack against an enemy hero stack where I know I am very likely to lose but I hope to get lucky and win. Lets imagine with 8 units my chance is something like 18.5%. If the battle is fought in the 80-20 range, I know I can't ever win. But lets say if I take only 6-7 units (and thus less strength) I get the battle into the 90% range (or 85% range) I now have a chance to win the battle (assuming my overall chance didn't drop under 10%(15%)). That's totally crazy that taking fewer units allows me to win battles that more units guarantees that I lose. This won't happen often, but it will be important to recognize when your chances are just under 20% that it's better to drop into a lower dice category.

The more important case is when you have a really strong stack (typically a hero stack). Let's imagine you are going to use this stack against an enemy city. You know your chances of winning are already *way* over 90%, maybe 95+%. If you fight this battle in the 80-20 dice category you will take MORE losses than you would if you fought in the 90% category. So in this case you should be taking fewer units in your hero stack to lower the dice category if possible because it will reduce your losses to your super stack. To understand why that is, lets imagine the chance of survival for each unit in your 8 stack is something like 3,5,20,25,15,10,10,5 (total 93%, other 7% is enemy stack). So under the 90% rule, in this battle you will lose 1 unit (the 5 on the far right because adding the next 10 unit exceeds 10% so it can't die). But under the 80% rule you must lose 2 units (the 5 and the 10 since the total is < 20). In this battle the hero stack would be far better off dropping 1 unit and getting out of the 80% dice category if it's possible.

Many players aren't going to grasp the idea that their super hero stack should use less men when mopping up weak enemy forces in order to reduce their own losses. It just goes against common sense (the stronger I am, the more men I can lose). Yet smart/experienced players are going to manipulate the cutoff categories for 85%/80% (or adjust their fight order so that the 2nd unit in my example is the 15 survivor which would not die as that would reach 20%) and do everything possible to minimize their losses.

I honestly think it would be best if the game just stayed with the current 90% rule and in the next version when you re-do heroes you add a 'luck' or 'battle' skill that allows players to purchase an extra 1% up to a total of 5%. I personally haven't noticed a lot of problems with the amount of units being lost in battles for either side. But I am afraid making things easier for winning battles is going to lead to players asking for it to be even easier still because they'll be complaining they lost their 78% battle when 80% would have been a win just as they now complain that losing 88% vs 90% is a hardship. Right now 90% is like getting an A+ average on your report card getting you into the most exclusive schools. Dropping it to 80% is suddenly letting all the B+ students into those same schools and that doesn't feel right.

KGB

[Tim]

Dont think about this too much because i like a little Luck in a Game and thats what it is and its only Fun for me. And i dont worry (only short ) when my enemy has many luck and i not. Other Games i have much luck and some i win only with luck...

By the way in one game actually i lost 4 more than 75% Battles in a Row...