New logging battle values

[piranha]

You can now see the strength values and dice rolls in battle to see if there is something that seems wrong.

I have spotted one thing that does not happen as its supposed to. If your enemy have a devil its cancel non hero bonus will remove the fire elementals attack bonus even if it shouldn't.

I will probably not do anything about that until more bugs are found or until beta 3 is ready.

[KGB]

Piranha,

I noticed a bug today with regards to Wizards.

When the Wizard changes his strength (either from land-to-flier or flier-to-land) the stack bonus's are suddenly calculated all over again. But now any slain units on either side no longer factor into the calculation so the new bonus's are incorrect and this persists for the remainder of the combat.

In my battle I had 2 Giants, 3 spiders, catapult, Pegasi, Medusa and I was facing a city with a bunch of light infantry, a Wizard, A Demon and a Hero.

When the Wizard first entered battle against my spiders, he was a 6 strength (+1 from hero, +1 from demon, -1 from Medusa and 0 from city). When he then faced the Pegasi his strength jumped to 9 (+3 vs fliers). But when the Medusa entered combat he should have dropped back to his original 6 strength. Instead he went to 8 because the catapult negation of the city walls was no longer figured into the bonus's calculations because it was slain.

Note that the incorrect bonus calculation persisted even after the Medusa slew the Wizard and moved on to face the Demon.

I would assume that Elf Archers have the same bug.

Gives a whole new reason to put those units far down in the fight order to recalculate new bonus's

KGB

[piranha]

Ok. Good that you spoted this. I will write it down on my todo. Yes the same thing will happen with a archer.

[Blomkvist]

But the warpedia says: "When a unit dies in battle its bonuses are gone through the rest of the battle."

[KGB]

I think the Warpedia is wrong.

That's definitely NOT how Warlords 1,2 and 3 worked.

That kind of change would radically alter battles because the first stack that lost a bonus unit would most likely never recover.

KGB

[KGB]

Another possible bug.

I had a stack in the open that contained and Elephant (+2 in the open) and a Demon (+1) stack. I expected my units to be at +3. But they were all at +2.

So is the Elephant bonus not cumulative with the Demon/Pegasi stack bonus? If it's not cumulative it makes the Elephant a significantly worse unit because you only get the bonus in the open and half of it can be obtained by a Pegasi/Demon which gives the +1 bonus in all cases. If this is by design then the Elephant should cost a lot less to purchase than 1400. It should cost less than the 1050 Pegasi.

KGB

[piranha]

Hello! Just got home from a trip to Crete.

The way it is right now the elephants bonus is a stack bonus that only applies in open so its not cumulative with the other stack bonuses.
This might make the elephant overpriced.


About the bonus. What I mean is that if a pegasi dies in battle the stack bonus does not apply for the rest of the units. Perhaps it sounds like all bonuses of one side are lost as soon as a unit dies?

[KGB]

Piranha,

Hello! Just got home from a trip to Crete.

I hope you had a good time if it was a pleasure trip.

The way it is right now the elephants bonus is a stack bonus that only applies in open so its not cumulative with the other stack bonuses. This might make the elephant overpriced.

Definitely quite a bit over priced since the bonus is not cumulative. This is probably a 1000 gold unit and I'd suggest making it 7 strength.

About the bonus. What I mean is that if a pegasi dies in battle the stack bonus does not apply for the rest of the units.

Are you saying the Warpedia is right and that when a bonus unit dies it's bonus is lost in the middle of the battle? That's definitely not how Warlords 1/2/3 worked combat wise.

That kind of change makes DRAMATIC difference in battles that aren't good. For example imagine 2 hero stacks facing off that each contain a Hero/Dragon/Medusa. So each side is getting +3 (2 from Dragon, 1 from Hero) and giving -1. This is an evenly matched battle. But one unit must die first for some side. So when the Medusa dies, suddenly one side loses it's -1 so the other side becomes stronger mid battle PURELY by random dice luck, not skill. That could lead to the same side losing its Dragon further skewing the battle due to more lost bonus's. So the first side to lose a unit might well lose all the rest without the other side losing a single unit. That's not a good thing in what was an even battle.

That's why bonus's don't change in the middle of a battle.

Perhaps it sounds like all bonuses of one side are lost as soon as a unit dies?

No, all the bonus's are not lost when a single unit dies. That would be easily noticeable in combat replays. The only strange effect I have seen is with the Wizard where the bonus's are recalculated when the Wizard changes from facing a land-air unit or air-land unit.

KGB

[piranha]

Ops! We thought that its the way bonuses works in warlords.
I need to talk with snotling about it. But the warpedia is right so until we change it you will have to take that into consideration when you create your stacks.

[piranha]

I will change this for beta3.