Ground Combat System

[Hamish]

Since I am thinking about building a combat simulator for Victory!, I have 3 questions about the ground combat system. I guess only Russ can answer them, but the answer could be interesting for everyone, so I thought I'd post them here.

1. Are combat odds recalculated at the start of each round, or are they calculated once and then used for each combat round?
   
2. Is the same random number used for the entire combat, or is a new random number generated each round?
   
3. Is the same random number used for both the attacker and the defender, or is a random number generated for each of them?
   

[Falco]

The answer of these questions have come from Russ over time, I believe these are the answers:

 

1) same odds.

2) new random number.

3) each of them generates a random number.

[Hamish]

If that's true I'm not happy with it, it makes making a probability calculation for a victory rather complicated. Where there are 10 possible situations if attacker and defender use the same and equal number in each round, if they use a different and changing number each round, there are 10.000 possibilities for a 2 round combat, and 1.000.000 for a 3 round combat. That needs a seriously different approach in programming. Also, they can give some seriously different results as far as damage goes.

[Mickey]

Falco is correct.

 

Luckily there is still some unpredictability in Victory!...

[El Capitan]

I haven't played Victory in a very long time, but I always loved the combat program because of the way the randomness was incorperated. It wasn't so heavy handed as to be rediculous, but it was enough to replicate the uncertainties of battle. Stuff like weather, terrain, bad intel, luck, etc. To assure that 99% chance of victory, you better have a serious numbers advantage, and not just be able to calculate to the nth ton that you will win. I've always wished that SN's combat program had a random element similar to Victory.

[Guest Spongebob]

Maybe Russ can supply you with a copy of the combat code so as to better understand the mechanics, it cannot indefinatly increase, the computer would start smoking especially considering its age.

[jpd]

On the other hand ...

Random in a typical computer isn't random at all, *if* you have the code for the random number generator function (which isn't hard, as it's usually just the library routine that comes with the compiler), and the seed value that's used to start the number sequence.

Heck, I've made encryption/decryption routines based on this very principle.

Source and destination have the same random generator code, and the same encrypt/decrypt sequences. Encrypt the date, send it to the destination, and transmit the seed value used. With this, the receiver can decrypt the data.

Short version: if Russ would hand you (or anyone else) the source code for the random generator and the battle code, then you have half of the key to accurately evaluate (aka predict) the outcome of any battle, thus eliminating the random factor you currently "enjoy"It's also the mechanism that Firaxis (for example) uses in Civilization to prevent different outcomes to happen after a save game reload.