Assaults: When "97%" doesn't mean "97%"

[Richardg]

This has probably already been chewed over many times, but after hundreds of hours of BA I have to ask: Why the HELL do my assaults fail at a far higher rate than it would seem? An "86%" assault fails. A "97%" assault fails. FAILS. If it's going to fail 75% of the time, why don't they just tell us that?

[leci]

It is about probabilities. Also about defence/attack ratios against a defended position.

Firstly, the rule of thumb (or was in my long ago Forces days) was 3:1 ie attackers:defenders, plus of course one needs to bear in mind defender morale, ammo and number of troops. Bear in mind also, also marginally easier to defend than to attack. In BA ascertain the morale and number (and type) of defending troops and 'shots' inc. reaction shots.

Add to this the probability percentage ie it is a game of chance.

Unless you have overwhelming force, forget it.

Better to wear a defender down ie into suppression, bring up other attacking units and await your next turn - but watch for defender substitution.

Gilles

[IainMcNeil]

I've honestly not seen any issue with the %. 97% means you will fail one in 30 times. 86% means 1 in 7. I do fail sometimes but no more than I'd expect!

[bjarmson]

What bothers me is less my assaults (assaults are always risky even at 97%), but AI desperation assaults that succeed when there should be no chance. I've lost 4/5 man, elite units emplaced in defensive works (2X, 4X) too many times to 1/2 man desperation assaults. Now I realize this is always a possibility, but it happens far too often. I assume this is because the odds are set at some arbitrarily low figure (the one in thirty ratio mentioned above), when in this situation they should actually be set at one in a hundred or higher.

[IainMcNeil]

The odds are set based on your morale, their morale, your assault stats, their assault stats casualties and terrain. It is possible to get a 100% chance to win but its extremely hard. The AI wont assault if it has a 3% chance of success because that would mean they were almost certainly suppressed. Morale is really important to assaults so even the best troops who get suppressed in a bunker can be taken out in an assault.

[bjarmson]

IainNcNell: "Morale is really important to assaults so even the best troops who get suppressed in a bunker can be taken out in an assault." And suppression is something I constantly use in the game, but I won't assault except during the most dire circumstances when the odds are below about 60%/70%, whereas the AI just sees it has a 10% chance and assaults rather than save its troops. Any AI assaults below the 30% level should be negated, since except for the most fanatic or berserker troops, no one would assault given those kind of odds, knowing they will almost certainly die. Building firewalls or imposing limits into the odds algorithms makes the game play more human, and less pixel vs pixel.

[IainMcNeil]

It looks like there wasa bug that made the AI assault more than it should at low success chances. We've fixed it. It didn't give them an increased chance to win but did mean they did it too often.