Bug with minimal Roll Dice

[asamorodov]

Hi,

seems that there is a bug with minimal Roll Dice calculation.
In one of battle I noticed that with calculated minimal Roll 9 (4 unstoppable + 5 elite) I had one 7 Roll.
Screenshot is here
Please let me know if you need saved game.

[13obo]

From manual:

"Each D10 has a guaranteed minimum value determined as 1 plus unit experience (from 0-3 depending on if it is a recent recruit or an elite unit) and its current effectiveness (from 0 to 2 for a fresh, properly supplied, unit)."

As you can see, the cap of the minimum roll is 5 (elite gives you only 3 to the minimum roll, not 5), anything above is not used. 9 would be too imbalanced and remove almost any randomness from combat results.

[asamorodov]

If you play the game then you can see that there are 5 levels of experience, from zero stars to 4 stars, and 5 possible levels of effectiveness depends on unit type, from exhausted to unstoppable (unstoppable is allowed for special units).
Therefore accordingly to the manual maximal value of minimal roll can be 9: (1 + {experience level}) + {effectiveness} = 1 + 4 + 4.
And if you could take the job to look at my screenshot, that you probably could notice that in-game UI shows this cipher - 9 - as a minimal roll which equals to calculated above.

Therefore, my notice is the same and I have another notice about manual
1) why in-game UI and manual shows one value for minimal roll, but game uses different value, seems it's a bug
2) seems the manual is inconsistent in this place, because accordingly main text maximal value should be 9, but accordingly text in brackets it is 5.

About balance: perhaps 9 is too high minimal roll, but

1) it's not so easy to reach it, because you need to use special and very expensive units which is not available from the beginning of the game (except Spartan Phalanx, but Sparta has his own strong limitations), and take 150 xp for this unit to make it elite. So probably it could be deserving award for extraordinary player's efforts and reflects that best troops depend on lucky in the least degree.

2) and in any case the worst decision would be to have a hidden cap (probably 7 accordingly my observations) which makes useless player's efforts to make troops better, so if there is such cap at 7 then there is no difference between 2 and 4 stars for units with 4 maximal effectiveness, or these is no difference between units with maximal effectiveness 2 and 4 if units have elite status.

[13obo]

1) Your screenshot is exceedingly bad quality and therefore illegible to read anything from it.
2) I was only referencing the manual, which states the RANGES of minimum roll contributions, and those are clearly defined as 0-3 for experience and 0-2 for effectiveness, so 0-5 in total. And yes, the manual could be wrong, but I'm just the messenger.
3) You seem to be confusing combat strength of units, which is a value of the unit you have recruited and gets directly added to the roll, which is affected by the experience/effectiveness.
4) Don't be a dolt when people are trying to help, but explain your reasoning patiently. Your first post was a few words long and I cannot read your mind.

[asamorodov]

Do you mean that some levels of experience and effectiveness do nothing? Because experience and effectiveness affects only minimal roll. If 'Range' of effective value is lesser than actual range of original value it means that some original values map to the same effective values and there is no difference between them in the point of view of game mechanics. I think it would be really bad game design.
Luckily my observations show that seems it works as it should be and levels of experience and effectiveness map 1 to 1 to minimal roll.
But I guess that there is hidden cap (7 most likely) for minimal roll. From my point of view it is not a better solution (I described why in my previous post), but if it is true then I believe that it should be reflected in UI (which should show actual minimal roll) and the manual.
Or it is just a bug which should be fixed.

P.S. My screenshot is in original in-game resolution, my bad that I didn't notice that it's necessary make a click to image to see it in the original size.
I wholeheartedly support your call 'don't be a dolt'.

[loki100]

I really don't understand how you are coming to your conclusions.

The combat system (10.7.4) is clear;

a) generate the basic combat value of each unit - its own stats, if it is supported, fatigue and experience
b) roll 1 or more dice depending on your leader. Discard any that fail the test in (c) and reroll those till they pass (this is thus better than a simple increase)
c) 4 levels of experience give +0 to +3, 3 levels of effectiveness from 0 to 2. So an elite, full strength unit gets 5, a freshly raised battered unit gets 0

the single best value generated from a+b is the combat value used.

there is no 'hidden cap' just the application of these rules.

[asamorodov]

Let me repeat:
there are 5 levels of experience, from zero stars to 4 stars, and 5 possible levels of effectiveness depends on unit type, from exhausted to unstoppable (unstoppable is allowed for special units).
Therefore accordingly to the manual maximal value of minimal roll should be 9: (1 + {experience level}) + {effectiveness} = (1 + 4) + 4.
If you look at my screenshot then you see that in-game UI shows this number (9) as minimal roll, so at least game agrees with this calculation in a part which shows it.
But my observations show that in spite of this fact that 9 is shown as minimal roll in the screen, actually 7 is used as minimal roll. That's why I am saying about hidden cap.

[loki100]

I'm sorry but repeating something doesn't make it right ... merely that you have said the same thing more than once

[AndrewGardner]

I believe the range of possible effectiveness values and experience levels has grown since the specification used for the manual. There is a cap on the total of seven, but not on the two components. The result is that an Unstoppable Elite unit doesn't get the full benefit of these stats, but it can lose an effectiveness point without affecting the minimum roll.

The discrepancy between the actual minimum roll and the displayed value is a bug.

[asamorodov]

Thank you for explanation Andrew.

This sudden cap at 7 looks logical but from my point of view it is arguable game design solution.
Let me explain: I think that one of general concepts of strategy games is that player is necessary to balance between directions and is forced to win to use some kind of min-max strategy, where for some directions only enough count of resources ais used (and no more than just 'enough'), for few ones effectiveness is maxed. And for army strength direction in FOGE such cap makes this direction poor because it's comparably easy to reach that cap (most of good units has max effectiveness 3, so even for that ordinary units elite status is almost useless, because even for XP level 3 thay reach his minimal roll cap).
Yes, it makes sense: 'it can lose an effectiveness point without affecting the minimum roll', but frankly speaking, it's almost nothing in real games.
Therefore from my point of view, cap 9 could be lesser evil in this situation. At least it could be deserving award for extraordinary player's efforts (because in spite of 7, cap 9 is hard to reach) and reflects that best troops depend on lucky in the least degree.