Foot skirmishers evading diagonally.

[pompeytheflatulent]

In my experience it seems that when foot skirmishers evade and get caught from not running far enough, most of the time it happens when they evade diagonally as opposed to straight on. Could someone more familiar with the mechanics confirm or refute this? Do foot skirmishers have a statistically higher chance to get caught evading diagonally because of the grid and geometry voodoo?

[Paul59]

In my experience it seems that when foot skirmishers evade and get caught from not running far enough, most of the time it happens when they evade diagonally as opposed to straight on. Could someone more familiar with the mechanics confirm or refute this? Do foot skirmishers have a statistically higher chance to get caught evading diagonally because of the grid and geometry voodoo?

I have noticed this myself, and not just foot skirmishers, it seems any unit evading diagonally is a bit more vulnerable to being caught. That is only my personal observation though, I have no hard facts to support it.

[pompeytheflatulent]

In the case of foot skirmishers, they normally move 2 squares diagonally and 3 squares straight-on. So on a low roll while evading, they sometimes only move 1 square diagonally, while guaranteed to move at least 2 squares evading straight-on. Maybe something to do with AP usage moving diagonally and rounding up/down that makes evading diagonally less AP efficient?

[Schweetness101]

the engine probably does some kind of rounding to make moving diagonally an approximately similar distance to moving straight. If the grids have one unit edges then the diagonal is √2 I think. They probably can't make diagonal and straight movement an exact one to one because you aren't moving enough squares for your distance to be an even multiple if that makes sense. Something like that...

So, when you evade/pursue, and get your +- 4ap or whatever it is, and if some of it happens over diagonals you might end up with a few round downs that put you at net disadvantage when moving diagonally. Mostly speculation here but I suspect it's something like that.

[Schweetness101]

In the case of foot skirmishers, they normally move 2 squares diagonally and 3 squares straight-on. So on a low roll while evading, they sometimes only move 1 square diagonally, while guaranteed to move at least 2 squares evading straight-on. Maybe something to do with AP usage moving diagonally and rounding up/down that makes evading diagonally less AP efficient?

you beat me to it lol

[jomni]

Basically diagonal distance is longer than straight. It's about 1.4x the length of the side.

[Paul59]

Basically diagonal distance is longer than straight. It's about 1.4x the length of the side.

Obviously the diagonal distance is longer than the straight, but that should affect pursuers and evaders equally.

[Schweetness101]

Basically diagonal distance is longer than straight. It's about 1.4x the length of the side.

Obviously the diagonal distance is longer than the straight, but that should affect pursuers and evaders equally.

perhaps it's something like this:

take a close case where say the evader rolls to get 6 distance units away, and the pursuer to follow 5 distance units

-if the evader goes straight, they end up one square away from the pursuer, and so they escape

-if the evader goes at a diagonal, and each diagonal is a distance of ~1.414, then the max permitted evasion distance is probably rounded after dividing the action points by that 1.414. The evader's 6 action points divided by 1.414 is 4.24, which rounds down to 4. Meanwhile, the pursuer can travel 5 action points divided by ~1.414 or 3.53 diagonals, which rounds up to 4. Dunno if that would mean catching the evader or only getting within one diagonal spot as far as the game rules go, but the point is that the distance can potentially be rounded on both sides to favor the pursuer (more often than it favors the evader? not sure).

dunno if I really know what I'm talking about here but I think the above might be very approximately what's going on.

It could also be that we are just anecdotally noticing diagonal fleeing to be less successful than straight away fleeing.

It is a tabletop game with a grid and nice whole number rolls, so it was never gonna come out exactly the same going straight vs diagonal.

I suppose it favors/disfavors all sides equally in the long run.

[TheGrayMouser]

It costs a unit 6 move points to enter on a diagonal, 4 on an orthogonal. There is no rounding. Heavy foot have 10 mp,Light foot have 12 mp’s, Cavalry 16 and light horse 20.
All the move ratios are higher from the lf perspective on the diagonal. However I’m not sure that it matters . There is also the random element of the pursuer and evader getting or losing a grid . That is too much statistical analysis for me!

(Heavily edited post as my maths were way off)

[TheGrayMouser]

Basically diagonal distance is longer than straight. It's about 1.4x the length of the side.

Obviously the diagonal distance is longer than the straight, but that should affect pursuers and evaders equally.

It does but a unit with 16 mp’s. Ie Cavalry , use 12 to cross 2 diagonals, the remaining 4 are not going to help . I pretty sure the game doesn’t compute “unused mp’s” influencing a higher chance to roll the bonus grid move , but I’m not positive.

[pompeytheflatulent]

Looking up the steam forums, apparently units have a 25% chance to evade/chase 1 square less than their normal movement, and a 25% chance to evade/chase 1 square more than normal.

Here's a hypothetical scenario:

Example 1

Screen_00000000.jpg (856.79 KiB) Viewed 3205 times

In example 1 the Velites moving straight back have a 25% chance to evade only 2 squares, the African Spearmen have a 25% chance to chase 3 squares. So the Velites have a 25% x 25% = ~6% chance to get caught.

Eample 2

Screen_00000001.jpg (874.4 KiB) Viewed 3205 times

In example 2 the Velites moving diagonally have a 25% chance to move only 1 square, in which case the African Spearmen only have to NOT roll the 25% chance to move less than normal in order to catch them. So in this case the Velites have a 25% x 75% = ~19% chance to get caught.

[Schweetness101]

It costs a unit 6 move points to enter on a diagonal, 4 on an orthogonal. There is no rounding. Heavy foot have 10 mp,Light foot have 12 mp’s, Cavalry 16 and light horse 20.
All the move ratios are higher from the lf perspective on the diagonal. However I’m not sure that it matters . There is also the random element of the pursuer and evader getting or losing a grid . That is too much statistical analysis for me!

(Heavily edited post as my maths were way off)

isn't it rounding in effect though? as in you don't actually get to use all of your points depending on which way you go?

heavy foot (10 mp), as an example, can move:
2.5 straight squares (10/4), rounded down to the two you are permitted to move, or loss of 2 mp
one straight and then one diagonal (4+6=10) with no loss of mp
one diagonal to start and no more (6+6=12>10), or 1.666 diagonals rounded down to 1, or loss of 4 mp

and other units may have more or less favorable movement math, but it does seem that you can maximize or minimize your MP use per unit type depending on how you move or evade due to not using all of your mp by taking some directions?

[TheGrayMouser]

It costs a unit 6 move points to enter on a diagonal, 4 on an orthogonal. There is no rounding. Heavy foot have 10 mp,Light foot have 12 mp’s, Cavalry 16 and light horse 20.
All the move ratios are higher from the lf perspective on the diagonal. However I’m not sure that it matters . There is also the random element of the pursuer and evader getting or losing a grid . That is too much statistical analysis for me!

(Heavily edited post as my maths were way off)

isn't it rounding in effect though? as in you don't actually get to use all of your points depending on which way you go?

heavy foot (10 mp), as an example, can move:
2.5 straight squares (10/4), rounded down to the two you are permitted to move, or loss of 2 mp
one straight and then one diagonal (4+6=10) with no loss of mp
one diagonal to start and no more (6+6=12>10), or 1.666 diagonals rounded down to 1, or loss of 4 mp

and other units may have more or less favorable movement math, but it does seem that you can maximize or minimize your MP use per unit type depending on how you move or evade due to not using all of your mp by taking some directions?

Rounding doesn’t come into the equation, the unit spends mp’s to enter a grid, if it has enough, it enters , if not it cannot. We are just talking about straight maneuvers too, not turning. The question is if there is a higher % chance of a lightbfoot escaping when evading diagonally... Now that I have thought this thru, I’m pretty sure they do.

[Schweetness101]

It costs a unit 6 move points to enter on a diagonal, 4 on an orthogonal. There is no rounding. Heavy foot have 10 mp,Light foot have 12 mp’s, Cavalry 16 and light horse 20.
All the move ratios are higher from the lf perspective on the diagonal. However I’m not sure that it matters . There is also the random element of the pursuer and evader getting or losing a grid . That is too much statistical analysis for me!

(Heavily edited post as my maths were way off)

isn't it rounding in effect though? as in you don't actually get to use all of your points depending on which way you go?

heavy foot (10 mp), as an example, can move:
2.5 straight squares (10/4), rounded down to the two you are permitted to move, or loss of 2 mp
one straight and then one diagonal (4+6=10) with no loss of mp
one diagonal to start and no more (6+6=12>10), or 1.666 diagonals rounded down to 1, or loss of 4 mp

and other units may have more or less favorable movement math, but it does seem that you can maximize or minimize your MP use per unit type depending on how you move or evade due to not using all of your mp by taking some directions?

Rounding doesn’t come into the equation, the unit spends mp’s to enter a grid, if it has enough, it enters , if not it cannot. We are just talking about straight maneuvers too, not turning. The question is if there is a higher % chance of a lightbfoot escaping when evading diagonally... Now that I have thought this thru, I’m pretty sure they do.

alright if not rounding then something that's similar? That is, certain divisions of total MP for a unit by utilized mp that turn can leave some mp on the table.

So, if you go over all the possible combinations of diagonal and orthogonal movement you could squeeze out a relative advantage or disadvantage if one unit uses all of it's mp and another does not, especially when adding the extra complexity of the +-x MP added from the evasion/pursuit roll.

*Edit: I came off as rude and didn't mean to in the original version of this post, my apologies.