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Damage miscalculation
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2020 3:48 am
by Thorvarg
I am a new player of FoG2 and basically love the game, especially since I played tabletop games based on the Society of Ancient rules 35 years ago. But there is one thing that is absolutely ridiculous here in the game, and that is the damage calculation! In FoG2, the damage dealt is based, among other things, on the size of the unit receiving the damage and not, as it should be, on the size of the unit doing the damage. Thus, a 240-man unit, with the same weapons, quality and armor, does twice as much damage as a 480-man army when they fight each other. Also, it sometimes seems to me that unprotected units, for example, receive less damage than armored units (cataphracts).
Re: Damage miscalculation
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2020 6:00 am
by Swuul
Thorvarg wrote: ↑Mon Dec 14, 2020 3:48 am
I am a new player of FoG2 and basically love the game, especially since I played tabletop games based on the Society of Ancient rules 35 years ago. But there is one thing that is absolutely ridiculous here in the game, and that is the damage calculation! In FoG2, the damage dealt is based, among other things, on the size of the unit receiving the damage and not, as it should be, on the size of the unit doing the damage. Thus, a 240-man unit, with the same weapons, quality and armor, does twice as much damage as a 480-man army when they fight each other. Also, it sometimes seems to me that unprotected units, for example, receive less damage than armored units (cataphracts).
Number of men is not exactly same as unit size in FoG2.
On Impact round of combat not all men of the unit fight, so during that the number of men has little meaning. Similarily, on Impact round armour has no meaning at all. Are you talking of Impact rounds (ie the round the combat is initiated) or regular combat rounds (ie second round and all rounds after that)?
As first advice, I suggest you take a look at the manual to understand combat.
As second advice, go to settings and activate the detailed tooltips and combat logs, that will help a ton!
As third advice, post screenshots of situations you find strange, and the good people here will explain how the system works in those situations
Re: Damage miscalculation
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2020 11:11 am
by Thorvarg
Everything you wrote is known to me, but has nothing to do with the problem I raised. You can test this yourself (in ranged combat): check the tooltips of different units you can fire at. You will notice that one and the same unit does different damage against different sized targets. Example. 480 men get 80 damage, 240 men 40 damage and 120 men units get only 20 damage (all fictitious numbers, only the damage ratio is correct), where the smaller units are even mostly without armor. However, the damage should be somewhat equal for all units, since the damage of the SHOOTING unit should have to be taken as a basis, regardless of the size of the target! At the moment it seems to me that a percentage is calculated and then that is converted to the target unit as damage.
Re: Damage miscalculation
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2020 12:48 pm
by 76mm
It sounds like you're talking exclusively about ranged fire (ie, shooting)?
Richard will have to speak up for his rationale for this particular issue, but based on my experience on this forum, everything in this game is thought through rather well and Richard will have a very good reason for this design decision.
In this case, while I can't speak for Richard, I would guess that if you are firing x number of arrows at a target area, the more troops that are crowded into a particular tile, the more troops you are likely to hit. In other words, if you fire at a closely-packed formation you are going to hit more troops than if you fire at a bunch of dispersed skirmishers. Makes sense to me...
Re: Damage miscalculation
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2020 1:07 pm
by Paul59
Thorvarg wrote: ↑Mon Dec 14, 2020 11:11 am
Everything you wrote is known to me, but has nothing to do with the problem I raised. You can test this yourself (in ranged combat): check the tooltips of different units you can fire at. You will notice that one and the same unit does different damage against different sized targets. Example. 480 men get 80 damage, 240 men 40 damage and 120 men units get only 20 damage (all fictitious numbers, only the damage ratio is correct), where the smaller units are even mostly without armor. However, the damage should be somewhat equal for all units, since the damage of the SHOOTING unit should have to be taken as a basis, regardless of the size of the target! At the moment it seems to me that a percentage is calculated and then that is converted to the target unit as damage.
There are a number of factors that probably explain the effects that you have seen;
1) Non-light missile units that do not also have a close combat capability (ie; Swordsmen,Light Spear etc) suffer a big penalty (-23%) on their shooting power when within two tiles of close combat troops that are facing them.
2) Shooting at Skirmishers (ie; those 240 and 120 man units that you mention) incurs a -34% shooting penalty. The men in these units are assumed to be more spread out and taking advantage of any cover within the tile, and so are much harder to hit.
3) All combat is subject to RNG, so sometimes missile fire is more affective than expected, sometimes less.
Re: Damage miscalculation
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2020 1:14 pm
by Swuul
Thorvarg wrote: ↑Mon Dec 14, 2020 11:11 am
Everything you wrote is known to me, but has nothing to do with the problem I raised. You can test this yourself (in ranged combat): check the tooltips of different units you can fire at. You will notice that one and the same unit does different damage against different sized targets. Example. 480 men get 80 damage, 240 men 40 damage and 120 men units get only 20 damage (all fictitious numbers, only the damage ratio is correct), where the smaller units are even mostly without armor. However, the damage should be somewhat equal for all units, since the damage of the SHOOTING unit should have to be taken as a basis, regardless of the size of the target! At the moment it seems to me that a percentage is calculated and then that is converted to the target unit as damage.
Sounds you have not the detailed tooltips on
If you had, you would have noticed the 480 missile unit without close-combat capability (and within 2 tiles of hostile melee units) shooting at skirmishers (a 120 or 240 man unit) has a -57% penalty. So yes, they *will* deal fewer casualties than the skirmishers shooting at them, all other conditions being similar.
If there is something in the tooltips you do not understand, take a screenshot, and post it here. There are plenty of nice people here who are willing to help you understand what is going on
Re: Damage miscalculation
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2020 3:07 pm
by kronenblatt
Here are some
posts on roughly the same topic.
Re: Damage miscalculation
Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2020 8:28 am
by rbodleyscott
As has been mentioned above skirmishers are a harder target.
Apart from that, however, equivalent units cause the same casualties when shooting at different sized units of the same protection level.
- Screen_00000007.jpg (215.32 KiB) Viewed 1513 times
- Screen_00000008.jpg (214.74 KiB) Viewed 1513 times
However, some battles use scaling factors to allow the total number of men in the battle to be higher without too many units. In such battles both sides would be scaled, so with a 200% scaling factor the light archers would have 480 men, the Levy Spearmen would have 960 men and all casualty numbers would be doubled too.
Re: Damage miscalculation
Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2020 2:01 pm
by Thorvarg
rbodleyscott wrote: ↑Tue Dec 15, 2020 8:28 am
As has been mentioned above skirmishers are a harder target.
Apart from that, however, equivalent units cause the same casualties when shooting at different sized units of the same protection level.
However, some battles use scaling factors to allow the total number of men in the battle to be higher without too many units. In such battles both sides would be scaled, so with a 200% scaling factor the light archers would have 480 men, the Levy Spearmen would have 960 men and all casualty numbers would be doubled too.
Thank you, that helped me a lot. I therefore realize that I have made a mistake.
