How does Attack vs Defence actually figure in damage

[koala404]

So i've been reading all about initiative and how it determines impact on damage, but what i cant seem to find is any information on how the My Attack vs Their Defence ratio or difference generates kills, suppressions or misses.

For example, i have a Pz 3 attacking a KV 2. So my attack is way lower than his defence, but i can still damage him, so clearly there is some sort of odds thing happening, rather than just "qualifying" for a hit. If your attack is high enouh. But on the flip side, when i attack some low defence transport with my huge 88, i dont seem to get even close to a full set of kills, so is there some upper bound to probability?

Information would be really useful.

Oh and one more thing, i'm on an ipad, so please please please dont just refer me to the Library, since it doesnt exist on the ipad except to provide some historic facts on various vehicles and guns.

[ksasaki]

hey koala,
I've been reading too, from what I gathered, there is a 20% * (initiative difference) suppression on their units before they fire : i.e. if the initiative difference was 3 then 60% of the lower initiative unit would not fire until the other unit had completely fired. Of course, this is limited by weather (initiative goes to 0 in rain) and terrain. I don't know exactly how attack and defense works (like what does a delta of 3 do?) I do know that each unit rolls 100 sided die to determine hits / suppression etc. It was all visible on the "advanced click" button. Also, having multiple adjacent units who can attack reduces the initiative by 1 for every extra unit (so 3 units who can fire adjacent to enemy reduces their initiative by 2). I was wondering if this initiative reduction meant the enemy unit's initiative could become negative? Also, there is a random d3 from 0-2 which randomly adds initiative to either side before resolving combat, which is why you might see some completely different result from the prediction.

[koala404]

Yes, that bit appears to be the only element that is explained reasonably well and comprehensively. I suppose what I am missing is the answer to this question - I have 23 attack, he has 16 defence. What does that MEAN? Does it mean i have a better chance than say 17 vs 16? By how much? What if I were 12 and they were 16? What then? The whole question of what an attack value means is the missing part of my knoweldge. The initiative has a huge impact on how the game is played, so I'm thrilled that it is so clear on this front, but I am curious about the more fundamental brute force question.

[Forefall]

I believe the question has been asked before and no one really knows.

[HeresiarchQin]

Here is an old thread which explains the attack vs defense formula pretty well, but for some reason not put into the FAQ thread. It's pretty accurate.

viewtopic.php?t=26995

[Forefall]

Wow, that's great! Thanks for sharing.

[ksasaki]

Note: Thanks to Goliath for doing all this research!

I plugged the formula into excel from -10 <= X <= 10, where X is (A-D) A the attack value, and D the defense value (I guess all modifiers like fortkiller and fortification would be added too)

miss % is 82 at -10 and decreases by 2 down to 70 at -4
miss % is 70 at -4 and decreases by 5 down to 30 at 4
miss % is 30 at 4 and decreases by 2 down to 18 at 10

direct kills (everything besides arty and lvl bombers)
direct kill % is 13 at -10 and increases by 1.5 to 22 at -4
direct kill % is 22 at -4 and increases by 4.5 up to 58 at 4
direct kill % is 58 at 4 and increases by 2.5 up to 73 at 10

direct suppression
direct suppression % is 5 at -10 and increases by .5 up to 12 at 4
direct suppression % is 12 at 4 and decreases by .5 down to 9 at 10

indirect kills
indirect kill % rises from 1.5 at -10 and increases by .25 up to 2.75 at -5
indirect kill % rises from 2.75 at -5 and increases by 1.25 up to 4 at -4
indirect kill % rises from 4 at -4 and increases by 1.5 up to 25 at 10

indirect suppression
indirect suppression % rises from 16.5 at -10 and increases by 1.75 up to 25.25 at -5
indirect suppression % rises from 25.25 at -5 and increases by .75 up to 26 at -4
indirect suppression % rises from 26 at -4 and increases by 3.5 up to 54 at 4
indirect suppression % rises from 54 at 4 and increases by 0.5 up to 57 at 10

In conclusion, it looks like your greatest difference in performance will be from -4 to 4, with diminishing returns any further in any direction. That's good information to have, no wonder my Pz 1A is so crappy against infantry!

Note, I attached the picture of my spreadsheet, apparently .xlsx is not allowed!

[ksasaki]

on a related note, I dug up some data about how stars affect experience bonuses from an old post of KeldorKatarn:

Copied from the exp.pzdat file:

Code: Select all

# Experience settings file								
# For each unit class, there are 8 columns specifying per-star bonus to attack, defense and initiative.								
# Each value is the number of 1/100s, so 100 means 1, 50 means 0.5 and so on.								
# After applying the bonus, the game rounds the result to the nearest integer.								
# So 3.2 attack is rounded to 3, and 3.7 attack is rounded to 4.								
								
# Unit Class	Initiative	Soft Attack	Hard Attack	Air Attack	Naval Attack	Ground Defense	Air Defense	Close Defense
Infantry	50	100	50	0	0	100	100	100
Tank	50	100	100	0	0	100	50	0
Recon	0	50	50	0	0	100	50	0
Anti-tank	50	0	200	0	0	100	50	0
Artillery	0	100	50	0	0	100	50	0
Anti-air	0	0	0	200	0	100	50	0
Structure	0	100	100	100	100	100	100	100
Fighter	50	0	0	200	0	50	100	0
Tactical Bomber	0	100	100	0	50	50	100	0
Strategic Bomber	0	100	100	0	100	100	100	0
Submarine	0	0	0	0	100	100	100	100
Destroyer	0	0	0	0	100	100	100	100
Capital Ship	0	100	100	50	100	100	100	100
Carrier	0	0	0	0	0	100	100	100
Land Transport	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Air Transport	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Sea Transport	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Rail Transport	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Armored Train	0	100	50	0	0	100	50	0
River Boat	0	0	0	0	100	100	100	100

I made an image so it is a little easier to read

[Forefall]

Wow ksasaki, that's great information. Thanks!

[koala404]

Oh man, freakin' awesome. You, sir, are a scholar and a gent (and welcome to ask my tiny little Pz I to take on that big-ass Tiger to block for a turn anyday)!

[Ucross]

This formula doesn't make sense for air attack though.

In the air the fighters have MORE defense than offense yet they consistently do 8+ damage.

[ksasaki]

that's true, next time I do an air attack I'll check the advanced combat detail and see if there are any modifiers

[captainjack]

Under 1.2 rules, fighters get +2 air attack per star (same as AA). This could explain why you're getting shredded more often than you expect.

I used to field a big air force but am currently favouring more AA as I seem to take less overall damage that way.

[Forefall]

Still doesn't add up, because even with stars if the attack and defense is similar, it should only be 40% or so, and the damage is commonly much higher.

[Ucross]

Never mind, I just realized that it's because I was using the hero "bar" and not calculating it.

I just tried with my normal planes and it was 4-1 like expected.

[ksasaki]

Under 1.2 rules, fighters get +2 air attack per star (same as AA). This could explain why you're getting shredded more often than you expect.

I used to field a big air force but am currently favouring more AA as I seem to take less overall damage that way.

I thought the anti-air was interesting, but how do you defend your bombers that way?

The formula is correct, I just checked it using advanced combat view. That's why you can shred polish planes because their air defense is actually quite low (make sure you are looking at AIR defense, because ground defense of the airplanes is commonly much higher). If you attack a more heavily armored plane like the British level bombers, you will do significantly less damage.

Also, the reason planes take so much damage from anti air fire when they are attacking is because they have a -5 defense "low altitude attack." (not sure if level bombers suffer low altitude attack, probably not). That also explains why those 1-2 attack soviet tanks can actually deliver 1-2 hits on occasion.