How does the combat system work?

[mattpilot]

Wow.. thank you very much George!

Your system works different than i expected, and i'm very grateful for the explanation.


Followup questions:


1) Why does Battalion Strength not factor into defense calculation?

2) Is every 'shot fired' a guaranteed hit? (this includes area attacks from artillery and missile attacks)

[Balthagor]

#2 has actually come up before, IIRC it's yes.

I'll mention to George that you have more questions, might be a bit before he gets back to you. I'll be integrating his comments into a future revision of the manual.

[George Geczy]

1) Why does Battalion Strength not factor into defense calculation?

2) Is every 'shot fired' a guaranteed hit? (this includes area attacks from artillery and missile attacks)

The main reason why the Battalion Strength is not used in the defense value is that it doesn't affect "how much damage" the attack does. While you could argue that a damaged battalion might be a bit more spread out and harder to hit, in general the concept is that each shot will do approximately the same amount of damage. So if the strength of the Infantry was 60 squads to start with in the example I gave, the first hit it takes it will go from 60 to 53 strength, the second hit will take it from 53 to 46, and so on. That's assuming the "lab controlled" situation where the infantry isn't firing back, nobody's moving, the weather is unchanged, and there's no other units around that get involved.

Which sort of brings us to the second question, where as Chris mentioned in Supreme Ruler every shot is a "hit". While this isn't entirely realistic in that it removes the possibility of the "lucky hit" or the "unlikely survival", for a game of this scope it plays better and more realistically overall. SR doesn't need "random factors" in the battle calculations because of the fact that we take so many elements into account that, due to the real-time nature of the game, you can't be certain of exactly what an outcome will be to any given battle. A battle that might be an overwhelming victory could turn out completely different if you remove the air support or extra artillery that took part. But on the other hand, if you and your opponent play the exact same battle in the exact same way, you'll get the same result.

PS - One additional factor in the Attack Value calculations is whether the unit that is attacking is moving - some classes, such as Anti-Tank, Artillery, and Recon, suffer a penalty on their attack strength if they shoot while moving. Tanks and Infantry generally do not suffer this penalty.

[georgios]

How does "stand off" for buildings work?