1.2 comes with following changes

Bugfixes:
- none

General improvements:
- launched [strategymania.com]

Lobby improvements:
- none

Game improvements:
- New map europe 1200 Ad
- New battle calcs when fighting forts/keeps/castles


GGs
XuuL

I made a test game 2 players, no ai's with the 2 caps close to test battle ratios with a fort, and unfortunately my experience form live games was confirmed that when the attacking army is sufficiently large, at least several dozen in size, it will lose LESS than the defender, and especially less than can be expected if you consider that a fort should give a 5 troop bonus on top of the standard 10% defense bonus.

This is double bad for whoever finds forts on his expansion path towards the front. First it will require considerable resources to get them, because in the early game army sizes are typically small. Second, it will be a defensive hazard later on, because the opponent will get an attack bonus once armies gorw in size, which is pretty much contrary to how a fort should work. In fact, there was only 1 (ONE) occasion with the attacking army being sized over 20 when the battle occured more or less as can be expected, i.e. in defender's favor (30 vs 34), and only 4 (FOUR) of the total of 20.

As of now, the only actual bonus a fort offers is increased vision.

Find my results below. Feel free to do your own tests (mine consisted of a total of 21 attacks, 1 was ommited, because I wasn't sure about initial army sizes)

Attacking Army | Defending Army | Result (positive = attacker won, negative = defender won) | Attack Bonus (as compared to what should be expected with combined for (5) and defense (10%) bonus)

15 | 14 | -5
41 | 27 | 19 | 13
15 | 2 | 13 | 3
40 | 13 | 34 | 14
30 | 34 | -18
18 | 4 | 14 | 5
9 | 6 | -2 | 1
27 | 14 | 11 | 5
9 | 4 | -1
23 | 22 | -3 | 4
9 | 5 | -4
20 | 26 | -11 | 3
20 | 6 | 13 | 5
39 | 13 | 28 | 9
67 | 30 | 50 | 22
118 | 84 | 66 | 46
135 | 66 | 97 | 40
114 | 97 | 16 | 14
66 | 16 | 58 | 15
86 | 58 | 39 | 22

P.S. Sorry for rage quitting that game the other day, but this seriously f***s up the game...

Harsh words have been said, not in the least by me :D but despite being ugly as hell, I find this new map very refreshing, it adds lots of new strategy options and challenges.

I would not change the map/country layout itself, with 1 important exception: the Black Sea creates 2 enormous bottlenecks in the northeast. This is aggravated by the fact that Kiev/Ruthenia/Wallachia are perpendicular the the coastline. If thy would be placed parallel that would "widen" the bottleneck between the Baltic and Black Sea.

I also find KrazyKat's reaction exaggerated, but unlike you Xuul, I can relate to his emotions. I know patriotic feelings are considered faux pas in wide circles in Germany for the last 7 decades or so, and for understandable, yet false reasons. I think Germany and the German nation have contributed ample to human civilization to be proud of, and as a German, I would probably be offended if, say, (the territories representing) Poland or France would be blown up to 2-3x the size of Germany.

What bothers me personally being a bit of both a history and geography buff, is that many names are incorrect or anachronistic and there doesn't seem to have been a clear naming system either. In some cases the name of a region (not a region that actually existed in that place per se, i.e. Desmond which was an Irish kingdom is shown in the place of Cornwall) is used, but in some cases the name of a/the major city wihin that region. Also why not list the names in 1 language? Instead of sometimes in Latin, sometimes in English, sometimes in German and sometimes in the main language of the region in question, as is currently the case. And finally, some names seem to have been simply misspelled.

If the developers wish so, I offer to fix this free of charge )) I will have 2 busy weeks now, and then in the 1st week of may I'll be on a short holiday, so I'm not sure how fast, but it doesn't seem to be a lot of work. Feel free to contact me by PM.

All in all, good job, you guys certainly revived this game AFAIC.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2015 10:18AM by Attila.

It gets worse :D Was in a 2x2, zzz attacked my fort 420 vs 390, he wins and keeps... 122 :D If that ain't a f***ed up algorythm, then I dunno what is.

Thanks for your comments Attila. I really appreciate your input.

Regarding map:

The names are all based on a professional history software purchased on [www.euratlas.net]. The names should all be in english if available. In some cases, only latin ones are available.
I am pretty sure that there are some errors as you already pointed out regarding Desmond and Cumania. Your help is welcome. If you can report the errors here in the forum i will fix them in the next update :)

I would also like to hear some comments to the map layout. If there are reasonable ideas to improve it i will do it in the next release.

Regarding battle calcs:

The algorithm is simpler than you might expect:
- Every unit has a 45% chance to kill an enemy unit. This is repeated until one army has 0 units.
- Fort: 0-5 units have 100% attack and defense bonus
- Keep: 0-20 units have 100% attack and defense bonus
- Castle: 0-30 units have 100% attack and defense bonus

The output is this: [en.wikipedia.org]
Whereas:
- The effect of forts is very strong for few units
- The effect of forts is nearly 0 for battles with many hundred units

The idea behind forts in conqueror is that some units are fortified with a high bonus (100% = double power) but that the large army is placed outside the forts w/o any bonus.
Taking your example:
420 vs 390 in fort = 420 (0% bonus) vs 385 (0% bonus) + 5 (100% bonus)

Before i implemented that algorithm i tested it with millions of dry-runs collected in excel sheets for statistic analyses. It seemed fine for me. Compared to the old algorithm it produced less chaotic results.

But again... maybe there is a mistake. In the next weeks i will be online to play some games and chat with some players. If it shows that there is an error i will fix it and if the majority of players dislikes the new calc, i will revert it.