3-Way battle simulator

[EVILPIG]

I can't believe there is so much critique. It is simply exemplifies what the 3 empire model does. What breaks the mold is players organizing.


Good job.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by EVILPIG

I can't believe there is so much critique. It is simply exemplifies what the 3 empire model does.

We all appreciate the effort, but the concern at least that I have is that people will point to this simulator as evidence for some belief and it simply won't be true because it does not exemplify what the 3 empire model does at all.

What it does is move around a blob. That's what it does now. I gave suggestions on how it might be a better simulator on the first page.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Kipper

Some people are just born with a negative attitude...

Whoops. That was actually a joke. I guess with my other friends it would have been more obvious.

Originally Posted by Zulthus

Seriously dude. Do it yourself, until then, don't be a dick.

Here. I didn't implement rule 2. Would have been simple, but it's 1 AM at the moment. (Right click view source. HTML 5 canvas + JS).

Originally Posted by Whalenator

Sirisian works in the video game industry.

*gasp* No I don't. I have made a lot of enemies today though.

// edit ooh if someone else implements it use SVG :P Or simulate the whole battle and let us zoom in watch little circles and tanks duke it out and capture the hexagons. If enough people are interested I'll do it over the weekend. RTS simulation though... hmm.

[EVILPIG]

Originally Posted by Malorn

We all appreciate the effort, but the concern at least that I have is that people will point to this simulator as evidence for some belief and it simply won't be true because it does not exemplify what the 3 empire model does at all.

What it does is move around a blob. That's what it does now. I gave suggestions on how it might be a better simulator on the first page.

Malorn, you are intelligent. It does show the very basics of a 3 way between utterly equal forces driven by the basic nature to aquire. This simulator would just be dumb to expand on. You cannot add any realism to it. I seriously doubt he can code the unknown, what a human is capable of. It's a good BASIC example. Don't try to push reason into it. It is cool, and nothing beyond that.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by EVILPIG

Malorn, you are intelligent. It does show the very basics of a 3 way between utterly equal forces driven by the basic nature to aquire. This simulator would just be dumb to expand on. You cannot add any realism to it. I seriously doubt he can code the unknown, what a human is capable of. It's a good BASIC example. Don't try to push reason into it. It is cool, and nothing beyond that.

It illustrates three equivalent forces making equivalent moves makes no progress.

And yes, you can make it better - you can introduce important concepts. That's why I gave constructive feedback on the first page. It's a good starting point, but as-is, it is not a very good simulation. I'd like to see it improved of course, which is why I provided that feedback.

[Eighm]

I've never been so involved in numbers increasing and decreasing. I actually was rooting for those little blue hexagons. Also, thanks for making this colorblind friendly, bonus points for that.

[EVILPIG]

Originally Posted by Malorn

It illustrates three equivalent forces making equivalent moves makes no progress.

And yes, you can make it better - you can introduce important concepts. That's why I gave constructive feedback on the first page. It's a good starting point, but as-is, it is not a very good simulation. I'd like to see it improved of course, which is why I provided that feedback.

It cannot be improved enough, you cannot add all the elements. Let it be, move on.

[Chinchy]

I think I broke it... Green is gone...

[Whalenator]

Originally Posted by EVILPIG

It cannot be improved enough, you cannot add all the elements. Let it be, move on.

Yes, it can be improved, by introducing general concepts that at the very least predict territory grabs in relation to "human nature" more accurately.

[Mezorin]

Awesome little example of game theory!


I got some programming expansion ideas to this little simulation that could shake things up in the simulator.

Each Empire can attack one square per turn. The attacker chooses where to attack based on a priority list, and once it invades a square each empire takes a roll formula that looks something like this:

((EmpirePop + resourceBonus + otherBonuses)/ total land mass) + combatRoll + minimum = combat strength.

Both empires roll their combat strengths, and if the attacker wins they get the square, if defender wins nothing happens. Each empire can attack once per turn in round robin order.

Note that the division by landmass is in there to simulate the idea that the more ground you have, the harder it is to defend at all times. This can be messed with, but should be from 1 to 1.80 or some other number you come up with. This variable would be offset by resources you could control to make up for the spread out of forces you have.

Different kinds of squares: Attack adv/Defense adv/Resources. Squares with high bonuses to attack are easy to attack, tough to hold (think bio facilities). High defense squares are difficult to attack, easy to defend (interlinks). Neutral squares give neither attack or defense bonus (forests and such). Resource based squares give an empire additional combat resources that benefit the empire, and effectively represent auraxium nodes, important bases (tech plants), and are basically what an empire uses to produce resources on a map.

For the sake of game balance, "resource" squares should be easily attack able in the middle of the map, with defensible resource squares closer to the empire sancts, though you can make this random. This encourages empires to scrap over the goodies in the middle of the map, and important facilities. Empires could also have "one in the hand vs two in the bush" logic programmed in to try and bolster and protect recently captured resource gains, especially if they are vulnerable to counter attack.

Continents could be preset to be more attack friendly or defense friendly to simulate different environments (ie like say Ceryshen verses Ishundar) in how they play out.

4th Empire Balance sliders: population %s and "Empire Advantage" could be two random factors you can change around within this model. For instance, the VS get Lasher 2.0 and have a 10% edge on all rolls, or the TR gets no love and gets a -10% advantage on rolls. Likewise, you can in the middle of the game muck with the population sliders (the Devil Dogs come on at prime time and the NC suddenly have 60% total population ).

Proximity to friendly forces: Each nearby friendly square could give an advantage to the attacker or defender depending on circumstances. This gives you the "Go" effect that isolated troops are weaker than troops connected to friendly squares in the simulation.

"Divine Intervention". A player could pick an empire, then click on a square. That square instantly turns to the empire in question. This could be a simulation of back hacks and/or shock troop outfits seizing a hex as opposed to "The Zerg Blob" bumbling around. This could make this model useful for outfits who want to see where a rear hack shock troop drop would be most effective.


Adding this stuff, and a random terrain generator (or even a map a user could customize) would give us a nice model to see how terrain, numbers, and population advantages could play out in a real game. Letting a player change sliders around in real time could also be useful in this model, as well as being able to setup the initial map control gives other useful applications.

What effect does the 4th empire bailing have when morale goes to shit? What effect does an empire suddenly responding to an invasion of a continent with the zerg have? What effect does ChinaSide waking up at 2 am have? What about when ChinaSide goes to bed? What effect does Lasher 2.0, then Lasher 3.0 have?



PS: the point of a simulation like this isn't to exactly be able to exactly predict how a battle will play out, but to be able to model how different sliders you muck with will influence how a continent might play out. It also could allow a commander to find a statistical "tipping point" in taking over a continent from a hostile empire, and formulate plans. Should you go east to the tech plant? Or blitzkrieg the Auraxium deposit in the middle of the map first? Where should paratrooper outfits be placed to cripple the enemy the most effectively?

[Coreldan]

This simulator is wrong, I've watched it for 15 mins now and NC still doesnt control all of the continent.

On a serious note, pretty cool anyways

EDIT: Now... take it a step further and make it an exact 1:1 with the Indar "hexes". As there is just about not a single real hex, but different weird shapes made by "combined" hexes. No, dont waste your time with this '

Seems realistic enough, I saw NC have up to 43 hexes with VS and TR at like 23 each, sounds about right. We are close to pushing TR off the map!

Damnit, TR was down to 15 hexes, but they managed to push up! Bad simulator!

[Dreamcast]

I wonder, would a empire taking over a whole continent even be a possibility?


If I remember correctly their is no sanctuary and theirs always one base in continent..So im guessing no?

[Coreldan]

Originally Posted by Dreamcast

I wonder, would a empire taking over a whole continent even be a possibility?


If I remember correctly their is no sanctuary and theirs always one base in continent..So im guessing no?

There's a long discussion about winning conditions somewhere where we've been wondering about this and sorta tried to come up with different solutions or just arguments for why it needs no solution.

Personally I'd like that there was for example a 30 min lock on a continent if one side captured all of it. It would be enough to feel "ok, we took over the whole thing", cos with nothing like that, the enemy can just keep pushing from the foothold for ages and you will never achieve like the battle ended. THe 30 mins would also probably be long enough that most would probably find another place to fight so that the cont in question would get a bit of a rest.

However, with only three continents at launch, supposedly, with like 2k people per cont, that means 6k people per server online at one time with the current numbers we have. I doubt they can afford locking one continent out even for a while.

Also, we have to remember that MUCh has changed from PS1. Instead of fighting over the bases, we now fight over every single sqm of land. This will majorly change how fights will play out and probably having even a few hexes is easier than having one base in PS1.

[Shogun]

this simulator is a nice little idea!

and it works out exactly like it did in my head ;-)
i really hope we get rotation on the footholds to get a little more movement in the frontlines. i know, the simulator lacks a lot of variables and the human factor, so the real fights will sport some surprises, but the chance is pretty high, that the zerg will behave like predicted here.

so the frontlines will shift forth and back, but most of the territorys will always stay in the hands of a certain empire, resulting in the same fights on the same hexxes very often.

[Coreldan]

Originally Posted by Shogun

this simulator is a nice little idea!

and it works out exactly like it did in my head ;-)
i really hope we get rotation on the footholds to get a little more movement in the frontlines. i know, the simulator lacks a lot of variables and the human factor, so the real fights will sport some surprises, but the chance is pretty high, that the zerg will behave like predicted here.

so the frontlines will shift forth and back, but most of the territorys will always stay in the hands of a certain empire, resulting in the same fights on the same hexxes very often.

There will be server maintenances and other times fairly regularly when server will be offline, these could be the best times to switch the footholds around.

Then again, I know some people will rather feel sentimental about how THESE exact hexes are ours and should be too. I know i felt that about Esamir. PS was just a game, but you didn't have to ask me twice to defend/take back Esamir as NC

It's a tricky situation. Cos overall if the footholds will stay always the same, NC are very unlikely to fight next to the hexes near TR foothold. That's a lot of handcrafted area going to waste most of the time. Then again, in a game about persistancy, I on the other hand would like my area to really feel like mine in the long, but I would also like to see variety and have the battlefield shift around to see the rest of it.

That said, as long as the footholds will be at certain distances from each other at the edges of the continent, we are fairly unlikely to ever have any battles in the proximity of the footholds. Occasionally some faction gets pushed back, but I have hard time believing they would be often pushed to their foothold. That said, in PS1 it was normal to push a faction out of a continent, perhaps it can happen here too.

I guess it comes down to testing in beta too, lattice system was added in based on feedback too!