Another Smashing idea

C.M. Yearsley (
Fri, 23 Sep 1994 13:05:25 +0100 (BST)

Our computer's been down for a few days, and this list had
overwhelmed me! (hmmm...perhaps a better name for 'smash'ing?
Overwhelming? Anyway...)

I haven't managed to catch up on all the messages, but I wanted
to comment before I go away for a few days. I like the idea
of powerful units getting multiple attacks against weak ones.
I don't like adding another statistic ('speed') because I feel
the ones we have are enough, if we use them right. I _like_
the Smash idea, but feel it may have weaknesses:

1) Too sensitive to attack order. The dragon only had 1 chance in
'n' of being chosen. If it's first he'll wipe the peasants, if it's
last he's in trouble.

2) If the 'big' unit heavily outclasses the lesser units,
it might overrun too many. Someone said a noble could
thus kill a limitless horde of rats. Not good.

A) Chance of overrun/smash attack = some fn. of attack vs defence.
Fine. If overrun is achieved, the overrunning unit does
_not_ attack again immediately; it just doesn't 'use up'
its attack chance, and must wait for its turn to be randomly
selected. This is the big change.

So, the dragon/noble can't instantly kill all the peasants/rats when
it gets going. Good. But now it will hardly ever _have_ its
extra attacks until right at the end of the round!

B) Chance of being chosen to attack computed not on a per-head
basis but on a 'proportion of total attack value' basis.

But that's just as bad! Now the dragon will always go first!

C) That's fair - he's the meanest, after all! But consider this:

After each successful overrun, we decrement the attacker's
effective strength - perhaps by the value of the defense
of what was overrun. This would mean the overrun won't go on
too long, and will mean that the later, feeble, attacks
go off later in the turn (on average).

So, recap: Dragon vs. small stuff:

Start: Dragon has AF = total AF of the small stuff added up, say.
Each time we choose an attacker, it's 50-50 we choose
the dragon. When we choose the dragon, at first he kills
the peasant or whatever, no question. After a few dragon and
peasant attacks have gone by, the dragon is less likely to
score a kill. Soon, he fails an attack, and so gets
no more chances this round - the horde can attack him at will.

Next round we start again.

Another case: equal strength units/forces.

Each side will have a similar chance of being chosen to
attack. Each individual will have a lesser chance of
overrunning their chosen foe, and if they do so, won't succeed
a second time, anyway. Behaviour will be similar to the current
combat system (??).

To implement:
Select overrun probability function.
Decide if chance of attacking is based on 'real', or 'current'
(post-successful-overrun) attack value.

Comments? (If anyone's managed to read this far....)


Chris Yearsley

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