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Old 01-17-2022, 11:05 AM   #11
Michael Thayne
 
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Default Re: [DF][Mass Combat] Handling heroic, superhuman, etc. fighters, esp. in DF-esque wo

One idea I do like from "Heroes on a Mass Scale" is the idea of "world class" and "legendary" units, which basically extends the troop quality table upward. In an otherwise realistic setting, I think 250 delvers might qualify as "legendary". In a cinematic world where even the average soldier is a bit more competent, they might merely be "world-class".
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Old 01-17-2022, 09:10 PM   #12
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Default Re: [DF][Mass Combat] Handling heroic, superhuman, etc. fighters, esp. in DF-esque wo

Over time I would like to run some tests on what various racial templates in Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level seem to do in terms of increasing combat effectiveness. Ideally throwing in "elite" versions of racial templates based on power-ups in DF11. Though it's somewhat unclear what "terms" the tests should happen on. If I'm modeling elite badass vs. more numerous foes, how much should the elites have to worry about things like being surrounded? There's an argument that if elites can pull of tactics like the infantry square, being outnumbered just means the other side has more reserves they'll need to cut through. Probably that's not realistic, but neither is "the outnumbered side can't maintain any sort of formation and each individual member winds up totally outnumbered".
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Old 01-18-2022, 07:08 AM   #13
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Default Re: [DF][Mass Combat] Handling heroic, superhuman, etc. fighters, esp. in DF-esque wo

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Originally Posted by Michael Thayne View Post
Over time I would like to run some tests on what various racial templates in Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level seem to do in terms of increasing combat effectiveness.
Mass Combat effectiveness can be a lot different from the individual scale. Even a humble pack of basic Hobgoblins is a Night-capable unit that shrugs off things like dysentery and bounces back faster from non-fatal injuries.
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Old 01-18-2022, 07:55 AM   #14
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Default Re: [DF][Mass Combat] Handling heroic, superhuman, etc. fighters, esp. in DF-esque wo

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Originally Posted by Michael Thayne View Post
There's an argument that if elites can pull of tactics like the infantry square, being outnumbered just means the other side has more reserves they'll need to cut through. Probably that's not realistic, but neither is "the outnumbered side can't maintain any sort of formation and each individual member winds up totally outnumbered".
Simple geometry shows that they'll still be outnumbered even if combat is just at Reach 1. Consider a force of 12 elites, who opt to take a formation that puts all of them in combat (no reserves). On a hex map, you can arrange them in a, well, hex, so that each has an ally in a side hex (so the enemy can only attack from the front). In this formation, they can be engaged by up to 18 enemies, for 1.5 enemies per defender. The larger the outnumbered formation is (and thus the wider the larger hex they can form), the fewer foes can engage each character. 6 characters would be surrounded by 12 (x2), 12 by 18 (x1.5), 18 by 24 (x1.33), 24 by 30 (x1.25), and so forth. That's with hex formation; circle/square/etc formations should follow a similar trend.

Technically, if the outnumbered force is large enough, the enemy is densely packed, and the outnumbered force achieves a tactical coup of sorts, the outnumbered force can actually outnumber the immediate threat. 30 soldiers could surround a force of up to around 61 (with the latter packed to 1 character per hex), and only have to face 24 at a time. That's not a very likely result, of course.
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Old 01-18-2022, 09:59 AM   #15
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Default Re: [DF][Mass Combat] Handling heroic, superhuman, etc. fighters, esp. in DF-esque wo

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Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc View Post
Mass Combat effectiveness can be a lot different from the individual scale. Even a humble pack of basic Hobgoblins is a Night-capable unit that shrugs off things like dysentery and bounces back faster from non-fatal injuries.
The value of Infravision is pretty clear in mass combat. Less clear to me what the value of other things on the racial template are. And how much to dock them for stupidity. Tangentially related, I would be inclined to count goblins as Inferior even if quite skilled, at least unless they've lost Cowardice.

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Simple geometry shows that they'll still be outnumbered even if combat is just at Reach 1. Consider a force of 12 elites, who opt to take a formation that puts all of them in combat (no reserves). On a hex map, you can arrange them in a, well, hex, so that each has an ally in a side hex (so the enemy can only attack from the front). In this formation, they can be engaged by up to 18 enemies, for 1.5 enemies per defender. The larger the outnumbered formation is (and thus the wider the larger hex they can form), the fewer foes can engage each character. 6 characters would be surrounded by 12 (x2), 12 by 18 (x1.5), 18 by 24 (x1.33), 24 by 30 (x1.25), and so forth. That's with hex formation; circle/square/etc formations should follow a similar trend.

Technically, if the outnumbered force is large enough, the enemy is densely packed, and the outnumbered force achieves a tactical coup of sorts, the outnumbered force can actually outnumber the immediate threat. 30 soldiers could surround a force of up to around 61 (with the latter packed to 1 character per hex), and only have to face 24 at a time. That's not a very likely result, of course.
I've done this math myself, but as the encircled force gets bigger the ratio goes to 1. Though that may not tell the full story—I've read that one tactic for attacking infantry squares is to make a cavalry charge against one corner, which tend to be weaker for reasons I have little trouble visualizing.
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Old 01-19-2022, 03:38 PM   #16
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Default Re: [DF][Mass Combat] Handling heroic, superhuman, etc. fighters, esp. in DF-esque wo

Somehow, I just now realized that if you want to do theory crafting and/or empirical tests around the effects of stuff that affects damage rather than attack/defense rolls, you can just ignore the attack/defense rolls and assume the two sides score equal numbers of hits. This made it really easy to see that adding the lowly zombie template from Magic should have a pretty dramatic effect on combat effectiveness. If your "basic soldier" has ST 12 and wields a 1-handed weapon, the zombie template adds between +50% effectiveness (for broadswords) or close to +300% (for spears). This is obviously rather hard to model in Mass Combat. Probably in a world with zombies, this would have a significant impact on choice of weapons, so impact would mostly be muted, but a simple rule might be something like "bump up troop quality by a step and treat as armored against opponents unused to fighting zombies only".

Modeling the effects of damage on combat effectiveness is complicated by the fact that the effects of damage in GURPS are non-linear, with potentially big benefits for crossing certain thresholds. However, I'm tempted to think that TS should be more-or-less linear with HP. Damage and DR remain more complicated to model because of how they interact, plus the fact that inability to penetrate armor through one's normal mode of fighting will likely result in changed tactics.
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Old 01-19-2022, 04:13 PM   #17
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Default Re: [DF][Mass Combat] Handling heroic, superhuman, etc. fighters, esp. in DF-esque wo

Tempted to experiment with this formula:
TS = (average injury inflicted vs. typical DR) * (number of attacks) * (hit probability) * HP / (average penetrating damage taken from typical attack†) / [1 - (active defense success probability)] * 0.15
It's based around the assumption that "Medium Infantry (Average Troops, Basic Gear)" is a guy with 10 HP, skill-12, and a medium shield. But I haven't tested it for a wide range of cases. I'm also assuming that high attack skill isn't put into anything as fancy as Deceptive Attacks or Feints—maybe it's put into Rapid Strikes.

† EDIT: This should probably have a note that says "minimum 1/2" or "minimum 1/6" (i.e. 1d-5) or something.
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Last edited by Michael Thayne; 01-19-2022 at 04:27 PM.
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Old 01-19-2022, 06:46 PM   #18
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Default Re: [DF][Mass Combat] Handling heroic, superhuman, etc. fighters, esp. in DF-esque wo

Gonna play with this formula a bit. Let's say that the DF universe, the "typical combatant" is an ST 12 human with a broadsword (damage 2d-1 cut) and DR 2 leather armor. This leads to the following worked examples. Average damage figures obtained using AnyDice.com, though I couldn't get it to handle rounding the way GURPS does†:
  • Basic Barbarian (axe) (DFA1): 10.5 * 1 * 0.951 * 15 / 9 / [1 - 0.375] * 0.15 ~= 4
  • Basic Dwarf Warrior (DFA1): 9.5 * 1 * 0.907 * 14 / 2.17 / [1 - 0.259] * 0.15 ~= 11.25 (yikes!)
  • Basic Warrior (DFA1): 7.11 * 1 * 0.951 * 13 / 3.22 / [1 - 0.625] * 0.15 ~= 11 (yikes again!)
  • Ogre (great axe) (DFA1)‡: 12† * 1 * 0.907 * 20 / 5.81 / [1 - 0.375] * 0.15 ~= 9
  • Common Orc Soldier (shortsword) (DFA1): 5.81 * 1 * 0.838 * 15 / 5.81 / [1 - 0.375] * 0.15 ~= TS 3.
  • Touch Orc Soldier (shortsword) (DFA1): 10.25 * 1 * 0.838 * 18 / 5.81 / [1 - 0.375] * 0.15 ~= TS 6.5.
  • Skeleton (DFA1): 3.5 * 1 * 0.951 * 10 / 9 / [1 - 0.5] * 0.15 ~= TS 1.
  • Large Skeleton (DFA1): 11.73 * 1 * 0.907 * 20 / 9 / [1 - 0.5] * 0.15 = TS 7.
  • Hill Giant (Pyramid #3/102, "Dungeon Fantasy Goes to War"): 12† * 1 * 0.951 * 45 / 4.44 / [1 - 0.5] * 0.15 ~= 35

† Also, I decided to cap damage for these purposes at the HP of my "typical combatant".
‡ Ignored armor due to the relatively small part of the ogre's body it covers.

I think these figures are mostly reasonable... except the two warriors. Maybe my "typical attack" needs to pack a bit more punch, with a larger constant at the end of the formula, say 0.2 or 0.25 instead of 0.15? That would bring the dwarf warrior down to about TS 7, which is more reasonable.
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Old 01-20-2022, 07:20 PM   #19
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Default Re: [DF][Mass Combat] Handling heroic, superhuman, etc. fighters, esp. in DF-esque wo

An element of Basic/Average Medium Infantry is 8-10 guys with swords or axes and light armor and has TS 3. An element of Basic/Averages Ogres is 8-10 ogres with swords or axes and has TS 8. If you're getting TS 5-11 per combatant for your system, your numbers all obviously way too high.

I also think you're focused too much on individual combat prowess, and Mass Combat TS ratings in large part about morale, teamwork, group cohesion, and adherence to drill. See the description of Inferior troops: "The troops might on average be good, courageous fighters as individuals, but as a group they function at below-average level" (emphasis in the original).
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Old 01-20-2022, 07:45 PM   #20
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Default Re: [DF][Mass Combat] Handling heroic, superhuman, etc. fighters, esp. in DF-esque wo

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An element of Basic/Average Medium Infantry is 8-10 guys with swords or axes and light armor and has TS 3. An element of Basic/Averages Ogres is 8-10 ogres with swords or axes and has TS 8. If you're getting TS 5-11 per combatant for your system, your numbers all obviously way too high.
Sorry, I meant "per group of ten" to be implicit.

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I also think you're focused too much on individual combat prowess, and Mass Combat TS ratings in large part about morale, teamwork, group cohesion, and adherence to drill. See the description of Inferior troops: "The troops might on average be good, courageous fighters as individuals, but as a group they function at below-average level" (emphasis in the original).
This is true. I think for trying to assess the impact of "heroic" competence, or being other than human, etc. using "no serious morale or cohesion problems" as the baseline which you can adjust downward from as needed is pretty reasonable. I figure a group of goblins of the (DF variety, with Cowardice) will usually be inferior even if quite skilled—maybe they could function decently as light infantry using hit-and-run tactics. For things like zombies I'm less sure of the right approach—mindlessness has downsides but also means they're perfectly fearless and obedient. I'm inclined to assume those factors balance out but you could argue for a different approach.
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