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Topic: "Northmen" Tribe Page

Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2017-07-18, 20:27

@GunChleoc: I don´t like using textures with blender, I prefer to combine material colours. The only textures I´ll use (if I ever use some) are the ones that are included in lp:widelands-media. Those are fine, I guess?

WorldSavior wrote:

Nordfriese wrote:

I tested these values with einstein´s program:

vs. bar_00 emp_00 atl_00 fri_00 bar_10 emp_10 atl_10 fri_10
bar_00 59.0% 43.2% 33.2% 56.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
emp_00 69.7% 54.8% 42.2% 62.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
atl_00 79.9% 70.6% 58.3% 68.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
fri_00 57.4% 49.1% 41.9% 54.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
bar_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 51.8% 50.7% 50.2% 63.9%
emp_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 56.8% 52.3% 48.2% 52.2%
atl_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 56.9% 55.8% 51.4% 59.0%
fri_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 45.5% 55.5% 49.5% 57.6%

I assumed an increase of attack for Frisians of 1000 per level, because different values for min/max attack increase are not possible (as far as I know). These values look pretty good. Frisian have a clear advantage when attacking first and are disadvantaged when defending, but the difference isn´t too unbalanced. I´ll include these stats in the next review.

Before everyone forgets this: What have you written here? The values look bad. Frisians have only advantages when attacking first other frisians or imperials. But even though they are strong against imperials, they are pathetic against barbarians and weak against atlanteans. So it is a bad balancing. I would recommend to find much better values (with lower attack perhaps) or just to implement the values which I suggested.

Excuse me?? You suggested these values! The only difference is that I used an attack increase of 1000; you wanted different increases for min and max attack (850; 1200), which is not possible.

The table clearly shows that Frisians have a moderate advantage when attacking and a moderate disadvantage when defending. They have a 45-64% chance against barbarians, 49-63% against empire, 41-69% against atlanteans, 54-58% against other frisians. What is so weak/pathetic about that? What is imbalanced, especially compared to the other tribes?


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2017-07-18, 21:17

Nordfriese wrote:

The table clearly shows that Frisians have a moderate advantage when attacking and a moderate disadvantage when defending. They have a 45-64% chance against barbarians, 49-63% against empire, 41-69% against atlanteans, 54-58% against other frisians. What is so weak/pathetic about that? What is imbalanced, especially compared to the other tribes?

actually, the percentage is always for the attacker, so against barbarians they have 45% when attacking and 36% when defending, averaging 40%, which is a bit low. Against atlanteans they have 45%, which is ok, and against empire they arealmost even.

Lower chance against barbarians can only mean one thing: they get killed in one less hit against the higher barbarian attack. So their healt or defence must be reinforced a little bit. or they must become cheaper. Still not that bad. barbarians used to have 36% against atlanteans and it was considered ok until a couple years ago.

I would like to playtest and give feedback on balancing, especially now that a lot of coincidences happened leaving me with nothing to do until the second half of august, but it looks like I cannot play without compiling the files, and I don't have any of whatever is required to compile


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2017-07-19, 14:55

king_of_nowhere wrote:

Nordfriese wrote:

The table clearly shows that Frisians have a moderate advantage when attacking and a moderate disadvantage when defending. They have a 45-64% chance against barbarians, 49-63% against empire, 41-69% against atlanteans, 54-58% against other frisians. What is so weak/pathetic about that? What is imbalanced, especially compared to the other tribes?

actually, the percentage is always for the attacker, so against barbarians they have 45% when attacking and 36% when defending, averaging 40%, which is a bit low. Against atlanteans they have 45%, which is ok, and against empire they arealmost even.

You are explaining it correctly

Lower chance against barbarians can only mean one thing: they get killed in one less hit against the higher barbarian attack. So their healt or defence must be reinforced a little bit.

Or their attack.

or they must become cheaper.

Well, I don't know if it is fair for a tribe if it has compensate quality by quantity...

Still not that bad. barbarians used to have 36% against atlanteans and it was considered ok until a couple years ago.

But then you proved that it's not really ok face-wink.png

Nordfriese wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Nordfriese wrote:

I tested these values with einstein´s program:

vs. bar_00 emp_00 atl_00 fri_00 bar_10 emp_10 atl_10 fri_10
bar_00 59.0% 43.2% 33.2% 56.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
emp_00 69.7% 54.8% 42.2% 62.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
atl_00 79.9% 70.6% 58.3% 68.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
fri_00 57.4% 49.1% 41.9% 54.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
bar_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 51.8% 50.7% 50.2% 63.9%
emp_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 56.8% 52.3% 48.2% 52.2%
atl_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 56.9% 55.8% 51.4% 59.0%
fri_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 45.5% 55.5% 49.5% 57.6%

I assumed an increase of attack for Frisians of 1000 per level, because different values for min/max attack increase are not possible (as far as I know). These values look pretty good. Frisian have a clear advantage when attacking first and are disadvantaged when defending, but the difference isn´t too unbalanced. I´ll include these stats in the next review.

Before everyone forgets this: What have you written here? The values look bad. Frisians have only advantages when attacking first other frisians or imperials. But even though they are strong against imperials, they are pathetic against barbarians and weak against atlanteans. So it is a bad balancing. I would recommend to find much better values (with lower attack perhaps) or just to implement the values which I suggested.

Excuse me?? You suggested these values!

No, I didn't. And even if I would: That doesn't have to be the result for most mistakes in your post.

The only difference is that I used an attack increase of 1000; you wanted different increases for min and max attack (850; 1200),

Well, of course one difference can change the whole balancing.

... which is not possible.

There exists no law that this cannot be implemented.

The table clearly shows that Frisians have a moderate advantage when attacking and a moderate disadvantage when defending. They have a 45-64% chance against barbarians, 49-63% against empire, 41-69% against atlanteans, 54-58% against other frisians.

No...


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2017-07-19, 16:34

In page 11 first post you suggested to change the values. I used this very change. The current lua files are exactly as you proposed there. I ran another test to check the values again:

Battles win:

vs. bar_00 emp_00 atl_00 fri_00 bar_10 emp_10 atl_10 fri_10
bar_00 57.0% 41.7% 31.7% 54.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
emp_00 70.5% 56.1% 43.2% 62.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
atl_00 78.7% 67.9% 55.7% 71.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
fri_00 57.1% 48.3% 37.2% 55.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
bar_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 55.0% 52.1% 50.5% 64.3%
emp_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 55.3% 53.2% 49.6% 53.5%
atl_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 56.6% 56.9% 53.2% 58.8%
fri_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 47.2% 55.4% 50.0% 58.6%

Attackers health:

vs. bar_00 emp_00 atl_00 fri_00 bar_10 emp_10 atl_10 fri_10
bar_00 10.8% 7.4% 5.0% 9.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
emp_00 16.2% 12.4% 7.8% 13.7% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
atl_00 18.7% 13.8% 10.4% 17.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
fri_00 11.4% 8.4% 6.4% 12.7% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
bar_10 91.4% 90.6% 90.6% 90.4% 25.6% 22.0% 21.1% 20.2%
emp_10 92.9% 91.8% 88.9% 92.1% 22.3% 22.8% 20.5% 15.6%
atl_10 93.2% 91.7% 89.4% 92.5% 24.5% 24.8% 22.7% 18.1%
fri_10 94.5% 93.9% 93.9% 93.6% 18.3% 18.1% 16.2% 23.4%

Defenders health:

vs. bar_00 emp_00 atl_00 fri_00 bar_10 emp_10 atl_10 fri_10
bar_00 7.1% 11.6% 13.9% 7.9% 88.6% 90.5% 90.9% 91.2%
emp_00 4.6% 8.6% 10.0% 5.7% 87.7% 89.4% 89.4% 90.6%
atl_00 2.9% 5.2% 7.3% 4.3% 87.8% 86.5% 87.2% 90.6%
fri_00 6.7% 10.0% 12.9% 9.3% 87.7% 89.9% 90.3% 90.6%
bar_10 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 19.4% 17.8% 20.0% 12.4%
emp_10 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 17.3% 18.8% 20.7% 13.0%
atl_10 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 16.8% 16.8% 18.8% 11.5%
fri_10 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 14.1% 11.6% 13.8% 14.5%

I apologize for slightly misinterpreting the values before (I confused attacker with defender).

Frisian heroes have an advantage when defending against anyone and when attacking frisians or empire and they are very slightly disadvantaged when attacking barbarians.

Frisian rookies are less balanced. When defending, they have an advantage, but it is always smaller than for barbarians; when attacking, they are similar to barbarians with less of a disadvantage against empire and atlanteans.

All in all, the balancing is not perfect (it could never be) but it is not more unbalanced than any other tribe. The only issue is the high defensive advantage against barbarians, but it is compensated by the lower chance to win an attack against them. Therefore, I do not see the need to change anything.

And if you want to implement the possibility to have different increases in min/max attack, go ahead. But I won´t use it.

@king_of_nowhere: If you get a recent development build, you can probably run the frisians branch without compiling. Just copy&paste the files in the data directory as someone described above. Only trouble with the instructions there: You need to copy the entire data folder, not just a subfolder. There are no changes to the source code, so build bzr8401 (trunk) and Frisians version 8405 should work.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2017-07-19, 17:46

Nordfriese wrote:

In page 11 first post you suggested to change the values. I used this very change. The current lua files are exactly as you proposed there. I ran another test to check the values again:

Battles win:

vs. bar_00 emp_00 atl_00 fri_00 bar_10 emp_10 atl_10 fri_10
bar_00 57.0% 41.7% 31.7% 54.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
emp_00 70.5% 56.1% 43.2% 62.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
atl_00 78.7% 67.9% 55.7% 71.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
fri_00 57.1% 48.3% 37.2% 55.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
bar_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 55.0% 52.1% 50.5% 64.3%
emp_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 55.3% 53.2% 49.6% 53.5%
atl_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 56.6% 56.9% 53.2% 58.8%
fri_10 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 47.2% 55.4% 50.0% 58.6%

I apologize for slightly misinterpreting the values before (I confused attacker with defender).

Frisian heroes have an advantage when defending against anyone and when attacking frisians or empire and they are very slightly disadvantaged when attacking barbarians.

Frisian rookies are less balanced. When defending, they have an advantage, but it is always smaller than for barbarians; when attacking, they are similar to barbarians with less of a disadvantage against empire and atlanteans.

All in all, the balancing is not perfect (it could never be) but it is not more unbalanced than any other tribe. The only issue is the high defensive advantage against barbarians, but it is compensated by the lower chance to win an attack against them. Therefore, I do not see the need to change anything.

And if you want to implement the possibility to have different increases in min/max attack, go ahead. But I won´t use it.

Actually, you are confusing values for attacker and defender again. The line under "fri10" has all values greater than 50%, which means the attacker has greater than 50% odds. 64% in the case of a barbarian attacker.

WorldSavior wrote:

Lower chance against barbarians can only mean one thing: they get killed in one less hit against the higher barbarian attack. So their healt or defence must be reinforced a little bit.

Or their attack.

if we increase their attack, they risk becoming too strong against the other tribes, because they would kill barbarians faster, but they'd also kill faster everyone else.

or they must become cheaper.

Well, I don't know if it is fair for a tribe if it has compensate quality by quantity...

Why not? zerg rush became a popular expression for exactly that concept. Barbarians already are this at low promotion levels. And I was thinking for amazonians (in case they're ever made) to be like that, weaker (say, 40% odds, nothing too dramatic) but cheaper - or, rather, with more chances at overproducing an opponent in the late game, especially since they would not run out of metals.

Still, frisians do not fit much with "weaker but cheaper", I agree on that.

As for increasing the randomness in attack, it cannot be done currently, and while surely someone could change the code to accomodate it, well, either someone actually does that, or we're stuck trying to balance things with the tools we have.


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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2017-07-19, 19:43

king_of_nowhere wrote:

Actually, you are confusing values for attacker and defender again. The line under "fri10" has all values greater than 50%, which means the attacker has greater than 50% odds. 64% in the case of a barbarian attacker.

Ooops… When will I finally be able to correctly read such a table?

I´ve made a summary of the stats with (hopefully!) the correctly read values.

Frisians win chance in % when…

Opponent attacking defending
BAR 0 57.1 45.4
EMP 0 48.3 37.8
ATL 0 37.2 31.1
FRI 0 55.2 44.8
BAR 10 47.2 35.7
EMP 10 55.4 46.5
ATL 10 50.0 41.2
FRI 10 58.6 41.4

The values for the rookies are good enough, in my opinion. I now see that the defence of heroes is too weak. If the increase per level of health is raised from 3000 to 3250, the values for the heroes look like this:

vs. bar_10 emp_10 atl_10 fri_10
bar_10 55.7% 48.6% 51.7% 51.0%
emp_10 55.8% 55.0% 53.4% 50.1%
atl_10 58.4% 55.7% 52.4% 53.6%
fri_10 58.4% 61.7% 54.3% 57.2%

(I´m trying not to confuse attackers/defenders again…) This would make frisian heroes strong attackers, over-average against empire and other frisians. They would have a slight disadvantage when defending. This looks better and should get into the branch, in my opinion (and only if I didn´t mess up reading the table yet again…).

WorldSavior wrote:

Lower chance against barbarians can only mean one thing: they get killed in one less hit against the higher barbarian attack. So their healt or defence must be reinforced a little bit.

Or their attack.

if we increase their attack, they risk becoming too strong against the other tribes, because they would kill barbarians faster, but they'd also kill faster everyone else.

I also experimented with slightly higher evade, attack and defence levels, but that completely toppled the balance. Health was the only approach for a tweak that didn´t unbalance everything.

or they must become cheaper.

Well, I don't know if it is fair for a tribe if it has compensate quality by quantity...

Why not? zerg rush became a popular expression for exactly that concept. Barbarians already are this at low promotion levels. And I was thinking for amazonians (in case they're ever made) to be like that, weaker (say, 40% odds, nothing too dramatic) but cheaper - or, rather, with more chances at overproducing an opponent in the late game, especially since they would not run out of metals.

Still, frisians do not fit much with "weaker but cheaper", I agree on that.

I agree – it would be nice to have in some other tribe (I like the idea of having an amazone tribe), but Frisians should have strong soldiers, significantly better heroes than rookies, and pay properly for them.

As for increasing the randomness in attack, it cannot be done currently, and while surely someone could change the code to accomodate it, well, either someone actually does that, or we're stuck trying to balance things with the tools we have.

I had a look at the code – I think it would be doable by someone who knows that part of the code well, but it is too complicated for my modest C++ skills. I don´t think this is necessary until someone wants to make a tribe that cannot do without different attack increase values.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2017-07-19, 22:35

Nordfriese wrote:

king_of_nowhere wrote:

Actually, you are confusing values for attacker and defender again. The line under "fri10" has all values greater than 50%, which means the attacker has greater than 50% odds. 64% in the case of a barbarian attacker.

Ooops… When will I finally be able to correctly read such a table?

I´ve made a summary of the stats with (hopefully!) the correctly read values.

Frisians win chance in % when…

Opponent attacking defending
BAR 0 57.1 45.4
EMP 0 48.3 37.8
ATL 0 37.2 31.1
FRI 0 55.2 44.8
BAR 10 47.2 35.7
EMP 10 55.4 46.5
ATL 10 50.0 41.2
FRI 10 58.6 41.4

You are confusing again... no, just kidding, this time it's right face-smile.png

The values for the rookies are good enough, in my opinion.

the rookies are fairly weak, but then, also barbarian ones are. If they are cheap (like barbarian ones), it's fine

if we increase their attack, they risk becoming too strong against the other tribes, because they would kill barbarians faster, but they'd also kill faster everyone else.

I also experimented with slightly higher evade, attack and defence levels, but that completely toppled the balance. Health was the only approach for a tweak that didn´t unbalance everything.

Yay! Can i be the elder of eyeballing mathematics? face-smile.png

Anyway, the new values seem ok. now frisians are about as strong as the atlanteans, which should probably be the top tier. Now I try and see if I can make the patch work


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2017-07-20, 00:11

Ok, with version 8400 and frisians 8405 it works. They are indeed a difficult tribe. I underestimated how much bricks they needed and got stuck immediately. But that's ok, I suppose I'll learn them.

One thing to be fixed is that the beekeper does not state explicitely that it needs to be close to a farm. It only says "flowering fields" which could mean anything. Does it work near bushes, for example? Also, since this is the only tribe where a farmer-like worker does not plant its own fields, I really think "flowering barley fields" should be specified. In general, all descriptions could be clearer.

EDIT: So far I'm getting the impression that they're REALLY too expensive in bricks. I mean, every small building costs a few bricks, and medium and large buildings easily cost 5-10 bricks. Compare imperial marble, which is also a paiin in the ass to get in sufficient amount: you can say one marble is equal to two stones in terms of time needed to get it, and you need it much less than bricks. Most medium buildings do not need it, and only the well among the small ones does. I'd reduce the brick price of pretty much everything. And/or reduce the cost in stone per brick (like, 2 clay + 1 stone makes 2 bricks)

EDIT2: Also, if we agree on the "good on rough terrain" flavor, they need to many medium and large buildings. I mean, to get a reasonable amount of building material they need like 3 tatch yards and as many clay burners, and those clay burners require tons of stone so the only way to get it is to have a couple rock mines, which require many rations... well the clay would be solved if my suggestions for reduced brick needs are taken - I think 2 bricks for one stone should do the trick - but I'd also make the reed yard a small building, and possibly some other building too.

Now the game crashed, I'll experiment more tomorrow

I'll give more feedback after more playing

Edited: 2017-07-20, 00:44

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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2017-07-20, 07:55

They really use a big amount of everything. I tried them on oasis triangle lately and there the massive usage of stones was really a problem cause I was not able to build any rock mine due to missing granite mountain. I had the same suggestion in mind as King_of_nowhere reducing the rocks needed for 1 brick to 0.5.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2017-07-20, 14:26

Also, level 0 soldiers are too weak for their cost. Barbarians are fine at having weak level 0 soldiers because hey, they're dirt cheap. Make a coal mine, an iron mine, a tavern, a hunter, a gamekeeper, a smelting works and an ax factory, and you can start chugging out new soldiers. But frisian soldiers require fur, which require farms, and between the farm and reindeer farm it takes some 30 stones to make them, and barley is a fairly expensive ware. I would advise for increasing a bit their base attack (say, by 300) and reduce accordingly the attack gained per level (from 1000 to 950) so that level 10 soldiers would remain the same.

In general, when designing tribes for early or late game, we must keep in mind that there are small maps when contact happens after 30 minutes, before one can make a working economy, and there are large maps when contact doesn't happen for a few hours, and everyone got a good chance at making a dozen fullly promoted soldiers or more. So a tribe that is disadvantaged in the early game should not be so disaddvantaged that it loses automatically on crater, and a late game tribe should never be so strong that it wins automatically on the nile.


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