Combat System in CEAW in detail.

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firepowerjohan
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Combat System in CEAW in detail.

Post by firepowerjohan »

Since there are a lot of questions on combat every now and then it is suiting to have a topic describing how it works :)

1) All units have an effectiveness value which can drop due to battles or other actions and regain every turn. Max effectiveness is determined by supply, quality, organisation tech and leadership from nearby commander. Effictiveness is how many of your men are battle ready and will fire, for example if it is 50% instead of 100% means you will inflict half damage to your enemy and also means a o a unit with efficiency 0 will not even fight and is harmless to attack. If you have a high max effectiveness you will regain effectiveness faster.

Effectiveness is shown in a number when you click a unit but also directly on the map. The color of the strengh number on the map will show roughly the effectiveness. Black (fresh) -> yellow -> orange -> red (low morale!) will show how a unit is doing and tell you it is about to break (and retreat)

2) Strength of a unit does not affect the effectiveness but instead the number of "rounds" you fire during a battle. So, more men means you fire more. Strength+4 is the total number of rounds you fire in a battle, so with strength 10 you will fire 10+3=13 rounds and that is then also the max damage a unit can inflict if all of them hit their target

3) In combat, an attack value will combined with effectiveness determine the chance of hitting enemy when shotting at it. Also enemy survivability will affect it so a enemy with high surv is tougher to hit. Terrain can reduce attackers changes of hitting and sometimes even the defender if you place an armour in mountain for example if will be less effectiveness

4) There is a special anti-tank value for units used ONLY against armour. It reduces enemy survivability so if you for example have AT 4 and enemy has surv 6 then in that battle enemy will use surv 6-4=2 which is only one third its original value of 6. It means the unit will be 3 times as easy to hit which means in this extreme example the AT bonus made a huge impact

5) In combat, units can fire or use shock. Some battles have shock phases but some have only fire phases. Being hit by a shock attack reduces your morale=effectiveness. Being hit by a fire attack reduces your strength by 1 point. In shock attack a unit will use its "Shock Attack" value, in fire attack it will use its attack value corresponding to the enemy unit type so if a figher attacks a garrison the fighter will use ground attack on the garrison while garrison will use air attack on the fighter.

6) When losing a strength point you also lose some effectiveness and a high quality value of a unit will lose less effectiveness than a low quality one

7) In some battles (ground vs ground), a defender might retreat if its effectiveness drops too low combined with it receiving too much casualties in a single combat. If a unit retreat then the attacker can advance after combat to the empty hex.

8 ) There are 4 types of combat
i) Strategic Battle - Unit vs Resource
ii) Dog Fight - No attacker or defender, totally equal terms with simultaneous fire
iii) Navy vs Navy - Attacker Shock, Attacker Fire, Defender Fire
iv) Standard battle (means all of the rest combinations) - Attacker Shock, Defender fires, Attacker Fire

Strategic Battle occurs when a Strategic bomber attacks a hex with a resource regardless of enemy unit there it will just battle the resource and the unit in that hex is not used in any way, Case i) also occurs if any unit with a strategic attack value attacks a hex which has no unit on it, so for example a tactical bomber attacks empty London means a strategic battle.

In Strat Battle the defending resource first fire on the attacker, attacker takes that losses and then fire on the resource.

Dog Fight occurs if 2 units who have dog fight capability meet i.e. air unit or carrier. When this happens they both fire simultaneously and take damage.

Navy vs Navy occurs when 2 naval units battle. The attacker first use its shock value to reduce defender effectiveness. After that, attacker fires at defender damaging it. Finally the defender fires at attacker but from its weakened state! This means in navy vs navy it is better to be the attacker.

Standard battle is air vs ground, ground vs ground, navy vs ground, air vs navy and any other possible combinations left. Here the attacker first do a shock attack, then defender fires a attacker and finally attacker fires at defender. Since defender can damage the attacker first, unless attacker has a huge shock attack prior then it is beneficial being the defender.

9) Combat odds shown prior to battle do not consider the sequences in the battles it only considers how much firepower you have prior to battle, so unless in dog fight where both fire simultaneously a even odds for example could mean the attacker or defender is at advantage. The shown odds is on purpose larger than the real odds to allow finer levels of indication instead of the large error margins you get when rounding a small number to an Integer. For example if the real casualty expected is 2.6 for attacker and 3.4 for defender it would be shown as 3-3 if rounding. If instead upscaling these numbers say by +50% would mean 3.9 vs 5.1 and here you round it to 4-5 and you can then see even a small advantage expressed in the combat odds
Last edited by firepowerjohan on Wed Sep 17, 2008 11:54 am, edited 7 times in total.
Johan Persson - Firepower Entertainment
Lead Developer of CEAW, CNAW and World Empires Live (http://www.worldempireslive.com)
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Post by pipfromslitherine »

We should probably sticky this - but I can't work out how! I am sure it'll get sorted out after the Xmas break :)

Cheers

Pip
Licco1
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Re: Combat System in CEAW in detail.

Post by Licco1 »

How do I use rail movement
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