Battle simulation

Describe your experience with the latest version of FreeOrion to help us improve it.

Moderator: Oberlus

Forum rules
Always mention the exact version of FreeOrion you are testing.

When reporting an issue regarding the AI, if possible provide the relevant AI log file and a save game file that demonstrates the issue.
Message
Author
truepurple
Space Kraken
Posts: 156
Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2021 12:09 am

Battle simulation

#1 Post by truepurple »

4.10

If I have some foes I wish to attack, I'd like to know what my odds are of winning. I can try to guess from the stats, but plenty of time I thought I would win but I lost badly instead. I shouldn't need to be a expert in the ins and outs of how the game handles combat to know if I should attack or not.

So, I select a fleet, I hold down say ctrl or shift or whatever key and select a opponent, and then it tells me probable results, please.

defaultuser
Juggernaut
Posts: 854
Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2015 6:15 pm

Re: Battle simulation

#2 Post by defaultuser »

I would not be in favor of that. Learning to evaluate combat is one of the skills you develop. If you got that kind of advance notice, combat is almost irrelevant.

PS, you're probably either failing to take into account fighters or shields or both.

User avatar
Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 5716
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

Re: Battle simulation

#3 Post by Oberlus »

+1 to what defaultuser says.
Also, there is a lot of luck involved. Best and worst possible results (for one side) could differ a lot. Mean result could be "you win but loss 20% of your ships and 80% of your structure" and then go to battle and lose all your forces because of unlucky targetting, then come to the forums to complain.

truepurple
Space Kraken
Posts: 156
Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2021 12:09 am

Re: Battle simulation

#4 Post by truepurple »

defaultuser wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 5:49 am I would not be in favor of that. Learning to evaluate combat is one of the skills you develop. If you got that kind of advance notice, combat is almost irrelevant.
So you're saying that once you learn to evaluate combat, then combat is irrelevant because you know what the results might be? And since this is a combat game, more so than most 4x, one could say you are essentially saying you shouldn't play once you get good at playing it. If that sounds like gibberish to you, well no more gibberish than your combat being irrelevant statement.

There are several mods for civilization 4. One of the core mods people everywhere who play Civ4 use, does exactly this, gives a rough estimate of odds of winning. No one complains about this. I've never heard anyone say "it made combat irrelevant".

So why aren't you in "favor" of this, how will you personally be negatively effected? If people are doing this in single player game, it's their game. Then you'd be not in favor of this suggestion for reasons of pure snobbery, and you wanting to look your nose down on others is not a reason for anything, you can keep your snobbery to yourself.

So your issue is with multiplayer? So who would benefit the most from this battle simulation idea, new players. If new players play better because of this battle simulation, then they would challenge older players more. So your reason against this is that you don't like to be challenged in multiplayer? Again, doesn't seem like a reasonable reason to be against.

User avatar
Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 5716
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

Re: Battle simulation

#5 Post by Oberlus »

truepurple wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 10:29 am So you're saying that once you learn to evaluate combat, then combat is irrelevant because you know what the results might be? And since this is a combat game, more so than most 4x, one could say you are essentially saying you shouldn't play once you get good at playing it. If that sounds like gibberish to you, well no more gibberish than your combat being irrelevant statement.
He is not saying that, obviously. Sure you can make a tiny effort, overcome your intellectual difficulties, and understand beyond the simplest.
FO is a 4X game, so you also need to carefully manage what do you do and when: what tech get first, how much effort devote to research and how much to production (and how much to influence, in the latest version), peaceful expansion or military conquest, what ship designs produce (hulls, weapons, armor, stealth parts, fuel, speed), what battles to fight and which ones avoid, etc. It's great, even better than MoO2.

If you want a combat simulator, why don't you implement it? I give you my green light.

New players like you would not play better with that knowledge, just realize sooner (one turn sooner) that they made the wrong decissions about techs and ship designs and know in advance that they will lose next turn (because experienced players will attack anyways).

truepurple
Space Kraken
Posts: 156
Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2021 12:09 am

Re: Battle simulation

#6 Post by truepurple »

Oberlus didn't mention one reason against this suggestion, I guess that means Oberlus is for it?

Another example, Battle for Wesnoth, a free player developed TBS. Built into the game is a battle simulation giving you the odds of various outcomes, not as a mod, but part of the base game. No one complains that it is in there. Maybe because it is already in there? It's alot easier to figure out possible results of combat for BfW or Civ4 than it is for Orion, yet they have battle simulators, and FO doesn't.

Also as Oberlus pointed out, the game is about decisions leading up to whether to do a battle or not. Thus to say it would make combat irrelevant, is ludicrous. Thanks for your (unintentional?) point in my favor Orberius.

Don't be contrarian just to be against things or be snobby or whatever troll motive. If you see a actual reason to not have this in the game, spit it out, because I haven't seen one reason against this suggestion as of yet.

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Battle simulation

#7 Post by Geoff the Medio »

A Wesnoth-like battle simulator has long been on my to do list, and there is a feature request issue on GitHub. Useful for AIs and for players. Making learning the game harder isn't really a design goal, so is not to me a reason not to make such a simulator available to players, particularly since it's theoretically possible to set up such a sim by editing the gamestate already, although quite cumbersome in practice.

o01eg
Programmer
Posts: 2004
Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2011 5:46 am

Re: Battle simulation

#8 Post by o01eg »

truepurple wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 10:54 am No one complains that it is in there.
https://wiki.wesnoth.org/FAQ#There.27s_ ... is_game.21
Gentoo Linux x64, gcc-11.2, boost-1.78.0
Ubuntu Server 22.04 x64, gcc-12, boost-1.74.0
Welcome to the slow multiplayer game at freeorion-lt.dedyn.io.Version 2024-03-15.b3de094.
Donations're welcome:BTC:bc1q007qldm6eppqcukewtfkfcj0naut9njj7audnm

truepurple
Space Kraken
Posts: 156
Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2021 12:09 am

Re: Battle simulation

#9 Post by truepurple »

o01eg wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:24 pm
truepurple wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 10:54 am No one complains that it is in there.
https://wiki.wesnoth.org/FAQ#There.27s_ ... is_game.21
Complaining about luck ≠ complaining about battle simulation that gives you the odds.

defaultuser
Juggernaut
Posts: 854
Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2015 6:15 pm

Re: Battle simulation

#10 Post by defaultuser »

I you do decide to add something, I think it should be a research item and have levels.

wobbly
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 1883
Joined: Thu Oct 10, 2013 6:48 pm

Re: Battle simulation

#11 Post by wobbly »

defaultuser wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 11:31 pm I you do decide to add something, I think it should be a research item and have levels.
Some of the people in multiplayer use home written sims. Hard to put a price on something free to those with the coding skills.

I dislikes sims but its hard to argue with the reality that some people are already using them.

Ophiuchus
Programmer
Posts: 3439
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:01 am
Location: Wall IV

Re: Battle simulation

#12 Post by Ophiuchus »

In my opinion having an easy to use battle simulator in the game would be great (probably not a statistical one).

It might be that we should introduce more surprises/fog of battle/randomness especially if we acknowledge that everyone has access to simulators as a result (currently there is stealthed ships mostly).

If we remove that mastery of reliable combat results as game element, giving a choice to use unreliable combat advantages seems legit. E.g. a influence project which sets the damage of your fleet either to zero or doubles its shots.
But also without unreliable combat there is still the mastery of fleet composition, strategic positioning, baiting, bluffing.

Btw. also a noob can build a simple simulator: start a local multiplayer game with two empires use the cheap ships/tech, recreate the battle situation and press next turn.
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

Look, ma... four combat bouts!

User avatar
LienRag
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 2157
Joined: Fri May 17, 2019 5:03 pm

Re: Battle simulation

#13 Post by LienRag »

defaultuser wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 11:31 pm I you do decide to add something, I think it should be a research item and have levels.


Very bad idea imho.
Pre-battle calculations are for the player, not the Emperor, so it should never have an in-game price.

Things that would affect the randomness in-game maybe (if we had a "Chaos theory" tech that would allow to know before the battle what would be the first dice roll), but not just calculation done to ease the work of the player.

User avatar
Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 5716
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

Re: Battle simulation

#14 Post by Oberlus »

If the simulation makes many simulations to provide statistical results, it will take some time, but not much if it's just 10 or 20 combats.
If the simulation does a single random combat, players will use it several times and take notes until they are confident on the result, and that will take more time and be annoying for other players waiting for next turn (it has happened before with players that were running their own simulations). I really dislike that.
So if this is done, I prefer giving statistical results (e.g. worst, best, average in terms of allied ships lost vs enemy ships lost).
UI isn't obvious, specially if there are several fleets (which will happen often in multiplayer with alliances). How to select the fleets that will participate in the battle when they are not yet in a single system?

truepurple
Space Kraken
Posts: 156
Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2021 12:09 am

Re: Battle simulation

#15 Post by truepurple »

Oberlus wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 7:31 pm So if this is done, I prefer giving statistical results (e.g. worst, best, average in terms of allied ships lost vs enemy ships lost).
Yeah. I probably shouldn't have used the word "simulation", but I couldn't think of a better word. Have you ever played Battle for Wesnoth? It can be exactly like that, showing various possible outcomes and odds. Granted the calculations are easier in BfW but still surely something approximately like that could be done. They don't need to be precise, something in the general ballpark would be fine, just enough to tell players whether a battle is already a walk in the park, or impossible or somewhere in the middle.

Post Reply