Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - Beta Lone Trooper suspiciously good in autoresolve.

The auto-resolve rates Troopers too highly. It's goddamned absurd. I've seen auto-resolves where the enemy had 1 trooper, and yet it inflicts hugely disproportionate damage on the forces arrayed against it. This is not an isolated incident, it happens time and time again. I'm sure others have seen this as well.

Troopers cost 3 gold on the strategy map (SM) and 1 SM Trooper translates into 3 RTS units. Hunters and Armours cost 7 gold and translate into 2 RTS units.


In a fight between overwhelming forces (2 Troopers, 2 Grenadiers, 2 Shamans, 1 Warlock, 2 Hunters and 2 Armours) versus 1 Trooper, that lone Trooper beats 2 Hunters and 2 Armours. 3 Gold beats 28 Gold, including 14 Gold of PURE COUNTER.




A 92% win chance in a fight (2 Hunters, 1 Devastator, 3 Zeppelins) versus 1 Trooper ends up with a victory, yes, but one Hunter was destroyed. 3 Gold beats 7 gold of counter.

A 75% win chance in a fight (2 Armours) versus 1 Trooper has 1 Armour destroyed.

A 97% Chance to win - NINETY-SEVEN - between huge forces (6 Hunters, 7 Armours, 1 Devastator and 3 Shamans) versus 1 Trooper: The lone Trooper (3 Gold) beats 1 Hunter and 1 Shaman (13 Gold)

On and on and on...

I admit that confirmation bias probably leads me to notice the oddities more than the expected outcome. There are times when it's not so bad: I did note a fight (2 Armours, 3 Ironclads, 5 Juggernauts, 2 Transports, 5 Shamans, 1 Warlock) where the Lone Trooper only killed a Shaman. And once or twice I actually beat a lone trooper without suffering casualties.

But you know how people were worried about Civilization-like autoresolves where a 10 AD Phalanx beats an 1960 AD tank? When 3 Gold of units can beat 28 gold of units... that's your version of that.


Conclusion:

In RTS mode, you get 3 troopers per strategy map unit, and 3 Troopers is not enough to kill anything bigger than infantry or Transports. And yet time and again, on the campaign map, a single lone trooper takes a huge amount of much more expensive troops down with him.

Either make the RTS Troopers as powerful as the Strategy map Troopers or nerf how powerful Troopers are in autoresolve calcluations, because the Troopers shouldn't be both at the same time.

I agree that it looks strange at first, BUT I think it actually makes sense within the scope and internal logic of DC.

Just take a look at the RTS part:
You will often build much more troops than what you bring to the battle initially.
Even if you attack with overwhelming forces, the enemy still will have time to build some more troops until you arrive at his base, resulting usually in higher losses than what you would expect.
Consequently, if you want to bring RTS and autoresolve in line and balance it against each other, you need to have such high losses even if they look somewhat non-sensical at first glance.

Before autoresolve often was the better choice in such cases, since it resulted in lower losses than fighting it out yourself. Not exactly desirable either, is it?

So, as long as DC keeps the current balance and the way the RTS part is handled I think such high losses are perfectly logical.

That is true, Autoresolve is definitely not longer the best way to go, and that's generally good, whereas it is possible to enter a battle with a 33% chance to win myself and win. I don't mind RTS battles being more desirable than Autoresolve. Although it's unwise to try and autoresolve any battle with odds of 70% or less, those tend to be Phyrric victories at best.

It's the fricking LONE TROOPERS that bother me. A lone Strategy map Trooper is three in the RTS map - an amount which is almost totally worthless. Those three RTS Troopers are somehow magically beating 2 RTS Hunters or more before being taken down.

My problem is not that I'm taking losses in an auto-resolve, it's that the gap between what the Strategy map troopers can take down in Autoresolve and what the RTS troopers can ACTUALLY take down is too wide. I know there's a certain amount of cheating which is to be expected, but I would like the game to have the courtesy of not blatantly pulling aces out of its sleeves, arms are on the table in full view.

Think about what happens when you go into RTS mode:
You build a base and produce more troops.
If you enter a RTS match with 2 troopers, you will build dozen more over the course of the match.

Why should it be different in autoresolve?
It wouldn't make sense to assume that in autoresolve the lone trooper is directly fighting against your troops alone.
Rather I think you should consider that the same happens as in an RTS match:
Your troops build a base and produce more units, and the enemy does the same.
Thus the losses are explained.

As long as the RTS part stays teh way it is, i.e. with the possibility and often necessity to produce much more units than what you initially brought into the battle, autoresolve SHOULD end with similar results as a typical RTS match (a bit worse probably, since you should be a better commander than the AI on its own).

However reasonable, it still looks bad when 2 troopers take out 6 or 8 upgraded hunters before the remaining dozen can finally win, though. There should maybe be an icon / progress bar representing units built during the RTS.

I agree that it looks a bit bad, but it makes sense in the light of what we see in the RTS part.
So either Larian adjusts the RTS part, changes autoresolve back to probably being too forgiving in comparison to the RTS part or keep it the way it is now.
In the two latter cases we might have to accept that there will be some strangeness to it, I think.

You seem to be misinterpreting me. I am not calling for ALL auto-resolves to be lowered in difficulty. I am saying that this particular one, the trooper (especially the lone trooper) is quite blatantly punching above its weight class. Its Auto-resolve is writing checks its RTS can't cash.

You have repeated the same point twice (the first in another thread). I do not find it any more convincing the second or third time.

Yeah yeah yeah, in RTS mode you can build more stuff. I could build Juggernauts and Bomber Balloons in RTS mode, but unless they're actually on the territory, that doesn't count for autoresolve and nor should it. Autoresolve is difficult enough to program without trying to calculate the effects of units that aren't there. You have to auto-resolve for the units you have, not for the potential units you could have.

Reasonable justifications or no, it is at the very least irritating to see a representation of one of the weakest units in the game take out 4, 5, 9 times their cost in gold. This is a beta and we're supposed to give feedback, yes?

Even a simple change of making Troopers and Grenadiers be worth 5 per strategy unit instead of 3 would help the appearance problem - without touching the autoresolve at all!

I've tested 10 Troopers versus 3 Armours (equal supply), and they can indeed win. 3 Troopers versus 2 Armours, not a chance.

It also looks odd when Imp Fighters without the ground attack researched - can influence an autoresolve battle where there are no air units for them to attack.

I didn't assume that you only want the difficulty to be lowered across the board.
And I understand your concerns about the strangely high success rate of the single weakest force in the game.

I'm just saying that if autoresolve follows the same internal logic as the RTS part, then we will and should see such things as you are describing (we probably should for balancing reasons alone).

Because in that case (same idea behind RTS AND autoresolve) we have to assume that the battle is resolved by the same process that's behind the RTS part, i.e. building a base and more units - and then such things can and will happen (I know there's no calculation going on internally where that is happening, but wouldn't we have to imagine that this is happening in the game?).
Anyway: the results should be in line whith each other then.

Or the other way around, if I routinely see something like that in the RTS part, why should autoresolve behave differently?
Because, when I play out exactly the same battle as RTS instead of choosing autoresolve, I might very well see just the same results. Simply because it's not that 1 trooper (or the 3 it's representing in RTS) fighting against my 5 hunters (or whatever troops I brought), it's my 5 hunters attacking the enemy base that had already time to produce some more units at the point I reach it.

I'm not saying that I like that idea - only that it would be logical to assume it, because why would those troops face each other directly in autoresolve (and only there), while I have to bother with the whole base-building stuff in RTS?

Saying that the autoresolve should just be thought of as an abstraction of an RTS match (and there's actually base building and other units built) will NEVER convince me no matter how much you repeat it. That is because I am very, very sure that the autoresolve does not actually build a base and new non-existent units. How could it? That would be way too complicated for what it needs to do.

It's all well and good to tell someone to imagine that their car works by magic pedaling pixies under the hood, but that's not going to help them fix a problem when they open it up to take a look.

If it does not actually work like an invisible RTS match, I'm not going to think of it like that - especially not when stuff like this happens.




It doesn't happen to this extreme very often, but this is a dramatic example of how absurd it can get.

Of course it doesn't do that, and I said that it, indeed could not.
But I guess it should be balanced according to the RTS part.
Otherwise it would be just as strange, imho.

It's very strange but I would rather not be punished for going into the RTS and having some wonky results is a small price to pay.

I completely and totally agree. I would also like to not be punished for wanting to autoresolve. Plus, in single-player, you can only do one RTS a turn. Having a good autoresolve is really important.

Just now, a battle where I had an 82% chance to win, (2 Hunters, 2 Armours, 1 Troopers, 1 Shaman, 1 Warlock) versus 1 Trooper and 1 Transport. I do tend to go into RTS battle for sub 80% chance of winning, but I thought autoresolve here was safe.

Results: The enemy lost 1 Trooper and 1 Transport (11 Gold) and I lost 1 Hunter, 1 Armour, 1 Trooper, 1 Shaman (23 gold).

I had a 82% chance to win. I feel a little bit like I was being punished for auto-resolving. I like the campaign battles, but a campaign is LONG. I don't want to have to personally manage every battle with a chance of less than 90% to not lose twice the gold cost of hte casualties.

Yeah but autoresolve has some random chance in there. When you have a 80% chance of winning you still have a 20% chance of losing. I like having a bit of chance in there. If you can reliably get a result without any chance autoresolve feels too.... 'mechanical' for lack of a better word. Just my personal opinion though.

Yeah... this is better than it was earlier when auto-resolve was so much better that entering RTS mode was more a liability.

It's taking wildly disproportionate losses compared to the gold cost of the enemy that's a bit irritating and a bit frustrating.

Maybe I should incorporate those into my strategy: Send tons of those Lone Troopers at the enemy and deplete their resources and army until they have nothing left..

Well Ive seen the reverse happen too, Swarms of troopers are defeated by a grenadier or something. I think you might just have some bad luck against troopers. Also I think there is some built in attrition to fights. I'm debatable on if this is good or not. On one hand it feels a bit weird, on the other hand I find I get similar results to the autoresolve when I RTS even if it is a small to decent sized force against 1 trooper. In general I like the current way better as it gives me very similar results to RTS battles but I can see your point.

On the bright side, in single player there will be the possibility to delegate battles to your generals, which will usually increase the winning chances a bit.

By the way, when did you tend to see those high losses due to the Rambo-Trooper? On attacking, defending or both?
If they happen more frequently on attacking some enemy country it might have to do with the entrenchment bonus.

Defending, usually. The Entrenchment bonus only tends to apply if you're skipping to countries in the middle. It was not entrenchment, OR mercenaries. I can remember who was in a fight once the screen changes to the results screen.

There's a pretty clear overarching problem here in the way the campaign strategy works. Entrenching positions and building up strong defensive forces is pretty meaningless when sending a single of the cheapest unit in the game is such a devastating manoeuvre. The auto-resolve is trying to match how the rts potion works but they're both broken. Sending a constant stream of cheap units into battle is a completely degenerate strategy and there seems to be no counter to it.

There should be a clear stone, paper, scissors mechanic for the campaign units as well. A trooper must have at least one dedicated counterpart against which he most likely can't ever win. And a much more costly unit should also have more power on the campaign map.

Larian should bear in mind that NOT everyone wants fo fight each battle in the RTS mode. Therefore there must be a reasonabe balance between units on the campaign map ALONE no matter what happens on the RTS maps.

Everything else is in danger of leading to game-breaking balancing issues....

What my theory on the autocalc is is that I want to get the same results that I would get if I RTSed the battle. I usually do with autocalc and even though it can be a bit wonky I prefer that over a system where autocalcing is better/worse than going into RTS. It's not a perfect system but it's better then the earlier system where autocalc almost guaranteed victory with light casualties if you were over around 50% and as a result no one ever took control of a battle that was going well for them.

As for sending in a stream of cheap units to wear down the enemy. Those results are reproducible easily in the RTS mode. It's not a problem with the autocalc it's a problem with how the game is structured (being able to recruit units to accompany your starting forces). It's a little late to change that now (and it is not a huge problem, every game has some OP strategies).

As for rock paper scissors I don't really like that 100%. I like a measure of it though. Because if you fight a imp fighter with a trooper and you enter RTS, you will recruit some units that can fight air units. As a result a trooper vs imp fighter on the strat map can be easily won by the trooper in RTS mode. I guess what I am trying to say is the autocalc should not have it's own rules. If you get the same results as the autocalc when you RTS then it's a great autocalc. I don't think they play a whole RTS in the background (it's probably an abstraction) but it works. If you notice population goes down when you autocalc too. The autocalc is not just fighting those troops that you brought in. Now if the autocalc gave a different result from if you RTS like a much earlier beta did then we would have a problem, but it doesn't.