Autoresolve mechanics

[HUtH]

Hello

Q: What is the mechanism behind the autoresolve feature in PoP? Only units' levels or other stats/modifiers too?

Recently have I started playing again, pure non-modded PoP 3.611, I created my new awesome female char 'Daenerys of Pendor'. 6 STR 7 AGI and rest into INT and CHA, she's too noble and wise for fighting and gettng her hands dirty. Her men(and some women) will do the job, while she can sunbathe. And - wow - campaign goes much faster, though I don't know if I ever beat 15 lvl without chopping enemy knights... but why bother, she's a mother of dragons!(and failing in every ambush, why there's no bodyguards feature in PoP? )

 

[shoshuro]

Levels, skills, proficiencies, items, terrain and in general many many things.

Also use Quick Questions Thread for those type of stuff

 

[MickDick]

It's been designed that you should only need common sense to get an idea of how the battle would play out.  Although it may not seem like it at times, but this is because it doesn't calculate how well you control your troops for best effect.  Sort of a 'man to man' calculation.

 

[HUtH]

Levels, skills, proficiencies, items, terrain and in general many many things.

Is it that complicated? Somehow I doubt it... Terrain? Really?

Also use Quick Questions Thread for those type of stuff

This is not a quick question

@MickDick
I'd like to know if I need to upgrade my units to different types, does proportion of these types matter, how ranged and heavy cav are counted etc. It's hard to tell from normal gameplay what are the modifiers.

I don't want to exploit the game(so I should make an army of uber-level Fierdsvain Berserkers if level is most important?), just don't want to get into situation that my army composition in autoresolve is much worse than some normal 'proper' army. Autoresolve has a big pro, a stable quite high count of prisoners from every battle(and I don't know the other pros really apart from having a won battle after 5 seconds) , but no tactics and neither at least 20 killed enemies(and the XP!) by hero char in every battle.

 

[MickDick]

I wouldn't be surprised if it took army composition into it's formula.

Say you go up against a cav only army with only archers.  Same level, same tier of gear, skill numbers.  Someone needs to properly test this...

I suppose one could cheat an archer army and go up against a khergit khanate in autoresolve, see the difference.

 

[noosers]

Hello HUtH, long time no see.

It is that complicated indeed. Basing on kt0´s script MadVAder added and debugged a lot on top of it to get the final version. Which should be mentioned somewhere, but I couldn´t find it on the devpage nor dig it up here despite recalling to have seen it.

p00t,

Helpful content for you as I discovered Advanced Search Function!

隐藏: yeah, bycatch!

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,250879.msg6018464/topicseen.html#msg6018464
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,267392.msg6613521/topicseen.html#msg6613521
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,271418.msg6490308/topicseen.html#msg6490308
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,250879.msg6034004.html#msg6034004

The Wisdom

This once again shows that a little search and a couple of minutes spent on it will help you most of the times. Ye lazy buggers.

 

[HUtH]

Ha, immortal sarcastic forum being is always watchful, hello noosers

Well, of course I used 'search' funtion, but typed wrong words... 'auto-calc' pfff
Thank you for the links, quite helpful.

Anyway, I want to say that after autoresolving all field battles by 60 in-game days(no sieges yet), the funtionality seems to me to be very well done, in almost every other strategy game I played, this feature was somehow broken, especially in aspect of low-numbered quality armies vs hordes of zerglings, in PoP very small group of adventurers will massacre medium sized low-normal units in real time and in autoresolve, and that's great. Still not sure about ranged or mass cav/inf armies, maybe later in-game I'll test this.

At this moment general feeling is OK, though I'm not sure how much my char build influences it... I need to compare my char level-to-day with other saves/chars(of course I forgot about checking level before writing this post). It's pure INTCHA, so after 60 days of quite normal playing(as mercenary of course) I can lead 130 troops, and I have quite nice pile of money(probably because high Trading)


I understand that you(devs) don't want to reveal mechanics, bacause it's all about gameplay not numbers(and it probably requires to just paste the code...) but after reading "The Wisdom" I have two questions, regarding last posts from that thread:
- does Surgery work same as in real-time battles?
- does Tactics* have any impact in calculations?
These are, well, quite important things about auto-calc, aren't they?

* or "do tactics"? Is it plurar or singular in that sentence? : P

 

[Kiri Kaneko]

I recommend you stop going into towns/villages at night and you won't be ambushed. It's kinda lame being the supreme ruler of Pendor but having to abide by a curfew in case a few thugs KO you, have you completely at their mercy and yet just take 10% (a lot) of your money. In Gekokujo you get body guards but they tend to derp out, plus when you get spawned in a villager right in front of a firing squad the AI tends to focus on you and when you get KOd you still get robbed even if all but one of the enemies was dead and he was about to get shot by your 3 200 archery bodyguards in heavy armour at 5 metres range.

I remember hearing that there are some castles that are practically unsiegeable due to their strong geography, and that noldor lords wreck you even if you have them outnumbered 10:1 but in these cases autocalc works strongly in your favour. I would link the threads but alas I can't remember them.

 

[iskar]

The castles mentioned are Oregar Castle and Elacrai most prominently. There are some others with difficult terrain, but these two are simply impossible.

 

[noosers]

@HUtH:

Well, if you ask someone with the sourcecode nicely, he may look it up for you. But basically all that´s ever been posted even on the devforum was a short snippet and an explanation by MV how the various factors would be weighted.

So basically quite a long addition. And unless you´re coding yourself I reckon you´d have problems to get the info you desire out of it and just raise a ton of questions.

隐藏: rant

This uncertainity can be avoided by explaining it in an easier and understandable way. Which is: everything a troop has matters, just like it would for the player.

All the important skills and stats (healthpoints, level, equipment, skills, stats, mounted, archer, melee, etc) are summed up for a trooper, thrown into the mincer and the outcome, so called danger points, are filled into the casing to get a single value. This value is stored for every trooper upon compilation of the code - hence the problem of meddled troopers having an autocalc value of zero or the one of the trooper they were replacing in the troops.txt.

So every kind of trooper has a certain amount of danger point attached to it - for exampe. a mere recruit scores 20 points whereas some knight would get 300.

Each army consists of various troopers and scores a different amount of total danger points depending on it´s troop roster. Certain troops are getting certain boni/mali attached. A horse isn´t much use on the battlements, for example, whereas an archer can cause serious trouble.
Defending a castle is easier than storming one -  All these things are factored into the script and out comes the AI battle.

Which still heavily favours high levelled, highly skilled troops, like the Fierdsvain Berserker/Empire Gladiator or the Maiden Noble/Heroine Adventuress.

Extracting all that info out of a script is proably a little bit more tedious than getting it explained.

 

I´m not sure about tactics as it´s a leadership skill, but first aid, surgery and wound treatment are definetly beyond the AI´s reach.
Autocalc battles aren´t affected by them, the casuality list just chops down.

Which is the reason why so many troops are usually lost on the players side compared to a regular battle with an intact medic, and I reckon tactics won´t affect autocalc battles as well.

 

[HUtH]

I recommend you stop going into towns/villages at night and you won't be ambushed. It's kinda lame being the supreme ruler of Pendor but having to abide by a curfew in case a few thugs KO you, have you completely at their mercy and yet just take 10% (a lot) of your money.

Well, thank you Mr Obvious, but Daenerys is also a supreme ruler of 'load game' and 'ctrl' and 'F4' buttons - they are the dragons
btw that reminds me why I haven't tried that ACoK mod yet...


@ noosers

Again thank you for this explanation, it's sufficient for me
Wait... I just have one more question - how are companions counted? Like CKO units?

I´m not sure about tactics as it´s a leadership skill, but first aid, surgery and wound treatment are definetly beyond the AI´s reach.
Autocalc battles aren´t affected by them, the casuality list just chops down.

Which is the reason why so many troops are usually lost on the players side compared to a regular battle with an intact medic, and I reckon tactics won´t affect autocalc battles as well.

Well, sad news if that's true I'll probably test it with import/export a char. Anyway it's usually 1/4 to 1/10(depends on difficulty) killed units for a won battle, so it's not bad(if my 6(+2) Surgery isn't counted). This is a field to exploit in game a bit by the char build. If you autoresolve, you don't need these skills, so I could focus only on Leadership, Trade, Persuasion and leave all INT skills to my companions(apart from non-party ones), instead focus on some fighting skills. But then it wouldn't be Daenerys! I have now 5(+2)/6 with book/ surgery, I won't change it, but won't upgrade it neither. But if I had know this before starting the campaing, probably I wouldn't invest in it at all, sticked to number from char creation. Daenerys isn't a good doctor even to herself... well apart from purifying by fire of course! Wouldn't it be a heresy in Pendor?... eh, nevermind...

Mother of dragons!

隐藏

sorry for quality, it's a really old photo from another universe, so yeah...

 

[noosers]

Ambushes aren´t that difficult, unless it´s the dreaded Scorpion Assassain. The major trick behind it is to use cover - in case of 8 Red Brotherhood Guildsmen lining up on the graveyard of some remote village it´s to draw your shield and run to the rightmost one - so all the others stand in line behind him and can´t shoot on your while you kill them. As they beeline towards you if you come too close all you need to do is move back and kill the suckers with a quick short weapon (like the trusty Knights War Axe) using overhead strikes.

Not to mention if you make it to the town gate, you can always run for de laiv.... 

Companions are handled like full stacks for looting and they get 3 shares off the pile whereas 257 Knights of the Dragon will have to divide a single share of plunder up between them.
For upkeep they´re either counted as cavalry or infantry depending on wether they´ve got a horse or not and in combat they´re attached to whichever group (cav/inf/archers) you applied them.

If you want to know how companions are handled in autocalc that is beyond my knowledge. Your best guess is probably pming MV or asking in the Forge and posting the answers here as it´s a really intersting question with regards to PoP´s autocalc/kt0´s autocalc script and I don´t think the routines regarding companions were altered much.

And an awesome screeny, HUtH! Please post it in the screenshot thread as well. But fix the "tab key to leave" before into something like "What a happy day"

 

[HUtH]

Well, if I have mood for camping and sniping I can manage ambushes, but it's often a 'load game' moment. Generaly waiting until dawn isn't bad, the books have to be read eventually...
Of course being caught in city is impossible situation, but Daenerys doesn't do such sneaky things herself, pfff.

I've sent PM to MadVader about companions, so that'd be it about this thing...

About screenshot... well the filters help to cover my low graphic settings But ok, I'll photoshop that text

 

[NegroCaucasian]

what are the most deadly/efficient troops for autoresolve? Berserkers? Twilight Knights? Demonic Magni?

 

[HUtH]

^ best if you read noosers' posts in this thread

I suppose Demonic Magni have best lvl, stats and equipment, so yeah...

 

[HUtH]

Double post, but I have to admit that autoresolve is really a gold mine - so many prisoners that mine 80 slots for them is not enough. And selling them with one click - kaching: +~22000 shiny denars. It balances the need of recruiting new troops much often than while playing normal real-time battles with surgery and tacitcs. Well it balances it 'better' than it should, but I don't complain
Making peace and positive relations with Noldor? Two autoresolve battles against their patrols and +20 in relations by releasing prisoners, and excepting Nobles for slave trader's money.

 

[HUtH]

for anyone information... on companions in autocalc:

AFAIK, unwounded companions contribute their party skills in autocalc, but not much else.
Cheers.MV

that's sad

 

[skullmasher]

Double post, but I have to admit that autoresolve is really a gold mine - so many prisoners that mine 80 slots for them is not enough. And selling them with one click - kaching: +~22000 shiny denars. It balances the need of recruiting new troops much often than while playing normal real-time battles with surgery and tacitcs. Well it balances it 'better' than it should, but I don't complain
Making peace and positive relations with Noldor? Two autoresolve battles against their patrols and +20 in relations by releasing prisoners, and excepting Nobles for slave trader's money.

I have some success with auto-calc myself, especially against heretic-armies with those pesky daemons, and against noldor. But usually i prefer tactical battle, as my maxed out surgery 10+4 guarantees minimal losses. I field heroic adventurers & maidens (~250) exclusivly, therefore every single loss is somewhat painfull. My CKO is almost finished - still have to wait some weeks for noldor bows, but they are even more precious than HA's due to their prestige-cost.

Anyways, i would like to now what kind of troops you field to get efficient economical results. Also, do you consider weapon type (blunt)?

 

[HUtH]

Anyways, i would like to now what kind of troops you field to get efficient economical results.

Economical result... it's hard to say... I try to have a lot of heavy cavalry(they are really good in autoresolve) and I'm still not sure should I recruit Berserkers or Huskarls... Also I'm not sure about archers in field battles, I have a minimum amount, only from Pendor recruits(from refugees, etc.) and ex-prisoners. So I'm not sure if much cheaper army of heavy infantrymen instead of cavalry would be strong enough to win without heavy casualties, therefore without higher cost of additional recruitment and less time for battling - less loot.
But I don't bother about it, because I didn't have any problems with money from the beginning of campaign, high Leadership, Trade and Prisoner Management(this, and leadership are crucial skills) was enough to win enough battles to gain renown required for mercenary job, and then to open manufactures everywhere and to start being a Lady with small village. It's almost 200 day, and I have 600k gold, but without any trading, hunting for awesome loot, and generaly without thinking how to get money.

Also, do you consider weapon type (blunt)?

But it doesn't matter in auto-calc battles The amount of prisoners is always so high, that it compensates any losses, because of lack of surgery in calculations.


BTW... It seems that in auto-calc, when one chooses to attack once and then 'call the troops back', and again only attack once, the result is better then by choosing 'continue'. I couldn't win against Kerlic Adventrures army by 'continuing attack' through many tries, but by calling troops back it was doable.

 

[noosers]

Embrace the random factor.