Manual Questions

[Marathon]

Did I miss these answers in the manual?

1. Placing the melee cursor over an enemy unit will give you the total attacjer/defender modifiers.

2. During multiplayer, hitting enter will allow you to chat.

[Hertston]

LOL... I think you already know the answer to that [:D]

Yup.. they seem to have been missed out. The first point you can't really miss so isn't of great importance, but the second might be an irritant and should be added. Other than that, they made a very nice job of the manual, I think.

[Marathon]

I think they did to but I wanted to make sure I was not blind.

[PDiFolco]

About the manual, I didn't understand how Melee works(p 26) : it talks about small/med/large units - what's that ?- and say they have one to 4 "chances" to do damage : but what chances are that ? One in 2,6,10,100 ??
After that the full modifier list isn't very useful as we don't know to what they apply exactly ... [&:]
Could some Tin Prophet help here [&o] ? I really *like* knowing the combat mechanisms of my wargames ... [;)]

[Deride]

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco
About the manual, I didn't understand how Melee works(p 26) : it talks about small/med/large units - what's that ?- and say they have one to 4 "chances" to do damage : but what chances are that ? One in 2,6,10,100 ??

The secret is that the game uses a 10 sided die for all rolls. A unit that can have 4 stands (i.e., infantry) gets 1 roll per stand that is currently alive. A unit that can have 2 stands (i.e., cav) get 2 rolls per stand. And, a unit that can have only 1 stand (i.e., chariots and elephants) get 4 rolls per stand.

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco
After that the full modifier list isn't very useful as we don't know to what they apply exactly ... [&:]
Could some Tin Prophet help here [&o] ? I really *like* knowing the combat mechanisms of my wargames ... [;)]

Under the sheets, the battle engine is basically using a 10 sided die. There are actually some exceptions based on "lucky shot" -- i.e., if you roll a 1, you get to roll again; if the second roll is also a 1, we count that as a lucky shot and you hit.

Perhaps we should be so vague, but we didn't want to overwhelm users with the underlying battle rules since we really wanted the game to be easy to run through without having to worry about tons of die rolls. (Trust me on this, there are a large number of die rolls happening under the covers for morale checks, leader checks, hit checks, damage checks, etc.)

Deride

[PDiFolco]

Well, either give no detailed information on dice rolls but give "results estimates" in-game, or give the modifiers... and the base chance ! [:)]
Get it about unit "size" - clean way of saying cavalry is twice deadlier than infantry, and Elephants 4 times [;)].
And now I understand while losses in 1 round are always max 400 [;)] . But what's the base chance to inflict casualty ? Manual imply there would be a 1/10 chance per figure but I suppose it's actually higher (else the negative modifiers would be rather meaningless)... 3/10 ?
Thanks !

[Deride]

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco
Well, either give no detailed information on dice rolls but give "results estimates" in-game, or give the modifiers... and the base chance ! [:)]

PDiFolco,

That is fair enough. The base chance is a 3 out of 10 (as you guessed.) That should probably be in the manual.

Deride

[PDiFolco]

Ok, thank you, this forum has an amazing responsiveness from the devs ! [:)]
And I was frankly amazed to learn that you (Koios) were Texans [X(]... I never imagined Texans not only having any interest in ancient Greece, but even making a very good ancient wargame ! [:'(][:D]

[toddtreadway]

Where in Texas are you guys located?

[Deride]

ORIGINAL: toddtreadway
Where in Texas are you guys located?

We are in Addison, TX which is a sub-burb of Dallas.

Deride

[PDiFolco]

ORIGINAL: Deride

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco
Well, either give no detailed information on dice rolls but give "results estimates" in-game, or give the modifiers... and the base chance ! [:)]

PDiFolco,

That is fair enough. The base chance is a 3 out of 10 (as you guessed.) That should probably be in the manual.

Deride

Let's continue : what are "short" and "long" range for the various missiles ?

And about the modifiers, I'd like 2 things to be changed (in a patch ?), it doesn't look right to me :
- Axes/Swords should be more powerful than spears in melee, and reverse for charge, so we could have :
Sword/Axe : charge +1, melee +2
Spear : charge +2, melee +1
- Bows should be more powerful than slings, or rather slings should'nt be powerful => -1 to slings

Oh well, no big deal anyway ! [;)]

[Deride]

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco
Let's continue : what are "short" and "long" range for the various missiles ?

Short range is 2 spaces towards the front of the unit (up to two spaces to the side as well.)

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco
And about the modifiers, I'd like 2 things to be changed (in a patch ?), it doesn't look right to me :
- Axes/Swords should be more powerful than spears in melee, and reverse for charge, so we could have :
Sword/Axe : charge +1, melee +2
Spear : charge +2, melee +1

PDIPolco, we actually worked quite carefully to make sure that the balance of weapons was correct, and we based these bonuses on historic usage of the weapons.

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco
- Bows should be more powerful than slings, or rather slings should'nt be powerful => -1 to slings

At short range bows get a +1 bonus while slings get a +2 bonus. At long range, slings get a -1 bonus while bows get no bonus.

I think you will find that this bonus structure greatly reduces the effectiveness of slings in most campaigns because they have to get close to be effective. (And, once close, they expose themselves to attack -- and the enemy may be pushed back if a melee unit is engaging them.)

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco
Oh well, no big deal anyway ! [;)]

We had a fairly extensive beta testing period for a lot of these things. However, we are open minded to making changes/updates to the game if folks generally agree on said changes.

Deride

[toddtreadway]

Speaking of missile weapons, I didn't see any penalty for firing through other units. Is there a penalty?

[Deride]

ORIGINAL: toddtreadway
Speaking of missile weapons, I didn't see any penalty for firing through other units. Is there a penalty?

Theoretically, missile units fire over other units, so there is no penalty for firing "through" other units. However, due to acuracy, any units adjacent to the target must make a saving roll against being hit by friendly fire.

Deride

[koiosworks]

[

Axes/Swords should be more powerful than spears in melee, and reverse for charge, so we could have :
Sword/Axe : charge +1, melee +2

BTW: If we do a Roman era game, the short sword will indeed beat spears in melee. But, spears were the king of melee in Alexander's time

[PDiFolco]

ORIGINAL: koiosworks

[

Axes/Swords should be more powerful than spears in melee, and reverse for charge, so we could have :
Sword/Axe : charge +1, melee +2

BTW: If we do a Roman era game, the short sword will indeed beat spears in melee. But, spears were the king of melee in Alexander's time

Ok, that makes sense. But still it looks weird to have spears more effective in continued melee fights than swords...
BTW, I realized my post about that was relatively brash and even somewhat trollish, I apologize...[&o]