weapon autochoice oddity

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spir
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weapon autochoice oddity

Post by spir »

Hello,

here is a picture showing an automatic attack choice:
attack.png
The "throwing knives" range attack is chosen.
If I understand correctly here are the damage chances for each attack:

Code: Select all

        damage dealt    drain           final damage    damage received
mace    16*2*50% = 16   8*3/2*60% ~ 7   16-7 = 9        8*3*60% ~ 14
knives  6*3*50% = 9     0               9               15*3*70% ~ 32
The count is complicated by the drain effect, but it's clear that the mace deals however the same final amount of damage, and is much less dangerous!
My question is obviously is: why are the knives chosen?
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zookeeper
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Re: weapon autochoice oddity

Post by zookeeper »

Retaliation damage is ignored since you'll level up and presumably get fullhealing after the attack.
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Elvish_Pillager
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Re: weapon autochoice oddity

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

What zookeeper said, and the fact that the knives average 9.0 damage while the mace only averages 8.8 damage.
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Xandria
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Re: weapon autochoice oddity

Post by Xandria »

The game calculated in the lich's drain ability, too :)
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csarmi
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Re: weapon autochoice oddity

Post by csarmi »

Retaliation damage would be ignored anyway, I'm afraid. Or is it changed?
Velensk
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Re: weapon autochoice oddity

Post by Velensk »

That has been changed, however in this case the computer thinks it's worth the risk.
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Xandria
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Re: weapon autochoice oddity

Post by Xandria »

Well, the risk is zero, as the guy will level :) of course it's worth it.
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taemyr
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Re: weapon autochoice oddity

Post by taemyr »

Notice that if your crusader had been wounded, so that it only had 45 hp left the computer would preferr the melee attack.

In short the ranged attack is preferred because it has a slighly higher expected damage yield due to the drain. How much damage you take on retaliation is irrelevant, since you will level anyway.
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Aethaeryn
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Re: weapon autochoice oddity

Post by Aethaeryn »

I've seen more oddities while playing through Wesband as an elf that filled a mixed fighter role, doing about the same damage ranged (but magical) as melee (nonmagical). It would prefer me always attacking the enemies ranged (even if they are a ranged-damaging unit) so I would take more probable retaliation, even if the edge magical gave me was only something like 95% chance to kill versus 92%. In this case, it's better to take the very probable kill over the extremely probable kill because there's more enemies nearby and I need full health to withstand the next wave.
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Xandria
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Re: weapon autochoice oddity

Post by Xandria »

Well, the algorithm that chooses which attack to use can't obviously factor in strategy and nearby enemies.
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Aethaeryn
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Re: weapon autochoice oddity

Post by Aethaeryn »

Xandria wrote:Well, the algorithm that chooses which attack to use can't obviously factor in strategy and nearby enemies.
When you're talking about the difference between a few percents, and one gives next-to-no retaliation and the other gives a lot of retaliation if you miss? Perhaps retaliation damage is not weighted enough, but it doesn't matter since you can always choose the other attack.
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jon316
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Re: weapon autochoice oddity

Post by jon316 »

There were a few times when I was playing with elves and I had a few marksmen (men?) who were attacking with melee when they were in the woods and could have killed the opponent easily with 2/3 hits with the bow, or 2/2 from melee.

When I failed to kill the guy with my first markman, I scratched my head because I wasn't paying attention when I picked the auto-hit choice. Apparently the computer thought a 40% chance to hit twice with melee would be better than 60%(marksman) chance to hit 2/3 with bow.

*shrug* I reloaded because that was stupid on my part for not paying attention anyway.
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