Any reason why most units seem to miss their hits so often?

[Arwym]

Hello there!

I've been playing Battle for Wesnoth for a few days now, and got a couple of friends hooked as well. With that said, know that LOVE the game. One of these friends and I have especially been trying the multiplayer mode, teaming up against one or two AI's. The problem is, we haven't been able to beat two AI's yet, even as a team. And we both have noticed that our units miss their attacks too often, which makes it even harder to defeat the enemy units.

I was wondering if this is normal, and if it's just a lack of strategy from our parts. My friends are almost giving up on the game out of frustration, just for this.

[monochromatic]

It's psychological. Everyone tends to forget when they get extremely lucky, but remembers when they get extremely unlucky. Well, that's if you are following all the tactics and stuff. From what I see, you and your friends might be missing this:

Defense. A Heavy Infantryman on flat and a Footpad on a mountain are in completely different defense situations. If you used that Heavy Infantryman to attack the Footpad, no wonder nothing hit. Footpads have 70% def on mountains, and Heavy Infantrymen have 30% def. And remember, this value is not the entire number of strikes, but for the individual chance for each attack to hit.

[pauxlo]

First case may be that you don't understand the influence of terrain. Different units get different defenses dependent on the terrain they are standing on, so by good positioning you (and the enemies too) can minimize the number of hits received. (You should also pay attention to the time of day, as this influences the damage you deal (or receive) per hit, as well as the weapon types and resistances of your and the enemies' units.)

If you think your units miss more often than they should, than either you really had bad luck, or you remember bad luck more than good look (a natural psychological phenomena). You can look at the game and turn statistics (look in the menus, I don't remember the hotkey) to control this.

Generally the AI does not cheat by changing the random numbers (they are generated by the server, and so out of control of your AI), only by knowing the rules and calculating a bit quicker than you.

If you want advice on your play, look in the "Strategies and Tips" forum.

[hiro hito]

It's psychological. Everyone tends to forget when they get extremely lucky, but remembers when they get extremely unlucky.

Fortunatly, statistic panel is there to show that's it's not psychological .

The good thing is that AI is stupid enough to be beat even with bad stats, which is impossible against human player... unless he's as stupid as AI

[Arwym]

I should have mentioned, we have read about strategies and we've been using terrain to our advantage. To be more precise, I'll give you an example:
I've seen Dwarven Riflemen with 70% chance to hit and five riflemen miss, all in a row. I've seen units miss every single hit for various turns in a row, even taking terrain defense into account. For instance, my Elvish Archers while in the forests. This seems like too much. Is it really all psychological? Or maybe too much bad luck?

I've been reading on strategies from both the wiki and the forums, and they have indeed helped a bit, but I still find occasions in which I can't help getting really frustrated at how often my units seem to miss, even with everything I try.

It's psychological. Everyone tends to forget when they get extremely lucky, but remembers when they get extremely unlucky.

Fortunatly, statistic panel is there to show that's it's not psychological .

The good thing is that AI is stupid enough to be beat even with bad stats, which is impossible against human player... unless he's as stupid as AI

Nope. I really doubt it's a matter of stupidity here. Inexperience, perhaps? Bad luck? Surely. Probably a combination of factors, but definitely not stupidity. I give my and my friends' capacity of reasoning and common sense more credit than that.

[Kymille]

Just in case since your last comment made me think you might be confused-- the chance to hit is determined by the opponent's terrain rating, not yours. (It's pretty rare for a dwarf to have a 70% chance to hit, and Elves on forest don't have a better chance to hit.)

[Arwym]

Yeah, I probably confused terrain defense and chance to hit. Oops, lol. Still, I think you get what I'm trying to say.

[Crushmaster]

Things always add up. For example, let's say I attack an orcish grunt in the swamp with a mermen (70% chance to hit), and miss all three attacks. "Ridiculous", right? However, this can be somewhat of a help. It's possible that, in a less likely attack, I will hit every/most of the time, or, if I have bad defense, they won't hit me.

I'm also more apt to notice stuff when things happen that aren't in my favor. After all, typically most (all?) people complain because they're missing or getting hit a ton, not because the AI is.

Feliz Navidad!
In Christ,
Crushmaster.

[pauxlo]

So, the chance for 5 thunderers shooting a drake or heavy infantry on flat (=70% Chance to hit, 30% defense for them) to miss all the shoots is 0.3^5 = 0.243%. This does sound quite small, but still does not mean it will never occur - it will occur once every 411 tries, and if you try this five times in each game, it'll occur each 82 games once.

The chance for 5 thunderers shooting an elf archer or a shaman in forest or a dwarf in mountain (= 30% chance to hit, 70% defense for her/him) to miss all is quite big, compared to this: 16,8%. This means, once in six tries this occurs (on average), so maybe once every game (if you usually use this much thunderers and attack this way with them).

(So, do not attack elves in forest, if you can help it. And certainly don't attack elven archers in forest with ranged attacks (if you are not a skeleton archer at night, or have magic attacks). Same with dwarves on mountains.)

[Gambit]

There is volumes of reading material on this subject already. It's been discussed to the point of nausea and then a little more after that. Please search the forums. If, after all that reading, you come up with an original thought on the subject PM the forum moderators. We will be astounded and will immediately reopen the thread.

Some helpful links:
Luck in Wesnoth
Wesnoth Philosophy
The Posting Guidelines
Some threads by users about luck.
A really extreme example of how these sorts of threads generally end up.
A funny, yet relevant, joke.

For now; This thread is locked.