From the Mouth of Sauron Issue: E-4 Date: 01-14-94 Note: all authors retain exclusive rights to their material. Reprinting is allowed for non-commercial game use only. Editorial Happy Friday, folks! As your editor looks forward to seeing 4:30 roll around, a few thoughts.... More writers would be fun. While we have loads of neat material coming in, and I'm willing to shoot my mouth off given the opportunity, we need some different viewpoints to make things even more interesting. If you'd like to give it a shot, go write ahead! And remember, you can use a pseudonym if you so desire; I'm not going to tell anyone who you are (even if I could remember after a week's time). Criticism of another person's ideas are also welcome, as are debates of any sort (they make for great theater). Also, does anyone else out there have some plans for the opening moves of the Woodmen? How about another nation? We'd sure like to hear from you! A hearty welcome to our first UK players. I look forward to hearing about their games and what differences, if any, they've seen in comparison to the US version. Other than that, thanks one and all to this issues contributors, including the many who volunteer information on encounters and artifacts. Until next time, Tom Artifacts Tinculin, artifact #15: confirmed as having access to Spirit Mastery. Mothras, artifact #18: confirmed as having yet another secondary power, which lends credence to the theory that it's among those artifacts that have a random power in every game. Erivagil, artifact #161: this is held by Radagast the Brown at the start of the game. Thrakurghash: this is artifact 68, not artifact 58. Thanks to Mike Hostetter for providing the artifact information this time around. Encounters Celgor (the vampire): Celgor is the most common vampire met in the game. He appears as a beautiful man who smiles disarmingly, showing up at your campfire in the dead of night. The reaction Say "CELGOR" will allow a character to escape unharmed if that character is a Dark Servant. Upon review of a very old encounter list, I also had Free Peoples and Neutrals who Say "CELGOR" escaping unharmed. I don't know why I changed this to 'injured/killed'. For now, I'd suggest a change to your encounter lists for Dark Servants, and a cautionary note for FP/NT that doing the same thing may also allow them to escape. (Thanks to Dena Kiker for pointing out the error). Dragons Scatha: Act MEEK = escape unharmed for Dark Servants. This response does NOT recruit the dragon into an army. Turukulon: Offer TEN thousand gold = injured/killed for all. Offer one HUNDRED thousand gold = injured/killed for all. Offer ONE artifact = injured/killed for all. Darren Beyer reports that he managed to calculate the combat strength of Khuzadrepa in battle. His estimate was roughly 50,000 combat points, +/- 10% or so. Note that with the variance, this means that Khuzadrepa could also have a combat strength of 45,000, as was determined for Throkmaw earlier. Or, assuming my calculations were at the wrong end of the scale, Throkmaw could instead have a combat strength of 50,000. I see one of several possibilities: (1) In terms of combat strength, dragons are generic (all the same). (2) Dragons are broken down into classes (weak, average, strong). (3) Dragons have individual base strengths with a variable factor thrown in (like eagles, mumak, woses and such). Other Corrections and Notes Transport orders: Some players are under the impression that it takes two turns to transfer goods from one nation to the other. The first turn, nation transport your stuff to the capitol (if it's widely separated among various pop centers); the second turn, caravan transport it to the receiving nation. Not so. Nation transport is order 947, Caravan transport order 948. You can transport the item to your capitol to gather it together, then caravan transport it to your ally (with order 948) on the same turn. Just thought I'd point this out. In Your Ear Okay, it seems like no one wants to start an argument, so I'll be the first to foot something controversial. The topic: scorched earth. I'm an advocate of using scorched earth policy under a number of conditions. 'Scorched earth' simply means burning enemy pop centers rather than capturing them. The idea sends many a player into convulsive fits, so it should be good for some heated debate. When to use scorched earth? When you can't hold the pop center if you capture it. Think: if the enemy is just going to come back in a few turns and retake it, what's the point of capturing it in the first place? You get the gold and production for a short while, then turn it back over. Was it worth the lost troops? The lost time and orders? Is it worth letting the pop center fall back into enemy hands? If the enemy has an army that can simply threaten the pop center into submission, then he'll expend virtually no effort in recovering his loss. And if he takes it by capture instead, you're bound to lose loyalty which may endanger other pop centers you own, especially if you play this trading game several times. I advocate using scorched earth whenever you take a pop center you can't reasonably expect to hold, or that your allies can't protect. I also advocate using it if the tactic itself will cause confusion and panic amongst the enemy; seeing their pop centers burned to the ground with no possibility of taking them back often scrambles the brains of the opposition, causing them to do stupid and silly things (like hunker down over their remaining assets). Terror is an extremely effective weapon, which any competent Cloud Lord soon learns. This is especially true of the Dark Servants. They can reach any number of pop centers early on, but can expect to hold only those close to Mordor and their base of operations. The Free Peoples have an overwhelming economic advantage and are easily capable of retaking pop centers that aren't within the shadow of Mordor. By burning the pop centers farther away, you accomplish several goals: you permanently reduce the tax and production base of the enemy; you eliminate potential centers where the enemy could recruit troops; you screw up his loyalty but good, making other pop centers vulnerable to emissaries and threats; and you cause fear among the ranks. As an additional bonus, you no longer have to struggle back and forth over the same bloody towns, stalemating your forces in the Rhovanion. This isn't to say that you should burn everything in sight (although I've done this for kicks in one game, just to see people freak out). What it means is that you don't waste your time, energy, and most especially military resources on a pop center you can't hold and will lose soon after you capture it. This of course assumes you're playing against competent opponents (all bets are off with incompetents). Here's a list of the stuff I'd burn in a game if I were the Dark Servants and the enemy didn't act like a pack of fools: anything the Witch-King can reach (until Rhudaur goes evil); anything the Dragon Lord can reach (he's dead meat anyway); the Gondorian towns along the road north of Mordor (3116, etc.; these towns are perennial favorites for back-and forth fighting); several of the smaller towns around Rhun (to hurt the Northmen, cause panic, and keep from fighting back and forth over the pop centers, as is usually the case); the Eothraim town at 3612 (damn near impossible to hold while the Rhovanion still has Freeps wandering around); and anything farther away that Mordor can reach, with the possible exception of the Eothraim core area. So, let's here some comments! Personals Game 89 I am looking for DS and N with e-mail. Yours truly, Shayne Grey Address: gray3210@mach1.wlu.ca The Woodmen Last issue Brian Mason presented an opening plan for the Woodmen. His strategy generated some response. From Wes Fortin Let there be controversy! Having just read Brian Mason's piece on the Woodmen, several other key points come to mind. First, let's examine why the Woodmen never win. They have the weakest pop center base amongst the Free Peoples. Poor starting armies. Fair Commanders, and a lame economy. For the Woodmen to win, the Free must win. Therefore, they have to exceed the other Free Peoples in Pop Centers (a Gondor Strength), Characters (which Noldo get's this), Gold (Gondor or Noldo), and Armies (hah!). So, if you play the Woodmen nation, you shouldn't expect to win unless you play real dirty (not a wise choice). So, Brian and I agree on this point. However, I strongly disagree with his strategy for the Woodmen. If the Woodmen raise taxes to 70%, that will drop loyalty of all pop centers from 1-30 points. Call an average of 15, and the end result is the destruction of most of the Woodmen's camps. In my opinion, the Woodmen stand a far better chance of economic survival by raising taxes to a max of 50% (loss of 1-10 loyalty. So a camp will drop to a 20% loyalty at worst), and concentrate on using production sells and ally grants to keep your economy afloat. The Woodmen should make emissaries to first boost existing pop centers to villages (max production and some tax base) which will increase their ranks quickly to that magic number 40, to start CreCmp in the forest. The best way for the Woodmen to make money would be to sell Timber to allies for war machines, ships, fortifications, etc. If they won't buy from you (and they should if they make any of these items en mass), sell to the market! Timber prices are usually not bad. For Mountain production - using emissaries to CreCmps here is a waste of time. First, Dragons will grow fat on your emissaries. Even if they survive to make a camp or two, the Dragons will constantly whittle away at loyalties until the camp disappears, or you risk another emissary to keep it around. I agree that mountain production should be done, but by PosCmp with 100 AR and a decent commander. Dragons leave armies alone! Post the camp, stay there and ship timber to the location. They commander they builds fortifications (and gets experience for it), and moves to the next location. With the fortification, the loyalty will never drop below a one, and the camp won't degrade! The result is a protected investment, and no character risk. You may even want an emissary with the army to increase the camp to a village while you're there. Increasing the hidden pop centers is useful, but predictable. If the baddies nail your two MTs and you're still around, thier first thought will be that hidden town that everyone knows about. It's a good short term strategy, but it would be better to build a MT from scratch in, say, the South Mts or Fangorn if you want to stay close. Characters: Because of the Woodmen special ability for Scouting/Recon orders at double rank, and the good chance for stealth, new Woodmen characters should be created with some Agen rank. This doubles the cost of the character, but if you plan on staying in the game for a while, it's worth it. The Woodmen have lots of commanders, so the first builds should be Agents, Emissaries (or Agent/Emissaries - my personal favorite), and if you're not in a team game, a mage. You'll need the mage for artifact spells, intelligence, and a combat orientation wouldn't hurt. Agent/Emissaries are especially useful because they can train in both classes in a single turn. Move the new A/E to the hidden town/camp and GrdLoc/InfYour. In a short time, especially with stealth, you could have several very good characters. Drop into an enemy pop center with a ScoChar and if no one is home, InfOthr/Steal Gold. Great combination! Armies: The first turn, you need to move your armies to guarantee that the three threat points (Dol Guldor, Mt Gundabad, and Goblin Gate) can't get forces onto your MTs. Pretty easy to do. Build 800HI each turn and work closely with Sinda and Dwarves. If the Baddies overcommit their armies against you, the Sinda and Dwarves can take advantage of this mistake. You should be able to trap the enemy in the field. You may lose the battles, but you weaken the enemy for allied exploitation. I think Brian's moves against Gundabad are a bit extreme. Just send a good portion of your capitol force to Buhr Fram, have the remainder do a circle pattern to trap any force from Dol Guldor. Have a good chunk of the 2711 forces move to the village in the gap to intercept any forces from Dol Guldor and the remainder do a circle to again, trap forces from Goblin Gate (the above trapping pattern should also read "Goblin Gate". sorry). Recruit 400 HI, hire another 300HI if you can, and build a character. Turn two will depend on the baddies actions. If they stay and home and build, coordinate an attack with your allies. As Brian said, your economy can't support lot's of troops. Keep an eye on the 3 threat points, and be wary of Cav units from Mordor! Take advantage of openings, and do lot's of selling! If you have a spare capitol order, raise taxes on Turn 2 to 50%, and downgrade relations with the Dragon Lord and Witch King. After Turn 2, things get fuzzy for the Woodmen. Mirkwood is traditionally the most volitile theater in the game. If the baddies overcommit too soon, they're dead! Lots depends on your allies. If the Sinda and Dwarves are shy about building troops, you're in trouble and they need a talkin to. Long term, the Woodmen are critical information gatherers and Scouts. One should be with every Free People agent company! Thanks to Mike Hostetter for the Turn 1 military plan! A Response to Wes from Brian Mason (the author) For my initial strategy of the Woodmen, I was pleased that it generated such a response so quick. I really like most of the ideas which were presented. Of course, as I stated in the article: "the following set of strategic plans is intended to be suggested moves for the Woodmen with little or no support from allies." This is not a condition under which the alternate strategy was developed, what with discussions of financial grants from various sources, and military aid from the Sinda and Dwarves. Prehaps I was jaded by game 62, but this is a "safe" way to approach the game, and if you do get help from your allies, so much the better. Many of my moves are riskier, but I especially like the idea of developing camps in the mountains in the way suggested. Of course, emissaries are eaten by dragons (a hard lesson I've learned all to well in game 97), but the emissaries can be used to create camps in less vulnerable areas, both the forest and in the rough hexes south of Mirkwood. I advocated creating single classed agents and emissaries. Of course, agent/emissaries are quite nice. However, each one costs an additional 5000 gold, and to the Woodmen early on, this is a great deal of gold and these characters are not immediately useful (although later they could be quite nice). The army moves they suggested are much more conservative than mine. I am convinced that it is not only possible, but highly probable, that the Woodmen can take Mt. Gundabad as I suggested on turn three. This strengthens the Woodmen economy, weakens the Witch-King, and eliminates one of the three threat areas as described by the other plan. A Response to Wes from Tom Walton Wes and I went back and forth via email concerning Free Peoples camp creation in the Misty/Grey Mountains. Frankly, I think it's a bad idea all-around, regardless of which tactic you use (CreCamp or PosCamp). Dragons tend to constantly show up, destroying loyalty and making the pop centers easy pickings for enemy emissaries. This comes from some very hard experience from playing both the Duns and Dwarves. Fortifications might keep the camp from degrading, but they matter not a whit if someone shows up to do 'Influence Other'. Worse, if the Dark Servants take your camp, those same dragons will boost the loyalty every time they show up, and act as 'guards' against Free Peoples emissaries trying to steal them back. But more specifically, I don't believe the Woodmen have the orders, materials, or money to waste early on posting camps in the mountains, then fortifying them with towers. Even assuming a 100 A army and a single 40-point commander (for assured tower production), this little army will cost 1,000 gold per turn in mainenance. Add this to the 1,000 timber you need to use (which could otherwise be sold), the 1,000 gold per tower, and the fact that you'll only be able to post one camp every three turns (move into mountains; post camp next turn; fortify and move out third turn), and you get a total camp creation cost of: 4,000 (PosCamp) + 3,000 (3 turns of army/character maintenance) + 1,000 (tower cost) + 3,000 - 6,000 (average timber sell price for 1,000 timber), for a total of 11,000- 14,000 gold. Very, very expensive for a single camp, one which will also cost an additional 500 gold in maintenance per turn for that tower. Assuming that the camp produces enough materials to sell 2,500 gold worth of stuff on the market every turn, it'll take you anywhere from 5.5-7 turns to recoup your investment. This doesn't even count the worth of the lost orders, which I think is even more important at this early stage in the game. Another point I'd like to make is that the Woodmen in combination with the Dwarves and Sinda can take Dol Guldur, Goblin-Gate, and Gundabad all by the end of turn 6, assuming that these three powers are acting as a unified team. Regardless of what the Dragon Lord does, he can't stop this. Without major intervention from Angmar or Mordor, or an early DS conversion of the Rhudaur (with their army foolishly committing in the Anduin rather than helping out the Witch-King), the Dragon Lord is doomed in Mirkwood when faced by a coordinated front. You can accomplish this even earlier if you have additional help from the other Free Peoples (turn 3 is the earliest), but I wouldn't recommend committing so many forces against a single, rather weak position. If the Dragon Lord and Gundabad are conquered by turn 6, the Woodmen are free from immediate threat for quite some time, unless the other Free Peoples in the east fumble the ball, or the Witch-King pretty much conquers most of Eriador. Perhaps this is the factor that's supposed to allow the Woodmen to gain an advantage? Early action followed by long turns of peace and building? I don't really think so, but it's a possibility. Personal Challenge Combat Results by David Foreman Many aspects of MEPBM are not specifically predicable. GSI will tell you (if you ask) that many of the parameters of the game are 'unknown to the players'. Newsletters such as Tom Walton's assist players by sharing information about these 'unknown' aspects. Unlike these unknowns, the personal challenge order is, in fact, knowable. Random factors are involved, which makes the result of a specific challenge unknown, but the mechanics of the challenge are well outlined on pages 52 through 57 of the rules. (A comment. there is a possibility that a character who starts with less than 100 health has a negative modifier to his challenge rank. I have no evidence that this is the case. I believe the detrimental effect the lower health as on survival due to damage during the combat is all the adjustment needed.) A short summary of the process follows. This description assumes that a challenge has been issued and accepted. Calculating the Challenge Rank This is for your knowlege. You can take the challenge rank off of the sheet and ignore this section if you wish. The results you get from this description vary a bit from the turn sheet values due to rounding (I'm not sure how THEY round). 1) From the turn sheet, write down the skill ranks of the character (as modified by artifacts). 2) Multiply the agent rank by 0.75, and the emissary rank by 0.50, to generate the revised ranks for challenge. Command and mage ranks are not modified. 3) Of the four modified and unmodified ranks, the highest is the major rank for calculating the challenge rank. 4) Add the other three ranks together and multiply the result by 0.25. Add this result to the major rank. This is your base challenge rank. 5) If your character is using a combat artifact, divide the combat strength of the artifact by 50. Add this to the base challenge rank above to generate the final challenge rank. Notes: 1) Some characters have a bonus to their challenge rank. This bonus can add 1 to 20 pts of challenge rank to a character. 2) Some players report that offensive combat spells affect challenges. I have no data on this, and in fact doubt that this assumption is true, since the CAST COMBAT SPELL order (225) comes after the personal challenge order (210), and GSI would have had to specifically program this adjustment into the program. Personal Combat Process 1) Add a random number (1-100) to character A's challenge rank. If the random number is less than 6, give character B a bonus of 1-100 points. If the random number is greater than 95, give A a bonus of 1-100 points. 2) Add a random number (1-100) to character B's challenge rank. If the random number is less than 6, give character A a bonus of 1-100 points. If the random number is greater than 95, give B a bonus of 1-100 points. 3) Determine which character has the highest total points (rank + random rolls + bonuses). Subtract the smaller total from the larger total. This is the maximum potential damage that can be inflicted this round. 4) Generate the actual damage as a random number (from 1 to potential damage). 5) Subtract the actual damage from the health of the character whose total points were lower. 6) If both character's have a health over 0, go to #1, else end the combat. The character with health left wins! Calculating Win Percentages The two attachments to this article contain a table and the turbo pascal source code I used to generate the information for this article. The table lists the advantage in challenge rank, the win percentage, the number of wins recorded in 100,000 combats, and the average health the character had for the combats he/she won. I ran 100,000 combats for each combination of challenge ranks. To save time, I only ran the combinations of ranks that were even multiples of 5. A few comments to be made. It is statistically impossible to win a combat if you have a challenge rank advantage of less than -300. Let me illustrate the 299 advantage: Character A B Challenge Rank 10 309 Roll 300 01 (roll 100, + 100 bonus for A's roll and 100 for the bonus roll due to B's roll of 1) Total 310 310 (The best A can do is tie. Eventually the tie will break and A will die. Actually A will almost definitely die immediately! Health Obviously, characters will take damage when they win a challenge unless they win in one round. The accompanying table lists the average health after combat of winners. These data follow the expected trend, that being that a winner will have fewer and fewer remaining health points as their advantage gets lower. This trend reverses itself at about the -40 advantage level. Why? Because at that point, you are one lucky fool to win (less than 5%)! As your disadvantage grows, it becomes a miracle event for a win to occur. In the -40 to -100 range, you are winning because you got lucky several rounds in a row, or someone got a critical hit or miss. Once a -100 or worse advantage is reached, someone MUST get a critical hit or miss every round, and it MUST go your way every round. That's it! I plan to do a follow up article that shows what happens to challenges when one or both characters have less than 100 starting health. Summary Challenges shouldn't be scary things. Using the information in this article, your job becomes determining the other character's challenge rank. Once you know that, it's simple statistics! Win % Advantage 1 -60 5 -35 10 -25 20 -15 30 -10 40 -5 50 0 60 5 70 10 80 15 90 25 95 35 99 60 Note: My analysis shows that a character with an advantage of 175 points loses 1 time in 100,000. I recently lost a challenge where I had a 98% win percentage. I also killed Akhorahil in game 22 with a -70ish challenge advantage! It happens. Of course, if you're Tom Walton, you always challenge if you have a 20% win rate! (Editor's Note: only if you're playing crazy Dunnish barbarians) Sometimes it works, and it certainly screws the opposition up! And by the way... Does anyone have any idea upon what the 'crowd estimates the odds to be'??? These odds don't appear very accurate to ME! Later gang! Middle Earth Play by Mail Personal Combat Statistics Combats Run: 100,000 Advantage Win % Win Count Avg Health -200 0.0000 0 0 -195 0.0000 0 0 -190 0.0000 0 0 -185 0.0000 0 0 -180 0.0010 1 85 -175 0.0010 1 41 -170 0.0010 1 100 -165 0.0050 5 77 -160 0.0010 1 77 -155 0.0050 5 63 -150 0.0080 8 78 -145 0.0030 3 82 -140 0.0180 18 78 -135 0.0130 13 78 -130 0.0290 29 63 -125 0.0300 30 65 -120 0.0400 40 62 -115 0.0530 53 73 -110 0.0640 64 62 -105 0.0700 70 70 -100 0.1030 103 69 -95 0.1240 124 62 -90 0.1650 165 61 -85 0.2130 213 61 -80 0.3000 300 60 -75 0.3900 390 57 -70 0.5440 544 59 -65 0.7950 795 56 -60 1.1240 1,124 57 -55 1.6240 1,624 56 -50 2.3080 2,308 53 -45 3.1870 3,187 54 -40 4.4030 4,403 53 -35 6.3300 6,330 52 -30 8.9820 8,982 52 -25 12.3420 12,342 52 -20 17.3740 17,374 52 -15 23.3070 23,307 53 -10 31.1530 31,153 54 -5 40.3560 40,356 55 0 50.2310 50,231 58 5 59.7380 59,738 60 10 68.7950 68,795 64 15 76.5770 76,577 67 20 82.8980 82,898 71 25 87.7430 87,743 75 30 91.2290 91,229 78 35 93.8130 93,813 81 40 95.4970 95,497 84 45 96.8310 96,831 86 50 97.7250 97,725 89 55 98.4440 98,444 90 60 98.9070 98,907 92 65 99.1350 99,135 93 70 99.4290 99,429 94 75 99.6200 99,620 95 80 99.6890 99,689 96 85 99.7810 99,781 96 90 99.8100 99,810 97 95 99.8710 99,871 97 100 99.8970 99,897 98 105 99.9140 99,914 98 110 99.9320 99,932 99 115 99.9310 99,931 99 120 99.9670 99,967 99 125 99.9610 99,961 99 130 99.9790 99,979 99 135 99.9830 99,983 99 140 99.9870 99,987 100 145 99.9950 99,995 100 150 99.9870 99,987 100 155 99.9960 99,996 100 160 99.9950 99,995 100 165 99.9980 99,998 100 170 99.9970 99,997 100 175 99.9990 99,999 100 180 100.0000 100,000 100 185 100.0000 100,000 100 190 100.0000 100,000 100 195 100.0000 100,000 100 200 100.0000 100,000 100 SOURCE CODE for ... program pcmepbm; uses WinCrt; { Allows Writeln, Readln, cursor movement, etc. } const count = 100000; health1 = 100; health2 = 100; frank1 = 210; trank1 = 210; frank2 = 10; trank2 = 410; var detail, summary : text; h1, h2 : longint; i, j, k : longint; end_hlth1, end_hlth2 : longint; win1, win2 : longint; w1,w2, e1,e2 : real; {***********************************************************************} procedure fight(rank1,rank2:longint;var health1,health2:longint); var roll1, roll2 : longint; damage1, damage2 : longint; flag1, flag2 : longint; i : longint; damage : longint; begin while ((health1 > 0) and (health2 > 0)) do begin roll1 := random(100)+1; roll2 := random(100)+1; flag1 := 0; flag2 := 0; { Was the roll a critical hit or miss?} if roll1 >= 96 then flag1 := flag1 + 1; if roll1 <= 5 then flag2 := flag2 + 1; if roll2 >= 96 then flag2 := flag2 + 1; if roll2 <= 5 then flag1 := flag1 + 1; roll1 := roll1 + rank1; roll2 := roll2 + rank2; { Add additional rolls for criticals} for i := 1 to flag1 do roll1 := roll1 + random(100)+1; for i := 1 to flag2 do roll2 := roll2 + random(100)+1; damage := abs(roll1 - roll2); if roll1 > roll2 then begin health2 := health2 - (random(damage)+1) end else begin health1 := health1 - (random(damage)+1) end; end; end; {***********************************************************************} begin assign(detail,'detail.txt'); assign(summary,'summary.txt'); rewrite(detail); rewrite(summary); randomize; clrscr; for i := frank1 to trank1 do for j := frank2 to trank2 do if (i = (5 * (i div 5))) and (j = (5 * (j div 5))) then begin end_hlth1 := 0; end_hlth2 := 0; win1 := 0; win2 := 0; cursorto(1,1); write(i:5,j:5); for k := 1 to count do begin h1 := health1; h2 := health2; fight(i,j,h1,h2); if h1 > 0 then begin end_hlth1 := end_hlth1 + h1; win1 := win1 + 1; end else begin end_hlth2 := end_hlth2 + h2; win2 := win2 + 1; end; end; w1 := 100*win1/count; w2 := 100*win2/count; if win1 <> 0 then e1 := end_hlth1/win1 else e1 := 0; if win2 <> 0 then e2 := end_hlth2/win2 else e2 := 0; writeln(detail,i:5,j:5,w1:10:4,w2:10:4,e1:5:0,e2:5:0); writeln(summary,j- i:10,w2:10:0,win2:10,e2:10:0,count:10); end; close(detail); close(summary) end. --------------------- A Response to David from Darren Beyer Just a note. You mention that since Cast Combat Spell comes after personal challenge that it can't be included. In Whispers Q&A issues GSI has repeatedly stated that offensive spells DO count the same as using a combat artifact. How is this possible when it comes after Issue Personal Challenge? The only thing I can think of is this: The combat orders are not done entirely in order, it is all done as one section, i.e. eventhough Attack Nation occurs before Attack Enemy, if you issue an Attack Nation against one of two opposing forces, but both issue Attack Enemy against you, you won't attack the one force first with the Attack Nation, then fight the other as he attacks you. All combat goes off simultaneously. Maybe personal challenge falls in this "combat" portion of the order list where the exact sequence of the order does not really matter. A Response to David From Mike Hostetter It seems to me that they have changed the way the crowd calculates the odds. I think that they take the final challenge rank (INCLUDING weapons/artifacts/bonus challenge rank) and compare the values. As to the issue of spells, there are other orders that go off in non-numeric order. For example, when you issue a personal challenge (210), it should go off before your opponent gets a chance to refuse (215), but it doesn't. Also, I recall (but cannot produce) the statement from GSI that offensive magic acts "as acombat weapon" in personal challenges. I'm not sure there is any way to verify this, other than to have a few friendly nations have a slug-fest between some mages and commanders. I'd guess that about 5 combats, with all combattants at 50 challenge rank, with all the mages casting an EXACT damage offensive combat spell of +1000 would prove/disprove the point. Also, my analysis shows that a health delta of 85 (the most it could possibly be since challenges occur after healing) is only a -35 challenge rank! So Argeleb at challenge of 170 and 1 health (at previous turn's end) can laughingly call out Dancu at challenge rank of about 80 and expect to survive (a +55 challenge advantage in effect). I know, I have done this. The Problem with Army and Troop Training by Brian Mason Author's note: This started as more of general gripe session a couple of months ago with the editor via email about how combat and the various troop types are handled. As I diligently trained my troops in game 62 I only saw their ranks slaughtered and overcome by larger numbers of poorly trained troops. The question then presented itself: under what conditions does troop training increase army strength as much as recruiting? What follows is the crux of this analysis. I recommend those of you with chronic insomnia hold off reading this until bedtime. I have little doubt that this will do what counting sheep could never accomplish. After analysis, I've become a bit disenchanted and dissapointed with the way troop types are handled. I think training, weapon, and armor type should be important, and the value of the other troop types should increased. It's disappointing that the best thing to do in all cases is to recruit heavy and nothing else. I'd like to see the various light and archer types should have, prehaps more enhanced value in rough, forest, mountain, and/or swamp terrain. Another way to consider the problem is the following: at what army size does training increase the attack strength more than simply recruiting more troops? Let's define some variables: C = some arbitrary constant representing all other factors affecting combat strength (e.g. morale, commander skill, terrain, etc.), N = Number of troops initially in army, TR = Training rank of these N troops, n = Number of troops recruited, tr = Training rank of the recruited troops (usually 10, but sometimes otherwise depending on the nation), pts = Random value of training success (1-5 for army, 1-7 for troop training). Before the turn in question the troop strength is simply CN. If training is used the troop strength then becomes | pts | | 1 + ---- | * CN. | 400 | If troops are added, then the expression is more complicated | | NTR + ntr | | | | TR - --------- | | | | N + n | | | 1 - ------------------- | * C * (N + n). | 400 | For example, let C = 1, and consider a troop on a major town with a training rank of 60. Assume army training is used and the points increase by 3. So, C = 1, N = unknown, TR = 60, n = 400, tr = 10, pts = 3, Setting these two expressions equal to each other, we find that the increase in combat value is only the same if N = 46,667 troops. In other words, a 0.86 percent increase in the number of troops is better than increasing there training by three percent. I don't think that is reasonable. This, of course, is a simplistic example, and is not considering what happens if the army has multiple troop types, if training is taking place by more than one commander, etc., however, those things do not effect the result. If we take the values above, and solve for different levels of training TR versus total troop number (N) then we get a linear relationship governed by the equation (in y = mx + b form, taking C = 1, n = 400, tr = 10, and pts = 3), TR = 160,010 - 3 N. So, by all means, train your troops. But don't do it with the intention of increasing your army through troop strength. Do it to increase your commanders skill rank as well. If you want to maximize army strength recruit more troops! Editor's Note: For those of who are interested, Brian has a PostScript file which you can use to generate the plot described above. If you want it, simply drop me a line and I'll let him know.