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Assault numbers are in. Bug or feature?
03-12-2021, 12:24 AM, (This post was last modified: 03-12-2021, 12:48 AM by Xerxes77.)
#1
Assault numbers are in. Bug or feature?
Warning: long post ahead.

A few days ago I was playing SCW and got a weird result upon attacking a pinned troop downhill (lost 7 attackers to 0 defenders). I thought "well that's strange" and felt moved to look a bit deeper into how exactly the game handles assaults. First thing I did was check the manual as usual, and verified that pinned units should be defending at 1/4 strength.

I then moved on to the actual assault calculation and to my surprise I found out that the number of casualties I'd suffered was simply not possible as per the game rules. What exactly had happened then?

Ever spurred by a tinkerer's mind and having some free time in my hands, I decided to conduct a number of trials. I set up a couple of test scenarios using the standard tools (scen, oob & map editors) provided with Grenada, and spent several hours engaging in hundreds of assaults and recording results. Here are my findings.

When reading the following paragraphs, please keep in mind at all times that:
a) I may be wrong (shocking!). I'm pretty new to the series so this should be the standard assumption in all cases. Please make a mental note to preface everything you read here with the words "Apparently"/"In my opinion".
b) The anomalies recorded here may apply only to the titles I tested, to only a set of titles or to the whole SB series (my guess is the latter).
c) Expressions such as "anomalies", "incorrect", "not working as intended", etc. should be interpreted as designating deviations from the manual, which for the sake of simplicity I'll take as gospel. They are not intended to be value judgements. In fact it may well be the case that it is the manual that is "incorrect", or simply outdated.

For this post, I'll use the Grenada manual for reference. I'll also try to keep math to a minimum and only elaborate if needed or requested.

Cutting straight to the bottom line: Assaults do not work as it says in the tin. The assault mechanics deviate from the manual in three main ways (as far as I've been able to gather):
1) Defending units will retreat even when they've suffered 0 casualties. I will ignore this effect because I feel it may be related to the next finding.
2) Losses inflicted to both the attacking and the defending forces can exceed expected values (based on the relevant Assault Loss parameters), by up to around 50%.
3) Crucially, Disrupted, Pinned and Demoralized defending units receive comparatively marginal penalties to their firepower, well below the values described in the manual. This may be the result of a bug or a design decision that was never documented.

In game terms, findings #2 and #3 mean that attackers may suffer much heavier losses than expected when attacking supposedly weakened units.

So, let's tackle finding #2. Losses are indeed higher than expected across the board: all units seem to be able to inflict more casualties than they should. Hence my surprise when I collated my results and verified that AVERAGE losses DO match the expected values based on the parameter data. This leads me to conclude that some variation is added to the losses calculation both on the upper and lower end of the expected range, and it all evens out over time. (I'm personally not sure this is a good idea. Given the general short length of each battle, getting extreme results on a regular basis IMO adds an excessive level of randomness even if the values tend to level over many assaults. However this is a matter of design and/or preference).

The main issue lies with finding #3. I'll illustrate with an example using SCW. According to the manual, a Demoralized defending unit has an assault value of 1/8 its normal capacity [page 57]. In other words, it gets a penalty of 87.5% to its assault value. Based on my testing, the actual penalty applied by the game is just 20%, meaning the demoralized unit defends at 80% or 4/5 of its nominal capabilities, a +500% increase from what it should be.

HOW??
In my last test run, 3 squads of 10 men each went again a single full, demoralized squad. The results were 6-0 in favor of the defenders. This happened twice in the space of a dozen assaults. These are NOT uncommon results, as one may expect, and the reduced penalties also apply to Pinned and Disrupted units (albeit to a lesser degree, as with the "theoretical" penalty). Only after looking sideways at the results from hundreds of tests and squinting hard I noticed a pattern that seemed like it could explain HOW penalties are reduced. I made an educated guess, and it turns out it largely fitted the data I was getting.

To understand how it works one has to look at the math and, in particular, the Infantry & Weapon Assault values in the parameter data. Those values define the extent of the penalty reduction and, therefore, the extent to which it will affect a given game in the series.

In a nutshell, games where weapons have a high Assault value will be less affected (but still the effect will be noticeable). In games like SCW, where the main weapon has an Assault value of just 6, assaults are indeed very (disproportionately) risky for attackers.

WHY??
So the effects of a unit's failing morale on its assault performance have been largely nerfed, contradicting the manual. Why? I will say that once I figured out the "how", the answer to the "why" seemed straightforward. To me, this looks like an oversight-- in other words, a bug.

That said, it may well be that:
a) this is a known feature, not a bug,
b) this is indeed a known bug that's been brought up before in the 2 decades the series has been around, but nobody cares as the unpredictable nature of assaults, even against broken units, makes the game a lot of fun,
b) this is indeed a known bug, but the code is locked and/or the series is not supported anymore, and/or there's no one left to fix it, or
c) someone has a simpler explanation, everything I've written is a whole pile of nonsense and I just wasted a huge chunk of my time.(*)

(*) Well, not really. This has been fun, even if it turns out to have been a complete exercise in futility  Jester
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03-12-2021, 09:08 AM,
#2
RE: Assault numbers are in. Bug or feature?
This is very interesting!

I don't have anything useful to add, since I only just bought Red Victory yesterday.
Makes me wonder, if a bug were to be discovered which affects mechanics in a major way, would the Squad Battles games be patched/updated. Or not.
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03-12-2021, 08:50 PM,
#3
RE: Assault numbers are in. Bug or feature?
I've always thought something was off with assaults. Thanks for taking your time to provide some insight, this all makes sense.
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03-12-2021, 09:00 PM, (This post was last modified: 03-12-2021, 09:06 PM by Xerxes77.)
#4
RE: Assault numbers are in. Bug or feature?
(03-12-2021, 09:08 AM)LordFowl Wrote: This is very interesting!

I don't have anything useful to add, since I only just bought Red Victory yesterday.
Makes me wonder, if a bug were to be discovered which affects mechanics in a major way, would the Squad Battles games be patched/updated. Or not.

Congrats! The good thing about this "bug" (and the main reason I believe it's gone unnoticed) is that it doesn't fundamentally change the basic tactics around assaulting. That is, you should still always strive to reduce the target's manpower and morale before attempting an attack.

However, since the men in a pinned, disrupted or demoralized squad will fight with the same strength as normal (as per my working hypothesis), you should be particularly weary of attacking a unit that has suffered few casualties, regardless of its morale. This can be a problem when playing with FOW and the enemy is in a position with cover (can't see their actual numbers). In that case, assaulting can be basically a crapshoot.

For RV, assuming a standard Infantry Assault Value of 20 and a single target unit equipped with submachine guns (Assault value 18), the pertinent lines in the manual should be modified as follows:

Defending units that are Disrupted have 76% the normal assault value. (acc. manual: 1/2, or 50%)
Defending units that are Pinned have 65% the normal assault value.    (acc. manual: 1/4, or 25%)
Defending units that are Demoralized have 59% the normal assault value. (acc. manual: 1/8, or 12.5%)

As you can see the difference is quite drastic.
For units defending with lesser Assault weapons, like rifles (Assault Value 12), the effect is even more pronounced:

Defending units that are Disrupted have 81% the normal assault value.
Defending units that are Pinned have 72% the normal assault value.
Defending units that are Demoralized have 67% the normal assault value.

As the "bug" (again, according to my working hypothesis based on test results) does not penalize squads, only weapons, if you were to go against an UNARMED Disrupted/pinned/demoralized unit, you'd find the fists of those supposedly broken men hit as hard as if they'd just got up from a long, restful nap and had a good breakfast! LOL 

As for your question of what would happen if a bug like this one were discovered at this point, hmmm... I'm not sure I would expect any change. The game in its current state has provided enjoyment to many people for many years, and while I've seen complaints here and there about the randomness of assault results, I'm not sure most folks would consider this a game-breaking issue.

I do lament the seemingly neglected state of the series. To me this does look like it would be a trivial thing to fix.
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03-12-2021, 09:08 PM,
#5
RE: Assault numbers are in. Bug or feature?
(03-12-2021, 08:50 PM)All_American Wrote: I've always thought something was off with assaults. Thanks for taking your time to provide some insight, this all makes sense.
You're very welcome! Old hobbyist programmer habits die hard... Big Grin
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03-12-2021, 10:52 PM,
#6
RE: Assault numbers are in. Bug or feature?
Great work!

As I wrote in the previous topic, I believe there is something even more incorrect with Assaults, at least in Spanish Civil War. But based on your numbers, it seems that you are absolutely right: the algorithm "forgets" to degrade the assault value of the human-beings, degrading only the weapon's AV. It is definitely a bug. Demoralised soldiers should not be the same effective as the fresh and eager one.

This problem is even worse for Dien Bien Phu title, where the Viets often have units in which not everyone is armed (f.e. 8 soldiers armed with 1 Sub-Machine and 3 rifles only).
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03-13-2021, 02:26 AM,
#7
RE: Assault numbers are in. Bug or feature?
I have noticed that when attacking with disrupted units, there does not appear to be the 50% drop in results that the manual says you should expect to see. I never tried to tabulate the results, but if disrupted attackers are penalized at all, it is pretty minimal. This would also tend to support your proposition that things are not working as advertised.

Jeff
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03-13-2021, 07:01 AM,
#8
RE: Assault numbers are in. Bug or feature?
(03-12-2021, 10:52 PM)Stas_sche Wrote: Great work!

As I wrote in the previous topic, I believe there is something even more incorrect with Assaults, at least in Spanish Civil War. But based on your numbers, it seems that you are absolutely right: the algorithm "forgets" to degrade the assault value of the human-beings, degrading only the weapon's AV. It is definitely a bug. Demoralised soldiers should not be the same effective as the fresh and eager one.

Thank you! I tend to agree, but I go back and forth as to whether this was a deliberate design decision or not. As it stands, the game guarantees a minimum of 60% effectiveness to all defending units, regardless of their morale status. I wonder if the intention was to stress the importance of sheer manpower over weapons in an assault. I guess it depends on the designer's idea of what the different statuses mean. I admit I'm no expert in combat simulations.

(03-12-2021, 10:52 PM)Stas_sche Wrote: This problem is even worse for Dien Bien Phu title, where the Viets often have units in which not everyone is armed (f.e. 8 soldiers armed with 1 Sub-Machine and 3 rifles only).

That's interesting. Unarmed troops? Not even a knife? I wonder what the rationale was for that.
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03-13-2021, 07:03 AM,
#9
RE: Assault numbers are in. Bug or feature?
(03-13-2021, 02:26 AM)Jeff Conner Wrote: I have noticed that when attacking with disrupted units, there does not appear to be the 50% drop in results that the manual says you should expect to see.  I never tried to tabulate the results, but if disrupted attackers are penalized at all, it is pretty minimal.  This would also tend to support your proposition that things are not working as advertised. 

Jeff

I only focused on testing defenders but you make a good point, it wouldn't surprise me if disrupted attackers are more effective than they should!
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03-15-2021, 08:57 AM,
#10
RE: Assault numbers are in. Bug or feature?
(03-12-2021, 10:52 PM)Stas_sche Wrote: Great work!

As I wrote in the previous topic, I believe there is something even more incorrect with Assaults, at least in Spanish Civil War. But based on your numbers, it seems that you are absolutely right: the algorithm "forgets" to degrade the assault value of the human-beings, degrading only the weapon's AV. It is definitely a bug. Demoralised soldiers should not be the same effective as the fresh and eager one.

This problem is even worse for Dien Bien Phu title, where the Viets often have units in which not everyone is armed (f.e. 8 soldiers armed with 1 Sub-Machine and 3 rifles only).

Found a "solution" in SCW by tweaking the Weapon and Infantry Assault values so that weapons make up almost the entirety of the total assault value. After a few tests and scenarios, I'm happy with the results. Assaults seem to be working as they're supposed to! They're still a challenge for the attacker and broken troops still may put up a rugged defense, but they shouldn't be able to wipe out a fresh, full strength attacking unit anymore.

The only downside is that unarmed troops are rendered effectively helpless, thus the tweak may not be optimal for games like Dien Bien Phu.
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