Ages ago I knocked together an Excel-based battle simulator (see http://forum.libraryofhiabuor.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=70&p=499&hilit=simulation#p499). I put it on blocks to add the essential feature of Initiative then promptly forgot about it until recently. I've now dusted it off and made some major improvements. Its still a pretty clunky tool written by a non-programmer, but it can do some interesting scenarios.
The basic idea behind FIGHT! 2.0 is that you select a lone warrior and then pit him/her/it against one or more enemies in any number of basic melee combats to measure the outcome.
Attachment:
FIGHT 2.0_small.JPG [ 43.92 KiB | Viewed 6586 times ]
Improvements since the last version:
-Initiative is supported!
-Initiative can be fixed or randomly generated for each fighter
-Surprise is supported
-The Horde can be composed of different types of fighters
-Number of combatants and number of battles is now effectively unlimited (used to max out at 32,768).
As promised in February 2015, here's the results of a battle between a horde of naked halflings fighting with their bare hands and doped up to the eyeballs (Reflexes 3, Attack 7 Defence 2, 2HP and d3,2 weapons) versus perhaps the greatest Knight in history. The Knight, Sir Paragon, is Rank 20, has 18 in all characteristics, and is clad in +3 Plate, wields a +3 Broadsword, and is using a +3 Shield. He also has Expert Parry, Swordmaster, and Weaponskill (sword). How many halflings will it take to match this knight?
After running 100,000 battles with increasing numbers of Halflings, the results are:
6 Halflings at a time: 80 to one odds result in the Horde side winning about half the time and the knight winning the other half.
3 Halflings at a time: 185 to one odds result in the horde side winning about half the time. Battles take about 19 minutes of game time.
1 Halfling at a time: about 6800 to one odds sees the horde side winning about half the time. The Knight can only lose because there's a chance of him critically missing and his enemy critically hitting in the same round (400 to one), and if you add enough of these rare events together he dies.
Here are some other scenarios:
Is Berserk Worth it?
Lets pit a regular barbarian (rank 7 to make things interesting) against his counterpart who has gone fully berserk. Both are wearing mail and two-handed. Who reigns supreme?
Well, after running 100,000 battles (1-on-1) the regular barbarian wins 74% of the time. In fact even if you have two berserkers consecutively attacking one regular barbarian, the latter still wins about 21% of the time. Perhaps there are scenarios where berserk is worth it, but they don't spring to mind right now.
What's better, skeletons or zombies?
On paper, it might not be obvious which of these undead slaves is a better choice to defend your crypt. Zombies have a massive pool of "Health" points and a powerful blow but they have low reflexes and poor combat scores. Which reigns supreme? Lets equip both sides with halberds (good weapons for minions). The result? On a one-on-one battle the zombie wins 90% of the battles. If we add more skeletons and let them attack all at once this tips the balance: 2 skeletons win 54% of battles and 3 skeletons win 93% of battles. So... skeletons really are pretty hopeless in melee. Best to put some armour on them and then get them to soften up the enemy with arrows before they get too close...
Is Expert Parry worth it?
Each special ability is a big investment, and canny players want to get the best value. Is Expert Parry a good choice?
Scenario 1: One Rank 8 Knight with regular shield skill vs another Rank 8 knight with expert parry. They're both using broadswords. After 100,000 battles, the regular knight has won 47% of the battles and the expert parryer has won 51%. 2% of battles are a draw, where the knights kill each other in the same round. Is this margin worth it? Perhaps not; if we give the regular knight the Weaponskill ability, now he's winning 55% of the battles, in spite of his enemy's expert parry.
Scenario 2: Let's put our Knight in +1 plate armour and pit him against eight peasants wielding battleaxes; the peasants can only wound the Knight with a critical hit, but they can attack up to six at a time. This is the kind of situation where the shield is well suited. What happens?
No Shield: The peasants win 85% of the fights.
Regular Shield Skill: The peasants win 73% of the fights
Expert Parry: The peasants win 69% of the fights.
In the right situation, expert parry can provide a big advantage. In single combat it is not as useful as some other special abilities.
There's a sample! I'm happy to take any requests to run simulations, and I intend to upload the tool to this forum once its done. To be continued...
Cheers,
-Kyle
