"Know your Enemy!" - or 'predictability' in DOW2

[jon_the_d]

A couple of threads got me thinking:

-My idea here (http://forums.relicnews.com/showpost.php?p=3028640&postcount=43) on chapter/army creation

-and the thread here (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=188271) about veterancy.

What I was thinking was, when we play DOW (and later DOW2) we will know the units so well, that if we see a unit of 6 marines approaching a unit of 6 Sluggas, we will KNOW what the outcome will be, even down to how many men we'll have left and how much health we can expect them to have; is this a good thing?

in terms of gameplay, it certainly makes it easier for the player to decide what to do, he can commit his men to the fight certain that he will win and is prepared to take the losses he will inevitably suffer.

When you know what you're fighting, there's nothing to worry about.

Is this a good thing?

For me, it seems to go against the spirit of war.

Anyway, the two threads I mentioned, are suggesting mechanics which will possibly do away with this predictability.

Customized chapters will mean:
"Oh look, tactical space marines, hang on, I'm not sure what these marines stats are, maybe they're more accurate than normal, maybe they're tougher.....hmm...shall I attack?"

Veterancy will mean:
"Oooo! 5 ASM! my 7 Nobz will finish them off! but oh no, they might be quite experienced, they might be pretty rock hard now, should I try and take them?"

What I'm getting at is: knowing what a unit is but not knowing it's capabilities makes for a very different gaming experience, and will require a very different strategical approach. A greater element of risk and unpredictability will be in the game, and players will have to account for that in their plans and choices.

Would you welcome this kind of de-standardisation of units? is it a good idea?

Do you insist that you should be privy to exactly what your enemy's units are capable of (from previous experience and knowledge of stats for that unit type)?

Veterancy could be made to have a visual representation (squad leaders banner or something), and if desired customized armies could be made to have their specialities revealed to the opponent before battle or in game. but would you want it that way?

De-standardisation of units, without any visual indication, will bring uncertainty of their capabilities. This in turn brings a risk factor and unpredictability which I think would make each battle a lot more nail biting and thrilling.

What say you?

[Blackheart]

This thread is why we have random numbers and luck thrown into the game. Bullets have a chance to hit. When they hit, bullets have a chance to penetrate. When they penetrate, they do damage, and then once the damage gets below a certain percent, they have a chance to kill. All of this based on the Essence Engine that it's reported to use.

Let's take riflemen from Company of Heroes. They use the M1 Garand rifle. These numbers are pulled from Sturmtruppen's site.

They fire a shot, and that shot has a base 35% chance to hit at long range, 55% at medium, and 75% at short. If it hits, then it does a penetration check. Against, say, a motorcycle, it has a 60% chance to penetrate. If it doesn't penetrate, then it does minimal damage, and if it does, it does full damage. Most weapons also have range modifiers for penetration-- better at close range (so an ork tankbusta squad sneaking in close to a tank would have a better chance to do serious damage to that tank) and worse at long range, though this doesn't apply to all weapons.

Then, once damage is calculated, we look at thep ercentage of health the vehicle has left. If it has 100-50% health, then it does nothing but damage. If it has 50-5% health after damage dealt, then it has a 10% chance of also doing engine damage. If it has 5% health left or less, then it has a 50% chance to blow it up and make a wreck, a 25% chance to instead make it go out of control (and still fire its gun) but then crash and make a wreck, and a 25% chance to do absolutely nothing-- even if it has zero percent health left.

This is different from weapon to weapon and unit to unit, but you can see how not every game is exactly the same in CoH. Ra

[jon_the_d]

hmmm. yes, I don't know much about CoH. this is good news. It seems like they listened to the many suggestions that were put in the DOW suggestion boxes many moons ago, by wise TT players who knew the ways of penetration.

However, what you described was against a vehicle, and vehicle damage. What about for troops?

EDIT: ALSO, what about the general idea of de-standardizatin of units? still using random numbers in calculations, but starting off with different base percentages, despite it appearing to be the same unit.

(p.s: I know DOW had random damage too, it just wasn't random enough to actually surprise anyone, imo)

[Blackheart]

All unit armor types-- including infantry types-- have these modifiers...

Incoming accuracy (the lower the modifier, the harder that unit is to hit)
Moving dodge bonus (some units reduce accuracy of oncoming fire if they continually move around)
Incoming Damage (the lower the modifier, the less damage it takes)
Incoming penetration, frontal (lower the modifier, lower the chance of penetration)
Incoming penetration, rear (lower the modifier, lower the chance of penetration)
Incoming Suppression (although vehicles can't really be suppressed like infantry can)
Priority (how high on the scale that armor type ranks in AI targeting priorities)

... for every single weapon in the game. So that means space marine armor can deflect infantry shots if they so want them to.

Also, for infantry, there's a different critical table for that weapon. Again, sturmtruppen's site lists it as this:

Green (100-50): 90% no critical, 10% hit critical (no known additional effects)
Yellow (50-5): 85% no critical, 10% hit critical, 5% make casualty (can be recovered by medic)
Red (5-0): 40% soldier killed, 60% make casualty.


In CoH, generally all weapons have around a 100-1000% chance of penetrating soldier armor because of realism, it's setin WWII. But that doesn't mean it has to be that way for DoW2.


As for each unit being individual, eeeh... I dunno about that. Some things DO need to be a bit more reliable than others, and while I don't mind losing a battle because I got unlucky with my soldiers shooting or tank shells penetrating, I wouldn't want to lose because I got a shitty batch of soldiers which can't be deleted and remade.

[Deacon412]

i think it would have to be visual in some way, but not indicating the levels of Veterancy,only to indicate their troops arent just fresh meat

[Sturmtruppen]

i dont like the idea of de-standarization... i mean if i pay whatever cost for the same squad, i expect the same level of performance for all of them... the CoH is alot more complex than DoW, almost every single vehicle has its own unique armor, each weapon has a few dozen variables so its unlikely to get the same result every single time... but of course, if weak vs strong, then the answer is obvious

as for 6SM vs 6Ork, its really hard to tell because cover is expected to be EVERYWHERE... maybe Orks can just move around behind walls til then get in melee range or something...

[jon_the_d]

I wouldn't want to lose because I got a shitty batch of soldiers which can't be deleted and remade.

AND


i mean if i pay whatever cost for the same squad, i expect the same level of performance for all of them

YOU MISUNDERSTOOD!!! I never meant the unit you buy will randomly come out different!!!! you will never get a "shitty batch"!!! You will get the same level of performance from all of them!!!!

veterancy would mean that squads improve with experience. if this isn't indicated on screen , it means squads that look the same could actually be different skill levels.

Army Creation means you tweak a few settings of your armies statistics from the default base levels, few points up here, a few down there (total points will stay balanced) so all your Tac marine squads you build will be exactly the same, but they will be built with your chapter's personalised, customized defaults. which means the enemy will see them as tac marines, but will not "know" their stats and capabilities. you will. you set them.

This would be for your own created chapter, with their own stats and specializations. once set, they won't change, and they won't be random. but they will be unknown to your enemies.

Also, the amount you can tweak your stats can be limited to just 5% or so if you're worried, and these stat tweaks will be army-wide, not unit by unit. ALL units in my chapter have +5% to accuracy, but -5% to health (for example)

Do you understand what I mean now?

[Blackheart]

Wouldn't that usually mean that mos of the competative armies would look pretty much exactly the same anyway as they find the best way to tweak it?

[jon_the_d]

look the same? my whole point is that there'll be no visual indication.

and it's up to the developers to make sure there is no "best way" jsut different ways suited to differnet play styles, and perhaps different enemy play styles.

[Sturmtruppen]

isnt that just like global upgrades or something, something like commander trees in CoH, which may or may not be in DOW2, basically you get different specials for different choice... and you can only pick 1 out of 3

and i bet there will be a ton of visual indicators for veterancys and stuff... just makes sense

[Versian]

So, I know that these slugga boyz are gonna kill all my Cultists. Like, every single one.

Is this a good thing?

Good is not the correct word here, but it's definetely not bad. Different units are supposed to destroy different kind of units based on different factors. Cultists would be destroyed by sluggas because sluggas are simply better and more numerous.

It's called experience, you know what's gonna happen in a certain situation, and I see nothing wrong with it. Units are defined. There is randomization but only to a certain degree.

I don't want a game where a unit that is supposed to be destroyed by another unit wins because "I got lucky". It's Real Time Strategy not Real Time Dice Rolls.

It goes against the spirit of war?

Omg, the enemy made tanks, I should train some soldiers to use anti-tank weaponry. Is this unrealisitic? No, it happened to us when tanks were first made.It's not against the spirit of war It's actually the spirit of war in my opinion. The enemy is making X units to destroy our Y units. Let's make Z units to destroy their X units, so that their X units don't butt-secks our Y units.

Sure, veterancy can play a role, but in the end defined units serve defined roles. That's just how RTS works. If anything we'd just spam random units and "hope" it works.

That's not how war is done, at least done in a smart way.

[s33k]

Ya I feel that veterancy, and things such as luck would take away from the idea of countering units.
What I mean is not the obvious counters like tank<anti-tank infantry, but more like "here's some Sluggas, ok I'll send my tacs after them cause my tacs will beat them." It would make fights more in depth and change things up, rather that expected outcomes that we are used to.

[jon_the_d]

I already said that the amount that units could be tweaked could and should be kept as low as the devs see fit. I even suggested only about +-5% which is really not a lot. after a rethink I'm actually favouring something like 15%. just enough so that units which might normally lose against a unit slightly above them, might actually be able to win. There'd still be a hierarchy of course, but it would be slightly more blurred.

I'm not saying that cultists should be able to take on assault terminators and win, no way, but what about guardsmen? or guardians? or sluggas? units of a roughly equal "level" (in the hierarchy).

If you've read what I've written you'll see that I didn't want to make a weaker unit suddenly able to beat a much stronger unit. and what you've written about counters would be unchanged.

I'm not suggesting massive changes to units stats and capabilities, only small ones, but big enough to throw some uncertainty into fights on that tier of the hierarchy.

More than that. With army creation, I said "reallocate", not "add", so if you improve their speed, or health or whatever, you'll have to take points away from one of the other attributes. So over all the unit will not be "better" but it will be better at a certain thing, so it's up to the player to use their customized army in a manner best suited to its specialisation, which again means, that the enemy will not only not know what they're capable of, but ALSO thay have no way to anticipate what they'll do. The units behaviour might not be so predictable as the player is using them in the way that best suits their customization. A unit that you might expect to rush into CC might stand and shoot, because their accuracy is improved and their health is reduced. A unit you would expect to be able to pursue, actually outruns you.

little changes, little surprises. nothing huge.

[Eisenhorn538]

Is this a good thing?


Yes. If you've put the time into learning all the advantages and disadvantages of your units, know what units to send them against etc. then you shouldn't be penalized for that.



For me, it seems to go against the spirit of war.


Please define what "the spirit of war" is.

[jon_the_d]

eisenhorn; you've missed the point. I'm not talking about penalizing people for knowing their armies. I'm questioning whether a system where you know exactly what the enemy's capabilites are is a good thing for a war game in the first place.

I'm suggesting this system could do with a slight overhaul.

spirit of war? = calculated risk, tough decisions, careful consideration and contingencies.

With a system where you know the outcome of every encounter, you don't get any of this.

it's more just like calculating.

I'd prefer a war game to have more risk and uncertainty.

[Colonel Brom]

I like this idea because it adds a chance and risk thing yo war!

[Eisenhorn538]

@jon_the_d



I'm questioning whether a system where you know exactly what the enemy's capabilites are is a good thing for a war game in the first place.

Yeah, still think that's a good thing. Knowing what your enemy is capable of doing is usually the first thing you find out before a real war. I know that tacs one on one are going to pwn sluggas every time because they are a higher quality unit.

However the Ork player will also know this and have his own battle strategy to do something about this, whether it be making more sluggas so the marines are outnumbered, teching to some better units or getting a Big Mek out to help them. It's up to him to make a winning strategy out of the stuff he's got (almost like a real war! *gasp*).

The situation you described will never happen with skilled players except maybe in the early game. It's down to the player's input and how he handles every situation. And there's already enough random stuff (the things Blackheart mentioned) to spice things up a bit. Any more and it's just going to be extremely frustrating, not surprising.

[Imperial Dane]

uhmm.. this sounds a bit weird, predictability or unpredicatablity.. what you want cultists to be able to slaughter a terminator or something like that ? I mean sure cultists will get slaughtered if faced with sluggas, in close combat, so you ensure you don't get into that or you have more cultists than sluggas, it's called tactics and strategy, that is where true unpredictability and risk stems from, not if you aren't sure whether your cultists will somehow manage to beat some orks.

I mean you are supposed to know what your units are capable of, and in that regard, what the enemy unit is capabable of, it's how you use them and how the enemy uses his that makes things interesting, i mean i don't care if my guardsmen won't make it in a close combat fight against orks unless extremely lucky, i mean i'm pretty sure i will do everything i can to ensure it DOESN'T happen, i'll use cover, i'll generally keep them at a distance, and possibly pull of a risky trick or two.

What you suggest is just.. weird.

[Fightingfirst]

I think its o.k. but you can only make the unit better at what it specialises in. This means you don't get devastators that are blood thirsters in disguise, but you get devastators that are more accurate and deal more damage at range. Also, personalising chapter would be brilliant. i.e. white scars fast att becomes troop choice etc. Space wolves= squads predominantly CC orientated.

[jon_the_d]

Seeing as people continually take what I've suggested out of proportion, and explaining my position and suggestion again and again doesn't seem to have had any effect, I think I'll stop trying to discuss this now. If you've not even grasped what I'm suggesting, it's a pointless discussion.


what you want cultists to be able to slaughter a terminator or something like that ?

yeah, thanks.

can't even take the time to read my posts? and then throw in your comments anyway. thanks alot.

[Imperial Dane]

Oh i read your post, and that would be a possible outcome, although greatly exagerated, but seeing as you haven't read my post apparently but just the first few lines and discover they disagreed with you.. in doesn't really put you into a position to blame others of doing it.

[jon_the_d]

you read my first post. what about the others? go and find the sentence where I say about cultists beating terminators. then you might realise why I'm a bit annoyed.

You read the post, but not the discussion.

[Noble]

:handbag:

Lets try to maintain an amicable discussion here. If you think someone is misunderstanding you (deliberately or otherwise) sarcasm is certainly not the best way to remedy that. It seems to me that you both understand each other perfectly, but have a fundamental difference of opinion as to how strategy games should work. Agree to disagree and leave it at that instead of slapping each other with handbags.

[jon_the_d]

noble, I've had such a hard time getting my actual idea across in this thread, and I'm afraid I still feel people have not grasped the essence of what I was saying. and seem to be arguing against features that aren't what I suggested in the first place.

Can I please have one more try at making myself clear? I'll give up after I promise :)
-

--------------------------
for example: veterancy
--------------------------
Tac marines: raw recruits level up and get bonuses, and will soon be better than they were, and better than other tac marines.

IF they look the same, when you go to attack some tac marines, how do you know where they are in terms of levelling? You may know the range of stats from raw recruit tac marine to fully levelled tac marine, but you will not know what level this particular squad of tac marines is at.

This is where the uncertainty will come from. You can attack them with your sluggas, but if they're hardened vets, you're going to come out worse than if they're raw recruits.

----------------------------
example: Army customization
----------------------------
A player can creat their own chapter, then fight with it. part of making your own chapter is the ability to slightly (just slightly) reallocate a few percents worth of specialisation from the race default.

you can add a couple of percent to accuracy (for example), but you must take some away from another attribute in order to do this, say health.

every soldier in your army will now benefit from a slight accuracy bonus, but suffer from a slight health penalty.

your tac marines will all be the same as each other, but will differ from a "default value" space marine chapter's tac marines. but only slightly. yours will have slightly better accuracy, but slightly less health.

You know this, and it is fixed. it is the specialisation of your chapter.

Your enemy however, does NOT know your specialisation, and so does not know that you have improved accuracy, but reduced health. He knows that you could be specialised, but he will not know in what respect.

This is where the uncertainty comes from with army customization. it is only the uncertainty of the capabilities of your enemies units, as you do not know in what way they have been specialised.

And even then, the degree of specialisation will only be fairly small, and it will be army wide.

and of course, you know precisely your own units capabilities.
-------------------

So, veterancy and army customization can both add an element of 'unknown' to the game, unless their is some visual representation.

It is only a minor element, and will not alter units general purpose, or make any great surprises. it is more for a player to feel they are fighting with their own custom made army. a step up from the army painter, but without altering gameplay too much.

if you have questions please ask. I'll do my best to clarify.

[Versian]

Veterancy will not make much of a difference when concerning Strategy. Stuff will still be predictable, very predictable.

Let's take Eldar for example, specialists. Each Aspect Warrior is trained in his own deal. We all know them well, I don't need to repeat them. So, Fire Dragons are good against vehicles, they level up and are even better against vehicles. Are they good against infantry once leveled up? No. If they did get good against infantry it would be major imba. The same concept applies to all aspect warriors.

The strategy is still the same, you need to back your Fire Dragons with infantry killing units (Dark Reapers, Warp Spiders or Howling Banshees to lock the enemy in melee). The strategy is virtually untouched, there is no "risk" factor to the enemy because he knows that no matter how newbish or how pro those fire dragons are, they will target vehicles.

The same can apply to versatile units like Space Marines. What really matters is what weapon they have. If Space Marines are supposed to mow down orks in Ranged Combat, and get their asses kicked in CC (this is only an example) then veterancy will give them a better fighting chance but will still not change the general outcome that much. It's hard to beat an Ork in melee. They are tough, resistant to pain and like to chop, a lot.

The thing is Army Customization will also not change much because, as you said, it will only be minor changes. Sure, put some more points into SM CC so that they kill a few more orks, but since they are minor changes as you yourself said it, predictability is left untouched.

If you want to have more of a sense of unpredictability in battle then the game should have more units. Even some that might overlap. I will mention the Eldar again. Let's say DoW2 will have Striking Scorpions as well as Howling Banshees. Both are melee specialists. From what I understand, Strking Scorpions have some infiltration to them? (Please Correct me if I'm wrong about them) but if they don't infiltrate, let's say they do.

So, I can send Howling Banshees to lock the enemy in melee, and do some negative effects on them because of the masks and the howling, or I can send Striking Scorpions to provide Stealthed Melee Charges to the enemy. That's quite unpredictable to the enemy. They both serve a similar function but have a variation to it.

The way I see it, when it comes to predictability, it will always be there. Unpredictability can be achieved by other methods. Where I send my units, what tactics I as a player use, or what exactly I do with my troops is what contributes to unpredictablity.

[still-kickin]

Predictability is where a dynamic environment and the player skill comes into the equation. There needs to be a variety of factors that can mix with each other(both under the players control and outside of it) like chemistry to produce many different outcomes. Company of Heroes had a lot of this relative to other RTS games, and I expet Relic to expand on that. As long as there's the potential in the terrain mechanics and layout for dynamic positional tactics and the ability to alter the environment through action, strategy will flourish. It's also very important to encourage multiple fronts through unit characteristics and terrain for healthy strategy because it allows the player to synergize them(a very fun and rewarding part of management I think).

[Fightingfirst]

@Versian: Fire dragons should be good against infantry though except its like using a hammer to crack a nut. In tt they have very good AP which can go through even terminator armour, the only down side is there range. So if they do get caught in a fire fight they shouldn't be rubish against infantry but it would wasteful to use shots from them against an ordinary guardsmen because of rate offire.

[jon_the_d]

remember, veterancy is not my idea, it was already implied it will be in the game, and I was just wondering whether not being able to tell which were vets and which were raw recruits would add anything to the game.

the uncertainty of their abilities tied in with the chapter creation idea so i made this thread to discuss the effect on the game of not being able to tell your enemies capabilities.

So far I have suggested veterancy and customization could be kept as minor changes, 5% modifier here or there. which wouldn't change the game play, nor a units general use.

However, it could be made so that the veterans bonus could go a lot higher, say 40 or 50 percent. Going too high would make the game probably too unpredictable, even for my liking. but maybe there is a value in between too much bonus and negligible bonus, which will mean that some fights that would normlly be fairly close but generally fall the same way each time, will now be upset because their bonus has given them just enough to actually come out on top.

I'm still not suggesting cultists should be able to beat terminators. but units that are fairly close in terms of ability, will now be able to win where they would usually lose.

you send 6 guardians to capture an LP, you get there and find 4 sluggas trying to take it. What do you do? Whoever wins will claim that point, and tip the balance of the battle in their favour. If you think you can win, you fight, and claim the point, if you think you can't win, there's no point throwing away a squad just to fail to claim a point. better retreat and try to get some back up there ASAP so you can win that point.

BUT, what if it's not clear whether you will win or not? even if you have only one guy left with 2HP afterwards, it's enough. you win the point. If these troops of yours were standard you'd retreat, but if your troops have a bonus, and you think that actually they may have the upper hand, you might fight. on the otherhand, maybe your troops are standard, but the enemies might not be, you're not sure. if they have some bonus, it might mean that actually you will lose the fight, whereas you would win if they were just standard.

it's small confrontations like this, between units of a roughly equal level, in the early game territory struggle, that will be most affected by bonuses, and yet these confrontations are some of the most important of the whole course of the battle.

In this sense, even smallish bonuses will introduce some uncertainty, that you have no choice but to deal with there and then.

but like I said, the size of bonuses is something that I wanted to discuss here. too small and little is changed, too big and too much is changed. somewhere in between? perhaps just enough has changed to make the game that little bit more interesting.

[Sword_Monkey]

Predictability is an inherent feature that the game relies upon. I'd soon stop playing if every battle meant facing a potentially different set of stats for a unit I thought I knew about.

A good player learns how best to sue and counter all the units in the game, if add a customisation feature to the units then all strategy is thrown out the window, players will be forced to rely on spur of the moment tactics.

Veterancy is simply a good idea to prolong the lifetime of early units in the later stages of the game.

Any degree of uncertainty removes such a key element of the fight and reduces things to attrition. Players will constantly see fights they don't think they can win for sure and be forced to try, one side will lose units on a gamble, this is bad playing. Good players will be punished with the systems you are putting forward.

[Sturmtruppen]

I was just wondering whether not being able to tell which were vets and which were raw recruits would add anything to the game.

probably not, but theres no reason to hide it... its called gfx effects, like arm SM with rocket launchers in DOW, and you'll be able to tell they have a different weapon, or the thing with the glowing skull on the shoulder plate... theres no reason to hide them... just like your proposed idea of custom chapters with custom stats for marines, i think they should be visible like any other upgrade

IMO hiding these things would only add to the frustration, its not poker with sunglasses, its a RTS game with killing... if you played COH then you would know there are already a shit load of randomness, without indicators people would have to zoom in so their men dont get raped by super vet troops armed with assault rifles, more "unknowns" wont be nessasary

basically i should be able to tell exactly what is what at a glance, not wait till im dead to find out they are have this and that stats and my units are no longer effective...

[Blackheart]

If you do want customization, however, I reccomend adding it in to veterancy.

Say there's three levels of veterancy, and five things you can choose with it.

Accuracy
Damage
Health
Armor (incoming penetration)
Speed

And every time you get a level of veterancy, you can increase one of those by a certain percent (balanced so that each choice is generally just as good as the other). And for each unit type, it'd be slightly different.

Say...

Scouts: Accuracy, Critical hit chance, health, speed, sight radius
Heavy weapon teams (ex: devastators): Rate of Fire, damage, penetration, health, sight radius
Light vehicles: Accuracy, Damage, Health, Armor, Speed
Heavy vehicles: Accuracy, damage, health, armor, incoming damage

*shrug*

[Akagi_Ryu]

To be honest I find any kind of randomisation to be purely anoying.

It always leads to the fact that a certain strategy can be either game-braking-imba OR a "I lost big time" button, all depending on dice rolls.

To me, if I put out a cerstain unit and do a certain thing with it, a dedicated counter tactic should always have the same results. Without it, how can we even speak of counter tactics if it's all based on luck?

Hell, going on like this I could rush 30 cultists at 60 slugga boyz and hope to win... not to mention there would actually be a CHANCE of winning. Small, but it would be possible and I think anyone would agree that's damn ridiculous! :wtf:

[Croaxleigh]

I actually once took out an AI player in a 2 human vs. 2 AI compstomp using only Cultists, with the Total War WA mod. *grins*

Some randomization can be good, since it would add to the illusion that different soldiers really are DIFFERENT (just like randomization of body parts, armor, height, etc., does)... that randomization should be very minor, though. It should be just big enough to be noticed if you're looking for it, but not so much that it would have a significant impact on gameplay.

[Versian]

It's simple, Randomization is good on a minor scale, like missiles missing 5% of the time. At this scale, predictability is left untouched. Which is not a bad thing.

Increase randomization and the Strategy will be affected, since players start winning due to lucky "dice rolls" instead of balanced armies and well thought out tactics.

It might work out with similar units. The only I can think of is melee combatants. Like Howling Banshees, Sluggas and Kroot units. But even then there still would be a good idea of who can kick who's ass.

[Blackheart]

Randomization is good even on a large scale, as long as it is CONSISTENT randomization.

In CoH is a good example: A Pak38 has only a ~65% chance of hitting its target at long range. A rifle only has ~35%. A heavy tank's shell has an ~85% chance. Generally speaking, the higher the rate of fire, the lower the accuracy. Closer you get, of course, the more reliable almost all weapons are (except for the bofors, which is better at long range than short).