[HIGH] Disease implementation

[celebaglar]

No surprise I'd be the one to bring this one up, but I can now give a concrete example of why the current disease implementation is unfair.

Take the following scenario:

10 of my armies attack one of my opponent's ctadels and he responds by throwing 14 or more armies into the fray.

Since I cannot possibly win due to the heavy exhaustion penalties, I beat a hasty retreat. Due to the numbers of enemy nearby I keep my armies together as they run away.

My opponent follows immediately with 10 armies and engages my retreating force.

Next day I find that I have lost more men to disease than I lost in battle, while I presume my opponent lost no men to disease at all (since his armies were attacking mine). How is this fair? If I split my armies up into groups of 4, my enemy can get a free shot with all his armies at one of those groups. That's a lose-lose situation, and quite ridiculous.

Similarly, anyone defending a citadel can only sit there with 3 armies plus the garrison, while the attackers can throw as many armies into the attack as they wish, getting a free shot before more defenders can join the battle.

I strongly suggest that disease is made optional at this stage, pending more testing and tweaking to find a mechanism that does what disease is meant to do, but in a way that is fair and does not otherwise break normal battle situations.

[Matija]

How about this:

At start, make random lords infection carriers. If they are in 10000+ company for 3 consecutive days, disease kicks in. Every day of disease, check a chance that another lord (including garrison commanders) becomes infection carrier.

[sparrowhawk]

Celebaglar said:

I strongly suggest that disease is made optional at this stage, pending more testing and tweaking to find a mechanism that does what disease is meant to do, but in a way that is fair and does not otherwise break normal battle situations.

Bill, you're opting for a new game option? You feeling feverish?!!! ;D

I was going to do this anyway (the option at game-start), so I'll do this before the release. It will be a drop down with No Disease, then a list of thresholds: eg: 10K, 15K, 20K

I'm not sure how to get around the scenario you mention. Maybe make disease less likely (eg 50% instead of 80% likelihood ) would go some way to making the gamble of keeping your troops together a better bet?

[celebaglar]

Jean-Yves said:

Bill, you're opting for a new game option? You feeling feverish?!!! ;D

Well, it's either that or suggest you drop it altogether.

Actually, I'm only suggesting you make it an option until a mechanism that works properly can be implemented.

I was going to do this anyway (the option at game-start), so I'll do this before the release. It will be a drop down with No Disease, then a list of thresholds: eg: 10K, 15K, 20K

The threshold is not really the major problem. A higher threshold helps in terms of reducing the occasions when disease would kick in, but it doesn't remove the fact that it will remain unfair when it happens.

I'm not sure how to get around the scenario you mention. Maybe make disease less likely (eg 50% instead of 80% likelihood ) would go some way to making the gamble of keeping your troops together a better bet?

I don't see the scenario I described as a gamble. It means that the bigger army one is reatreating from gets a free hit at you regardless of how you retreat. If you split up your armies they can still hammer one group of 4 with all their forces, and if you stay together you take a free big hit from disease and then the normal damage from the enemy as they attack. The enemy has no such worries or choices to worry about.

The only way to make disease work fairly is to make it more complex, introducing delays before it strikes. Obviously this isn't trivial because you also have to eliminate loopholes (such as moving apart for one night to reset the delay counter). Some of Matija's suggestions make sense, and I haven't spent enough time thinking it through in detail myself, but it's almost inevitable that it would require a database change rather than just a script change.

I seriously think the current implementation does more damage than good to gameplay.